Post by Brad Nelson on Jul 25, 2021 9:00:18 GMT -8
1973’s Dillinger is also on the Movieland TV channel.
This movie doesn’t delve very deep, but it is full of good actors and at least superficially interesting characters.
Warren Oates plays John Dillinger. Ben Johnson is good as G-man, Melvin Purvis. Harry Dean Stanton is Homer Van Meter, Geoffrey Lewis is Harry Pierpoint, Richard Dreyfuss is Baby Face Nelson, and Cloris Leachman makes a late appearance as Anna Sage.
In the trivia section at IMDB it says that J. Edgar Hoover protested this film and demanded changes in order to show the FBI in a better light. I don’t blame him. The FBI agents look like bumbling amateurs as they are cut down like daisies even when they had the advantage of ambush. One wonders what the truth is. But surely the G-men couldn’t be that reckless or incompetent.
And yet somebody sure was. It’s incredible to think that Dillinger — and hardly with much stealth — robbed bank after bank and the FBI (or anyone else) couldn’t catch him. There’s probably a story behind this and I bet it’s not going to show law enforcement in a good light. Could Dillinger have so easily escaped from Lake County Jail without a heaping teaspoon of law enforcement incompetence (and, of course, corruption)?
The trivia section also notes that Warren Oates is the only Dillinger movie actor who actually looked like the gangster:
There is no shortage of exiting Tommy Gun battles in this. There are car chases, car crashes, blood, and bank robberies. But nothing delves too deep. It’s an action picture with a gloss of trying to be something deeper. But it certainly looked good. The cinematography is excellent.
The trivia section notes “From the get go, John expressed his vision of the film as the conveyance of the myth of John Dillinger. As is typical of a Milius hero, Dillinger was a larger than life individual who lived his life according to his own instinctive drive and carved out a full chapter in the annals of legend.” This is by no means taken to the truly absurd proportions as Bonnie and Clyde. But a touch more realism would have served this film well. It had all the right actors but often there was just no place for them to go.
This movie doesn’t delve very deep, but it is full of good actors and at least superficially interesting characters.
Warren Oates plays John Dillinger. Ben Johnson is good as G-man, Melvin Purvis. Harry Dean Stanton is Homer Van Meter, Geoffrey Lewis is Harry Pierpoint, Richard Dreyfuss is Baby Face Nelson, and Cloris Leachman makes a late appearance as Anna Sage.
In the trivia section at IMDB it says that J. Edgar Hoover protested this film and demanded changes in order to show the FBI in a better light. I don’t blame him. The FBI agents look like bumbling amateurs as they are cut down like daisies even when they had the advantage of ambush. One wonders what the truth is. But surely the G-men couldn’t be that reckless or incompetent.
And yet somebody sure was. It’s incredible to think that Dillinger — and hardly with much stealth — robbed bank after bank and the FBI (or anyone else) couldn’t catch him. There’s probably a story behind this and I bet it’s not going to show law enforcement in a good light. Could Dillinger have so easily escaped from Lake County Jail without a heaping teaspoon of law enforcement incompetence (and, of course, corruption)?
The trivia section also notes that Warren Oates is the only Dillinger movie actor who actually looked like the gangster:
There is no shortage of exiting Tommy Gun battles in this. There are car chases, car crashes, blood, and bank robberies. But nothing delves too deep. It’s an action picture with a gloss of trying to be something deeper. But it certainly looked good. The cinematography is excellent.
The trivia section notes “From the get go, John expressed his vision of the film as the conveyance of the myth of John Dillinger. As is typical of a Milius hero, Dillinger was a larger than life individual who lived his life according to his own instinctive drive and carved out a full chapter in the annals of legend.” This is by no means taken to the truly absurd proportions as Bonnie and Clyde. But a touch more realism would have served this film well. It had all the right actors but often there was just no place for them to go.