Dillinger
by Max Nosseck
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Actor: Anne Jeffreys, Edmund Lowe, Eduardo Ciannelli, Lawrence Tierney, Marc LawrenceDirector: Max Nosseck
Brand: TIERNEY,LAWRENCE
Cinematographer: Jackson Rose
Editor: Edward Mann
Producer: Frank King
Producer: Maurice King
Writer: Philip Yordan
Writer: William Castle
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 70 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-07-05
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Warner Home Video
DVD Reviews of Dillinger
DVD Review: Inaccurate and simplistic, but who cares when you've got Lawrence Tierney!
Summary: 4 Stars
Max Nosseck, one of the lesser-known German emigrees to Hollywood during the golden age (this is far and away his best-known film, and it's got under 600 votes on IMDb) directs this first telling of the Dillinger story with flare and simplicity, making for a reasonably exciting and watchable, compact noirish gangster story that has very little to do with real events. Given that William Castle was an uncredited screenwriter (along with the credited Philip Yordan, one of the ace film noir writers) and that this was made for c-grade Monogram, I guess that's not surprising, though you'd think that, being made less than a dozen years after the real John Dillinger was gunned down outside of the Biograph in Chicago (yes, they do get this part sort-of right) there'd be some concern that the public would resent the obvious distortions. Oh well, I guess not.
The film has a rather interesting opening, with an audience watching a newsreel on Dillinger, after which a man comes out who purports to be Dillinger's father and who then introduces the story we see. This is a completely ruthless, cold and pretty nearly inhuman portrait, played by steely-eyed Lawrence Tierney in his first significant role; there's no subtlety here, no real character development, no attempt to get into "why a man goes bad" or anything like that, apart from the critical (and rather silly) scene where the insulted, poor youn Dillinger gets mad and steals a few bucks from a shopkeeper in order to buy his girl a drink - one insult to his manly ego leads to a life of crime, I guess.
But no matter, what it lacks in "realism" and accuracy, the film generally makes up for in the fluid storytelling and the general excellence of its cast, starting with the frightening Tierney but also including the relatively obscure Anne Jeffreys as his dame Helen Rogers, silent star-turned-character actor Edmund Lowe as his mentor/eventual rival Specs, and the great Elisha Cook Jr in a relatively low-key and thankless role as a henchman. Tierney went on to do BORN TO KILL a couple of years later, which really established him as one of the best of the cold-blooded noir anti-heros (or charismatic villains, take your pick), and his acting certainly improved over time - he gives some great late performances as crusty old mentors (usually of the gangster type) in films like TOUGH GUYS DON'T DANCE and RESERVOIR DOGS - but he's well worth watching in this debut. Not a great film by any means, but well worth a look for fans of noir or gangster films or any of the great cast.
DVD NOTE: as a couple of others have mentioned, there are some slight issues with the transfer here - though it looks razor-sharp, there are a couple of noticeable drop-outs of a few seconds, and the sound doesn't always seem perfectly synched. Not a huge issue for me, but you should be aware. John Milius, who made his own DILLINGER 28 years later, provides a fairly entertaining commentary.
Description of Dillinger
The story of Dillinger's bank robbery career during Depression-era America, and how he came to be called public enemy number one.Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: NR
Release Date: 5-JUL-2005
Media Type: DVD
Jean-Luc Godard dedicated his first film, Breathless, to Monogram Pictures, and Dillinger (1945) was probably the main reason why. Short and brutal, like the Depression outlaw's brashly improvisatory career, Max Nosseck's picture was a bit of an outlaw enterprise itself. In the '40s the major Hollywood studios had all taken a vow of chastity when it came to glorifying the headline-grabbing gangsters of the previous decade; Monogram ignored the embargo and barreled ahead, grabbing some headlines of its own and more box office than usual for a Poverty Row operation. Philip Yordan's script was Oscar-nominated (on the DVD's commentary track he co-credits his friend William Castle, director of Monogram's excellent When Strangers Marry), though the film has a patchwork feel to it, as if assembled and reassembled on the run. Directed by Max Nosseck, it's a hypnotic mix of bargain-basement filmmaking (lotsa stock footage and stark, minimalist sets), astute ripoff (the rain-and-gas-bomb robbery sequence from Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once), and Brechtian bravura. The storyline actually scants the ultraviolence (no Bohemia Lodge shootout) and all-star supporting cast (no Pretty Boy Floyd, no Baby Face Nelson) of Dillinger's real life--likely a matter of cost-cutting rather than abstemiousness. Newcomer Lawrence Tierney nails the guy's coldblooded freakiness and animal magnetism, and the supporting cast includes such éminences noirs as Marc Lawrence, Eduardo Ciannelli, and Elisha Cook Jr. Producers Maurice and Frank King would make the great Gun Crazy four years later. --Richard T. Jameson
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