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Coming out during the height of the second H-wood Golden Age, DILLINGER has all of the finesse and style of the original GA as well as the slam-bam-CRASH of the second. In other words, it plays like a good ol' forties late show feature, only with loads of bloody ultra-violence and second commandment breakin' that woulda given Will Hays a migraine to end all migraines.
Gangster moom pitchers have fascinated many a person ever since THE MUSKETEERS OF PIG ALLEY, maybe because being a bank robber or Cosa Nostra member sure seems like a better profession than being a sheep foreskin cleaner. And cathartic thrills is what anyone's gonna get with this film, a definite cash in on the BONNIE & CLYDE thirties nostalgia boom of a good six years earlier complete with the grittiness that seemed to ooze out of a whole load of films which were reflecting the International Miasma and general fed-upness that made the seventies such a great place to be. If you knew where to look that is.
Like I said in my rather recent GUNSMOKE post, I really never could understand the cults that formed around such actors as Warren Oates and Harry Dean Stanton (playing John Dillinger and gang member Homer Van Meter resp'd'ly), but they're both here and they play their bank robbing no holds barred criminal roles to the ol' hilt. Heck, they even look close enough to the real life people they're portraying which is a whole loads better'n back in the fifties when some handsome leading man would play the role of Wild Bill Hickock, a guy who looked like David Crosby with his finger stuck in an electrical outlet! Ben Johnson as FBI biggie Melvin Purvis is also cool as the egocentric agent who wants Dillinger for himself and the glory that goes with all that. Sheesh, he's such a rootin'-tootin' type of guy that his agents have to light his cigars! Ex-Mama Michelle Phillips is also boff as the slut Dillinger rescues from a future on the Indian Reservation while even Richard Dreyfuss, an actor I really never could stand, comes off perfect as the self-centered "I take no orders form anyone" Baby Face Nelson, perhaps because I see a lot of the actor in Dreyfuss' put-offish "my shit don't smell" performance (I dunno if you will, but I was cheering during that scene that took place in "Little Bohemia" where Dillinger gives Nelson the beating of his life!). Even ol' Phyllis herself Cloris Leachman puts in a fine performance as the "undocumented"(sex) worker and "Lady in Red" Anna Sage who snitches on Dillinger and in exchange is promised not to be kicked outta the country, then gets kicked out!
Historical inaccuracies can be found here and there (so what) and little things may bug the casual viewer (like f'rexample Ben Johnson was way too old to play the Purvis role), but with these kinda films you gotta let your sphincter loosen up a bit and take what's tossed in front of you and have your mind chew a few times before swallowing. What'll go through your cranial system's a heavy duty thrust of entertainment via a nice cathartic release which will have you rooting for the bad guys because well, they're so cool and besides they're doing everything that you wished you could but well...ethics and manners and stuff.
A pretty good enough film (I give it seven outta ten) that's definitely worth the waste of time you'll need to view this 'un. Bot what really upsets me about DILLINGER is the plain fact that one important "part" of the legend surrounding the man is left out. Mainly, what about his pickled foot-long pee-pee that's preserved in a large mason jar which is stored somewhere in the attic of the Smithsonian Institute? Mention of it is nowhere to be found within these frames, and given the stories surrounding Dillinger's massive hunk of manhood this omission is very much like writing a story about Christmas and leaving out Santa Claus! Maybe they should have brought the subject up somewhere near the tail end where Paul Frees does his J. Edgar Hoover impression (Hoover was originally on board to do an anti-gangster moom pitcher schpiel but croaked before he got the chance). I mean, Dillinger's schlong is about as Amerigan mythological as you can get now, ain't it?
