Johnny Depp as Dillinger

[augusta]

Ever since "our" Joe Carlson told me about "Public Enemies" being shot, in part, at Little Bohemia (a still-in-operation dining room and motel with cabins in the Wisconsin northwoods) I've been waiting for the movie to come out. Johnny Depp is a top favorite of mine, and Dillinger a top subject of interest.

I read that this year, they are making "safe" movies - and this was one they correctly mentioned. How could you miss with this combination?

To date, they have never made a great Dillinger movie. The old ones were unmemorable. The 1973 one with Warren Oates was over the top with the dialogue (Warren Oates kept yelling out, "I'm John Dillinger!" in banks and public places. And the known character actor who played Melvin Purvis was too big, too old, and had a thick Southern accent that some writer had him say, "Wait til I light mah see-gar" before each gangster he shot.) So I thought this was it! THE Dillinger movie, and it was about time.

I took my 17 year old son with me. He had just seen the Warren Oates version with me at home. He thought "Public Enemies" was good. He said it put a different spin on Dillinger. He has never heard anything of Dillinger beyond the Oates movie. Sadly, there are not many whole books devoted to Dillinger. (There is a new one out I bought but haven't read yet called "Dillinger's Wild Ride" by Elliott J. Gorn.)

I was so curious how Johnny Depp would play Dillinger. I thought he did it excellently. He was smoooth - very cool. Dillinger in public was known for his near-acrobatic jumps over bank counters and almost breezy quips. Depp spoke his quips in a toned-down manner - which is how I imagine the real Dillinger did it. He knew he didn't need to be too dramatic. Heck, he was Dillinger and he was Johnny Depp. My eyes never left that screen.

The sets were gorgeous. The banks he hit were the ones that were opulent inside. I think that was pretty accurate, considering the amounts of money he got. In this movie, they mentioned the great amounts of money he took from some of the banks, which I don't recall hearing in the other films. He had to pay a lot to people to keep their mouths shut and, as I always understood it, he never actually had much money.

The music was well-chosen. All period music (I think). This time the guy playing Melvin Purvis actually looked a lot like the real Purvis, which was good.

The movie had more historical accuracy than others I've seen. When he escaped from jail, he really did sing "Get Along, Little Doggies", and I enjoyed that touch of realism.

So what was wrong with this movie? I walked away from the theatre unsatisfied. How could I not adore this film?

One thing that irked me was that the actors in the film almost all looked alike - dark hair, combed the same way, in suits. It was tough to pick out J Edgar Hoover. He did look like a reasonable Hoover, but then so did almost everyone else. I suppose it was most accurate to have everyone dress like that and look like that, but for the audience's sake I think they should have made some differences in the actors instead of the very few they did.

The scene at Little Bohemia, that I so looked forward to (I'd been there as a teen) was mostly shot at night and you couldn't see hardly anything. So what was the sense in actually shooting it there? It could have been shot anywhere on a reconstructed set. I think the action did take place at night, but it wasn't real great and it could have been.

The part where Dillinger is arrested and flown back to the jail in Indiana, and there's a near party going on with the press did show us that one of the big wigs posed in a cozy photo with Dillinger, which later cost the man his stature. But the lady sheriff did, too, and in the movie she did no smiling photo with Dillinger.

They showed Dillinger's family farmhouse as being weathered and grey. I think it was a white house.

I don't think they made it clear enough what was going on and who people were. If I knew nothing about him ahead of time, I would have just lumped them all together as "gangsters" and "G-men", except for Dillinger.

I did enjoy the performance of one of the Little Bohemia gang - whoever played Bugs (Something - not Seigel). He acted nutz and trigger happy and that's the impression I've always gotten from reading about him. (Richard Dreyfus was just mean in the Oates film. This other guy was having fun blasting people away. We were laughing at his performance - in a positive way.)

They didn't show Dillinger at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933. I had hoped they would. But they did show him enough out and about, showing that he did mingle with crowds and nobody knew it. (Incidentally, that new Dillinger book does have a photo in it of Dillinger at the World's Fair.)

They didn't mention his plastic surgery or his attempt to burn his fingerprints off with acid. They didn't focus anything, that I remember, on Harry Pierpont and his being executed in the electric chair.

The final scene went a little too fast and had too many people around. And his "last words" were so fictionalized. I wish they wouldn't have stuck that in. It was just disappointing.

I think his ending should have been carried thru to almost his burial. In the Oates film, they did have one woman soaking her handkerchief in Dillinger's blood. If you read the account of his death, there was a lot of that going on, and it should have been shown. Also the amount of people who filed by his corpse in the town morgue. I think that would have further shown what a famous person he was. I've seen newsreels of his body being taken out of a hearse in a wicker casket for burial. I don't think that's been done in a movie either.

I think if someone is going to make a movie on a real person, they might as well get it historically right. Why not?

I'm glad I saw the movie, as I try to see all of Johnny Depp's movies. I'm glad that I now know I don't want to buy the DVD (if I miss what sounds great at the movies, I'll buy the DVD). And I'm glad I went in the morning and got in for four bucks with free popcorn.

[Angel]

I have a special interest in the movie. My cousin has a 1930's Ford truck that I've ridden in when I visited my hometown in Wisconsin. It is his pride and joy. Somehow, through one of his car clubs or whatever, the movie people asked to use his truck in the movie. So my cousin's daughter hauled it to Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin for three days and watched from some balcony at night while they filmed part of the movie there. Then she took it to Chicago where they used it for six days of shooting there. They paid all expenses plus $500 a day for use of the truck. I'm dying to see the film to see if I can spot it. They had used a lot of cars from that era, so it may be hard to spot, but my son saw the movie and he said he saw it. When my cousin got home she had a party with the truck as a focus. All the guests came in period costumes from that era and she had a life size cardboard cutout of Depp that the movie people gave her standing next to the truck. Must have been fun.

[augusta]

What a good story, Angel! Wish I had know before I saw the movie. That was another plus - the vehicles were great.

[kssunflower]

Saw this last week - I love Johnny and am a Mann fan for Miami Vice. You weren't the only one disappointed. The audio was bad and in the Little Bohemia scene, I couldn't tell who was chasing who. I loved his quips though, too. Especially when Christian Bale (Purvis) asked him what kept him up at night and he answered coffee.

Apparently, Dillinger was a Ford man and I read somewhere that he sent them a letter commenting on their 'fast getaway' cars.

[Fargo]

I seen a documentary on Dillinger awhile back. It showed a Hudson car he had, that is still around. The car had at least one bullet hole that I remember.

I always wondered if Dillinger would have turned into the major criminal that he was if it wasn't for the 10 year sentence he recieved for robbery. ( his first major crime I think )

Also the fact that they refused to let him out to visit his dying stepmother. When they finaly did release him his stepmother had died just before he returned home.

Things like that could give huge resentments.

[augusta]

Yes, the audio was bad when I saw it, too, Kssunflower! I thought I was going deaf.

I think the real Dillinger really said that line about the coffee. He was a cool customer and was witty.

Yes, Dillinger's first criminal act - robbed a local grocery store or something - was too severely punished. He was told he would get something much less, but the judge he had thought he'd make an example of Dillinger. His later life of crime was always blamed on this. They mentioned it in one line of "Public Enemies", but I wish they would have spent 5 minutes and re-enacted it at the beginning.

It was either Dillinger or Clyde Barrow who wrote to Henry Ford and complimented him on his cars. I've seen the letter in person before.

Yes, the Little Bohemia scene couldn't be seen! I didn't know who was who either. There is a good story behind that shoot-out. Something about the owners, and their collie dog was barking when it heard the FBI men or something. And something about their little boy (who I think is still living - in the 1970's when I was there he refused to talk about it. I've since heard that parts of the old Capone gang still were here and there in the Northwoods. But he gave an interview in this book I have, "Gangsters on Holiday" or "Gangsters in the Northwoods" (something like that). He was 5 at the time of the shootout, and he had a birthday party to go to. I'll try to find that book and post on it. The place is still operational, and one or two of the criminals that nite stayed in cabins. When Dillinger ran away, he left his suitcase behind. They have a little museum set up there where they display his open suitcase. My father I remember was laughing because it contained a box of "X-Lax". "I'll bet he needed those!" he said.

There are some other Dillinger sites my parents had been to but I hadn't. I heard the Biograph Theatre still stands. There's at least one Dillinger museum, I think in Indiana. I think my parents found his father's farmhouse. And his grave. About 40 years ago, when my parents went on their Dillinger Day, they said nobody wanted to talk about it. And one guy told my dad he was one of Dillinger's pallbearers. True? I don't know.