Dillinger (1973): Print the Legend (Review)

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend” is an infamous quote from John Ford’s 1962 classic Western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance that could arguably be seen as the inspiration for Dillinger, John Milius’1973 directorial debut, dusted down by Arrow Video and given the Blu-ray treatment this week. Based on the life and criminal exploits of the notorious Great Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger, the film plays fast and loose with history and recorded facts, preferring instead to get to the essence of the man and the times.

The movie’s narrative exists in the shadow of the infamous Kansas City Massacre of June 1933, a disastrous attempt by Vernon Miller’s gang to free prisoner Frank Nash from federal police custody that resulted in the deaths of four law enforcement officers and Nash himself. Embittered by this brazen and deadly assault on his colleagues, FBI field officer chief Melvin Purvis (Ben Johnson) is depicted as making it his solemn mission to hunt down each of the men he believes personally responsible, by any means necessary. Not content with this personal vengeance, Purvis also sets his sights on the prolific bank robber John Dillinger (Warren Oates) who, despite not having broken any federal laws (only state ones), is nevertheless becoming well known for his daring criminal exploits and a dangerously popular folk hero for the Depression-embattled American public. The film may well be called Dillinger, but the structure of the screenplay (which Milius also wrote himself), takes an even-handed approach to both the hunter and the prey, depicting both G-man and Stick-Up Artist almost as if they were two sides of the same coin. The film follows Dillinger as he and his gang – including Harry Dean Stanton’s Homer Van Meter and Geoffrey Lewis’ Harry Pierpont – make their way across the Midwest robbing banks and falling in love with his half Cherokee/half-French gun moll Billie Frechette (Michelle Phillips, of The Mamas and the Papas fame), whilst also playing out a secondary narrative featuring Purvis, as he begins to grab the headlines for his bloody purge of the gangsters he believes responsible for what happened in Kansas City. 

Eventually, both plotlines converge when Dillinger, having been captured in Arizona, makes a spectacular prison break and, in his escape, crosses state lines in a stolen car – thus giving Purvis a federal charge to pursue. Hooking up with new gang members, including the psychotic Baby Face Nelson (a suitably cherubic, scenery-chewing Richard Dreyfuss) and the handsome, easy-going Pretty Boy Floyd (future Dallas star Steve Kanaly, he of the Paul Newman-esque blue eyes and prematurely greying hair), Dillinger resumes his crime spree only to find his luck running out now that Purvis is on his tail. All but Dillinger are hunted down and killed in Wisconsin, leaving the eponymous criminal to meet his fate at the hands of Purvis and on the word of his date for that evening, the brothel keeper and ‘Lady in Red’ Anna Sage (Cloris Leachman) outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater.

Perhaps it is wholly right that the inception of Dillinger has itself reached mythical proportions due to conflicting accounts. One version of events has it that Milius himself brought the project to AIP, and was so determined to direct that he offered the studio the screenplay at a fraction of his usual fee. Another version claims that an inferior screenplay for a biopic about John Dillinger had already been greenlit by AIP who turned to Milius for a complete rewrite, adding directing duties into the bargain as a means to sweeten the deal for the scribe who was, at that time, becoming well known for his dissatisfaction with how many of the films of his screenplays turned out. There’s also a third version of events that states Milius was offered a choice of B movies to direct at AIP; the Dillinger project, the campy Blaxploitation horror Blacula and the Pam Grier/Margaret Markov ‘chicks in chains’ grindhouse flick Black Mama, White Mama. Milius elected Dillinger, not out of any personal affinity with the subject matter, but because he wanted to show how well he could helm action setpieces like shootouts on screen. To his credit, these are handled incredibly effectively, with high octane flair and grimly vivid, bloody consequences.

Setting to work, Milius decided that it was principally the legend of John Dillinger that interested and excited him., though he was at pains to make his film different from Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde; “I’ve made a myth out of him but not a romantic myth like Bonnie and Clyde. Dillinger is a tough guy he’s a Cagney. I’m not at all concerned with showing his early life or explaining how he got that way. What I’m interested in is the legend. That’s what this movie is, that’s exactly what it is. It’s not a character study or a Freudian analysis; it’s an American folk tale” Milius was unconcerned with the arthouse leanings of Penn’s movie, one which arguably ushered in the era of New Hollywood Milius now found himself working in, preferring instead to deliver a solid piece of entertainment that mixed the structure of John Ford, the retro B movie action of Roger Corman and the bloody violence of Sam Peckinpah.

His distaste for Bonnie and Clyde, the film, even infiltrated his screenplay as Dillinger is heard to dismiss Clyde Darrow and Bonnie Parker, the real-life criminals, in a conversation with Pretty Boy Floyd, as little more than amateurs and hoodlums ruining it for the professionals he considered himself and his gang to be. Though perhaps Milius’ ambition to not make a romantic myth lies in the fact that he seems incapable of making anything romantic in Dillinger, least of all the love story between his central character and Phillips’ Billie. As meet-cute’s go – she is sceptical of his identity, so he holds up everyone in the bar, takes her by force and seemingly rapes her – well, let’s just say it’s not one that Richard Curtis would consider. The downfall in the movie is that how this pair become so loved up is not explained or depicted. Dillinger is a film that does not serve its females well, it’s an uncompromisingly macho film that understands the psyche of successful alpha males and even understands America’s romantic infatuation with them, but has a blind spot the size of the Grand Canyon when it comes to women.

Milius’ film is a folk tale, one whose message lies in the very medium itself. Dillinger positively revels in both its myth building and the fact that neither Dillinger or Purvis were averse to courting America’s newly-linked up nationwide media to enhance their respective reputations. As the titular hood, Oates is on great self-aggrandising form, whether it’s in the delicious opening monologue that is spoken to a held-up bank teller but is actually, suitably, delivered directly down the camera to the audience, “Don’t nobody get nervous. You ain’t got nothin’ to fear. Your bein’ robbed by the John Dillinger Gang; that’s the best there is. These few dollars you lose here today, they’re gonna buy you stories to tell your children and great-grandchildren. This could be one of the big moments in your life. Don’t make it your last” or when surrounded by a fawning press on his way to a prison cell, his opinions being courted on all manner of topics including Roosevelt’s New Deal. It’s clear that, for America at the time, Dillinger was a celebrity with Milius implying that as soon as he began to believe his own hype, his days were numbered. He is incredulous when one of his gang suggests he is beginning to believe what is written about him in the papers and beats the ever-recalcitrant Baby Face Nelson, yelling “You can’t kill me! I’m immortal!”, mistaking the immortality of legend with the immortality of the flesh. Likewise Purvis knows how useful a tool the press and media are when on your side. His ego delights in the pleas of “Don’t shoot! G-Man!” from Machine Gun Kelly as he and his men capture the wanted felon; “G-Man. Government Man. I like that. Mr Hoover’s gonna like that too” but it takes a beating when, meeting a young boy playing cops and robbers, he discovers that the child dreams of being John Dillinger rather than a law enforcer.

More, this sobering encounter serves as a signal that the country’s preoccupation with violent crime may point towards an endemic problem that could never being solved. The sad little goodbye Purvis waves to the youngster at the end of the scene has a greater resonance when you consider how their paths may cross once again on professional terms some years later. If only Purvis would consider for a moment just how lawless he too has become in his search for those he holds responsible for the death of his friends and colleagues. He repeatedly guns down suspects and grimly reflects on how little he tries to “take them alive”. For an avenging angel like Purvis, all that these lawbreakers deserve are a hail of bullets and a last, pained breath in the gutter as he stands over their twitching, prone bodies lighting his cigar in victory. The blurred lines he’s leaving in his wake are scarcely considered, least of all by him.

Milius’ desire to eschew realism throughout the film, with dates fudged and the fates of several characters being swapped around, altered or just plain embellished as a means to ‘print the legend’. But perhaps the greatest falsehood is exemplified in the film’s principal casting of Oates and Johnson. Warren Oates was in his mid forties when making the movie, Johnson a decade older. In reality, both Dillinger and Purvis were considerably younger men around thirty/thirty-one at the time of the events depicted. What the casting of Oates and Johnson brings to this depiction however, is a sense of two ruthless men with their own peculiar code of honour, entwined together in an epic blood feud. The medium captures their rivalry, though Milius shows little interest in depicting them as a symptom of the times. Instead, he’s harkening back to a mythical Old West in their hunter and prey dynamic, condemning the present of amateurs like Bonnie and Clyde, and psychopaths such as Baby Face Nelson. The contemporary setting they find themselves in does them a disservice; the abandoned, windblown, rusting towns of the Depression-hit dustbowl holding little appeal to that of the outlaw days and frontier spirit of the Wild West, when America was new and full of opportunity.

It’s telling that the romanticism Dillinger feels for this period leads him to a tempestuous love affair with a woman he routinely refers to as an ‘injun’ (even though Phillips is clearly not; the singer turned actress suggesting she lied about her heritage to win the role) and ultimately and ironically being captured at a hoedown in Arizona wearing a ten gallon hat. The decision to cast Oates and Johnson, who had previously played members of The Wild Bunch in Peckinpah’s eponymous 1969 movie, certainly taps into the Western mythos and plays well into the Fordian desire to ‘print the legend’. It may not be realistic, but I can’t think of two finer actors to portray these foes on the big screen. The legend, indeed the medium, gets a beautiful capping after the credits have rolled and the voice of actor Paul Frees delivers the denunciation of Milius’ film by the recently deceased J. Edgar Hoover. “Dillinger was a rat that the country may consider itself fortunate to be rid of, and I don’t sanction any Hollywood glamorization of these vermin. This type of romantic mendacity can only lead young people further astray than they are already, and I want no part of it” He may not have wanted any part of it, but his wish was not granted. He was inextricably linked to it all anyway.

As far as releases go, Arrow’s Dillinger is surprisingly on the slim side with just a commentary and a handful of interviews with crew. A contribution from Milius himself is conspicuous by its absence. The dream release would have included the 2013 Joey Figueroa and Zak Knutson documentary Milius as a prize extra. Nevertheless if you enjoy a good gun-toting gangster picture that is unashamedly masculine and blessed with some great acting and action, then Dillinger deserves a place on your shelf.

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THANK YOU FOR READING MARK‘S REVIEW OF DILLINGER