Director John Milius also takes writing credit for this very colorful look at the most famous bank robber John Dillinger(Warren Oates). This story begins in the middle of his criminal career ending in his death at the Biograph Theater. This is a very romanticized tale complete with Baby Face Nelson(Richard Dreyfuss) and Pretty Boy Floyd(Steve Kanaly). Ben Johnson plays FBI agent Melvin Purvis who has an ego to match Dillinger's. Cloris Leachman plays Anna Sage, the infamous Woman in Red. Throw in Michelle Phillips as a girlfriend and Harry Dean Stanton as minion Homer Van Meter and you have the key players in this very colorful and violent movie. Liberty is taken with history for entertainment sake and besides the profanity filled script is not the selling point...the manic gun battles get most of the attention. The gun play is bloody and frequent; some of the roughest ever filmed. For a less colorful, but very interesting version check out DILLINGER(1945)starring Lawrence Tierney.

The late 1950's and early 1960's got pretty much all of the major gangsters in through a dozen or so movies, mostly B films, including hey Bonnie Parker biography pre-1967. There had been a Dillinger film in 1945 so he was left out, and with the success of "The Godfather", someone decided it was his turn again. You can't compare this version to the 1945 film with Lawrence Tierney, a pretty violent movie for its time, but nothing compared to what it ends up being 28 years later, cast very well with Warren Oates in probably his best film. This is certainly a better film than "Bloody Mama" which American International had done several years before, as it seems to be more based on fact rather than just ecploitation, and obviously someone at American International did a bit more research even if the few facts are debatable.

As FBI agent Melvin Purvis, Ben Johnson (who had just won an Oscar several years before for "The Last Picture Show") is delightfully no-nonsense, and former Mamas & the Papas singer Michelle Phillips makes a nice debut as Dillinger's girl. Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Dreyfuss and Harry Dean Stanton are other familiar fsces, with a lot of name-dropping in regards to other gangsters of the period. Cloris Leachman, who seemed to be in every other movie on TV or on the big screen in this time, has a cameo as the infamous lady in red who led Dillinger to his doom. The 30'a setting is nicely detailed, and while the film is violent as far as machine gun rounds going off, it is surprisingly not very bloody. It's a good thing they waited a decade. Had this been done during the rounds of gangster films made during "The Untouchables", it would be a shell of what this film is.

As primarily character actors, you don't get many chances to catch Warren Oates and Ben Johnson at the top of a bill, but they get the opportunity here in this Seventies gangster romp featuring many of the top hoodlum names of the era. My instincts tell me that most of this story was probably fictitious, and without the time or inclination to check out the details, I'll just say that it was an entertaining flick if you go for this kind of stuff.

The film opens with an 'Introducing' Michelle Phillips credit, an early picture for the former Mamas and Papas singer. Though third billed right after the nominal stars of the picture, I didn't get a sense that she had a major impact on the story, even though she wound up as John Dillinger's (Oates) moll following his virtual kidnap of her in a run down barroom. She certainly didn't find herself in league with the era's infamous Bonnie and Clyde pair, though she did manage to squeeze off a few effective machine gun rounds in the latter part of the story.

There's some interesting casting for Dillinger's associates, folks like Harry Dean Stanton as Homer Van Meter, Geoffrey Lewis as Harry Pierpont, and a young Richard Dreyfuss aptly chosen as Lester 'Baby Face' Nelson. That scene where Dillinger works over the fresh mouthed Nelson was one of those instances that didn't ring true to me. If it happened, I'm surprised Nelson would have stuck around.

The coolest scene in my estimation took place right after Dillinger maneuvered his way out of the Lake County Jail, freeing Reed Youngblood (Frank McRae) and grabbing a guard and the warden for a brief period as hostages. As they make good their escape, Dillinger has his driver pull over so he can rob a bank! That I believe, is what they call chutzpah!