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.
Review of Dillinger
