Dillinger Reviews

This was the film that brought Tierney to fame, even though the picture has little to do with the real facts of the Dillinger gang or Dillinger himself. Tierney plays a crazed killer who incidentally robs banks and even murders his mentor, Lowe, by shooting him while they are "cooling off" in the north woods of Wisconsin. Jeffreys is the so-called "Lady in Red" who turns Tierney into the FBI. The whole script is fantasy by veteran writer Yordan, who obviously didn't do a bit of research, although J. Edgar Hoover approved of his screenplay. Dillinger was a taboo subject for years in Hollywood since studios feared angering Hoover with any interpretation of the desperado after his disappearance in 1934. (Contrary to Hoover's insistence, most hard evidence indicates that Dillinger was never killed, but that another was slain in his place.) Giannelli, Lawrence and Cook give good renditions of gangsters in this potboiler which was shot on a meager budget and earned its reputation by being banned in its initial release in Chicago and other midwestern cities where Dillinger once dallied.