Good movie but grossly overrated

Best movie of this year hands down!

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The part of John Dillinger must have been red meat for Lawrence Tierney, the baddest of Hollywood's bad boys. A notorious brawler and sociopath, Tierney seems the embodiment of the erstwhile Public Enemy #1 and plays it to the hilt. This was his first starring turn and is remarkably at his ease in the part. In all subsequent roles he was belligerent and humorless, and I can't recall ever seeing him crack a smile."The Lad In Red" is lovely Anne Jeffreys, and the gang members are all familiar faces; Elisha Cook, Jr., Eduardo Cianelli, Marc Lawrence, and in a change from his normally sophisticated roles, Edmund Lowe as the gang leader. The picture is very entertaining and was made by Monogram, a charter member of Poverty Row. Here they've pulled out all the stops and produced a top notch gangster flick. If you're a fan of 'cops and robbers' movies you won't be disappointed. I've put my star rating in the heading as the website no longer prints them.

Max Nosseck directed this biographical tale of the rise and fall of real-life criminal John Dillinger, here played by Lawrence Tierney as a ruthless and menacing man who isn't afraid of anyone or anything. He is sent to jail for armed robbery where he befriends gangster Specs Green(played by Edmund Lowe) and his associates(played by Marc Lawrence, Elisha Cook, and Eduardo Ciannelli) He later leads a prison breakout with a wooden gun, then becomes part of the gang, eventually taking it over, though this later leads to lethal consequences for Dillinger when he takes his girlfriend Helen(played by Anne Jeffreys) to a movie theater where the police are waiting... Good film may take some liberties with the facts but has solid acting and crisp direction.

I am not saying that "Dillinger" is a brilliant or must-see film, but it definitely was unusual for 1945 and way ahead of its time. In addition, I was completely amazed that such a production could come from crappy old Monogram Studios. You just don't expect such a well-crafted film from such a lowly production company.Before I go on, I should point out a major problem with the film. Although it's supposed to be the story of the most-wanted bank robber, John Dillinger, the filmmakers did very little to get the facts right. In general, it is his life--but only in general. The early portion of his life before he went to prison was totally wrong and it only got a bit better as the film progressed.How, then, can I give an inaccurate film an 8--especially when I normally jump all over films because of historical inaccuracy? Well, it's because the film lacked the sentimentality and clichés you normally saw in films of the day. Instead, it's direct, blunt and a bit cruel for 1945. Now it is NOT an ultra-violent film in the style of "Bonny and Clyde"--it always seems to pull away from the most violent scenes when something REALLY violent is about to occur. But the film is still pretty brutal for its day and entertaining--and a nice bit of film noir. Lawrence Tierney did a great job in playing the lead so coldly and the script, while inaccurate, was great. I just didn't understand why the film LOOKED like 1945--especially when Dillinger died in 1934. I assume it was simply because cheap old Monogram didn't want to pay to get the look just right.By the way, near the end of the film you get a VERY brief look at Santa's face. What is with him?! He looks like Leatherface or something!!

It's too bad that the first film tribute to the baddest bandit of the last century was done by Poverty Row Monogram Pictures. And while Lawrence Tierney is certainly brutal enough to portray that aspect of John Dillinger's personality, the charm that was also part of Dillinger was left out. It's possible a good deal was left on the cutting room floor of Monogram.Both Johnny Depp's Public Enemies and even more so the film Dillinger that starred Warren Oates in the title role were far closer to the truth than this was. To be sure Dillinger's legendary escape from an Indiana jail with a fake wooden gun and the matter of his demise were included if not completely accurately. You couldn't have a film about Dillinger without them.No deep psychological insights into John Dillinger here. He was just a mean anti-social individual who took to a life of crime. In most other times he would have not been glamorized. But this was The Great Depression and bankers were not popular back in those days. They were foreclosing left and right and when they weren't doing that they were failing, robbing people of life savings. So if Dillinger and his kind were taking out withdrawals their way, who really cared?Dillinger while in prison for a two bit convenience store stickup meets up with old time bank robber Edmund Lowe and the rest of the gang which consists of Eduardo Ciannelli, Elisha Cook, and Marc Lawrence. Tierney as Dillinger bust them out of the joint after he's finished his sentence and takes over the mob from Lowe. He also meets up with Anne Jeffreys who becomes the infamous lady in red.Certainly Depp and Oates got more out of the Dillinger role than Tierney did. But what Tierney got was a career and in a limited way he did capture part of the Dillinger mystique. Sad this film was not done at a major studio though.