Dillinger (1945), Max Nosseck.

Dillinger finds love at the box office

First we had the ethnic gangsters with their nicknames:  The Public Enemy, Little Caesar, Scarface... then we had John Dillinger.  First name, last name, All-American.  Monogram's Dillinger was made ten years after the real man was gunned down by the FBI, outside a movie theatre, betrayed by a woman in a red dress.  His string of stick ups were still fresh in Americans' minds.  Movie makers had previously paid its dues for its early 30s spree of gangster movies, begging forgiveness (while counting their dollars) and promising not to continue to glamorize any more criminals.  Times changed.  When grilled by the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors Association as to whether the public had to brace for another "era of gangster films," Monogram President Steve Broidy shrugged his shoulders.  "Monogram didn't create Dillinger," said Broidy. "We are guilty solely of depicting on screen what existed in the American scene.  Are we to blind ourselves to any phase of our national existence merely to satisfy the misguided caprice of a pressure group?"  (The Deseret News, September 26, 1945).  

Lawrence "arrested twelve times in the last seven years" Tierney has the thin-lipped, psychopathic stare perfect for the role.  He's got none of the soft centre Johnny Depp had in Public Enemies (although I'll give it to that film for having a far superior shoot out scene at the lodge).  Tierney looks pretty trim in his fedora and has no difficulty trapping blondes.  Apparently common for films of the time, no effort is made to get the look of the 30s in its costumes:  the girls have snoods and everyone has boxy shoulders.    

Dillinger marked the pinnacle of Monogram's filmmaking.  Made for a whopping $193,000 (When Strangers Marry had been made the same year by Monogram for less than $50,000) Dillinger was Monogram's first film to sell at a percentage, just like an A-picture (instead of a flat-rate rental, the norm for most B's).  Betting their film could fill seats paid off wildly for Monogram: Dillinger grossed over four million.  Broidy would soon turn Monogram into Allied Artists, in an attempt to compete with the major studios.  "It was the same company, same personnel, same everything, but we created a totally different image by calling it Allied Artists," explained Broidy in The King of the Bs (McCarthy, Flynn). "That applied - strange as it may seem, and silly as it seems today - that applied to agents, stars, directors, all of whom would not work for Monogram, but they would work for Allied Artists...there was a facade created that made it conducive to them, not thinking they were being sold down the river to Monogram."  The stink of fifteen years of poverty row pictures must have been pretty hard to wash down - but Dillinger was the first cleansing effort.

It's curtains for this guy