by Michael Kenney - April 6, 2008
Johnny Depp is in town filming some scenes for his role as John Dillinger in Public Enemy. (working title)
I dig this kid Depp. He's real good.
His take on George Jung in Blow was utterly amazing. Donnie Brasco same. A fine, talented actor, Johnny Depp, and I very much look forward to seeing him play Dillinger.
The Depression Era was another world from the one in which we all live now. We glorified criminals back then, and I don't mean we bought their records or paid to see them play ball.
America embraced criminals during The Depression. Real criminals. Violent criminals. Bank robbers. Gangsters.
Murderers.
Al Capone was a popular guy. Oh sure, people were scared shitless of him, but that didn't stand in the way of their admiration. The press loved him. Scarface provided soup kitchens and bootlegged booze when people were getting hungry and very very thirsty. (thanks again Canada) In the tunnels beneath The Green Mill and leading to the Aragon Ballroom flowed barrels and barrels of whiskey.The law hated Capone, but the general public ate and drank him up. It was like a game. Like watching a movie, only people were rooting for the bad guy. The bad guys got very rich, and people didn't mind at all. The bad guy was providing the soup, the booze and the hookers. Capone's wealth when adjusted for inflation would put him in the billionaire category today.
A billionaire mass murderer, such a novel concept.
Dillinger was a different kind of gangster, which is why I think Johnny Depp is perfect for the part.
I remember watching Leonardo DiCaprio play Frank Abagnale Jr in Catch Me if You Can, and thinking that while Abagnale was a con-boy, I just couldn't help but like him. Stole millions of dollars. Fraud and deceit all over the globe. Taught himself to be a master counterfeiter. Impersonated a Pan Am pilot, a lawyer, a doctor and other less notable professions, and almost got away with it. Lived 10 minutes ahead of the law. Portraying Frank Abagnale Jr as a somewhat sympathetic character and getting me to like him wasn't too hard for Leo, because it was all in good fun. It was just money right? Nobody really got hurt.
John Dillinger was a different kind of gangster, and I don't just mean because he had a 14' unit. Dillinger had style. He'd pretend to be a sales rep from a security firm, and bankers would give him tours of their places looking for advice. He'd case the place, and then rob it later. He wasn't known for gangland slaughter like Capone or Bugs Moran; Dillinger was known for robbing banks and getting away with the loot.
He set up a fake movie crew once, in a bank lobby. The bank allowed him to use the place of course, because everyone wants to be in the movies. While 'filming', they robbed the bank. He had style.
He robbed banks for years, because that's where the money was.
Like Abagnale, John Dillinger was constantly staging miraculous escapes. He'd get caught, and before the damned cage was locked, the guard would be looking for the keys that he seemed to have misplaced.
John Dillinger had himself photographed once, smiling, with his arm draped over prosecutor Robert Estill's shoulder during his trial for the murder of Officer William O'Malley in East Chicago, IN.
Carved a bar of soap into a gun, used black Shinola to make it look real, and bluffed his way out of the Crown Point, Indiana jail house. (or so the story goes)
Hung out in the Little Bohemia Lodge in Wisconsin with Baby Face Nelson for awhile until the owner's wife, Nan Wanatka sneaked out and got word to the Feds. When Melvin Purvis and the gang showed up, there was some of that good old fashioned FBI gunplay (I've always loved that word.) When the smoke cleared, the entire Dillinger gang had escaped, and another cop was dead. Agent W Carter Baum.
Dillinger found his way here to Chicago, and blended in with the crowd for awhile. Hooked up with a girl named Polly Hamilton, who had no idea that the guy with the enormous penis was the famous John Dillinger.
When Polly took Dillinger to the Biograph Theater, she also had no idea that her friend Anna Sage had cut a deal with the feds. In exchange for ratting out Dillinger's location, Sage was allowed to avoid deportation on charges of running a brothel. (apparently Sage had an idea who Dillinger was, perhaps she saw his penis)
Anna Sage told Purvis that he'd find her in the crowd easily by her bright red dress, and the term The Lady In Red was born.
When the movie, Manhattan Melodrama, was over, Melvin Purvis stood waiting at the exit for Dillinger. The signal was a lit cigar. Dillinger, recognizing Purvis and realizing he was in deep shit made a run for it. In an alley outside the Biograph Theater, John Dillinger died of multiple gunshot wounds. July 22, 1934. (Unless of course you believe he escaped, had cosmetic surgery, and died at the age of 92. His penis has been sighted in a large jar, suspended in formaldehyde, on eBay)
Making a movie about John Dillinger is tricky. He was funny. He was clever. He had style. But unlike the case of Frank Abagnale Jr, where nobody really got hurt, John Dillinger was a fucking psycho murderer. He killed cops, or he was there when cops died. And he did it at a time in American history when criminals were rich, and famous, and people admired them. Unlike today.
This is going to be yet another challenging role for Johnny Depp, but I'm confident he can pull it off.
Michael Kenney is a Chicago "contractor".