Io sono Dillinger

Ok, not a masterpiece, not perfect, and the music sucks. BUT if you are a fan of Nick Adams and Mary Mobley then this is interesting. I've taken a liking to Nick Adams a lot because he is a very good actor and was very well respected in Japan for doing a few Godzilla movies. (Seeing him and Kumi Mizuno together is wonderful in 'Invasion of Astro Monster'). So, set aside your criticisms and just enjoy the movie.

The poor man's James Dean during the 1950s, Nick Adams always felt that he'd been born at the wrong time. He wanted to be a James Cagney type tough guy in Depression-era gangster films. He finally had the chance to make that dream come true, if on an ultra-cheap budget, with this wildly inaccurate tale of John Dillinger and his bank robbing gang. At one point, Adams even does a Cagney imitation, the hilarious high point of what is, sad to say, a rather inept film, if an intriguing one all the same. Mary Anne Mobley plays his gun moll with gusto, and best pal Pretty Boy Floyd is portrayed by Adams' own best friend, Robert Conrad. Various semi-stars, from Victor Buono to John Hoyt, show up in cameos. I love the scene in which a plastic surgeon (Hoyt) tries to change "Johnny's" face, but it remains the same - and so, going Richard Widmark one better from Kiss of Death, Dillinger cackles with laughter as he tosses the chairbound doctor into a pool and watches him drown. Adams co-produced, and the film's failure left him distraught - and somewhat destitute. When the film was shown on CBS TV three years later, Adams even lost his top-billing, as Conrad (who had become a star thanks to The Wild, Wild West on that network) was given that honor for the telecast. A day after the broadcast, Adams was found dead in his apartment, an apparent suicide. Come on, Nick - it wasn't THAT bad!

What a load of bs, from the acting to costumes and facts or lack there of. Nick adams as dillinger is as bad as mickey rooney as babyface Nelson. I loved Robert Conrad in almost everything but this, a waste of talent. Nick adams like rooney a angry little guy. The only thing that I like about this is the music.

All he wants to do is to marry Mary Ann Mobley, but they've got no money. At her urging Adams robs her father's business, killing a guard in the process, then it's off to find a Justice of the Peace.... but they're too young to get married, so they head off to honeymoon anyway. But Miss Mobley's father wants his money back, so it's off to prison for Adams, where he meets the nicest people, like Pretty Boy Floyd -- Robert Conrad -- Baby Face Nelson -- John Ashley. Adams escapes, then breaks his friends out, killing a few guards in the process, and it's off to the race.

This looks like it anticipates a lot of things about BONNIEAND CLYDE, but in a B movie way. Terry Morse hadn't directed a movie in almost ten years. Instead he practiced his other craft, that of editor, and he had Stanley Cortez helming the camera. As a result, visually and in terms of pacing, it's excellent; The heist and fighting sequences are excellent (if you can ignore Shorty Rogers bombastic, jazzy score), but the performances are all over the shop, from Conrad solid performance, to Victor Buono's over-the-top mastermind, to Miss Mobley's whiny hysteria.

It's one of the increasingly violent crime movies of the 1960s, and like the pre-code era, it ends with a pious paean to the cops who guard the citizenry. It didn't stop local station managers from shutting down a network broadcast in 1968, about the time that Adams died of a drug overdose at the age of 36.

This forgotten film belongs to the movies made in the early sixties, and telling the stories - more or less fictionnal - of authentic gangsters: MURDER INC, PORTRAIT OF A MOBSTER, RISE AND FALL OF LEGS DIAMOND, BABY FACE NELSON, MAD DOG CALL, PURPLE GANG, PRETTY BOY FLOYD.... And many other items. This one is far from being a masterpiece, the director was himself a horror B movie vet film maker, not Don Siegel nor Phil Karlson; but the result is surprisingly good, far better than I could expect. And what a exquisite pleasure to watch Robert Conrad just before he entered WILD WILD WEST terrific TV show.