The part where they pickle Depp's pee-pee should be interesting.
Posted on 01/27/2008 8:00:31 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Before Michael Mann and Johnny Depp wanted to make a movie about John Dillinger, John Dillinger wanted to make a movie about John Dillinger.
This was June 1934, near the end for the notorious criminal. Dillinger was hiding out in Chicago. Two months earlier, he'd escaped an FBI raid at the Little Bohemia resort in northern Wisconsin. His gang's girlfriends had been brought to jail in Madison.
Now in Chicago, Dillinger, his accomplice Homer Van Meter, who'd been with him at Little Bohemia, and Louis Piquett, Dillinger's attorney, were pondering alternative revenue streams.
Piquett, born and raised in Benton, a small town in southwestern Wisconsin, was a flamboyant Chicago attorney. He had been a prosecutor until his indictment on corruption charges, which were eventually dropped. Now he was advising the most infamous murderer and bank robber in the country. Piquett had a brainstorm: a Dillinger tell-all on film.
Van Meter said: "I'll give out a message to the youth of America!"
Dillinger said: "No, that's not the idea, Van. We just want to tell them that crime does not pay."
"Well," Van Meter replied, "you tell them that crime does not pay, and I'll give my talk to the youth of America."
They never made it to the big screen. Within a month, Dillinger had been ambushed and shot dead by authorities outside a Chicago theater. Two months after that, Van Meter was gunned down by police in St. Paul. There were 50 bullets in his corpse.
The above rat-a-tat dialog and gunfire comes courtesy of a remarkable book by Bryan Burrough.
Now that many in Madison and Wisconsin are giddy over the likelihood that a new Johnny Depp movie, "Public Enemies," will be shot here in the spring -- there's a casting call for vintage roadsters in downtown Madison Sunday -- let me suggest you do yourself a favor and seek out the movie's source material: "Public Enemies," the book, written by Burrough, a Vanity Fair special correspondent. It was published in 2004.
Michael Mann, a UW-Madison alumnus, has been attached to the movie ever since Universal purchased the screen rights to Burrough's book in summer 2004. At that time, Daily Variety reported that Leonardo DiCaprio would star. Last month, Variety broke the story that Depp, not DiCaprio, would play Dillinger. Mann and Depp shook hands on the deal prior to the Hollywood premiere of Depp's current film, "Sweeney Todd." The paper also reported earlier this month that Christian Bale is in negotiations to play Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent who led the hunt for Dillinger.
Mann himself wrote the script from Burrough's book, which was both a critical and commercial success when it was published in 2004. Time magazine called "Public Enemies" a "massively researched" and "ludicrously entertaining" book.
Reading it, I was naturally interested in Madison mentions. The Dillinger gang -- Dillinger, Van Meter, Tommy Carroll and Baby Face Nelson -- was driving from Chicago to Little Bohemia (and the shoot-out with the FBI) in separate cars when Baby Face had an accident.
"The trip was uneventful until Nelson passed east of Madison," Burrough wrote. "Driving north on Highway 51 he ran a red light. A car slammed broadside into his driver's-side door, caving in the Ford's left side. Everyone involved was lucky. Nelson and his wife were shaken but unhurt, as was the driver of the second car, owned by a local cannery. Better yet, Nelson kept his temper; no one got shot."
Burrough's portrait of Dillinger is so multi-dimensional that one review (Time) described the gangster portrayed in "Public Enemies" as "smart, good-natured and media savvy (with) a genius for improvisational humor;" while another (The New York Times Book Review), found Burrough's Dillinger "haunting. ... a man of meanness and sorrow and deep rural pessimism."
By the end of the day, July 22, 1934, Dillinger was dead, betrayed by a female acquaintance. Melvin Purvis was outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago when Dillinger came out that night, but it was another agent, Charles Winstead, who shot and killed Dillinger.
They recognized him by a woman who was with him, their informant, Ana Sage. Burrough notes that earlier that day, Sage had told agents that she would be wearing a bright orange skirt. That's right. The famous woman in red who did in John Dillinger was really the woman in orange.
That is going to make for some fine cinema, LOL!
The part where they pickle Depp's pee-pee should be interesting.
So I wonder who’s going to play the woman in orange?
There’s rumors that after Dillinger was on the ground [but still breathing], he was shot in the back of the head, execution style]. In those days, they played for keeps.
Johnny Dep will play that part, too. ;)
“(The New York Times Book Review), found Burrough’s Dillinger “haunting. ... a man of meanness and sorrow and deep rural pessimism.”
Somebody please explain “deep rural pessimism” to me. Must be some kind of NYT elitist BS, I am guessing.
......Bob
As for Bale and Purvis...?
They should have go the guy who played Marty McFly's dad.
His own family came from Dillinger Pennsylvania (although there's a claim his mother came "from France" ~ but how recently?) BTW, Dillinger PA is just down the road from Finland PA, and Nickel Mines and...... a number of other early Sa'ami settlements.
You'd think there'd be some agreement on the genealogy of as notorious a figure as John Dillinger but there's not. That seems to have something to do with a distinct religious need to keep other folks out of your business.
His first wife was Beryl Hovis, and she was a member of the Church of the First Born ~ she divorced John and moved on only to die in childbirth actually because she refused a doctor. The whole Hovis clan have their roots in Paradise Township York County PA (since 1750 or so) and over in Lancaster PA to Elkton MD area from about 1638 to 1700 when they moved out due to persecution by Quakers.
I kind of wonder how they'll get Depp really into the Dillinger/Hovis thing ~ maybe a few church services in Finnish over at the meeting place of the Morgantown Indiana Church of the First Born ~ even has high windows so the snow drifts don't break the glass.
I'd like to see Clyde Hovis brought into this one. He ran with John for a long time. Once he was with his 5th or 6th wife and her mother on a train going to St. Louis (I believe it was). He really didn't care for the mother so he excused himself to go buy some chaw. The snack bar was toward the rear. He got his chaw or cigarettes and then hopped off the train leaving his wife and her mother to travel on to St. Louis without him.
Old Clyde was just that way.
Like to see that part in the movie. Then there's the "total Scanderhoovian", Baby Face Nelson (not to be confused with his contemporary Pretty Boy Floyd ~ who was of a totally different ethnicity and part of the country but I'm not so sure about his buddy Birdwell ~ those guys are from the Texarkana to Waco sector in Texas and some of them also ran with some of the folks in the old Dillinger gang).
I probably ought to read the book this is based on though ~ no doubt it missed out on the part where Elliot Ness (whose folks are from far Northern Norway ~ where the Sa'ami live) wouldn't chase Dillinger and left it up to Purvis.
Maybe I can get the screenwriters to "update" some of this stuff!
When he came to town to visit his father (who lived behind my grandfather) he was well protected by the neighbors, almost all of whom were federal police officers of some sort.
This is rather difficult to explain so I won't even try.
John Dillinger was, for all intents and purposes, an urban cowboy ~
“deep rural pessimism”
Maybe that means someone that grows up in the sticks, but has the idea that being a “City Slicker” would be a much better life?
I’m just the opposite. I couldn’t WAIT to leave The Concrete Jungle and live somewhere GREEN. :)
There was a pretty good movie about 35 years ago with Warren Oates as Dillinger and Ben Johnson as Purvis.
Hard to beat this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzeYb_StdBU
They never made it to the big screen. Within a month, Dillinger had been ambushed and shot dead by authorities outside a Chicago theater. Two months after that, Van Meter was gunned down by police in St. Paul. There were 50 bullets in his corpse... Now that many in Madison and Wisconsin are giddy over the likelihood that a new Johnny Depp movie, "Public Enemies," will be shot here in the spring.Shot is one of those unfortunate choices of words...
ping
Number one with a bullet!
Hey Diana! I saw “Public Enemies” last night at Eastgate. There were 2 vintage cars at the entrance. I liked the movie. I knew there were scenes shot in Columbus, but I just found out that the orchard scene, where Purvis shot a guy, was filmed at the farm of some friends of my family! They own an orchard south of Madison and darned if Christian Bale wasn’t there to shoot that scene. I had no idea until I phoned my mother a while ago and mentioned the movie and she told me about the orchard being used in this movie. It was a memorable scene too, so I knew just what she was talking about. There were a lot of people in the theater for a Wednesday night at 6pm showing. Great movie, highly recommend.
Excellent! It’s on my ‘Things To Do This Week’ list.
Hopefully Huz and I can see it at the matinee tomorrow as I have the day off and I caught up on chores today. WEll, except the laundry...but that NEVER ends...
He has a full day of service calls, but he’s been known to screw off if it involves movie theater popcorn, LOL!
He indulged me with the new Star Trek pre-quel last week. Not much to write home about on that one. *SIGH*
And I just realized you dug & bumped this up from JANUARY, 2008.
Get a life, would ya? LOL! :)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.