John Dillinger was the most notorious of the Depression-era gangsters and his exploits (and attendant newspaper coverage) made him a romantic anti-hero to many of the folks who felt betrayed by the bankers and businessmen of the country.
Dillinger (Arrow, Blu-ray+DVD), the 1973 gangster film and directorial debut of John Milius, plays on that image of the gentleman gangster who courted the public and the press while he robbed banks across the American Midwest. It was one of the best of the many period gangster films that poured out in the wake of Bonnie and Clyde and made anti-heroes of outlaws.
Warren Oates stars as Dillinger and it is great casting; not only does he resemble the real-life gangster but he brings a rugged charm to the role, whether cautioning bystanders and bank tellers during the robberies (“This could be one of the big moments in your life,” he says at one point. “Don’t make it your last”) or genially bantering with the press after he’s arrested the first time. Ben Johnson plays Melvin Purvis, the Midwest FBI agent who made Dillinger a priority as his fame became an embarrassment for the Bureau. The film covers his brief rampage across the Midwest states, his romance with Billy Frechette (Michelle Philips), his flamboyant prison break, the supergang that included Pretty Boy Floyd (Steve Kanaly) and the bloodthirsty Baby Face Nelson (Richard Dreyfuss), and his bloody demise outside of a Chicago movie theater in 1934 in the company of “the lady in red” (played by Cloris Leachman). Harry Dean Stanton, Geoffrey Lewis, John P. Ryan, and Frank McRae co-star as members of Dillinger’s gang through the years and Milius gives them all distinctive parts.
Milius was one of the highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood when he made the film for AIP, taking a cut in exchange for the chance to direct, and AIP (famed for drive-in pictures) poured money into this film in hopes of a mainstream breakthrough and a little prestige. Though small by studio standards, it was the biggest budget of any AIP picture to that time and Milius creates a terrific evocation of the era and delivers impressive action scenes, shoot-outs, and car chases on a tight budget.
Arrow’s edition is restored in 2K from the original 35m interpositive and features both Blu-ray and DVD versions of the film with commentary by film historian Stephen Prince and new interviews with producer Lawrence Gordon (10 minutes), director of photography Jules Brenner (12 minutes), and composer Barry De Vorzon (12 minutes), plus an isolated music and effects track and bonus booklet.
The Wrong Man (Warner, Blu-ray) – Alfred Hitchcock was never accused of being a master of realism in the movies—”Some films are slices of life. Mine are slices of cake,” he once said—but for The Wrong Man (1956) he uses his skill to create a conventional life with mundane detail, an observant, unobtrusive camera, and patient direction, and then turn it into a real-life nightmare.
Inspired by a true story, it stars Henry Fonda as an ordinary, middle-class family man, a husband and father of two boys who works nights playing stand-up bass at The Stork Club. Then he’s identified as a hold-up man by the clerks at an insurance office, picked up by the police, booked, fingerprinted, and arraigned, presented in a slow, methodical manner. Throughout it all, Fonda has the dazed look of a man who can hardly believe what’s happening to him.
Hitchcock played with themes of ordinary people in extraordinary situations and mistaken identities sending innocent people into dangerous journeys all through his career but this is the only film in which he presents it with a sober style and a realistic manner, and then exposes how the stress of such an ordeal takes a very real toll on the people involved, especially the wife (Vera Miles), who slips into depression and emotional withdrawal. Hitchcock goes out of his way to present the detail of police work, the process of booking a suspect, even the criminal trial in a deliberate, dry manner, with the anxious, disbelieving face of Fonda showing the nightmarish reality behind the unexciting process. It is one of the most unusual films in Alfred Hitchcock’s filmography. It captures the dynamics of family life (the two sons are constantly arguing) and explores the everyday struggles of ordinary folks. And while it ultimately clears our innocent man, it is a qualified happy ending that leaves his wife still struggling with mental illness. On Blu-ray with a 20-minute featurette.
Also notable:
Cary Grant: The Vault Collection (Universal, DVD) features 18 film from the 1930s starring the young Grant before he became a superstar, including five home video debuts, on six DVDs, divided up into separate cases for “Dramas” and “Comedies.” The debuts are Madame Butterfly (1932), The Woman Accused (1933), Gambling Ship (1933), Ladies Should Listen (1934) and Enter Madame! (1935). The set is filled out with previously available films This is the Night (1932), Devil and the Deep (1932), Blonde Venus (1932, starring Marlene Dietrich), Hot Saturday (1932), She Done Him Wrong (1933, starring Mae West), The Eagle and the Hawk (1933), I’m No Angel (1933, starring Mae West), Thirty Day Princess (1934), Kiss and Make-Up (1934), Wings in the Dark 91935), The Last Outpost (1935), Big Brown Eyes (1936), and Wedding Present (1936).
Five Films by Patricio Guzman (Icarus, DVD) is actually more like eight films from the documentary filmmaker from Chile, considering that his epic The Battle of Chile is actually comprised of three parts released separately in 1975, 1976, and 1978. Also includes Chile, Obstinate Memory (1997), The Pinochet Case (2001), Salvador Allende (2004), and Nostalgia for the Light (2010), plus five bonus short films by Guzman, the 2014 documentary Filming Obstinately, Meeting Patricio Guzman, a 2008 interview with Guzman, and 24-page booklet.