John Milius earned enough of a reputation with his excellent scripts for The Life and Time of Judge Roy Bean and Jeremiah Johnson - not to mention his rewrite on Dirty Harry - that AIP let him make his directorial debut with this script. It’s another tale of a legendary man of history who lived on the outskirts of the law (Apocalypse Now was about the same thing too come to think of it.)
Milius once said in an interview that when he was a teenager he was capable of writing in different styles: Hemingway, Conrad, etc. This is written in a different style to his Westerns, which were heavily influenced by the time, in dialogue and in big print. This is much more Warner Bros of the 30s. It’s a very solid, exciting screenplay, with plenty of action, pace and rich characters, plus marvellous tangy dialogue – it's not as good as his earlier stuff, but still worth reading.
There are two main characters in Dillinger – Dillinger and Melvin Purvis, both of whom are excellent at their jobs, like the finer things in life, and are very conscious of themselves and their place in history. Dillinger’s main romantic relationship is with Billie Frechette. On their first meeting she accidentally insults him, he kidnaps her, she slaps him a few times, he slaps her back, they have hot sex and decide to hook up. To be honest, this sort of stuff is hard to take (Milius wasn’t exactly a great female writer – there’s lots of descriptions of Billie’s hot body, although this may have been an requirement for AIP). Much is made of Frechette being part Indian - like Judge Roy Bean and Jeremiah Johnson, the hero has a doomed relationship with a non-Anglo.
Like most Milius scripts at this stage in his career, the male supporting roles are evocatively drawn: the cocky member of his gang who Dillinger shoots, a decent dumb member (Homer), elegant Pretty Boy Floyd and vile Baby Face Nelson. The female roles are less memorable.
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