After a shoot-out kills five FBI agents in Kansas City the Bureau target John Dillinger as one of the men to hunt down. Waiting for him to break Federal law they sort out several other mobsters, while Dillinger's bank robbing exploits make him something of a folk hero. Escaping from jail he finds Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson have joined the gang and pretty soon he is Public Enemy Number One. Now the G-men really are after him.
Acting
Warren Oates' grin could rob a bank without a gun.
Direction
Milius shoots violence like folk legend, not documentary.
Writing
Dialogue so lean it feels carved from a tree.
Director
John Milius
Warren Oates
John Dillinger
Ben Johnson
Melvin Purvis
Michelle Phillips
Billie Frechette
Cloris Leachman
Anna Sage
Harry Dean Stanton
Homer Van Meter
Geoffrey Lewis
Harry Pierpont
John P. Ryan
Charles Mackley
Richard Dreyfuss
Baby Face Nelson
John Martino
Eddie Martin
Roy Jenson
Samuel Cowley
Read Morgan
Big Jim Wollard
Frank McRae
Reed Youngblood
Steve Kanaly
Pretty Boy Floyd
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Milius wrote the script in six days while obsessed with researching Dillinger's actual methods and police reports.
This film helped spark the 1970s obsession with Depression-era outlaws, directly influencing Bonnie and Clyde's legacy and later Public Enemies.
US
