Young Dillinger

Young Dillinger
Directed by	Terry Morse
Written by	Arthur Hoehl Donald Zimbalist
Produced by	Alfred Zimbalist
Starring	John Ashley Nick Adams Robert Conrad
Cinematography	Stanley Cortez
Edited by	Terry Morse
Music by	Shorty Rogers
Distributed by	Allied Artists
Release date	1965 (1965)
Running time	102 mins
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$200,000

Young Dillinger is a 1965 gangster film. It stars Nick Adams as the notorious criminal John Dillinger, and co-stars Robert Conrad, John Ashley and Mary Ann Mobley.

Plot

With help from Elaine, his girlfriend, young John Dillinger breaks into her father's safe. They are caught, but Dillinger takes the rap by himself.

In prison, he meets Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson, who join Dillinger's gang after he masterminds a prison break. Elaine goes along, but when she becomes pregnant and is rejected by Dillinger, she rats him out to the FBI.

Cast

• Nick Adams as John Dillinger
• Robert Conrad as Pretty Boy Floyd
• John Ashley as Baby Face Nelson
• Mary Ann Mobley as Elaine
• Victor Buono as Professor Hoffman
• Dan Terranova as Homer Van Meter
• John Hoyt as Dr. Wilson
• Reed Hadley as Federal Agent Parker
• Robert Osterloh as Federal Agent Baum
• Anthony Caruso as Rocco
• Art Baker as Warden
• Gene Roth as Justice of Peace
• Harvey Gardner as Mills

Production

The film was shot at Goldwyn Studios starting in November 1964. Al Zimbalist said he didn't want to glamourise the gangsters. "We just wanted to tell the story how three young men went wrong in hopes no other young people would make the same mistakes they made," he said.

Shot cheaply in 17 days without period costumes, Robert Conrad recalled that he only did the film to repay a favor to his friend Nick Adams.

John Ashley says the film "was basically all of (producer) Al Zimbalist's footage of machine guns and crashing cars from Baby Face Nelson (1957)."

Ashley added that the movie "may have been the most fun of everything I ever did. At the time all three of us [Adams, Conrad and himself] were divorced. We were all living up in Nick's house. This film came along through Allied Artists. They actually approached Nick, and Nick said 'You should go see about getting John and Bobby'. We all agreed to it and we basically rewrote it. We took a lot of liberties with these three guys, but it was a lot of fun and a real pleasant experience."

During filming, the management of Allied Artists were engaged in a proxy fight with rebellious shareholders.

Adams and Zimbalist wanted to make another movie together, Guns of the G Men. However it was never made.

Reception

The Los Angeles Times called it "a B picture with A virtues... good performances... crisp direction... fast moving and full of action.

External links

• Young Dillinger at IMDb
• Young Dillinger at TCMDB
• New York Times review