Slightly OT, but if you like movies and Thompsons ...
Dick R.
part of John Dillinger. It was especially interesting for us
because we had lunch last year at the Little Bohemia Lodge in
Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, the site of a shootout with the FBI.
The bullet holes are still there in interior and exterior walls,
and bullet holes in the windows are preserved with clear plexiglas.
Most of the good guys and bad guys carried Thompsons, Colt 1911s,
And a few other interesting guns.
The movie takes a few liberties with the facts: How Dillinger escaped,
and I would have to check it out more thoroughly, but I don't
think as many good and bad guys were killed in the shootout as
portrayed in the movie.
One fact is accurately portrayed; when some customers in the Lodge
innocently drove away and were shot by the FBI folks.
Times have changed since the 1930s when wanted posters essentially read
"Wanted, Dead or Dead" and law enforcement didn't care too much about
search warrants, court cases and other legal stuff.
I thought it was a good movie, and the food at Little Bohemia is
pretty good.
Dick
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Shawn
historically inaccurate. Not the great blockbuster I was hoping it
would be.
The movie introduces you to FBI Agent Melvin Purvis while he and a group
of men are chasing Pretty Boy Floyd through the woods. Accounts of
Floyd's killing vary from a retired local police officer(ex-WW I sniper)
wounding him and the FBI point blank executing him to the FBI taking all
credit for the slaying and denying local law enforcement were even
present. The historical problem is that Pretty Boy Floyd was killed in
October of 1934, three months after John Dillenger was gunned down by
the FBI in Chicago in July of 1934. In fact, the writers use Purvis'
moment of fame from killing Floyd as the reason J. Edgar Hoover put him
in place as the Agent In Charge of the Chicago FBI office to spearhead
the Dillenger task force.
The movie also has Baby Face Nelson being killed prior to Dillenger.
Not true. Nelson was killed by FBI in Barrington, IL in November 1934,
four months after Dillenger's death. In fact, the FBI agent who, by some
accounts, executed Pretty Boy Floyd a month earlier, was killed himself
in this shootout.
I believe there are some problems with the retelling of the Little
Bohemia Lodge incident also. I have not had time to research this yet
but I would almost swear I saw on a documentary that the gang snuck out
the back undetected by the FBI, who kept the building surrounded for
hours thinking the gang was still inside (further embarrassing Purvis).
In the movie, Dillenger is immediately spotted running into the woods
and a chase ensues. I could be wrong on this though. I still need to
research it... such is the "curse" of The History Channel.
I understand that most of the details of these events are questionable,
at best. Those involved are gone. Stories have been sanitized by the
FBI and legends grow. Movie makers have no choice but to take certain
liberties to make the story entertaining and to maintain the flow of the
story. That being said, in my opinion, modifying time lines in a
biographical, non-fiction movie is inexcusable and contributes to the
rewriting of history.
Just my opinion...results may vary.
Shawn
NRA Member
USCCA Member
Dick R. wrote:
> ...
Phil Burton
trains and the swing music.
All were probably more accurately done than the storyline. And with the
romantic angle, the Mrs or GF might enjoy also.
Found it interesting that shooters started off with drum magazines for
their Thompsons and carried stick magazines for when the drums were
expended.
Jim
news:h2lbus$usi$1...@news.albasani.net...
# Found it interesting that shooters started off with drum magazines for
# their Thompsons and carried stick magazines for when the drums were
# expended.
Logistically...
1. Easier to carry stick mags.
2. Time to reload comes later in the event.
Cinematically...
1. Drums look cooler.
Dick R.
# Very enjoyable film. More than the guns, I liked the old cars,planes,
# trains and the swing music.
# All were probably more accurately done than the storyline. And with the
# romantic angle, the Mrs or GF might enjoy also.
#
Hey Phil,
Old cars, I love 'em. In films from the 1940s it wasn't unusual to destroy
cars, but in current movies I hate to see restored old cars destroyed by
explosions, machine gun fire, or whatever. I still remember my dad's
1941 Olds 4dr with Hydramatic. Today, that car would be worth its weight
in gold. Sigh. :-(
Dick
Russell Watson
Not only were the good old guns (Thompasons, BARs, etc.) depicted in
the film, but they even show a bit of "gun tech" when Dillinger takes
his faulty Thompson to an underworld armorer to have it tweaked.
Unfortunately the history ends up as bullet-riddled as some of the
corpses, which is a shame because the truth is more exciting than the
fiction where a lot of this stuff is concerned. The final shootout of
Baby Face Nelson in particular was a much more exhilerating affair in
real life than what is in the movie, but then again it wasn't about
him and Dillinger's own end was actually pretty anti-climactic by
comparison so I can understand why they "re-wrote" history to some
extent.