The criminal career of bank robber John Dillinger dramatized, mythologized, and often fictionalized in this brisk B-flick. In his first lead role, long tall Lawrence Tierney gives one of his many memorable performances as a cold-blooded badass. He turns out to be the best thing about the film. Its most exciting sequence—an armored car robbery in the pouring rain—is swiped whole hog from Fritz Lang’s 1937 You Only Live Once. Cult favorite actor Elisha Cook, Jr. also shows up as a member of the Dillinger gang.
Somehow the slight screenplay by Philip Yordan got an Academy Award nomination.