I'd rather take this tour........
Posted on 07/02/2009 5:19:33 AM PDT by rellimpank
After watching the excellent new Johnny Depp movie "Public Enemies" -- the story of romanticized desperado John Dillinger's murder in Chicago with the help of the Outfit -- Wings and I realized something.
We were hungry. So we walked over to Volare, the fine Italian restaurant at Grand and St. Clair on Wednesday evening, where three amazing things happened:
1. We had the most superb sausage and peppers in the universe. The sausage was beyond tasty, the peppers perfectly cooked, the sauce to kill for.
2. A group of people came in, the women in red dresses, the men in 1930s gangster outfits, fedoras for the guys, the women with much cleavage, feathered hats, tiny veils, red lips.
It was a surprise party for Craig Alton, the fellow who runs Untouchable Tours, taking tourists to famous mob murder scenes, including where Dillinger fell facedown, near the Biograph Theater on Lincoln.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
The movie “Thief” mentioned in the article is great and so is the sound track.
1. He had an enormous ..., er, he was a bigger than life male member and part of his anatomy is in one of the Washington D.C.'s mall museums.
2. He was a modern day Robin Hood, often benefiting Great Depression poor with the proceeds he got from banks.
3. He was a great sculpture, expertly carving a pistol from a bar of soap to escape from jail (I know this is true).
4. He once bitch slapped Baby-Faced Nelson silly for making a run on his main squeeze.
5. He often personally telephoned J. Edgar Hoover just to taunt him over his exploits and failure to be nabbed....etc.
Chicago is so proud of their gangsters. It got one into the Whitehouse.
“Freelancers were entertaining, once. But freelancers cost too much. They get crushed.”
Hope from Hollywood that the Usurper in Chief will get his in the end? ;)
I can’t WAIT to see this film. A lot of it (the bank robberies, etc.) were filmed in a town about 30 miles north of us.
Of course, that’ll be the LAST film made in Wisconsin, as our ‘Esteamed’ (as in ‘steaming pile’) Governor has taken away any tax credits for movie-makers/businesses that make movies here.
Freelancers do cost too much!
Tuesday Weld? You betcha. :) Netflixed it. Gonna watch that oldie but goodie again.
An interesting time to produce a movie romanticizing Depression era gangsters.
Tangerine Dream did the soundtrack. Some of the best music ever in a movie.
Dillinger's gang were either of Scandinavian ancestry, or linked in a variety of ways to York and Lancaster counties Pennsylvania ~ the core farming area of the old New Sweden colony.
His wife's family name was HOVIS, not HOFIUS or HOFIOUS (mistakes made by paid professional geneaologists who didn't understand the history of that colony). Her brother also ran with Dillinger and there are remarkable stories about this man as well ~ married 5 times, and his sister 3, or maybe more. All of 'em were members of a congregation of "The Church of the First Born" near either Morgantown, IN or Martinsville, IN at the time. Beryl, his wife, ultimately died in childbirth rather than be attended by a physician. Family members still talk about it ~ that event kind of drove most of 'em out of the COTFB.
“...when the FBI ambushed him outside the theater they managed to kill a couple of civilians, too.”
Collateral damage. ;)
My wife's uncle the late Edward Schied was a Dayton, Ohio police detective in the 1930s. He and his partner arrested John Dillenger. I think Dillenger was sent to another jurisdiction and either was released or excaped. I do not know the exact date so it might have happened before he became “famous”. For sure it happened before Dillenger’s meeting with Agent Purvis. : )
Growing up in Indiana, my impression of John Dillenger was that he was the scum of the earth, sort of an embarrassment to the rest of us.
Maybe I grew up in a sheltered environment.
Folks in that neighborhood ~ particularly the several federal police officers (different agencies) all had the same relatives too.
I'd rather take this tour........
They already have tours of the White House ......Wonder when the movie of our Gangster-in-Chief is due???
Well photographed, doesn't deviate too far from history except for the timing of the death of a couple of the "gangsters" and really doesn't make any mention that the FBI got a couple of civilian "collateral" mistakes in "getting " Dillinger, at the little Bohemia shootout, IIRC--
***1. He had an enormous ..., er, he was a bigger than life male member and part of his anatomy is in one of the Washington D.C.’s mall museums.***
That question was asked the Playboy Advisor in Playboy Magazine back about 1967-69.
They said there was no truth to the story.
Thus proving that Will Rogers was right when he said that after the FBI kept killing civilians trying to get Dillinger that someday Dillinger would get himself mixed in with some innocent bystanders and then he'd really be in trouble.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.