Rating: 
The soundtrack is good. The locations and period cars are great. Unfortunately, the dialogue is dull, and is not helped by the performance of the actors. Basically, I enjoyed the movie whenever no one was talking. Um, the best that I can say is that it is not horrible. At least, its weaknesses can be blamed on a low budget and a cast of amateurs, unlike far too many big-budget spectacles that are hard viewing. Read More…
A podcast on the Public Enemy Era (1933-1934). Read More…
A page listing all of the essays, timelines and movie reviews on the Public Enemy Era (1933-1935). Read More…
Rating:
The story of Pretty Boy Floyd, a bank robber during the Public Enemies Era (1933-1935) is relatively accurate but boring.The soundtrack is great, the acting is not. Despite a stern law and order message, the movie is almost camp, but it is too serious to be fun.
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When outlaws like the Barker-Karpis Gang, the Clyde Barrow Gang, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd began to attract national attention in 1933, the FBI was an under-funded, amateurish organization. A series of celebrity kidnappings and the massacre of four law enforcement officials in Kansas City in June 1933 led to calls for a national police force, and the FBI would lead the war on crime. In 1934, the many bank robbers would be divided into five nice, clear groups: the family of kidnappers, the lovers on the run, the charming escape artist, the psychotic killer and the misunderstood country boy. A year later, almost none of them were still alive and the FBI was a national institution.
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Charley “Pretty Boy” Floyd (February 3, 1904-October 22, 1934) grew up on a farm in Oklahoma. Tiring of the harsh existence and drudgery of farming, he left his wife and newborn son at home and looked for better employment opportunities outside the state. Robbing a bank, he was arrested after flashing around money, and spent three and a half years in prison, where he learned the science of robbing banks. After his release, he partnered with George Birdwell to rob numerous banks in Oklahoma until Birdwell died during a shootout in November 1932. Floyd had become notorious in Oklahoma, but was still able to make frequent visits to his family. However, he attracted national attention when it was learned that he had arrived in Kansas City the evening before the Kansas City Massacre, a failed attempt to rescue bank robber Frank Nash, which left four lawmen and Nash dead, on June 17, 1933. Hoping to wait out the attention, Floyd hid for a year in Buffalo, New York. When the FBI announced on October 11, 1934 that he was considered a major suspect, Floyd tried to reach the safety of his family in Oklahoma, but was fatally wounded trying to escape a group of FBI agents and local police officers in East Liverpool, Ohio on October 22, 1934.
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Rating: 
Public Enemies is a fast-paced, flashy look at the brief period in the early 1930s when outlaws roamed the mid-Western United States, robbing banks at will. Read More…
Rating:
The great cast of character actors and exciting shootouts make up for the jumbled history and glorification of the FBI in Dillinger (1973). Read More…