Koon,+Alexis

Lexi Koon IB History Year Two Historical Investigation

The purpose of this investigation is to examine the extent the movie “Public Enemies” is true depiction of John Dillinger’s criminal life. The analysis will be limited to Dillinger’s criminal history beginning in 1933 (which is where the movie begins) and will culminate with his death in 1934. The main portion of the investigation will be explored through the comparison of the movie with the book Public Enemies on which the movie was based. These two sources will be evaluated according to their origins, purposes, values, and limitations. Other evidence will also be gathered by a series biographies about John Dillinger. A conclusion will be reached regarding the extent to which the movie "Public Enemies" is a true depiction of John Dillinger's criminal life.
 * A: Plan of Investigation**
 * Word Count: 124**


 * B: Summary of Evidence**
 * Word Count: 817**

Public Enemies: Movie
The movie, Public Enemies, opens in the fourth year of the Great Depression and John Dillinger is being sent to the Indiana State Penitentiary in Michigan City, Indiana.1 With the help of some smuggled guns and other prisoners, Dillinger is able to escape. Dillinger then travels to Chicago with his gang. Once in Chicago, Dillinger and his gang rob a bank. The movie shifts to the FBI and Hoover, and how they declared a war on crime.2 The focus then shifts back to Dillinger as he meets his love interest, Billie Frechette. The next portion of the movie is spent on Dillinger and Billie together, as they fall deeper in love. Billie is dragged into Dillinger’s criminal life, and Dillinger continues robbing banks. But Dillinger is soon arrested and the FBI moves him to an Indiana prison.3 Not long after he arrives, Dillinger is able to escape yet again. Dillinger is on the run now traveling from place to place throughout the Midwest, but feels very protective of Billie. He constantly is making sure that she is okay. There is an emphasis of how the American public views Dillinger as a hero, not a villain continues throughout the movie. Still on the move, Dillinger and his gang finally settle in Mantowish, Wisconsin in a remote house.4 But, the FBI find out where they are staying and quickly travel to the house. The FBI finds the gang and is able to kill everyone except for Dillinger, who escapes. The FBI has also arrested Billie. The FBI decides to trap Dillinger to kill him. They hire Anna Sage, one of Dillinger’s friends that he is staying with to complete this task. Dillinger decides to take Anna and her daughter Polly Hamilton to the movies that night. Anna contacts the FBI, and the FBI plan to go there and kill him.5 The FBI wait outside of the theater until the movie lets out, and once Dillinger is in sight the FBI shoot Dillinger and he dies there on the sidewalk.6

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The book, Public Enemies, starts its focus on John Dillinger in June 1933.7 Dillinger starts out his criminal life small by robbing grocery stores and drugstores.8 But, he then wanted to accelerate his crime spree, and so he started robbing banks.9 Dillinger went unnoticed for a while because there were other various criminals in America including: Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd. Dillinger’s career soon kicked off by him and other prisoners smuggling in guns and escaping from an Indiana prison.10 Dillinger spent his criminal life traveling from bank to bank throughout the Midwest and collecting large amounts of money, and keeping away from being caught by the FBI. 11 Dillinger meets during his crime spree his love interest, Billie Frechette. The two of them travel to Chicago together until Dillinger is arrested. He soon escapes an Indiana prison once again and is on the run.12 Dillinger and his gang remain on the loose until they travel to Mantowish, Wisconsin, where the FBI, except for Dillinger who escapes, again kills all the gang members.13 Dillinger travels back to Chicago and stays with Billie. But, Billie is left alone trying to help Dillinger, and she is arrested and taken into custody by the FBI.14 The FBI contacts a friend of John Dillinger’s, Anna Sage, who lives with Dillinger.15 Anna agrees to trap Dillinger to get him arrested and killed.16 Also, she told the FBI she would notify them when Dillinger would take her out on the town.17 Later, Dillinger tells Anna that he wants to take Anna and her daughter Polly Hamilton to the movies.19 Anna calls the FBI that day and tells them when and where they will be at the movies. That night, July 22, 1934, after the movie was let out, the FBI spot Dillinger and shoot and kill him on the spot.20 Four bullets hit Dillinger, and he was killed immediately.21======

Other biographies: There are others books that are biographies of John Dillinger. For example, John Dillinger by Dary Matera. Matera was able to write this book by the newly discovered personal archives of John Dillinger. The book starts at the birth of John Dillinger and ends with his death and funeral.22 Each chapter of the book is placed in chronological order in years. The chapters give a vivid detail of conversations, and events that match up to what was done and said in the Public Enemies book and movie. Another biography is Dillinger’s Wild Ride by Elliott J. Gorn. This book starts at the beginning of John Dilligner’s criminal wave in 1933. The chapters deeply explain Dillinger’s life through his various crime sprees by robbing banks. It also explains Dillinger’s relationship with Billie Frechette. Each biography goes into detail about every experience in Dillinger’s life, they both explain where he traveled to and the encounters he had with the law.


 * Section C: Evaluation of Sources**
 * Word Count: 388**

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The origin of this source, Public Enemies the movie, is that Michael Mann directed the movie in 2008. The purpose of the movie was to recreate the book called Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34. The author of the book, Bryan Burrough agreed and after the book was released Michael Mann would buy the rights of the book. The limitation of the movie is its preciseness. About the screenplay, Burrough has said, "it's not 100 percent historically accurate. But it's by far the closest thing to fact Hollywood has attempted, and for that I am both excited and quietly relieved."23 The value of this source is that although some aspects of the film are not correct, during the actual filming of the movie, they went to some of the exact locations where Dillinger had been imprisoned, or had stayed. Burrough said also “[Mann] will film at the actual Little Bohemia lodge in northern Wisconsin where Dillinger, in his most famous gunfight, shot it out with the F.B.I. And at the real Crown Point jail in Indiana where Dillinger staged his most famous escape.”24 Mann did all he could to recreate the life of John Dillinger and the other important accomplices.======


 * Burrough, Bryan. //Public Enemies//. 2005. London: Penguin, 2009. Print.**

The origin of this source, Public Enemies the book, is that it was written by Bryan Burrough about the crime wave that occurred during the Great Depression in 2005. The purpose was to recreate the criminal lives of Bonnie and Clyde, "Baby Face" Nelson, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, the Karpis-Barker gang, John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, and many others so the public could truly understand their lives. The value of this is source is that Burrough was able to go into the FBI files for each of these criminals and piece together all accounts that had ever been reported which raised the overall value of the book. These files included conversations between citizens and the criminals, to the actual crimes that they had committed. But, because this book focuses on more than one criminal of the Depression era, the information about John Dillinger is limited because only a few pages for each chapter focus on Dillinger and this is a limitation of the source.


 * Section D: Analysis**
 * Word Count: 638**

One of main purpose of action and drama movies is to be a source of entertainment. And the entertainment aspect of “Public Enemies” is what made this move thrive, not just because of its historical content. Not every movie can be a replica of what happened in history. Many things are changed and sometimes twisted to make the movie as appealing to the people as possible. In “Public Enemies” the movie, Michael Mann, the director and producer, tried his best to take what happened in the book “Public Enemies” and put it into the movie. He even stated that it was not 100% accurate, but they did go to some of the exact locations in which John Dillinger committed some of his crimes. Michael Mann in creating the movie “Public Enemies” decided to just focus the movie around John Dillinger. Many of the aspects in the movie were correct details that were stated in the book. The book and movie both talk about the incident at the Indiana State Penitentiary. Dillinger was able to smuggle guns into the prison and successfully break out. Another similarity was the love interest of John Dillinger, Billie Frechette. In the movie and book, Bille played a large role in helping John Dillinger escape and she helped with transporting him from place to place. The book and movie also focus a large portion of the incident in Mantowish, Wisconsin. This was when many members of John Dillinger’s gang, including John, traveled to a remote place in the country to escape from the FBI and police. Numerous member of the Dillinger’s gang were killed and John was able to escape. One big theme that runs through both the movie and book is the fact that John Dillinger was able to escape from everything. The police and FBI were looked down upon during this time and not really trusted. It seems that only the really “big” events were able to make it into the movie. And this makes sense from a movie point of view because you want to maintain the viewers interest throughout the movie and not have boring parts. The book goes into great detail about every one of John Dillinger’s criminal actions which include every bank robbery, and other various crimes committed. The movie left out many of the “smaller” crimes that did not stir up that much attention. Another big difference, was the fact that the movie focused on just John Dillinger’s life, while the book talks about countless criminals that were around the same time as Dillinger in the Great Depression. The movie has two scenes that have to do with other criminals but they do not tie into the rest of the movie. But, in the book there was much more information about John Dillinger than there was about any other criminal. In the movie, there was a focus on how the American public viewed John Dillinger as more of a hero than a criminal. There was nothing about that in the book though. America was going through a rough time and the people did not seem to be bothered by the crimes, and Dillinger was nice to the American public. There is never going to be a movie that accurately depicts a period in history by every detail. It would be very hard to achieve this goal and have the entertainment side of it. The movie “Public Enemies” did its best to get the most historical information in it as possible. But, because of length of the book and the amount of information in the book, it was not possible to fit everything into a two to three hour movie. Michael Mann was able to pick out the most significant scenes and make those as accurate as possible by going to the exact site where they happened.


 * Section E: Conclusion**
 * Word Count: 84**

The movie “Public Enemies” is not an exact depiction of John Dillinger’s criminal life. It is not possible to have fit criminal action that John Dillinger did during that time frame into the movie, there is just too much detail and time. Though, the scenes in the movie are historically accurate, and even some of them were even shot at the exact location where John Dillinger was. The movie is as accurate as it could have been given the circumstances and the resources available.


 * Section F: Sources and Word Count**

Word Count: 2,051

Burrough, Bryan. "Bryan Burrough: Behind the Book, Not the Camera." Vanity Fair 7 Mar. 2008: n. pag. Web. 28 Apr. 2010. . - - -. Public Enemies. 2005. London: Penguin, 2009. Print. Cannon, Bob. "Public Enemies." Rev. of Public Enemies. Entertainment Weekly. CNN, 2010. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. . "John Dilligner Biography." The Biography Channel. N.p., 2010. Web. 6 Sept. 2010. . Matera, Dary. John Dillinger. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004. Print. Public Enemies. Michael Mann. 2009. Universal Pictures. DVD.

End Notes 1 //Public Enemies. Michael Mann. 2009. Universal Pictures. DVD.// 2 Ibid 3 Ibid 4 Ibid 5 Ibid 6 Ibid 7 Burrough, Bryan. //Public Enemies//. 2005. London: Penguin, 2009. Print. 8 Ibid 9 Ibid 10 Ibid 11 Ibid 12 Ibid 13 Ibid 14 Ibid 15 Ibid 16 Ibid 17 Ibid 18 Ibid 19 Ibid 20 Ibid 21 Ibid 22 Matera, Dary. //John Dillinger//. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004. Print. 23 Burrough, Bryan. "Bryan Burrough: Behind the Book, Not the Camera." Vanity Fair 7 Mar. 2008: n. pag. Web. 28 Apr. 2010. .