Public Enemies

[scotrace]

Good Grief.

I like the movie more as I am away from it.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Topic

, y'all?


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[Ghostsoldier]

Incidentally, I liked the movie's Texan characters very much. They had more 'gravitas' than just about anyone else in the film; I wish they had been featured even more.

SA Charles Winstead (as played by Stephen Lang) was quite the interesting character...check out his "memoirs"...

http://historicalgmen.squarespace.com/sa-charles-winstead-memoirs/

Rob

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Great stuff there. Thanks!

.

 

[Atticus Finch]

Just as a bit of useless trivia, "y'all" is the singular and "all y'all" is the plural.

Cheers!

Dan

The way the term is used here, "y'all" is the plural, as in, "Hey Billie and Sammie, did y'all see the size of that big-assed bear?"

"All y'all" is the plural command form, as in, "All Y'all come on over here so we can get our picture made together."

AF

 

[Lenore]

Good Grief.

I like the movie more as I am away from it.

I found this to be true of several movies based on truth or on books. I've come away from the theater unhappy because they've either changed the story to suit moviegoer appeal, or left out vital information pertinent to the subject. It took me several years to teach myself to go into a movie with limited expectations. The less expectations you have, the less disappointment you feel and the more you can enjoy the movie for what it's supposed to be. Entertainment. I don't think any of us purchase a movie ticket seriously thinking "I'm going to learn sooo much about _____."

 

[kuwisdelu]

Incidentally, I liked the movie's Texan characters very much. They had more 'gravitas' than just about anyone else in the film; I wish they had been featured even more.

The portrayal of Winstead was great.

 

[Mr. 'H']

I loved Stephen Lang in this. He is very memorable. :eusa_clap

Co-incidentally, Gods and Generals is on TCM now....

 

[Mr. 'H']

Incidentally, I liked the movie's Texan characters very much. They had more 'gravitas' than just about anyone else in the film; I wish they had been featured even more.

So did I.

By the way, Don Frye is an MMA star, he was also in Mann's "Miami Vice".

I'm a Mann fan....

 

[up196]

I have to agree

Well, we went and saw it again, and I thought it was even better the second time.

As I stated previously, I had read the book some time prior to my first viewing, saw the movie, and then brushed up on the book and got a good understanding of which events were merged, flipped in sequence and so on, for dramatic effect.

I went back and saw it today and I, too, enjoyed it better than the first time, keeping in mind that the changes were made to make a cinematic release out of enough material for a mini-series.

Having brushed up on the book, I caught little details that weren't overt, such as the hints at the real gang's planning of their jobs. For instance, when the question is asked about how far the farmhouse is from Michigan City Penitentary, the answer is a definate "2.2 miles." Likewise when the driver in the get-away car watches the time before he pulls around to the front of the bank. All choreographed.

Now on the the train station. As best as I could tell, it is the shoeshine stand operator who says something like "How're ya' doin?" This has been the topic of much discussion here, so please allow me to add my thoughts from the viewpoint of a southern lawman with a lot of experience around train stations, both now and as a child growing up during segregation in New Orleans.

I did not find the quote unusual at all. Winstead was a customer, and the conversation that I expected to hear was interrupted by the arrival of Purvis. As a child, my mother and I would go to pick my father up at Union Station in New Orleans when he came in (he was a locomotive engineer for the Texas & Pacific). I can remember the station being segregated, with separate waiting areas, but I also remember the African-American employees that worked in both areas. I usually wanted ice cream or to go stand out by the doorway to watch the trains back in, and one of the Red Caps, I don't know his name but we saw him there every time, would always side with me and tell my mother she should feed a growing boy or let me come stand with him. It appeared to me to be good-natured banter and no offense was taken.

I also remember going to the A&G Cafeteria. After you went through the line and made your selections, there was a staff of African-American gentlemen who would carry your tray to the table and set your food out for you. The conversation almost always began with "How are you doing today" and went on with assorted small talk. Again, just banter, no offense or anger.

Those two situations came to mind when that scene began, but, like I said, the small talk got cut short.

Now from a lawman's point of view, I have learned over the last 29 years to be cordial and polite to everyone unless the situation demands otherwise. I'm sure S/A Winstead had learned that, too, and knew that being pleasant with the shoeshine stand man would pay dividends if he needed to know if anyone who looked like the guy in Dillinger's photograph ever got his shoes shined there. But then, that conversation got cut short, too, by Purvis.

 

[Tomasso]

Topic

, y'all?


.

 

[DanielJones]

Topic

, y'all?


.

Avalanche! Sorry, I only brought it up in jest.

Anyway, on to the bits of the film. Like I said before I the distraction for me was the cinematography of the Little Bohemia shootout & the News Conference in the jail. It had the look & feel of a made for television fake news broadcast. With the over lighting from too many sources & the hand held cam. I presume they were trying to portray the chaos of the moment but it felt too much like someone stumbled in on the scene with their personal camcorder. Basically the shoot out in the History Channel documentary of Little Bohemia seemed grittier.
Other than that I found it enjoyable, cliches & all. I went in without any expectations of what I thought it was going to be so I wasn't let down.
For me the fun parts were the Tommy Guns at night. Man, what a ball of fire those things put out. I'm surprised that anyone firing one of those wasn't blinded with spots at night after the first two bursts. No wonder there was mayhem at Little Bohemia.

Cheers!

Dan

 

[Big Man]

... Now on the the train station. As best as I could tell, it is the shoeshine stand operator who says something like "How're ya' doin?" This has been the topic of much discussion here, so please allow me to add my thoughts ...

Very well said. The interactions you describe from your youth mirror those I grew up with. I believe the comments/views of some on this subject stem from their own preconceived racial and regional stereotypes.

 

[texasgirl]

Great insights up196! Thanks

For those of you interested in the HD aspects of the film, HD Video Pro magazine has an interesting article of the behind the scenes filming.

http://www.hdvideopro.com/

 

[Edward]

I saw this movie, and enjoyed it very much. Was it the best movie ever mae? No. Was it the most historically accurate piece ever made? No..... but that said, I think we've been spoiled over the past decade. Look back at a lot of the now-classics - thed war movies, movies set in the thirties, and whatnot, mae in the sixties and seventies. In so many of them, the period details were, frankly, awful: sixties haircuts being the most glaring sin. The overall standard has been so upped now that I think sometimes maybe we expect more than maybe we should.....

I loved Depp's clothes, FWIW....... and this film has finally convinced me to consider giving a boater a go as well - albeit only with black tie....

The scene with Johnny Depp entering the Chicago Police Department offices was to me, well, a bit unbelievable.

I'd love to know if that's based on reality. I don't know Dillinger's history well enough to know if that happened.... I didn't find it especially unbelievable, but then one of my pet historical eras is Ireland during the Michael Collins era, and the Big Fella did indeed brazenly walk into Dublin Castle (centre of the British ocupation at the time) and have a root through the records!

The older I get the more actors mumble. Hmmmm.

lol I think that's on a par with the clothes of mine that seem to shrink from sitting in the wardrobe...

* Hollywood cliches like "I take the banks' money, not the people's" well the money 'is' the people's...(I think I was getting disillusioned by this point, as it's such a minor thing!! [huh] ).

I did wonder again whether this was based on historical fact - did Dillinger make that distinction? It doesn't seem unrealistic to me, though, that so many people would see the "banks' money" as somehow different than their own. Similar views abounded in the public reaction to the Great Train Robbers in 64, and even today, many oppose the bailout of the banks in the current crisis, saying they deserve to go under, yet not seeming to comprehend how it would affect all of us money-wise if they did.... Not to get into the politics here, just that, well, it seems to be human nature to make that sort of illogical distinction. Maybe we're just all culturally programmed to look for another Robin Hood - and what was he, if not a criminal and a thief, in the last instance?

I found Depp's earring hole a distraction. [huh]

lol

 

[texasgirl]

Edward, here are a couple of trivia items from imdb

• As incredible as it may seem, the scene where John Dillinger walks into the Chicago Police station and talks to police officers is based in fact. Dillinger was so cocky and sure of himself that he often would stop and chat with policemen and even act like a tourist and ask to take their pictures. He also used to call up his early adversaries, Indiana State Police Captain Matt Leach and Chicago Police Captain John Stege (Head of the "Dillinger Squad" where Dillinger wanders into the police station), and tease them about how they can't catch him.
  
• In the trailer Johnny Depp says to one of the bank customers, "We're here for the bank's money, not your money." This line was in a previous Michael Mann film. It was said by Robert De Niro in Heat (1995). In the finished film, this line is reversed to "We're not here for your money, we're here for the bank's."
  
• Not only was the line, "we're here for the bank's money, not yours" used in a previous Michael Mann film, but an almost identical phrase was heard in Arthur Penn's classic, Bonnie and Clyde (1967). In the latter, Clyde, upon seeing a pile of cash at a teller's window, asks the customer if that's his money or the bank's.

 

[carebear]

For me the fun parts were the Tommy Guns at night. Man, what a ball of fire those things put out. I'm surprised that anyone firing one of those wasn't blinded with spots at night after the first two bursts. No wonder there was mayhem at Little Bohemia.

It's my understanding (not owning a Thompson and not having shot the ones I have shot at night) that they actually don't produce much muzzle flash. The .45 ACP is pretty carefully designed to be optimized for the 5" barrel of the 1911 and wouldn't have much burning left to do at the end of the tommy gun's 11" bore.

As for the "bank's money not your money", at the time some states did have deposit insurance laws, the Feds did act to guarantee most deposits with Treasury funds to prevent utter collapse, and the FDIC formally went into effect in Jan. of '34, so, for his later robberies anyway, most normal bank patrons would have had their money insured any number of ways.

Insured, in the end, by Federal tax dollars true, but most folks in '34 didn't pay Federal income taxes as they didn't have high enough net incomes.

 

[Corky]

Movie guns do NOT fire live ammo...

Movie guns do NOT fire live ammo in productions supervised by competent weapons masters or stunt co-ordinators.

It is my understanding that firing live ammo was done back in the 1930's, but current movie practice is for a prop weapon like the Thompson .45 submachine gun to have a device mounted in the barrel that shoots out a gas which is ignited by a pilot flame. The ignited gas generates a burst with enough light to be captured on film as a convincing illusion of gunfire.

I have seen and examined more than a few prop guns, and the majority are extremely realistic fakes which look and operate exactly like real ones, but can not chamber or fire real ammo.

No doubt a few real weapons make it to sets now and then with live ammo, but on a big budget production, why would any producer take the risk?

Consider the insurance problems that a production would face if live weapons were in use on a set. Live weapons are inherently dangerous.

And also, keep in mind what happened to Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee). While making "The Crow", the crew filmed a scene in which Lee's character was shot.

Because the movie's second unit team was running behind schedule, it was decided that dummy cartridges (cartridges that outwardly appear to be functional but contain no gunpowder or primer) would be made from real cartridges by pulling out the bullet, dumping out the gunpowder and reinserting the bullet. However, the team neglected to consider that the primer was still live and, if fired, could still produce enough force to push the bullet off the end of the cartridge. At some point prior to the fatal scene, the live primer on one of the constructed dummy rounds was discharged by persons unknown while in the pistol's chamber. It caused a squib load, in which the primer provided just enough force to push the bullet out of the cartridge and into the barrel of the revolver.

The malfunction went unnoticed by the crew, and the same gun was used again later to shoot the death scene, having been re-loaded with low-power black powder blanks. However, the squib load was still lodged in the barrel, and was propelled by the blank cartridge's explosion out of the barrel and into Lee's body. Although the bullet was traveling much slower than a normally fired bullet would be, the bullet's large size and the point-blank firing distance made it powerful enough to fatally wound Lee.

Citation: Brandon Lee's Death

 

[Les Gillis]

The blanks were made for Public Enemies by Joe Swanson Motion Picture blanks. He made them for Band of Brothers, Pacific War and Saving Private Ryan.

I fire his blanks out of a 28 Thompson on a fairly regular basis and they are considerably louder and have more flash than live ammo. Muzzle flash looks good on film.

Semiautomatic and fully automatic guns that have been blank adapted have the barrels plugged and if you fired a live round out of it the barrel is going to split apart. I've seen pictures; but never in person. There was an actor in the 80s on a TV spy show that held a .44 to his head and pulled the trigger the blast killed him. Blanks are very dangerous.

Les

 

[p51]

It's my understanding (not owning a Thompson and not having shot the ones I have shot at night) that they actually don't produce much muzzle flash.

I have never owned one but sure have shot a few of them with both live bullets and blanks. You’re right, live .45 caliber ball ammunition will not produce that kind of muzzle flash.
But the public thinks Tommy gun should shoot forth flames based on previous movies. And thus, they shall. So let it be done! I once talked with someone who worked on the weapons on the “Dick Tracy” movie. He swore that the blanks they were using were so powerful that restricted bores to build up gasses to blow back the bolts for full auto cycling weren’t even needed and that many of the guns functioned just fine without any drilled and tapped barrels. I can’t imagine what they must have been loading those blanks with if indeed that was the case. Go back and watch the ending, the muzzle flashes extend out at least two feet in many of those scenes!
I haven’t seen “Public Enemies” yet but plan to do so (been busy every weekend since it opened). The look of the images in the previews seem odd to me, like “Collateral” did with that ‘home movie video’ feel to some of the scenes. “Miami Vice” had a few scenes with that feel as well. I’m a Michael Mann fan but I think he never should have taken to video for his feature films the way he has. You cannot compare, for example, the night shots in “Heat” (shot on film) to those from his films shot on video for quality of the image.