input: Once again I have seen a movie made by people that know nothing. I just recently reviewed Baby Face Nelson. Now I've seen Dillinger and I've had it.

This movie is garbage. I don't know how anyone in their right mind could compare this to a classic like Bonnie and Clyde. This movie is far from a classic. Someone called it brilliant. That's an insane thing to say. This movie can't get any facts straight and it has the worst casting I've ever seen. I don't know whose dumb idea it was to cast Warren Oates as John Dillinger. First of all he looks nothing like him. Second of all, by the time John Dillinger was killed he was 31. When Oates made this he was 45! You could even tell that he's older than the real Dillinger just by looking at him. Not only was he too old, but so was Ben Johnson as Melvin Purvis.

They show Baby Face Nelson die, then Homer Van Meter, and finally John Dillinger. John Dillinger was killed before both of them. The last one to die out of the three was Baby Face Nelson. Not only do the writers not know when they died, but they also don't know how they died. Baby Face Nelson was not killed after he escaped from Little Bohemia in a robe. Homer Van Meter was not killed by farmers with shot guns. Homer Van Meter was cornered by the police in St. Paul and gunned down with machine guns. Another member of Dillinger's gang, Harry Pierpont is shown being shot by police in this movie. Pierpont wasn't shot. Harry Pierpont was captured and sentenced to die in the electric chair. I go into what happened to Baby Face Nelson on my Baby Face Nelson review so I'm not going to go into it again here. Let me also add that Richard Dreyfuss' portrayal of Baby Face Nelson is pathetic. There's a scene where he attacks Dillinger and then gets a bad beating. While Dillinger was beating him he was crying like a baby and screaming, "Leave me alone!" Baby Face Nelson and John Dillinger never fought. Maybe Dillinger didn't agree with Nelson's bank robbing methods, but they never fought. Nelson also never cried like a little girl while getting beaten. They keep calling him Lester "Baby Face" Nelson. He was never in his life known by that name. Nelson's real name was Lester Gillis and he changed his name to George Nelson. The black guy that escaped from jail with Dillinger was Herbert Youngblood, but in this movie he is known as Reed Youngblood. John Milius doesn't know anything. Where the hell did John Milius get his information? I could probably make a better movie than him.

Finally the way they showed John Dillinger die is outrageous and inexcusable. The movie shows Dillinger walk out of the Biograph with the Lady in Red and his girlfriend Billie Frechette. By the way, Billie Frechette wasn't even there that night. But a girl named Polly Hamilton was. Melvin Purvis yells, 'Johnny!' Dillinger pulls out his gun and is blown to hell. It is a proved fact that Dillinger did not have a gun that night. The FBI gave him no chance to surrender and as soon as he was in sight they blew him away. They didn't even have to shoot him. They were so close that powder burns were found on his face. It was murder. They also say that the man killed that night was not John Dillinger. After killing tons of civilians in the Little Bohemia incident can you imagine the FBI reporting that they had just killed another innocent unarmed man? The gun they had on display that was supposedly on Dillinger was also proved not to have been manufactured until after Dillinger's death. I could go on and on how the man they killed wasn't John Dillinger, but I'll stop here. If you would like to know more check it out here

See the Dillinger version with Lawrence Tierney if you want, but don't waste your time with this inaccurate piece of garbage movie.

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: A man brings his new wife to his home where his former wife died of an "accident". His new wife has just been released from an institution and is also VERY rich! All of the sudden she starts hearing noises and seeing skulls all over the place. Is she going crazy again or is the first wife coming back from the dead?

You've probably guessed the ending so I won't spell it out. I saw this many times on Saturday afternoon TV as a kid. Back then, I liked it but I WAS young. Seeing it now I realize how bad it is. It's horribly acted, badly written, very dull (even at an hour) and has a huge cast of FIVE people (one being the director)! Still it does have some good things about it.

The music is kinda creepy and the setting itself with the huge empty house and pond nearby is nicely atmospheric. There also are a few scary moments (I jumped a little when she saw the first skull) and a somewhat effective ending. All in all it's definitely NOT a good movie...but not a total disaster either. It does have a small cult following. I give it a 2.

Also try to avoid the Elite DVD Drive-in edition of it (it's paired with "Attack of the Giant Leeches"). It's in TERRIBLE shape with jumps and scratches all over. It didn't even look this bad on TV!

Is the sentiment of this review positive or negative?

pos/neg ans: negative

input: This murder mystery with musical numbers is long on atmosphere and character but rather short on suspense and plausibility. Based on a stage play by Broadway showman Earl Carroll and others, it combines a whodunit plot with a backstage ambiance (a homicide investigation takes place on opening night at the theatre where a musical revue is being staged).

The cast is impressive and varied: tough-goofy Victor McLaglen as the police officer who leads the investigation and never fails to leer idiotically at whatever showgirl happens to be in sight; Jack Oakie (the prewar Jack Lemmon or was Jack Lemmon the postwar Jack Oakie?) as the harassed director who must coordinate the staged performance as well as the chaos behind the scenes; the ever-homely Jessie Ralph as a wardrobe mistress with deep, dark secrets; Dorothy Stickney, who has a stunning close-up monologue near the end, as the tremulous maid madly in love with the male lead; Carl Brisson, the Danish star, as that very male lead, warbling the classic "Cocktails for Two" not once but twice; Kitty Carlisle, operatically delivering "Where Do They Come from and Where Do They Go" and other Johnston-Coslow songs; the glorious Gertrude Michael, who parted from us too soon, as a mean-spirited showgirl whose love for Brisson is spurned; the usually ridiculous Toby Wing who here at least is the center of a laugh-getting running joke.

When the plot complications get out of hand there is always an interesting performer or fun and tuneful musical number to distract the viewer. The film's most celebrated sequence is the "Marahuana" number, led by Michaels, but aside from its controversial history, it's really one of the lesser musical offerings. All of the songs here are staged as if they could actually have fit into a standard proscenium theatre space, as opposed to the cinematic fantasy setup of the Busby Berkeley style.

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pos/neg ans:
positive