"It's not about the movies"

"Manhattan Melodrama" (1934), directed by George Cukor

It was a night I’ll never forget, July 22, 1934. 

I was working as a movie stringer for the local Hearst paper in Chicago. 

The day started off innocently enough, with a call from my old friend John Dillinger.  Johnny poured out his heart to me.  He had been on the run for the last few months trying to stay one step ahead of the FBI and it’s top G-man, Melvin Purvis.  He was tired of the whole “Public Enemy # 1” notoriety and the lifestyle that was necessitated by it. 

“Jess, I’ve had it,” he said.  “Purvis and Hoover are obsessed and I’m sick and tired of looking over my shoulder.  I want to run a little gag on them just for the sake of my own sanity.  I need your help.”  “Sure, Johnny, anything you want,” I said.  “You got my mother off the streets and for that I will be eternally grateful.  What can I do for ya, toots?”

He told me that his sources had uncovered a plan to collar him.  It was going down tonight at the Biograph theater. The Feds had enlisted the help of a former hooker named Anna Sage.  She was supposed to accompany Johnny to the theater tonight. During the movie, the cops were going to set up their trap to make the big catch as soon as they exited the theater.  Sage was going to wear a red dress so she could be easily spotted.  Unbeknownst to Purvis and his men, Sage had revealed the whole plan to Johnny…and that was where I was supposed to come in.

I gave Jimmy “Porterhouse” Lawrence a call.  He was a pathetic little cheapskate hood.  His got his nickname from a peculiar little habit of his.  He liked to wear a pair of shoes until they were just about falling apart.  When they got holes in the soles, he would slip a thin piece of overcooked steak in the shoe and that way he would be able to get another few days of wear out of them.  The dogs in his neighborhood loved him.  I asked him to join Sage and me at the Biograph tonight and I hinted at some extracurricular activities we had planned.  Jimmy, the sad little dim-bulb that he was, immediately accepted.  I swear I could hear the saliva forming at the edges of his mouth right through the phone wires.

Anyway, Jimmy bore a passing resemblance to Johnny.  The plan was that Jimmy would attend the movie with Sage and me.  Everything would play out according to the Fed’s plan.  The only difference would be that the fish they reeled in would be well under the limit they expected to catch.  Elaborate a plan as this was, it was worth it to Johnny.  He just loved to thumb his nose at the authorities.

Eight o’ clock rolled around and Jimmy showed up right on time.  He was dressed to his version of the nines (actually, his wardrobe rated closer to 4 or 5 that evening).  The important thing was that he was wearing a hat.  That would add some camouflage and help pull off the gag.

The three of us took our seats and the movie began.  I’m not sure what Purvis and his men had hoped to accomplish that night.  They telegraphed their every move.  They even had guys walking the aisles during the movie.  They had sorely underestimated Johnny’s intelligence.  That would make the outcome that much more flavorful.

The movie ended.  It wasn’t very good, by the way.  William Powell and Myrna Loy have absolutely no on-screen chemistry.  I would be very surprised if I ever saw them appearing again in a movie together.

As we left the theater, Sage and I bookended Jimmy to help keep our little ruse going until the very last minute.  Purvis walked up to us nonchalantly and said, “The jig’s up, Johnny.”  No one was prepared for what happened next.

Jimmy bolted down the street.  The G-men followed in hot pursuit.  He ducked down an alley and the next thing I knew, a number of shots rang out.  I rushed to the scene only to find poor Jimmy face down in an ever-widening pool of blood.  Sage grabbed my arm and pulled me away.  She flagged down a cab and we high-tailed it out of there.

We hid out in a bar for a few hours before we decided to head our separate ways.  As I walked down the street to my apartment I could hear the call of the corner paperboy yelling out the headlines, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it.  Dillinger gunned down in front of the Biograph.  Extra! Extra!”  I snapped up a paper and read the story. 

I didn’t realize what was going on until the next day.  The papers were full of Hoover and Purvis slapping each other on their respective backs.  They must have known the truth but these were two guys that had taken a lot of grief from the press lately about their bumbling attempts to round up Johnny and his gang.  According to them, “Public Enemy # 1” had been killed and they were taking full credit for it.  It didn’t matter that the corpse’s eyes were brown and Johnny eyes were a piercing steel blue/gray or that the body sported scars from surgeries that Johnny had never undergone.  And, oh yeah, no one made any mention about the wad of dried beef sticking out of one of the corpse’s shoes either.

A week or so later I received a collect call from California.  It was Johnny.  He told me he had decided to take advantage of his good luck and hang up his guns.  He had enough money stashed away that he could start a new life in the land of sunshine and orange groves.  I wished him luck and that was the last I ever heard from him.  I saw an article in a magazine about 20 years later.  It was about a new trend that was starting out on the coast.  They were calling it “fast food”.  The article featured pictures of some of the major players.  One of the guys looked like a southern gentleman with white hair and a beard.  I also noticed that he had a pair of the most piercing steel blue/gray eyes that I had ever seen.

Movie rating:  Movie?  What movie?