Robert J. Maxwell Roger Corman, now past the age of 90, is to be congratulated for making movies on a shoestring. The guy was a master, and an educated one too -- engineering from Stanford. And an engaging actor too in small parts.That's not to say the movies he made were good. The Poe stories weren't Poe stories, just lurid tales in gaudy color with Vincent Price's mellifluous voice haunting the sound tracks.Corman joined the parade that was turning out gangster "biographies" around 1960. This one is not as good as Rod Steiger's "Capone" but no worse that Mickey Rooney as Baby Face Nelson.It's routine in every detail. The acting is pedestrian when it's not plain bad -- as in Susan Cabot's or Frank DeKova as an alcoholic gas station owner. Bronson was not yet the irresistible force for justice that he was to become, so he's still in his sinister mode -- sneering and insulting everyone.These insults are unexplainable. Everyone insults everyone else or at least teases them. Bronson never smiles except when Morey Amsterdam as a homosexual is humiliated. He's a pustule ready to pop. Yet his colleagues seem to enjoy taunting him, especially about his fear of death, even though they must KNOW he's going to deck them for it.It would have been nice if the dialog were in any way original but it lacks sparkle. There isn't a memorable line in the entire movie. And it would have been so easy -- "Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Machine Gun Kelly?" "I wish you was a wishin' well so's I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya." (Huh?) If Kelly really were like this, he must have been an unpleasant man.

trimmerb1234 This clearly is a budget movie yet it's quite professional, does entertain and interest. The interest is provided not so much by the action sequences which are fairly weak but by the characters - underworld but unlovely, unheroic and flawed. The kind of movie that would not make stars of its cast. Bronson does quite well - as well as he ever did - in the lead role. The rest of the cast is up to the job notably Fandango who clearly had star quality. The central idea that he was afraid of signs of death was rather crudely handled. Bronson was Bronson - a undoubted tough immobile face - not one to register fright or anxiety. Other movies would have had music, close ups and sharp editing to heighten the effect.For me the irksome thing was the visual aspect - cheap restricted interiors with flat lighting (a single general lighting set-up simply ensuring every part of the set was lit ie the shots were not preplanned and lit accordingly. Consequently there is little contrast and no deep shadows - as to be seen on live TV shows). Even the outdoor scene especially "the flats" were curiously nearly all mid grey and matt coloured. Also the cinematography - there are no memorable images. Well lit and shot movies provide images which can stand on their own as quality photographs.Worth comparing with the much superior "Asphalt Jungle".

bkoganbing For anyone who's looking for the real story of George 'Machine-Gun' Kelly they'll be in for a disappointment. In the wake of the success of The Untouchables on television, Hollywood was rediscovering the gangster era and the criminals that were household names in the Twenties and Thirties. Both the major studios and independents like Roger Corman took a crack at all their stories.Although Kelly in real life was as big a punk as Charles Bronson plays him here, this is not his real story by a mile. Still Bronson does a good job and in fact this was the first film in which he was given first billing. He turns out in the film to be very good at bullying people, but when in a fight for his life, does a begging act that hadn't seen a cinematic equal since James Cagney turned yellow going to the chair in Angels With Dirty Faces.The one with the real gonads in the outfit is his wife played by Susan Cabot. In fact Kelly is even intimidated by her mother, beautifully played by Connie Gilchrist as a bordello madam. She's a woman who's been handling his type for years.The most interesting character in the film is Morey Amsterdam playing the flamboyantly gay Fandango, Kelly mob member. This was a time when gay was practically invisible and only an independent producer/director like Roger Corman in 1958 would have had a gay character.Would that Amsterdam played a positive role model or that a positive role model was in the film to counterbalance. Amsterdam is very stereotypical and at that time there was no organized gay movement to protest. Over twenty years later there was a great hue and cry over the film Cruising and that would have been nothing had Machine-Gun Kelly come out then. Machine-Gun Kelly is far from the best work that either Roger Corman or Charles Bronson ever did. Still it might be of interest for the curious.Oh, and Kelly never utters those words he allegedly said about the FBI giving them their nickname of G-Men.

theowinthrop Let us get one thing straight. If you watch this movie to understand the story about the kidnapping of Oklahoma oil magnate Charlie Urchell in 1933 by George "Machine Gun" Kelly and his gang, you are going to be disappointed. The Urchell case made headlines across the nation that year because of the size of the ransom demand (over $100,000 - quite a sum in Depression America), and because in 1933 every kidnapping resurrected the hurt felt (at that time) that nobody had been arrested and made to pay for the kidnap murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. in March 1932. The newly revamped F.B.I. under J. Edgar Hoover went after the kidnappers, and actually captured Kelly and his gang (and Urchell was not hurt). But aside for one moment at the tail end of this movie where an F.B.I. man summarizes Kelly correctly (he calls him "Pop Gun" for his lack of real courage) this film is totally wrong about the story - it basically jettisons it.That isn't necessarily bad. Hoover and his men had a fairly simple time catching the inept Kelly. Here we are watching the rise and fall of a criminal legend, played well by Charles Bronson, and directed with some restraint by Roger Corman. We see that he is fixated on being a mean, violent man, who is trying to impress his girlfriend Flo (Susan Cabot). In reality Flo was able to manipulate George, and was whatever brains the organization actually had. But the role to watch in this film is that of Morey Amsterdam as Fandango. Amsterdam, a great one liner comic in the Henny Youngman tradition, is best recalled for his regular role as "Buddy Sorrell" in THE DICK VAN DYKE SHOW in the 1960s, especially when confronting his bete noir Richard Deacon as producer "Mel Cooley". Here he plays a petty criminal who is injured on the way up by Kelly, and helps bring him down. Given acceptance of Corman's production value limits and the script's, Amsterdam's Fandango is a really vicious character, and a welcome surprise to people who just recall the marvelous comic performer. For him and Bronson's performance I'll give this a "7".