Young Dillinger (1965)

Interesting facts

Young Dillinger is a 1965 gangster film directed by Terry O. Morse. It stars Nick Adams as the notorious criminal John Dillinger, and co-stars Robert Conrad, John Ashley and Mary Ann Mobley.

Production

The film was shot at Goldwyn Studios starting in November 1964. Al Zimbalist said he didn't want to glamourise the gangsters. "We just wanted to tell the story how three young men went wrong in hopes no other young people would make the same mistakes they made", he said.

Shot cheaply in 17 days without period costumes, Robert Conrad recalled that he only did the film to repay a favor to his friend Nick Adams. He says the film had "no budget" so "everyone had to do their own stunts" but it was during filming that he successfully auditioned for Wild Wild West.

John Ashley says the film "was basically all of (producer) Al Zimbalist's footage of machine guns and crashing cars from Baby Face Nelson (1957)."

Ashley added that the film "may have been the most fun of everything I ever did. At the time all three of us [Adams, Conrad and himself] were divorced. We were all living up in Nick's house. This film came along through Allied Artists. They actually approached Nick, and Nick said 'You should go see about getting John and Bobby'. We all agreed to it and we basically rewrote it.

During filming, the management of Allied Artists were engaged in a proxy fight with rebellious shareholders.

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