Doug Moe: Dillinger episode here might have Depp appeal
BARABOO IS buzzing with the news that a big-budget movie, starring Johnny Depp and directed by UW-Madison graduate Michael Mann, may film in the city. The movie is about 1930s gangster John Dillinger, who used to wind down from the stress of robbing banks and killing people by relaxing at a northern Wisconsin resort known as Little Bohemia.
If it happens -- and it's always a big if until the cameras start rolling -- it will not be the Baraboo area's first big-screen appearance. The 1994 movie "I Love Trouble" shot both in downtown Madison and Baraboo. It starred Nick Nolte and Julia Roberts as competing Chicago reporters, and it proved to be as dumb as its title. I remember John Roach saying "I Love Trouble" sounds like a movie that should have a talking Volkswagen in it.
The Madison scene involved a car (in a nonspeaking role) trying to run over Nick and Julia on King Street as they came out of a restaurant. The Baraboo area scene included Roberts' character swimming in Devils Lake, and the rumors started flying that she was skinny-dipping. The state Tourism Division publicly refuted the claim. A spokesperson said: "At no time was either Julia or her stand-in nude."
It was around this time that Roberts gave an interview to Entertainment Weekly and said: "I get the worst locations ever."
The Depp/Mann film -- titled "Public Enemies" -- is reportedly eying the Baraboo National Bank as the scene of a Dillinger robbery.
I have a humble suggestion for the filmmakers, an idea that would, as was the case with "I Love Trouble," bring them not only to Baraboo but also to Madison.
One of the more entertaining episodes of the Dillinger gang's Midwest rampage of 1933-34 came in April 1934 when federal authorities raided Little Bohemia. Dillinger and his gang escaped after an extended gun battle, but the feds busted three women who were traveling with the gang.
The authorities brought the women to Madison, which put the city in a total tizzy. It was bigger than Julia Roberts swimming nude. I think Michael Mann might want to include it as a way to get some women into the cast of the new movie.
The front page, top line Capital Times headline from April 25, 1934, screamed: "'Molls' Under $150,000 Bail." The secondary headline read: "Dillinger Girls Camera Shy -- Hide Pretty Faces From Photographers."
The three women -- Marie Conforti, Jean Crompton and Helen Gillis (Gillis was married to Dillinger accomplice "Baby Face" Nelson) -- wound up spending a month in the Dane County Jail, which made Madison officialdom highly nervous. The City Council voted to spend $2,000 on machine guns to defend the jail against an attempt by Dillinger to break them out, which never came.
On May 26, the three woman pleaded guilty to harboring the gang and were given a suspended sentence by Federal Judge Patrick Stone.
On their release, a Capital Times reporter, Selma Sable Parker, wife of the paper's hard-nosed city editor, Cedric Parker, caught up with the women and filed the following report: "Turn a woman loose, and she's bound to go shopping! The Dillinger girls proved that when they spent their first free hours in Madison buying hats, shoes, bags and perfume for their trip to Chicago on the train." The molls bought Parker a potato salad lunch and one of them told her: "Everybody in Madison has been very nice to us, except the federal men, and you really can't blame them."
It would make a nice scene in the new movie, if the new movie happens, and if it happens in Wisconsin. According to the show business paper Variety, Depp and Mann shook on the deal earlier this month. That same story said filming would begin March 10 in Chicago.
Wisconsin locations would make sense in that case. But anything in a movie is subject to change. A few years ago, Chris Kerwin, the longtime Monroe Street antique retailer, had the director Steven Soderbergh in her new shop in Woodstock, Ill. Soderbergh thought he might use the shop in "Oceans 12," but in the end, he didn't. Maybe Kerwin could get another shot with "Public Enemies." I wonder how John Dillinger felt about antiques.
Heard something Moe should know? Call 252-6446, write P.O. Box 8060, Madison, WI 53708, or e-mail dmoe@madison.com
