Baby Face Nelson (film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Baby Face Nelson is a 1957 film noir crime film based on the real-life 1930s gangster, directed by Don Siegel, co-written by Daniel Mainwaring—who also wrote the screenplay for Siegel's 1956 sci-fi thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers—and starring Mickey Rooney, Carolyn Jones, Cedric Hardwicke, Leo Gordon as Dillinger, Anthony Caruso, Jack Elam, John Hoyt and Elisha Cook Jr.
Plot
Chicago mob boss Rocca manages to get Lester Gillis sprung from jail in Joliet. His motive is to have Gillis kill a labor organizer, but Gillis refuses, preferring to work with Rocca's gang on robberies instead. He meets mob moll Sue Nelson and they start a relationship. He is relaxing, alone in his hotel room, when cops burst in, finding a gun Rocca has planted to frame Gillis for the labor leader's murder. Gillis vows revenge, escapes from the cops with Sue's help, then guns down Rocca and two henchmen. He adopts Sue's surname as an alias.
In a holdup at a pharmacy, Gillis is winged by a gunshot. He goes to Doc Saunders (Cedric Hardwicke), whose patients include America's most wanted criminal, John Dillinger (portrayed by Leo Gordon). Acquiring a nickname, "Baby Face Nelson", a grateful Gillis joins up with Dillinger and quickly becomes the FBI's second most wanted man.
The ruthless Baby Face goes on a shooting spree, even killing innocent motorists just to steal a car. He doesn't like playing second fiddle to Dillinger, but after the arch-criminal is shot in Chicago, it becomes Baby Face's turn to be public enemy number one. He commits multiple murders, even killing Doc in a fit of anger, and frightens Sue by placing a rifle sight on children.
Trapped by a roadblock, Baby Face flees on foot and is shot several times. Stumbling to a graveyard, he pleads with Sue at first, then taunts her, to put him out of his misery, and she does.
Cast
- Mickey Rooney as Lester M. 'Baby Face Nelson' Gillis
- Carolyn Jones as Sue Nelson
- Cedric Hardwicke as Doc Saunders
- Leo Gordon as John Dillinger
- Anthony Caruso as John Hamilton
- Jack Elam as Fatso Nagel
- John Hoyt as Samuel Parker
- Ted de Corsia as Rocca
- Elisha Cook, Jr. as Homer Van Meter
- Robert Osterloh as FBI Agent Johnson
- Thayer David as Connelly
- Dabbs Greer as FBI Agent Charles Bonner
- George E. Stone as Mr. Hall – Bank Manager
- Lisa Davis as Ann Saper – the Lady in Red
- Emile Meyer as Mac – Detective
- Dan Terranova as Miller
- Murray Alper as Alex – Bank Guard
- Harry Antrim as Pharmacist
- Tom Fadden as Postman Harkins
- Duke Mitchell as Solly – Pool Hall Attendant
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