Roger Corman is, of course, renowned as one of the leading purveyors of schlocky B-movie fare, particularly during the late 1950s when he first came to prominence. This was a guy who always knew how to bring in his movies under budget and how to make every nickel count. However, having just watched MACHINE-GUN KELLY, a true-life biopic of a Prohibition-era gangster, I have to say that I feel Corman's efforts were best suited to the horror and sci-fi genres.
The problem with MACHINE-GUN KELLY is that it just isn't very interesting. Despite the excitement inherent in the premise of having a bank robber as a film's leading character, this turns out to be a talky, staged and frankly dull affair in which the paucity of the budget is more than apparent. Sure, there are some decent sequences along the way, including a couple of exciting bank robberies and some interesting interludes with a big cat, but that's about it.
The focus of the film seems to be on characterisation, and in particular providing a character assassination of Kelly himself. He's portrayed as a guy who's an absolute coward when he doesn't have his gun in hand, and he ends up being manipulated by his associates and dames. Charles Bronson is great fun, of course, and it's nice to see him being more expressive than he would be in later years, but he has little to work with and long stretches of the film fall flat.
The problem with MACHINE-GUN KELLY is that it just isn't very interesting. Despite the excitement inherent in the premise of having a bank robber as a film's leading character, this turns out to be a talky, staged and frankly dull affair in which the paucity of the budget is more than apparent. Sure, there are some decent sequences along the way, including a couple of exciting bank robberies and some interesting interludes with a big cat, but that's about it.
The focus of the film seems to be on characterisation, and in particular providing a character assassination of Kelly himself. He's portrayed as a guy who's an absolute coward when he doesn't have his gun in hand, and he ends up being manipulated by his associates and dames. Charles Bronson is great fun, of course, and it's nice to see him being more expressive than he would be in later years, but he has little to work with and long stretches of the film fall flat.