The bargain-basement movie studio, Monogram Pictures, managed to crank out a tough, exciting action picture based (very loosely) on the life of John Dillinger and made a sensation out of its star, Laurence Tierney, who at one point turns to the audience and fires his gun (shades of the 1903 shocker, "The Great Train Robbery"). Looking into Tierney's cold, cruel eyes, we don't doubt he could have done it to us for real. "Dillinger" strains hard against its tiny budget, taking a lot of obvious short-cuts, including the liberal use of stock footage, but we nevertheless get a well-told story with plenty of action and violence. 1945 movies couldn't be as explicit as today's, but lots of horrible things take place just off camera. Meanwhile, good things take place on camera. Anne Jeffreys, as the blonde femme fatale, did a lot of low-budget stuff, but she's very good. Dillinger's gang includes the top-notch character actors, Edmund Lowe, Elisha Cook Jr., Eduardo Ciannelli and Marc Lawrence.