Pretty Boy Floyd

Pretty Boy Floyd is a rather pedestrian and overlong biopic of the famous gangster. Luckily there's an outstanding cast on hand to lend the film some much needed credibility: John Ericson is fine as Pretty Boy, but it's great to see Barry Newman, Peter Falk, and Al 'Elect Me Governor' Lewis playing his various sidekicks. We even get Jason 'Brain That Wouldn't Die' Evers as Floyd's nemesis, the determined local lawman.

This film was typical of the B-Movie fare of the late 1950's and early 1960's, spurred by the 1959 TV release of "The Untouchables."

The 1960 film, "The Rise and Fall of Jack Legs Diamond", and the 1961 film "Portrait of a Mobster" were better examples of how these films should and could be made well. B-movies, yes; but there's B and then there's - B made well.

The actor who portrays Pretty Boy Floyd, John Ericsons, was slated for better things, and the studios did try. He was indeed a good journeyman actor but, for some reason, simply did not have the matinée idol gene in him.

There is nothing spectacular going on in this film, but it does move and its easy watching. Its only only standout highlight worth mentioning is a, all too brief but great performance by the late "Munsters" actor, Al Lewis: look for it.

Without a doubt one of the worst gangster films ever made. Ranks with Ma Barker's Killer Brood for total inaccuracy. At least the characters are close to who they are supposed to be, even if the names are made-up. Al Ricardo instead of Adam Richetti, Shorty Walters instead of Bill "The Killer" Miller, The Courtney Brothers instead of the Ash Brothers, and Machine Gun Manny instead of Verne Miller, to name just a few. All through the film, Floyd appears to appreciate being called Pretty Boy, when in reality he hated it.

Probably the silliest scene in the flick is the Union Station massacre. Manny and Floyd blast away with some unrecognizable foreign-made machine guns -----definetely not Tommy Guns-----and kill the Frank Nash character and several cops without shattering the windshield or leaving so much as a single bullet hole in the car. .

I recently paid five bucks for the CD at a going-out-of-business sale. It was barely worth it.

Chronological with some name changing & liberties to some minor facts, PBF is not bad. If you know nothing of PBF outside his name as I, it is worth a glimpse & held me. Did capture era with fashion, costumes, & props. Gave me a realization of the desperate times, caliber of female companions, glamour & glamourlessness, & extreme ups & downs of a gangster of his time.

John Ericson has the title role in this minuscule budget independent film about Pretty Boy Floyd one of the legendary public enemies of the 30s. Ericson might well have been a good fit for the part had this been done at a major studio, but this film had more errors than facts about its subject.

The saddest commentary on this film was its elimination of the man who led the hunt against Floyd, FBI agent Melvin Purvis who later got his due in other films about the notorious outlaw. Purvis died in 1960, some saw an accidental shooting, some say a suicide. But he was persona non grata to J. Edgar Hoover who resented the publicity that Purvis got for bringing down people like Dillinger, Floyd, and Machine Gun Kelly.

In this film Floyd starts out like Jesse James, a folk hero to the poor Oklahoma farmers from whence he came. But in the end when fame and notoriety came he lost his prestige with them.

Floyd at the time was accused of participation in the Kansas City Massacre, but he denied it and there's evidence enough to show he probably wasn't there. This film has him as one of the hoods who killed 4 FBI agents and led to the arming of those agents.

Peter Falk has a small part in this film and he's always noticeable and good. Also here making a screen debut is Al 'Grandpa Munster' Lewis. He's in the sequence involving the Kansas City Massacre and the telling of that is completely incoherent.

Not the best version of Charles Arthur Floyd's saga.