Recently, "Dillinger is Dead" has apparently been re-discovered...at least that's what the host on Turner Classic Movies said. I would have just have soon had it remain a lost film!The biggest reason I watched this film is because it stars Michel Piccoli--a very fine actor who appeared in many French and Italian films. I have enjoyed his work a lot...and this film is the first of his that I truly hated. There isn't a lot of plot to this one and it mostly consists of Piccoli doing a lot of strange and nonsensical puttering around his house late one night while his lover sleeps. He discovers a hidden gun and although you'd think this would introduce some important plot element, after cleaning it, oiling it and painting(?) it, he prances about his home doing bizarro things--such as playing home movies and kissing the ladies in the film as well as playing with his fingers and watching a bullfight. Ultimately, The film is the epitome of the art film. The camera-work is occasionally jerky and amateurish. The plot, such as it is, makes no real sense and the main character is just weird and seemingly pointless (sort of like the lead in Godard's "Pierre le Fou"). If your idea of fun is seeing a lot of weirdness interrupted occasionally by a bit of nudity, by all means watch the film. As for me, life is just too short and I cannot imagine most viewers (95-99% perhaps) enjoying the film in the least.

Sometimes a day in somebody's life can be interesting to watch, only the most artistic filmmakers can explore with their own kind of artistry & entertainment. Even if it makes sense or not from how you see it. Marco Ferreri did with Dillinger Is Dead (1969). Rather telling a simple story about a gas mask designer who tries to make dinner as he ends up discovering what is to be the infamous gangster's gun and plays with his women & watches Spanish trip footage as to recall (with a mysterious ending), he shows us something different that we would not normally watch or understand as it processes - using an oldies soundtrack throughout the whole film for which has minimal dialogue and getting playful with his storytelling. Michel Piccoli is the main highlight of this rare art-house classic because whatever he does during this film is interesting. It is also one of cinema's lost treasures since it was never shown in America until 2008 with surprisingly good acclaim, my reaction to seeing Dillinger Is Dead was pretty good - resulting to say unlike most films have those topics being explored during daytime life. One tune I liked listening to in the film was Patty Pravo's "Qui e là" (meaning "here and then" in Italian), it really has a catchy feel-good beat besides its lyrics dealing with freedom and sounds so sixties because this film was made from the 1960's. Anyway in conclusion, say what you want about the film but it is a surprising discovery for lovers of art-house cinema and would enjoy spending an evening like nothing else.My Rating: 5/5

"Dillinger è morto" is a bizarre Italian film by Italian director Marco Ferreri, made in 1969, and never shown in the U.S. until now, 2009, in its scattered special engagements. I had the good fortune to catch it in Rome in 1970, on my last night in the city, at the neighborhood Cinema Farnese in Campo de' Fiori.It deals pretty much with an evening in the life of a character named Glauco, played by Michel Piccoli, who comes home from work in a gas-mask factory, is disgusted with the cold supper left for him by his always sleeping wife, prepares a gourmet meal of his own as he cleans (with virgin olive oil) a revolver found in a closet and wrapped in old newspapers. The papers contains the story of the death of American gangster John Dillinger. The revolver, of uncertain origin, obsesses him. When done, he paints it red with white polka dots. This is an interesting man but hardly a sane one. And then...well, and then...what Glauco does with that revolver and how it becomes an invigorating turning point in his unwell life, gives the film a measure of its eerily fascinating allure. This lost cult movie is certainly an interesting counterpoint to Johnny Depp's current "Public Enemies," about the gangster himself.I never thought I would see it again, since it has never been available on video or DVD. Yesterday I caught it at the Brattle in Cambridge. You may like it; you may not. But, as with me four decades later, it will never leave your mind.

Coming home, while his wife sleeps, an engineer-designer prepares a rich dinner. He finds an old gun, lubricates it with oliva oil, casts films with a projector, slips in his maid bed, eliminates his wife shooting her with the gun, and finally he embarks on a sailing ship as a cook. Probably the best Ferreri's movie. In the appearances of an exercise of experimental style (for three quarters of its duration M. Piccoli is alone in front of the camera) it is a nocturne happening about the neurosis and the horror of the daily life. Abstract and, at the same time, very concrete. The abstraction is picked in the same heart of the daily life, permeates every action, coves, is incorporated in the structure of the character. Must see!