Blooper

When John Dillinger escapes from the jail the second time and he is driving the sheriff's car he is sitting at a red light. To his right there are 3 armed military soldiers. In the following bird's eye view it shows no one standing there. Finally, when the shot returns to Dillinger the 3 soldiers are still standing there.

While getting ready to leave for the Biograph Theatre, Dillinger checks his pocket watch. The time on the watch says 5:00. After a cut to a closer shot about a second later his watch says 6:30.

When the shootout in Wisconsin begins it is dark out and near closing time at the bar. When Dillinger and Red are running through the woods it appears to be sunrise. However, in the next scene (car chase) it is nighttime again.

Baum is playing the recording of Dillinger and Berman's "phone call conversation" to Purvis. The close-up shows an acetate recorder with the disc rotating anti-clockwise and acetate swarf on the disc as the cutting head is lowered. There is a clamp or weight on the disc spindle. The wider shot shows the disc rotating clockwise with a tone arm tracking it and no sign of the cutting head, the spindle clamp or the swarf. The close-up is clearly of the recording being made (which supposedly happened 27 minutes earlier), but played backwards.

During Dillinger's phone conversation to Frechette after his second escape, he ends with "I love you." In a following scene, the transcript of that conversation shows him ending with "I love you, Baby. Now I gotta get off."

There's no explanation for Agent Harold Reinecke's bizarre behavior at the Biograph as depicted in the film, especially considering he wasn't actually present among the 20-plus agents/cops waiting outside the theater for John Dillinger that night.

Gang member John Hamilton, referred to as "Three Finger Jack" by the authorities, was missing two fingers on his right hand, and then lost yet a third finger of the same hand during the East Chicago bank job in January of '34. CGI wasn't employed for this detail in the film. Thus, the actor playing Hamilton has all of his digits.

Dillinger is seen in the film opening his pocket watch, looking at Billie Frechette's photo inside, then closing the watch and bringing it with him to the Biograph. The watch actually contained a photograph of Polly Hamilton.

The film depicts the FBI going after John Dillinger before his escape from the Crown Point, Indiana jail. In reality, they couldn't have pursued him because until that escape Dillinger had never committed a federal crime and therefore the FBI lacked jurisdiction over him. When he escaped from Crown Point he drove his stolen car over the state line from Indiana to Illinois - thereby committing his first federal offense and giving the FBI the pretext it needed to go after him.

The film begins with Melvis Purvis killing Charles Floyd and the film and is promoted to hunt for John Dillinger. In reality John Dillinger died July 1934 three months before Charles Floyd's death in October 1934.

The Thompson sub-machine guns in the movie use period-correct 20 round 'stick' magazines and 50-round 'drum' magazines. Despite appearances resulting from some quick shots and deceptive angles, no 30-round World War 2 issued magazines appear, as none were procured by the film armorers.

During the shootout after a bank robbery at the beginning of the movie, Dillinger fires a machine gun right by the hostage bank manager's head, but the manager doesn't even flinch.

A number of scenes depict newsreel cameramen operating hand cranked 'pancake' Akeley motion picture cameras that would have been used for recording silent film footage only. The actors are cranking these cameras way slower than would have been normal in such 'news' situations and would only have cranked in this fashion to record high-speed, fast-paced special effects footage.

In some close-up shots of his hands, Johnny Depp's tattoos on his fingers are visible.

When driving to the Little Bohemia Lodge, we are shown snow on the ground. Later that evening, we hear crickets outside.

During the Greencastle, Indiana, bank robbery, one of Dillinger's accomplices flourishes a Thompson with its safety on - an unlikely setting given the presence of armed bank guards. (The robbery takes place just before Hoover berates Purvis: "John Dillinger held up a bank for $74,000 while you failed to arrest Nelson.")

At about minute 11 the man looks out the window to see John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) and company arriving. He moves the mini-blinds to look thru. The aluminum blind (50mm) was not invented until 1946 and that type of blind (in the scene) 25mm, was not popular until 1979. Also the pulley system that can be seen for these blind was not created until 1966.

The Billie Holiday songs heard on the radio were not recorded until the late thirties, long after John Dillinger's death. She had recorded only two songs before the time of the film, Your Mother's Son-in-law and Riffin' the Scotch, neither of which are heard in it. (When Dillinger died in July 1934 Holiday was a little-known cabaret singer in New York, so it's unlikely a live show of hers would have been broadcast anywhere, let alone as far from her home base as Chicago.)

Filtered cigarettes were not around in the 1930s.

While at the race track, the characters sit on molded green plastic seats which did not exist in the 1930s.

In the film, J. Edgar Hoover is shown in front of a Senate subcommittee being excoriated by Senator McKellar for the Bureau's performance. This incident in fact took place in 1936, 2 years after John Dillinger's death.

John Dillinger turns on an early Zenith table top radio and audio is immediately heard. Until the introduction of solid state technology in the 1960s, all tube radios took five or six seconds to warm up before audio was heard.

When Hoover presents the medals to the junior agents, the Steadicam operator's shadow is clearly visible at the bottom of the frame.

(at around 1 minute) When Dillinger is being driven out of the town having broken out of custody, a reflection of the cameraman can be seen in the glasses of the driver.

In the opening sequence, John Dillinger appears at the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City and helps his pals in the escape. Dillinger was actually in the Montgomery County Jail in Dayton, Ohio, the day the escape occurred and transferred to Lima the following day.

That the location of the horse race track is actually in California (not Hialeah in Miami) is indicated by the tall palm trees in the background, which are of the genus Washingtonia. Though sometimes planted in Florida, Washingtonia is native to the Mojave desert and the western Sonora desert of California and southwest Arizona. The tall palm typically planted in southern Florida is Roystonea regia, the Cuban royal palm. The conspicuous difference is that Washingtonia has palmate (fan) leaves, while Roystonea has pinnate leaves (like a comb, or fish bones).

When Dillinger escapes from the Indiana prison the soldiers that are guarding the prison are wearing the shoulder insignia (Gold Cross on Black Background) of the 33d Infantry Division, Illinois Army National Guard.

During the interrogation scene Marion Cotillard reverts to using a French accent, despite the fact that she plays an American. Though her character, like the real-life Evelyn Frechette, is of partially French parentage, neither she nor either of her parents had ever lived in France at any point and the stress couldn't cause her to revert to a French accent, since there's no chance she'd ever spoken with one.

In this, and in all other movies about John Dillinger, his name is pronounced with a soft "g." The real Dillinger, proud of his German ancestry, always pronounced the name with a hard "g" and insisted that everyone around him do so as well.

The transcription of the phone conversation between Billie and Dillinger has mixed remarks. Dillinger's words "I can't talk long" are referred to Billie, "I heard it on the radio" she said is attributed to Dillinger and so on.

Melvin Purvis has reported as being 5' 4" in tall and weighing 127 lbs. He was called "Little Mel" by the FBI. Christian Bale's height is 6'.