Did Dillinger really escape from the Crown Point, Indiana prison by using a fake gun?
A. Legend has it that he did it with a gun carved in soap and covered in shoe polish. The film shows instead a wooden gun, which Dillinger always claimed to have used. Some evidence emerged later to suggest that Dillinger’s lawyer had bribed a guard or two to facilitate his escape. But the fact remains that Dillinger’s prison break in March of 1934 was breathtakingly audacious. Facing a trial which could lead to the electric chair, Dillinger used the “gun” to lock up or take hostage more than a dozen lawmen, and then fled the state in the sheriff’s personal car. Soon after, the FBI officially branded him its first “Public Enemy #1.” Q. The emotional heart of the film is the relationship between Dillinger and Billie Frechette. Did they get that story right? A. Partly. Dillinger and Evelyn “Billie” Frechette got together in the fall of 1933, meeting in a nightclub, as the film shows. But while Marion Cotillard portrays Frechette as a sweet, fragile innocent, the real Frechette had worked
