Search - Gangsters Guns & Floozies Crime Collection: Pretty Boy Floyd on DVD

"Pretty" good...for a B Movie

Geoffrey C. Newman | Dallas,Texas | 12/10/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Sony Pictures has done a marvelous job bringing back these long forgotten crime classics,many of which fall into the "film noir" catagory.Among this collection is "Pretty Boy Floyd" which is a dramatization of the real life 1930's era bandit.

Amazingly,the film is pretty close to telling his real life story despite some obvious dramatic liberties.In the film,John Erickson plays Charles Arthur Floyd....the Oklahoma farm boy who will eventually become America's most wanted gangster.Erickson not only bares a strong resemblence to the real Floyd,he also give a pretty good performance,despite the "tough guy" trappings that go with playing characters of this nature.The film is also filled with the usual array of floozie gun molls,tough guy gansters,yellow rats,cartoonish hayseed rednecks,and hard nose coppers....Y'know...the usual characters you'd find in a gangster film.Despite it's own cheesiness,it is a good shoot 'em up gangster film.Another bonus to this film is seeing Peter "Columbo" Falk as one of Pretty Boy's early partners and Al "Grandpa Munster" Lewis as a cowardly killer who lures Floyd into a mob hit gone bad.My only hang up is the fact that the music score comprises 50's era jazz and rockabilly music (Even though the film encompasses the 1929-1934 era).

All in all,it's an enjoyable movie.It's certainly better than "Dillinger" with Lawrence Tierney.So if you like those old "late night black and white movies on Channel 13"....then you'll like this movie."