The Lady in Red

Writer John Sayles, playing fast and loose with the known facts, inverts the gender of the Dillinger myth and backtracks with outrageous relish over the history of his scarlet companion, punching out scene after great scene of Corman New World depression sleaze. Through farm girl, sweat-shop organiser, taxi-dancer, whorehouse, slammer, Dillinger's avenging angel outguns them all in one long hard slide down the wild side. Director Teague revels in the regular motifs of guns, money, fast cars and bizarre death, grafts on a layer of social comment lately absent in exploiters, and still slams through it all with an anarchic humour sometimes worthy of Sam Fuller. Very much the thinking person's crunch movie - chomp a cigar and see Dillinger go down again. CPea.