As a film viewer,"Roger Touhy, Gangster" was a major disappointment for me. What spoiled it for me is that I knew the actual story that the movie failed to utilize at all. The real Roger Touhy operated in my neck of the woods.

While it is a given that many screenplays are unfaithful to their literary or historical sources, the Robert Florey production is an especially poor example of a "true crime" film. Yada yada, yes there was a bootlegger named Roger Touhy, he was convicted of a kidnapping and he escaped from prison only to be recaptured. That's as much factual information to be gleaned from the movie. The remainder of the film is total fiction.

As is often, the case the true story is far more interesting than the Hollywood version and it would have made a much better movie. As the article stated Touhy was framed for a faked kidnapping and imprisoned for a crime that he did not commit by corrupt Chicago police officers and a prosecutor who were doing the bidding of the Chicago Syndicate to get Touhy, an independent beer runner and rival to the Capone-Nitti organization out of the way. Touhy sold a better beer than the organization and, for a time, he was clever enough to outwit the larger gang with his smaller team.

Eventually, the Capone mob wanted to control the far north suburbs of Chicago and they pressed their political allies in the Democratic Party to go after Touhy. Big Bill Thompson's mayoral successor, Anton Cermak, led a Democratic political organization that was in all likelihood more corrupt than the former Republican mayor, and Cermak had longstanding ties to the liquor industry that predated Prohibition. Pushcart Tony wanted to oust Capone and install Touhy as the top beer racketeer in Chicago. Capone's successors turned to their political allies in a rival Democratic faction to squeeze out Touhy. It is too complicated to summarize here, but the movie does not delve into any of this.

In comparison to "Roger Touhy, Gangster," Philip Yordan's script for "Dillinger" is almost a model of accuracy. Of course, it is not at all a genuine retelling of the bank robber's life, but it occasionally veers into the realm of fact.