I've always been a tremendous fan of Charles Bronson! Let's be honest, if you like testosterone-packed action cinema with a minimum of intellect and a maximum of violence, you simply have to be a Bronson fan. But this love and admiration has always been based on straightforward action flicks (like "Death Wish", "10 to Midnight" and "Mr. Majestic) or – perhaps to a lesser extent – to his modest share in great classics (like "The Great Escape" or "The Magnificent Seven"). These are all terrific movies, and then I haven't even yet mentioned all the guilty pleasures (like "Murphy's Law", "Telefon", "The Stone Killer"…), but now I can safely guarantee that you simply haven't seen the true nature and versatile talents of Charlie Bronson before you've seen "Machine Gun Kelly"! This is truly a spectacular one-man tour-de-force performance that provides more than enough evidence that Bronson can carry an entire film, memorize a scenario full of dialogues and bring depth and personality to a seemingly bland character! Once again my deepest sympathy and respect for Roger Corman. Not only did this man discover numerous of greatly talented people and offered them their first chances in the film industry, he often also provided them the opportunity to demonstrate their versatility and potential, like here with Charles Bronson. For those too lazy to read Wikipedia (and I don't blame you), George "Machine Gun" Kelly was a real gangster during the 1920s and 1930s, active around the same time as other infamous and often heard names like John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson. The film states at the beginning, however, that the titular character is real but that the rest of the events and supportive characters in the story are pure fictional. That may be true, but still I 'm sure that both Corman and Bronson carefully studied the personality and factual crime cases that George Kelly committed in great detail, because it's too intense and plausible to be invented by a scriptwriter. The story and structure of the film are extremely well-developed. We open with a meticulously planned and executed bank robbery during which Kelly and his accomplices switch vehicles, split up in groups and hand over the loot to a fourth accomplice and successfully mislead the numerous amount of police officers. Throughout this entire robbery scheme, not a single word is spoken, yet we already find out everything we need to know about the hierarchy within the gang and a lot about the gangsters' personas. It's praiseworthy how Corman brings all of this into scene. In fact, if you watch both "Machine Gun Kelly" and also "The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre" (1967), you find it almost regrettable that he didn't make any more factual mafia/gangster sagas. Under the subtle influence of his woman and her brothel-owning mother, Kelly wants to climb up the gangster ladder and become more than a feared bank robber. He develops a plan to kidnap the only daughter of a rich industrialist widower and becomes public enemy number one in a very brief period of time. But Machine Gun Kelly is such a megalomaniac and aggressive individual that he turns all his henchmen against him. On top of that, he has a phobia for death and dying that interfere with his plan at the most inconvenient moments. Bronson's performance is one of the most impressive ones I've ever seen in a low-budgeted B-movie. He finds the exact right balance between psychopathic and pathetic, between robust and vulnerable and between petrifying and pitiable. Kelly insults and shouts at everybody, takes pleasure into hurting people and carelessly cheats on his wife, but when he spots a coffin or even just a funeral home, he cringes! With a few exceptions left, I've seen all of Bronson's movies, but this is the one and only where he puts a dozen (and more) emotions into his character. Corman also ensures a fast pacing, suspense and many action-packed sequences. The only real default of the film is the rather irritating and excessively overused music.

Maybe this movie shouldn't be rated this high, but why carp? This is about as good as Roger Corman can get, and uncomplicated too. The script isn't the smartest bank-robber thriller ever, but it's got some good twists and snappy dialog to go along with the package. And unlike many of Corman's early pictures, this one isn't hampered in the least by its low budget. On the contrary, the level of violence is enough that he doesn't have to spend very much on a lot of stunts or blood. If anything, it's a worthy homage to the tommy-gun inspired gangster flicks of the 1930s, done without pretension and with a gutsy leading man.Charles Bronson stars in the title role, and it's by some of Bronson's own ingenuity with a part like this, and on the part of the script to try and add a little dimension to what could've been a one-dimensional crook into a somewhat sympathetic criminal. The moral of the story for young George Kelly might be that behind a bad-ass man there's a far meaner bad-ass of a woman pulling the strings, bringing out the worst in her man. This isn't so much about full-on reality in so much as Corman tries to get the pulpiest material he can without any filler. While this leaves a little character development up for grabs, and some of the usual lot of not too great acting, there's some real fire going on in the conventional storytelling.All around, a terrific little B-movie, probably one of Corman's best (in short, not at all a disappointment, especially for those looking for a great early Bronson in tip top shape, and with some range of emotions to boot).

(Some Spoilers) Early Roger Corman AIP collaboration that comes across pretty good with a cool jazzy score by Gerald Fried. We find out right away that this killer of a gangster George "Machine Gun" Kelly, Charles Bronson, is anything but a killer when he freezes at the sight of a bouquet of flowers at a local Lebanon funeral home. This happens at the start of the movie when Kelly and his gang are about to knock off a bank. Ripping off $41,000.00 in the bank robbery the gangs pick-up man Mike "Fanny" Fandango, Morey Amsterdam, takes $6,000.00 for himself before Kelly and his gang have time to split up the take.Outraged at Fanny's two-timing Kelly later, after working him over, has Fanny served up for lunch to a caged mountain lion who ends up ripping off his left arm. It's this act of unnecessary violence that in the end, according to the movie, has Fanny turn against Kelly which leads to his retirement as a big time gangster. Kelly ends up spending the remainder of his life in federal prisons like Alcatraz and Leavenworh dying behind bars on July 18, 1954 which just happened to be Kelly's 59th birthday.Kelly is depicted, very accurately like he was in real life, in the movie "Machine Gun Kelly" as a cowardly bully who pushed people around only when the odds, and guns, were all in his favor. It's later in the movie during another attempted robbery in the small Oklahoma town of Elizabeth Kelly once more screws up. Kelly panicked when he sees a coffin being delivered to a funeral home, they always seem to pop up at the wrong time for Kelly in the movie, which in the series of events that follows cause his wheel-man Maize, Wally Campo, to end up getting shot to death after a wild car chase.Howard, Jack Lambert, who was in the bank when Kelly, who was to help him rob it, chickened out escaped. Later Howard and his gang ended up being massacred by a pumped up Kelly who ambushed them playing poker at their hideout. It took Kelly's gun moll Flo Becker, Susan Cabot, to get the wimpy hoodlum to get his courage back by taunting him in what a gutless coward he really was.Hiding out from the police at Flo's mom's Ma' Becker, Connie Gilchrist, home Kelly dreams up a new scheme in making big bucks without the dangers of robbing banks; kidnapping. This new criminal adventure on Kelly's part at first seemed to be paying dividends with Kelly & Flo grabbing little nine year old Sherry Vito,Lori Martin, as she and her nurse or nanny Lynn Gryson, Barboura Morris, were coming home from school.Contacting Sherry's dad Mr. Andrew Vito, Robert Griffin, Kelly wants $100,000.00 in cash from him as ransom if he ever wants to see his daughter again. As you would expect by now in the movie the not too bright Kelly screws up. Having again recruited the now one armed, because of Kellys actions, "Fanny" Fandango to be his pick-up man Fanny instead, in revenge to what Kelly did to him, snitches Kelly together with his partners in crime Flo and the equally one-armed Harry, Frank DeKova, out to the police! Fanny also proved to be as brainless as his reality-challenged boss George Kelly by bragging, as the cops were closing in on Kelly's and Flo's hideout, that he sold him out! Whatever happened to Fanny next, getting his brains blown out from behind, had nothing to do with Machine Gun Kelly who was too chicken to do anything with the cops and FBI men shooting up the place. A terrified Kelly ended up cowering in a corner and weeping like a little boy as the lawmen finally put the cuffs on him and took this poor excuse of a gangster.Unlike the legendary hoods of that time, Dillinger Pretty Boy Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde, George "Machine Gun" Kelly lived to eventually die in bed not in a blazing shootout with the local police or FBI Agents. Kelly's who life as a fearless gunslinging, with his tommy gun, gangster was all a myth made up by his gun moll and partner in crime Flo Becker. It's suspected that it was Flo, a member of the weaker sex, who really did most off the bank jobs that Kelly was credited with in the newspapers. This was done by Flo to build up her boyfriends image who in return smacked her around every chance he got. Even Kelly's working Flo over was sissy-like in him, not being a Jack Dempsey or Joe Louis, not being able to even make a mark on Flo, who took it all in stride, no matter how hard he belted her.P.S One thing that you have to give George "Machine Gun" Kelly credit for is in him coining the word, referring to FBI Agents, G-Men. It was that word, "Please don't shoot me I give up G-Men", that a scared to death George Kelly uttered as he was about to be arrest and put away for good as the "G-Men" busted into his hideout.

A unique crime story -- a small-time thief (Bronson) is turned into a legend by his tough-as-nails moll (Cabot). "Machine Gun" robs a chain of banks and finally turns his ambitions to kidnapping -- hounded all the way by a compulsive fear of death. The photography by Crosby is elegant, the acting of the lead pair and the supporting cast are all pretty much dead-on. A tight, efficient telling of a memorable tale, peopled with all sorts of interesting characters (the gas station owner/accomplice who keeps a deadly menagerie behind the garage, Cabot's mom who keeps telling Kelly what a disappointment he is because he hasn't broken into the "big time", etc.). Interestingly, this film takes the gangster genre beyond film noir (finally, after 3 decades) by making his characters not only self-loathing but WORTHY of self-loathing!One of Corman's very best films as a director.