This film begins with a promo for the documentary film “Killers All”, a 1945 exploitative documentary about organized crime. Following the promo is a related film, “Dealers in Death”, which is a cut-down of a feature-length movie “The Vanishing Gangster”. “Dealers in Death” primarily focuses on John Dillinger and Bonnie & Clyde, and contains famous footage of the young lovers’ bullet-ridden death car.
“Get ready for the SHOCK of your Life!” That cautionary advice opens the first few seconds of the promotional trailer or “Killers All,” a 1945 black-and-white exploitative roadshow documentary focusing on gangsters of the 1930s, including Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, John Dillinger, Machine Gun Kelly, and Pretty Boy Floyd. The picture quickly flashes upon the topless and bloodied body of Parker at mark 00:12, before informing the viewer that “For years their filmed story was in locked vaults it was … TOO BRUTAL for public consumption.” But now their tales of “HELL IN PETTICOATS” and “GUN CRAZY CLYDE BARROW” be told. The “factual, authentic film” (as touted at mark 01:12) boasts to the viewer that the sensation film will soon be “coming to this theater” and offers a preview of the picture as well as teasers for the accompanying lobby display.
Following a rough splice, the film cuts to the 1952 black-and-white film “Dealers in Death” (mark 03:10) which identifies itself in the opening credit as an adaptation from the movie “The Vanishing Gangster.” It is the story of primarily two of the six gangsters portrayed in “Killers All,” namely Dillinger and Bonnie & Clyde. About a third of the film is a biography of Dillinger, beginning near mark 03:20 with his youth in Mooresville, Indiana, and showing mostly still pictures and some actual filmed footage of the gangster and where he was at during various times of his crime filled life. The family grocery store is shown at mark 04:52, followed by his boyhood home. This is all shown with a fast talking narrator explaining the visuals in detail. The fake gun Dillinger crafted and used to escape from a jail in Crown Point, Indiana, in 1934 is shown at mark 09:50, followed by his time at the Little Bohemia Lodge in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin. His final battle in an alley near the Biograph Theater in Chicago is addressed at mark 11:39, with his lifeless body held for the cameras at mark 12:36.
Starting at mark 13:05, the last quarter of the film is primarily a re-enactment of the first shooting Bonnie and Clyde had with a couple of motorcycle cops and the final shooting spree as their car is driving down a road that ended their lives. After these exciting moments there is some actual home movies, shown beginning at mark 15:49, that taken of the bullet-riddled car with Bonnie and Clyde still in it, shot only five minutes after the car came to a stop. “The inevitable end. Retribution,” the narrator says. Parker’s funeral procession is captured at mark 18:35, as pallbearers escort her coffin to the cemetery and it is shown being lowered into the ground.
This film draws to a close with the site of Pretty Boy Floyd at mark 19:15 — on display on a medical table after being shot dead in Ohio — as men point to the many bullet holes. The 1934 death of Babyface Nelson is announced via a newspaper headline at mark 19:44, as is the 1935 death of Ma Barker and her son, Fred Barker, and the 1936 execution of Bruno Hauptmann for his role in the kidnapping of the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh.
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