In the exciting crime thriller Public Enemies, directed by action movie veteran director Michael Mann puts Johnny Depp plays John Dillinger, a famous American gangster during the Great Depression, alongside a cast made up of Academy Award-winner Marion Cotillard and Academy Award-winner Christian Bale.
Even though the movie changes a lot of facts about the past, its energy and charm come from the fact that it is set in that time period and, of course, from Depp’s performance. When it comes to the movie’s setting, you may have already noticed that it takes you to a number of different places to show all the important points in John Dillinger’s exciting life. So, if you watched the movie and wondered where it was filmed, here’s the answer.
Public Enemies Filming Locations
The main filming of ‘Public Enemies’ began on March 17, 2008, in the United States great state of Wisconsin. After this happened, the movie was made in many cities in the state and also in several cities in Illinois. Besides that, only a few scenes of “Public Enemies” were shot in Indiana.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The main photography for the movie started in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Soon after, other well-known cities in the state, like Beaver Dam, Darlington, Madison, Oshkosh, and Milwaukee, were added to the long list of places where movies have been shot.
One big reason why the movie was shot in Wisconsin was because the state has a lot of old buildings that were important to the story. Also, the movie’s director, Michael Mann, went to school at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Because he knew it so well, he was able to carefully look for relevant places in those regions and even set up old cars through local car collectors for the high-speed action car chase sequences.
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Indiana
The movie “Public Enemies” was filmed in Indiana at the old Lake County jail in Crown Point. According to the stories about Dillinger’s escape, he used a fake wooden gun to trick the guards, also many other exterior scenes took place at Manitosh Waters, the Dunes State Park, and Chesterton.
Illinois
The movie was mostly shot in the cities of Chicago, Joliet, Lockport, and Aurora in Illinois. It’s in these regions where we see that violent prison shootout in the movie’s first scene, where John Dillinger helps his fellow band members escape by shooting his way into the prison. That prison is located in Joliet.
We also see St. Anne Village, where Dillinger and his crew meet at a rural estate farm to meet after the prison escape. At the Chicago Libertyville High School, some exterior and indoor scenes were also shot.
In Chicago, Canal Street’s facilities served as the train station. In the East 106th Stt Bridge by South, Buffalo Ave. is where when Dillinger has a phone call with Billie Frechette. In Newport Avenue were the scenes shot that took place in Billie Frechette’s apartment.
Now that you know where Michael Mann chose to shoot Public Enemies, you have an idea of the places across the Midwest where this action movie recreated real-life events in the early years of the 20th century when gangs were wreaking extraordinary havoc across the Midwest, and it became the first nationwide challenge for J. Edgar Hoover’s nascent Federal Bureau of Investigations, a counter-intelligence service that eventually grew to be one of the biggest surveillance and intelligence forces in the world.
And while the movie does take some artistic licenses to change a little bit the historical facts for some sort of historical drama context. The movie’s crew and director went to great lengths to find the historical buildings, streets, and avenues where major events took place. That eventually paved the way for the rise and fall of the John Dillinger and Babyface Nelson gang, who were gunned down and publically displayed by Hoover in a media display to bolster his image in what would later become one of his presentation cards for being tough on crime.
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