Piling into the comfortable darkness of Depression-era movie theaters, Americans paid a dime or 15 cents to see a program of newsreels, cartoons, comic shorts, serial stories, and a feature film.

One newsreel star was John Dillinger -- the "boy gone wrong" -- who received a surprising amount of sympathy. Audiences cheered Dillinger's lawless odyssey, which Time magazine titled, "Through the Midwest with a Machine Gun," and closely followed his pursuit by J. Edgar Hoover's technologically sophisticated "G-men."

Screen clips from vintage newsreels, including footage of officials smashing illegal beer bottles under Prohibition, patrols outside the Indiana jail holding Dillinger, technicians working in modern crime labs, and Dillinger's last journey -- to the graveyard.