Wisconsin’s capital, Madison, doubles for ‘Washington DC’, where the FBI HQ (both interior and exterior, for once) of J Edgar Hoover ( Billy Crudup) is the Wisconsin State Capitol Building, 2 East Main Street, Madison. The striking 1260 North Prospect Avenue, Milwaukee, known as the Art Deco Building, standing on a bluff which overlooks downtown Milwaukee and Lake Michigan. The exterior and the getaway, though, is the West James Gallery (formerly the old First National Bank Building), 116 West James Street, in Columbus, in southwestern Wisconsin, 70 miles northwest of Milwaukee.Īnother Milwaukee landmark was also drafted in to stand in for Dillinger's ‘Chicago’ apartment building. The imposing, old-style marble interior is now the Milwaukee County Historical Building, 910 North Old World 3rd Street, Milwaukee. There’s a brief flit back to Wisconsin for the ‘Greencastle’ bank robbery, and two more locations blended into one – both of which began life as bank buildings. The real Steuben Club, by the way, occupied one of the upper floors of the Randolph Tower, 188 West Randolph Street, across the Loop to the northwest. The theatre, part of of Roosevelt University, is home to the famed Joffrey Ballet, and also presents Broadway musicals and concerts. Although you can't bop till you drop, you can watch the best of dance here. You can see the venue, though, if you catch a production at the Auditorium Theatre, 50 East Congress Parkway at South Michigan Avenue ( CTA: Van Buren Street) – it’s the theatre’s lobby. Likewise, you won’t be able to dance the night away in the 'Steuben Nightclub’, where Frechette works as hat-check girl. Public Enemies location: Billie Frechette works at the 'Steuben Nightclub': the lobby of the Auditorium Theatre, East Congress Parkway, Chicago | Photograph: Auditorium Theatre, Chicago If you visit, you’ll recognise LaSalle Street itself as a familiar backdrop for such Chicago movies as The Untouchables and The Dark Knight. Dating from 1934, this deco joy of multi-coloured marble, polished metal and mirrors could easily pass as the set for an RKO musical. Sorry to disappoint, but you can't enjoy a meal in this glamorous setting – it’s no more than the side entrance lobby of 135 LaSalle Street – formerly the LaSalle Bank Building. The ever-forceful Dillinger whisks Frechette off for dinner at a classy restaurant. The exterior of the Aragon becomes the cinema at which the Wayne family have been watching The Sword of Zorro in Batman V Superman.įans of Gangster era Chicago will want to pop into the Green Mill Tavern, almost opposite the Bridgeview Bank on North Broadway, a favoured hangout of Al Capone himself (see the Tavern on-screen in High Fidelity, with John Cusack). It’s since found a new lease of life as a Latin and rock venue (you could have caught Muse, Marilyn Manson or Franz Ferdinand here recently). It’s the Aragon Ballroom, 1106 West Lawrence Avenue at Winthrop Avenue ( CTA: Lawrence, Red Line).īuilt in 1925, this Spanish-themed fantasia once naturally hosted the big bands such as Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington – not to mention Frank Sinatra – before an inevitable decline during the Sixties, when it became a boxing venue, skating rink and a disco. Also Uptown, just along Lawrence from the Bridgeview Bank, you can find the nightclub in which Dillinger first meets Billie Frechette ( Marion Cotillard) as the band plays Bye Bye Blackbird. There’s plenty more filming in Oshkosh – but first, more Chicago locations. Public Enemies location: John Dillinger meets Billie Frechette at the nightclub: The Aragon, Lawrence Avenue, Northside, Chicago Not far away, the interior shots were filmed in the old – and now closed – Joliet Correctional Facility (familiar from the opening of The Blues Brothers). Still in use, this maximum security facility, three miles north of Joliet – and containing the longest cell block in the world – was home to Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb (the murderous couple who inspired Compulsion and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope), and serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Mann's potent use of architecture is evident from the word go, with the forbidding 33-feet-tall concrete perimeter of Stateville Correctional Center at Crest Hill, southwest of Chicago, standing in ‘Indiana State Penitentiary’ as John Dillinger ( Johnny Depp) and crew break into the prison to spring his associates. Where to start? 114 locations dressed as the 1930s, scattered around Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and even California – but no soundstages.Īvoiding the cliches of period drama with the startling immediacy of high-definition video, director Michael Mann turns in more of a mood piece than an action drama (though the shoot-outs are as visceral as you'd expect from the director of Heat).
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