Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: A & E Home Video
• VHS Release Date: February 4, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000006QK6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #571,395 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What made Baby Face Nelson tick?, December 6, 1999

By 

David Dearborn (Connecticut USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Biography - Baby Face Nelson [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This 'Biography' feature on Baby Face Nelson, the most vicious and enigmatic of the 1930s midwest bank robbers, is informative and even thought-provoking. Nelson (real name: Les Gillis) was the son of law-abiding Belgian immigrants in tough, working-class Chicago. He started running with street gangs and graduated to car theft and guns. Nelson hated authority and was known as a trigger-happy murderer more than an ace bank robber, which he also was. Ironically, he was also a devoted husband and father of two small children before he was finally killed by the FBI at the age of 26. Tragically, he took three FBI agents and a few others with him before he was through. He got his nickname from people who couldn't believe they were being robbed by a short guy with a 'cute face who was light complected' and blond-haired. In the end, his aggressive nature caused him to actually confront the FBI instead of running, and he was mortally wounded while calmly walking into a barrage of gunfire from two agents whom he killed with a machinegun.

While this documentary interviews two Nelson biographers, I could not find specific Nelson biographies in Amazon, except for an out-of-print selection which Amazon is trying to find. Consequently, this 'Biography' piece is indispensable to crime history buffs trying to understand what made Nelson tick. It's thought-provoking because we trace his development (or digression) from an average urban family with a strict father whose suicide may have had an impact. Nelson the criminal loved his wife and kids but unlike, for example, John Dillinger, seemed to have no conscience or compassion when it came to others. (We aren't told what his two children did or are doing as adults.) Interestingly, this video has a lot of rare pictures of Nelson that appear totally different from his famous FBI mugshot. Looking like an All-American boy made him even more sinister. The documentary is a real find for those interested in one of the wildest outlaws of the wild 1930s.