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Steve McQueen
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The heist film " The Great Louis Bank Robbery" was
released in the US in 1959. The story was based on a bank robbery attempted at
southwest Bank in St Louis in 1953.
The director of the film "Charles Guggenheim" was one of the most honored documentary film
directors, producers, and screenwriters. He had won 4 Oscars in 12 nominations.
The film was shot on the location in 1958 and some
characters were played by the same people from the police as well as the bank
employees and local residents. They had portrayed the same character as what they
had performed during the actual attempt of robbery.
This is a true story based on the attempted bank
robbery at the southwest bank in St Louis by
Bowerman along with his three partners Frank Vito, William Scholl, and
the gateway driver Glenn Chernick. Crahan Denton had portrayed Bowerman and
Steve McQueen had played the role of Glenn Chernick. Though Chernick was a getaway driver, however in the
film he was coerced deeper into the plan and played a more important role in
the bank robbery. The police officer Melburn Stein who shot Bowerman had also acted
in the film.
Fred William Bowerman was an American bank robber and
a veteran holdup man whose criminal career lasted over 30 years. He had begun
his criminal career in the 1930s and had committed 36 robberies between June
and October, in 1938. However, during this, he was captured several times. Though
he kept himself in low profile after his release in 1946 but robbed a bank in South Bend, Indiana in 1952.This raised hue and cry in the US as he had shot a
bank employee for the delay in raising
his hand. He was placed in the Ten most wanted list in the year 1953 by the FBI
when he was in his late 50s.
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Fred William Bowerman
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Shortly after the robbing at South Bend, Indiana, in
an afternoon of April 1953, he along
with three others entered the southwest bank of St Louis, Missouri. According
to their plan, they had started robbing from the bank teller cage and prepared
themselves to carry them in a nylon satchel. During this time a bank employee
manages to set off a silent alarm and the police swarm the exterior of the
bank. This distracts the getaway of the robbers and they tried to hide in the vault to escape from the
firefight and tear gas charged into the bank.
Bowerman tried to escape from the bank by taking a
female hostage but was shot by a police officer named Melburn F. Stein. The
bullet pierced his lung and went into the spine and he died in the hospital
after some days. He tried to hide his identity but remain unsuccessful. Frank
Vito committed suicide with his own weapon but police manage to capture William
Scholl. Glenn Chernick the getaway driver managed to fly from the spot however
captured after three days from his parent’s house in Chicago.
By
Sudipto Roy
References
1.Wikipedia
2.Google Images.
3.The film itself
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