The actress plays the role of Anna Sage, a fatal “Lady in Red”, who fingered the notorious gangster John Dillinger to the FBI agents.
The film directed by Michael Mann deals with the crime wave in America in the early 1930's, led by criminals John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd.
Johnny Depp plays Dillinger, the bank robber, who robbed over 300,000 dollars during his short career, which represented a huge sum of money during the Depression era. He was killed on July 22, 1934 in front of the Biograph Theater in Chicago, where he coincidentally watched a crime drama ‘Manhattan Melodrama‘ (Clark Gable).
He was set up an ambush by his girlfriend Ana Sage, played by Serbian actress Branka Katic. Ana Cumpanas, also known as Anna Sage and “The Woman in Red”, was a brothel owner in Chicago. In order to prevent her deportation back to her native Romania, Cumpanas fingered Dillinger to the FBI. However, the promise was never kept and she was deported in 1936, where she died 11 years later.
Agent Melvin Purvis is played by Christian Bale, while Dillinger's girlfriend Billie Frechette is played by Marion Cotillard, who won the Best Actress Academy Award for her role in “La Vie en Rose”.
Shooting of the film “Public Enemies”, started in Columbus, will last until the end of June and the premiere is scheduled for July 1, 2009.
