By Robert O’Connor.
Here’s an interesting coincidence that future interviewers of the Coen Brothers should ask about. I found it during the course of writing ‘St. Paul’s Gangster Era‘ and ‘The Big Man and the Cardinal.’
Joel and Ethan Coen are from St. Louis Park, immediately west of Minneapolis. There are two references, I think, to St. Paul’s gangster history in their 2000 film O Brother Where Art Thou.
The first is the character George Nelson, a criminal that the three main characters of the film encounter. Nelson robs “three banks in two hours” and during one of them, a woman in line whispers he’s “Babyface” Nelson. This makes Nelson angry and he wanders away from the characters depressed and jaded. Babyface Nelson, of course, was a famous bank robber and later a member of John Dillinger’s gang. Like the character in the movie, he used the pseudonym George Nelson (his real name was Lester Gilles) and he hated the name “Babyface.”
“Remember folks: Jesus saves, George Nelson withdraws!”
However, the real Babyface Nelson committed his crimes in the Midwest, and hid in St. Paul; while the movie takes place entirely in Mississippi.
The second reference is the “Dapper Dan” hair gel that Everett (George Clooney) insists on using. “Dapper Dan” Hogan was the man who kept the underworld in line for the St. Paul Police after Reddy Griffin’s death until his own death by a car bomb in 1928.
“I don’t want Fop, goddammit! I’m a Dapper Dan man!”
As far as I know, no interviewer has asked the Coen Brothers about these curiosities. None of the thousands of words of analysis devoted to their films have brought this up.
