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• Ex-reporter and attorney reflect on film "An American Crime"

Gertrude Baniszewski was charged in 1965 in the torture-starvation death of Sylvia Lkens. (1965 file photo)

Ellen Page portrays Sylvia and Catherine Keener portrays Gertrude in "An American Crime." An attorney involved in the 1966 trial calls Keener too attracive for the role. (Photo provided by Showtime Networks)

Ellen Page stars as Sylvia Likens in "An Almost Crime," airong on Showtime. (AP Photo/Showtime Networks)

Blythe Auffarth played a role loosely based on Sylvia Likens in "The Girl Next Door" released in 2007. (Photo provided by Moderncine)

A crew filmed scenes from "Public Enemies," starring Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, in downtown Columbus, Wis., in March. Depression-era bank robber Dillinger commited several notorious crimes in Indiana. The film is scheduled for release in 2009. (Morry Gash / AP)

Police found Sylvia Marie Likens dead on this mattress in 1965; attorneys and jurors viewed the scene in 1966. (1966 file photo) (file for The Star)

Gertrude Baniszewski led the torture of Sylvia Likens. Twice convicted of first-degree murder, she won parole in 1985, the year this photo was taken, and died in 1990. (1985 file photo)

It was 1965 when Gertrude Baniszewski made headlines in Indianapolis.

Police had found the body of 16-year-old Sylvia Marie Likens in Baniszewski's East New York Street home. Her lifeless frame was marred by bruises, cigarette burns and words carved into her skin.

The murder, which horrified a nation, was at odds with Indiana's wholesome image. But the heinous crime was by no means the only dark chapter in Hoosier history.

Indiana is the birthplace of the Rev. Jim Jones, a former minister/community activist who would later become leader of the People's Temple cult and mastermind of the infamous Guyana mass murder-suicide in 1978.

It's also the boyhood home of John Dillinger, the original Public Enemy No. 1, and home to the killing fields of Belle Gunness, perhaps the most prolific female serial killer ever.

Indiana can rightly boast a bright place in film history, with ties to actors Steve McQueen and James Dean, directors Sydney Pollack and Robert Wise, and movies like "Hoosiers" (1986) and "Breaking Away" (1979). But "true crime" could almost be considered a sub-genre of Indiana film, one recently added to by this month's television premiere of "An.American Crime" on.Showtime.

Directed by Indianapolis native Tommy O'Haver, it's the true story of the torture, mutilation and eventual killing of Likens by Baniszewski, with the aid of her own offspring and neighborhood children.

The crime was covered by Time magazine and since has been the subject of a number of books (both nonfiction and fiction), as well as the fictionalized movie "The Girl Next Door" (2007).

Now there's O'Haver's more literal telling, which debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival but never found a theatrical release. The film, set in Indianapolis, stars Oscar-nominated actresses Ellen Page ("Juno") and Catherine Keener ("Into the Wild").

A new movie about Gunness is in the works, and the story of Depression-era gangster Dillinger will be retold next year in "Public Enemies," a Michael Mann film starring Johnny Depp, Christian Bale and Marion Cotillard. Scenes were filmed as recently as March in Crown Point, where Dillinger once made a daring escape from jail.

When "Public Enemies" arrives at local megaplexes, many Hoosiers are sure to recognize the old Lake County Courthouse. And that, Stephen Conway suspects, is part of the appeal of true crime films.

As president of the Indiana Film Society, Conway understands the excitement in seeing your city or state on screen.

"It's a small example, but in the abstract you're always looking for yourself on the screen, through the characters," Conway said. "You're seeing yourself also through the places you know, and the touchstones of your life."

The Likens case was, in a way, a touchstone in O'Haver's life.

He was a student at Carmel High School when Gertrude Baniszewski came up for parole. He had just read "Lord of the Flies" and had written a paper on the nature of evil.

He kept articles about the case for a number of years, thinking that the story might make a good horror movie. After directing "Ella Enchanted," O'Haver approached the idea again, realized it was too tragic for horror, and returned to Indianapolis for research -- compiling thousands of pages of articles and testimony from newspaper stories and court transcripts. His interest in the murder, he found, was a shared one.

"This case in particular fascinates people," said O'Haver, speaking from his home in Los Angeles. "It's dealing with very deep issues."

But that interest is not welcomed by all.

"I've avoided commenting on this case for years, because I've felt that a lot of the attention that it drew was prurient," said Forrest Bowman, who as a 31-year-old defense attorney, represented two of the defendants in the Likens case.

"I saw that in the spectators in the courtroom. I saw some reactions that were as disgusting as anything I heard in the evidence. ..... It's something I know exists in the human spirit, but I wish it didn't. I think we all have a dark side to our nature, and a lot of people nurture it by watching this kind of stuff."

Natty Bumppo -- who in 1965 was known as John Dean, a 26-year-old courthouse reporter for The Indianapolis Star -- was assigned to cover the trial (and subsequently wrote a book about the killing, "The Indiana Torture Slaying"). True crime stories can at times be fascinating, he said.

"I find the Holocaust fascinating," Bumppo said. "The Clutter murders that were the basis of 'In Cold Blood' were fascinating. I understand the interest in true crime, in a murder mystery. ..... Well, this was a mystery in terms of motivation."

O'Haver said an element of morbid fascination is naturally at play, but that unlike people who read about the exploits of a mass killer like John Wayne Gacy, the interest here falls squarely on the victim.

"There's true sympathy for this girl and what she went through, and I think that is what people respond to more than anything, and probably because it deals with peer pressure and psychological abuse from other children as you grow up," he said. "I really do think it's an extension of those feelings we have as kids being persecuted -- that feeling of being an outsider taken to a terrible extreme."

Conway believes the appeal of true crime on film is varied.

In the case of a movie about Dillinger, for instance, the appeal might be the message of railing against authority -- particularly during the Depression -- as a romantic notion.

With Belle Gunness, it almost always centers on the idea that she should be, but is not, a household name. The interest in Sylvia Likens' death is vastly different again.

"I would think that maybe it's just trying to understand the psyche of someone (Baniszewski) who is so foreign and alien to you -- trying to understand people who act in that way," Conway said.

O'Haver said he hoped people here would be able to see both the familiar and the foreign in his film.

He also believes the retelling of the Likens story will not leave a stain on the city.

"I'm a Hoosier myself," he said. "I hope that people don't think this is the way Indiana is, or all of America is. It wasn't meant to be a geo-political statement."

Erin Newell, director of Film Indiana, said she saw "An American Crime" at Sundance in 2007, and couldn't imagine the film having a negative impact on Indiana.

In fact, Newell was just discussing the image of the state at the 2008 Locations Trade Show in Santa Monica, Calif., in April.

"I was talking with all these people, and I didn't really know what our identity was," Newell said. "And they're saying, 'Oh, my gosh, "Hoosiers.".' 'Oh, my gosh, "Rudy.".' 'Oh, my gosh, "Breaking Away.".'

"I realized that we're more or less the sports movie capital of the United States: 'A League of Their Own,' 'Eight Men Out,' 'Blue Chips,' 'Soul of the Game,' 'Madison,' 'Winning.' It just keeps going."

Conway said it would take a very special picture to alter that image and steer it toward a darker, more menacing truth.

"I don't see it happening," he said. "It would need to be something iconic -- a movie that jumps out of the ordinary -- to make that grim history into a filmic legacy."

Call Star reporter Konrad Marshall at (317) 444-6305.

"I understand the interest in true crime, in a murder mystery. ..... Well, this was a mystery in terms of motivation."

Natty Bumppo, former reporter

"I hope that people don't think this is the way Indiana is. ..... It wasn't meant to be a geo-political statement."

Tommy O'Haver, filmmaker

Indiana true crime on film

Here's a look at the infamous figures, their stories in real life and on film.

Rev. Jim Jones

Jones grew up in Crete, Ind., attended Richmond High School, then Butler University and Indiana University in Bloomington. In Indianapolis, Jones was said to have sold monkeys door to door to help finance the formation of the Peoples Temple, a cult that would eventually head to Guyana and culminate with the infamous mass murder-suicide of 913 people, 276 of them children.

The story has spawned two fictional films:

• "Guyana: Crime of the Century" (1979).

• "Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones" (1980), starring Powers Boothe.

A documentary, "Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple," was released in 2006.

Belle Gunness

Gunness is known as one of the most prolific female serial killers of all time. It's estimated that she murdered upwards of two dozen people (mostly men) in the late 1800s and early 1900s on her farm in LaPorte, spawning the nickname Lady Bluebeard or "the black widow of America's heartland."

Her story was the inspiration for the woeful "Method" (2004), starring Elizabeth Hurley and Jeremy Sisto. There are plans for documentaries and another dramatic film on Gunness.

John Dillinger

Indiana's most famous criminal, John Dillinger was born in the Oak Hill area of Indianapolis and raised in Mooresville. His gang of bank robbers included friends from places like Terre Haute.

Dillinger's Depression-era crime spree spanned the country, but centered on the Midwest, and has been featured in more than a dozen movies.

Dillinger was played most famously by:

• Warren Oates in "Dillinger" (1973).

• Martin Sheen in "Dillinger and Capone" (1995).

Those portrayals are sure to be eclipsed by Johnny Depp, who is currently working on the Michael Mann-directed "Public Enemies." The film is scheduled for release in 2009.

Also on film ...

Hoosier-born author Joseph Hayes' 1955 novel "The Desperate Hours" was based on a series of home invasions around the country, but was set in the suburbs of Indianapolis. It later became a Tony Award-winning play, and then a movie, both of the same name, the latter starring Humphrey Bogart.

In 1990, director Michael Cimino ("The Deer Hunter") made a new version of the film, again set in Indiana, called "Desperate Hours," which starred Anthony Hopkins, Mickey Rourke, Mimi Rogers and Kelly Lynch.

An American Crime

When: 8 p.m. today (Showtime 2), 11.p.m. Thursday (Showtime), 8:15 p.m. Friday (Showtime 2), 8 p.m. May 18 (Showcase).

Info: www.sho.com