One of the best Monogram Studio productions, Dillinger was made as a quickie B-production, but also managed to get a degree of critical acclaim unusual for a Monogram release. The New York Times noted:

“A rip-roaring gangster melodrama reminiscent of the Public Enemy school arrived yesterday at the Victoria from the Monogram studio. Tersely titled Dillinger, it sketches, between bursts from tommy guns and exploding gas bombs, the trail of bank robberies and killings which ended in a Chicago movie-house alley in July, 1934, when Federal agents riddled the cornered gangster, John Dillinger. His rise from a small-time hoodlum to the nation's public enemy number one follows a somewhat familiar melodramatic pattern, but the film moves along swiftly from one crime to another and gives a reasonably accurate account of highlights in a vicious career.”