The mystery of John H. Webb, the man claiming to be George “Machine Gun” Kelly, was to be explored in the opening program of the second season of Unsolved Mysteries.  A segment producer flew to Phoenix to spend the day with Jim Dobkins, Ben Jordan, and Cindy Webb, widow of John H. Webb.

The segment producer was excited about the Kelly case being a major part of that season-opening show.  He said he’d get back to them the next week.  That week stretched into several weeks.  Finally, upon being contacted by Dobkins and asked why the long delay, the segment producer admitted that the FBI, which had a close advisory relationship with Unsolved Mysteries, had directed the producers of Unsolved Mysteries to not have further contact with them.

Other doors suddenly also closed, and the following series of events took place:

Legendary “B movie” producer Sam Arcoff was involved with helping with the planned production of a film about “Machine Gun” Kelly that would be produced with the financial blessing of Columbia Pictures, owned by Sony, the giant corporation based in Japan.

To make a long story short, Arcoff and his associates had been approached by an independent producer seeking financing to base a film on a book he’d special ordered via a bookstore in the Westwood area of Los Angeles, California--the book turned out to be Machine-Gun Man by George “Machine Gun” Kelly as told to Jim Dobkins and Ben Jordan.

An article ran in a Hollywood film trade newspaper that filming was scheduled at sites in New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma. That’s when Dobkins sent a copy of the book to Mr. Arcoff’s private office.  It was delivered to Mr. Arcoff as a present on his 73^rd birthday.

The next week an article appeared in the same Hollywood trade paper, reporting that filming had been delayed.  Meanwhile, an attorney representing Sony and Columbia Pictures contacted Dobkins, warning him not to try to capitalize on the film with regard to his book.  No offer was made on the rights to the book.  Dobkins replied, “We have every right to release a paperback book at the time a film comes out.”

The attorney hung up.

The movie was never made.

Here is an excerpt from Machine-Gun Man:

20.  Of Buttons, Spoons And Toilet Paper

Many men tried to escape from Alcatraz during my years on The Rock. None succeeded.  I saw the remains of two fellows who’d gotten to the water but were defeated by the cold and the crabs; their faces had been eaten off and their chest cavities had been eaten out.  But even seeing such sights did not deter me from making my own escape plans.

I don’t believe anybody ever made a successful escape from Alcatraz.  They didn’t have any death row on The Rock.  The whole island was a death row.  I’d say that nearly all the prisoners thought deeply at different times, trying to figure out ways to escape.  Not many of them actually tried though, and were most certainly not successful, at least during the years I was there.

Some escape attempts which I became aware of never did materialize.  Other cons, like myself, just dreamed of escape.  It proved to be another way of spending time and exercising the brain.

One time I had a connection through a hospital employee and a kitchen steward.  Those were the associations I used at the time when I went on deadlock.  I had my fingers operated on and had the foundations removed from my fingertips which would alter my fingerprints.  I had money which helped me arrange to take care of the work.  We called the doctor “Burnie” or just simply “Doc.”  Money to pay him was channeled through one of those staff members.

Through these same arrangements I managed to get the devices with morphine called jabbers.  They were used while the doc was butchering my fingers.  The jabbers cost a nice sum of money over a period of months.  I’d had the money put in boxes at a bus station and at a railroad station.  There were people on the outside who were anxious to help me; they helped with projects such as these.

The money would be put in one of those places and my contact on The Rock would be told where to pick it up.  It was all part of a plan which never materialized.  I wanted to bust off The Rock, but I didn’t want to bust off like Nash did, the time we got him at the Union Station.  The people who were helping me were there primarily to really give aid when I got off The Rock.  And of course my end, to get off The Rock, was the hardest part of all.

I figured out that my best chance was to become deeply ill, to come up with a type of illness which couldn’t be treated there on The Rock.  They would have to send me to a public hospital or at least some place on the mainland.  This would give me a chance to escape.

My first step was I ate a whole roll of shit paper, trying to get sick.  I had a hell of a physical constitution.  I got it all down.  The funny thing was it started tasting good.  I was afraid I’d get hooked on toilet paper.  Somebody had told me that eating paper was a cinch.  It would cause blockage and I’d have to have surgery.  After I’d consumed the paper, I realized that I’d eaten my two weeks’ supply.  We were only given one roll every two weeks.

Well, my action got me in trouble; I had to start wiping Japanese fashion by using my fingers.  I also have to add that I’ve never found any two tissues with the same flavor.  Of course, what I should have done was to swallow two or three pages of newspapers and then a pair of glasses.  I could read the paper in a nice quiet way and nobody could see what I was reading.

One con smuggled in a large metal spoon out of the kitchen area.  He swallowed it—he told me ahead of time what he was going to do.  When he was in the exercise yard, he held his head back like a sword swallower and pushed the spoon, which he had greased from the fat of a piece of meat, down his throat until it slid into his stomach.  All they did was take him to the prison hospital, operate on him by cutting him open, and removed the spoon.  He was back in the population ten days later.  I never heard of his swallowing anything else.  After I had seen what happened to him, I made up my mind right then that I didn’t want to swallow anything big.

One time in desperation, I swallowed twenty-five buttons I’d collected.  All that happened was I gained a pound-and-a-half and nobody knew the difference.  Someone did say there were some buttons missing.  Another con ate a spoonful of lye.  They cut him open, did some scraping, then stitched him up and he, too, was back in the population in less than a week.  This incident made me more careful than ever what I put in my mouth.  But as careful as I became, I managed to get food poisoning and had to get my stomach pumped out.  This time I wasn’t even trying to get sick.

As my influence grew while I was on The Rock, I could have things done that had to be done.  But I never tried to get a gun.  I knew it wouldn’t have done me a bit of good.  What finally got me off The Rock was graft, pure and simple.

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