Gangster Films Index & Discussion

[cigar joe]

A new index comprising Gangster Films:

A

+) Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)

B

+) The Black Hand (2017)

+) Beast Of The City (1932)

+) Billy Bathgate (1991)

+) Bullets or Ballots (1936)

C

+) City Streets (1931)


D

+) Dead End (1937)

+) Dillinger (1973)

+) Doorway To Hell (1930)

E
F

G

+) Godfather (The) (1972)

+) Goodfellas (1990)

H
I

+) The Irishman (2019)

J
K

+) Kill The Irishman (2011)

L

+) Little Caesar (1931)

+) Live By Night (2016/2017)

M
N
O
P

+) Public Enemies (2009)

+) Public Enemy (The) (1931)

Q
R

+) Rise And Fall Of Legs Diamond (The) (1960)

+) Roaring Twenties (The) (1939)

 
S

+) Scarface (1932)

+) Smart Money (1931)

The Secret Six


T
U

+) Underworld (1927)

V

W

+) White Heat (1949)

X
Y
Z

[cigar joe]

Great intro Book to Crime Film Genre

[drinkanddestroy]

I recently read The Ultimate Book of Gangster Movies by George Anastasia and Glen Macnow http://www.amazon.com/The-Ultimate-Book-Gangster-Movies/dp/B00C0229SW

They rank the greatest gangster films 1-100. Good fun, a nice rundown of gangster movies (though I thought the "Repeated Viewing Quotient" was pretty stupid)

I'm not gonna quibble with their rankings or with what they consider to be gangster films, cuz there are 100 films in the list and we'll be here all day if I started quibbling with that stuff.
All I will argue with is, there are some films that don't appear in the book at all, or appear in the various honorable mentions-type lists but not in the main Top 100 list, that IMO belong in the top 100. If I recall correctly, the following films appear in various honorable mentions-type lists in the book: Breathless, Touchez Pas au Grisbi, Le Cercle Rouge, [ Gun Crazy. If you consider these gangster films, then they definitely belong in top 100.

[drinkanddestroy]

the first-ever gangster film:

The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG5hbpL8Njo

[drinkanddestroy]

anyone catch TNT's new series Mob City?

I saw the first double-episode (they show two episodes at a time, so it's two hours at a time), it's about the organized crime in LA in the late 40's; headed by Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen under him; there are parallel stories with the mob and with the cops trying to catch them, and of course many cops are corrupt and on the mob's payroll. Production looks pretty with the sets and cars and costumes and machine guns etc. etc. But IMO the acting rangers from average to bad; in the first double episode, IMO there were exactly three actors who delivered good performances: Robert Knepper, Milo Ventimiglia and the lovely Alexa Davalos.
Mark Isham does the music; there are lots of songs sung in nightclubs (like you'll hear the song in the background during a scene, and then they'll cut to a scene with some characters in a nightclub watching a performance of that song, so it's like the music is partially "internal" (not sure if Isham composed original songs or if he is re-arranging songs of the period).

There's one scene that takes place in '45 or '47 where some Cagney mimics Cagney "top of the world" - White Heat didn't come out till 1949


If you're interested, you can watch that first double episode here http://www.tntdrama.com/series/mob-city/?SR=Mob_City_tv
New double episode on TNT Wednesday.

The story thus far is pretty good, a nice amount of suspense/mystery/twists. But it's just not done well, and as I said, the acting is bad, so it's not terribly fun to watch.

I'll probably give it one more shot by watching Wednesday's episodes, but that's all – if things don't get drastically better, I am done. And frankly, I'm not expecting them to - how good can it get with a cast that is crap other than two people? IMO, in the next episode, they should kill off everyone besides Ventimiglia and Davalos and continue the show with the two of them as leads

[drinkanddestroy]

This guy has some terrific, long movie reviews of gangster movies http://immortalephemera.com/reviews/

(there are lots of reviews of non-gangster movies as well, but I've only read the gangster film reviews so far)

[Groggy]

The History Channel's starting a Bonnie and Clyde miniseries tonight too.

[drinkanddestroy]

The History Channel's starting a Bonnie and Clyde miniseries tonight too.

I watched it, didn't like it.

I virtually never watch tv shows. The only tv I watch is sports and TCM. I watched this show tonite and TNT's Mob City last nite, those were the first tv shows I'd seen since I can't remember when. So, maybe I'm (subconsciously) comparing the TV shows to movies or something, I don't know, but I didn't like either.

Whoever these actor/actresses are that play Bonnie & Clyde, let's just say they're not Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. The girl is half-decent, the guy is nothing, the only really nice thing I have to say about them are they have nice thick Texas accents... I hated how they constantly showed Clyde's dream state, hated how much they went on and on with the family stuff. We're watching this to see the exploits of Bonnie & Clyde, not Bonnie and her mom or Clyde and his dad. I suppose Part 2 will focus more on the criminal exploits; once the guy was killed at the end of Part 1, now they'll always be on the run from the law.

I'll be glad when it's over so all those annoying ads on IMDB will go away.

[drinkanddestroy]

I watched the second night of Mob City last week (it plays on three nights, two episodes each nite, for a total of two episodes). As I mentioned previously, I didn't like the first night, but I watched the second night and I really liked it.

The show focuses on the LA mafia in the late 40's run by Bugsy Siegel, Mickey Cohen, and Sid Rothman, and the attempts by the police department to bring them down. Of course, the police department has to contentd not only with the mob, but with the fact that half the cops and other gov't officials are on the mob's payroll.
So the storyline follows both the mob and the cops. The lead character, Jon Bernthal, is a cop who is also on the mob's payroll.

All told, IMO there are four really good actors in the show

Iddo Goldberg plays Leslie Shermer, a deranged lunatic who was cheated out of a deal and now is coming after his money; that guy is terrific as the creep. He was a recurring cast member on a few episodes and I don't think he'll be back after this season (if there is another season), but he had a significant supporting role on a few episodes and was terrific as the deranged betrayed crook out to get his money. (And btw, he is married to Ashley Madekwe from the ABC series Revenge - as you'll see from her blog, he is a very very lucky guy http://ashley-ringmybell.blogspot.com/

Milo Ventimiglia does a good job as Ned Stax, a lawyer and fixer for Siegel & Cohen.


The next two actors absolutely incredible, like, at the level that if one of them had the lead role in a movie, I would go see the movie based on them alone:


Robert Knepper plays Sid Rothman

The lovely Alexa Davalos plays Jasmine Fontaine - the one important female role; many have described this show as neo-noir, so I guess you can call her the femme fatale. [I see that Davalos played, the lead female role, Daniel Craig's love interest in Defiance (2008), but I saw that movie quite a while ago and don't remember her in there]

Anyway, I hope Knepper and Davalos get big roles in movies – I'd love to see them more. Davalos's accent is so sexy, you can cum just hearing her speak. Wikipedia says she was born to American parents in France, and spent most of her childhood in France and Italy before coming to America... yet she has the sexiest British accent ever - here is a random interview I pulled from YouTube, just to hear if the British accent she uses on Mob City is real; and yes, it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WnvD4UqG9U

------

I'm gonna watch the final episodes now... bye bye

[drinkanddestroy]

I just watched the final night's two episodes of Mob City. Good stuff. So, I didn't like the first night, but I liked the next two nights.

From wikipedia:  "Mob City is a neo-noir television series created by Frank Darabont for TNT. It is based on real-life accounts of the L.A.P.D. and gangsters in 1940s Los Angeles as chronicled in the book L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City by John Buntin."

The show actually mixes fiction with fact; takes some real-life characters, maybe a few real-life incidents, and weaves fiction around them.

I assume that if the ratings were good, then more seasons of the show will be upcoming. I hope they will be.

I'm not going to discuss the plot of each episode; if you wanna watch it, I'm sure it'll be re-run a lot, on TNT and online. If you wanna read the plot of each episode, it's up on wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mob_City#Episodes (they only have the first four episodes now; I am sure the final two will be up there soon.


I'll just give a very brief synopsis of the storyline of where the show is at right now.

Needless to say, I'm giving away the story so don't read this if you plan on watching this season's shows:

Jon Bernthal is the main character - an ex-Marine cop who seems to be working for the mob...  but we find out his true motivations are not money or anythin like that; his true motivation is love; he is still carrying the torch for his ex-wife, played by Alexa Davalos (we later find out she dumped him after he came back from WWII with what today we'd call post-traumatic stress disorder); as the show opens, Davalos is hooked up with a small-time crook who gets killed in the opening episode trying to blackmail Bugsy Siegel, played by Edward Burns. Bernthal is the one who kills that small-time crook during the blackmail exchange; we think Bernthal is on Bugsy's payroll, but it turns out his motivations all along are to protect Davalos, who was in on the scheme to blackmail Bugsy with photos she took of him killing someone.

So, through the episodes,  the LAPD - led by William Parker, who is one cop that is pure and not on the mob's payroll and is truly determined to bring down the mob  - is trying to bring down Bugsy.
By the final episode, Alexa Davalos is on Bugsy's hit list cuz Bugsy knows she took the pictures that he was blackmailed over; but Bernthal loves Davalos and wants to protect her so Bernthal kills Bugsy (he riddles Bugsy's body as if it were Bonnie and Clyde, and then gives him the "Moe Green Special" through both eyes. That's right - Bugsy Siegel's famous murder was carried out not by the mob over his cost overruns for The Flamingo, but by a cop whose only motivation is to protect the woman he loves from the mob's hit list 


As the season ends, there is now a power vacuum in the LA mob. Meyer Lansky gives Mickey Cohen the reins as head of the LA mob, and Lansky he makes it clear that Cohen's first order of business is to find Bugsy's killer and bring back a pound of flesh.

---

So, if there are more seasons, I assume that as it begins, the LA mob - led by Mickey Cohen, and Sid Rothman below him (all under the directive of Meyer Lansky from the East Coast) will be looking for Bugsy's killer. (The only one who knows Bernthal killed Bugsy is the mob lawyer played by Milo Ventimiglia - he is Bernthal's buddy so he won't rat him out, but he won't be sticking his neck out for him either.) Also, good cop William Parker is about to become police chief, and is determined to take down the mob.

[kjrwe]

May as well add Rififi (1955) to the list.

[cigar joe]

Rififi is considered a Noir

[drinkanddestroy]

May as well add Rififi (1955) to the list.

I consider Rififi a heist film and a separate category than gangster films. Gangster films follow the career of organized criminals. Heist films are about a group carrying out a single, carefully orchestrated burglary.

 

[cigar joe]

Billy Bathgate added