THE ST. VALENTINE’S DAY MASSACRE
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre is a 1967 American gangster film based on the 1929 mass murder of seven members of Chicago’s Northside Gang (led by George “Bugs” Moran) on orders from Al Capone. The picture was directed by Roger Corman, written by Howard Browne, and starring Jason Robards as Capone, Ralph Meeker as Moran, George Segal as Peter Gusenberg, and David Canary as Frank Gusenberg.
Corman, better known as a director and producer of low-budget B movies, was given his largest budget to date (estimated at $2.5 million) and the backing of 20th Century Fox to realize what he described as “the most accurate, authentic gangster film ever”.[3] With a voiceover narration by Paul Frees, the film depicts in detail the events leading up to the massacre in a docudrama-style, with many authentic historical details.
A young Bruce Dern plays one of the victims of the massacre, and Jack Nicholson has a bit part as a gangster. Also featured are Jan Merlin as one of Moran’s lieutenants and veteran Corman actors Dick Miller and Leo Gordon as one of the phony policemen involved in the massacre and Heitler, respectively.
A novelization of the film by Boris O’Hare based on Howard Browne’s screenplay was published in 1967 by Dell Publishing and released in paperback format.
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GOODFELLAS
Goodfellas (stylized as GoodFellas) is a 1990 American biographical gangster film[5] directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Nicholas Pileggi and Scorsese, and produced by Irwin Winkler. It is a film adaptation of Pileggi’s 1985 nonfiction book Wiseguy. Starring Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, and Paul Sorvino, the film narrates the rise and fall of Mafia associate Henry Hill and his friends and family from 1955 to 1980.
Scorsese initially titled the film Wise Guy and postponed making it; he and Pileggi later changed the title to Goodfellas. To prepare for their roles in the film, De Niro, Pesci and Liotta often spoke with Pileggi, who shared research material left over from writing the book. According to Pesci, improvisation and ad-libbing came out of rehearsals wherein Scorsese gave the actors freedom to do whatever they wanted. The director made transcripts of these sessions, took the lines he liked most and put them into a revised script, which the cast worked from during principal photography.
Goodfellas premiered at the 47th Venice International Film Festival on September 9, 1990, where Scorsese was awarded with the Silver Lion award for Best Director, and was released in the United States on September 19, 1990, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film grossed $47 million against a budget of $25 million and received widespread acclaim upon release; the critical consensus on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes calls it “arguably the high point of Martin Scorsese’s career”. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, with Pesci winning Best Supporting Actor. The film also won five awards from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, including Best Film and Best Director, and was named the year’s best film by various critics’ groups.
Goodfellas is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, particularly in the gangster genre. In 2000, it was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress.[6][7] Its content and style have been emulated in numerous other pieces of media.[8]
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THE PUBLIC ENEMY
The Public Enemy (Enemies of the Public in the UK)[6] is a 1931 American pre-Code gangster film produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The film was directed by William A. Wellman, and starring James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, Donald Cook and Joan Blondell. The film relates the story of a young man’s rise in the criminal underworld in Prohibition-era urban America. The supporting players include Beryl Mercer, Murray Kinnell, and Mae Clarke. The screenplay is based on an unpublished novel—Beer and Blood by two former newspapermen, John Bright and Kubec Glasmon—who had witnessed some of Al Capone‘s murderous gang rivalries in Chicago.[7][8]
In 1998, The Public Enemy was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
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THE ROARING TWENTIES
The Roaring Twenties is a 1939 American gangster film directed by Raoul Walsh and starring James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart, and Gladys George. The film, spanning the period from 1919 to 1933, was written by Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay and Robert Rossen. The film follows three men and their experiences during major events in the 1920s, such as Prohibition era violence and the 1929 stock market crash.
The picture was based on “The World Moves On”, a short story by Mark Hellinger, a columnist who had been hired by Jack L. Warner to write screenplays.[1] The movie is hailed as a classic in the gangster movie genre,[2][3] and considered an homage to the classic gangster movie of the early 1930s.[4]
The Roaring Twenties was the third and last film that Cagney and Bogart made together. The other two were Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and The Oklahoma Kid (1939).