Category: gangster film
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‘The Long Good Friday’: The British Gangster Classic That Predicted the Future
Mobster’s World Blown to Bits in an Easter Wave of Terror Contains spoilers ‘The Long Good Friday’ (1980) As Good Friday approaches it’s fitting that we look at one of the slender number of crime films set on the holiest of Christian holy days. In filmdom, the connection between religious rites and acts of criminal…
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When Gangsters Collide with the Dark Side: 65 Mobbed Up Films Noir
Gangster films were already a cinematic staple when a new kind of crime film began to emerge in the early 1940s. Films noir captured the popular imagination for a couple of decades after World War II. While some of the post war films are about mobsters, they’re different in tone from 1930s gangster films. Warner…
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Femmes Fatale Are Deceptively Charming, Dangerous and Often Lethal; But One Among Them Tips the Scales When It Comes to Evil Doings — And She’s Probably Not The One You’re Thinking Of
Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, “The Killing” (1956). By Paul Parcellin Be forewarned: Many spoilers are included throughout the text below. Sure, Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), the husband liquidating murderess of “Double Indemnity” (1944) might be your go-to gal whenever the term “femme fatale” is mentioned. She’s as coolly detached and methodical as a hangman,…
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‘L.A. Confidential’: Wounded Cops Take On the System
From left, Det. Ed Exly (Guy Pearce), Det. Bud White (Russell Crowe) and Det. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey). “L.A. Confidential” just had its 25th anniversary and that makes us look anew at the astounding saga of police corruption in the City of Angels, circa 1953. A quarter of a century later the film’s authentic retro look,…
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British Invasion: Boorman Uncorks Psychedelic Noir
Angie Dickinson, Lee Marvin and Carroll O’Connor in ‘Point Blank’ (1967). Why is L.A. the location of choice for so many crime films and stories about the dark side of life? Maybe it’s just because the bulk of all film production is done in Hollywood and it’s cheaper to shoot in your own backyard. But…
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This Scarface is in Chicago, Not Miami
Living dangerously, Tony Camonte muscles in on his boss’s girlfriend. “Scarface” (1932) is one of the seminal American gangster films of the 1930s, along with “Little Caesar,” “The Roaring Twenties” and “The Public Enemy.” Each one tells the story of a gangster’s rise in the bootlegging business and his assent to the top of a powerful…
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Scorsese’s Favorite Gangster Movies
James Cagney, “White Heat” (1949). Director Martin Scorsese revisits crime pictures that most influenced him Here are 15 gangster pictures that had a profound effect on me and the way I thought about crime and how to portray it on film. They excited me, provoked me, and in one way or another, they had the…