Simply A Masterpiece

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Blistering performances.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This landmark gangster movie is strong stuff , being dominated by the tenacious acting of Rod Steiger as the gangster of the title who follows his way venomously to the top . Director Richard Wilson's body-strewn look at the feud between Al Capone , Bugs Moran , Johnny Torrio and other famous mobsters , but especially concerns the Rise And Fall Of History's Most Famous Gangster . Alfonso Caponi , Scarface , for a scar on his countenance and son from Italians immigrants . He's a youth comrade of Lucky Luciano and Johnny Torrio , both of whom are also from Napolitan origin . In this unusually accurate biography , small-time hood Al Capone (Rod Steiger) goes to Chicago at the dawn of Prohibition to be the bodyguard of Johnny Torrio (Nehemiah Persoff) . Capone's rise in Chicago Gangdom is strongly carried out by means of violence and murder , subsequently took place his fall .Torrio accompanied to Capone are going to Chicago but he is called by his uncle Jim Colosimo (Joe De Santis) . He's murdered and Torrio rules over as Chicago's crime boss , but during his violent confrontation to Dion O'Bannion he decided Capone managed the business . He becomes head of Chicago's biggest "business," and followed through killing corruption , extortion, and political fraud. Capone (born January 17, 1899 Brooklyn and deceased 1947) running his crime empire until FBI agents and police (James Gregory) worked to send the crime boss to prison. Al Capone's been convicted of tax evasion, but the law states that he can only be confined to a regular jail cell . And from there, he still runs his criminal empire. Michael Rourke, a government agent and Eliot Ness who are aware of this, seek to have him transfered to the newly open maximum security prison, Alcatraz, but nobody believes that this is necessary , but Capone moves inexorably toward his downfall and ignominious final . This factual biography of gang lord Al Capone follows his rise and fall in Chicago gangdom during the Prohibition era. This is a violence-ridden story full of action, drama, thriller and pretty entertaining . The notorious gangster Al Capone being splendidly played by Rod Steiger who makes a good character study of one of the most colorful mobsters of the history . Steiger captures the special excitement or mood of paranoia on Capone role . This fast-moving mobster story heartkened back to the vintage years of tommy-gun thrillers at Warner Bros such as ¨Scarface¨ and ¨Pubic enemy¨ . In the film appears famous gangsters such as the racketeer Johnny Torrio well played by Nehemiah Persoff , George 'Bugs' Moran performed by Murvyn Vye , Dion O'Banion interpreted by Robert Gist , Tony Genaro performed by Al Ruscio and Big Jim Colosimo rightly acted by Joe De Santis . Fay Spain makes an appealing heroine , providing an elegant touch amid the 'macho'machine gun mayhem of the rest of the film . This picture is plenty of mayhem , strong stuff , drama and amount of gangland violence . Although sometimes takes a back seat to the real life and catches the imagination in the storyline . This fast-paced and entertaining film was well directed by Richard Wilson (Invitation a gunfighter , Three in Attic). Wilson was a previous associate of Orson Welles in the Mercury Theatre days and made another good Western as ¨Man with a gun¨, starring Robert Mitchum and ¨Zane Grey¨ episodes. Watchable results for this mobster movie . Other films dealing with Al Capone are the following : The classic ¨Scarface ¨by Howard Hawks with Paul Muni ; ¨Scarface mob¨ by Phil Karlson with Robert Stack and Neville Brand ; ¨The St Valentine's Day Massacre¨(67) by Roger Corman with Jason Robards , Ralph Meeker , Jack Nicholson , Bruce Dern ; ¨Capone¨ by Steve Carver with Ben Gazzara and Susan Blakely , ¨The Untouchables¨ by Brian De Palma with Kevin Costner and Sean Connery . And TV series as ¨The Untouchables of Eliot Ness¨ with Robert Stack , Neville Brand and Keenan Wynn, and ¨The Untouchables¨ with Tom Amandes and William Forshyte .

The years have not been kind to this flat 50's style recreation of 20's style gangsterism. The film is overwhelmed by Rod Steiger's performance and underwhelmed by the stiff conventionalism of the era's film making. The roaring 20's presented in the repressed 50's where decadence is bad table manners and spouting, yelling, and mumbling display an uneducated ignorance. Everything in this movie is tame where it should be wild and soft where it should be coarse.Historically Hollywood never did quite get it right, to be kind, and not even until very recently has the true ugliness and understanding of the unfairly glamorized criminal been portrayed for the destructive force that it is. Even so, even today, entertainment usually supersedes responsibility, but not because of community standards and motion picture code restraint.

FOLLOWING ITS INITIAL exclusive showing at one of the big, Downtown Loop movie houses, AL CAPONE (Allied Artists, 1959) went into general release; then being booked at many of the old neighborhood theaters.* How well we remember the Newspaper and Radio/Television advertising campaign: "AL CAPONE TAKES OVER CHICAGO" that was apparently especially tailored to our pride as Native Chicagoans in this most famous and infamous of its "Favourite Sons." ODDLY ENOUGH, PRIOR to the release of this film to the theatrical movie house circuits, we (that is "I"), having been born in 1946 at the beginning of "the Post War Baby Boom", had not heard of him and really knew nothing about neither "the Roaring 20's" nor the Gangster Era and "Great Depression" of the 1930's. Mr. Capone had only died 12 years prior, yet it was as if there had been an "evil conspiracy" on a great scale to rewrite history and remove any of our knowledge of his life and career as boss pf organized crime.THAT LAST YEAR of the Decade of the '50's would prove to be very eventful overall** and a particular watershed for old "Scarface"; which was only one of many mostly unflattering monikers that were hung on him. In addition to this movie, we were treated to the 2 part presentation of The Untouchables on DESILU PLAYHOUSE (CBS TV). This then begot the long running and still very popular Television Series of THE UNTOUCHABLES (Desilu/Langford Prod./ABC TV, 1959-63).AS FOR THE PARTICULARS of the film, after having just viewing it once again (courtesy of Turner Claccic Movies), we found it to be an even better movie than we had remembered. It was done in a very straight forward and no frills manner. It starts with a young Alphonmse (Rod Steiger)arriving in the Windy City; in order to take a position with his friend/mentor Johnny Torrio's gang. (His first assignment is portrayed as being a bouncer in a saloon/gambling joint; which was in reality a whorehouse! Tsk, tsk!) AT THIS EARLY period, it was "Big Jim" Colosimo who was the kingpin among the Italian and Iriosh gangs of the South & West Sides. The story documents Capone's rise to the top following his engineering the murder of Colosino and Torrio's "retirement"; after he had a near miss in an attempt on his life by the O'Banion/Moran/Weiss North Side mob.THE MOVIE HAS much to recommend it. It has a fine cast; which also features Fay Spain as the widow of one of Capone's killings; who eventually marries the big guy. James Gregory turns in his best work as a tough, honest Chicago Police Sergeant; whose rise to Captain and "Inspector"*** parallels that of "Big Al".ITS USE OF B&W filming adds to the overall effect of realistic storytelling; as Black & White was the predominant format in the gangster era and was still the most common in 1959. Add a great and most appropriate musical score; which serves the production well in underscoring and emphasizing the action and storyline.ONE FINAL NOTE that we must add before closing is our observation that there is no soft selling nor unnecessary 'humanizing' of the subject matter. Unlike an awful lot of movies of the Gangster Genre, there is no portrayal of Capone's being strong and tough; but all for his family. This is particularly true of most of the Mob movies of the Post-Godfather Era.We give AL CAPONE a 3 1/2 Tommy Gun rating.NOTE: * "Neighborhood Theatre", refers to a practice in those bygone days before the invention of the Shopping Mall Multiplex, when single screen movie houses were situated in various shopping districts throughout cities and towns.NOTE:** Okay, so technically the 1960's don't start until January 1, 1961; but '59 is the last year to have a 50 series number. Also. incidentally, 1959 was historically a watershed year. During '59. Fidel Castro came to power, the U.S. suffered a many months long Steel Strike and even the most unusual of happenings occurred. The Chicago White Sox won the American League Pennant and faced the now Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series.NOTE*** The Rank of "Inspector" may carry a lot of importance in New York, Boston, Metropolis or Paris; but on the Chicago Police Department an Inspector is a sort of overpaid version of a school lunchroom captain or lavatory monitor. He is of the rank of Lieutennant and gets his pay for such matters as gigging street cops for not having their hats on, taking too long on lunch and for (in their estimation)taking too long on assignments.

Chicago in the 1920's: rife with political and police corruption and increasingly run by mobsters. The most famous of them undoubtedly was Al Capone. In this bio-pic, Capone is played very effectively by Rod Steiger. Steiger captured both the role and the man. Capone was a guy of humble origins, but was a bit of a contradiction: he had no education but a love for culture; he was a ruthless gangster but for the most part stayed legally "clean." Steiger captured both the ruthlessness and the culture with his portrayal. Based on actual photographs of Capone that I've seen, Steiger even looked the part. He was very impressive.The movie basically traces Capone's career in crime from the time he arrives in Chicago in 1919 as a bodyguard to a local crime figure and takes it up to his conviction for income tax evasion of all things (it was the only crime they could ever actually pin on him) in 1931, with a very brief look at Capone in Alcatraz, and a voice-over explaining his last years before his death in 1947. Watching his rise was always interesting. A lot of this is fictional. James Gregory's character (the honest Chicago cop who commits himself and his entire career to bringing Capone down, and from whose perspective the story is told) didn't exist, and there's no portrayal of Capone's actual marriage; instead the movie focuses on a relationship he supposedly develops with a woman (Fay Spain) whose husband he had killed in the early part of his criminal career. The character of the newspaperman Keely (Martin Balsam) was based on a real figure, although the name was changed.By the standards of the modern era of film-making, this is laughably clean. There are a lot of shootouts, but no blood ever appears on those who are shot and killed, and in general these gangsters are awfully polite! There's an extended look on the planning of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (as Capone used his men to take out many of his rivals in Chicago while he stayed at his home in Florida) although the Massacre itself doesn't take very long and - again - isn't especially graphic.This represents an interesting and believable (if not quite historically accurate) look at not only Capone but at the state of Chicago in the era and of the role that Prohibition played in promoting the rise of organized crime, and Steiger's performance alone makes this worth watching. (8/10)