The Legend Lives On

The Resurrection

Skirting the Censors

G-Men and T-Men: The Good Guys as Bad Guys

The Scarface Controversy

Clips

Depression Era Audience

Irony and Innovation

Gangsters are in their own right businessmen, their business just happens to deal in illegal goods. 

"I am just a business man, giving the people what they want." - Al Capone

The Dream Deconstructed

The story of the American Gangster has been often referred to as an "inverse Horatio Alger story," and also a "dark double" of the American Dream. The Gangsters, as portrayed by Cagney, Robinson, and Muni, represent men who share the definitively American drive for success but for means attaining wealth have been shut off. 

How the Other Half Rose

Gangster traditionally came from poor immigrant families who came to America in pursuit of the American dream. The reality that they faced in the land of promise stood in stark contrast to the dream of prosperity. Faced with abject poverty and xenophobia immigrants found the paths to upward mobility all but blocked. 

In 1890 Jacob Riis published the photo-documentary "How The Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York." The invention of flash photography allowed for the first images of the unlit slums which provided the American population with the first look at its own city life. 

Original Gangsters

The myth of the gangster is largely founded upon the legacy of Al Capone and his rival Bugs Moran. Both men headed outfits that dealt in the smuggling and bootlegging of liquor in 1920's Chicago and are responsible for the stigma of violence and viscousness that is attached to the Gangster character.

 The infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre was an assassination attempt on Bugs Moran facilitated by Capone. While it is remembered instance of gang violence it is but one of many examples of attacks between rival gangs. 

The Roaring Twenties

Organized crime emerged during the Prohibition Era when demand for the now illegal good created the necessity for suppliers. A new market and subsequent business method was created which Al Capone defended as "satify[ing] a public demand."

The Big Three

LITTLE CAESAR (1931) 

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, Produced by Warner Bro's. 

Adapted by Francis Edward Faragoh from the novel Little Caesar by W.R. Burnett.

Starring Edward G. Robinson as Little Caesar a.k.a.  "Rico"

THE PUBLIC ENEMY (1931)

Directed by William A. Wellman, Produced by Warner Bro's. 

Adapted by Kubec Glasman from the unpublished  novel Beer and Blood by John Bright. 

Starring James Cagney as Tom Powers. 

SCARFACE: THE SHAME OF A NATION (1932)

Directed by Howard Hawkes, Produced by Howard Hughes.

Adapted by Ben Hecht and W.R. Burnett from the novel Scarface by Armitage Trail.

Starring Paul Muni as Tony Comante.