ENGL 4860: Special Topics in Film Studies The Gangster Film Spring 2011 Room: PH 322 Day/Time: Monday, pm Gangster Film

1/24/11 | Meeting 1 Introduction to the Course Little CaesarLittle Caesar (Mervyn LeRoy, 1930; 79m) Reading: Warshow (GFR 11; RCD; Kaminsky, GFR, 47)

Gangster Film Edward G. Robinson

Gangster Film Edward G. Robinson

Gangster Film Mervyn LeRoy ( )

Gangster Film Gypsy (1962) A Majority of One (1961) The FBI Story (1959) No Time for Sergeants (1958) The Bad Seed (1956) Toward the Unknown (1956) Mister Roberts (1955) Latin Lovers (1953) Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) Quo Vadis (1951) Little Women (1949) Homecoming (1948) Without Reservations (1946) The House I Live In (1945) Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) Johnny Eager (1942) Random Harvest (1942) Blossoms in the Dust (1941) Waterloo Bridge (1940) Escape (1940) Anthony Adverse (1936) I Found Stella Parish (1935) Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) Tugboat Annie (1933) The World Changes (1933) Two Seconds (1932) Three on a Match (1932) I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) Five Star Final (1931) Tonight or Never (1931) Little Caesar (1931)

Gangster Film Talking Points  What drives Rico?  Rico’s whiny voice  Is there anything admirable in Rico?  Robinson’s performance?  Rico and Joe Massara  Rico and women  Going soft  Rico and the ostentatious  Rico as Capone  Tipsy Topsy Turvy  “Mother of mercy! Can this be the end of Rico?”  LeRoy’s direction

Gangster Film Talking Points  Why do gangster films take place in “streets dark with something more than night”? (Raymond Chandler)  Why was there always a natural affinity between the movies and crime?  Christopher Frayling: early gangster films (like Griffith’s Musketeers of Pig Alley) were more Dickensian  Raoul Walsh’s Regeneration used real locations (admired by Scorsese)  Prohibition: the beginning of the age of the gangster (today’s Boardwalk Empire [HBO] is about this)  Warshow: “the no to the great American yes”

Gangster Film Talking Points (continued)  Pileggi: with Prohibition, the gangster becomes more than just a thug—becomes more romanticized and a celebrity  Gangster stories sold newspapers; Hollywood noticed  Early importance of Lon Chaney—his magnetism  Josef von Sternberg’s Underworld (1927) influential silent gangster film—written by Ben Hecht  The genre needed the talkie in order to utilize wonderful gangster language (its argot) and its sounds (machine guns, etc.)  With the coming of sound (and the need for studio shooting) location shooting’s look and feel were lost  The sociological origin of the gangster: he was often the distrusted immigrant who was not a part of mainstream America

Gangster Film Talking Points (continued)  Scorsese’s memories of seeing Little Caesar & Public Enemy  All the elements of the genre finally jelled in Little Caesar  “Be somebody”—the great theme  Robinson couldn’t shoot with his eyes open  Robinson’s humanity came through  Scorsese: Public Enemy much more shocking, more sordid than Little Caesar  Wellman’s memories: Beer and Blood, selling it to Zanuck, visual ideas, source music, fighting over the final scene (Warner: it made me sick); Zanuck ramming a cigar down the throat of a dissenting director

Gangster Film Talking Points (continued)  Cagney was from the streets—never lost the gutter; balletic, famous gestures, misogyny, charisma  Hughes (an outsider), Hawks, and Scarface: moral objections  Molly Haskell: Scarface as little boy film  Making Scarface a coward at the end: Scarface, the Shame of a Nation  The end of the gangster film run (for a time)  25 gangster films in 1931; 40 in 1932  The country was “depressed”; the gangster got things done, got rich quick  Gangster actors had remarkable charisma, but they were not to be too likeable

Gangster Film Talking Points (continued)  The actors—Robinson, Cagney—chafed at typecasting  Muni escaped more fully than Robinson & Cagney  Both Cagney and Robinson ended up parodying themselves  Joan Blondell best known female gangster bad girl  The end of the gangster film run (for a time)  Ethnic groups locked in gangsters: Italian, Irish, Jews  Kim Newman: teens probably infuriated their parents by using gangster talk  Trying on new clothes scenes  Gangsters are obsessed with modern design (architecture, cars)  Bonding takes place with fellow gangsters, not women

Gangster Film Talking Points (continued)  Haskell: gangsters had a feminine side, cared about their mothers  The prologues and epigraphs—often scriptural  Freyling: nemesis and hubris stories  Dying in the streets—the transgressive pleasure of seeing the gangster’s death  That Warner Bros. patented the gangster was no accident  WB wanted to do “ripped from the headlines”  Jack Warner as a kind of gangster—Joan Blondell adored him as a big daddy  WB had a house style for cranking out the WB gangster films  Taught, fast-paced—relatively short  Directors: men’s men

Gangster Film Talking Points (continued)  The WB directors were working on budget & on schedule  Everybody worked together—got each other’s juices flowing  Employed newspaper men--journalists who knew how to write/talk fast; these were not playwrights  Ben Hect—most notorious journalist (crime reporter) become screenwriter  Through 55 minutes.