Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Mob biopics I haven't seen

I'm interested in tonight's TCM lineup, which features a series of biopics of various mobsters. I can't give a full recommendation of them, however, as I haven't seen any of them. But I'm looking forward to seeing how much the changing attitudes and film techniques of the late 50s allowed filmmakers to make Mob movies that differ from the gangster movies that were being put out in the 1930s. As for tonight's lineup, the mobsters being profiled are:

Al Capone (played by Rod Steiger) at 8:00 PM ET;
"Legs" Diamond at 10:00 PM;
Arnold Rothstein at midnight; and
Louis "Lepke" Buchalter (starring Tony Curtis!) at 2:00 AM.

One similar movie I have seen, but which isn't airing tonight since it's a Fox film, is Murder, Inc., which fortunately happens to be available on DVD. This is also a story of Buchalter, and his murder-for-hire syndicate of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Today, it's perhaps most significant for being the movie that made the career of Peter Falk, who gets to play a remorseless mob killer. It's not the greatest movie out there, but it's entertaining and interesting, with a lot of names you might recognize.

No comments: