Capone

Very few people remember this film (why is beyond me, it is one of the better acted gangster films--Even Sly Stallone does a decent job). But to the few of us that really remember this, it is because of a relatively unknown actress called Susan Blakely.

This is the first time from a major motion picture studio that an actress spread her legs (while completely nude, by the way) and showed us her very blond "Delta of Venus"--absolute motion picture history that, unfortunately should have catapulted her to the Sharon Stone level, but didn't.

I had to order from Great Britain and convert it from PAL to NTSC, but it was worth it!

Thanks forever, Susan!

Psychopath? In his last years due to syphilis maybe, but even the movie's final scene showing him in Florida surrounded by gangster friends (allegedly including Frank Nitti, who had died some years earlier) rather than his family was absurd. Why did the film ignore his wife, son, siblings, and brother Ralph, who was the most important brother in the organization? And what's with that broad Iris, with him through out the movie? Pure fiction.

Even the killing of Jim Colosimo at his restaurant was baloney. Frankie Yale did it, though the lone witness recanted. One writer claims Capone hadn't yet arrived in Chicago at that time. Johnny Torrio knew Capone from New York, saw potential, and brought him west, so even the movie's opening scene of Capone's alley fight as a means of meeting Torrio was nonsense. Further,it was the George "Bugs" Malone gang that attacked Torrio in front of his apartment building, not a Capone plan... and you can bet the Torrio's didn't have a sign in front of their house displaying their true name! I could go on and on here about substituting fancy for fact, events omitted, but space is limited. Capone's social skills were far above average amonghis peers and the public. He always bargained first, not shot first, and had great loyalty to his men and kept his end of agreements. Visit a bookstore to get the true story instead of believing this absolutely ridiculous flick. BTW, Capone never exposed himself on the golf course or anywhere else, as far as is known.

The role of Al Capone, a large and expansive one is one that many actors just love to do. Joining the ranks of players who've essayed Chicago's legendary crime boss is Ben Gazzara. He ranks favorably with such folks as Rod Steiger, Jason Robards, Jr., Neville Brand and Robert DeNiro.

Roger Corman produced this film simply entitled Capone and we see Al Capone from his early days as a hoodlum in Brooklyn going west as Horace Greeley said to seek fame and fortune and he certainly finds it. The Chicago gang wars of the Roaring Twenties have passed into legend and some of those legends are portrayed here if not quite accurately.

In between all the violence is Susan Blakely who bares her all for art in this film. She's a pleasure driven, hedonistic, flapper from the Roaring Twenties and she's the girl who sparks Capone. Not a mention of the fact that he was a married man and also probably tried out all the women who went to work in Capone bordellos. It's no doubt where he got the syphilis that killed him eventually.

The theme of Capone is that one rises in the gangster ranks by the well timed double cross. It's how Capone rises and how he's dethroned. None of the gangster lore that has come down says what you see in the film is how it happened. In fact I doubt a lot of it. But it makes a nice story.

Gazzara is a mesmerizing Capone and young Sylvester Stallone is Frank Nitti who succeeds him as head of his organization. Blakely is one sexy woman and a lot of tongues will be hanging out.

Roger Corman gives us yet another version of Scarface. No doubt we'll see many more.

If you were looking for an Al Capone biography that was more exciting than the 1959 film with Rod Steiger, you might like this one, but the only exciting thing for me were the gun battles. Ben Gazzara does well in the title role, but you can tell he has cotton in his jowls because some of his dialogue is incomprehensible. The casting was ideal, having Italian-American actors playing a gang of Italian-American mobsters (especially Sylvester Stallone as Frank Nitti). There is one point the film gets wrong. At the end of the movie, Nitti travels to Florida in 1946 to visit Capone, who is dying of syphilis. In real life, Nitti committed suicide in 1943, before Capone died.

Recommended only for a boring day.

I have seen many actors hamming it up.But Ben Gazzara plays Al Capone in Al Jolson mode.I swear he was going to sing Mammy before the end.This is a really tacky movie made because The Godfather was such a hit.Avoid like the Plague.1 out of 10