Capone

There's some decent names – Ben Gazzara, Harry Guardino, blink-and-you'll miss-him John Cassavetes – in this cheap biopic produced by Roger Corman but you can only assume they were on their uppers when it was made because it's not particularly interesting. Ben Gazzara's depiction of Capone borders on parody at times, and the film's opinion of him is unclear to say the least. It gives little insight into Capone's early years and while it sometimes has characters describing him as an animal it also depicts him as a caring, almost sympathetic, lover of a hard-living (but lusciously soft-bodied) flapper played by Susan Blakely. The plot takes us through Capone's life from the late teens to the mid-forties when, riddled with syphilis, his mind shot, he fishes at a swimming pool and raves about the Bolsheviks to people who aren't there. It probably touches all the bases – without really telling us much – but the truth of the story it relates is perhaps open to question. I was surprised to see a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone pop up as Capone's right-hand man who sells his boss out so that he can wear the crown. There's not much here about Stallone that suggests he's going to become a major action star – in fact he's probably miscast – but then everything about this film seems to be a little half-hearted.

Cheaply-made and over-simplified account of the life and times of the most notorious gangland figure of The Roaring Twenties; clearly intended as exploitation - with liberal doses of nudity and foul language to embellish the typical blood-soaked exploits - the Fox film was produced by Roger Corman (who was associated with any number of similar genre efforts, released in the wake of BONNIE AND CLYDE [1967] and which became an even greater commodity after THE GODFATHER [1972]).

As Capone, Ben Gazzara chews more than the scenery - as he obviously has placed something in his mouth to help 'authenticate' his delivery! Similarly, so as to give the impression of realism, the script continuously precedes scenes with the date and year when the event depicted is supposed to have happened; still, this doesn't prevent the film from appearing clichéd most of the time! Curiously, the film ends with Capone on parole going mad in some luxurious mansion - a turn of events which, as far as I know, is completely fabricated.

With the various real-life characters and myriad factions on display, one is prone to lose track of who's killing who and why - but, for all that, the carnage is constant and moderately well-staged (though, at one point, Corman inserts footage from his own film THE ST. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE [1967], also a Fox production!). The cast is made up of veterans like Gazzara, Harry Guardino and a cameo by John Cassavetes, and newcomers such as Sylvester Stallone (a pretty good pre-stardom role as Capone's right-hand man who eventually has his boss ousted!), regular baddie Martin Kove (as a thug from a rival clan) and lovely Susan Blakely as Capone's young but free-spirited moll.

Needless to say, the film doesn't do justice to the character (seen in countless other gangster pics, the most significant impressions perhaps being those given, Method-style, by Rod Steiger in AL CAPONE [1959] and Robert De Niro in THE UNTOUCHABLES [1987]) - but neither is it the disaster Leonard Maltin claims, having slapped a BOMB rating to it! By the way, while the print on Fox's R2 DVD is O.K., the audio is pretty lousy (often displaying a distracting hiss).

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

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 found Capone to be a very interesting film. The action scenes were well staged and the acting was surprisingly good. Ben Gazzara was excellent as Capone. He managed to capture Al Capone's VD induced psychosis very well. It's a shame that this film was never put out on video in the US. Unlike most biopics, I found this one to be very entertaining. Yo, check out Stallone as Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti

Recommended, if you can find it.

B+