Capone

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

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.

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+

Never one to be concerned with realism, historical accuracy or taste, Roger Corman took on the now legendary story of gangster Al Capone. Corman is on production duties here, but the film has his trademarks all over it. Capone (played by Ben Gazzara, a little more convincingly than Jason Robards in the enjoyable The St. Valentine's Day Massacre) is jailed and questioned after beating up two policemen, to be bailed out by Frankie Yale (John Cassavetes) and Johnny Torio (Harry Guardino) who hold a growing influence over the police department. Capone is then taken under Torio's wing, as they try to distribute alcohol in Prohibition-era Chicago, while trying to calm the ongoing gang wars that are getting increasingly bloody.

As stated earlier, don't expect The Godfather. This is a gangsters tale, exploitation style. The film seems to want to tell Capone's story without getting bogged down in the details, and instead going for maximum entertainment value. And it does work to a certain degree - Ben Gazzara's ludicrously over-the-top performance is a lot of fun, and the fact that he's a genuinely very good actor adds a bit of class to the role. But I feel Corman's earlier gangster effort, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (which he directed) was a lot more fun. That had a lot more going on to hold the attention, while the episodic nature of this film does get a bit repetitive after a while. Also, the majority of this film is not just a mere spin on the truth, it's outright lies. However, it's worth watching for Gazzara alone, and an early performance from Sylvester Stallone as Frank Nitti.

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