L'Héritier d'Al Capone

This film was typical of the B-Movie fare of the late 1950's and early 1960's, spurred by the 1959 TV release of "The Untouchables."

The 1960 film, "The Rise and Fall of Jack Legs Diamond", and the 1961 film "Portrait of a Mobster" were better examples of how these films should and could be made well. B-movies, yes; but there's B and then there's - B made well.

The actor who portrays Pretty Boy Floyd, John Ericsons, was slated for better things, and the studios did try. He was indeed a good journeyman actor but, for some reason, simply did not have the matinée idol gene in him.

There is nothing spectacular going on in this film, but it does move and its easy watching. Its only only standout highlight worth mentioning is a, all too brief but great performance by the late "Munsters" actor, Al Lewis: look for it.

considering the budget and casting this is a good effort - I just LOVE the completely out-of-place soundtrack (the jazz score really is quite good in its own right) - you would think they would on occasion use some country music - I know it bears little semblance to the historical Floyd story but kudos for the great cast - T-Bag from Prison Break is definitely channeling Pretty Boy's brother, Curly and Al Lewis is awesome - Ericsson is actually quite good too and doesn't really resort to over-the-top caricatures as one might think - Peter Falk has a nice role too pretty much like his role as Abe Relas in Murder Inc - as Sabre pointed out above, the machine guns look like French MAT49s (not yet available in the 1930s but used by the post-war French army in Indochina and Algeria) - a similar weapon (although with a folding metal stock) was used in The Laughing Policeman to great effect - the cops seem to use Thompsons like you would expect - I think this fits in rather nicely with all the second-tier crime flicks that came out in the last 50s and early 60s

Without a doubt one of the worst gangster films ever made. Ranks with Ma Barker's Killer Brood for total inaccuracy. At least the characters are close to who they are supposed to be, even if the names are made-up. Al Ricardo instead of Adam Richetti, Shorty Walters instead of Bill "The Killer" Miller, The Courtney Brothers instead of the Ash Brothers, and Machine Gun Manny instead of Verne Miller, to name just a few. All through the film, Floyd appears to appreciate being called Pretty Boy, when in reality he hated it.

Probably the silliest scene in the flick is the Union Station massacre. Manny and Floyd blast away with some unrecognizable foreign-made machine guns -----definetely not Tommy Guns-----and kill the Frank Nash character and several cops without shattering the windshield or leaving so much as a single bullet hole in the car. .

I recently paid five bucks for the CD at a going-out-of-business sale. It was barely worth it.

Handsome John Ericson plays the title role in this sluggish version of the "Robin Hood Bank Robber". Although Ericson's performance is inert, the women all go for him.There's the usual-for-the-era voiceover narration filling in the details, and while there are some nice location shots, there's also a series of annoying sequences in which the FBI man and the sheriff get together to discuss the case and advance the plot cheaply.

The most interesting thing about the movie is an early small role for Peter Falk as an early associate in Ericson's financial endeavors, and that's not much.

Pretty Boy Floyd is a rather pedestrian and overlong biopic of the famous gangster. Luckily there's an outstanding cast on hand to lend the film some much needed credibility: John Ericson is fine as Pretty Boy, but it's great to see Barry Newman, Peter Falk, and Al 'Elect Me Governor' Lewis playing his various sidekicks. We even get Jason 'Brain That Wouldn't Die' Evers as Floyd's nemesis, the determined local lawman.