bkoganbing
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.
tomgillespie2002
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.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com
Ron Broadfoot
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.
MachineGunKath
The movie is a largely fictional account of the life of Al Capone. When it was released, the critics bashed it, saying it was far too violent. It's a mobster film for crying out loud! It's gonna be violent! But enough complaining. There will always be some people who we'll never know exactly what they look like. Al Capone was one of those people. Ben Gazzara takes one look at the challenge and chucks it out the window. He is Capone, no question. Nobody else comes close. Not even Robert De Niro. This guy walks the walk and talks the talk, even if he has stuffed his cheeks with cotton wool. Susan Blakely is effective as the fiery Iris Crawford. She changes from a toilet-mouthed, cigarette-smoking, booze-swilling bitch to an 'innocent' dumb blonde gangster's moll halfway through, even if she does have trouble keeping her clothes on after her 'transformation'. Sylvester Stallone's Frank Nitti is just the kind of SOB you'd like to kick in the balls. Seriously. He's a traitor. His last words are "The guy you really gotta watch out for ain't across the street at all. He's the bum standing on the same ladder you are, right behind you." This has been his ethos all the way through the film. Harry Guardino's Johnny Torrio is perfect in every way but one. He's too tall. But asides from that, he's the best screen Torrio I've seen. (Actually, he's the only one I've seen) Overall, this film is exellent, but suffers from the stigma of having Roger Corman on the production crew. It's an amazing film, and anyone who is interested in the 1920s mobster era should watch it. 9/10
AD
