Tagged: Thompson SMG
A Bullet for Pretty Boy: Fabian’s Navy Suit
Fabian Forte as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd in A Bullet for Pretty Boy (1970)
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Fabian Forte as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Depression-era bank robber
Kansas City, Spring 1930 and 1931
Film: A Bullet for Pretty Boy
Release Date: June 1970
Director: Larry Buchanan (and Maury Dexter, uncredited)
Wardrobe Credit: Ron Scott
Background
After Warner Brothers’ success with Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, American International Pictures (AIP) leapt at the chance to capitalize on the emerging trend of Depression-era crime movies using their own brand of inexpensive, exploitative filmmaking. This wasn’t AIP’s first rodeo in the realm of ’30s public enemies, having earlier produced The Bonnie Parker Story and Machine Gun Kelly, both released in May 1958. Their B-movie output in the decade that followed Bonnie and Clyde ranged from fictional stories like Boxcar Bertha (1972) directed by Martin Scorsese to those loosely based on actual criminals like Bloody Mama (1970) starring Shelley Winters as a caricature of “Ma” Barker (alongside a young Robert De Niro as one of her sons) to Dillinger (1973).
Even before that arguably most famous ’30s bank robber would be played by a grizzled Warren Oates, former teen idol Fabian got a shot to rebrand his image by playing Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, the outlaw whose moniker alone lent itself to suit the fresh-faced Mr. Forte.
The real Charles Arthur Floyd was born 117 years ago on February 3, 1904, in Adairsville, Georgia, though his family moved to Oklahoma when Floyd was seven, and it was the Cookson Hills that he would consider home for the 30 years of his life.
A fellow Aquarius, Forte was born only three days (and 39 years) later on February 6, 1943, making him 26—the same age as Floyd was for his first bank robbery—when A Bullet for Pretty Boy was filmed from June to October 1969. A Bullet for Pretty Boy loosely follows the facts of Floyd’s life, albeit exaggerated and certainly simplified for the sake of AIP’s low-budget, short-runtime formula for success that would thrill teens at the drive-ins just before these audiences found the real thrills in their own back seats later that night. Continue reading
Sean Connery’s Tweed Coat and Cardigan in The Untouchables
Sean Connery as Jim Malone in The Untouchables (1987)
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Sean Connery as Jim Malone, tough and honest Chicago beat cop
Canadian border, September 1930
Film: The Untouchables
Release Date: June 3, 1987
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Background
Recently recruited off the streets of Chicago, aging beat cop Jim Malone is more than happy to bring his grizzled brand of tough justice to the Canadian border to assist federal agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) and their small but effective band of “untouchable” lawmen in stopping an illegal shipment of liquor from making its way into the United States.
Scarface (1932) – Tony’s Brown Striped Suit
Paul Muni, flanked by Vince Barnett and Karen Morley, in Scarface (1932)
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Paul Muni as Tony Camonte, ruthless Italian-born bootlegger and mob enforcer
Chicago, Summer 1927
Film: Scarface
Release Date: April 9, 1932
Director: Howard Hawks
Background
Today’s #MafiaMonday post goes back to the Prohibition era, the age that gave rise to the modern American gangster… and the American gangster movie.
After Warner Brothers scored back-to-back hits with Little Caesar (1931) and The Public Enemy (1931), effectively establishing the subgenre of the gangster film, Howard Hughes entered the fray with Scarface, an explosive, influential, and fast-paced criminal epic adapted from Armitage Trail’s novel that had been based on the life of Al Capone. Hughes had been warned against taking on Warner’s dominance in the genre, so he packed his production with talent including screenwriter Ben Hecht, director Howard Hawks, and lead actor Paul Muni, who was born 124 years ago yesterday on September 22, 1895.
In the wake of movies like Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, the Hays Office had been increasing its efforts to censor what it deemed to be glamorization of criminal lifestyles in cinema, but its notoriously restrictive production code had yet to be put into place, giving Scarface full reign to arm its vaguely incestuous central character with a Thompson submachine gun, once dubbed “the gun that made the twenties roar,” as he rose the ranks of the criminal underworld in a series of violent vignettes paralleling the life and crimes of the infamous Capone.
Sean Connery’s Brown Corduroy Jacket in The Untouchables
Sean Connery as Jim Malone in The Untouchables (1987)
Vitals
Sean Connery as Jim Malone, tough and honest Chicago beat cop
Chicago, September 1930
Film: The Untouchables
Release Date: June 3, 1987
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
The Untouchables is a highly entertaining—yet highly fictionalized—saga of the successful legal campaign to bring down Al Capone’s criminal enterprise that terrorized Chicago through the 1920s with an all-star cast including Robert De Niro as Capone himself.
Eliot Ness had made a name for himself in the final years of Chicago’s beer wars as a relentless Prohibition agent, and he would use his fame decades later to pen The Untouchables, a memoir in which he credits himself with practically single-handedly sending Capone to prison. In real life, Ness’ raids were indeed disruptive, but it was the work of modest investigators U.S. Attorney George E.Q. Johnson and IRS agent Frank Wilson that eventually led to the charges that successfully convicted Capone. Continue reading
Leo’s Red Silk Robe in Miller’s Crossing
Albert Finney as Leo O’Bannon in Miller’s Crossing (1990).
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Albert Finney as Liam “Leo” O’Bannon, Irish Mob-connected political boss
Upstate New York, Fall 1929
Film: Miller’s Crossing
Release Date: September 21, 1990
Director: Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Costume Designer: Aude Bronson-Howard
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Today is the 80th birthday of Albert Finney so BAMF Style is taking a look at his portrayal of Liam “Leo” O’Bannon, the “cheap political boss with more hair tonic than brains” in Miller’s Crossing, the Coen brothers’ 1990 nod to Dashiell Hammett.
“Pretty Boy” Floyd’s Death in Public Enemies
80 years ago today, Depression-era outlaw Charles Arthur Floyd was shot down by federal agents and local police in a farm outside East Liverpool, Ohio.
Channing Tatum as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd in Public Enemies (2009).
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Channing Tatum as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd, charismatic but violent Depression-era outlaw
Clarkson, Ohio, October 1934
Film: Public Enemies
Release Date: July 1, 2009
Director: Michael Mann
Costume Designer: Colleen Atwood
Background
After dedicating the majority of my life to researching the Depression-era crime wave that saw guys like John Dillinger, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, and Alvin Karpis roaming the American countryside with the support of the public and the rage of the government, I was elated when I learned that Bryan Burrough’s masterful docu-novel Public Enemies was finally being turned into a film. I wondered how a two-hour movie could capture the intricacies of each colorful individual in each of the various gangs over a two-year period, and I assumed that – like Burrough – director Michael Mann would focus primarily on Karpis, the lone survivor of the original batch of Public Enemies. Continue reading
Andy Garcia in The Untouchables
Andy Garcia as George Stone in The Untouchables (1987).
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Andy Garcia as Giuseppe Petri, aka “George Stone”, honest Chicago police recruit and expert marksman
Chicago, September 1930
Film: The Untouchables
Release Date: June 3, 1987
Director: Brian De Palma
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Background
A contemporary interview from People magazine at the time of The Untouchables‘ release was very flattering to Garcia:
Andy Garcia really doesn’t have much of a part in The Untouchables. His big moments come at the beginning, when he angrily jams a gun barrel into Sean Connery’s neck, and at the end, when he coolly kills one of Al Capone’s henchmen from a prone position. Of quiet demeanor, Garcia’s minor character has no love scenes and little to say. Yet Garcia’s rich portrayal of Treasury agent George Stone, the Italian-American T-man with a chip of ice on his shoulder, adds up to much more than the sum of his minutes onscreen. He’s The Untouchables‘ quicksilver gunslinger, the deadly rookie who’s a natural pistolero.
Garcia’s character, particularly his background, are a nod to the political correctness of the original 1950s TV series’ inclusion of Nick Georgiade as Agent Rico Rossi, who served primarily to show the audience that not all Italian-Americans are mafioso. Continue reading
Clyde Barrow’s Death Suit (2013 Version)
Emile Hirsch as Clyde Barrow in part two of the 2013 mini-series Bonnie & Clyde.
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Emile Hirsch as Clyde Barrow, bank robber with “second sight”
Rural Louisiana, May 1934
Series Title: Bonnie and Clyde
Air Date: December 8, 2013
Director: Bruce Beresford
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Background
Eighty years ago today, six Southern lawmen pulled off a feat that the federal government had been failing to do for months with the first real victory in the United States’ “War on Crime”.
With the advent of the Great Depression following the stock market crash of 1929, criminals abandoned gangsterdom and bootlegging (both “Machine Gun” Kelly and “Pretty Boy” Floyd were known to be bootleggers early in their career) in favor of motorized banditry. In the spirit of the Old West, bank robbers took to cars all across the country – with a special concentration in the poorest areas of the Midwest and the South.
This crime wave did not go unnoticed by the government. Soon, names like John Dillinger, “Baby Face” Nelson, and Alvin Karpis were dominating the headlines, and they were surprisingly welcome by the people who were sick and tired of the perceived “fat cats” in the government. Some of the criminals, Dillinger and Floyd especially, even had the begrudging respect of some small-town lawmen. But the greatest disparity between public opinion and actual temperament is with the case of Bonnie and Clyde. Continue reading
Truth vs. Fiction: The Bank-Robbing Style of Warren Oates as Dillinger
Warren Oates as John Dillinger, leaving a South Bend bank job in 1973’s Dillinger.
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Warren Oates as John Dillinger, Depression-era bank robber and “super gang” leader
Indiana, Fall 1933
Film: Dillinger
Release Date: July 20, 1973
Director: John Milius
Costume Designer: James M. George
Background
Eighty years ago today in East Chicago, Indiana, 43-year-old ECPD patrolman William Patrick O’Malley responded to a call concerning the robbery of the First National Bank. Without hesitation, O’Malley showed up at the scene, unaware that he would be going up against John Dillinger, the Indiana bandit who would soon become famous as the first national Public Enemy #1. Continue reading
Dillinger’s Blue Jailbreak Suit in Public Enemies
Johnny Depp behind-the-scenes as John Dillinger in Public Enemies (2009).
Vitals
Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, Depression-era bank robber
Indiana, September 1934
Film: Public Enemies
Release Date: July 1, 2009
Director: Michael Mann
Costume Designer: Colleen Atwood
Background
Once again, the best shots of Dillinger’s attire in this scene from Public Enemies are from production shots, as Michael Mann’s choice of a handheld camera and extreme close-ups just show close details. However, unlike the previous Public Enemies post, Dillinger was nowhere near the incident being portrayed on film.
While Dillinger did indeed engineer the breakout of his prison buddies from the Michigan City Penitentiary on September 26, 1933 – eighty years ago yesterday – he was nowhere to be found on the day in question. Was he being smart by avoiding the situation? Was he scared?
Neither. He was in jail himself.
About a week earlier, Dillinger had managed to smuggle three .45-caliber pistols, likely the gang’s favorite Colt semi-automatics. On September 26, Harry Pierpont and Charley Makley found the marked box with the guns inside. They dug them out and, with eight other yeggs, managed to get out of prison. Unlike the film adaptation, it was relatively bloodless with no fatalities. Some of the prisoners were quickly rounded up and either killed or returned to prison, but the nexus of the Dillinger Gang: Pierpont, Makley, Russell Clark, Walter Dietrich, and John “Red” Hamilton, were now back together again. The only problem was Dillinger himself. Continue reading