Gangster films take revenge on our behalf

Overcoats and fedoras, Tommy guns and gats, mugs and molls. Names such as Baby Face and Pretty Boy. Bulls and G-men. Speakeasies and hideouts. The Big House and “The Big Sleep.”

Director Michael Mann’s new film about Depression-era bank robber John Dillinger, “Public Enemies,” opens Wednesday, reminding us that while certain expressions may have gone on the lam, the genre of the gangster film is in the pink. Images of darkly ambitious men in snazzy suits performing antisocial acts have been popular for almost as long as it has been possible to capture them on film, through good times and bad. But especially bad.

“I think a tremendous amount of frustration builds up in society when people are hurting and out of work and they’re wondering where their next meal is coming from,” said Richard Jewell, a professor at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts who has taught classes about gangster film. “The thing that is particularly fascinating about gangsters at that point in time is that (they bulldoze) through the laws and the impediments to enjoy life and get the most out of life.”

Dillinger and his pals emptied banks throughout the Midwest in the early 1930s. Before the FBI filled him with lead outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934, at the age of 31, Dillinger had become somewhat of a populist hero among America’s downtrodden, thanks to sensational newspaper accounts of his brazen exploits and his penchant — perhaps apocryphal, perhaps not — of punishing the big bully financial institutions but leaving the little guy alone.

Today, in the midst of a deep recession, with banks getting bailouts, executives getting bonuses and average investors getting the shaft, there may not be a more ideal time to live vicariously through outlaws with a taste for cabbage and a contempt for authority.

“When you are oppressed by government, when most people go into court knowing they’re going to get screwed, when a rich person has a lot of lawyers against you and you know they’re going to bury you, you don’t have a shot,” said Nicholas Pileggi, author and screenwriter who penned the script for director Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

“That is what angers people in contemporary society. It’s like that scene in ‘The Godfather’ when the undertaker wants to get even for what happened to his daughter. Most audiences wouldn’t do anything like that. But it’s a very pleasurable experience in the viewing of a movie.”

Evolution of the gangster flick
Pileggi started out as a reporter in New York City covering the police beat for 20 years. Dealing with myriad crime-stoppers and lawbreakers eventually led to Pileggi writing “Wise Guys,” the book upon which “Goodfellas” was based. All of that experience provided him with a unique perspective on the evolution of the gangster film in American life.

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He said the American fascination began with cowboy movies, with white hats and black hats and wide-open spaces and life told in big, bold strokes. “The minute that the automobile became popular,” he said, “Jesse James became John Dillinger. They used cars instead of horses.”

Pileggi also noted that when Prohibition came about, citizens became more rebellious of authority while getting cozier with the gangsters who provided booze. “A guy once told me that he worked in a speakeasy and used to give a cop $5 a night. If there was a brawl, then take the guy out,” he said. “The cop acted like a bouncer.

“When you do that, when you give a cop $5 a night, years later that cop could become an inspector. That kind of systemic corruption began a modern era. You see it in (Capt.) McCluskey in ‘The Godfather.’ There was an unbelievable amount of corruption that was allowed to exist, that was created by Prohibition. It was institutionalized by Prohibition.

“That’s when the gangster movie really began to flourish. And it was the swan song for the cowboy movie.”

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