American Underworld – Part 3: The World Moves On
Sometime between 1932, with the release of Scarface, and 1939, with the release of The Roaring Twenties,…
American Underworld – Part 2: Enemies at the Gates
“Gangsters are foreigners. He’s an American.” – “Gramp Maple” in The Petrified Forest (1936) In 1931, the…
American Underworld – Part I: Original Gangster
W.R. Burnett’s original 1929 novel Little Caesar opens with a quote from Machiavelli. The 1931…
American Underworld: An Introduction
For this writer, the undignified afterlife of the American gangster movie has been frustrating to…
The Private Lives of Public Enemies: Love and Other Crimes in CASINO and THE PUBLIC ENEMY
I could lie and pretend that I don’t know why I love gangster movies, but…