
	Where results make sense

Topic: Gangster film

Related Topics

Film genres

Science fiction film

Fantasy film

Gangster

Scarface (1932 movie)

Action film

Arthur Penn

Drama film

Film

Thriller film

Hammer Films

Horror film

New Hollywood

Blaxploitation

Scarface

In the News (Thu 26 Nov 09)

Northern Trust

Marvin Harrison

Peter Chernin

Gary Locke

Match Play

Penelope Cruz

Mickey Rourke

AR Rahman

Danny Boyle

Hugh Jackman

	Crime and Gangster Films
		Film gangsters are usually materialistic, street-smart, immoral, meglo-maniacal, and self-destructive.
		Gangster films are morality tales: Horatio Alger or 'pursuit of the American Dream' success stories turned upside down in which criminals live in an inverted dream world of success and wealth.
		The lead role in each film (a gangster/criminal or bootleg racketeer of the Prohibition Era) was glorified, but each one ultimately met his doom in the final scenes of these films, due to censors' demands that they receive moral retribution for their crimes.
	www.filmsite.org /crimefilms.html (2158 words)

	AVguide.com: Film/Music Recommendations: Film Reviews
		Gangster films excoriated and at the same time tapped into the dark side of the American dream.
		Gangsters simply took the materialism and root selfishness of the free market to a criminal extreme, creating the means and a market for "goods" which people secretly wanted but were denied by church, state, and conscience.
		What he ended up with was a unique hybrid-a gangster movie even more firmly grounded in the American dream mythos and conventional gang-versus-gang story lines of the old-school gangster films, but peopled with characters more fully individualized and morally complex, more credible, closely observed, and engaging than in any gangster film before it.
	www.avguide.com /film_music/film/film_artists_07.jsp (1920 words)

	Gangster film - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Gangster film is a film genre which features gangster characters, such as members of the Mafia (as well as members of similar organized crime groupings of other ethnicities and nationalities) and inner city street gangs.
		Gangster films typically focus on the power struggles within gangs rather than on the policemen who try to stop them (although there are exceptions, such as The Untouchables).
		The most common storyline depicts an individual's rise to power within the organization, followed by his betrayal and murder by the gang or being killed by police.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Gangster_film (145 words)

	Top Box Office Movies - Gangster No. 1
		The film opens with a stunning sequence in which a terribly miscast Malcolm McDowell retells his rise from a lonely soldier in a Crime Family to the head of the organization.
		Yet, in order to enjoy the film one must immerse himself or herself within the simple plot that is brought to the screen with a touch of elegance with Director McGuigan's stylistic nature and wit.
		While the film will not be hailed as one of the definitive gangster classics, it still is a good gangster film.
	www.theworldjournal.com /special/movies/2001/gangster1.htm (606 words)

	Gangster No. 1 DVD film movie trailer review at The Z Review
		The film shows the young gangster's desire for power as he is introduced into the 'gang' of London gangster Freddie Mays, the Butcher of Mayfair.
		Gangster No. 1 is not for the faint hearted, not for someone who disliked the more colourful words in the English language, of which there are plenty.
		But it is a film everyone should see, as Gangster No. 1 is possibly the best British Gangster film of the last ten years.
	www.thezreview.co.uk /dvdreviews/g/gangsterno1.htm (500 words)

	The Gangster as Hero in Hong Kong Cinema
		At the start of the film, they are introduced in a sympathetic manner and given childish qualities that dissipate, as the film progressively gets darker in tone, eventually building to a sense of crisis that can only be overcome through loyalty and “brotherhood”.
		Gangster fashion is also updated throughout the series, as the classic pin striped suits and greasy hair are replaced by trendy `90s Hong Kong street fashion, which consist of skin-tight latex and multi-coloured hair.
		In conclusion, considering the mammoth number of gangster films produced in Hong Kong over the past 15 to 20 years, it is understandable that an essay of such brevity cannot attempt to provide an exhaustive study of the genre as it evolved throughout that period.
	www.horschamp.qc.ca /new_offscreen/hkgangster.html (4672 words)

	Gangster
		According to Warshow, narrative and the ritual approach in the gangster film serve to relieve tension caused by contradictions in American society.
		Warshow argues that one way in which the gangster film resolves conflicts is through discord between the plot of the gangster film and its “tacked-on ending”.
		Indeed, Warshow believes “the effect of the gangster film is to embody this dilemma in the person of the gangster and resolve it by his death” (Warshow 133).
	www.unc.edu /~franco/writings/gangster.html (1633 words)

	FringeDigital.com \| Flicker \| The Last Outlaw (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Partly due to the expansive scale of the roomy film and partly to the unusual narrative technique of a dual protagonist, each character is an equal and opposite half of the story.
		The moral distance possible in the typical gangster film, where the audience vicariously enjoys watching the criminal's wanton lawlessness and enjoys their eventual but inevitable capture, is impossible here.
		The gangster character is appealing in itself, a romance that is intensified by his intrinsic doomed nature.
	fringedigital.com /flicker/heat/heat2.shtml (818 words)

	A New Gangster
		Of course, the gangster hero was always delivered into the hands of justice at the end of the film, either through death or through arrest.
		Yet the industry often ignored the recommendations of censorship boards - and the sacrifice of the gangster on the altar of the law was not enough for censorship advocates.
		Gangster films were widely blamed for encouraging "copycat" crimes.
	xroads.virginia.edu /~UG02/gangsters/censorship.html (732 words)

	Review of Public Enemies, Public Heroes: Screening the Gangster from Little Caesar to Touch of Evil - JCJPC, Volume 10, ...
		The latter was subjected in fiction and film to the conventions of moral ‘uplift’ narratives" (pp.
		That these films upset the cultural authorities is evident: in 1935 the genre of gangster films was banned and Public Enemy and Little Caesar were not allowed to be re-released until 1953 and even then not for export lest they give a bad impression abroad of American life (p.
		Asphalt Jungle differs from the thirties cycle of gangster films in that its protagonist is a displaced country boy rather than to the mean streets born and that he is a follower, not a leader.
	www.albany.edu /scj/jcjpc/vol10is1/hilfer.html (2612 words)

	Gangster, Detective and Mystery Films: A Bibliography of Materials in the UC Berkeley Libraries
		Whether or notthe number of films containing crime is increasing and, if so, for whichkinds of films they are increasing is investigated in a content analysis ofa sample of synopses or all films released in the UK between 1945 and 1991.The results of the analysis are discussed.
		Gangster movies were seen as endangering children's morals inthe 1930s, and some young men who were already criminally inclined may haveused gangster movies as one source for behavioral cues.
		He notes that the film moves uneasily between an adamant defense of the existence of an incomprehensible feminine essence and an equally insistent affirmation of the instability of cultural forms of gender difference.
	www.lib.berkeley.edu /MRC/gangsterbib.html (10159 words)

	Film History of the 1940s
		Later in the decade, the gangster was not romanticized, but portrayed as a bullying psychopath (i.e., Edward G. Robinson in John Huston's Key Largo (1948), and James Cagney in White Heat (1949)).
		His last scripted film and starring role in a feature-length film was in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), and he made his final film cameo appearance in the musical comedy Sensations of 1945 (1944) - also the final starring film role for dancer Eleanor Powell.
		Besides being socially-significant as a sex-hygiene film about the dangers of venereal disease and the results of premarital sex, it was the 3rd highest grossing film during the 1940s, and easily recouped its $62,000 in expenses.
	www.filmsite.org /40sintro3.html (2335 words)

	Gangster Genre, Film. An Essay by Bryn ChamberlainPulp Fiction (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		The end result is a new type of film that reaches beyond the established confines of the gangster genre.
		As the film proceeds, the costumes of the gangsters are removed; they are made to dress in shorts and t-shirts and "look like dorks".
		Revenge, a vital element in any gangster film, is exacted with absurd exaggeration in the film and pays tribute to Tarantino's fondness for this unsavoury aspect of the human condition.
	www.film.queensu.ca /Critical/Chamberlain1.html (1446 words)

	O.F.C.S.: The Online Film Critics Society
		What makes the film so special is what it does with the confluence of those three distinct styles -- using realist, impressionistic and expressionistic devices to tell the first-ever coming-of-age gangster story.
		The film freshened up a regurgitated genre, becoming the first of its kind in another way — a gangster film wherein the main focus is on the microcosmic elements of those affected by powerful street personalities but who remain outsiders to the world of syndicated racketeering.
		Carlito’s Way -- starring the other son of the gangster film, Al Pacino, and one of the best films of that decade -- ranked in the top 50 grossing films of the same year, though that film only cleared a little more than $36 million, which is less than the genre’s average.
	ofcs.rottentomatoes.com /pages/pr/1990overlooked/ofcs48 (431 words)

	Morality, honor and tradition in the Asian gangster film industry — Keith Hart’s Memory Bank (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		The film in which Chow Yun Fat is the coolest gangster character ever to be on celluloid, For A Better Tomorrow is a moral play between two brothers, the Cop and the Thief, and their friend, the Clown (always played by Fat since).
		The film is structurally constructed like a piano-sonatine, starting with an allegro in the violent city, continuing with an adagio in the island of love and comradeship, and closing with the juxtaposition of the two in a double ending.
		In all films the connection of the ‘inside’ with the ‘outside’ is explosive.
	www.thememorybank.co.uk /members/Pagan/gangsters (2365 words)

	Genre Research: HK gangster films
		Father and Son (1981) were some of the films during that timeframe to be hailed for their ingenuity over the established formulas for HK cinema at the time.
		gangster film, which was derived from and synonymous to its parent the
		gangster genre, the character array is typically male dominated, reflecting the nature of the films as gritty fictionalizations of the triad underworld.
	www.uh.edu /~hkbigley/2321/hiep/research1.htm (2060 words)

	American Experience \| Public Enemy #1 \| People & Events
		During the Great Depression, casting gangsters as heroes created a new film genre that symbolized the decay of American society, as well as the fear that traditional values would not survive the economic crisis.
		The film was also denounced as defamatory by the Order of the Sons of Italy in America.
		However, the fact that he is killed by rival gangsters instead of the police symbolized the deterioration of law enforcement and the government.
	www.pbs.org /wgbh/amex/dillinger/peopleevents/e_hollywood.html (785 words)

	Images - The Gangster Film
		Charting the long history of the gangster film is no small task.
		While The Gangster Film "is devoted to public crime by organized groups of people," The Crime Film (or whatever it will be called) will "be devoted to private crime primarily committed by individuals." This definition of crime into "public" and "personal" categories isn't particularly helpful and it potentially creates some confusion for the readers.
		But this is quibbling: The Gangster Films is a beautifully designed and enormously useful volume.
	www.imagesjournal.com /issue07/reviews/gangster.htm (565 words)

	Gangster No. 1 (2002): Reviews
		While you think you're watching just another in a series of British gangster films, you may suddenly realize that you're watching what is, thus far, the year's best horror movie.
		It certainly feels unique, and sets itself apart from most American gangster films in its stark refusal to paint the lead gangster as likable or indeed anything other than the vicious socio-psychopath he is.
		Of the 24,306 British gangster films of the mid to late nineties, this is one of the better ones, in that it's not completely and utterly awful as, for example, Circus.
	www.metacritic.com /film/titles/gangsterno1 (822 words)

	Sautet's CLASSE TOUS RISQUES PREVIOUSLY at Film Forum in New York City, now at the QUAD CINEMA
		And as the mayhem mounts, one gangster, in a stricken voice, reflects on the cost to others of his “a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do” life style, seemingly flirting with a realization that there’s a viable life beyond the milieu.
		Film Forum is located at 209 W Houston Street, between 6th Avenue and Varick, in New York City.
		Independent premieres at Film Forum are selected and programmed by Karen Cooper and Mike Maggiore.
	www.filmforum.org /films/classe.html (492 words)

	Bright Lights Film Journal \| American Masochism and Hong Kong Action Films
		The redemption of the hero is anticipated, though not fully realized, in The Killer (1989), a film in which the eroticization of the gangster body reaches a whole new level and where male bonding is explicitly tied to a rejection of femininity and, by implication, of China.
		Thus, the stylized "beautiful violence" within the film, which I have already suggested codes and aligns romance and equality with violence, is dependent upon a similarly paradoxical "pleasurable violence" at the ideological level.
		Woo is now part of the kind of economy he valorizes in his films and the reward (or pleasure) of being seduced into this kind of relationship is the monetary compensation he has achieved, but the price he pays is a certain lack of creative control, the very quality for which he was courted.
	www.brightlightsfilm.com /31/hk_better1.html (4085 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Bettany was attracted to Gangster’s strong script by Johnny Ferguson and the creative vision of director Paul McGuigan.
		While Bettany is the center of the film, his story is primarily a flashback book-ended by contemporary scenes featuring Malcolm McDowell as an older version of the character.
		Gangster has fun with McDowell’s casting and tips its hat to the actor’s classic criminal role in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.
	www.paulbettany.net /articles/campus.txt (646 words)

	The Emperor and the Gangster \| PopMatters Film Feature
		As these films demonstrate, Kurosawa excelled in sophisticated literary adaptations of Western works from within Japanese genres of the jidai-geki (or historical film), and gendai-geki (contemporary life film).
		Shot in the hand, the gangster stumbles into the office of the alcoholic Dr. Sanada (Takashi Shimura, a Kurosawa stalwart), the "drunken angel" of the film's title.
		Four are related to an unseen court and three others (two from the same character) before the crumbling, monumental gate of the film's title, where two witnesses of the crime seek shelter from a rainstorm after their testimony.
	popmatters.com /film/features/030922-kurosawa.shtml (1924 words)

	BBC NEWS \| Entertainment \| Film \| Goodfellas named 'greatest movie'
		Martin Scorsese's gangster film Goodfellas has been named the greatest movie of all time in a poll for Total Film magazine.
		The 1990 film, which won an Oscar for supporting actor Joe Pesci, topped the list compiled by film experts.
		The film was based on the life of gangster Henry Hill and starred Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro.
	news.bbc.co.uk /1/hi/entertainment/film/4370918.stm (187 words)

	August 30, 2001-Vol33n1: Buffalo Film Seminars set fall lineup
		Each film will be introduced by Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Professor of American Culture in the UB Department of English, and Christian, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, also in the English department.
		At UB, the film seminars are sponsored by the Capen Chair in American Culture, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English and WBFO 88.7 FM, UB's National Public Radio affiliate.
		Roger Ebert calls this "one of the greatest of all American films." Leonard Maltin describes it as an "atmospheric allegory of innocence, evil and hypocrisy." The film credits writer James Agee with the script, but it really was written by Laughton days before shooting began.
	www.buffalo.edu /reporter/vol33/vol33n1/n7.html (1021 words)

	A Cockney gangster film becomes a DVD phenomenon. By Matt Feeney (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		A Cockney gangster film becomes a DVD phenomenon.
		The British gangster film Layer Cake (starring Daniel Craig, the new James Bond) recently concluded a surprisingly lucrative three-month run on the DVD rental charts.
		In the Ritchie films, things were not so much crazy as "crazy." He always let you know he was master of the chaos.
	www.slate.com /id/2131838/fr/rss (1113 words)

	Gangster No. 1 (2000) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Plot Outline: Chronicles the rise and fall of a prominent, and particularly ruthless English gangster.
		MPAA: Rated R for strong brutal violence, pervasive language, and brief drug use and nudity.
		Bloody good Brit flick about English thugs recalled in flashback by McDowell and portrayed by Bettany (both equally excellent in a teeth-gnashing kind of way) recollecting their bumpy ride to the top and rocky relationship with head kingpin Thewlis getting in the way.
	www.imdb.com /title/tt0210065 (288 words)

	Amazon.com: Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Gangster Film: Books: Phil Hardy (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-21)
		Hardy and his team have composed hundreds of words on each of more than 1,500 films, considering the rarities of the genre as seriously as the classics, and focusing on foreign as well as English-language films.
		Included in this lavish volume are critical entries on more than 1,500 gangster films, complete with plot synopses and credits, and 650 fl and white photographs to capture the look of this exciting genre.
		Joseph Von Sternberg's essay in poetic realism, the silent outing Underworld (1927), was the dominant influence on the gangster film as it emerged during the late 1920s.
	www.amazon.com /exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0879518812?v=glance (1320 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)