Gangster movies that you would like to encourage people to watch . . .

[The Burgomaster]

I am leaving out the obvious ones (including THE GODFATHER, which is, by a mile, my favorite movie of all time). Here are my picks (in no particular order):

* THE GRISSOM GANG (where else can you see Ralph Waite as a gangster?)

* LEPKE (classic cheese from Menahem Golan and Tony Curtis - there is something about this movie that just makes me want to watch it over and over).

* ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (James Cagney, Pat O'Brien and the Dead End Kids - need I say more?)

* DILLINGER (Warren Oates, John P. Ryan, Harry Dean Stanton, Geoffrey Lewis, Richard Dreyfuss as "Baby Face" Nelson!, Cloris Leachman, and Ben Johnson as Melvin Purvis - how can you beat that cast!)

* MEAN STREETS (one of Scorsese's best)

[Sam]

Gangster No. 1 with Malcolm McDowel excellent british gangster movie. I also highly recommend Angels with Dirty Faces too.

[Neville]

1) "Carlito's way": An excellent Brian DePalma film. Carlito Brigante (Al Pacino)  is back to his hood after several years in prison and he plans to change his lifestyle. And it is not going to be easy... Much better than the previous Pacino- DePalma latin-gangster film "Scarface", if you ask me.

2) "Light sleeper". Not exactly a gangster movie but a (another) moral tale by Paul Schrader. Life is not easy for John LeTour (Willem Dafoe) a dealer who has been able to overcome his own drug addiction just to find out that his life is completely empty. One of my favourite movies ever, but I'll admit that Schrader's troubled characters are sometimes difficult to understand.



Post Edited (05-06-03 12:36)

[Johnny Blister]

How about Dick Tracy?

[kilroy]

Has anyone seen a movie called "The Outfit", with Lance Henrikson and Billy Drago?

[Feathertop]

I always recommend the British Movie THE KRAYS to people since it depicts gangsters as the subhuman filth they are instead of glamourizing them and I also always recommend SQUIZZY TAYLOR simply because , hey, how many AUSTRALIAN gangsters could you name outside of him?

[Johnny Blister]

Two words: The Untouchables.

[Apostic]

Skipping the other easy/obvious ones (like White Heat and Goodfellas and Pulp Fiction)...

Fritz Lang's early Mabuse series.

M (1931) - Gangsters become the law to lessen the law.

Monkey Business (1931) - Marx Brothers get involved in a power play between rival mobsters.  Cf. Horse Feathers (1933) for Marx Brothers vs. sports racketeers.

A Better Tomorrow (1986) - Criminal & co. vs his policeman brother.  It's been done to death in America, so it's a novelty to see it told in Hong Kong as directed by John Woo.

Creature With the Atom Brain (1955) - Gangster zombies!  Sort of...

Dogora (1964) - Gangsters with a kai-ju subplot?  Why not?

Bugsy Malone (1976) - Because where else are you going to see gangster children?  OK, make that gangster children with guns that shoot cream pies....

Innocent Blood (1992) - OK, I don't encourage this one too much.

I Accuse My Parents (1944) - Because it's there.

[Vermin Boy]

I think Q: The Winged Serpent could count; when Tarantino made Reservoir Dogs, one reviewer called it "Q without the bird."

Boondock Saints, mentioned in another thread, is certainly worth checking out if you haven't.

Also, I haven't seen it, but isn't Little Cigars about midget gangsters?

[Feathertop]

Little Cigars is indeed about midget gangsters and as a kind of offshoot of the reference made to Bugsy Malone I believe there is a Spaghetti Western called Bad Kids Of The West that features little kids in a Western(kind of like an adult version of Shirley Temple's old Baby Burlesques series of shorts.)

[Redcell]

Mean Streets was great! I can watch that movie over and over! Another good one I liked was "Across 110th Street"

[Feathertop]

Are there any films out there about CANADIAN Gangsters? I'd like to own one just for the sheer oddity value.  (GOODFELLAS, EH?)

[Neville]

If you like 80's movies as I do, you'll like "To live and die in L.A." and "8 million ways to die" as well. "Boiling point" and "Cop" are also very good ones, specially the last one, but I don't think it falls into the "gangster" films category.

[Feathertop]

I think TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA is one of the most underrated movies of the 1980's (along with EIGHT MEN OUT). You'd think with William Peterson's prominence on CSI that SOMEBODY would show that movie every so often just to have promos saying "CSI's William Peterson stars in TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA...tonight on The Superstation."
The film is a rare example of a movie being BETTER than the novel it's adapted from in my opinion.

[The Burgomaster]

Feathertop wrote:

> I think TO LIVE AND DIE IN LA is one of the most underrated
> movies of the 1980's (along with EIGHT MEN OUT).

I agree.