Research 1

Early 1900's

The American movie The Black Hand (1906) is thought to be the earliest surviving gangster film. In 1912, D. W. Griffith directed The Musketeers Of Pig Alley, a short drama film about crime on the streets of New York rumoured to have included real gangsters as extras. Though mob films had their roots in such silent films, the genre in its most durable form was defined in the early 1930s. It owed its ideas and successes to the economic collapse well known as the Great Depression. The failure of honest hard work and careful investment to ensure financial security led to the circumstances reflected in the explosion of mob films in Hollywood.

Underworld 1927

• Another early gangster film produced was called Underworld, this was an American gangster film that was released in 1927.

• The film was produced by B.P Schulberg and Hector Turnbull with cinematography by Bert Glennon and E Lloyd Sheldon.  The film narrative runs through four stages

• 1st stage being where the main character Bull Weed meets a drunk guy who is seen as a witness of a bank robbery, his nickname is Rolls Royce

• 2nd stage is where we mainly focus on the main characters girlfriend called feathers.

• 3rd stage is where Bull weed gets arrested for killing his rival gangster Buck Mulligan for messing with his girlfriend feathers, and feathers and Rolls Royce try and get Bull weed out of jail.

• 4th stage is where Bull weed escapes from jail.

The Killing 1956

• The killing was a gangster film noir made in America in 1956.

• The film was produced by James B. Harris and directed by Stanley Kubrick.

• Narrative: The narrative is about a veteran criminal called Johnny Clay planning to rob 2 million dollars, George Petty (the teller) tells his wife Sherry about the upcoming robbery and after learning about the robbery coming up, she enlists her lover Val Cannon to steal the money.

• The robbery is successful and the conspirators meet at an apartment to meet up with Johnny to divide the money. A shootout breaks out when Val shows up, and George being the sole survivor, goes back home and shoots sherry before dying.

• On his way to the apartment, Johnny sees George is badly wounded and buys the biggest suitcase he finds to put the money in, he then goes to the airport with his wife Faye to escape, but 2 officers arrive and arrest them.

• This film made a profit of $320,000.

American Gangster 2007

• American gangster is a biographical crime film made in American in 2007

• The film was produced and directed by Ridley Scott and was distributed by Universal pictures.

• The film is about the 1970s Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts, the straight-arrow cop who took him down.

• Lucas's career is heavily pregnant with one irresistible metaphor; he claimed to have directly imported high-grade heroin into the United States from the far east during the Vietnam war, hiding the drugs in the flag-bedecked coffins of fallen American troops - containers that, naturally, no one dared touch.

• Criminals tend also to be liars, of course, and it is possible that this particular juicy detail may be exaggerated or just invented, but director Ridley Scott has taken the inner-city urban myth at face value in this muscular period drama starring Denzel Washington as New York's emperor of smack, and Russell Crowe as the rumpled officer coming after him.

• American gangster made over $1oo million in profit

Content Over The Years Of Gangster Years

• Since the first ever gangster film was made, the content has changed loads from how they were made back in the early 1900’s to the 2000’s and today.

• Most of the early gangster films are quite short films, Alot of gangster films made in the 2000’s are a lot longer ad show a lot more action than when they were first started being produced.

• Also a lot of gangster films from the early 1900’s don’t show as much violence as they do today.

• Overall the gangster genre has changed loads from when it was first introduced.

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