The St. Valentine's Day Massacre

You can feel Corman's hand mixing in some odd subtle comedic undertones and a 60s vibe to the content, not to mention the heavy retrospective narration that is somewhere between dry wit and just dry. It's just a very disjointed story that seems more concerned with hitting highlights as if it were a docudrama, rather than crafting interesting characters. Despite all that, it does have fun moments and the underlying material carries it a fair bit, but it feels very much like a missed opportunity.

The trailer literally shows you the whole film. That wouldn't necessarily ruin the film, if it wasn't so bland and uninspired. I would have been looking forward to seeing the grand finale, but alas the film feels very stale. None of the characters are likeable and you don't feel a connection to anyone, not even to George Segal, who is otherwise great and so is Jason Robards playing Al Capone. The exception is Bruce Dern's character, but it's too little to keep the intrigue on.

This was a good gangster movie with all the elements: ethnic mobs, too many guys (all men) to remember, politicians/judges in the pocket, and tommy guns. Does a good job portraying how hard it was to avoid trouble, either as a barkeeper or as someone trying to get out of the game. Fav scene: Jena Hale as a moll doing well fighting back.

67.

Roger Corman #9

Pretty good gangster film. Robards is miscast, but does his best as Big Al.

Corman's only major studio movie benefits from its docudrama style, (f.e. the voice-ove states the history of each character), which gives the movie a sense of accuracy. The second biggest asset is Jason Robards, who while physically looking totally different than Al Capone, perfectly captures his menacing charm and steals every scene he's in.