Mafia films—a version of gangster films—are a subgenre of crime films dealing with organized crime, often specifically with Mafia organizations. Especially in early mob films, there is considerable overlap with film noir. Popular regional variations of the genre include Italian Poliziotteschi, Chinese Triad films, Japanese Yakuza films, and Indian Mumbai underworld films.
History The American movie The Black Hand (1906) is thought to be the earliest surviving gangster film.In this 11-minute work, two members of a gang write a threatening letter to a butcher, demanding money, or else they will harm his family and his shop. (See Treasures from American Film Archives) In 1912, D. W. Griffith directed The Musketeers of Pig Alley, a short drama film about crime on the streets of New York City (filmed, however, at Fort Lee, New Jersey) rumored to have included real gangsters as extras. Critics have also cited Regeneration (1915) as an early crime film.
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 innovations to the social and economic instability occasioned by the Great Depression, which galvanized the organized crime subculture in the United States.Ina Rae Hark, American Cinema of the 1930s (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2007), p. 12. 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 HollywoodHark, p. 12. and to their immense popularity in a society disillusioned with the American way of life.
1930s
The years 1931 and 1932 saw the genre produce three enduring classics: Warner Bros.' Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, which made screen icons out of Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney, respectively, and Howard Hawks' Scarface starring Paul Muni, which offered a dark psychological analysis of a fictionalized Al CaponeHark, p. 12 and launched the film career of George Raft. These films chronicle the quick rise, and equally quick downfall, of three young, violent criminals, and represent the genre in its purest form before moral pressure would force it to change. Though the gangster in each film would face a violent downfall which was designed to remind the viewers of the consequences of crime,Hark, p. 13. audiences were often able to identify with the charismatic anti-hero. Those suffering from the Depression were able to relate to the gangster character who worked hard to earn his place and success in the world, only to have it all taken away from him.
Because of the Production Code, such films had to always end with the gangster protagonist dying in a hail of bullets at the film's climax. Furthermore, the film's protagonist was always somehow "deviant" from the norms of American society. In Little Caesar, it is strongly implied that Caesar Enrico Bandello (Edward G. Robinson) is gay as he is clearly jealous when his handsome friend Joe Massaria (Douglas Fairbanks Jr) dances seductively with his lover Olga (Glenda Farrell), which causes him to make his first major mistake that leads to his downfall. In The Public Enemy, the protagonist Tom Powers (James Cagney) is a casually brutal misogynist, most notably expressed in the famous scene when he rammed a grapefruit into the face of his girlfriend after she annoys him. About this scene and many others similar to it, the American critic Thomas Doherty noted "what went largely unremarked was the vicious nature of the relationships between men and women in the gangster genre". In Scarface, Tony Carmonte (Paul Muni) has a barely veiled incestuous passion for his sister Cesca (Ann Dvorak), which leads to his death.
Despite the genre spanning the decade before dying out, some argue that the gangster film in its purest form only existed until 1933, when restrictions from the Production Code led to films that did not have the same power as the earlier ones.Howard Hughes, Crime Wave: The Film Goers' Guide to Great Crime Movies (New York: I.B. Tauris and Co. Ltd., 2006). p. 7.
Production code As the appeal and attraction of gangster movie stars such as Cagney, Robinson, Muni, and Raft grew, so too did the efforts to combat their fascination. During the early years of crime film, Scarface, arguably the most violent of gangster films created during the entire decade, particularly was the subject of criticism. Released in 1932, it ushered in the worst year of the Depression, and as profits slid, Hollywood did what it could to restore its earnings, which resulted in the upping of sex and violence in the movies.Hark, p. 69. Scarface can be interpreted as a representation of the American dream gone awry, presented when US capitalism had reached its lowest, and Prohibition was being seen as a failed social experiment and would soon be abolished.Hark, p. 4. It faced opposition from regulators of the Production Code, and its release was delayed for over a year while Hawks attempted to tone down the incestuous overtones of the relationship between Paul Muni's character Tony Camonte and his sister (Ann Dvorak).
The Capone-like Carmote is in many ways the most monstrous gangster portrayed in 1930s films, a man utterly devoid of any positive qualities as he ruthlessly schemes and shoots his way to the top. Through Carmote was closely based on Al Capone, the most notable aspect of his character, namely his "incestuous obsession" with his sister and the way he kills any man who expresses any sort of interest in her as he wants her for himself, was not based on Capone. Besides for Capone, there are many references to The Great Gatsby in Scarface such as the scene where Carmonte lovingly caresses his silk shirts, which like the same scene in The Great Gatsby are a sign of material success for the protagonist. The Great Gatsby was the best-selling novel of 1925, and the references to the novel in the film were meant to symbolize the decay of America from the hopeful days of 1925 to the sense of collapse of 1932. The violence and the barely veiled theme of incestuous passion greatly outraged critics, churches, politicians and civic groups in 1932. The journalist Jack Alicoate in the Film Daily wrote that watching Scarface induced "nausea" in him and that "There are certain things that simply do not belong on the screen. The subject matter of Scarface is one of them".
Eventually the Production Code and general moral concerns became sufficiently influential to cause the crime film in its original form to be abandoned, with a shift to the perspective of the law officers fighting criminals, or criminals seeking redemption. This is illustrated by James Cagney's role as a law officer in the 1935 movie G Men, and his part as Rocky Sullivan in Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), for which he received an Academy Award nomination. These pictures demonstrate the growing acceptance of crime films during the 1930s as long as criminals were not portrayed in a flattering light. For example, in G-Men, Cagney plays a character similar to that of Tom Powers from The Public Enemy, and although the film was as violent and brutal as its predecessors, it had no trouble getting a seal of approval from the Production Code office.Thoms Leitch, Crime Films Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 26. It was now the law officers that the films attempted to glamorize, as opposed to the criminals.
1930s culture
Politics combined with the social and economic climate of the time to influence how crime films were made and how the characters were portrayed. Many of the films imply that criminals are the creation of society, rather than its rebel,John Baxter, The Gangster Film (London: C. Tinling and Co. Ltd, 1970), p. 7. and considering the troublesome and bleak time of the 1930s this argument carries significant weight. Often the best of the gangster films are those that have been closely tied to the reality of crime, reflecting public interest in a particular aspect of criminal activity; thus, the gangster film is in a sense a history of crime in the United States.Baxter, p. 7. The institution of Prohibition in 1920 led to an explosion in crime, and the depiction of bootlegging is a frequent occurrence in many mob films. However, as the 1930s progressed, Hollywood also experimented with the stories of the rural criminals and bank robbers, such as John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, and Pretty Boy Floyd. The success of these characters in film can be attributed to their value as news subjects, as their exploits often thrilled the people of a nation who had become weary with inefficient government and apathy in business.Baxter, p. 9. However, as the FBI increased in power there was also a shift to favour the stories of the FBI agents hunting the criminals instead of focusing on the criminal characters. In fact, in 1935 at the height of the hunt for Dillinger, the Production Code office issued an order that no film should be made about Dillinger for fear of further glamorizing his character.
Many of the 1930s crime films also dealt with class and ethnic conflict, notably the earliest films, reflecting doubts about how well the American system was working. As stated, many films pushed the message that criminals were the result of a poor moral and economic society, and many are portrayed as having foreign backgrounds or coming from the lower class. Thus, the film criminal is often able to evoke sympathy and admiration out of the viewer, who often will not place the blame on the criminal's shoulders, but rather a cruel society where success is difficult.Terry Christensen, Projecting Politics: Political Messages in American Films (New York: M.E. Sharp, Inc., 2006), p. 77 When the decade came to a close, crime films became more figurative, representing metaphors, as opposed to the more straight forward films produced earlier in the decade, showing an increasing interest in offering a thought provoking message about criminal character.Christensen, p. 79.
An additional factor concerning public attitudes was the rural bank robbers operating in the Midwest and in the South were usually WASPs or at least of German descent unlike the gangsters in urban areas who were often Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans or Jewish-Americans. The fact that many gangsters in the cities had Italian, Irish or Ashkenazi surnames was used by xenophobes at the time to argue that all of the crime in America was caused by immigrants, making the emergence of bank robbers with Anglo-Saxon or German surnames from families long resident in American problematic for those of an xenophobic outlook. One critic in the Communist newspaper The New Masses mocking wrote in 1934: "It must be a point of some concern to the professional patriots to realize that the crooks of the Midwest are not Wops, Pollacks or Jews. There are Barrows and Barkers and Pretty Boy Floyds of Texas and Oklahoma, the Twohys of Minnesota, the Dillingers and Pierpoints of Indiana, all native-born". In part because most American audiences preferred "evil foreigners" as villains, there was tendency of the part of Hollywood productions to focus on the urban gangsters, who were usually so-called hyphenated-Americans who were "ethnic" in contrast to Hollywood's ideal WASP Americans. For an example, in the 1931 film The Star Witness, a middle-class WASP family witnesses a murder committed by Italian-American gangsters who kidnap their child to prevent them from testifying. In response, the Leeds family patriarch, the crotchety Grandpa, warns against the "yellow-bellied, back-stabbing foreigners" presumably causing all the crime in America and in the climax of the film delivers an xenophobic speech in a courtroom where he says "I'll tell you, a danged, dirty foreigner can crowd an American just so far-just so far!", leading the courtroom to erupt in applause.