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With a broken narrative the film told the story of young Vito (Robert De Niro) rising to power in the early part of the 20th century, borne out of necessity, while we watch his Michael (Pacino) consolidate his extraordinary power in the fifties, overseeing an operation bigger than US Steel. The sequel, made just two years later, would surpass the first in every way, no mean feat, yet Coppola and writer Mario Puzo made it deeper, more complex, darker and near visionary. The film allowed Marlon Brando to create one of the most iconic characters ever put on film, and win a second Academy Award for Best Actor, as well as a second coming of method acting and actors, with Al Pacino emerging as one of the important actors of the seventies. Of course he brought a great deal more to the mix as well, casting (refusing to buckle), an epic sweep yet intimate feel to the film, and we seemed to be on the inside of the dimly lit rooms where murder was discussed like going for groceries. Coppola drew on his own heritage as an Italian American and brought to the film an intimacy that might not have otherwise been there in the hands of another director. So really the gangster film, if there is a true gangster film at least for this generation, began with The Godfather (1972), Francis Ford Coppola’s magnificent look at the mob, a perverse study of the American Dream turned upside down and the story of a father and his three sons. Never though was there an intimate, inside look at how the mafia or organized crime worked, and just how it impacted the men who were operating it, and their families surrounding them. The Public Enemy (1931), Scarface (1932) and Little Caesar (1931) were the best of the early gangster films, and there were many through the decade and beyond. Yet there was always the end when the criminals died or went to prison, they always got what they deserved. Warner Brothers built their studio on gangster films, romanticizing life in the mob to make it exciting, even glamorous in the thirties and forties. Organized crime is the order of the day with what I am exploring with this article, big and small.

Let me be clear, I am writing about gangster pictures, films that go inside the world of the mob, NOT cops and robbers or crime movies.