Capone (1975)

Touches You

Let's be realistic.

Fresh and Exciting

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Although it plays quite liberally with the documented facts and makes a sizable number of historical blunders, this film nonetheless manages to be a worthy and engrossing presentation of the cagey and ambitious, but hot-headed and sadistic Al Capone's rise to power during the Prohibition era. Ben Gazzara delivers a marvelously fierce and volcanic portrayal of the notorious Capone: Cheeks stuffed with cotton, spitting out his profane dialogue with venomous aplomb, and glowering at his minions and enemies alike with unbridled seething rage, Gazzara's Capone makes for an appropriately loathsome and frightening psychopathic hoodlum. The strong supporting cast likewise do well in their parts: Harry Guardino as Capone's shrewd mentor Johnny Torrio, Susan Blakely as brash and free-spirited flapper Iris Crawford, Sylvestor Stallone as the traitorous Frank Nitti, Carmen Argenziano as loyal bodyguard Jack McGurn, John Davis Chandler as hateful rival Hymie Weiss, Royal Dano as crooked politician Anton J. Cermak, Dick Miller as wormy corrupt cop Joe Pryor, and Martin Kove as brutish strong-arm flunky Pete. John Cassavetes makes the most out of his regrettably small role as smooth capo Frankie Yale. Director Steve Carver, working from a tough no-nonsense script by Howard Browne, relates the absorbing story at a constant brisk pace, stages the thrilling shoot-outs with considerable muscular aplomb, and maintains a suitably gritty and hard-hitting tone throughout. Moreover, Carver deserves extra points for his decidedly harsh and unsentimental warts'n'all evocation of the 1920's period setting and his unsparingly graphic and equally unromanticized depiction of the more seamy and vulgar aspects of the mob. Vilis Lapenicks' cinematography makes nifty occasional use of slow motion and freeze frames. David Grisman's tuneful and jaunty score also does the trick. A solid and satisfying movie.

Ahh the 1970s…The home of the weird and unprofessional bad movies! At first I said to myself; this is a movie where its problem is being poor. After a while, I said to myself; this is a movie where its problem is its lead actor. Then, I noted that the director wasn't handling the matters well, or wasn't handling the matters. Maybe at one later point I accused the script too, but eventually I found out that it wasn't about many problems. It was about this movie being wholly a big problem! After the success of (The Godfather – 1972), then (The Godfather: Part II – 1974) there was suddenly an intensive concern about the history of mafia with the life of the American mobsters in the 20th century's first half, their families, mistresses, enemies and their ruling Tommyguns, where a wave of followers was made yet with nothing like Godfather. Just recall (The Don Is Dead – 1973), (Dillinger – 1973), or TV ones like (Honor Thy Father – 1973), (The Virginia Hill Story – 1974). Now, here's (Capone – 1975); the movie that will give you a good reason to hate The Godfather and its success!It looks like the 70s's exploitation movies, but it isn't. It's worse. The production is totally nonexistent. For instance the sets were like something I saw tenth of times at that era's TV shows; the ones that take place in the 70s's days (I suspect that I saw the bar, of the start of the movie, in one of Starsky & Hutch's episodes before!). The shots of the assassins in their cars, from the scene in which Capone was getting shot in the daylight, were clearly being borrowed from another movie due to shameful difference between the visual taste of them and the ones of this movie! Thanks to the IMDb, I knew that these shots were edited from another movie (The St. Valentine's Day Massacre – 1967) which's by the way directed by Capone's producer Roger Corman (or should I say Capone's stingy producer ?!). Moreover, I'm sure that some suits, coats, cars, and perhaps machineguns were reused from The Godfather's stuff.There is no direction at all. And, I mean AT ALL. Unless you think that ending every scene by immersing it into red color is directing. But even if, this (Steve Carver) didn't do anything more. At one moment there is an officer in his office threatening Capone "you are going to jail", and Capone tells him that he won't since he bribed them all, look at the way this scene was made as simply no effort of any kind was done; it was the perfect way how not to do it. And I HATED Mr. Carver's endless close-ups like he didn't learn anything about shooting but that!The script is mechanic, like a version of The Godfather but after cutting everything except the assassinations scenes. So don't ask too much, or ever. Nevertheless the question that I can't hold till now is why Capone's right-hand man, played by Stallone, sold him out at last ?? I bet the movie makers themselves don't know or remember anything about it in the first place! "He didn't know that the man to be worry about is the one who's beside you, not in front of you" isn't enough motive or convincing reason. And what was the need for this imaginary girlfriend ???! I suppose she was there just to assure that Capone wasn't gay, then be killed later! Generally it is at best a tasteless docu-drama about Capone, written by someone maybe read 2 pages summary about the man, then turned them, as they were, into a film!Still the main painful thing is Ben Gazzara's performance. It should be taught in acting schools (and ironically I'm not kidding!). This is beyond awful. Even if an actor wanted to be deliberately bad, he wouldn't be as half bad as this. (Gazzara) seemed like a nervous 9-year-old child trying to improvise Capone so seriously, being truly laughable for most of the time and horrible to embarrassing extent for the rest. Just watch him saying "Poison? What kind of way to kill a man is that ?!".. Purely unforgettable whether you want to laugh your heart out, or watch a man contorting his face to the max! But I can't blame the guy alone, surely he was entirely clueless; since he was in the hands of writing and directing that didn't give a damn, or didn't give anything but a damn!Oh God, I can't forget the finale; it's the top of this movie's creepy crappy time. So with this shitty TV-ish condition, I don't know how they got the nerve to show this cinematically ?? (Maybe because of the female nudity of it !). What kind of movie where the best of it is the performance of the young (Stallone) anyway ?! But Hey. Whatever. Watch it as a spoof of Al Capone; it works finely this way.. But unfortunately not for all its time!Finally a question : if Capone was still alive, healthy and influential when that was released.. Do you think that he might have whacked this movie's crow?!

I kind of liked it. It's played straight (I think) but it's really pretty amusing. You've seen it all before -- the chattering Tommy guns, the blood all over, the cigars, the sex, the flowers at the funeral, "My own Bruddah," the oaths of loyalty, the betrayals, the shotguns, the scratchy opera records, the Model A Fords twirling around on wet streets, the booze, the speakeasies, the flapper molls, the guy starting the car which is deconstructed by the hidden explosives, Deanie O'Banion, Bugs Moran, Hymie Weiss, Jake Gadjusek, the Genna brothers, the knives, Chicago neighborhoods that look like the Universal Tour, the fist fights -- and Al Capone.I thought Rod Steiger had closed the book on turning Capone into an outrageous clown in "Al Capone," but Ben Gazzara outdoes him here. This was released shortly after "The Godfather". You can tell because Gazzara, not satisfied with a little cotton in his cheeks like Brando, seems to have stuffed a couple of Kaiser rolls or ABD pads in his cheeks. They stand out like a chipmunk's. And when he has a fat cigar in his mouth his voice sounds as if it's coming from a place far distant, echoing off twisting walls, a kind of TUBA of a voice. His physical instrument is overplayed as well. When he's happy his smile is that of an alligator. Giving orders he lowers his head like a bull and glares up from beneath his brows. He croaks when he tries to soothe someone and otherwise bellows.The vulgarity is engaging. "Them f******s have been shoving their ****s up my *** for too ******** long now, those *****ing *****s! ****** the ***** *****s of the ***** ** *****, *** ******ing ****ers!"And then there is Susan Blakely. She was Al Pacino's second and closest girl friend in "Serpico." She didn't have much of a part. She has a small part here too but it's all on display. All of her parts are on display. You get to know Susan Blakely pretty well, let's say, including her obstetrical aspect, which I think adds to the general comedic impact of this epic narrative. But the movie isn't sexy, any more than it's tragic or dramatic. We don't care whose head explodes. We don't care who gets shot, shived, or syphilitic. What an unexcelled piece of trash. I really enjoyed it.

I found Capone to be a very interesting film. The action scenes were well staged and the acting was surprisingly good. Ben Gazzara was excellent as Capone. He managed to capture Al Capone's VD induced psychosis very well. It's a shame that this film was never put out on video in the US. Unlike most biopics, I found this one to be very entertaining. Yo, check out Stallone as Frank "The Enforcer" NittiRecommended, if you can find it.B+