Gangster Film Reader [Paperback]

In the 1930s the gangster film in the United States coincided with a very real and very sensational gangsterism at large in American society.Little Caesar(1931),The Public Enemy(1931), andScarface(1932) borrowed liberally from the newspapers and books of the era. With the release of just these three motion pictures in barely more than a year's time, Hollywood quintessentially defined the genre. The characters, the situations, and the icons  from fast cars and tommy-guns to fancy fedoras and fancier molls  established the audience expectations associated with the gangster film that remain in force to this day. As with theirFilm Noir Readerseries, using both reprints of seminal articles and new pieces, editors Silver and Ursini have assembled a group of essays that presents an exhaustive overview of this still vital genre. Reprints of work by such well-known film historians as Robin Wood, Andrew Sarris, Carlos Clarens, Paul Schrader, and Stuart Kaminsky explore the evolution of the gangster film through the 1970s andThe Godfather. Parts 2 and 3 comprise two dozen newer articles, most of them written expressly for this volume by Ursini and Silver. These case studies and thematic analyses, fromWhite Heatto the remake ofScarfaceto The Sopranos  complete the anthology.

ALAIN SILVER has authoredRaymond Chandler's Los Angeles; L.A. Noir; The Noir Style. He is co-editor ofFilm Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference; and Film Noir Readers 1, 2, 3, and 4. His articles have appeared in Film Comment, Movie, Literature/Film Quarterly, Wide Angle, and the Los Angeles Times.

JAMES URSINI is the author, co-author, and co-editor of over 20 books on film history, including The Vampire Film and The Film Noir Reader series (with Alain Silver) and his latest title with Dominique Mainon, The Modern Amazons: Warrior Women On-Screen. He has a doctorate from UCLA and teaches in, Los Angeles.