Gangsters and G-Men on Screen

Gene D. Phillips, SJ, is the author of several works on film and literature, including Beyond the Epic: The Life and Films ofDavid Lean, Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder, and Out of the Shadows: Expanding the Canon of Classic Film Noir (Scarecrow, 2011). He is the coauthor of The Francis Ford Coppola Encyclopedia (Scarecrow, 2010).

• Acknowledgments IntroductionChapter 1: The Rise of the Gangster Film Chapter 2: Little Caesar and The Public EnemyChapter 3: The Story of Temple Drake and No Orchids for Miss BlandishChapter 4: Dead End and This Gun for HireChapter 5: Criss Cross and White Heat Chapter 6: John Huston’s Key Largo and The Asphalt JungleChapter 7: The Lady from Shanghai and The Great GatsbyChapter 8: Fritz Lang’s You Only Live Once and The Big HeatChapter 9: The Godfather, Part IIChapter 10: Bonnie and Clyde and The UntouchablesChapter 11: The Grifters and The DepartedChapter 12: Dillinger and Public EnemiesAfterword: Gangster Squad (2013) and Other FilmsBibliographyIndexAbout the Author

Here’s a broad-ranging survey of movies about gangsters and government agents (G-men), starting with the first, D. W. Griffith’s The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), and ending with recent offerings like Public Enemies and Gangster Squad. There are, of course, many well-known movies here—Little Caesar, the original Scarface, Bonnie and Clyde, The Untouchables, The Godfather—but the author also introduces us to a lot of films and facts that are likely to be unfamiliar. For example, did you know that the first true 'talkie' wasn’t 1927’s The Jazz Singer, which only had one scene with audible dialogue, but rather Lights of New York, a 1928 gangster movie? Did you know that one of the most controversial gangster pics of the late 1940s bore the sweetly delicate title of No Orchids for Miss Blandish? Whether you’re a longtime fan of gangster films or relatively new to the genre, this comprehensive and very enjoyable book has something for you.