Gangster Empire: Rise Of The Mob Movie Download In Mp4

[Ashlie Hagenson]

A standard story arc in Gangster Fiction: the first half of the story depicts the gangster's rise up the ladder of organized crime, accumulating power, wealth, influence, and women; the second half depicts their fall from power into ignominy, failure, and (often) death. Much like in classical Greek Tragedy, the gangster's fall from power is usually caused by a Fatal Flaw: a character trait that served them well during their ascent but subsequently became a liability. Typically, the ending will be a Downer Ending, or bittersweet at best.

Gangster Empire: Rise Of The Mob Movie Download In Mp4

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This convention emerged as a by-product of The Hays Code, a production code that Hollywood films had to rigidly adhere to between 1934-54. One of the rules of the code forbade films from depicting criminals getting away with their crimes, in hopes of avoiding glamorizing violent crime. As such, gangster films produced in the era were legally obliged to show their Villain Protagonist getting his comeuppance by the end of the film. After 1954, the production code was no longer as strictly enforced, and by the early 1960s, most Hollywood films were ignoring it entirely. The "rise and fall" arc, however, had come to be seen as such a quintessential component of gangster films that it has stuck around long past the point that there was a legal necessity for its inclusion.

However, it helped that this is often Truth in Television for many criminals in real life. Gangsterism tends to be a dangerous, ugly, illegal line of work at the best of times with a fairly high mortality rate, with many real cases of spectacular rises and falls. To cite just examples from Italian-American criminal history, the only acknowledged "Boss of all Bosses" in American Mafia history seized power in a lethal year-long war and enjoyed the position for less than six months before being murdered by an alliance of his underlings and his dead rival's lieutenants. Al Capone famously ran a continental criminal empire based around Chicago before being caught on Tax Evasion and psychologically destroyed by Alcatraz, and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel went from being unofficial founder of Las Vegas and glamorous Mafiosi to being killed for being a violent liability. All of these examples happened either during the life of the Hayes Code or well before it, and became legends. The issue of course is that this was a case of Accentuate the Negative by portraying the downfall as inevitable, when crime could pay and arguably the most powerful American criminal of his generation, Meyer Lansky, lived straight through the Hayes era before retiring on his own volition and living out the rest of his days free, something the Moral Guardians would not want to highlight.

Note that the "rise" and the "fall" are both essential components of this story arc: if a film begins when the gangster has already made a name for himself, or ends while he is still at the top of his game, it's not a straight example.

A specific type of the "Rise and Fall" variant of a Two-Act Structure. Compare Being Evil Sucks, Can't Get Away with Nuthin', Do Not Do This Cool Thing, Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!, Bookends, Where It All Began and the various Karma tropes.

Literature

• Gates Of Eden by Ethan Coen (of The Coen Brothers): Spoofed in the story "Cosa Minopolidan." Joe De Louie is a small-time New York capo who moves his operation to Minneapolis MN and tries to take over the town. His "rise to power" ends up being a Humiliation Conga of being ignored by the locals, mistakes from his underlings, and a murder he arranges that lands him in jail (for perjury). The downfall still happens as Joe's gang falls apart in his absence, and he spends the rest of his life working in a barbershop and wondering what the hell happened.
• Scarface (1932) was closely adapted from a little-known book of the same name by Armitage Trail (the Pen Name of Maurice R. Coons).

Music

• This arc appears in many Gangsta Rap songs, usually in the Blue Collar/classical gangsta rap and Mafioso Rap subgenres.
• Snoop Dogg's "Murder Was The Case" makes this arc a result of a Deal with the Devil (maybe). At the start of the song, Snoop's a minor gangsta who gets gunned down by his rivals - while dying, he prays to see the baby his girlfriend's pregnant with, then hears a mysterious voice that promises him eternal life and a life better than he ever dreamed of. In the next verse, Snoop's a highly successful drug dealer with plenty of weed and cars, but finds himself wanting more. In the final verse, Snoop's caught and sent to prison, surrounded by gang members from the opposite side, hearing inmates filing their toothbrushes into knives.

Video Games

• Grand Theft Auto V does this with all of its three protagonists, to some degree. Franklin plays the story the straightest, as he rises from a quiet suburban life to a life of high-rise crime. Michael returns to a life of crime after his family continuously disrespects him. And Trevor wants to cause destruction and chaos for its own sake, though the extra money certainly doesn't hurt. In two of the ending options, all three of them fall to some degree. Franklin has to kill either Michael or Trevor to cover his own ass, and even the one who survives ends up with virtually nothing to show for it. With the Los Santos PD hot on their trail, all their money effectively worthless since they can't buy their way out of trouble, and a wake of bodies behind them, Franklin laments that the lifestyle of a gangster simply wasn't worth it, one way or another.
• Mafia series:
• Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven shows Tommy Angelo's circumstantial start to a life of crime during The Great Depression, then shows his gradual rise within Don Salieri's mob. Only Tommy's own conscience gets the better of him, and by the late 1930's he realizes that Salieri's no better than the late Don Morello by getting into heroin trafficking. He and his buddy Paulie rob a bank without getting Salieri's approval in order to "get out", only for his other friend Sam to betray them both and murder Paulie. It's being forced on the run after killing Sam that causes Tommy to turn state's evidence. He does some prison time, ends up in Witness Protection, and finally is assassinated on Salieri's orders in 1951.
• Mafia II begins with Vito Scaletta (one of the two men who killed Tommy Angelo) in hard times, with the rest of the game showing his start as a petty thief, before fighting in World War II, getting discharged, rising through Empire Bay's criminal underworld, and finally becoming an official mobster. Unlike Tommy, however, he only briefly gets to enjoy the gangster life, before a handful of bad deals turn his life upside down again. Near the end, he ponders "Was It Really Worth It?"
• Mafia III sees the player-controlled fall of the Marcano family as Lincoln Clay destroys each of Sal Marcano's holdings in the city. Depending on the ending, if he stays and takes control, he becomes the new kingpin of New Bordeaux, becoming a Villain with Good Publicity or takes off into the night with whichever his three lieutenants has the most power to take over. Thomas Burke, the head of the Irish Mob, gets a liver transplant, going from 6-8 months left to live to getting shot dead in 1985, starting the cycle of violence all over again. Cassandra, head of the Haitian Mob, is even more of a Blood Knight to the point the National Guard has to come in and literally shut down the entire town. The only one who actually has a GOOD ending is Vito Scaletta, who turns New Bordeaux into the Vegas of the South and lives to a ripe old age.

Web Animation

• Zero Punctuation discusses this trope in his review of the aforementioned Mafia II:I was able to accurately predict the entire story of Mafia II using only the fact that it's this game about The Mafia. The main character, I foretold with the game's box to my forehead, will start the game licking the mildew off his landlady's crystallized vagina to make rent and will be lured into organized crime by the money, the clothes, the pretty cars, the fast whores, etc., but after a brief heyday will be ordered to kill a friend, or a friend will be ordered to kill them, and they'll realize that CRIME DOES NOT PAY (except for all the money, and the clothes, and the pretty cars, and the fast whores etc.). I have never seen a Mafia story where a bloke joins the Mafia and then everything is lovely forever. Why does society insist on demonising organized crime?

Western Animation

• Parodied in the Rick and Morty episode "Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion". Rick's obsessive collection of GoTron ferrets to make ever-larger combining robots is portrayed like a crime drama, complete with Rick making deals with "the heads of the other families" (alternate-universe versions of himself, each representing a different crime boss stereotype), Morty and Summer providing narrative voiceover or the parasites in their heads doing so, anyway, and the various multiversal Sanchez families' lives growing increasingly opulent as the inevitable fall approaches. Things implode violently at the end when Rick unwisely hires on the original GoTron pilots, who are out for revenge and attempt to hijack Rick's ridiculously oversized GoGoGoTron combiner.
• The South Park episode "South Park S 14 E 3 Medicinal Fried Chicken" parodies Scarface, and as such follows this same story arc, with Cartman taking the role of Tony Montana, just replacing cocaine with the recently-criminalized fried chicken. He manages to survive, though.

DAVE DAVIES, host: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, filling in this week for Terry Gross. The gang wars and drug violence that have afflicted some urban communities have taken a frightful toll, but this isn't the first time American cities have seen such violence. Writer Jonathan Eig's new book takes us back to the Roaring '20s in Chicago, when cops and judges were on the take, and unsolved murders piled up by the dozens every year. Eig's new book chronicles the rise and fall of legendary gangster Al Capone. It's based on newly acquired documents and interviews with some of Capone's descendants. There's a lot you probably didn't know about Capone, like how freely he spoke to reporters of his exploits, the time he shot himself in the groin, how little Eliot Ness actually had to do with putting him away, and how venereal disease eventually robbed him of his health and sanity. Jonathan Eig is a former writer and editor for the Wall Street Journal, whos written bestsellers about Lou Gehrig and Jackie Robinson. He lives in Chicago, a half a mile from the site of the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre. His new book is called "Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster." Jonathan Eig, welcome to FRESH AIR. Al Capone comes to Chicago from New York in the early '20s. Give us a sense of the Chicago he arrived in. Mr. JONATHAN EIG (Author, "Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster"): It's a wild town. It's a rip-roaring town by almost any stretch of the imagination. And Chicago, for many, many years has been a fairly lawless town, a place where the police have a hard time keeping up with the bad guys just because they are so horribly outnumbered. But by the 1920s, 1920 in particular, when Prohibition becomes the law, the city gets a lot crazier, and the Prohibition really just amplifies everything, and it makes incredible opportunities available to men like Capone, who are willing to continue breaking the law. Suddenly, there's a lot more money to be made than they ever dreamed possible. DAVIES: And who was Capone? Tell us a little bit about his life in New York and what drove him to Chicago. Mr. EIG: Capone was born 1899 in Brooklyn, part of a big family, one of eight children, and he was married just before coming to Chicago. He was working as a bouncer in a bar in Coney Island, a place called the Harvard Inn, and it was not Ivy League at all. It was a very tough place. And that's where he met a lot of the underworld figures who would become really key to his career going forward. And once he got to Chicago, he was able to really grow in terms of his stature, in terms of his prominence. I suspect if he'd stayed in New York, he wouldve remained a small-time guy. There was just too much competition for mugs like him. But Chicago was a different story. Chicago, he was fortunate to latch on with a good organization, where he really learned and was able to move through the ranks quickly and became the man that we now today, you know, the ultimate symbol of the 1920s, lawlessness, the ultimate gangster. DAVIES: Talking a little bit about what was going on in Chicago and reading the book, I'm really stuck by the level of violence, including political violence, battles over alderman elections. Mr. EIG: That's right. You had candidates for alderman throwing bombs through each other's windows or at least using their representatives, their campaign workers, to do some of this violence. You had gangsters shooting each other over turf, you know, over beer sales and on an average of about 50, 75 a year. And there were no convictions. That was really the key. And that's why this violence was allowed to flourish. There were very few arrests and literally no convictions in these gang wars throughout the 1920s, and that's because the whole system had been purchased at a great discount by these gangsters. They were able to bribe everyone in sight so that the law simply wasn't functioning, and that made almost anything possible for these guys. DAVIES: I'm interested in how violent a man Capone himself was. Clearly, he spent a lot of his career directing others, but there is a murder that you describe of a man named Joe Howard. Tell us what we know about that murder and what we know about Capone's role. Mr. EIG: I think early in his career, Capone was a violent man and did carry out many of these hits himself. And in this case, this is really the murder that put him on the map and I think signaled to the gang in Chicago that Capone was a man they could count on when the going got tough. So what happened was one of Capone's men, an accountant, got picked on in a bar by Joe Howard. And Joe Howard was one of Capone's rivals, but he was a two-bit thug, really. Capone didn't know much of him. But you didn't go after Capone's men, and that was the point. So in broad daylight, with one of his bodyguards, Capone walks right up to Joe Howard, says hello, puts the gun to his cheek, fires six times and holds him on the bar stool as he keeps firing so that Joe Howard cannot get away, cannot fall, even. When he's finally sure that Howard's been completely obliterated, he lets go, watches him fall to the floor. Everybody in the bar watches Capone walk out. And this is amazing because you've got the police swarming the place, and they know that it's Capone. They've got eyewitnesses saying we know it was Capone. People saw him come in and out. But suddenly, no one will testify because nobody wants to be on the wrong side of Al Capone. Nobody wants Capone to be coming after them next. So he walks away from this crime. He answers the police questions, and there's no arrest. There's no conviction. He walks away a free man. And that sort of cements his reputation in the city, at least among gangsters, and it's one of the first times that he gets his name prominently displayed in the newspapers in Chicago. DAVIES: By 1925, Capone is really the leading organized crime figure in Chicago. And he is, what, a man in his mid-20s, right? Mr. EIG: That's right. He's 26 years old. DAVIES: And tell us a little bit about what his business was. Mr. EIG: Well, he's making a lot of money. It's all cash. And it's mostly in the beer and whiskey business. He's bringing the stuff in from many, many different sources. It's a very complicated business. And that's really the key to Capone's success: He's able to keep a lot of balls in the air. He's able to run bars, brothels, casinos. He's bringing in some booze from Canada; he's bringing in some booze from New York. He's bringing in some whiskey from Iowa. It's a very complicated arrangement with a lot of people who have to be paid off, a lot of police officers, judges, politicians all have to be bribed. There's a lot of overhead involved. There's just it's a complicated business. Now, I don't think Capone is taking in every penny from this operation. I think he's wise enough to share it with the people who he needs to keep happy in order to maintain such a complicated organization. But nevertheless, the amount of money coming in is staggering. By the government estimates, it's, you know, millions of dollars a year, which I think was probably exaggerated, as the government later tried to build a case against him for income tax evasion. But I'm certain, at the very least, Capone was dealing in hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash every year. And for a young man in his 20s with not much education, a sixth-grade education, and not much really in the way of school smarts, he does a terrific job, really, of running this organization. And I think that's really the key to his success is his charisma, his sort of intuition as a businessman. It carries him a long way, that, of course, and the threat of violence. DAVIES: Now, you also write in this book that the Tommy gun changed the nature of crime. How? Mr. EIG: Well, the Thompson submachine gun was invented during World War I. It was meant to put an end to World War I but it arrived too late. So the general who designed the gun looked for other outlets, tried to sell it to police departments, but police departments didn't have the budget and weren't really sure what to do with such a powerful weapon. Enter the gangster, who can easily purchase the machine gun in a sporting goods catalog or at a local gun shop. And there happened to be one just a couple blocks from where I live now in Chicago, a place where you could walk in and buy a machine gun if you had the cash. And this became the weapon of choice for the gangster because they could shoot on the run. They could shoot from their car windows and fire hundreds of rounds within seconds. This, along with fast automobiles, really gave the gangsters an advantage over the police because the cops had slower, older cars. They had much lighter weapons. And this enabled them to commit their crimes and escape as if bribing the police officers wasn't already enough of an advantage for these guys. DAVIES: You know, mob hits are in some ways sort of a part of life in many cities at many particular times, and citizens don't worry so much about them because, you know, it's gangsters settling scores with one another. It seems a little different if you have a car driving up and a submachine gun splattering bullets all over a sidewalk. Did Chicago's population feel terrorized? Mr. EIG: You know, I think at times Chicago's population felt terrorized but it wasn't so much the machine guns that did it. I think because there really was very little collateral damage. There were hardly any incidents in which innocent civilians were killed in these gang wars. It was really the gangsters being killed. And I think given that the police weren't doing anything to stop these guys, the fact that some of them died didn't stir a lot of sympathy among most Chicagoans. The real issue, I think, for most Chicagoans was the damage it did to the city's reputation. We already had, you know, an image of corrupt politics. We had a mayor who was widely perceived as being one of the most venal in the country's history, Big Bill Thompson. And then you've got these gangsters walking down the street with machine guns shooting it out on Michigan Avenue in broad daylight. And this is, as you can imagine, not good for business. So the city's business leaders are really the first ones who start to raise a ruckus and say something must be done about this. DAVIES: You know, one of the things that made Capone unique was his public profile. And that's something that he fed in ways that modern gangsters I just don't think did. I mean, it's remarkable to read some of the quotes in your book that he gave newspaper reporters. And I thought, you know, just for a little flavor here, I thought we would listen to Robert De Niro as Al Capone in the movie "The Untouchables." This is a moment where I think he's getting a shave and having an exchange with some reporters. Let's listen. (Soundbite of film, "The Untouchables") Unidentified Man #1 (Actor): (As character) An article which I believe appeared in a newspaper asked why, since you are or would seem that you are, in effect, the mayor of Chicago, you've not simply been appointed to that position. (Soundbite of laughter) Mr. ROBERT DE NIRO (Actor): (As Al Capone) Well, I'll tell you, you know, it's touching. Like a lot of things in life, we laugh because it's funny, and we laugh because it's true. Some people say, reformers here say, put that man in jail. What does he think he is doing? Well, what I hope I'm doing, and here's where your English paper's got a point, is I'm responding to the will of the people. (Soundbite of laughter) Mr. DE NIRO: (As Capone) People are going to drink. You know that, I know that. We all know that. And all I do is act on that, and all this talk of bootlegging, what is bootlegging? On a boat, it's bootlegging. On Lakeshore Drive, it's hospitality. (Soundbite of laughter) Mr. DE NIRO: I'm a businessman. Unidentified Man #2 (Actor): (As character) And what of your reputation that you control your business through violence, that those that don't purchase your products are dealt with violently? Mr. DE NIRO: (As Capone) I grew up in a tough neighborhood, and we used to say, you can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word. (Soundbite of laughter) Mr. DE NIRO: And in that neighborhood, it might have been true. Sometimes a reputation follows you. There is violence in Chicago, of course, but not by me and not by anybody I employ, and I'll tell you why, because it's not good business. DAVIES: And that is the fictional Al Capone, portrayed by Robert De Niro in the movie "The Untouchables." We're speaking with Jonathan Eig, who has written a new book about Al Capone called "Get Capone." Jonathan, Eig, how close is that to the real thing? Mr. EIG: It was pretty close, actually, because Capone did talk to the reporters a lot, and he always defended himself as a businessman. He always said people want to drink and all I'm doing is giving them the pleasures that they desire. The irony is that De Niro actually understated Capone's tolerance for violence because in interviews, Capone would often say violence was part of the job, that he didn't see it necessarily as something God would consider a sin because he was protecting himself. He was protecting his family. He was protecting the business that he needed in order to take care of his family. And maybe he had a broader view of this thing than the law has it. That's how he explained it, but he did acknowledge that he was a bootlegger. He acknowledged that sometimes violence was necessary in order to do his job. DAVIES: How did his associates in organized crime feel about him being such a media hog? I can't imagine they thought this was a good idea. Mr. EIG: No, it didn't go over very well with his peers. Now, you have to remember that in the 1920s, everybody wanted to be a celebrity. Everybody wanted to be like Babe Ruth or Lucky Lindbergh or at least, you know, like these guys who were sitting on flagpoles. And businessmen in particular in the '20s really believed that to be a success, to be an entrepreneur meant to have a personality, to cultivate a sense that you were a success and to - that's why I think Capone dressed the way he did. And that's why I think he entertained the press, because he wanted to be perceived as a successful American, you know, sort of - Dale Carnegie later, when he wrote his famous book on success in business, would cite Capone actually as a model for creating the public image. Obviously, it went bad in many ways with Capone, but nevertheless, that's what he was going for. And I think that you have to understand that cult of celebrity and that desire for the spotlight that really was so strong during the 1920s. DAVIES: On the other hand, he clearly cared about his public image. How did the public feel about Al Capone? Mr. EIG: I'd say the feelings were mixed. Clearly, Capone was a villain, and clearly he was a criminal. And the fact that he discussed his criminality didn't absolve him of those crimes in any way. At the same time, he was breaking a law that was wildly unpopular. Prohibition was a mistake by almost any definition. And by the 1920s, when the war was over, and people were coming out of these hard times and looking to celebrate and the economy was booming, it was really, just, it just was a terrible fit. And Capone became really the symbol of that era in many ways. And certainly, when it came to people's willingness to break that law, Capone became a very powerful icon. And he stood up for a lot of people who were willing to say they didn't like it. So he becomes the icon for the '20s because everyone is breaking this law, and he's just breaking it in a much bigger way than anyone else. DAVIES: We're speaking with Jonathan Eig. His new book about Al Capone is called "Get Capone." We'll talk more after a break. This is FRESH AIR. (Soundbite of music) DAVIES: If you're just joining us, we're speaking with writer Jonathan Eig. He's written a new book about the life of Al Capone. It's called "Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America's Most Wanted Gangster." Now, he had a house on Chicago's South Side, where his family lived, his wife and other relatives. And he spent a lot of time kind of occupying a suite in downtown hotels. Was he seen on the street? Did the public come up to him and fawn over him and seek autographs or photos? Mr. EIG: Yes, Capone really was a very public person, and he went to ballgames. He attended opera. He was seen around town, and it became a joke, really, among tourists when they visited Chicago, you know, when you came back from your trip, people would say: Did you see Capone? Did you get any pictures of Capone? Do you have any bullet holes in your car? And some of it was a joke, but much of it was actually inspired by the fact that Capone was seen around town. There were pictures of him in the newspaper when he went to the races. He did not sneak about. He felt like he was a businessman, and he wanted to be seen that way. DAVIES: And, you know, we haven't talked about what he looked like, but just give us a sense of the physical presence he struck. Mr. EIG: Capone was a big man. You know, he was 5'10", 210 pounds, roughly, in his prime. He got a little heavier late in his career. But I think that was the key to his early success is that he was big enough and strong enough to scare people when he stood over them in a bar. But he always wanted to be perceived more elegantly, and he liked actually, you know, his nickname was Scarface, of course, in the newspapers because of the three hideous scars on the left side of his cheek. But the nickname he preferred was Snorky, which at the time meant elegant, ritzy. And he dressed in, you know, incredibly fashionable ways, with gleaming diamond belt buckles but also, you know, very tasteful three-piece suits. It was a real mix of elegance and show, and I think that that's how he preferred to be perceived, and that was very important. So you had this big, hulking guy who wanted to dress like Fred Astaire. He wanted to be seen as a symbol of wealth and elegance. DAVIES: You know, eventually gangsters like Capone appeared in the movies. And I guess it was in 1931 that the film "Little Caesar" was made, which did not have a character named Capone, but Edward G. Robinson played a guy named Rico Bandello, right? Mr. EIG: That's right. DAVIES: I thought we'd hear just a little bit of this. This is a moment in the film where he's basically ousting one of the local crime bosses, taking over from a guy whose character's name is Sam Vatoni(ph). He's played by Stanley Fields. Let's listen. (Soundbite of film, "Little Caesar") Mr. STANLEY FIELDS (Actor): (As Sam Vettori) I see the color of that... Mr. EDWARD G. ROBINSON (Actor): (As Rico Bandello) Just a minute, Sam. I got my own idea of a split this time, and you can take it my way or leave it. We ain't begging you. Mr. FIELDS: (As Vettori) Yeah? Well, I boss this job, and I'm going to get my split in the regular way or else. Mr. ROBINSON: (As Bandello) How do you boss this job, by sitting here in your office cheating yourself at solitaire? Well, that dont go no more, not with me it don't. We're done. I've been taking orders from you too long. Mr. FIELDS: (As Vettori) And you'll keep on taking orders, too, or you'll get out of here so fast. Mr. ROBINSON: (As Bandello) Yeah, well, maybe it won't be me that gets out. Mr. FIELDS: (As Vettori) No? Well, maybe the boys, they got something to say about that. What about it? So, that's it, huh? Mr. ROBINSON: (As Bandello) Yeah, that's it, all right. Sam, you can dish it out, but you're getting so you can't take it no more. You're through. DAVIES: And that's Edward G. Robinson from the film "Little Caesar" from 1931. Jonathan Eig, you know, it's interesting that Al Capone was such a public figure in his day. Do we know if actors like Robinson or Cagney actually drew their performances from Capone? Mr. EIG: We think that they did and, you know, these movies were made while Capone was still in operation. That's the amazing thing, while even