Film gangsters
Top of the world Ma
To celebrate the release of Public Enemies we look back at the actors who have portrayed some of Hollywood's classic gangsters.Top of the world Ma
James Cagney
Cagney was the first real screen gangster to capture the public's imagination both in the US and abroad. Despite his backgroud as a vaudeville comedian and dancer, he made a huge impression in a string of gangster films in the 1930s, notably Public Enemy (1931, and a film which Tony Soprano can be seen watching 70 years later) and Angels With Dirty Faces (1938).Classic Line: Come out and take it, you yellow dirty-bellied rat (from Taxi, 1931)
Edward G Robinson
Born in Bucharest Romania, Robinson moved to the United States at the age of ten and despite his bulldog looks became a huge star and had a lengthy Hollywood career. His notable gangster outings were in the 1931 film Litle Caesar and opposite Bogart in Key Largo (1948).Classic Line: After living in the USA for more than thirty-five years they called me an undesirable alien. Me. Johnny Rocco. Like I was a dirty Red or something! (from Key Largo)
Warren Beatty
It's difficult to believe now but heartthrob Beatty cemented his place in Hollywood lore with not one but two classy gangster turns. First there was the tearway Clyde Barrow opposite Faye Dunaway's Bonnie in 1967. 25 years later, he produced and starred in Bugsy, the story of how Vegas was built.Classic Line: I'm even better at runnin' than I am at robbin' banks! (from Bonnie and Clyde)
Marlon Brando
Brando was already a superstar in decline by the time he made The Godfather. He wasn't even first choice to play Don Vito Corleone (the studio reportedly wanted Laurence Olivier in the role). But a couple of cotton balls in the mouth and a mumbling delivery made him an iconic screen figure of the 1970s, and he won his second Oscar to boot (which, typically, he refused to accept).Classic Line: I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.
Robert de Niro
Vito Corleone in the Godfather Part II, Noodles in Once Upon A Time In America, Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas and Sam Rothstein in Casino: roles that have arguably made De Niro the quintessential screen gangster of the last fifty years. And that's without even mentioning Al Capone in The Untouchables. A legend.Classic line: You can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word. (from The Untouchables)
Al Pacino
Another graduate of The Godfather, but Pacino really rose to new heights with his portrayal of Tony Montana in 1983's astonishing Scarface. The cocaine-fulled violence, the climactic final scene and the chainsaw in the bathroom episode have all gone down as classic gangster fare.Classic Line: I always tell the truth. Even when I lie.
Kevin Spacey
It was an unconventional film and an unconventional performance, but Kevin Spacey burst onto the scene in The Usual Suspects in 1994, a film whose ending became hugely debated and which showed that reinvention of the gangster genre was possible with a little imagination.Classic Line: Back when I was picking beans in Guatemala, we used to make fresh coffee, right off the trees I mean. That was good. This is shit but, hey, I'm in a police station.
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