Book Excerpt: Killer Flicks

George Anastasia and Glen Macnow's "The Ultimate Book of Gangster Movies" will be published Tuesday by Running Press. Here is an excerpt.

Walk into any bar where guys hang out and it's a good bet they are discussing one of three topics: sports, women, or movies. It's also a good bet that most of those guys can speak with knowledge and intelligence about two of those topics.

This is a book about one of them - movies. More specifically, gangster movies. Indeed, gangster movies have influenced the culture since Hollywood first turned on the lights.

Six decades before Joe Pesci's unhinged bantam tough guy terrorized the world in Goodfellas, Edward G. Robinson did exactly the same in Little Caesar.

The bad guy is always mesmerizing. We all want to believe we're rebels underneath our law-abiding skins. And so when we sit in a dark theater rooting for the gangster, we get the vicarious thrill of striking out at authority without, well, actually breaking the rules ourselves.

No. 1: The Godfather (1972, R) Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton. Director: Francis Ford Coppola.

The Godfather changed everything. This milestone in cinema revived a genre that had languished for decades. Nearly every gangster movie produced since starts with The Godfather as its primary point of reference.

"It created the game," said Chazz Palminteri, whose film A Bronx Tale centers on growing up around mobsters. "Any of us today who make a movie about organized crime should realize that without The Godfather, we never would have had the chance."

But it did more than that. For better or worse, The Godfather changed how audiences view Mafiosi, elevating them from nasty thugs to a modern incarnation of Roman royalty. The Godfather does not present organized crime as an evil empire presided over by heartless men.

We never even see victims with lives destroyed by the mob's illicit activities. The treachery only occurs against traitors within the business, and the mob is a family enterprise presided over by a sympathetic patriarch. Decades later, Vito Corleone would become Tony Soprano.

Indeed, the movie has aged better than any Barolo. Filmed in 1971 and set in the period of 1945-55, The Godfather still amazes, no matter how many times you've seen it before. The detail is awe-inspiring, from the beautiful tree-lined mountains of Sicily to that small moment when Enzo the Baker, after staring down assassins outside the hospital, cannot flick his cigarette lighter because of quavering hands.

There's a brilliant balance of action and drama, perhaps best exemplified by the baptism-massacre scene. Notice the rapid shift between shots of Michael at his nephew's baptism - vowing to renounce Satan - to shots of his enemies being gunned down all over town. The organ music swells as Michael becomes Godfather - by both definitions.

Don't fail to notice: The words Mafia and Cosa Nostra are never spoken in the film. This was part of an agreement between producer Al Ruddy and a pressure group called the Italian-American Civil Rights League.

Casting call: Robert De Niro, then an unknown 27-year-old, was cast in the small role of Paulie, the traitorous driver who calls out sick the day Don Corleone is shot. De Niro was released from his contract when he signed to appear in another mob movie, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, which proved to be a dud. Obviously, had De Niro stayed in this picture, he would not have been able to play young Vito in The Godfather: Part II.

Reality check: On his way to getting gunned down, Sonny's car radio is playing the Oct. 3, 1951, broadcast of the Dodgers-Giants playoff game, which ends with Bobby Thomson's famed "Shot Heard 'Round the World." Only problem is the scene takes place in 1948. That's one hell of a radio Sonny's got.

In the 1990s, Quentin Tarantino entered the scene as a writer and director. His version of organized crime features dark humor, stylized violence, and non-linear plot lines. His mobsters, like Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction, are seemingly regular guys who converse about fast food and foot rubs before blowing off the head of someone who did their boss wrong.

Tarantino's brilliance is in making you sympathetic to the hitmen, right up to the moment that they commit a heinous act.

Tarantino sparked a line of imitators, some talented, others not. One we like is Britain's Guy Ritchie, whose 1998 effort, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, is up to Tarantino's standards.

Indeed, Great Britain is represented by seven films in our Top 100. There are four from France (starting with the great 1955 caper film Rififi), two each from Italy, Japan, and Hong Kong, and one each from six other countries.

"I think people around the world are fascinated with gangsters," said British actor Tim Roth, who makes our book for his work in three films. "Every country has got its version of the mob, right? And it doesn't matter where you're from. If you can slip into that dangerous underworld for two hours, have a few thrills and a box of popcorn, and then go home safe . . . Well, that form of entertainment is never going to become passe."

No. 5: Pulp Fiction (1994, R) Stars: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis. Director: Quentin Tarantino.

Pulp Fiction is more than a mere masterpiece. It's a force that produced new stars (Quentin Tarantino and Samuel L. Jackson) and revitalized careers (John Travolta and Uma Thurman). It kicked open Hollywood's doors to a new breed of writers and directors - wannabes aiming to duplicate the magic Tarantino created.

It generated more than $200 million at the box office, yet achieved a cultlike anti-mainstream status for millions of obsessive fans. Indeed, it became an arbiter of cool for the post-Boomer generation.

Nearly two decades after its release, its characters, music, and especially its dialogue are iconic. Time ranked Pulp Fiction among the 100 best movies ever made. Entertainment Weekly named it the best film of the quarter century between 1984-2008. Top critics Roger Ebert and Richard Corliss both called it the most influential film of the 1990s. And the American Film Institute ranked it No. 7 all-time among gangster films.

We think that's too low.

Pulp's brilliance is in how it draws you into the world of fundamentally dislikeable characters - hitmen, dealers, and other assorted criminals - so that for two hours and 35 minutes, you are willing to suspend your moral judgment. They become sympathetic figures, regular folk debating the same mundane topics the rest of us argue about - although their exchanges are much wittier.

And, in a comedy that is darker than Michael Corleone's heart, you find yourself delighted at the most inappropriate moments. People are shot, raped, and tortured and you ask yourself: Should I be laughing? Should I be appalled? Sometimes, it's like chuckling at a gun being pointed at your face.

There's no real message to Pulp Fiction, which may be why some fans love it. It's not about family, like The Godfather. Or loyalty, like Donnie Brasco. Some of its bad guys win, some lose. Really, it's more amoral than immoral.

Bet you didn't know: For the scene in which he is high on heroin, Travolta wanted to know what the experience was like without, you know, actually trying the drug. A recovering-addict friend of Tarantino's told Travolta to drink 10 shots of tequila and lie down in a hot tub. Travolta later joked that this became his all-time favorite scene to rehearse for.

"I know that guy": That's Steve Buscemi as the Buddy Holly waiter in Jack Rabbit Slim's, taking the order for burgers - "bloody as hell" - and a $5 Martin and Lewis milkshake.

Join George Anastasia and Glen Macnow for a live chat about gangster movies, hosted by Inquirer film critic Carrie Rickey, at 11 a.m. Wednesday

on www.philly.com.EndText

1. The Godfather (1972)

2. The Godfather: Part II (1974)

3. Goodfellas (1990)

4. On the Waterfront (1954)

5. Pulp Fiction (1994)

6. Little Caesar (1931)

7. The Departed (2006)

8. Donnie Brasco (1997)

9. The Usual Suspects (1995)

10. Casino (1995)

Source: "The Ultimate Book of Gangster Movies" by George Anastasia & Glen MacnowEndText