The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Roger Corman

Writer:

Howard Browne (writer)

Release Date:

30 June 1967 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Plot:

Chicago February 14th 1929. Al Capone finally establishes himself as the city's boss of organised crime...

Plot Keywords:

Tommy Gun | Cult Favorite | Valentine's Day | Snow | Stealing Car

Cast

Jason Robards	...	Al Capone
George Segal	...	Peter Gusenberg
Ralph Meeker	...	George Clarence 'Bugs' Moran
Jean Hale	...	Myrtle
Clint Ritchie	...	Jack McGurn
Frank Silvera	...	Nick Sorello
Joseph Campanella	...	Albert Wienshank
Richard Bakalyan	...	John Scalise
David Canary	...	Frank Gusenberg
Bruce Dern	...	Johnny May
Harold J. Stone	...	Frank Nitti
Kurt Kreuger	...	James Clark
Paul Richards	...	Charles Fischetti
Joe Turkel	...	Jake 'Greasy Thumb' Guzik (as Joseph Turkel)
Milton Frome	...	Adam Heyer

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (Suggested for Mature Audiences) | UK:15 (re-rating) (2006 uncut) | UK:X (original rating) (1967 cut) | Iceland:16 | USA:TV-PG | France:-12 | Netherlands:12 | Singapore:NC-16 | Germany:16 (DVD rating) | West Germany:16 (nf) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:16 (1967) | Sweden:15 | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Desilu Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company:

Los Altos Productions

Trivia:

Average Shot Length = ~9.2 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~8.4 seconds.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The biographical narrative on Al Capone states he was born in Italy but raised in a Brooklyn slum. Capone was actually born in Brooklyn on January 17, 1899.

Quotes:

Adam Heyer: Hello, boys. Something I can do for you?
Gangster dressed as a cop: Yes, you can shut up!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Married with Children: Valentine's Day Massacre (#8.17)" (1994)

Corman's masterpiece.......ludicrously underrated.

Despite an lengthy and variously successful career in sci-fi and horror movies, it is this movie that I personally feel is the crowning glory of Roger Corman's career. It is also, I feel, one of the greatest and most underrated gangster movies of all time. It should definitely be held in the same high regard as movies like 'Goodfellas', 'Once Upon A Time In America' and, dare one even suggest, 'The Godfather'.

Everything about this movie is superb. The lush, opulent, colour-saturated widescreen cinematography; the fantastic acting; the meticulous attention to period detail that rivals that of 'Once Upon....America'. Also, the authoritative voice-over that runs the entire length of the movie pre-dates 'Goodfellas' by some 20-odd years.

At first one might think that Jason Robards is woefully miscast as Al Capone, but this is not so. He gives Capone an edgy, lean and utterly menacing persona. The rest of the cast reads like a Who's-who of exploitation cinema; Ralph Meeker(excellent as Bugs Morant), Dick Bakalyan, Bruce Dern, Alex Rocco and John Agar. Throw in a couple of cameos from Corman regulars Dick Miller and Jack Nicholson, and this really is a cast to die for...quite literally.

If there is a problem with the movie, it's that with the subject being so viciously evil, and knowing that EVERY character and event is real, the movie has a bit of a sour tone, and can be a bit of a downbeat experience to some people. That said, I suppose the purpose of the movie is to show EXACTLY what happened, and to humanise the victims, rather than treat them as some statistics in the annals of crime. Like all the great gangster movies, this doesn't glamourise the gangster life, but makes us glad that we are not a part of that dangerous world.