The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)

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 | West Germany:16 (nf) | Germany:16 (DVD rating) | 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:

More squib charges were used in this film than in the three-hour war epic The Longest Day (1962).

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): In the scene where Jack McGurn is showing the killers how to get to the Clark Street garage from the Wood street location, McGurn's spoken directions are correct but while he is saying "east on Webster" his finger is traveling north on Wood Street. Then while he is saying "south on Clark" his finger is traveling east on Webster.

Quotes:

Bartender: [nervously] If you don't like the beer, mister, you don't have to pay for it.
Peter Gusenberg: Well now, ain't you the cat's pajamas!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Alice: The Valentine's Day Massacre (#6.15)" (1982)

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.