Capone (1975)

User Rating:

5.4/10   

Director:

Steve Carver

Writer:

Howard Browne (written by)

Release Date:

16 April 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Crime | Drama

Tagline:

The man who made the twenties roar! Now, after 45 years, his true story can be told!

Plot:

The story of the rise and fall of the infamous Chicago gangster Al Capone and the control he exhibited over the city during the prohibition years...

Plot Keywords:

Gangster | Prohibition | Female Nudity | Mafia | Female Frontal Nudity

Cast

Ben Gazzara	...	Al Capone
Harry Guardino	...	Johnny Torrio
Susan Blakely	...	Iris Crawford
Sylvester Stallone	...	Frank Nitti
John Cassavetes	...	Frankie Yale
Frank Campanella	...	Big Jim Colosimo
John Orchard	...	Dion O'Banion
Carmen Argenziano	...	Jack McGurn
George Chandler	...	Robert E. Crowe
John Davis Chandler	...	Hymie Weiss (as John D. Chandler)
Royal Dano	...	Anton J. Cermak
Joe De Nicola	...	Charles Fischetti
Angelo Grisanti	...	Angelo Genna
Peter Maloney	...	Jake Guzik
Dick Miller	...	Joe Pryor

Runtime:

USA:101 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Italian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:MA (TV rating) | UK:18 (re-rating) (1990) | UK:X (original rating) | Germany:16 (re-rating) (2006) | West Germany:18 (original rating) | Finland:K-18 (cut) (1975) | Finland:K-18 (self applied) (uncut) (2007) | Norway:18 | Sweden:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Santa Fe Productions

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: During the car chase, supposedly in the middle of Chicago, towering green mountains can be seen in the near distance at the ends of some streets, clearly indicating it's a studio set in California.

Quotes:

Capone: There should be a law against women drinking.
Crawford: Well, I think there is.

Movie Connections:

Edited from The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)

Lots of action but not much else

If you were looking for an Al Capone biography that was more exciting than the 1959 film with Rod Steiger, you might like this one, but the only exciting thing for me were the gun battles. Ben Gazzara does well in the title role, but you can tell he has cotton in his jowls because some of his dialogue is incomprehensible. The casting was ideal, having Italian-American actors playing a gang of Italian-American mobsters (especially Sylvester Stallone as Frank Nitti). There is one point the film gets wrong. At the end of the movie, Nitti travels to Florida in 1946 to visit Capone, who is dying of syphilis. In real life, Nitti committed suicide in 1943, before Capone died.

Recommended only for a boring day.