Gangster Film Reader

The first burgeoning of the gangster film in the United States began in the early 1930s, reflecting a very real and sensational gangsterism at large in American society. The classic gangster film trilogy Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932), all released within barely more than a year, borrowed liberally from contemporary books and newspaper accounts, with "Little Caesar" and "Scarface" modeled on the notorious mobster Al Capone. These three films quintessentially defined the gangster-film genre: the characters, the situations, the icons-from fast cars and tommy guns to fancy fedoras and fancier molls-remain established elements in mobster movies to this day.