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1 Modernity and the Classic Gangster Film 2 the Post-Code Gangster

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1 Modernity and the Classic Gangster Film 2 the Post-Code Gangster Notes 1Modernity and theClassic Gangster Film 1 For a fuller discussion of the gangster film in the silent era, see McCarty (1993:1±49) and Everson (1998:227±34). 2 See Griffith, 1976:111±18 for a discussion of the role of the production cycle in classic Hollywood production. 3 Mitchell, (1995:203)discusses the gangster genre in exactlythis way because, heargues, all genres need to be studied in terms of their `repetitive patterning'. 4 Studies of modernity have produced contradictory responses as a result of this diversity. Giddens argues that modernity entails the creation of systems that can control risk and unpredictability(Giddens, 1991:3) whileLyon sees it as a sphere of plurality (Lyon, 1994:30). 5 For further discussion and analysis of the flaneurr, see Tester (1994) and for discussions of the predominantly male gendering of the flaneur figure, see Friedberg(1993:33±7) and Wilson (1992:90±100). 6 Ruth(1996:74) also comments on theway in which the gangster's social `mixing with refined men and women from the upper echelons of society' suggests a similar `upheaval in a social order that...had seemed stableand enduring'. 7 See Clarens (1980:88±92) and Munby (1999:58±61) for details of the censor- ship of the film by the Hays Office. 8 See Ruth (1996:90) for a discussion of the ambiguous gendering of gangster consumption. 9 See Clarens (1980:84) for details of the production process. 2 The Post-Code Gangster 1 The classic cycle's influence is so pervasive that the gangster film in the post- Code era of the 1930s has received scant critical attention. Only Yaquinto (1998:48±64);Roddick(1983:107±16, 121±43; and Clarens (1980:116±59) cover the period of the late 1930s in any detail. Munby (1996:101±18; 1999:66±82) offers detailed discussion of Manhattan Melodrama;McCarty (1993:102±5)discusses The Petrified Forestt; Schatz (1981:99±102) offers some discussion of Manhattan Melodrama, G-Men and Angels with Dirty Faces;and Shadoian (1977) ignores the periodbetween theclassic cycleand The Roaring Twenties entirely. 2 See Neale (2000:78±9) for an analysis of the critical tendency that raises the early cycle to `classic' rather than `generic' status with the effect of marginal- ising other variations. 3 Joseph Breen took over as director of the Production Code Administration in 1934. 165 166 Notes 4 See Doherty (1999:156±7) and Black (1994:107±32) for details of the role of the Legion of Decency in the censorship of the gangster movie in the early 1930s. 5 See Roddick (1983:112), for a discussion of this motif in Bullets or Ballots. 6 Of all the gang's crimes kidnapping was the one that signalled their absolute evil for audiences in the 1930s who would have the Lindbergh case in mind as they watched. Kidnapping was `a crime so distasteful to the Hays Office that it had been barred from the screen since early in 1934, when Paramount had tried to cashin on the Lindberghcase withMiss Fane'sBabyIsStolen'(Clarens,1980:125). 7 Invisible Stripes is also interesting as a generic variation because it articulates a tropethat was to become popular, and which was also used in Each Dawn I Die (1939): the gangster as guarantor of official and heterosexual society (generated by the hero's self-sacrificing death which gifts his younger brother the money he needs to establish his own business and to marry his sweetheart). Later films that used this device include The Big Shot, Johnny Eager and The Glass Keyy. 8 Coppola drew extensivelyon The Roaring Twenties in creating the Epic dimen- sions of TheGodfather trilogy, while the film influenced Scorsese from the beginning of his directorial career; see Grist (2000:16). 9 Many critics have noted these aspects of the film. Clarens (1980:155) notes the film's `romantic revisionism', Krutnik (1991:198) its `summing-up of the con- ventions of the early 1930's', while Hardy (1998b:90) comments on its influ- ence on film noirr. 3The Death o f the Big Shot 1 For a discussion of genre trends in wartime Hollywood, see Schatz (1997:221±32). 2 See Neale (2000:78±9) for an analysis of the critical trend which sees the classic narrative cycle of the early 1930s as effectively the only available expression of the gangster film aesthetic. 3 As well as re-visiting the family plot in its representation of the gangster trying to blackmaillegitimate society into giving it its sanction, Johnny Eagerr,like The Glass Keyy, offers an image of the cerebral gangster who thinks and schemes rather than using his body, a gun, or his will to assert authority over others. 4 See Marling (1995:201±2) for a discussion of the this cross-social corruption in Chandler's The Big Sleep. 5 McArthur (1972:26), for example, notes how Cagney's ruthless physical dyna- mism was re-interpreted as `psychotic' when it entered the post-war years. 6 This act of subsuming the self in undercover work became quite prevalent in film noir versions of the undercover narrative, most notably in T-Men when one of the undercover agents has to deny his `real' self by pretending not to know his wife whenhe meets heronthe street. 7Shadoian (1977:199) notes how Fallon resembles an automaton, so drained is he of identity. 4 Outside Society, Outside the Gang 1 For an analysis of the function of the narrative dominant, see Todorov (1990:36±8). Notes 167 2 See Neale (2000:151) for further details of the history of film noir criticism. 3 The articulation of desire also works the other way, as Krutnik (1982:34) notes in relation to the novels of James M Cain: `narrative disruption is desire itself, manifested through the hero's reaction to the body of the woman'. 4 See Davis (1990:38±41) for a discussion of both the bourgeois and left wing tendenciesofnoir fiction and film noir and Jameson (1993:37) for an analysis of the reactionarypolitics embedded in Raymond Chandler's version of the noir aesthetic. 5 See Neve (1992:145±70) for a fuller account of the relationship between film noir and society. 6 See Huyssen (1986:44±55) for an analysis of modernism's relationship to a feminised mass cultural space and Dekoven (1991:32±7) for a discussion of modernism's fears of the feminine cultural flows that assail male identity and threaten to fracture it. 7 It can be argued that the syndicate film, while being a development of film noir is also its inversion in that while noir focuses on the collapse of system in post-war culture and suggests the end of modernity and the onset of a post- industrial, or even postmodern, society, the syndicate film offers a nightmare of modernist systematisation where there is too much structure and too little freedom. The two forms thus articulate contradictory responses to modern- ity, one seeing nothingbut chaos and theother seeing nothingbut system. 8 See Woodiwiss (1988:14), for a discussion of the endemic violence that seemed to afflict eastern cities, Chicago in particular. 9 Doris' role also places the film within its generic history because she repre- sents the saintly woman from the silent gangster melodramas who redeems the criminal hero. In this respect, the seminal position of Force of Evil stems from its re-capitulation of previous gangster narratives (the rackets, the rise of the gangster, one-man-against-the-mob, the family narrative, and the Cain and Abel formula) and because it draws attention to the fact that all of them are derived from capitalist ideology (the legitimation of capitalist rules of acquisition, the American Dream, the ideology of the individual, the paternalism of the family, or the ideology of individual choice respectively). 10 The film again stars John Garfield and also involves Polonsky, this time as scriptwriter. 11 Two other gangster-boxing films share similar noir concerns: The Set Up (1949), a small town version of Body and Soul, in which an agingboxer wins a fight without knowing that his manager has agreed a fix and suffers punishment for an unwitting crime against the mob as a result; and Killer's Kiss (1955) which is more interested, like Gun Crazyy, in mapping the sexual- ity of criminality and violence. 5 Order and Chaos, Syndicates and Heists 1 As a result these cycles have sometimes been ignored in accounts of the gangster film. Shadoian (1977) mentions the existence of the heist and syndicate variations in the 1950s, but offers no discussion of individual films, preferring to discuss relatively minor films in the classic tradition (The Brothers Rico) or examining the pseudo-gangster genre, the expose film (The Phenix City Storyy, The Captive Cityy). 168 Notes 2 Heist films also often articulate a nostalgia for the lost American values of self- reliance in the face of a totalising corporatisation of society, as is the case with the character of Dix in TheAsphalt Jungle who represents a yearningfor Jeffersonian ideals in his desire to return to his rural roots. Syndicate films, on the other hand, often express the triumph of un-American ideas and are not only a response to corporatisation or the Kefauver hearings, but also locate themselves in a culture of paranoia created by the earlier HUAC investi- gations so that syndicates come to embodythe totalitarian principles attrib- uted to Communism. 3 The expression of desire, for example, is what causes the downfall of Doc whose predilection for teenage girls prevents his getaway when he waits too long in a diner to watch a girldance.
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