Remember "The Untouchables?" No, not Kevin Costner and Sean Connery. I'm talking Robert Stack and Bruce Gordon and Desilu (and Walter Winchell's tommy-gun narration). This series hit ABC television in 1959 and became one of the most popular prime-time dramas in the United States during its four-season run. It sparked protests by Italian-American groups who didn't appreciate the portrayal of ALL fictional gangsters as Italian-Americans. The TV series also sparked new interest in America's organized crime history and helped ignite a new cycle of Hollywood gangster films based on actual criminals:
"Baby-Face Nelson" (1957) -- Mickey Rooney; "Machine-Gun Kelly" (1958) -- Charles Bronson; "The Bonnie Parker Story" (1958) -- Dorothy Provine; "Al Capone" (1959) -- Rod Steiger; "The Purple Gang" (1959) -- Robert Blake; "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond" (1960) -- Ray Danton; "Pretty Boy Floyd" (1960) -- John Ericson; "Ma Barker's Killer Brood" (1960) -- Lurene Tuttle; "Murder Incorporated" (1960) -- Peter Falk as Abe "Kid Twist" Reles; "Portrait of a Mobster" (1961) -- Vic Morrow as Dutch Schultz; "King of the Roaring 20's - The Story of Arnold Rothstein" (1961) -- David Janssen; "A House Is Not a Home" (1964) -- Shelley Winters as Polly Adler, Cesar Romero as Lucky Luciano; "Young Dillinger" (1965) -- Nick Adams.
Okay, perhaps the first few movies in this cycle were prompted by a rising national awareness of organized crime, following the Kefauver congressional hearings in the early 1950s. But this cycle and "The Untouchables" also were helped by the fact that many of these criminals were dead (some rather recently, e.g., George "Bugs" Moran -- Al Capone's intended target in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre -- in 1957, Adler and Luciano in 1962). That made it possible for the filmmakers to take "artistic liberties" with their portrayals of these actual personages.
"Mad Dog Coll" displays all of the earmarks of this late '50s/early '60s gangster cycle – low budget, up-and-coming performers who would go on to greater prominence, crisp black-and-white cinematography, lots of night shots to hide the modern urban settings, casual attention to period costuming, and a slant toward the young-adult audience. John (Davis) Chandler plays Coll as a tormented child turned reptilian narcissist, and he does a good job of generating some personal magnetism for Coll while remaining an essentially repellent character. The supporting cast (Ohrbach, Savalas, Hackman) is interesting mainly because of the work they would do later.
Anyone viewing this film, or any of the other movies in the late '50s/early '60s gangster cycle, who expects pinpoint historical accuracy needs to grow up. These were not docudramas, save in the broadest sense, any more than was "Bonnie and Clyde" (which itself, with some help from "The Godfather" I and II, sparked a new cycle of similarly factish gangster films in the late '60s and early '70s -- "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre," "A Bullet for Pretty Boy," "Dillinger," "The Valachi Papers," "The Virginia Hill Story," "The Kansas City Massacre," "Lepke," and TV's "The Gangster Chronicles" among others). These filmmakers seldom let the facts get in the way of telling a good story about characters with whom the audience should "identify." That means either handsome, sympathetic criminals who are just regular folks (as in "Bonnie and Clyde" or Beatty's later "Bugsy"), or else secondary characters (such as Ohrbach plays in "Mad Dog Coll") who come to see the error of their ways and turn against the sociopathic antihero.
The MPAA's Production Code still had a strong effect in the late '50s and early '60s. "Mad Dog Coll" meets his end in a police ambush – not at the hands of a Dutch Schultz gunman, as actually happened in the London Chemist drug store on Feb. 9, 1932. The Production Code required that an on-screen killer, no matter what the reason for taking a life, had to be punished for committing murder, either by being apprehended by law enforcement or by dying himself. The gunman who killed Coll was never tried for that murder, and having Coll killed legally by the police drove home the "crime does not pay" message. (Originally, the 1959 "Al Capone" was to be narrated by a character played by Martin Balsam, a corrupt reporter who is murdered by the Capone mob. However, according to Murray Schumach in "The Face on the Cutting Room Floor: The Story of Movie and Television Censorship" (1964), the Production Code Administration insisted that the narration be rewritten and given to a tough cop, played by James Gregory, in order to drive home the point that Capone was a real bad guy.) (And was it the Production Code, or just box-office sensitivity, that led the makers of "The Purple Gang" to fictionalize all characters and eliminate any reference that most members of this Detroit mob were Jewish?)
Another factor affecting the gangster films of this era was the fact that some of the minor characters were NOT dead and didn't like being portrayed unflatteringly in such movies. Even some of the historic personages who were long deceased had relatives still looking after their reputations. Thus, for some legalistic reason, "The Bonnie Parker Story" included as characters the "Darrow" brothers, "Guy" and "Chuck" (Jack Hogan and Joe Turkel), rather than the actual Clyde and Buck Barrow, even though both real-lifers were long gone by 1958. "Bonnie and Clyde" concocted a composite character, "C.W. Moss," (Michael J. Pollard) to avoid being sued by a real-life member of the Barrow gang. Even in 1981, "The Gangster Chronicles" had to call Meyer Lansky "Michael Lasker," since Lansky was still alive (d.1983).
MAD DOG COLL isn't the best of the gangster cycle of the late '50s/early '60s, but it is representative. It's worth a look if gangster films are your meat -- if not, don't bother.
"Baby-Face Nelson" (1957) -- Mickey Rooney; "Machine-Gun Kelly" (1958) -- Charles Bronson; "The Bonnie Parker Story" (1958) -- Dorothy Provine; "Al Capone" (1959) -- Rod Steiger; "The Purple Gang" (1959) -- Robert Blake; "The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond" (1960) -- Ray Danton; "Pretty Boy Floyd" (1960) -- John Ericson; "Ma Barker's Killer Brood" (1960) -- Lurene Tuttle; "Murder Incorporated" (1960) -- Peter Falk as Abe "Kid Twist" Reles; "Portrait of a Mobster" (1961) -- Vic Morrow as Dutch Schultz; "King of the Roaring 20's - The Story of Arnold Rothstein" (1961) -- David Janssen; "A House Is Not a Home" (1964) -- Shelley Winters as Polly Adler, Cesar Romero as Lucky Luciano; "Young Dillinger" (1965) -- Nick Adams.
Okay, perhaps the first few movies in this cycle were prompted by a rising national awareness of organized crime, following the Kefauver congressional hearings in the early 1950s. But this cycle and "The Untouchables" also were helped by the fact that many of these criminals were dead (some rather recently, e.g., George "Bugs" Moran -- Al Capone's intended target in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre -- in 1957, Adler and Luciano in 1962). That made it possible for the filmmakers to take "artistic liberties" with their portrayals of these actual personages.
"Mad Dog Coll" displays all of the earmarks of this late '50s/early '60s gangster cycle – low budget, up-and-coming performers who would go on to greater prominence, crisp black-and-white cinematography, lots of night shots to hide the modern urban settings, casual attention to period costuming, and a slant toward the young-adult audience. John (Davis) Chandler plays Coll as a tormented child turned reptilian narcissist, and he does a good job of generating some personal magnetism for Coll while remaining an essentially repellent character. The supporting cast (Ohrbach, Savalas, Hackman) is interesting mainly because of the work they would do later.
Anyone viewing this film, or any of the other movies in the late '50s/early '60s gangster cycle, who expects pinpoint historical accuracy needs to grow up. These were not docudramas, save in the broadest sense, any more than was "Bonnie and Clyde" (which itself, with some help from "The Godfather" I and II, sparked a new cycle of similarly factish gangster films in the late '60s and early '70s -- "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre," "A Bullet for Pretty Boy," "Dillinger," "The Valachi Papers," "The Virginia Hill Story," "The Kansas City Massacre," "Lepke," and TV's "The Gangster Chronicles" among others). These filmmakers seldom let the facts get in the way of telling a good story about characters with whom the audience should "identify." That means either handsome, sympathetic criminals who are just regular folks (as in "Bonnie and Clyde" or Beatty's later "Bugsy"), or else secondary characters (such as Ohrbach plays in "Mad Dog Coll") who come to see the error of their ways and turn against the sociopathic antihero.
The MPAA's Production Code still had a strong effect in the late '50s and early '60s. "Mad Dog Coll" meets his end in a police ambush – not at the hands of a Dutch Schultz gunman, as actually happened in the London Chemist drug store on Feb. 9, 1932. The Production Code required that an on-screen killer, no matter what the reason for taking a life, had to be punished for committing murder, either by being apprehended by law enforcement or by dying himself. The gunman who killed Coll was never tried for that murder, and having Coll killed legally by the police drove home the "crime does not pay" message. (Originally, the 1959 "Al Capone" was to be narrated by a character played by Martin Balsam, a corrupt reporter who is murdered by the Capone mob. However, according to Murray Schumach in "The Face on the Cutting Room Floor: The Story of Movie and Television Censorship" (1964), the Production Code Administration insisted that the narration be rewritten and given to a tough cop, played by James Gregory, in order to drive home the point that Capone was a real bad guy.) (And was it the Production Code, or just box-office sensitivity, that led the makers of "The Purple Gang" to fictionalize all characters and eliminate any reference that most members of this Detroit mob were Jewish?)
Another factor affecting the gangster films of this era was the fact that some of the minor characters were NOT dead and didn't like being portrayed unflatteringly in such movies. Even some of the historic personages who were long deceased had relatives still looking after their reputations. Thus, for some legalistic reason, "The Bonnie Parker Story" included as characters the "Darrow" brothers, "Guy" and "Chuck" (Jack Hogan and Joe Turkel), rather than the actual Clyde and Buck Barrow, even though both real-lifers were long gone by 1958. "Bonnie and Clyde" concocted a composite character, "C.W. Moss," (Michael J. Pollard) to avoid being sued by a real-life member of the Barrow gang. Even in 1981, "The Gangster Chronicles" had to call Meyer Lansky "Michael Lasker," since Lansky was still alive (d.1983).
MAD DOG COLL isn't the best of the gangster cycle of the late '50s/early '60s, but it is representative. It's worth a look if gangster films are your meat -- if not, don't bother.