Your thoughts on the gangsters of old

[terry78]

Currently watching The Untouchables on Bravo, and it made me ponder how much guys like Capone, Tony Montana, and the like have been ingrained in pop culture. They weren't exactly the types you'd honestly want to chill with, but people are fascinated by what they did and how they did it. As a person and a film/pop culture geek, were they nothing but criminal scum to you, or are you more fascinated by them as characters?

 

[Ghostvirus]

SCUUUUUUMMMMM!!!!






























But fun to watch.

 

[Jack Rabbit]

I love the mythology surrounding them...it's a great era to look back on. I think a lot of these guys had a skewed perception of honor and being gentlemen.

 

[Obi-Ron]

The orignal OG

 

[Mister J]

I've had a long-standing interest in the old gangsters. Capone, Dillinger, Bonnie & Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, etc. I'm the same way with a number of the guys popularized in the 'Wild Wild West'. A lot of fascinating stories and characters there, though you find some things were played up just for entertainment purposes.

 

[Orko Is King]

Kill 'em.

 

[AhabTheArab]

i believe capone said it best when he said, the better part of my years i have been supplying people the good life, and what do i get for it, nothing but more stress. or something along those lines, dont quote me.

 

[KevanG]

Well, they made Vegas so they're not all bad anyway... Even Capone threw parties...

 

[L.A.]

I like the quiet, intellectual gangsters like Carlo Gambino!

 

[Immortalfire]

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a Goodfeather.

 

[Leto Atrides]

I don't respect them at all, but I do find them interesting. They all got into power by blatantly taking advantage of people. There are points where criminality is really iffy morally, but organized crime almost always took it beyond the extent of circumventing the law into cruelty and greed.

The Untouchables is a good cinematic example of this. Plenty of good, normally law-abiding people, even the police, break the law and ignore Prohibition. Ness himself doesn't even seem to believe in it. But Capone and his ilk controls people and uses violence to gain for himself.

With the old-times organized crime, it's not a case of being Robin Hood or people making it any way they can or champions of the underclass or anything as gangsters are sometimes portrayed. They're just exploiting people for themselves.

 

[CrAzYMoFo]

I respect Capone. During the Great Depression he opened up a lot of places for the poor to get free food... although he got the money to do so from killing people and selling booze...

 

[Harlekin]

Their stories are fascinating, and ever since the Sopranos, I've really gotten a kick out of their stories. They're often gruesome and disturbing, but really fascinating how these people live within this power structure of capo's, underbosses and the occasional capo di tutti capi.

 

[rdh007]

I like the quiet, intellectual gangsters like Carlo Gambino!

...and I thought Chris Moltisanti had a huge nose...

 

[rdh007]

although he got the money to do so from killing people and selling booze...

I only see a problem with half of that.

 

[terry78]

...and I thought Chris Moltisanti had a huge nose...

You want a pair of cement loafers, pally?

 

[rdh007]

Oh, he'd be too high to find me.

 

[SLVRSR4]

I think they were hardcore. These guys killed cops like rival gang members!

 

[Gallagher]

My frickin Idols God I love Italian-American Gang Culture

 

[Shuley]

Go Watch "Angles With Dirty Faces"

 

[CyberFaust]

you dirty rat!

 

[terry78]

you dirty rat!

I haven't watched any Jimmy Cagney for a good minute. I may have to find some.

 

[CyberFaust]

like that isn't the exact thing you think about when people say gangster!
gangsta suck, gangster cool, also, too.