The St. Valentine's Day Massacre The St. Valentine's Day Massacre

Chicago February 14th 1929. Al Capone finally establishes himself as the city's boss of organised crime. In a north-side garage his hoods, dressed as policemen, surprise and mow down with machine-guns the key members of Bugs Moran's rival gang. The film traces the history of the incident, and the lives affected and in some cases ended by it.

Jason Robards George Segal Ralph Meeker Jean Hale Clint Ritchie Frank Silvera Joseph Campanella Richard Bakalyan David Canary Bruce Dern Harold J. Stone Kurt Kreuger Paul Richards Joe Turkel Milton Frome Mickey Deems John Agar Celia Lovsky Tom Reese Jan Merlin

Los Altos Productions

crime

100 mins   More details at IMDb / TMDb

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  • CinemaFantastiq

    Review by CinemaFantastiq ★★★★

    A briskly paced gangster pic from Roger Corman that gets the job done nicely, recreating the events leading up to and after the notorious "St. Valentine' s Day Massacre" in 1929. Ongoing narration introduces the large amount of characters involved and keeps things moving nicely when the gunfire and violence momentarily subsides. I can't help but wonder if Brain DePalma took any inspiration from this film for his own, "The Untouchables", made 20 years later (specifically, the round table meeting with Al Capone's gang and a certain baseball bat, although two separate scenes in the Corman picture and only one in the DePalma). Keep an eye out for cameos from Corman regular Dick Miller and a young Jack Nicholson in the last act. Well done and recommended!

    --The Doctor

    First viewed via Amazon streaming January 2013
    Rewatched Feb. 20, 2013 on DVD

  • Mark C

    Review by Mark C ★★½

    Because a week is too long to wait for Boardwalk Empire.

    I loved this as a kid (I know, I had odd tastes and liberal parents) maybe it was the colour and the daring sense of watching something grown up and violent. Watching it back now, I'm rather disappointed. It still looks good but it feels flat. Maybe that's more down to a change in me and my expectations than it is the film itself.

    Robards is no ones idea of Al Capone and the film suffers a little as a result. That said however he is a great actor and that he can just about convince the audience to go with him, if not accept him, is a tribute to his skill.

    Pulp fiction cinema with an interesting biographical voice over whenever a main character debuts on the screen.