St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, The (1967)

Schlockmeister Roger Corman produced this graphically violent chronicle of the bloody title showdown between rival mobsters Al Capone (Jason Robards) and Bugs Moran (Ralph Meeker), which brought a brutal end to the Chicago gangster wars of the 1920s.

As the two men vied for control of the Chicago crime empire, 618 known murders were committed during nine years. None was officially solved.

By 1929, crime was running wild as Capone sent hoods like “machine gun” Jack McGurn (Clint Ritchie) to strong-arm bar owners into buying his booze instead of that of Bugs Moran, who headed the rival North Side Gang.

When Moran sends his ace enforcers Pete and Frank Gusenberg (George Segal and David Canary) to gun down McGurn while he is in a telephone booth making a call (he survives, although wounded), Capone orders the killing of Moran, ignoring the advice of his fellow gangsters that the public is growing tired of the open killings.

It’s the most authentic documentary-style account – complete with narration giving precise time and location details – of the events that led to the infamous massacre on 14 February 1929 when Al Capone’s men dressed as policemen and gunned down seven members of the Moran gang lined up against a garage wall (for what they thought was a routine lineup by the cops).

The subject’s weakness, dramatically, is that our sympathies are not engaged. We cannot take sides since both participants have the morals of sewer rats, and we come away from the spectacle feeling slightly ashamed at having watched it, somewhat indignant too, and definitely in need of a shower.

The most effective moment in the whole film is the massacre in the garage when an Alsatian dog gives a glance of disgust at the piled-up victims.

Al Capone
Jason Robards
Peter Gusenberg
George Segal
George “Bugs” Moran
Ralph Meeker
Myrtle Nelson
Jean Hale
“Machine gun” Jack McGurn
Clint Ritchie
Nicholas Sorello
Frank Silvera
Al Weinshank
Joseph Campanella
John Scalise
Richard Bakalyan
Frank Gusenberg
David Canary
John May
Bruce Dern
Gino
Jack Nicholson

Director
Roger Corman