The St. Valentine's Day Massacre

A film about an event in Chicago in 1929. There are two organisations in the city: the side run by Al Capone and the side run by Bugs Moran. Prohibition is in force and the liquor trade is divided. The score between them has been running for years. The film moves towards the morning of 14 February. That day seven men were lined up against a wall in a garage and shot, and the event changed the visibility of organised crime in America entirely. The method is documentary. A narrator introduces the characters, gives their names, and says in advance when and how they died. So the film builds tension not on surprise but on inevitability. Jason Robards plays Capone and Ralph Meeker plays Moran. George Segal is in the cast, with Bruce Dern and Jack Nicholson in small parts. Roger Corman directed; it is one of the few films he made with a major studio and among his largest budgets. The production tries to stay close to the details of the real event; the names, dates and locations were built from the record. A solid example for anyone who likes gangster films and criminal history. For a viewer looking for depth of character, the film proceeds like a case report and introduces nobody closely.