Al Capone

One of the better gangster biopics, with a sure, painstaking sense of period and a general reluctance to whitewash its brutal hero, the film nevertheless stands or falls according to how you feel about Steiger. In what is undeniably his film, he gives a magnetic performance so full of detail and mannerisms that one could accuse it of arrogance, were it not so entirely appropriate for the character of Capone. Also to be recommended are Lucien Ballard's superb monochrome camerawork and Wilson's unhurried, unsentimental direction.