Capone

The failure of Corman's St Valentine's Day Massacre apparently led to his quitting directing. So quite why he produced this lavish though palpably inferior version of the Capone story remains something of a mystery. Tracing the rise and fall of its hero from Union Street punk to syphilitic madman, Capone begins well enough as a resolutely profane alternative to Corman's version ('Give you five grand? I wouldn't piss up your arse if you were on fire'), and emphasises well enough that in an amoral world of 'free enterprise' gangsters are merely less hypocritical than anyone else. But as the complex internecine warfare unfolds (with good emphasis on the nationalities involved), the script becomes increasingly schematic, finally degenerating into one endless shoot-out.