Plot
The story is of the rise and fall of Chicago mob boss Al Capone and the control he exhibited over the city during Prohibition, all the way through to his conviction, imprisonment, and final years.
On the evening of May 6, 1918, in Brooklyn, two police officers intercept several men stealing fur clothing as they escape through an alleyway. Capone, then a young hoodlum, had tipped them off to the heist so that he could ambush the cops on arrival. The resulting fight ends with Capone being thrown through a glass window, leaving him with a scarred left cheek. Capone is soon released from custody without being charged due to the intercession of a senior police lieutenant. As he walks out of the station, the hoodlum is taken to see racketeers Johnny Torrio and Frankie Yale. It is revealed that the fur thieves worked for Johnny and Yale, and because Capone has impressed them with his cunning and brutality, they invite him to join the Five Points Gang.
A year later, on September 23, 1919, Johnny talks with his boss "Big" Jim Colosimo about Prohibition – a new law banning the sale of alcohol. Johnny is eager to invest millions into bootlegging, but Colosimo, seeing such a trade as beneath him, refuses. Johnny calls Frankie and tells him to send Capone to Chicago to employ him as an enforcer for Colosimo. Johnny introduces Capone to co-workers, including dancer and barmaid Iris Crawford. Johnny, despite his affection for Colosimo, realizes that murdering him is the only way to put his bootlegging scheme into action. The next morning, as Colosimo enters a restaurant to use the phone, Capone sneaks in and quietly shoots the boss dead in the back of the neck.
On June 7, 1920, in Joliet, Illinois, during a pickup of beer for bootlegger Edward "Spike" O'Donnell, mobsters led by brothers Frank and Peter Gusenberg – enforcers working for Dion O'Banion – intercept the deal, gun down the participants, and steal it for themselves. Capone correctly suspects that Banion's henchman Hymie Weiss is responsible, and Johnny responds by dividing Chicago into separate territories: O'Banion and his men will control the North Side, Spike O'Donnell will have his own territory in the South Side, the Genna brothers will deal in Little Italy; and Johnny's gang, the "Chicago Outfit", will occupy the Loop and part of the South Side.
On September 5, 1923, as Capone and Johnny prepare to shift their base of operations to Cicero, Spike O'Donnell is gunned down by O'Banion's men in a turf war. At O'Donnell's funeral, O'Banion threatens to murder the Genna brothers next. That night, Pete and Frank personally gun down several blood relatives of the Genna's. Outraged, Antonio and Angelo Genna retaliate by placing a hit on O'Banion. Corrupt Chicago deputy sheriff Joe Pryor breaks up one of Capone's parties after Capone refuses to pay him a bribe of $5,000; Capone has no choice but to pay him then. Capone then takes Iris golfing while his hitmen murder O'Banion in a flower store. Capone and Johnny later show up at his funeral, angering Weiss who suspects them of killing his friend.
On the night of January 15, 1925, Johnny tells Capone that, because of all the heat Capone has brought on them by committing countless acts of violence in public, he is prepared to give Weiss most of their territory as a peace offering. Capone is furious at the idea but does not stop Johnny from leaving. At the meeting spot, Johnny is ambushed by Weiss and three gunmen, who shoot him multiple times. Johnny survives but accepts that he no longer has any stomach for a life of crime. He decides to leave America for his homeland of Italy, giving control of the Outfit to Capone.
On the night of April 27, 1926, Capone and his button men ambush four of Weiss' men, plus a crooked State's Attorney on Weiss' payroll, at a Cicero inn on the mistaken assumption that Weiss is with them. Two of the men and the State's Attorney are killed. Capone then hears a newscast on the radio revealing that Weiss is still alive. Capone is brought before District Attorney Robert E. Crowe, who threatens to have Capone indicted by a grand jury for assassinating a government official. Capone replies that if he does so, his lawyers will reveal the extent to which Chicago authorities have worked with the Outfit; a humiliated Crowe drops the charges. The next morning, Capone and Iris go on a picnic, and after losing Capone's bodyguards, they have sex.
On September 20, 1926, North Side gunmen carry out a drive-by shooting at a hotel where Capone is drinking. Capone is saved only due to the quick thinking of his ambitious bodyguard Frank Nitti. Identifying one of his attackers as Weiss, Capone retaliates by ordering a hit on Weiss that night; two men from a rooftop over the North Side headquarters unload their tommy guns into Weiss and his men, killing them. Joe Aiello, a bootlegger who refuses to deal with Capone and blames him for his brother's death, meets with Bugs Moran, Weiss' successor. They pay off a waiter to poison Capone when he goes to his favorite restaurant, but the man has a change of heart and betrays them to Capone. The next morning, Aiello is killed by a car bomb planted by Nitti.
On February 7, 1929, Capone decides to get rid of Moran's gang. That night, as he and Iris share a French dinner, hitmen sent by Moran shoot up the bistro, and Iris is killed. Capone is deeply heartbroken by Iris's death, and he and Nitti swear revenge. Newly elected Mayor Anton Cermak and the city council, wanting to improve Chicago's image and put a stop to gang violence, insist that he end his feud with Moran at any cost even if it means losing territory and money. When Cermak threatens Capone by saying he can withdraw the political protection that keeps him from being prosecuted, Capone once again reminds the council that the vast trove of evidence he has of their corruption makes him untouchable by the law.
The next morning, on February 14, 1929, Capone's men, posing as police officers conducting a raid, enter one of Moran's warehouses and force seven men, including the Gusenberg brothers, to line up against the wall before machine-gunning them to death. Nitti, believing that Capone has finally gone too far, betrays him and provides the city council with the means to have him brought to trial. On June 16, 1931, after a lengthy process, Capone is finally found guilty not of murder, bootlegging, or any other serious crimes, but of multiple counts of federal tax evasion. The judge sentences Capone to serve eleven years at Alcatraz in San Francisco, California.
On February 2, 1938, a doctor visits Capone, whose health has started to deteriorate, and concludes that Capone has contracted syphilis. Noting that the disease has progressed too far for treatment, he warns the prison authorities that the gangster's mind will be the first thing to go. Capone starts a prison riot and is hastily forced back into his cell.
At Capone's estate in Palm Island, Florida on April 5, 1946, Nitti visits Capone and his caretakers only to find that Capone is now a shell of his former self, to the point where he starts yelling at Nitti believing him to be an FBI agent. Nitti's bodyguard reminds him that people have always said Capone used to be a smart man, but Nitti – who had shown his ambition and loyalty only to watch Capone destroy everything they built – finally disregards this and expresses his true feelings about his old boss, saying that Capone was stupid and forgetful and only cared about killing people. As the two of them leave, Capone continues to wither away until he dies a year later from complications of his illness.
Production
Development and writing
Screenwriter Howard Browne had written about Al Capone a number of times previously, including "Seven Against the Wall" for Playhouse 90 in 1958, and the film, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967). The latter was directed by Roger Corman for 20th Century Fox. In the mid 70s Corman announced he would make a film about Capone for his company, New World Pictures.[4] However he ended up making the movie for Fox, who he had a deal with to produce films.[5]
Filming
Steve Carver says the film was shot so Corman could use footage from other films he had made. He said Howard Browne was a very factual writer but "not so good with dialogue" so other writers were brought in to work on the script. Carver says Gazzara was hard to work with on set.[6] In an interview in 2020 he related how Gazzara, possibly under the influence of alcohol, set off a series of explosions and bullet hits too early: "Ben was the key in starting this off by pulling the trigger of a submachine gun. And he jumped the cue. He pulled the trigger too early. That set off a tremendous occurrence where stuntmen and cars went crazy. A lot of people could have gotten hurt." Gazzara apologized the next day.[7]
Sylvester Stallone later said "I particularly enjoyed working on Capone, because it was like the cheesy, mentally challenged inbred cousin of The Godfather".[8]
