Word: gangsters
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...vague regional fears of Northern liberals. In his pursuit of Reed, the reluctant Reynolds becomes involved with an engaging assortment of odd characters: Jack Weston as a New York-born Government man parboiling in sweaty paranoia; Alice Ghostley as a dotty old bookkeeper who has the goods on the gangster; Lauren Hutton as a TV newshen whose professional ambitions ire at war with her attraction to the superstud from the swamps. The job also involves Reynolds, a former stunt man, in a couple of nice action sequences, including a high-velocity motorboat chase and an imaginatively staged concluding...
...emerge covered with straw and squawking hens. Fat Sam's speakeasy has a janitor (played by a winning, wistful Albin Jenkins) who mops floors and dreams of being a tap dancer. Parker reproduces, in the character of Blousey. the goody-goody bitchiness that made the "nice girls" of gangster flicks such eminent candidates for strangulation. The hoofing is exuberant and surprisingly adept, even if Paul Williams' musical score is a little slick. The whole movie has an innocence that is not entirely without calculation, but on balance it is a festive occasion...
...preparing a film for the BBC about some Jewish children during World War II, Parker and his friend. Producer Alan Marshall, were toying with the idea of making their first feature. Parker kept his own kids entertained on long car trips with some improvised stories about a sawed-off gangster named Bugsy Malone...
...looked to them like a hot prospect. "It seemed like a natural," says Parker. "A movie parents could take their children to and not fall asleep." Recalls Marshall: "We'd talk to some money people, tell them we had a great idea-a gangster movie. 'Terrific.' they'd say. Even better, they liked the idea of a musical. Then we'd tell them, 'Yeah, the best part is it's going to be all kids,' and they'd cough a little and say, 'Right, lookit...
People who back movies are usually large on imitation and wary of innovation. The idea of an all-kid gangster musical must have seemed like an unprecedented long shot. There has never been anything quite like it, although, pressed, a film buff might recall a 1933 western curiosity called Terror of Tiny Town, acted by midgets. After meeting persistent, not to say astounded resistance, Parker and Marshall had to put up more than $50,000 of their own money to get initial work on the movie under way. Various film-investment outfits and Paramount supplied the balance of the nearly...