Billy Bathgate | |
---|---|
Directed by | Robert Benton |
Screenplay by | Tom Stoppard |
Based on | Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow |
Produced by | Robert F. Colesbury Arlene Donovan |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Néstor Almendros |
Edited by | Alan Heim David Ray Robert M. Reitano |
Music by | Mark Isham |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Pictures Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 106 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $48 million [1] |
Box office | $15.5 million [1] |
Billy Bathgate is a 1991 American biographical gangster film directed by Robert Benton, starring Loren Dean as the title character and Dustin Hoffman as real-life gangster Dutch Schultz. The film co-stars Nicole Kidman, Steven Hill, Steve Buscemi and Bruce Willis. Although Billy is a fictional character, at least four of the other characters in the film are real people. The screenplay was adapted by British writer Tom Stoppard from E.L. Doctorow's 1989 novel of the same name. Doctorow distanced himself from the film for the extensive deviations from the book. It received negative reviews and was a box-office bomb, grossing a mere $15.5 million against its $48 million budget.
Billy Behan is a poor Irish American teenager from the Bronx in the 1935. One day, he catches the attention of wealthy Jewish mobster Dutch Schultz. Changing his last name to Bathgate after a local street, Billy goes to work for Schultz's organization, serving mostly as a gofer for Schultz. Billy is present when Schultz personally commits two brutal murders: his trusted lieutenant, Bo Weinberg, who Schultz believes betrayed him after learning that Weinberg was secretly meeting with rival bosses, is dumped in the water wearing cement shoes; and his top enforcer, "Big" Julie Martin, who is shot dead by Dutch for stealing $50,000 from the organization's accounts, and defiantly stating that he's "entitled" to it. Despite this, Billy comes to see Schultz as a father figure, and the mob as his chance to make it big.
Facing criminal charges of tax evasion in an upstate New York court, Schultz brings his entourage, including Billy and his mistress Drew Preston (who was previously Bo's mistress), as he temporarily moves into the local community. He successfully charms the residents, presenting himself as good-natured and easygoing while doing many charitable acts, even faking conversion to Catholicism. While Dutch is attending his trial, Billy is assigned to watch Drew. His loyalties to Schultz are tested as he falls in love with the flirtatious Drew. Realizing that Dutch intends to have Drew murdered for cheating on him, Billy is able to get in contact with her real husband, wealthy Harvey, who manages to take Drew home, whisking her out of harm's way on a private plane before Schultz's men can make their move.
Despite being acquitted by a sympathetic jury, Dutch is soon indicted again. After running into difficulties paying for his legal defense, he decides to have state prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey assassinated. This request is denied by the mob's governing authority, the Commission, out of fear that killing Dewey will bring too much heat upon the Mafia. Schultz sends Billy to bribe a member of the Commission, but the bribe is rejected. When Billy returns with the bad news, Schultz angrily blames him for not doing enough, and Billy is fired by Schultz's right-hand man, Otto Berman, who, seemingly foreseeing doom ahead for the out-of-control Schultz, lets him keep the bribe money as a gift. As Billy leaves, he is ambushed and beaten by gangsters working for Commission head Lucky Luciano and is then forced to watch as Luciano's men storm Dutch's safe-haven restaurant where he is dining. Dutch, Berman, and his two henchmen are swiftly gunned down. Billy is taken to meet Luciano, who tells him that he knows where Billy's family lives if he ever speaks of what happened to Dutch, before letting him go, along with his envelope of cash.
The film was shot in Hamlet, North Carolina, [2] and Saratoga Springs, New York.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 36%, based on 25 reviews. [3] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on a scale of A+ to F. [4]
Variety wrote, "This refined, intelligent drama about thugs appeals considerably to the head but has little impact in the gut, which is not exactly how it should be with gangster films." [5]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave it 2 stars out of 4, and wrote, "Billy Bathgate cost a lot of money to make, they say, but it's not there on the screen." [6]
The movie debuted at number 4, [7] and underperformed against its $48 million budget.
Nicole Kidman was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress. [8]
Nicole Mary Kidman is an Australian and American actress and producer. Known for her work in film and television productions across many genres, she has consistently ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses since the late 1990s. Her accolades include an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and six Golden Globe Awards. She became the first Australian actor to receive the AFI Life Achievement Award honor in 2024.
Charles "Lucky" Luciano was an Italian-born gangster who operated mainly in the United States. He started his criminal career in the Five Points Gang and was instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate. Luciano is considered the father of the Italian-American Mafia for the establishment of the Commission in 1931, after he abolished the boss of bosses title held by Salvatore Maranzano following the Castellammarese War. He was also the first official boss of the modern Genovese crime family.
Frank Costello was an Italian-American crime boss of the Luciano crime family.
Steven Vincent Buscemi is an American actor, comedian, film director and voice actor. Buscemi is known for his work as an acclaimed character actor of the 1990s. His early credits consist of major roles in independent film productions such as Parting Glances (1986), Mystery Train (1989), In the Soup (1992), and his breakout role as Mr. Pink in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992).
Edgar Lawrence Doctorow was an American novelist, editor, and professor, best known for his works of historical fiction.
The Cotton Club is a 1984 American musical crime drama film co-written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based on James Haskins' 1977 book of the same name. The story centers on the Cotton Club, a Harlem jazz club in the 1930s. The film stars Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, and Lonette McKee, with Bob Hoskins, James Remar, Nicolas Cage, Allen Garfield, Gwen Verdon, Fred Gwynne and Laurence Fishburne in supporting roles.
Dutch Schultz was an American mobster based in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. He made his fortune in organized crime-related activities, including bootlegging and the numbers racket. Schultz's rackets were weakened by two tax evasion trials led by United States Attorney Thomas Dewey, and also threatened by fellow mobster Lucky Luciano.
Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll was an Irish-American mob hitman in the 1920s and early 1930s in New York City. Coll gained notoriety for the alleged accidental killing of a young child during a mob kidnap attempt.
Billy Bathgate is a 1989 novel by author E. L. Doctorow that won the 1989 National Book Critics Circle award for fiction for 1990, the 1990 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 1990 William Dean Howells Medal, and was the runner-up for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize and the 1989 National Book Award. The book was dedicated to Jason Epstein.
Loren Dean is an American actor. He has appeared on stage and in feature films, including as the title character in Billy Bathgate, as well as Apollo 13, Rosewood, Space Cowboys, and Ad Astra. He also appeared in a recurring role on the television series Bones.
Otto Biederman, known as Otto "Abbadabba" Berman was an accountant for American organized crime. He is known for having coined the phrase "Nothing personal, it's just business."
Hoodlum is a 1997 American crime drama film that gives a fictionalized account of the gang war between the Italian/Jewish mafia alliance and the black gangsters of Harlem that took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The film concentrates on Ellsworth "Bumpy" Johnson, Dutch Schultz, and Lucky Luciano.
Get Shorty is a 1995 American gangster comedy film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and written by Scott Frank, based on Elmore Leonard's novel of the same name. The film stars John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, Dennis Farina, and Danny DeVito. It follows Chili Palmer (Travolta), a Miami mobster and loan shark who inadvertently gets involved in Hollywood feature film production.
Abraham "Bo" Weinberg was a Jewish New York City mobster who became a hitman and chief lieutenant for the Prohibition-era gang boss Dutch Schultz. As Schultz expanded his bootlegging operations into Manhattan during Prohibition, he recruited Abe Weinberg and his brother George into his gang. Abe Weinberg would become one of Schultz's top gunmen during the Manhattan Bootleg Wars and was a suspect in the later high-profile gangland slayings of Jack "Legs" Diamond, Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll, and mob boss Salvatore Maranzano.
Nine is a 2009 romantic musical drama film directed and co-produced by Rob Marshall from a screenplay by Michael Tolkin and Anthony Minghella, loosely based on the stage musical of the same name, which in turn is based on the 1963 film 8½. In addition to songs from the stage musical, all written by Maury Yeston, the film has three original songs, also written by Yeston. The ensemble cast consists of Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Fergie, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, and Sophia Loren.
Secret in Their Eyes is a 2015 thriller film written and directed by Billy Ray and a remake of the 2009 Argentine film of the same name, both based on the novel La pregunta de sus ojos by Eduardo Sacheri. A co-production between the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Spain, the film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, and Julia Roberts, with Dean Norris, Michael Kelly, Joe Cole, and Alfred Molina in supporting roles.
Lion is a 2016 Australian biographical drama film directed by Garth Davis from a screenplay by Luke Davies based on the 2013 non-fiction book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley. The film stars Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, Rooney Mara, David Wenham, and Nicole Kidman, as well as Abhishek Bharate, Divian Ladwa, Priyanka Bose, Deepti Naval, Tannishtha Chatterjee, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. It tells the true story of how Brierley, 25 years after being separated from his family in India, sets out to find them. It was a joint production between Australia and the United Kingdom.
Destroyer is a 2018 American neo-noir crime drama film directed by Karyn Kusama, written and co-produced by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi, and starring Nicole Kidman with Toby Kebbell, Tatiana Maslany, Scoot McNairy, Bradley Whitford, and Sebastian Stan. The film follows a former undercover police officer (Kidman), who takes revenge against members of a gang, years after her case was blown.
In September 2021, AMC Theatres began airing a commercial starring actress Nicole Kidman in its theaters and on television. The ad, written by screenwriter Billy Ray, was intended to spur theater attendance following the COVID-19 pandemic by highlighting the "magic" of the movie theater experience. In the ad, Kidman enters and sits alone in an empty AMC theater while delivering a monologue describing in heightened language the pleasures of the moviegoing experience, such as the "indescribable feeling we get when the lights begin to dim and we go somewhere we've never been before". The commercial became a surprise hit among audiences, with its earnestly rhapsodic style and script — particularly the line "Somehow, heartbreak feels good in a place like this.” — developing a certain camp appeal. It has inspired internet memes, parodies, and in-theatre audience participation rituals.
This is a list of organized crime in the 1930s, arranged chronologically.
the $40 million-plus production bears no signs of the rumored troubles of its making.