New on DVD

© Paramount Pictures "The Godfather"

Anthony Kaufman
Special to MSN Movies

Rico, Tony, Johnny Boy and Vito.

Born in the urban jungles of Chicago and New York City, these are men who took the shortcut to fame and fortune, often paying the ultimate price: death, in the gutter. Git me?

From "Scarface" to "The Sopranos," gangsters are an American phenomenon, catapulted to infamy in the 1930s thanks to both Prohibition and talking pictures. (The "rat-tat-tat" of Tommy guns helped turn sound into an essential ingredient of the movie-going experience.)

Ever since, mobsters have gripped the public imagination, offering up the dark flipside of the American Dream. What man wouldn't want a nickname like Noodles or Nails, wear white suites, drive a shiny car and walk into a high-class joint with a platinum blonde under his arm? The early mobster flicks were so thrilling that studio heads put written disclaimers at the start of the pictures denouncing the gangster as a scourge on society, lest they appear to be endorsing their criminal behavior.

Classic films like William Wellman's "The Public Enemy" (1931), starring a memorably ruthless James Cagney; Mervyn LeRoy's "Little Caesar" (1931), which made Edward G. Robinson a star with lines like "you crummy, flat-footed copper;" and, Howard Hawks' brutal early masterpiece, "Scarface" (1932), now available for the first time on DVD, set the tone and pattern of tales from the underworld for years to come.

While Hollywood's admonitions about the dangers of gangster life are gone today, a life of crime (in the movies) still ends tragically, whether in a hail of gunfire or a fall from honor. Even though we know what happens in the end (but not always how and when they'll get it), our interest in mob bosses and lone assassins continues unabated: witness Martin Scorsese's Best Picture Oscar-winner "The Departed" or Ridley Scott's upcoming "American Gangster," starring Denzel Washington as '70s drug kingpin Frank Lucas.

Here's a look back, in chronological order, at 10 must-see gangster classics; a survey of the nastiest, smoothest and most violent criminals the silver screen has ever seen.

"Scarface" (1932)
"Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doing it." That's Tony Camonte's mantra in Hawks's fast-talking, groundbreaking classic, which recounts the rise and fall of the gangster (loosely inspired by Al Capone). With his brutal disregard for human life and love of machine guns, Camonte (an animalistic Paul Muni) kills with impunity, all in search of money, love and acceptance. A template for many gangster films to come -- from George Raft's coin-tossing right-hand-man to a callous murder scene in a hospital (later reworked in "The Godfather") -- "Scarface" raised the bar for the genre, telling a story that's not only escapist entertainment, but a distressing psychological profile, scathing social critique and source of unforgettable dialogue: "You'll squeal, like all the other rats."

"White Heat" (1949)
A combustible James Cagney returned to the genre he made famous with this outlaw roller-coaster ride directed by Hollywood ace Raoul Walsh. If Cagney's "Public Enemy" number one, Tom Powers, is an ambitious little thug, famous for shoving an open grapefruit in his girlfriend's face, then Cagney's Cody Jarrett is an equally cold-blooded gang leader, but who now suffers from excruciating headaches and a pathological attachment to his mother. With Ma Jarrett (Margaret Wycherly) by his side, along with his abused bombshell wife (Virginia Mayo), Cody runs a small syndicate that stretches across the criminal underworld. Feared by all, Cody thinks he's got all the angles, but a crack team of coppers is always one step ahead of him. Jam-packed with action sequences -- a train robbery, car chases, a prison break and plenty of shootouts -- the plot of "White Heat" tends to meander, but Cody's teeth-clenched ferocious grin carries the film all the way to its wildly apocalyptic, atomic-age climax.

"Breathless" (1960) / "Le Samourai" (1967)
The French do gangster differently, with equal parts existential ennui and je ne sais quoi frisson, but that's what makes them so great. Jean-Luc Godard's French New Wave, tour-de-force, "Breathless," isn't so much a gangster film as a deconstruction of a gangster film. When Bogart-inspired hood Michel Poiccard (French heartthrob Jean-Paul Belmondo) kills a motorcycle cop, he wants to escape to Italy with his American girlfriend (Jean Seberg). But instead of dark intrigue, we get an extended lovers-quarrel in a bedroom, filled with contemplations about love, men, women and art. Filmed guerilla-style on the streets of Paris, "Breathless" paved the way for American classics "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Badlands," but it was French veteran Jean-Pierre Melville -- who has a cameo in "Breathless" -- that influenced the work of Godard. Melville's slick, dispassionate "Le Samourai," arguably his best movie, chronicles the exploits of a smooth assassin (Alain Delon), the women who love him and the cops and crooks who are after his head. As the French say, it's "tres cool."

"The Godfather" (1972)
Not just one of the best American gangster films of all time, but one of the best American films, Francis Ford Coppola's landmark mafia opera elevated the genre from B-movie streets to top-notch Hollywood epic. From Marlon Brando's muffled patriarch to James Caan's violently over-protective brother to the expertly crafted, bloody baptismal climax that juxtaposes the very cycle of life, Coppola's adaptation of Mario Puzo's novel is as much grand melodrama as mob flick. When we watch Al Pacino's Michael Corleone struggle to avoid the family business, but then inevitably get pulled into it, the conflict is a universal one, between son and father, private life and family commitments.

"Mean Streets" (1973)
If Coppola lifted up the gangster genre, Martin Scorsese brought it back down to the gritty back-alleys and pothole-ridden avenues of the city. Shot with handheld cameras on the very mean streets of New York City from which it takes its name, Scorsese's invigorating breakthrough feature follows young hood Charlie (Harvey Keitel), fraught with guilt, as he travels the road of redemption. A good Italian Catholic in love with his cousin, Teresa (Amy Robinson), Charlie wants to do the right thing, but the criminal life, embodied by his psychotic best friend, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro's power-keg performance), is destined to bring him to a tragic end. From the old home movie footage that opens the film to the use of absorbing slo-mo tracking shots to the rich ironic score (mixing a brutal pool-hall brawl with the Marvelette's "Please Mr. Postman"), "Mean Streets" is an exuberant cinematic exercise that bears all the early signs of Scorsese's signature style.

Next: More Gangster Movies