World Film and Television Progress (1938)

The revival of the screen classic 'Scarface', with Paul Muni, George Raft and Ann Dvorak has given our critic H. E. Blyth an occasion to tell the story of Chicago's number one Gangster, Al Capone, on whose career much of the film 'Scarface' was based. The real story of the greatest gang war in history makes an even more bloody and exciting story than its screen version. and Weiss are pushing up daisies, their bodies riddled with bullets by Capone' s gunmen. One by one they went, like the ten little nigger boys, until only "Scarface" was left. "They'll never pin anything on me" said Al, "My lawyers will take care of that". Alleged murderer, racketeer, beer-baron and brothel-keeper, he lived in opulent state, driving down Michigan Avenue in his £4,000 bullet-proof car, his £10,000 elevencarat diamond ring on his finger, the lord of all he surveyed. And if there was a horse he fancied in the races at Hawthorne, he'd bet a cool £20,000 on the nose, just to show what the "Big Shot" was worth. In the late twenties, when he was at his zenith, his yearly income was reckoned at more than £6,000,000. But in the end they got him. Not for murder, vice or boot-legging— his lawyers saw to that — but just for income tax evasion, something he had not foreseen. His slick legal pals could not clear him of that charge. THE story of Capone is the story of Chicago during the black decade of 1920-1930, when law and justice became a mockery, and the biggest crime wave in history engulfed the city. Between 1923 and 1926 alone there were 135 gang murders, only six trials as a result, and only one conviction. Just how many murders Capone himself was responsible for, no one will ever know. "Scarface" —and he was nicknamed that because of a knife wound received in a brothel brawl — preferred to remain largely in the background, and indeed would often be out of town when his gunmen were at work. Capone was brought to Chicago in 1920 Police reconstruct the St. Valentine's Day Massacre (Associated Press) by John Torrio, then the leading gangster of the day, having taken the place of Big Jim Colosimo, prematurely deceased. Like Torrio himself, Capone was a graduate of the notorious Five Points gang of New York, and was, therefore, "plenty tough". At first he was just a brawler and a bully, a foulmouthed hoodlum ready to tackle any job on hand. By 1924 he was already a "Big Shot", suave, urbane, sleek and prosperous, no longer Torrio's bouncer, but his partner and right hand man, and it was in 1924 that he was concerned in his first really big killing. At that time the greatest rivals to the Torrio-Capone outfit were the North Side Gang under the leadership of Dion O'Banion. By the autumn of 1924 trouble was brewing between them. Torrio and Capone had taken over control of Cicero, a suburb of Chicago, but O'Banion had been given a beer concession out of which he quickly began to make a fortune, for everything that O'Banion touched turned to gold. Torrio and Capone were green with envy and tried to make a deal with the Irishman, even going so far as to offer O'Banion a share of their brothel takings in return for a fourth of his booze revenue, but O'Banion only sneered. A ruthless and cold-blooded killer, he yet had a refined dislike of the vice racket, and would have nothing to do with it. On November 10th, at mid-day, a car stopped outside O'Banion's flower shop in North State Street, and three men got out, leaving one behind at the wheel. O'Banion came forward to greet his customers with hand outstretched, for he knew them well. One clasped the proffered hand and held it in a vice-like grip, while the other two poured a stream of bullets into the Irishman's body. Then they left unhurriedly and drove away, leaving O'Banion dead amongst his flowers. The funeral which followed was the most remarkable the city had ever seen. The body was laid out in a £2,000 casket, brought especially from the East. One hundred and twenty-two cars followed in the procession, and there were twenty-six truck loads of flowers, valued at more than £10,000. Amongst these floral tributes was a magnificent basket of roses — "From Al". In the mortuary chapel Torrio and Capone faced O'Banion's henchmen over the coffin. Barely a word was spoken, but each knew what the other was thinking. The greatest gang war in history had begun. It lasted for four years and three months — from November, 1924, until St. Valentine's Day, 1929 — and at the end of it Capone was left supreme. With O'Banion in his grave, his gang went gunning for revenge. They chased Torrio all over America, to the Bahamas, to Cuba and back, and in the end they got him, shooting him down on the steps of his house in Chicago as he returned with his wife from a shopping expedition. By some extraordinary chance they failed to kill him, though they riddled him with bullets, but Torrio had had enough. A broken, terrified man, heshookthedustofChicago from his feet. Thus only Capone was left. On January 12th, 1925, the O'Banions— now under the leadership of Weiss, "Bugs" Moran and Vincent Drucci — madegangland's greatest single attack ever launched against one man in their desperate determination to get Capone. (continued on page 1 1)