When I first saw "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" in 1967, I never would have guessed that legendary B movie maestro Roger Corman's attempt to break into the big-time would become one of my favorite films, but it did for a time. Ah, the innocence of youth. All that blood-letting in the big massacre scene appealed to my ghoulish instincts, and the semi-documentary approach made it feel like a history lesson. Watching the film on video recently, I still enjoyed it and was once more pleased to hear Alfred Newman's score, complete with an off-key piano (meant to symbolize the gangsters' rejection of law and order?), but now I see the film for what it is: a B movie in A movie dress; a film as realistic as the black and white gangster movies churned out by Warner Bros. in the 1930s.
The tone is slightly comic, especially when big Al affectionately glides his fist across the face of Jack McGurn, his favorite among the cutthroats on his payroll, and Jack shyly grins in appreciation. It is as hokey as George Raft tossing a silver dollar in the air in 1932's "Scarface."
The acting is over the top, of course, with Jason Robards, an uncharacteristically slim Capone, chewing the scenery, as they say, slamming his fist on his desk, bulging his eyes and shouting even his calmest utterances. George Segal seems to be imitating Cagney while the rest of the cast chews gum so often that you know if this film had been made today, Juicy Fruit would have a piece of the action by way of an official tie-in. In the midst of all this ham, Ralph Meeker manages to etch a subdued and believable portrait of Bugs Moran that easily claims the acting honors. In a small role as a mechanic, Bruce Dern also shines. Jack Nicholson is briefly glimpsed and even more briefly heard explaining why hitmen wipe garlic on their bullets ("If the bullets don't kill you..."), and he, too, echoes earlier caricatures of movie mobsters by speaking his one line in a silly rasp.
"The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" is a pleasant enough diversion for those who fondly recall their first exposure to Cagney and Bogart in "The Roaring Twenties" or scores of other gangster classics. But it's nothing more than that, and the shame is that it could have been much more. A more restrained, serious approach could have made it a precursor of sorts to "The Godfather" and "Goodfellas." Instead, it's a live action cartoon.
