Professionalism In Gangster Films

Howard Hanks was another important director who dealt with typically American themes. According to David Cook’s, “A History of Narrative Film,” Hawks was “less a stylist than either von Sternberg or Ford. Hawks characteristically concerned himself with the construction of tough, functional narratives that embodied this personal ethic of professionalism, quiet courage, and self-respect.” Hawks directed a total of forty-three features. He contributed major films to every popular American genre, during his career that extended nearly half a century. Hawks directed the classic gangster film, Scarface, which was his most important work of the early 1930s. This film marked the beginning of the “brilliant Hecht-Hawks collaboration that was to continue
Machine gun fire, screams, and screeching brakes and tires were heard all throughout these gangster films, and even though violence was not allowed to be shown on screen, they showed it anyone and pushed through the boycott the MPPDA encouraged. These films defied the norms of American social life. For example, two people of the opposite sex could not be together, and even when married they had to be shown sleeping in two separate beds; the gangster films went against this as many of these films told the stories of sex (scandal), violence, and crime. Many of the famous sensationalist plots of the early gangster films were taken from the newspaper headlines; this encouraged the public’s appetite for crime films. Instead of these mobsters getting punished/jailed, the bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution brought these gangsters to hero status. Viewers lived vicariously through the gangster while he felt the “thrill of violence” and as he rose to fame. A study on crime was published by the National Committee for the Study of Social Values in 1933- once of the findings claimed that gangster movies had given convicted criminals their early education; these young people learned how to rob a bank or steal a car by watching gangster films. I believe that 1930s gangster films suggest that society plays a part in the making of the gangster and that it is also the choice of the