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Bugsy
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Movie
| Book
| Author
| Director
& cast
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Book: We Only Kill Each Other: The Life and Bad Times of Bugsy
Siegel (1967)
Movie: Bugsy (1991)
If you want to know more about the real Bugsy Siegel you can go to
http://www.crimelibrary.com/gangsters/bugsy/
bugsymain.htm.
(Be warned, Bugsy Siegel was not a very nice guy...)
Premise
movie:
"Bugsy represents an almost miraculous combination of
director, writer, and star on a project that represents a career
highlight for everyone involved. It's one of the best American
gangster movies ever made--as good in its own way as any of the
Godfather films--and it's impossible to imagine anyone better than
Beatty in the movie's flashy title role. As notorious mobster and
Las Vegas visionary "Bugsy" Siegel, Beatty is perfectly cast as a
man whose dreams are greater than his ability to realize them--or at
least, greater than his ability to stay alive while making those
dreams come true. With a glamorous Hollywood mistress (Annette
Bening) who shares Bugsy's dream while pursuing her own upwardly
mobile agenda, Bugsy seems oblivious to threats when he begins to
spend too much of the mob's money on the creation of the Flamingo
casino. Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) and Mickey Cohen (Harvey
Keitel) will support Bugsy's wild ambition to a point, after which all bets
are off, and Bugsy's life hangs in the balance. From the obvious
chemistry of Beatty and Bening (who met and later married off-screen) to the sumptuous reproduction of 1940s Hollywood, every
detail in this movie feels impeccably right. Beatty is simply
mesmerizing as the man who invented Las Vegas but never saw it
thrive, moving from infectious idealism to brutal violence in the
blink of an eye. Director Barry Levinson is also in peak form here,
guiding the stylish story with a subtle balance of admiration and
horror; we can catch Bugsy's Vegas fever and root for the gangster's
success, but we know he'll get what he deserves. We might wish that
Bugsy had lived to see his dream turn into a booming oasis, but the
movie doesn't suggest that we should shed any tears."
from:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/
-/0767818059/104-5741798-6377568?v=glance
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Premise
book:
(from the cover):
"Bugsy Siegel. In Hollywood, he was
the mob's leading man, settling the west for organized crime. He
rose to power in prohibition days when nightclub tables were shared
by politicians, criminals, and the biggest names in the show
business. As handsome as a movie star, Bugsy Siegel was a cunning
bootlegger, a hotheaded gambling kingpin-and one of New York's
wealthiest mobsters. Ambitious and vain, he moved into Hollywood's
high society and became the glamour
gangster of his time. Bugsy's brought organized crime to the West and built up its most fantastic
racket-The Las Vegas Strip. Socialites and
strippers found him irresistible; Bugsy was the confidant of countesses and famous film
stars. When society starlet Virginia Hill fell hard for him, all of
Las Vegas watched her jealous fight for his love. One night in
Virginia's Beverly Hills house, Bugsy was rubbed out by a deadly
blast of bullets...and his glittering American success story came to
a bloody, violent end...We only kill each other."
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Author:
Dean Southern Jennings
(1905-1969).
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Director:
Barry Levinson
Cast:
Warren Beatty (Bugsy Siegel), Annette Bening (Virginia Hill),
Harvey Keitel (Mickey Cohen), Ben Kingsley (Meyer Lansky ), Elliott
Gould (Harry Greenberg), Joe Mantegna (George Raft) and others.
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