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Goodfellas

General Information

GOODFELLAS
Warner Bros., 1990

PRINCIPAL CASTRay Liotta, Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci
DIRECTORMartin Scorsese
PRODUCERIrwin Winkler
SCREENWRITERSNicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese

Movie Summary

By: Matt Simone

  1. Throughout the years of the Gangster movies society and the real life Gangsters influenced the way Gangster movies were produced.
    1. In the early 1900's the real life gangsters only committed petty robberies and extortion's to make their money.
      1. The first movie that showed how the gangsters made their money was The Musketeer of Pig Alley.
      2. This movie was popular because it glorified and showed authentically the way gangsters made their money.
      3. It made people feel like they were engulfed in the mob and that was thrilling for many people.
    2. The early gangsters also made their money by the white trade or prostitution.
      1. The first movie to show how gangsters operated a prostitution house was Traffic in Souls.
      2. This movie was based on the Rockefeller White Slavery Report.
      3. This movie was a very popular movie at the box office because it showed portrayed sex and crime all in one movie.
      4. This portrayal of sex in a movie was a step forward in society; the people liked it and they wanted more, so more movies with sex and crime were made.
    3. The next set of gangsters came about because of the societies views towards prohibition.
      1. Prohibition had turned organized crime into a big business.
      2. To satisfy the countries need for alcohol, large criminal organizations were constructed.
      3. Gangster movies, over the next fifty years would to be changed for the better.
      4. The new movies showed the explosive gang wars that were fought over the bootlegging market. It displayed figures such as Al Capone and Charles "Lucky" Luciano as immortals.
      5. These movies grew even bigger when the government started to neglect the working class people. Society started to support and fantasize about organized crime. That is why these movies became so popular during this time.
      6. Movies like Chicago showed how the city life encouraged crime and racketeering.
    4. In the 1970's and beyond society and gangsters started to change.
      1. The gangsters started to change their methods of making money from robbery and racketeering to selling drugs.
      2. The society had influenced this because they started to become more involved with drugs.
      3. In turn the movies about gangsters started to change towards drugs.
      4. The first movie to show this was Super Fly.
      5. Then came Goodfellas, which showed how a society of drug users can turn a gangster into a millionaire. It also showed how a gangster could ruin their life because of the drugs.
      6. The gangster could get hooked on the drugs just like and other drug user from society. It also showed how it can ruin his life, just like a drug user from our society.

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