The Gangster








Anonymous said…
This film is a largely unknown classic, perfect except for the sermonised ending speech.

That opening monologue in which Shabunka justifies his exploitation of those he exploits via his petty rackets - 'broken down mutts', the salt of the earth citizens he despises. The skilfully crafted sequence when Shorty the soda jerk is closing up the ice cream parlour; the last jitney bus leaving, the lights being turned off, the characters sat wrapped in their own thoughts, haunted by dreams and fears. This exceeds in monochrome anything Edward Hopper set down on canvas.
Shabunka himself is a contradiction. Outwardly a strutting, wooden caricature of a gangster; inwardly the opposite, a pessimist whose intuition ruins any possibility of future happiness. 'You're no man of iron; you ain't no terrible big shot'. That sentence just about encapsulates Shabunka's character.
I have often wondered about the book 'Low Company', on which the film is based. Has anyone ever read it?

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