Al Capone has interested Hollywood in a manner no one from 'the dark side' would have, apart from maybe Hitler himself! Capone makes for the most boisterous in-your-face type of villains, unlike the Agent Smith cool kinds seen in more recent times. His rise during the Prohibition era in USA in the 1920's and 30's, his high visibility in the public and his eventual fall when he was caught for tax evasion making him a high profile prisoner of Alcatraz later on, makes for intriguing story-telling. There are aspects of his life which remain unresolved, adding to the intrigue, exaggerated with time. The book called The Untouchables written by one of the agents, Elliot Ness, assigned to the task of nabbing Capone, its subsequent TV representation and the 1987 popular film of the same name, have also made Al Capone a name known to the ordinary.
Portrayed by many, it is probably Robert De Niro as Al Capone in the 1987 movie The Untouchables which is more well-known. The wikipedia page on Al Capone indicates no less than 15 different portrayals of him on the big screen, and another 15 portrayals said to be based on Capone. With this big number goes my inclination to put across pictures of all the portrayals of Capone, though I still would like to put up the ones played in Hollywood upto De Niro himself. And while some do not even come close to resembling the real Capone, whose picture is there right at the bottom, the cigar is probably the one thing they could not do without!
Rod Steiger in Al Capone (1959)
Neville Brand in The George Raft Story (1961)
Jason Robards in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967)
Ben Gazzara in Capone (1975)
Robert De Niro in The Untouchables (1987)
The real Al Capone (1899 - 1947)
Now that indeed are way too many cigars!
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