Bugsy Malone (USA-UK, 1976) 93 min color DIR-SCR: Alan Parker. PROD: Alan Marshall. MUSIC: Paul Williams. DOP: Peter Biziou, Michael Seresin. CAST: Jodie Foster, Scott Baio, John Cassisi. (Paramount Pictures)
Gangster spoofs were plentiful in the 1970s (and they still are), but perhaps none are as off-the-wall as this little jewel: a gangster musical featuring an entire cast of children! Instead of bullets, their guns shoot whipped cream. This is a concept picture that could have dried up very quickly, but this is actually a well-thought out movie with surprisingly good characterizations and a catchy song score (by Paul Williams) which compliments the efforts put into the unusual idea and the marvellous art direction. Scott Baio is great (seriously!) as the nice gangster Bugsy. 13 year-old Jodie Foster’s portrayal of the sultry singer Tallulah is just as risqué as her child prostitute role in Taxi Driver of the same year (however, this would be lost on Bugsy Malone‘s target audience of pre-teens). This is everything that pictures like At Long Last Love or New York New York (to name other nostalgic valentines to the Golden Age of Hollywood made in the same decade) could have been if they had thought more about the people inside their worlds. But as such, Bugsy Malone is commendable alone for its impeccable recreation of the look of a 1930s gangster movie. The casting of children, doing exaggerated imitations of already exaggerated caricatures, and that the guns shoot whipped cream, remind us of the artificial properties of old movies, yet people in the Depression Era flocked to see this artifice each week to get away from the ugly realism of their lives. This film also acts as a cautionary fable for its young viewers– the final number is actually benevolent. After everyone shoots everyone else for 90 minutes, they all unite to sing about being nice to one another. In other words, it is telling kids not to confuse the movie world with reality: flesh and blood people really get hurt. What a surprisingly good-hearted message to the TV Baby generation, and in a movie from the cynical 70s!
Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #10 (“Summer in the 70s”).
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.