Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

calvinnme This is a very entertaining account of the famous rub-out in 1929 Chicago. Jason Robards is a decent Al Capone, and thankfully, doesn't try for an Italian accent. He also wields a mean baseball bat, thus having Capone's malice down but not his mass. Ralph Meeker plays Bugs Moran, leader of the rival Chicago gang. The cast is loaded with familiar faces and future stars, and it seems like somebody gets bumped off every ten minutes. Harold J. Stone plays Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti and almost, but not quite, convinces me he could be Italian. George Segal has a riotous brawling scene with Jean Hale after he finds out she spent three grand on a fur coat. Joan Shawlee has a bit as a "streetwalking entrepreneur," as we call it now. Jack Nicholson has one line, which he grunts out in a hoarse voice pre-Don Corleone. And you may even feel sorry for Bruce Dern in this film.The movie was directed by Roger Corman, and features some of his stock players, including Dick Miller as one of the hit men. Paul Frees supplies the narration, giving this a semi-documentary feel. But he is no Walter Winchell. Definitely worth a look.

georgewilliamnoble This 1967 Roger Corman gangster flick is a rare up market sortie for the usually bargain basement producer, though the film looks to of been shot entirely on the old Fox studio lot, that and the colour film gives the movie a unrealistic unauthentic atmosphere.The movie is fairly accurate representation of known events though highly condensed but i found the narration particularly irritating and unnecessarily.But my biggest grip was the miscasting of Jason Robards as Al Capone he looks nothing like the real Capone and showed none of the charm that Capone was said to possess. This is really just a dressed up B movie, no shame there and as such is quiet watchable though far from memorable.A generous 5.75 out of 10.

The_Void For me, the great Roger Corman will always be best remembered for his film versions of classic Edgar Allen Poe stories; but he also made a lot of films outside of the horror genre and clearly stories of true American crime interested him as aside from this film he also directed Bloody Mama based on Ma Barker. The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre has a fairly strong cult following and I went into this film with some fairly high hopes because of that; although unfortunately I have to say that I'm not as big a fan as many as while this is undoubtedly an interesting and well made crime film; it also has several flaws. The plot focuses on the Prohibition era and in particular the rivalry between two prominent gangs, one of which lead by the infamous Al Capone. As the title suggests; the main focus of the film is on the famous 'Saint Valentines Day Massacre' which saw a group of men gunned down in cold blood. The film focuses on the main players in both the gangs and focuses on the events up to and including the incident.As anyone who knows anything about Roger Corman would expect; the film does not benefit from a big budget and in some ways feels like a cheaper version of several big budget crime flicks. However, in spite of this, Corman still manages to give his film a good style and the film really does feel like its taking place in the late 1920's. The plot does not play out like a regular crime film and instead we get a fragmented report on the key events and it almost feels like it could be a documentary with reconstructions. Corman was obviously keen to focus on the history too as there's a voice-over that fills the audience in on key happenings. In my opinion, the film would have been better as a straight drama as the way it has been done means that it's interesting in parts and then not interesting in others and there's not a great deal of fluency which is a shame. The film has a sense of inevitability to it all the way through as it's always clear how it will end and while it contains no surprises; The St Valentines Day Massacre is at least a successful retelling of the famous event of it's title.

RONALD B. RAFF (herbstnebel2ss) Make fun of Roger Corman if you will, but The St. Valentine's Day Massacre is probably the best retelling of that notoriously bloody day in American history. The film is conveyed to the viewer with Walter Winchell like narration by Paul Frees, who initially introduces us to the main personalities with mini biographies. With the exception of Jason Robards, casting is well done. Participants sneer on cue and strut around in garish pinstripe suits, cigars clenched in their teeth. Robards is simply too tall, slender and thin faced to portray short, stubby Al Capone. Lionel Newman's semi-jazzy score sets the mood for a bullet riddled gangster opus. You just know there's going to be a high body count. What appealed to me most was the attention to detail lacking in most movies of this type. The cars, the costumes, the sets, all transport you back to the free fire zone known as 1929 Chicago. One complaint, many of the submachine guns used in the movie were the World War II version of the Tommy Gun and of course the massacre occurred many years before the war. Maybe the props dept. didn't have enough of the vintage guns and had to make due. The premise of the movie is simple. Al Capone and George "Bugs" Moran have been battling each other for control of Chicago's $300,000,000.00 illicit liquor industry. Both gangs mow each others members down with monotonous regularity and Capone wants to deliver a fatal and lasting blow to the Moran syndicate. He and his cohorts formulate a plan, actually a very good plan to lure Moran to a specific location on a specific day at a specific time. There are even lookout's assigned to watch the location so that they can cue the hit team as to Morans arrival. The one flaw in the plan is that the location is a hang out for the Moran crowd and will be full of people by the time he gets there. Another gangster is mistaken for Moran and the killers arrive prematurely. We all know what happens next as the Moran gang is blown into the hereafter. One last detail, as the gangsters are being shot, they fall into the exact same position as the real thugs did in the original massacre. "Frank Gusenburg" even lands on a chair as the real one did decades ago. If you look closely, you can see the great Dick Miller, as one of the killers disguised as a cop and Jack Nicholson as a hit man. All in all, The St. Valentines Day Massacre is worth watching both for it's historical and entertainment value.