''The Purple Gang'' is a 1960 American
period
Period may refer to:
Common uses
* Era, a length or span of time
* Full stop (or period), a punctuation mark
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Period (music), a concept in musical composition
* Periodic sentence (or rhetorical period), a concept ...
crime film
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...
directed by
Frank McDonald and starring
Barry Sullivan Barry Sullivan may refer to:
*Barry Sullivan (American actor) (1912–1994), US film and Broadway actor
*Barry Sullivan (stage actor) (1821–1891), Irish born stage actor active in Britain and Australia
*Barry Sullivan (lawyer), Chicago lawyer and ...
,
Robert Blake Robert Blake may refer to:
Sportspeople
* Bob Blake (American football) (1885–1962), American football player
* Robbie Blake (born 1976), English footballer
* Bob Blake (ice hockey) (1914–2008), American ice hockey player
* Rob Blake (born 19 ...
and
Jody Lawrance
Jody Lawrance (born Nona Josephine Goddard; October 19, 1930 – July 10, 1986) was an American actress who starred in many Hollywood films during the 1950s through the early 1960s.
Biography
She was born October 19, 1930 as Nona Josephi ...
. It portrays the activities of
The Purple Gang
The Purple Gang, also known as the Sugar House Gang, was a criminal mob of bootleggers and hijackers comprised predominantly of Jewish gangsters. They operated in Detroit, Michigan, during the 1920s of the Prohibition era and came to be Detr ...
bootlegging organization in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
in the 1920s
Plot
A fictionalized account of The Purple Gang as they smuggled liquor in 1920s Detroit,
Michigan
Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
.
Cast
*
Barry Sullivan Barry Sullivan may refer to:
*Barry Sullivan (American actor) (1912–1994), US film and Broadway actor
*Barry Sullivan (stage actor) (1821–1891), Irish born stage actor active in Britain and Australia
*Barry Sullivan (lawyer), Chicago lawyer and ...
as Police Lt. William P. Harley
*
Robert Blake Robert Blake may refer to:
Sportspeople
* Bob Blake (American football) (1885–1962), American football player
* Robbie Blake (born 1976), English footballer
* Bob Blake (ice hockey) (1914–2008), American ice hockey player
* Rob Blake (born 19 ...
as William Joseph 'Honeyboy' Willard
* Elaine Edwards as Gladys Harley
*
Marc Cavell as Henry Abel 'Hank' Smith
*
Jody Lawrance
Jody Lawrance (born Nona Josephine Goddard; October 19, 1930 – July 10, 1986) was an American actress who starred in many Hollywood films during the 1950s through the early 1960s.
Biography
She was born October 19, 1930 as Nona Josephi ...
as Joan MacNamara
*
Suzanne Ridgway as Daisy
*
Joe Turkel
Joseph Turkel (July 15, 1927 – June 27, 2022) was an American character actor who starred in film and television during the Golden Age Era in the 1950s and 1960s. He is known for his roles in Stanley Kubrick's films '' The Killing'', ''Paths ...
as Eddie Olsen
* Victor Creatore as Al Olsen
*
Paul Dubov
Paul Dubov (October 10, 1918 – September 20, 1979) was an American radio, film and television actor as well as screenwriter. He frequently appeared in the works of Sam Fuller.
Among Dubov's radio credits include the 05/02/1953 episode of Gunsm ...
as Thomas Allen 'Killer' Burke
*
Ray Boyle
Raymond Cornelius Boyle (June 28, 1923 – January 6, 2022), also known as Ray Boyle and Dirk London, was an American film and television actor. He was perhaps best known for playing Morgan Earp in the American western television series ''The Li ...
as Tom Olsen
*
Kathleen Lockhart
Kathleen Lockhart (née Arthur; 9 August 1894 – 18 February 1978) was a prolific English-American actress during the early-mid 20th century.
Early life
Kathleen Arthur was born on August 9, 1894 in Southsea, Hampshire, England.
Caree ...
as Nun
*
Nestor Paiva
Nestor Paiva (June 30, 1905 – September 9, 1966) was an American actor of Portuguese descent. He is most famous for his recurring role of Teo Gonzales the innkeeper in Walt Disney's Spanish Western series ''Zorro'' and its feature film ''The ...
as Laurence Orlofsky
* Lou Krugman as Dr. Riordan
* Robert Anderson as Police Commissioner
*
Mauritz Hugo
Mauritz Hugo (January 12, 1909 – June 16, 1974) was a Swedish-born American film and television actor.
Selected filmography
* ''Wanted by the Police'' (1938)
* ''Criminal Investigator'' (1942)
*''The Crime Smasher'' (1943)
* ''Outlaws of St ...
as Licovetti
*
James Roosevelt
James Roosevelt II (December 23, 1907 – August 13, 1991) was an American businessman, Marine, activist, and Democratic Party politician. The eldest son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, he served as an official Secr ...
as Himself in Prologue
Production
''The Purple Gang'' was directed by
Frank McDonald and was produced by
Lindsley Parsons
Lindsley Parsons (1905–1992) was an American film producer and screenwriter. He worked throughout his career at the low-budget Monogram Pictures and its successor, Allied Artists. He generally produced cheap gangster, action and Western film ...
under the company Lindsley Parsons Productions, Inc.
The film details the formation of The Purple Gang and their criminal operations in Detroit, Michigan. It left out that the majority of The Purple Gang was Jewish.
The film opened with newsreels and Congressman
James Roosevelt
James Roosevelt II (December 23, 1907 – August 13, 1991) was an American businessman, Marine, activist, and Democratic Party politician. The eldest son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt, he served as an official Secr ...
, the son of
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...
, saying that "despite its entertainment value, the film points out that only by an awakened citizenry can crime be successfully fought."
Roosevelt's introduction is followed by a statement that explains the plot of the film. 1930s newsreel footage is interspersed throughout the film.
The ''
Los Angeles Evening Citizen News'' said that the film's narration "adds a convincing documentary flavor to the picture." The narration was provided by Barry Sullivan as his character Bill Harley.
Release
The film was released on January 5, 1960 by
Allied Artists. It was released on VHS in 1992 and on DVD in 2011 through the
Warner Archive Collection
The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.' library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the inte ...
.
Reception
Glenn Erickson
Glenn Erickson is an American film editor and film critic. A graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, he started in the film industry in 1975 as an editor of low-budget films and later worked in minor technical crew capacitie ...
of
DVD Talk
DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman.
History
Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...
said, "The obvious hook with the true facts of The Purple Gang is the teen angle: in 1959 movie screens were awash with juvenile delinquency pictures. But the script as written sticks with gangster clichés, not adolescent angst."
Dave Kehr of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote, "Produced by the cash-strapped independent Allied Artists, the film employs a minimally rendered period setting to provide cover for a more or less frank admiration (at least, up until the last reel) of youth in revolt: teenagers with tommy guns."
References
Bibliography
* Stanfield, Peter. ''The Cool and the Crazy: Pop Fifties Cinema''. Rutgers University Press, 2015.
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Purple Gang (film), The
1960 films
1960 crime films
American crime films
Allied Artists films
Films directed by Frank McDonald
Films set in Detroit
Films set in the 1920s
Films scored by Paul Dunlap
The Purple Gang
1960s English-language films
1960s American films