Kevin said:
> >Um, was it? The film industry preceded
Prohibition, so the Mob, if it
> >existed at all, wouldn't have been this big
powerful entity at the
> >time.
And Chris said:
> It's my understanding that Hollywood as a centre for
the film industry
> didn't really take off until the nineteen teens.
Nestor Studios was first
> in 1910, ironically the same year movie theaters
were banned in the town.
> If I remember right, there wasn't a (legal) movie
theater in Hollywood
> until 1914. So with the Volstead Act coming in 1919,
film and bootlegging
> in LA are close, historically. One theory might be
that as Hollywood became
> a centre for debauchery, Prohibition couldn't have
been far behind.
>
I have a hard time seeing any direct causative links between
localized debauchery in Hollywood and the Volstead act.
Surely the idea that the evil and debauched modern world of
the inner city is in need of "uplift" began much further back
than that. Munby, in _Public Enemies, Public Heroes_ cites
Jacob Riis's book _How the Other Half Lives_ (1890) as an
example, and the first gangster feature film, _The Musketeers
of Pig Alley_ (1912) continues the trend.
Without getting into details, there was certainly plenty of
organized crime in cities like Chicago and New York before
prohibition. You see that in films like _Public Enemy_, which
begins in 1909 Chicago -- plenty of organized crime there.
The term itself was apparently coined around 1919 by the
Chicago Crime Commission, also refering to pre-prohibition
crime. In New York, the Five Points gangs go way back, into
the 1800s.
But did organized crime *control* film production? It seems
far fetched, although guys like Al Capone apparently thrived
on film and newspaper portrayals of his actions. Dillinger
was gunned down coming out of a movie theatre. But by the
time of the talkies, film production was so closely under the
control of the studio system and the burgeoning Hays
commission that any notion of organized crime control seems
impossible.
Cheers, --- Phil Lycé¥ Astier, Aubenas, France
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