Half a century ago this week, the gangster film got its most striking satirical treatment in Bugsy Malone, the mobster movie with an all children cast.
At first, alarm bells were ringing. The New York Times began its review with a description of the first scene, where “right in front of our eyes Roxy Robinson is executed”. Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Times began his with: “What are kids doing in something like this?” Read on, and we realise they are of course jesting.
Roxy Robinson is killed, true, with cream though, not bullets. By trading the Thompson submachine gun for the “splurge gun” – a fantastic cinematic invention which kept the high stakes but left out grim death – director Alan Parker created a world full of both consequence and comedy.
The film follows rival gangs led by Fat Sam (John Cassisi) and Dandy Dan (Martin Lev), both of whom humorously throw insults in their best cement-thick Bronx accents. Bugsy (Scott Baio), a penniless boxing promoter, is caught between the warring parties but eventually sides with Sam, bringing dollops of cream to the prohibition era.
Peppered with ever-hummable tunes, the film features ten Paul Williams numbers in its soundtrack, which swing in a kind of barrelhouse tradition, clearly enjoyed by the cast and kept fizzing along by lively stage direction. And they’re still heard ringing through school theatres up and down the country.
As an 11 year old – I am now 23 – I keenly watched all three consecutive nights of my school’s production of Bugsy, disbelief suspended, completely taken by those cool cats in pinstripe. They played the roles usually reserved for adults, which generations later, still feels terrifically exciting.
All of the central cast were scooped up by studios to play roles in sitcoms and films after Bugsy Malone’s release, which made £2.8m globally – almost five times its original budget. Though, unquestionably, Jodie Foster has since become the film’s most decorated star.
The 14 year old Foster, who plays chanteuse Tallulah, was certainly no stranger to New York wise-guys and ganglands when she got the Bugsy call-up. She’d been in Manhattan just five months before, as Iris, the 12 year-old runaway in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. By the late seventies, it seemed that Hollywood were employing children more readily than ever to make their political and dramatic points.
Ultimately though, it’s the charming originality of Bugsy that makes it endlessly rewatchable, appealing to all children under the age of 80. We should be incredibly glad that the studio executives at Paramount were not scratching their heads at Alan Parker’s barmy film pitch, but nodding them.
