This article possibly contains original research. 20th Century Fox to realize what he described as “the most accurate, authentic gangster film ever”. A young Bruce Dern plays one of the valentine’s day box for her of the massacre, and Jack Nicholson has a bit part as a gangster.

An organized crime war breaks out between two rival gangs in Chicago during the Roaring Twenties. With an elaborate plan in motion to eliminate Moran and his gang, Capone retreats to his winter home in Miami to establish an alibi. Meanwhile his henchmen, two of whom are dressed as police officers, feign a police raid on a northside garage and execute five members of Moran’s gang including Peter Gusenberg. Orson Welles was Corman’s original choice to play Capone, but Twentieth Century Fox vetoed the deal, fearing that Welles was “undirectable”. Roger Corman said he wanted produce a film about the “gangsterism” that “played a significant role in the development of American culture” but “I wanted to do it honestly, and not in the usual romanticized man-against-the-system. Corman was drawn to the idea of making a film about the St. Corman said that the massacre was the day that ” changed the whole public face of gangsterism – public outcry broke Capone’s stranglehold on society.

The massacre had been the focus of a Playhouse 90 episode, “Seven Against the Wall”, broadcast in December 1958 and written by Harold Browne, who had researched the period and the event extensively. Corman hired Browne to write the script for the film. Corman had recently endured an unhappy experience working for Columbia, but still wanted to try working at a major studio. In February 1966, he signed on to make the film from Brown’s script with Richard Zanuck at 20th Century Fox. Corman made the film following the great success of The Wild Angels. It was the most expensive film that Corman had made.

Corman said, “There comes a time when the public conscience needs jolting and in St. Valentine’s Day Massacre this is our intention. It is also certain that the movie will make money – crime is always box office. Corman wanted classical actors to play gangsters and offered the part of Capone to Orson Welles and that of Bugs Moran to Jason Robards. Corman wanted to cast Jack Nicholson in a key supporting role, but Fox insisted that the director use an actor whom they had under contract. However, Corman did manage to cast Nicholson and Bruce Dern in small roles that were used for the entire length of the shoot, ensuring them a decent payday. Corman originally wanted to shoot the film on location in Chicago but eventually shot it on the Fox backlot.

He filmed the massacre scene in a Desilu lot that was converted to resemble the garage where the crime was committed, as the real garage had been demolished by the time the movie started production. Before filming, Corman found photos of the murder scene. He asked the actors to study the stills before rehearsals and the shoot. After one take, the massacre looked like that of the photos, and each actor’s collapse matched the positions in which the victims fell in the real massacre.

The film was one of the few that Corman directed from a major Hollywood studio with a generous budget and an open-ended schedule. However, Corman was disgusted with the great waste of time and money involved with typical film production techniques. Corman later wrote that ” physically, it is one of the best films I ever directed because I was able to walk around the lot and pick those fantastic sets. 4,165,000, meaning it made a loss. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 1.

At the end of this nonsense, to be sure, there is a massacre to brighten things up a little. But then the pall sets in again. Valentine’s Day Massacre was released as a Region 1 widescreen DVD by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment on May 23, 2006. Big Rental Films of 1967″, Variety, 3 January 1968 p 25. Please note these figures refer to rentals accruing to the distributors.