Big Al's Place: "Big Bill" aka Al Capone

In A Nutshell

Years after his release from Alcatraz, bedeviled by hallucinations fueled by untreated, late-stage syphilis, Al Capone wanders the overgrown grounds of his Miami Beach estate, ruminating with ghosts. Tomorrow will bring his forty-eighth birthday and one week later he will be dead. Between then and now sprawls an epic life, from the wild streets of turn-of-the-century Brooklyn, to a bloody Saint Valentine’s Day that shocked the world; here is the glamorous ascent and shocking decline of America's true king of crime.

Some History

Jim VanBebber's 2004 feature, The Manson Family, was hailed as, "Crucial," by Peter Travers in Rolling Stone's four-star review. It inspired Roger Ebert to proclaim, "...it has an undeniable power and effect...it exists in a category of one film - this film." The film's successful theatrical release brought further critical acclaim and Manson then went on to thrive on home video, including as the centerpiece of Visions of Hell: The Films of Jim VanBebber, a mid-career retrospective DVD box set released in 2008.

Capone first met VanBebber at Wright State University when both men were enrolled in the Motion Pictures Production program headed up by Academy Award nominated documentary filmmakers Jim Klein and Julia Reichert. When, in junior year, the class was divided into small groups with the purpose of producing a short film, VanBebber, with partners Marcello Games and cinematographer Mike King, decided to shoot a full length feature. That film, 1988's Deadbeat at Dawn went on to earn true cult status, playing to crowds on 42nd Street and on many waning drive-in screens before landing on cable's The Movie Channel where it debuted on Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater, hosted by Joe Bob Briggs, who had singled out Deadbeat in his nationally syndicated four-star review.

With funds derived from the sale of Deadbeat, King, Games and VanBebber began their follow up production, The Manson Family, which brings us full circle

10/26/09

"Big Bill" aka Al Capone

In his day, Al Capone was a major media superstar, maybe the first to achieve the kind of worldwide notoriety we've now come to see as commonplace.

From appearing as himself (the only person to do so) in the popular 1932 french comic series, "Tintin in America," to films such as 1932's explosive Paul Muni classic, "Scarface" and 1933's "Gabriel Over The White House," which features a outrageous drive-by machine gunning of the White House, Capone was a certified pop culture phenomena.

Above is a detail seemingly from one of the many pre-code crime comics made popular by companies like EC Comics.

The story features an obvious Al Capone stand in in the person of "Big Bill Logan." The full page story can be viewed as a slideshow on the sidebar to your right.