Big Al's Place: Is living history dying in East Dubuque?

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

4/28/10

Is living history dying in East Dubuque?

Is living history dying in East Dubuque?

Hit the link for the whole story. Here's an excerpt:

-- Dec. 30, 1926, The Chicago Daily Tribune
Illinois readers were riveted by the headline screaming, "CHICAGO GUNMEN CARRY WAR TO (EAST) DUBUQUE; 1 DEAD." The December 1926 special news bulletin read like a Dick Tracy comic strip, yet it was real life for East Dubuque -- the town reporters labeled "Little Cicero," a reference to Al Capone's then-headquarters in Cicero, Ill. This was the time of speakeasies and moonshine, mobsters and coppers, raids and roadhouses. This was the time when tavern owners connected their businesses by underground tunnels where they hid their illegal booze. This was the time when Al Capone came to East Dubuque to investigate after a liquor still explosion, according to one eyewitness. "This is our history -- Al Capone and prohibition and night life," said George Young, an East Dubuque bar owner, "and I think it's a really, really cool history. I'm telling you, all we'd have to do is really play up our whole history, and we'd really have something here, if they'd let us ..."