BILLY BATHGATE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: A film with a nice period feel about a
young man rising in Dutch Schultz's organization while
Schultz himself is falling. Above average accuracy for a
gangster film, but still some mistakes. The film needed a
really good performance by Hoffman, who for once just could
not muster the power the role needed. Rating: low +2 (-4 to
+4).
"Organized" crime was not so organized in the 1920s and early 1930s. Individual gangs built on bootlegging, prostitution, gambling, or other rackets fought each other for turf. Meyer Lansky forged a single government over the major gangs to organize them and to minimize inter-gang warfare. The birth of this syndicate was the death of the last wild gangster. And it was not the FBI or the police who killed him; it is generally assumed to have been fellow gangsters terrified because this loose cannon had just effectively declared war on the United States government. In his fiery temper, Dutch Schultz had announced that he was going to kill government prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey. The new syndicate was trying to bring order. The last thing it wanted was a war with the United States government packaged and delivered by the likes of Dutch Schultz. So Schultz died and true organized crime was born. E. L. Doctorow's novel BILLY BATHGATE tells the story of a young Irish-American rising in Schultz's organization at the same time Schultz's star started descending. Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay for a film adaptation directed by Robert Benton.
The structure of BILLY BATHGATE's plot parallels that of GOODFELLAS. The story begins with one horrendous crime, flashes back to how things got to this state, and then continues from there into the future. Billy (played by Loren Dean) is on hand to see Schultz (played by Dustin Hoffman) murdering Bo Weinberg (played by Bruce Willis). It is a long ritual involving a tugboat, a tub of cement, and Drew Preston (play by Nicole Kidman), who is Bo's unreliable girlfriend. From there we return to how a teenage Billy, awestruck at Schultz's power and wealth, first accidentally impresses Schultz, then intentionally does it, then connives his way into Schultz's organization. Bathgate begins as mascot and errand boy to the Schultz organization and uses his new-found wealth to impress his girlfriend and his mother, the latter drained from a sweatshop job that pays in a week what Billy spends on one lunch.
There are problems with the script that might also be virtues. This is not a rock 'em, sock 'em, UNTOUCHABLES sort of film. There are scenes with action, but there are not many. There is little to race your pulse. There is not even much dramatic tension. The film is more concerned with questions such as whether Schultz really is exceptional or whether he is just an ordinary man. There is a little bit of inter-gang rivalry, a bit of Billy's risking his life from or for his boss. But Billy's scams are small and short. Like RAGTIME, this is not an adventure film; it is an opportunity to put the viewer in a well-realized historical setting so that the viewer can appreciate the situation. In some cases advancing Billy's story frustratingly takes us away from Schultz's story. There is also a little sex in Billy's story, giving us some visual candy to appease us that we are not seeing Schultz's story.
One problem with the dramatic tension is that Hoffman does not do angry and psychotic very well. Sometimes putting someone mild in a vicious role works extremely well. A case in point might be Alan Arkin in WAIT UNTIL DARK. However, the decision to have the driving power of a film to be the force of Dustin Hoffman's anger is questionable.
"Sorry, Mr. Hoffman, we're looking for someone meaner."
"I can be meaner!"
"We're looking for someone angrier."
"I can be angrier!"
"We want someone scary."
"I can be sceary!"
"We want someone else."
Hoffman kicks the casting director in the bedoobees.
Henry Fonda also was convincing in nice-guy roles but had problems with heavies. Hoffman is not terrible in the role, but he is only okay and much more could have been hope for.
Next we come to the question of historical accuracy. Here, too, the film is flawed, but not terribly. There were some points that were indeed quite accurate. Arthur Flegenheimer did indeed borrow the name Dutch Schultz from another hood. And he was indeed very even-tempered until it came to the question of money. If Schultz thought you were cheating him out of even small money, your life was not worth much. "Legs" Diamond and Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll each died from Schultz's rages over money and they were by no means alone. But the film did not go far enough. It showed Dutch Schultz as a fancy dresser. Schultz was too much of a skinflint ever to dress nicely. Lucky Luciano said, "Dutch was the cheapest guy I ever knew. The guy had a couple of million bucks and he dressed like a pig." The film shows Bo Weinberg being an independent hood murdered before the upstate New York trial. In actual fact, Weinberg worked for Schultz. He had little faith that Schultz would win the upstate New York trial and let Luciano move in on Schultz's rackets while Schultz was pretending to be a good citizen for the trial. Another inaccuracy is in the spoiler section following this review. As a minor aside, incidentally, we see a little of Stephen Hill playing Otto Berman--known as Abbadabba Berman. He was a mathematician who worked out a method to increase the numbers racket take by 10%. He would find out what numbers had been least played. From there he figured how much he had to bet in racetrack pari-mutuel machines to make the low-played numbers come up winners. That part was perfectly legal. The pari-mutuel machine bets would lose, but the right numbers would come up and Schultz would pay out less. The "Abbadabba" nickname was a magic word (corrupted from "Abracadabra"?) indicating that Berman was the magician of the numbers racket.
Overall this is not a perfect portrait of Dutch Schultz and the people around him, and it could use a bit more action, but it is watchable and enjoyable. My rating is a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
*****SPOILER**********SPOILER**********SPOILER**********SPOILER*****
The attack on the Palace Chop House could have been better researched. Charlie "The Bug" Workman (I'm not making this up!) did the hit. To make sure he was not surprised by someone coming out of the restroom, he went there first and shot the heavy-set man washing his hands. He then burst out of the john with a .38 in each hand and gunned down the three men at Schultz's table. Bug then realized the man in the john was Schultz and went back in to rifle Schultz's pockets. This is quite different from the scene in the film. Also, Schultz appears dead in the film. Actually, Schultz raved for about two days before dying. I occasionally get mail from people whose response to having inaccuracies pointed out is "What does it matter?" That is never an easy question to answer. In truth, historical accuracy is its own reward. It only matters if it matters. To me it matters.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzy!leeper
leeper@mtgzy.att.com
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
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