"The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" was the first major studio/big budget film made by Roger Corman. And, as you'd expect with this master of economical filming, it was finished ahead of schedule and with money to spare!

The story is told semi-documentary style. There is narration throughout by Paul Frees and then the actors act out their parts. The film is not just about the mass killing but all the events leading up to it as well as an epilogue telling the sad finales of these folks.

With an exceptional cast of excellent supporting actors, Roger Corman directing and a gritty sense of realism, you can't help but like and appreciate this movie. It's not film noir...more ultra-realism with the actual names and events depicted as we know or suspect they occurred. Well worth your time.

What the OK Corral story is to the western genre, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre is to the gangster film, a story told and retold where the characters have assumed some mythic proportions. Funny thing is I think both Al Capone and Bugs Moran would have scoffed at the idea they would become modern mythic characters.

Though it boasts color and better production values, the St. Valentine's Day Massacre is really just a warmed over version of what the public had seen only a few years ago on The Untouchables. For that matter The St. Valentine's Day Massacre was also released too soon after the film Al Capone that starred Rod Steiger in the title role.

Jason Robards, Jr. as Al Capone and Ralph Meeker as Bugs Moran fit the roles well. Robards seems to be having a great old time in the part. He overacts like crazy, but then again so did Robert DeNiro in the big screen version of The Untouchables and so did Steiger in his film. The role just seems to call for that.

Speaking of overacting, George Segal is also having a great old diet of scenery as one of Moran's trigger men. This was his first film after getting his Oscar nomination for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and it certainly is a lot different than the young college professor in that film.

In fact with Robards leading the pack everyone seems to be throwing away all restraint. The film stops just this side of being played for laughs.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre is a good factual retelling of the tale that kind of brought the gangster era in Chicago to a close.

It's 1929 Chicago. Al Capone (Jason Robards) and his gang are one side in the violent corrupt city. Peter Gusenberg (George Segal) forces a bar owner to buy his over-priced beer as a part of Bugs Moran (Ralph Meeker)'s northside gang. The two rivals are headed for a collision course.

It's violent but somehow it's almost lifeless. These are guys in suits, even the thugs. They are one level below the most visceral gangsters. These guys are acting their butts off and still, it's play acting. Even the gunshots result in obviously fake wounds and fake blood. There are lots of gunfire. They're doing the old style gunshot dying although the quick cuts help modernize it. It's a little bit of an older standard while movies like Bonnie and Clyde are taking the genre to a whole new level. I also don't like the narration. I don't remember all the names that it lists off. It becomes background noise and mostly an unnecessary one. The early narration is a little useful but nothing else. This is a forgotten gangster movie and there is a reason for that. B&C comes out a few months later and sucks out all the oxygen.