Organized Crime on Page and Screen: Portrayals in Hit Novels, Films, and Television Shows

by David Geherin

Overview

Thanks to writers like Mario Puzo, filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese, and actors like Al Pacino and James Gandolfini, American and Sicilian Mafia characters are well-known figures in contemporary popular culture. Other powerful organized crime groups appearing in popular media include the Neapolitan Camorra and Mexican drug cartels.

This book takes a close look at all these examples of organized crime by examining the different ways these organizations and their members have been portrayed in many of our most popular novels, movies, and TV series, and how the gangster figure has evolved from its earliest depictions in a trio of Hollywood films in the 1930s up to the present day.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476693170
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	10/25/2024
Pages:	233
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.47(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David Geherin, a professor emeritus of English at Eastern Michigan University, is the author of eleven books on crime fiction, four of which were finalists for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award. He lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Part I—Crime Fiction
Italian Mafias and Neapolitan Camorra
Leonardo Sciascia
Andrea Camilleri
Massimo Carlotto
Roberto Saviano
The American Mafia
Mario Puzo
Richard Condon
Laurence Shames
Tod Goldberg
Mexican Drug Cartels
James Carlos Blake
Don Winslow
Part II—Movies and
Movies
Little Caesar, The Public Enemy, and Scarface
Francis Ford Coppola: The Godfather Trilogy
Five Movies by Martin Scorsese
Matteo Garrone: Gomorrah (2009)
Comic Gangster Movies
TV Series
The Sopranos (1999–2007)
Breaking Bad (2008–2013)
Boardwalk Empire (2010–2014)
Peaky Blinders (2013–2022)
Gomorrah: The Series (2014–2021)
Bibliography
Index