Birthday of The Untouchables
June 2 is marked in the history of world cinema with several significant events. On this day in 1989, the premiere of Peter Weir's masterpiece "Dead Poets Society" took place, and in 1995, on this day, Clint Eastwood's melodrama "The Bridges of Madison County" was released on cinema screens. But today's publication is dedicated to another anniversary.
On June 2, 1987, Brian De Palma's criminal drama "The Untouchables" premiered in New York.
The plot of the film by Brian De Palma "The Untouchables" is based on real events that took place in the United States in the 30s of the last century, in the years of the so-called "Prohibition." Their direct participant, federal agent of the Bureau of Prohibition Eliot Ness, outlined his vision of these events in a book co-authored with sportswriter Oscar Fraley and published in 1957. Based on this book, a television series was staged, shown in the United States from 1959 to 1963. By the time the book was published, the name of Eliot Ness and his role in stopping the activities of one of the biggest mob bosses, Al Capone, were completely forgotten. The book revived interest in the personality of Ness, but he no longer knew this, since he died in 1957.
A quarter of a century after the release of "The Untouchables", Paramount Pictures, which owned the film rights to the book by Eliot Ness and Oscar Fraley, decided to make a film version of this series. The implementation of this task was entrusted to Brian De Palma, who had recently made a successful remake of the 1932 film "Scarface". Initially, it was supposed to use an adapted script of those television series. However, De Palma decided to create a new script. The screenplay was entrusted to David Mamet, who recently before won the Pulitzer Prize for "Glengarry Glen Ross".
Almost all the reviews of film critics for the film by Brian De Palma "The Untouchables" were distinguished by internal inconsistency: along with laudatory characteristics, they also contained very sharp remarks. Thus, The New York Times film reviewer Vincent Canby, in his review, written the day after the premiere, wrote: "It's vulgar, violent, funny and sometimes breathtakingly beautiful. After this "Untouchables," all other movies dealing with Prohibition Chicago, Al Capone and the lawmen who brought him to justice (for income tax evasion) must look a bit anemic."
The guru of American film criticism Roger Ebert rated the film with only two and a half stars out of four possible and noted in his review: ""The Untouchables" has great costumes, great sets, great cars, great guns, great locations and a few shots that absolutely capture the Prohibition Era. But it does not have a great script, great performances or great direction."
The film was given the highest rating - 4 stars out of 4 - by James Berardinelli, who wrote in the review: "The Untouchables represents not only a departure from the norm, but an unqualified triumph. This movie (loosely inspired by the TV series, which, in turn, was broadly influenced by historical facts) may not have much thematic depth, but it represents two hours of pure, exuberant entertainment – an epic gangster tale rendered on a grand scale."
As controversial as the reviews from film critics were the festival achievements of Brian De Palma's picture. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated the film in two categories, the American Film Academy - in four. But in both cases, the nominations were minor, in both cases the victory was awarded to Sean Connery for Best Supporting Actor.
Outside the US, Brian De Palma's "The Untouchables" received three prestigious nominations in the Best Foreign Film category. But in the dispute for the Cesar Award of the French Film Academy, it lost to Bernardo Bertolucci's film "The Last Emperor", the competition for the David di Donatello Award of the Italian Film Academy lost to Stanley Kubrick's film "Full Metal Jacket", and the Japanese Academy Award lost to Oliver Stone's film "Platoon".
But all of the above relative failures of the picture were offset by its financial success. With a budget of $25 million, the film grossed over $106 million at the box office. 67% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users rated the film from 8 to 10. Given this indicator and the above, the rating of Brian De Palma's film "The Untouchables" according to FilmGourmand version was 8.183, which allowed it to take 497th Rank in the Golden Thousand.
