THEY AIN’T SO TOUGH

Live by the sword – or the gat – and you shall die accordingly. It is a maxim of the gangster film, but (violent) death becomes some movie mobsters more than others. The genre has produced some of cinema’s most famous fatalities: the lovers in Bonnie and Clyde, Sonny in The Godfather, Tony Montana in Scarface, Billy Bats and Tommy DeVito in GoodFellas, pretty much any hoodlum James Cagney ever played... And this is just scratching the surface. We scour the scuzzy back alleys of the organised-crime film to bring you ten more characters whose last moments will lodge in the memory. (Spoilers, natch.)

GAFFNEY, SCARFACE (1932)

Boss of the Chicago North Side, Gaffney (Boris Karloff) has been cracking down on his South Side rivals, particularly the ambitious Tony Camonte (Paul Muni). But Tony is not one to flinch, and takes the fight to Gaffney in a bowling alley. Close-up of his scorecard as an ‘X’ is marked against a strike (one of many ‘X’ motifs in the film, most famously the scar on Tony’s face). “Just watch this one,” Gaffney says to his henchman. As he crouches to release the ball, a volley of slugs cuts him down. The camera tracks the ball as it hits the pins – a second barrage sounds as the final pin wobbles and falls… Clever visual shorthand by Howard Hawks in a scene that much impressed François Truffaut: “This isn’t literature. It may be dance or poetry. It is certainly cinema.” Kevin Grant

PEPE, PEPE LE MOKO (1937)

Brutal, charming gangster/gentleman thief, Pépé Le Moko, is ingrained in the heart of Algiers’ labyrinthine Casbah – a legend in the flesh. Flaunting his liberty, he knows that if he steps outside of his fiefdom, he will be arrested. Infatuation with Gaby, a Parisian society girl, and an overpowering longing for France conspire towards his tragic adieu. Today his love is sailing home and Pépé determines to join her. Director Julien Duvivier, using surrealistic back projections, maps Pépé’s flight from the Casbah’s teeming warren as a dreamlike levitation. Reveries cease when he is finally apprehended by Inspecteur Slimane. The gangster mournfully watches Gaby’s ship sail away, but as the vertically barred gates of the port close – symbolic of his existential imprisonment – Pépé unsheathes a hidden blade. Cut to Jean Gabin’s beautiful, bereft visage as he scores an artery with cold steel. Knowing he will never go home, Pépé chooses suicide; it is one of underworld cinema’s most heartbreaking dénouements. Clark Hodgkiss

EDDIE BARTLETT, THE ROARING TWENTIES (1939)

Eddie (James Cagney), a washed-up bootlegger, settles his score with wily ex-partner George (Humphrey Bogart). George has been threatening their old pal, a lawyer for the DA, now married to the girl of Eddie’s dreams. As Eddie reminds George, theirs is the law of the gun: “Here’s one rap you ain’t gonna beat.” But Eddie’s fate is also sealed – critically wounded in the shoot-out, he collapses on the steps of a Catholic church. He’s cradled in death by his loyal friend Panama (Gladys George), who tells an inquisitive cop: “He used to be a big shot.” The camera pulls back out of respect… Tough yet sentimental, the closing scene in Raoul Walsh’s masterpiece both redeems and ennobles its antihero. His last violent act frees his friends from the threat of reprisal and provides Cagney with another unforgettable cinematic sendoff (viz. The Public Enemy, Angels with Dirty Faces, White Heat). Kevin Grant

ROY ‘MAD DOG’ EARLE, HIGH SIERRA (1941)

Hounded by the cops, betrayed by a squealer, notorious felon ‘Mad Dog’ Earle (Humphrey Bogart) flees into the mountains, daring his pursuers to follow. Standoff. Several hours pass; rubberneckers gather at the base as the police plant a sniper high above Earle’s eyrie. Anxious among those watching is Marie (Ida Lupino) – she and Earle had planned to make a fresh start after his last job, until the bank robber’s face made the front pages. She’s brought with her Earle’s dog, which runs up the craggy slope. Its bark draws him out – right into the marksman’s line of fire. His body tumbles down the cliff face – “He ain’t much now, is he?” crows a lawman. Weary of gangland life, Earle, one of Bogart’s earliest more-or-less sympathetic roles, had talked of ‘crashing out’, of breaking free. Marie remembers these words as she looks at her fallen idol – his death becomes not a tragedy, therefore, but a kind of triumph. Kevin Grant

‘THE MAN’, THE LINEUP (1958)

Contract killer Dancer (Eli Wallach) has been hired to recover missing heroin for a crime syndicate. He has arranged to drop it off inside San Francisco’s Sutro complex, on a balcony overlooking an ice rink. It is a ruse: Dancer and his partner have failed, and Dancer wants to explain in person to ‘The Man’ (Vaugh Taylor), the organisation’s anonymous, wheelchair-bound chief executive. The Man listens, tight-lipped, stone-faced. Then: “You’re dead.” He can now be identified, and that can’t be allowed. He strikes the gunman across the face. Close-up of Dancer, enraged. He kicks the Man’s chair off the balcony, sending it crashing onto the ice 100 feet below. It crushes a skater as it falls – the kind of detail that often distinguished Don Siegel’s work. This vigorous chase thriller sets two faces of gangsterism in opposition: the pugnacity of Dancer; the Man’s corporate blandness. Each fatally underestimates the other. Kevin Grant

SILIEN, LE DOULOS (1962)

In Jean-Pierre Melville’s sinuous crime drama, ‘doulos’ has a double meaning: slang for informer and a trilby-like hat. It describes Silien (Jean-Paul Belmondo), an ambiguous habitué of the Paris underworld, slick, image-conscious, enigmatic. Suspected throughout of betraying his friend, Gilbert, Silien meets his end in the act of avenging the former’s killing by an errant hitman. Silien shoots the assassin but takes a bullet in the back; blood trickles down his trench coat. With his remaining strength he staggers to a phone, calls his girl: “I won’t be coming tonight.” He looks in a mirror, smooths his hair, adjusts his hat, expires. Marinated in gangster iconography, Melville’s meditation on loyalty and betrayal rehearses the ritualistic behaviour codes he would refine in Le Samourai. The most furtive of Melville’s antiheroes, Silien thrives in a climate of duplicity and suspicion. When it finally engulfs him, he greets it with Belmondian equanimity. Kevin Grant

GORO HANADA, NO. 3 KILLER, BRANDED TO KILL (1967)

When Hanada (Jo Shishido) finds himself tagged for a yakuza hit, he must confront the legendary Number 1 killer. Designated venue is a sporting arena, with the added allure of seeing the woman he has a weakness for, suicidal femme fatale Misako (Anne Mari). After Hanada has waited two hours, the voice of his nemesis flows through the PA system: “Your destiny is closing in on you.” Number 1 appears; shoots. Hanada hits the canvas of the boxing ring, fires back, cutting down the notorious hitman. Hanada cries, “I am Number 1!” But bullets spew from his prone opponent’s pistol and, peppered with lead, Hanada pirouettes before seeing that Number 1 has died. A door opens and, instinctively, Hanada shoots – slaying Misako. Branded is clouded in a nihilistic fug, which climaxes with a delirious Hanada colliding with destiny, a signature scene that showcases both director Seijun Suzuki’s brand of ironic surrealism and Shishido’s collagen cool. Clark Hodgkiss

JACK CARTER, GET CARTER (1971)

Jack Carter (Michael Caine) has journeyed from London to Newcastle to exact revenge on the pornographers who killed his brother, and on Eric Paige (Ian Hendry), the malicious fixer who embroiled his niece in the stag-movie game. Carter pursues Eric through a shipyard and across the beach at Blackhall Colliery. An eye for an eye: he forces Eric to drink from a bottle – the same way that Carter’s brother was prepared for his death – then smashes his shotgun into Eric’s head. Laughing, Carter watches as the scumbag is dumped into the sea by the conveyor system. But a sniper, hired by his bosses to rub out this troublemaker, fires from distance. Head shot. Carter hits the coal-covered beach. As the quintessential London-firm big shot, Caine ditched his affability for a glacial misanthropy. His capital-city swagger contrasts violently with the bleak industrial landscape of the north-east to visually accentuate his downfall. Clark Hodgkiss

UGO PIAZZA, CALIBER 9 (1972)

Fresh out of jail, small-timer Ugo Piazza (Gaston Moschin) has watched his bosses and rivals destroy each other in a Milanese gang war. He looks set to get away with $300,000, hidden from a previous job. Dogged by the volatile Rocco (Mario Adorf), Ugo goes to see his girl, Nelly (Barbara Bouchet). But it’s a trap: with malevolent glee, she has her young lover shoot Ugo in the back. The camera holds on his face, shock dawning on his deadpan features. Staggering, he punches Nelly in the face, perhaps fatally, before being finished off. Enter Rocco, newly respectful of Ugo’s wiles, to avenge him – “That man deserves our honour!” That word, like the putative underworld code it represents, seems almost quaint in the context of director Fernando Di Leo’s crime films. This scene completes Ugo’s noir-like trajectory – false hope, the illusion of freedom, the reality of grubby betrayal. The pain that fills his last moments is more than physical, finally breaking the surface of Moschin’s acutely stoical performance. Kevin Grant

MARK, A BETTER TOMORROW (1986)
Former triad luminary Mark (Chow Yun Fat) tries to broker peace between his ex-con friend Ho (Ti Lung) and Ho’s estranged cop brother, Kit (Leslie Cheung), while all three battle against the mob. Events lurch into a balletic harbourside bloodbath. Mark, escaping on speedboat, turns back towards the harbour, spitting fire from a machine gun. Amid the bullets, he issues Kit a fervent plea: accept that Ho has tried to change. He clasps Kit behind the head. A shot echoes. Kit’s face is doused with blood – Mark’s blood – and the latter is felled in sanguinary slow motion. As Mark sacrifices himself to cement a fraternal bond, Chow consolidated his status as uber-cool icon of Hong Kong. Woo’s preoccupation with loyalty and honour, emulative of Peckinpah and Melville, is writ in blood and tears. Subsequent films with Chow fixated further on messianic symbolism, betraying the calibre of man the actor represented in Woo’s canon. Clark Hodgkiss