For me, the great Roger Corman will always be best remembered for his film versions of classic Edgar Allen Poe stories; but he also made a lot of films outside of the horror genre and clearly stories of true American crime interested him as aside from this film he also directed Bloody Mama based on Ma Barker. The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre has a fairly strong cult following and I went into this film with some fairly high hopes because of that; although unfortunately I have to say that I'm not as big a fan as many as while this is undoubtedly an interesting and well made crime film; it also has several flaws. The plot focuses on the Prohibition era and in particular the rivalry between two prominent gangs, one of which lead by the infamous Al Capone. As the title suggests; the main focus of the film is on the famous 'Saint Valentines Day Massacre' which saw a group of men gunned down in cold blood. The film focuses on the main players in both the gangs and focuses on the events up to and including the incident.
As anyone who knows anything about Roger Corman would expect; the film does not benefit from a big budget and in some ways feels like a cheaper version of several big budget crime flicks. However, in spite of this, Corman still manages to give his film a good style and the film really does feel like its taking place in the late 1920's. The plot does not play out like a regular crime film and instead we get a fragmented report on the key events and it almost feels like it could be a documentary with reconstructions. Corman was obviously keen to focus on the history too as there's a voice-over that fills the audience in on key happenings. In my opinion, the film would have been better as a straight drama as the way it has been done means that it's interesting in parts and then not interesting in others and there's not a great deal of fluency which is a shame. The film has a sense of inevitability to it all the way through as it's always clear how it will end and while it contains no surprises; The St Valentines Day Massacre is at least a successful retelling of the famous event of it's title.
As anyone who knows anything about Roger Corman would expect; the film does not benefit from a big budget and in some ways feels like a cheaper version of several big budget crime flicks. However, in spite of this, Corman still manages to give his film a good style and the film really does feel like its taking place in the late 1920's. The plot does not play out like a regular crime film and instead we get a fragmented report on the key events and it almost feels like it could be a documentary with reconstructions. Corman was obviously keen to focus on the history too as there's a voice-over that fills the audience in on key happenings. In my opinion, the film would have been better as a straight drama as the way it has been done means that it's interesting in parts and then not interesting in others and there's not a great deal of fluency which is a shame. The film has a sense of inevitability to it all the way through as it's always clear how it will end and while it contains no surprises; The St Valentines Day Massacre is at least a successful retelling of the famous event of it's title.