I am delaying my writing about events in Egypt and neighbouring nations as the situation worsens until there is a clear indications of what will happen. I have spent this week watching and listening to the various news channels but not exclusively
Sky Atlantic is a new drama channel which opened on Tuesday evening 1st of February 2011. The channel has exclusively acquired some current highly regarded drama series from the United Sates together with the re-showing of other favourites from Sky channels such 24 and the excellent Soprano’s.
I recorded to view later two of the most heralded new series and report than one has so far proved a major disappointment while the other, although geared for mainstream USA has potential because the focus is on one family of law enforces who have been written and acted as real people. Interestingly both series feature men affected by their involvement in war, one in the trenches of the first world war and the other in Iraq.
I begin with the best of the two, Blue Bloods, subtitled, New York, Finest, featuring Tom Selleck as the Police Commissioner who is widowed but has been spotted appearing with a date by one of his surviving three children. One a son has been killed, apparently in the line of duty, but the suspicion is that he was investigating a secret vigilante society within the service which has some 35000 officers with additional auxiliaries and school safety agents which brings the combined total to 45000. The Commissioner, unlike his counterpart in Greater London is expected to make press statements on the hoof although similar to police chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic they are subjected to continuous political scrutiny and pressure.
Unlike the Boardwalk Empire the Police Commissioner appears dedicated and uncorrupted whereas the police boss in 1920 Atlantic City is hand and glove with his criminal brother who is also the city Finance Chief. More of that later.
On Blue Blood a second son has returned from Iraq and his father suggests he needs counselling for his anger and use of illegal methods to catch criminals. The third son, the youngest, is the brightest who has been to college and has a girl socialite girl friend from a wealthy and influential family who approved of the relationship because the young man is a graduate of the Harvard Law School. However the situation is reported to have changed with his decision to become a basic grade trainee in the police force. The series opens at the training graduation ceremony presided over by his father and watched with pride by his fiancée. The other family member is an assistant District Attorney whose function is to prosecute those apprehended by her brothers. To add to the dynasty, Selleck is following in the footsteps of his father who from the first episode appears was forced into retirement as Police Commissioner for reasons yet to be disclosed.
In the first pilot episode we are introduced to family, wives, children and girl friends but the main story centres on a nine year old Latino girl who is snatched on her way home or to school. Does any responsible and sensible parent let 9 year olds go anywhere unescorted by an adult these days? The added problem is the girl requires a daily insulation injection and will comatose and die if she is not found in less than 24 hours. The major flaw in this story line is that not only does the kidnapper leaves the doll he used to attract the attention of the girl as she passed his white van by the roadside but inquiries reveal that this is a prototype test doll where only three have been sold in the state of New York and therefore the addresses of he purchasers are known. The odds on this be true are as good as my winning the national lottery.
They eliminate two and find the wife of the third who says she does not know his whereabouts and is divorcing him, having moved to the state from Miami Florida. The camera lets us know that she plays with a gold cross when talking and doing so in a somewhat guilty fashion. When they track the man down to a rooming house they find a blue van outside were a little scrape shows it has been repainted from white. That the kidnapper was able to arrange or do this himself within the time frame is also questionable. When the Detective son and his partner finds the man in a rooming house adjacent to the parked van he sends his partner out to radio in the arrest. He then water boards the man in the toilet, a feat unlikely to be possible in British made toilet bowls.
He is successful in finding out the location of the girl and she is rescued alive and reunited with her mother after a medical check. The mother visits the police HQ to deliver a cake with the girl to give their thanks for saving her life comparatively unharmed. The Detectives had found a communion dress and candles in their investigation. There is a scene where his assistant prosecutor sister berates him for the action which in addition to an Internal Affairs inquiry is bound to result in a failure to convict because evidence obtained under torture is inadmissible in court.
A district judge then gives the police the weekend to establish additional evidence to justify holding the man in custody in view of the allegations of torture. In attempting to help his son, Kelleck raises looking at cold cases across the country to see any similar characteristics as a 50 year old does not suddenly get the urge to kidnap a girl and act on it with such calculating organisation.
There is a family lunch at which the tensions between family members of the three generations emerge.
The new son policeman is at a dinner with his girl friend and two others and she becomes upset when he tells about his day which brings vividly to her the risks of injury and death he faces every day. They become quickly reconciled on his desire to be a policeman although this is a reality which all families of police, fire, and military personnel have to face when they are on active duty..
Later the son is approached by a secret FBI team investigating the secret vigilante organisation within the force and after rejecting their interest he reconsiders on being told that his brother may have been killed by these criminals within the present day force. In the Boardwalk Empire senior police offices are responsible for beating up before killing and framing an abusive husband for murders committed by a relative of the local crime lord.
Selleck also visits his father to report on professional and family matters and gain advice.
Colleagues going through cold case files come across the death of a nine year old girl in Florida with similar characteristics to the situation prevented in New York. On examining the files he sees a missing cross worn by the girl which looks similar to the one worn by the estranged wife of the kidnapper. On the reverse of the cross he finds the name of the murdered girl. By implication this means their will be a conviction for murder in Florida at which the kidnapping in New York will be taken into consideration thus reducing the pressure on the Detective regarding water boarding. It raises the issue of complicity on the part of the wife which is not raised in the episode.
Against the background of an organised conspiracy of vigilante police there is the issue of the moral justification or not of taking action to prevent the unnecessary death of a nine year girl. What if there a bomb set to go off within a limited time period. What action is or is not legitimate to force someone to reveal its location?
My understanding is that the series is devoted to each episode raising issues of what is right and wrong, how far should or can the justice system be stretched to cover such situations in getting the balance between the rights and interests of the victims of crime and the rights and interests of people suspected of crime?
There is nothing grey about the award winning Boardwalk Empire, directed in the pilot episode by Marin Scorsese. The series covers the commencement of prohibition and its lucrative addition to the wealth of the crime lords in Atlantic City, Chicago and New York.
The first two 90 mins period episodes 50 to 60 mins of actual drama, were hugely disappointing as they add nothing to our existing knowledge of the period and the acting and script is no better than OK. Despite the awards it is third rate Scorsese. Ok there is female flesh, sex and gratuitous violence to entertain, but what else?
In fairness I did some additional information about those times from the research undertaken before commencing the writing.
The story is based on the life of Enoch Lewis Thompson, known as Nucky, the criminal boss who controlled Atlantic City and County, its local government the ruling Republican Party machine, prostitution, gambling, extortion and bootlegging during prohibition. Born 1883 he came to power in the City in 1911 and held on to power until 1941 when he was sent to prison. He died in 1968.
When he was three his parents moved to the County where his father became alternating Sheriff and Under Sheriff living at two locations for two decades. His father and the County Clerk dominated the County and City Government with one other in an unholy triumph rates. There is no reference to their morality.
Nucky became Under Sheriff to his father and the following year, aged 23 he married a teenage girl from one the locations his family had lived. He became secretary of the local Republican Party and when the local political boss was convicted of corruption charges Nucky took over his position.
Atlantic City was dependent on Tourism and to give it the edge the Republican Party decided to allow gambling, prostitution and drinking on Sundays with the operatives paying tribute to the Party. This was his inheritance added to which there were personal payments for contracts and for jobs. Within five years his wife died and unfortunately I have no knowledge of the circumstances but a previous teetotaller he turned to drink. He switched official position according the most profitable and useful including publisher of a weekly paper and a bank director and once established he was approached to get a number of appointees into the State Governorship and US State Senate.
The TV series commences with Nucky established and in full control as Prohibition is put into effect and he speaks movingly to a temperance organisation and affects a pregnant young woman in the audience who unknown to him drinks heavily and beat hers which also distresses their two children. She seeks help and he gives her sufficient money to see her through the Winter. Her husband spots her arrive in the Rolls Royce of the Crime Lord so she gives a cover story but he finds and takes the money from her accusing her of prostitution although she is heavily pregnant.. When Nucky finds him gambling the money he takes it from him and the man goes home and beats his wife to the extent she needs the hospital. Nucky visits her in hospital and when he needs someone to take the rap for the killing of four bootleggers, he contacts his brother who arranges for the man to be beaten and killed and then blamed for the killings.
The real Nucky lived in a suite of rooms at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on the boardwalk, had a butler man Friday and a Chauffer and gave lavish parties. He was also very generous especially to poor voters particular the black community who did the domestic and service jobs
He built a convention Hall so the city could host all round conferences, including of crime bosses such as Al Capone (in 1932) although in the series Capone is a young man about to make his way.
From 1930 the Federal authorities were pointed in the direction of Thompson by the Hearst newspapers, because Thompson had taken too close an interest in the medial mogul‘s steady date showgirl. In 1933 with the end of Prohibition the City lost its attraction and his income fell substantially. His indictment was on tax evasion and he married a show girl ten days before starting a ten year sentence. He was 58 and she 33 years. He was paroled after four years and appeared to live a much quieter life with his wife and living with his brother. When he died the local paper admitted he was a big eater and drinker, womanizer and a lover of all fine things. It described him as political ruthless and amoral as well as remaining popular. There is no reference to responsibility for violence including killings.
In addition to Nucky and the Irish now widow with two children, the third central character in the series is Jimmy Darmody who is a protégé of Thompson and not a relative as I first thought. The effects of World War I service have left him ambitious and prepared to do anything to gain wealth and power and as the chauffer, he requests a greater role. He has a common law wife and child. He is also said in the TV production to be the natural child of Commodore Louis Kaestner : The real predecessor of Thompson who in the series is financial supported by him and appears to exercise power over him.
Nucky has set up a deal to provide a regular shipment of alcohol to other real life characters from New York and Chicago. One became head of the Jewish Mafia in New York, Arnold Rothstein, whose most notorious action was to fix the result of the 1919 world baseball series. His education and cultural style had great impact especially on Lucky Luciano who also features. His interests were gambling, and bootlegging during prohibition. He also controlled the important Maryland horse racing track and the outcome of races.
Rothstein comes to Atlantic City to commence a regular weekly deal on imported alcohol but instead of paying in advance wins $90000 from Nucky’s casino by cheating and then insists on using the money to buy the alcohol and to take the balance in cash. He was a millionaire by the age of 30. He used a corner of a famous restaurant on Broadway to transact business. He was shot dead with several theories that he was killed by or on the orders of his associate Dutch Schultz or because of a gambling debt he refused to settle.
In the first episode, with the same name as the series, Nucky and Jimmy visit a Funeral home where there is also a business making diluted whisky with added ingredients to make it taste original. The owner/manager gives Jimmy a glass of whisky looking Formaldehyde as a joke but Jimmy wants to kill him as a consequence. Later after the establishment of the special Prohibition FBI team they pick up Jimmy and he gives them the Funeral home in retaliation and to occupy their attention while he and Al Capone hijack the shipment of Alcohol intended for New York and which they sell to the Chicago crime bosses.
Al Capone loses his head when a deer comes out of the neighbour woods and they start to shoot Rothstein’s men. Al Capone is still a young pun as they say at this point, another driver general assistant like Jimmy. who works for the Fox - Johnny Torrio, an Italian American. It was Torrio who pressed the idea of a National Crime Syndicate. In addition to profiting from alcohol during prohibition, gambling and numbers, and prostitution, he was also into loan sharking, extortion and drugs. He also advocated conservative dressing and behaviour and the provision of legitimate businesses. An associate was Big Jim Colosimo whose interests were brothels, his restaurant and the voice of Caruso.
In real life Colosimo abandoned his wife and the aunt of Torrio who after the divorce married a young actress and singer These aspects are not in the TV series. He also disagreed with Torrio over the expansion into alcohol. In real life and in the TV series he is assassinated in his restaurant. His killer was never brought to justice.
Two gangs dominated Chicago in the 1920’s and the turf and activity war led to the downfall of Torrio who survived a major assassination attempt. He was watched over by Capone before going to prison when he recovered for Prohibition violations. He returned and went with his family back to Italy. The Turf War led to Capone’s St Valentine’s Day attempt to eliminate the opposition. Torrio returned to the USA to give evidence at the trial of Al Capone. He is featured in various Capone films and the Untouchables.
In the second episode, The Ivory Tower, reporters approach Torrio and Capone at the funeral of Colosimo asking if they are responsible for his death.
A man called George Baxter, I am not yet sure who he is, introduces Nucky to his teenage “clippie friend who so far has not yielded to his sexual advances. Nucky tells her she should enter the beauty competition and her companion is one of he judges. I assume to show another aspect of Nucky’s role as a Godfather
After the raid on the Funeral home Mucky tells the owner manager he is it of business and replaces him with Chalky White, the black criminal boss.
With his share of the proceeds from the sale of the alcohol, after giving Capone and Nucky a share he buys his wife a 100 dollar bracelet, his son toys and provides the family a belated lit Christmas tree. He then give his mother, a show girl (I thought she was his mistress at first!!!!) a necklace similar to one she sold to help bring him up. Nucky tells him that if he is to be his own master gangster he has also to pay him tribute of $3000. He has this amount left less 500 which he tries to borrow from Capone who secretly laughs at him. He then steals back the necklace to meet the debt.
In New York Luck Luciano brings another gangster Frankie Yale to see Rothstein who is convinced that Yale was responsible for the assassination of Colosimo. The fat man and young girl are on the way home when they find one of the Rothstein’s men still alive. The FBI man goes to see the Irish widow with two sons to say that he does not believe her husband was involved in the killing of Rothstein’s men. He was a patsy.
Sky Atlantic is a new drama channel which opened on Tuesday evening 1st of February 2011. The channel has exclusively acquired some current highly regarded drama series from the United Sates together with the re-showing of other favourites from Sky channels such 24 and the excellent Soprano’s.
I recorded to view later two of the most heralded new series and report than one has so far proved a major disappointment while the other, although geared for mainstream USA has potential because the focus is on one family of law enforces who have been written and acted as real people. Interestingly both series feature men affected by their involvement in war, one in the trenches of the first world war and the other in Iraq.
I begin with the best of the two, Blue Bloods, subtitled, New York, Finest, featuring Tom Selleck as the Police Commissioner who is widowed but has been spotted appearing with a date by one of his surviving three children. One a son has been killed, apparently in the line of duty, but the suspicion is that he was investigating a secret vigilante society within the service which has some 35000 officers with additional auxiliaries and school safety agents which brings the combined total to 45000. The Commissioner, unlike his counterpart in Greater London is expected to make press statements on the hoof although similar to police chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic they are subjected to continuous political scrutiny and pressure.
Unlike the Boardwalk Empire the Police Commissioner appears dedicated and uncorrupted whereas the police boss in 1920 Atlantic City is hand and glove with his criminal brother who is also the city Finance Chief. More of that later.
On Blue Blood a second son has returned from Iraq and his father suggests he needs counselling for his anger and use of illegal methods to catch criminals. The third son, the youngest, is the brightest who has been to college and has a girl socialite girl friend from a wealthy and influential family who approved of the relationship because the young man is a graduate of the Harvard Law School. However the situation is reported to have changed with his decision to become a basic grade trainee in the police force. The series opens at the training graduation ceremony presided over by his father and watched with pride by his fiancée. The other family member is an assistant District Attorney whose function is to prosecute those apprehended by her brothers. To add to the dynasty, Selleck is following in the footsteps of his father who from the first episode appears was forced into retirement as Police Commissioner for reasons yet to be disclosed.
In the first pilot episode we are introduced to family, wives, children and girl friends but the main story centres on a nine year old Latino girl who is snatched on her way home or to school. Does any responsible and sensible parent let 9 year olds go anywhere unescorted by an adult these days? The added problem is the girl requires a daily insulation injection and will comatose and die if she is not found in less than 24 hours. The major flaw in this story line is that not only does the kidnapper leaves the doll he used to attract the attention of the girl as she passed his white van by the roadside but inquiries reveal that this is a prototype test doll where only three have been sold in the state of New York and therefore the addresses of he purchasers are known. The odds on this be true are as good as my winning the national lottery.
They eliminate two and find the wife of the third who says she does not know his whereabouts and is divorcing him, having moved to the state from Miami Florida. The camera lets us know that she plays with a gold cross when talking and doing so in a somewhat guilty fashion. When they track the man down to a rooming house they find a blue van outside were a little scrape shows it has been repainted from white. That the kidnapper was able to arrange or do this himself within the time frame is also questionable. When the Detective son and his partner finds the man in a rooming house adjacent to the parked van he sends his partner out to radio in the arrest. He then water boards the man in the toilet, a feat unlikely to be possible in British made toilet bowls.
He is successful in finding out the location of the girl and she is rescued alive and reunited with her mother after a medical check. The mother visits the police HQ to deliver a cake with the girl to give their thanks for saving her life comparatively unharmed. The Detectives had found a communion dress and candles in their investigation. There is a scene where his assistant prosecutor sister berates him for the action which in addition to an Internal Affairs inquiry is bound to result in a failure to convict because evidence obtained under torture is inadmissible in court.
A district judge then gives the police the weekend to establish additional evidence to justify holding the man in custody in view of the allegations of torture. In attempting to help his son, Kelleck raises looking at cold cases across the country to see any similar characteristics as a 50 year old does not suddenly get the urge to kidnap a girl and act on it with such calculating organisation.
There is a family lunch at which the tensions between family members of the three generations emerge.
The new son policeman is at a dinner with his girl friend and two others and she becomes upset when he tells about his day which brings vividly to her the risks of injury and death he faces every day. They become quickly reconciled on his desire to be a policeman although this is a reality which all families of police, fire, and military personnel have to face when they are on active duty..
Later the son is approached by a secret FBI team investigating the secret vigilante organisation within the force and after rejecting their interest he reconsiders on being told that his brother may have been killed by these criminals within the present day force. In the Boardwalk Empire senior police offices are responsible for beating up before killing and framing an abusive husband for murders committed by a relative of the local crime lord.
Selleck also visits his father to report on professional and family matters and gain advice.
Colleagues going through cold case files come across the death of a nine year old girl in Florida with similar characteristics to the situation prevented in New York. On examining the files he sees a missing cross worn by the girl which looks similar to the one worn by the estranged wife of the kidnapper. On the reverse of the cross he finds the name of the murdered girl. By implication this means their will be a conviction for murder in Florida at which the kidnapping in New York will be taken into consideration thus reducing the pressure on the Detective regarding water boarding. It raises the issue of complicity on the part of the wife which is not raised in the episode.
Against the background of an organised conspiracy of vigilante police there is the issue of the moral justification or not of taking action to prevent the unnecessary death of a nine year girl. What if there a bomb set to go off within a limited time period. What action is or is not legitimate to force someone to reveal its location?
My understanding is that the series is devoted to each episode raising issues of what is right and wrong, how far should or can the justice system be stretched to cover such situations in getting the balance between the rights and interests of the victims of crime and the rights and interests of people suspected of crime?
There is nothing grey about the award winning Boardwalk Empire, directed in the pilot episode by Marin Scorsese. The series covers the commencement of prohibition and its lucrative addition to the wealth of the crime lords in Atlantic City, Chicago and New York.
The first two 90 mins period episodes 50 to 60 mins of actual drama, were hugely disappointing as they add nothing to our existing knowledge of the period and the acting and script is no better than OK. Despite the awards it is third rate Scorsese. Ok there is female flesh, sex and gratuitous violence to entertain, but what else?
In fairness I did some additional information about those times from the research undertaken before commencing the writing.
The story is based on the life of Enoch Lewis Thompson, known as Nucky, the criminal boss who controlled Atlantic City and County, its local government the ruling Republican Party machine, prostitution, gambling, extortion and bootlegging during prohibition. Born 1883 he came to power in the City in 1911 and held on to power until 1941 when he was sent to prison. He died in 1968.
When he was three his parents moved to the County where his father became alternating Sheriff and Under Sheriff living at two locations for two decades. His father and the County Clerk dominated the County and City Government with one other in an unholy triumph rates. There is no reference to their morality.
Nucky became Under Sheriff to his father and the following year, aged 23 he married a teenage girl from one the locations his family had lived. He became secretary of the local Republican Party and when the local political boss was convicted of corruption charges Nucky took over his position.
Atlantic City was dependent on Tourism and to give it the edge the Republican Party decided to allow gambling, prostitution and drinking on Sundays with the operatives paying tribute to the Party. This was his inheritance added to which there were personal payments for contracts and for jobs. Within five years his wife died and unfortunately I have no knowledge of the circumstances but a previous teetotaller he turned to drink. He switched official position according the most profitable and useful including publisher of a weekly paper and a bank director and once established he was approached to get a number of appointees into the State Governorship and US State Senate.
The TV series commences with Nucky established and in full control as Prohibition is put into effect and he speaks movingly to a temperance organisation and affects a pregnant young woman in the audience who unknown to him drinks heavily and beat hers which also distresses their two children. She seeks help and he gives her sufficient money to see her through the Winter. Her husband spots her arrive in the Rolls Royce of the Crime Lord so she gives a cover story but he finds and takes the money from her accusing her of prostitution although she is heavily pregnant.. When Nucky finds him gambling the money he takes it from him and the man goes home and beats his wife to the extent she needs the hospital. Nucky visits her in hospital and when he needs someone to take the rap for the killing of four bootleggers, he contacts his brother who arranges for the man to be beaten and killed and then blamed for the killings.
The real Nucky lived in a suite of rooms at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on the boardwalk, had a butler man Friday and a Chauffer and gave lavish parties. He was also very generous especially to poor voters particular the black community who did the domestic and service jobs
He built a convention Hall so the city could host all round conferences, including of crime bosses such as Al Capone (in 1932) although in the series Capone is a young man about to make his way.
From 1930 the Federal authorities were pointed in the direction of Thompson by the Hearst newspapers, because Thompson had taken too close an interest in the medial mogul‘s steady date showgirl. In 1933 with the end of Prohibition the City lost its attraction and his income fell substantially. His indictment was on tax evasion and he married a show girl ten days before starting a ten year sentence. He was 58 and she 33 years. He was paroled after four years and appeared to live a much quieter life with his wife and living with his brother. When he died the local paper admitted he was a big eater and drinker, womanizer and a lover of all fine things. It described him as political ruthless and amoral as well as remaining popular. There is no reference to responsibility for violence including killings.
In addition to Nucky and the Irish now widow with two children, the third central character in the series is Jimmy Darmody who is a protégé of Thompson and not a relative as I first thought. The effects of World War I service have left him ambitious and prepared to do anything to gain wealth and power and as the chauffer, he requests a greater role. He has a common law wife and child. He is also said in the TV production to be the natural child of Commodore Louis Kaestner : The real predecessor of Thompson who in the series is financial supported by him and appears to exercise power over him.
Nucky has set up a deal to provide a regular shipment of alcohol to other real life characters from New York and Chicago. One became head of the Jewish Mafia in New York, Arnold Rothstein, whose most notorious action was to fix the result of the 1919 world baseball series. His education and cultural style had great impact especially on Lucky Luciano who also features. His interests were gambling, and bootlegging during prohibition. He also controlled the important Maryland horse racing track and the outcome of races.
Rothstein comes to Atlantic City to commence a regular weekly deal on imported alcohol but instead of paying in advance wins $90000 from Nucky’s casino by cheating and then insists on using the money to buy the alcohol and to take the balance in cash. He was a millionaire by the age of 30. He used a corner of a famous restaurant on Broadway to transact business. He was shot dead with several theories that he was killed by or on the orders of his associate Dutch Schultz or because of a gambling debt he refused to settle.
In the first episode, with the same name as the series, Nucky and Jimmy visit a Funeral home where there is also a business making diluted whisky with added ingredients to make it taste original. The owner/manager gives Jimmy a glass of whisky looking Formaldehyde as a joke but Jimmy wants to kill him as a consequence. Later after the establishment of the special Prohibition FBI team they pick up Jimmy and he gives them the Funeral home in retaliation and to occupy their attention while he and Al Capone hijack the shipment of Alcohol intended for New York and which they sell to the Chicago crime bosses.
Al Capone loses his head when a deer comes out of the neighbour woods and they start to shoot Rothstein’s men. Al Capone is still a young pun as they say at this point, another driver general assistant like Jimmy. who works for the Fox - Johnny Torrio, an Italian American. It was Torrio who pressed the idea of a National Crime Syndicate. In addition to profiting from alcohol during prohibition, gambling and numbers, and prostitution, he was also into loan sharking, extortion and drugs. He also advocated conservative dressing and behaviour and the provision of legitimate businesses. An associate was Big Jim Colosimo whose interests were brothels, his restaurant and the voice of Caruso.
In real life Colosimo abandoned his wife and the aunt of Torrio who after the divorce married a young actress and singer These aspects are not in the TV series. He also disagreed with Torrio over the expansion into alcohol. In real life and in the TV series he is assassinated in his restaurant. His killer was never brought to justice.
Two gangs dominated Chicago in the 1920’s and the turf and activity war led to the downfall of Torrio who survived a major assassination attempt. He was watched over by Capone before going to prison when he recovered for Prohibition violations. He returned and went with his family back to Italy. The Turf War led to Capone’s St Valentine’s Day attempt to eliminate the opposition. Torrio returned to the USA to give evidence at the trial of Al Capone. He is featured in various Capone films and the Untouchables.
In the second episode, The Ivory Tower, reporters approach Torrio and Capone at the funeral of Colosimo asking if they are responsible for his death.
A man called George Baxter, I am not yet sure who he is, introduces Nucky to his teenage “clippie friend who so far has not yielded to his sexual advances. Nucky tells her she should enter the beauty competition and her companion is one of he judges. I assume to show another aspect of Nucky’s role as a Godfather
After the raid on the Funeral home Mucky tells the owner manager he is it of business and replaces him with Chalky White, the black criminal boss.
With his share of the proceeds from the sale of the alcohol, after giving Capone and Nucky a share he buys his wife a 100 dollar bracelet, his son toys and provides the family a belated lit Christmas tree. He then give his mother, a show girl (I thought she was his mistress at first!!!!) a necklace similar to one she sold to help bring him up. Nucky tells him that if he is to be his own master gangster he has also to pay him tribute of $3000. He has this amount left less 500 which he tries to borrow from Capone who secretly laughs at him. He then steals back the necklace to meet the debt.
In New York Luck Luciano brings another gangster Frankie Yale to see Rothstein who is convinced that Yale was responsible for the assassination of Colosimo. The fat man and young girl are on the way home when they find one of the Rothstein’s men still alive. The FBI man goes to see the Irish widow with two sons to say that he does not believe her husband was involved in the killing of Rothstein’s men. He was a patsy.
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