“The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet”
Vijay Kant
2 years ago
Gangsters flourish where there is chaos. In many ghettos of Mumbai, gangsters provided social stability and, dare I say, quick justice to ghetto occupants. Gangsters are a result of weak, corrupt and incompetent governance.
Charles Dalglish
2 years ago
“But when Runyon wrote his stories in the Thirties and Forties….” His stories were published in the 30s and 40s, but I read somewhere that Runyon was writing about a previous generation, which makes sense to me. He moved to New York as an experienced sports writer in 1910, and I think his inspiration was the fellows he met over the next twenty years. The passage of time allowed Runyon to transmute nasty low-lifes into lovable rogues. I see him as closest to PG Wodehouse, who went to New York in 1904. In that year Wodehouse wrote a show song called “Put Me In My Little Cell”, a Gilbertian number for a trio of comic crooks. His novel “Psmith, Journalist”, in which Psmith visits New York, was first serialised 1909-10, and contained a cast of picaresque sporting coves who hung around pugilists. The gangsters of the 30s and 40s were too violent, professional and organised for humour.
This dislocation explains why the show Guys and Dolls, which I love, creaks with anachronism. “Luck be a Lady Tonight” was musically of its time (the show opened 1950) not Prohibition, which ended 1933. The film (1955) was worse yet, Sinatra looking as if he’d just come from a gig. The clothes, particularly the women in slacks, are pure 1955.
Richard Kuslan
2 years ago
Yes, the delight in the sufferings of others at the hands of the most evil. Not for me! The only just ending for a fictional criminal is his reaping of the whirlwind he himself sowed.
Charles Hedges
2 years ago
Feeble middle class types may idolise gangsters, those who went through the reality of close quarter combat and the horrors of war do not . As a WW2 Special Forces soldier said , ” I spent, the rest of my life trying to forget what I did in the War “.
Watch the BBCs Rogue Warrors and listen to Squadron Sergeant Major Reg Seekings; there is no idolising violence, just an acceptance it was the least worst option other than surrendering to the Nazis.
“The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet”
Gangsters flourish where there is chaos. In many ghettos of Mumbai, gangsters provided social stability and, dare I say, quick justice to ghetto occupants. Gangsters are a result of weak, corrupt and incompetent governance.
“But when Runyon wrote his stories in the Thirties and Forties….” His stories were published in the 30s and 40s, but I read somewhere that Runyon was writing about a previous generation, which makes sense to me. He moved to New York as an experienced sports writer in 1910, and I think his inspiration was the fellows he met over the next twenty years. The passage of time allowed Runyon to transmute nasty low-lifes into lovable rogues. I see him as closest to PG Wodehouse, who went to New York in 1904. In that year Wodehouse wrote a show song called “Put Me In My Little Cell”, a Gilbertian number for a trio of comic crooks. His novel “Psmith, Journalist”, in which Psmith visits New York, was first serialised 1909-10, and contained a cast of picaresque sporting coves who hung around pugilists. The gangsters of the 30s and 40s were too violent, professional and organised for humour.
This dislocation explains why the show Guys and Dolls, which I love, creaks with anachronism. “Luck be a Lady Tonight” was musically of its time (the show opened 1950) not Prohibition, which ended 1933. The film (1955) was worse yet, Sinatra looking as if he’d just come from a gig. The clothes, particularly the women in slacks, are pure 1955.
Yes, the delight in the sufferings of others at the hands of the most evil. Not for me! The only just ending for a fictional criminal is his reaping of the whirlwind he himself sowed.
Feeble middle class types may idolise gangsters, those who went through the reality of close quarter combat and the horrors of war do not . As a WW2 Special Forces soldier said , ” I spent, the rest of my life trying to forget what I did in the War “.
Watch the BBCs Rogue Warrors and listen to Squadron Sergeant Major Reg Seekings; there is no idolising violence, just an acceptance it was the least worst option other than surrendering to the Nazis.