Posted on 08/18/2010 9:43:42 AM PDT by AtlasStalled
Boardwalk Empire, a 12-part fictionalized series directed by Martin Scorsese on the link between organized crime and public corruption in Atlantic City, NJ during the Prohibition years, premiers Sept. 19 on HBO. Includes promotional trailers and cast interviews.
(Excerpt) Read more at bitterqueen.typepad.com ...
Hope that it goes on for more than 12 weeks, if it is as good as it looks. HBO has a history of screwing viewers by cutting short promising series such as Rome and Deadwood.
Oh the great and fabulous CREATIVITY of the Hollywierd elite - Martin Scorsese does a film/play/TV series about gangsters!!! /sarc
I DVR’d it and watched part of the first episode last night. Absolutely excellent. I LOVE the period look of every detail (and we have HD now, which makes it all the more amazing!)
Oh, the plot is good too. I definitely didn’t want to divert my attention (which is why I DVR’d it). Yeah, we’ve got On Demand but it doesn’t work that well for HD.
The Roaring Twenties is sort of a neglected era in film & television compared to the ‘30’s on up. I agree the period detail was one of the things I really liked about the show. I’ll be tuning in this season. Dexter starts next Sunday too.
I love Dexter and Penn and Teller BS but have opted to only have the HBO cable package -bad enough as it is, but there are several series I’ve enjoyed there. I can buy Dexter and BS on DVD - just got a really good deal on the first 3 seasons of Dexter from Amazon for around $50 a few weeks back. I’ve also picked up DVDs for the Tudors. Overall cheaper than paying for the extra premium stations.
The vaudeville comedian performing in whiteface was supposed to be Eddie Cantor. He was an early version of Danny Kaye. Cantor recorded "Until the Town Went Dry", which was played under the final sequence. The composer was Albert van Tilzer, best known for writing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame".
The silent film sequence featured Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, one of the great silent comic actors. He mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered Buster Keaton and Bob Hope. A year later, he was at a wild party in Beverly Hills where an actress was killed when somebody raped her with a champagne bottle. Arbuckle was acquitted in three separate manslaughter trials, but his career was ruined.
Dabney Coleman hasn't acted in so long that I didn't identify him as the Commodore until the second viewing. He is almost unrecognizable.
Big Jim Colosimo was a fan of Enrico Caruso. In that era, there was a saying in opera, "Good tenor, bad actor." Caruso was the first great tenor who was also a fine actor. He also gave 150 percent when he sang, which made him the top tenor in the world. A year later, Caruso died quite young from a heart attack.
The hijacking of the booze was done outside Hammonton, which was the headquarters of New Jersey's blueberry industry at the time. The town became Italian in the Twenties, but turned Mexican in the Nineties. The hijacking was done on what is now US Route 30, a four lane highway connecting Philadelphia to Atlantic City. In 1920, it was the White Horse Turnpike, a private gravel road that had just been purchased by New Jersey. It was another six years before New Jersey laid down its state highway grid and got its roads out of the mud.
People going to Atlantic City in those days took the train. The Pennsylvania Railroad had two lines from Camden to Atlantic City, one of which had been electrified in 1895. The non-electric line branched off to a railroad bridge over the Delaware River to Philadelphia, Washington and New York. The Reading Railroad also operated a line from Camden to Atlantic City.
The US route system was not created until 1925, and the Lincoln Highway was the very first attempt to define a coast-to-coast road. It was pretty much in place by 1915, Al Capone would have taken that route, but there are no mountains in Indiana like the ones in the scene.
The cars of that era started with a crank. However, the cars in the show all seem to start with an electric starter. Charles Kettering didn't invent the electric starter until 1925 for Cadillac.
Thank you! Awesome info!
Any of you guys catch this?
The main character, played by Steve Buscemi is based on real life Altantic City GOP Boss Enoch Johnson. I’m sure you’re familiar with him DJ.
I still can’t believe we passed prohibition. What a horrible idea. Mark me down as a wet Republican.
I did not; don’t have HBO. It does look interesting though.
I knew I forgot something on Sunday night... I’ll have to catch it on On Demand.
I didn’t have HBO either. But it appeared for a few days (now it’s gone). Must have been a free preview.
They’re replaying it at 10:00 central tonight. And probably will again before next Sunday.
I DVR'd the 1st episode on Sunday and watched it last night. I thought it was terrific - the story is compelling, the acting is excellent, and the cinematography, production design and direction are all superb (what else would you expect from Scorsese?)
You might also like to check out HBO's Boardwalk Empire web site - there's a lot of good stuff there - historical photographs and images from the series, biographies, an interactive boardwalk, plot summaries and production design notes.
We have (had) free Showtime here via Comcast. Must be different free previews in different areas of the country.
Stabnow - BLACH BLECH BARF!!! If she ingested Mikey that is s good thing though...She’s a close second to the “It” from MD.
Landrieu? WTH happened? Wow...too bad.
Nice move by Bloomberg. Love those RINO’s!/s
BTW, if you haven’t seen “The League” on FX, you should - funniest show on TV!!!
I never watched “The League”. Maybe I’ll check it out.
Dude, it’s awesome!!! Check out Hulu.com for last season’s episodes. It’s grade A guy humor!
Reportedly HBO announced today that there would be a second season, based on the ratings for the premier.
During the 70's it was reputed to have more millionaire than any other town on the east coast.
I was wrong on the date of New Jersey starting to get its carriage roads out of the mud and turn them into highways for automobiles. It was 1923, not 1926.
When Jimmy talks of what he did in the war and Nucky hints he was a sap for fighting for his country, Nucky says, "How will we keep you down on the farm?" This was a reference to "How Will We Keep Them Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Par-ee)?", a popular song from 1919.
I grew up in Haddon Township in Camden County and knew the area well from my youth before I joined the Army and went West. I was back in '05 and took the train from Absecon to Lindenwold, passing through Hammonton. The Italian sense of the town, where many of my relatives used to dwell, had yielded to the Mexican flag. Much has changed since I left in '71.
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