El altar del crimen

Because of the popularity of TV's The Untouchables, the late fifties early sixties saw a revival of the gangster film genre. Not the stuff that Warner Brothers put out with its stable of gangster stars, but allegedly true life stories of real life gangsters. Al Capone, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, Legs Diamond, Arnold Rothstein all get biographical films of a sort around this time. Even movie gangster George Raft who hung around a lot with the real deal got one.

One of the poorer ones has to be The Music Box Kid where the names were allegedly changed. Of course anyone who's familiar in the slightest with gangland lore recognizes protagonist Ron Foster as Dutch Schultz, boss of the Bronx in the Twenties and Thirties.

Ron's married to Luana Patten who at the beginning of the film actually thinks her hubby is a most successful insurance salesman who pays for everything in cash because he doesn't believe in credit. Poor Luana spends most of the film dealing with her priest, Dayton Lummis, who's no doubt telling her to stand by her man even though he is a killer. Otherwise she'd be running from this guy.

Stories of Dutch Schultz's temper tantrums are legendary. But even he wasn't as crazy as this guy who was busy extorting fellow mobsters and starting Murder, Inc. which Schultz did not do. When Carleton Young is appointed Special Prosecutor and Foster decides he ought to be hit, the other mobsters see their duty clear.

But that's not the end, although in real life it was the end when Lucky Luciano and company thought too much heat would be brought down if Schultz ever assassinated Thomas E. Dewey. Luana in fact gets the last word and the last word is quite unbelievable.

The title refers to the carrying case where Foster packs his Thompson submachine gun, favored weapon of gangland back in the day. I'm sure many people got fooled with that title and asked for their money back.