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The death of the "Joe Rico" character in a fall from a building parallels the real-life death (in 1941) of Abe Reles (aka "Kid Twist"), an underworld killer whose arrest the previous year led authorities first to discover the existence of the organization popularly dubbed "Murder Inc." in the newspapers. Reles, in order to avoid execution in the electric chair, agreed to testify against the organization after submitting to a police interrogation about it, which famously took a full two weeks to complete, so exhaustive were his recollections. However, he never appeared on the stand, dying --after falling or being pushed out of a window in the hotel where he was staying---the day before he was due to appear. The film depicts Rico's death as a tragic accident, but it is more than likely that Reles' death was murder--one which, furthermore, almost certainly had the collusion of corrupt police officers, although this was never proved.

There is no explanation given as why Rico's recorded confession and the murder attempt the night of his death cannot stand in court to convict Mendoza.

Featured in Bullets Over Hollywood (2005)