Al Capone

Martin Balsam's character, Mac Keeley, was based on a real-life Chicago Tribune reporter named Jake Lingle. Lingle, a "legman" who ran down gang-related stories for the paper, had close ties to Al Capone and other gangsters as well as the notoriously corrupt Chicago Police Department, and he was well-paid by both mobsters and a police commissioner as a "go-between." Lingle was gunned down on June 9, 1930, much as depicted in the movie, after "getting too big for his hat", as Capone put it, and demanding too much for his services (though a Capone rival likely paid for the hit). Apparently legal concerns prevented the producers of this film from using Lingle's name. However, just a few months after this film was released, the TV series Gli intoccabili (1959) told Lingle's story in its third episode and used his actual name.

Al Capones had two scars on his left cheek according to actual (if rare - Capone disliked being photographed to show them as is correctly pointed out in the film) photos. The depiction in films like Il massacro del giorno di San Valentino (1967) and Quella sporca ultima notte (1975) is closer to the truth.

Edited into The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults (1986)