Crackerjack lineup of gangster flicks

BOOK lists Tinseltown’s best crime movies.

What’s the best crime movie of all time? The book, “101 Gangster Movies You Must See Before You Die,” edited by Steven Jay Schneider, ticks off some really suspenseful and crackerjack “finalists:”

“The Killers” (1946), starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner. Loosely based on a 1920s short story by Ernest Hemingway.

“The Big Sleep,” starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, directed by Howard Hawks.

“Key Largo,” again with Bogart and Bacall, plus Edward G. Robinson, directed by the John Huston. About a tough gangster (Robinson) holding people captive in a hotel during a tropical storm.

“Touch of Evil,” by the Orson Welles, stars Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh and Welles himself.

Folk heroes

“Bonnie and Clyde,” directed by Arthur Penn, casts Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as gangsters and bank robbers who became Depression-era folk heroes.

“The French Connection,” directed by William Friedkin, stars Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider. It features “the fastest car chase sequence of any American movie to date.”

“The Godfather,” directed by Francis Ford Coppola, casts Marlon Brando as the head of the Corleone family of Mafia criminals. It swept the Oscars in 1972 and revitalized the crime genre.

“Mean Streets,” by Martin Scorsese, topbills Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro. It tells the story of four friends from New York’s Little Italy and accurately  depicts the gritty world of small-time hoodlums.

“Scarface,” by Brian de Palma, stars Al Pacino as Tony Montana, an ambitious mobster who covets his big boss’ criminal empire—and his beautiful moll (Michelle Pfeiffer).

—Instructively, Montana does get to have it all, but he ends up losing everything at the final fade!