We all know most of those mob movies are either strongly based/loosely based on real life. Who knew there were moments in those films that actually happened?
1. John Dillinger really did break out of prison using a fake wooden gun he made himself
-This sounds like something you would hear about or see in cartoons. But there's no mistaking the truth here-famed criminal John Dillinger really did it. After killing a Chicago police officer in 1934, he was arrested and sent to prison, but had escaped. He was then sent to the Lake County Jail in Crown Point, Indiana, an "escape-proof" penitentiary. Shortly after arriving, he proved any ideas about jail being wrong. On March 3, he produced a chunk of wood that looked like a gun. He had been whittling it in full view of the guards. He pointed his fake gun at the guards, who didn't respond as they were fearful of Dillinger. He escaped and continued his crime spree. Michael Mann, who directed the Dillinger biopic Public Enemies, had to tone down some of Dillinger's real life escapades because they seemed so outlandish that they wouldn't be believable
2. Tommy De Vito from Goodfellas really did shoot Spider for talking back
-There is a scene when a young kid named Spider (Michael Imperioli) is slow bringing Tommy a drink when he and his friends are playing cards. Tommy pulls out his gun and starts shooting, trying to get Spider to dance. Only he ended up shooting Spider in the foot. Later, he comes back with heavily bandaged foot. Tommy insults him and cracks jokes, but Spider stands up for himself. As a comeback, Tommy shoots him dead, all because of a fight he started. This shows just how warped Tommy is
-According to Henry Hill, who was played by Ray Liotta, this all happened in real life as it did in the movie. Thomas DeSimone, known as "Tommy" and Spider were both real people. They were members of Jimmy "The Gent" Conway's crew, as was Hill. Tommy did insult and eventually fatally shoot Spider over an insult. This was the moment when everyone realized how much Tommy was a "total psychopath"
3. Nucky Thompson really did rent out a whole floor of the Ritz-Carlton to use as his apartment, despite being investigated for tax evasion
-Despite the fact Boardwalk Empire is not always historically accurate, the main character, Nucky Thompson, is shown as he really was. On the show, he uses his position as an Atlantic City treasurer to build a criminal world including bootlegging, gambling, prostitution. His power is so large he can live year-round in the Ritz-Carlton. The real man's name was Johnson, but he was just as powerful in real life as he is portrayed on the show. He occupied the entire ninth floor of the hotel and cost him $5,000 a year, despite his salary being $6,000 a year. He lived at the Ritz from 1921, when it was built, to 1941, when the cops came calling for his arrest on tax evasion
4. Sam Rothstein from the film Casino did insist on every muffin having an equal amount of blueberries
-One notable scene from the 1995 film is where Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is complaining that his muffin has no blueberries at all and he complains to the head chef at his casino about ensuring every muffin has the same amount of blueberries. It would seem crazy that something like that would matter. But as a casino manager, it's about quality control. The real life person Ace is based on is Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal. It was confirmed that Lefty did insist on each muffin having at least 10 blueberries in them. He started as a low level staff member at the Stardust Hotel in 1968 before he became known as the ultimate sports betting handicapper. One line from Casino that rings true, even to this day is "Casinos are operations that involve hundreds of people and thousands of customers, all of whom want to bilk the casino out of as much money as possible."
5. The Santaro brothers, Nicky and Dominick, were really beaten and stripped to their underwear in Casino
-In the film Casino, Joe Pesci's character, Nicky Santaro, is heavily based on Tony Spilotro. Nicky was Ace's enforcer, and as such, was to protect him. But because of the many lawsuits Nicky was facing due to organized crime-related activities, the Kansas City bosses had their limit with him. They ordered a hit on Nicky and his brother Dominick. The bosses and men met up with Nicky and Dominick in an Indiana cornfield because it was still too hot in Vegas. There, Nicky and Dominick were beaten nearly to death. They were beaten, stripped to their underwear and thrown in a hole while they were still breathing
-Nicky was heavily based on Anthony "The Ant" Spilotro, who was the right-hand man for Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal. Like Nicky, Tony was a hot-tempered flashy mobster who skimmed the Vegas casinos for cash. He also had side jobs which earned money but the wrong attention as well. He and a bunch of guys starting robbing places and became known as the Hole in the Wall Gang, due to their trademark-leaving a hole in the wall of the places they robbed. Due to one of Nicky's jobs going bad, Chicago mob boss Joey Aiuppa ended up in prison. He ordered a hit on Tony and his brother Michael. The two brothers were murdered in a basement, not a cornfield, but they did end up buried in an Indiana cornfield. They were in their underwear and were discovered by the farmer who owns the field a week later. The farmer noticed the dirt was disturbed and found the bodies. They were beaten so bad they had to be identified through dental records. 2005 saw 14 Chicago-based mobsters and 16 others charged with these murders
6. Al Capone really did beat three of his henchmen with a baseball bat
-The famous scene from The Untouchables seems like something that could only happen in a movie. Al Capone (Robert De Niro) is holding a dinner party/meeting for his close associates. He walks around with a baseball bat, talking about the importance of teamwork in baseball or any other challenge in life. Out of nowhere, one of his associates gets a baseball bat to the head. This almost reveals who Capone was-demanding, violent, psychopathic
-It was thought the real Capone did something like this. In 1929, a rumor started that three of his close associates, John Scalise, Albert Anselmi and Joseph "Hop Toad" Giunta, were planning to whack (murder) Capone. He invited the three men to a lavish dinner party, got them liquored up and then revealed his intentions. He picked up a baseball bat and brutally beat all three of them before his men finished them off with gunshots.
7. Jimmy Hoffa was just as into ice cream as he was in The Irishman
-It seems absurd that one of the most notorious and well known union figures like Jimmy Hoffa would have such a sweet tooth, but according to this film, he did. He can been eating ice cream throughout the movie. In one scene, while he and Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) are going mini-golfing, Hoffa is eating ice cream. In another scene, Tony Provenzano (Stephen Graham) is angrily confronting Hoffa while still eating ice cream
-This is not just some random quirky thing thrown into the movie. The real Jimmy Hoffa did love ice cream. Despite living a healthy lifestyle, he avoided drugs and alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine. Ice cream was his one vice.
8. The Godfather restaurant shooting scene was inspired by a real-life hit by Charles "Lucky" Luciano
-In The Godfather, there is a scene where Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) is meeting at a restaurant with Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo and police Captain Mike McCluskey. He invited them there to settle any differences. They believed that Michael was the quiet, innocent member of the Corleone family. During the meal, he excuses himself to go to the bathroom, where someone in the family had hidden a gun. When he comes back, he shoots them both dead, completing the change from WWII war hero to complete mob member
-It might seem a devious way to remove someone, but it's all not that far removed from reality. This was inspired by a real life hit orchestrated on Charles "Lucky" Luciano. in 1920, Sicilian-born mobsters Joe Masseria recruited Lucky Luciano to be his gunman. Luciano proved he was successful in bootlegging during Prohibition and quickly became rich and powerful on his own. 1929 seen Masseria starting a war with another Sicilian mobster named Salvatore Maranzano. After Masseria had a former friend killed, Luciano betrayed his former boss. He invited Masseria to lunch at a restaurant in Coney Island. During the meal, he excused himself to go to the bathroom. With him gone and Masseria unprotected, a group of men entered the restaurant and opened fire, killing Masseria
9. Harlem drug boss Frank Lucas claims he used the coffins of Vietnam War casualties to smuggle heroin into the US
-The 2007 film American Gangster told the story of how Frank Lucas went from a quiet upbringing in North Carolina to becoming one of the top distributors of heroin in 1970s Harlem. The movie suggests that Lucas used a morbid way of getting heroin into the US. He bought it in Thailand and used the coffins of soldiers killed in Vietnam to bring it home, since no one would look inside a coffin of a soldier.
-In a 2000 interview, Lucas admitted it did that.
10. Whitey Bulger did win $14.3 million in a lottery jackpot
-Early in the film Black Mass, Whitey Bulger, a famed Boston Irish mobster, admitted he won $14 million in the local lottery. It was the strangest coincidence that a local Boston mobster would play the lottery and just so happen to win. But the real Whitey Bulger did try and claim his winnings. It started as a scam in 1991. A man named Michael Linskey made a claim to have bought the ticket that won in a local liquor store that was owned by Bulger. After Linskey came forward, he made an announcment-he would split the winnings with Bulger, Bulger's friend Kevin Weeks and Linskey's brother Patrick. Linskey also made a claim that Bulger and his associates made a $2 million payment in cash for half the winnings, which would be meted out in installments over the next 20 years. Despite being a known mobster, the lottery had to accept him as a winner. The FBI seized the cash and accused Bulger of using the lottery scheme to launder money. It's unclear whether Michael Linskey forged the ticket that won or he geuinely won
11. Famed Boston Irish Mob boss Whitey Bulger was an informant
-The famed Boston mobster was the inspiration for Frank Costello in the film The Departed. The 2006 film was said to be a remake of a Hong Kong film called Internal Affairs from 2002. The premise was more or less the same, just a few things changed here and there. Many things in the American film were based on real life events. Frank Costello, played by Jack Nicholson, was partially inspired by famed Boston mobster Whitey Bulger. In fact, towards the end when Costello admits to secretly working for the FBI, that is directly based on Bulger's relationship with the FBI
-Starting in 1975, Bulger worked closely with FBI agent John Connolly. Similar to Matt Damon's character Sgt. Colin Sullivan, Connolly had grown up in South Boston, or Southie as the locals call it. As a child, Bulger looked after Connolly, similar to what Costello did to Sullivan. As he approached adulthood, Connolly came to Bulger with an offer to help him inform on the Angiulo crime family, local rivals. While it is known Bulger hated snitches, he was more than willing to aid the FBI in eliminating the competition and snatch a bigger piece of Boston's drug-dealing and racketeering markets. Similar to Costello, Bulger's status as an informant allowed him to get out of punishment from law enforcement for years. But, as far as any one knows, unlike The Departed, Bulger didn't have an implanted mole in law enforcement
12. The real life Moe Green from The Godfather was killed in an approved hit from the real life Hyman Roth from The Godfather Pt. II
-The first two installments of the famed Godfather series don't involve just Sicilian or New York Italian organized crime. They also involve Jewish organized crime. The characters Moe Greene and Hyman Roth are based on real-life Jewish organized crime figures Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Meyer Lansky. Like the character Moe Greene, Siegel was flashy, a mobster from the East Coast who brought organized crime to Vegas, managing the construction of The Flamingo Hotel with money earned from the mob. Like the character Hyman Roth, Lanskey was a mobster based out of Florida who helped to establish the National Crime Syndicate. By the 1950s, he was providing the money to fuel The Flamingo Hotel. At one point, Lansky and Roth tried to move to Israel, but due to their criminal pasts, they were denied entry.
-Even the way Moe Greene died was similar to Bugsy Siegel's death. They both crossed the wrong people and both were shot through the eye. The Godfather does make one massive difference from the real-life tale of Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel. In The Godfather Pt. I, The Corleone family takes out Moe Greene after repeated accounts of disrespect and in the second film, Hyman Roth orders a hit on Michael Corleone as payback. In reality, it was thought to be Meyer Lansky who ordered the hit on Bugsy Siegel. The theory goes that Lansky got tired of the construction of The Flamingo Hotel constantly running over budget
