MAD DOG COLL, aka Vincent Coll Curran (1908-1932), Tommy-gun riddled in a Manhattan phone booth at 23 (kind of a classic way to go, if you’re a psychotic hoodlum) gets a footnote in the history of American crime because he was associate/enemy of some of the more celebrated gangland figures of his era. And because he earned his nickname due to a brazen viciousness excessive even among his peers. The cheapo 1961 movie gets mentioned only for casting trivia, and for being a low level leg-breaker in the crew of gangster movies that sprayed lead and cliches into theaters in the wake of TVs hit The Untouchables. The 20s & 30s roared back with a vengeance. *

Surviving an abusive childhood, Vince Coll (John Davis Chandler, 26, debut) as a young adult in crime-crossed New York City of the late 1920s and early 30s is more than a handful, working for and then against big shot racketeers like Dutch Schultz (Vincent Gardenia). That’s about it for accuracy, in the 88 minutes directed by Burt Balaban, written by Edward Schreiber and Leo Lieberman, playing fast & free with messy things like fact.

Chandler, despite getting the lead role in his first time out, didn’t move into a higher bracket: he had a more memorable role that year, supporting gig as a teen fiend in The Young Savages. This flash-in-the-pan Coll flick is of interest to buffs in that it helped pry open doors for a number of actors and crew members.  **

In the cast mix are Brooke Hayward (23, debut, daughter of Margaret Sullavan and later author of “Haywire”), Telly Savalas (39, feature debut), Jerry Orbach (25, 2nd feature), Neil Nephew (married for eight years to Ellen Burstyn, he was a violent schizophrenic who ultimately committed suicide), Joy Harmon (21, later to famously wash a car in Cool Hand Luke) and Gene Hackman (31, debut, uncredited, as a beat cop). In the crew: editor Ralph Rosenblum would later do Love And Death and Annie Hall; art director Richard Sylbert would become production designer on Chinatown, The Cotton Club, Reds and Dick Tracy. Ya gotta start somewhere.

 * Crime pays—bygone hoods made a few passes in the 50s—Love Me Or Leave Me, Baby Face Nelson, Party Girl—but when Eliot Ness and his The Untouchables shot onto TV (1959-63, 118 episodes), followed by The Roaring 20s (1960-62, 45 episodes) the gates of dark nostalgia blew open to admit Al Capone, The Bonnie Parker Story, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, The FBI Story (crook/top cop J. Edgar Hoover demanding equal time), Murder Inc. and The Rise And Fall Of Legs Diamond.  1961 alone kicked out Portrait Of A Mobster, The George Raft Story and King Of The Roaring 20s–The Story Of Arnold Rothstein. Apart from 1965s awful Young Dillinger, things cooled off until 1967 with the no-blood-spared Bonnie And Clyde and The St. Valentines Day Massacre.  Biding their time, the Corleone’s would eventually invite themselves in (“After all, we’re not Communists“).

** Fave bad guy John Davis Chandler (1935-2010), memorably verminous in The Young Savages, Ride The High Country and Major Dundee, was a family friend (one of my sister’s dated him) and was—go figure—a really nice guy with a great sense of humor.

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/one-of-the-most-enigmatic-obituaries-ive-ever-read-

john-davis-chandler.917495/