Sunday’s series finale of Boardwalk Empire will bid farewell to Steve Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson and his Prohibition-era criminal associates as it marks the end of the fifth and final season of the HBO gangster epic. While the episode will conclude creator’s Terrence Winter’s version of Atlantic City’s Prohibition years, Boardwalk Empire fans that are curious about the subsequent criminal history of Atlantic City should look up Louis Malle’s 1980 Oscar-nominated film Atlantic City starring Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, which in many ways serves as an epilogue to the era depicted in the HBO series.
Intentionally smaller in scope than earlier crime films like The Godfather and Chinatown, Atlantic City was made when the city was transitioning from its long post-World War II decline as a resort destination to the economic revival of the late 20th century brought on by legalized gambling. The sharp-dressed gangsters of Nucky’s era had long been replaced by street-level hoodlums and most of the old hotels where gangsters conducted their business in Nucky’s day were either demolished or soon would be (the film features footage of the 1972 implosion of the Traymore Hotel) to make room for the casino resorts that were to come. Buscemi’s Thompson would be proud of the large “Atlantic City, you’re back on the map. Again.” billboard that adorns the ramshackle apartment building in which much of the story of Atlantic City unfolds.
Atlantic City might start with an operatic aria instead of The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s “Straight Up and Down,” but the 1980 film features similar elements to the HBO series. Susan Sarandon’s Sally is a young woman struggling for a better life much like Kelly Macdonald‘s Margaret Schroder in Boardwalk Empire, and also similar to Margaret an older gangster falls for her. However, the older gangster of Atlantic City is not an all-powerful crime boss like Nucky Thompson, he is Lou Pascal, played by Lancaster in his final great leading role. More than any footage of imploding hotels, the aged Lou represents the decline of the role of the mafia in Atlantic City from the days represented in Boardwalk Empire to the days represented by Donald Trump.
Lancaster’s Lou carriers himself like he is the last of a dying breed of gangsters, except he is anything but. He makes money by taking care of a shrill, bedridden aged beauty queen (Kate Reid) who is the widow of his former boss. She ridicules him for his claims of being a big-time gangster in the old days when all he amounted to is an old man running a small-time numbers racket while any gangster with any real power had long moved on to Las Vegas or retired to Florida. Lou pines for the era depicted in Boardwalk Empire. He talks of having to kill people, speaks lovingly of the old crime-ridden city, and even tells Sally’s ex-husband Dave (Robert Joy) that the Atlantic Ocean looked better back in the day. He has no love for the legitimate casinos that had recently opened. “Now it’s all so God damn legal,” he laments.
However, it soon becomes apparent that Lou was a small-time go-fer during the glory days. He initially takes a shine to Dave because Dave lies and says that he heard people talking about him being an Atlantic City big shot when he was in Vegas because he needs Lou’s help to peddle drugs. After Lou namedrops infamous crime bosses Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky (played on Boardwalk Empire by Stephen Graham, Vincent Piazza, and Anatol Yusef respectively), Dave asks if he knew them. “You work for the people who work for the people,” he replies, a roundabout way of saying “No.”
Later, when he runs into another former go-fer who is now a men’s room attendant in a hotel, they reminisce about the time Nucky Johnson (the real-life corrupt politician whom Buscemi’s character was based on) sent them to buy one hundred boxes of condoms for one of Nucky’s legendary debauched parties. Neither mentions actually attending the party.
Even Lou’s claims of murdering people turn out to be overstated. When he pulls the trigger on two thugs in the film’s climax, he is overcome with giddy laughter, asking Sally “Did you see me do it?” like a little leaguer who hit his first home run. After seeing homicides committed by gangsters without expression in nearly every episode of Boardwalk Empire (particularly in this final season), seeing the last of Atlantic City’s small-time gangsters commit his first gangland murders makes you pity him. Despite working “for the people who work for the people,” it’s obvious that Lou is a different breed than Nucky Thompson and his Boardwalk Empire associates.
What makes Atlantic City such a fitting coda to Boardwalk Empire is the depiction of the city and boardwalk in transition (Atlantic City was actually shot in its namesake, unlike Boardwalk Empire) and Lancaster’s character’s representation of the long-gone days of well-dressed gangsters of the Jazz Age. Lancaster’s masterful performance is marked by Lou’s struggling mixture of bravado and vulnerability. When Lou inadvertently ends up with Dave’s drug money, he takes it as an opportunity to present himself to Sally as a big spender. He doesn’t realize that dressing in a tailored white suit and a matching wide-brimmed fedora makes him look like a Prohibition-era relic in the more casual new casinos. Lou is living a young man’s big-shot gangster fantasy in a city that had long moved on by legalizing the vices that the old-time gangsters like Nucky exploited for profit. While Lou temporarily wins Sally’s affections, no matter how fancy he dresses himself up or how much he exaggerates his dirty deeds in the old days the life he imagines for himself is all on borrowed time because of his age and the changing of Atlantic City’s culture.
Like when Atlantic City was released, the end of Boardwalk Empire comes as Atlantic City is once again a city in transition. Gambling revenues have steadily declined since peaking in 2006 as dozens of casinos have been opened in neighboring states. Four of the city’s casinos have shut their doors in 2014, and closures of some of the eight remaining casinos are rumored. It is unknown how the one-time “America’s Playground” will survive its next economic phase. But if life imitates art, Atlantic City will survive on the backs of individuals with the gritty determination to live on as the city changes around them. Whether they actually possess the backbone like Nucky, or simply pretend to, like Lou, seems to matter little. Regardless, hopefully Atlantic City will continue to inspire filmmakers and television creators to explore the city’s rich history on screen.
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