Lucky Luciano And Bumpy Johnson

• By the mid-1930s, St. Clair, who had lost the support (if not the affection) of Bumpy Johnson by this point, realized Schultz and the Mafia led by Charlie “Lucky” Luciano had too much power to resist and she turned over her organization to those rivals. Schultz, however, had other problems on his doorstep.
• Dutch Schultz, whose real name was Arthur Flegenheimer made his name and fortune in bootlegging alcohol and the numbers racket. Schultz’s rackets were threatened by Lucky Luciano, and tax evasion trials lead by prosecutor Thomas E.Dewey. In an effort to avert his conviction, Schultz asked the Commission for permission to take out Dewey, which they declined.
• Bumpy calmly stepped over the man, picked up a menu and said he suddenly had a taste for spaghetti and meatballs.” One of my favorite parts in the book is when it describes Bumpy as being a race conscious man in jail and in the streets, even in the face of the Italian Mafia and mob boss Lucky Luciano and Jewish gangster Dutch Schultz.

• Lucky Luciano And Bumpy Johnson Death

Ellsworth Raymond 'Bumpy' Johnson (October 31, 1905 – July 7, 1968) was an American drug trafficker in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Johnson was born in Charleston, South Carolina on October 31, 1905, to Margaret Moultrie and William Johnson. When he was 10, his older brother Willie was accused of killing a white man.

Hoodlum is a 1997 American crimedrama film that gives a fictionalized account of the gang war between the Italian/Jewish mafia alliance and the black gangsters of Harlem that took place in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The film concentrates on Ellsworth 'Bumpy' Johnson (Laurence Fishburne), Dutch Schultz (Tim Roth), and Lucky Luciano (Andy García).^[2]

Plot[edit]

In 1934, Ellsworth “Bumpy” Johnson (Laurence Fishburne) is released from Sing Sing and returns to Harlem, where mobster Dutch Schultz (Tim Roth) asserts his control of the lucrative numbers game. Schultz begrudgingly reports to Mafia boss Charles “Lucky” Luciano (Andy Garcia), who pays bribes to special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey (William Atherton) to protect his business.

Reuniting with his cousin 'Illinois' Gordon (Chi McBride), Bumpy returns to the employ of Harlem crime boss Madame Queen (Cicely Tyson), whose business is threatened by Schultz. Bumpy is introduced to Francine (Vanessa Williams), a friend of Illinois’ girlfriend Mary (Loretta Devine). Schultz’s meeting with the Queen ends in a standoff when he presents her with a rival’s testicles. Walking Francine home from a club, Bumpy charms her with his poetry.

Madame Queen is attacked by Schultz’s men, led by black enforcer Bub Hewlett (Clarence Williams III), but Bumpy and fellow mobster Whispers (Paul Benjamin) repel the assassins and rescue her. At a meeting of the Commission, Schultz states his determination to take over Harlem. After robbing Schultz’s operation with Illinois, Bumpy is chastised by Madame Queen for making his own decisions. Schultz then hires two hitmen, the Salke brothers, to kill Bumpy, and has his police contact, NYPD Captain Foley (Richard Bradford), arrange for Madame Queen to be arrested. At a party, a 17-year-old named Tyrone asks Bumpy for a job, and Francine struggles to reconcile her feelings for Bumpy with his criminal ways.

The Salkes break into Bumpy’s home, killing his guards, but Bumpy ambushes them and kills one while the other is shot dead by a terrified Francine. Illinois is beaten and robbed by Foley and his officers, while Madame Queen is arrested for illegal gambling. Taking over her operation, Bumpy enlists Tyrone as a runner, and ignores the Queen’s orders to avoid violence. By May 1935, he is locked in an all-out war with Schultz. His wealth and power grow, as does the body count, including Tyrone. Bumpy’s attempt to comfort Tyrone’s mother at his funeral is rejected.

At an ice cream parlor with Francine, Bumpy realizes his banana split has been poisoned. When the shop owner reveals that Bumpy’s associate Vallie ordered him to hire the new teenage employee responsible, Bumpy forces the boy to eat the poisoned ice cream despite his attempts to apologize. Whispers then kills Vallie with a razor. Bumpy confronts Schultz at the Cotton Club with Vallie’s severed finger, demanding he cease his Harlem operations; Schultz refuses.

Disguised as truck drivers, Bumpy and Illinois deliver a bomb to one of Schultz’s illicit breweries, narrowly escaping before the warehouse explodes. Illinois returns home to find Schultz had Mary killed in retaliation. Threatened by Dewey to end the bloodshed in Harlem, Luciano invites Bumpy and Schultz to a meeting, against both their wills.

Visiting Madame Queen in prison, Bumpy is rebuked for inciting a gang war. Finding she can no longer accept who he is, Francine leaves him, and Illinois drunkenly confronts him over the innocent lives lost. Illinois is abducted and tortured by Foley, to Hewlett’s disgust, but refuses to betray his cousin. At Luciano’s meeting, Bumpy and Schultz refuse to settle their dispute. After finding Illinois’ corpse left as a message, Bumpy slits Foley’s throat while he's with a black prostitute, but spares Hewlett’s life and offers him a partnership.

Bumpy accepts an alliance with Luciano, and Luciano’s driver – on Bumpy’s orders – informs Schultz that Bumpy will be meeting with Luciano’s accountant. Schultz and his men burst in but find only the accountant, who Schultz kills. At a restaurant, Schultz’s long-suffering henchman Lulu (Ed O'Ross) shoots him in the bathroom, and Schultz calmly returns to his table before dying. Meeting Luciano outside for payment, Lulu is shot dead. With Dutch eliminated and the gang war settled, Dewey – having received an enormous bribe from Bumpy, delivered by Hewlett – warns Luciano to stay away from Harlem. Hewlett and Bumpy part ways, and Bumpy arrives at Illinois’ funeral. After exchanging looks with Francine and Madame Queen, Bumpy walks out into the rain alone.

Cast[edit]

• Laurence Fishburne as Ellsworth 'Bumpy' Johnson
• Tim Roth as Dutch Schultz
• Vanessa Williams as Francine Hughes
• Andy García as Charles 'Lucky' Luciano
• Cicely Tyson as Stephanie St. Clair/Madam Queen
• Chi McBride as Illinois Gordon
• Clarence Williams III as Bub Hewlett
• Richard Bradford as Captain Foley
• William Atherton as Thomas E. Dewey
• Loretta Devine as Pigfoot Mary
• Queen Latifah as Sulie
• Ed O'Ross as Lulu Rosenkrantz
• Eddie Bo Smith Jr. as Tee-Ninchy
• Mike Starr as Albert Salke
• Beau Starr as Jules Salke
• Paul Benjamin as Whispers
• Tony Rich as Duke Ellington

Soundtrack[edit]

A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on August 12, 1997 by Interscope Records. It peaked at #94 on the Billboard 200 and #23 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums.

Reception[edit]

The film received mixed reviews from critics. Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 43% based on 21 reviews.^[3] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.^[4]

Critic Roger Ebert noted that 'the film is being marketed as a violent action picture, and in a sense, it is' and that director Bill Duke having made 'a historical drama as much as a thriller, and his characters reflect a time when Harlem seemed poised on the brink of better things, and the despair of the postwar years was not easily seen on its prosperous streets.'^[5]

See also[edit]

• Godfather of Harlem: a 2019 Epix television series, starring Forest Whitaker as Ellsworth 'Bumpy' Johnson.

References[edit]

1. ^https://variety.com/1997/film/news/mgm-at-a-prelim-1117433216/
2. ^Hoodlum at IMDb
3. ^http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1078030-hoodlum/
4. ^'Cinemascore'. CinemaScore. Archived from the original on 2018-12-20. Retrieved 2019-08-07.
5. ^Roger Ebert (August 27, 1997). 'Hoodlum'. Chicago Sun-Times.

External links[edit]

• Hoodlum at IMDb
• Hoodlum at Box Office Mojo
• Hoodlum at Rotten Tomatoes

Born: January 20, 1883, Atlantic County, New Jersey
Died: December 9, 1968, Northfield, New Jersey
Nicknames: Nucky, Czar of the Ritz
Associations: Al Capone, Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky, the Commission

Enoch Lewis “Nucky” Johnson was the Prohibition Era kingpin of the Atlantic City political machine who personally and professionally benefited from Prohibition, which was essentially a dead-letter law in Atlantic City. A large man, over six feet tall, Johnson was famous for wearing a red carnation in the button hole of his impeccable suits.

Johnson, who inspired the Nucky Thompson character in the HBO television series Boardwalk Empire, was the son of the sheriff of Atlantic County, a powerful regional politician in his own right. Johnson followed in his father’s footsteps and was elected Atlantic County sheriff in 1908. A year later, Johnson was appointed executive secretary of the county’s Republican Party.

In 1911, New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson, a reformer who would go on to be president, led an effort to clean up corruption and rackets in Atlantic City, leading to indictments of more than 100, including Johnson and the then-boss, Louis “The Commodore” Kuehnle. While Kuehnle was convicted of election fraud, Johnson was not. Although he was forced to resign as county sheriff, he assumed near-total control of the Republican Party machinery for Atlantic City and Atlantic County. Johnson, who reportedly got a percentage of profits from all gambling and prostitution in Atlantic City, soon extended his political influence into state politics and was instrumental in the election of a sympathetic New Jersey governor in 1916.

With the enactment of Prohibition in 1920, Johnson’s profits and political influence continued to grow. Prohibition was essentially ignored in the coastal holiday community. In 1929, Johnson hosted a meeting of prominent Mob figures, including Charlie “Lucky” Luciano, Meyer Lansky and the participants in Chicago’s beer wars, Al Capone and Bugs Moran.

By the 1930s, newspapers and law-and-order reformers started paying close attention to Atlantic City and to Johnson. Johnson, famously, did not apologize for delivering illegal products to paying customers. “We have whisky, wine, women, song and slot machines,” he said. “I won’t deny it and I won’t apologize for it. If the majority of the people didn’t want them, they wouldn’t be profitable and they would not exist.”

Johnson’s public persona attracted the wrong kind of federal attention. He was indicted and tried for tax evasion. In one investigation cited by Thomas Reppetto in American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power (2004), Treasury agents counted the number of towels in local brothels to estimate the number of customers and thus the amount of income that went to Johnson.

After three trials, federal prosecutors finally won a conviction and in 1941 Johnson began serving a ten-year sentence. He was paroled in 1945, and lived more modestly and quietly in Atlantic City while he worked as a salesman for an oil company. But he continued to be influential in local and state politics.

Lucky Luciano And Bumpy Johnson Death

Unlike his fictional Boardwalk Empire counterpart, who was shot and killed, Johnson lived into old age. He died at age eighty-five in a convalescent home in New Jersey. That wasn’t the only difference from his fictional alter ego, Nucky Thompson. Johnson was never alleged to have personally killed anyone, nor was he accused of ordering someone else’s murder. His approach was to rule with money and influence, rather than violence: “Johnson ruled with a velvet hammer. His power was such that he never needed violence to get his way,” the New York Times wrote in 2014.