The 1920s

Question 1

Detective figure

Answer 1

Someone who doesn’t belong to the police and is getting paid to resolve crime, and they use their fists, the detective is an urban cowboy. Transport the wilderness in urban life. He is alone, drinks, smokes, can fight and has many women.

Part of the gangster pulp

Question 2

Scarface, a novel at first

Answer 2

• a novel by Armitage Trail. A pen name because he was scared of Capone.
• Use of superlatives in the first line “Tony Guarino, destined to be the greatest of all America’s notorious gang leaders, was eighteen when he committed his first serious crime”.
• Structure of the gangster stories →They wanna be successful, rise then fall, they die. Trying to not glamorise gangsters too much. And the cause was here, as often, a woman.
• Howard Hughes injected the money for it. An important millionaire at that time (cf. Aviator movie). Shows an obvious relation between him and the mafia, even though it was hidden.

Question 3

X marks the spot

Answer 3

• X marks the spot → when you look for a treasure, when somebody dies “here was the murder”.
• Graphic pictures were taken of the murder, but it couldn’t be shown so X marks the spot.