Crime films date back to the silent film era, with films like The Great Train Robbery . The earliest crime 'film' was a 45 second short called Sherlocks Holmes Baffled (1900) played on a hand cranked Multiscope, the first theatrical release of a Sherlock film was in 1905, called The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
The first film to be marked a gangster film was Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912), however they hit their stride when films began having dialogue, with this you could hear the gangster jargon and noises of the film, and really get invested in the world
Gangster films hit their stride in the 20s and 30s, during around the time when gangsters such as Al Capone and "Baby Face" Nelson were at large, especially with events like the St Valentine's Day Massacre, the genre was encouraged to grow.
Gangster films also follow some elements of film-noir, in fact even cross over, many film-noirs are about gangster culture.
Conventions
-Gruesome violence, swearing, organised crime, sex, drugs, low key lighting, urban settings.
Three actors quite often paired with gangster films are Joe Pesci, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, especially the three's involvement in the Goodfellas.
Mise-en-scene
Props
Knives, guns, alcohol, a lot of blood and of course cigarettes, these props bring the gangster genre to life, without these essential props you lose the essence of
Settings & lighting
Urban settings are the usual for gangster films, the urban settings where the gangsters did their dirty business is filled with low key lighting. Backstreets and underpasses were hugely used locations in popular American settting gangster films were set.
Costume
Men - sharp clothing, black and grey suits, ties, trilby hats, and some essence of red, whether it be a tie or a rose.
Women - Dress to impress, dresses, red lip stick.
Performance
The performance of the gangsters in the film is to be the cold, aggressive type filled with malice, for example Joe Pesci in GoodFellas, as the quote below shows, he responded to another gangster who tells Tommy Devito (Joe Pesci) that his story is "Really funny", to which Tommy responds "Whattya mean I'm funny?" and continues on building tension, a tense that someone may die for what was said, for Tommy to turn around and scare everybody for a joke, and which everyone laughs, he also smashes a bottle over someones head during the scene, showing his malice but also not letting up his act of a gangster. Joe Pesci's performance of Tommy Devito in is the pinnacle of performances for a Gangster, which is even more impressive when during rehearsals for the scene, Joe Pesci improvised some of the scene.
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