The Overlook Film Encyclopedia: The Gangster Film

Wow! Phil Hardy has been editing encyclopedias devoted to various film genres for years, but this book on the gangster film is perhaps his most impressive. A companion piece to his Western, science fiction, and horror encyclopedias, this is an extraordinary treat for lovers of crime movies. An oversized book, it contains more than 500 pages on the genre, covering it year by year from the beginning of the sound era until today and, uncharacteristically for Hardy, concentrating half its focus on films from the '60s through the '90s. Hardy and his team have composed hundreds of words on each of more than 1,500 films, considering the rarities of the genre as seriously as the classics, and focusing on foreign as well as English-language films. This is a must for aficionados and novices, those who want to pore over its pages, and those who are looking for a great browse. Big black-and-white stills, 650 in all, illustrate every page of this wonderful, magnificently researched, and tremendously entertaining volume. This is easily one of the best film books of the late 1990s. --Raphael Shargel