MovieChat Forums > Escape from Alcatraz (1979) Discussion > Al Capone?

Al Capone?

posted 14 years ago by Left Coast
6 replies | jump to latest

I've seen this movie many times when I was a kid and I never remembered Al Capone in it. But that's probably because I was a kid and wouldn't notice something like that. However, I just watched this flick today and saw the part where Al Capone introduces himself.

Did they add this scene, or was it always there? I'm also surprised nobody put this in the Goof section. I'm sure it was and intentional gaff, but as I'm sure most people know this, Al Capone was not on Alcatraz at the time of the escape. He was dead for more than 10 years before Morris showed up.

[–] wallacesawyer 14 years ago

One of the inmates pretending as a joke.

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[–] RoadSideAssistance 14 years ago

The guy was joking.

"I'm Al Capone."
"I don't believe I just met Al Capone."
*Clint Eastwood replies sarcastically*
"I don't believe it either."

After making fun of the name, Butts asks in a specific tone, "What's your name!?" to which the old guy replies, "Al Capone." He did it just to mess with Butts and most likely to make the new inmate feel insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Eastwood's character Morris plays along (at least in the movie) finding amusement in the joke.

We never meet the real Al Capone in the movie.

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] peze80 13 years ago

"Litmus! Like litmus paper" :)

[–] mdudnikov 11 years ago

Al Capone, beginning to show the sypmtoms of terminal syphilis, was released from Alcatraz in 1939. The character here, perhaps because he bore some resemblance to Capone and because he was a little screwy himself, declares himself to be Capone.

There was no goof here, it was just that the Charley Butts character was so dumb that he actually believed it when the Litmus character introduced himself as Capone. And Eastwood and others went along for a few laughs in a place largely devoid of them.

The actor who played Butts, Larry Hankin, appeared in an episode of Seinfeld. In the episode where they are making a pilot for a show about Jerry and his friends, Hankin wins the role of Kramer, as he is tall, thin and is able to reproduce Kramer's mannerisms. Hankin had auditioned for the role of Kramer on the actual Senfeld show before Michael Richards won the role.

[–] Synthia7 11 years ago

You really thought that dweeb was Al Capone?