Gangs Of New York Film Quotes

Some blacks have carved out profitable niches for themselves as racial shakedown artists. For more than ten years, Mustafa Majeed of New York City has made a business of extorting money from moviemakers. When directors try to film a scene outdoors, Mr. Majeed shows up with a gang and demands that more blacks be hired for the crew. If he is refused, Mr. Majeed’s recruits blow whistles and shoot off flashbulbs, making it impossible to film. Mr. Majeed appears to be happy to accept money rather than more black employees. In 1991 he reportedly told film director Woody Allen that in return for $100,000 he would leave Mr. Allen’s sets alone. Other filmmakers have hired private security guards to keep Mr. Majeed away. Mr. Majeed is the head of the Communications Industry Skills Center, an organization that is supposed to train blacks for jobs in the entertainment field. Until April 1990 it was financed by the city of New York.740

A marketing hook, as opposed to a logline, is anything that entices an audience into a theater. In Transformers, Toy Story, and G.I. Joe, the marketing hooks were the toys themselves. In Spider-Man and Iron Man, the marketing hooks were the familiarity many moviegoers would have with the comic books. The marketing hook for West Side Story could be “A modern day Romeo and Juliet set among the gangs of New York.” Sometimes a marketing hook puts together two successful elements, so if you did a film about a predatory lion in Africa that kills people, you might say it’s “Jaws meets Out of Africa.

The other major smuggling outfit, the Downtown Gang, was distinguished by its reputation for having considerably more guts than brains. The Downtown Gang was headed by a dandy named Johnny Jack Nounes, a legendary high roller who wore a diamond stickpin and carried a roll of hundred-dollar bills as thick as a cucumber. Johnny Jack was famous for his generosity. He gave toys to kids at Christmas, and once spent $40,000 on a party at the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York, where silent film stars Nancy Carroll and Clara Bow are said to have bathed in expensive champagne. He was equally famous for his careless approach to business. He sometimes hijacked truckloads of booze belonging to rival smugglers, and once stiffed a group of Cubans by paying for their boatload of rum with soap coupons.