Boardwalk Empire and Louis Malle's Atlantic City

As Boardwalk Empire rolls towards its conclusion, and wanting to add further depth and dimension before it's gone, you may want to revisit - or catch for the first time- Louis Malle's Atlantic City. A French -Canadian production with a largely Canadian cast, except for Burt Lancaster as an aged gangster who remembers the heyday of AC, and Susan Sarandon as a young woman trying to carve out a living in the new gambling and casino structure that began to rise in the 1980s. Of course the heyday that Lancaster's character Lou recalls reflect the days of Boardwalk Empire- Bugsy Siegal, Lucky Luciano, even Nucky Johnson, (who was the real Tammany-like figure that Nucky Thompson is based on who wielded power in the resort's earlier days) make cameo appearances inasmuch as they are referenced in John Guare's excellent script. 

Gangsters old style and new tangle with hippie drug dealers and the growing casino culture with a backdrop of a romantic collision between Lancaster's character  in one of his final films and Sarandon in one of her early breakout roles.The background to this tale shows the destruction of the old hotels when the vacation Mecca was out of fashion and crime ridden and the first corporate hotel casinos  - like Howard Hughes' Resorts International - first began to transform the town into the Vegas of the East. Of course now Atlantic City is undergoing another transition as the casinos close and its future is at best uncertain, a chapter that remains to be written. But if you want to enjoy a great coda to Boardwalk Empire, catch up with Louis Malle's Atlantic City. I caught it on Encore on Demand.

--Anthony Napoli

Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn