3-Part Hollywood Crime Story Traces Mob’s Grip on Movies Through 1990
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Aug 14
3-Part Hollywood Crime Story Traces Mob’s Grip on Movies Through 1990
3 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Aug 14
Summary
Sundance Now and AMC+ are airing Hollywood Crime Story: The Mob Takes Over the Movies, a three-part docuseries arguing organized crime shaped Hollywood from cinema’s earliest days through 1990.
Tom Patterson’s series says the link began before Hollywood itself, from Thomas Edison’s hired enforcers pushing rivals west to mob-backed financing, union control and studio influence that reached major players including Columbia and MCA.
Its middle chapters track how overt gangster muscle gave way to boardroom power, centering on figures such as Sidney Korshak and Lew Wasserman and tying that network to The Godfather’s financing, production politics and cultural impact on real mob behavior.
The final episode follows the 1970s and 1980s shift into pornography, cocaine and independent film financing, including Robert Evans’s Cotton Club fallout, while Patterson says organized crime still touches today’s industry through streaming and piracy.