Why did the mob want a “takeover of unions, coast to coast”? Money was one signal reason, but there were others—for “by threatening union members with loss of work, the gangsters could marshal the efforts of husbands, wives, sons, and daughters in support of virtually any scam the gang could dream up, including swinging an election.”11 Moreover, mobsters like Longy Zwillman wanted to dominate unions because this helped him “to find jobs for his army of relatives,” not to mention cementing alliances with various other forces by doling out such benefits.12 As is evident, marshaling and manipulating kinship ties and ethnicity were essential components of this process.

The mob’s true role—more often than not—was elided. And even when the movies dealt ostensibly with mob influence within the unions, the force of the message was often subverted. For instance, On the Waterfront, which concerned the gangster-dominated longshore union in the New York area, was interpreted widely as a parable depicting the role of Communists.18 Similarly, Arthur Miller has told of writing a screenplay describing how gangsters murder and threaten union opponents, but studio executives wanted him to change the mobsters into Communists.19 According to James Agee, John Huston in his screenplay for Key Largo “wanted gangsters to represent ‘everything that is wrong with postwar America,’ but this intent, Agee says, was excised from the final cut.”

Coincidentally, the thematic trend toward gangster movies began as mobsters assumed more influence in the industry. Strikingly, according to the Hollywood left, these “gangster pictures played” a major role “in causing legislation against prohibition,” enabling an illicit mob-dominated business to become a legitimate mob-dominated business.21 Another critic has argued that “under the pressure of gangsters, art was being abandoned in favor of fast-buck productions designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator of society.”22

Edward Dymtryk, who directed Crossfire—a rare cinematic attack on anti-Semitism—argued that actors, being creative, leaned toward the left since they were thinking “in terms of new things all the time, not in terms of set things.” Dymtryk, who eventually became a “friendly witness” before congressional committees investigating the left in Hollywood, suggested further that as actors become stars—affluent and popular—they begin to lean toward the right, fearing that what they possess may be taken. The tensions between and among Hollywood’s creative and “non-creative” forces spurred contradictions and temblors that pushed stars particularly from left to right, besides sparking tremendous insecurity among them.113

Moguls, mobsters, and stars had numerous opportunities to encounter each other. There were the racetracks, like Santa Anita. There were the mobster-run gambling ships, where stars often performed and moguls lost huge bankrolls. Meyer Lansky says the ships “offered America’s entertainers their most remunerative live venues.”130 And after the ships were shut down, the entire operation simply moved inland to Las Vegas, where there was even more money to be made.