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Home Subscribe About Us Features News Album Reviews Movie Reviews Past Movies Movie Resources Concert Reviews Book Reviews Top 10 Contact Us	Black Hand Strawman (documentary) Narrator: Terence O’Malley Director: Terence O’Malley Scriptwriter: Terence O’Malley Rating: No rating but could be PG 13 for violent images Running Length: 115 minutes www.blackhandstrawman.com Director Terence O’Malley previously had done a Kansas City documentary on the history of Nelly Don, a fashion icon of her time, and the Nelly Don industry of women’s clothing. Now, he turns his attention to the Kansas City Mafia, in which the Black Hand was a basic sign, and “Strawman” being a government code for them. Black Hand Strawman is the story of the Mafia, Costa Nostra and various other gangland elements in the history of Kansas City, Missouri. If you thought the Mafia was solely on either coast of the United States, you thought wrong. It had a lively time in the Midwest from 1900 until the early 1970’s. A full 70 years or more of murder, mayhem, extortion, prostitution, drugs, gambling and anything else that could be deemed unlawful. Whatever it took to put money into gang coffers. The film is composed of new film footage concerning gang activities, business places, executions and all from police and FBI information, newsreel film, newspaper articles and headlines, plus wiretapping audio's. This gives you an idea of who was involved as the heads of organizations, where they were located within the Kansas City area, and the scope and honor of crime families. In other words, once you were in, you were IN. From the 1950’s and into the 1980’s, the main crime figure was Nick Civella. The Kansas City Mafia controlled a great part of Kansas City government for over thirty years, including the Teamsters Union. During the early 1920’s, there was rivalry between the Italian (Sicilian, also) people who resided in one area of Kansas City and the Irish people who resided in another part of town. One of the prominent building contractors of that time was the Irishman Tom Pendergast, who claimed as a friend, Harry S. Truman, then a rising politician. When the first screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather was shown in 1972 in Kansas City, the showing was bought out so citizens could not see the film, and instead a dance was held for people down the street from the largest movie theater in town. Although only a handful of Italian/Sicilian people held such power, generations of Italian/Sicilian immigrants to America were caught in the web of organized crime. “Black Hand Strawman” is well edited to tell this story and some pictures are difficult to see. Drive-by shootings are nothing new, as in the 1920’s, they were happening, shotguns and all. What is not explained in the film is what happened to families of the victims. Were they left alone later or also killed? Kansas City at one time had a violent crime death rate within the Top Ten of the nation, just below Chicago. Unfortunately, in 2008 and starting into 2009, drive-by shootings continue. Copyright 2009 Marie Asner