Bugsy

Bugsy is a 1991 American biographical crime drama film directed by Barry Levinson and written by James Toback. The film stars Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley, Elliott Gould, Bebe Neuwirth, and Joe Mantegna. It is based on the life of American mobster Bugsy Siegel and his relationship with wife and starlet Virginia Hill. Bugsy was given a limited release by TriStar Pictures on December 13, 1991, followed by a theatrical wide release on December 20, 1991. It received generally positive reviews from critics and was a minor box office hit, grossing $49.1 million on a $30 million budget. It received ten nominations at the 64th Academy Awards (including for Best Picture and Best Director) and won two: Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama. Plot In 1941, gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, who had partnered in crime since childhood with Meyer Lansky and Charlie Luciano, goes to Los Angeles and instantly falls in love with Virginia Hill, a tough-talking Hollywood starlet. The two meet for the first time when Bugsy visits actor George Raft on the set of Manpower. He buys a house in Beverly Hills, planning to stay there while his wife and two daughters remain in Scarsdale, New York. Bugsy is in California to wrestle control of betting parlors away from weak Los Angeles crime family boss Jack Dragna. Ascending local Jewish gangster Mickey Cohen robs Dragna's operation one day. He is confronted by Bugsy, who decides he should be in business with the guy who committed the robbery, not the guy who got robbed. Cohen is put in charge of the betting casinos; Dragna is forced to confess to a raging Bugsy that he stole $14,000 and is told he now answers to Cohen.