大象传媒

Small boys who talk like Al Capone. Girls in flapper dresses. Machine guns that fire whipped cream. That's the bizarre genius that is director Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone, the 1976 musical with a unique take on prohibition-era Chicago. As if you don't know, Scott Baio stars as Bugsy, a wise-guy who gets tangled up in a local gang rivalry, while a 14-year-old Jodie Foster is Tallulah, singer at the local speakeasy. Ridiculous? Of course, that's why we love it.

What's more, if you're under 30 you probably remember all the songs from that school production you were in. The story, here, is little more than a peg on which Parker hung his tongue-in-cheek vision, and centres around a power struggle between Fat Sam (John Cassisi) and Dandy Dan (Martin Lev) for control of a grocery racket. Bugsy finds himself drawn in when Dan threatens to take over town via liberal use of splurge guns; really, though, he'd rather be wooing newly arrived club singer Blousey (Florrie Dugger).

"GLORIOUSLY WEIRD"

Sure, some of the performances are distinctly Year Nine drama class, but the whole idea is so gloriously weird it doesn't matter. The great set piece songs (and splurges) at Fat Sam's Grand Slam speakeasy, and Scott Baio's utterly winning turn as Bugsy, ensure this movie is guaranteed to inspire those warm, Sunday afternoon, family-around-the-television kind of feelings. And there's proof that there is some justice in Hollywood; Jodie Foster, the only actor here to achieve full-blown mega-stardom, acts her small co-stars off the screen.