Blog

‘November 1963’ puts Chicago Outfit at center of JFK assassination

The film November 1963 dramatizes the theory that the Chicago Outfit played a role in both John F. Kennedy’s election as president and his assassination. In the film, John Travolta, left, plays mobster Johnny Rosselli and Dylan McDermott plays hitman Charles “Chuckie the Typewriter” Nicoletti. Entertainment Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo
October 29, 2026

A new feature film about the Kennedy assassination puts the Chicago Outfit at the center of a plot to kill the nation’s 35th president. Directed by Roland Joffé, November 1963 stars John Travolta as mobster Johnny Rosselli, Jefferson White as accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, and Mandy Patinkin as Outfit boss Tony Accardo. It also features Robert Carlyle as Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner with suspected Mob ties who fatally shot Oswald on live TV two days after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The movie, filmed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is set to debut in theaters on December 4. The official details of ...

Learn More

Las Vegas casino pioneer a footnote in Southern California slaying

A high-profile murder in 1950s Southern California at the former home of a Las Vegas casino operator led to the…

Learn More
After the four-casino blitz of 1955, Life magazine speculated about the sustainability of the boom. The new casinos had to keep up with the big budgets of successful casinos such as the Desert Inn, which paid British musician Noël Coward, pictured here, $40,000 a week. The Mob Museum Collection

Casino boom added four new properties to Las Vegas 70 years ago

Seventy years ago, in April and May of 1955, Las Vegas welcomed four new hotel-casinos in a six-week period. This…

Learn More
The Alto Knights, starring Robert De Niro as both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, premiered to lukewarm reviews last month. The Alto Knight is among the first of many Mob movies debuting this year. Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

New Mob movies point to continued demand

While some question whether Mob movies have run their course, a recent slate of gangster films indicates public interest remains…

Learn More
Charles Binaggio and Charles Gargotta were found murdered at the First Democratic Club in Kansas City on April 6, 1950. Gargotta’s body is seen here near a portrait of President Harry Truman. The Kansas City Star

Mobbed-up power broker Charles Binaggio gunned down in Kansas City 75 years ago

Mobbed-up power broker Charles Binaggio gunned down in Kansas City 75 years ago

Learn More
Las Vegas entertainer Al Martino, second from left in front, became a household name after his casting as singer Johnny Fontane in the 1972 film The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola, second from right, paid a visit to the Desert Inn to help get Martino out of his contract. Alison Martino

Alison Martino recalls her father’s Las Vegas

When singer Al Martino was a showroom headliner performing on the Las Vegas Strip years ago, the mobsters who ran…

Learn More
Before John Gotti bricked over the façade, the Ravenite Social Club had a much more welcoming exterior. Crime family boss Carlo Gambino and his underboss Aniello Dellacroce made the Ravenite their headquarters. Getty Images

New film ‘The Alto Knights’ named for one of Mob’s many social clubs

The Alto Knights, the film written by Nicholas Pileggi and directed by Barry Levinson, is named for a once-prominent Manhattan social…

Learn More
Nick Pileggi adds a new entry to the extensive library of Mob movies in March with The Alto Knights. Pileggi also wrote Goodfellas and Casino, both mainstays of the organized crime film genre. Courtesy of Kate Henry

New movie ‘The Alto Knights’ revives bitter feud between major mobsters

The newest Mob movie written by journalist and screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi, The Alto Knights, is his third major script focused…

Learn More
  • Archives