Hoods

Rating:
Summary: Great Movie
Review: As an impressionable highschooler back in the 50's this book was so interesting I have never forgotten the characters after all these years. The mental images of the New York tenements, the bathroom in the hallway which was shared by these apartment dwellers....the progression of the tough kids growing up. The film 'Once Upon A Time In America' was one of the few movies where your memories of the written story were not distorted by a screenplay version. This is a book that I had to hide, lest my mother would find it and kill me!! I had similar hidden 'treasures of literature' of the same scandalous nature such as Peyton Place, From Here to Eternity, The Amboy Dukes....these were all very controversial in the 50's because they were about sex and profanity...my, how times have changed!

Rating:
Summary: True to Life
Review: Harry Gray's book is the most accurate book I've ever read regarding growing up in the city. So many of his characters, locations and circumstances bring to mind my own youth in the city that I wonder if he wasn't hanging around the corner from me. A must read for anyone although perhaps few may appreciate it's honesty.

Rating:
Summary: Great Movie
Review: I have to admit the movie was better but the book was good. Dont listen to those other reviews saying how dumb this book is. This book is great and gives much more detail then the movie. It is different then movie but remember this book came out 30 years before the movie did. It gives you a lot more info on Cockeye and Pasty then the movie does. There are a lot of differences in the book but characters are the same.

Rating:
Summary: Characters and Color of another Age
Review: If a book can be judged based upon the impact of remembrance through the years ,this is the book .I read this as a teenager many years ago and still can reminisce on the almost elegaic memory of "Noodles""Patsy" and the gang.When I saw"Once Upon a Time in America",the score captured perfectly the tone of loss and broken bonds.I searched all over and finally found it.

Rating:
Summary: Great to read
Review: This book is a great book for all the lovers of Sergio Leones masterpiece "Once Upon a time in america". For all of that love that movie, this book is what we needed to complete this long story that Noodles and his gang lived.

After reading this book, you could conclude if Noodles did infact have a nightmare or it was the reality.

Its just incredible to read, you feel you are in the story. Its a great book, I really recommend it!

Rating:
Summary: A terse, gangster tale
Review: This book is the only one i've ever read with a narrative from a gangster.It's chock full of vice,circa teens and roaring twenties details and slang that i regard as pretty much priceless.I love the Sergio Leone epic, and the graceful violence and nostalgia, but i've come to regard the book and the film as two seperate entities. The book is not really much of an epic. It's the plainly stated tale of Jewish gangsters ( a rarity these days. I should know. I'm Jewish).And it's accessible for two reasons: For one,it's straightforward, but also, i think people, assuming this book ever gets back in print, will be fascinated by the anectdotes and episodes of violence.