Boardwalk Empire: Season One 2010

     This series is based on a book titled Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City by Nelson Johnson.  The setting of the series is the Prohibition era of the 1920’s.  Enoch “Nucky” Thompson is the treasurer of Atlantic County, Atlantic City, New Jersey.  He has relationships with many mobsters and he has many political contacts.  The US Federal Government has just hired new men to be investigators for the Federal Revenue Department.  Nucky’s lifestyle is as lavish as it can possibly be!  His elected position doesn’t pay enough money to cover how he lives?  The Government is very interested in the possibility of excessive bootlegging in this area!!

     Because this series was filmed by HBO it can be a very different series than on a networks like NBC, CBS or ABC.  I was surprised about the nudity, body count, and level of violence.  Money rules Atlantic City and money determines the haves and the have-nots.  The first episode was filmed with a final cost of $18 million and the most expensive pilot episode produced in television history.  There are five seasons of this series from 2010 thru 2014. 

    

Twelve episodes, five discs, 732 minutes, created by Terence Winter, directed by Martin Scorsese with Steve Buscemi, Kelly Macdonald, Michael Shannon, Shea Whigham, Stepehn Grham, Vincent Piazza, Michael Kenneth Williams, Paul Sparks, Gretchen Mol, Michael Stuhlbarg, Anthony Laciura, Jack Huston, Anatol Yusef, Brady Noon.

Note:  Imdb 8.6 out of 10, 95% critic 97% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon 4.6* out of 5* with 10,942 reviews, Metacritic 88 out of 100 with 31 critics 8.6 out of 10 with 654 ratings, Slant Magazine 2 ½* out of 4*, Empire Online 4* out of 5*,

Special Note:  Atlantic City of the 1920’s was re-created for this series on a set in Brooklyn, New York.  The real-life figure of Nucky was a physically commanding man, both tall and heavyset with a receding hairline.  He resembled the character Tony Soprano from The Sopranos series instead of Steve Buscemi.  The character of Nucky was written for Buscemi with the intention of a different central character from Tony Soprano.  Michael Stuhlbarg is in the role of Arnold Rothstein.  He did so much research regarding his role that the show’s writers discovered he knew more about Rothstein than they did.  They deferred to his interpretation of the character.  Anthony Laciura was in the role of Eddie Kessler and the inspiration for this character was the real person Louis Kessler.  His relatives contacted Anthony and he wore the pocket watch during filming that Nucky gave Louis as a gift.