wn the pike, including such films as Goodfellas leading the parade, and Godfather III was a big hit as well. Why this concentration? Possibly Ñ which is sometimes the case with trends despite all the heavy analysis of them Ñ simple coincidence. Besides, a season rarely goes by without at least one or two gangster films. But there's something of a flood as of this fall (at this writing). Perhaps one reasons for the flood is just that there hasn't been such a flood lately and human nature abhors entertainment vacuums. Perhaps it's because glasnost has crippled the spy picture industry and has also deprived us as a focus of hate. For four decades, we had an evil empire to organize our system of likes and dislikes. We need some organizing principle, and the grim situation in the Gulf has been both too recent and too tremorous for easy categories of friend and foe (Kauffman, p. 26). Still the question returns as to why gangster films. Gangster films, as well as films of violence, have always been hot box office draws since the days of Al Capone and the many depictions of him on screen, including individuals such as Rod Steiger, Paul Muni, Jason Robards and a number of other actors. Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson were popular gangster figures of the 30's and 40's Ñ a trend which has continued unabated in the media. Similarly, to a large extent, it may be argued that these were glorifications of really dangerous and evil characters. For whatever reason, the collective American psyche seems to have a preoccupation with such heros and/or anti-heros as individuals may perceive them. Unfortunately, right along the hot topic of domestic violence is censorship. When attempting to assess the reasons for the violent American psyche which has become so world-wide renowned, our constitution permits for broad license within this area. According to one author, all movie ratings are based on the idea that a film can actually damage...