Boardwalk Empire (episode)
Encyclopedia
"Boardwalk Empire" is the first episode and the series premiere of the HBO crime drama Boardwalk Empire. Based upon Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City by Nelson Johnson, the episode was written by creator Terence Winter
and directed by Martin Scorsese
, both of whom serve as executive producers. The episode first aired in the United States on September 19, 2010.
smuggling whiskey from Canada into the United States. Once ashore, the bootleggers load the whiskey into trucks. Their final destination is New York. While passing through a remote portion of New Jersey they come across an overturned car and what appears to be the injured driver. Just as they finish removing the man and his car from the middle of the road they are approached from behind by two men in ski masks armed with shotguns. The overturned car and injured driver has turned out to be a ruse in order to get the smugglers out of their vehicles and away from their valuable cargo. Just as one of the robbers uses the butt of his rifle to knock down the lead smuggler, the scene abruptly cuts to events occurring three nights prior.
Atlantic County treasurer Nucky Thompson is the keynote speaker at a Women's Temperance League
rally on the eve of Prohibition
in 1920. In the audience watching him speak is a pregnant woman, Margaret Schroeder. He relates to the League a story about being the son of an alcoholic. He describes how his family was so severely impoverished that at one point his family ate rat
s. Nucky receives applause from the female audience.
At Nucky's club, Babette's, club-goers are enjoying the last night of legal drinking. In a back room, Nucky meets elected officials including the mayor of Atlantic City and Nucky's brother, the sheriff, Eli Thompson. Despite the impending prohibition the men are excited at the prospect of gaining from illegal liquor. Nucky controls many of the city's illegal enterprises. He welcomes back Jimmy who has just returned after serving in WWI
, and makes him a "Man Friday" (assistant) to Paddy Ryan, a young ward boss
.
The next morning, Jimmy discusses his disappointment with his new position with his girlfriend Angela as he eats breakfast with their young son Thomas.
Meanwhile at Nucky's hotel, The Ritz, his assistant Eddie Kessler rudely awakens both Nucky and his girlfriend Lucy Danziger. He informs Nucky that there is a pregnant woman waiting to speak to him. Margaret Schroeder tells Nucky of how moved she was by his fabricated story. She seeks a job for her husband, Hans, who has a gambling
and drinking problem. Nucky gives Mrs. Schroeder some money. To thank him she promises to name her third child after Nucky. Nucky, advising her not to name him Enoch
, has Jimmy drive her home.
Thompson meets fisherman Bill McCoy and agrees to buy a shipment of whiskey. Jimmy and Nucky then travel to a funeral home where hidden behind a false wall is large moonshine
operation headed by Mickey Doyle, whose last name was formerly Kozik. As a joke Mickey has Jimmy drink a glass of formaldehyde
pretending that it is scotch. A struggle ensues and Nucky sends Jimmy outside. He chastises Jimmy for his aggression and for dropping out of Princeton
for the army. Jimmy is eager to prove himself as a reliable enforcer but Nucky won't hear of it.
Meanwhile, Margaret Schroeder is confronted by a drunken Hans, who earlier witnessed her getting a ride home from Jimmy and found the money given to her by Thompson. Believing her to be prostituting
herself, he strikes her violently in front of their two children.
Back at his hotel, Nucky meets with four major mob figures: New York's Arnold Rothstein
and Lucky Luciano
as well as Chicago's Big Jim Colosimo and Johnny Torrio
. Moments prior all four bosses were being covertly surveilled by federal prohibition agent
Nelson Van Alden and his seemingly incompetent partner Agent Sebso. The bosses express interest in having Nucky become their primary liquor supplier to which Nucky accepts. Rothstein requests some alcohol for a friend's wedding and Nucky agrees to sell him the shipment he is to receive from McCoy on the condition that Rothstein use his own men to pick it up and transport it. Outside the hotel, Jimmy chats to another young driver like himself, a young Al Capone
.
Later while walking with his girlfriend and son, Jimmy is stopped by Agent Van Alden and taken to the bureau's headquarters. They attempt to recruit him in order to take down Nucky.
Meanwhile, Nucky learns that Arnold Rothstein, who has a reputation as a skilled gambler and a cheat, has taken Nucky's casino for a considerable sum of money. He gets Rothstein to leave but on the way out Nucky is stopped by an angry Hans Schroeder who is gambling away the money Nucky gave to his wife. Angered by this, Nucky grabs Hans and smashes his face repeatedly against a craps table and kicks him out of his casino. A drunken Hans goes home and again takes out his anger and frustration by severely beating Margaret, killing their unborn child.
The next day, Jimmy plots with Al Capone to rob Rothstein's incoming whiskey shipment. The scene then quickly cuts to the conclusion of the opening whiskey robbery that very night. Al Capone, startled by a deer, opens fire on the surrendering smugglers leading Jimmy and Al to shoot them all. They flee with the stolen goods once they kill everyone. Simultaneously, only three miles away, Agent Van Alden leads a team of federal agents through the woods where they raid Mickey Doyle's funeral home moonshine operation whose location was given up by Jimmy as revenge for Doyle's formaldehyde prank.
In the aftermath, Jimmy gives Nucky an envelope containing "his" share of the heist, and expresses how his experiences in the war have changed him into a killer. When Nucky learns about Margaret's hospitalization, he has his sheriff brother, Eli, and his deputy, Halloran, kidnap Hans Schroeder. They take him out to sea and beat him to death, dumping his body into the harbor in retribution for his vicious attack on his wife. These scenes are interspersed with the assassination of mob boss Big Jim Colosimo in his Chicago restaurant.
The final scene shows Nucky delivering flowers to a recovering and now widowed Margaret Schroeder.
winner Terence Winter
, who had served as executive producer and writer on the critically acclaimed HBO series The Sopranos
, was hired to adapt the novel Boardwalk Empire on June 4, 2008. Winter had been interested in creating a series set in the 1920s, feeling that it had never properly been explored before. It was for this reason that he decided to focus his adaption of the novel on the Prohibition era section. On September 1, 2009, it was announced that Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese
would direct the pilot. It would be the first time he had directed an episode of television since an episode of Steven Spielberg's
Amazing Stories
in 1986. The production would be very ambitious, with some even speculating it would be too large scale for television. "I kept thinking 'This is pointless. How can we possibly afford a boardwalk, or an empire? says creator Terence Winter. "We can't call it 'Boardwalk Empire' and not see a boardwalk." The production would eventually build a 300 feet (91.4 m) boardwalk in an empty lot in Brooklyn, New York at the cost of five million dollars. Despite a reported budget of up to $50 million, the pilot's final budget came in at $18 million.
On why he chose to return to television, Scorsese said "What's happening the past 9 to 10 years, particularly at HBO, is what we had hoped for in the mid-Sixties with films being made for television at first. We'd hoped there would be this kind of freedom and also the ability to create another world and create longform characters and story. That didn't happen in the 1970s, 1980s and in the 1990s I think. And of course ...HBO is a trailblazer in this. I've been tempted over the years to be involved with them because of the nature of long-form and their development of character and plot." He went on to praise network HBO by saying, "A number of the episodes, in so many of their series, they're thoughtful, intelligent [and] brilliantly put together... It's a new opportunity for storytelling. It's very different from television of the past."
), Winter wanted to stray from the real life Johnson as much as possible. "If we were going to cast accurately what the real Nucky looked like, we'd have cast Jim Gandolfini
." The idea of casting Steve Buscemi
in the lead role came about when Scorsese mentioned wanting to work with the actor, whom Winter knew well having worked with him on The Sopranos. Winter sent the script out to Buscemi, who responded very enthusiastically. "I just thought, 'Wow. I'm almost sorry I've read this, because if I don't get it, I'm going to be so sad.' My response was 'Terry, I know you're looking at other actors'... and he said, 'No, no, Steve, I said we want you. Explained Scorsese, "I love the range he has, his dramatic sense, but also his sense of humor."
The casting of Buscemi was soon followed by Michael Pitt
, best known for his role in the Bernardo Bertolucci
film The Dreamers. He was soon joined by Kelly Macdonald
, Vincent Piazza
and Michael Shannon
, who had just received an Oscar nomination for his role in the Sam Mendes
film Revolutionary Road
.
in June, 2009. In creating the visual effects for the series, the company turned to Brooklyn-based effects company Brainstorm Digital. Says Glenn Allen, visual effects producer for Boardwalk Empire and co-founder of Brainstorm, "It's our most complex job to date. Everything is HD now, so we have to treat it like a feature film." "Anytime you get to work on a period piece, it's more fun," comments visual effects artist Chris "Pinkus" Wesselman, who used archival photographs, postcards, and architectural plans to recreate the Atlantic City boardwalks as accurately as possible. "We got to explore what the old Atlantic City was really like. The piers were one of the toughest parts because every summer they would change - new houses, new advertisements." It took two months for the firm to complete all the visual effects for the pilot.
awarded the episode five stars, saying "Watching HBO's new 'Boardwalk Empire' is like sitting in your favorite tavern and hearing someone say, 'Drinks are on the house.' Friends, it doesn't get much better." Paige Wiser of the Chicago Sun-Times
called it "... an event not to be missed," and praised Buscemi in particular, calling his performance "fascinating." TV Guide
's Matt Roush praised the marriage of Scorsese and Winter, saying it "... brilliantly marries Martin Scorsese's virtuosic cinematic eye to Terence Winter's panoramic mastery of rich character and eventful story," and finished his review by stating "It's the most purely—and impurely—enjoyable storytelling HBO has delivered in ages, like a movie that you never want to end." Variety
's Brian Lowry praised the show for returning network HBO to top form, saying "This is, quite simply, television at its finest, occupying a sweet spot that—for all the able competition—still remains unique to HBO: An expensive, explicit, character-driven program, tackling material no broadcast network or movie studio would dare touch... For those wondering when the channel would deliver another franchise to definitively put it on top of the world, Ma, the wait is over: Go directly to "Boardwalk."" "One of the unexpected joys of "Boardwalk Empire," though, lies in the way the show revels in the oddities of its time, peeling back the layers of polite society to reveal a giddy shadow world of criminals and politicians collaborating to keep the liquor flowing," says online magazine Salon's
Heather Havrilesky who went on to call the pilot "breathtaking." Roberto Bianco from USA Today
said in his review that Boardwalk Empire was "Extravagantly produced, shockingly violent and as cold and hard as ice, Boardwalk Empire brings us back to the world's former playground at the start of Prohibition—and brings HBO back to the forefront of the TV-series race."
However, not all critical reviews were favorable. Nancy Franklin of The New Yorker
felt that the series too closely echoed The Sopranos, and went on to say that "... the first episode alone cost nearly twenty million dollars-and it looks authentic in a way that, paradoxically, seems lifeless. You're constantly aware that you're watching a period piece, albeit one with some vivid scenes and interesting details." Chris Barsanti from PopMatters
affords the show six out of ten, remarking that the series "..doesn't begin in the most thought-proving manner..." and added that the character of Jimmy Darmody is a "dud" and Michael Pitt gives "a one-note performance." Aaron Riccio of Slant praised the series overall (awarding it three and a half stars), but commented that the show was "too big" and had too many subplots. "The plots that Boardwalk Empire does settle on are too complex for a single episode," he said, "... while this style of drawn-out, season-long storytelling can work the writers don't establish enough tension up front to carry the back-heavy narrative."
in March, 2004. Following this successful debut, HBO immediately renewed the series for a second season.
Terence Winter
Terence Winter is an American writer and producer of television and film. He is the creator, writer, and executive producer of the HBO television series Boardwalk Empire...
and directed by Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, both of whom serve as executive producers. The episode first aired in the United States on September 19, 2010.
Main cast
- Steve BuscemiSteve BuscemiSteven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs,...
- Michael PittMichael PittMichael Carmen Pitt is an American actor and musician. Pitt is best known in film for his role in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, and in television for his portrayal of James "Jimmy" Darmody in the hit HBO series Boardwalk Empire.-Personal life:Pitt was born in West Orange, New Jersey, the...
- Kelly MacdonaldKelly MacdonaldKelly Macdonald is a Scottish actress, known for her role in the independent film Trainspotting and mainstream releases such as Nanny McPhee, Gosford Park, Intermission, No Country for Old Men and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2...
- Michael ShannonMichael Shannon (actor)Michael Corbett Shannon is an American stage, film, and television actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Revolutionary Road...
- Shea WhighamShea WhighamFranklin Shea Whigham, Jr. , best known as Shea Whigham, is an American actor notably starring as Elias "Eli" Thompson on the HBO dramatic series Boardwalk Empire.-Early life:...
- Aleksa PalladinoAleksa PalladinoAleksa Palladino is an Italian American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her lead roles in Manny & Lo, The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, Find Me Guilty, Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.-Life and career:Palladino was born in New York City, where she grew up...
- Michael StuhlbargMichael StuhlbargMichael S. Stuhlbarg is an American theatre, film and television actor.-Life and career:Stuhlbarg was born in Long Beach, California and raised in Reform Judaism. He trained at Juilliard School and also studied acting at the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, University of London and UCLA...
- Stephen GrahamStephen Graham (actor)Stephen Graham is an English actor from Kirkby, Liverpool. He is best known for his roles as Tommy in the movie Snatch, Combo in This Is England and its four-part television sequel This Is England '86, Danny Ferguson in Occupation, Billy Bremner in The Damned United, notorious bank robber Baby...
- Vincent PiazzaVincent PiazzaVincent Piazza is an American film, television and stage actor best known for his roles in the television series Boardwalk Empire and the 2007 film Rocket Science.- Biography :...
- Paz de la HuertaPaz de la HuertaMaría de la Paz Elizabeth Sofía Adriana de la Huerta , better known by her professional name Paz de la Huerta, is an American actress and model...
- Michael Kenneth WilliamsMichael K. WilliamsMichael Kenneth Williams is an American actor known for his portrayal of Omar Little on the HBO drama series The Wire, and of Albert "Chalky" White on HBO's Boardwalk Empire.-Early life and career:...
- Anthony LaciuraAnthony LaciuraAnthony Laciura is an American operatic tenor, noted for his abilities as a comprimario. Born in New Orleans, he studied voice there with Charles Paddock, also the teacher of Ticho Parly....
- Paul Sparks
- and Dabney ColemanDabney ColemanDabney Wharton Coleman is an American actor, best known for his roles in 9 to 5, WarGames, You've Got Mail, Sworn to Silence, The Beverly Hillbillies and as the voice of Principal Peter Prickly in Recess and Recess: School's Out.-Early life:Coleman was born in Austin, Texas, the son of Mary...
Plot
The episode opens on a shot of a fisherman, Bill McCoy on a foggy night, as he spots a smaller boat coming towards his. After a brief exchange McCoy delivers his cargo, several crates of whiskey, to the smaller ship. The men are all bootleggersRum-running
Rum-running, also known as bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law...
smuggling whiskey from Canada into the United States. Once ashore, the bootleggers load the whiskey into trucks. Their final destination is New York. While passing through a remote portion of New Jersey they come across an overturned car and what appears to be the injured driver. Just as they finish removing the man and his car from the middle of the road they are approached from behind by two men in ski masks armed with shotguns. The overturned car and injured driver has turned out to be a ruse in order to get the smugglers out of their vehicles and away from their valuable cargo. Just as one of the robbers uses the butt of his rifle to knock down the lead smuggler, the scene abruptly cuts to events occurring three nights prior.
Atlantic County treasurer Nucky Thompson is the keynote speaker at a Women's Temperance League
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
rally on the eve of Prohibition
Prohibition in the United States
Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol, in place from 1920 to 1933. The ban was mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and the Volstead Act set down the rules for enforcing the ban, as well as defining which...
in 1920. In the audience watching him speak is a pregnant woman, Margaret Schroeder. He relates to the League a story about being the son of an alcoholic. He describes how his family was so severely impoverished that at one point his family ate rat
Rat
Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. "True rats" are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, and the brown rat, Rattus norvegicus...
s. Nucky receives applause from the female audience.
At Nucky's club, Babette's, club-goers are enjoying the last night of legal drinking. In a back room, Nucky meets elected officials including the mayor of Atlantic City and Nucky's brother, the sheriff, Eli Thompson. Despite the impending prohibition the men are excited at the prospect of gaining from illegal liquor. Nucky controls many of the city's illegal enterprises. He welcomes back Jimmy who has just returned after serving in WWI
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, and makes him a "Man Friday" (assistant) to Paddy Ryan, a young ward boss
Political boss
A boss, in politics, is a person who wields the power over a particular political region or constituency. Bosses may dictate voting patterns, control appointments, and wield considerable influence in other political processes. They do not necessarily hold public office themselves...
.
The next morning, Jimmy discusses his disappointment with his new position with his girlfriend Angela as he eats breakfast with their young son Thomas.
Meanwhile at Nucky's hotel, The Ritz, his assistant Eddie Kessler rudely awakens both Nucky and his girlfriend Lucy Danziger. He informs Nucky that there is a pregnant woman waiting to speak to him. Margaret Schroeder tells Nucky of how moved she was by his fabricated story. She seeks a job for her husband, Hans, who has a gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
and drinking problem. Nucky gives Mrs. Schroeder some money. To thank him she promises to name her third child after Nucky. Nucky, advising her not to name him Enoch
Enoch
Enoch "initiated, dedicated, disciplined") is a Hebrew name...
, has Jimmy drive her home.
Thompson meets fisherman Bill McCoy and agrees to buy a shipment of whiskey. Jimmy and Nucky then travel to a funeral home where hidden behind a false wall is large moonshine
Moonshine
Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...
operation headed by Mickey Doyle, whose last name was formerly Kozik. As a joke Mickey has Jimmy drink a glass of formaldehyde
Formaldehyde
Formaldehyde is an organic compound with the formula CH2O. It is the simplest aldehyde, hence its systematic name methanal.Formaldehyde is a colorless gas with a characteristic pungent odor. It is an important precursor to many other chemical compounds, especially for polymers...
pretending that it is scotch. A struggle ensues and Nucky sends Jimmy outside. He chastises Jimmy for his aggression and for dropping out of Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
for the army. Jimmy is eager to prove himself as a reliable enforcer but Nucky won't hear of it.
Meanwhile, Margaret Schroeder is confronted by a drunken Hans, who earlier witnessed her getting a ride home from Jimmy and found the money given to her by Thompson. Believing her to be prostituting
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
herself, he strikes her violently in front of their two children.
Back at his hotel, Nucky meets with four major mob figures: New York's Arnold Rothstein
Arnold Rothstein
Arnold Rothstein , nicknamed "The Brain", was a New York businessman and gambler who became a famous kingpin of the Jewish mafia. Rothstein was also widely reputed to have been behind baseball's Black Sox Scandal, in which the 1919 World Series was fixed...
and Lucky Luciano
Lucky Luciano
Charlie "Lucky" Luciano was an Italian mobster born in Sicily. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for splitting New York City into five different Mafia crime families and the establishment of the first commission...
as well as Chicago's Big Jim Colosimo and Johnny Torrio
Johnny Torrio
John "Papa Johnny" Torrio , also known as "The Fox", was an Italian-American mobster who helped build the criminal empire known as the Chicago Outfit in the 1920s that was later inherited by his protege, Al Capone...
. Moments prior all four bosses were being covertly surveilled by federal prohibition agent
Bureau of Prohibition
The Bureau of Prohibition was the federal law enforcement agency formed to enforce the National Prohibition Act of 1919, commonly known as the Volstead Act, which backed up the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution regarding the prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and transportation...
Nelson Van Alden and his seemingly incompetent partner Agent Sebso. The bosses express interest in having Nucky become their primary liquor supplier to which Nucky accepts. Rothstein requests some alcohol for a friend's wedding and Nucky agrees to sell him the shipment he is to receive from McCoy on the condition that Rothstein use his own men to pick it up and transport it. Outside the hotel, Jimmy chats to another young driver like himself, a young Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
.
Later while walking with his girlfriend and son, Jimmy is stopped by Agent Van Alden and taken to the bureau's headquarters. They attempt to recruit him in order to take down Nucky.
Meanwhile, Nucky learns that Arnold Rothstein, who has a reputation as a skilled gambler and a cheat, has taken Nucky's casino for a considerable sum of money. He gets Rothstein to leave but on the way out Nucky is stopped by an angry Hans Schroeder who is gambling away the money Nucky gave to his wife. Angered by this, Nucky grabs Hans and smashes his face repeatedly against a craps table and kicks him out of his casino. A drunken Hans goes home and again takes out his anger and frustration by severely beating Margaret, killing their unborn child.
The next day, Jimmy plots with Al Capone to rob Rothstein's incoming whiskey shipment. The scene then quickly cuts to the conclusion of the opening whiskey robbery that very night. Al Capone, startled by a deer, opens fire on the surrendering smugglers leading Jimmy and Al to shoot them all. They flee with the stolen goods once they kill everyone. Simultaneously, only three miles away, Agent Van Alden leads a team of federal agents through the woods where they raid Mickey Doyle's funeral home moonshine operation whose location was given up by Jimmy as revenge for Doyle's formaldehyde prank.
In the aftermath, Jimmy gives Nucky an envelope containing "his" share of the heist, and expresses how his experiences in the war have changed him into a killer. When Nucky learns about Margaret's hospitalization, he has his sheriff brother, Eli, and his deputy, Halloran, kidnap Hans Schroeder. They take him out to sea and beat him to death, dumping his body into the harbor in retribution for his vicious attack on his wife. These scenes are interspersed with the assassination of mob boss Big Jim Colosimo in his Chicago restaurant.
The final scene shows Nucky delivering flowers to a recovering and now widowed Margaret Schroeder.
Development
Emmy AwardEmmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
winner Terence Winter
Terence Winter
Terence Winter is an American writer and producer of television and film. He is the creator, writer, and executive producer of the HBO television series Boardwalk Empire...
, who had served as executive producer and writer on the critically acclaimed HBO series The Sopranos
The Sopranos
The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...
, was hired to adapt the novel Boardwalk Empire on June 4, 2008. Winter had been interested in creating a series set in the 1920s, feeling that it had never properly been explored before. It was for this reason that he decided to focus his adaption of the novel on the Prohibition era section. On September 1, 2009, it was announced that Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
would direct the pilot. It would be the first time he had directed an episode of television since an episode of Steven Spielberg's
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
Amazing Stories
Amazing Stories (TV series)
Amazing Stories is a fantasy, horror, and science fiction television anthology series created by Steven Spielberg. It ran on NBC from 1985 to 1987, and was somewhat erratically screened in Britain by BBC1 and BBC2 - billed in the Radio Times as "Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories" - with episodes...
in 1986. The production would be very ambitious, with some even speculating it would be too large scale for television. "I kept thinking 'This is pointless. How can we possibly afford a boardwalk, or an empire? says creator Terence Winter. "We can't call it 'Boardwalk Empire' and not see a boardwalk." The production would eventually build a 300 feet (91.4 m) boardwalk in an empty lot in Brooklyn, New York at the cost of five million dollars. Despite a reported budget of up to $50 million, the pilot's final budget came in at $18 million.
On why he chose to return to television, Scorsese said "What's happening the past 9 to 10 years, particularly at HBO, is what we had hoped for in the mid-Sixties with films being made for television at first. We'd hoped there would be this kind of freedom and also the ability to create another world and create longform characters and story. That didn't happen in the 1970s, 1980s and in the 1990s I think. And of course ...HBO is a trailblazer in this. I've been tempted over the years to be involved with them because of the nature of long-form and their development of character and plot." He went on to praise network HBO by saying, "A number of the episodes, in so many of their series, they're thoughtful, intelligent [and] brilliantly put together... It's a new opportunity for storytelling. It's very different from television of the past."
Casting
"Scorsese is an actor magnet," commented Winter. "Everybody wants to work with him. I had all these pictures on my wall and I thought, 'I'd really better write some good stuff for these people. In casting the role of Nucky Thompson (based upon real-life Atlantic City political boss Enoch L. JohnsonEnoch L. Johnson
Enoch Lewis "Nucky" Johnson was an Atlantic City, New Jersey political boss and racketeer. From the 1910s until his imprisonment in 1941, he was the undisputed “boss” of the Republican political machine that controlled Atlantic City and the Atlantic County government...
), Winter wanted to stray from the real life Johnson as much as possible. "If we were going to cast accurately what the real Nucky looked like, we'd have cast Jim Gandolfini
James Gandolfini
James J. Gandolfini, Jr. is an Italian American actor. He is best known for his role as Tony Soprano in the HBO TV series The Sopranos, about a troubled crime boss struggling to balance his family life and career in the Mafia...
." The idea of casting Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi
Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs,...
in the lead role came about when Scorsese mentioned wanting to work with the actor, whom Winter knew well having worked with him on The Sopranos. Winter sent the script out to Buscemi, who responded very enthusiastically. "I just thought, 'Wow. I'm almost sorry I've read this, because if I don't get it, I'm going to be so sad.' My response was 'Terry, I know you're looking at other actors'... and he said, 'No, no, Steve, I said we want you. Explained Scorsese, "I love the range he has, his dramatic sense, but also his sense of humor."
The casting of Buscemi was soon followed by Michael Pitt
Michael Pitt
Michael Carmen Pitt is an American actor and musician. Pitt is best known in film for his role in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, and in television for his portrayal of James "Jimmy" Darmody in the hit HBO series Boardwalk Empire.-Personal life:Pitt was born in West Orange, New Jersey, the...
, best known for his role in the Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci
Bernardo Bertolucci is an Italian film director and screenwriter, whose films include The Conformist, Last Tango in Paris, 1900, The Last Emperor and The Dreamers...
film The Dreamers. He was soon joined by Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Macdonald is a Scottish actress, known for her role in the independent film Trainspotting and mainstream releases such as Nanny McPhee, Gosford Park, Intermission, No Country for Old Men and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2...
, Vincent Piazza
Vincent Piazza
Vincent Piazza is an American film, television and stage actor best known for his roles in the television series Boardwalk Empire and the 2007 film Rocket Science.- Biography :...
and Michael Shannon
Michael Shannon (actor)
Michael Corbett Shannon is an American stage, film, and television actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Revolutionary Road...
, who had just received an Oscar nomination for his role in the Sam Mendes
Sam Mendes
Samuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes, CBE is an English stage and film director. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning work on his debut film American Beauty and his dark re-inventions of the stage musicals Cabaret , Oliver! , Company and Gypsy . He's currently working on the 23rd James Bond...
film Revolutionary Road
Revolutionary Road (film)
Revolutionary Road is a 2008 American drama film directed by Sam Mendes, from screenplay by Justin Haythe, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. It is based on the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard Yates....
.
Filming
Filming for the pilot took place at various locations in and around New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in June, 2009. In creating the visual effects for the series, the company turned to Brooklyn-based effects company Brainstorm Digital. Says Glenn Allen, visual effects producer for Boardwalk Empire and co-founder of Brainstorm, "It's our most complex job to date. Everything is HD now, so we have to treat it like a feature film." "Anytime you get to work on a period piece, it's more fun," comments visual effects artist Chris "Pinkus" Wesselman, who used archival photographs, postcards, and architectural plans to recreate the Atlantic City boardwalks as accurately as possible. "We got to explore what the old Atlantic City was really like. The piers were one of the toughest parts because every summer they would change - new houses, new advertisements." It took two months for the firm to complete all the visual effects for the pilot.
Critical reception
The pilot episode received almost universal acclaim from television critics. David Hinkley of the New York Daily NewsNew York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
awarded the episode five stars, saying "Watching HBO's new 'Boardwalk Empire' is like sitting in your favorite tavern and hearing someone say, 'Drinks are on the house.' Friends, it doesn't get much better." Paige Wiser of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
called it "... an event not to be missed," and praised Buscemi in particular, calling his performance "fascinating." TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
's Matt Roush praised the marriage of Scorsese and Winter, saying it "... brilliantly marries Martin Scorsese's virtuosic cinematic eye to Terence Winter's panoramic mastery of rich character and eventful story," and finished his review by stating "It's the most purely—and impurely—enjoyable storytelling HBO has delivered in ages, like a movie that you never want to end." Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
's Brian Lowry praised the show for returning network HBO to top form, saying "This is, quite simply, television at its finest, occupying a sweet spot that—for all the able competition—still remains unique to HBO: An expensive, explicit, character-driven program, tackling material no broadcast network or movie studio would dare touch... For those wondering when the channel would deliver another franchise to definitively put it on top of the world, Ma, the wait is over: Go directly to "Boardwalk."" "One of the unexpected joys of "Boardwalk Empire," though, lies in the way the show revels in the oddities of its time, peeling back the layers of polite society to reveal a giddy shadow world of criminals and politicians collaborating to keep the liquor flowing," says online magazine Salon's
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
Heather Havrilesky who went on to call the pilot "breathtaking." Roberto Bianco from USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
said in his review that Boardwalk Empire was "Extravagantly produced, shockingly violent and as cold and hard as ice, Boardwalk Empire brings us back to the world's former playground at the start of Prohibition—and brings HBO back to the forefront of the TV-series race."
However, not all critical reviews were favorable. Nancy Franklin of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
felt that the series too closely echoed The Sopranos, and went on to say that "... the first episode alone cost nearly twenty million dollars-and it looks authentic in a way that, paradoxically, seems lifeless. You're constantly aware that you're watching a period piece, albeit one with some vivid scenes and interesting details." Chris Barsanti from PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
affords the show six out of ten, remarking that the series "..doesn't begin in the most thought-proving manner..." and added that the character of Jimmy Darmody is a "dud" and Michael Pitt gives "a one-note performance." Aaron Riccio of Slant praised the series overall (awarding it three and a half stars), but commented that the show was "too big" and had too many subplots. "The plots that Boardwalk Empire does settle on are too complex for a single episode," he said, "... while this style of drawn-out, season-long storytelling can work the writers don't establish enough tension up front to carry the back-heavy narrative."
Ratings
On its original airing at 9 p.m., "Boardwalk Empire" gained a 2.0/5 ratings share among adults aged 18–49 and garnered 4.81 million viewers. The episode was re-played twice that night, once at 10:15 p.m. and again at 11:30 p.m. Taking these broadcasts into account, a total of 7.1 million Americans viewed the episode on the night of its original broadcast, and is the highest rated premiere for an HBO series since the pilot of DeadwoodDeadwood (TV series)
Deadwood is an American Western drama television series created, produced and largely written by David Milch. The series aired on the premium cable network HBO from March 21, 2004, to August 27, 2006, spanning three 12-episode seasons. The show is set in the 1870s in Deadwood, South Dakota, before...
in March, 2004. Following this successful debut, HBO immediately renewed the series for a second season.