Goodfellas (Based on the Book "Wiseguy" By Nicholas Pileggi)

by Martin Scorsese (Author), Martin Scorsese (Author), Nicholas Pileggi (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1990

  $3.79

  As far back as I can remember, I've always wanted to be a gangster. Henry Hill grew up in the midst of New York City's criminal underworld, finally achieving the coveted status of wiseguy. But in 1980, he made the decision to exchange his knowledge for a new identity. GoodFellas, Hill's own account of crude hierarchies, casual murders, and collaboration with the Feds (as a member of the Witness Protection Program) was adapted for the screen by Martin Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi--and is now seen as a contemporary classic. The film drew rave reviews everywhere upon its theatrical release in 1990, and was nominated for Oscars in both the Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay categories. This book also offers an introduction by David Thompson, the noted film critic and co-editor of Scorsese on Scorsese.

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $3.42

• New

  Paperback
  2005

  $13.00

  'At the age of twelve my ambition was to be a gangster. To me being a wiseguy was better than being president of the United States. To be a wiseguy was to own the world.' GoodFellas is Henry Hill's own story, telling the fascinating and sometimes brutal details of the day-to-day life of a working New York mobster - the violence, wild spending sprees, his wife, his mistress, his code of honour. From the small-time scamming of his early years, his first arrest at the age of sixteen and initiation into the dealings of his wiseguy friends and bosses, Henry Hill tells of the good times, dodgy dealings, indulgences, and the insularity of the mob-controlled neighbourhoods. But things start to go too far. To save his own life, Hill turns into a Federal witness, and the mob is to this day still hunting him down for revealing their involvement in hundreds of crimes including arson, extortion, hijacking, the six-million dollar Lufthansa heist (the most successful cash robbery in US history), and murder.