WHY DRUG LORD FASCINATES US

Narcotics dealer and killer Frank Lucas, the central character of
Ridley Scott's new film, joins a long list of anti-heroes that America
has taken to its heart.

There is little unusual about the stretch of 116th Street between
Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the middle of Harlem. It is a busy road,
full of pedestrians, and lined by restaurants offering the African and
Southern food beloved by Harlem's mostly black residents.

But it was on this stretch of now innocuous street that one of
America's most notorious drug lords ran an empire that spanned the
globe. Sitting in a beat-up old car he nicknamed Nellybelle, Frank
Lucas considered this patch of road his fortress in the 1970s. It was
from here he would deal narcotics and run his criminal gang, earning
himself tens of millions of dollars in the process.

Now - three decades later - Harlem and America as a whole are set to
revisit the shocking story of one of its most infamous sons. Lucas's
tale has been turned into one of the most eagerly awaited movies for
years, which will not only reignite debate over America's love-hate
relationship with drugs but also might win one of Hollywood's most
famous names a long-overdue Oscar for best director.

British director Ridley Scott has adapted Lucas's rise and fall from
power into a film called American Gangster, starring Denzel Washington
as Lucas and Russell Crowe as a cop, Richie Roberts, out to bring him
down. Released in early November, the film has already wowed many
critics and generated a flood of Oscar buzz. The film casts Lucas as
part villain, part hero, a figure of black empowerment who wrested
control of the drug trade from the Mafia.

The performance of the two leads and the style of the film has already
got many observers wondering if American Gangster will finally land
Scott an Oscar. Despite directing such classics as Bladerunner, Thelma
and Louise, Gladiator and Alien, Scott has never won the award. 'He is
one of the great Hollywood directors of all time. The length and
breadth of his achievement show that he deserves some kind of reward,'
said Professor Toby Miller, a popular culture expert at the University
of California at Riverside.

Certainly the story of American Gangster provides rich enough material
to mine for Hollywood gold. Lucas was born into poverty in rural North
Carolina. At an early age he witnessed a relative being brutally
murdered by white supremacists in the Ku Klux Klan. He arrived on
Harlem's mean streets as a country bumpkin, but through a combination
of savvy and brutality quickly rose to the top of the local drug trade.

He ended up commanding an international drug ring that notoriously
smuggled heroin into America inside the coffins of dead Vietnam
veterans. That scam was known as the 'Cadaver Connection'. His
operation was so lucrative that Lucas is thought to have at one time
banked more than $50m in Cayman Island bank accounts.

But his high profile also brought police attention, and Lucas was
finally caught and sentenced to 70 years in prison, which was
dramatically reduced after he agreed to give evidence against fellow
drug dealers. Eventually his testimony resulted in more than 100
convictions of other criminals.

His tale was revived in a 2000 New York Magazine article headed 'The
Return of Superfly', which chronicled Lucas visiting his old haunts in
a much-changed Harlem.

But in interpreting Lucas's story, Scott is likely to court
controversy as well as Oscars. 'There is an eccentricity to him. There
is a sense of Scott that he is a sort of hired gun,' said Dr Chris
Sharrett, a film expert at Seton Hall University. That element of
cynicism has perhaps shown itself in the film's depiction of Lucas as
an anti-hero more than just a straight bad guy. Scott has certainly
not shied away from Lucas's brutal side, but he has also included a
strong sense of black power in the creation of his drug empire. That
means Lucas is likely to join a long list of gangsters and criminals
that have been embraced by Americans who love a villain who snubs
authority. To the long list of Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Bonnie and
Clyde, now add the name of Frank 'Superfly' Lucas.

'There is a huge respect in America for people who operate on the
other side of the law and are able to navigate that successfully.
Every male adolescent in the country has a poster of Scarface on his
bedroom,' said Miller.

But, like other mythical anti-heroes, the real life story of Lucas is
not as pretty as American Gangster portrays it. In the original New
York Magazine story Lucas boasts of killing his enemies and laughs
when he describes hiding vast amounts of pure heroin in the coffins of
young soldiers. At one point he talks about shooting a rival in the
head. 'The boy didn't have no head. The whole shit blowed out,' he
boasted to the shocked reporter, Mark Jacobson.

That sort of brutal street reality has not prevented other villains
from becoming famous. Old West gunslingers like Billy the Kid were
little more than psychopaths, and yet have long been warmly embraced
into America's national mythology. The same can even be said about
many modern musical stars in hip hop and rap. Huge names like 50 Cent
and Snoop Dogg have long criminal histories, including dealing crack,
that are now effectively a key part of their publicity machines.
Indeed American Gangster has already been embraced by top rapper
Jay-Z, who is making an album inspired by the movie. He said the movie
reminded him of growing up and drug dealing in Brooklyn.

But while Scott's film may stir memories of Seventies Harlem, it does
not bear much resemblance to the neighbourhood of today. Famed first
as a centre of black culture and politics and then as a seedy no-go
zone of drugs and crime, Harlem is now one of the most rapidly
gentrifying areas of New York. Much of the film was shot there, but
production workers had continual problems finding streets that looked
sufficiently down-at-heel to be convincing. The loudest noise now on
the stretch of 116th Street where Lucas once held court is the
jackhammers of builders renovating old brownstone homes. A brand new
bank stands at a corner where Lucas once parked Nellybelle.

Eric McLendon has lived in Harlem for six years. A former television
sportscaster he now works for the high-end real estate company
Corcoran. 'I don't think people are going to see that film and think
of the Harlem of today. Harlem is going to be one of the best
neighbourhoods in New York,' he said.

That is no fantasy. When Bill Clinton opened his post-presidential
office in Harlem in 2000, it looked like an edgy move. Seven years
later, it looks like a typically savvy Clintonian investment. Harlem
is now home to boutique shops, fine restaurants and an increasingly
white population.

Nothing could be further from the gritty version that Lucas knew back
in the Seventies. Lucas may have been a real-life villain, but he is
very much history.

The real-life villains

American cinema and popular culture is full of real-life villains who
have been turned into heroes. This process has happened despite their
often truly brutal careers.

Billy the kid Henry McCarty - whose alias was William Bonney aka Billy
the Kid - is the most famous western outlaw of all time and has been
played on screen many times. In reality some believe he may have been
a psychopath.

Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were lovers and brutal
criminals. The lovebirds were immortalised on screen in 1967 by Warren
Beatty and Faye Dunaway, above.

John Dillinger This bank robber was lionised in several films and was
the inspiration for Humphrey Bogart's Duke Mantee in The Petrified
Forest. The role was so based on Dillinger that Bogart sported the
same style of clothes and the same haircut.

Jesse James Brad Pitt has been the latest actor to play a sympathetic
version of this frontier outlaw. The real James staged several
robberies where the innocent and unarmed were killed.