A film which often glorifies the criminal activities of gangsters, elevating them to almost hero status. These anti-heroes sometimes reach the conclusion that crime does pay but often carries moral, psychological, and physical repercussion. These films, along with westerns, melodramas, epics and horror films, have been around since the beginnings of cinema. Often associated with the social-problem film, these early examples like Underground, Little Caesar, Scarface, and Public Enemy presented organized crime as the only way out of Great Depression poverty. They present the criminal's rise to power and subsequent fall, when he overreaches and becomes too ambitious. Criticized for glamorizing violence, these types of films lead directly to the implementation of the Hayes Code, which forbade sympathetic portraits of criminals. Still, throughout the ‘30s, films like G-Men and Angels With Dirty Faces continued to examine the criminal mindset. Film noir of the ‘40s and ‘50s turned these examinations increasingly more pessimistic and cynical, with criminals often trapped by fate. After the war, crime films turned increasingly violent and menacing, such as Underworld USA and The Killers. Internationally, the French New Wave took the early conventions of the crime film and subverted them as commentaries on film genre, with Breathless acting as the prime example. In other countries, such as Japan where yakuza films (Sonatine) gained popularity, the conventions of the Hollywood crime film were adopted and twisted to match the society which is examined. From the ‘70s onward, especially after the success of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, the gangster film continued to flourish, becoming more complex. Mean Streets, Scarface, Goodfellas, Once Upon a Time in America and Casino are all fascinating models of the contemporary gangster film.