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[[File:repealday.jpg|thumbnail|350px250px|left|Repeal Day, December 5, 1933]]The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on January 16, 1919 , and put into effect on January 17, 1920. Section One of the Amendment states “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposed is hereby prohibited.” The Amendment was passed over the protest and veto of President Woodrow Wilson, who believed the law could not be enforced. He was correct. By 1927 in New York City alone, 32,000 speakeasies were operating. In the eyes of the public, rum runners and bootleggers were accepted, if not applauded, as heroes.

Americans wanted alcohol; therefore, since they “refused to give up their drinking habits, rum runners were regarded with open sympathy.”<ref>John Toland, ''The Dillinger Days''(1963; repr.,New York: Da Capo Press, 1995), 36.</ref> Al Capone, perhaps the most notorious of all bootleggers, received standing ovations when he entered his favorite race tracks. Since this ilk of society was admired by the public, movie studios wasted no time in juxtaposing the likes of Al Capone and James Cagney on screen. Unfortunately for Hollywood, when Prohibition ended, so too did the need for bootleggers. The 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was repealed on December 5, 1933. As the decade progressed, Prohibition and the decade that “roared” were fond and distant memories to most moviegoers. Without mobsters and bootleggers, the gangster genre may have been little more than a minor footnote in Hollywood’s history, for “crime itself helped make the 1930s a golden decade for the crime film.”<ref>Rafter, 19</ref>