Guest of a Guest

Nelson Johnson’s book made Guest of a Guest’s Satisfy Your TV Cravings With These Books list yesterday.

In addition to a suggestion for Boardwalk Empire fans, they include suggested reading for fans of Mad Men, Downton Abbey, and even Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City by Nelson Johnson is the very tome from which screenwriter Terrance Winter adapted the script for Boardwalk Empire. The book tells the story of Atlantic City political boss and racketeer Nucky Johnson, who met the demand of tourists visiting Atlantic City by allowing them to imbibe, gamble, and hire prostitutes, despite all three being illegal in New Jersey at the time.

Nucky Johnson may have run Atlantic City during the early 1900’s, but Skinny D’Amato, owner of Atlantic City’s 500 Club, played host to the real-life political corruption and illegal activities that created the Atlantic City we know from Boardwalk Empire. In Chance of a Lifetime: Nucky Johnson, Skinny D’Amato and How Atlantic City became the Naughty Queen of Resorts, author Grace D’Amato tells the true tale about her brother-in-law Skinny and his club, where the much of the Atlantic City we see on TV was born.

via Satisfy Your TV Cravings With These Books.

Boardwalk Empire is a story of antiheroes. Are there any characters in particular whose actions might seem more forgivable than others?

[Boardwalk Empire creator] Terence Winter tells people that his Nucky is 70% the Nucky that I wrote about and 30% the Nucky that he created. And I’ll have to take the 70/30 split. The only place where I sort of part company with Terence is the violence because what the general public, and what’s difficult to appreciate today is that Nucky Johnson was so powerful in Atlantic City and had so much support that if you crossed him, you were done! So when you went to work the next day, you were fired, open up your business the next day, it could be a laundry, everyone would come in to get their clothes and nobody brought any back. You had a restaurant, nobody came in to eat.  You had a bar; nobody came in to get a drink. So you didn’t cross Nucky because he could destroy you simply by sending out word that, you know, “Bill Jones is no longer a friend of the organization. I don’t want you to patronize him. I don’t want you to hire him. I don’t want you to do anything that helps him.” That’s power. Power is not having to be violent, power is getting your way simply by saying this is what [you] want. When you have to get violent then maybe you weren’t as powerful as you think you were.  So that’s the biggest problem I have with the show, but other than that it’s a heck of a lot of fun watching, it really is.

Read the rest of this great interview at How ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Found Nelson Johnson

Terence Winter and Nelson Johnson (L - R)

Former Press of Atlantic City reporter Thomas Peele introduced the Mr. Johnson.  Johnson consulted with Peele while Peele was a reporter in Atlantic City and Johnson a lawyer. Peele praised Johnson’s work on the book, Boardwalk Empire, which inspired the HBO show of the same name.

“There was a painstaking amount of research in this 20-year passion project, in bringing this story and history alive for us,I can’t imagine 20 years of that level of research, and then having the wherewithal and the humanity, to take a couple chapters about the plight of African Americans in Atlantic City and turning it into the next book, The North Side.”

–Thomas Peele

Nelson Johnson has been a lifelong resident of Hammonton.  He recounted the people he met when trying to capture the essence of Atlantic City.  He also spoke about the widespread corruption and dysfunction of past the city governments.

Johnson headed to the Atlantic City library when became interested in the history of the city. He read over twenty books about the city from different perspectives.  After completing his extensive reading the decided to write a complete history of Atlantic City.

“The corruption in Atlantic City…it was organic.  You had to give the visitor what they wanted during the season, or they wouldn’t come back, and the city wouldn’t flourish…in order to provide that kind of entertainment, the law had to be bent.”

–Nelson Johnson

Read more about the event at ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Author Speaks at Seaview.

While HBO’s Boardwalk Empire is based on Nelson Johnson’s non-fiction book, Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, they are using a lot of the same techniques involving story arcs that cover a whole season to carry the series forward year to year.

For almost a century, films have been adapted from novels. HBO has profited from this idea with television shows like “True Blood” and “Game of Thrones.”

Countless novels have become films that have not lived up to the original content. Now it is HBO’s turn to see how successful it can be at the adaptation game.

…

A novel series isn’t the only adaptation coming to the network. “Boardwalk Empire,” which averages 2.75 million viewers a week, was re-imagined for television from the Nelson Johnson biography of the same name. Even though the main characters’ names have been changed, the general concept – prohibition life in Atlantic City – is still being brought to life.

via From print machine to premium cable:
HBO’s most popular shows are novels – phillyBurbs.com : Hboblog.

Atlantic City, New Jersey was perhaps the single most heavily utilized point of entry for illegal liquor into the United States from Canada, and so much of the riches, the corruption, the violence and the “glory” were centered in this beachside vacation haven. Nelson Johnson revealed the specifics in his book Boardwalk Empire, which also recently completed its second season on HBO.

via Boardwalk Empire The Complete First Season
Blu-ray Review by Chris Chiarella on BigPictureBigSound.

Chris Chiarella concludes:  Boardwalk Empire has earned its place among the very best original series ever to grace HBO, which is no small feat, and this Blu-ray box with its solid audio and video makes catching up easy. And the deep, sophisticated extras are so good, they should be illegal.

Big Picture Big Sound was created by a movie buff and an electronics hobbyist who thought the world would somehow be a better place with a Web site dedicated to all things film, HDTV and home theater.

Two versions of Nucky

Nelson Johnson will present “Boardwalk Empire, Part II: Nucky Johnson is Back in Town and He Means Business” at 7 p.m. Nov. 29 in Civic Hall, which is inside the Connector Building on the College’s Blackwood Campus. CCC’s Center for Civic Leadership and Responsibility is presenting the event, which will include a question-and-answer session and a book signing.

“The award-winning HBO series ‘Boardwalk Empire’ attracts millions of viewers to a fictional version of Atlantic City fraught with violence and sex, which often embellishes the historical truth,” noted Center for Civic Leadership and Responsibility director John Pesda. “Nelson Johnson, a gifted writer and speaker, will return to Camden County College to set the record straight with a fact-based account of the city and Nucky Johnson’s role.”

Learn more at ‘Boardwalk Empire’ author to speak at Camden County College at NJ.com.

Book as Inspiration

Author Nelson Johnson, who literally wrote the book on the real Enoch “Nucky” Johnson, says HBO’s Terence Winter has said the fictionalized character created for the TV version of Boardwalk Empire is 70 percent drawn from Johnson’s 2002 book of the same name.

Two versions of Nucky

“They are doing their best to do historically accurate fiction,” added Johnson, who is not related to Nucky Johnson. Judge Johnson explained that by “accurate fiction” he meant creating a storyline that captures the essence and possibilities of the Prohibition era in Atlantic City, not necessarily the verifiable details.

The Violence

Physical violence is an aspect of almost every installment of the TV series. And frequently the violence is carried out by either Nucky or one of his closest followers.

That’s not how it really worked in Atlantic City, according to Judge Johnson.

The real violence was the threat of economic ruin—and the security belonging to Nucky’s organization provided. But that’s hard, if not impossible, to show on screen.

Instead of physical violence, the people who crossed Nucky and his organization lost their goverment jobs, they were ostracized, their businesses not patronized, operating licenses were pulled, or they were raided and shutdown by complicit police who were a part of the organization.

Read this and much more at Differences Between Real Nucky Johnson and HBO’s Nucky Thompson Go Beyond the Fictionalized Name – Galloway, NJ Patch.

Boardwalk Empire

It is easy to see why Johnson’s book has become a highly successful TV show, and not just because this paperback edition comes with characters of the HBO adaptation on the front cover. The book is full of compelling anecdotes and characters. From Thomas Edison designing some of the first lighting and landscaping in Atlantic City in 1902 to Louis Kessell, Nucky Johnson’s five-foot-five ‘trunk of a tree’ butler who started the day massaging his boss before ending it by putting him to bed he was too drunk to do it himself. The book ends with Donald Trump and the ‘eighth wonder of the world’: the Taj Mahal.

The book explores interesting connections between the criminal, commercial and political worlds of Atlantic City. Al Capone had a deft justification for his profession as he highlighted society’s double-standards by saying: “Everybody calls me a racketeer I call myself a businessman. When I sell liquor, it’s bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lake Shore Drive, it’s hospitality.”

Nucky Johnson’s description of Atlantic City is equally applicable to Nelson Johnson’s book:

We have whiskey, wine, women, song, and slot machines. I won’t deny it and I won’t apologise for it.

via Boardwalk Empire by Nelson Johnson: review – Telegraph.

At the conclusion of the season 2 premiere, Nucky Thompson and Chalky White are both resting their laurels in Atlantic City’s jail. Nucky has been arrested on voter fraud in the latest election, while Chalky is facing charges of murder after shooting a KKK member who came to kill him and shut down his illegal distillery. In addition to being pushed from the bottom and the top, Nucky’s former mentor the Commodore is teaming up with his former protégé (and the Commodore’s estranged son) Jimmy Darmody to take over the liquor business in and around Atlantic City.

Read the rest and watch another clip  at Two New ‘Boardwalk Empire’ Clips: Nucky Pushes Back on Screen Rant.

• “We were like detectives,” costumer designer for “Boardwalk Empire”
• ‘Boardwalk Empire’ costumes bring 1920s roaring back
• Boardwalk Empire Costume Designer Interview – Style of Boardwalk Empire Suits

And…

Just in time for the new season Clothes on Film sat down and interview Emmy nominees John Dunn and Lisa Padovani about what we can expect to see in terms of Boardwalk Empire costuming in season two.

Boardwalk Empire Costume Q&A: John Dunn & Lisa Padovani

On the eve of Boardwalk Empire: Season 2 commencing at HBO, we have had a chat with the show’s costume designers, Emmy nominated John Dunn and Lisa Padovani about what is in store for dandy gangster Nucky Thompson, sourcing vintage dresses and upcoming trends of the 1920s.

Clothes on Film, Chris: What do you have planned for Boardwalk Empire Season 2?

John Dunn: In Season 2 we will be continuing to explore the decade as our characters and their pasts are further revealed. We are also introducing some of the new currents in fashion as the 20′s begin to unfold and our characters’ situations shift. The big trends of the 20′s are still ahead of us but we will begin to set the groundwork.

In addition, our shop has become very adept at building beautiful women’s pieces from scratch at the speed of light. While it is always exciting to find beautiful vintage pieces to use, we also like to create original pieces and the skills of our drapers and stitchers to recreate the period has increased as we progressed through Season 2. We also found some new equipment for our shop. We were, for example, very pleased to locate a vintage faggoting machine which creates a seaming used so prominently for constructing dresses and blouses starting in the late teens and early 20′s.

Read the rest of the Q&A at Boardwalk Empire Costume Q&A: John Dunn & Lisa Padovani