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Weekly spoofs classic gangster film on front page

A weekly newspaper portrayed two politicians as mob film characters after one accused the other of acting like a “Chicago gangster”.

The Fife Free Press ran its send-up of classic gangster film The Untouchables, below, after Fife Council leader Dave Ross made the jibe at Scottish Finance Secretary John Swinney.

Fife Council is facing major cuts and it had hinted at a possible rise in council tax – bringing it into conflict with the Scottish Government which would then have imposed hefty financial sanctions.

The Untouchables, set in Prohibition era Chicago, follows the autobiographical account of agent Elliot Ness in his efforts to bring notorious mobster Al Capone to justice.

Fife mob

Instead of Kevin Costner, on the FFP’s front page Cllr Ross is portrayed as Ness, while Mr Swinney substitutes for Robert De Niro as Capone.

The front page, which ran on Thursday, was created with the help of the Johnston Press design hub in Edinburgh.

FFP editor Allan Crow said: “The story of the budget and the cuts has been well covered over the past few months – so we thought we’d try something different.

“The ‘gangster’ line sparked a discussion in the newsroom which led us to wonder if we could take the two politicians and photoshop them into a front page based on a gangster film. Our first choice was Bugsy Malone, but The Untouchables fitted better.

“We collated the imagery and text, and the page was designed by Paul Stevens in our design hub based in Edinburgh, who did a fantastic job turning two politicians into old-style mobsters.”

Allan added: “The vast majority (of readers) have loved it and shared it on social media.

“We’ve had a number of strong front pages by working closely with our design hub – this one was certainly something different but feedback has been great. The vast majority of folk have enjoyed it.”

7 comments

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  • February 15, 2016 at 1:18 pm
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    In the film, those two are cops – Sean Connery and Kevin Costner – not mobsters.

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  • February 15, 2016 at 4:05 pm
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    Why not put a horse’s head on the front, or a bullet-riddled body on a blood spattered bar room floor, or someone being garrotted?
    There’s loads of humorous Photoshop visual gags you can do around gangsters, and council cuts to essential services are always a great source of kooky comedy.

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  • February 15, 2016 at 4:45 pm
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    ‘Mr Swinney substitutes for Robert De Niro as Capone’. He does not. He substitutes for Sean Connery as Jim Malone.

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  • February 16, 2016 at 10:26 am
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    Great visual idea, not quite pulled off. But good fun and we need a bit of that in the industry.

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  • February 16, 2016 at 11:18 pm
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    Design hub is no more than cheapskate idea to zap journalists. Worked with this chap and he had the journalistic skills of a gnat.
    Try getting some decent stories rather than this dire rubbish

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  • February 17, 2016 at 11:28 am
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    Leaving aside the fact that the two characters are cops, not mobsters, which makes a nonsense of the whole concept, it is basically a piece of poorly executed photoshop. It’s clearly an attempt to do a The National-style cover but it hasn’t really worked.

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