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This movie was a gruesome tale of lawlessness and the brutality of the gangs that dominated New York in the 1860?s. The movie's main plot focused on the vengeance and the disputing between the gangs controlling the Bowery and Five Points area of lower Manhattan and concludes with the Civil War draft riots. The two major political parties, Tammany Hall, which was Democratic based and the Native Americans which made up the Know-Nothing Party, used gangs as enforcers for the loot of public funds and to obtain control of the city. The movie opens with the preparation and the march of each opposing party to engage in a gory feud. Combat breaks out and knives were slung at one another, slaughtering a majority of the crowd. Amsterdam Vallon, a young boy at the time, watches as his father, Pries