MISTAKEN IDENTITY : Dutch Was His Godfather, Yes Sir

When Touchstone’s $40-million gangster epic “Billy Bathgate” opened last weekend, it received mixed reviews and took a bath at the box office.

Prior to its release, the film, which stars Dustin Hoffman as gangster Dutch Schultz, was also under much scrutiny in the press for its delayed opening and reports of escalating production costs. As though that wasn’t bad enough, listen to what the real Dutch Schultz’s godson has to say.

“It’s not the way Dutch Schultz was,” says screenwriter Robert Kaufman, who used to call his godfather “Uncle Arthur.” “The movie isn’t accurate. For one thing, Schultz wasn’t Jewish, he was Catholic. The movie makes them out to be tough guys, but they also had a human side to them.”

Kaufman’s father, Leo, operated New York’s first all-night drugstore, a pinochle-playing hangout for Schultz and many of his cronies, including Meyer Lansky and Legs Diamond. “They were colorful characters who walked around carrying big rolls of hundred-dollar bills in rubber bands,” says Kaufman. “I used to watch Dutch sitting at the counter eating a hot fudge sundae with a police sergeant. The movie didn’t capture the feeling of those guys.”

Kaufman, whose screenplay credits include “Love at First Bite” and “Getting Straight,” takes issue with the casting of Dustin Hoffman as Schultz. “He is not the Dutch Schultz I knew. Dutch had a great sense of humor, a wicked sense of humor. There was none of that in this film.”

“Billy Bathgate” is not the first movie in which a Dutch Schultz character has appeared. Several years ago, he turned up in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Cotton Club,” but Kaufman didn’t like that any better. “Coppola made him crazy,” says Kaufman, who used to accompany Schultz to the famous Harlem nightspot. “Believe me, he wasn’t crazy.”