![]() Nothing packs you running to the Justice Department faster than a shiv in the shower. Don Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura) orders a prison execution before the jailed enforcer gets the chance. Valachi is a standup guy who’d never think of breaking omerta, the mob’s code of silence. Starring Charles Bronson as the man whose name is synonymous with the word “rat” in some circles, The Valachi Papers shows why. The outside world would know nothing about the mafia if it weren’t for the 1963 testimony of the real-life Joseph Valachi. Circumstances subvert genre expectations as fast as Miasmo (Lynne Gordon) can say “Afghanistan banana stand.” The biggest thief is Zero Mostel, whose shyster lawyer character Abe Greenberg doesn’t keep the diamond but steals the film. Westlake’s novel, The Hot Rock, screenwriter William Goldman and director Peter Yates polish the uncut stone, consolidating characters, and shaving robbery attempts for a tight telling of some loose canon. Costs, tensions, and hilarity soar as the crooks cook the book.īased on Donald E. Amusa (Moses Gunn) wants the crown jewel stolen and returned to its ancestral home for a set price. Allan Greenberg (Paul Sand), the world’s greatest lock-picker, is all thumbs. His brother-in-law Andy Kelp (George Segal) thinks from the other end but gets the job. Robert Redford’s John Dortmunder, newly out of prison but never going straight because his “heart wouldn’t be in it,” is the brains of the outfit. It would be impressive if they weren’t always stealing the same gem: The Sahara Stone, a priceless diamond claimed by two separate African nations on loan for display at the Brooklyn Museum. The Hot Rock shows incompetent thieves pull four successful jewel heists. Robert De Niro was so immersed in his role as Sicilian-born kleptomaniac Mario Trantino, who fills his pockets with American chocolate bars because he ate nothing but “chipmunks and dandelions” in Catanza, he was arrested on a shoplifting charge, according to Hal Erickson’s Any Resemblance to Actual Persons. Directed by TV veteran James Gladstone, the film adaptation is too broad to be as funny as the book, but it is infectious. The “Gallo Wars” of the late ‘50s rocked the underworld, and inspired 1970s crime films that wanted to “go to the mattresses.” But rather than pay respect to mob’s wars of attrition, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight plays for laughs.įinancially affronted, Baccala Family enforcer “Kid Sally” Palumbo (Jerry Orbach) orders his crew to Ocean Parkway to make the brains of capo Water Buffalo (Frank Campanella) look like “lobster eggs in Fra Diavolo sauce.” After a series of felonious mishaps, they finally “change the channel on Baccala from living to dead,” when he dies of unnatural causes, at least in crime circles. ![]() Author Mario Puzo was inspired by the same mafia usurpers lampooned in the film, and undoubtedly read the news stories which wound up in Jimmy Breslin’s 1968 novel. The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (1971)Ī parody of true authenticity with street cred to burn, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight is the ideal primer for The Godfather (1972). ![]() ![]() Here are some major criminal acts which might be missing from the blotter page. Some were so much of their time, they went unnoticed. Some of these films were considered old-fashioned, others have proven to be well ahead of their time. The 1970s was an experimental decade for motion pictures with wildly varied visions behind the lens. This is especially true when independent filmmakers muscle their way in packing something heavy. Most illicit infractions are committed on the street, and so many fall between the cracks.Ĭrime and gangster movies historically and consistently break boundaries in motion picture art. The decade is defined by Francis Ford Coppola’s first two The Godfather movies, but those tell the story of the dons who live in compounds on Long Island. Maybe it’s because of the grim film stock, but those 10 years were so filled with the criminal element even a highly-rated political journalism feature like All the President’s Men (1976) is really an investigation into indictable acts. When you consider the evidence, the 1970s was the greatest crime movie period since the 1930s.
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