By Fred Blosser
When
Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather†emerged as a surprise box-office smash
in the early months of 1972, studios and distributors hustled to meet popular
demand for more movies about life in the Mob. In New York, a dubbed print of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 film “Le
Samourai†was hurriedly retitled and screened as “The Godson†in a masterful
example of bait-and-switch marketing. Melville’s chilly, claustrophobic picture about a hit man portrayed by
Alain Delon is a fine crime drama, but it had no connection to Coppola’s
picture or, for that matter, to any aspect of American Mafia lore at all. “The Valachi Papers,†based on Peter Maas’
bestselling nonfiction book, followed as a more legitimate successor. Rushed through production by Dino De
Laurentiis in spring and summer 1972, the film was scripted by Stephen Geller
and directed by Terence Young. Shooting
largely took place at De Laurentiis’ Rome studio. The producer claimed that he’d originally
intended to film wholly in New York, and some preliminary exteriors were shot
at Sing Sing prison. Then the production
relocated to Europe upon receiving threats from the Mafia, publicity materials
said. It’s a good story, whether or not
it was completely true. (I suspect that
De Laurentiis was motivated less by fear of the Mob than by the expediency of
getting the movie in the can as quickly as possible. That was easier done in Rome than in New York
or Hollywood.) Released by Columbia
Pictures, “The Valachi Papers†opened in U.S. theaters on November 3, 1972. The strategy of riding Coppola’s shirttail
was successful; despite largely mediocre reviews, “The Valachi Papers†earned
healthy ticket sales and became one of the top-grossing pictures of 1972.
The
movie follows the series of murders, double-crosses, and power struggles across
four decades of Mafia history that Maas chronicled in his 1968 bestseller,
based on accounts by informant Joseph Valachi. As a young man, Valachi (Charles Bronson) is inducted into the Mafia, or
La Cosa Nostra, after a chance meeting in a jail cell with Dominick “The Gapâ€
Petrilli (Walter Chiari) in 1923. Valachi works first for Gaetano Reina (Amedeo Nazzari) as the Gap’s
apprentice and partner. When Reina is
shot to death by a rival faction in a 1931 gang war, Valachi and Gap are
recruited by the big boss, Salvatore Maranzano (Joseph Wiseman). Later that year, the two join the crime
family of Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura) after the dictatorial Maranzano is
murdered in a Mob shake-up engineered by Genovese and Lucky Luciano. Valachi marries Gaetano Reina’s daughter
Maria (inevitably played by Jill Ireland), acquires a restaurant as a business
front, and dutifully toils for Genovese as a driver, collector, and occasional
hit man over the next two decades.
Valachi’s
loyalty begins to fray when Genovese orders other minions to castrate his pal
Gap for unwisely going to bed with Genovese’s mistress. (The real Gap was the victim of a 1953
gangland murder, but not for the reason invented for the movie.) When Valachi is sent to federal prison on a charge of drug trafficking in 1959,
Genovese -- also serving time for narcotics distribution -- begins to suspect
that Valachi will rat him out for other crimes. In turn, Valachi fears for his life once he receives the “kiss of deathâ€
from the boss during a tense meeting in Genovese’s cell. A botched hit follows in the prison shower
room, as Valachi jumps and overcomes a would-be shooter before the other man
can gun him down. Anticipating a further
attack, Valachi believes that he’s being stalked by another inmate in the prison
yard, and beats the man to death with an iron pipe. Later, he finds out that the stranger he
killed had nothing to do with Genovese or the Mafia. Facing additional time for murder and the
ongoing threat of a contract on his life, Valachi agrees to reveal the workings
of the Mafia to an FBI agent (Gerald S. O’Laughlin) and to testify at a Senate
hearing on organized crime.
Geller’s
script efficiently compressed Maas’ sprawling history into two hours of
camera-ready copy and added a dramatic center by focusing on the initially
respectful but increasingly uneasy relationship between Valachi and
Genovese. That it’s essentially a
two-man show revolving around those two characters, and not a solo spotlight
for Bronson, is appropriately reflected in Bronson’s and Ventura’s dual billing
above the title in the opening credits. Dramatically, the strategy of giving Valachi and Genovese nearly equal
prominence compensates for the fact that Valachi himself is largely a passive
character on a low rung in the Cosa Nostra organization. Aside from the opening sequence of Valachi
getting the jump on his would-be killer in the shower room, there’s a dearth of
physical action for Bronson. Genovese’s
Mob ambitions drive most of the plot. Too, the shared billing was probably a shrewd commercial move by De Laurentiis
and Columbia to guarantee strong box-office in the important European market,
where Ventura was immensely popular. At
that, Bronson’s star was still rising, and he’d shared top billing in other
recent movies like “Red Sun†(with Toshiro Mifune), “You Can’t Win ‘Em Allâ€
(Tony Curtis), and “Adieu l’Ami†(Alain Delon). “The Mechanic†(released on November 17, 1972), “The Stone Killerâ€
(1973), and “Death Wish†(1974) put him on Hollywood’s upper tier, by himself.
As Julie Kirgo observes in the souvenir booklet that accompanies the new Blu-ray edition of “The Valachi Papers†from Twilight Time, Bronson and Ventura are well-matched in part because Ventura’s seen-it-all mug “is the near equal, in terms of sheer bashed-up-ness, of Bronson’s.†The same is true of Gerald S. O’Laughlin as FBI agent Ryan, who gets off to a rough start with Valachi but comes to bond with him in an ironic reversal of the history between Valachi and Genovese. Another rough-hewn street guy, Ryan eventually recognizes the vulnerability behind Valachi’s stony exterior, and the two men find common ground when they realize that neither’s interests were well-served by the televised Senate hearing at which the mobster was offered up as a star witness. “You wanted a law,†Valachi comments to Ryan with a cynical smile, “and they gave you a gangster story.†O’Laughlin and the other actors who play FBI agents, including Anthony Dawson and Franco Ressel in spot appearances (Ressel isn’t even credited), look authentically hard-bitten. It’s a nice reminder that the people cast as cops and G-Men weren’t always interchangeable pretty faces like the dubiously qualified young actors today in contrived shows like “Quantico.†Although filming quickly on unimaginative studio sets in Rome harmed the movie with critics and more demanding viewers, it also gave De Laurentiis and Young a chance to populate the supporting cast with talented Italian actors like Chiari, Fausto Tozzi as Albert Anastasia, and Guido Leontini as Anthony “Tony Bender†Strollo. Amadeo Nazzari and Joseph Wiseman (who had worked previously with Young and Dawson on “Dr. Noâ€) added old-school class, although Wiseman’s accent often sounds more Transylvanian than Sicilian.
The Twilight Time edition of “The Valachi Papers†is a sleek hi-def rendition of a film that viewers in the 40- to 50-year-old age range may remember best from poor, bleeped-out, commercial-riddled showings on local TV broadcasts in the 1980s. Needless to say, the Twilight Time print is miles above in image quality. The Blu-ray menu allows the viewer to partially isolate Riz Ortolani’s musical score, and SDH captions are provided, but there are no other special features. The disc is limited to 3,000 units.
(Note: this title appears to have sold out through the Twilight Time web site. However, it is available through independent dealers on eBay.)