Von Corleone nach Brooklyn

At this writing the masses are rating it 6.6/10, which is just too low. 80% of those that took the time to write a review are giving it 8/10. That's more like it.

I'm glad that it ended when it did. Da Brooklyn a Corleone would make a nice sequel, but not all in one movie!

There's not a lot you can say in a review of this particular movie without a spoiler cropping up, so I guess I could say in that regard that it's extremely plot-driven. The characters are drawn in a much more believable way than the current crop of mafia orientated movies that suffer from way too much badda-bingness.

I can't find a subtitles file for this anywhere, so I had to watch in English, which was OK for the Brooklyn scenes. If I ever get my hands on one, I would LOVE to create a version of this movie where the scenes in Sicily are done in Italian with English subtitles, and the scenes in Brooklyn are done in English. The script actually lends itself to that, with one of the locals in NY asking what a particular word is in Italian. That has to be in English, but the scenes in Sicily obviously weren't. Of course the elephant in the room is that real Sicilian wouldn't sound much like standard Italian, but, hey, close enough. That would be a truly awesome improvement to what is already a really solid flick. If someone PM's me with a subtitle file, I will share the result. I promise, it will be awesome. Well, it is already. My copy already has English/Italian sound tracks, so the project is very doable.

Umberto Lenzi, in case you've never heard of him, is an Italian director of various kinds of exploitation flicks: horror, crime drama, and even spaghetti western. The first movie of his that I ever saw was "Orgasmo" - called "Paranoia" in the US - in which Carroll Baker (of "Baby Doll" fame) plays a woman who moves to Italy and gets to know a young couple who aren't what they seem. Now I've seen another one of Lenzi's movies: "Da Corleone a Brooklyn" ("From Corelone to Brooklyn" in English). Maurizio Merli, who was apparently famous as a Franco Nero lookalike, plays a cop helping a low-level mafioso testify against a big-time gangster. I actually found much of the movie to be really slow-moving, but the last half-hour or so made up for that. Even so, the European exploitation flicks that I prefer are the ultra-gory ones.

Having Maurizio Merli on your tail must be like having a pack of hounds chasing after you (or Pepe Le Pieu, if you want a less scary comparison). The perp in question here isn't even on the same continent - he's high tailed it to New York, and Merli still wants to track him down.

That said, you can just jump on the next plane to the Big Apple without some sort of evidence. The gangster who fled is a mob boss wanted for ordering the murder of two other mob bosses in Palermo, and the cops in NYC have been tipped off that he's there, which makes him go on the run. Meanwhile, back in Italy, Merli and partner Venantino Venantini are trying to clean up the mess while various witnesses are bumped off by the Mafia. During a hit, Merli (well Venantino really) capture a button man alive, but the guy won't talk...until he finds out the mob boss has killed his sister.

The main bulk of the film details Merli trying to get this witness to New York without him being killed by the masses of mobsters armed to the teeth, which makes for steamlined, tension filled plot as anyone they encounter could be a hitman, and mostly are! Merli punches, shoots, ducks, runs, scampers and growls through the entire film, even taking on a gang on New York street punks. I don't have a single complaint to make about this film!

There's never a dull moment in this one, right up to the last second.

We're also beginning to see a gradual shift of setting here as half of this is filmed in New York, soon to be a trend as we'll get to see The Bronx Warriors, 2019: After The Fall Of New York, Escape from The Bronx, the New York Ripper, Zombie Holocaust, Inferno, Manhattan Baby all taking place in New York city. Maybe the Italians just liked it there. Who knows?

This is one of those few films I wish would be discussed in more detail, but it fits in such a niche of a market that I doubt it'll ever happen.

In the 1970's, it wasn't uncommon for Italian B-movies to shoot a few exteriors in New York City but quite rare for the poliziotteschi genre. Sure there's a few films like STREET PEOPLE, BLAZING MAGNUMS, and STATELINE MOTEL but for the most part tried to play themselves off (unsuccessfully) as American movies.

As Umberto Lenzi's only cross-pond crime movie excursion and only teaming with famous Neapolitan crooner Mario Merola, this film stands out for several reasons. One, it's odd to see a eurocrime movie starring Maurizio Merli so focused on plot and characters. From start to finish, there's a single narrative thrust and tension running high throughout and even some personal investment on whether the characters live, die, or finally face sweet justice for their transgressions.

Secondly, it's almost more of a travelogue than an action movie. The film has no less than 4 sequences where characters sit in a car and look around while intercutting to a lot of filler footage of street scenes filmed from a moving car. While this sort of thing usually drags a B-movie down, it oddly fits in with the gritty, trashy feeling this film evokes from the sloppy cinematography and chaotic and funky score by Franco Micalizzi. You can either look at it as a more bizarre, improvised version of a Lenzi movie or a really polished version of an Alfonso Brescia-helmed scungy crime drama.

That said, there's plenty about this movie that really doesn't make sense (unless something was lost in translation). Why does Merli have to escort his witness by rail and car from Palermo all the way to Rome first in order to fly to New York? Surely in 1979 there had to be at least a few direct flights from Palermo to New York, or at least to Rome? Well, if they'd have just hopped on a plane at the start, it wouldn't have been the same movie. However I'd wager that it could only have been better as the film really picks up the most once it plops macho Italian crimefighter Maurizio Merli on American shores in the snowy, garbage-strewn, hoodlum-infested streets of 70's NYC.

FROM CORLEONE TO BROOKLYN is an exciting late 70s Italian crime film starring the dynamic and handsome Maurizio Merli as an Italian cop who is trying to find a killer who is mob-connected and who eventually has to bring a witness to the United States to testify against the suspect in order for the suspect to be extradited back to Italy. Written and directed by Umberto Lenzi, who directed any number of excellent police films in the 70s (and four great vehicles for Carroll Baker in the late 60s/early 70s), the film moves at a brisk pace and because Mafia killers are after Merli and his witness, the viewer never knows when they will next be attacked or by what method. The pulsating, police-funk score gives this the classic "sound" of a 70s euro-crime film, and the fatalistic ending is something one would rarely see in an American film. Van Johnson, as the New York police lieutenant who works with Merli, does a fine job of barking orders at underlings and projects a genuine concern for Merli's task and situation. I'm still not sure if Mr. Johnson did his own dubbing on this film, but had a cold and was not well-recorded, or whether someone was doing a Van Johnson imitation--after all, Johnson is an EASY to identify actor with distinctive phrasing and accent. A mimic could listen to the soundtrack of one of his films and do a decent impression. In any event, this would rank among the top third of 70s Italian crime films that I have seen. Also, much of the location shooting is in New York and is shot when there is snow on the ground, so the atmosphere is important in the film Recommended to fans of this genre of film, FROM CORLEONE TO BROOKLYN is an example from the "golden age" of Euro-crime films.