Lepke

Gangster pictures in the 70s get unfairly maligned. I put this down to being automatically being compared to The Godfather. The reason it's unfair is The Godfather is the first ever epic crime drama. Epics clock in at around 3 hours. It was like Giant from the 50s but with the mob as the focus. Every other movie in this genre was a Film Noir crime drama. Movies like Lepke, Capone and the Valachi Papers are like those movies but with more explicit language and graphic violence. As compared to other Neo Noir movies, this is a pretty good movie.

There's a fair amount of poetic license crowding out the timeline of actual events. There a few more good dramatic acting scenes (referenced in the goofs) which I appreciate seeing because this is a well acted movie with several surprising performances.

This might be Tony Curtis' best role as a leading man in the 70s. The movie had poor box office but I put that down to The Godfather effect. Crime Drama epics are still pretty rare (De Palmas Scarface is another, Scorsese didn't begin making them until after Good Fellas). Not many can manage them but if you like old time b movie Film Noir movies, this is one you might enjoy as well as Capone which features a strangely effective portrayal of the title character by Ben Gazzara.

The life and fast times of Louis ¨Lepke¨ Buchalter from his days in reform school incarnated by Barry Miller to his days as an adult : Tony Curtis when marries Bernice : Anjanette Comer and as head of Murder Inc whose syndicate spattered the headlines of the day with blood and eventually his execution in 1944 . It was 1935 , the board of Murder Inc met to discuss business , everybody was there . Dutch Schulz attempts to kill prosecutor Thomas Dewey , but it isn't accepted by the Comission, then resulting a a death warrant gainst a main mobster . There Louis ¨Lepke¨ Buchalter decided to become chairman and all hell broke loose. He was the king of crime when crime was king ¡

Exciting mobster movie packs noisy action , thrills , intense drama with romance , grisly killings with high body-count , shootouts and lots of violence. The tale sticks close to the facts , taking here and there of the actual events. Being an acceptable and passable story though weighty and uninspired , at times . In fact , it results to be a peculiar attempt to do a Jewish ¨Godfather¨ that makes nothing of all its promising material . Depicting the rise of the Syndicate and Murder Inc with intervention of notorious mobsters as Lucky Luciano, Albert Anastasia , Dutch Schulz and the subtle change of tack under pressure from the clean-up campaigns of the late 30s and early 40s , as well as the fall of the killer gangster Louis Lepke Buchalter . Tony Curtis gives a nice acting in the lead role as the colorful gangster who carries out a thunderous criminal career and he'll stop at nothing , at whatever cost , to get his purports, including taking down witnesses , resulting in fateful consequences . Here shows up various famous mobsters as the main chief Lucky Luciano , Albert Anastasia , Vito Genovese , Gurrah Shapiro, , Bugsy Siegel , Dutch Schulz , Frank Costello , being played by notorious actors as Gianni Russo , Vic Tayback , Warren Berlinger , John Durren , among others . And , of course , the good guys and lawmen as Prosecutor Thomas Dewey and FBI chief : J. Edward Hoover .

It displays a colorful and evocative cinematography by cameraman Andrew Davis , subsequently a successful director. As well as moving and thrilling musical score by Kenneth Wannberg. The motion picture was professionally directed by Menahem Golan who created along with Yoram Globus the famous Cannon Productions. Rating : 6/10 , acceptable and passable . It isn't a classic , but watch worth seeing.

Lepke traces the beginnings of Louis Lepke Buchalter from his days as a child thief to his eventual demise at the hands--or feet, if you will--of Old Sparky.

Pros: Tony Curtis gives an excellent performance as Lepke, conveying charm as well as ruthlessness. The other actors involved also give decent performances, particularly Milton Berle as Lepke's father-in-law.

As for the cons, the period sets don't look authentic. There was a big change in the streets and nightclubs from the 1920's to the 1940's in New York--not in this movie. Additionally, it's shown that Jack "Legs" Diamond was murdered by a contract killer, an ice pick in his ear. Nope. He was murdered in bed by at least three people. I guess killing him the old-fashioned way wasn't colorful enough for the producers.

Altogether, the film is fun to watch, buoyed by Curtis' performance, even though he doesn't age very much during his rise and eventual fall. But it's hardly accurate.

The success of The Godfather films I and II certainly led to revival of the gangster film. Golan/Globus of Israel apparently decided that the Italians should not monopolize the epic gangster genre that The Godfather created so the film Lepke was born about the Jewish mob Murder Inc. from the 30s and 40s.

To say that Lepke is factual is to give it way too much credence. Though Thomas E. Dewey as special prosecutor and later New York County District Attorney certainly had Murder Inc under his sites the final conviction that sent Louis 'Lepke' Burkhalter to the electric chair was done in Murder Inc.'s own backyard of Kings County better known as Brooklyn. And Lepke was not the sole voice against a hit on Dewey, Charlie Luciano played here by Vic Tayback had more to do with it than Lepke. And Benjamin Siegel, AKA Bugsy who is a peripheral character in the film is addressed by one of his peers as Bugsy, as was told to us truthfully in Warren Beatty's film by one of his peers, that was one big no-no. It was name that Siegel did not appreciate.

Still Tony Curtis gives a compelling portrait of Lepke who when he wasn't dealing dope and extorting money from businesses for protection or muscling in on unions was by all accounts an exemplary family man. Anjanette Comer plays his wife and Milton Berle his father-in-law and Berle plays it totally straight, no Uncle Milty shtick.

Golan/Globus certainly got the ambiance right, but the fictional Corleones were given an epic quality that Lepke just doesn't have. Francis Ford Coppola certainly had a better vision than Golan/Globus had for Lepke.

But I would still recommend seeing Lepke and then reading about Murder Inc. to see just how factual the film was. And for what Tony Curtis did in the title role.

Lepke, played by Tony Curtis, goes from the turn of the century to 1940 looking pretty much the same doing each decade. Only in the movies. The sets are all wrong as well. The sets never seem to leave the 20s, when it is supposed to be the 40s. The "action" sequences are cheesy at best and the Italian gangsters are all lumped together in stereotypes, as the Jewish gangsters are the only one with families and a touch of humanity. The realities were that they were all equally scumbags. Mildly entertaining to see Curtis not age for thirty years.