Jo le fou

As far as being a true story goes, it is, but it is very sketchy, very broad strokes. If you know the history of the guy this is just a 1 minute flat quickie pencil sketch. I'm a fan of the director, but he usually puts more into the story and meaning than this. It's a very simple '70s mafia flick that satisfies that craving if you just want 100 minutes of the sights and genre and not much more. It is not an underrated classic. It's a solid, slightly above average example of the genre. It is not in the same league with the top 20 Italian crime flicks of the era (like the "Violenta" trilogy), but is as good as Hollywood's from this period. That's why I give it a six. I love Italian films from the '70s and '60s and consider them to be much better than Hollywood's output. To say one is on a par, is to say it's a bit of a disappointment that way, though I wasn't disappointed to have watched it. Once.

I'm a fanatic about pairing food and movies, and for this one I highly recommend Spaghettini and Red Clam Sauce.

My name is Luigi 'Good Looking Lu' DiMatti. I was a made man in the Gambino Crime family. I took the oath in 1956. I was in the crew of Alfred Eppolito, until he got demoted and drunk himself to death, then I went briefly in to Paul Castellano's crew. Under Alfred I was dealing H, under Paul that was impossible so i eventually moved to Jimmy 'the Clam''s crew and when he got whacked to Aniello's crew in Queens. I got 50 years in 1980, got out 2015, which is why you may not recognise my name and why I don't have a Wikipedia page. I was more of a keep my head down kinda guy, kept in the shadows, narcotics, gambling, shylocking, gambling etc. I'm 80 now and long retired, living in Florida now.

Anyway the reason for my comment is, this is the first time I saw this movie! I was not in the Columbo family, but I knew Joe Gallo, Gennaro Ciprio, all those guys.. I wrote a comment because practically everything in this film happened in real life! I remember those days very well. The names are changed, but the guy 'Jelly' I think was a real guy called, Joey Gioeli. I realise most people know this is about Joey Gallo, but I was surprised how accurate it was!

As a film, it looks very low budget. Peter Boyle is kind of one dimensional, but Torn is good, it has a lively script and it is excitingly directed.

I'm just sharing my thoughts as this movie brought back some old memories. I was in my thirties back then, we controlled New York! A lot of good guys died during that war. More I believe died in the nineties one, but I was in jail then

"What do these Hollywood types know about gangsters?" (Crazy Joe, when he encounters a film crew on the street)

Ironically, a good point. (Or was the irony intentional? I doubt it...) Hollywood types have generally proved to know very little about the mob (or almost anything else for that matter), or at least often present aspects of that culture in a misleading or somewhat romanticized manner. However, there isn't too much silliness or idolatry going on here, i.e. CJ's mobsters are to the most part portrayed accurately/realistically, in other words as the uncontrollable sociopaths that they are and always will be. Thankfully, this isn't a Sydney Lumet picture in which the viewer is required/asked to sympathize with criminals by taking an irrational, liberal, childishly anti-establishment attitude. (See "Find Me Guilty", a fantasy mobster court-room drama in which a "happy ending" constitutes a dozen mobster defendants being acquitted of crimes they did commit...)

The radiant 70s look, a brisk plot development, and the generally good cast make up for some occasional flaws.

Fonz as a gangster?? He is about a head shorter than all the (fe)male cast members - and that includes Harve Villachaize. Truly threatening-looking. Not to mention his perpetual "mild-mannered accountant's" facial expression, which he cannot get rid off even if a team of top plastic surgeons tried to help him in that fantastic feat. That was a major casting blunder. What's next... Kate Hudson as head of NASA? Casey Affleck as Superman?

Another casting error, though far less dramatic than the Fonz fiasco, was picking Charles Cioffi to play a rising mob star. An actor's Italian name alone does not necessarily a suitable mafiosi make. He too lacks the aura of psychopathy that even the least violent mobster (which isn't saying much) has, lurking below the surface.

Why do mobsters' wives and girfriends, i.e. harlots, nearly always get portrayed favourably in movies? It doesn't take a brilliant deductive mind or world-class detective skills to figure out that such women can't be morally much more impressive than the scum they they date. Admittedly, Paula Prentiss's character is underdeveloped, but whatever little we see of her seems to be far too flattering for that kind of woman.

On one or two occasions the jumps from one scene to the next are too quick, making the flow of the movie somewhat shaky. It's as though the initial running time of CJ had been 30 minutes longer, and a commercially-driven butchering job had been implemented at the last minute in the editor's room.

Very trendy c. '74 cast-Eli Wallach, Peter Boyle, Rip Torn, Paula Prentiss, etc. Even has the Fonz as a mob guy. An obvious takeoff of the Godfather, though nowheres near as good. The cast certainly brings this up a notch-Boyle and Wallach especially. I always enjoy seeing Fred 'Blaxploitation film' Williamson in a flick too.

Very dated-check out the boat cars, bellbottems, very '70s '50's fixation-tunes, etc-but worth yer while. Has an interesting run of things it touches on-Attica, Italian 'anti-defamation leagues', etc.

**1/2, see this with 'Donnie Brasco' or 'Friends of Eddie Coyle' to get a better idea of what's what.

Looking at it in retrospect I suppose this film turned out to be an okay movie which essentially involves a gangster known as "Crazy Joe" (Peter Boyle) who believes that his efforts working for the mob haven't been appreciated enough. So he decides to force the issue and create his own gang. The problem with his logic, however, is that although he was certainly a top-notch thug, he doesn't quite have the discipline or a good understanding of the intricacies involved in building a crime family. Anyway, I thought Peter Boyle did an adequate job but it was Eli Wallach (as "Don Vittorio") and Fred Williamson (as "Willy") who really stood out. I also enjoyed seeing Henry Winkler cast as one of Crazy Joe's thugs named "Mannie" and Paula Prentiss as Joey's wife "Anne". Even so, the pace of the movie sometimes seemed a bit slow and I occasionally felt that some of the movie had been left in the cutting room. Not a great film by any means but somewhat entertaining all the same.