Joe Valachi - I segreti di Cosa Nostra

I give this a 7 stars because it was made the same year as Godfather I, so it didn't benefit from all the film-industry wisdom that followed that production. Rather, this is a character study of one mafioso, which is a separate issue from the operatic, all-systems-GO no-holds-barred approach Coppola was able to employ in The Godfather. it's a smaller film, and should be compared to, say, Mobsters (1991), which deals with the same period and some of the same characters as V.P. Charles Bronson's Valachi is adequate. He's a workaday, uneducated, down- home mob guy, and Bronson plays him as if he were Polish, with a job that he goes to every day, where everyone talks Italian. Because it is through his eyes that we see his world, some of the other characters become more vivid, e.g., Joseph Wiseman as Salvatore Maranzano. When I compare the casting of the incomparable Joseph Wiseman in this role as opposed to, say, Michael Gambon in the same role in Mobsters, or Anthony Quinn as an equally old-school rival in the same film, I wonder: None of these actors are Italian -American or even simply Italian; why do some of them work, and the others don't? Granted that Wiseman, Quinn and Gambon are all consummate professionals and true craftsmen as actors, if anyone mentions Salvatore Maranzano and the Castellammarese gang war of 1929, the face that will come to my mind is that of Joseph Wiseman. He and Charles Bronson make this film worth seeing.

This picture is plenty of mayhem , strong stuff , drama and amount of gangland violence . A biography heavily influenced by Valachi memoirs and by interviews was written by journalist Peter Maas and published in 1968 as The Valachi Papers, forming the basis for this film . The flick deals with tough Joe Valachi (Charles Bronson) , he has a price put on his head by Don Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura) who is in prison and from there, he still runs his criminal empire . An unsuccessful attempt to slit his throat puts him over the edge to die . Valachi must take desperate steps to protect himself while in prison. Because of the bounty on his head from his own, a federal agent named Ryan (Gerald O'Loughlin) convinces Valachi really to be a mob informant in return for safety inside . Valachi tells a story that starts in 1929, when he was first imprisoned in Sing Sing . Valachi's criminal career began with a small gang known as "The Minutemen," so-called for carrying out smash and grab burglaries and escaping within a minute and subsequently as a chauffeur.I n the early 1930s, through mob contact Dominick "The Gap" Petrilli (Walter Chiari) , Valachi was introduced to the Cosa Nostra or Mafia, and soon became a soldier in the Reina Family (now known as the Lucchese Family) during the height of the Castellammarese War. Valachi fought on the side of Salvatore Maranzano, who eventually defeated the faction headed by rival Joseph Masseria (Sperli) . After Masseria's murder, Valachi became a bodyguard for Maranzano. However, this position was short-lived, as Maranzano (Joseph Wiseman) himself was murdered in 1931. Valachi then became a soldier in the family headed by Charles "Lucky" Luciano (eventually known as the Genovese Family), in the crew headed by Anthony "Tony Bender" Strollo (Leontini) .

This landmark gangster movie is strong stuff , being dominated by the tenacious acting of Charles Bronson as the gangster of the title who follows his way venomously since a simple gangster , chauffeur until his prison as he breaks the sacred code of silence , the Omertá . Bronson captures the special excitement or mood of paranoia on Valachi role . Director Yerence Young's body-strewn look at the feud between Maranzano , Genovese , Masseria , Gaetano Reina , Lucky Luciano and other famous mobsters , but especially concerns about the informer Joe Valachi . This is a violence-ridden story full of action, drama, thriller , drama but being overlong . The notorious gangster Vito Genovese being splendidly played by Lino Ventura who makes a good character study of one of the most colorful mobsters of the history .In the film appears famous gangsters such as Salvatore Maranzano played by Joseph Wiseman , Gaetano Reina acted by Amedeo Nazzari , Albert Anastasia by Fausto Tozzi , Letizia Reina played by Pupella Maggio and Lucky Luciano performed by Angelo Infanti . Jill Ireland , Bronson's real wife , makes an appealing heroine , providing an elegant touch amid the 'macho'machine gun mayhem of the rest of the film .

The motion picture is based on the book ¨Joe Valachi papers¨ and on real events , these are the following : ¨In October 1963, Valachi had testified before Subcommittee on Investigations of the U.S. Senate Committee on Government Operations that the Mafia did exist.Although Valachi's disclosures never led directly to the prosecution of many Mafia leaders, he was able to provide many details of its history, operations and rituals, aiding in the solution of several uncleared murders, as well as naming many members and the major crime families. His testimony, which was broadcast on radio and television and published in newspapers, was devastating for the mob, still reeling from the November 14, 1957 Apalachin Meeting, where state police had accidentally discovered several Mafia bosses from all over the United States meeting at the Apalachin home of mobster Joseph Barbara. Following Valachi's testimony, the mob was no longer invisible to the public. He was the son-in-law of Gaetano Reina, having married Reina's oldest daughter Mildred over the objections of her mother, brother, and uncles. Valachi's motivations for becoming an informer have been the subject of some debate. Valachi claimed to be testifying as a public service and to expose a powerful criminal organization that he blamed for ruining his life, but it is also possible he was hoping for government protection as part of a plea bargain in which he was sentenced to life imprisonment, avoiding the death penalty for a murder he committed in prison on June 22, 1962. While in prison, Valachi feared that mob boss Vito Genovese had ordered his death as a traitor. Using a pipe left near some construction work, he bludgeoned to death an inmate whom he mistook for Joseph DiPalermo, a Mafia member he believed was commissioned to kill him. (Valachi and Genovese were both serving sentences for heroin trafficking. After time with FBI handlers, Valachi came forward with a story of Genovese giving him a kiss on the cheek, which he took as a "kiss of death". In 1966, Valachi attempted to hang himself in his prison cell, using an electrical extension cord. On April 3, 1971, Valachi died of a heart attack at Federal Correctional Institution, La Tuna in Texas, having outlived Vito Genovese by two years. The $100,000 bounty, placed on Valachi by Genovese, went uncollected.¨

America has always been a land of opportunity. For the Italians, none more so than giving rise to an American icon, the Gangster. For many years, the U.S. government denied the existence of Organized crime. Even the top U.S. law enforcement officer and head of the famed Federal Bureau of Investigation, J.Edgar Hoover, denied such an organization existed. His apathy was due in part to his own shadowy complicity with the Giancana crime family. That's pretty much how it stayed until the advent of the McClellen commission. The movie " The Valachi Papers " is the direct result of that investigation and brought to the forefront of public awareness the vast network of the underworld's crime bosses and their families. The wellspring of that knowledge was none other than the most famous gangster since Al Capone, one, Joseph Valachi. His testimony, created a healthy respect and awe for the Mafia or as Valachi termed it, La Cosa Nostra. (Our thing) This movie is a compilation of his criminal life, dastardly deeds and the revelation of some of the nation's most notable names. Men like Vito Genovese, Anastasia, 'Lucky Luciano' Don Masseria and Marazano. The film is honest when it deals with its legendary brutality and bodies are left throughout the story including its most graphic moments. The end result is perhaps the best Mafia movie since the Godfather. ****

The following year Charles Bronson would team up with director Michael Winner as a cop on the trail of the mafia, but the year before in "The Valachi Papers" he would find himself smack in the middle of it all as former mobster Joe Valachi serving 15 years in prison with a target on his head of twenty thousand dollars by mafia capo Vito Genovese. When he learns of it with there being no way of getting out of it when receives the kiss of death. Joe decides to spill his guts on the inner workings (extortion, vengeance and murder) of LaCosa Nostra for some sort of protection for him and his family. This would be the third European film of the trot between Charles Bronson and director Terence Young with the gritty crime flick "Cold Sweat (1970)" and buddy western "Red Sun (1971)" being the two before it. Coming out the same year as the similar in vein, but masterful classic "The Godfather". "The Valachi Papers" probably came and went with little notice. While not as stylish, it managed to have scope in its tough, trim and grippingly told narration splitting between past recounting and present situations. The plot was adapted off Peter Maas' novel of the same name that covers this true account of the mafia underworld and organised crime. A steadfast Bronson perfectly nailed down the lead with excellently respectable support by the likes of Lino Ventura, Joseph Wiseman, Walter Chiari, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Angelo Infanti and Amedeo Nazzari. Director Young does a steadily routine job, but it's well done for such a minimal and straight looking production. For a running time of just over two hours, never does it feel it or seem to drag. The workmanlike execution gives the air a brutal (one raw act of violence would have any male squirming) and hardboiled touch, crafting well etched period (through the 1930s) location details and a having profound power in its escalating dramatics. A violent, tough-talking gangster feature with fine cast associated.

Charles Bronson starts to break out of spaghetti westerns and good character roles and becomes a leading man around the time The Valachi Papers came out. It was a big milestone in his career, playing the most famous gangster stoolie of all.

It's not quite true that all Valachi's testimony managed to do was get a lot of high television ratings for some re-election hungry Senators. Not that they didn't get it and didn't appreciate the side benefits of those famous televised hearings, but eventually what came out of the Valachi hearings was the RICO law which has in fact put quite a dent into organized crime.

The Valachi Papers has Charles Bronson telling FBI man Gerald S. O'Loughlin about his life and times in organized crime with La Cosa Nostra from the days of the Marranzano-Masseria wars until the present which would have been 1962. He doesn't really tell anything new to them, basically he confirms what had been gangster legend about the circumstances of many a demise. But with some hard documentation now, new laws are created to meet the problem.

Bronson does his best with Valachi, but the story has him pretty one dimensional. It's far from The Godfather where you really get inside the characters of the fictional Corleone family. Bronson sure has no conscience about what he did and I'm sure the real Valachi didn't either. In fact the only reason he turns informer is that Vito Genovese already mistakenly has him down as one.

Fans of the gangster genre and Charles Bronson should give this one a look. Others should see The Godfather all three parts.