La mafia

This movie stars Ernest Borgnine in a straight dramatic role, and he pulls it off quite well. Set in New York City in 1906, newly arrived Italian immigrants are preyed upon by the Black Hand (La Mana Nera), which eventually became the Mafia. Borgnine plays lieutenant Petrosino, an immigrant himself, who realizes that the new immigrants will not cooperate with the police because the police in Italy were corrupt, and they expect the same in their new country. Petrosino realizes that he needs a squad of men - immigrants themselves - who speak the language, and can convince the people that things are different here. The Police Comissioner - who happens to be Teddy Roosevelt - agrees with him, and he gets his Italian Squad. Some violence ensues, as the Squad goes about breaking the power of the Black Hand, including a plot to kill Enrico Caruso, the greatest tenor of his time. Zhora Lampert plays the role of Petrosino's girlfriend, and later wife with excellent restraint, and the final scenes (this is a true story) are wrenching.

Pay Or Die is the story of Police Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino and his struggle against the infamous Black Hand who has moved over from the old country in Sicily and is terrorizing the new Italian immigrants just trying to make it in a new country. The Black Hand is sad to say an unhappy reminder of what they left.

During the course of the film at one point Ernest Borgnine and Zohra Lampert as Mrs. Petrosino drink a toast to President Theodore Roosevelt. It's not just an idle toast. Not told in the film is the fact that as Police Commissioner, Roosevelt recognized the talent in Petrosino and made him a personal protégé and started his climb up the NYPD promotion ladder.

What attracted TR to Petrosino is the no nonsense way he dealt with criminals. Petrosino was not a guy who believed in civil liberties and rights for criminals. He'd be lost in a world of Miranda. But he was as he saw it representing the forces of law and order against a completely ruthless enemy. Just the guy you need to fight a war on terror.

His life and tragic death are dealt with in a way that makes Petrosino terribly human. Zohra Lampert's character who marries Petrosino survived him by decades, dying in 1957. She and Borgnine make a perfect couple on screen. In the supporting cast Robert Ellenstein stands out as an Italian shyster lawyer who gets a really tragic comeuppance.

Pay Or Die is a well constructed albeit B picture without any frills. It holds up well for today and should be in the ranks of great gangster films.

Smoothly done crime drama based on an actual New York crime fighter. Police Lt. Petrosino (Borgnine) is proud of his Italian heritage, but rues presence of Mafia elements in New York's Little Italy. Thus he dedicates himself to cracking open the secret web that extracts money from honest shopkeepers. There is, of course, some violence but it's not spread on thickly, which keeps the story in central focus. Petrosino's personal life is somewhat complicated by an Italian girl (Lampert) whom he's attracted to. (At least that gets a pretty girl into what's otherwise an all male cast!) Trouble is he's middle-aged while she's attracted to a younger guy. So, all in all, will he be able to get beyond crime's chokehold on the neighborhood and maybe help his private life at the same time.

Borgnine delivers in robust fashion appearing in most every scene. His cop is likable, maybe too much so for the toughness he must display—but that's debatable. Lampert's a pleasant surprise as the neighborhood girl. I can see why the cop was stuck on her. Too bad actress Lampert didn't have an A-list career; she certainly had the talent. It's also a strong supporting cast of ordinary looking guys that fit their part, including familiar stalwarts like Simon and Marley. There's also a general and well-placed refusal to glamorize anybody or anything. Little Italy thus comes across as a struggling ethnic neighborhood looking for a chance to enter the American mainstream, but held back by criminal elements carried over from the old country.

All in all, it's an engaging movie with a few surprises that holds interest despite a lengthy runtime. Just as importantly, it shows that a lead actor doesn't have to be handsome in order to win an audience.

(In passing— It was about this time (1960) that the similarly themed The Untouchables with Robert Stack started its popular run on TV (1959-63).)

"Pay or Die!" is a very good film....not the least of which is because it's amazingly accurate for a Hollywood biopic. It's about Lt. Joseph Petrosino (Ernest Borgnine), the first Italian-speaking cop in New York City...and a crusader against organized crime.

When the story begins, various members of the Italian-American community are being harassed and threatened by 'the black hand'...an Italian organization based on extortion. The problem is that despite the damage they cause the community, everyone is afraid to cooperate with the police for fear of reprisals from this group. What Petrosino doesn't realize, however, is that the problem is much larger and well organized than he thinks and is actually part of the Mafia. To combat this, Petrosino starts an Italian Squad--a group of Italian-American cops who integrate undercover into the community to get the goods on the mob. What's next? See the film.

Why did I score this one so high? Much of it is because the acting is so good...as is the writing. The characters seem real and you really find yourself caring about Petrosino and his friends. Additionally, the film generally sticks to the true facts and is a nice history lesson. Well worth seeing...and quite exciting.

This is a fine old film about the beginnings of the mafia in America. Their nemesis was the Italian squad of the NYPD of which my grandfather was a part and whose notes and case books were used in the making of the film. The mafia at the time was called the black hand and was made up in this country of cheap hoods who mostly ran protection rackets on the small business owners of little Italy. They were backed by the dons in Sicily and the Italian squad's task was to shut the rackets down. They tried hard but the squad was pretty much broken up after the death of Lt. Petrosino in Sicily. This film shows the good and bad guys of the time and what my grandfather called, very un-pc,"one guinea killing another".