Lepke le caïd

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.

A cross between yet another 1970's THE GODFATHER clone and a drive-in exploitation with sex and violence, future Cannon Films co-owner Menahem Golan directs Tony Curtis as LEPKE... beginning with a younger version with an intense Barry Miller in turn-of-the-century America, committing a crime and about to be locked up... a shame since more time should have been spent on those youthful years...

Instead, right when the titular Jewish mobster gets out, he's already a 50-something miscast Tony Curtis, who at one point talks Milton Berle into marrying docile daughter Anjanette Comer... and about thirty-minutes later, when the detectives start knocking, she's supposed to have realized her mistake at marrying a lethal crime boss...

The shame is that we never experience Lepke's climb from rags to riches, nor do we get any inclination of how all the dirty work goes down... with the exception of a deliciously lethal short Italian who takes out Lepke's enemies...

So it's never exactly clear why he has either crooked friends or dangerous enemies since scene-after-scene entails dialogue more about crime than acting upon it... hopscotching into violent deaths (one has a mobster cutting the neck of a hooker while having sex) that, while pushing the R-rated envelope, has little content inside: what's here (including Vic Tayback and THE GODFATHER brother-in-law Gianni Russo) seems more of a 2-hour TV-movie trailer than a fulfilling cinematic mob biopic.

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.

.... although quite inaccurate! Tony Curtis gives a stellar performance. Overall Lepke is worth watching.

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.