Happy Birthday To The Late Mario Puzo, Author Of 'The Godfather,' 'The Fortunate Pilgrim,' The Sicilian,' And Other Fine Novels

You can read Mario Puzo's biography via the below link:

Mario Puzo | Bookreporter.com 

You can also read my Washington Times On Crime column about the making of The Godfather film via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: Leave The Gun, Take The Cannoli: My Washington Times On Crime Column On The Making Of 'The Godfather'

Corleone: The Sicilian Town Trying To Break Free Of Its Mobster Past

As I’ve noted here before, back in 1975 I was a student of crime, an aspiring crime writer and a sailor stationed on a U.S. Navy tugboat at the American nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland. 

Undecided if I wanted to go home to the USA or stay in the Navy and get stationed in Italy, I visited Naples, Italy and Palermo, Sicily before I made my decision. 

Being half-Italian on my mother's side, I wanted to see where the Guardino clan came from in Sicily. And having read Mario Puzo's The Godfather several times and having seen Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and The Godfather, Part Two films several times, I simply had to visit the Sicilian town of Corleone. 

I spent a day in Corleone, a quaint and quiet town that belies its' rich history of blood, murder and organized crime. Corleone is the town where The Godfather’s fictional Vito Corleone came from, and Corleone was also the town where true-life Cosa Nostra bosses, such as Salvatore "Toto" Riina, also came from. 

I enjoyed my time in Naples, Palermo and Corleone, but I decided to leave the Navy and go home. 

Lorenzo Tondo at the Guardian offers a piece on modern-day Corleone and how the Sicilian town is trying to break free of it mobster past.

If it weren’t called Corleone, this small, quaint town would appear to visitors as one of many others of the Sicilian hinterland: groups of elderly people strolling in a semi-deserted square, rows of low sand-coloured houses and a 16th-century church on the highest hill. 

It would be difficult to imagine that for almost half a century it was the stronghold of the mafia’s bloodiest and most powerful clan, and the fiefdom of Italy’s most feared mobster, Totò Riina. Immortalised in cinema and literature by The Godfather, it became synonymous with organised crime, even if the bosses who once governed it – Riina, Luciano Leggio and Bernardo Provenzano – are now dead.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

Corleone: the Sicilian town trying to break free of its mobster past | Mafia | The Guardian 

A Look Back At 'The Valachi Papers': Fifty Years In The Shadow Of 'The Godfather'

Matt Davey at Cinemaretro.com takes a look back at the 1972 film The Valachi Papers. 

As Davey notes, the organized crime film was overshadowed by The Godfather. Ironically, Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather was no doubt influenced by Peter Maas’ terrific true crime book, The Valachi Papers. 

In Peter Maas' book, as in Valachi's congressional hearing, the veteran Cosa Nostra soldier (seen in the below photo) divulged the history of Cosa Nostra as well as many of the secrets, ways and expressions used by real mob guys. 

Yes, The Godfather is a superior film, a classic crime film, but I also liked The Valachi Papers, despite its many flaws. It’s the true story of Cosa Nostra and I liked Charles Bronson as Joe Valachi and Joseph Wiseman as the first “Boss of Bosses,” Salvatore Maranzano.     

Matt Davey writes:

Released in 1972, The Valachi Papers depicts the rise and fall of Mafia informant Joseph Valachi, who became the first member of the Mafia (otherwise known as Cosa Nostra) to acknowledge its existence in public. Directed by Terence Young (Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Thunderball) and produced by legendary Italian film producer Dino De Laurentiis The Valachi Papers stars Charles Bronson in the lead role, alongside his real-life wife Jill Ireland as well as Lino Ventura, Walter Chiari and Joseph Wiseman. 

The film covers five decades of Valachi’s involvement in organised crime – from his burglaries with the Minutemen to working under mob boss Vito Genovese from the 1930s – as the film unceremoniously portrays life in the criminal underworld. 

Told from the perspective of Valachi, the film begins with the ageing gangster in prison fearing for his life after a contract for his killing is ordered by Don Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura), who suspects him of betraying the Family. Determined not to be silenced behind bars and avoid an inside hit, Valachi co-operates with the U.S. Justice Department – unveiling the secrets of life in the Mafia as the film follows Bronson’s on-screen Joe Valachi through voice-over and flashback sequences. 

The film is based on the biographical book of the same name, written by Peter Maas in 1968. Nearly five decades after the movie’s release, it’s difficult to truly comprehend the anticipation surrounding a Hollywood picture based on Joseph Valachi’s tell-all testimony to the FBI that was televised across the United States in 1963. Never before had the public, or indeed the FBI, really been aware of the true extent to which organised crime functioned in America. Valachi - who had been a former Mafia ‘soldier’ in the Genovese crime family – disclosed that the Mafia was called ‘Cosa Nostra’ in Italian – translating as “this thing of ours” in English. Valachi’s public testimony divulged the structure of the Mafia, from its hierarchy to the Five Families in New York City. 

This incredible true story was always going to have golden Hollywood potential when being made into a motion picture, but there would be two competing Mafia movies in 1972. One became widely regarded as one of the best films ever made and the other would disappear from popular culture. 

Perhaps, The Valachi Papers is worthy of a reappraisal in the modern era.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

"THE VALACHI PAPERS"- FIFTY YEARS IN THE SHADOW OF "THE GODFATHER" - Cinema Retro

You can also read my Counterterrorism magazine piece on the threat of Cosa Nostra via the below link:

Paul Davis On Crime: My Piece On Cosa Nostra: The Threat Of Organized Crime In America

The Real French Connection Cops: My Washington Times 'On Crime' Column On Legendary Detectives Sonny Grosso And Randy Jurgensen

The Washington Times published my On Crime column about the real French Connection cops Sonny Grosso and Randy Jurgensen.

You can read the column via the below link or the below text:

Legendary detectives Sonny Grosso and Randy Jurgensen went from Harlem to Hollywood - Washington Times

Legendary Detectives Sonny Grosso and Randy Jurgensen Went From Hollywood to Harlem

 On Crime column by Paul Davis - - Wednesday, February 12, 2020. 

Legendary NYPD detective and film and TV producer Salvatore “Sonny” Grosso died last month. He was 89. He had come to fame as the detective who broke “The French Connection” case along with his partner, Eddie Egan, who died in 1995. 

In the early 1960s, the detectives uncovered a plot by American organized crime and Corsican criminals from Marseille, France, to import 112 pounds of nearly pure heroin into New York City. The heroin was worth more than $90 million on the street. 

Robin Moore, who wrote “The Green Berets,” interviewed the detectives and wrote “The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics and International Conspiracy” in 1969. The book led to the Academy Award-winning film, “The French Connection” in 1971. 

Grosso and Egan worked as technical advisers on the film, and they appeared on the screen in supporting roles. NYPD detective Randy Jurgensen, who was on the periphery of the famous case, also worked as a technical adviser and supporting actor on the film. Detective Jurgensen became Grosso’s partner after Egan retired.   

I contacted Randy Jurgensen and asked him about his former partner.    

“My childhood friend and partner Sonny Grosso passed over last month,” Mr. Jurgensen said. “He was the best man at my wedding, and he was the godfather to one of my children.” 

He said that he and Grosso grew up in West Harlem and although Grosso was five years older, they both served in the Korean War together. There were few jobs available after the war, so the two became police officers. 

“Sonny became a cop about 18 months before I did and when I graduated from the police academy, I was assigned to East Harlem. On the day I showed up at the 2-5 precinct, Sonny Grosso was there waiting for me,” Mr. Jurgensen said. “I spent about 18 months in uniform and then I worked undercover in narcotics. 

“I worked the streets buying narcotics and Sonny and Eddie worked on narcotics distributors. I worked on the outside of the French Connection case." 

After “The French Connection” film, Detectives Grosso and Jurgensen became technical advisers on “The Godfather.” Grosso portrayed the detective who advised Capt. McCloskey (Sterling Hayden) that Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) was a war hero and not a mobster. The director also used Grosso’s service revolver in the scene where Michael Corleone murdered a rival mobster and McCloskey, dropping the .38 revolver on the floor as he walked out. Mr. Jurgensen portrayed one of the gunmen who brutally murdered Sonny Corleone (James Caan). 

The two also appeared together in “The Seven-Ups,” which was based on Grosso’s career, and they appeared with Al Pacino in “Cruising,” a film based on one of Mr. Jurgensen’s cases. They also worked together on other films and TV programs.  

The two former detectives also wrote books. Grosso wrote a crime novel called “Point Blank,” and a true-crime book called “Murder at the Harlem Mosque.” Mr. Jurgensen, along with Robert Cea, wrote “Circle of Six: The True Story of New York’s Most Notorious Cop Killer and The Cop Who Risked Everything to Catch Him.” Mr. Jurgensen was the lead investigator in the controversial murder of NYPD Officer Phil Cardillo. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, a sergeant during the time of the murder, reopened the case after reading the book. 

Mr. Jurgensen recalled a defining moment when he and Sonny Grosso were assigned to Harlem Homicide at a time when NYPD officers were being assassinated by the Black Liberation Army.

 “I saw one man walking towards us and another one got up from the stoop. I knew we were set up. Before we could get the guns out, Sonny was wrestling on the stoop, and I took on the other one,” Mr. Jurgensen said. “I was banging away on him and we wound up in the hallway. Sonny had this guy in a hold and was punching away, and here came a young woman with a gun.”

As he turned toward the woman, the man pulled a gun and Mr. Jurgensen was forced to shoot him. Then Grosso went over the bannister and landed on the stairwell with the man on top of him. Mr. Jurgensen hit the man on top of Grosso. 

The suspect on top of Grosso was Twyman Meyers, a cop killer who was number one on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Grosso’s injured his leg in the fall, and a few years later he left the force and entered the entertainment field, as did Randy Jurgensen.     

“I’m the last French Connection cop,” Mr. Jurgensen said sadly. 

• Paul Davis’ On Crime column covers true crime, crime fiction, mysteries and thrillers.

Note: The top photo shows from left to right Randy Jurgensen, Sonny Grosso, Eddie Egan and actor Gene Hackman in the film, The French Connection. 

The below photos show Randy Jurgensen, Sonny Grosso and Eddie Egan in the films The French Connection,  Cruising, and The Godfather.

A Look Back At Mario Puzo, The Author Of The Classic Crime Novel, 'The Godfather'

Mario Puzo, a writer and WWII veteran (seen in the above photo), was broke and deep in dept. He had written two fine novels, The Dark Arena and The Fortune Pilgrim, but the two novels made him little money.

The Fortune Pilgrim, a novel about a struggling Italian-American family in New York, had a mobster as one of its characters, and Puzo's publisher suggested that his next novel be a blockbuster about organized crime.

So Mario Puzo went on to write what he hoped would be a best-seller about the mob so he could make some serious money. The Godfather was the novel.

Puzo's The Godfather has some awful Harold Robbins-type trashy stuff in it, yet there was mostly a grand Cosa Nostra story and some fine writing as well. (Thankfully, Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola left the trashy parts out of the screenplay and film).

And the rest, as they say, was history.

After reading The Godfather and viewing the great film, I bought and read Mario Puzo's interesting book about the making of the novel and the film, The Godfather Papers: And Other Confessions.  

Reed Tucker at the New York Post offers a piece on Mario Puzo and his classic crime novel.

You can read the piece via the below link:

https://nypost.com/2019/03/02/how-mario-puzo-penned-the-godfather-to-get-out-of-debt-and-made-bank/

A Little Night Music: The Godfather Orchestral Suite (Live) By The Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Director Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, based on Mario Puzo's novel, are near perfect films that I and many others can watch over and over again.

One of the reasons to watch the films over and over is Nino Rota's beautiful, evocative, majestic and haunting soundtracks for the two films.

You can watch and listen to the Danish National Symphony perform The Godfather Orchestral Suite live via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-jdl9hcCeg

Sicilian Town Of Corleone Had Long, Bloody Past Before "Godfather" Fame

Back in 1975 I was a student of crime, an aspiring crime writer and a sailor stationed on a U.S. Navy tugboat at the American nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland.

Undecided if I wanted to go home to the USA or stay in the Navy and get stationed in Italy, I visited Naples, Italy and Palermo, Sicily before I made my decision.

Being half-Italian on my mother's side, I wanted to see where the Guardino clan came from in Sicily. And having read Mario Puzo's The Godfather several times and having seen Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and The Godfather, Part Two films several times, I simply had to visit the Sicilian town of Corleone.

I spent a day in Corleone, a quaint and quiet town that belies its' rich history of blood, murder and organized crime. Corleone is the town where The Godfather’s fictional Vito Corleone came from, and Corleone was also the town where true-life Cosa Nostra bosses, such as Salvatore "Toto" Riina, also came from.

I enjoyed my time in Naples, Palermo and Corleone, but I decided to leave the Navy and go home.

The San Francisco Chronicle offers a piece on today’s Corleone.

CORLEONE, Sicily (AP) — Corleone is a Sicilian medieval hill town whose bloody past began generations before "The Godfather" novels and films borrowed its name for a fictional Mafia don.

It is the birthplace of several convicted real-life Mafia bosses, among them Salvatore "Toto" Riina, the reputed "boss of bosses," who died Friday at 87 in a prison ward of a northern Italian hospital.

Corleone has witnessed recent signs of rebellion against an entrenched Mafia culture where religious pageants pay tribute to reigning mob bosses, with processions stopping outside the dons' homes.

A town square is named after two top anti-Mafia magistrates slain by Cosa Nostra bombings in 1992. Inaugurated in 2000, an anti-Mafia museum, together with the International Center for Anti-Mafia documentation, also educates visitors about the fallen heroes in the war against the Sicilian crime syndicate.

When native son Riina was arrested in 1993 in Palermo, schoolchildren ran into Corleone's streets in joy, rallying behind a banner that read "Finally" — their jubilation a reflection of a new and burgeoning resistance to the Mafia by a younger generation of Sicilians.

But the Mafia's grip on the town isn't easily removed.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/crime/article/Sicilian-town-had-long-bloody-past-before-12365820.php#photo-14564371 

George Anastasia: Five Myths About The Mafia

Veteran organized crime reporter and author George Anastasia (seen in the below photo) offers a piece in the Washington Post on five myths about the mafia.

The Tribeca Film Festival ended last month with screenings of “The Godfather” and “The Godfather: Part II.” The purpose was to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the first film, which pumped new life into a genre that had dominated the movie industry in the 1930s. Released at a time when the American Mafia was losing its hold on the underworld, the movies offered a romanticized version of “the life,” a version that celebrated “men of honor” and omerta. In many ways, the movies have served as training films for second- and third-generation Italian American gangsters, who moved from the urban centers of their immigrant grandparents to homogenized suburbs where Sunday dinner is served at the Olive Garden and espresso comes in four flavors at Starbucks. The movies have also reinforced several myths about the Mafia that, ironically, the actions of those in the next generations quickly dispelled.

MYTH NO. 1

The Mafia doesn’t deal drugs.

In “The Godfather,” Michael Corleone became a gangster after his brother Sonny was brutally slaughtered on the causeway in a dispute over drugs. Don Vito Corleone’s avowed opposition to narcotics trafficking helped create the perception that drug dealing was against the rules. Testimony at real-life mob trials reinforced that canard. “Our policy was against drugs,” mobster turned government witness Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano said while testifying against mob boss John Gotti in 1993.

 The reality is that as far back as Lucky Luciano, the mob has been in the drug business. In 1959, Vito Genovese — who gave his name to one of the five New York families — was imprisoned on drug charges, as was his low-level crime family soldier Joe Valachi. Drugs have generated billions of dollars in income for the mob over the decades.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-mafia/2017/05/05/f4075da8-306c-11e7-9dec-764dc781686f_story.html?utm_term=.1ebeebb65036 

Note: Myth number six about the Mafia: They don’t call themselves the Mafia. According to former members who became cooperating witnesses and wiretap recordings, the word Mafia is never used. 

Cosa Nostra, “Our Thing,” which Mr. Anastasia notes in his piece, is the name insiders call the organized crime group. And not La Cosa Nostra, which in Italian would be “The Our Thing.”   

On This Day In History Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Opens

As History.com notes, on this day in 1972 The Godfather film was released in in theaters.

Francis Ford Coppola’s film was adapted from the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo.

You can read about the film via the below link:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/francis-ford-coppolas-the-godfather-opens?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2017-0315-03152017&om_rid=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa&om_mid=160199042&kx_EmailCampaignID=10436&kx_EmailCampaignName=email-hist-tdih-2017-0315-03152017&kx_EmailRecipientID=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa 

A Look Back At The Gambino Crime Family Tree, From Their Early Roots To Serving As inspiration For ‘The Godfather’

 

Jessica Schladerbeck at the New York Daily News looks back at the Gambino crime family history.

Before he was the inspiration for the greatest fictional crime boss of all time, Carlo Gambino was an illegal immigrant trying to rise to power during the height of organized crime.

Gambino, born August 24, 1902, headed one of the most powerful families in New York and in part inspired the iconic character Don Corleone — the Godfather was also heavily based on Frank Costello. His journey to the top, not unlike those in the famous film series, is a tangled web of assassinations, power grabs and silent betrayal.

The Gambino Crime Family was founded by Salvatore “Toto” D’Aquila, who took over a gang of newly transplanted Mafiosi from Sicily after leaders Lupo Saietta and Giuseppe Morello were handed a 30 year prison sentence for counterfeiting in 1910.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/gambino-crime-family-tree-article-1.2764033

Italian Government: Corleone's City Hall Is Mafia-infested

While serving on a U.S. Navy harbor tugboat at the nuclear submarine base at Holy Loch, Scotland in 1975, I traveled to Sicily on vacation.

Being part-Italian on my mother's side, and as a student of crime since my early teens, I was curious to see the town of Corleone. Corleone, wrongly or rightly, is a town associated mostly with Cosa Nostra, Sicily's infamous organized crime group.

Prior to my trip to Sicily, I'd read a good number of travel and historical books on the island, as well as on Cosa Nostra, and of course I'd read the Mario Puzo novel, The Godfather. I also watched the first two films based on Puzo's novel a few years prior to my trip.

Corleone is the town that writer Mario Puzo used famously for his Godfather novel and he gave the name of the town to his main character. Film director Francis Ford Coppola also used the name of the town in his film series, but he filmed scenes in different towns in Sicily.

Hiring a car and driver in Palermo, I was driven through the beautiful countryside to Corleone and then given a tour of the picturesque Sicilian town with a dark and violent history. The people were warm, friendly and open, although the town held many criminal secrets, then and now.

It was an interesting day that I can still recall vividly.

The British newspaper The Telegraph offers a piece on how Corleone remains plagued by organized crime.        

The Italian government believes Mafiosi have infiltrated the local administration of Corleone, the Sicilian town which inspired the fictional crime clan's name in "The Godfather"novel and movie.

Premier Matteo Renzi's Cabinet on Wednesday dissolved Corleone's municipal government and put its City Hall under temporary control of the interior ministry.

Interior Minister Angelino Alfano had proposed the action. Corleone's mayor also voiced worries about Mafia infiltration.

Using intimidation, Sicily's Cosa Nostra frequently influences decisions and public contract bidding or backs local politicians sympathetic to the Mafia's economic interests.

You can read the rest of the piece and watch a video via the below link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/10/italian-government-corleones-city-hall-is-mafia-infested/

You can also read an earlier post on the Sicilian Cosa Nostra via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2016/07/the-real-godfather-true-story-of.html

From Bestseller To Blockbuster, A Look Back at 'The Godfather' - Today in 1972, Francis Ford Coppola's Film 'The Godfather', Based On The Mafia Epic By Mario Puzo, Premiered. Here's A Look At How The Book Became A Hollywood Classic.

Robert Cashill at Biography.com offers a look back at the The Godfather novel and film.

“Behind every successful fortune—there is crime.” Mario Puzo, The Godfather (1969)

Mario Puzo grew up in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. As a young writer he knocked around hardboiled men’s magazines, penning war stories. In his mid-40s, he wasn’t getting any younger, and with a wife and five kids to feed, and two flop novels behind him, he accepted a modest advance to write a third. It was based on stories he heard on the street. The author of the book most beloved by wiseguys had never met a gangster.

The Godfather proved a sensation, as a book and as a movie, released today in 1972. Puzo had no illusions about a novel that through the decades has sold more than 30 million copies. “I was 45 years old, I owed $20,000 to relatives, finance companies, banks and assorted bookmakers and loan sharks. It was really time to grow up and sell out,” he recalled.

Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola was also in hock. He’d won an Oscar for co-writing 1970’s Best Picture winner, Patton, but the four features he’d directed, including the intimate drama The Rain People (1969), had a much lower profile in Hollywood. Unhappy with Tinseltown, he and fellow filmmakerGeorge Lucas opened a more experimental outfit, American Zoetrope, in San Francisco in 1969. Coppola borrowed $300,000 from Warner Bros. for his dream studio, and Lucas made his directorial debut with its first film, the downbeat science fiction story THX 1138 (1971). When it tanked, Warner Bros. wanted its money back. At 32, Coppola was at a crossroads.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.biography.com/news/the-godfather-movie-facts

Abe Vigoda, Who Played Tessio in The Godfather films And Detective Fish On Barney Miller, Dies At 94

The Daily Mail offers a piece on the death of actor Abe Vigoda.

Character actor Abe Vigoda, whose leathery, sunken-eyed face made him ideal for playing the over-the-hill detective Phil Fish in the 1970s TV series Barney Miller and the doomed Mafia soldier in The Godfather, died on Tuesday at age 94.

Vigoda's daughter, Carol Vigoda Fuchs, told The Associated Press that Vigoda died on Tuesday morning in his sleep at Fuchs' home in Woodland Park, New Jersey. The cause of death was old age. 'This man was never sick,' Fuchs said.

Vigoda worked in relative obscurity as a supporting actor in the New York theater and in television until Francis Ford Coppola cast him in the 1972 Oscar-winning The Godfather.

Vigoda played Sal Tessio, an old friend of Vito Corleone's (Marlon Brando) who hopes to take over the family after Vito's death by killing his son Michael Corleone (Al Pacino). But Michael anticipates that Sal's suggestion for a 'peace summit' among crime families is a setup and the escorts Sal thought were taking him to the meeting turn out to be his executioners. 

You can read the rest of the piece and view photos and a video via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3417924/Godfather-actor-Abe-Vigoda-dies-age-94-New-York-starred-TV-s-Barney-Miller-eight-years.html

Actor Alex Rocco, Mobster Moe Greene in 'The Godfther," Dies at 79

Mike Barnes at the Hollywood Reporter offers a report on the death of Alex Rocco, who portrayed the character Moe Greene in the classic crime film, The Godfather appeared in another crime classic film, The Friends of Eddie Coyle.  

Alex Rocco, the veteran tough-guy character actor with the gravelly voice best known for playing mobster and Las Vegas casino owner Moe Greene in The Godfather, has died. He was 79.

Rocco died Saturday, his daughter, Jennifer, announced on Facebook. No other details of his death were immediately available.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/alex-rocco-dead-godfather-actor-809754?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=hollywoodreporter_breakingnews&utm_campaign=THR%20Breaking%20News_now_2015-07-19%2010%3A02%3A34_RGajewski

 

The Godfather Film Opened On This Date In 1972 In New York City

Hard to believe that it was 42 years ago today that The Godfather opened in New York City.

At the time I was a 20-year-old Navy veteran, aspiring writer and student of crime. I had read and enjoyed Mario Puzo's novel prior to seeing the film and I enjoyed the film as well.

I saw The Godfather several times while it was still in the theaters, and I've watched it again countless times over the years. I've also watched The Godfather, Part II countless times over the years.

The Godfather, Part III, not so much, although I think Andy Garcia and Joe Mantegna are very good in the film. In my view, the film should have been about the conflict between the two of them, rather than killing off Mantegna early in the film.

I've enjoyed the novel and film trilogy, although I don't much buy into the so-called capitalism analogy that director Francis Coppola often claims (Organized crime existed in the Soviet Union as well). I just think it is a great crime story.

If you have enjoyed the films, but not read Mario Puzo's novel, I recommend it. I also recommend Puzo's The Godfather Papers and Other Confessions, in which the author offers his take on the making of the classic film based on his novel.  

You can also read my Crime Beat column on The Godfather and organized crime via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2011/09/goodfellas-dont-sue-goodfellas-look.html

And you can read my Q&A with Philip Leonetti, the former underboss of the Philadelphia-South Jersey La Cosa Nostra organized crime family via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2013/01/crime-beat-column-mafia-prince-q-with.html

Happy Birthday To Mario Puzo, Author of 'The Godfather'

Happy birthday to the late author Mario Puzo.

According to his web site, Mario Puzo was born October 15, 1920 in "Hell's Kitchen" on Manhattan's
West Side. Following military service in World War II, he attended New York's New School for Social Research and Columbia University.

His best known novel, The Godfather, was preceded by two critically acclaimed novels, The Dark Arena and The Fortunate Pilgrim.

You can read the rest of his biography at his web site via the below link:

http://www.mariopuzo.com/biography.shtml

40th Anniversary Of The Classic Film 'The Godfather'

 

ABCNews.com reports that today is the 40th anniversary of the classic film The Godfather.

Today marks the 40th anniversary of what many consider to be one of the greatest films ever made: “The Godfather.”

Based on the book of the same name by author Mario Puzo, the film, originally released March 15, 1972, starred Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, a leader of a Mafia family in 1940s New York. It was his character that uttered the famous line, “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2012/03/40th-anniversary-of-the-godfather/ 

Note: I still believe Ernest Borgnine would have been a better choice to portray Vito Corleone. Borgnine is Italian, speaks Italian, and he would not have had to stuff his face with cotton and used heavy makeup like Brando. He was a great comedic actor - I loved him in McHale's Navy - but watch him in Marty, From Here To Eternity and Bad Day At Black Rock and you will see how fine an actor Borgnine was.

My Crime Beat Column: Goodfellas Don't Sue Goodfellas, A Look Back At Organized Crime And The Philly Mob



Joseph Bonanno, the former boss of one of New York’s five Cosa Nostra's original crime families died last month of heart failure. He was 97.

Bonanno was often sited with being the model for the Vito Corleone character in The Godfather novel and the subsequent trilogy of films.

Like Bonanno, Corleone had a “Joe College” son who reluctantly joined his father in the organized crime business. Like Bonanno, Corleone took on the other crime families in New York, although Bonnano, unlike Corleone, lost and was exiled to Arizona (where law enforcement officials have always maintained he continued to be involved in crime activities).

Bonanno, like Vito Corleone in the novel and the movies, died of natural causes. Unlike most mob bosses in fact and in fiction, Bonanno did not die in prison or in a hail of bullets.

The Godfather, although highly romanticized, is a fine fictionalized study of organized crime’s history in America. Nearly all of the major events in the Mario Puzo novel and Francis Ford Coppola’s film trilogy were based on real events in crime history.

Puzo admitted that he never knew any mob guys other than gamblers and he said he based his novel entirely on research. It is perhaps a testimony to Puzo’s skill as a novelist that real mob guys never truly believed that. Many of them believed he had a highly placed mob source.

Over the years I've heard from a number of law enforcement officials who complain that The Godfather and the other mob books and movies glamorize crime.

When I was a producer and on-air host on Inside Government, a public affairs radio program that aired on WPEN AM and WMGK FM on Sunday mornings a few years ago in the Philadelphia area, I interviewed Robert Courtney, the chief of the U.S. Attorney's Organized Crime Task Force.

He did not agree with my assessment of Goodfellas, which I said was the most realistic film portrayal of organized crime. Courtney felt that audiences liked the actor Joe Pesci in the film because he was funny and charming, but failed to realize that he and the other criminals in the film were vicious and murderous.

I didn't disagree that the criminals in the film were vicious and murderous - director Martin Scorsese certainly showed that in the gritty and realistic movie - but I noted that I’ve found some of the real mob guys to be funny, charming and even generous.

And I’ve also seen them quickly turn vicious, cold and heartless – just as Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro portrayed them on the screen. They can be good friends and good company - unless you owe them money or you have something they want. Serial killers and con artists have also been known to be quite charming.

From The Godfather to The Sopranos, novels, movies and TV programs have often presented the gangster as a tragic, romantic and even sympathetic figure. Told from the criminal’s point of view, these stories are how the gangsters see themselves. Readers and viewers often sympathize with the human qualities of the characters, but they should always remember these characters are murderers.

Criminals are interesting, which is why most of us watch the movies and read the books, but they are not admirable.

Being part Italian and born and raised in a predominately Italian-American neighborhood in South Philly - the hub of the Philadelphia-South Jersey mob - I was well aware of organized crime at an early age. I lived just around the corner from the home of the long-time Philadelphia mob boss, Angelo Bruno. He was killed in front of that very same home in 1980, sparking a two-decade leadership struggle that would result in many more murders.

I also lived near Richard Zappile, the former Philadelphia chief of detectives who fought the mob and went on to become the first deputy police commissioner. Yes, Virginia, there are Italian-Americans involved in organized crime, but there are also many Italian-Americans on the other side of the law as well.

In my late teens and 20s, I was a regular at the clubs and bars owned and frequented by mob guys. Many of my childhood friends went on to dapple in the rackets, and as a writer I went on to cover organized crime. I knew the funny, violent and tragic characters that populate Mean Streets, Goodfellas and other crime films.

Film director Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas is a powerfully stylistic cinematic telling of a true crime story.

Based on Nicholas Pileggi’s true crime book Wiseguy, the film chronicles Henry Hill’s low-level life of crime. Hill would end up as a witness against his mob mentors in crime, one of whom was James “Jimmy the Gent” Burke, the leader of a crew that carried out the robbery of the Lufthansa Air Cargo Terminal at Kennedy Airport in 1978. Millions of dollars were stolen and more than a dozen of the perpetrators were later murdered by Burke.

Mean Streets is Scorsese’s earlier crime film that dealt with young mob guys in the old New York neighborhood. The film is an artful and accurate portrayal of what George Anastasia, the veteran Philadelphia Inquirer crime reporter, called the “dark side” of Italian-American life.

A few years ago, I went to hear Anastasia, who had just published an account of the Philadelphia organized crime family in his book The Goodfella Tapes: The True Story of How the FBI Recorded a  Mob War and Brought Down a Mafia Don.

The book is about how the FBI secretly recorded an internecine mob war and brought down the local crime boss, John Stanfa.

Anastasia made an appearance at Borders bookstore in Center City Philadelphia. He read passages from his book and fielded questions from the crowd of about 30 people.

Like his two previous outstanding books on the Philly mob, Blood and Honor and Mobfather, South Philadelphia is featured so prominently in The Goodfella Tapes that it’s practically a character.

“The Philadelphia mob is probably the most dysfunctional crime family in America,” I recall Anastasia saying. “It’s kind of  The Simpsons of the underworld.”

How it got that way, he said, is what the book is all about.

Anastasia talked about the 1993-95 mob war in and around South Philadelphia, noting that one failed hit man used the wrong size shells in a shotgun (which was right out of Jimmy Breslin’s comic novel The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight) and how another mob guy called off a hit because he had to report to his parole officer.

Anastasia explained that one side was old world Sicilian and the other side was born and bred South Philadelphians, the offspring of the previous mob leadership.

And the Feds got it all down on tape.

A minor gambling investigation led to the bugging of a law office in New Jersey, where the mob guys met secretly (and they thought safely) to discuss mob gossip, philosophy and tactics. Over the course of two years, the FBI recorded 2,000 conversations.

“Goodfellas don’t sue goodfellas," one mob philosopher advised a mob associate and potential litigant as the FBI listened in. "Goodfellas kill goodfellas.”

The book offers a good number of other insightful comments as well.

Anastasia said he became interested in organized crime having been born in South Philly and the fact that his grandfather came from Sicily. “I was fascinated because it’s the dark side of the Italian-American experience,” Anastasia said.

He began covering crime when he was assigned by the Inquirer to cover Atlantic City at the time of the gambling referendum in 1976. There was much talk about keeping the mob out, but as Anastasia noted, they were already there. He later covered more and more mob-related stories.

I asked him how he responded to criticism from Italians that his extensive coverage of the “dark side” as he put it, offered a negative image of Italians, the vast majority of whom were not criminals.

“These guys are taking the positive values of the Italian-American experience; honor, family and loyalty and bastardizing them for their own end. I think you should shine a light on that,” he said.

On the other hand, Anastasia said he took great pride in the positive contributions that Italians have made to this country and to the world.

Scorsese offered an interesting side note to his crime films in his Playboy interview.

Scorsese said that Henry Hill told him that he once convinced his friend’s father to go and see a certain movie. The father, Paul Vario, a capo in the Lucchese crime family, never went to the movies, but agreed to see Mean Streets at Hill’s urging.

Vario, who would years later be portrayed by Paul Sorvino in Scorsese’s film Goodfellas, liked Mean Streets so much that he instructed his entire crew to go and see it.

“It’s about us,” Vario said succinctly.

Note: The above Crime Beat column originally appeared in the Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine in 2002.   

A Look Back At The Philly Mob Story

Thanks to youtube.com you can watch the National Geographic Channel's program on the the South Philly/South Jersey Cosa Nostra crime family.

You can watch the program via the below links:

Part 1 of 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL931EBOw30&feature=related

Part 2 of 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGZsM6weu4s

Part 3 of 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usnS9n7fjOs

Part 4 of 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpkjkXSSmVQ&feature=related

Part 5 of 5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RP_djORYwU&NR=1

You can also read my Philadelphia Inquirer review of George Anastasia's true crime book on the Philly mob, The Last Gangster, via the below links:

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LastGangsterReview1JPG.jpg

http://home.comcast.net/~pauldavisoncrime/pwpimages/LastGangsterReview2JPG.jpg

AMC's 'Mob Week' Features 'Goodfellas,' 'The Godfather,' and 'Donnie Brasco'

The Hollywood Reporter offers a piece on the cable station AMC's announcement about Mob Week.

AMC is getting into the mob business.

The cable channel best known for critically acclaimed series including Mad Men and Breaking Bad is set to roll out its first annual "mob week," hosted by former New York City Mayor and, as AMC puts it, "real life mob buster, Rudy Giuliani."

You can read the rest of the announcement via the below link:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/amcs-mob-week-features-godfather-215498

AMC will offer The Godfather, Goodfellas, Donnie Brasco and other classic mob movies, but I don't see how Pulp Fiction fits into that group. I'm not crazy about Pulp Fiction.