i must have seen a different film!!

Fresh and Exciting

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

When I heard that Twilight Time was going to release THE VALACHI PAPERS I was ecstatic. As a fan of Charles Bronson it was one of the few films of his I hadn't seen in some time. Not only that if you wanted to see it you had to pay an arm and a leg for a copy of the film since it was out of print. Before this release I'd seen copies going for around $50 online! To start with the odds are pretty good that a number of viewers aren't even aware of who Joseph Valachi was. In the sixties Attorney General Robert Kennedy was aiming at taking on organized crime. The problem was most members of the organization kept quiet. Until Joe Valachi, after an attempt was made on his life in prison, came forward willing to tell all. It changed history as it presented the structure used by the organization and helped create a data base for law enforcement. His story was then told in book for by author Peter Maas who also wrote Frank Serpico's autobiography.With this in mind the story was ripe to make into a film. The movie opens with an older Valachi in prison where he is given the "kiss of death" by mob boss Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura). When he fears he is being attacked, Valachi defends himself only to discover the man he killed was not part of the mob. Sentenced to life with no hope of parole and fearing another attempt on his life, Valachi agrees to inform on the mob and contacts federal agent Ryan (Gerald O'Loughlin) to tell his tale.The movie progresses in flashbacks to the early days of Valachi as a young man on the streets committing crimes like burglary. When it becomes apparent he's willing to do what it takes to make his bosses happy, he is recruited to become a member of the mafia. But it is also around this time that things are changing and a mob war is going on with two different factions wanting to take control. He survives this battle but comes out of it in the bad side of his boss, Tony Bender.The film shows various crimes Valachi was involved in, his romance and marriage to the daughter of his boss (played by Bronson's real life wife Jill Ireland) and how things in the mob itself changed over time. It's never a deep rooted film based so much in facts and figures as it is the story of one man and the things seen through his eyes. Low budgeted and filled with a number of Italian actors since this was a film made in Italy, the movie is more of a glossed over slice of history rather than a dead on depiction.That doesn't mean it isn't an entertaining film with plenty of story to tell. Bronson shines here, allowed to not only play the aging gangster but to play him in all parts of his life. This was something he rarely had the opportunity to do and one of the main reasons he agreed to play the part. There is enough action and bloodshed to keep people happy but Bronson has a chance to act rather than just be the tough guy here. The movie is interesting and moves at a steady pace that holds your interest from start to finish.Twilight Time has done a solid job, as always, of offering a well-made presentation of this movie. The picture quality is fine and presents the movie in the best possible quality. The extras are limited to a single item, a partial isolated score track. The odds are that nothing was made to help promote the film when it was originally released making anything else non-existent. As with all Twilight Time releases this one is limited to only 3,000 so if you want this one at an affordable price then by all means pick one up immediately before they're all gone. If you're goal is to collect all movies starring Charles Bronson act fast.

This Mafia story has a couple of things going for it. In its overall structure it resembles an "Apologia" in the original sense, not an apology but a defense of what the accused has done and the explanations for it.Joe Valachi was, as I understand it, one of the first members of the Mafia (which is mentioned by name) to spill the beans about initiation rites and about the workings of the organization itself. I don't know how closely the plot resembles historical accuracy but Peter Maas was a careful and balanced writer and usually reliable. When Valachi, played by Charles Bronson in what may be his best performance, tries to hang himself in his cell, it could easily be because of guilt.The organization of the Mafia seems to fit into a hierarchy of allegiances. It's a little like belonging to the Marine Corps. First, of course, there is one's family. But then there is the Mafia, a brotherhood sealed in blood and fire. Then there is loyalty to the particular province of the old country -- Sicily versus Naples, let's say. Only then is there any expressed allegiance to the nation of Italy itself. When a young man wants to be married, friends ask, "Is she a nice Italian girl?" (America is described by Maranzano as "a foreign country" and high-echelon members take long sojourns to Italy.) Religion is deeply felt but is irrelevant to the violent goings on. Police, lawyers, and other ethnic groups are viewed as potential enemies.There aren't any real heroes. Valachi himself is more or less swept up into gangsterism but no excuse is given. (Thank God he wasn't an abused child.) He's participated in a number of murders and shows no remorse. We also see that some hits are made to satisfy the lust of a Capo for someone else's wife. It's not "strictly business." We identify with Valachi because he's the character whose development we follow for thirty or forty years, not because he's an upright citizen. He's happy enough to settle down to a legitimate business, running a restaurant, but he's caught in a web of conflicting allegiances to friends, family, and the organization. Except for his final confession, he's never treacherous or particularly clever.In these -- and in other ways -- "The Valachi Papers" differ from the first two Godfather movies. In Coppola's films, which really DO resemble "apologies", we grow to love the fictional Don Vito Corleone. He's an avuncular figure who is little more than a community organizer. He helps the poor and battles the corrupt and kills only to save the neighborhood from abject subservience. The word "Mafia" is never used. The Corleone family kills only those who deserve to die. There is power and money, yes, but the power is used benevolently and the money is incidental, hardly more than a means of providing well for one's wife and children and the elderly parents, when it's not given away to the poor. When you're done watching the Godfather movies, you almost wish there were more people like that. Like Dirty Harry, they may stretch the law but they keep the streets safe and their neighbors prosperous. They only sell drugs to African-American children."The Valachi Papers" is a brutal movie though. There's not much emphasis on family life. No happy al fresco dinners with a dozen people sitting around a long table, drinking wine, eating veal scallopini, and singing songs. Instead there's a scene in which some guy gets his testicles removed for boffing his Capo's girl friend, while he screams and begs Valachi to shoot him.Bronson's performance really does stand out. He's not the stern, competent character of a "Charles Bronson Movie." He's tentative, sometimes embarrassed and sometimes afraid. For the only time in human memory, he shows what appears to be genuine anguish as he's compelled by compassion to shoot his emasculated friend. Nice job.

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.

(Minor Spoilers) Facing the death penalty for the murder of a fellow inmate Joe Saupp, whom he mistakenly thought was assigned to murder him, Mafia button man or soldier Joe Valachi, Charles Bronson, is now facing death from both the federal government and his boss Mafia Kingpin and fellow convict Vito Genovese, Lino Ventura, who put a $50,000.00, later $100,000.00, contract on his head.Don Vito the boss of bosses of the five New York Mafia families has been suspicious of his friend and mob associate Joe Valachi for some time of rating him out and setting him up in a government sting on a narcotic rap and has decided to have Valachi who had nothing to do with it hit. The final straw for Joe Valachi was when Don Vito gave him the "kiss of death" after he had a friendly talk with him in his prison cell.The movie "The Valachi Papers" is no where as good as movies about the Mafia like "The Godfather" or "Goodfellows" but has the distinction of being the very first Hollywood-made movie,as far as I know, to show the inner workings of the Mafia and it's secretive and shadow-like organization La Cosa Nosra; roughly meaning "our thing" in Italian.In protective custody and being prepped for the upcoming 1963 Sen. McClellan/Kennedy hearings on Organized Crime we and federal agent Ryan, Gerald S.O'Loughlin, get the truth about the Mafia/Cosa Nostra straight from the horses mouth Joe Valachi himself. In a long flashback Valachi takes us through the turbulent 1930's 40's and 50's when the mob went from a group of petty and unimaginative crime bosses to the powerful and well oiled crime machine that it eventually became.There are those who feel that Joe Valachi's claims of his being somehow involved with almost every major Mafia figurer over those 30 some years is a bit overdone and boastful on his part in order to give himself much more credit then he really deserves. The fact that his expert testimony didn't have a single Mafiso, from solider to mob boss, even indicted tends to confirm that. Still there's no denying that he was in fact the first made Mafia member to talk and expose what ever he knew about the crime syndicate that he was involved with. All that will always have his name, Joe Valachi, as a major force in exposing the Mafia to the unaware public despite his low standing, he never rose above a button man, in that crime organization.Charles Bronson did a better then average job as the Mafia thug Joe Valachi with him acting more then using his fists and his real-life. Bronson's wife Jill Ireland was more or less window dressing playing Valachi's wife in the movie Maria the daughter of Joe's boss Gaetano Reina, Amedeo Nazzani. The person who really stole the acting honors had to be Joseph Wiseman playing the first Mafia Boss of Bosses hyped-up Sal Maranzno. Wiseman was so tuned, or wired, into his role that he looked and acted like he was doing a stand-up comedy routine aided by downing a bottle of uppers. There was also the rest of the legendary "murderers row" of the mob in the movie that included Albert Anastasia Lucky Luciano & Joe "The Boss" Masseria played by Fausto Tozzi Angelo Infanti and Alessandro Sperll.Valachi a good soldier almost to the end broke from tradition and the Mafia code of "Morte" or silence. Thats when he saw that after all the hard work he did in dedicating his heart and soul to the Mafia he was given the short end of the stick by boss Vito Genovese for something he didn't do. It's then that Valachi spelled the end of the powerful mob organization that took the likes of Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky, incidentally a non-Italian, over thirty years to build. If Joe Valachi was only treated with more respect and understanding by the paranoid and homicidal Vito Genovese things may well have been different for all those represented in the movie.P.S Joe Valachi did in the end get his wish from the Federal Government by outliving his boss and the person who put a price on his head, for $100,000.00, Vito Genovese by almost two years. Joe Valachi died in prison in 1971 at age 67 of natural causes.