La padrina

The copy I watched of this movie was dubbed with English, from an original VHS tape. I'm not aware of any other releases except the originals. If you like poliziotteschi movies, this one is worth checking out. If you can find it, of course. I think this print really needs to be cleaned up and re-released. It's worth it.

One on level La Padrina (original title, means, basically, "The Godmother") is very typical. It's very typical of the '70s, very typical of poliziotteschi, and pretty typical for an Euro-mafia movie. With the exception of very '70s, it's also different than those things. It's at a much slower pace than a typical poliziotteschi, though I didn't find that onerous. Typical for the scenes in Sicily, there is a strong Syracuse element rather than being purely Palermo orientated. Typical of mafiosi movies, the protagonist plays a very different role. Typical of an Italian '60s-'70s movie, it's a poliziotteschi with Anthony Steffan, rather than a Spaghetti Western. While there's nothing really outstanding about it, it's a solid, straight ahead poliziotteschi. Personally I would put it in the top tier of the sub-genre, though. My criterion for that is simple. Middle tier is for movies that are good, but you'd probably have to be a fan of the genre to like. Top tier are movies that people that aren't fans of the genre would probably like as well. I think it meets the latter criterion.

Food pairing suggestion: homemade pizza with a nice, unpretentious Cabernet. It was a great lunch combo!