The Don Is Dead

Richard Fleischer was a very good craftsman of the 7th art, very prolific, excelling in different genres: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, History, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Music, Romance, Biography, he approached almost all genres. It delighted my childhood, adolescence and youth with movies such as: "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "The Vikings", "Barabbas", "Fantastic Voyage", "The Boston Strangler", "Tora! Tora! Tora!", "The New Centurions", "Soylent Green", "Mr. Majestyk", "The Incredible Sarah", "The Jazz Singer", "Conan the Destroyer", "Red Sonja". "The Don Is Dead" it's a film like Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather". We also have two actors who starred in both films: Abe Vigoda and Al Lettieri, both predestined to play mobsters. This is not an ordinary review, but a tribute to Al Lettieri. He is the best actor in "The Godfather". Here he has a similar role, but it's more temperate. In both films he's killed by rival mobsters. This actor, who played only mobsters and other villains, instinct tells me, would have deserved a role of honest man, a positive hero in at least one film. Usually, in a movie starring Anthony Quinn, he's the reason I want to see the movie. This time, Lettieri was the first reason, Quinn was the second. Quinn also plays a great role as a mobster here, especially in the final scene, when he looks like a vegetable. In other very good roles are: Frederic Forrest, Robert Forster, Angel Tompkins, Charles Cioffi.

In his career, movie director Richard Fleischer made some very good movies, "Compulsion" and "The Narrow Margin" being just two of them. However, when he reached the 1970s, though he made a few more good movies ("The Spikes Gang", "Soylent Green") his talent started to decline, and before the decade was over he started to make an unbreakable string of stinkers up to the point he retired in the late 1980s. "The Don Is Dead" was the first sign that in the early 1970s that he was going past his prime. To be fair, it seems that he wasn't given a lavish budget for this movie. The movie is so obviously shot on phony- looking back lots and sets, giving the movie a made-for-TV feeling. (This shabby look may be why music composer Jerry Goldsmith wrote a very television-style musical score for the movie.) And the script is nothing to shout about, having a bunch of mobster-themed plot turns that we've seen many times before. Some of the acting isn't bad - the movie is filled with talented actors, not just Anthony Quinn. But you don't just go to a movie to see good acting, you want an engaging story and characters, which for the most part this movie simply does not have.

"The Don is Dead" - the title alone is worth the price of the purchase - is too often downgraded as a quick and inferior attempt to cash in on the tremendous success of Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather"; released the year before. Let me tell you, the problem doesn't lie with this perfectly enjoyable and competently made Mafia saga. The problem merely is that "The Godfather" is insanely popular and too many avid fans will bash and boycott everything that even remotely resembles their preciously favorite milestone. Popular cinematic ideas are reproduced and often even get blatantly copied, that is a fact. This doesn't mean, however, that nothing good comes out of the giant stream of imitations! Italian exploitation, for example, is my personal favorite type of cinema and that genre exists for 99% out of shameless knock-offs and stolen ideas. Regardless of what you mean read, "The Don is Dead" remains an excellent drama/thriller with an absorbing plot, splendid performances from a great cast and steady direction from the underrated Richard Fleisher. Following the death of a highly respected Don, representatives of three Mafiosi clans gather to re-divide the Las Vegas territory. The slimy Luigi Orlanda and his mistress see this as an opportunity to double-cross the others and raise a destructive gang war. They manipulate for the powerful Don Angelo DiMorra to fall in love with the girlfriend of his own protégé stepson Frank Regalbuto and things rapidly escalate into deceit, executions and mass-retaliation. The story is good, and Fleisher effortlessly finds the right balance between talky sequences and exciting action footage. There are some delightful execution-highlights, like set in a barbershop or a laundry salon. Anthony Quinn gives a fine performance, although clearly modeled after Marlon Brando - I admit, and "young" actors Frederic Forrest and Robert Forster are also very impressive.

Like quite a few other of the 70's crime dramas that were not classics, but still of more grit and consequence than many of those churned out in the last two decades, this interestingly plotted mob film is a frustrating mix of a really good scene or two followed by a painfully predictable and badly presented one. Anthony Quinn is top billed but largely wasted as the boss whose romantic liaison triggers a war of wills and weapons with some headstrong younger members (led by Robert Forster, Frederic Forrest and Al Lettieri.) Some good action scenes follow, but, like the rest of the film, some of them are quite impressive while others fall flat. A mixed bag, not often seen but worth watching, with limited expectations.

"The Don is Dead" wins no points for originality. Obviously, it's attempting to ride on the coat-tails of "The Godfather". And it's not a classic that deserves to be remembered years from now. Its presentation is pretty matter-of-fact and of no real distinction. But it's still very engaging visceral entertainment, at least for fanatics of the mob movie genre. It benefits from good characters, fine performances, and the kind of in-your-face violence that has become standard for this type of thing.

The prominent mafia don of Las Vegas has died, and a truce is currently existing between the three families in the city. But all of that is going to go to Hell pretty quickly, as one greedy and power-crazed individual gets the bright idea to have two of these families go to bloody war with each other - all with a simple letter addressed to Don Angelo DiMorra (Anthony Quinn). Among the leading players are ambitious young Frank (Robert Forster), the son of the deceased don, and the Fargo brothers, Tony (Frederic Forrest) and Vince (Al Lettieri).

The makers of "The Don is Dead" do cast their movie well, from top to bottom. Angel Tompkins, Charles Cioffi, Louis Zorich, Ina Balin, Joe Santos, Frank DeKova, Abe Vigoda, Victor Argo, Val Bisoglio, Sid Haig, and Vic Tayback all put in appearances. (Lettieri and Vigoda, of course, were also in "The Godfather".) Forrest is particularly effective as Tony, who would rather leave the "life" behind but gets drawn back in when things start getting ugly.

Scripted by Marvin H. Albert, from his novel, and directed by Richard Fleischer, this is compelling drama when taken on its own terms and not compared to anything else. Even if it's just on a visceral level, it *does* work.

Seven out of 10.