“a virtual torrent of bloodshed…makes the GODFATHER movies look like Sunday school picnic outings!”
LAS VEGAS SUN
Who made it? Directed by Duke Mitchell | Written by Duke Mitchell | Director Of Photography Ken Gibb| Edited by Tony Mora & Robert Flioro | Special Effects/make up Dick Brownfield & Harry Woolman | Music Duke Mitchell
Who’s in it? Duke Mitchell |Vic Caesar | Lorenzo Dodo | Peter Milo | Louis Zito | Cara Salerno | Jimmy Williams
If you weren’t watching this the week it came out, you might have been watching…
The Gathering Storm | Blood For Dracula | Murder On The Orient Express | Great Expectations | Earthquake | Brief Encounter | Take The Money And Run
Production notes and whatnot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_Mafia_Style
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077525/
What’s It All About?
Well we gotta assume somebody’s mad at someone. Or owes them money. Or they owe him money. Or they slept with his sister. Or refused to sleep with his sister. Or stole his Dolmio. Because we open in the most terrific bloody massacre (one assumes, Mafia style) of gunshots, head-shots, slaughters, pick-offs, screams, slow-mos and collapsing extras we’ve seen so far. I mean, I like an “In Media Res” opening, starting halfway through, leaving open questions and plenty of “huh?!” but this? Absolutely glorious.
We have no idea who any one is, where this office is, what they do or why they do it. But what we do know is two shady characters in big hair, shiny suits, snub-nosed revolvers and pinkie rings would like them to stop. Promptly.
Bang, bang, bang!
For after a lovely 70s “Grindhouse Releasing” set of ectochrome scratchy titles, setting this firmly in the cheaper-end of video releasing, two “heroes” (Mimi and Jolly) with vengeance on their mind and Hai Karate on their chests, bouffants and ‘taches a plenty, spend the opening five minutes going room to room, desk to desk, receptionist to receptionist plugging everyone they can find in mid-shot freeze-frame hokey set-ups. Bang! An extra falls over. Bang bang! Some ketchup quibs squirt out of a courdory jacket. Blam! Secretaries collapse over typewriters. Bang! Folk drop to toilet floors in velour business-casual with blood spurting.
These two greasy men finally find the chap they clearly really wanted – some wheelchair-stuck pencil pushing geek at his desk. All pocket protector and slip-ons. They grab him violently and haul his squirming ass to the john. Then its stripped electric cables around the ankles, feet in the urinal, splashed water and screams as the synth score drones and thuds.
Credits now begin to roll over some Italian-Palm-Springs-style crooning (My heart a-goes tikka tikka tay!) but more shoot-outs continue to mark the pair’s exit. Bangs. Squibs Squirts. Stills. Offices. Blood. There must be over two dozen killed at least, in this brisk, snub-nosed revolver profunctory fashion. The men make their escape in a lift. Only to be joined suddenly as the doors close by…a young black kid. Wide eyed! Terrified! Will they? Won’t they? Guns drawn. Timpanis boom…
Dawww…no, of course not. Like a couple of creepy uncles, they smile and pinch his cheeks and send him on his way. Coz dey gotta heart, right? Capisce?
Yep. Job done. They’re off. One is tempted to say, “let’s get a taco.”
And relax. We’re only 5 minutes in and we’ve lost well over a dozen of the cast.
Okay. Now we’re in the movie proper.
Voice over sets us up. Cut back 15 years. We watch a family christening – the proud husband (Mimi again), wife, baby and padre (or priest/vicar – depending on your persuasion) splash water in the font and bless Mimi’s new son. There is mock Italian talk of “family code” and whatnot over the baptism. The mix of classic Italian mob culture and the wide open opportunities of the USA. Or something.
(To be honest, its all so hokey and corny, it doesn’t really matter. We are in the straight to video world of honour, spaghetti, oaths, family, territory, blood and very cheap jewellery. And there’s lots of crappy fun to be had while we’re here).
Fast forward. Now we’re in old man pop’s garden. It’s about five years later (although the fashion for sideburns and pinkie-rings and chest hair doesn’t appear to have moved on). Location wise, it’s exactly the lush roses, orange groves and olives, mock roman Italian set-up we’ve seen before in these Cod-Corny-Corleone-esque capers. Grandad, or Papa, is all wiry ‘tache and cravat and Gabicci leisurewear. Hands aloft, he talks ponderously to his son Mimi. He must stay and bring up his boy in the good Italian tradition.
Ahh…but no. Mimi has other ideas. Ambition! Greed! Lust! A wardrobe full of pimpy shirts! Grandpa has to stay and look after the boy – Mimi must go to Los Angeles. Mimi is young, he has a future in America. (Note, actor Duke Mitchell was, at this point, forty eight. Perhaps a little old to be heading off to make his fortune. But hell, enough hair dye and chin-tucks, who’s counting?)
It’s decided. With the soft slapping of cheeks that men do in these pictures, double kisses and hugs, Papa will bring up the son, Mimi will head to the West Coast. He has a reputation to build, off the back of his father’s legend. Papa, we assume, was once “the big tamale” in organised crime before he retired to pick olives, wear neckerchiefs and kvetch about his haemorrhoids among the orange groves.
So cut to Mimi a few days later, he’s made the trip to the City Of Angels. Struttin’ Travolta style, jumpy shoulders, droopy fag and clicky Cuban heels, Mimi is heading to meet a pal from the old days. A guy called Jolly. Who to be fair, is indeed quite jolly. They meet at a run down Tratattoria (all plastic vines and candles in raffia Chianti bottles). And ding! Yep, we recognise him from the pre-credit shoot-out. So we know between now and the end of the picture, these two goons are gonna go postal in an office for some reason.
The men catch up, all cigarettes and greasy shrugging. Medallions glint, chest hair creeps like ambitious bath-spiders around the shirt buttons. Talk is of family. How is Jolly’s papa? Sad, he died in prison. He took a phoney wrap and bought it in the big house. Much sad shruggy nodding. Whaddyagoona do?
Mimi takes over the talking. He’s a charismatic storyteller type and spins the tale of his old papa. Back in the day. Back in the thirties. His dad arrived off the boat in New York. Fought his way up, took his territory, bullied and threatened until you couldn’t buy a fish on the East coast without Papa’s say so.
Yes. Fish. (Keep all “Cod-father” jokes to the end please. There will be time for questions).
There is much nodding and gesturing about the honesty, integrity and the simple times when you could just beat policemen to death and set up crime syndicates. Ahhh, again, whaddyagonna do? Pass the breadsticks.
Conversation moves on to the current state of the organised crime network in California. Who’s in charge now Mimi’s papa has retired to the old country? Well Jolly fills Mimi in. It’s a fat doofus named Chucky Tripoli. He’s the big guy now.
Well…that’s gotta change if Mimi’s going to become Capo Di Tutti I Capi. So Chucky’ll need “getting out of the way.”
Plan? Jolly and Mimi will kidnap Chucky Tripoli and with a bit of old fashioned wiseguy ransom, that’ll get them in the bigtime.
No sooner said than done. One sunny Sunday, outside a low, lush Californian church in the bright sunshine, a suited Jolly and Mimi march in, shove a revolver into old man Chucky’s porky ribs and march him out of the church, across the wide shady street into their waiting sedan. Simple.
How to get the message to the family? Well Mimi and Jolly are pretty old school and want to show they mean business. So we see Chucky’s young son Mario sat at home and taking delivery of a small box. Well smallish. About the size of an index finger and cotton wool. Mario opens the box and…much hysterical shrieking from son and Mrs Tripoli! They know that finger! They know that ugly ring! It’s Chucky’s!
Now we have to have the meeting. All the local Dons from all the warring families have to gather around a long table, nod sadly, shrug, drink tiny glasses of wine and decide how to handle this outrageous kidnapping and threat to their business.
Nicknames and wrap sheets are shared around the room so everyone knows exactly how important, violent and connected their dinner companions are. All men go to the same barber for moustache trimming and the same tailor for shiny skinny ties and fat cuff-links. The kidnappers want £250k or they send Chucky’s arm. In, presumably, a longer box. Much arguing around the table about what to do. A reluctant decision is made to pay the ransom and get beloved Chucky back asap, given his son Mario is about to be wed.
We see cars cruise. Suspicious figures dropping paper-bags of loot into dumpsters. Other cars prowl and shadowy folk pick up the cash. It’s not clear why Chucky’s gang don’t hang around by the dumpster and wait for the kidnappers. I guess there are “rules” in the Mafia about not being a dick and ruining people’s plans with logic, cunning or common sense.
Okay, well now Chucky is returned and Mimi/Jolly have their hands on his $250k. What now? They may be flush but they’re no closer to being in the Big Time with the local hoods. Well Mimi’s plan is a bit cleverer than just nabbing cash. Not a LOT cleverer, but enough. Daring. Ballsy. Incredibly stupid. But worth hanging around to see how it pans out
We’re at Mario’s wedding. We’re on a luxury yacht/cruise ship. Wide and fat, the deck is covered and families sit at tables, cabaret style. There is enough food to stun a Bison. Laughter, drinking, cheers, cake, handshakes and gifts. Eyy? Eyyyy! At the top table, Chucky sits with his right-hand goons watching proudly, a tear in his eye. Young Mario is a-gettin’ a-wed! Sniff sniff, dab dab.
Father and son enact a syrupy little traditional bread routine: Boy cuts a slice and gives it to his pop. Passing the crusty heritage. Father to son! Much cheering and applause. They munch down on the now sliced bread as a local crooner, all patent shoes and magician jacket, takes to the floor and sings one of those “hilarious” trad rumpty tumpty Italian songs about over-eating. “Rigatone, Mostacoioli and Spaget!” Old women singalong. You get the idea.
But who should arrive on the boat? It’s the last people Chucky expected. Waltzing in like they were captain and skipper, Mimi and Jolly shoulder their way through the dancing crowd up to the top table. Much gasps and shock. But rather than a gunfight or punch-up, the Don Chucky greets his kidnappers warily, his bandaged hand still throbbing from the missing finger. Mimi is all charm, best wishes, congratulations and kisses. Nervously around the top table, bridges are built by these two men who know “the old ways.” Which are presumably, you cut off my finger to prove you’re tough, then I give you a job coz I like a go getter. Which is precisely what happens. “Is it not better to lose a finger…” Mimi suggests, “but in doing so, to gain a right arm?” Much sagely nodding and wine glass clinking. Because of who Mimi’s papa was – respect, respect, nod, simper – Chucky will allow Mimi to join the family.
But hey, Mimi doesn’t want to shoe-horn into the whole racket. He’s not greedy. He just wants what he considers…a rightful and respectful slice of the Californian crime business. Say…control of all the black pimps and the bookmakers. Whaddya say?
As the Dons discuss slicing up the West Coast racket to give these slimy chancers a bit of the pie, Mimi wastes no time in hitting at one of the buxom women at the wedding top-table.
He flirts, laughs, insists, grabs. The type of chit-chat that leaves arm welts and bruises. But deal is done. Better to have a reckless crazy like Mimi on the inside where he can be controlled, than outside causing chaos.
So. He’s in. Just as he promised his ole Papa.
We get a montage now, of Mimi and his new beau. On the town, splashing the cash, playing Mr Bigshot, he drags her dancing and drinking to bar after restaurant after club after den, all to a croony sub-Dean Martin soundtrack. (When you’re bit by an eel with a bite you can feel…that’s a Moray) We see them laugh. We see them make out. And at one point we see them in bed together and we have to try and keep our lunch down. Her? All pale boobs, curves and mascara. Mimi, all wrinkly neck, gold necklaces, rings, mahogany tans and grey hair. Nice.
A few dates later, they’re in a Californian bar. Owned and frequented by, what Ben Kingsley in the highly underrated caper “Sneakers” (1994) referred to as, shall we say, “good family men.” Hookers lounge around, men smoke and drink and trade insults. When whose towering Candyman-style frame should break the reverie but a huge black pimp Mo Fo. Shouts. Arguments. Ownership. People called “honky.” It’s all kicking off. See, the girls in the bar are his. And he ain’t happy with how these old men are treatin’ the merchandise. But who steps in to lay down the law? Mimi. Shoving a snub nose revolver in Candyman’s chops, he waves him away, all threats and talks. People say “yeahhh gedoudda here!” and Candyman leaves. Mimi back in charge. Drinks all round.
But hey, this pimp dude? Superspook? This is the action Mimi feels should be his by rights. That’s what he told Chucky Tripoli. Pimp and Bookmakers should be his. This guy has 40 girls in his employ. Each one bringing in $500 a day. $20k? That’s the action Mimi wants. And what Mimi wants, Mimi is gonna get. We’ll pick up this business plan a l’il later…
But. We haven’t had a massacre, Mafia style, for about 20 minutes so let’s have a montage of slaughter. Bookmakers all over town are shot, killed, plugged, murdered, wiped-out as newspapers report “13 Bookmakers slain!” Bags squibs, blood, spurts, ketchup. A real bit of mob carnage. But hey, that’s the business.
Back in Sicily. Mimi is home to check on his now older son and his old Papa. How’s it going in LA? They sit around a pool, shirts open, wine flowing, wiseguys and hoods chuckling and eating. Mimi, Chucky, Jolly and Jolly’s stupid dog. They puff cigars and talk about family. Mimi’s son is doing well at school in Milan. But, to business. There’s a guy they need to take out if they’re gonna muscle in to the drug smuggling business. A guy called “The Greek.” (We’re not told where he’s from).
Cut to another dinner and the chat continues. It’s a Ragu/Dolmio advert. Mimi holds court with one of his sincere speeches. Tradition. Family. He points to the grey haired Mama, all spaghetti sauce and bunned-hair. A message, if there is one. Kids these days. No idea.
Heritage, tradition, family, honour, regrets. The old days. The old country. The bread tradition repeats, Mimi slicing and handing to his father. The torch passed from one generation to another. Old school. But this time…the bread loaf is full of dollar bills. This is a contract. The Greek has gotta be hit.
Back in LA. Mimi and Jolly arrive unannounced at the Greeks little office.
Lots of panelled wood, bad art, ugly paintings and more pinky rings. The Greek, an older fellah not used to being bossed around, is surprisingly relaxed for a man balls deep in the West Coast dope business. I guess you’d have to be crazy to threaten someone as connected as the Greek. But crazy is Mimi’s watchword. “We’re here to kill you.” The Greek laughs, he’s havin’ none of it. He doesn’t care who Mimi’s Papa is. “Your fadda donna calla da shotsa with me!” With a click of the fingers, the Greek’s hulking bodyguard lumbers in to knock Mimi and Jolly about and send them back to daddy.
But Mimi is prepped. Was it not, after all, Verbal Kint who once said: “To be in power, you didn’t need guns or money or even numbers. You just needed the will to do what the other guy wouldn’t.” (The Usual Suspects, C. McQuarrie 1995). Cue Mimi shooting the goon full of lead and then pumping a dozen bullets into The Greek. Yep, that’ll do it.
Cut back to Sicily. The fuck?! What’s Mimi doing? This ain’t the way to do business! Mimi ain’t no hitman! This can’t go on! No more killings! I say, NO MORE KILLINGS! Papa knows a thing or two and his son’s reckless disregard for the value of bullets and their lasse faire distribution. This way will lead to war.
Back in LA? Well Mimi has his pimp business and his bookmaking business and his dope business. But you know this young entrepreneurs. You’ve seen The Apprentice. Always giving 110%.
Next up, a cable TV show. A swarthy gent is being interviewed. He represents The SOSDL: The Sons Of Sicily Defence League. Italians in America have an image problem. They are NOT all hoodlums. They are NOT all Mafia types. They are NOT all greasy violent crooks. Their honest organisation, the hard working and trustworthy chaps at the SOSODL are out there trying to clean up the image of Italians in America.
A plea not helped when the poor chap is shot, live on television.
Bosses all over Italy and the USA in unison: THAT DAMNED MIMIIIIIIIII!
So the reckless Mimi is called in by the big bosses. This HAS to stop. He can’t just be shooting EVERYONE who gets in his way. (These folk clearly not aware of the title of the movie they’re starring in. It’s not called “Peaceful Reasonable Negotiation Mafia Style”, after all.) Mimi gets a slap. A punch. A beating.
Stop fucking with the business! They will give Mimi $50,000. To set up a legitimate business. To go straight. To get clean. To stop messing with the family. To just calm the fuck down.
Well…fair enough, Mimi thinks. But what’s he gonna do with $50k? A man like him? He’s already got the pimps. He’s already got the hookers. He’s already moustache deep in the dope and bookmaking business?
Well, he does what men will do when they’ve got time and money on their hands.
Yep!
Porn.
Sigh.
Cut to a boat. Life is good. Jolly and Mimi sip cocktails and enjoy the beaming sun of the highlife bestowed on Porn Magnates the world over. Around them girls in bikinis splash and water-ski and play and ready themselves for another scene of lubed-up fingery softcore petting. Jolly and Mimi squabble about the easy money in the porn-video business. Big money to be made. Hey, they could get the 40 hookers off SuperSpook like they discussed? They got a location, they got a film director? Why not sit back and watch rental fees roll in? On cue, the director of their skin-flick swims up. Do the guys wanna come down to the cabin and watch the shoot? Sure.
Down in the cabin of the yacht, the director yells angry irritated instructions as two women in swimsuits begin half-hearted petting on the bed, draped with 70s Orange velvet. Lenses and angles as he shoots the feeble scuffling and moaning. Bored and tipsy, Mimi and Jolly have had enough. Half watching, half disinterested, there’s nothing for them here. Not for two trigger-happy guys who like a shoot-out and a bit of murder. Easy money, sure. But there must be more to life than this?
Yep. Jolly and Mimi are restless. They enjoy a dinner, Jolly’s dog yapping and lapping around the table. They blew their $50k. Broke again. Apparently the rentals on grubby Californian VHS soft-core rubbing is not what they hoped. This ain’t workin’. So they decide to step up the plan and get the SuperSpook pimp around to “talk business.” Keep it simple. Steal the guy’s gals.
So we’re at another Italian bistro style Pizza Hut (all gingham table cloth and crimson leather booths). At the table? Mimi, Jolly and our big pimpy SuperSpook. All fur coat and shades. The mob make ‘Spooky a deal. Ownership. We want your stable of gals. You better play ball, etc. Work with us… or get out of town. Jolly adds some aggressive bullying, Families threatened. Listen up, bub and so on.
So…will SuperSpook join in? Will he help them out? Can they agree shared terms? Some sort of joint ownership to keep the gunplay at bay?
Well…whaddya you think?
“Haaaaaaaaa-llelujah!” At the Hollywood Bowl a choir of gospel singers cry out in joyous Christian jubilation! Big smiles, big voices, it’s only missing a tumbling Jake and Elwood Blues. It is Easter Sunday! And what better way to celebrate the re-birth of our Lord and Saviour than a sing-song, some tambourines, some Fredrick Handel and…SuperSpook, nailed to a cross up in the Hollywood hills.
There he hangs, nailed to the sculpture, hanging dead from his hammered wrists. Mimi and Jolly scuttle away into the dry scrubby grass around the hills. Well that took care of that.
But what, you wonder, of Mimi’s long suffering girlfriend he picked up (well, beat up) at Mario’s wedding all those weeks ago? Well we catch up with the couple once again. SuperSpook dead, The Greek’s dope business now in his control, papa at home screaming blue murder about his son’s crazy shooting sprees, the Californian Mob all pulling their toupes out with frustration at this violent psycho wildcard messin’ up the rackets and bringin’ down all the heat.
In bed. 1970s pale-dad skinny, ropey council estate arms, sunbed tan. Vest. Cigarette. Jewellery. Beside him, she wants a better relationship. Doesn’t wanted to be treated like a run of the mill hooker. Not enough, she wants to be included. Mimi’s not interested. Gals are not part of the business. But she knows more than she should. Falling more and more for Mimi’s greasy charms, she lets slip what she’s heard.
There’s gonna be a set up. Chucky Tripoli is going have Mimi whacked. Killed. Taken off the scene for good.
Which is where, as the saying goes, we came in. A re-run of our glorious opening credits. A massacre, mafia style! Squirts, squibs, falls, blood, shots and the whole office of Chucky Tripoli’s “business office” is wiped out in one bloody spree of revolver carnage and bang bang bang assassination. Tikka tikka tay.
“We killed every last son of a bitch.”
Next up, they gotta start wiping out ALL of Chucky’s gang. Panel vans pull up with squeals outside Chucky’s butchers’ plant. In Mimi and Jolly go, fists and Smith & Wessons a-go-go. Butchers and staff get beatings, strangles. Butcher’s knives are flayed and flashed. A goon hung on a meat hook and left swinging in the chilly freezer breeze, the spike puncturing the eye of the poor fellah.
But it’s not stopping there. Office staff slaughtered, butchers butchered, next they drive up and grab poor Marco, Chucky’s newly wed son. They kill him and dump his body outside Chucky’s house.
Yep. Mimi and Jolly mean business.
Well. I mean. What’s a mob to do? There has truly been a massacre, Mafia style. Sure, you don’t threaten psychos like Jolly or Mimi without expecting this payback. He feels he’s defending his Papa’s honour his heritage, his tradition. Putting things back the way they should be.
But Chucky ain’t going to go quietly. He can’t stand for this. Jolly must be wiped out, and then Mimi in turn. But, yknow…nicely? Respectfully? Discreetly?
Uhm…no, not so much.
Cut to Jolly in restaurant. Another in a long line of spaghetti houses. Waiters are ushered away, rooms are locked. Chucky’s goons don waistcoats and slacks to play the parts of staff. They bring Jolly his main course. A silver cloche on a tray. The lid is lifted. But no dough balls or sloppy Guissepie for Jolly. There, on a bed of parsley is Jolly’s dead dog. Nooooo! Bang bang bang. Jolly, all napkins and lobster finger bowls, is blown away.
Mimi returns home. On his bed? The butchered and shot-up body of Jolly. Distraught, he calls out for his girlfriend. She is nowhere to be found. Hastening to the bathroom, he finds her. Hanged, dead, lifeless, swinging from the shower rail, dead eyes glazed.
Well now we got a show down. Chucky’s goons are after Mimi. Mimi ain;t gonna go without a fight.
But before that? We must pay respects to Chucky’s son Mario.
Solemn. Quiet. The mobsters are all gathered in Chucky’s garden. To one side, a rich and luxurious white oak coffin, holding the cold body of Mario. All the family and the family’s family are there to pay respects. Veils and mourners and widows and black and more garment renting than Moss Bros on prom night. A clock (which might as well have ACME written on it) ticks away among the garlands and roses. It marks the minutes and hours since Mario was killed.
They gather and pray. Heads bowed.
But of course the clock is no clock. Not if crazy Mimi is involved. It ticks down three…two…one…and BOOM! The coffin, loaded with Mimi’s cunningly planted explosives, goes up in a huge fireball, sending mourners reeling, dying, crying and screaming to the floor. Fire smoulders. Bodies lay about
Yep. Mimi got the last laugh on these wiseguys.
And now? Mimi is going home. Job done. Chucky’s mob is wiped out. Mimi and his aging Papa are back at the top in California. Back in Papa’s orange and olive groves, the men slap faces and shrug shoulders and toast. Violins and guitars pluck and sing. Mimi’s son is there, all growed up. Men smoke cigarettes, women slice hams, wine is poured. Mandolins fiddle. Fiddles mandolin. Kisses on cheeks. Mimi is back!
But it’s the end. So it’s “author’s message” time.
Mimi sits, opens his heart, passions run high. He gives his final big speech: He’s been “on the mattresses” for 4 years. Blacks have taken over the mobs. They are fanatics. Not like the honour of the old days. He pleads, begs his dad to get out. He has a grandson now. Honest, pure, clean. They can put all this violence and madness behind them. The boy is clean and pure in his eyes. He has no blood on his hands. It stops now.
Mimi’s son is the suave and genteel young Travolta type. A white suit, big collars. The family sing Ballads. Lush Montovani strings fill the Sicilian air as they sit for their meal. Everyone’s shirt is open to the navel, wine glasses clinking. Talking of New York and Harvard for his boy. A fresh start.
Mimi sits at the top table. Dad at right hand.
And once again? The timeless Sicilian bread ritual. Knives cut the warm loaf. A slice for grandpa. The son reaches into the bread and…BOOM!
Gun muzzled and muffled by the loaf, Mimi is shot. He falls, blood spraying the table, chest exploding. In slow motion, a destroyed Mimi collapses. All his talk of clean starts? New Beginnings? His son is back. Its destiny. They will rule crime. Now and always.
Wink! Duke Mitchell at his playful best
Is it any good?
Well what do we call this? A curio? An exploitation classic? A cult midnight movie? A pizza-slice of down and dirty guerrilla movie making? A hurried, rambling piece of Italiano-crapoli? Well there’s lots to chew over, so pass the Bolognese dip, gimme a glass of cheap red wine and lets-a getta stuck in.
Duke Mitchell has his fan club, there’s no doubt about that. In fact should you sit through the Arrow Films download of this movie, (subscribe here https://www.arrowfilms.com/accountCreate.account) you will be treated to an odd little vignette: a short intro documentary talk about Duke Mitchell and his cult following, presented in under-lit mock-grandeur by film-maker Evrim Ursoy. He sports a handsome droopy moustache, pours a little sweet sherry and props himself up at the mantle like Peter Bowles and sets the movie affably in context for us with love and affection.
So what do we discover? Well the man behind Massacre Mafia Style is one Duke Mitchell, born Dominic Salvatore Miceli in 1926. One time actor, comedian, director, nightclub act and crooner, he dubbed himself The King Of Palm Springs, with all the phoney insincere pinky-rings, bad wigs, white shoes and humble crowd-pleasing chintz you might imagine.
Here’s how I always see these acts.
Mitchell saw the success of the dashing Dean Martin and the goofy Jerry Lewis in their knockabout buddy comedies and some might say was inspired to create (others say “rip off”) the act with comic Sammy Petrillo. This moved Jerry Lewis to take legal action but the case was dropped. A fast talking producer spotted the pair and shoved them in a silly “Abbot & Costello” style picture to take advantage of their skills, and the resulting 1952 film was Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. Yep, just imagine it. Done? That’s what it’s like.
See?
Mitchell continued to be something of the sixth Beatle, the extra Rat in an already full Pack. Not so much a hanger-on on, but one of the big guys on the periphery. He worked the medium sized clubs rather than then big sell-out joints, opened for friend Lenny Bruce, provided the singing voice of Fred Flintstone for a couple of the Hanna Barbera cartoons, produced and hosted shows with Liza Minnelli, Cary Grant and ole Blue Eyes himself.
But it was his movie production work, according to the friendly Evrim Ursoy introduction, that took him to cult status. Seeing the success of Ford Coppola’s The Godfather in 1972 and its Grammys, Golden Globes and 9 Oscar nods, Mitchell was allegedly unhappy with the portrayal of Italian families on the big screen.
He felt The Godfather was inauthentic, phoney and did not correctly represent the life of Italian Americans and Organised crime as he had lived it. So to the typewriter and financiers he went, and drummed up “Massacre Mafia Style,” choosing to write it, produce it, direct it, perform the soundtrack, star and of course find a place in the cast for friends and family.
And what an attempt it is.
There is no evidence in either Mitchell’s education, back story or upbringing to suggest he had any skills behind the camera. This was merely a man with influence and Los Angeles friendships who’d seen enough mafia movies to know what he liked, what he didn’t want, what was real to him and what was Hollywood baloney.
So it’s fair to say, given Mitchell’s hands-on, auteur approach, we do have what Ursu labelled “an authenticity and singularity of vision.” There is no doubt that what is on the screen is exactly the story Mitchell wanted to tell.
Whether this is a story anyone else could give a crap about, follow, appreciate or even enjoy is very much open to taste.
First thing to say is that it’s a cheap movie. No Panavision Big Studio epic sweep here. I would be very surprised if it wasn’t shot entirely on location, borrowing friends’ apartments, clubs, restaurants and offices during quiet periods. It has a hand-held, slightly wobbly home-made feel.
Similarly the wardrobe would be “models own”, as they say, as all the silk shirts, Brylcreem, pinkie-rings, pointy shoes, wide-collars and wife-beater vests one imagines came from Mitchell and Co’s home cupboards.
Script wise, it feels both stagey and improvised at the same time. Some scenes have snappy, back-and-forth practised lines that have been learned rote by the amateurish cast or being read from cue-cards. Stilted and rehearsed. However as is the tendency of the auteur writer-director with no-one to reign him in, Mitchell’s scenes feel heavy on the winding and wandering improv’. Almost as if he didn’t trust anyone else to do a good job, but was confident he could be left to “wing it” on the day. His scenes tend to drag, especially when he’s catching up with Jolly in the early Trattoria scenes.
For a movie that was made as a deliberate counter to the all the phoney Hollywood clichés Coppola and Co had been feeding the public since 1972, we have a somewhat surprising amount of well-worn familiar clichés that seem to pop up in all these movies.
Baptisms of the new generation? Check. Big weddings? Check. Endless dinners? Check. Red wine and gingham? Check. Goons and heavies in dark glasses? Check. Old folk in cravats in olive groves? Check. Long speeches about honour and family? Check. Bloodshed at funerals? Check. Contracts and oaths? Check. Lounge singers? Check. Competitor on a spike? Yep, it’s all here.
If what Mitchell is doing is setting the record straight about real happenings in the Cosa Nostra on American Turf, then the honest message seems to be: It’s exactly like the movies and TV shows. But everyone’s a bit nastier, a bit uglier, grottier and it costs less.
Nasty?
Well relentlessly violent, yes. The gun play is gratuitous, snubby, sharp, loud and close up. Guns are fired from the hip with little hesitation or morality bothering. Gangs are, to quote the poster, either in…or in the way. And the same goes for the public.
Blood squibs are bright and spurty and holes burst and pop in courdory jackets, silky blouses and loud cabana-wear shirts. The massacre itself is an odd, jarring, almost laughable mix of slo-mo falling, close-up groaning and fast-cut stills of corpses in a clumsy editing-room scissor-fest. Somehow both abrupt, overlapping, sudden and over-long.
The gore of dead dogs is pretty tame. The murderous spikes of butcher-hooks are lovely and gruey and heavy on the latex and ketchup. Punch-ups are no worse than an episode of The Sweeney.
So no. A lot of loud bang-bang death and splattery collapsing. But not enough to satisfy the gore-hungry by any means.
What does it remind me of?
Well here’s where it gets fun. Because as we’ve said, Mitchell has strolled the buffet of 60s-70s popular culture and stacked his paper-plate very high and wobbly with every scene you’ve ever seen in your life. And its huge fun just to point and nod and say “ooooh, this is a bit like that bit in…” (insert most movies here).
The meeting of the bosses when Chucky’s finger is being passed around has voice over straight out of Woody Allen’s “Take The Money And Run” (released the same week). It’s as close as you’re going to get to hearing the glorious, “wanted for robbery, attempted murder, and illegal possession of a wart,” or “bank robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, murder, and getting naked in front of his in-laws“; “dancing with a mailman” and of course “arson, robbery, assault with intent to kill, and marrying a horse.”
The long table is straight out of all those 1940s crime movies that gather the hoodlums, but it screams 1990’s “Dick Tracy.”
The cruise ship lounge singer we’ve seen a hundred times before and since. Either in the classic Italiano food-based singalong captured and pastiched again deliciously by Woody Allen in his marvellous “Broadway Danny Rose”
Or closer to home, that same “friend of the family” party-piece from 1990s The Krays
We are drowning in Sicilians of course, as this appears to be either accurate to the time or just a short-hand movie way of saying “cold blooded killers who love their mommas, good food, a fine tailor and a sing-song.” I’ll let the greats Christopher Walkens and Dennis Hopper explain it better than I can in Tony Scott’s “True Romance” (written by a credited Quentin Tarantino and an uncredited Roger Avary)…
Dinners are pure TV ads for Ragu and Dolmio and make the Italiano-type puppets look like an exercise in cultural restraint.
The sex has exactly the look and feel of my first discovery of it, via the seedy and musty dog-eared paperbacks of Mickey Spillane. Curves, crackling polyester, full-make-up and gold St Chrisopher medals on a candlewick bedspread after too much Blue Nun. The odd boob and some soft core petting.
And the ending with the wiping out of the family might get bells ringing if you were one of the 4 people in 1993 who decided to give Jurassic Park a miss and see Schwarzenegger’s Last Action Hero instead…
Or for those who love a bit of racist military anti-European hogwash, this classic final scene from Dynasty in May of 1985 has a similar chaotic feel…
You’ve seen all of this done before, done better, done slicker and done with more taste and less Blue Stratos and garlic bread. But to Give Duke Mitchell his due, you wont have seen it done with as much self-belief, sure-footedness, confidence and singularity of purpose, promise or passion. Earnest, but Cosa-Nonsense of the highest order.
Where Can I Find it?
You’ll get a decent enough print of this on YouTube currently. I can’t post a link as it’s an age restricted movie – so you’ll need to prove your age before you type it in the search.
Arrow Films subscription will show it to you. And there appears to be a nice Blu Ray available too if that stirs your tortelloni.
letsgetthebannedbacktogether.uk 