Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Richard Fleischer
Starring: Robert Forster, Anthony Quinn, Frederic Forrest, Angel Tomkins, Al Lettieri, Joe Santos,
Abe Vigoda, Vic Tayback, Victor Argo, Sid Haig
Director Richard Fleischer is largely remembered as the journeyman
director of big budget hits like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Vikings and Fantastic Voyage, and big budget flops like Dr Dolittle and
Soylent Green. But for cinephiles, Fleischer is revered for his work in the crime genre,
be it Film Noir (The Narrow Margin, Armored Car Robbery, Violent Saturday), dramas based on real life killers (Compulsion, 10 Rillington Place, The Boston Strangler) or police procedurals (the criminally neglected The New Centurions).
After working on mega-budget blockbusters throughout the second half of the
1950s and '60s, the '70s saw Fleischer return to his lower budget roots. The
sort of movies he made for Hollywood studios in this period often play like
Roger Corman productions, but with major stars like Mia Farrow (See No Evil), George C. Scott (The Last Run) and Charles Bronson (Mr. Majestyk). They were rugged, well paced pieces of genre storytelling that drew on
Fleischer's earlier crime thrillers, but of course now allowed for a more
liberal smattering of sex and violence.
The Godfather and its immediate sequel are so revered that
the wave of mob movies that arrived in its wake has largely been forgotten.
That's the case with 1973's The Don is Dead, which like Coppola's film, is filled with Shakespearean machinations, but
moves with the pace of a 1930s Warner Bros gangster picture.
The plot is set in motion with the death of Don Paulo Regalbuto, the most
powerful mobster in Las Vegas. A meeting of the region's most important
Mafia families is called, and Don Paulo's empire is transferred to Don
Angelo DiMorra (Anthony Quinn) rather than to his son and expectant
heir, Frank (an impossibly handsome Robert Forster). Frank takes it
on the chin, respectful of his father's respect for Angelo, and besides,
he's going into business with the Fargo brothers - Tony (Frederic Forrest) and Vince (Al Lettieri).
What Tony and Angelo fail to realise is that they're being manipulated by
the Iago-like Luigi Orlando (Charles Cioffi) and his Lady
Macbeth-like wife Marie (Jo Anne Meredith). Frank's girlfriend,
aspiring singer-songwriter Ruby Dunne (Angel Tompkins), is made a
pawn of Luigi, who ensures that she becomes Angelo's lover. When Frank
learns of her infidelity, a bloody war breaks out between Frank, backed by
the ambitious Fargo brothers, and Angelo's criminal empire.
There's a lot going on in terms of plot here, but Fleischer's background in
b-pictures ensures that things never get complicated and it's always easy to
follow. Broken down, it's a fairly rudimentary gangster story, but along
with Fleischer's mature direction, what elevates it above its contemporary
Coppola cash-ins is the acting talent on display. The cast list reads like a
who's who of every character actor of the era who could pass for an
Italian-American, and some of the period's most neglected performers are
given a rare chance to shine in the spotlight.
Best known for supporting roles in Coppola films, Forrest deserved a far
better career. The Don is Dead offers him something close to a
leading man role as the film's Michael Corleone surrogate, an intelligent
young man who wants to leave the family business but finds he has a knack
for leading a criminal empire and comes to enjoy it. Forster similarly gets
a rare meaty role in a mainstream Hollywood production, his reckless Frank a
cousin of De Niro's Johnny Boy from Scorsese's Mean Streets. Quinn's usual histrionics are toned down by Fleischer, making his Angelo
a more nuanced figure than you might expect. Watching him deteriorate from
the tall, powerful Mafia Don to a withering, wheelchair bound wreck reminds
you just what a good actor he could be with a director strong enough to rein
in his excesses.
Part of The Don is Dead's critical and commercial failure on its release is likely down to its use
of the backlot. By this point, audiences practically demanded location
shooting, particularly in the crime genre in the wake of
The French Connection. But in hindsight, the use of the familiar facades of the Universal
backlot gives The Don is Dead something of a postmodern
appeal, much like Don Siegel's remake of The Killers, or S. Craig Zahler's use of obvious sets for the interiors of his own
crime epic
Dragged Across Concrete. It also ties Fleischer's film back to the studio heyday of the mob movie
in the 1930s, a new generation of tough guy actors snatching the screen from
Edward G. Robinson and Jimmy Cagney, a reflection of the inter-generational
war that constitutes its plot. The Don is Dead feels not so
much like it was made by a jobbing director working in the '70s, but rather
like it was fashioned by a later auteur working with the benefit of
hindsight, pulling together the greatest hits of five decades of American
and European genre cinema.
If The Don is Dead feels cliched today, it's because
much of its plot and set-pieces were inspired by the real life exploits of
America's Mafia clans. But in the wake of two decades of awful gangster
movies from Guy Ritchie and his ilk, The Don is Dead is an
artefact of a time when the mob movie offered mature storytelling and
sophisticated characters rather than comic caricatures. Falling somewhere
between the sombre, epic tone of Coppola's films and the manic action of the
Italian Poliziotteschi movies of the era, Fleischer's film is an
unfairly forgotten thriller that offers a chance to see some of the best
actors of the fringes of New American Cinema step into the headlights, guns
blazing.
Ironically, for a movie rushed out to exploit the success of
The Godfather, the resolution of Don Angelo's arc is suspiciously similar to how Coppola
would ultimately resolve that of his own Michael Corleone, a grey-haired,
crippled shadow of himself, alone in the heart of his crumbling
empire.
Feature commentary by author Scott Harrison; trailer; collector's
booklet.
The Don is Dead is on UK blu-ray from
January 18th from Eureka Entertainment.