Capone (1975/Fox/Shout! Factory DVD) + Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection (1972 - 1976/Caliber 9/Italian Connection/The Boss/Rulers Of The City/Raro Video DVD Set)

 

Picture: C+/C     Sound: C+     Extras: C+/B     Films: B- (Caliber: C+)

 

 

The Gangster genre looked like it would die until Coppola’s Godfather films turned up and changed everything.  So many had lost money and were forgotten prior to those hits, while many of the films that followed tried to capitalize on its success and were often forgotten.  Five films that were not too bad and even interesting that arrived at the time are being issued in DVD.

 

First is the Roger Corman-produced Capone (1975) that many have been asking for a DVD release of for many years.  Steve Carver directed this nicely made turn for Ben Gazarra as the title character, showing his climb from no one to the most powerful gangster alive.  Unlike the well made Rod Steiger film, this film had much more freedom to show and do what really happened than that one did and it makes for an interesting comparison to all films with Capone.

 

Harry Guardino is his boss and a pre-breakout Sylvester Stallone is Frank Nitti, though his role is minimal as he enters the picture later.  Susan Blakely is actually very good as Capone’s girlfriend and John Cassavetes also makes a great turn in this gem.  I can see why people missed it so much and talked about it for so many years.  Now you can too.

 

 

Then there is the Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection whose hard, sadistic crime style trashed any romanticism in the genre and influenced Quentin Tarantino.  This nice box set from Raro Video includes his big four gangster films: Caliber 9, The Italian Connection, The Boss (1973) and Rulers Of The City.  Caliber 9 was the breakthrough apparently, though I thought it was not as good as the later films, the adaptation of novels by Giorgio Scerbanenco.  Di Leo apparently fancied him as another Ian Fleming and better, but this James Bond inferiority complex would haunt the rest of the films too.

 

The Italian Connection has no less that Adolfo Celi and Luciana Paluzzi from the Bond blockbuster Thunderball (1965, reviewed elsewhere on this site) along with Mario Adorf, plus Woody Strode and Henry Silva as assassins chasing after the wrong thief of a small fortune.  This is the second of what turns out to be Di Leo’s Milieu Trilogy and it at least builds upon what he started with and wanted to do as director with the increasing layering of ideas more like his approach to how he co-wrote the screenplay for A Fistful Of Dollars (1964, also reviewed elsewhere on this site) and makes for a better film.

 

The Boss (1973) concludes this trilogy with Silva again as a hitman in the middle of a Mafia family war that starts with a movie theater being bombed and goes from there.  He has even more to say and this spills outside of genre, so he succeeds well enough in what he wanted to do and this film holds up as well as the last installment.  Richard Conte, Gianni Garko and Antonia Santilli also star.

 

Finally is the stand-alone Rulers Of The City with Jack Palance as a mob boss who must take on young new hitmen and thieves who want to make a financial killing (and otherwise) to have the easy life at any cost, but these new kids might find themselves taking on more than they can handle.  Al Cliver, Harry Baer and Gisela Hahn also star in yet another very watchable film.

 

The only problem is that these films do not always exceed the genre and show their age, especially after GoodFellas, yet are interesting entries in the genre worth seeing.  They took a long time to arrive on DVD, but here they are.

 

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on all the films (save Rulers letterboxed at 1.85 in a 1.33 X 1 frame) can all show their age, but all the Di Leo films have their softness, smeared shots and color that can be off.  Capone is in the best shape, with the best detail, color and definition, though it is also stylized to have its share of soft shots and footage from Corman’s 1967 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was recycled into this film; a Corman money-saving tradition.

 

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on all the films are good for their age, though the Di Leo films (like all Italian productions of the time) are dubbed in post-production and it shows.  However, only lossless soundtracks would sound better, so we’ll see if any of these come out on Blu-ray.

 

Extras on Capone include TV Spots, Original Theatrical Trailers and a feature length audio commentary by Director Carver, while Di Leo goes all out with a high quality illustrated booklet featuring interviews, illustrations and technical information on the films.  The individual DVDs include director biography and filmography plus documentaries on all four films, Photo Gallery on Caliber (with Gascone Moschin commentary) and Connection, Caliber has two additional documentaries and all the films have upgraded subtitles that often outdo the English dubbing.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo