The Don is Dead (1973) Donsploitation! (Review)

TV. It’s all the same isn’t it? Switch on the gogglebox at any point and you’re basically confronted with the same show in various guises. Singing contests, dancing contests, afternoon quizzes. They’re all the same. It’s like there’s only three original shows out there and everything else that fills up the schedules is a riff on any one of those innovators. It’s the logic of ‘this is a success, let’s make more like it’ and, unsurprisingly, I guess it all started with TV’s older sibling, cinema. In the movie industry, box office is king and if something proves lucrative and popular, studios would traditionally regurgitate this formula ad infinitum. In many ways, you could argue that cinema helped to shape the world’s view of American history, given the rise of two significant genres that were effectively chapters from its past; the western and the gangster drama. Given America’s foundation as a ‘Brave New World’ it’s interesting to note that both are immigrant stories; tales of plucky and determined individuals who purposefully carve out a stake for themselves in this new land.

By the 1970s, these genres were still being made but innovation was sadly lacking. For the western, it took a surprisingly successful and wholly iconic bastardisation from Europe in the shape of the spaghetti western and its most skillful proponent, Sergio Leone, to rejuvenate the genre for Hollywood, who swiftly capitalised on Leone’s hugely successful starmaking of his leading man Clint Eastwood to mould him into the biggest rival to John Wayne in the history of the horse opera. But something else was happening in the 1970s too. Following Hollywood’s protective interests to desist in European investment and return to home turf at the end of the 1960s, a new kind of Hollywood began which has, predictably enough, become known as New Hollywood; a resurgent golden age within the US film industry. Populated by maverick young auteurs, New Hollywood effectively saw them recreate the films of their youth but in a manner which was both sophisticated and mature. It fell to Francis Ford Coppola to helm Paramount’s adaptation of a 1969 Mario Puzo novel The Godfather, but only after Leone declined their offer to direct. Against the odds, The Godfather not only went on to become the highest grossing film of 1972, it was for a time, the highest grossing film ever – cashing in somewhere between 246 and 287 million dollars at the box office. A commercial and critical hit, Hollywood sensed a revival in the gangster drama’s fortunes and a glut of copycats began to flood cinema – because Hollywood of the 1970s wasn’t just about auteur-led high art, it was about exploitation too and this is where present day TV has much in common with cinema as both mediums seek to exploit whatever is deemed popular. Following The Godfather‘s success, several ‘godsons’ flooded the market. Films like Honor Thy Father (1973), Lucky Luciano (also 1973) Capone (1975) and Lepke (also 1975), along with several imitators from Italy itself, including the cheekily titled Corleone (1978), followed in a wave that I’m going to call Donsploitation, and was most unashamedly about giving the public what it wants in the hope of a big pay day for the studios. Of this rinse and repeat filmmaking, it is 1973’s The Don is Dead that is released to Blu-ray on the Eureka! label from 18th January.

Directed by Richard Fleischer, whose varied career included such films as the popcorn sci-fi adventure Fantastic Voyage (1966), twee musical romp Doctor Dolittle (1967), war epic Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) and gripping serial killer dramas The Boston Strangler (1968) and 10 Rillington Place (1971), The Don is Dead tells the interwoven story of a series of Vegas crime syndicates each vying to fill the vacuum after one crime family kingpin (or ‘don’ to use the Mafia term referenced in the title and throughout the film) has died. When hot-headed Frank Regulbuto (Robert Forster, who would later become one of Tarantino’s favourite actors and star in Jackie Brown), the heir to the Mafia family’s criminal enterprise, is deemed too young to effectively control the family interests, he is placed under the wing of Don Angelo DiMorra (Anthony Quinn, the Hollywood elder statesman coming off the back of the 1972 Blaxploitation/Donsploitation mash-up Across 110th Street) whose intention is to school him until he is experienced and mature enough to work independently alongside faithful lieutenants the Fargo brothers, the brainy, somewhat reluctant gangster Tony (Frederic Forrest in an early role) and the brawny, ‘don’t know anything else’ elder sibling Vince (Al Lettieri, a veteran of gangster movies who was friends with real-life mobster Joey Gallo and originated the screenplay for the 1971 British gangster drama Villain). But all bets are off when Frank discovers that his mentor has begun an affair with his fiancé, aspiring singer Ruby (Angel Tompkins). A fit of jealous rage sparks a turf war in which a rival family quietly manipulates events, sits back and patiently waits to take control once the battlefield is clear.

There’s a clear line between New Hollywood and exploitation and that line is all about quality. Whereas The Godfather succeeded because Coppola took Puzo’s story and created an epic movie that played out like an operatic tragedy from its native Italy, exploitation films are quickly made, cheerful cash-ins that possess the same tropes, characters and stories but most emphatically do not possess the same vision or scope. How could they? It was all about getting these films into cinemas before the appeal waned and the next big thing was discovered. On the surface at least, The Don is Dead promises quality – Fleischer was a remarkable director with a CV that speaks for itself, whilst one of the credited screenwriters was Christopher Trumbo, the son of the Oscar-winning and one-time blacklisted scribe, Dalton Trumbo. The film also has several things in common with The Godfather; for one it too was based on a novel, by Marvin H. Albert, who also co-wrote the screenplay, but the main link it has is in the cast, as authentic, Italian-American performers like Al Letteiri and Abe Vigoda feature in both films – but it doesn’t truly deliver on this front, primarily because – unlike The Godfather – it’s doing nothing new with the genre. Indeed, you could say that the story of The Don is Dead – with its gang shoot-outs on obvious studio backlots – has more in common with the ’30s Warner Brothers gangster movies than it does Coppola’s masterpiece. I also feel that the Vegas setting of the then present-day early ’70s pales in comparison to the classy period design and epic sweep of postwar New York. The fashions and the overall visuals that Fleischer and his DoP, Richard H. Kline, deliver makes the action occasionally indistinguishable from the average episode of Columbo, as a succession of similarly looking burly blokes with mutton chops or extravagant moustaches – some really old enough to know better – swagger around in high-waisted, groin-splitting flared trousers and open-necked shirts with appalling, swirly patterns and collars that you could hang glide with. Some of Fleischer’s touches I found intriguing too; there’s a scene early on in which the families gather to discuss what they should do now that Frank’s father has died. It’s all very civilised, feeling not unlike any legitimate business conference. Fleischer shoots it, almost like a documentary, with his camera picking out key characters when the chair mentions/introduces them. But it’s the artificiality of the scene that really struck me; surely these people all know each other anyway? Therefore, this whole thing is exposition for the audience’s sake. Taken in that context, Fleischer’s decision to give close-ups to each character as they’re being named by the chair feels simplistic and corny. Likewise, there’s a shot at the end that is clearly him trying to say that two characters left standing are essentially the opposite sides of the same coin at different stages of their life, which just felt like it was trying to reach for the symbolism of The Godfather and was both unnecessary and pretentious given the overall exploitative nature of the piece. However, exploitation can and does work in the film’s favour; in dramatising on a much more lowkey scale than Coppola’s operatic vision, it could be argued that Fleischer does at least capture something far more truthful to the scuzzy, tit for tat nature that a mob turf war probably is in reality. The Don is Dead is not a glamourous film and that’s to its advantage, as I can’t imagine anyone coming away from it aspiring to a life of organised crime.

The extras are a little underwhelming here with only an audio commentary from Scott Harrison and a comprehensive collector’s booklet standing out from the usual top-notch 1080p presentation and the option to watch the original mono presentation.

Thank you for reading Mark’s Review of the Don is Dead

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