The Don Is Dead
DIRECTOR Richard Fleischer made all kinds of films. From sci-fi morality fables like Soylent Green and frothy fantasy adventures like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, to tough thrillers like The Boston Strangler and truly grim real life crime sagas like 10 Rillington Place, there was very little the New York born film maker couldn't turn his creative hand to. He even made Doctor Doolittle with Rex Harrison in 1967 – but the less said about that particular talking turkey the better, frankly.
Inevitably in a successful career spanning four full decades and taking in 45 films, some productions have attracted the spotlight of attention more than others. One film from that eclectic CV which definitely deserves a little more love and critical affection is The Don Is Dead, a hard boiled gangster film the director made in 1973.
Freshly re-issued on Blu-ray by Eureka Entertainment, it's up there with the very best of the genre. Gritty, gruesome and peopled with a tough guy cast to die for, it's a superb little slice of pulpy 70's crime drama.
Set in the seedy world of the Vegas mafia, the film is the tale of a hot headed gangster Frank Regalbuto (Robert Forster) who, when his crime lord father dies, finds himself working under the leadership of his father's old friend and fellow gangland leader, Don Angelo DiMorra (Anthony Quinn).
When a rival family try to destabilise the situation by making Frank think that Don is having an affair with his girlfriend Ruby (Angel Tomkins) he enlists the Fargo brothers hit men, Tony (Frederic Forrest) and Vince (Al Lettieri), and the fragile truce that exists in the Vegas underworld explodes with predictably bloody results.
The plot is riddled with plenty of dirty dealing and double crosses and there's an authenticity on screen that elevates this far above the standard 70s gangster flick. It's bloody and brutal at times and the cast is every bit as tough as the lines they spout and the lives they lead. Quinn, as usual, adds a certain gravitas while Forster and Forrest bring a vitality and edginess to proceedings that ramps up the tension every time they appear.
While much of this feels and looks like your standard gaudy paperback story transferred to the big screen, it would be wrong to think of The Don is Dead as just another seedy slice of underworld tourism. Like the very best gangster epics, there's a current of tragedy and melancholy running through the wise guy clichés here that sets it well apart from the crowd and Fleischer milks every sordid moment from the epic family storyline of ill-gotten power and corruption throughout.
This Blu-ray edition offers up a beautiful 1080p transfer that's so vibrant you can almost smell the cheap cologne and hair products you're seeing on screen and there's usual selection of extras, from trailers to a full length feature commentary by author Scott Harrison, that make an admirable stab at placing The Don Is Dead up there with The Godfathers of this world.
A mini masterpiece from a master film maker.
