CRIME BOSS

 

In my blog post review of Severin's special edition release of THE GHOST, I mentioned that one of the discs in the set was a CD compilation of soundtrack music by Francesco De Masi. Seven tracks on the CD feature music from a film called CRIME BOSS, a 1972 Eurocrime drama starring Telly Savalas and Antonio Sabato. CRIME BOSS just so happens to be available on Tubi in a widescreen print with an English dubbed soundtrack. (The original Italian title for the film is I FAMILIARI DELLE VITTIME NON SARANO AVVERTITI, which roughly translates into "The Victim's Families Won't Be Told". I can understand why the title was changed for the English release, but you'd think they would have at least come up with something less bland than CRIME BOSS.) 

Antonio Sabato is Antonio Mancuso, a small-time Italian hood who ingratiates himself into a powerful crime family led by Don Vincenzo (Telly Savalas). Mancuso develops a bond with Vincenzo, and he also starts up an affair with the Don's striking young niece (Paola Tedesco), but the ambitious fellow has plans of his own, and he'll double-cross anyone to achieve his goals. 

It's easy to assume that CRIME BOSS was meant to be a cheap knockoff of THE GODFATHER. It's director, Alberto De Martino, made a number of movies influenced by better known features (and I've written blog posts on a few of them). De Martino was a capable filmmaker, but CRIME BOSS has more talk than action, and despite location filming at such places as Milan, Palermo, Rome, and Hamburg, there's nothing about the story that makes it particularly stand out. 

When it comes to Italian crime thrillers, Antonio Sabato is no Tomas Milan, but in fairness to him his character is very inconsistent. During the first part of the film it appears that Mancuso is a Man With No Name clone, a clever killer who uses pluck and guile to eliminate those who are worse than him. As the movie goes on, however, it's established that Mancuso is getting revenge for his father, who was killed by the mob. There are times when Mancuso seems dismayed by all the things he has to do, but he also manages to betray just about everyone he deals with. At one point I was convinced that Mancuso was actually an undercover agent for the police--and I was wrong....although honestly, that plot idea would have made the ending much better. 

Antonio Sabato doesn't have the screen presence that Telly Savalas does. Savalas isn't onscreen all that much in CRIME BOSS, but he makes one wish the story was much more about Don Vincenzo. As a matter of fact, Paola Tedesco (who could have passed for Rosalba Neri's sister) makes more of an impact than Antonio Sabato does. There's a hint that Tedesco's character is as conniving and ambitious as Mancuso, but this subplot is not developed enough. 

Many of the Italian crime movies of the 1970s are as wild and outlandish as their Euro Western counterparts from the 1960s, but CRIME BOSS is just a standard Mafia tale.