From Corleone to Brooklyn (1979)

Good movie but grossly overrated

Absolutely the worst movie.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This is one of those few films I wish would be discussed in more detail, but it fits in such a niche of a market that I doubt it'll ever happen.In the 1970's, it wasn't uncommon for Italian B-movies to shoot a few exteriors in New York City but quite rare for the poliziotteschi genre. Sure there's a few films like STREET PEOPLE, BLAZING MAGNUMS, and STATELINE MOTEL but for the most part tried to play themselves off (unsuccessfully) as American movies.As Umberto Lenzi's only cross-pond crime movie excursion and only teaming with famous Neapolitan crooner Mario Merola, this film stands out for several reasons. One, it's odd to see a eurocrime movie starring Maurizio Merli so focused on plot and characters. From start to finish, there's a single narrative thrust and tension running high throughout and even some personal investment on whether the characters live, die, or finally face sweet justice for their transgressions.Secondly, it's almost more of a travelogue than an action movie. The film has no less than 4 sequences where characters sit in a car and look around while intercutting to a lot of filler footage of street scenes filmed from a moving car. While this sort of thing usually drags a B-movie down, it oddly fits in with the gritty, trashy feeling this film evokes from the sloppy cinematography and chaotic and funky score by Franco Micalizzi. You can either look at it as a more bizarre, improvised version of a Lenzi movie or a really polished version of an Alfonso Brescia-helmed scungy crime drama.That said, there's plenty about this movie that really doesn't make sense (unless something was lost in translation). Why does Merli have to escort his witness by rail and car from Palermo all the way to Rome first in order to fly to New York? Surely in 1979 there had to be at least a few direct flights from Palermo to New York, or at least to Rome? Well, if they'd have just hopped on a plane at the start, it wouldn't have been the same movie. However I'd wager that it could only have been better as the film really picks up the most once it plops macho Italian crimefighter Maurizio Merli on American shores in the snowy, garbage-strewn, hoodlum-infested streets of 70's NYC.

At this writing the masses are rating it 6.6/10, which is just too low. 80% of those that took the time to write a review are giving it 8/10. That's more like it.I'm glad that it ended when it did. Da Brooklyn a Corleone would make a nice sequel, but not all in one movie!There's not a lot you can say in a review of this particular movie without a spoiler cropping up, so I guess I could say in that regard that it's extremely plot-driven. The characters are drawn in a much more believable way than the current crop of mafia orientated movies that suffer from way too much badda-bingness. I can't find a subtitles file for this anywhere, so I had to watch in English, which was OK for the Brooklyn scenes. If I ever get my hands on one, I would LOVE to create a version of this movie where the scenes in Sicily are done in Italian with English subtitles, and the scenes in Brooklyn are done in English. The script actually lends itself to that, with one of the locals in NY asking what a particular word is in Italian. That has to be in English, but the scenes in Sicily obviously weren't. Of course the elephant in the room is that real Sicilian wouldn't sound much like standard Italian, but, hey, close enough. That would be a truly awesome improvement to what is already a really solid flick. If someone PM's me with a subtitle file, I will share the result. I promise, it will be awesome. Well, it is already. My copy already has English/Italian sound tracks, so the project is very doable.

Umberto Lenzi, in case you've never heard of him, is an Italian director of various kinds of exploitation flicks: horror, crime drama, and even spaghetti western. The first movie of his that I ever saw was "Orgasmo" - called "Paranoia" in the US - in which Carroll Baker (of "Baby Doll" fame) plays a woman who moves to Italy and gets to know a young couple who aren't what they seem. Now I've seen another one of Lenzi's movies: "Da Corleone a Brooklyn" ("From Corelone to Brooklyn" in English). Maurizio Merli, who was apparently famous as a Franco Nero lookalike, plays a cop helping a low-level mafioso testify against a big-time gangster. I actually found much of the movie to be really slow-moving, but the last half-hour or so made up for that. Even so, the European exploitation flicks that I prefer are the ultra-gory ones.

From Corleone To Brookln is one of Umberto Lenzi's best crime films, which is saying lot because he directed many classics in the genre.Maurizio Merli plays Berni, the usual P.O. cop, and here he has to escort a lowlife criminal (Biagio Pellegra) from Italy to New York so he can testify against a mafia head.the mafia have set up a series of traps along the way, making things a bit difficult for the boys.at times very suspenseful, action packed and helped along by one of composer Franco Micalizzi's best scores, From Corleone To Brooklyn gets my highest recommendation.sadly, this would be the last "real" crime film Lenzi would make, but at least he went out with a bang!