Poster for Massacre Mafia Style
Massacre Mafia Style/The Executioner, Duke Mitchell, USA, 1978.
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Anticipation and expectations are sadistic, vicious things in the heart of fanboys. Something wets our appetite and suddenly without warning, our creative little minds go through infinite highly improbable possibilities of what some film may turn out to be based on some small rumor, whisper or hearsay. When we set our sights on tracking down a film that only exists in speculation and innuendo from other fans our collective minds run rampant... So, I’m in a bar with my fiance. An ex-coworker of hers meets us with her new boyfriend. I discover in a few short breaths that he is another film fanatic, only his knowledge and library lays mine to waste. This is a ten year old boy discovering his first hardon, then seeing John Holmes and learning a little thing called humility. We talked for hours about films that I had never heard of but was now chomping at the bit like a hungry dope-fiend to get a fix for. Nicolas Roeg, Jesus Franco, “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” and finally, Duke Mitchell. He sent me a link after our meeting of a trailer for Mitchell’s “Massacre Mafia Style.” And brother, I wanted more. Two weeks ago I finally got my copy of the film. The opening sequence was like God blessing a faithful follower for their patience and vigilance with the warm light of divine peace. A 1970’s version of Jules and Vincent stroll into a Los Angeles office building like underworld kings of the room in their suits and lay down a tide of blood letting with wonderful panache and a brilliant use of old world love song. A simple bathroom urinal becomes a brilliant low budget Argento murder set piece. This opening makes a promise between filmmaker and audience-- “It may not always be pretty, but you will feel my passion.” The film follows the exploits of Mini, son of a once great Sicilian mobster, who returns to America after his fathers exile to reclaim his families name as a top crime enforcer. What follows is a mafioso rise and fall, but just slightly skewed. He never really rises. We don’t get the small time hood who becomes an emperor story we are so accustomed to, we get a worker drone who makes good for a few years, then fizzles out. It’s a story of mediocrity in the mob world. Ambition that gives way to the tedium of the real world. Mimi lives by an older code, so he thinks, and Los Angeles of 1970’s doesn’t recognize or respect the fear that he has to offer. He came to the game too late. If you and your friends sat around talking about your favorite Poliziotteschi and mob films-- the things that really got you hard about the genres, and then decided to take the passion from that conversation and make a film dedicated to the larger than life Gods and Goddesses of filth, bile and celluloid-- you would have Duke Mitchell’s film. (I know that statement is a walking abortion of Pauline Kael, but fuck it, she’s dead and talked shit about “El Topo.”) Mitchell’s not a master craftsman of directing. He’s not a well rounded thespian. He’s not stylish and he sure as shit ain’t handsome. What he has is ten pound brass balls. He has the will to do what he wants to do and that is low budget cinematic gold. The film never apologizes for its ambition or its hindered budget. It delivers on emotion and fearlessness. Mitchell more or less stops the film twice with these larger than life, Godardian moments of soapboxing to the camera on the life of being an Italian American and price of their sordid history. If you watch the film with some skirt your trying to make or some guy whose just too damn cool for school to give themselves over to the experience they’ll laugh their undeserving asses off-- but if you watch with the faithful, you’ll see eager smiles of appreciation. As of yet the film is not on dvd. It’s not too hard to track down bootleg DVR’s and downloads, though it is rumoured that GR (http://www.grindhousereleasing.com/grindhouse_catalog.html)is going to be bringing it to dvd in the near future. If you want to really torture your creative mind, watch the trailer ( you can find it on youtube or Grindhouse Releasing’s website) for his unfinished magnum opus “Gone with the Pope.” -Chris Sacks Trailer for Massacre Mafia Style:
Trailer for Gone with the Pope:
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