Sun 7 Jun 2015
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: LEPKE (1975).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[6] Comments
LEPKE. AmeriEuro Pictures Corp., 1975. Tony Curtis (Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter), Anjanette Comer, Michael Callan, Warren Berlinger, Gianni Russo, Vic Tayback, Mary Charlotte Wilcox, Milton Berle. Director: Menachem Golan.
Just like the heist film, the gangster film may even be considered a subgenre of the crime film, a wide enough category to safely also include mysteries, police procedurals, thrillers, and what is now referred to as film noir. And within the gangster film genre itself, there can be detected numerous sub-genres.
Menachem Golan’s Lepke, a biopic of Murder Inc.’s Louis “Lepke†Buchalter can be categorized as an “American Jewish gangster film,†a sub-genre that also includes Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America (1984) and Barry Levinson’s Bugsy (1991).
Tony Curtis, at a pivotal point in his career, portrays the title character in a role in which he fit perfectly. His accent, mannerisms, and physicality all serve him well here. There are some moments, such as when Lepke blows his top in front of his men, which are simply thrilling to behold. Curtis had a wide range of acting ability and could convey a lot of meaning with very little expression.
Unfortunately, the rather flat script overall doesn’t leave Curtis all that much to work with.
The film, which traces Buchalter’s life from a delinquent Brooklyn childhood to his ultimate execution at Sing Sing just doesn’t have enough tension to make the film nearly as good as it could have been. But Golan, who would go on to produce numerous 1980s action films, nevertheless deserves credit for telling Lepke’s story without sentimentalism. Lepke is neither a complete villain, nor is he a hero. He’s portrayed as deeply flawed individual, a man both constrained and defined by his ethnic and religious background.
June 8th, 2015 at 7:31 am
Thank you for an interesting review.
I’ve never seen Lepke.
Looking over gangster films, two about some real-life Jewish mobsters come to mind for their high quality:
King of the Roaring 20’s – The Story of Arnold Rothstein (Joseph M. Newman , 1961).
The Gangster Chronicles (Richard C. Sarafian, 1981).
Two of the three main gangsters in the latter are Bugsy Siegel and “Michael Lasker”: a thinly disguised version of Meyer Lansky, who was still alive and who could sue.
Unlike, apparently, Lepke, neither of these films suggests their protagonists are “defined” by being Jewish. They are films about gangsters-who-happen-to-be-Jewish, rather than ethnic portraits.
The gangster film is very much a genre.
An important book: “The Gangster Film Reader” (2007), edited by Alain Silver, James Ursini.
It brings together a lot of key essays on the subject.
June 8th, 2015 at 7:54 am
About 15 years ago, Curtis was given a list of his films to check off those he was most proud. Only checked 18 of his 120, this being one of them.
June 8th, 2015 at 3:57 pm
Thanks, Mike. I am familiar with the Joseph M. Newman one, but not with THE GANGSTER CHRONICLES. Budd Boetticher also directed a film in this sub-genre about Legs Diamond.
June 8th, 2015 at 7:21 pm
Curtis is good here, but like a lot of late era gangster films all they could really add to the genre was sex or violence. The film meanders around the highlights and despite some good things the film never comes together. It’s a what’s might have been with a second hand cast and poor script.
June 8th, 2015 at 8:16 pm
I found the first half much more interesting than the first. There were portions of the second half when I didn’t know who was shooting machine guns at who, and worse, it didn’t seem to matter.
Tony Curtis was very good in this film, though. I have grown to like his movie performances more and more, after a long time of being indifferent to them. I think I have come to realize how much he enjoyed making movies. I really think he did.
June 8th, 2015 at 9:00 pm
This one didn’t have all that much in the way of violence, so much as a meandering script that didn’t have much in the way of tension