LEPKE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Minor gangster film about one of the most vicious crime lords and the only major American crime lord ever to get the death penalty. Fidelity to the truth is generally high with occasion serious lapses. Similar material has been done better.
I do not watch gangster movies the way I watch other films. A gangster film requires homework and, particularly if I am going to watch it on video, I will stop it and watch parts over. The reason is that I have a couple of good sources on American crime. Robert Jay Nash's BLOODLETTERS AND BADMEN gives detailed biographies of American criminals. Nearly as good and presenting a lot of non-overlapping detail is Carl Sifakis's ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN CRIME. I listen to historical details in the film carefully and, if on video, sometimes two or three times. Before the film I will have read the primary entries about the characters in the film. During the film I will stop and read about the more tangential characters. I fume about historical inaccuracies for literary license as if they were facts everyone knows and has always known, even if I have just read about them for the first time ten minutes earlier.
Cinemax this month had LEPKE, the 1975 biography of Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, produced and directed by Menachem Golan (who would go on to form Cannon Pictures with Yoram Globus, this film's executive producer). The film was made shortly after THE GODFATHER II, undoubtedly to ride that film's wave of popularity. Israelis Golan and Globus, apparently not wanting Italian mobsters to get all the attention, made their film about one of the most powerful American criminals, who just happened to be Jewish. Lepke was one of the two or three founding fathers of the American syndicate and of Murder Incorporated. Generally the film follows Lepke's career fairly faithfully, though a number of important details are omitted near the end. The worst of them was having Lepke murder Legs Diamond within days after Diamond saw Lepke kill "Little Auggie" Orgen. In the film, apparently Lepke wanted to silence Diamond, so has him stabbed with an icepick while swimming at Coney Island. That one I knew was all wrong without looking at the book. Nobody knows who killed Diamond, but it was four years after the Orgen killing and on the second floor of a private in Albany. Lepke's friend "Gurrah" Shapiro, who dies in the film defending Lepke, actually outlived Lepke by three years. There are probably a dozen other places where the film contradicts my sources, but those two are the worst.
Lepke is played by Bernie Schwartz (alias Tony Curtis). The acting is sufficient but not outstanding. Milton Berle takes a rare dramatic role as Lepke's father-in-law who first welcomes his son-in-law and later comes to hate him. ("You're a hoa! A filthy hoa!" he tells his daughter.) Some of the accurate historical detail is worth knowing, like the underhanded dealings that newscaster Walter Winchell took part in to get stories. The same Walter Winchell whose voice may be familiar from narrating THE UNTOUCHABLES TV show really did get involved in the stories of major mobsters. In particular, he took part in the capture and betrayal of Lepke by J. Edgar Hoover.
The film was cut from 100 to 98 minutes for cable release, so some of the film just turns into incoherent violence, but some nice touches remain, the best of which is a friendly, jolly-looking fellow with a moustache. When you see him it is generally because in a moment or two he is going to jovially kill someone.
If LEPKE was to be a Jewish version of THE GODFATHER, it fell somewhat short. Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA comes as close to being a Jewish GODFATHER as any film, and this film is not as good. Give LEPKE a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper
mtgzz!leeper@rutgers.rutgers.edu
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