Behind the Scenes: The Valachi Papers (Young, 1972) with Charles Bronson and Lino Ventu

of Columbia Jail this morning and traveled under heavy guard to Capitol Hill for his long-awaited date with the McClellan Investigation Subcommittee. U.S. Marshals, mindful of the reported $100,000 price tag the underworld has placed on Bellacci's head, were out in abundance as the former mobster made the quick drive and the short walk to the closed-door session of the Senate Subcommittee. Also in abundance, cameramen and reporters getting their first look at the man who has been telling the FBI for the past year about the inner workings of the notorious crime syndicate La Cosa Nostra. This was the scene as Bellacci made his way through the Senate office building corridor where at this moment he's delivering his story to the McClellan committee. The edge of the table was a long table and there was a gun and a knife on the table. How many were at the table? About 35 to 40 and sat me down and uh and made me repeat in Italian. Did they set you down at the table or in a chair out front? Sat me down on the end of the table with muttons on and doing the talking next to muttons on. All right now you sat next to him then what happened? Well he had the knife and the gun on the table. I repeated some words he told me but I only could explain what he meant. I could repeat the words but they were in Sicilian. They were what? In Sicilian. In Sicilian. You repeated but you didn't understand what they meant? Right then they explained. They explained what they meant. Who explained? Maranzano? Well he could talk pretty good English Maranzano. He talked 12 languages. He went on to explain that you live by the gun and by the knife and you die by the gun and by the knife. Then he he he picks your finger. Who? The godfather. He picks your finger? He picks your finger with a needle makes a little blood come out. In other words that's the express the blood relation supposed to be like brothers. That's the letting of blood. That's right. In other words uh symbolic of the fact you're willing to spill your blood. Right. To give your blood to give your life. Yeah. As to what I'm telling you now I need to go no further to say nothing else. This here what I'm telling you what I'm exposing to you and the press and everybody this is my doom. This is the promise I'm breaking that I know my even if I talk I should never talk about this and I'm doing so. That's my best way. That is the highest oath you took. In other words that was the most sacred in in this organization. Right. I want you would never tell this. Right. Right. So it was a a banquet to raise money and also to acknowledge uh Maranzana as the boss of bosses. Right. They all were paying tribute to him and honoring him. Right. And recognizing him as the boss of bosses. Right. And this was to demonstrate it. Is that correct? Was that something? This was to demonstrate it. That's right. To let everybody know that he was recognized as boss of bosses. What uh what uh you said is also to raise money. Was money raised during that time if so how and from whom? I understood uh was 115,000. He uh he sent out for instance a thousand tickets to Al Capone and Al Capone sent six thousand. He sent a thousand tickets to uh Buffalo and they also sent six thousand. And Charlie Lucky himself sent six thousand. Some of the big amounts I know. Did you at the time accept and regard that as a kiss of death? Yeah but I that's why I say I didn't answer up. That's the reason why I said that. I yeah but I was I didn't think the kid would get it. You didn't think the kid would get it. But the kid got it. He got it. How would it be? How could I miss when he got it? Do you believe that they definitely planned to kill you there at that time? Yes 100%. 100%. The most extraordinary thing about Valachi was this absolutely phenomenal the only word for it is uh almost photographic memory had practically everything that uh he recorded in detail and told about. They were able to prove that he was nearly always when he gave dates he was within a day or so about something had happened 25 years ago. Terrence Young is making the Valachi papers with one goal in mind. Absolute realism. The events that will appear on the screen will be the mirror image of what Valachi described in his manuscript right down to the color of the suits of the participants. This meticulous attention to detail extends to Young's selection of the cast. His actors come from all over the world and they all bear an astonishing resemblance to the people they portray. Vito Genovese portrayed by Lino Ventura. Hello Valachi. Don Vito. How's business? Salvatore Maranzano portrayed by Joseph Wiseman. Charles Lucky Luciano portrayed by Angelo Infante. Albert Anastasia portrayed by Fausto Tazzi. Maria Valachi portrayed by Jill Ireland. Every time you try to build something they take from you. Dominic the Gap Petrilli portrayed by Walter Chiari but the most important member of the cast was the man who would portray Valachi himself and as far as director Terrence Young was concerned only one man was right for the job. That man was Charles Bronson. Valachi I think was one of these men who in the 20s living in this part of the world in New York City found it rough during the depression the beginning of the depression probably at that time he didn't explain but probably at that time you know he was looking around for easy money like maybe half the population and used a gun to get it. In his role Bronson is called upon to relive the events that highlighted Joseph Valachi's incredible career in the underworld. A career that began with a bizarre ceremony in which he took an oath of allegiance and silence. Valachi was now a soldier in the Cosa Nostra. You live by the knife and the gun. You die by the knife and the gun. And he was expected to obey without question the orders of his superiors. The orders he obeyed over the next 30 years covered just about every illegal activity on the books. Unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. Gambling. I didn't want no trouble. We're ready to service our machines day and night. Burglary. Bootlegging. Hijacking. Drug pushing. Murder. And Joe Valachi was only like a member. He was a wheel man mostly. He was a soldier of the organization. He never did become a big shot. He earned money later on but he was never a big shot. He seemed to survive all these changes of regime with an extraordinary facility that's all I could say. And I think you can't be that stupid to to have done to have done that much. I think he was academically obviously very backward but I think in plain good old-fashioned common sense I think Valachi must have been quite a bright cookie. You see if you believe in the family then you fight for it. It's no different Then why are they closing in on you again Joe? This is where the light is cast into the dark shadows of the American underworld. Under the watchful eye of producer Dino De Laurentiis, director Terence Young and an international crew, the Valachi papers come to life. That is correct. I thought you thought about Sarah. Yeah he was shot. And the attention to detail is so accurate audiences are going to have a hard time telling the original from the copy. If they got to me I wouldn't be in prison for five minutes. True. How would you feel if you were back in prison? I would have to protect myself against them Senator. I would have to kill them or be killed. When I did Slaughterhouse-Five I said no I didn't write it. I read it well and translated it for the screen. It's not my vision. It's not how I see the world. It's how Kurt sees the world. What I try to do is get his vision onto the screen. That's my job. So I had a book that was successfully translated into a film. I had a screenplay circulating. I had another novel coming out. The book was bought by Gallimard in France. So it had all the subsidiary things that are very good. That's how Dino came to me. So I was offered Valachi. They sent me the book and I read the book and they said do you want to do it? And I said yes but I want to have two months of reading the Kefauver reports. I want all the Kefauver reports sent to me. I want that background because I had felt that was our entree into that world. But I also wanted to hear the dialogue. I wanted to hear how these people thought and I wanted to hear how the establishment looked at this other world. Then he got up there and he stopped to explain about Mosseri and his groups, that they were killing people without just, he mentioned some names, names that I didn't know. And I thought, oh, the Kefauver scene in the commission's got to be fantastic because we'll have grown up with Valachi until we get there. So we have his point of view. He's there because of disloyalty. He was, he finally, Valachi, finally talked because the loyalty that he expected, it was no. And his family was being, going to be mistreated and he was going to be killed and all of that. And so no. So he's got a side that he does not trust and he has no right, no business to trust. But Ryan, the FBI guy gets him to believe that, look, this really is the good side. We see from the Kefauver commission, it's the same horse and it's in front, it's in television. It's big deal. So he realizes, when I finally got to the writing, I told Terrence Young, this is the key scene. This is the key moment. This is the motivation for why he tried to commit suicide. There's nothing left. What is there, right? When I saw the movie, they cut that whole thing out. They've got like three or four lines and that's it. And suddenly he's committing suicide. It's like, where's the third act? That's the third act. You're building to that. That is something that I really disliked about the movie tremendously, because that was the moment. What I liked about the idea is that Valachi was so unimportant. He's just a soldier. He's not important. And he's just surviving in something that he can believe in because Maradzano, who was his godfather, was an incredibly intelligent man and understood what the issues were. He said, boy, that's a smart guy. And I like that. I like this simplicity and then how that whole thing begins to shift and the issues of loyalty aren't there. Even look at Irishman today. It's about nothing but loyalty. It's about the absence of loyalty and the time that is taken on the part of the mob, in this case, the Irishman himself, to say, look, you promised. You got to fulfill this. You can't change the rules. And this is something that runs through the whole history of the mafia from the very beginning and all of the gangs in Europe. The scary thing is that when that's forgotten, then it's chaotic and the gangs end up killing each other and it gets ridiculous. But when there is honesty and there's loyalty in that regard, then it runs very smoothly. Dino read the script and called me up. It was in New York. I was living in New Haven. No, no, sorry. I was living in Vermont at the time. And he said, could you come down to New York? Very important. I said, is everything okay? He says, oh, it's fine, but just please come down. I'm like, oh boy, something's up. So I come down and he says, we'll talk about the script in Rome, but there's one thing now we have to talk about. I said, what? He said, you know this scene where Valaci's talking about the whole passage. He's telling Flynn about the passage. There's Maranzano and then he's killed Genovese and Luciano. Luciano's behind bars, then he's deported. Genovese takes over after the war. I forget exactly how it goes, but then while Genovese's away, he gives the running of the mob to Frank Costello and then he comes back. Costello is, there's an attempt on his life because he's talking to too many people. And I said, yeah. He said, we don't need Costello. And I said, we don't need Costello. He's kind of important. I mean, he was all over all the news. He said, but no. I said, he's not, I even remember as a kid seeing Costello's face in the newspapers and seeing him at the Copacabana. With Frank Sinatra and with Jimmy Durante and you know, come with me. He said, we'll go for a little ride. I said, we're going to go for a ride? He said, okay. What do you want to do? I said, I want to walk. He said, okay, we'll go for a walk. It's a long walk. I said, fine. I said, we're going to walk. He said, Central Park South. I said, it's not a long walk, it's 10 blocks. Come on. It's nice in New York. So we go to Central Park South. We go to this beautiful building and go in and we go up like, I don't know how many floors and the door opens and this enormous apartment and windows, dark hall, and then all these windows. He said, that's beautiful. And we start walking in, Butler opens the door, we start walking in and just see all these windows and beautiful Central Park below us and a couch, long couch, and this little teeny head, this little head and couch with his back to us. And he goes, Frank Costello. He's so alone. He says, I read your script. It was very pleasurable. Pleasurable? It's not pleasurable. It's very pleasurable. He said, basically, you got it right. You got it right. You got the people right. He said, I especially like Maranzano because it was like him. I said, yeah. I have a favor to ask of you. Will you talk of me taking over? It was such a short period of time. I really would appreciate it if you remove my name. And I looked at him all alone in this room and I said, at the risk of shitting in my pants, of course I will. Not to worry. Thank you so much. You're very talented. Thank you, Dino. And out the door. That was it. And I said, Dino. He said, shut up. We go downstairs. We're walking in the street. We're walking up the street and Dino's looking behind him like we're being followed. There's no one following. I mean, come on. And Dino's shorter than I am. This is two very short people. We're going down the street, having spoken to an old man who's even shorter than the both of us. And Dino's scared still. And he said, look, it's not just his name. He said, he has friends and we want to shoot in the docks. They've given us one day. Let's keep it one day. He said, so good. He said, so this isn't just about, you know, this is a little bigger than you think it is. Holy. Okay, fine. And that was it. So was there, the only person I met was a heavyweight who was very tiny and who was very polite and very thankful, you know, and I can assure you I made the right decision because my only rationalization there is this is not a point that you should fight necessarily. I mean, if you're going to fight for something, this is a losing battle. And anyone who reads the Bellacci papers or anyone who reads mob history or anyone who reads is going to see Frank Costello's there. And if they want to know why he's not in the movie, you just have the answer. I just love Terrence. I don't love him as a director. I love him as a man because Terrence was magnificent, magnificently generous every night with dinners for everybody. He would eat with 10, 12 people. He would pay for everything. There would always be a surround. And I said, you know, Terrence, I don't understand this. You asked me to go to dinner. And I said, no, the last four times, because you pick up the check every single time. Why do you need it? And Terrence said, well, you know, my boy, when I was growing up, I had an ama and she was in charge of everything. And I simply assumed the world is my ama. And so I spent 12 people for dinner and that's why I have to do what I do to pay for it. I said, is it worth it? He said, of course it is my boy. I'm enjoying my life. You know, but it's a lot of work. But I loved him. I love the James Bond quality about him because he kind of behaved like, but I saw him do just such really personally wonderful things. I think there are things that he did in the movie that are really great fun and things in the movie that just that I don't know if it's because of him or because of Dino, of the Dino's interference. But I wasn't happy with the direction. I thought it was very glib and fast. And when I saw, I remember seeing the cut, the first rough, the first cut of the film, and there was Terrence and Paul Conner, who was Charlie Bronson's agent, and kind of, a sort of a kind of, if this word can be used, a sort of a Godfather to Dino, because he was really Dino's entree to America. And so, it was Paul and Terrence and Dino and me seeing it. And I said, where's the money? Where's the money in this? I don't see the money. There's production elements that are so cheap that I don't get it. Where did it go? I mean, it costs less to make a movie in Italy than now, but then even more. Where did it go? What I like about Charlie is he's just, you like him. He's simple, which he is, except when he gets pretentious at times. And you can say, Charlie, cut this. And he goes, no, well, I, you know, maybe I, you know, and he's okay. And I think there's an honesty that shows up on the big screen. And I found him all the time, totally straight. You could talk with him. I remember, I was going back to Vermont. Charlie was there with Jill in the airport. And I said, you're on the same flight? He said, yes. I said, what are you doing? Oh, and Charlie says, oh, we're going to go. Jill and I are going to go to Connecticut. We're going to buy a farm. We're going to have horses and a lot of land. I said, there isn't a lot of land in Connecticut, Charlie. Come with me. I'm going to Vermont where I live. There's lots of land and lots of places where you can have a horse farm. And it'll cost you much less than you get more land for your money. He says, are you kidding me? Are you serious? And I said, what would I lie to you? Do you have a horse farm? He said, of course not, Dwight. You know, the Jews ride horses. What is this, an Isaac Babel story? You know, the Red Cossacks. I mean, come on, no. But there are loads of places there and I'll give you the name of a realtor and I'll give you the name of a... They switched flights and they came to Woodstock, Vermont and bought their property, you know, their horse farm in Vermont. I mean, he's, you know, he'll listen. And what I liked about him was that, is that you could say, Charlie, this isn't working. Charlie, this is bullshit. And he would listen, but everybody was afraid of him. They thought he was going to... I don't know what they thought he was going to do. He never behaved with ill will. Even when he, even when he took Jill from David McCullough, he said, you know, when I saw Jill at the party with David, I said, hey, you watch out. She's really a looker. She's great, David. I'm going to take her. I mean, he even told him and that's what happened, you know. So I, I liked him, you know, I thought we were never close, but we always, we always were easy with each other.