Boss, The (1973) (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Mar 17, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Fernando Di LeoRelease Date(s)
1973 (November 12, 2024)Studio(s)
Cineproduzioni Daunia (Raro Video/Kino Lorber)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: B
- Extras Grade: B
Review
Technically a poliziottesco but really a cashing in on the wildly popular success of Francis Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), The Boss (Il Boss, 1973) is the third and final film of director Fernando Di Leo’s “Milieau” trilogy, following Caliber 9 and The Italian Connection (both 1972). The Boss is an amusingly, almost cartoonishly violent exploration of mafia loyalties and betrayals, with virtually the entire cast spectacularly murdered by the end credits.
Orphan Nick Lanzetta (Henry Silva) is a mafia soldier in Palermo under paternal Don Giuseppe Daniello (Claudio Nicastro). Daniello and his boss, Don Corrasco (Richard Conte), determined to keep the “family” pure Sicilian, push back when outsiders try to muscle in. In the outrageous opening scene, Lanzetta takes out most of those rivals when they gather in a screening room to watch a “blue” movie. Lanzetta, making his way into the projection booth, fires a grenade launcher into the mini-theater, blowing everyone to bits.
Lone survivor of the attempt, Cocchi (Pier Paolo Capponi), and his men retaliate by kidnapping Daniello’s adult daughter, Rina (model Antonia Santilli). Daniello is willing to pay any price to get his daughter back, but Corrasco orders him to stand down, as any action would show weakness. Desperate, Daniello seems to persuade Lanzetta to participate in a secret plan to get his daughter back, but out of loyalty to Don Corrasco, Lanzetta murders father-figure Daniello and his lieutenant instead, in so doing climbs the mafia pecking order. He also rescues Rina, who buy this time has become a hopped-up nymphomaniac, hardly worth Daniello’s trouble.
Meanwhile, corrupt police commissioner Torri (Gianni Garko, of the Sartana Westerns) becomes involved in political dealings between the warring families, attorney Rizzo (Corrado Gaipa) acting as a go-between.
Though visually, stylistically quite different, The Boss shares themes common to the jitsuroku eiga (“actual record films”), most famously Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor and Humanity (1973) being made in Japan simultaneously. Mafia bosses like Don Corrasco demand complete fealty of its soldiers yet this loyalty means nothing and invariably goes unrewarded; bosses like Corrasco are willing to bump off his most loyal men when the need arises. Unlike the honorable anti-heroes of similar Japanese films, frequently played by Ken Takakura or Bunta Sugawara, Henry Silva’s Manzetta is too much a madman shaped by this world to be disillusioned as Japanese protagonists in these films often are. When Rina asks Manzetta what he feels when killing someone, he answers that he feels nothing at all. Both country’s genres are similarly fatalistic, but in Italian films blood ties are essentially meaningless. In Japanese gangster films a yakuza soldier will stick his neck out for a wayward blood brother or even a hopelessly corrupt oyabun (“boss”), but as demonstrated here, no one can be trusted.
Richard Conte’s role as Don Barzini in The Godfather gave the longtime actor’s career a big shot in the arm, leading to nearly a dozen featured roles in Italian films until his death in 1975. The Boss was the first of these, and his performance is excellent. Likewise, Henry Silva’s career stalled considerably at the end of the 1960s, but was revitalized in Italian gangster films throughout the 1970s, leading to acting jobs around the world and, ultimately, movie and TV work back in the U.S.
Fernando Di Leo’s direction is fast-paced and exciting, if over-the-top. Violence (and sex) permeate every reel. Only disconnected scenes involving Torri’s excitable supervisor (Vittorio Caprioli, who resembles John Le Mesurier) goes nowhere.
Raro Video recent Blu-rays have received a lot of well-deserved criticism for everything from poor English subtitles to bad color timing. There are issues with The Boss as well, though problems are not nearly as extreme as some of their other titles. Restored in 4K, this 1.85:1 widescreen 1920x1080p presentation is mostly good, though the color timing is noticeably off in some scenes, which most frequently overly favors greens. Audio is offered in both Italian with English subtitles and in English (both DTS-HD 2.0 mono), but the English track is noticeably thin and tinny, like an audio file with poor compression. Even though both Conte’s and Silva’s own voices are heard on this track, I went with the much more robust Italian audio. Unlike some past Raro Video releases, there were no major issues with the subtitling.
However, I did notice that the English track is incomplete; there are scenes that default to Italian audio (presumably scenes cut for the international release). There is not separate subtitle track for the missing scenes only; one has to use one’s remote to turn the English subtitles intended for the Italian audio version on-and-off, hardly convenient.
The release is Region-Free.
Extras include a new, fairly good audio commentary track by Samm Deighan; Mafia Stories, a 25-minute archival documentary in Italian with members of the cast and crew (previously available on the DVD release), and trailers.
Entertaining, The Boss serves as a good introduction to this uniquely Italian sub-genre. The Raro Video presentation is far from perfect, but not a deal-breaker. Recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV