Crazy Joe (DVD) 1974 Peter Boyle and Fred Williamson

Crazy Joe 1974 DVD (Region 1 - Playable in North America - The US, Canada, Mexico, etc.) Color.

Starring: Peter Boyle, Paula Prentiss, Fred Williamson, Rip Torn, Eli Wallach.

Dino De Laurentiis, the man who gave us The Valachi Papers, produced this violent, fictionalized biography of the late Joseph (Crazy Joe) Gallo, the flamboyant hood who was gunned down on April 7, 1972, at a clam house in Little Italy. Gallo (Peter Boyle) is a movie-mad made man and a disgruntled underling alongside his brother Richie (Rip Torn) in the Falco family. Gallo's crew doesn't feel that they're getting their due or the proper respect from their bosses, and so they go to war, with second-in-command Vinnie Colleti opting to sit things out. Peter Boyle is terrifically charismatic as a guy who starts out a little crazy and a little dumb, who still seems a little laughable as he overeducates himself to the point of becoming briefly the lion of high society, yet finally proves a poignant figure as a final scene with his long-suffering girlfriend (Paula Prentiss) reveals the sincerity of his need to be an important person -- what he often refers to (imitating Richard Widmark in Kiss of Death, as in a pre-credits theater scene) as a "big man."