Inside the Mafia (1959) User Reviews

Not out of moves

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 6 June 2014]

The term "ripped from the headlines" is always used when a film on the big or small screen has a plot taken from real life. In the case of Inside The Mafia the recent underworld stories of the exile of Lucky Luciano, the murder of Albert Anastasia, and the gangland convention at Appalachia are all elements in the plot of this film.

Ted DeCorsia is hit in a hotel barbershop Anastasia style, but he doesn't die right away. After the hospital stay he's moved to a secluded place and sends for his number 2 guy Cameron Mitchell. DeCorsia was trying a syndicate power play that obviously fell short. But he's not out of moves. The boss of bosses who is in exile is secretly flying in to a convention held in a secluded rural spot of Upstate New York at Edward Platt's estate. Mitchell decides to make a hit as Grant Richards arrives at the small county airport.

To do that involves taking Jean Louis Heydt the manager of the airport and his daughters Elaine Edwards and Carol Nugent hostage. Getting swept up in it is State Trooper James Brown and Nugent's boyfriend Michael Monroe. So they wait for the plane with Richards to arrive.

Film buffs will no doubt recognize the plot from Suddenly has been reworked from a presidential assassination to a gangland hit. Still Inside The Mafia is fine no frills thriller from United Artists and holds up well today.

Though a knowledge of gangland history helps one get the fine points of the story.

Mildly entertaining crimefest

[AlsExGal · 5/10 · 7 April 2017]

The film opens with the Blues Brothers pumping four bullets into mob boss Ted de Corsia, but he manages to survive, at least for a few reels. His lieutenant, Cameron Mitchell, decides to get even with the big boss. What follows is non-stop lack of action as Mitchell and Robert Strauss take over a house at an airport, hold everyone hostage, and wait for a plane carrying the head man from Italy. This sequence is just a ripoff of Suddenly, which at least featured a real Italian guy.

The supporting cast includes Ed Platt as another mob boss, and James Brown (not the Godfather of Soul) as one of the most useless cops in film history. Frank Gerstle plays a hit-man – but at least his suit fits for a change. Louis Jean Heydt runs the airport. The characters have names like Chins, Augie, and Julie (yes, that's a guy).

The climactic shootout at the mob meeting is something you'd expect from The Naked Gun. The narrator then tells us this may be the end of organized crime. Nope. You'd have to wait for 13 years for J. Edgar to pass on for that to even be on the horizon.

I give it 5/10 for being unintentionally funny in enough places to make up for the lack of action and some of the overacting.

An Interesting Historical Footnote

[gavin6942 · 6/10 · 20 July 2015]

Mafia gunmen sent by their boss to kill a rival gang leader take over a small airfield where their target is scheduled to land. While waiting for the man they're going to kill, they terrorize the employees of the airfield, one of whom starts to devise a plan to turn the tables on their captors.

Appalachin or Apple Lake? Clearly the latter is inspired by the former. But that is largely where the similarities end. Heck, it seems like not even all the guys in the film are supposed to be Italian. But, I guess that is a safe move.

How much was known about the Mafia in 1959? Today (2015) we are still learning more, but in 1959 it was quite fresh, with the FBI only just beginning to look into the men involved. In a way, this film is ahead of its time, whether strictly accurate or not.

Top notch B film, showing the desperate hours as organized crime goes down.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 5 May 2018]

When a top dog in the world of the mob is nearly killed in a barber shop assassination attempt, the stones are turned towards their complete downfall, at least for this group of slimy criminals. The mobster isn't killed, taken into hiding by his soldiers, and leading his rivals to create a reign of terror in the town where they believe him to be kept in, taking a family hostage in hopes that their sheriff father will lead them to him. But with other criminal figures circuling like vultures, more danger awaits, as the feds wait for their chance to move in.

Intriguing in many ways but rather familiar and predictable with "The Desperate Hours" similarities (a plot device in several other crime dramas of this time), this is appropriately short and tight in details. A cast of familiar character actors (Cameron Mitchell, Robert Strauss, Edward Platt among them) are deliciously malevolent, and it is obvious that the criminal element here will destroy each other before the law gets their chance. I had hoped for all of the mafia gang to snuff each other out so the feds would only discover a bunch of corpses when they went in after tossing in tear gas, but was completely satisfied with the way this ended.

Tough and exciting...but also very familiar

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 20 February 2017]

One of Frank Sinatra's best films was "Suddenly" and he played a sadistic assassin who held a family hostage in order to make an attempt on the President's life. In many ways, this film is like Bogart's "The Desperate Hours", in which some killers on the hideout force themselves on a family. Their choice is to hide them...or die! Both films which came out before "Inside the Mafia", and since both plots are so similar, I have to knock a point or two off this later film.

When the film begins, the mob boss Martello is gunned down by two assassins. Despite pumping four bullets into the guy, he somehow survives and his right-hand man, Tony Ledo (Cameron Mitchell) is determined to pay back the guys responsible. So, when he learns about a big conference of all the mob bosses, he and his sidekicks are determined to be there waiting and make them pay!

To do this, they go to the same tiny airport when the mobsters will soon be arriving. But here's where it gets interesting...they take the guy in the control tower prisoner as well as his family and they tell them to cooperate...or else. However, it's soon obvious that 'or else' would occur regardless, as these hoods are the smart type and won't leave any witnesses to talk.

The film is very taut and the acting is also very good. I have no complaints about the picture at all...except its similarity to the other films. Plus, they only came out a few years after...so audiences of 1959 must have also noticed the strong similarities. Despite this, however, it's worth watching as it's one of Cameron Mitchell's best roles.

Dem ganstahs is talking' busnuz, see.

[BILLYBOY-10 · 26 October 2010]

Based loosely on a true story of a big mafia meeting in NY in 1957, this is watered down from over 100 in attendance to about a dozen or so. Big east coast mafia leader is killed and his number one man wants to take over the entire US operation so he plans to kill the number one man arriving from Italy to attend. Him and a few of his knuckleheads go the the remote airfield where he is landing and take over the family that runs the airstrip. Lotsa guy talking wit dem and dose and dis and dat and figuring how to plug the witnesses whittles away most of the flick and then the big showdown at the actual meeting a whole bunch of guys get plugged but the big man from Italy lives and the cops arrive and tear gas him out and then its The End. I didn't bail on the movie 'cause it was funny watching and listening to the thugs. The biggest expense on this corker was for sunglasses....you'll see.

Kids At Play Have More Imagination

[LeonLouisRicci · 3/10 · 26 June 2012]

Not much inside information on the infamous crime syndicate. Just a superficial account of a real life country meeting of the mafia in upstate NY.

Extremely low-budget look that is as uninteresting as it is uninvolved. The hats and the sunglasses are laughable, supposedly this is a sinister look to evoke emotion from the audience and hide the lack of emoting. The girl friends of the hostages scream and hide their heads a lot.

The opening barbershop scene is an example of good work but that was the extent of the hack Directors effort and as such it goes nowhere from there.

The annunciating voice over announcer drops in unexpected at times and demands authoritarian authorship because his diction is impeccable.

The final shootout is so dull that kids at play have more imagination.

Organized crime display of power.

[michaelRokeefe · 6/10 · 15 June 2015]

By the end of the 1950's, "mafia" becomes a household word. This is a brass knuckles peek into the world of organized crime as a deported mobster Johnny Lucero(Grant Richards)prepares for an upper New York gangland meeting. A minor player in the mob Tony Ledo(Cameron Mitchell)plans on killing the big boss Augie Martello(Ted de Corsia)and icing on the cake will be to take out Lucero as his plane lands in a small area near the meeting place. Things of course do not go as well as planned. Lucero has more manpower than anyone thinks, but not enough to compete with the state police surrounding the site of the big play for power.

Other players: Robert Strauss, Frank Gerstle, Richard Karlan, Elaine Edwards and James Brown.

CRIME STILL DOESN'T PAY

[zardoz-13 · 5/10 · 24 February 2023]

"Guns Girls and Gangsters" director Edward L. Cahn was one of those dependable Hollywood helmers who specialized in low-budget, black & white westerns, gangster sagas, and horror chillers as second features and/or drive-in theatre fodder during his prolific career as a B-movie director with over 120 films to his credit. "Inside the Mafia" was one of many crime films from the Fifties that depicted the Italian mafia without an accent. Cahn and "Atomic Submarine" scenarist Orville H. Hampton drew on the headlines of the day and cobbled together a sanitized version of Albert Anastasia's murder, the exile of Lucky Luciano, and the high-level mob convention in rural Appalachia as "Inside the Mafia" with a sturdy cast featuring Cameron Mitchell, Robert Strauss, Edward Platt, James Brown, and Frank Gerstle. The action unfolds with the attempted murder of a notorious Albert Anastasia-like crime boss. Augie Martello (veteran villain Ted de Corsia of "The Lady from Shanghai") is seated in a barber's chair with a towel wrapped around his mug when Julie Otranto (Frank Gerstle of "D. O. A.") and an accomplice surprise him with a hail of lead.

Miraculously, Martello survives in fiction what Anastasia didn't survive in fact. Confined to a hospital bed under the vigilant eyes of his bodyguard, Sam Galey (Robert Strauss of "Stalag 13"), Augie briefs another tough guy subaltern, Tony Ledo (Cameron Mitchell of "Garden of Evil"), about a scheme to ice kingpin gangster Johnny Lucero (Grant Richards of "Night of Mystery") who is sneaking back into the country after a decade in exile. The syndicate is in trouble, and Lucero is flying back to straighten out the situation. Lucero is supposed to land at a remote airport in the boondocks and then preside over a convention of mob bosses. Predictably, nothing goes as planned for either Lucero or Ledo. Augie dispatches Ledo and Galey to kill Lucero when he steps off the plane. These thugs in sunglasses take the airport operator, Rod Balcom (Louis Jean Heydt of "The Big Sleep"), hostage along with his family and sweat it out until Lucero arrives. Complications occur when Ledo learns Augie has died from the wounds he received in the barbershop shooting. Ledo tries to cut another deal with Lucero that would assure him of a top-level job in the reorganized mob. However, the crime bosses veto the idea during a vote.

Most of the action focuses on the suspenseful wait and all the unforeseen complications that arise when Ledo and Galey take Balcom and his family hostage. The cast is convincing enough and the mobsters look intimidating in their heavy, dark sunglasses, snap-brim fedoras, and overcoats. Unfortunately, "Inside the Mafia" generates only minimal excitement during its brief 72-minute runtime. One exciting moment occurs near the finale when a Galey does a header, tumbling down a set of wooden stairs, demolishing most of the banister as he smashes through it. Whoever performed that stunt deserves an ovation. Ultimately, as in all Hollywood 'crime doesn't pay' yarns, the greedy mobsters, who don't trust each other farther than they can sling bullets at each other, about the same time that the authorities arrive in force to flush them out with tear gas. One of the problems with "Inside the Mafia" is the rut the film degenerates into after Ledo and Galey take hostages. In one respect, "Inside the Mafia" reminded me of an early Sinatra epic "Suddenly" (1954) where an assassin and his thugs take over a house near a railroad depot and hold a family at gunpoint. They plan to kill the President of the United States as he gets off the train. The plot bogs down in the interaction between the gangsters and the innocent bystanders. The same thing happens here, too. Indeed, it is a staple among Hollywood crime thrillers going back as far as "The Petrified Forest" (1936) where the action grinds to a halt and characters argue with each other. Predictably, none of the gangsters are depicted in a sympathetic light. More yapping than scrapping, "Inside the Mafia" qualifies as tame from fade-in to fade out.

Mildly entertaining crimefest

[scsu1975 · 5/10 · 21 November 2022]

A bunch of non-Italian actors culturally appropriate my heritage.

The film opens with the Blues Brothers pumping four bullets into mob boss Ted de Corsia, but he manages to survive, at least for a few reels. His lieutenant, Cameron Mitchell, decides to get even with the big boss. What follows is non-stop lack of action as Mitchell and Robert Strauss take over a house at an airport, hold everyone hostage, and wait for a plane carrying the head man from Italy. This sequence is just a ripoff of "Suddenly," which at least featured a real Italian guy.

The supporting cast includes Ed Platt as another mob boss, and James Brown (not the Godfather of Soul) as one of the most useless cops in film history. Frank Gerstle plays a hitman - but at least his suit fits for a change. Louis Jean Heydt runs the airport. The characters have names like Chins, Augie, and Julie (yes, that's a guy).

The climactic shootout at the mob meeting is something you'd expect from "The Naked Gun." The narrator then tells us this may be the end of organized crime. Yeah, right. Apparently he never heard of cable companies.

OK low-budget, hard-boiled gangland drama with Cameron Mitchell

[django-1 · 8/10 · 20 December 2003]

Here's another one of the 25 or so films director Edward L. Cahn churned out in a three-year period for the same production company (which went under a few names), some of which are surprisingly good and most of which are at least admirable for the creative ways they get around their VERY low budgets. Cameron Mitchell starred in 3 of these (see review of PIER 5, HAVANA). Here we are in the gangland genre. These are the kind of gangsters who wear dark suits, dark hats, dark sunglasses, and chain smoke...just in case you forget who the gangsters are. The syndicate seems to have broken down into some competing factions, one led by Ed Platt of "Get Smart" fame, the other led by Cameron Mitchell. The main boss over all the units, who has been in exile in Italy, is coming back to the USA to a small airstrip in upstate New York, and the competing groups heat up the competition prior to his arrival. I won't give away any more of the plot. Like most low-budget films, this features a lot of talk, which builds up the tension, as does the tough-guy acting from the principals. The film also uses that low-budget staple--the rewrite of PETRIFIED FOREST, where a group of criminals hold some regular citizens hostage. It's cheap to film, is in one setting, and constantly refers to outside events that don't have to be filmed. As always, director Edward L. Cahn is a master of b-movie pacing, and writer Orville Hampton wrote a number of fifties b-movie classics, TV shows from Perry Mason to Scooby-Doo, and some of this group of Cahn-directed films. And of course Cameron Mitchell is convincingly tough as the gang leader--if you need any convincing of Mitchell's subtlety as an actor, watch the way his character keeps changing in small increments in the last twenty minutes of the film after gangland leader Johnny Lucero arrives back from Italy. If you like 1950s gangland b-movies and like cheap rewrites of Petrified Forest, or if you are a Cameron Mitchell fan who needs to see everything the master appeared in, you'll want to catch this film. People raised on the elegant, operatic gangsters of Coppola and Scorsese might find a film like this primitive and laughable (it's their loss!).

Good Try, No Cigar - Inside the Mafia

[arthur_tafero · 5/10 · 1 November 2023]

This film has about as much to do with the Mafia as Chef Boyardee Spaghetti has to do with Italian food. Despite that, most of the film is fairly engaging, except for a magical flight from the house to the car by a boyfriend who must have run faster than the road runner to get to his car and start it. (You will know what I mean when you see the scene). Cameron Mitchell and a group of B actors do a decent job with the lines they are given, but the movie runs out of gas in the last fifteen minutes or so. It could have been a much better film, had it been a bit more realistic; especially at the end. There is a also a pretty hilarious statement that this event marked the end of organized crime in the US LOL. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you. Watchable for the first hour.

Actually more credible than Godfather movies

[drystyx · 8/10 · 13 May 2017]

There is a black and white feel to this film, and a McCarthy era style of American idealism in the fight against the mob.

That is lost today thanks to movies supported by the mob to make people think mobsters are demi gods, movies like the Godfather. And anyone who denies that is either a liar or a moron. The Godfather movies, the Scarface with Pacino, the Good fellow movies, all are backed by mobsters to let people know they are a superior species.

And it worked. The mob reigns supreme due to their mental hold over the ignorant masses.

Come back to the fifties, before Hollywood completely sold out, before Hollywood was totally run by the mob, and we get an actually more credible look at mobsters.

What this film gives us that the later films don't is "credible characters in incredible situations." Like many other fifties era mob movies (Suddenly comes to mind), it revolves around innocent Americans threatened by a trio of hoodlums. And here the trio is almost as super human as modern mobster movies. One is a super tough that man handles even the tall policeman who has the drop on him.

The reactions and emotions of the characters are what make this a better film than what one gets today. The "Lucky Luciano" figure is pretty obvious, and tricks the hoodlums who think they are upwardly mobile in a very believable way. We see it coming, but we also see how the trio of hoodlums led by Cameron Mitchell (who does a remarkable job in this role, tops anything Brando, DeNiro, or Pacino did later in mob roles), we can see how they are fooled into their actions.

There are reviews of this film that make no sense, because they are either made by insiders who think they are part of the mob family and want the mythology of demi god standards to sell to the public, or they are complete morons, bubble boys who have lived in cubicles instead of on the streets on in Nature.

At the same time, this film has a fault in trying to label the events as being totally accurate. They are dramatized as far as the "end of the mob" goes, but that's about the only fault. The rest is very well told, certainly more real than the stories written by mobsters for idiots who believe mobsters.