![]() LOVING a good inside story, and this one comes directly from someone who has been keeping the darkest and best kept secret in the U.S. I have a feeling Valachi was one such person. A classic example of compensation combined with guilty conscience. When they are around people not involved they are charming and generous to a fault. This conflict is why it was such a great novel and movie.) At some point they have to kill someone - not because of any personal reasons but because they are told to do so - and if they don't do it they are dead. And then the least likely son is drawn in by events and love of family. They may otherwise be decent people with a love of family but at a certain point they find themselves in a situation where they are embroiled in a life of crime and deception. Some people are born in a certain time period in a certain place where they are led into this. Maybe better, because Valachi really was in the mafia, while Henry Hill was a wannabee. It ranks with "Wiseguys" as an insider's account. But if you enjoy older Nonfiction and if you are as fascinated by the Mafia as I am, then maybe give it a read. Overall I enjoyed this book but I can't recommend it to most people because the writing style will put most readers off. ![]() Valachi himself makes it very clear that to the law abiding world he is a bad guy but within the world of the Mafia he was considered a good guy. I was concerned at the beginning that this book was going to try to make out Joseph Valachi to be a good guy but luckily it didn't. It was written in the 1960's so it reads a little dry in places and I had to Google things that were contemporary in 1968 that I have never heard of here in 2022. The Valachi Papers was an interesting read. I first heard of Joseph Valachi after watching The Godfather Part II for the 50th time on AMC and they shared the fun fact that the character Frank Pentangeli was based very very loosely on Joseph Valachi. For the first time people were given an inside look at the dark and mysterious world of The Cosa Nostra. For years even The FBI denied that it existed.Īll that changed when Joseph Valachi a member of the Genovese Mob Family "turned rat" and exposed the inner workings of the Mafia not only to law enforcement but to the American public at large. The Mafia is such a part of Pop Culture that it's hard to remember that, there once was a time when most people didn't even know it existed. I say yes because I'm a well adjusted adult, so everything turned out fine. Should I have been watching The Godfather at 10 years old? The way they lived - The way they died.The Mafia has fascinated me ever since I was 10 years and I watched The Godfather. As Valachi nears the end of his story, he learns that what has happened in the time leading up to and during his latest incarceration was not an accident. Through internal struggles for control of the mob, Valachi remained faithful to the mob family, including through Genovese's reign starting in the late 1930s. Valachi tells a story that starts in 1929, when he was first imprisoned in Sing Sing and met Tony Bender (Guido Leontini), who first introduced him to the life of the mob. A federal agent named Ryan ( Gerald O'Loughlin) convinces Valachi to be a mob informant in return for his safety inside. Genovese mistakenly believes Valachi was the snitch who put him behind bars. Inside, he learns his mob boss, Don Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura) is out to kill him. A fifty-nine year old Joe Valachi (Charles Bronson) is convicted of drug trafficking and imprisoned. were stymied by mob-arranged "accidents" and protests. This film had to be made in Italy, because attempts to shoot in the U.S. It tells precisely who did what to whom, when and why, electrifying the nation. Senate testimony of Joseph Valachi, a high-ranking figure in the Mafia. ![]() The book is based on real prison conversations and the actual U.S. ![]() The Valachi Papers - a crime action movie based on Peter Maas' best-selling book. ![]() Written by Stephen Geller, Peter Maas, Massimo De Rita. Starring: Charles Bronson, Lino Ventura, Jill Ireland, Joseph Wiseman, Gerald S. The Valachi Papers DVD 1972 (Region One - Playable in the US, Canada, Mexico, etc.) Digitally remastered. ![]()
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