cult film freak: MENAHEM GOLAN'S 'LEPKE' WITH TONY CURTIS & ANJANETTE COMER

Written by James M. Tate / 8/14/2024 / No comments / anjanette comer , barry miller , biopic , cannon , gianni russo , michael callan , milton berle , mobster , seventies , simmy bow , tony curtis , vic tayback , warner archives

MENAHEM GOLAN'S 'LEPKE' WITH TONY CURTIS & ANJANETTE COMER

8/14/2024 | No comment

Title: LEPKE Year: 1975 Rating: **1/2

A cross between yet another 1970's THE GODFATHER clone and a drive-in exploitation with sex and violence, future Cannon Films co-owner Menahem Golan directs Tony Curtis as LEPKE... beginning with a younger version with an intense Barry Miller in turn-of-the-century America, committing a crime and about to be locked up... a shame since more time should have been spent on those youthful years...

Instead, right when the titular Jewish mobster gets out, he's already a 50-something miscast Tony Curtis, who at one point talks Milton Berle into marrying docile daughter Anjanette Comer... and about thirty-minutes later, when the detectives start knocking, she's supposed to have realized her mistake at marrying a lethal crime boss...

Gianni Russo and Vic Tayback in LEPKE

The shame is that we never experience Lepke's climb from rags to riches, nor do we get any inclination of how all the dirty work goes down... with the exception of a deliciously lethal short Italian who takes out Lepke's enemies...

So it's never exactly clear why he has either crooked friends or dangerous enemies since scene-after-scene entails dialogue more about crime than acting upon it... hopscotching into violent deaths (one has a mobster cutting the neck of a hooker while having sex) that, while pushing the R-rated envelope, has little content inside: what's here (including Vic Tayback and THE GODFATHER brother-in-law Gianni Russo) seems more of a 2-hour TV-movie trailer than a fulfilling cinematic mob biopic.

Tony Curtis in LEPKE

Anajanette Comer in LEPKE

Barry Miller as Young Lepke in LEPKE

Warner Brothers Archive of LEPKE

Gianni Russo and Vic Tayback in LEPKE

Tony Curtis in LEPKE

Simmy Bow in LEPKE

Tony Curtis in LEPKE with Michael Callan

Tony Curtis in LEPKE

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Tags : anjanette comer , barry miller , biopic , cannon , gianni russo , michael callan , milton berle , mobster , seventies , simmy bow , tony curtis , vic tayback , warner archives

James M. Tate

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