Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Black Hand is 'based on the real-life story of Joseph Petrosino, a New York City police lieutenant who traveled to Palermo, Italy, to investigate the Mafia. He was shot and killed by snipers on the evening of March 12, 1909.' In the movie, Irish-American J. Carrol Naish plays the heroic Italian-American lieutenant's character.
The film is a dramatization of the career of New York City police officer Joseph Petrosino, a pioneer in the fight against organized crime in America. The film deals primarily with Petrosino and his Italian Squad's opposition to the extortion rackets of the Black Hand in lower Manhattan's Little Italy.
Joseph Petrosino (born Giuseppe Petrosino, Italian: [dʒuˈzɛppe petroˈziːno;-ˈsiːno]; August 30, 1860 – March 12, 1909) was an Italian-born New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer who was a pioneer in the fight against organized crime. Crime fighting techniques that Petrosino pioneered are still practiced by law enforcement agencies.
In 2017, Paramount announced that it has acquired the movie rights for an English language adaptation. [5] The new film, due for release in 2018, will star Leonardo DiCaprio as Joe, and will be partly based on Stephan Talty's upcoming novelization of Petrosino's assassination.
The book received praise from critics. [1] Author Mark Adams said: "The Black Hand is nonfiction noir at its best: a real-life Godfather prequel that pits an unforgettable Italian-American hero against the seemingly unstoppable menace that would become the New York mafia". [2]
In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Howard Thompson wrote:. While supposedly based on fact, the rhetorical contrivances of this lengthy Twentieth Century-Fox item defeat a trim little cast headed by Joseph Cotten and Jean Peters, and offers a few bursts of suspense and a fairly provocative story blueprint, the stalking of a beautiful poison expert. ...
The Reluctant Saint is a 1962 American-Italian historical comedy drama film which tells the story of Joseph of Cupertino, a 17th-century Italian Conventual Franciscan friar and mystic, venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church.
New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther was tough on the film when it was first released. He wrote, "The R. K. O. film, Walk Softly, Stranger, which came to the Globe on Saturday and which has Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli, the popular stars of The Third Man, in its top roles, actually was made before the latter picture and apparently withheld from release in the expectation of enhancement ...