Lepke *** (1975, Tony Curtis, Anjanette Comer, Michael Callan) – Classic Movie Review 8556

Director Menahem Golan’s 1974 true crime Israeli-American film Lepke is a typically Seventies violent gangster movie in the Thirties Warner Bros-style, with an inspired performance by Tony Curtis, cast against type, giving an interesting account of Jewish mobster Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter, the man behind Murder Inc and New York syndicates in the Thirties.

The screenplay is written by Tamar Simon Hoffs and Wesley Lau, and Lepke’s complicated character is explored in some depth amid the routine action and all the clichés, and it is fair as tough entertainment made on a low budget (of $900,000).

[Spoiler alert] Lepke Buchalter was the only American mob boss to be executed by the US Government, according to the film’s publicity.

Appropriately, it was released in America by Warner Bros.

It runs 110 minutes but CBS cut 20 minutes from it for its 1983 network television premiere.

Also in the cast are Anjanette Comer, Michael Callan, Warren Berlinger, Milton Berle, Gianni Russo, Vic Tayback, Vaughn Meader, Mary Charlotte Wilcox, Jack Ackerman, Louis Guss, Lillian Adams, Albert Cole, Zitto Kazann, Johnny Silver, J S Johnson, Sammy Bow, John Durren and Barry Miller.

Lepke is directed by Menahem Golan, runs 110 minutes, is made by AmeriEuro Pictures Corp, is released by Warner Bros (1975) (US), is written by Wesley Lau and Tamar Simon Hoffs, shot by Andrew Davis, produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, scored by Ken Wannberg, and designed by Jack DeGovia and Vincent M Cresciman.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8556

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