Unlimitedia
Sick Product of a Sick System
Ezmae Chang
This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.
MartinHafer
Some folks might watch "Hail, Mafia" and assume this is just a typical French gangster film. However, French film noir was quite different. This film, instead is much like if you started with French film noir and blended it with the New Wave...creating an odd sort of hybrid. Like many productions of the era, although it's not an American film is stars American actors. This is because in post-war Europe (particularly Italy), folks thought having American stars in their movies would make them more marketable and even B-list actors like Henry Silva and Jack Klugman would make the pictures very international.The plot to this story is very simple. Two gangsters have been contracted to kill a third gangster. But before they ultimately kill the guy, there is a build-up--with angry Phil (Klugman) and more business-like and cold Schaft (Silva). It's all accompanied by a lot of jazz music and is almost good...almost. The problem for me is twofold. First, there just isn't much in the way of plot. Second, this is a clearly a case of style over substance. Not a terrible film...but there are so many better French gangster films...such as any of the pictures of Jean-Pierre Melville.
kapelusznik18
****SPOILERS**** With on the lamb mobster Rudy Hamberg, Eddie Constantine, to be extradited to the US from Marseilles France to testify at the Congressional Crime Hearing against the mob it's decided to knock him off before he ever leaves the country. With top mob hit-man Schaft, Henry Silva, set to do the hit on Rudy all of a sudden retired mod hit-man now working as a counter man at the famed Katz's Delicatessen in the Lower East Side of Manhattan Phil, Jack Klugman, want's a shot at him too. And not just for the $50,000.00 he's to get for doing the job. It was, as he explained it, Phil's 16 year old sister Mandy whom Rudy knocked up which ended up her being institutionalized for life that Phil want's to avenge. In not just Rudy taking away her honor and virginity but her life,in having a normal one, as well.At first friction develops between Schaft & Phil in how just to do Rudy in whit Phil wanting to do it slow and painful and with Schaft wanting to do it quick and painless with a bullet between the eyes. It soon comes out that Phil has other ideas in what he plans to do with Rudy that's not part of the job designation he's been given by his mob higher ups. Which Schaft who up until the very end is totally unaware of.****SPOILERS**** Mind blowing surprise ending with the hit on Rudy not exactly as it was planned to be. That's with Phil doing his own thing at his partner Schaft's expense. Even though Phil planned it to perfection the job he was assigned and secretly planned to screw up didn't quit end up perfect. It was when Phil's emotions got in the way of his plan that it went haywire and fell apart. And the person he was out to save ended up dead together with his killer.P.S Mostly unknown at the time the movie was to make both Henry Silva and Jack Klugman go on the bigger and better roles mostly on TV. But it was their work or acting in "Hail, Mafia" that showed the hidden talent, that was soon to be discovered, that made then as successful as they were to become.
GUENOT PHILIPPE
This film is adapted from a Pierre Lesou's novel, the author of LE DOULOS, adapted by Jean-Pierre Melville in 62; one of his masterpieces. I read all Lesou's novels, I know them very well, and this novelist was the closest of them all to Melville's world. A world of cold, complex, and metaphysics friendship among gangsters. Cerebral atmospheres that most of Melville's fans - and there are many - know as well as I do. Yes, yes, yes, Melville SHOULD have done this film, HAIL MAFIA, it should have been a film for him. And certainly not for Raoul Levy. I won't say he is a lousy film maker. I think he did the best. But when I think of Melville when watching this film, I feel pain inside of me.In his movie, Levy shows us a short sequence of Brigitte Bardot dancing in one of her films: ET DIEU CREA LA FEMME. Levy committed suicide several months after his feature - HAIL MAFIA - because of his love for Bardot.A good film, as far as I can appreciate. It is very rare in France. I only got it from the USA.
dbborroughs
Very very good mob movie with Eddie Constantine the target of his former mob brothers. They want the retired gangster silenced so that there is no chance that he will come back from France to talk to the Senate committee on organized crime. To that end the mob sends two hit men (Henry Silva and Jack Klugman) to Europe to hunt down Constantine.More a drama then a "crime" film (with the action that implies) the movie really is about the relationship between the two hit men as they inter act on the hunt for their target. The performances of both Silva and Klugmen are excellent and its clear that Silva was a much better actor then his later supporting roles suggested. Equally good, and a revelation to people who only know him from the Odd Couple or Quincy, is Jack Klugman. Its a shame that Klugman kind of got lost in the TV series rut since he is clearly capable of a performances that are more complex than what a TV series require. The pairing of the two vastly under rated actors make for a superior drama that has been unfairly lost over the years. Hopefully a somewhere down the road someone will rescue this film and give it some sort of revival.This is one to search out.
