Massacre Mafia Style (1974)

aka Like Father Like Son and The Executioner

As a member of the FBI (Full-Blooded Italians), I would ordinarily be deeply offended by Massacre Mafia Style, with its relentless barrage of stereotype-reinforcing.

True to the title, virtually every male Caucasian with a speaking part is—what else?—a gangster.  The lead character Mimi Miceli and his cohort Jolly Rizzo (Vic Caesar) are totally unrepentant mass- and serial-killers who gleefully say “Today, we eat; tomorrow, we shoot.”  You know, because those Italians are obsessed with two things, meals and amore—when not busy bumping off business rivals and debtors.

(A wedding singer belts out a song about pasta, driving home the point.)

Furthering the stereotyping, Mimi toasts every drink with “Cent’anni” or “Salut!” and fancies himself irresistible to women.  Additionally, he and Jolly routinely refer to “niggers,” dubbing a big-time black pimp “Superspook.”

Bad fellas -->

How would you like your ethnicity portrayed as amoral delusional homicidal psychotic racists?

BUT…

Massacre Mafia Style is so delightfully inane and insane, it gets a pass.  (Well, mostly.)  And that’s primarily because it was a project of director/writer/producer Duke Mitchell, who also plays Mimi, credited under his birth name, and croons on the soundtrack.

The late Mr. Mitchell was a true showbiz “character.”  A lounge singer on the Vegas/Palm Springs nightclub circuit, he was also half of Mitchell & Petrillo, a comedy team that, er, “resembled” Martin & Lewis so much, Dino and Jerry were inspired to sic the lawyers on them.

Mitchell & Petrillo made enough in-roads to costar with a genuine legend in the attempted comedy Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla (1954), and Sammy Petrillo had a tiny non-speaking part in the bona fide cult classic The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (1962).

Annnnnd that’s about as far as they got.

However, Duke was determined to make his mark on the silver screen, using money he saved from his singing engagements to finance films with his fingerprints all over them.  And like the platoon of Ed Woods before him (and since), the passionate paisan would not be discouraged—despite the fact he clearly lacked any grasp of cinematic storytelling.

Case in point:  the representation of the passage of time completely eludes the auteur.

The film opens with Mimi bidding farewell to his six-year-old son before leaving Sicily for Los Angeles.  At one point in the picture, there’s a fleeting mention of a few years passing since Mimi and Jolly began their larcenous partnership.  Then, other than Mimi suddenly sporting a moustache and Superspook donning a twelve-dollar Afro wig that doesn’t come remotely close to fitting his head, there is NOT ONE SINGLE INDICATION of time passage throughout the bulk of MMS’ running time!    

Vehicles are of the same era.  No character shows any physical sign of aging or even a wardrobe update.  Absolutely nothing changes despite the story unfolding over several years.

I used “the bulk” above because it brings us to the kooky kicker, the sole exception.  Late in the proceedings, one goomba asks Mimi about his son, proud papa noting the boy is now “seventeen years old.” Moments later, Mimi returns to Sicily to reunite with his familia, and Junior is a full-grown man looking to attend Harvard Law School, suggesting he has graduated from college.

Some quick math based on a recent college grad being age 21 tells us it’s been fifteen years since Mimi left the Old Country to mob-up L.A., yet he’s not acquired so much as a single wrinkle, nor has his father and his dad’s lieutenant visibly aged.  

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I have no idea whether the self-proclaimed King Of Palm Springs was too budget-bereft to invest in vintage car rentals, costuming and a makeup technician to create the illusion of time passing, or it just never dawned on him.  I’m leaning towards the latter, given NO attempt was made.

It is easy enough to miss the aforementioned split-second year references.  Didn’t notice the lip-warmer myself until looking for photos to accompany this review.  Consequently, seeing the adult Junior would understandably elicit a loud “What the…?” from most viewers.

Be prepared to do that A LOT during your inaugural MMS viewing.

This is especially true during Massacre’s triple-trippy scenes, wherein Mitchell breaks into (unintentionally side-splitting) impassioned sermons.  Meant to be profound editorial commentary on motherhood and the treatment of Italians, they are nuttier than the assembly line at a cashew-canning facility, and drenched in self-loathing.

There is a great temptation to memorize the mobster’s meandering mini-monologues, to drop them into conversations and freak out friends.  That’s how wonderfully berserk Mimi’s riffs are.

I’m not going to devote much column space to discussing the MMS plot—what little of it there actually is—since it’s your basic heartwarming “Boy leaves home, boy slaughters a few dozen, boy returns home” tale.  You, being an attractive genius, have figured that out by now.

Nonetheless, you will be surprised to learn groups of hoodlums about to be shot simply stand there awaiting their execution (including one scene showing three men being felled by two shots), no running or reaching for a weapon.  And evidently Sgt. Joe Friday, the Adam-12 duo, the FBI and every other branch of law enforcement were on vacation that decade-and-a-half, as not even a meter maid shows up to hassle Mimi and his criminal cohorts.

I mean, that’s no less implausible than Jolly and partner making their City Of Angels felony debut by easily kidnapping the city’s head racketeer during a Sunday mass he’s attending (hey, it’s not like crime bosses are surrounding by bodyguards or pack pistols) and said honcho casually forgiving the twosome for chopping off his pinkie to attach to their ransom-demand note.

Which also happens in our feature presentation.

If I were one of those formulaic reviewers who pens lines specifically designed in hopes of seeing them pull-quoted in ads or DVD packaging, I’d write “Massacre Mafia Style is a marvel of whacking and wackiness.”  But I’m not.

There are approximately 32.8 million crime and action dramas in existence, especially in light of how they flooded the market during the VHS boom. Most of them are dull and derivative, a bore and a chore to watch.

No matter what could be said about Massacre Miami Style as a whole, it most definitely never bogs down or can be easily confused with another film.  It may also never make any sense, thanks to Duke’s charming disregard for continuity and love for “deep” lunatic rants.

It is these qualities—yes, qualities—that earn MMS inclusion in the hollow, er, hallowed halls of Manor On Movies, while all those street gang sagas, Road Warrior ripoffs and assorted others in the genre don’t even warrant consideration.

Here at M-O-M HQ, we have the highest regard for dreamers who never let such trivialities as a profound lack of ability dissuade them from pursuing their dreams and putting their visions on film, no matter how warped they are.  Duke conceived of a movie and completed it.  Have you, naysayers?

Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Manor sends you a Stately Salute.  And if you were still here among us, I’d add “Salut!”

Massacre Mafia Style got the blu-ray treatment (no joking!) and is streaming on Tubi as of this writing.