The Valachi Papers (1972)

Directed by

Terence Young

Genre

crime film

Country

France, Italy

Runtime

2h 09m

Rated

R

Rating

6.5 of 10 from 117 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A mobster named Joseph Valachi decides to testify against the Mafia, revealing its secrets to the government. The film follows his life in organized crime and the dangers of becoming an informant.

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What happens

The Valachi Papers is a 1972 biographical crime film directed by Terence Young, which tells the story of Joseph Valachi, an American Mafia informant in the early 1960s who was the first ever mafioso to acknowledge the organization's existence. The film stars Charles Bronson as Valachi and Lino Ventura as Vito Genovese, along with Jill Ireland, Walter Chiari, Joseph Wiseman, and Gerald S. O'Loughlin. It is an adaptation of the 1968 non-fiction book by Peter Maas, with a screenplay by Stephen Geller. The film was an international co-production between Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis and French company Euro-France Films. It premiered on July 21, 1972 in Ireland. The Valachi Papers was a commercial success, but received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, many of whom negatively compared it to The Godfather. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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