An excerpt from the book An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America -




I think it brings up a good question. Is there anything relevant left to say about the Mafia, through a movie or TV show, that the general public would find interesting? That could be on the same epic, quality level of The Godfather movies, Goodfellas, or The Sopranos? Us mob aficionados will be interested in most anything mob-related. And it's easy for Hollywood to churn out any run-of-the mill mob story. But something high-quality? Something relevant today? I think going retro with Boardwalk Empire was smart but it's not on the same level as the others mentioned above. I'm talking about a worthy "successor" to The Sopranos, the way The Sopranos was a successor to Goodfellas, and Goodfellas was a successor to The Godfather.

What I would find interesting is to try and make a new series by HBO, with a crew of a New York family in Florida. Sopranos main character was the boss and yes you had paulie, chris etc but to make the main character like a capo and see how it works on a more street level.

Kinda like Allie Boy Persico in Kings of South Beach.

There is. There is always room for good story and good characters. Good writing is good writing.

The bad part about success is that it is copied constantly. I'm sure after The Sopranos, tons of pilots were written about the mafia and a sort of new angle to make it unique.

For the most part it takes time between certain niche stories for the audience to get back into it.

BUT look at zombie stories. There have always been zombie stories and there is a huge niche audience for them, like the mafia, but the Walking Dead is doing a very bare bones, throwback version of the zombie story. So, IMO, anything can be done, it just has to be done well.

Alot of stuff is timing. Things hit the zeitgeist and it blows up, you never know.

Only thing left to do would be the death of the mob. I know Sopranos was about the decline, now the only angle left is the end of the mafia. We sure don't need another mob show though because it can't compare to the Sopranos.

TBH, nothing would be better then Sopranos or Godfather. Its like the Dark Knight trilogy, we all knew that tdkr wouldnt be as good as the dark knight but it was still good. What I'm saying people can be so negative if something new pops up. But Nicky that would be great!

That's basically what I was getting at. The Godfather portrayed one era. Goodfellas another. The Sopranos another. Regarding real life, we're still in The Sopranos era. But what will the next (and likely final) stage look like as far as being portrayed in film?

Maybe they'll have Mob Overtones but have all the Costa Rica Wire-rooms that are used to support Multi-Million Dollar Gambling Rings. Maybe some Eastern Europeans Stealing their Money or rackets.. money could show the mob in decline to its rivals. Drugs belong to the cartels..Russians Prostitution. As @Scorcese said we can't forget about the Serbian Cannibals. The Feds always follow the money.....Maybe have a movie where its criminals vs criminals and leave the stuipid f'n fbi out of it.

Something with ties to street gangs? And the union racketeering angle has never been fully explored. St. Louis in the 70's with relations to the Syrians, that would be a good fit.

Maybe Montreal during the Rizzuto era. It was said that Vito was the only one who could put an end to the bloody biker wars, it would include every gang in the city, plus a different country with a different culture.

Was there every a French Connection movie with the mafia angle? Includes Buffalo, Cotronis, and Carmine 'Gribbs' Tramunti, as well as the Corsicans and Luciano in Sicily. That's enough for an original series.

BarretM., Write it. You already have your 'treatment' & characters.

There are many stories to tell.

I've yet to see a film or story about the Mafia in the southern part of the US like Orlando or New Orleans. From what I've read, New Orleans had a prominent Sicilian community down there.

The best thing about the Sopranos was the dysfunctional characters anyway. The only thing thats really changed is that the mob are less intimidating than they even were at the late 90's when the series began and they rarely kill nobody anymore.

Once a good writer gets way from that angle of it(which the Sopranos still held onto to a degree) and have the balls to let go of all the cliched bullshit that usually goes along with mob productions then what's left is even better in my view.

You got the decline of guys who once felt like kings, you got mob wannabes and mob wives flaunting themselves for their 15 minutes of fame and you got old mob guys coming out of the joint trying to do shake-downs on businesses and people who don't even know who the fuck they are anymore.

This thing has legs believe me. Look at ol Howie Winter (yeah I know he aint Italian but just an example of an old fuck trying to keep living off an old rep) "Everyone around here knows who I am" in a recent extortion case but the guy just weren't threatened by him cos its a different age and people just don't grow up in fear of the mob in their neighborhoods.

Best thing about the Sopranos was comedy right? For me anyway I was laughing my ass off at every night of it. Thats why I'm sure it will come back but it has to have a good writing team otherwise it will be a waste of time.

It has to be realistic with the body count. Everyone starts dropping like flies then I'll switch off. You don't need it, it's all there the sleaze, the paranoia, the modern technology with everything looking like it could be a mini-bug. I mean eating a bowl of breakfast cereal and finding a toy is probably enough to send these guys into a paranoid frenzy overload so psycho have they switched to all this surveillance shit.

Just imagine the breakfast table. The wife is talkin about what shes wearing for the TV interview, the kid is living off a reputation he don't have along with a few local punks, the boss is bustin his balls cos he aint putting enough dough in the breadbasket and his daughter is dating a black fella from a two bit street gang and the poor fuck's having a breakdown cos he thinks everyone in life is either an informer, a leech or a bug.

The possibilities are there, and even better you ask me the Sopranos team should just take it to the next level. A new show altogether though no point bringing Tony Soprano back from the dead. Just make it some real fucked up, twisted shit.

All the mob stuff still goes on, but it's just ten times funnier cos of all the bullshit that goes with the mob life these days. This freak show needs another freak show on TV. One that isn't the mob wives

I'd be interested to see something based in the war the Italians had up here with Bulger.

Stories like this are bound to crop up again and again in cinema and it has already had SHowtime's 'Brotherhood' which was okay and pretty good in parts.

Thing is things have to move forward as well as be looking back all the time and you can guarantee the Whitey thing will run and run. He could even live another five, ten years or more so there'll be the Shawshank Redemption version at some point, the conspiracy too the one where Whitey trains an out of work bum to mimic him and incorporate his DNA so WHitey can snag the reward and flee to a tropical island retreat in the Caribbean raising a toast with his retired law enforcement buddies. He'll probably become a gangster in a superhero flick too if he haven't done already.

Like the wild west tales of old this one will run and run. There's bound to be one from Connolly's point of view too so no need to worry on this front the Whitey story will run and run.

There'll probably even be a movie made about all the movie's made about Whitey and it'll end with Whitey perched upon a hammock in Hawaii going "so long suckers" whilst waving a fistful of dollars and thanking his stunt double who then dies and federal mandates stipulate you can't make someone dead do the time. So then Whitey returns becomes the next chapter...

Then WHitey returns to Southie to wage war with what's left of the mob and we're into part 8 of the saga...

And when he do pass through to the other side they can begin production on that Halloween special they been working on the one where he appears as a ghoulish leprechaun to teenage junkies in a methadone dependency unit in Southie...

When the walls start getting painted with blood was it the junkies giving up, was it the whitey little leprechaun? You see you just don't know...

Still many stories
Philly with scarfo
whitey bulger
family secrets
chicago during 60's 70's

Well there is a movie coming out about the Family Secrets trial so that should be interesting.

I'd like to see that too. You got any more info on this?

http://www.fivefamiliesnyc.com/2012/09/operation-family-secrets-movie-is-in.html

Thanks Nicky.

Philly's Scarfo major beef with The Gambinos about territory in Atlantic City.

I thank a movie about the Boston mob war of the 90's would be very interesting. Perhaps starting with the tapping of the Medford LCN initiation then leading to the Salemme botched hit at the pancake house and into the Renegade faction's attempts at grasping power. I'm not sure if the nation as a whole would give two rats about that story but it hits home to me living in the area when it was going down and actually being around and working for people connected to some of the renegade faction

I'd have to disagree. How do you connect Goodfellas to The Godfather? Aside from dealing with the Mafia, they are completely different movies.

A Rizzuto movie would be great! We'd have to wait awhile until the whole situation in Montreal is over and he find out exactly what happened. Imagine documenting his rise in the Bonanno family, taking over in Canada and having all the gangs come together. Then his family's decline when he goes to prison, and his father and son being killed. Then him being released, and taking back control and getting revenge.

That story is more interesting than anything fictional you could come up with.

I think Ivy might be saying will their be anything new from probably the last generation of the mob. Everything you guys have mentioend have been from the mobs power days, all the good stories are from a by gone era. What kind of story will the next generation be telling, or will the best stories be from a by gone era. What kind of stories will the mob in 2015 be making that people will takk about like we do the mob from the 80's. There will be no more union co0ntrol to talk about, the days of mob wars are probably all behind us. What will be the relevent discussion, turning gambling money into legit businesses, how the bosses hide because they feared RICCO. We all grew up on stories of the prohibition mob, the mob of the 60's, 70's, mob wars, hits, union control, we grew up on stories about Lucky, Lansky, Seigal, Capone, we had the Valantines days masacure, The KC Masacure, Vegas, The Banana war, Colombo war, Philly War, River Quey war, Danny Greene war, this stuff will never happen again, this stuff is part of history, but what today will be the history of the future, what kind of story and will it tell.

That's why I think the Rizzuto story would be so interesting. It has union control, political clout, drug trafficking, gangs, mob war, betrayal and prison sentences.

I agree with you, the mob in canada resembles the American mob of the 1970's.

I would agree with that too. Rizzuto might be my favorite to read about and keep up with. I don't care who was locked up when he came back, to overcome what he has and to still reign supreme in the GTA it proves he has some clout. I think it would be even more interesting if Raynald wouldn't have been so stupid, of course if he wasn't so dumb using the Blackberry he would probably be dead like DiMaulo.

A biopic of Lucky Luciano might still be interesting for the general public as it's pretty much about the history of the New York mob on an epic scale. Also because Luciano will be recognisable since he already has a fairly visible role in the popular show Boardwalk Empire.

A movie about Roy De Meo will also be interesting as it will be comparable to other films about psychopathic killers such as the fictional Hannibal, the real life Zodiac serial killer, or Monster with Charlize Theron. Good thrillers always sell.

And ofcourse a movie that involves famous individuals such as Jimmy Hoffa or John F. Kennedy.

The general public will probably not be interested in the Scarfo era of the Philly mob, or the Colombo wars. However, a movie about a colorful individual such as Joey Gallo could be interesting for ordinary people.

a good film or two about the Philly mob are needed...one for the Scarfo era and one for the Merlino era

10th and Wolf was garbage