Black Hand, The / La mano nera - prima della mafia, più della mafia (1973)

2.5 out of 5

Rather than depicting the birth of the Mafia this period gangster film takes the mob as an already established entity and so unfortunately could have been set at any time during the intervening years. Nevertheless vintage details, in both set and costume, are observed.

A young impressionable Italian immigrant gets caught up in organised crime but he is no Tony Montana, merely someone who stumbles into a situation when career opportunities were not at a premium. Good but not exceptional, the film features one or two gory sequences and a tongue cut out with a razor is just horrible but at the other extreme a person crushed under wagon wheels is obviously a large rag doll.

Lionel Stander and Michele Placido star and Philippe Leroy puts in an appearance.

Maurizio Merli header graphic courtesy of Paddy O'Neill of Foxyfide Graphics