Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

The Don Is Dead Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov January 10, 2021

Richard Fleischer's "The Don is Dead" (1973) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka Entertainment. The supplemental features on the disc include vintage trailer for the film and exclusive new audio commentary by critic and author Scott Harrison. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

I cannot agree that The Don is Dead was produced to compete with The Godfather. Compete for what exactly? The honor of being crowned the greatest mafia film ever made? A quick look at the cast that was assembled for The Don is Dead immediately invalidates such a theory. There are some very solid actors there -- Anthony Queen, Frederic Forrest, Al Lettieri, Robert Forster, Abe Vigoda, and Louis Zorich -- but you are not looking at a team of top stars that could have made The Don is Dead a grand classic. This is simply an indisputable fact. The kind of epic film some folks have speculated The Don is Dead was conceived to be requires very serious polish work and right from the get-go you can tell that Richard Fleischer was going for the exact opposite quality. Indeed, it is not a coincidence that The Don is Dead has a very casual, street-smart personality. Pay attention to the seemingly endless executions that are part of its narrative and you will realize that the lack of glamour is entirely intentional. Why? Because the goal is to portray the killing almost as a nuisance in a very messy business, which means that the emotions that build up the great drama in The Godfather are utterly incompatible with it. This is what Fleischer emphasizes ad nauseum in The Don is Dead -- being a mobster is a lousy occupation and the risk of getting a bullet in your head is always the same, regardless of whether you are at the very top and calling all the shots, or at the very bottom doing the dirty work for the people above you.

The original material for The Don is Dead comes from Marvin H. Albert’s novel, who also worked on the screenplay, but the film delivers Fleischer’s interpretation of it. The aging Don Angelo (Quinn) is tricked by the younger and very ambitious mobster Luigi Orlando (Charles Cioffi) to begin a romantic relationship with the young and very beautiful aspiring singer Ruby Dune (Angel Tompkins). What Don Angelo does not know is that Ruby is already in a romantic relationship with Frank Regalbuto (Forster), who happens to be the son of his late best friend. Frank also has huge ambitions and is already working with a prominent mafia boss in Naples whose people supply massive amounts of drugs that are distributed in America. When Frank discovers that Don Angelo has been seeing his girl, he goes berserk and a deadly gang war becomes inevitable, which of course is precisely what Orlando has been hoping for. So, there isn’t a shortage of intrigues in The Don is Dead, but once the mayhem begins everything actually becomes very pragmatic -- the betrayals, the dirty tricks, the executions, they are all done with a clear understanding that the business comes first.

If there is still any doubt that Fleischer wasn’t interested in glamorizing the mafiosi, as it appears some folks expected he would after the success of The Godfather, examine closely the transformation of Forrest’s character. Initially, he is a low-level executioner who seems eager to find the right excuse to walk away from the business. His brother (Lettieri) urges him to stay with him because they would become independent and eventually have enough to retire in style, and he reluctantly agrees. Then in the midst of the gang war he abruptly concludes that there are opportunities for him to claim a piece of the business and begins dealing with the same people that forced him on the warpath. All is suddenly forgotten and proper arrangements made in the most unglamorous way imaginable. This guy turns out to be an even more cynical pragmatist than the people he previously planned to walk away from, which of course makes him even more repulsive.

There are winners and losers in The Don is Dead but they are all seriously unlikable characters. This is entirely by design. From time to time a few of them get opportunities to appear strong and impress the clueless around them, but everything about these characters and their existence is off-putting. Needless to say, when the final credits roll The Don is Dead accomplishes exactly the opposite of what The Godfather does -- it portrays mobsters as a big tribe of backstabbing losers.

The Don Is Dead Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 and granted a 1080p transfer, The Don is Dead arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka Entertainment.

The release is sourced from an older master that was supplied by Universal Studios. Unfortunately, this master does not have a stable organic appearance and at times actually becomes rather problematic. All of the visible anomalies are a byproduct of surface filtering combined with mild sharpening which flatten the visuals and in select ares produce classic edge-enhancement patterns (see screencapture #7). Needless to say, depth is quite inconsistent and a lot of nuances in darker areas are either barely recognizable or lost. Grain exposure is unconvincing. In fact, often times when the camera zooms the surface of the visuals moves in odd directions because the grain is actually stuck under the sharpening, which is precisely the reason why fluidity is problematic. The color scheme is good. The primaries are solid and nicely saturated and there are very good ranges of supporting nuances. However, in darker areas the digital anomalies have destabilized some darker nuances, so there is a lot more unnatural black and shades of gray. Image stability is excellent. There are no distracting large debris, cuts, damage marks, warped or torn frames to report. So, my guess is that viewers with smaller screens may tolerate the technical presentation rather easily, but on larger screens the digital anomalies become unmissable. My score is 3.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

The Don Is Dead Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English LPCM 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

I noticed a few extremely light distortions after the melee in the garage in the very beginning of the film. They are in the upper register so unless the volume is turned up a lot, I don't believe most people will notice them. The rest is fine. Clarity, sharpness, and balance are very nice. The explosions sound good too, but you should not expect a great deal of dynamic intensity, or at least not of type that is present on modern blockbusters.

The Don Is Dead Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - a vintage trailer for The Don is Dead. Remastered. In English, not subtitled. (2 min).

• Commentary - author and critic Scott Harrison covers a wide range of topics, from the socio-cultural environment in the U.S. at the time when The Don is Dead emerged to the genesis of the film and the trends in mainstream crime films after the success of The Godfather to the environment in which gangsters were placed. There are also some interesting comments about the casting choices that were made as well as Richard Fleischer's directing methods.

• Booklet - an illustrated booklet featuring an extensive essay on the crime films of director Richard Fleischer by film writer and journalist Barry Forshaw, as well as technical credits.

The Don Is Dead Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The damage great films like The Godfather and Scarface have done on mainstream perceptions about mobsters in America is truly incalculable. They legitimized lifestyles and values that were essentially incompatible with the real world of organized crime, where loyalty and honor for instance meant very little and life was as cheap as a pack of cigarettes. (In case you have any doubts that it is so, spend a night with Whitey: United States of America V. James J. Bulger). Richard Fleischer's The Don is Dead comes much closer to the truth, which is precisely the reason why it lacks the glamour of The Godfather and Scarface. What its unlikable characters do is essentially a lot of pragmatic backstabbing and killing that weed out the weaker and naive amongst them. The survivors then keep rearranging their interests until the next wave of disputes and bloody troubles disrupt the business, exactly as it used to happen in the real world. Eureka Entertainment's release of The Don is Dead is sourced from an older and not terribly convincing master that was supplied by Universal Pictures. If you want it in your collection, find a way to rent and test it first, and then consider a purchase.