Prince of the City

In other news, the "action movie" phenomenon of the 70s/early 80s is a very interesting epiphenomenon of the MAGAⁱ. The ~only function of those flicks was to provide rage escapism for adult blue collar males who were aware of the Mafia through daily interaction, but liked to imagine some kind of separation, "if those scumbags that are totally not my betters ever rapedⁱⁱ my wife and daughter, why I... I... I'd totally Slyvester Seagallⁱⁱⁱ all over them!"

The tired bits of nonsense went away not because "Mafia went away" and other Giuliani^iv nonsense -- but because the blue collar adult male they were masturbating went away.

This obvious point is well transparent among others^v in the otherwise very interesting^vi Sidney Lumet offering^vii.

The story of the making of this film is worth considering -- it was written by a district attorney^viii about an actual case ("Daniel Ciello" was called Bob Leuci irl). The doubtful advantage of literacy is that guilty lawyers try to write memoirs where guilty cops try to do actual things. The onanist has over the normal human being the significant advantage of producing no actual offspring he then has to abide by, which accounts for the popularity of literacy as substitute living.

It was then optioned by Brian De Palma's outfit for half a million (back in the `70s that was not yet quite the chump change of today) and intended to cast the usual suspects, de Niro etcetera. The project fell through, to be made instead by Lumet with Bruce Willis as an extra^ix.

Doesn't this strike you as indeed very apt ?

The other obvious point would be, of course, that oft-repeated and well-understood "here's what they don't tell you when they bring you those papers to sign". It's not just the simple and plainly obvious "they've no money, the wanna-be big shots over in Washington", however.

The point is well and thoroughly made that what they lack, money could never buy even if they did have it (which -- they never did have and they never will have, entirely empty protestations to the contrary notwithstanding). "It's the company you keep", some guy says, and it's evidently spot-on.

Tellingly, the only actual hero of any substance in the whole assemblage of perambulating avortons, readily recognized as such by the implicit hero the cameras follow around, is the one guy who doesn't wish to make a deal with the leaf-bearing Ef-deer.

Even more tellingly, you can have actual strong women, both respectable and interesting. Somehow, mysteriously, "inexplicably", they don't at all follow the obnoxious seamstress model pushed by the same California "entertainers" that produced the pantsuited hilarity's original pantsuits. I wonder, how could this be ?!

I'd say it's worth watching, if you wish to spend three hours looking at why the WTC bombing was an absolute necessity. It's not like the US had any sort of future even before Moscow gave up on sovietism, let alone ulterior events. Failure to thrive, it's a thing. A thing like cancer, if you will.

1. That delusional notion that, to quote,

   Could anyone really believe the earth was going to swallow up the incredible productive assets and unlimited human ingenuity existing in America?

   which is to say yet another "Natura non facit saltus, ast non mea natura nequem ad perniciem meum". Good luck with all that. [↩]

2. Cuz they'd totally have to, no blonde girl would ever see sense of her own power. It's gotta be drugs and shit, god fucking forbid. [↩]
3. They loved the idea so much they even made the dude governor. [↩]
4. Hey, remember the last time some anodyne Lawsky pinhead was going to matter in Bitcoin ? Back then they didn't even have to hire coolies, could still find local Italians even! [↩]
5. At the first juncture where the title character suddenly realises that his newly found Federal Government friends are about as useful as pisswater -- it occurs to him his wife's at home and he goes into verbose overdrive. [↩]
6. The jew New York Magazine put in charge of the matter, one Nicholas Pileggi, didn't. Let's quote for lulz from the 1981 (August 31st) opinion of the eventual author of Goodfellas and Casino (neither of which I've reviewed, by they way, have you noticed ?) :

   The movie version doesn't even suggest the high incidence of graft at the time among narcotics detectives and, particularly, among the members of the city's elite Special Investigation Unit, to which Leuci was assigned. In fact, the film, even more than the book, makes heroes out of some of the most corrupt and dangerous cops in the country and ignores entirely the chancy game Detective Leuci played with prosecutors.

   Most dangerous, the pantsuit shithead says. Most dangerous to whom ? Or rather, and actually, and properly, most dangerous to what ? How is Prince of the City superficial and unserious and "making heroes of the wrong people" in a way Goodfellas isn't ?

   Don't tell me it's simply because Pileggi wants his ideas of the preeminence of the state defended at all costs, and words cease to matter or to carry meaning the moment the obvious is put plainly : that socialism does not work ; that "government" in the Lincoln-Roosevelt sense does not work ; that people and people alone, and their relations and their hierarchies are the only basis for any sort of life on Earth ?

   The statist has no shame and no compunction, and so no, it's not the case "his ideas changed" from 1981 to 1986. They didn't change at all -- Goodfellas permits (and in permitting, imports) the pantsuit notion of "state" in a way Prince of the City does not tolerate. This is anathema to the socialistard, and that's all there is to it. [↩]

7. Prince of the City, 1981, by Sidney Lumet (J. P. Allen produced and wrote), with nobody and deliberately so. [↩]
8. You can readily see the Mary Sue, the author is the schmuck acting entirely out of character towards the end. Really, ambitious pinhead will "tender his resignation" ? Over a matter of principle ? In those offices ? Not on your fucking life. They're scum sucking nobodies for a fucking reason, after all, they didn't end up there straight off the street, they ended up there working hard at selecting themselves over a decade or more. [↩]
9. This was long before your hero broke it big into the mainstream with that Days of Our Lives thing with Cybill Shephard. Overnight tough guys usually take about ten years. [↩]