Directed by Burt Balaban and Stuart Rosenberg
USA 1960

 

  An amusingly vicious performance by Peter Falk in the role of Abe Reles, the notorious gangland killer who came to the end of his career out of a window in Coney Island's Half Moon Hotel, is the one minor distinction of Burt Balaban's "Murder, Inc.," a new screen telling of an old story that came to the Victoria yesterday.

Mr. Falk, moving as if weary, looking at people out of the corners of his eyes and talking as if he had borrowed Marlon Brando's chewing gum, seems a travesty of a killer, until the water suddenly freezes in his eyes and he whips an icepick from his pocket and starts punching holes in someone's ribs. Then viciousness pours out of him and you get a sense of a felon who is hopelessly cracked and corrupt.

When he is used in the picture, as he is rather liberally at the start, to perform assassinations on those who are nuisances to Louie (Lepke) Buchalter's Brooklyn mob or to criminally assault the blonde wife of one of the cowardly young captives of the mob, there is a certain dark frightfulness and terror in this two-hour film, which is based on the book Burton Turkus and Sid Feder wrote about Murder, Inc.

Excerpt from Bosley Crowther's review at the NY Times located HERE


Theatrical Release: June 28th, 1960

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DVD Review: 20th Century Fox - Region 1 - NTSC

DVD Box Cover

   

CLICK to order from:
The Classic Crime Collection - Street Justice DVD set includes Murder Inc., The French Connection, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, The Seven-Ups
Distribution 20th Century Fox Home Video - Region 1 - NTSC
Runtime 1:43:00 
Video 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio
Average Bitrate: 5.7 mb/s
NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s

NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate:

Audio English (Dolby Digital 2.0), English (Mono),. DUBs: Spanish (mono)  
Subtitles English, Spanish, None
Features

Release Information:
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Video

Aspect Ratio:
Original Aspect Ratio 2.35:1

Edition Details:

• Theatrical Trailer
• Fox Flix (more trailers)

DVD Release Date: May 23rd, 2006
Keep Case
Chapters: 28

 

 

Comments:

This image is a little softer than we have come to expect from the recent wave of single-layered Fox DVDs. There is some minor damage in the form of infrequent blemishes that appear, mostly in the beginning of the film. It is certainly at an acceptable level, with strong contrast and decent grey-tones. Optional subtitles are a intruding shade of bright yellow and the audio has options for stereo and mono. No extras save a trailer and its a titles that fits perfectly well in the Classic Crime Collection - Street Justice package. Falk may be one of the better reasons to see the film, but for those keen on the milieu it won't disappoint.

Gary W. Tooze

 




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DVD Box Cover

   

CLICK to order from:
The Classic Crime Collection - Street Justice DVD set includes Murder Inc., The French Connection, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, The Seven-Ups
Distribution 20th Century Fox Home Video - Region 1 - NTSC




 

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