Woodyanders Duke Mitchell's uniquely crazed virtual one man cinematic show celebrates Italian life, culture, honor, and tradition pertaining to that legendary organized crime institution the Mafia with a joyously crude micro-budget vigor and vulgarity that's truly something to behold. Sure, this tale of ruthless mobster Mimi Miceli's rise to power through the most brutish means possible might be incredibly inept, but star/writer/director/producer Mitchell tackles the whole thing with a genuine heartfelt sincerity that's perversely admirable in its sheer giddy audacity. Moreover, the unapologetically upfront elements of virulent racism and misogyny give this movie's depiction of the inner workings of the Mafia a certain coarse authenticity more sanitized mainstream takes on the same subject tend to lack.Mitchell truly puts his proverbial all into the juicy lead role of a dangerous loose cannon and delivers several priceless philosophical monologues with lip-smacking gusto (the one about the Italian woman in particular is a real doozy!). The excessive bloody violence comes through with the gory goods: An opening office building massacre sequence set to an infectiously jaunty Italian tune, a vicious pimp named Super Spook (!) gets crucified on Easter Sunday, and a guy winds up being impaled through the eye on a meat hook. Vic Caesar contributes an engaging performance as Miceli's loyal partner Jolly Rizzo, Lorenzo Dodo shines as the wise Don Mimi, buxom brunette 1960's pin-up model Cara Peters burns up the screen as scrumptious moll Liz, Fred Otash cuts a fearsome figure as the savage Bones, and George "Buck" Flower pours on the smarm as oily worm Vince Baccari. Essential viewing for hardcore aficionados of 70's grindhouse schlock.

RanchoTuVu The travails and exploits of a Sicilian hit-man, one could accurately refer to The Executioner as a classic example of deservedly obscure and very sleazy 70s exploitation. It's poorly written and it's badly acted. Thus, what this film really needed was more action and fewer lines. The story takes into account the rise of XXX pornography, as the main character in The Executioner considers entering into the porn industry as its taking off with the success of Deep Throat, which kind of connects the film's violent content to sex, both prime exploitation ingredients. As a 70s exploitation film, The Executioner has too much of the downside and not enough of the upside that that term carries with it. Still, for fans of borderline bad movies, it may not be a total disappointment.

NickNameNotAllowed-2 First off, this movie has the greatest opening ever! Its a classic B-movie and I can't believe it is so neglected by modern audiences. Duke Mitchell's wrote, directed and starred in this mafia classic. Mitchell is mostly know for his pairing in comedy group where he was the Dean Martinish character. He appeared as this character in the horrible B-film Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. A must see for those who love films so bad, they're good.But The Executioner (aka. Massacre Mafia Style) isn't a horrible film that is good. The movie itself is fun. And seems not to take itself too serious. The acting isn't good, but its enjoyable. The clichés are full blown. And ultimately, the story is a tragedy.The son of a mafia boss (Who was exiled from America) returns to California, to reclaim his family's honor and position in America. he is ruthless and starts wars with reigning mafia, At first planning to gain control of the pimps and pushers. Later getting involved with the porno industry.Spoiler: I enjoyed the motif of Italian tradition involving the breaking of bread with items in it. Its use at the end, hiding the gun that will kill our hero in the bread, was a great touch. Representing the tradition and tragedy within one family .i can't wait to see Gone with the Pope. its trailer looks amazing.

johnlarkin This may well be the worst film ever made. Not worst in the sense of so-bad-it's-good...it's more like the least entertaining, most drawn out bore ever put to film. It may be 80 minutes, but believe me, it will feel like an eternity. I first learned about this catastrophe when I was researching one of my favorite films ever, "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" (1952). As you may or may not know, Duke Mitchell, aka Dominico Miceli, was one half of the mercifully forgotten "comedy" team of Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo. This team was a shameless and unabashed imitation of Dean Martin (D.M., get it?) and Jerry Lewis, a comedy team that was very successful in 1952. Nothing I say here can impress upon you how deliberate and transparent the ripoff was. You'll just have to take my word for it if you've never seen it. In the highlight (cough) of Brooklyn Gorilla, Duke Mitchell (who, like in the Executioner, plays himself) is turned into a singing gorilla. I hope I have not left the impression that Brooklyn Gorilla isn't entertaining, it is outright hilarious. So, when I heard about a film which starred (and was directed by) that titular Gorilla of days gone by, and which was obviously made to cash in on the success of "The Godfather" (1972), I believed that I was in for a really hilarious evening when I finally located "The Executioner." Boy, did I ever get a wrong number. This film is stale, stale, stale, made up almost entirely of LONG, boring conversations about how tough Duke has had it, punctuated every now and then by fake and unconvincing violence. I guess it is a lot cheaper to have Duke drone on about his life experiences than to actually, I don't know, film them. One major liability of the film is Duke Mitchell's acting. Apparently, this was his first job in the movies in 17 years, and his screen presence (which was admittedly in existence in 1952) has altogether disappeared. There was not one instant he was on screen that I didn't believe he was reciting a script. If Mitchell wasn't credited on the imdb with the screenplay, I would have guessed that he was reading them for the first time from a big cue card somewhere off camera. Aside from the film's technical ineptitude, the story is riddled with cavernous plot holes. To give just one example, Duke has to get to the top by eliminating the "number one" Mafia leader. So he and one assistant abduct the guy from church. Are the Mafia leader's guards vampires, or is there some more plausible reason they would not follow him into church?In short, this is an extremely dull film that is no fun at all. If you are looking for a laugh, or a good grade-z movie, LOOK ELSEWHERE! You have been warned.