Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde inspired a new wave of gangster films, which The Brotherhood (1968) nearly whacked. Martin Ritt's crime saga was a notorious flop, nearly dissuading Paramount from adapting a certain Mario Puzo novel. It's more a product of Hollywood cluelessness than actively terrible.Vince Ginetta (Alex Cord) returns home from Vietnam to marry sweetheart Emma (Susan Strasberg). Instead of going into business, he joins brother Frank's (Kirk Douglas) underworld rackets. Their relationship quickly sours as Frank opposes the Commission's efforts to expand into electronics racket. Vince and Frank spar on this and other points, leading to a fraternal riff. The Commission grows tired of Frank, especially after he orders hits on his own. Frank flees to Sicily, and his ex-bosses entrust Vince with tracking him down.
The obvious knock against The Brotherhood is its distinct lack of authenticity. Despite filming the bookends in Sicily and Lalo Schiffrin's maranzano-infused score, it doesn't seem remotely Italian. Kirk Douglas can play bocce and shout "Mamma mia!" but he's still Kirk Douglas. This is one of The Godfather's best achievements: save James Caan, the principal Italian characters are Italian-Americans, beautifully capturing that subculture. The Brotherhood's gangsters are Sicily's equivalent of cigar-store Indians.
That said, The Brotherhood isn't terrible. Lewis John Carlino's script revolves around a clash between gangland traditions and modern technocracy. Frank learned his trade through breaking arms and busted heads, but the educated Vince checkmates him with smarts and flexibility. There's arguments over everything from Frank speaking Italian to family members arguing about pop music. When Frank retreats to Sicily it leads to an obvious denouement: the New World wiping out the Old.
This provides material for a gangland Cain-and-Abel story, and The Brotherhood fares reasonably well working this angle. Trouble is, it introduces other plot threads - namely a Federal investigation of Frank's rackets - that go nowhere. The Sicily scenes must have been expensive, yet are little more than exotic color; when the actors are Hollywood phony, shooting in Palermo adds nothing. The Brotherhood's conclusion would be moving if the material bolstering it weren't so unremarkable. Martin Ritt's direction is terse and economical. There aren't any action scenes, only killings with colorful touches: a painfully prolonged garroting, stuffing a canary in a victim's mouth. Leisurely paced, Ritt settles in for commission debates and fraternal squabbles. These scenes are pokey rather than pointed: they drive the plot and give the actors meaty material, but the story's too broadly drawn to achieve the desired depth.
Kirk Douglas is typically charismatic and troubled, nearly overcoming that he's as Italian as gefilte fish. Alex Cord shows the marked lack of talent that doomed him to television and second-string Spaghetti Westerns. Irene Pappas (The Guns of Navarone) and Susan Strasberg (Kapo) are harried gangland wives. Noted Italians Luther Adler (The Man in the Glass Booth) and Murray Hamilton (Jaws) play other Mafiosi. At least Eduardo Cianelli's appropriately cast, after playing Indian gurus and Latins for decades.
It's unfair to compare The Brotherhood against Coppola's masterworks, though its similar storyline doesn't dissuade us. Ultimately, its lack of Italian-ness is less damning than that it's unremarkable.
