Reviews

This movie stars Ernest Borgnine in a straight dramatic role, and he pulls it off quite well. Set in New York City in 1906, newly arrived Italian immigrants are preyed upon by the Black Hand (La Mana Nera), which eventually became the Mafia. Borgnine plays lieutenant Petrosino, an immigrant himself, who realizes that the new immigrants will not cooperate with the police because the police in Italy were corrupt, and they expect the same in their new country. Petrosino realizes that he needs a squad of men - immigrants themselves - who speak the language, and can convince the people that things are different here. The Police Comissioner - who happens to be Teddy Roosevelt - agrees with him, and he gets his Italian Squad. Some violence ensues, as the Squad goes about breaking the power of the Black Hand, including a plot to kill Enrico Caruso, the greatest tenor of his time. Zhora Lampert plays the role of Petrosino's girlfriend, and later wife with excellent restraint, and the final scenes (this is a true story) are wrenching.