The Valachi Papers (1972 film)

The Valachi Papers
Directed by	Terence Young
Produced by	Dino De Laurentiis
Screenplay by	Stephen Geller Massimo De Rita Arduino Maiuri
Based on	The Valachi Papers by Peter Maas
Starring	Charles Bronson Lino Ventura Jill Ireland Walter Chiari Joseph Wiseman
Music by	Riz Ortolani
Cinematography	Aldo Tonti
Edited by	Johnny Dwyre Monica Finzi
Production company	De Laurentiis Intermarco S.p.A Euro-France Films
Distributed by	S.N. Prodis (France) Columbia Pictures (USA)
Release date	6 January 1972 (France) 3 November 1972 (USA)
Running time	125 minutes
Language	Italian English
Box office	$17,106,087 $8,382,000 (rentals)

$17,106,087
$8,382,000 (rentals)

The Valachi Papers is a 1972 crime movie starring Charles Bronson and Lino Ventura and directed by Terence Young. Adapted from the book The Valachi Papers (1969) by Peter Maas, it tells the true story of Joseph Valachi, a Mafia informant in the early 1960s. The film was produced in Italy, with many scenes dubbed into English.

The movie begins in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, where an aging prisoner named Joseph Valachi (Charles Bronson) is imprisoned for smuggling heroin. The boss of his crime family, Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura), is imprisoned there as well. Genovese is certain that Valachi is an informant, and gives him the "kiss of death," whereupon Valachi kisses him back.

Valachi mistakenly kills a fellow prisoner whom he wrongly thinks is a mob assassin. Told of the mistake by federal agents, Valachi becomes an informant, mistakenly recognized as the first in the history of the American mafia. He tells his life story in flashbacks.

The movie traces Valachi from a young punk to a gangster associating with bosses like Salvatore Maranzano (Joseph Wiseman). Maranzano tells a mourner at a funeral, "I cannot bring back the dead. I can only kill the living." Valachi marries a boss's daughter, played by Bronson's real-life wife Jill Ireland.