The Black Hand (1950)

Unusually bleak for 1950s Hollywood rah-rah American films, “The Black Hand” opens in 1900’s Little Italy, New York, as a local attorney/doting father and husband is killed for daring to cross the Italian mob. The attorney’s teenage son -– a strapping with a thick Italian accent who could pass for young Brando -– vows revenge, and delivers eight years later after he returns to New York in the bodily form of 40-year-old Gene Kelly. A man as Italian as I am not. If you can get past that, this is a damn good film that takes head-on the disappointment of the American Dream for thousands of immigrants as they lived (and do still) under the thumb of petty thug dictators who hold more power and sway than the police or courts. There’s no “Singin’ in the Rain” here. In full dramatic mode singed with anger, Kelly pulls a knife on a guy for information and wields the dagger late in the film for more permanent deeds. Director Richard Thorpe (he later made “Jailhouse Rock”) makes the film feel authentic and lets Italians speak Italian for long periods, no subtitles, and takes the gritty, dark action to Naples. Seriously, Kelly is eccellente. A-

Suspiria (1977)

I’ve long heard of Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” as one of the Best Horror Movies Ever Made in film snob magazines. Its Italian pedigree only added to the allure. My verdict: One of the craziest, blood-chilling movies I’ve ever watched. The plot is not just simple, but a sketch: American ballet student (Jessica Harper) takes a plane to Munich, Germany, grabs a cab and heads out to her new school: An ultra-European, gothic dance academy. In pouring rain, she arrives at the school only to watch a hysterical girl flee in terror out the front door. Nevertheless, our heroine enters on. That same night, the fleeing girl is attacked, suffocated on a window pane, stabbed, strangled, smashed through a stained glass ceiling, and then hung. That’s 10 minutes of film. The rest of the 80 minutes is a hell ride with mad dogs, maggots, and a barbed wire murder so nasty, it cannot be described. Filmed in wildly bright Technicolor on eye-throbbing sets, this wild, bloody artistic stunt blew my mind. The proceedings are fueled by the single most disturbing and bizarre film score I’ve ever heard, created by the director and Italian prog rock band Goblin. A

Gomorrah (2009)

“Gomorrah” breaks the mold of gangster films. It takes what we know from the glimmer and cool factor of mob classics such as “The Godfather” and splatters seemingly real-life blood and guts in our face. The Italian-language drama feels so authentic, so you-are-there journalistic, it’s startling to re-read the “Martin Scorsese presents” title card on a second viewing. Directed by Matteo Garrone and based on a expose book that earned its author death threats, “Gomorrah” is a multi-arch/character epic focusing on the bagmen, peripheral workers, wannabes, mothers, and children living and dying under the thumb of a new mafia. The rules of old are gone. The Godfather has left the building. The one true mob boss we meet is bed-ridden and unaware that his time is over. It’s every man for himself. Stand outs include two gun-crazy youths (Marco Macor and Ciro Petrone) addicted to violence and the banter of DePalma’s “Scarface,” but fully unaware of true consequences, and a tailor (Salvatore Cantalupo) who crosses racial boundaries. The violence is startling and whiplash fast, and the story written so large and complex, it takes at least two viewings to fully encompass. An amazing work of art. A