I tried searching for any comments on this but came up short, so if there's a discussion on this and I missed it--my apologies.

Anyway, did anyone catch this last night? Whatdya think if you did? Not sure how I felt about it.

fell well short, but we have 7 more weeks, they forgot harlem , morellos et al.

I did not hear of it.

Has anyone seen the thing Giuliani is doing for A&E it's is him bragging how he took down the mafia..

sounds like Giuliani, always there to take all the credit,

he's a shameless man, not to be trusted.

Just how he came off" It's may be a series ....

I can't stomach watching Daffy Duck brag about how he discovered RICO in Bonanno's autobiography, or how he single handedly eradicated organized crime. Thank Christmas for the skeletons in his closet, or that prick could've been president after 9/11

I could only get through 20 minitues. I turned it off after they showed lucky luciano speaking from a podioum announcing the new board of directors of the five families and everyone was sitting around applauding like he was announcing the oscar nominations.

I watched it, it was okay..interesting to see Frankie Valli in there, I'd rather just watch a 30 min interview of him talking about growing up around the mob and Gyp DeCarlo.

I also thought it got some facts and shit wrong..like it said that Luciano, Lanskey and Siegel started out working for Frank Costello who was already a soldier under Masseria? Is that true? I never heard that, but to be honest I don't read about that period b/c the general story has been talked about ad nauseum.

that is funny

It looks like the producers and writers decided to create their own history. Source material was Alex's book and "The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano," and they imaginations of the people behind the series.

There's nothing worse when watching a documentary and the documentary is blatantly not accurate at all. I also don't get how the can't get Italians to play Italians and Jews to play Jews so they can sound more realistic with NYC Italian and Yiddish accents being so distinct. I read somewhere that they were going to be making an Original series' based on Goodfellas and the Lucchese family in the 70s and this was just a test to see if there is still a market for Mob related projects. But if this is what they are basing that on unfortunately I don't think it will be looking good.

Yer no mention of Morello or the black hand.....just poor effort really. They also didnt clock on to the fact that Masseria would of had a thick italian accent. Also no mention of the mafia/camorra war.

The first two episodes are bad. Therefore I don't see this show redeeming itself for the other 6 more. Things are blatantly inaccurate. If the source material was Hortis' book, which I think covers the Castellamarese period well enough, in the sense that Masseria & Maranzano weren't the only two families around at the time, and Luciano didn't invent the system of "Families", then this show should be a lot better. Hell, they could've used Joe Bonanno's couple of chapters for a more accurate portrayal of things, instead of the common inaccuracies that are portrayed in movies like "Mobsters".

And not that it matters, this thread has already picked up some steam, but there was already a thread for this in the books/movies & tv section.

I found five things wrong with it before the first commercial break. When Luciano said con-siGGGG-lee-air-ee instead of actually trying to pronounce the word correctly I knew that it was going to be a waste. I mean, this could have been a great series but they got "experts" like Vincent Pastore commentating on it give me a break. Then they had that kid who played Benny I think it was get in a scrap with another kid and the kid can't even throw a decent punch. I like when the actors get down their specifics. They need to OWN the role they play. So that didn't happen. Where are the accents? There aren't any.
The funny thing is, is that I will probably watch the whole series just because I want to see how many things they got right and how many more they got wrong?

Haha ya it reminded me of billy crystal in analyze this-

I also read alex hortis's book and he's been on this site and he impressed me, he really did a ton of research, and he has a lot of sources.

the book is "the mob and the city" great read.

agree, so many guys they could have went to for advice.

Delly that scene is classic. Good stuff.

I caught this too. I don't think it's true. I don't know where they got that!

Costello's wikipedia:

This seemed wrong to me too

I haven't watched this, but they have Big Pussy as an expert?

Lol that's like having stallone being called to be an expert for a military documentary.

There are a few researchers on the show commentating like Selwyn Raab and then they show a scene and go to Vinny P. They have him talking about Luciano, like he's some kind of expert on that era.

Lol maybe he read up on him on wikipedia to refresh his info.

I didn't know he could read lol Seems like he's always high so I doubt he's got a very good short term memory to remember much.

Just kidding

Have you ever seen the TV movie series from the 80's The Gangster Chronicles? That's what this AMC series reminds me of a little bit. If you haven't seen it yet it's very entertaining, not too accurate but they do get a few things right.

Edit: Took out the YouTube link

Just watched Making of the Mob - all style no substance. Disappointing! So much effort seems to have gone into the filming/making it look nice. They could have read through the forum posts on here and gotten better info to include than what the did present.

Hey, don't you know that Pastore is a recognized Mob expert with several organized crime books to his credit? NOT. LOL

Then there's the other OC experts Joe Mantegna, Chazz Palminteri, and Frankie Valli. Valli was formerly the boss of that infamous crime family, The Four Seasons. It reminds me of that old commercial where the actor started out, "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV."

So funny and so true. If they used these "experts" in the right way they can add some insight as to what was going on in their own neighborhoods since there was a very strong mob presence. To have them commenting on what happened back in the 1930's is just plain silly.
After watching the first episode I felt as disappointed as I do when leaving an Italian restaurant in California; great atmosphere, beautiful looking people, nobody knows how to pronounce anything on the menu like my manigott', and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I just feel like punching somebody for deceiving me.

@alfanosgirl


there's always "roscoes chicken and waffles"