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

The Valachi Papers is a 1972 crime movie starring Charles Bronson, Lino Ventura and directed by Terence Young. Adapted from the book The Valachi Papers by Peter Maas, it tells the true story of Joseph Valachi, who was the first Mafia informant in the early 1960s. The film was produced in Italy, with many scenes dubbed into English. The movie begins in 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." Valachi kisses him back. Valachi mistakenly kills a fellow prisoner who he wrongly thinks is a mob assassin. Told of the mistake by federal agents, Valachi becomes an informant, the first in the history of the Mafia. He tells his life story in flashback. 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 LESS