If you’re a Merry Frankster listener of Frank Santopadre’s Fun For All Ages podcast, you’re used to tales of Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo. The nightclub duo ripped off Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis’s routines. They even made a low-budget Martin & Lewis-esque movie Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla co-starring Bela Lugosi (and not a Bela impersonator). Martin and Lewis even tried to sue them for being such rip offs. Like Martin and Lewis, Mitchell and Petrillo broke up. Mitchell wanted to make more movies although no studio would touch him. Thus he indie financed two movies that he wrote and directed. Massacre Mafia Style was his mobster film that was produced in 1974, but didn’t get released until 1978. While he made Gone With The Pope in 1976, he didn’t get Mitchell didn’t get it released before his untimely death in 1981 at the age of 55. It sat in workprint form for years. Sage Stallone (Rocky V) told me about discovering the film back in the late ’90s when I ended up talking to him on the phone. Sage called looking for a mutual friend and we just got to talking. He and Bob Murawski were in the process of finishing the film. They were able to make it happen. Now you can enjoy the cinematic legacy of Duke Mitchell with both of his films on The Duke Mitchell Collection. They also include Duke’s Tribute to Jimmy Durante special. Here’s the press release with all the details:
DUKE MITCHELL COLLECTION
Grindhouse Releasing is proud to present two
brain-blasting ’70s crime thrillers from Duke Mitchell:
MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE and GONE WITH THE POPE
8/25
Grindhouse Releasing is proud to present the most anticipated home video release of the decade – two brain-blasting ’70s crime thrillers from Duke Mitchell, available for the very first time together in stunning hi-definition picture and sound: MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE and GONE WITH THE POPE.
In 1974, Italian-American actor and nightclub singer Duke Mitchell wrote, produced, directed and starred in his homemade answer to The Godfather, self-financed with earnings from his career as the self-proclaimed “Mr. Palm Springs.” Duke plays “Mimi Miceli,” the ruthless son of a Mafia kingpin who blasts his way through Hollywood on a bloody crime spree.
Promising “more guts, more action, more dynamite” than the Mario Puzo classic, MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE delivers an onslaught of low-budget mayhem unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
Shot in 1975, GONE WITH THE POPE was unfinished at the time of Duke Mitchell‘s death in 1981. Actor Sage Stallone (Daylight, Rocky V) and Academy Award-winning film editor Bob Murawski (The Hurt Locker, Army of Darkness) of Grindhouse Releasing rediscovered GONE WITH THE POPE in 1995 and vowed to save it from obscurity. Murawski spent 15 years completing the film from the surviving elements and his company, Grindhouse Releasing, proudly presents the definitive releases of these Holy Grails of exploitation cinema; two of the most violent movies ever made!!
Watch the trailer for MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE here:
Bonus Materials:
MASSACRE MAFIA STYLE (1974)
- Interviews with Jeffrey Mitchell, Frankie Ray, George Jacobs, Jim LoBianco, and exploitation legend Matt Cimber
- Almost one full hour of Duke Mitchell home movies
- Lost audio recording – Duke Mitchell Live in Concert, June 9, 1960
- Bonus TV special – AN IMPRESSIONISTIC TRIBUTE TO JIMMY DURANTE
- Extensive still galleries, radio spots, and theatrical trailer
GONE WITH THE POPE (1976)
- In-depth interviews with stars Jim LoBianco and John Murgia, cinematographer Peter Santoro, editors Bob Leighton and Robert Florio, and legendary exploitation producer/director Matt Cimber
- Footage from the 2010 Hollywood World Premiere
- Deleted scenes and bloopers
- Liner notes by acclaimed horror novelist John Skipp
- Extensive still galleries and theatrical trailer
- AND OTHER SURPRISES!
- PLUS – Bonus CD – GONE WITH THE POPE original motion picture soundtrack available for the very first time!
“Mind-bending…with Duke Mitchell’s cult following steadily building on what seems to be a daily basis, one can only wonder how far and wide the legacy of this entertainment jack of all trades will go.” — Nathaniel Thompson, TCM Underground
