''Prizzi's Honor'' is a 1985 American

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to disc ...

crime film Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combin ...

directed by

John Huston John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...

, starring

Jack Nicholson John Joseph Nicholson (born April 22, 1937) is an American retired actor and filmmaker. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. In many of his films, he played rebels against the social structure. He received numerous ...

and

Kathleen Turner Mary Kathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including two Golden Globe Awards, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, and two Tony Awards. Turner became widely ...

as two highly-skilled mob assassins who, after falling in love, are hired to kill each other. The screenplay co-written by Richard Condon is based on his 1982 novel of the same name. The film's supporting cast includes

Anjelica Huston Anjelica Huston ( ; born July 8, 1951) is an American actress and director. Known for often portraying eccentric and distinctive characters, she has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nom ...

(the director's daughter and Nicholson's then-girlfriend), Robert Loggia, John Randolph,

CCH Pounder Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder (born December 25, 1952) is a Guyanese-American actress. She has received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations for her roles in ''The X-Files'', '' ER'', '' The Shield'', and ''The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agenc ...

, Lawrence Tierney, and William Hickey.

Stanley Tucci Stanley Tucci Jr. ( ; born November 11, 1960) is an American actor and filmmaker. Involved in acting from a young age, he made his film debut in John Huston's '' Prizzi's Honor'' (1985), and continued to play a variety of supporting roles in fil ...

appears in a minor role in his film debut. It was the last of John Huston's films to be released during his lifetime. ''Prizzi's Honor'' was theatrically released on June 14, 1985, by

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...

. It received critical acclaim, with praise for the performances of its cast (most notably Huston). It grossed $26 million against its $16 million budget. The film received eight nominations at the 58th Academy Awards (including for Best Picture, Best Director,

Best Actor Best Actor is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actors in a film, television series, television film or play. The term most often refers to the ...

, and

Best Adapted Screenplay This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress# ...

) with Huston winning for Best Supporting Actress. The film also won four

Golden Globe Awards The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...

, including Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for Nicholson and Turner, respectively.

Plot

Charley Partanna is a

hitman Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may b ...

for a New York Mafia family headed by the elderly Don Corrado Prizzi, whose business is generally handled by his sons Dominic and Eduardo and by his longtime right-hand man, Angelo, who is Charley's father. At a family wedding, Charley is quickly infatuated with a beautiful woman he doesn't recognize. He asks Maerose Prizzi, estranged daughter of Dominic, if she recognizes the woman, oblivious to the fact that Maerose still has feelings for Charley, having once been his lover. Maerose is in disfavor with her father for running off with another man before the end of her romance with Charley. Charley flies to California to carry out a contract to kill a man named Marxie Heller for robbing a

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

casino. He is surprised to learn that Marxie is the estranged husband of Irene, the woman from the wedding. She repays some of the money Marxie stole as Charley naively (or willfully) believes that Irene was not involved with the casino scam. By this point they have fallen in love and eventually travel to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

to marry. A jealous Maerose travels west on her own to establish for a fact that Irene has double-crossed the organization. The information restores Maerose to good graces somewhat with her father and the don. Charley's father later reveals that Irene (who had claimed to be a tax consultant) is a "contractor" who, like Charley, performs assassinations for the mob. Dominic, acting on his own, wants Charley out of the way and hires someone to do the hit, not knowing that he has just given the job to Charley's own wife. Angelo sides with his son, and Eduardo is so appalled by his brother's actions that he helps set up Dominic's permanent removal from the family. Irene and Charley team up on a kidnapping that will enrich the family, but she shoots a police captain's wife in the process, endangering the organization's business relationship with the cops. The don is also still demanding a large sum of money from Irene for her unauthorized activities in Nevada, which she doesn't want to pay. In time, the don tells Charley that his wife's "gotta go." Things come to a head in California when, acting as if everything were alright, Charley comes home to his wife. Each pulls a weapon simultaneously in the bedroom. Irene ends up dead, and Charley ends up back in New York, missing her, but consoled by Maerose.

Cast

as Charley Partanna *

as Irene Walkervisks / Irene Walker *

as Maerose Prizzi * Robert Loggia as Eduardo Prizzi * John Randolph as Angelo "Pop" Partanna * William Hickey as Don Corrado Prizzi * Lee Richardson as Dominic Prizzi *

Michael Lombard Michael Lombard born Michael LaBombarda (August 8, 1934 - August 13, 2020) was an American actor. His parents, both from Giovinazzo, Bari, Italy, emigrated to America and settled in Gravesend, Brooklyn. In 1977, he was nominated for a Drama Desk ...

as Rosario Filangi / Robert Finlay * C. C. H. Pounder as "Peaches" Altamont * George Santopietro as Plumber * Ann Selepegno as Amalia Prizzi * Lawrence Tierney as Lieutenant Hanley * Vic Polizos as Phil Vittimizzare * Dick O'Neil as Bluestone * Sully Boyar as Casco Vasorne * Raymond Heller as Sal Bocca *

Joseph Ruskin Joseph Ruskin (born Joseph Richard Schlafman; April 14, 1924 – December 28, 2013) was an American character actor. Also appeared in several underworld character roles on the tv series The Untouchables (1959-1963) Early life Ruskin was born ...

as Marxie Heller * Seth Allen as Alvin Gomsky * Dominic Barto as Presto Cigilone *

as Soldier

Production

As well as working with his actress daughter, John Huston hired Meta Carpenter Wilde, the script supervisor who worked with him on '' The Maltese Falcon'' (1941) and

Rudi Fehr Rudolf "Rudi" Fehr, A.C.E. (July 6, 1911 – April 16, 1999) was a German-born, American film editor and studio executive. He had more than thirty credits as an editor of feature films including ''Key Largo (film), Key Largo'' (1946), ''Dial M ...

, his film editor from '' Key Largo'' (1948). Anjelica Huston was paid the SAG-AFTRA scale rate of $14,000 for her role in ''Prizzi's Honor''. When her agent called up the movie's producer to request if she could be paid more, she was told "Go to hell. Be my guest — ask for more money. We don't even want her in this movie." Huston, who was not only John Huston's daughter but also Jack Nicholson's girlfriend at the time, wrote in her 2014 memoir ''Watch Me'' that she later overheard a production worker saying, "Her father is the director, her boyfriend's the star, and she has no talent." She would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance. A 25-year old

made his film debut in ''Prizzi's Honor'', playing the minor role of a mafia goon.

Reception

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, ''Prizzi's Honor'' holds an approval rating of 85% based on 40 reviews, with an average rating of 7.1/10. The site's critics consensus states: "Disturbing and sardonic, ''Prizzi's Honor'' excels at black comedy because director John Huston and his game ensemble take the farce deadly seriously."

Pauline Kael Pauline Kael (; June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1968 to 1991. Known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated and sharply focused" reviews, Kael's opinions oft ...

wrote: "This John Huston picture has a ripe and daring comic tone. It revels voluptuously in the murderous finagling of the members of a Brooklyn Mafia family, and rejoices in their scams. It's like ''

The Godfather ''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caa ...

'' acted out by '' The Munsters''. Jack Nicholson's average-guyness as Charley, the clan's enforcer, is the film's touchstone: this is a baroque comedy about people who behave in ordinary ways in grotesque circumstances, and it has the juice of everyday family craziness in it."

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave the film three and half stars out of four and wrote: "This is the most bizarre comedy in many a month, a movie so dark, so cynical and so funny that perhaps only Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner could have kept straight faces during the love scenes."

Awards and nominations

American Film Institute

* AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Laughs - Nominated * AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Passions - Nominated *

AFI's 10 Top 10 ''AFI's 10 Top 10'' honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute (AFI), the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008. In the special, various act ...

- Nominated (Gangster Film)AFI's 10 Top 10 Ballot
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References

External links

* at MGM.com * * * * {{Navboxes , title = Awards for ''Prizzi's Honor'' , list = {{GoldenGlobeBestMotionPictureMusicalComedy 1981-2000 {{New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film 1985 films 1980s crime comedy films 20th Century Fox films ABC Motion Pictures films American black comedy films American crime comedy films American romantic comedy films Best Musical or Comedy Picture Golden Globe winners 1980s English-language films Films scored by Alex North Films based on American novels Films based on romance novels Films based on thriller novels Films directed by John Huston Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning performance Films featuring a Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe winning performance Films featuring a Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe winning performance Films set in New York City Films whose director won the Best Director Golden Globe Mafia comedy films Films about contract killing Films produced by John Foreman (producer) Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay BAFTA Award Films about the Sicilian Mafia Films about the American Mafia Films about organized crime in the United States 1980s American films