HOME



picture info

Serpico
''Serpico'' is a 1973 American biographical crime drama film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Al Pacino in the title role. The screenplay was adapted by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler from the book written by Peter Maas, with the assistance of its subject Frank Serpico. The story details Serpico's struggle with corruption within the New York City Police Department during his eleven years of service, and his work as a whistleblower that led to the investigation by the Knapp Commission. Producer Dino De Laurentiis purchased the rights from Maas. Agent Martin Bregman joined the film as co-producer. Bregman suggested Pacino for the main part, and John G. Avildsen was hired to direct the film. Pacino met with Serpico to prepare for the role early in the summer of 1973. After Avildsen was dismissed, Lumet was hired as his replacement. On a short notice, he selected the shooting locations and organized the scenes; the production was filmed in July and August. On its release, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Frank Serpico
Francesco Vincent "Frank" Serpico ( ; born April 14, 1936) is an American retired New York Police Department detective, best known for whistleblowing on police corruption. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was a plainclothes police officer working in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan to expose vice racketeering. In 1967, he reported credible evidence of widespread police corruption, to no effect. In 1970, he contributed to a front-page story in ''The New York Times'' on widespread corruption in the NYPD, which drew national attention to the problem. Mayor John V. Lindsay appointed a five-member panel to investigate accusations of police corruption, which became the Knapp Commission. Serpico was shot in the face during an arrest attempt on February 3, 1971, at 778 Driggs Avenue, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The bullet severed an auditory nerve, and left bullet fragments lodged in his brain. The circumstances surrounding Serpico's shooting were quickly called into question, rais ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sidney Lumet
Sidney Arthur Lumet ( ; June 25, 1924 – April 9, 2011) was an American film director. Lumet started his career in theatre before moving to film, where he gained a reputation for making realistic and gritty New York City, New York dramas which focused on the working class, tackled Social justice, social injustices, and often questioned authority. He received several awards including an Academy Honorary Award and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for nine British Academy Film Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award. He was nominated five times for Academy Awards: four for Academy Award for Best Director, Best Director for the legal drama ''12 Angry Men (1957 film), 12 Angry Men'' (1957), the crime drama ''Dog Day Afternoon'' (1975), the satirical drama ''Network (1976 film), Network'' (1976) and the legal thriller ''The Verdict'' (1982), and one for Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay for ''Prince of the City (film), Prince of the City'' (1 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Al Pacino
Alfredo James Pacino ( ; ; born April 25, 1940) is an American actor. Known for his intense performances on stage and screen, Pacino is widely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time. His career spans more than five decades, during which he has earned many accolades, including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, achieving the Triple Crown of Acting. He has also received four Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and was honored with the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2001, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2007, the National Medal of Arts in 2011, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2016. A method actor, Pacino studied at HB Studio and the Actors Studio, where he was taught by Charlie Laughton and Lee Strasberg. Pacino went on to receive the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in '' Scent of a Woman'' (1992). His other Oscar-nominated roles were in ''The Godfather'' (1972), '' Serpico'' (1973), ''The G ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Knapp Commission
The Commission to Investigate Alleged Police Corruption (known informally as the Knapp Commission after its chairman Whitman Knapp) was a five-member panel formed in May 1970 by Mayor John V. Lindsay to investigate corruption and misconduct within the New York City Police Department (NYPD). The creation of the Commission was largely a result of publicized accounts of police wrongdoing, as revealed by Patrolman Frank Serpico and Sergeant David Durk. Lindsay's action was also prompted by a front-page exposé in ''The New York Times'' on April 25, 1970 that documented a vast scheme of illicit payments to police officers from businessmen, gamblers and narcotics dealers. In its final report, the Commission concluded that the NYPD had widespread corruption problems, and made a series of recommendations. Members On May 21, 1970, Mayor Lindsay issued an executive order appointing the following five members to serve on the Knapp Commission: * Whitman Knapp, chair * Arnold Bauman (la ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Martin Bregman
Martin Leon "Marty" Bregman (May 18, 1926 – June 16, 2018) was an American film producer and personal manager. He produced many films, including '' Scarface'', '' Sea of Love'', ''Venom'', '' Serpico'', '' Dog Day Afternoon'', '' The Four Seasons'', '' Betsy's Wedding'', '' Carlito's Way'', '' Carlito's Way: Rise to Power'', '' The Bone Collector'', and '' The Adventures of Pluto Nash''. Early life Bregman was born in New York City to Leon and Ida (Granowski) Bregman. He was Jewish and grew up in the Bronx. As a child, he suffered from polio. He began his career selling insurance and first got into the entertainment business as a night club agent. Career Building relationships with investors such as New York real estate magnate Lewis Rudin, Bregman moved successfully into personal management, eventually representing such stars as Al Pacino, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand, Faye Dunaway, Alan Alda and Bette Midler. Bregman discovered Pacino in an Off Broadway play, and he ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Waldo Salt
Waldo Miller Salt (October 18, 1914 – March 7, 1987) was an American screenwriter. He wrote the Academy Award-winning screenplays for ''Midnight Cowboy'' (1969) and ''Coming Home (1978 film), Coming Home'' (1978). Early life and career Salt was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Winifred (née Porter) and William Haslem Salt, an artist and business executive. He graduated from Stanford University in 1934. The first of the nineteen films he wrote or co-wrote was released in 1937 with the title ''The Bride Wore Red''. Salt's career in Cinema of the United States, Hollywood was interrupted when he was Hollywood blacklist, blacklisted after refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1951. Like many other blacklisted writers, while he was unable to work in Hollywood, Salt wrote under a pseudonym for the British television series ''The Adventures of Robin Hood (TV series), The Adventures of Robin Hood''. After the collapse of the blacklist ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Peter Maas
__notoc__ Peter Maas (June 27, 1929 – August 23, 2001) was an American journalist and author. He was born in New York City and attended Duke University. Maas had Dutch and Irish ancestry. He was the biographer of Frank Serpico, a New York City Police officer who testified against police corruption. He is also the author of the number one ''New York Times'' bestseller, ''Underboss'', about the life and times of Sammy "The Bull" Gravano. His other notable bestsellers include '' The Valachi Papers'', ''Manhunt'', and ''In a Child's Name'', recipient of the 1991 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime book. ''The Valachi Papers'', which told the story of Mafia turncoat Joseph Valachi, is widely considered to be a seminal work, as it spawned an entire genre of books written by or about former Mafiosi. In May 1966, Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach had asked a district court to stop Maas from publishing his book on Valachi—the first time that a U.S. Attorney General had ever tri ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Norman Wexler
Norman Wexler (August 16, 1926 – August 23, 1999) was an American screenwriter whose work included films such as '' Saturday Night Fever'', '' Serpico'' and '' Joe''. A New Bedford, Massachusetts native and 1944 Central High School graduate in Detroit, Wexler attended Harvard University before moving to New York in 1951. Career Wexler wrote the screenplays for several hit films, most notably '' Joe'', '' Serpico'', '' Mandingo'' and '' Saturday Night Fever''. He received Oscar nominations for '' Joe'' and '' Serpico''. According to Bob Zmuda, ''Saturday Night Fever'' made Wexler a wealthy man. He was a much sought-after script doctor, reworking the scripts for ''Lipstick'' and '' The Fan''. Wexler also was a serious and accomplished playwright. Several of his plays were produced off-Broadway and in regional theaters. His play ''The Rope'' was produced at Cafe La MaMa on New York, ''Red's My Color, What's Yours?'' won the Cleveland Playhouse Award, and his most recen ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Mikis Theodorakis
Michail "Mikis" Theodorakis ( ; 29 July 1925 – 2 September 2021) was a Greek composer and lyricist credited with over 1,000 works. He scored for the films '' Zorba the Greek'' (1964), '' Z'' (1969), and '' Serpico'' (1973). He was a three-time BAFTA nominee, winning for ''Z''. For the score in ''Serpico'', he earned Grammy nominations. Furthermore, for the score to ''Zorba the Greek'', with its song "Zorba's Dance", he was nominated for a Golden Globe. He composed the "Mauthausen Trilogy", also known as "The Ballad of Mauthausen", which has been described as the "most beautiful musical work ever written about the Holocaust" and possibly his best work. Up until his death, he was viewed as Greece's best-known living composer. He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. Politically, he was associated with the left because of his long-standing ties to the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). He was an MP for the KKE from 1981 to 1990. Despite this, however, he ran as an independent cand ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Jack Kehoe
Jack Kehoe (November 21, 1934 – January 14, 2020) was an American film actor appearing in a wide variety of films, including the crime dramas ''Serpico'' (1973), ''The Sting'' (1973), ''The Pope of Greenwich Village'' (1984) and Brian De Palma's ''The Untouchables'' (1987), as well as the cult favorites ''The Friends of Eddie Coyle'' (1973), ''Car Wash'' (1976) and ''Midnight Run'' (1988), the popular Western ''Young Guns II'' (1990), and '' On the Nickel'' (1980). Kehoe was born in Astoria, New York. After serving in the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army, he studied acting under Stella Adler. On Broadway, Kehoe appeared in ''The Ballad of the Sad Cafe'' (1963) and ''The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel'' (1977). Kehoe appeared in several Academy Award-winning films, including Jonathan Demme's ''Melvin and Howard'' (1980) and Best Picture winner ''The Sting'' (1973), in which Kehoe appears as grifter Joe Erie, alias The Erie Kid. His various TV credits included r ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Whistleblower
Whistleblowing (also whistle-blowing or whistle blowing) is the activity of a person, often an employee, revealing information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe, unethical or fraudulent. Whistleblowers can use a variety of internal or external channels to communicate information or allegations. Over 83% of whistleblowers report internally to a supervisor, human resources, compliance, or a neutral third party within the company, hoping that the company will address and correct the issues. A whistleblower can also bring allegations to light by communicating with external entities, such as the media, government, or law enforcement. Some countries legislate as to what constitutes a protected disclosure, and the permissible methods of presenting a disclosure. Whistleblowing can occur in the private sector or the public sector. Whistleblowers often face retaliation for their disclosure, including termination of emp ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Dino De Laurentiis
Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis (; 8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010) was an Italian film producer and businessman who held both Italian and American citizenship. Following a brief acting career in the late 1930s and early 1940s, he moved into film production; alongside Carlo Ponti, he brought Italian cinema to the international scene in the post-World War II period. He produced or co-produced over 500 films, with 38 of his Hollywood films receiving Academy Award nominations. He was also the creator and operator of DDL Foodshow, a chain of Italian specialty foods stores. Early life Agostino De Laurentiis was born in Torre Annunziata, Kingdom of Italy, on 8 August 1919. He grew up selling spaghetti made by his father's pasta factory. His older brother, Luigi De Laurentiis (1917–1992), later followed him into film production. He studied at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in 1937 and 1938, but his studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Career Fil ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]