"The Don is Dead" is one of the worst films of the 1970s. There is no creative output of any kind and the whole is just one extended television film (no offense meant to T.V films). Any potential was gone after the opening 15 minutes. The meeting with the Mafia Godfathers was mildly diverting but that is about all. Anthony Quinn is actually well cast as one of the Mafia Dons, why couldn't a better screenplay have been written? The use of "Universal's" backlot is painfully obvious and robs the film of any kind of scale it might otherwise have had. There is some action but so what? Anyone can put together a scene involving a gunfight. Any comparison between "The Don is Dead" and "The Godfather" is purely coincidental and I'm not the biggest fan of the latter movie.
Review of The Don Is Dead
