Prince of the City (1981) on Netflix
Daniel Ciello is a New York narcotics detective whose unsupervised unit skims money from criminals. Prosecutors want him to wear a wire against corrupt officers without turning in his partners.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb7.4/1010,812 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes93%
Trailer
Plot summary
Daniel Ciello is a narcotics detective in the Special Investigative Unit of the New York City police, a group of officers so loosely supervised that they are known as Princes of the City. Danny and his colleagues skim money from criminals and hand stolen drugs to their informants, and his brother is a drug addict while a cousin works in organized crime. After beating a junkie for his heroin, Danny's conscience begins to trouble him. Federal prosecutors and internal affairs approach him with an offer: cooperate with their inquiry into police corruption, wear a wire, and avoid prosecution, with protection for himself and his family. Danny agrees, on the condition that he never has to turn in his partners.
Cast
- Kenny Marinoas Dom Bando
- Tony Pageas Detective Raf Alvarez
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Prince of the City (1981)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Before Sidney Lumet took over, Brian De Palma was to direct the film, David Rabe to adapt the book and Robert De Niro to play detective Robert Leuci, but the package fell through.
- Allen interviewed nearly everyone in the book and drew on hours of Bob Leuci's tapes, then turned out a 365-page screenplay in 10 days from Lumet's outline, which he scribbled on legal pads.
- Robert Leuci was an NYPD detective whose testimony and secret tape recordings helped indict 52 members of the Special Investigation Unit and convict them of income tax evasion, the real case behind the film.
- Along with The Godfather, Prince of the City is the only major Hollywood movie shot in all five New York City boroughs: Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan.
- A musician's union strike at the time forced Paul Chihara's score to be recorded in Paris, where Georges Delerue conducted it.
- The head of the Drug Enforcement Administration found the film so authentic that he called Lumet for a copy of the movie to use in DEA training.
- Lumet cast Treat Williams after three weeks of talking and script readings with 50 other cast members; Williams spent a month learning police work, went on a drug bust and lived with Leuci.
- The sympathetically portrayed prosecutor Mario Vincente, played by Steve Inwood, was based on then rookie federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani, who threatens in the film to resign if Ciello is indicted for past transgressions.
