Prizzi's Honor

Prizzi's Honor
Theatrical poster
Directed by	John Huston
Screenplay by	Richard Condon Janet Roach
Based on	Prizzi's Honor by Richard Condon
Produced by	John Foreman
Starring	Jack Nicholson Kathleen Turner
Cinematography	Andrzej Bartkowiak
Edited by	Kaja Fehr Rudi Fehr
Music by	Alex North
Production company	ABC Motion Pictures
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	June 14, 1985
Running time	130 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$16 million[1]
Box office	$26.6 million [2]

Prizzi's Honor is a 1985 American black comedy crime film directed by John Huston, starring Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner 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 (the director's daughter), Robert Loggia, John Randolph, CCH Pounder, Lawrence Tierney, and William Hickey. Stanley Tucci appears in a minor role, his film debut.

Prizzi's Honor was theatrically released on June 14, 1985, by 20th Century Fox. It received critical acclaim, praised for the performances of its cast (most notably that of Huston). However it was judged a box office disappointment, grossing only $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, and Best Adapted Screenplay) with Huston winning for Best Supporting Actress. The film also won four Golden Globe Awards, 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 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 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 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. (A famous line from the movie, spoken by Charley, is "Do I ice her? Do I marry her? Which one of these?") 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[]

Production[]

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."^[3] She would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

A 25-year old Stanley Tucci made his film debut in Prizzi's Honor, playing the minor role of a mafia goon.

Reception[]

Critical response[]

Pauline Kael 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 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."^[4]

Roger Ebert 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."^[5]

On Rotten Tomatoes, Prizzi's Honor holds an 85% rating based on 39 reviews. The site's 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."^[6]

Awards and nominations[]

American Film Institute[]

• AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Laughs - Nominated^[7]
• AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Passions - Nominated^[8]
• AFI's 10 Top 10 - Nominated (Gangster Film)^[9]

References[]

External links[]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Prizzi's Honor

• Official website at MGM.com
• Prizzi's Honor at Rotten Tomatoes
• Prizzi's Honor at AllMovie
• Prizzi's Honor at IMDb
• Prizzi's Honor at the TCM Movie Database