Prince of the City

When producer and screenwriter Jay Presson Allen read Robert Daley's book Prince of the City (1978), she was convinced it was an ideal Sidney Lumet project, but the film rights had been sold to Orion Pictures for writer-director Brian De Palma and screenwriter David Rabe. Allen let it be known that if that deal should fall through, then she wanted the deal for Lumet. Just as Lumet was about to sign for a different picture, they got the call that Prince of the City was theirs.

Allen hadn't wanted to write Prince of the City, just produce it. She was put off by the book's non-linear story structure, but Lumet wouldn't make the picture without her, and agreed to write the outline for her. Lumet and Allen went over the book and agreed on what they could use and what they could do without. To her horror, Lumet would come in every day for weeks and scribble on legal pads. She was terrified that she would have to tell him that his stuff was unusable, but to her delight the outline was wonderful and she went to work.[4] It was her first project with living subjects, and Allen interviewed nearly everyone in the book and had endless hours of Bob Leuci's tapes for back-up. With all her research and Lumet's outline, she eventually turned out a 365-page script in 10 days. It was nearly impossible to sell the studio on a three-hour picture, but by offering to slash the budget to $10 million they agreed. When asked if the original author ever has anything to say about how their book is treated, Allen replied: "Not if I can help it. You cannot open that can of worms. You sell your book, you go to the bank, you shut up."[5]

Orion Pictures had bought Daley's book for $500,000 in 1978.[6] Daley was a former New York Deputy Police Commissioner for Public Affairs who wrote about Robert Leuci, 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.[6] Originally, Brian De Palma was going to direct with David Rabe adapting the book[7] and Robert De Niro playing Leuci but the project fell through.[8] Sidney Lumet came aboard to direct under two conditions: He did not want a big name movie star playing Leuci because he did not "want to spend two reels getting over past associations,"[8] and the movie's running time would be at least three hours.[7]

He and Jay Presson Allen wrote a 240-page script in 30 days.[7] The film was budgeted at $10 million, but the director was able to make it for under $8.6 million.[9]

Lumet cast Williams after spending three weeks talking to him and listening to the actor read the script and then reading it again with 50 other cast members.[9] In order to research the role, the actor spent a month learning about police work, hung out at 23rd Precinct in New York City, went on a drug bust, and lived with Leuci for some time.[10] By the time rehearsals started, Williams said "I was thinking like a cop."[10] Lumet felt guilty about the two-dimensional way he had treated cops in the 1973 film Serpico and said that Prince of the City was his way to rectify this depiction.[9]

Supposedly, Bruce Willis has a role as a background actor in this film, and Williams tipped him off about The Verdict, Lumet's next film.[11][12]

Prince of the City was shot entirely on-location in New York City between March 10 and May 1980. Along with The Godfather (1972), this is the only major Hollywood movie to be shot in all five New York City boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan).[13] The production was originally budgeted at $10.6 million, but Lumet completed it at only $8.6 million.[13]

Upon its release, Prince of the City garnered mixed reviews, some of which complained about its excessive length, or unfavorably compared Williams' performance to Pacino's in Serpico, Lumet's previous film about police corruption. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a very good movie and, like some of its characters, it wants to break your heart. Maybe it will."[14] Janet Maslin of The New York Times praised its "sharply detailed landscape" and states that its "brief characterizations are so keenly drawn that dozens of them stand out with the forcefulness of major performances." She concludes that it "begins with the strength and confidence of a great film, and ends merely as a good one. The achievement isn't what it first promises to be, but it's exciting and impressive all the same."[15]

The film was not commercially successful in theatres, earning only $8.1 million of its $8.6 million cost. Prince of the City holds a 92% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 24 reviews with an average rating of 7.5/10.[16] On Metacritic, it has a score of 81% based on reviews from 15 critics.[17]

The film was praised by Akira Kurosawa.[18][19]

The film was considered sufficiently authentic by the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that he called Lumet for a copy of the movie to use for the DEA training. Some law-enforcement officials, however, criticized the film for glamorizing Leuci and other corrupt detectives while portraying most of the prosecutors who uncovered the crimes negatively.[20] John Guido, Chief of Inspectional Services, said, "The corrupt guys are the only good guys in the film."[20]

Nicholas Scoppetta, the Special Prosecutor who helped convince Leuci to go undercover against his fellow officers (depicted as 'Rick Cappalino' in the film), said, "In the film, it seems to be the prosecutors who are disregarding the issue of where real justice lies and the prosecutors seem to be as bad or worse than the corrupt police."[20] In fact, only two of the five prosecutors the film focuses on were portrayed negatively. In particular, District Attorney Polito, played by James Tolkan, is shown as petty and vindictive. The character is based on Thomas Puccio, the assistant United States Attorney in charge of the Federal Organized Crime Strike Force in Brooklyn, and Robert Daley agrees that he was treated unfairly in the screenplay.

One of the prosecutors who befriended the Ciello character and is shown in a very positive light was based on then rookie federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani. The character, Mario Vincente (played by Steve Inwood) is portrayed as threatening to resign if the U.S. Attorney's office indicts Ciello (Leuci) for past transgressions. In general, the prosecutors who argued against the prosecution of Leuci are treated sympathetically, while those who sought his indictment are shown as officious and vindictive.

• Prince of the City: The Real Story (2006), 30-minute making-of featurette on the DVD release