Kiss Of Death, Sweethearts!

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Richard Widmark as Tommy Udo

One of my fave film performances, this flick is so over the top that I am surprised I have taken this long to mention it.  This is from Kiss of Death, the 1947 film noir by director Henry Hathaway from the screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer.  Victor Mature as Nick Bianco is trying to go straight, but, gosh darn it, things just don't work out that way!  Rick Widmark is on hand to show how psychopathy should be done.  The below is the old lady down the stairs with giggles scene, and it will never be topped.





Mildred Dunnock learns that Richard Widmark "can't stand squealers"!





I first heard of Tommy Udo when I read that funniest of books about murderers, The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, by Jimmy Breslin.  The above is Joey Gallo, an absolutely nutbar mafiosi who tried to take down the Columbo family and make it his. Joey admired Tommy Udo and acted like him.  He has been held responsible for the Joe Columbo shooting which left the family leader brain dead after the 1971 assassination attempt.   Oddly enough, the last thing Columbo said was "Watch him", pointing at Jerome Johnson, the shooter.  It is thought that Joey made contacts with radical blacks in the joint and promised them Harlem if he won.  Joey modeled himself after Tommy Udo.
Everyone has a hero!




Here is where this goes into high gear.  Jerome Johnson, center, was a rootless man living on the edge of the counter culture and stealing from everyone he met.  He liked to impress girls by telling them he was in the film business or was a photographer.  In the above he has just shot mob boss Joe Columbo with a Minta pistol, made in Germany during the first world war, an absolutely untraceable weapon.  Right after this pic was taken, there was a scrum of men laying on top of Johnson when a small fat man, never identified, burrowed into the crowd.  3 shots were heard, and a pistol popped out of the group of men.  The pistol was traced to a shipment of guns that were to be delivered to a sporting goods store in 1959 and was stolen in route.  I do not know if the killer is in the above photo.  Most photos were collected and destroyed on the spot by enforcers, why on earth I have no idea.  Joey gets the blame for this but the stand out suspect is Carlo Gambino.
 The Johnson hit is a showcase in murder conspiracies, as it is completely unsolved and was carried out perfectly in the presence of many cops and photographers, under extreme pressure.  Never has mission critical been so well handled!
Columbo had incurred the wrath of the other families by publicly protesting the FBI and starting the Italian-American Anti-Defamation League.  Gambino decreed that it was to stop but Columbo went ahead with the rally. While Gallo certainly hated Columbo, a greedy and selfish Don, Gambino is the one who had the weight to have pulled it off the way it happened, and if Joey got the blame, so what?




Joey was framed!

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