DVD review: PRIZZI'S HONOR (1986)

PRIZZI'S HONOR. Director: John Huston. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Kathleen Turner, Robert Loggia, John Randolph, William Hickey, Anjelica Huston (Maerose Prizzi), Lawrence Tierney. Released: June 14, 1985. Running time: 130 minutes. Kino-Lorber Classics

In my book The Essential Jack Nicholson (Rowman and Littlefield), I point out that Prizzi’s Honor, newly released on blu ray and DVD by Kino Lorber, is a very good film and with a lot of important elements. First, it is one of the last films directed by John Huston, who began his career with the classic The Maltese Falcon (1941). Now suffering from emphysema, Huston would direct one more film, The Dead, in 1987, the year of his passing. Second, it allows Jack Nicholson to once again extend his abiities as an actor, playing a character that differs greatly from his usual screen persona.

The actors didn’t initially realize that Prizzi’s Honor was supposed to be a comedy. It’s humor is so dark, it wasn’t until they reached certain areas of dialog in the script reading that the actors realized the script was funny. The studio had its own problems. They believed that not even an actor the caliber of Jack Nicholson could make this story about a man who is hired to kill his own wife likeable. They also lost the point that this was a dark comedy where such a situation would not be taken seriously

This is not the first time Jack Nicholson did a quirky comedy, but his role differs from, for instance, the purely silly Goin’ South. This character is more of a dense mug. Perhaps a comic version of Lenny Montana’s characterization of Luca Brasi, whose fumbling manner in The Godfather was not unlike the character Nicholson plays in Prizzi’s Honor.

Kathleen Turner is very good as the attractive waspy character Irene, but it is Anjelica Huston, the director’s daughter, in the much smaller role of Maerose who turns in perhaps the best supporting performance. She plays the family rebel, the blackest sheep within an entire brood of black sheep. Prizzi’s Honor received several Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Ms. Huston was the only one to win. It was the second time John Huston directed a family member to an Oscar winning performance. The first was his father, Walter Huston, for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).

Kino Lorber’s blu ray is mastered from the best possible elements and features audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson. It is yet another fine release by this company and is most highly recommended. It is available for purchase here.