Serpico [50th Anniversary Edition] [4K Ultra HD Blu-ray]

Director: Sidney Lumet Sidney Lumet

Overview

Adapted by Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler from Peter Maas's book, Sidney Lumet's drama portrays the real-life struggle of an honest New York City cop against a corrupt system. Neophyte officer Frank Serpico (Al Pacino) is determined not to let his job get in the way of his individuality. Despite his colleagues' leery reactions, he keeps one foot firmly planted in the counterculture, sporting a beard and love beads and living in bohemian Greenwich Village, while he performs his police duties with dispatch. Serpico's peers genuinely ostracize him, however, when he refuses to take bribes like everybody else. Appalled by the extent of police corruption, Serpico goes to his superiors, but when he discovers that they have ignored his charges, he takes the potentially fatal step of breaking the blue wall of silence and going public with his exposé. Serpico's revelations trigger an independent investigation by the Knapp Commission, but they also make him a marked man, permanently changing his life. Shot on location with a gritty emphasis on documentary-style realism, Serpico presents a city in decay both literally and morally, as everybody is in on the take, and the cops and criminals are almost interchangeable. Released in late 1973, after months of revelations of Presidential malfeasance in the breaking Watergate scandal, Serpico's true story of bureaucratic depravity touched a cultural nerve, and the film became a hit with both critics and audiences, particularly for Pacino's complex performance as the honest, long-haired whistleblower. One year after his star-making triumph in The Godfather, Pacino was nominated for an Oscar again, and lost again; Lumet and Pacino would reunite two years later for another true New York story, Dog Day Afternoon.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/18/2023
UPC:	0738329262402
Original Release:	1973
Rating:	R
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Language:	English
Time:	2:10:00
Format:	Blu-ray
Sales rank:	8,683

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Al Pacino	Frank Serpico
John Randolph	Chief Sidney Green
Jack Kehoe	Tom Keough
Tony Roberts	Bob Blair,Actor
Biff McGuire	Capt. McClain
Barbara Eda-Young	Laurie
Cornelia Sharpe	Leslie
John Medici	Pasquale Serpico
Allan Rich	D.A. Tauber
Norman Ornellas	Don Rubello
Ed Grover	Lombardo,Lombardo
Albert Henderson	Peluce
Hank Garrett	Malone
Damien Leake	Joey
Joe Bova	Potts,Actor
Gene Gross	Capt. Tolkin
John Stewart	Waterman
Woodie King	Larry
James Tolkan	Steiger
Ed Crowley	Barto
Bernard Barrow	Palmer
Sal Carollo	Mr. Serpico
Mildred Clinton	Mrs. Serpico
Nathan George	Detective Smith
Gus Fleming	Dr. Metz
Richard Foronjy	Corsaro
Alan North	Brown
Lewis J. Stadlen	Berman
John McQuade	Kellogg
Ted Beniades	Sarno
John Lehne	Gilbert
M. Emmet Walsh	Gallagher
George Ede	Daley
Franklin Scott	Black Prisoner
Don Billett	Detective Threatening Serpico
Tim Pelt	Black Hood,Black Hood
F. Murray Abraham	Detective Partner
Charles White	Commissioner Delaney
Kenneth McMillan	Short Order Man
Mary Louise Weller	Girl
Rene Enriquez	Actor
Judd Hirsch	Actor
Mikis Theodorakis	Composer

Technical Credits

Norman Wexler

Waldo Salt

Peter Maas

Sidney Lumet	Director
Dino De Laurentiis	Executive Producer,Producer
Martin Bregman	Producer
Norman Wexler	Screenwriter
Waldo Salt	Screenwriter
Peter Maas	Screenwriter
James Sabat	Sound/Sound Designer
Richard Vorisek	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

The gold standard for all whistle-blower dramas to follow, director Sidney Lumet's Serpico is based on a true story that rattled the proud New York Police Department's code of honor. Arriving in 1973, when its question-authority message was fresh and resonant, it was based on Peter Maas's book about Frank Serpico (Al Pacino), an oddball cop with long hair, a beard, and intellectual curiosity that set him apart. But what truly set Serpico apart from his PBA brethren is his crusade against the force's rampant graft and the unspoken fraternal code that protects it. When Serpico and his politically connected pal Bob Blair (Tony Roberts) try to start an internal investigation, they are stonewalled. When they look outside of the police force, Serpico is threatened. Lumet's direction digs deep into the dirty side on New York's government and the ugliest aspects of the urban sprawl, but counters with glimpses of the bohemian beauty of the city in the Greenwich Village of the 1960s. Serpico is a gritty, gripping, realistic story of one man's fight for the right to live his life as an honest man. For viewers numbed by the uniformed benevolence generally promoted in the age of Law & Order and NYPD Blue, Serpico's crooked cops will be a revelation.

Barnes & Noble - Matthew Johnson

The first of two Sidney Lumet movies to feature stellar performances from the kinetic Al Pacino, Serpico was released at a heated moment in American culture and touched a nerve with American audiences. Based on a series of real events, the film targeted institutional corruption in the New York City Police Department and fit in stylistically with the gritty cop dramas of the time, including The French Connection and the Dirty Harry movies. Thematically, it was one of the first pictures since the heyday of film noir to tackle police corruption. Fresh from his breakthrough in The Godfather, Pacino is excellent as the whistle-blowing title character; he received his second Oscar nomination for the role.

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