Not many directors could say they were around long enough to direct both Humphrey Bogart and Jack Nicholson. There are also not many directors who could say they directed their father and child to Oscar wins. In fact, there's only one director who did that: John Huston.
Nearing 80, Huston directed Prizzi's Honor in 1985, 44 years after making his directing debut with The Maltese Falcon. Since 1941, he remained a major force in American filmmaking, even if much of his latter work was nowhere nearly as well regarded as his iconic black and white films made while the Hollywood studio system was still a thing. Whenever it felt like Huston was in a down period in his career, he would miraculously bounce back and be in top form.
Despite Huston not being involved in the writing of Prizzi's Honor, which was based on a novel by Richard Condon from a script by Condon and Janet Roach, there is a distinct feeling of Huston that runs through it. What attracted him to this story is unmistakable.
It centers on Sicilian gangster Charley Partanna (Nicholson), the top assassin for the Prizzi crime family, and his girlfriend Irene Walker (Kathleen Turner). After a torrid love affair, they get married and only after tying the knot does he learn the truth. Irene is as much a criminal as he is and they are about to be ordered to kill each other. But their love knows no bounds, so they try to find a way out of this where both of them come out alive.
So much of this film isn't about the details of the plot, but about dealing with fate as a criminal. Just like in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre or The Asphalt Jungle, once you commit yourself to dangerous desires, there's no way to lead a normal life. Charley is convinced that finding the right woman was what he'd always been after in life, but he was wrong. The moment he took a blood oath to protect a family that he actually had no blood ties to, he was destined to be their stooge.
But one of the worst decisions in Charley's life came before the movie even began. He never married Maerose Prizzi (Anjelica Huston), the daughter of one of the Prizzi bosses. Clearly, he was hoping that marrying from the outside would help. Unfortunately, he found someone who was also inside the crime circle. Again, destiny is going to catch up with you no matter how far you run.
One intriguing layer of the film is Huston commenting on just how out-of-step the mob world is. When the film is strictly inside the world of the Prizzi family, Prizzi's Honor feels like some horrid Godfather parody. These guys so desperately want to be Don Corleone that they forget they are living in 1985. Even Irene loves old-style cars and outfits that look like they were worn in 1940s movies. Their world makes it look like a period piece, but it's not. While Charley talks about mob business, the Twin Towers are over his shoulders. The Prizzi family, Irene and Charley are completely anachronistic characters, right down to the way they act and talk.
The one character who actually gets the way the world works is Mae and it's unfortunate that she has such little screen time. But when Anjelica Huston is onscreen, it's hard to look away from her. She dominates every scene she's in, including the wickedly evil scene where she nearly kills her (onscreen) father. Mae does struggle with completely cutting off the past – her plot involves trying to get back into the family – but she figures out quickly that she cannot hold a powerful position in a male-dominated world.
While Huston did get into the movies as a writer, he got very specific performances from his stars. His daughter may have been the only one to win an Oscar, but Nicholson was also nominated for his smart, off-beat performance as Charley. Nicholson brings his charm to the table, but you can also tell that Huston wanted him to act like he was in an old Hollywood movie. And William Hickey was deservedly nominated for playing Don Prizzi, wearing make-up that oddly makes him look like his director.
Turner is also enchanting in the role of Irene. She's supposed to be impossibly beautiful, but believable as a killer. There's instant chemistry between her and Nicholson, making you wonder why she was left out of the Oscars. She did get a Golden Globe for the film, but that's not much of a consolation prize.
Prizzi's Honor is considered a comedy, but it's not an incredibly funny one. It's often a weird pastiche of what we expect from gangster movies, through the cynical eye of Huston. But that's what makes it more enjoyable than a typical parody of a movie genre. Prizzi's Honor works as a parody, but also as a story on its own two legs.
The film is only available on a non-anamorphic DVD from MGM and no U.S. Blu-ray is planned at the moment.
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