Le Maniaque à la mitraillette

source: Mad Dog Coll

John Chandler would have made a great Joker with his toothy, sneering smile, sniveling voice and angular facial features. I don't know how Cesar Romero was cast for the Batman show on ABC or if they had other actors also on their list. While Cesar was jovial and circus clowny, Chandler would have been creepier, horrifying and too reptilian for the little TV viewers. His Mad Dog is depicted as a woman abuser and rapist. What I liked about this film was the gritty, grimey, sleazy depiction of gangsters as psychopaths and the gold digging women who orbit around them. While Martin Scorsese has built a film career idolizing and romantizing Mafia scum in glossy films, this film zeros in on their repulsive inhumanity.

Second time seeing this junk. Just noticed that in the drug store, one of the cops was african American. Now we know this isn't realistic. In the 20s or 30s,no way. They really took liberties.

Those years of the late 50s and early 60s there was a spate of films inspired by the legends of gangsterism. Vincent 'mad dog' Coll was every bit as ruthless and psychotic as shown here. But the facts are not true, they rarely were in these films. John Davis Chandler made his debut here and played various punks and psychos his whole career. Chandler plays Coll probably as psychotic as he really was. His indiscriminate killing of citizens made both gangsters and cops want to see him put out of business. Nice to see Telly Savalas, Jerry Orbach, and Vincent Gardenia in this independent New York based film. All of those worthy folks in their salad days. Mad Dog Coll the movie, no better or worse than some of the others of this type.

The opening scene before the credits run, and the outrageous title song, set the tone for this over-the-top movie. In this movie, the Prohibition-Era Gangster is transformed into a 1950's juvenile delinquent punk. Imagine "The Roaring 20s" by way of "Rebel Without A Cause". It's great to see Vincent Gardenia, Telly Savalas and Jerry Orbach early in their careers. Nevertheless it's John Davis Chandler's over-the-top performance, in his only starring role, that really dominates this movie. Chandler is one of those character actors who's names you probably wouldn't recognize, but who's face you can never forget. He used to specialize in portraying nasty, sneering, sadistic little punks; a role which he gets to play to the hilt in this movie. Chandler's version of Coll is a paranoid-psychotic juvenile delinquent who never got over being abused by his bullying father. Armed with a machine gun and supported by only a couple of henchmen, he attempts to move in on the powerful Dutch Shultz Mob in 1920s New York. Shultz is portrayed as a vicious mobster, but also a successful organized crime boss. Coll, on the other hand, is portrayed as a vicious loose-cannon who likes hurting people because he was bullied as a kid, and he thinks that hurting others is the only way to be a man. Those who enjoyed Al Pacino's performance in "Scarface" would love this film as an equally over-the-top crime drama. The principal difference is that the one is a big-budget film with "A-List" cast and production values, while the other is a low-budget sleeper that came and went under-the radar.

Sir Francis Galton was a polymath and genius who noticed that genius seemed to run in families. He himself was the offspring of wealthy celebrities, the cousin of Charles Darwin, nephew of Erasmus Darwin and I don't know what all. He must have been right when he published a book in 1869 arguing that genius was hereditary. Just look at the cast and crew of this movie as an example. Directed by Burt Balaban, the son of Barney Balaban who was chief of Paramount Pictures for thirty years, and brother of actor Bob Balaban. Barney was also the father of Nina Franciosa and ex father-in-law of Anthony Franciosa, as well as the father of Judy Balaban. Brooke Hayward, who plays Elizabeth, is related in one way or another to Pamela Harriman, Winston Churchill, Margaret Sullavan, Dennis Hopper, and Leland Hayward. Telly Sevalas, who plays the cop, is a direct descendant of Aristotle Onnasis, Socrates, and Zeus. A distant grandparent of John Davis Chandler, who plays Mad Dog Coll, was known to have posed for one of the gargoyles on Notre Dame Cathedral. Vincent Gardenia is the illegitimate son of Miklos Rozsa and Beatrice Lilly. NOW tell me genius -- or something -- doesn't run in families! I don't mind making fun of the movie because it really stinks. It's not just the low budget either. It's the almost total lack of imagination, care, and talent in its construction. Stu Phillips wrote the abominable theme song (with bongos). "Mad Dog Coll thought that life was long; man, oh, man, was he ever wrong." The central figure can't act and has a face with all the beauty of the rear end of a Mack truck. The story takes place in the 1920s and the wardrobe and make ups are out of 1960. It must have taken five minutes to throw the script together. The direction is so pedestrian that it jaywalks. The narration is dumb. Why go on? It's dispiriting to even think about it. All it lacks is an offensive social message to be a perfect egg.

This may not be accurate to the legend of Coll, but the movie was a killer (pun intended) b+movie. Riveting drama that plays on Coll's psychotic killer mentality, his twisted childhood and resulting bitterness. One correction: In the final scene Coll gets gunned down inside an indoor phone booth in a drug store, falls to the ground and crawls out to the street and dies, uttering the words, "I Hate" as he dies. Chandler, with his sneering, psycho-Elvis persona, plays this role superbly. This is a fun movie if you like the gangster-genre flicks - I think it has the potential to be a sleeper-cult film someday. I remember 30 years back when my parents and others alive during it's original release could not recall Jimmy Stewart's "It's a Wonderful Life," despite being big Stewart fans. When I first saw the flick in the early 70s I fell in love with it - and my elders looked at me like I was hallucinating. Now it's one of the most famous movies ever. How many dozens more great flicks have been forgotten & overlooked?

The real Vincent Coll was probably turning in his grave. This movie is laughably bad. It was hard for me to actually sit and watch it keeping a straight face. Whenever I saw John Chandler on screen I couldn't stop laughing. John Chandler has to be the worst choice I've ever seen to play Mad Dog Coll. The whole time I'm watching the movie I'm saying to myself, "This guy's a gangster?" They had the nerve to cast a little wimp as Vincent Coll. The real Vincent Coll was known to be tall and handsome. John Chandler is neither. I also have to agree with a critic above that mentioned Chandler's teeth. Chandler looked like Mister Ed with a gun. Every time he spoke I laughed. He has such a funny voice. Whenever he tried to act tough I just laughed. As also mentioned above, this movie is not one bit accurate. If you're going to make a movie about a real person and change things this much, at least change the names. There was no way this movie could've been about Mad Dog Coll. They just got too many things wrong. This movie was so poorly made that they didn't even know how Coll died. They show the police kill him when in reality it was probably Dutch Schultz that had Coll killed. I never heard of giving the police credit when a mobster gets whacked. It's so stupid, it's funny. I turned this movie on one day with a couple friends. We love the gangster movies and we were all familiar with Mad Dog Coll from books and TV. We couldn't believe who was cast in the role. Having John Chandler play Vincent Coll is like having Gene Wilder play Al Capone. Yes, believe me, it's that bad. With such a horrible lead actor like this it's very hard to take the movie seriously. It plays like a comedy. The movie is cheap, poorly made, and a joke. I was trying to maybe see the movie as a spoof of Coll's life, but it strays so far from the real story and the real person that it can't even be related to Coll as a spoof. Maybe it can be seen as a spoof of gangster pictures. This guy Chandler is no James Cagney. He's not even gum on Cagney's shoe. So the bottom line is, I don't recommend this movie at all. It's extremely inaccurate, poorly made, there's a dumb theme song that comes on in the beginning and in the end, it has a terrible script, cheap sets, bad directing, bad acting, and it has John Chandler. John Chandler can never be taken seriously in this movie or probably any movie. It's no surprise this was his first and last starring role. I feel sorry for Telly Savalas, Vincent Gardenia, Gene Hackman(who is on screen for a few seconds without ever speaking a line), and Jerry Orbach, for even appearing in such a bad movie. All are fine actors and all were wasted. What a dog this movie was.

This is Gene Hackman's first movie role! He is uncredited as a cop opposite Telly Savalas in one scene. Blink and you'll miss it! The beginning of a brilliant career that went unnoticed in this snootier! Didn't know about Jerry Orbach was in this film, now I wish it would be played on Turner Classic or some place on local cable so we don't have to shell out God knows how much money for a crappy DVD! Finally, how much more do I have to write about this movie that I haven't seen this is a stupid process here as far as a commentary. This is stupid. Fix this minimum of 10 lines of text nonsense!!! Jeepers! Okay, this is the 10th line already, sorry folks?

I see no reason for whining about being inaccurate. Has anyone seen a movie lately that was accurate? For that matter has anyone seen a news broadcast that is accurate? I found this inaccurate movie very entertaining. I only gave it a 7 because i saw the movie many years ago and maybe it wasn't quite as good as i thought it was then. probably not, but i did switch brands of cigarettes to chesterfield kings for about 6 months, i don't guess i have to mention non-filtered as i don't believe any chesterfield cigarettes were filtered at the time. and yes, i do find stupid movies entertaining, i saw another about a blue butterfly, many years later, cant remember the name of it and have looked for it in vain. i have not seen many movies where the actor actually looked like the person he was portraying unless perhaps it was abraham lincoln. i have seen various actors portray mad dog, and the one in this movie is the closest my mind could picture as looking like him. who really cares anyway. its not like you have to identify him in court.