Word: serpico
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...least good craft. Maas, who has skillfully dovetailed law-and-disorder in best sellers like Serpico and The Valachi Papers, proves adept at joining history to melodrama and to convincing plot twists with slightly implausible characterizations. A middle-aged New York City adman named McGuire turns into a modified James Bond to investigate the disappearance of a headstrong son, a Harvard student who was mixed up with running guns to the I.R.A. McGuire's metamorphosis may strain credulity, but his motives are authentically rooted in strong parental emotions...
Crime has long been a topic for movies, and in the late '70s D.A.'s even played a central role, but a very different one. Their job in movies such as Serpico and Prince of the City was to expose police corruption, all the while indicating just how inevitable that corruption was. The movies were not hard on cops so much as they were hard on the system. D.A.'s were portrayed as ambition-driven climbers, eager to use informants as stepping stones to more impressive jobs...
...honest cop in the Frank Serpico mold. Early in the spring of 1982, A'Roterick McLaughlin, a 15-year veteran of the Chicago police force, went undercover to nab officers who dealt drugs, sometimes peddling the stuff from their squad-car windows. He played the role of a neophyte dealer, wearing miniature microphones when he met with corrupt police. His work led to the conviction of ten policemen and the indictment of three others, none of whom have yet started serving any time in prison. It also made him a target for revenge...
After excursions into fiction (Made in America) and exotic subculture (King of the Gypsies), Author Peter Maas has returned to his most substantial theme: intractable loner vs. corrupt organization. In Serpico (1973), a singleminded narcotics agent challenged the authorities and won. The heroine of Maas' new nonfiction drama triumphs over a stained bureaucracy, headed by the Tennessee Governor's office, that sells pardons to murderers and rapists...
Scratch an Italian, you find a pasta buff. Scratch an Italian expatriate, like Film Producer Dino De Laurentiis, 63 (Serpico, Ragtime), and you find an epicure with the complaint that no one makes pasta like Papa. The son of a spaghetti-factory owner, De Laurentiis last week opened his new $3.5 million, 12,000-sq.-ft. gourmet emporium in Manhattan, the DDL Foodshow. He has filled his showpiece with a 32-ft. counter for cold salads, 20 ft. of charcuterie and 139 chefs, bakers and pastrymakers. De Laurentiis is no stranger to the delights of kitchen duty. "When I cook...