Chazz Palminteri "A Bronx Tale" Sit Down | Michael Franzese

all right one of my favorite movies of all time i've reviewed it in the past bronx tale they got some of the greatest lines and they were all delivered by chas palmitari he played the gangster sunny brilliant part but some of them were just so great remember when he tells calogio for 20 bucks you saved yourself a favor a headache you don't have to chase the guy anymore for 20 bucks he'll never come back to you for money again love it what's better to be loved or to be feared hmm you know it's an interesting question i answered it once we're going to answer it again today and then of course when the bikers came into the bar and we're going to wreck the place sonny goes over and locks the door and what does he say now you just can't leave my in-studio guest today for a sit-down jazz palm and terry [Music] so trash i got to tell you two things i'm very excited to have you here well thank you same here you're the first in studio sit down because everything's been done by zone right and i'm so uh i'm just honored and privileged that you you agreed to come yeah let me let me tell you that and i got to say this now i got to start this way as far as the mob movies are concerned there's different kind of actors joe pesci plays the crazy mob guy he's terrific right but there are a couple of actors that just add so much dignity to their roles obviously marlon brando yes unbelievable don corleone al pacino he played michael corleone amazing uh sunny in the bronx tale and the reason i say that is because there's there's a dignity to the role to make a mob guy look dignified like so many that i knew not that it was so many that i knew and when you see sonny when you see don curlion when you see al pacino these are the guys that you want to be right you know because so many people aspire to be mob guys it's not the joe pesci type right it's the sunny type and and bronxdale and and i gotta say it was brilliantly played oh well thank you and and i mean this in in a good way it really you reminded me so much of my dad in that role because my dad carried himself that way right and uh i love the movie well thanks so much thank you i appreciate that i you know i really have to say that dinero had such a big part of the movie about making it being it real because the director one thing you you have to realize you can have a great script you have a bad director you could he could destroy it so when i finally you know bob and i finally got together i made a deal with bob and we were making the movie bob when he told me said i don't want actors in the movie it was bob who said that and i said really he said no he said you me joey that's it everybody else is going to be real and when he first said that i was kind of thrown by that but i said hey you know okay he's bob de niro you know let's do it but the thing about that is you just have to you could do that but you have to have the casting process really long and you have to see thousands of thousands of actors before you get excuse me real people before you realize these guys can do it certain amount of people can do it you know he just wanted him to be themselves to learn the dialogue but be themselves and natural and that's why when you look at bronx tale it almost looks like a documentary like because they're so real everybody's so real because they are real yeah you know they are real that mean that really was eddie mush in the movie that was him you know that that is eddie mush that's the amazing thing people don't realize my father who's [ __ ] who was a bus driver he was in the movie too but we had to cut him out and cut out i cut out my old father and the only reason why because it just didn't make because he pulled up first and i waved them off waiting for my father that he pulled out that my father and bob and we kept looking at the scene and it made the scene longer and i turned to bob and i said bobby he's got to go he goes it's your dad what'd that say my father he didn't care because when i made a deal with bob my de niro said to me i want to hang out with your father for a month fly him up here he was in florida he says and i want to just be with him and tell i wanted to tell me about the bus and the whole thing my father was so thrilled here's a guy from sicily my mother and father now they're with robert de niro i mean they've been watching the godfather and all these movies and now their son pictured us now their son is in a movie with robert de niro and robert de niro was playing lorenzo right he was just so thrilled he goes oh forget it don't worry about me he told him how to drive a bus it was pretty uh well you know even that role i i related to because my grandfather my mother's father yeah drove a bus in brooklyn for 44 years wow and i used to go on a bus with him he used to take me this is amazing my father drove a bus for 30 years you know 44 years my grandfather and every year he got the good drivers award except for one year oh come on and he was sick over my father got the award all the time my father was my father when he left he turned to my mother and said we will never see anyone like you like your husband ever again he goes he was the best never late in 30 years never late ever ever you know i got to tell you this too because it comes to mind my grandfather i love the guy his name was rocky right and uh we used to watch baseball together he didn't like any of the black players all righty mays wasn't as good as mickey mantle you know this way and i said grandpa why do you say that these are great players right they're not as good as a white guy that's all he would ever say cut to i go to the bus and i'm saying to myself my grandfather's racist right right i go on the bus with him every african-american black woman that came in hey rocky they hugged him they brought him fried chicken he was so and i loved him so i said grandpa why are you he's well i just think mickey mantle is better than willie mays and that was it it wasn't anything racist about it exactly but i don't know why that came tomorrow no no no my father besides being a bus driver he trained fighters my father was a professional uh trainer fighters and he taught and i boxed when i was a little kid he told me his father taught him i told my son but he had my father in his 60s in six in the middle 60s late 60s my father had a couple of black fighters come to my house in my neighborhood have dinner at our home you didn't do that back then you didn't do that no one and people said hey you know what's this guy coming to that building my father said oh he's one of my fighters he's a good guy it was the most amazing thing yeah that mike because and i grew up like that i dated black girls yeah you know people till this day people go come on dinero put that in i go no he didn't i go you think de niro is the only guy who dated a black girl i said no i i dated a black girl that was the truth that was true about me you know well i'm glad we brought this up because a lot of you know what you know what caused this a lot of people think that mob guys you know were racist we didn't like blacks and it was all because of that one line in the movie in the godfather totally that was it totally my city we would keep the traffic in the dark people to call it the animals anyway so let them lose their souls and meanwhile we had sammy davis jr my father had him at the house yeah my father wasn't racist one bit we weren't brought up like that but for some reason people have it in their head and it's because and sure but and i always say were there some italian guys were racist yes absolutely yes i'm not going to say that wasn't but my father was not but the interesting thing about my father michael was in the movie i didn't tell my father i dated a black girl it was different because i knew he it would upset him not because he was a racist it was because he didn't want his son to go through what he was about to go through it was different it was a different kind of love for a father and son my mother and father don't forget they said well we don't marry we my father still could be friend i loved clyde taylor who was one of his fighters but he he didn't want his his children i think to go through that thing at that time don't forget this is the 60s now yes you know i remember of course yeah so it was that was a tough time it was tough about that but you know another i want to with me every time i see a mob movie it's authenticity that if it's not authentic right the characters aren't right right i can't get through it you know tumor armand asante did you see the first gaudi movie which was great in 1996 it was great was brilliant and alma was brilliant in it brilliant right and and anthony quinn as neil dylan brilliant right and when you see these type of characters it's like you added a whole dignity to the life and i really mean that after the godfather i don't know if you remember guys on the street started carrying themselves differently because of the movie because everybody started kissing each other the godfather caused everybody the great thing about the pandemic was i didn't have to kiss anybody anymore right i could walk into a nightclub or walk into a restaurant i didn't have to kiss anybody because you get some people they eat don't you know they gotta kiss you i mean they wanna disappoint the wise guys i call them you know what i mean i mean coffee and cake guys come on give me a break with these guys you know uh everybody you know we used to have those guys there was one guy actually he was to take off on jimmy whisper's uh a character that i had in in the movie because he would always say you know they're coming after us i would say coming after who they're coming after you you're a low-level coffee and cat guy where they're coming after they're coming after us they don't even know you exist you know it reminds me there's a couple of guys in florida i don't know if you know this now but every supposed street guy now has a youtube channel all over yes it's like becoming a very crowded field yes there was two guys in florida and a lot of these guys are talking i don't even know who they are never heard of them right exactly no idea but there's two guys in florida that all of a sudden started talking about me and they look at the camera and they say francis we're coming to get you we're coming after you and i'm looking at them talking my wife so who are these guys who haven't seen him never heard of him had no idea that was the end of that it was a year ago see the problem listen and you're talking about you're italian i'm an entire world tying the problem with italian americans sometimes and i've always said this is that they don't stick together enough they get that jealousy thing that's right you know what and i grew up i grew up i knew i was going to be successful michael i really did and i grew up always championing other people always because some people look at life like it's like it has six slices and michael has one of them that son of a [ __ ] look look how many followers he has look at that i look at life like it has six million slices every it's for everybody and the more you champion other people the more life comes to you life is like and i know you're you know you know you're you're a christian and and i'm i'm i'm a catholic i'm not a born-again christian but i'm a catholic and i believe in spirituality and i believe in god i pray i go to church when i can but i believe in if you're like this and you're tight the flow of life just bounces off you but if you're open and free life comes through you and with you and you enjoy life with everyone i'm not threatened by anyone that's a great attitude you know it's funny you say that because i always said one of the problems that i noticed with my culture with italians is that it's normal to be jealous sometimes yes i wish i had that right jesus i love the way that's got right guys living problem with so many italians that i've noticed is that they say i wish i had that and i wish you didn't have it exactly that's the bad thing that's the bad part yes that's the bad part like i saw one of your episodes it was great we took we were talking about the guy who just had to collect the stuff for the and he got like i don't know three grand or something like that he finds out he's counting and seeing that you're making all this money and it's like well i deserve a raise it's like i was like what i i gave you a shot just to do this i know all of a sudden he wants to be my partner they stuck out your money i said to him you think you you're worth three thousand a week i could get some it was a gift i could get somebody else to do this for less exactly and when i when you said that i was like oh my god he knows he knows i said this guy knows man you know that's why i actually told you i said go to this channel i said you want to see the real deal go to him thank you you know i said no but you're the real deal and i admire somebody is the real deal did you ever meet my father no i don't think so because i don't know if i saw something i heard something one time that that maybe he's met you know at a restaurant or something i don't know i might have my you know what i might have ran into and met him but i don't want to say i did if i if i don't remember i don't want to come off as a liar i don't i don't remember i might have because i remember being around a lot of people meeting people yeah i think you might have because i think he even mentioned something to me a couple years back yeah that he ran into you said it was great in bronxdale you know well he may not have met you but he wanted to let me think about it i definitely met people that you know i mean i definitely know people that you that is definite growing up in the bronx because it was a different a different family but when i hear you tell stories i go oh yeah he knows him oh he knows him when i hear you tell stories i always oh yeah he must know him definitely knows him well you know you in that life you bunked into so many people especially when you were active you know yeah i was a pretty active guy i mean i know i know joe piston very well do you oh yeah yeah he told me yes i know joe very well you know what chaz i got to tell you we had such i mean i've known him now 20 years yeah because we want some yeah things together with uh with pro sports but he's really a nice guy joe is the best best guy best guy you know you'll laugh i had a a discussion with sammy bull a little disagreement over right over this and uh i mentioned joe pistole's name and he got all mad he said you know what that guy did i said sammy what do you mean he did his job better than we did our job right then six years he was on the cover he did a great job but that was his job how do you get mad at him why would he get mad at him i know but you know he's got a different mentality sammy yeah i mean uh yeah i mean what did he do that was so wrong that you didn't do i mean you know what i mean yeah i mean come on exactly but he uh joe's a great guy i always teased him i said joe thank god i only met you once on the street one time that's good yes he said i know michael you know the only movie michael people always ask me did you ever turn down a part and you regretted it the only movie and i s to this day was in donnie brasco you turned it down really i turned down uh sunny black did you yes i was directing a movie that i've written and it was it was going and i couldn't hit i couldn't do both i should have shut my mouth and took that and pushed my movie the and the reason why and michael matson who did it was great he was great he was great i mean i love michael michael and i we worked together so i'm not saying anything michael was absolutely great but i'm i am upset because i love that movie so much right i love that movie so and i told al and i'm good friends with we did a play together that that's one of his greatest performances playing this broken down wise guy you know he just plays he played this broken kind of guy and the way he did it i just thought it was great you know i've said so many times on on my channel that was his best role yes i knew lefty and i i didn't know lyft i don't know the way he the way he carried himself pacino was brilliant he was brilliant in that role to me i go and i'm so mad because i love that movie so much and i could have been but it's it's okay i let it go but i gotta tell i don't know who they're uh they had to have a consultant a guy from the street or something because so many of the lines in that movie just like in bronx town yeah you know i laughed or the one when uh pacino's in the car with uh johnny depp right and he said you know you're killing me with that draft shut the window closer i i busted she didn't even know i was with my wife i watched that movie i'm laughing throughout parts that nobody else understood little things like it's the little things those wise guys said that just made you laugh you know you know a lot of guys were comical in that life they didn't even know they were funny they didn't know they were [ __ ] see that's the thing eddie mush didn't know he was funny i mean the guy all those guys i mean they would say things and do things where did that scene put him in the bathroom where did that come from okay betty mush was a jinx right so when he got on a roll sonny which wasn't his name when he got on a roll and eddie mush would try to get involved he would say mush get him out of here stick him in a bathroom and it was a goof like it was fun so when i rode that bed i said gee you know what i'm going to put everybody in the bathroom so it was about so look a bronx deal is a lot of my life but you embellish certain things i always tell people that you know they go well this happened that happened i go certain things happen certain things embellish what happened was when i was on the corner and this guy whacked this guy right in front of me like from basically from here to where camille is right there where the cops i saw it my father dragged me upstairs exactly i mean the killing was exactly the way you saw it in the movie and when he dragged me upstairs the cops came up i never went down into a lineup there was never a lineup i put that in as a writer to to really cement me and sonny what happened was the cops came up and they said who did you see and i said i didn't say nothing and my father kept saying you're not taking him down there he's not going down there and he says what and the guy actually said uh you think we picked his name out of a hat we know he was right there people told us he was sitting right my father didn't let me go and i said i didn't see anything how old were you i was 10. wow that was 10. and i said i and my phone said he's not going down the cop they were tying cops he said all right you know they didn't give a [ __ ] you know it was like they were going to follow up on the investor they knew it was a hit whatever and it was over see i i never knew what it was about never that's why it was a big thing like was it over money was it over a girl told us that my father died at 90 years old and i used to say to him when he was like in his 80s hey dad that thing that would happen when that guy got away what was that about and he knew and he would say what do you want to know for things happen you know they speak in non-sequiturs women money things right wouldn't tell me because he was so you don't need to know you don't need to know that's a line we we deliver quite a bit you don't need to know you don't need to know you know and i always tell people i really don't know what was it about was it a parking space i don't know and that's the truth i really don't know every scene in that movie when you when you a great movie is every scene you're just involved in yeah really and that was the bronx tale i remember to another line i don't want that face coffee cake look at this those dice put them in a bathroom in the bedroom well there was a guy frankie coffee cake and he had all these like pimples he had acne i mean you know you know in the neighborhood if you have any deformity that's your name and the worst thing you could say to guys if you call me this i'm never going to turn around that's it that's your name forever forever we had one guy who said yeah you know uh he used to work or what do you call his pants with frankie pants he'd call him frankie patel's day i don't know we're in the late 60s i go pants his pants on the phone oh it's pen you know how that is that's it you're that's your name that was it i know we i i tell people we're never original with the names it just that's it whatever you had whatever deformity you had there you got a big nose you were you were joey knows your son was joey little knows exactly you like eggs you're bunny eggs you know that's your bunny eggs i said benny eggs yeah now benny eggs funny story about benny eggs benny when he was on a stand benny eggs now this is a story that they brought back to me at the time right the d.a said to benny eggs or was it the judge somebody said to him when he was on a stand and he was in the order sitting there i still can't say his name but i guess i can right yeah yeah well chin was right in the thing and the guy said if you could identify who the godfather is you will go home today today and and and benny hanks said to him sonny boy you could sing you could dance i don't know nothing and they send them right back to the joint and in the front page of the newspapers the egg on the daily news that said eggs don't break i remember that remember that yeah that's a true story they told me that and i was like wow i remember that and the chin said that's a man no now that you say that there's one thing that um we may have a little disagreement on good and this is the line from the movie oh i know what it is too i can't wait to talk to you about it okay you talked to clojuro am i saying that right clojure or is it you talked to claudio yeah it was a love or fear exactly and you said it's better to be feared yes and i understood what you're saying but here's his where i differ with you okay i'll tell you what happened i always say the golden years of my former life right in america was from the 50s right through to the mid-80s right that was it that's when we had the unions we had political power of course we had everything you remembered yes everybody was everybody all the old-timers the life was i hate to say it people get their own but life was really beautiful at times during that time mid 80s everything starts to fall apart giuliani comes in the racketeering laws people are flipping left and right it made sense what you're saying but here's what happened in that life the fear of retaliation right like when i took my oath it wasn't so much that i was in fear of my boss i was in fear of violating the oath because i know that that violation at any point in time can put me in a lot of trouble right i told the line there was fear no doubt yes but when the racketeering laws came in and instead of ten years you got a hundred years you got no parole you got 50 years whatever the fear of the life and the fear of the boss was transferred to the fear of the government yes these guys were more afraid of the government and the consequences no questions because they're going to jail well rico changed everything changed everything everything so what i say there now but if you love somebody even that fear is not going to make you crack because i love that person right you know look look jazz i'll be honest with you when i went they offered me so much stuff and you know when i left the life i wasn't interested in hurting anybody i wasn't mad at anybody right i just wanted a you know i married a young girl right my family my father my mother my brothers my sisters the life they were destroyed i don't know if you know this i had a sister that died of an overdose that i know my brother you know drug addict all those years my mother 33 years without a husband i said what do i want to do this for this young girl i'm marrying her i'm going to go through this with her there was a sense so that's why i walked away i wasn't walking didn't walk away because i was mad at anybody or i wanted to hurt anybody government offered me a lot of stuff right i wasn't interested in that but there's certain people that i love that i would never turn against because i cared for them i agree so i'm going to explain okay i'll explain many guys was transferred to the government that's why they flipped right i always people always ask me on the street they say chaz is it better to be loved or feared and my answer is always if you're transparent terry it's better to be loved if you're sunny it's better to be feared i always said if you're in that life and you're the boss it's better to be feared if you're not in that life and you're a regular person like you are now and i am it's better to be loved so that's really what i always say that but in that life machiavelli himself would say it's better to be feared in that in that life as a regular person it's better to be loved that's what i'm saying i i hear what you're saying but i think i think for a time that was true right told the mid-80s and everything changed because these guys you know i heard it you know look when guys flip they always tell you they flip oh this this happened they don't want to go to jail they don't go to jail that's the bottom line yeah that's it before you know it's like you know when it was prostitution gambling this and that you'd do a couple of years you could do two years standing on your head without a doubt right now when all of a sudden the guy tells you 40 years rest of your life you've gone excuse me let's talk about this everybody flip they race to get to the to get the flip they try to beat each other to flip it out it's unbelievable that's one of the things when i when i seen like greg scarpa we didn't know he was an informer for 20 years yeah guy willie boyd johnson who was around now he was around gotti but i was very i was shy locking money with him right when i heard that he was informed i said oh my god i'm in trouble but he liked me and i never got in trouble with him he never talked about me yeah you know who knows but i i understand what you're saying and i think up until the mid 80s when everybody went crazy in government that might have been true but i don't know yeah no i i think it's a fair point i think we could agree to disagree but i think it's close i think we're saying the same thing just differently yeah okay i really do i think we're saying the same things just differently uh but but yes would i rather be loved absolutely i've been married 30 years now of course you are loved yes but thank you i've been married to the same woman 30 years i have two great kids i have a dante my son dante and my daughter gabriel oh okay one boy dante and gabriella and my wife gianna okay you know uh yeah i know i we i have a great you know great family and um because you're not that life all you know these people think it's a glamorous life they they lived horrible lives michael no doubt horrible lives you know and i saw that you know i i i knew that my father and my father bronx said that was my dad he always used to say to me you don't want to look over your shoulder the rest of your life he said doesn't take much strength to pull the trigger he said try to get these are words in the movie try to get up in the morning every day and go work for a living that's a tough guy you're right that's a tough guy it doesn't take much strength to pull the tree what is that you want to go go work for a living on a job you don't like to do but you do it for the love of your family that's a tough guy you used to say guy was right he thought you were so right you know you're so right i had the other experience and i've seen what it was it was devastating you know some guys get mad at me now but i tell them i said look the mob life the street life the gang life their their evil lifestyles in a way right and i don't call the guys evil no i was one of them i just happen to be very fortunate very blessed to get out but i don't call the guys evil but i don't know one family of any member of that life that hasn't been devastated not one not one so any lifestyle that does that to a family is a bad life and that's that's exactly that's it you know the wise guys and i learned things they would all say to me you should say you know the government's 99-0 they don't lose they don't he says you can't be somebody the way he used to say it how do you say it i always wanted i wonder if i put that in a movie i might have put in a movie he said you can't beat people that won two world wars and print their own money very well said that's what he said yeah i'll never forget that he said they print their own money they won two world wars you want to fight them right he goes the government's the toughest mob in the world you can't beat them more so today than ever more so today than ever what can i tell you brilliant chas palmitary one of my favorite actors of all time just brilliant so appreciative that he came into the studio flew in from new york to l.a to orange county to come in and sit down with me we're gonna go have dinner now can't wait to do that but this is the first of many uh in studio sit downs armond asante is coming up dominick lombardosi love both of those guys great gangsters in the movies really terrific so uh this was a good one keep tuning in keep subscribing we're up over 530 000 thanks to all of you loving the content we really appreciate it so how do i always leave you be safe be healthy god bless and yes i will see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Michael Franzese

Views: 1,186,596

Keywords: michael, franzese, michael franzese, mafia, mob, mobster, mob boss, mafia boss, capo, caporegime, american mafia, italian mafia, sonny franzese, chazz, chazz palminteri, bronx tale, robert de niro, lillo brancato, sit down michael franzese, mob actors, mafia actor, robert de niro bronx tale, chazz palminteri bronx tale, a bronx tale

Id: F6zxJkDkOa0

Length: 30min 14sec (1814 seconds)

Published: Mon May 24 2021