Mob Movie Monday- Goodfellas with Michael Franzese

and you had nikki eyes what's up guys and mikey franchisee [Music] hey everybody welcome to another sit down with michael francis hope everybody's doing well hope you had a a great weekend and it's today it's a mob movie monday so i always told you that the the three most accurate films as far as capturing the essence of the mob life the street life um was goodfellas which we're going to review today donnie brasco and the original gotti movie the hbo gotti movie with armond asante we spoke about that already i know a lot of people agreed with me so they they you know really capture the essence of the street life the mob life as i knew it not necessarily factually accurate in everything that the movie portrayed but a good depiction of the life in general so let's talk about goodfellas i've been asked about that so many times let me get one thing straightened out right away this is henry hill's um portrayal of that life it's his story you know it comes from the book the wise guy written by uh nicholas pelegi and it's henry's revelation of what happened during that time and for the most part i think you know henry did a a fairly accurate job he did you know he did say uh pretty accurately what was going on during his life at that time but let me get a couple of things straight number one henry never looks so good and i don't mean to be demeaning to henry at all but he never looks so good as he did in that movie henry was not the figure that was portrayed by ray leota in a big way what i mean by that henry was kind of an unfortunate soul for most of the time that i knew him most of the time that he was on the street he had an alcohol problem he certainly had a drug problem a little bit later on maybe he had it longer than later on i don't know but i can tell you a couple of things henry never walked through the kitchen of the corporate cabana without somebody that was with him like paulie vario if paulie ever really hung with him uh or or some of the other guys um you know just you got to understand that and i'm not trying to put henry down i'm just trying to tell you the truth and he wasn't that close to paulie vario you know in the movie it was depicted that he was with him that he knew him that uh you know paulie treated him like a son uh i don't believe that to be true um i knew that those guys i knew that crew fairly well he was very close to jimmy burke and he was part of jimmy burke's crew he did know tommy d simone obviously but again this is henry's version of the story so always remember you know that everything there are going to be inconsistencies in it and of course you know the producers the director they take dramatic liberty whenever they uh make a film has to be you only got an hour and a half to do it so let me go through a couple of things first off you know the scene where they're around the bar and they're mentioning names and they look at somebody and they're going there is mikey francis you gotta understand my wife up to that point she didn't get into all of this stuff she didn't read my book she didn't really know what was going on in that regard she didn't want to know and as the movie proceeds a little bit she looks at me and says is this really what your life was all about because remember california girl didn't know anything about the mob her her only connection to the mob was me so she says is this really what your life was all about and i said come on honey it's a movie watch the movie that's hollywood they make things up right no sooner than i say that then this scene in the bar comes out and there's mikey francis and i look at her and says come on annie let's go i was surprised i didn't know why they mentioned my name i wasn't part of that crew yes i knew them but whole different crew those are little cages i'm a colombo guy and i tell my wife that wasn't me it was probably somebody else even though i don't know anybody uh you know with the name michael francis that was part of that uh life my dad's brother mikey frenzies uh his older brother was not involved in the mob he's the only other mike francis that i know so uh anyway she goes home and she googles me and sure enough okay good fellas michael francis there i am in a a mug shot and it shows that the guy bono whatever his name is miki bono i think he portrayed me i asked henry later on why did you throw that and i asked nick pelegi too because i knew him i said why'd you throw me in the film he saw michael you had name value henry knew you jimmy burke do you so we put your name in there and i had visited you know the suite which was henry's uh club in on queens boulevard at that time i also was at jimmy burke's place i think it was called robert's lounge something like that so that's why i was in the film but yes it was me so that's number one a few more things with henry again he wasn't the same guy that was portrayed in that film it was unfortunate because i think deep inside henry wasn't a bad guy he really wasn't i had opportunity to speak to him way way later on after he had gotten out of the witness protection program he was in california trying to straighten out his life i told you a couple of stories about him i'm not going to be redundant and get in again but um you know just just unfortunate but listen it was a great movie so that was his version of it his version of it another thing you may not know the movie my blue heaven uh was written by nick pileggi's wife nora ephron that was also based loosely on henry hill's story so great movie if you haven't seen it steve martin was great it was just a wonderful film a comedy but you got to watch it it's about a guy in the witness protection program that was once in the life the whole thing you'll enjoy it so um you know that's that with henry obviously i can get into a lot more with him but you know my relationship with him you know about henry so let's move on let's go to pauli barrio uh i can tell you this paulie was not the same guy in his personality and his character that was portrayed in the film goodfellas and goodfellas he was kind of a a godfather type guy he uh you know was like a father to henry hill um he wasn't that way in real life he was he was a pretty rough kind of guy he had a rough reputation uh he was a capo in the in the lucasia family and um i knew paulie he had a a piece of a couple of nightclubs out in long island one being a club called 231 the other one channel 80. one of my favorite places a place i used to go to all the time was on the water they had an upper an upstairs like balcony in there and i'm telling you two three nights a week i was there with you know 30 40 50 of my crew up there and we used to have a blast so and i knew paulie i met him once or twice in that place he always was in and out of trouble had a lot of stuff going on he did get hurt by henry hill henry did testify against him once because paulie did henry a favor and got him a no no show job so he can get out on parole in one of his prison stints and henry testified to that fact and you're not allowed to do that so paulie i think he got four or five years as a result of that and then he testified against him again i think with the lufthansa case or some other thing that was going on so paulie did get hurt by henry hill i can tell you this that paulie did put a contract on henry hill's life and that's one of the reasons why henry flipped i know that uh jimmy burke was also pretty upset with him i will tell you this again uh paulie was against drugs for his crew didn't want it he said it brought too much heat it gave guys too much time he didn't like the fact that henry was was involved with drugs and that was one of the reasons why the hit was put out on him there was a story that jimmy burke was was profiting with henry hill off of the drug business i don't know that to be a fact i knew jimmy i didn't know him to be involved with drugs jimmy was more of a uh you know he had a crew and they did a lot of robberies and he had money out on the street i know that for a fact i didn't know him to be involved in drugs and uh when i did speak to him one time he had denied it so and i didn't ask him that he just said you know henry is involved with drugs it's something we don't do so he kind of disassociated himself with that i did tell you a story about henry when i went into lewisburg penitentiary and how he helped me out by giving his supplies he was upstairs i was downstairs i was in uh in transit during that time and he took care of me while i was in uh lewisburg penitentiary so good guy i like jimmy a lot he can never be made because of the fact he wasn't italian but he was a stand-up guy and he was known to be that way so let's move on to tommy desimone i get asked about him all the time you know people i got to tell you this tommy had a rough reputation he was to me he was crazy okay so lo allegedly killed a lot of guys i believe a lot of that to be true a lot of stories that i heard again i met tommy i think two or three times with henry and once at jimmy burke's plays the robert lounge i think it was again um i wasn't particularly fond of him you know he wasn't one of the guys that i would hang out with uh he was a pretty violent guy but guys like that don't last in this life you need to understand that you know are you afraid of a guy like that well he's a loose cannon you don't know what he's going to do so yeah you're on your god with somebody like that because you don't know well what happened with him uh that scene where uh henry and jimmy and tommy killed bats that's true it didn't quite happen that way i think there was more to it yes bats did insult tommy d simone i know that for a fact i heard about that afterwards but i think there was more to it i think jimmy had some involvement with bats and maybe have picked up some of his customers on the street when bats came home he wanted those things back and i think jimmy might have had a problem with that that's what i heard and he wasn't killed on the spot after he insulted de simone that was planned that happened later and i know it happened at one of their bars i forget which one it was but anyway was either at henry hill's bar or was at jimmy burke's bar i think they lured him in there and they did do a number on him and i don't know if you know this but bats was very close with john gotti and yes desimone did get killed i know in the movie it said that henry hill said that they shot him in the face that they couldn't have a funeral they couldn't open the casket i don't believe that to be true because until today i don't believe deceman's body has been has been found so you know again took some liberty on that and again guys like that don't last every guy that i know that was a loose cannon in that life roy demayo you know another example these guys don't last so it doesn't pay they do a lot of damage during their lives but they certainly end up paying for it at one point in time so um look i can go on and on with this uh you know this is a movie that i can spend the next hour and a half it was a wonderful movie i enjoyed it i do want to tell you this you know that scene with tommy desimone where uh you know am i funny funny how funny like a clown i'm funny how i mean funny like i'm a clown i am you that wasn't in the original script joe pesci kind of ad-libbed that and he went to scorsese and asked if he could do that i got to tell you joe pesci is is probably one of the greatest uh gangster you know characters that you you've ever seen he's just terrific he lights up the screen he's so natural he grew up around that life he's terrific he really is he was great in casino he was great and goodfellas and he was even great in the irishman played a different role but he was great in the irishman as russ buffalino and i knew russ i knew him you know in my in my younger times was very close with my captain andrew russo at the time so um you know but that was a great scene great scene and he just had the right language he had the right moves you know he's just terrific pesci is great so uh you know that's about it look everybody has seen goodfellas we're not going to go scene by scene you've all seen it again i described it pretty pretty well accurate um but that's it for today so go out if you haven't seen the movie go and watch it i think you can get it on netflix or wherever it's probably on youtube too if not you pay a few bucks you can see it but you'll enjoy it ladies it is kind of violent kind of graphic if you're not into that stuff don't watch it my wife won't watch it again but for you guys out there that want to see a fairly accurate depiction of the life go for it because you'll enjoy it so that's about it for today i want to thank you again you know we passed 150 000 uh subscribers in a very short period of time we uh encourage you to subscribe we got a lot of good stuff coming up and when you subscribe you're alerted to it a lot of interviews coming up a lot more stuff planned for those of you that want coaching and want to join our inner circle or want to join our free site michaelfrancis.com it's really building people are so encouraged with what's going on in these crazy times people we need encouragement we need encouragement and everybody in this group is picking each other up encouraging them i'm jumping in we're doing zoom calls really having a great time and it's really building so that's it for uh mob movie monday see you next time have a great day be safe be healthy god bless you

Channel: Michael Franzese

Views: 1,093,673

Rating: 4.9553208 out of 5

Keywords: michael, franzese, michael franzese, mafia, mob, mobster, mob boss, mafia boss, capo, caporegime, colombo, colombo family, colombo mafia, gambino, gambino family, bonanno, bonanno family, lucchese, lucchese family, genovese, genovese family, al capone, john gotti, gotti, american mafia, italian mafia, cartel, prison, federal prison, prison gangs, fat tony, fear city netflix, sonny franzese

Id: IIc179oRLxU

Length: 13min 50sec (830 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 14 2020