A new mafia movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio called “The Black Hand” is in the works according to the latest reports.
The movie an adaptation of Stephan Talty’s book will tell the story of an NYPD cop named Joe Petrosino who back in the 1900’s squared off against the deadliest secret society in American history. This point in history was when the Italian mafia began making their headway into the United States migrating from Southern Italy. Petrosino who was nicknamed “the Italian Sherlock Holmes,” worked to expose the dealing of the mafia including their kidnapping and extortion rackets. DiCaprio will not only star in the movie but he is also going to produce it for Paramount Pictures through his company Appian Way Productions.
“Leonardo DiCaprio (Left) and Joseph Petrosino (Right)”
They sent their victims mostly wealthy Italians extortion letters threatening kidnapping, bodily harm, and even murder if a certain amount of money was not paid. These letters which often included threatening symbols were signed with an etching of a black hand. Petrosino formed a team of all Italian policemen to fight against the ominous group until he was shot to death by the mob in 1909 in Palermo. At the time the New York Times referred to him as “The only New York City police officer ever killed in the line of duty on foreign soil.” This has the potential to be one of the better mafia movies in the last couple years. Here is a synopsis of the new Leonardo DiCaprio mafia movie:
Beginning in the summer of 1903, an insidious crime wave filled New York City, and then the entire country, with fear.
The children of Italian immigrants were kidnapped, and dozens of innocent victims were gunned down.
Bombs tore apart tenement buildings. Judges, senators, Rockefellers, and society matrons were threatened with gruesome deaths.
The perpetrators seemed both omnipresent and invisible. Their only calling card: the symbol of a black hand.
The crimes whipped up the slavering tabloid press and heated ethnic tensions to the boiling point.
Standing between the American public and the Black Hand’s lawlessness was Joseph Petrosino.
Dubbed the “Italian Sherlock Holmes,” he was a famously dogged and ingenious detective, and a master of disguise.
As the crimes grew ever more bizarre and the Black Hand’s activities spread far beyond New York’s borders, Petrosino and the all-Italian police squad he assembled raced to capture members of the secret criminal society before the country’s anti-immigrant tremors exploded into catastrophe.
Petrosino’s quest to root out the source of the Black Hand’s power would take him all the way to Sicily—but at a terrible cost.
