Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, The (1971)

Academy Award winner Robert De Niro stars as the Italian bicycle racer who falls in love with a mafioso’s younger sister in the middle of an underworld war being waged by the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

Baccala (Lionel Stander), the mafia don controlling Brooklyn, has survived through attention to detail. Every morning he has his wife start his car in case there is a bomb.

When he discovers one of his thugs, Salvatore Palumbo – known as ‘Kid Sally’ (Jerry Orbach) – is getting greedy, Baccala orders him to arrange a six-day bicycle race at a local armoury. But Kid Sally is a very poor organiser, the race is a disaster, and Sally declares war on Baccala.

Sally is strong and ambitious, but he’s putty in the knife-wielding hands of his mother, Big Momma (Jo Van Fleet), a frail lady of steel who is the brains behind the outfit.

Meanwhile, Mario Trantino (De Niro), the racer Sally has brought from Italy (who has a natural aptitude for crime), falls in love with Kid Sally’s sister, Angela (Leigh Taylor-Young). Now love blooms as the bodies pile up in this gangland comedy.

In their pursuit of Baccala, Kid Sally and his gang find themselves doing battle in the streets (under the admiring gaze of eager television cameras), terrorising the locals with a tame lion on a chain and generally creating havoc.

Based on the novel by Jimmy Breslin with the screenplay from Academy Award winner Waldo Salt (Coming Home, Serpico, Midnight Cowboy).

Kid Sally (Salvatore Palumbo)
Jerry Orbach
Angela
Leigh Taylor-Young
Big Momma
Jo Van Fleet
Baccala
Lionel Stander
Mario Trantino 
Robert De Niro
Big Jelly
Irving Selbst
Beppo
Hervé Villechaize
Exmo
Joe Santos
Tony, the Indian
Carmine Caridi
Water Buffalo
Frank Campanella
DeLauria
Harry Basch
Gallagher
Phil Bruns
District Attorney Goodman
Philip Sterling

Director
James Goldstone