Mongo's Back in Town (1971 TV Movie) User Reviews

Who arranges Top Cast?

[vonnoosh · 7/10 · 16 January 2022]

Because despite Telly Savalas, Martin Sheen, and Sally Fields being in this, Joe Don Baker is clearly the star. Top Cast arranges him at 6th or 7th billing which is misleading. He is in 70 to 80% of the scenes and plays the title character, Mongo. People just curious to see early Sheen and Fields work might be led to think they do more given the billing and be disappointed. Kojak fans on the other hand might think Telly Savalas was basing that character around this one, Lietenant Tolstedt.

Anyway this is a very cheap looking made for TV movie based on an award winning novel written by a convicted murderer and armed robber, E Richard Johnson. He wrote this book from prison as well as most of his works. The story does have a strange feel to it. The weather is meant to be gray wet, cold with periods of snow turning to dark gray slush on the streets and sidewalk for most of the story. Unfortunately, they seemed to have shot this in sunny California and it is pouring rain under sunny skies right from the start. Not the greatest introduction to a movie no matter what anyone does in the scenes.

It is well acted as you would expect. The story takes some twists and turns but the worst violent scenes are not shown, just the reactions to them are. This is a made for TV movie afterall. A character gets acid thrown in his face, woman and children get murdered etc. It is a strange ending.

Its a fairly ugly story with only a few likable characters. They do manage to make Mongo sympathetic given his circumstances. Overall the movie is more a reflection of TV movies from the era. Fairly slow paced and OK for a couple hours diversion but I wouldnt be so sorry if I never saw it again.

The movie of the week goes film noir.

[mark.waltz · 6/10 · 8 April 2022]

Mango's a hitman, played by Joe Don Baker, returning to town after a prison sentence, and everybody who knew him from his brother and other associates to the police department are suspicious about his presence. It seems that practically everybody, including his brother Charles Cioffi, wants to put a hit on him before he is assigned to put a hit on them. By chance, he meets the new girl in town, a young Sally Field, and and helps her out after buying her breakfast and suggesting that she leave town as quickly as possible. But of course she's going to stick around, and ends up getting involved in his business which leads her into the middle of a murder investigation. Anme Francis is terrific as a world-weary shady lady, and Telly Savalas, pre-Kojak, is sensational as Baker's nemesis on the police department.

That's Angelo Rossito, a veteran actor dating back to the early 1930's as the mute Trembles, instantly recognizable from his role in the cult classic "Freaks" and devoted sidekick to Bela Lugosi in a couple of Z grade horror films. The atmosphere is terrific, often dark and rainy and set in the worst part of a big city. Baker is very funny when he gets filled a hotel room and request that it be with as few bugs as possible. The plot is complicated but not convoluted oh, an update of the type of B crime drama that dominated the 1940's. Baker makes a great anti-hero, with Field the typical innocent heroine (although she is feisty), and Frances terrific in the type of roles that Claire Trevor used go play.

Unforgettable

[pmjarriq · 8/10 · 25 January 2005]

I saw this TV movie a while ago, but never forgot it. Why ? Probably because it was a hard boiled, mean, violent and dark "film noir", in the "Charley Varrick" mood, and because the hero (Mongo) was a brutal hit man seeking revenge on his brother, beating his girl friend (sweet young Sally Field) and died alone, standing in the pouring rain. Joe DOn Baker is absolutely great in this part, really tough, not even with a golden heart. His encounter with a blind man when he arrives in town is quite shocking. Telly Savalas played a Kojak-like cop, his sidekick was a very young Martin Sheen (in his James Dean days) and Anne Francis was perfect as always as the girl who left one brother for the other. I wonder why this marvelous film never showed up on video, especially on DVD. It deserves a cult status.

This is a grimy, dark-edged TV movie of some considerable distinction.

[Weirdling_Wolf · 9/10 · 25 February 2021]

Always happy to show appreciation for another neglected, funky down-at-heel TV movie, and director Marvin Chomsky certainly delivers the gritty gangster goodies with his bluntly effective crime drama about the desperate acts of low level hoods in the grim, twilight hours before their inevitably darker dawn. Mighty Joe Don Baker walks tall in this undeservedly obscure groovy 1970s Noirish crime thriller as big, hard luck thug Mongo who returns to his unlovely hometown after a lengthy 5 years absence in order to put right some grievous wrongs in his own inimitable, twin-fisted style, a firm crack in the jaw expediting his business far more eloquently than the fancy-schmancy talk he never had any truck with. After a suitably rain-lashed opening we are dropped into the seedy milieu of insalubrious dives and their equally ill natured inhabitants, with their bad deals, cheap suits, watered down whiskey, this deliciously downbeat film positively seethes with familial treachery and callous, underworld duplicity, this heady cinematic brew brought quickly to boiling point as the bodies start piling up like discarded cigarette butts at an overnight stakeout! 'Mongo's Back in Town' is a terse, sinewy tale of hard-nosed, double dealing hoods, strongly bolstered by an extraordinarily talented cast: Telly Savalas in on especially enigmatic form as battle-weary Lt. Peter Tolstad, and along with his youthful, mustard keen partner Gordon (Martin Sheen) these tough, straight-shooting city cops are going hard and heavy on Mongo's case, but some of the bum clues just simply don't add up!

Stone-cold ape Mongo Nash doesn't care too much for social niceties, his dames come cheap, buck an' a quarter, worth less than a greasy plate of ham & eggs at Kossoff's dreary diner, and when the big guy's naive main squeeze Vikki (Sally Field) inevitably gets burned by the encroaching heat and wants to hit the bricks Lickety-split, her mean, brick house beau don't want it playin' out like that, now way over her innocent, pretty little head, she is forced to remain at his side until the excitingly mounted finale. Much like a man-sized shot of mescal this sordid backstreets affair got a dangerous sting in its tail. Rarely screened and no less infrequently championed, 'Mongo's Back in Town' is a grimy, dark edged TV movie of some considerable distinction.

Absolutely terrific

[searchanddestroy-1 · 4 October 2015]

This movie made for the small screen represents the quintessence of what I love the most in the film noir. Even if it's not the authentic definition that other movie buffs may give to it. I don't care. This feature was aired on a french channel during the late seventies, but I missed it. I only knew the novel written by Richard Johnson, an ex con like Eddy Bunker. Novels speaking of brutality, violence and total despair for every one, and where only the most ruthless guys survive. So this movie is fairly faithful to the original. A fierce story for a hopeless atmosphere where you don't have to expect any happy endings. What can I say to describe the Telly Savalas or Joe Don Baker's performances? I can't find words strong enough to tell you. Outstanding, fabulous, awesome... I will never forget one of the last scene, where (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS) the Joe Don Baker's character - Mongo - dies standing still under the rain. Read the other comment too, it's better than mine.

Pure hopeless seventies style, the kind of movies I have always loved and always will.