''Vendetta'' is a 1999

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

original movie directed by

Nicholas Meyer Nicholas Meyer (born December 24, 1945) is an American writer and director, known for his best-selling novel ''The Seven-Per-Cent Solution'', and for directing the films ''Time After Time (1979 film), Time After Time'', two of the ''Star Trek'' ...

and starring

Christopher Walken Christopher Walken (born Ronald Walken; March 31, 1943) is an American actor. Prolific in film, television and on stage, Walken is the recipient of numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Awar ...

Luke Askew Francis Luke Askew (March 26, 1932 – March 29, 2012) was an American actor. He appeared in many westerns, and had a lead role in the spaghetti Western ''Night of the Serpent'' (''La notte dei serpenti''; 1969). He also had a small part in the ...

Clancy Brown Clarence John "Clancy" Brown III (born January 5, 1959) is an American actor. Prolific in film and television since the 1980s, Brown is often cast in villainous and authoritative roles. Brown's film roles include Viking Lofgren in ''Bad Boys'' ...

, Alessandro Colla, Andrew Connolly, and

Bruce Davison Bruce Allen Davison (born June 28, 1946) is an American actor and director. Davison is well known for his starring role as Willard Stiles in the cult horror film '' Willard'' (1971) and his Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning perfor ...

. Based on actual events, it depicts the assassination of

David Hennessy David C. Hennessy (1858 – October 16, 1890) was a police chief of New Orleans, Louisiana. As a young detective, he made headlines in 1881 when he captured a notorious Italian criminal, Giuseppe Esposito. In 1888, he was promoted to superintend ...

and the consequent

March 14, 1891 lynchings The March 14, 1891, New Orleans lynchings were the murders of 11 Italian Americans and immigrants in New Orleans, Louisiana, by a mob for their alleged role in the murder of police chief David Hennessy after some of them had been acquitted at t ...

of eleven Italian Americans in New Orleans.

Premise

Nineteen

Italian-Americans Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, w ...

were accused of the murder of the

police chief The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...

. After the acquittal of six and mistrial of three, ten of them were shot or hanged in the largest mass

lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...

of Americans of European descendants in U.S. history.

Cast

as James Houston * Luke Askew as William Parkerson *

as Chief Hennessy * Alessandro Colla as Gaspare Marchesi *

Andrew Connolly Andrew Connolly (born 30 November 1965) is an Irish stage and screen actor and director. Biography Connolly was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1965 and was raised in the Finglas and Ringsend areas. At sixteen years old he left school for a seven- ...

as Sheriff Bill Villere *

as Thomas Semmes * Joaquim de Almeida as Joseph Macheca * Andrea Di Stefano as Vincent Provenzano * Edward Herrmann as District Attorney Luzenberg * Richard Libertini as Giovanni Provenzano * George N. Martin as Judge Joshua G. Baker * Pierrino Mascarino as Antonio Marchesi * Daragh O'Malley as Dominic O'Malley * Kenneth Welsh as Mayor Joseph Shakspeare *

Gerry Mendicino Gennaro "Gerry" Mendicino (born May 18, 1950) is a Canadian actor. Mendicino was born in North Bay, Ontario, and graduated from the University of Windsor Drama School in 1973. Throughout his career he has been able to play a wide range of versa ...

Charles Matranga The New Orleans crime family or New Orlean Mafia was an Italian-American Mafia crime family based in the city of New Orleans. The family had a history of criminal activity dating back to the late nineteenth century. The family reached its hei ...

* Frank Crudele as Angelo Bagnetto * Vincent Marino as Pietro Monasterio * Louis Di Bianco as Emmanuel Polizzi * Peter Didiano as Bastian Incompara * Giuseppe Tancredi as Umberto Scaffidi * Megan McChesney as Megan O'Brien * Stuart Stone as Tony Provenzano * Nigel Shawn Williams as Samuel Foster * Anna Mancini as Francesca Marchesi * Tony Mark as Mayor's Assistant * Conrad Dunn as Pasquale Corte * Ian Downie as Priest *

Ron White Ron White (born December 18, 1956) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and author, best known as a charter member of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Nicknamed "Tater Salad", he is the author of the book ''I Had the Right to Remain Silent But ...

as Robert Collins * Jack Newman as Jacob Seligman * Jack Jessop as William Yochum * Wayne Robson as Frank Peeter * Delores Etienne as Emma Thomas * Joel Gordon as William * Victor Ertmanis as John Duare * Richard Blackburn as Warden Davis * Holly Dennison as Miss O'Brian * Herbert Johnson as Houston's Servant * John Healy as Construction Foreman * James Bearden as Governor

Francis T. Nicholls Francis Redding Tillou Nicholls (August 20, 1834January 4, 1912) was an American attorney, politician, judge, and a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. He served two terms as the 28th Governor of L ...

Production

Writing

The teleplay by

Timothy Prager Timothy "Tim" Prager, is a British television and film writer. A graduate of Dartmouth College in the United States and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, he was an assistant director at the Old Vic Company under Timothy West. He wrote ...

is based on Richard Gambino's book, ''Vendetta: The True Story of the Largest Lynching in U.S. History'' ().

References

External links

* *
Time Warner press release
1999 television films 1999 films 1999 crime drama films American crime drama films Crime films based on actual events Films about immigration to the United States Films directed by Nicholas Meyer Films set in 1891 Films set in New Orleans Films shot in Kingston, Ontario Films shot in New Orleans Films shot in Toronto HBO Films films Films produced by Gary Lucchesi 1990s English-language films 1990s American films {{US-tv-film-stub