This tragic story tells us several things about the "Naked City" universe. First of all, we meet the lost child who comes from a neighborhood where no one trusts the police and yet she decides to remedy her lostness by walking into the precinct. Next, we are reminded that Det. Frank Arcaro is Italian when he suddenly speaks to the little girl in Italian and she answers him in the same language.
When Det. Adam Flint returns the girl to her neighborhood, her father, Mario Lacosa, tells Flint they do not have contact with the police, as a rule, because they usually take care of their own business. This is not necessarily a neighborhood with connections to organized crime, but they do have a culture similar to the one that produced La Cosa Nostra--which seems to be why Mario's family name was chosen. When someone murders Mario's father, the watch word becomes "vendetta". Mario's younger brother, Nino, thinks that since they are in America, they should not be doing things the old way, but his community shames him into going along.
The scene where Nino accepts the vendetta is remarkably done. The scene is framed by a prior one in which Nino talks to his sister-in-law about his qualms. That scene is in English, but the one in which the men persuade Nino to go along with his brother is all in Italian. The language is so well enunciated that even though I have never studied Italian, I could follow the argument. This has partly to do with the fact that I have studied a little Latin, French and Spanish, but more to do with the fact that the prior scene with the sister-in-law established what the discussion was going to be about, and the tone and body language showed how they were arguing and pleading with each other and who finally gave in.
When Det. Adam Flint returns the girl to her neighborhood, her father, Mario Lacosa, tells Flint they do not have contact with the police, as a rule, because they usually take care of their own business. This is not necessarily a neighborhood with connections to organized crime, but they do have a culture similar to the one that produced La Cosa Nostra--which seems to be why Mario's family name was chosen. When someone murders Mario's father, the watch word becomes "vendetta". Mario's younger brother, Nino, thinks that since they are in America, they should not be doing things the old way, but his community shames him into going along.
The scene where Nino accepts the vendetta is remarkably done. The scene is framed by a prior one in which Nino talks to his sister-in-law about his qualms. That scene is in English, but the one in which the men persuade Nino to go along with his brother is all in Italian. The language is so well enunciated that even though I have never studied Italian, I could follow the argument. This has partly to do with the fact that I have studied a little Latin, French and Spanish, but more to do with the fact that the prior scene with the sister-in-law established what the discussion was going to be about, and the tone and body language showed how they were arguing and pleading with each other and who finally gave in.
