Memphis has links to Chicago mobster story

Director Dimitri Logothetis, executive producer Marie Pizano and producer Nicholas Celozzi teamed up on the documentary "Momo: The Sam Giancana Story."

A cynic might say that Memphis is better known for random violence than organized crime.

Nevertheless, "Momo: The Sam Giancana Story," a documentary about a man described as Chicago's "second most powerful mob boss" (the first was Al Capone), will have its designated public premiere at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Malco Paradiso, 534 S. Mendenhall.

An executive producer of the documentary and the organizer of the premiere is Memphis' Marie Pizano, who hopes to develop film projects here with producing partner Nicholas Celozzi, Giancana's grand-nephew and "Momo" producer.

Sam Giancana

Celozzi, a Chicagoan, said the documentary was created in cooperation with Giancana's daughters, Francine and Bonnie, who are expected to attend the premiere. The sisters opened up the Giancana archives, so the film contains home movies, photographs and other material never before seen outside the family, he said.

Directed by longtime Hollywood player Dimitri Logothetis (he was a producer of "Hardbodies 2"), the movie examines how an abused kid in an impoverished household with 13 siblings grew up to be "one of the most powerful men in organized crime," Celozzi said. He said the film explains "how things really happened at certain times in history": Faces in the "Momo" trailer include John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Ruby, Fidel Castro and Frank Sinatra.

The high-profile boss of the Chicago crime syndicate from the late 1950s through most of the 1960s, Giancana is among the mobsters alleged in some reports to have been recruited by the CIA to assassinate Castro. Giancana and JFK may have shared a mistress, Judith Campbell Exner, and some authors have written that the mobster ordered the "hit" on the president.

Giancana was murdered in his home in Oak Park, Ill., in 1975; he was shot once in the back of the head, and six times in the face and the neck in a pattern that has been described as "a ring" around his mouth.

Celozzi was a credited co-producer of "A Fine Step," the ill-fated and so-far unreleased horse movie shot in Memphis in 2010 that left behind a trail of lawsuits, contested bills and ill will. The film's chief producer, Bret Saxon of Los Angeles, has been accused of fraud in lawsuits in L.A., Nashville and Memphis; Celozzi says he, too, was an unwitting victim of the project's false pretenses.

The premiere is primarily invitation-only, but some tickets are available through the website, justmy.com/momo.

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