Il Capo dei Capi (The Boss of the Bosses, also known as Corleone) is a six-part Italian miniseries which debuted on Canale 5 between October and November 2007. The series is inspired from the eponymous book-inquiry of Giuseppe D'Avanzo and Attilio Bolzoni. Audio in Italian with English subtitles.
Episode 2: https://www.bitchute.com/video/HYnG6V0squ3f/
The miniseries tells the story of Salvatore Riina, alias Totò u Curtu (Totò the Short), a mafioso boss from Corleone, Sicily. Riina is played by Palermo-born actor, Claudio Gioè, and the series was directed by Alexis Sweet and Enzo Monteleone. It was reported that the miniseries was seen by Salvatore Riina himself while he was in prison.
Palermo, 15 January 1993. Cosa Nostra 'superboss' Salvatore Riina has been arrested after 23 years, and receives a visit in prison from his childhood friend, Biagio Schirò, triggering a flashback. In 1943, as a 13 years old boy, Riina is working in the fields around the town of Corleone when he finds a buried bomb. His father decides to take the bomb home because he wants to extract the gunpowder from inside to sell it to hunters in order to supplement his very low farm labourer's income. The bomb explodes, killing Riina's father and younger brother, Ciccio, and leaving Salvatore as the head of the family to lead a life of misery.
Tired of living in poverty, Totò, together with his friends Bernardo Provenzano (aka Binnu), Calogero Bagarella (Calò) and Biagio Schirò, begins to work for Luciano Liggio, Picciotto of the boss Michele Navarra.
The places where the scenes were filmed are mainly in the province of Ragusa and, to a small extent, in Catania.
Differences with historical events: There are numerous differences with the historical story, in particular the following characters are completely or partially fictitious. For those who are curious, here are some:
1. Biagio Schirò: is a fictitious character, inspired at least in part by the police officer Biagio Melita, who in 1963 actually recognized Riina at a checkpoint and had him arrested.
2. Luciano Maino: is not a character who really existed. He is probably inspired by one of the first Cosa Nostra turncoats, Luciano Raia, a former killer in the service of the Corleonesi, later heard by judge Cesare Terranova. His statements led to the Bari trial in 1969. However, he did not hang himself: he was not believed at the trial and was locked up in a criminal asylum. Released, he was killed a few years later.
3. Angelo Mangano: The character of the commissioner Angelo Mangano has been much romanticized. In the fiction Mangano arrived in Corleone in 1958 when in reality he only arrived in 1963. The first capture of Luciano Liggio must be attributed to the Carabinieri under the orders of Lieutenant Colonel Ignazio Milillo assisted by commissioner Mangano and Public Security personnel. Liggio's second arrest in Milan was not by Mangano but by lieutenant colonel of the Guardia di Finanza Vessicchio.
4. Leoluca Bagarella: In the series Leoluca Bagarella is shown much younger than in reality. He is two years older than his sister Ninetta when in the series he is still shown as a boy in the first half of the 70s. Furthermore, Bagarella was not part of the commando that killed Pio La Torre, much less the one who murdered Buscetta's relatives and was not even part of the killers who killed the commissioner Beppe Montana, as he was detained at that time and was only released in 1990.
5. Pino Greco: In the series Pino Greco is killed in 1989, while in reality he died in 1985. Furthermore, in the series he is killed after committing a robbery at the Banco di Sicilia, strangled with a rope, while in reality he was killed in his own home with gunshots on the back of the head. Furthermore, while in the series he is described as very ignorant, almost an illiterate man, it seems that he was instead an excellent student in classical high school and had great familiarity with Latin and Greek.
6. Luciano Liggio: During the reading of the sentence of the Palermo Maxi Trial in 1987, Liggio is sentenced to life imprisonment together with the other important defendants. This is an inconsistency with the facts that actually happened. Liggio was acquitted in the Palermo Maxi Trial, as he had already been convicted of the same crimes and had been in prison since 1974.
7. Silvio Albertini: Despite being a fictitious character, his personality (an honest man who was later killed for having Riina's wife interviewed and interrogated) is similar to that of Mario Francese.
8. Vito Maranza: A fictitious character.
9. Pochet Coffi: A fictitious character. It is probably inspired by some ruthless killers who were under Riina's orders, such as Mario Prestifilippo, Filippo Marchese and Giuseppe Giacomo Gambino, who do not appear in the fiction.
