Just watched Serpico again, great film, but my question is this: in the scene where Serpico is apparently moving out from his parents, his mom gives him a little book of some sorts. Can anyone shed some light on what it was that she gave him?
shareThough I don't speak Italian, it looked to me as if his mom had given him her passbook. I got from it that she was saying she'd put aside a little for a rainy day and wanted him to have the money.
shareYeah I don't know for sure what she said, but I would guess that she's giving him money and it plays to the story to say he didn't need to be on the take, he had enough money to be happy without it
Movie news and reviews to make you laugh:
http://www.youtube.com/wewatchedamovie
Just watched this excellent film on bluray and saw this question. Basically she says that whenever she managed to save any money over the years she put in the bank savings account for him. He replies he doesn't need it. She has how do you know? You will need money for your apartment and the furniture. Then she says it will remind you of your mum. The actress who plays mum is speaking in an italian dialect (maybe naples or sicily) and is obviously italian. Whereas Pacino who isn't italian, tries to answer in an authentic accent but to the trained ear its not very convincing.
shareVery insightful! Thanks for clearing that up, I was wondering the same thing. For us Americans, any Italian is simply Italian (if we don't confuse it for Spanish at first); how interesting to know that one of Pacino's defining performances as an actor may be slightly marred for those who speak Italian fluently!
shareThank you Nick.
shareHis parents are Italian and he grew up in the Bronx which has a mixed demographic including a large percentage of Italian immigrants, i would dare say he can speak Italian.
She gave him a passbook for a savings account. That's how banks did it back then. I just recently found one for my late husband when he had opened up a savings account when he was stationed in Alaska.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"Let's not ask for the moon, we have the stars".
not a razor & shaving cream that's for sure.
🎍Season's greetings!🎅🌲
"The actress who plays mum is speaking in an italian dialect (maybe naples or sicily) and is obviously italian."
Then later in the film she switches accents/dialects and asks in flawless Tuscan: "Dov'e il mio figlio?" It was jarring. Like hearing a British actor switch from Cockney to Oxonian.
Send lawyers,guns and money/The *beep* has hit the fan
Pacino is Italian, he is half Sicilian and half Neapolitan.
shareA bankaccount with money.
shareIn the book, it is explained that as a boy Serpico always had a job. He would regularly turn his pay over to his Mother and receive a small allowance. When he's moving out, his Mother gives him a bank book with all the deposits she made for him with his money.
shareThank you for the clarification, I think it is an important distinction to make that it was HIS money, and not an inheritance. Nonetheless money put aside for him by his mother whom he obviously helped support in his youth. Such an amazing film, by far my favorite Pacino movie.
shareShe gives him a passbook to a savings account and tells him in perfect Sicilian that she has put away all the money he sent her from Korea, and any money that she could spare which was originally intended for house payments so that some day he would have money for his own home and family!
shareYep, you recorded your banking in a passbook.
shareThe answer comes from the Peter Maas book, SERPICO. Serpico did odd jobs such as shining shoes as a young boy, and always gave his earnings to his mother, thinking it was his contribution to the household. She secretly opened a bank account in his name, and deposited all his earnings over the years, then presented the bank book to him when he left home.
shareThat was a savings account book. Back then the banks would stamp how much $$$ you had in your account in those blue books before moving to paper statements.
shareWe had the same thing in the UK too with the Post Office. I had a savings account with them when I was a kid in the late 70's, early 80's, and each time you deposited or withdrew money, they would write in it and stamp your book just the same as this. You always knew how much was in the account just by looking at the most recent stamp in the book.
Times have moved on so they probably don't do it anymore. The accounts probably still exist but in a modern form.