Part 2 is a very good sequel, very rare when it comes to sequels. But what makes part 2 a masterpiece is the flash back sequences. Greatest recreation of that era ive ever seen.
We were in Vegas, with another couple, going down an escalator in, I think it was Caesar’s Palace. There was someone right behind me on the escalator, a man with the voice of an orator, talking with his wife about something. I just knew I had heard that voice before. My wife and our friends heard him as well.
We stepped off the escalator and waited for the gentleman and his wife to pass by, to see who it was. At the time we didn’t know, and we watched the two of them walk into one of the many stores. We were discussing him, my wife and I - “We have heard that voice before, he has to be an actor!”, so my wife and her friend’s husband decided to follow them into the store and talk to them. I chickened out- I was saying, “leave them alone, he’ll probably take your head off”, or something similar.
So they went into the store, and after a while they came out, and said they had the nicest conversation with him.
His name was Al Ruscio, and in the banquet scene in Pt. 3, he was sitting right next to Al Pacino right before the helicopter gunship came in and blew everybody apart.
His big line, as he was laying on the floor bleeding to death, was “Joey Zaza, you son of a bitch!”
I’m sorry I missed out on meeting him. They talked about their Italian heritage and some of his movies- he was in Showgirls, he told my wife “ you’re too young to see that.” He was a true gentleman.
There was a thread here on FreeRepublic when he passed. My account, for some reason, wouldn’t let me sign in, so I couldn’t tell this story then.