the godfather--2/28/25
Today's selection-- from The Curious Movie Buff by Jennifer M. Wood. A few tidbits about one of the most famous movies ever made:
“The original The Godfather (1972) and its 1974 sequel, The Godfather: Part II, exist on the same ‘unassailable’ level of cinema history that’s typically only reserved for only a handful of other films, including Citizen Kane. An operatic look into the machinations of the Corleone crime family, including patriarch Vito (Marlon Brando/Robert De Niro) and conflicted son Michael (Al Pacino), these are the rare movies that carry the kind of reputation that few people would ever dare challenge. Perhaps that's why a lot of people, especially the ones loudly declaring The Godfather's greatness, seem to ignore the very existence of The Godfather: Part III, an underwhelming epilogue to the saga.
“Regardless of your feelings about the final film in The Godfather trilogy, there's no denying that it might just be cinema’s most enduring tribute to family loyalty and the American Dream.
“FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA WAS OFTEN ON THE VERGE OF BEING FIRED.
“Coppola wasn't the first director Paramount had in mind for The Godfather: Elia Kazan, Arthur Penn, Richard Brooks, and Costa-Gavras all turned the job down. After filming began, executives didn't like the brooding, talky drama that Coppola was shooting, and were constantly threatening to fire him (even going so far as to have stand-in directors waiting on set). One version of the story goes that it wasn't until after he shot the scene where Michael kills Sollozzo and McCluskey that the studio was sold on Coppola's vision. The other version says Coppola fired the underlings plotting against him.
“PARAMOUNT DIDN'T WANT MARLON BRANDO FOR THE ROLE.
“When Coppola initially mentioned Brando as a possibility for Vito Corleone, studio executives were completely against the idea based on prior dealings with the notoriously eccentric actor. They pushed Coppola to cast Laurence Olivier as Vito, before eventually agreeing to pursue Brando under three stringent conditions: (1) He would have to do a screen test (which was practically unheard of for an actor of his caliber); (2) if cast, he would have to forgo his usual movie star salary; and (3) he would have to personally put up a bond to make up for any potential losses caused by his notoriously bad on-set behavior.
“Coppola surreptitiously lured the famously cagey Brando into what he called a ‘makeup test,’ which in reality was the screen test, the studio demanded. When Coppola showed the studio the test, they liked it so much they dropped the second and third stipulations.
“AL PACINO WASN'T THE FIRST CHOICE TO PLAY MICHAEL.
“The studio wanted Robert Redford or Ryan O'Neal to play Michael Corleone, but Coppola always wanted Pacino. Other actors, including Martin Sheen and James Caan (who would go on to play Sonny), screen-tested for the part.
“ROBERT DE NIRO AUDITIONED FOR SONNY.
“Coppola thought his personality was too violent for the role. De Niro would later appear as the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II, and won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work.
“COPPOLA TOOK ADVANTAGE OF MISTAKES.
“Lenny Montana, who played Luca Brasi, was a professional wrestler before becoming an actor. He was so nervous delivering his lines to a legend like Brando during the scene in the Godfather's study that he didn't give one good take during an entire day's shoot. Because he didn't have time to reshoot the scene, Coppola added a new scene of Brasi rehearsing his lines before seeing the Godfather to make Montana's bad takes seem like he was simply nervous to talk to the Godfather.
“THE GODFATHER'S CAT WAS A STRAY.
“During his daily walks to the set, Coppola would often see a stray cat, and on the day of shooting the scenes in Vito's study, Coppola took the cat and told Brando to improvise with it. The cat loved Brando so much that it sat in his lap during takes for the whole day.
“PACINO WAS THE ARCHETYPAL METHOD ACTOR.
“He reportedly really had his jaw wired shut for the first part of the shoot after his character was punched in the face.
“THE INFAMOUS HORSE'S HEAD WAS REAL.
“The horse head in the movie producer's bed wasn't a prop. The production got a real horse's head from a local dog food company.
“THE ‘TAKE THE CANNOLI’ LINE WAS IMPROVISED.
“The line in the script only had actor Richard Castellano as Clemenza say, ‘Leave the gun’ after the hit on the mobster who ratted on the Corleones. He was inspired to make the addition after Coppola inserted a line in which the character's wife asks him to buy cannoli for dessert.
“COPPOLA SUGGESTED THAT MARTIN SCORSESE DIRECT THE GODFATHER: PART II.
“After The Godfather’s tumultuous production, Coppola wasn't interested in diving back into the world of the Corleone family, but the studio wanted a sequel. So Coppola suggested they hire Scorsese, who was fresh off Mean Streets, to direct. Paramount disagreed, and eventually got Coppola to helm the sequel by letting him tell parallel stories that featured flashbacks into Vito Corleone's early life--and by agreeing to pay the director the (then) outrageous sum of $1 million, which Coppola had asked for as a bluff.
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| Brando (right) and Pacino as Don Vito and Michael Corleone, respectively |
“MARLON BRANDO AND ROBERT DE NIRO WERE THE FIRST ACTORS TO WIN OSCARS FOR PLAYING THE SAME CHARACTER.
“In 1973, Brando won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role as Don Corleone in the original The Godfather. He famously asked Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather to attend the ceremony on his behalf; she declared that Brando ‘very regretfully cannot accept this very generous award. And the reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry.’
“In 1975, De Niro won his first Oscar, for Best Supporting Actor, for playing the younger version of Don Corleone in The Godfather: Part II. De Niro was also a no-show to the ceremony—he was busy filming Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 and admitted that he didn't expect to win. Coppola accepted the statuette on De Niro's behalf, calling it a ‘richly deserved award,’ without recognizing publicly that history had just been made. It's a distinction that remained unchallenged until 2020, when Joaquin Phoenix picked up an Oscar for playing the Joker, following Heath Ledger's Joker win a little over a decade earlier. But those were very different characters with the same name; Brando and De Niro played the same character, just at different times.
“DE NIRO ONLY SPEAKS EIGHT WORDS OF ENGLISH IN THE GODFATHER: PART II.
“De Niro spent months studying Sicilian in order to play the role of Vito, since the character speaks almost exclusively in it. He also visited Sicily for research, saying, ‘Sicilians have a way of watching without watching; they'll scrutinize you thoroughly and you won't even know it.’
“THE GODFATHER: PART II WAS ONE OF THE LAST MAJOR TECHNICOLOR FILMS.
“Technicolor started releasing films using its dye-transfer process during the Golden Age of Cinema. The Godfather: Part II is the last major release to use the process, though it would continue in China until the early '90s. Later that decade, Technicolor announced an ‘enhanced dye-transfer’ process that was used on films like Batman and Robin and Toy Story 2. But just a few years after its introduction, that was also abandoned.
“COPPOLA HAD NO PLANS TO MAKE A THIRD GODFATHER FILM.
“After The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II, Coppola thought that the saga of the Corleone family was complete and had no intention of making Part Ill. But after the making of One from the Heart in 1982, Coppola found himself in such a dire financial situation that he agreed to Paramount's request for another sequel.
“ROBERT DUVALL WAS WRITTEN OUT OF THE GODFATHER: PART Ill DUE TO A SALARY DISPUTE.
“Despite Coppola's intentions to reassemble as many members of the original The Godfather cast as possible, Robert Duvall balked after learning that Pacino was being paid ‘three or four times’ what he had been offered. When they couldn't reach an accord, Coppola wrote Duvall's character Tom Hagen out of the script and created a new family attorney character played by George Hamilton.
“WINONA RYDER WAS ORIGINALLY CAST IN THE ROLE OF MARY.
“A who's who of up-and-coming Hollywood actresses were attached or considered for the role of Michael's daughter, Marty Corleone, including Julia Roberts and Winona Ryder, who initially accepted the part before dropping out due to ‘nervous exhaustion.’
“SOFIA COPPOLA REPLACED RYDER AT THE LAST MINUTE.
“At the eleventh hour, Francis chose his daughter Sofia to step into the role of Mary, a choice that invited complaints of nepotism. When those complaints were made public via media outlets at the start of production, they affected Sofia's confidence and clogged the film as a whole--and still do to this day, In the commentary track for the original cut, Coppola observed the parallels between the story of the movie and its making, saying, ‘There is no worse way to pay for your sins than for your children to be included in your punishment.’”
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