Behind ‘The Godfather,’ misfits, showdowns and the real mob

Review by Glenn Frankel

December 23, 2021 at 8:00 a.m. EST
New Yorkers walk by a shoot for “The Godfather” on Fifth Avenue in 1971. Paramount Pictures
executives had wanted to save money by making the movie on a studio back lot, but director
Francis Ford Coppola fought that idea. (AP Photo/Anthony Camerano)
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The director had four unremarkable feature films and a handful of soft-porn skin flicks on his
résumé. The star was a washed-up and unreliable former deity who couldn’t memorize his lines,
was deeply in debt and was pondering his third divorce. The co-star was a high school dropout and
former messenger boy whom the studio suits considered too short, too old and too inexperienced for
the part. And the man overseeing the production was an insufferable narcissist with a blossoming
cocaine habit and a glamorous wife who was about to dump him for Steve McQueen.
They fought with one another and with their doubting overseers at Paramount Pictures, exceeding
their budget, their deadline and the patience of all involved. But in the end, this crew of certifiable
misfits delivered a full-blown masterpiece — “The Godfather,” which the American Film Institute
ranks as the second-greatest American movie of all time (just behind “Citizen Kane,” in case you’re
wondering).
The making of this classic drama is a story that’s been told, retold, psychoanalyzed and strip-mined
for leftovers — see “The Godfather: The Corleone Family Cookbook,” just one of a library’s worth
of spinoff books. The 1972 movie revitalized Hollywood, elevated Francis Ford Coppola to the
ranks of great directors, rescued the career of Marlon Brando and helped create a new generation of
movie stars: Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall and Diane Keaton. It spawned two sequels, one
of them brilliant (“The Godfather Part II”), the other meh (“The Godfather Part III”). But do we
really need to read again how Brando dyed his ponytail with black shoe polish, stuffed his cheeks
with cotton balls and lowered his voice two octaves for the screen test that got him the starring role?
 (Gallery Books)
Mark Seal, a longtime movie writer for Vanity Fair, clearly believes we do. And after resisting the
idea as long as I could, I have to confess that his book, even with the inside-joke title of “Leave the
Gun, Take the Cannoli” (an improvised line in the movie), captured me with its joyful energy,
extensive research and breathless enthusiasm.
It’s the forgotten characters who often make movie books intriguing, and Seal’s story finds its
footing when he introduces a great one: Mario Puzo, the chronically broke, frustrated author with an
addiction to high-stakes gambling and high-carb pasta, who decides to write a pulp novel about the
mafia in a last-ditch effort to escape bankruptcy. Despite his Italian American background, Puzo
knew next to nothing about the mob when he started, and did a lot of his research talking to well-
informed blackjack dealers and roulette wheel operators at the Sands and Tropicana hotel casinos in
Las Vegas. “I never met a real honest-to-god gangster,” he later confessed.
Puzo’s more-than-400-page epic captured the brazen ruthlessness and brutality of the mobsters he
portrayed, but also their devotion to their families and sense of honor. “It was Puzo’s genius to turn
them into family men,” wrote reviewer Maria Laurino in the Wall Street Journal. And Puzo turned
the mafia into a metaphor for America — its greed, violence, pretensions and betrayals. The novel,
published in 1969, became a huge bestseller; the paperback deal alone netted Puzo $410,000. But
Robert Evans, the young, aggressive, playboy-handsome production head tasked with turning
around Paramount’s fortunes, had already purchased the screen rights for a mere $12,500, with
another $50,000 if the picture got made.
Paramount was not enthusiastic. Mafia pictures had generally bombed, including the studio’s recent
stinker, “The Brotherhood.” But Evans and chief deputy Peter Bart figured the problem could best
be addressed by hiring an Italian American director. They chose 30-year-old Coppola. He was
deeply skeptical about the job — “I was young and had no power, so they figured they could just
boss me around,” he told Seal. But like Puzo and Brando, he too was deeply in debt after opening
his own independent studio. He pocketed the $175,000 director’s fee and reluctantly set to work.
The studio, ever guarding its wallet, wanted to update the story from the 1940s to a cheaper-to-
depict contemporary setting, and film it on the Paramount back lot. Coppola managed to overcome
these notions as well as sabotage the studio’s more bizarre casting ideas — including Ernest
Borgnine as the Godfather, Vito Corleone, the role that went to Brando, and Robert Redford or
Ryan O’Neal as Michael Corleone, Vito’s youngest son and successor, the part that eventually went
to Pacino. The studio execs hated the idea of casting Brando, who had wasted the previous decade
making mostly dismal movies. They made him post a bond of $1 million to ensure he wouldn’t
delay the film shoot and insisted he forgo his usual salary for a bargain-basement $50,000. He
grudgingly agreed — and won the Academy Award for best actor.
Coppola insisted on verisimilitude, even overseeing the color, quality and trajectory of the blood in
the gory, unsettling scenes of gangland executions. Many scenes were visually operatic — Coppola
and cinematographer Gordon Willis kept the camera in a fixed position, creating a tableau that the
actors walked in and out of. Willis used underexposed film and low lighting to produce darkly rich
compositions.
While Coppola was creating cinematic mob bosses, producer Al Ruddy was negotiating with a real
one: Joseph Colombo Sr., the head of one of New York’s five main crime families and founder of
the Italian American Civil Rights League. Ruddy agreed to delete the terms “mafia” and “Cosa
Nostra” from the movie and to turn over proceeds from the film’s New York premiere to the
league’s hospital fund. In return, Colombo gave his blessing to the project and delivered
cooperation and tranquility from the city’s powerful labor unions.
The tougher battles were between Coppola and the studio execs, who constantly threatened to fire
him. “It was the most miserable time of life,” he tells Seal. He fought viciously with Evans over the
movie’s nearly three-hour length, music and somber tone. Then Evans fought with the Motion
Picture Association of America’s ratings board, whose censors demanded cuts in three scenes
considered excessively violent. The scenes stayed in; the movie was rated R.
Both Coppola and Evans feared that the movie would bomb. But an early preview changed their
minds. When the film ended, Seal reports, there was silence — no applause, nothing. Audiences
were stunned by the artistry of what they had seen, and they’ve been stunned ever since.
Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli
The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather
By Mark Seal
Gallery.
432 pp. $28.99

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By Glenn Frankel