The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather
Episode Stats
Summary
The critically acclaimed and popularly beloved film The Godfather is coming up on the 50th anniversary of its release, and as hard as it may be to believe, this may be hard to believe that the critically acclaimed film is a perennial inclusion in lists of men s favorite movies. And when it comes to lists of favorite movies, the godfather is perennial inclusion, and when you consider that the film was based on a novel by Mario Puzo, it s easy to forget that the godfather is a cultural touchstone, and that people use lines from it in their daily language.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast and when it comes
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to lists of men's favorite movies the godfather is a perennial inclusion and as hard as this may
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be to believe the critically acclaimed and popularly beloved film is coming up on the 50th
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anniversary of its release journalist mark seal wrote an in-depth piece on the making of the
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godfather for vanity fair magazine back in 2009 and after doing even more interviews with director
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francis ford coppola the actors of the film and other behind the scenes players wrote a new book
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on the subject called leave the gun take the cannoli the epic story of the making of the godfather
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it's easy to forget that the film was based on a novel by mario puzo and we spend the first part
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of our conversation there with mark unpacking how an indebted gambler became a best-selling novelist
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from there we turn to how puzo's novel was adapted for the screen a story as dramatic and entertaining
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as the film itself mark explains why coppola took the job of directing the film and his genius for
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casting he delves into the unexpected selection of marlon brando to play don corleone and how
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james conne inhabited the role of sunny despite not being italian american we get into how a real
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life character named joseph colombo temporarily shut down production of the film in opposition to
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the stereotyping of italian americans as mafia despite the fact colombo was a mob boss himself
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mark explains why coppola considered making the godfather the most miserable experience of his
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life and the x factor that ultimately made the film so good and we end our conversation with whether a
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movie like the godfather could be made today after the show's over check out our show notes at
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all right mark seal welcome to the show thank you so much brad great to be here so you got a book out
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called leave the gun take the cannoli the epic story of the making of the godfather now the godfather
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it's one of the greatest films ever made i think afi the american film institute has it listed as number
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three on its list of 100 movies in 100 years it's become this cultural touchstone people use lines from
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it in their daily language and it comes right from the godfather so i think it's easy to forget
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especially if you were born after the godfather came out was that before the godfather was a movie
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it was a novel and it was a very very popular novel written by this unlikely author guy named
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mario is it puzzo yes exactly mario puzzo let's talk about puzzo how did his upbringing later influence
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the godfather yeah well mario puzzo is the hero of this whole story mario puzzo was is this amazing
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writer but he didn't start off as a writer he was a child of hell's kitchen in a big italian american
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family and they were so poor that he wrote at one point that the school asked him to bring a can of
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food for the poor and he he said all the hell's kitchen's kids went out and stole a can of food
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because they didn't realize they were the poor and so mario drifted through various occupations but he
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always wanted to be a writer but he had written two novels and they were both commercially
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unsuccessful but they were critically well received he was a talented writer and he went to work for a
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magazine company called magazine management and they produced some of the great pulp fiction titles
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of our time and they were these you know magazines and and he learned to write there and it was like these
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these pulp fiction titles about war and men at war and you know there was a collection of these of
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these stories called weasels ate my flesh and you know it's that kind of thing where he learned how to
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create suspense and introduce the characters in the beginning of the story and create fiction that felt
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like fact and so after writing these two pretty much failed novels even though they're they were great
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stories and well received he decided that he was going to write for money and it happened one night
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when he had a severe gallbladder attack and he directed the taxi to take him downtown new york
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to the va hospital and on the way the gallbladder attack got worse and worse until when he arrived at
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the hospital he opened the car door the taxi door and that's when the pain struck he would later say
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and he fell out of the taxi and into the gutter and lying on his back looking up at the night sky
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he said to himself here i am a published author and i'm dying like a dog and he said that's when i
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decided i would become rich and famous and he described himself as not like not competent he
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wasn't really proud of himself in fact one of the things i loved about this book was throughout that
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you kind of scattered these italian american slang words that you know my wife's family is italian
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american you know i've heard these words around the kitchen table thrown around and one of them is
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chooch and mario said he was the chooch of the family for our non-italian american listeners what's a
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chooch and what made puzzo a chooch yeah as puzzo wrote he wrote every italian family has a chooch
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a donkey that is a family idiot everybody agrees will never be able to make a living and he felt
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like that was his role he said there's he wrote there's no question that i'm incompetent monetarily
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insane but money is really killing everything and he was really you know desperate for money and you know
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he writes about this in his 1972 book the godfather papers and other confessions where he talks about
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his debt and i was also able to get access to his archives at dartmouth university and you can actually
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see the letters that he wrote to the irs asking for extensions and you could feel the the torment that he
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was under beneath all of this debt that he had to hopefully write his way out of well and how did he
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accumulate that debt that's part of what made him accumulated the debt well one of his big vices
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was gambling he loved to gamble and he wasn't a good very good gambler so he lost a lot of money
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and it led him to having to borrow money from friends and relatives and bookies and and whatever
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else and so by the time he was ready to write the godfather he was in debt and he the godfather was
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going to help him he thought write his way out but then eight publishers turned down the idea
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well so growing up he's italian-american grew up in an italian-american neighborhood
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did he have any like firsthand experience with the mob or was that just a part of like that wasn't part
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of his world no he in hell's kitchen he was around mobsters all of his life he would later write
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and he writes in one interview or i believe it was an article that he wrote he wrote about this
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strange man who one day comes to their apartment and ask his mother to hold on to a blanket full of
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guns for him and this man he later discovered was a mafia man and so he was around these people
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all of his life but he said he never had met a genuine gangster but what was happening in the 50s and
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the 60s were genuine gangsters were on television there were two sets of hearings the kefauver hearings
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in the 50s and then another set of hearings later on and those hearings were nationally televised the
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kefauver hearings on organized crime which included the work of bobby kennedy those hearings were being
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held in 14 cities across america and nationally televised and everybody was glued to their television
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sets watching these hearings including mario puzzo who was on his couch in front of his television set
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in suburban new york like everyone else and is that what inspired him to write i'm going to write a
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mafia novel yeah and one of the publishers his publisher who had turned down his next book his third book
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said if this only had a little bit more of that mafia stuff in it maybe it would be worthwhile and that
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rang in puzzo's head and he thought well okay i'm gonna write a book about the mob and he went home
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and he ordered the hearings transcripts of the hearings from the library of congress for ten dollars
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and there in his suburban new york basement next to a pool table and the sound of his five kids
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he began to dream in front of his manual typewriter and and there were mob stories written at this
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time it was a popular genre when puza set out to write what became the godfather did he have an idea
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of like how am i going to make this different from the other ones yeah i believe he did what made it
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different from the other ones and what made the movie different from all the other mob movies that had
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been made before was that he created a family he didn't just create you know gangsters with guns
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and the deaths and the crimes and all that he created the family corleone and and he created
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as coppola said francis coppola when he read the book he was put off in the beginning by its sex and
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and the some of the tawdry scenes that he thought was scenes that he thought were tawdry and he said what is
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this the carpetbaggers he had written and he didn't want to have any part of it but then
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coppola went to the library and began looking into other books on organized crime and he saw he went
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back and reread puzo's book and he saw exactly what puzo saw the family as coppola said he saw it as a
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as a saga about a king and his three sons and that's what you got in the novel you see the king
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the don the godfather and his three sons and you want to know more about them you feel an a strange
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affinity for them and that's what made it the novel different and that's what made the movie different
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and when he started pitching this book to publishers you said initially it was rejected
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i mean did he get responses on why it was rejected yeah you know i'm not sure i think that he had a 10
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page outline and it wasn't completely finished and so you know he mainly because his previous two
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books had not done well and so you know putnam and an editor named william targ as i write in the book
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took a gamble on him and what a gamble that turned out to be one of the best-selling novels of all time
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and uh of course puzo didn't realize what he had done and he sailed off with his family you know
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still deep in death his wife had not been back to her native germany since they had left there after
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the war and mario puzo had promised to take her back so he sailed he flew off with his with his kids
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and his wife to germany and he didn't have any money but he said he had a nice collection of credit
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cards and of course along the way he hit all the casinos on the riviera and all in london and
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everywhere else and he was cashing uh you know checks off of his american express card and when
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he got back another eight thousand or maybe even more in debt he called his agent uh hoping she would
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pull a a magazine story out of her hat as she had done many times before and buttress his failing
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finances only to say that the publisher had sent the book out to a paperback house which he had said
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do not send this book out it needs to be polished they sent it out to a paperback house and they had
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offered a record setting four hundred and ten thousand dollars for the paperback rights alone
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what's that in like today's dollars this was in 19 what 67 68 yes it's it would be millions in
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today's dollars you know it was inconceivable it was a record at first they went to 350 and then they
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kept going up and finally they went to 410 000 which was a set a new record for paperback for a paperback
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advance it was a juggernaut you know it was a rocket ship it was the it was everybody just you know you
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can't believe that he created this world this family these characters these lines you know that are
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that resound in the culture today i mean these things that he created this world that where
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fiction was even more mythic and more believable than fact and one thing puso talks about a lot of
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the lines especially the ones that came from the godfather the dawn don corleone he said a lot of
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those lines came from his mother exactly yeah his mother was a very strong italian american mother
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and she kept her family her kids on the straight and narrow you know she he said that some of the
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best lines that were uttered by don corleone were first said by his mother including you know a man
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who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man and those iconic lines his mother said
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first so the novel was a smash success it was a bestseller what did the actual mob think of the book
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well the actual mob at first you know they loved it and the ones that the people that have been that
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have were later quoted were saying you know had said things like you know they saw themselves in it
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they felt like you know that he knew their world that he was part of their world there was a rumor going
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around that the mob had paid him to write the book which was absolutely not true obviously so you know
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it became part of their folklore up to this day i mean you can hear people you know kissing you can
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see kissing the ring saying those iconic lines emulating uh don corleone or michael or sunny or
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maybe even fredo so you know these things resounded in our in our culture back then and continue today
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50 years later yeah i think one mobster even said that there was a scene where which one it was like i
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think it might michael might have been killing somebody and the mobster said the way he described
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it like that's how i felt when i had my first hit and he's and it was like wow that's uh that's
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something yeah so so they told this to jeffrey goldberg who was writing for the times the mobster
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in question said somebody had to be helping him because he knew about our life cold he had the whole
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atmosphere the way we talked that wedding scene i mean it was so real and then he says uh you know
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the writer says uh tells him that the author was a homebody with no mob connections and he responds
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if you say so but remember that scene where michael goes to whack that drug dealer and the police
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captain remember how michael couldn't hear anything as he's walking up on them remember how his eyes went
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glassy and there was just the noise of the train in the background and how he couldn't hear them talk
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that's just that's just like i felt when i killed joe collucci i mean that's that's that's a pretty
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high compliment that somebody in that world actually felt that mario puzo a writer had captured
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that world so completely and so dramatically okay so puzo he sells the screen rights to paramount this
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was before the book was even published before was a smash hit he didn't sell it for a lot of money
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because he just needed money fast to pay off some gambling debts because he was a chooch so paramount
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has its hands on this thing but it doesn't do anything with it because basically mob movies hadn't
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done well in the past for all the studios but when the book was released became the smash bestseller
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they were kind of forced to make it because the public really wanted to see this book on the screen
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but at the time paramount they were struggling they were floundering they had produced a bunch of
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flops they were like the ninth largest studio the time which is at the very bottom so making this
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movie was a risk for them and it wasn't initially clear to everyone at the studio that when the
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godfather started production that this movie was going to become this classic juggernaut
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all these unlikely forces came together nobody thought it was going to amount to much
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but all these forces all these new actors a young director francis coppola a producer al ruddy
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who had produced movies but nothing like this it all came together in this unlikely combination of
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things and became a phenomenon well yeah it was it was amazing how it all came together because it
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didn't seem like it should have come together the way it did and so you mentioned francis for coppola
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he was brought in as a screenwriter and then also a director but there was a lot of con like a lot
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of people like do we really want to bring this guy in here tell us about i mean now coppola is known as
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one of the great directors of film in america at the time this is the very start of his career how old
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was he and what was his status as a director in the industry at the time okay so coppola was the golden
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boy of of young hollywood at ucla he was you know hired to write and direct and and he had been the
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star of his class at ucla and he went to work with roger corman as a an assistant and he was he was on on
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his road to greatness and glory but then he decided that he was going to leave hollywood he was going to
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leave the commercialism of big budget pictures and create his own studio in san francisco american
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zoetrope and that's what he did and he had a young assistant named george lucas and a band of young
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aspiring filmmakers and they worked out of san francisco and their mission was to create art not
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commerce so when he was offered the job to direct the godfather a movie a big budget picture that all
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these other big you know bankable directors had turned down because they didn't want to glorify the
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mafia or all of these other reasons he didn't want to do it because you know he didn't want to he felt
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like mob movies were over the audience had moved past all of that he said but then george lucas told
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him something francis you know the sheriff's at the door we have no money you have to do this for the
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money and then we can make the movies we want to make and so that's when he went back and read the
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book again and that's when he had the idea of the king and his three sons and how was you know what did
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coppola bring how is his style of directing movies or creating movies different from old hawks there was
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this this is a period like this late 60s 70s this is like a transition yeah in what movies look like what
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was he doing different from say movies in the early 60s 50s 40s well coppola was a visionary that's the
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thing that you know that was unique to him i believe coppola he saw the cast of the godfather
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before anybody else did and after taking the job he flew down to los angeles where al ruddy picked him up
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the producer al ruddy and he had to convince you know the paramount brass that he was the right
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director for the job and al ruddy said he got up on the table and just gave this impassioned speech
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and walter march said it was like you know like a jedi mind trick when coppola starts talking you know
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people are just enthralled and swept up in it and so what he brought to it was a vision he saw the cast
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of the godfather as i said before everybody else did and he brought them to san francisco for homemade
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screen tests he saw al pacino as michael sonny would be played by james conne he saw diane keaton
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as kay and he saw robert dubal as tom hagan and he brought them all to san francisco his wife cut
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their hair and they did these homemade screen tests which he sent down to paramount and nobody liked
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everybody thought who are these people they were all unknowns and so they forced him to go into this
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very intensive screen test mode where the list of actors who tested for each role ran down the page
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after page after page and i think it cost 410 000 or something like that for a screen test and after
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much fighting and battling and controversy coppola eventually got the cast that he first envisioned
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and tested in san francisco we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors
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and now back to the show okay so a lot of the actors were unknowns like al pacino was an unknown at the
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time right but the big get like the godfather is marlon brando that almost didn't happen how did
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marlon brando end up playing the godfather yeah so this is one of the classic stories of the godfather
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marlon brando everyone thought he was washed up at 47 he was temperamental on the set tardy he you know
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just was a problem actor that everybody thought his career was over his last films had been bombs at
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the box office so nobody wanted well nobody but puso first and coppola second wanted brando as
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godfather for a while puso was writing the script on his own before the arrival of francis coppola as
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director and co-screenwriter and so puso had written a letter to marlon brando and he had
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listed it as his return address he had scrawled across the letter north carolina fat farm that's where
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he was in residence when he wrote this letter and he wrote dear mr brando you know i wrote a book called
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the godfather which is met with some success he wrote very modestly and he also wrote him that
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you're the only actor who can play the role of don corleone with the quiet intensity that the role
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requires or something like that and so he saw it early on and then when coppola came on board
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for him it came down to either brando or laurence olivier and laurence olivier was older and living in
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london and wasn't available it didn't seem to travel and so he really wanted brando as well but
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it was an uphill battle from day one to even consider the idea how'd they finally convince
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brando because brando was reluctant to do it was there some was it like yeah brando didn't want
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brando was reluctant to take the role he didn't in the beginning he said i don't want to glorify the
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mafia but then when he heard about laurence olivier being in contention suddenly he was interested
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the competition uh aspect of it apparently spurred him forward so the studio agreed the president of
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the studio finally agreed that marlon brando could be considered for the role if he would do a screen
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test do the role for very little money and uh there were a few other uh aspects that he had to agree
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upon but so coppola and his cinematographer hero narita and a few other people didn't tell brando it
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would be a screen test of course because he would never have agreed to that he said it would be a
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makeup test and they went up to his house one morning on around 7 a.m on mulholland drive where
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brando lived and brando came out he was 47 in a kimono and his hair in a ponytail he was still young you
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know 47 and he looked young but in that living room a miracle happened he pulled back his hair
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he put shoe polish on his upper lip to emulate a mustache and he put kleenex in his cheeks he said
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i want to talk like a bulldog and look like a bulldog and with the cameras rolling he became
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don corleone in front of everyone's eyes and everyone was just astounded to see this 47 year
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old man transform himself in his living room into the 60 year old mafia don and everyone was floored
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nobody could say a word they were speechless and so coppola took the tape directly to charlie
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bludorn in new york at his company gulf and western where he looks at the screen he says oh no i don't
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want that guy you know meeting brando and then he sees this transformation he goes wow that's terrific
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and that was that was what everyone said they couldn't believe that brando had done this transformation
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that was so astounding and the interesting thing about that tape it disappeared from nobody knows
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where it is today it was like a treasure and a shipwreck or like hemingway's letters that were
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lost on the train in paris nobody knows what happened to that amazing piece of footage that won
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marlon brando the role as don corleone something that made the godfather feel authentic was there were a
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lot of italian americans cast in it were there actual mobsters in the movie like mafia guys made men
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in the movie yeah we believe so now you know i can't say exactly who who was made and who was not
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you know i'm not sure but the wedding scene alone had 750 extras or thereabouts and some of the men had
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had connections that you can read about in the book and so yes it has that authentic flavor because some
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of the the men in real life were if not in the movie they were at least watching from the sidelines
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including one of the main leaders of the mob back then carlos gambino who was said to have been around
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the corner during the shooting scene of the don on the streets of little italy and came over to watch
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the filmmakers shoot that scene so the real as was written back in the day by nick paleggi of the new
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york times you know the the real godfather watches the godfather on the streets of new york city
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so brando wasn't italian american but you know he's a great actress is able to really bring that you
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know create the character of the don another character was an italian american but you wouldn't
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know it if you if you watch the movie was james con he's i guess he's german jewish like his families
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were jews from germany but he nailed he nailed the character of sunny so how was i was able to do that
00:27:30.980
what was his upbringing like that prepared him for the role so james con was uh raised in sunnyside
00:27:37.920
queens and he said he grew up around these people he was the son of a meat merchant who became and he
00:27:44.420
became of course an actor and he said he said not too many dancers singers and actors come from my
00:27:50.500
neighborhood but a lot of bartenders and mailmen and thieves and so he came to know a lot of these men
00:27:57.200
and he was able to watch them and emulate them and he he watched them how they you know toast each
00:28:04.660
other and how they you know kind of like you know are affectionate toward each other and he was able to
00:28:11.480
just bring that role to his part where when you look at at james con as sunny you feel like he's seven
00:28:18.580
feet tall as as puso described him you know this bull and he just inhabits that role so completely that
00:28:26.260
you can't imagine any other actor playing that iconic role of sunny so much so that he later said
00:28:32.680
you know people would approach him and uh in restaurants and bars and you know believing that
00:28:39.720
he really was sunny so he really inhabited it completely yeah there's one scene where you really
00:28:45.620
see that is at the wedding where he uh bumps into the photographer and he takes the camera away from
00:28:50.500
the photographer then slams it on the ground and and kind of says he's like one thing he saw as a kid
00:28:55.540
growing up like after you did something mean like he just threw the money so like you know he pulls
00:28:59.840
money out of his pocket and throws it at the photographers all right i did something bad here's
00:29:03.380
40 bucks to to fix it that's right and he said uh you know clemenza who was played by the great
00:29:09.120
richard castellano was standing behind him thinking oh my gosh what's going on it was totally ad-libbed he
00:29:14.900
said anyway he was so great and he was so great to speak with both back in 2008 when i did the story
00:29:23.420
and then later for the book he was just so uh forthcoming and and and just a wonderful human
00:29:29.780
being hey the other one that stuck out to me was uh the scene where he beats up his uh brother-in-law
00:29:36.160
for beating up his sister yes the great gianni russo yeah who played carlo you know that was his
00:29:42.480
first role and he you know he's so believable as carlo you know this uh oh and the way that fight that
00:29:49.640
they had in the alley in in the on the street there where where con you know gets him with uh
00:29:55.300
with a with the trash can lid and it's just so believable that scene you know where carlo's standing
00:30:01.640
there and all of a sudden sonny comes roaring out of that car and what happens next it's just
00:30:06.880
just wild yeah there's he had he actually improvised and brought in a sawed off broomstick
00:30:12.360
and russo didn't know this he didn't know this was going to happen and uh con was everyone was
00:30:18.440
like what are you doing and kind of like no don't worry this is an attitude adjuster and i laughed at
00:30:22.220
that i laughed at that because uh my wife's grandmother she that's what she had an attitude
00:30:27.840
adjuster growing up she had it hanging on the wall she did that's great yeah he says con said you know
00:30:34.360
it's one of those big industrial brooms that they cut the the this part of it off can you
00:30:38.940
solve the end of the handle he said it's called an attitude attitude adjuster and the prop master says
00:30:45.120
where's that in the script and con said nowhere and he said just put it in my car and and you know
00:30:51.620
that was totally on the spur the concept francis didn't know it was coming he didn't plan it he just
00:30:57.000
rehearsed the scene and and there there was that bat that he threw all right so there were maybe some
00:31:03.480
mobsters in the film but then the the mob connection got really explicit when the when
00:31:09.800
they started filming and there was this guy named joseph colombo he was a mob boss who pretty much held
00:31:16.000
up protection of the godfather for a bit what was his role in holding up the godfather so joe colombo
00:31:22.600
founded the italian american civil rights league and its mission was to stop the stereotyping of italian
00:31:30.120
americans in popular culture they were successful in eradicating the word mafia to be used in newspapers
00:31:39.260
and other cultural events i think even uh some governments you know the government stopped using
00:31:46.960
the word because colombo felt that that one single word you know was defamatory toward italian americans
00:31:53.940
and he wanted it stopped at all costs and he headed this league that had hundreds thousands of members
00:32:00.180
in new york and so suddenly the godfather became public enemy number one because it was a movie about
00:32:09.320
the one thing that that he was against you know the portrayal of the mafia in popular culture and so
00:32:16.720
you know he led a campaign against it and suddenly the locations dried up in new york city the truck
00:32:24.700
drivers threatened to not you know work on the film stopping the movie in its tracks and finally
00:32:31.780
colombo agreed to meet with ruddy and talk about the script ruddy said i'll show you the script you come
00:32:37.820
to the office tomorrow and we'll take a look and what are you see what you think and he only wanted
00:32:42.680
one word taken out the word mafia is what it was what had been reported that he only wanted
00:32:49.600
the word mafia to not be used in the film and ruddy uh knew that it had only been used one time in the
00:32:58.000
film where jack waltz talks to tom hagan at the studio where he uses the word mafia and that word was
00:33:06.180
deleted and it was a easy deletion for a world of cooperation suddenly the streets of new york were
00:33:13.260
open the locations were available the drivers were working and some of the some of the men in the real
00:33:22.720
life bob it was said wanted uh to be part of the picture but the ironic thing is that he didn't like
00:33:30.340
the word mafia but he was actually a part of the organized crime that's what that's what had been
00:33:36.000
said yeah it said it was said that he was the youngest boss of one of the five families of new
00:33:40.880
york that's what was reported and you know he always he always denied that there was even a mafia he said
00:33:47.600
am i the head of the family yeah my family my wife and children and yeah that's my family i think he
00:33:53.500
ended up a year later getting shot correct yes that was that was another instance of real life
00:34:00.240
imitating art or and so during the filming of the godfather joe colombo was to speak before the league
00:34:08.580
in columbus circle and he was he was shot he ended up dying i think seven years later but you know it was
00:34:16.240
amazing how real life was happening right there in the streets of new york while they were filming
00:34:23.320
the fictional movie the godfather at the same time so coppola you know reminiscing about making
00:34:30.720
the godfather you said it was the most miserable experience of his life i mean this is the guy who
00:34:36.080
directed apocalypse now where he's out in the jungles you know making that film which seemed would
00:34:40.520
seem pretty miserable what made the godfather so miserable for him well you know he said that it
00:34:46.580
was the most miserable it was the most even more than apocalypse now because it was his first big
00:34:51.320
studio picture you know apocalypse now had its own sense of madness in the in the philippines you
00:34:57.700
know uh it was there was a pretty intense set in itself but what was happening on the godfather he had
00:35:05.260
to deal with insurrection among his crew some people wanted him fired from the from the movie he felt that
00:35:12.500
he was going to going to be fired every day there was indifference of opinion with his cinematographer
00:35:18.640
he had a studio kind of a minder someone who was there to watch every cent that was spent breathing
00:35:26.620
down his neck questioning his every move he was living in a cramped new york apartment that was filled
00:35:33.120
with you know his wife and kids and so it was just a pressure cooker of a set and that's why you know
00:35:42.200
peter bart later wrote that this is why you know how this masterpiece was made because everybody thought
00:35:48.100
they were going to be fired at any minute including al pacino so they wanted to get their best work
00:35:53.100
down before they could be before they could get the axe and what happened was it all came together in
00:36:00.940
that great restaurant scene where michael corleone shoots the corrupt police captain and the drug dealing
00:36:08.820
solazo and that was the scene where everything came together and there was no question that uh that this
00:36:16.400
movie was going forward and with this cast and this and this director so like we said earlier the
00:36:22.260
godfather is filled with lines that have become part of our everyday vernacular you know a lot of them
00:36:26.900
came from puso's mother but then a lot of them were just ad-libbed into the movie and one of the most
00:36:32.240
famous it's the one that you made the title of your book leave the gun take the cannoli what was the
00:36:38.320
that was ad-libbed so what was the original line and then how did the actor was it richard castellano
00:36:44.400
how did he decide to change it up yeah so in the novel in puso's novel it doesn't say leave the gun
00:36:51.120
take the cannoli and in in the script but by coppola and puso the line is only leave the gun
00:36:59.140
so they drive out to shoot you know they drive paulie gato the turncoat who set up the hit on the don
00:37:06.380
out to a remote stretch of land beneath the statue of liberty but the interesting thing is out there
00:37:13.640
where they shot the scene the statue of liberty has its back to the murder scene so they shoot paulie
00:37:20.180
gato with three shots to the head and clemenza comes up to the car and he says to rocco you know
00:37:29.800
who had been driving the car leave the gun as it as it had been written in the script but then he
00:37:35.280
remembers what his wife his real wife in real life the woman who played his wife in the movie says
00:37:42.400
don't forget the cannoli and he remembers that and as a total ad-lib he goes leave the gun and then he
00:37:50.340
says take the cannoli and he grabs the cannoli box and is you know as i wrote in his fat hands by the
00:37:58.220
strings and then he you know they walk away and then it became this iconic line this total ad-lib by
00:38:06.960
richard castellano that hadn't been expected and nobody you know said much on at the time when he
00:38:14.460
said it but later it became one of the greatest lines i think it's one of the most famous lines of
00:38:20.280
all time and it was a total ad-lib on the spur by uh richard castellano as clemenza and you argue
00:38:28.380
that this line that ad-lib it really gets to the heart of what the godfather is about
00:38:32.120
yeah because it does because it is about guns you know but it's but it's more about the family
00:38:39.760
the cannoli the bringing things home you know the the wife who tells him you know that what she tells
00:38:46.120
him from the doorstep that day and so i thought it just you know it it sums up everything and it just
00:38:53.560
kind of gets to the heart of what made this movie magic and that's that you feel for these characters
00:38:59.000
you feel for these men that that you really shouldn't feel for you know but they pull this
00:39:04.600
magic trick you know where where they where you actually have sympathy for them and i think that's
00:39:11.080
the magic of the godfather so this movie took forever to make it it went over budget on both on
00:39:17.040
money and time but finally got released what was the popular and critical response to the film
00:39:22.240
it was huge it was uh it was a phenomenon the premiere was march 14th and it began being shown
00:39:31.200
in theaters soon after in new york especially there were lines around the block they were showing the
00:39:37.600
film showing after showing with barely a break in between almost 24 hours a day and in los angeles there
00:39:46.340
was a los angeles times story about what to do it was titled what to do while you're standing in line
00:39:52.060
to see the godfather they said babies would be born and you could do your christmas shopping and
00:39:57.900
you know you standing in line so long all these things happened and that's where it was around the
00:40:03.760
world you know people stood in line to see this movie it was a you know a big budget movie that people
00:40:09.640
had to see at that point coppola still felt as he said that the movie was not going to be a hit he was
00:40:18.360
in paris writing the screenplay for the great gatsby when his wife called him and said you won't
00:40:24.800
believe it and told him about the lions around the block she said you won't believe it francis it's a
00:40:31.320
phenomenon and it was and this movie became a cultural touchstone and it changed the lives of all
00:40:38.720
the actors and everyone involved in this movie oh yeah it changed the lives of all these young actors
00:40:45.660
the main characters who played the main characters in the film al pacino became was on his way to
00:40:51.400
becoming a superstar as was james khan diane keaton robert dubal john casal and it resuscitated the
00:41:00.640
career of marla brando of course who won the 1973 best actor oscar for his role as don corleone and
00:41:09.260
from that point on he was considered which he was even before the greatest actor in the world
00:41:15.680
okay so i don't know if this is nostalgia but there seems to be a different quality to the godfather
00:41:21.820
than movies made today i mean there's just something unique to it that you don't seem to get
00:41:27.040
these days have you been able to put your finger on what it gives it that feeling you know what what
00:41:32.820
made it so good yeah i think it was a different world back then you know because uh it was like
00:41:39.080
people were you know fighting for their survival with this movie you know this cast that they were
00:41:44.540
on their way to becoming stars but they didn't realize it at the time so they were trying to do
00:41:48.920
their very best best work and get through this this experience that was pretty tense i mean they had a
00:41:55.560
great time they were there was a lot of fun and joking and and camaraderie among the cast but they
00:42:01.460
were really trying to get through this thing and you know of course coppola was it was trying to
00:42:06.440
survive what he thought you know was was going to be uh you know have a bad end for him that he might
00:42:11.860
be let go you know robert evans was fighting to to make the best picture possible because you know
00:42:19.460
the studio was on the rocks and they had they had to save the studio with this film you know so it was
00:42:25.780
it was a group of people that really went through something that was really an intense experience
00:42:33.700
and you know i think all film sets are are like that you know they say unhappy film sets make great
00:42:41.000
movies but this was that in in to the extreme and you know these were like soldiers in a war that they
00:42:49.400
not only triumphed in but but won this this amazing prize of uh this this movie that will live in
00:42:56.440
infamy forever do you think it would be possible to make a movie like the godfather in the 21st century
00:43:02.400
i don't know if if it could be made if a studio would want to make it and maybe it would be a
00:43:08.640
series or something you know because it's only it's three hours long but it feels like it's very
00:43:15.260
it goes by so quick i think it'd be very expensive to make now and i don't think there's any other
00:43:21.780
movies that have had you know to go uh head to head with a group with an organization as the godfather
00:43:28.820
did and so many battles that they had to fight to make the movie i think that would be it would be
00:43:34.560
pretty hard to do all of that today you know but who knows yeah maybe when you have a if another novel
00:43:41.260
like mario puzo's godfather came around i'm sure everyone would be fighting to make it yeah i think
00:43:48.080
you're right i think it would probably it'd be a tv series of some sort like a netflix series i mean
00:43:52.400
i think that's why the sopranos was so popular because it wasn't just about the guns it was about
00:43:57.400
it was like this family drama and that's what and that they're playing off the pattern the godfather
00:44:02.220
set yeah the sopranos is a great example of that i mean i felt like you know i knew those characters
00:44:08.840
that you know you want you felt an affinity for tony soprano which is so odd you know and his kids
00:44:16.140
and everything else it's just like it was just it's just like a magic trick as i said before that
00:44:21.800
you just believe these people are real and that was the gift of mario puzo and francis ford coppola and
00:44:28.360
all the actors and crew that made this movie come alive well mark this has been a great conversation
00:44:33.980
where can people go to learn more about the book and your work yeah so they can go to my website
00:44:39.240
which is www mark hyphen seal s-e-a-l.com they can see my work on vanity fair's website or in the
00:44:48.540
magazine and they can see my books on amazon or instagram or facebook and wherever books are sold
00:44:57.880
well mark seal thanks for your time it's been a pleasure thank you too brett it's been great talking
00:45:03.160
to you all right as a side note kate my wife and the editor of this podcast would like to issue the
00:45:08.840
clarification that when i mentioned how her italian grandma had an attitude adjuster on the
00:45:12.480
wall when she was growing up it was a wooden paddle and it wasn't actually used on the grandkids
00:45:16.540
but rather only served as a deterrent and an effective one at that my guest there is mark seal
00:45:21.200
he's the author of the book leave the gun take the cannoli the epic story of the making of the
00:45:26.020
godfather it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find more information
00:45:29.500
about mark's work at his website mark-seal.com also check out our show notes at aom.is
00:45:35.180
slash godfather we find links to resources we delve deeper into this topic
00:45:38.640
well that wraps up another edition of the a1 podcast make sure to check out our website at
00:45:49.360
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00:45:52.920
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