The Art of Manliness - The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast and when it comes

00:00:11.360 to lists of men's favorite movies the godfather is a perennial inclusion and as hard as this may

00:00:16.560 be to believe the critically acclaimed and popularly beloved film is coming up on the 50th

00:00:21.120 anniversary of its release journalist mark seal wrote an in-depth piece on the making of the

00:00:25.120 godfather for vanity fair magazine back in 2009 and after doing even more interviews with director

00:00:29.860 francis ford coppola the actors of the film and other behind the scenes players wrote a new book

00:00:34.120 on the subject called leave the gun take the cannoli the epic story of the making of the godfather

00:00:39.220 it's easy to forget that the film was based on a novel by mario puzo and we spend the first part

00:00:43.540 of our conversation there with mark unpacking how an indebted gambler became a best-selling novelist

00:00:48.300 from there we turn to how puzo's novel was adapted for the screen a story as dramatic and entertaining

00:00:53.100 as the film itself mark explains why coppola took the job of directing the film and his genius for

00:00:57.360 casting he delves into the unexpected selection of marlon brando to play don corleone and how

00:01:01.940 james conne inhabited the role of sunny despite not being italian american we get into how a real

00:01:06.720 life character named joseph colombo temporarily shut down production of the film in opposition to

00:01:11.020 the stereotyping of italian americans as mafia despite the fact colombo was a mob boss himself

00:01:16.100 mark explains why coppola considered making the godfather the most miserable experience of his

00:01:20.140 life and the x factor that ultimately made the film so good and we end our conversation with whether a

00:01:25.100 movie like the godfather could be made today after the show's over check out our show notes at

00:01:28.580 aom.is godfather

00:01:30.520 all right mark seal welcome to the show thank you so much brad great to be here so you got a book out

00:01:50.040 called leave the gun take the cannoli the epic story of the making of the godfather now the godfather

00:01:56.840 it's one of the greatest films ever made i think afi the american film institute has it listed as number

00:02:01.980 three on its list of 100 movies in 100 years it's become this cultural touchstone people use lines from

00:02:08.900 it in their daily language and it comes right from the godfather so i think it's easy to forget

00:02:14.800 especially if you were born after the godfather came out was that before the godfather was a movie

00:02:21.260 it was a novel and it was a very very popular novel written by this unlikely author guy named

00:02:27.140 mario is it puzzo yes exactly mario puzzo let's talk about puzzo how did his upbringing later influence

00:02:35.060 the godfather yeah well mario puzzo is the hero of this whole story mario puzzo was is this amazing

00:02:43.820 writer but he didn't start off as a writer he was a child of hell's kitchen in a big italian american 0.96

00:02:50.140 family and they were so poor that he wrote at one point that the school asked him to bring a can of

00:02:56.220 food for the poor and he he said all the hell's kitchen's kids went out and stole a can of food

00:03:01.880 because they didn't realize they were the poor and so mario drifted through various occupations but he

00:03:08.900 always wanted to be a writer but he had written two novels and they were both commercially

00:03:16.700 unsuccessful but they were critically well received he was a talented writer and he went to work for a

00:03:23.700 magazine company called magazine management and they produced some of the great pulp fiction titles

00:03:29.940 of our time and they were these you know magazines and and he learned to write there and it was like these

00:03:38.080 these pulp fiction titles about war and men at war and you know there was a collection of these of

00:03:45.840 these stories called weasels ate my flesh and you know it's that kind of thing where he learned how to

00:03:51.740 create suspense and introduce the characters in the beginning of the story and create fiction that felt

00:03:58.680 like fact and so after writing these two pretty much failed novels even though they're they were great

00:04:06.320 stories and well received he decided that he was going to write for money and it happened one night

00:04:15.180 when he had a severe gallbladder attack and he directed the taxi to take him downtown new york

00:04:23.740 to the va hospital and on the way the gallbladder attack got worse and worse until when he arrived at

00:04:31.620 the hospital he opened the car door the taxi door and that's when the pain struck he would later say

00:04:38.420 and he fell out of the taxi and into the gutter and lying on his back looking up at the night sky

00:04:45.200 he said to himself here i am a published author and i'm dying like a dog and he said that's when i

00:04:52.860 decided i would become rich and famous and he described himself as not like not competent he

00:05:01.500 wasn't really proud of himself in fact one of the things i loved about this book was throughout that

00:05:06.280 you kind of scattered these italian american slang words that you know my wife's family is italian 0.78

00:05:10.880 american you know i've heard these words around the kitchen table thrown around and one of them is

00:05:15.420 chooch and mario said he was the chooch of the family for our non-italian american listeners what's a

00:05:21.660 chooch and what made puzzo a chooch yeah as puzzo wrote he wrote every italian family has a chooch 0.98

00:05:28.320 a donkey that is a family idiot everybody agrees will never be able to make a living and he felt 0.99

00:05:35.360 like that was his role he said there's he wrote there's no question that i'm incompetent monetarily 1.00

00:05:40.860 insane but money is really killing everything and he was really you know desperate for money and you know

00:05:48.480 he writes about this in his 1972 book the godfather papers and other confessions where he talks about

00:05:55.440 his debt and i was also able to get access to his archives at dartmouth university and you can actually

00:06:01.980 see the letters that he wrote to the irs asking for extensions and you could feel the the torment that he

00:06:09.560 was under beneath all of this debt that he had to hopefully write his way out of well and how did he

00:06:16.560 accumulate that debt that's part of what made him accumulated the debt well one of his big vices

00:06:23.300 was gambling he loved to gamble and he wasn't a good very good gambler so he lost a lot of money

00:06:28.900 and it led him to having to borrow money from friends and relatives and bookies and and whatever

00:06:35.280 else and so by the time he was ready to write the godfather he was in debt and he the godfather was

00:06:42.420 going to help him he thought write his way out but then eight publishers turned down the idea

00:06:48.900 well so growing up he's italian-american grew up in an italian-american neighborhood

00:06:53.700 did he have any like firsthand experience with the mob or was that just a part of like that wasn't part

00:06:59.700 of his world no he in hell's kitchen he was around mobsters all of his life he would later write

00:07:05.500 and he writes in one interview or i believe it was an article that he wrote he wrote about this

00:07:11.820 strange man who one day comes to their apartment and ask his mother to hold on to a blanket full of

00:07:19.200 guns for him and this man he later discovered was a mafia man and so he was around these people

00:07:26.920 all of his life but he said he never had met a genuine gangster but what was happening in the 50s and

00:07:34.420 the 60s were genuine gangsters were on television there were two sets of hearings the kefauver hearings

00:07:41.340 in the 50s and then another set of hearings later on and those hearings were nationally televised the

00:07:49.600 kefauver hearings on organized crime which included the work of bobby kennedy those hearings were being

00:07:56.740 held in 14 cities across america and nationally televised and everybody was glued to their television

00:08:03.100 sets watching these hearings including mario puzzo who was on his couch in front of his television set

00:08:09.680 in suburban new york like everyone else and is that what inspired him to write i'm going to write a

00:08:15.040 mafia novel yeah and one of the publishers his publisher who had turned down his next book his third book

00:08:23.400 said if this only had a little bit more of that mafia stuff in it maybe it would be worthwhile and that

00:08:31.240 rang in puzzo's head and he thought well okay i'm gonna write a book about the mob and he went home

00:08:38.840 and he ordered the hearings transcripts of the hearings from the library of congress for ten dollars

00:08:45.540 and there in his suburban new york basement next to a pool table and the sound of his five kids

00:08:53.660 he began to dream in front of his manual typewriter and and there were mob stories written at this

00:09:02.300 time it was a popular genre when puza set out to write what became the godfather did he have an idea

00:09:07.880 of like how am i going to make this different from the other ones yeah i believe he did what made it

00:09:13.740 different from the other ones and what made the movie different from all the other mob movies that had

00:09:19.260 been made before was that he created a family he didn't just create you know gangsters with guns

00:09:26.080 and the deaths and the crimes and all that he created the family corleone and and he created

00:09:32.040 as coppola said francis coppola when he read the book he was put off in the beginning by its sex and

00:09:39.540 and the some of the tawdry scenes that he thought was scenes that he thought were tawdry and he said what is

00:09:45.460 this the carpetbaggers he had written and he didn't want to have any part of it but then

00:09:49.900 coppola went to the library and began looking into other books on organized crime and he saw he went

00:09:58.080 back and reread puzo's book and he saw exactly what puzo saw the family as coppola said he saw it as a

00:10:06.280 as a saga about a king and his three sons and that's what you got in the novel you see the king

00:10:14.360 the don the godfather and his three sons and you want to know more about them you feel an a strange

00:10:23.060 affinity for them and that's what made it the novel different and that's what made the movie different

00:10:28.980 and when he started pitching this book to publishers you said initially it was rejected

00:10:34.280 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

00:10:41.040 page outline and it wasn't completely finished and so you know he mainly because his previous two

00:10:48.580 books had not done well and so you know putnam and an editor named william targ as i write in the book

00:10:56.200 took a gamble on him and what a gamble that turned out to be one of the best-selling novels of all time

00:11:03.240 and uh of course puzo didn't realize what he had done and he sailed off with his family you know

00:11:10.580 still deep in death his wife had not been back to her native germany since they had left there after

00:11:17.160 the war and mario puzo had promised to take her back so he sailed he flew off with his with his kids

00:11:24.620 and his wife to germany and he didn't have any money but he said he had a nice collection of credit

00:11:30.100 cards and of course along the way he hit all the casinos on the riviera and all in london and

00:11:35.980 everywhere else and he was cashing uh you know checks off of his american express card and when

00:11:43.020 he got back another eight thousand or maybe even more in debt he called his agent uh hoping she would

00:11:49.780 pull a a magazine story out of her hat as she had done many times before and buttress his failing

00:11:55.540 finances only to say that the publisher had sent the book out to a paperback house which he had said

00:12:02.640 do not send this book out it needs to be polished they sent it out to a paperback house and they had

00:12:08.460 offered a record setting four hundred and ten thousand dollars for the paperback rights alone

00:12:15.120 what's that in like today's dollars this was in 19 what 67 68 yes it's it would be millions in

00:12:22.900 today's dollars you know it was inconceivable it was a record at first they went to 350 and then they

00:12:28.600 kept going up and finally they went to 410 000 which was a set a new record for paperback for a paperback

00:12:36.220 advance it was a juggernaut you know it was a rocket ship it was the it was everybody just you know you

00:12:43.320 can't believe that he created this world this family these characters these lines you know that are

00:12:49.780 that resound in the culture today i mean these things that he created this world that where

00:12:55.920 fiction was even more mythic and more believable than fact and one thing puso talks about a lot of

00:13:03.980 the lines especially the ones that came from the godfather the dawn don corleone he said a lot of

00:13:08.660 those lines came from his mother exactly yeah his mother was a very strong italian american mother 0.95

00:13:15.720 and she kept her family her kids on the straight and narrow you know she he said that some of the

00:13:23.040 best lines that were uttered by don corleone were first said by his mother including you know a man

00:13:28.380 who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man and those iconic lines his mother said

00:13:36.600 first so the novel was a smash success it was a bestseller what did the actual mob think of the book

00:13:44.200 well the actual mob at first you know they loved it and the ones that the people that have been that

00:13:53.400 have were later quoted were saying you know had said things like you know they saw themselves in it

00:13:58.560 they felt like you know that he knew their world that he was part of their world there was a rumor going

00:14:06.540 around that the mob had paid him to write the book which was absolutely not true obviously so you know

00:14:13.460 it became part of their folklore up to this day i mean you can hear people you know kissing you can

00:14:20.040 see kissing the ring saying those iconic lines emulating uh don corleone or michael or sunny or

00:14:28.920 maybe even fredo so you know these things resounded in our in our culture back then and continue today

00:14:35.660 50 years later yeah i think one mobster even said that there was a scene where which one it was like i

00:14:41.840 think it might michael might have been killing somebody and the mobster said the way he described

00:14:47.060 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

00:14:52.300 something yeah so so they told this to jeffrey goldberg who was writing for the times the mobster

00:14:58.560 in question said somebody had to be helping him because he knew about our life cold he had the whole

00:15:04.140 atmosphere the way we talked that wedding scene i mean it was so real and then he says uh you know

00:15:10.760 the writer says uh tells him that the author was a homebody with no mob connections and he responds

00:15:17.080 if you say so but remember that scene where michael goes to whack that drug dealer and the police

00:15:22.680 captain remember how michael couldn't hear anything as he's walking up on them remember how his eyes went

00:15:28.320 glassy and there was just the noise of the train in the background and how he couldn't hear them talk

00:15:33.040 that's just that's just like i felt when i killed joe collucci i mean that's that's that's a pretty

00:15:40.180 high compliment that somebody in that world actually felt that mario puzo a writer had captured

00:15:47.960 that world so completely and so dramatically okay so puzo he sells the screen rights to paramount this

00:15:55.480 was before the book was even published before was a smash hit he didn't sell it for a lot of money

00:15:59.880 because he just needed money fast to pay off some gambling debts because he was a chooch so paramount 0.95

00:16:05.260 has its hands on this thing but it doesn't do anything with it because basically mob movies hadn't

00:16:11.160 done well in the past for all the studios but when the book was released became the smash bestseller

00:16:16.200 they were kind of forced to make it because the public really wanted to see this book on the screen

00:16:21.140 but at the time paramount they were struggling they were floundering they had produced a bunch of

00:16:26.800 flops they were like the ninth largest studio the time which is at the very bottom so making this

00:16:33.140 movie was a risk for them and it wasn't initially clear to everyone at the studio that when the

00:16:38.280 godfather started production that this movie was going to become this classic juggernaut

00:16:43.180 all these unlikely forces came together nobody thought it was going to amount to much

00:16:50.540 but all these forces all these new actors a young director francis coppola a producer al ruddy

00:17:00.820 who had produced movies but nothing like this it all came together in this unlikely combination of

00:17:10.460 things and became a phenomenon well yeah it was it was amazing how it all came together because it

00:17:15.560 didn't seem like it should have come together the way it did and so you mentioned francis for coppola

00:17:19.520 he was brought in as a screenwriter and then also a director but there was a lot of con like a lot

00:17:25.540 of people like do we really want to bring this guy in here tell us about i mean now coppola is known as

00:17:29.420 one of the great directors of film in america at the time this is the very start of his career how old

00:17:35.440 was he and what was his status as a director in the industry at the time okay so coppola was the golden

00:17:41.840 boy of of young hollywood at ucla he was you know hired to write and direct and and he had been the

00:17:51.180 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

00:17:59.680 his road to greatness and glory but then he decided that he was going to leave hollywood he was going to

00:18:06.480 leave the commercialism of big budget pictures and create his own studio in san francisco american

00:18:12.440 zoetrope and that's what he did and he had a young assistant named george lucas and a band of young

00:18:21.120 aspiring filmmakers and they worked out of san francisco and their mission was to create art not

00:18:27.500 commerce so when he was offered the job to direct the godfather a movie a big budget picture that all

00:18:35.640 these other big you know bankable directors had turned down because they didn't want to glorify the

00:18:41.360 mafia or all of these other reasons he didn't want to do it because you know he didn't want to he felt

00:18:48.320 like mob movies were over the audience had moved past all of that he said but then george lucas told

00:18:55.380 him something francis you know the sheriff's at the door we have no money you have to do this for the

00:19:01.120 money and then we can make the movies we want to make and so that's when he went back and read the

00:19:08.960 book again and that's when he had the idea of the king and his three sons and how was you know what did

00:19:16.820 coppola bring how is his style of directing movies or creating movies different from old hawks there was

00:19:24.180 this this is a period like this late 60s 70s this is like a transition yeah in what movies look like what

00:19:29.780 was he doing different from say movies in the early 60s 50s 40s well coppola was a visionary that's the

00:19:37.140 thing that you know that was unique to him i believe coppola he saw the cast of the godfather

00:19:44.100 before anybody else did and after taking the job he flew down to los angeles where al ruddy picked him up

00:19:52.460 the producer al ruddy and he had to convince you know the paramount brass that he was the right

00:19:58.300 director for the job and al ruddy said he got up on the table and just gave this impassioned speech

00:20:05.320 and walter march said it was like you know like a jedi mind trick when coppola starts talking you know

00:20:12.620 people are just enthralled and swept up in it and so what he brought to it was a vision he saw the cast

00:20:20.860 of the godfather as i said before everybody else did and he brought them to san francisco for homemade

00:20:27.940 screen tests he saw al pacino as michael sonny would be played by james conne he saw diane keaton

00:20:37.140 as kay and he saw robert dubal as tom hagan and he brought them all to san francisco his wife cut

00:20:45.600 their hair and they did these homemade screen tests which he sent down to paramount and nobody liked

00:20:52.200 everybody thought who are these people they were all unknowns and so they forced him to go into this

00:20:59.580 very intensive screen test mode where the list of actors who tested for each role ran down the page

00:21:08.100 after page after page and i think it cost 410 000 or something like that for a screen test and after

00:21:15.900 much fighting and battling and controversy coppola eventually got the cast that he first envisioned

00:21:23.080 and tested in san francisco we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:21:27.960 and now back to the show okay so a lot of the actors were unknowns like al pacino was an unknown at the

00:21:34.940 time right but the big get like the godfather is marlon brando that almost didn't happen how did

00:21:42.700 marlon brando end up playing the godfather yeah so this is one of the classic stories of the godfather

00:21:48.620 marlon brando everyone thought he was washed up at 47 he was temperamental on the set tardy he you know

00:21:57.960 just was a problem actor that everybody thought his career was over his last films had been bombs at

00:22:04.980 the box office so nobody wanted well nobody but puso first and coppola second wanted brando as

00:22:12.440 godfather for a while puso was writing the script on his own before the arrival of francis coppola as

00:22:19.320 director and co-screenwriter and so puso had written a letter to marlon brando and he had

00:22:26.420 listed it as his return address he had scrawled across the letter north carolina fat farm that's where

00:22:34.420 he was in residence when he wrote this letter and he wrote dear mr brando you know i wrote a book called

00:22:40.940 the godfather which is met with some success he wrote very modestly and he also wrote him that

00:22:48.100 you're the only actor who can play the role of don corleone with the quiet intensity that the role

00:22:55.300 requires or something like that and so he saw it early on and then when coppola came on board

00:23:01.100 for him it came down to either brando or laurence olivier and laurence olivier was older and living in

00:23:07.240 london and wasn't available it didn't seem to travel and so he really wanted brando as well but

00:23:14.840 it was an uphill battle from day one to even consider the idea how'd they finally convince

00:23:20.840 brando because brando was reluctant to do it was there some was it like yeah brando didn't want

00:23:26.180 brando was reluctant to take the role he didn't in the beginning he said i don't want to glorify the

00:23:30.620 mafia but then when he heard about laurence olivier being in contention suddenly he was interested

00:23:37.540 the competition uh aspect of it apparently spurred him forward so the studio agreed the president of

00:23:45.640 the studio finally agreed that marlon brando could be considered for the role if he would do a screen

00:23:51.960 test do the role for very little money and uh there were a few other uh aspects that he had to agree

00:23:59.780 upon but so coppola and his cinematographer hero narita and a few other people didn't tell brando it

00:24:09.100 would be a screen test of course because he would never have agreed to that he said it would be a

00:24:13.140 makeup test and they went up to his house one morning on around 7 a.m on mulholland drive where

00:24:19.700 brando lived and brando came out he was 47 in a kimono and his hair in a ponytail he was still young you

00:24:29.520 know 47 and he looked young but in that living room a miracle happened he pulled back his hair

00:24:38.300 he put shoe polish on his upper lip to emulate a mustache and he put kleenex in his cheeks he said

00:24:47.760 i want to talk like a bulldog and look like a bulldog and with the cameras rolling he became

00:24:54.940 don corleone in front of everyone's eyes and everyone was just astounded to see this 47 year

00:25:01.260 old man transform himself in his living room into the 60 year old mafia don and everyone was floored

00:25:10.040 nobody could say a word they were speechless and so coppola took the tape directly to charlie

00:25:17.640 bludorn in new york at his company gulf and western where he looks at the screen he says oh no i don't

00:25:24.180 want that guy you know meeting brando and then he sees this transformation he goes wow that's terrific

00:25:29.860 and that was that was what everyone said they couldn't believe that brando had done this transformation

00:25:35.980 that was so astounding and the interesting thing about that tape it disappeared from nobody knows

00:25:44.500 where it is today it was like a treasure and a shipwreck or like hemingway's letters that were

00:25:49.580 lost on the train in paris nobody knows what happened to that amazing piece of footage that won

00:25:56.740 marlon brando the role as don corleone something that made the godfather feel authentic was there were a

00:26:04.120 lot of italian americans cast in it were there actual mobsters in the movie like mafia guys made men

00:26:11.600 in the movie yeah we believe so now you know i can't say exactly who who was made and who was not

00:26:19.020 you know i'm not sure but the wedding scene alone had 750 extras or thereabouts and some of the men had

00:26:27.340 had connections that you can read about in the book and so yes it has that authentic flavor because some

00:26:34.980 of the the men in real life were if not in the movie they were at least watching from the sidelines

00:26:42.380 including one of the main leaders of the mob back then carlos gambino who was said to have been around

00:26:49.880 the corner during the shooting scene of the don on the streets of little italy and came over to watch

00:26:55.720 the filmmakers shoot that scene so the real as was written back in the day by nick paleggi of the new

00:27:03.340 york times you know the the real godfather watches the godfather on the streets of new york city

00:27:08.400 so brando wasn't italian american but you know he's a great actress is able to really bring that you

00:27:14.660 know create the character of the don another character was an italian american but you wouldn't

00:27:19.120 know it if you if you watch the movie was james con he's i guess he's german jewish like his families

00:27:24.500 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 1.00

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 1.00

00:45:12.480 wall when she was growing up it was a wooden paddle and it wasn't actually used on the grandkids 0.77

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

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00:46:23.920 you

The Art of Manliness - November 22, 2021

The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather

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