They felt the film would reflect badly on Italian-Americans in general, perpetuating the idea that they were all crooked. The heavyweights of the Mob were edgy, too. Sinatra wasn't the only Italian-American concerned about the making of The Godfather. Pictured: James Caan's Sonny Corleone gets gunned down in The Godfather
There had been a multitude of books and films about the Mob, but never one that delved into their personal lives like The Godfather did. Encountering Puzo, who by then had been engaged to write the script, Sinatra screamed that he was nothing but a 'pimp'. There was an unseemly altercation at an LA restaurant one night, when Ol' Blue Eyes saw red. Enraged by the character of over-the-hill crooner Johnny Fontane, which everyone knew was based on him, Sinatra was reportedly considering legal action to stop production of the film. Frank Sinatra, however, didn't want anyone to make it at all.
However, he was stirred into action when Burt Lancaster's production company offered to pay $1 million to buy out the $12,500 deal with Puzo, which would secure Lancaster the title role of Don Vito Corleone.Įvans immediately decreed nobody would make the movie but Paramount. 'Sicilian mobster films don't play,' Evans reiterated. When television much later got in on the same compelling act, with the unsurpassable HBO drama The Sopranos, the debt was made crystal clear, with characters referring simply to 'One' (meaning Coppola's 1972 film), and 'Two' (meaning his equally brilliant 1974 sequel, The Godfather Part II).ĭespite the book's gigantic success, Paramount still didn't want to make the movie. There had been a multitude of books and films about the Mob, but never one that delved into their personal lives like The Godfather did, first in Puzo's novel and subsequently in Coppola's screen trilogy. Puzo finished writing his book, changed the title to The Godfather, and it became a publishing sensation, shooting to the top of bestseller lists all over the world. That there are conflicting versions of that tale indicates the magnitude of what happened next. But feeling sorry for a guy clearly down on his luck, he offered Puzo $12,500 for the movie rights, assuming he'd never see him again. Evans wasn't interested in making another. Paramount had just made a picture about organised crime, The Brotherhood, which had been a flop even with Kirk Douglas as the lead. Mario Puzo was a writer up to his neck in debt, with five children and a destructive gambling habit when, in March 1968, he managed to get an audience with Robert Evans, the head of production at Paramount, a film studio also on its uppers.Įvans badly needed a hit - not that he thought there was even a sniff of one in the 60 pages of an unfinished novel Puzo brought with him, which he titled Mafia. It also rescued Paramount Pictures from ruin, and changed film-making for ever.īut before it was a film, it was a book. Indeed, it ignited a war between two of the most powerful forces in 1970s America: the titans of Hollywood and the Italian-American overlords of organised crime. And one of the most remarkable things about Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece about a Mob family in 1940s New York, and their battle for supremacy with the Mob's other leading families, is that it was every bit as eventful off screen as on. More discerning judges, dare I say, choose the Orson Welles classic Citizen Kane, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, or David Lean's Lawrence Of Arabia.īut those of us who think it's The Godfather, know it's The Godfather.
Of course, there are plenty of other contenders for the title of greatest movie ever made. The greatest movie ever made is getting a 50th anniversary re-release, and if you've never seen The Godfather on the big screen, then make a note of Friday, February 25. Film-lovers have a treat in store in 2022.
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