THE GODFATHER

IT ONLY TOOK — contrary to some reports — a day. One day, one take. “Oh my God. You can’t do that over again. How many times you think you can do that?” James Caan told Larry King, reflecting on the bloody massacre of his character Santino ‘Sonny’ Corleone, hot-headed firstborn to The Godfather (Marlon Brando), gunned down at the tollbooth on the Long Beach Causeway in New York State.

Cinema doesn’t get much bloodier than this.

It also, ultimately, doesn’t get much more emotional. Because although Sonny is an old-school hoodlum — peacocking and punching like he’s walked out of a ’30s Warner Bros. gangster classic — he’s also beloved. He’s funny, he’s flawed, he’s fiercely loyal. The reason Sonny is driving alone is he’s enraged, racing to attack — even kill — his brother-in-law, for beating up his sister. Impetuousness is his downfall — triggered by family, triggered by love.

On set, under pressure — always fearing being fired, always clashing with the studio and his crew — writer/director Francis Ford Coppola would nonetheless sometimes pull pages from Mario Puzo’s book, rather than referencing his own script. You can feel it here. The moments on screen snatched straight from Puzo’s prose: “... the shots caught Sonny Corleone in the head and neck as his massive frame spilled out of the car... Sonny’s body sprawled on the asphalt... Men each fired shots into Sonny’s body, then kicked him in the face to disfigure his features even more, to show a mark made by a more personal human power.”

It is, even today, a startlingly violent scene. And it was frightening to film. Caan recalls his fear about the squibs — blood-packed small explosives, encased in brass — which were sewn into his jacket. He recalls there being 5,000 in the car, street and toll booth and 147 on his person; a number perhaps slightly inflated in memory — Joe Gelmis, a journalist at the time, records

110 — but either way, dangerous. There were 200 pre-drilled holes in Sonny’s 1941 Lincoln, which were also filled with explosives so the car would appear riddled with bullets. “You had to see these squibs, they would blow a hole in your hand!” recalls Caan. And the reason he took the risk? Not dedication to the film, the director, or art. “The only reason I did it was because there were girls on set!” he laughs. “Otherwise I would have said, ‘Nah!’ And if I’d know they would have made two I could have made money, I would have said, ‘No, screw you, Francis, I ain’t dying right now!’”

But Francis had done his old friend (they first met in college) a favour, ensuring cinematic immortality with one of the most memorable ever death scenes, followed by Brando’s definitive portrayal of grief, the fear of loss, the ultimate nightmare for any parent:

“Look how they massacred my boy.”

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