The Godfather Turns
The cast is all wrong. The tone is too somber. It needs to be shorter. And does it have to be set in the 1940s?
These were just some of the complaints from Paramount Pictures executives during the troubled production of
The Godfather—an adaptation of the Mario Puzo gangster novel about a powerful Italian American family that ascends to the top of New York City’s Mafia—as it lumbered toward its theatrical release in March 1972.
Director Francis Ford Coppola, who had co-written the big war biopic Patton, landed the coveted position of director after Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront) and Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde) turned it down. But his job was on shaky ground even after the cameras started to roll.
“There were [directors] standing to the side ready to take over,” says actress Talia Shire, who played Don Vito Corleone’s only daughter, Connie. “Can you imagine?!”
Al Pacino, a breakout in the large cast, who portrayed Vito’s youngest son, Michael, recalls: “It was a great script. But we didn’t know what filmmaking was, really.”
Today Coppola’s The Godfather is considered a true cinematic masterpiece and a pop culture touchstone. It grossed $136 million in all, surpassed at the time by only Gone With the Wind and The Sound of Music. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $711 million, making it the 26th highest-grossing film of all time.
“The movie is extraordinary on every single level, from the performances to the musical cues to the language,” says Shire. “Time doesn’t tick for it.” Here, we salute the remarkable history and legacy of the most monumental mobster film ever made.