The Don And His Sons

Rating: 10/10 (9 March 2008)

My nephew who is all of 17 told me in no uncertain terms that movie making with him starts with The Godfather. He doesn't believe anything made before it is of any great merit. For him The Godfather is like The Birth of a Nation.
All three of The Godfather films can bear viewing over and over again. Mario Puzo created such compelling characters and Francis Ford Coppola brought them to life so vividly that you just get sucked in permanently. Like that other mammoth novel about a period, Gone With the Wind, Mario Puzo was like Margaret Mitchell in that there was no way he could top himself after the book was published.
Anyone steeped in organized crime history will know a lot about who is being alluded to in all of the Godfather films. Case in point, Alex Rocco who plays the minor character of Moe Green who takes it upon himself to slap Fredo Corleone around. He's also got a cash flow problem at the casino he's running. One would have to have been living on another planet to not know he was referring to Bugsy Siegal.
The Godfather story begins at the end of World War II where Marlon Brando rules the roost as Vito Corleone head of one of the large crime families. Two sons, James Caan (Sonny) and John Cazale (Fredo) are in the business and the third Al Pacino (Michael) has just come back from the war a decorated hero. The occasion is the gathering of the clan and friends for daughter Talia Shire (Connie) to Gianni Rizzi (Carlo Russo). All the characters are marvelously introduced and the plot situations laid out beautifully.
Marlon Brando who apparently decided that what George C. Scott did was so good in refusing the Oscar for Patton decided to do him one better and send up a bogus Indian princess to tell why. Despite that bit of cheek Brando certainly deserved an Oscar for his performance. Don Vito is compelling as criminal and family man. Brando might have been lucky though in that Al Pacino who really is the main character in all three Godfather films was nominated in the Supporting Actor category.
In fact Pacino was nominated with James Caan and Robert Duvall who plays Tom Heggen the family lawyer/consigliere and Brando's adopted son. That three way tie guaranteed the Oscar for Joel Grey in Cabaret with Eddie Albert being nominated for The Heartbreak Kid as the fifth. They're all great, but Pacino should have been in The Best Actor category.
Singer Al Martino plays Johnny Fontaine who if you didn't know that this was Frank Sinatra again you'd have to have been living on another planet. In fact the identification is made complete by the fact that Martino sings I Have But One Heart at the Corleone wedding which was an early Sinatra hit. Sinatra was not happy with The Godfather and broke off relations with Martino and with Richard Conte who plays Don Barzini one of the other Mafia Dons. Part of the underside of the Sinatra legend is worked into the plot as well.
The images and dialog of The Godfather have entered into our popular culture. The horse's head in John Marley's bed, the cryptic gangster dialog of speaking of an "offer he can't refuse", or "Lucabrazzi sleeps with the fishes" is all stuff we remember forever after seeing the film.
The key scene I think in The Godfather is between the retired Brando and Pacino who has taken over the crime family. Brando isn't happy about the road he took for success, but it's what was available to him. He hoped that Pacino could have stayed out of the family business and had a clean life. It wasn't to be, but maybe the next generation. I think it's beautifully played.
In fact it's all beautifully played.