Great movie, but because of even better book

Rating: Null/10 (8 June 2000)

I saw The Godfather at least seven or eight times before I read the original Mario Puzo novel. While the movie reached me on several levels, I never quite understood why. Then I read the book: I was stunned. I don't know the exact contribution Coppola made to the screenplay (both he and Puzo are credited), but in some scenes the actors were reading Puzo's original lines direct. And with good reason: they simply couldn't be bettered.
Clearly, the entire cast had studied the book well; I admired the way they subtly wove in much of the character development explicitly dealt with in the book but (largely) left out of the screenplay: Sonny's warm-heartedness and genuine brotherly love for Michael; Luca Brasi's monstrous reputation; Don Corleone's tendency towards peasant simplicity; and on it goes. I urge those of you who have seen and admired the movie but who have not yet read the book, get hold of a copy; surely no other movie bears quite this relationship to the novel that preceded it.