The Godfather is a 1972 American epic gangster film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte and Diane Keaton. It is the first installment in The Godfather trilogy, which chronicles the Corleone family under patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando) and the transformation of his youngest son, Michael Corleone (Pacino), from reluctant family outsider to ruthless Mafia boss.
Paramount Pictures obtained the rights to the novel for $80,000, before it gained popularity. Studio executives had trouble finding a director; the first few candidates turned down the position before Coppola signed on to direct the film, but disagreement followed over casting several characters, in particular Vito (Marlon Brando) and Michael (Al Pacino). Filming took place primarily in locations around New York City and Sicily, and it was completed ahead of schedule. The score was composed principally by Nino Rota, with additional pieces by Carmine Coppola.
The Godfather premiered at the Loew's State Theatre on March 14, 1972, and was widely released in the United States on March 24, 1972. It was the highest-grossing film of 1972, and was for a time the highest-grossing film ever made, earning between $250 and $291 million at the box office. The film was acclaimed by critics and audiences, who praised its performances—particularly those of Brando and Pacino—direction, screenplay, story, cinematography, editing, score, and portrayal of the Mafia. The Godfather launched the successful careers of Coppola, Pacino, and other relative newcomers in the cast and crew. At the 45th Academy Awards, the film won Best Picture, Brando won Best Actor, and Puzo and Coppola won for Best Adapted Screenplay. In addition, the seven other Oscar nominations included Pacino, Caan, and Duvall, all for Best Supporting Actor, and Coppola for Best Director.
The Godfather is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made, as well as a landmark of the gangster genre. It was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1990, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and is ranked the second-greatest film in American cinema (behind Citizen Kane) by the American Film Institute. It was followed by the sequels The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990).
Plot
In the mid-1940s, Michael Corleone is a World War II veteran and the youngest son of Don Vito Corleone. Vito is head of the Corleone mafia family and runs it with his eldest son Santino Sonny and adopted son Tom Hagen, a lawyer who is the family's consigliere. At his sister Connie's wedding to Carlo Rizzi, Michael introduces his family to his girlfriend, Kay Adams. Michael tells Kay stories of his family but makes it clear that he wants no part in his family's business.
Vito fulfils the Sicilian tradition of granting favors on his daughter's wedding day to a succession of hopeful visitors. One is his godson, singer and actor Johnny Fontane, who cannot get an upcoming film role because studio owner and producer Jack Woltz has a grudge against Fontane. Vito sends Hagen to LA to persuade Woltz to relent but Woltz will not budge. Hagen departs and the next morning, Woltz wakes to find the severed head of his prized $600,000 racehorse Khartoum in his bed with him. A terrified Woltz relents and Fontane gets the role.
Approaching Christmas, Michael becomes embroiled in family affairs when Vito is gunned down by two assailants. Vito had earlier refused to offer protection to drug baron Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo for dealing narcotics in the city. Sollozzo has the support of the Tattaglia family, who garrote notorious Corleone enforcer Luca Brasi when he attempts to become a mole in Sollozzo's operation. While Vito survives the attempt and recovers at the hospital, hot-tempered Sonny takes over the family as acting boss. He has Michael live at the house for his protection, as his successful revenge hit on Tattaglia's son Bruno has led to war between the two gangs. Michael visits his father in hospital to be told that NYPD Captain McCluskey has had Vito's bodyguards ejected from the hospital, clearing the way for a second attempt on Vito's life. Michael visits his father and, realizing his jeopardy, moves him to another hospital room then stands guard outside the hospital. He scares Sollozzo's assassins off but an angry McCluskey returns and breaks Michael's jaw for defying him. Soon after, Hagen arrives with more bodyguards and McCluskey backs down to the lawyer's demands. Being an outsider to the family business and seen as harmless, Michael later proposes a meeting between himself, Sollozzo and McCluskey at which he'll kill them both to keep his father safe. Initially amused, the family approve his plan and have a gun planted at the meeting place: a restaurant. At the meeting, Michael shoots both men dead then flees the country. He takes refuge in his family's native Sicily to escape the NYPD and the ire of the other gangs until the heat dies down. He falls in love with a local woman, Apollonia Vitelli, and marries her.
Back in New York, war has broken out between the Five Families. Sonny discovers that Connie was being abused by Carlo. At first, Sonny pummels Carlo in public and warns him never to touch Connie again. However, after a fierce beating from Carlo, Connie appeals to her family. A furious Sonny sets off for her house but is ambushed and murdered at a highway toll booth. The recovering Vito is told of Sonny's death and orders an end to hostilities with no vengeance. He calls a meeting with the heads of the other New York families and negotiates peace between them all, conceding to a controlled drug trade in return for an end to all vendettas and for Michael's safe return to the US. Meanwhile, Michael survives a hit in Sicily, which instead kills Apollonia via car bombing. He returns to the US, slowly taking over the family business from his father. He marries Kay and promises to legitimize the family's operations within five years.
Michael visits Las Vegas to negotiate a deal with Jewish mobster and casino mogul Moe Greene, under whose protection Fredo has been living. Michael offers to buy out Greene's stake in the family casinos, but Greene refuses and flaunts his support from Barzini. After Moe leaves, Michael reprimands Fredo for defending Greene and warns him never to side against the Family ever again.
After the peace meeting, Vito realizes that Barzini is the mastermind behind Sonny's death, not Tattaglia. He predicts to Michael that a Corleone traitor will reveal himself by offering to broker a meeting between Michael and the Barzinis but will use it to have Michael assassinated. Vito dies of a heart attack while playing with his grandson, Michael's son Anthony. At his funeral, Corleone caporegime Salvatore Tessio asks Michael to meet with Barzini, revealing his betrayal. Michael attends his nephew's baptism to be anointed as his godfather while Michael's hitmen carry out orders, simultaneously assassinating Greene and the heads of the other New York Families. Tessio is led off to be executed for his treachery. Michael extracts a confession from Carlo that he conspired with Barzini to kill Sonny and had abused Connie to lure Sonny into his fatal ambush. Michael berates Carlo, then sends him on an apparently safe car journey where instead Clemenza garrotes him.
At their house, Connie accuses Michael of having Carlo killed. To Kay's relief, Michael denies the accusation, but as she leaves the room to get drinks, the Corleone family capos approach Michael and offer him their allegiance. Kay watches Clemenza kiss Michael's hand and address him as "Don Corleone" before Neri closes the door on her.
Cast
Uncredited members of the cast include Tom Rosqui as Rocco Lampone, one of Michael's enforcers; Joe Spinell as Willi Cicci, one of Clemenza's enforcers; Gabriele Torrei as Enzo the baker, and Anthony Gounaris as Anthony Corleone. Francis Ford Coppola's daughter Sofia, who was still an infant at the time, appears uncredited as Michael Rizzi in the baptism sequence.
Production
Development The film is based on Mario Puzo's The Godfather, which remained on The New York Times Best Seller list for 67 weeks and sold over nine million copies in two years. Published in 1969, it became the best selling published work in history for several years. Burt Lancaster and Danny Thomas both expressed interest adapting the book. Paramount Pictures originally found out about Puzo's novel in 1967 when a literary scout for the company contacted then Paramount Vice President of Production Peter Bart about Puzo's unfinished sixty-page manuscript titled Mafia. Bart believed the work was "much beyond a Mafia story" and offered Puzo a $12,500 option for the work, with an option for $80,000 if the finished work were to be made into a film. Despite Puzo's agent telling him to turn down the offer, Puzo was desperate for money and accepted the deal. Paramount's Robert Evans relates that, when they met in early 1968, he offered Puzo the deal after the author confided in him that he urgently needed $10,000 to pay off gambling debts.
In March 1967, Paramount announced that it backed Puzo's upcoming work in the hopes of making a film. In 1969, Paramount confirmed their intentions to make a film out of the novel for the price of $80,000, with aims to have the film released on Christmas Day in 1971. On March 23, 1970, Albert S. Ruddy was officially announced as the film's producer, in part because studio executives were impressed with his interview and because he was known for bringing his films in under budget.
Direction
Evans wanted the picture to be directed by an Italian American to make the film "ethnic to the core". Paramount's latest gangster film, The Brotherhood, had done very poorly at the box office; Evans believed that the reason for its failure was its almost complete lack of cast members or creative personnel of Italian descent (the director Martin Ritt and star Kirk Douglas were not Italian). Sergio Leone was Paramount's first choice to direct the film. Leone turned down the option, to work on his own gangster film Once Upon a Time in America. Peter Bogdanovich was then approached but he also declined the offer because he was not interested in the mafia. In addition, Peter Yates, Richard Brooks, Arthur Penn, Franklin J. Schaffner, Costa-Gavras, and Otto Preminger were all offered the position and declined. Evans' chief assistant Peter Bart suggested Francis Ford Coppola, as a director of Italian ancestry who would work for a low sum and budget after the poor performance of his latest film The Rain People. Coppola initially turned down the job because he found Puzo's novel sleazy and sensationalist, describing it as "pretty cheap stuff". At the time Coppola's studio, American Zoetrope, owed over $400,000 to Warner Bros. for budget overruns with the film THX 1138 and when coupled with his poor financial standing, along with advice from friends and family, Coppola reversed his initial decision and took the job. Coppola was officially announced as director of the film on September 28, 1970. Coppola agreed to receive $125,000 and six percent of the gross rentals. Coppola later found a deeper theme for the material and decided that the film should not be about organized crime but a family chronicle, a metaphor for capitalism in America.
Coppola and Paramount