The 11 Biggest Surprises from ‘The Godfather’ Reunion
What went right, what went wrong, and who got along with who?
To celebrate the 45th anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s seminal mafia masterpiece, The Godfather, Tribeca Film Festival hosted a double feature this past weekend fit for a don. The Godfather and The Godfather Part II played back to back, and the screening was followed by one of the most stunning film panels we’ve ever seen. Just look at this lineup! Sitting on a decorated stage together talking about the films was: Francis Ford Coppola, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, and Robert De Niro. Moderator Taylor Hackford led a lively discussion, and we pulled the 11 coolest suprises we learned from the conversation.
1. Francis Ford Coppola Didn’t Love the Original Novel
The Godfather, written by Mario Puzo in 1969, didn’t really appeal to Coppola at first. “I was disappointed in the book, it was very long… much of the book, maybe a third or a quarter of it was about Lucy Mancini’s anatomy. And I thought the book was a little bit of a potboiler.”
2. Marlon Brando Got Along Well With His Castmates
According to Robert Duval, the notoriously prickly Marlon Brando got along fine with the rest of the cast. “Brando particularly liked Jimmy Caan, because Jimmy can be pretty funny. And when Jimmy would tell a joke it would take Brando like three seconds to get it, then he’d be like [impersonating Brando] heh, heh, heh, heh.”
3. At first, Coppola Didn’t Want to Cast His Sister
One of Talia Shire’s most powerful roles of all time is that of the beleaguered new bride Connie. But Coppola didn’t want to cast her for the role initially, because she wasn’t what he imagined the daughter of Vito Corleone to be. “At first I didn’t see Talia as Connie because I felt, from my interpretation, that Connie was a kind of homely Italian daughter that only got to marry a good looking guy like her husband because she was a wealthy and powerful girl. To me I thought Talia was so beautiful that anyone would want to marry her… So I thought she’d be wrong for the part.”
4. The Higher Ups Initially Hated Al Pacino as Michael
Coppola always envisioned Pacino in the role of Michael, as he explains, “When they gave me The Godfather script to read every time I read it I always saw his face, and in the scene in particular in Sicily where he’s walking across the field with the Shepherds, I just saw the handsome young guy with black hair.” But the studio had no faith in Pacino. Pacino recounts that he test for the role so many times. “Countless, I can’t count it,” he explained to the audience. “It seemed like I was always testing, I kept testing after I got the part… I even said to him, ‘please Francis, it’s okay. We’ll work again. There are other things to do!’ and he said ‘no! I want you!’ I thought this can’t be happening, I’m dreaming. I said ‘Okay, fine then, I’ll do it.’ and we finally did it.” Coppola cites Pacino’s performance in The Panic in Needle Park as being the thing that finally soothed the fears of the studio.
5. The Studio was Also Very Wary of Brando
Coppola said the studio really didn’t want to get involved with Brando, and that they didn’t even want to hear Coppola mention his name anymore in casting talks. But finally, they relented (sort of) by saying “‘If Marlon will do it for nothing, if he’ll do a screen test, and if he’ll put up a million dollar bond that he won’t cause trouble during the production,’ and I said I accept, and ultimately they let the door open and a whole lot of stuff went on and Marlon eventually got the part.”
6. The Cast Bonded Over a Big Family Meal
Coppola says the first time the cast really all clicked together as a unit was at a family dinner he orchestrated, “We had dinner in the back of Patsy’s restaurant, and Tally served the food… and everyone was excited because Brando was there. And Jimmy was telling lots of jokes to impress him that way. And Al was very serious trying to impress him that way. And every time Brando looked away Bobby [Duvall] would do an impression of Brando… and after that day it made me realize that improvisation with food was very lasting, and they sort of had who they were gonna be after that.”
7. Luca Brasi’s Opening Scenes Were Based on His Bad Acting
Though Lenny Montana provided an incredible realism to the role of Luca Brasi, he had trouble with his line readings, “He never could get through the lines,” said Coppola, “He said “duh, daugh, your daughters-’ he kept fumbling so I thought if we shot him practicing that would be funny.”
8. Speaking of That Realism… Luca Brasi Was Comfortable With Guns
When asked if Lenny Montana was a real actor, Coppola said, “All I know is, in the scene where he takes out his gun and puts bullets in his gun and spins it, I said ‘okay, take out your gun, put a bullet in, and spin it. Can you do that?’ He just looked at me and said ‘Are you kiddin’ me?’”
9. Marlon Brando’s Famous Mumbling was Deliberate
Marlon Brando made a career out of deeply emotive acting… without moving his mouth. But this wasn’t just an odd character trait, it was actually to help the folks in post production. As Coppola said, “He does it deliberately. He told me when he does his lines he tries not move his mouth very much so it’s easy to loop any lines.”
10. The Famous Baptism Scene Didn’t Work at First
Coppola, on the baptism scene in The Godfather: “We were constantly looking for ways to condense and squish stuff that was in the novel into the script. So my idea was to take forty pages of the novel and through the device of the baptism ceremony, kind of wrap it all up for the end of the picture… The first cut wasn’t really working… [one of the editors] had the idea to put in that organ, and that organ just totally, once he put that in it just gelled.”
11. Kay’s Famous Attack on Michael Wasn’t Coppola’s Idea
Spoilers for The Godfather Part II ahead!*
One of the most famous, climactic scenes of The Godfather Part II comes when Diane Keaton’s Kay tells Michael Corleone that her miscarriage wasn’t actually a miscarriage… it was an abortion. This floors both Michael and the audience, and according to Coppola, it wasn’t his or writer Mario Puzo’s idea. “That was Talia’s idea, it was Talia’s idea that she has the abortion as her way!”
*Bonus Tid-Bit*
According to Coppola, the famous cat in the opening scene of The Godfather wasn’t Marlon Brando’s (as has often been cited). “I put that cat in his hand, that was the studio cat…” says Coppola, who went on to say that Marlon Brando had “a wonderful way with children and animals, he was very comfortable with them, and they were comfortable with him.”
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