The MAN doesn’t answer, but points to the DRIVER of the sedan. SONNY menacingly thrusts his reddened face at him. The DRIVER merely flips open his wallet and shows a card, without saying a word. SONNY steps back, spits on the ground, turns, and walks away, followed by CLEMENZA and PAULIE.
SONNY
Goddamn FBI don’t respect nothin’.
SONNY spots a PHOTOGRAPHER on the walk back to the courtyard.
SONNY
Hey, c’mere, c’mere—c’mere, c’mere—c’mere. C’mere! Gimme!
SONNY pushes the PHOTOGRAPHER against a car and smashes his camera on the ground. PAULIE kicks the camera while CLEMENZA restrains SONNY. SONNY throws a few bills at the PHOTOGRAPHER’s feet and walks quickly away, followed by PAULIE and CLEMENZA.
“The wedding reception that opens the film functions beautifully on multiple levels. It is first of all a warm and completely convincing Italian family wedding, shot with loving attention to detail. But it also serves as a vehicle to introduce us to the film’s major characters, all of whom appear at both the public part of the wedding and the behind-the-scenes palavering in Vito Corleone’s private study. And this split between the public and the private, between what is seen and what is known, turns out to be one of the film’s great themes.”
—Kenneth Turan, film critic
ADAPTATION AND THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
The film version of the wedding includes more shots of the festivities than the preproduction shooting script initially indicated: Connie and Carlo dancing, Mama Corleone singing, Mama and Vito dancing, Tessio tossing an orange into the air—light and lively touches. The additions make the contrast between the gaiety and the underlying tension more pronounced, for example, the crosscutting between FBI agents noting license numbers and the dancing. Some dark interludes not in the shooting script were added to the movie as well, such as rival family head Barzini destroying film from a photographer’s camera, and Michael’s shocking explanation of how his father helped Johnny’s career.
CAST AND CREW: GORDON WILLIS AND THE LOOK OF THE GODFATHER
Cinematographer Gordon Willis was fairly new to the feature-film scene when he was hired for The Godfather. He had been the cinematographer on six films, all in the span of two years. Willis and Coppola had a combustible relationship during the production of The Godfather. They’ve both been characterized as stubborn and single-minded, and they would often have screaming fights, with a few broken props as a result. After one incident, such a loud noise exploded from Coppola’s office that the crew thought Coppola had shot himself (he had only broken a door). The two also conflicted because Willis was very hard on the actors about hitting their marks—with his low lighting scheme, if they missed, they would be filmed in darkness. Coppola, on the other hand, considered himself a protector of the actors. He felt he could get the most out of them by nurturing them.
Despite the fireworks, Willis and Coppola turned out to be the perfect foil for each other: Willis a slow and meticulous perspective purist and rationalist, looking for the beauty in simplicity, and Coppola with the theatrical, grand ideas. The result of the collaboration was stunning cinematography that broke the rules of traditional Hollywood filmmaking. Willis’s low light levels and selective masking of Brando’s eyes gave an ominous undercurrent to Don Corleone’s scenes—very controversial for the time. His intent was to hide from the audience what Vito Corleone was thinking, and use the darkness to personify his evil. Filming in dark conditions helped earn Willis the nickname “The Prince of Darkness.” Willis also infused the picture with a golden amber aura, a kind of visual metaphor for the past. Countless period films have copied this technique.
In an amazing seven-year span from 1971 to 1977, seven of the films that he worked on amassed thirty-nine Oscar® nominations and nineteen wins. Coppola recounts that he learned many things from Willis that continue to influence his own filmmaking.
INT DAY: DON’S OFFICE
DON CORLEONE sits quietly behind his massive desk in the dark study. Across from him: NAZORINE, TOM HAGEN, and ENZO (NAZORINE’s prospective son-in-law).
NAZORINE
… but towards the end, he was paroled to help with the American war effort—so, for the last six months, he’s been workin’ in my pastry shop.
DON CORLEONE
Nazorine, my friend, what can I do for you?
NAZORINE
Well, now that the war is over, this boy, Enzo, they want to repatriate him back to Italy. Godfather, I have a daughter. See, she and Enzo …
DON CORLEONE
You want Enzo to stay in this country, and you want your daughter to be married.
Relieved, NAZORINE rises and clasps THE DON’s hands in gratitude.
NAZORINE
You understand everything.
DON CORLEONE
Prego.
NAZORINE
(rising)
Thank you.
(to HAGEN)
Mr. Hagen, thank you, huh?
(backing out, enthusiastically)
And wait till you see the beautiful wedding cake I made for your daughter. Oof! Like this.
(LAUGHS)
The bride and the groom and the angel …
NAZORINE backs out, all smiles, and nods to the GODFATHER. DON CORLEONE rises and moves to the Venetian blinds.
HAGEN
Who should I give this job to?
DON CORLEONE
Not to our paisan. Give it to a Jew congressman in another district. Who else is on the list?
THE DON is peeking out through the window blinds.
ADAPTATION AND THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
In the novel, another person given an audience by Don Corleone is a young man coincidentally named Anthony Coppola, who asks for help to open a pizzeria.
EXT DAY: MALL
WHAT THE DON SEES:
MICHAEL CORLEONE, dressed in the uniform of a marine captain, leading KAY ADAMS through the wedding crowd, is occasionally stopped and greeted by FRIENDS of the family.
GIRL’S VOICE
Hello!
GIRL’S VOICE
Michael.
THE DON, inside the office, peering through the blinds, watching MICHAEL and KAY. MICHAEL dances with KAY.
INT DAY: DON’S OFFICE
HAGEN
He’s not on the list, but Luca Brasi wants to see you.
THE DON turns to HAGEN.
DON CORLEONE
Is this—is this necessary?
HAGEN
He didn’t expect to be invited to the wedding, so he wanted to thank you.
DON CORLEONE
All right.
EXT DAY: MALL
LUCA BRASI sitting alone, grotesque, and quietly rehearsing what he will say to DON CORLEONE. Nearby, KAY and MICHAEL are eating at a table at the edge of the wedding. She is smoking a cigarette.
GOOFS, GAFFES, AND BLOOPERS
Look for the cigarette in Kay’s hand, which disappears and reappears again.
LUCA
Don Corleone, I am honored and grateful … that you have invited me to your home … on the wedding day of your daughter. May their first child be a masculine child.
LUCA
Don—
KAY
Michael …
LUCA
Don—Corleone …
KAY
… that man over there’s talking to himself.
She has picked out LUCA BRASI.
LUCA
I am honored and grateful that you invited me …
KAY
See that scary guy over there?
LUCA
… on the wedding day of your daughter …
MICHAEL
He’s a very scary guy.
KAY
Well, who is he? What’s his name?
MICHAEL
His name is Luca Brasi—he helps my father out sometimes.
CAST AND CREW: LENNY MONTANA
Lenny Montana—at six feet six inches tall and three
hundred twenty pounds—was a former World Champion wrestler, nicknamed The Zebra Kid. Producer Albert Ruddy “discovered” him among a group of onlookers at an early shooting. Not a professional actor, Montana repeatedly botched his lines. Coppola had the inspired idea of adding these short scenes of Brasi practicing what he will say to Don Corleone—these illustrations of Brasi’s nervousness thereby explain his subsequent fumbling in his scene with the Don. Apparently Montana’s nerves didn’t prevent him from playing prankster: at one point he opened his mouth to speak to the Don and stuck out his tongue, which had on it a “fuck you” note. Brando, always one for a good joke, laughed uproariously.
KAY
(smiling nervously)
Oh, Michael, wait a minute; he’s coming over here.
LUCA comes toward them to meet TOM HAGEN halfway, just near their table.
HAGEN
(approaching MICHAEL and KAY)
Mikey!
MICHAEL
Oh! Tom!
HAGEN
Hey!
They embrace.
HAGEN
You look terrific.
MICHAEL
My brother Tom Hagen, Miss Kay Adams.
KAY and HAGEN shake hands.
HAGEN
How do you do.
KAY
How do you do.
HAGEN
(privately to MICHAEL)
Your father’s been asking for you.
HAGEN
(to KAY)
Very nice to meet you.
KAY
Nice to meet you.
HAGEN smiles and moves back toward the house, LUCA ominously following.
GIRL’S VOICE
(SPEAKS ITALIAN)
KAY
If he’s your brother, why does he have a different name?
MICHAEL
Oh, when my brother Sonny was a kid, he found Tom Hagen in the street—and he had no home—and so my father took him in. And he’s been with us ever since. He’s a good lawyer. Not a Sicilian, but … I think he’s gonna be consigliere.
KAY
What’s that?
MICHAEL
That’s like a counselor, an advisor. Very important to the Family. You like your lasagna?
CAST AND CREW: DICK SMITH AND MARLON BRANDO’S MAKEUP
Dick Smith was the head of the New York NBC-TV makeup department from 1945 to 1959, and was television’s first significant makeup artist, with nearly one hundred productions under his belt. Prior to The Godfather, he made a name for himself in film by doing Dustin Hoffman’s 121-year-old makeup in Little Big Man. His fifty-film career includes The Exorcist and Amadeus, for which he won an Oscar®. For The Godfather, Smith pioneered the use of Karo syrup as blood (which he first tested in Midnight Cowboy). Over the course of a rich career, he has developed countless new materials and techniques, written books that have inspired many of today’s talented makeup artists, and is considered to be the “godfather” of modern-day special effects. In an interview with the author, he describes the process of transforming Marlon Brando into the Don:
DICK SMITH (LEFT) WITH PHILIP RHODES, BRANDO’S PERSONAL MAKEUP ARTIST, TRANSFORMING HIM INTO THE DON.
“I was sent over to England to talk to Marlon Brando about what kind of makeup to use for the film. We have a nice luncheon and he lets me do all the talking. He doesn’t explicitly agree to anything—very cagey, this guy. I assume he’s agreeing with me, but he hasn’t said anything. Time passes and he’s back in the States, and now we come to doing a real makeup test. I try putting on some appliances, and he’s not too anxious to do it. From a makeup standpoint, he wants to do more or less nothing. ‘Plumpers’ are definitely in; he’s going to have some real dentures made for the effect. Kind of like a removable bridge that clamps onto his lower teeth, and attached to the outer sides of it are two pink, plastic lumps that are shaped so as to make bulges where his cheeks or jowls would be. I take casts of his upper and lower teeth and get a dentist to do what I think is proper. The only trouble is Marlon is going out to Hollywood for something else, and it quickly gets out of my hands. There is no time to fit him. I gave the dentures to Marlon to take with him. The next time we’re gonna see Marlon is the first day of shooting in Staten Island for quite a few scenes. Marlon comes in at nine in the morning, takes the dentures out of his pocket, and I see that the dentist has flattened the blobs so they’re ruined. It’s gonna take a few hours to fix them. This holds up shooting for three hours while I take a dental acrylic and mold it on to fatten it up, and then polish them. They’re fixed around noon and shooting proceeds. I’m watching Marlon like a hawk, and of course I see the dailies. They’re okay, but the bulges are just a little overboard. It’s not serious—he can get away with it—but every day I grind a little more off so as not to have a precipitous change. All that section of the film on Staten Island is done with the overdone dentures. If you look sharply you can see that it is a little bit much; it becomes subtler later on. … Incidentally, many people, both in the business and out of it, attributed Marlon’s way of talking for the character to his wearing the plumpers, but it was not that at all. The voice was his creation.”
INT DAY: DON’S OFFICE
LUCA
Don Corleone …
THE DON lets the stiffly formal LUCA move forward to kiss his cheek. He takes an envelope from his jacket and holds it out, but does not release it until he makes a formal speech.
LUCA
(with difficulty)
I am honored and grateful … that you have invited me to your daughter’s wedding. On the day of your daughter’s wedding. And I hope that their first child … will be a masculine child. I pledge … my ever—
A group of CHILDREN run into the office. HAGEN quietly corrals them out the door.
LUCA
—ending loyalty.
(he offers the envelope)
For your daughter’s bridal purse.
DON CORLEONE
Thank you, Luca, my most valued friend.
THE DON takes the envelope, and then LUCA’s hand. They shake hands, each nodding.
LUCA
Don Corleone, I’m gonna leave you now, because I know you are busy. Thank you.
LUCA backs away and HAGEN shows him out.
“The kids at an Italian wedding have the run of the place.”
—Coppola, in a preproduction meeting
A MOMENT OF LEVITY DURING THE PRODUCTION OF THE WEDDING SCENES.
TALIA SHIRE WITH ITALIA AND CARMINE COPPOLA.
BEHIND THE SCENES
This Italian wedding was truly a family affair. Not only did his father lead the band, but Coppola’s cousin sang the aria, and other relatives were extras. Richard Castellano’s (Clemenza’s) brother appears in the background of several scenes. Even the man in charge of supplying police officers for the production, Sonny Grosso, reports that his whole family served as extras.
CAST AND CREW: CARMINE COPPOLA
Francis’s father, Carmine Coppola, organized an actual six-piece Italian band for the wedding, which made for a lively (if more expensive) set. He composed the tarantella at the start of the sequence, as well as a foxtrot and mazurka. The musically talented Carmine had once played in the NBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Arturo Toscanini. Francis has rightly pointed out that The Godfather helped Carmine’s career immensely, as he went on to do other movie work. When accepting his Academy Award® for The Godfather: Part II, Carmine pointed out—just as correctly—that without him, Francis wouldn’t even be here (to which Carmine’s wife Italia sharply responded, as reported in California magazine, “Gee, Carmine … I hope the labor pains weren’t too bad”).
EXT DAY: MALL
CONNIE dances with CARLO.
SONNY is sitting at the wedding dais. Every once in a while he glances across the courtyard, where his WIFE is talking with some WOMEN. He bends over and whispers something into the ear of the maid of honor, LUCY MANCINI.
SANDRA and the WOMEN are
in the middle of a big, ribald laugh. SANDRA’s hands separate with expanding width, farther and farther apart, until she bursts into a peal of laughter. Through her separated hands she sees the wedding dais. SONNY and LUCY are gone.
CROWD
(SINGING)
LA LA LA LA LA LA
MAN
(SPEAKS ITALIAN)
Some of the MALE GUESTS surround MAMA, begging her for a song. They bring her to the dais to sing as she playfully protests.
MAMA
No! … No!
MAMA
(SINGS)
SERA LUNA …
The crowd joins in the singing, clapping hands.
MAMA
Nazorine!
CAST AND CREW: MORGANA KING
A variety of actresses, from Anne Bancroft to Alida Valli, were considered for the part of Carmella “Mama” Corleone. Morgana King, born Maria Grazia Morgana Messina de Berardinis, was a jazz singer of Sicilian descent. The Godfather was her first film.
INT DAY: DON’S HALL AND STAIRS
SONNY walks through THE DON’s hallway and up the stairs.
EXT DAY: MALL
OLD MAN
(SINGS IN ITALIAN)
The crowd claps, shouts, yells, and laughs to the old man’s song.
INT DAY: DON’S HALL AND STAIRS
LUCY MANCINI looks around nervously, lifts her petticoat off the ground, and hurries upstairs, where SONNY is standing on the second landing, motioning for her to come up.
EXT DAY: MALL
The OLD MAN dances.
ADAPTATION AND THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
In the pre-film shooting script, Tom Hagen tells the Don of Sollozzo’s background in the drug trade during this scene when they discuss the senator and judges. In the movie, this exposition happens just before their meeting with Sollozzo.
INT DAY: DON’S OFFICE
HAGEN
Senator Cauley apologized for not coming personally, but said you’d understand. Also some of the judges; they’ve all sent gifts.
The Annotated Godfather: The Complete Screenplay with Commentary on Every Scene, Interviews, and Little-Known Facts Page 4