The Annotated Godfather: The Complete Screenplay with Commentary on Every Scene, Interviews, and Little-Known Facts
Page 13
INT NIGHT: LOUIS’ RESTAURANT
A very small family restaurant with a mosaic tile floor. SOLLOZZO, MICHAEL, and McCLUSKEY sit at a rather small round table near the center of the room. There are a handful of CUSTOMERS, and ONE or TWO WAITERS. It is very quiet.
McCLUSKEY
How’s the Italian food in this restaurant?
SOLLOZZO
Good. Try the veal. It’s the best in the city.
McCLUSKEY
I’ll have it.
SOLLOZZO
(to WAITER)
Capit.
They watch the WAITER silently as he uncorks a bottle of wine and pours three glasses.
SOLLOZZO
(to WAITER)
Right.
(to McCLUSKEY)
I’m gonna speak Italian to Mike.
McCLUSKEY
Go ahead.
SOLLOZZO now begins in rapid Sicilian. MICHAEL listens carefully and nods every so often. Then MICHAEL answers in Sicilian, and SOLLOZZO goes on. The WAITER occasionally brings food, and they hesitate while he is there, then go on. Then MICHAEL, having difficulty expressing himself in Italian, lapses into English.
MICHAEL
Come se diche …
(using English for emphasis)
What I want—what’s most important to me—is that I have a guarantee: no more attempts on my father’s life.
SOLLOZZO
What guarantees can I give you, Mike? I am the hunted one! I missed my chance. You think too much of me, kid. I’m not that clever. All I want is a truce.
MICHAEL looks at SOLLOZZO. Then he looks away, with a distressed look on his face.
MICHAEL
I have to go to the bathroom. Is that all right?
McCLUSKEY
You gotta go, you gotta go.
SOLLOZZO is intuitively suspicious. He studies MICHAEL with his dark eyes. MICHAEL gets up and SOLLOZZO thrusts his hand onto MICHAEL’s thigh, feeling in and around, searching for a weapon.
McCLUSKEY
I frisked ’im; he’s clean.
SOLLOZZO
Don’t take too long.
MICHAEL calmly walks to the bathroom.
McCLUSKEY
I’ve frisked a thousand young punks.
CAST AND CREW: STERLING HAYDEN
Sterling Hayden—a seaman at heart—ran away at sixteen to become a mate on a schooner before eventually getting a contract with Paramount, who in 1941 declared him “The Most Beautiful Man in the Movies!” Although he detested film work, before playing Captain McCluskey in The Godfather, he appeared in over forty films—mostly Westerns and film noir—including such memorable pictures as The Asphalt Jungle and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. According to a production assistant, between takes of this scene the quixotic Hayden snacked on fruit and milk, as he only ate natural foods. He read Dear Theo, a collection of Van Gogh’s letters to his brother. Then, he mysteriously disappeared. He had taken a stroll, fallen asleep down by the river, and was awakened by boys throwing rocks at him.
CAST AND CREW: AL LETTIERI
Actor Al Lettieri (Sollozzo) was fluent in Sicilian.
GOOFS, GAFFES, AND BLOOPERS
There’s a continuity error in the restaurant scene: the maître d’ holds a pipe, but when the camera cuts to another angle, it disappears.
COPPOLA PLOTS OUT THE INTENSITY OF THE SCENE IN HIS NOTEBOOK.
INT NIGHT: LOUIS’ RESTAURANT TOILET
MICHAEL steps into the small bathroom. Then he moves to the stall, up to the old-fashioned toilet. Slowly he reaches behind the water tank. He panics when he cannot feel the gun.
INT NIGHT: LOUIS’ RESTAURANT
SOLLOZZO and McCLUSKEY eating in the restaurant. McCLUSKEY glances back toward the bathrooms.
INT NIGHT: LOUIS’ RESTAURANT TOILET
MICHAEL gropes searchingly, finally coming to rest on the gun. He brings it down; the feel of it reassures him.
INT NIGHT: LOUIS’ RESTAURANT
SOLLOZZO and McCLUSKEY eating in the restaurant. McCLUSKEY glances back toward the bathrooms.
INT NIGHT: LOUIS’ RESTAURANT TOILET
MICHAEL moves to leave the bathroom. He hesitates, his hand on his forehead, and smooths down his hair. Then he goes out. We HEAR the ROAR of the El train.
“The biggest scene in the movie, effectwise.”
—Coppola, in a preproduction special effects memo
INT NIGHT: LOUIS’ RESTAURANT
MICHAEL hesitates by the bathroom door and looks at his table. McCLUSKEY is eating a plate of spaghetti and veal. SOLLOZZO turns around upon hearing the door and looks directly at MICHAEL. MICHAEL looks back. Then he continues back to the table. He sits down.
SOLLOZZO leans toward MICHAEL, who sits down comfortably. His hands move under the table and unbutton his jacket. SOLLOZZO begins to speak in Sicilian once again, but MICHAEL’s heart is pounding so hard he can barely hear him. Slow ZOOM on MICHAEL’s face, while we HEAR the SCREECH of the El train’s brakes.
Without warning, MICHAEL stands up and points the gun right at SOLLOZZO’s head. He pulls the trigger, and we see part of SOLLOZZO’s head blown away and a spray of fine mist of blood cover the entire area.
SOLLOZZO seems in a perpetual fall to the floor; he seems to hang in space suspended. MICHAEL pivots and looks.
There is McCLUSKEY, frozen, the fork with a piece of veal suspended in midair before his gaping mouth.
MICHAEL fires, catching McCLUSKEY in his thick, bulging throat. The air is filled with pink mist. He makes a horrible, gagging, choking sound. Then, coolly and deliberately, MICHAEL fires again—fires right through McCLUSKEY’s white-topped skull.
McCLUSKEY finally falls from the chair, knocking over the table. SOLLOZZO is still in his chair, his body propped up by the table.
MICHAEL swings toward a MAN standing by the bathroom wall. The MAN does not make a move, seemingly paralyzed. Then he carefully shows his hands to be empty.
MICHAEL is wildly at a peak. He starts to move out. His hand is frozen by his side, still gripping the gun.
He moves, not letting the gun go.
MICHAEL’s face is frozen in its expression.
He walks quickly out of the restaurant. Just before exiting, his hand relaxes; the gun falls to the floor with a dull THUD.
MICHAEL exits.
EXT NIGHT: LOUIS’ RESTAURANT
SOLLOZZO’s car is still parked outside. Another car drives by and MICHAEL runs to catch it.
BEHIND THE SCENES
Pacino sprained an ankle ligament when he jumped into the getaway car—a shot that doesn’t even make it into the final film. Apparently, the driver wasn’t instructed to stop to let him in. The crowd gathering outside cheered the stunt, but unfortunately, Pacino was unable to work for a few days, and alternatingly used pain medication, crutches, a wheelchair, and a cane. Luckily, he had impressed Paramount with the restaurant scene, and for once his job seemed secure.
INT NIGHT: LOUIS’ RESTAURANT
We see a frozen tableau of the murder, as though it had been re-created in wax.
CAST AND CREW:
AL PACINO
Who to cast in the prime role of Michael Corleone was fiercely debated between Paramount and Francis Ford Coppola. The executives wanted a well-known actor like Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, or Robert Redford; all turned it down. Tommy Lee Jones was also considered. Robert Evans liked Ryan O’Neal, who had just starred in Paramount’s extraordinarily successful Love Story with Evans’s then wife, Ali MacGraw. Coppola has speculated that Evans liked O’Neal because he reminded him of himself. Charles Bluhdorn (the head of Gulf+Western, Paramount’s parent company) asked for Charles Bronson, who certainly would have brought something different to the character. The rumor mill also held that Dustin Hoffman was interested, and his name was discussed even after the role had been cast.
Among the countless actors Coppola and casting director Fred Roos screen-tested were David Carradine,
Dean Stockwell, Martin Sheen, James Caan, and Robert De Niro. It has been widely reported that while watching the Michael Corleone screen tests, Stanley Jaffe, then president of Paramount Pictures, exasperatedly exclaimed: “I think you got the worst bunch of lampshades I’ve ever seen.”
Coppola’s true desire was for the unknown thirty-one-year-old theater actor Al Pacino to play the part of Michael Corleone. Alfredo James Pacino, the grandson of genuine Sicilians, was born in East Harlem and moved to the East Bronx at a young age. A wanderer, he dropped out of high school and scraped by, going from job to job, fired often for laziness. Acting piqued his interest, and he enrolled in the Actors Studio in 1966. In 1968 he won the OBIE Award for Best Actor for his work in The Indian Wants the Bronx, and followed that up with a Tony-winning performance in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? At the time of The Godfather casting, he had played a substantive role in only one film, the yet-to-be-released The Panic in Needle Park, which would be shown at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.
While reading The Godfather, Coppola was haunted by Pacino’s face, which he thought exuded an underlying menace integral to the role of Michael. Puzo’s novel often cites Michael’s iciness: “cold chilling anger that was not externalized in any gesture or change in voice. It was a coldness that came off him like death.” … “Michael Corleone felt that delicious refreshing chilliness all over his body.”
Al’s face also had a certain old-Sicilian quality that had become synonymous with Michael Corleone in Coppola’s mind. Marcia Lucas, then wife of Coppola’s American Zoetrope partner George Lucas, also liked Pacino, saying that he “undresses you with his eyes.”
As with many of Coppola’s inclinations about The Godfather, once he decided what he wanted, he fought for it tooth and nail. Pacino admits that it was Coppola’s single-minded tenacity that got him the part. It was a tough fight. With his non–movie star looks, Pacino, Paramount thought, was too Italian, too unattractive, and, at five feet seven inches, too short. He was called a “shrimp” by studio executives—Evans often referred to him as “that midget Pacino.” According to producer Albert Ruddy, Coppola tried all sorts of tricks to get Pacino hired; for one of the screen tests he instructed the camera be placed on the ground, to make Pacino look taller.
The screen-tested scene was the wedding conversation with Kay about his family—certainly not the most riveting scene in the script. To make matters worse, Pacino tested terribly, repeatedly blowing his lines. Because Pacino knew that Paramount didn’t want him, he felt disinclined to invest himself in a role he was certain he’d never get. He said in a Ladies’ Home Journal interview: “I knew Francis was the only one who wanted me, so I felt, ‘What’s the sense of learning lines? No matter what I do I won’t get the part.’”
Pacino tested for the role no fewer than three times. Reportedly, just seven weeks before filming was to start, Coppola was told to test thirty new actors. Ruddy went to CEO Bluhdorn, asking for a “compromise.” Even Marlon Brando put in his two cents, telling Evans that Pacino was a “brooder” like Michael Corleone. Ruddy describes a lunch in which Evans banged on the table, proclaiming his frustration over the continued Pacino talk: “I’m running the goddamn studio—what the hell do we have to do?” Finally, on March 3, well after every other principal had signed, the deal for Pacino was announced. The Paramount executives saw eight minutes of his impressive turn in the yet-to-be-released The Panic in Needle Park, and that, coupled with Coppola’s relentlessness, swung the tide in Pacino’s favor.
“Once I got the role I was waking up at four or five in the morning and going into my kitchen to brood.”
—Al Pacino, in Life magazine
However, the Pacino battles weren’t over. While Paramount was hemming and hawing over hiring Pacino, he took another job, in the MGM Mafia picture The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. On March 10, just two weeks before shooting began on The Godfather, MGM slapped Pacino with a lawsuit to force him to honor their agreement. Eventually, Paramount settled the matter, and Pacino had to pay the court costs and agree to a subsequent MGM film role. A substantial chunk of Pacino’s $35,000 Godfather salary went to MGM for the lawsuit.
As The Godfather shooting commenced, there were rumblings that Pacino would be fired. In an interview, he recalled: “It was obvious that some people didn’t want me. I remember saying, ‘I’ll never make it through this picture; it’s going to kill me.’” He heard giggling from a merciless crew while on camera. However, he believed that in the initial scenes of the film Michael must appear unsure of himself; as quoted in Al Pacino: In Conversation with Lawrence Grobel, Pacino says, “He’s caught between his Old World family and the postwar American dream.” It wasn’t until the fourth day of shooting, in the scene where Michael kills Sollozzo and McCluskey, that Pacino impressed the studio executives enough to quell the rumors.
Coppola’s vision to see the unknown Pacino as Michael Corleone, and his gumption to fight for the unpopular choice, was spot-on. Pacino’s chilling intensity, and the subtle but inexorable transformation he works on Michael’s soul, are riveting—a pitch-perfect performance to rival any in American cinematic history.
DISSOLVE TO:
MATTRESSES MONTAGE
“The Five Families War of 1946 had begun.”
—Mario Puzo, The Godfather
A sentimental tune plays over the following:
Printing presses turning.
A NEWSBOY dropping a packet of newspapers emblazoned with the headline: “POLICE HUNT COP KILLER.”
Another newspaper headline: “CITY CRACKS DOWN: PRESSURE ON ORGANIZED CRIME.”
TESSIO sits, doing a crossword puzzle by the light of a lamp.
Spinning newspaper stops. Headline reads: “POLICE CAPTAIN LINKED WITH DRUG RACKETS.”
Clemenza prays; starts to lie down on bed.
COPPOLA DIRECTS THE BUTTON MEN.
TEN MEN sit around a crude table, quietly eating. A large bowl of pasta is passed, and the MEN eat heartily. A little distance away, a MAN in his shirtsleeves plays a sentimental tune on an old upright piano, while his cigarette burns on the edge. ANOTHER leans on the piano, listening quietly.
COPPOLA WITH FATHER CARMINE AND JOE SPINELL AS WILLIE CICCI.
Newspaper scrolls up, headline “MOBSTER BARZINI QUESTIONED IN UNDERWORLD FEUD” over a photo of Barzini and other men (superimposed over CLOSE-UP on a hand cleaning a gun).
A thin, boyish BUTTON MAN writes a letter. Behind him, mattresses are spread out around the otherwise empty living room of an apartment. THREE or FOUR MEN are taking naps, (superimposed over) headline “MOB KILLINGS”—scroll from left to right through this shot and next.
A large bowl of pasta is passed among the BUTTON MEN.
Black-and-white photo: in a restaurant, a man lies in a pool of blood while men stand around the scene.
Black-and-white photo of police, holding guns, kneeling over gunned-down man, (superimposed over) a man cooking food.
Fingers playing the piano, (superimposed over) black-and-white photo of a corpse soaked in blood.
LAMPONE smokes while gazing out a window that has been covered with a heavy mesh, wire grating, then moves away.
Trash is thrown in two or three garbage cans kept in the apartment, (superimposed over) newspaper headline “GANGLAND VIOLENCE” over photo of corpse with head covered by bloody cloth.
Half-naked CLEMENZA lies sleeping on a bed.
Newspaper headline: “SYNDICATE BIG SHOT VITO CORLEONE RETURNS HOME.”
THE NUTS AND BOLTS: PRODUCTION DETAIL
The mattresses montage features photos of real gangland assassinations.
BEHIND THE SCENES
The montage music was composed by the piano player in this scene: Coppola’s dad, Carmine.
EXT DAY: DON’S HOSPITAL (SPRING 1946)
A hospital in New York City. POLICE with rifles, teams of PRIVATE DETECTIVES, and BUTTON MEN are guarding the area, and they begin to move toward their cars. Photographer’s snap pictures thr
ough the windows of an ambulance (presumably carrying THE DON), while orderlies close the back doors. CLEMENZA, carrying a suitcase, walks quickly with OTHER BUTTON MEN toward a car. It speeds off, the ambulance following with flashing lights, and is followed by another dark car. POLICE watch the cars leave.
MAN
Come on, let’s go.
The cars exit the hospital lot via a ramp.
THE NUTS AND BOLTS: PRODUCTION DETAIL
The exterior hospital scene was filmed at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, on East 149th Street, the Bronx. Two nights after this scene was shot, Francis Ford Coppola won an Academy Award® for his original screenplay for Patton—but didn’t attend the ceremony.
GOOFS, GAFFES, AND BLOOPERS
In the hospital parking lot, yellow curbing is visible—a practice that didn’t occur until several years later.
EXT DAY: MALL
Equally impressive security stands ready at the CORLEONE MALL—EXTRA BUTTON MEN, as well as SOME POLICE and PRIVATE DETECTIVES.