The Annotated Godfather: The Complete Screenplay with Commentary on Every Scene, Interviews, and Little-Known Facts
Page 17
GOOFS, GAFFES, AND BLOOPERS
Although Sonny’s windshield is initially shot out by gunfire, when the bodyguard car approaches, you can see a reflection in an intact windshield. A more subtle continuity error is bullet holes visible in the car’s roof, which disappear and then reappear.
THE ANATOMY OF A SCENE: THE DEATH OF SONNY CORLEONE
“We blew hell out of that car.”
—Producer Albert S. Ruddy, Ladies’ Home Journal, 1972
In just one take, the vibrant character of Sonny Corleone was obliterated.
The scene, reminiscent of the groundbreaking Bonnie and Clyde, was a technical nightmare for the crew.
A beautiful 1941 Lincoln Continental was fitted with breakaway safety glass, as were the tollbooths. Two hundred separate bullet holes were drilled into the car, and then puttied over, painted, and filled with an explosive charge that could be activated by remote control. Everything was electrically wired and rigged.
James Caan became something of a walking time bomb. His clothes were fitted with small brass casings. Each one had a small slit in it, filled with gunpowder and topped with a small plastic sack of fake blood. The casings were wired and attached to a hidden cable behind his back. Casings in his hair and on his face had no gunpowder, just blood. They were attached to nearly invisible wires, which, when pulled by offscreen technicians, caused the sacks to pop and spurt blood. Electrical wires ran from inside Caan’s pants to a console, which controlled all the gunpowder charges.
Dangerous if employed incorrectly, the 110 casings that Caan wore was the most ever at that time in movie history. When the assassins started firing, a special-effects crew quickly punched the console buttons, and each one kicked off a little explosion that made it appear as if bullets were ripping into Caan. Simultaneously, other crew members pulled the wires that popped the blood pellets on his face and head. Caan reported in an interview: “I didn’t mind the scene too much, but I wouldn’t be honest if I said it didn’t make me a little nervous.”
JAMES CAAN RELAXES AFTER THE STRESSFUL SHOOT.
After the scene, Caan was a little dazed, and kept checking to make sure his face and hair were intact. He wasn’t the only one lucky the scene came off without a hitch; at a cost of $100,000, the production couldn’t afford another take.
CAST AND CREW: ROBERT DUVALL
Rudy Vallee coveted the part of Tom Hagen, but was much too old to play a thirty-five-year-old. Other potential actors were Peter Donat, Martin Sheen, Roy Thinnes, Barry Primus, Robert Vaughn, Richard Mulligan, Keir Dullea, Dean Stockwell, Jack Nicholson, and James Caan (who seemingly tried out for every part in the film). John Cassavetes and Peter Falk sought the role as well, but there really wasn’t any competition—Coppola wanted Robert Duvall.
Duvall began his career in the army and attended the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York on the GI Bill. He studied under Sanford Meisner (as Caan and Keaton would as well) along with Dustin Hoffman, with whom he shared an apartment. The two struggling actors were also great friends with colleague Gene Hackman. Duvall’s film debut was as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. When he was cast as Tom Hagen, Duvall, an award-winning stage actor who was making a name for himself as a good character film actor, had just finished M*A*S*H, and was in George Lucas’s THX 1138. He had worked with both Brando (The Chase) and Caan (in Coppola’s The Rain People), and was reunited with them for The Godfather. Coppola knew from the start that he wanted Duvall and Caan to play the roles of Tom Hagen and Santino Corleone, respectively. He had an early rehearsal with them and bought them lunch. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of screen tests and many months later, Coppola got his original casting choices, which, as Caan put it, he could have had for the price of “four corned beef sandwiches.” For his part in The Godfather, Duvall made $36,000. Duvall, one of the greatest actors of his generation, refused to appear in The Godfather: Part III because, as he claimed on 60 Minutes, “if they paid Pacino twice what they paid me, that’s fine, but not three or four times, which is what they did.” Many members of the cast and crew have since credited that film’s failure to meet the expectations of the first two Godfathers in part to the absence of Duvall’s Hagen. In 2007, Duvall, assessing the first film, said, “The brilliance and success of this film is due wholly to Francis Ford Coppola and nobody else. It was his vision. He was the only one that could have done it.”
DISSOLVE TO:
INT NIGHT: THE DON’S OFFICE
HAGEN alone in the office. He is drinking. Behind him, DON CORLEONE slowly enters the room, dressed in a robe and slippers. He walks directly to a chair and sits down. His face is stern as he looks into HAGEN’s eyes.
DON CORLEONE
Give me a drop.
HAGEN hands the OLD MAN his glass of anisette. He drinks it.
DON CORLEONE
My wife is crying upstairs. I hear cars comin’ to the house. Consigliere of mine, I think you should tell your Don what everyone seems to know.
HAGEN
I didn’t tell Mama anything. I was about to come up and wake you just now and tell you.
DON CORLEONE
But you needed a drink first.
HAGEN
Yeah.
DON CORLEONE
Well, now you’ve had your drink.
HAGEN
(his voice breaking)
… They shot Sonny on the Causeway. He’s dead.
DON CORLEONE sighs and blinks, trying to control his tears.
DON CORLEONE
I want no inquiries made. I want no acts of vengeance. I want you to arrange a meeting with the heads of the Five Families … This war stops now.
THE DON rises unsteadily and pats HAGEN’s back.
DON CORLEONE
Call Bonasera. I need ‘im now.
THE DON leaves the room and walks up the stairs slowly. HAGEN moves to the phone; dials.
HAGEN
This is Tom Hagen. I’m calling for Vito Corleone, at his request. Now you owe your Don a service.
INT NIGHT: FUNERAL PARLOR EMBALMING ROOM
We see from the PERSPECTIVE BEHIND THE GATE OF AN ELEVATOR, moving down, with AMERIGO BONASERA on the other side. HAGEN’S VOICE continues.
HAGEN’S VOICE
He has no doubt that you will repay it. Now, he will be at your funeral parlor in one hour. Be there to greet him.
The elevator gate opens, and out walk two MEN carrying a stretcher, with a corpse’s feet sticking out from under a gray blanket. HAGEN follows, and then ANOTHER MAN steps out of the darkness somewhat uncertainly. It is DON CORLEONE. He walks up to BONASERA, very close, without speaking. His cold eyes look directly at the frightened UNDERTAKER. Then, after a gaze:
DON CORLEONE
Well, my friend, are you ready to do me this service?
BONASERA
Yes. What do you want me to do?
THE DON moves to the CORPSE on the embalming table.
DON CORLEONE
I want you to use all your powers, and all your skills. I don’t want his mother to see him this way.
He draws down the gray blanket. BONASERA sees the bullet-smashed face of SONNY CORLEONE.
DON CORLEONE
(with emotion)
Look how they massacred my boy.
BEHIND THE SCENES
While filming in Little Italy, Marlon Brando developed a taste for the spicy squid with hot sauce from Vincent’s. When Vito leans over Sonny’s dead body here, Brando is holding a carton of the delicacy out of camera range.
THE NUTS AND BOLTS: PRODUCTION DETAIL
The scene in the embalming room was filmed at the morgue at Bellevue Hospital Center, 1st Avenue at 29th Street, Manhattan. A freight elevator breakdown meant delays in filming.
BEHIND-THE-SCENES AT THE FUNERAL PARLOUR.
ADAPTATION AND THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
In both the book and the screenplay, Sonny’s murder is structured as a flashback. First Sonny drives out to the tollbooths
, then Tom Hagen calls Bonasera to reclaim the Don’s favor, and only then does Sonny’s assassination occur.
ADAPTATION AND THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
A scene in the preproduction shooting script between Bonasera and his wife that was not in the 1972 movie: After he receives Hagen’s call, Bonasera sweats profusely and worries he might be made an accomplice to illegal activities, cursing “the day I ever went to the Godfather.” Also not included was a scene in which Bonasera opens up the funeral parlor and waits. When a car drives up and men bring in a corpse, “BONASERA closes his eyes in fear, but indicates which way the MEN should carry their sinister burden.”
“When I saw The Godfather the first time, it made me sick; all I could see were my mistakes and I hated it. But years later, when I saw it on television from a different perspective, I decided it was a pretty good film.”
—Marlon Brando, in his autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me
EXT DAY: TOMMASINO COURTYARD
APOLLONIA is laughing, driving the little Alfa. MICHAEL pretends to be frightened as he teaches her to drive. She drives erratically, knocking down an occasional garden chair. At the gate, we notice SHEPHERDS with luparas, walking guard duty. The car stops, and MICHAEL gets out.
They speak in Italian with SUBTITLES:
MICHAEL
It’s safer to teach you English!
APOLLONIA
I know English …
(says in English)
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, Saturday.
MICHAEL
Aie, bravo!
APOLLONIA
(SPEAKS ITALIAN)
A car honks and enters the courtyard. MICHAEL helps DON TOMMASINO out of the car.
MICHAEL
Greetings, Don Tommasino.
DON TOMMASINO
(SPEAKS ITALIAN)
MICHAEL
How are things in Palermo?
APOLLONIA kisses DON TOMMASINO.
APOLLONIA
Michael is teaching me to drive … watch, I’ll show you.
APOLLONIA returns to the car.
MICHAEL
How are things in Palermo?
DON TOMMASINO seems tired and concerned.
DON TOMMASINO
Young people don’t respect anything anymore … Times are changing for the worse. This place has become too dangerous for you. I want you to move to a villa near Siracusa … right now.
MICHAEL
What’s wrong?
DON TOMMASINO
Bad news from America. Your brother, Santino, they killed him.
For a moment, the whole world of New York, Sollozzo, the Five Family War, all comes back to MICHAEL. A car horn interrupts his thoughts.
APOLLONIA
(petulantly)
Let’s go … you promised.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT DAY: VILLA COURTYARD
Morning. MICHAEL leans out of the bedroom window. Below, FABRIZIO is sitting in one of the garden chairs, combing his thick hair. MICHAEL calls and FABRIZIO looks up to his window.
MICHAEL
Fabrizio!
FABRIZIO
Yes, sir.
MICHAEL
(in Italian; subtitled)
Get the car.
FABRIZIO
Are you driving yourself, Boss?
MICHAEL
Yes.
FABRIZIO
Is your wife coming with you?
MICHAEL
No, I want you to take her to her father’s house till I know things are safe.
FABRIZIO
Okay. Anything you say, Boss.
INT DAY: VILLA KITCHEN
MICHAEL, dressed, enters the kitchen. CALO is eating.
MICHAEL
(speaks Italian; subtitled)
Calo, where is Apollonia?
CALO
(speaks Sicilian; subtitled)
She’s going to surprise you. She wants to drive. She’ll make a good American wife.
MICHAEL smiles and leaves.
CALO
(speaks Sicilian; subtitled)
Wait, I’ll get the baggage.
EXT DAY: VILLA COURTYARD
There is the car, with APOLLONIA sitting in the driver’s seat, playing with the wheel like a child.
CALO carries the suitcases to the car and puts them in the trunk.
MICHAEL descends a staircase into the courtyard. Over on the other side of the courtyard, he sees FABRIZIO walking toward the gate.
MICHAEL
(speaks Sicilian; subtitled)
Fabrizio! Where are you going?
The car horn sounds, and MICHAEL turns back.
APOLLONIA
(speaks Italian; subtitled)
Michele! Wait there! I’ll drive to you.
Then MICHAEL seems disturbed. He looks at FABRIZIO, who turns, looks back at MICHAEL once more, and runs out of the gate. MICHAEL steps forward and holds out his hand.
MICHAEL
No! No, Apollonia!
His shout is drowned in the roar of a tremendous EXPLOSION as she switches on the ignition. MICHAEL is thrown backward. The car is enveloped in smoke and flames.
FADE OUT.
THE ITALIAN EFFECTS MAN BLEW THE CAR UP WITH DANGEROUS HIGH EXPLOSIVES.
CAST AND CREW: SIMONETTA STEFANELLI
For the role of Apollonia, casting director Fred Roos considered several famous young actresses, such as Olivia Hussey (from Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet). Coppola says sixteen-year-old Simonetta Stefanelli caught his eye because, after doing her screen test, she skipped away like a young girl. Simonetta later characterized her role thusly: “I met him, I married him, I died.”
“Marlon Brando is the envy of all the real Godfathers on the island. They all wish they were that good-looking and suave.”
—Palermo newspaper editor, after The Godfather’s release in Italy, according to The Hollywood Reporter
DELETED SCENE
ADAPTATION AND THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR
This juncture in the film differs from both the novel and the preproduction shooting script in several areas:
Michael’s Revenge
In the novel, Michael, delirious with grief, pointedly says that he wishes now to be his father’s son and go home. In the shooting script, Michael, in mourning, vows: “Fabrizio. Let your shepherds know that the one who gives me Fabrizio will own the finest pastures in Sicily.” A scene was shot, but doesn’t appear in the 1972 movie, with the simple line “Get me Fabrizio.” It was included in The Godfather 1902–1959: The Complete Epic and The Godfather Trilogy: 1901–1980.
Sicily Sequence and the Meeting of the Five Families
The Sicily scenes in the shooting script ran as one continuous sequence, so the entire episode unfolded at once after the Meeting of the Five Families. Had this order been maintained, it may have proven somewhat jarring, as the meeting had supposedly brokered a peace between the Families. The script had a rather weak explanation: the Don postulates that it may have been difficult to call off the hit once put in motion. The 1972 film cuts directly from the scene of Apollonia’s death (after Sonny’s) right to the meeting. Thus, the completed film directly links the scene of Michael’s violence to the call for peace, as well as connects the two heretofore-contrasting worlds of Sicily and New York.
Michael and The Don’s Reunion
Two consecutive scenes that existed in the shooting script (following Apollonia’s death) that do not appear in the 1972 movie concern Michael reuniting with his father; they appear here.
FADE IN:
EXT DAY: MALL (SPRING 1951)
Easter.
A HIGH VIEW ON THE CORLEONE MALL in the springtime. Hordes of little CHILDREN, including many of the Corleone children and grandchildren, rush about carrying little Easter baskets, searching here and there for candy treasures and hidden Easter eggs. THE DON himself, much older, much smaller in size, wearing baggy pants, a plaid shirt, and an old hat, moves around his garden, tendin
g rows and rows of rich tomato plants. Suddenly, he stops and looks.
MICHAEL stands there, still holding his suitcase.
Great emotion comes over THE DON, who takes a few steps in MICHAEL’s direction. MICHAEL leaves his suitcase, walks to THE DON, and embraces him.
DON CORLEONE
Be my son …
INT DAY: THE OLIVE OIL FACTORY
DON CORLEONE leads MICHAEL through the corridors of the building.
DON CORLEONE
This old building has seen its day. No way to do business … too small, too old.
They enter THE DON’s glass-paneled office.
DON CORLEONE
Have you thought about a wife? A family?
MICHAEL
(pained)
No.
DON CORLEONE
I understand, Michael. But you must make a family, you know.
MICHAEL
I want children, I want a family. But I don’t know when.
DON CORLEONE
Accept what’s happened, Michael.
MICHAEL
I could accept everything that’s happened; I could accept it, but that I never had a choice. From the time I was born, you had laid this all out for me.
DON CORLEONE
No, I wanted other things for you.
MICHAEL
You wanted me to be your son.
DON CORLEONE
Yes, but sons who would be professors, scientists, musicians … and grandchildren who could be, who knows, a governor, a president even, nothing’s impossible here in America.
MICHAEL
Then why have I become a man like you?
DON CORLEONE
You are like me; we refuse to be fools, to be puppets dancing on a string pulled by other men. I hoped the time for guns and killing and massacres was over. That was my misfortune. That was your misfortune. I was hunted on the streets of Corleone when I was twelve years old because of who my father was. I had no choice.