On his way to the emergency room of Flower and Fifth Avenue Hospital, Pacino worries about a further delay in the filming.
“If this foot is really bad maybe Francis can rewrite the script to have Michael on crutches or using a cane. Maybe a recurrent war injury. I just hope he’s not angry. What a dumb thing to do. But nobody told me what was supposed to happen after I ran out of the restaurant!”
The injury is diagnosed as a sprained ligament, and Pacino is under strict orders from his doctors to keep off his feet for the next few days, which causes the shooting schedule to be changed again. But by the beginning of next week it has become necessary to shoot scenes in which Michael appears. Pacino is given repeated pain-killing injections and gets around the set on crutches, in a wheelchair or with a cane. These are taken from the young actor only for the few moments when he is actually being filmed.
12th DAY OF SHOOTING: MONDAY APRIL 12
Location at the New York Eye and Ear Hospital, East 14th Street, for the scene of the Don in the hospital after the attempt on his life. Today is Brando’s first day on the picture.
Two entire floors in one wing of the hospital have been rented to The Godfather. The crew begins arriving at 7 A.M. to set up in the narrow hallway leading to the room to be used for the scene. There is not enough space, and the sound crew and equipment end up in a small bathroom. Walkie-talkies are used to call for additional equipment from the Cinemobile and trucks in the street. The A.D.s are kept busy turning away doctors, nurses and hospital attendants, who are continually peeking in to catch at least a glimpse of Brando.
Word arrives that Brando has missed the flight from Los Angeles that arrived in New York at 6 A.M. in time for his 8 o’clock set call.
“That Brando really hates New York!” says Gibby, the teamster captain. Bob Barth, a location coordinator, shakes his head saying, “That’s self-destructive, not showing up for his first day on the picture.”
There’s not much that can be done today without him. Most of the crew stand around outside the rear of the hospital on 13th Street and enjoy the cool, sunny weather, eating doughnuts and drinking coffee.
13th DAY OF SHOOTING: TUESDAY APRIL 13
The morning is spent filming exteriors at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx for the scene of the Don being taken from the hospital to return home. Since there are no closeups or medium shots of the Godfather, a double for Brando is used.
Among the crowd of hospital personnel and neighborhood spectators, lined up among the wall by the ambulance entrance, is a particularly voluptuous young attendant wearing a low-cut black knit pantsuit. She catches the eye of the camera crew as she and her friends take snapshots of them setting up. The crew respond by taking out their own still cameras and snapping pictures of her.
In the afternoon, the production unit returns to the Eye and Ear Hospital. Brando has arrived in New York and is at Filmways getting into his makeup. At the hospital there is nervous tension in the air in anticipation of the star’s arrival. Coppola decides to skip his lunch break and while the crew is out, use the time for an intensive rehearsal of Pacino and the actress playing the nurse. Brando arrives around two, accompanied by his personal secretary, makeup man and stand-in. He greets the waiting production staff formally in the small hospital room that has been designated as his dressing room, shaking hands all around rather shyly.
The scene today calls for Brando only to lie motionless in bed with prop tubes attached to his nose, mouth and arms while Michael convinces the nurse that his father’s life is in immediate danger. While the shot is lined up, Brando lies silently on the bed, covered only by a short hospital gown, and watches the activity around him. After an hour and a half of painstakingly careful lighting setup and acting rehearsal for this minute-and-a-half scene, the first take is made.
Meanwhile, the word has spread that Brando is really here today, and the stream of curious hospital personnel threatens to turn into a flood. “We’ve never had such excitement here before,” says a young doctor getting off the elevator. “It’s great for everyone’s morale—patients and staff.”
Since off-camera space here is really tight, teamsters and grips not directly involved in the shooting have been relegated to the elevator hallway, where they nap, play cards and drink coffee. Each finds his own way of dealing with the long and tedious waiting. “It’s always hurry up and wait,” mutters one man sprawled on a pile of sandbags. “Hurry up and wait. Just like in the Army.”
Late in the afternoon, soundman Chris Newman and 2nd A.D. Skloot have a blowup about the light-and-bell warning system. Skloot wants it set up and used, but Newman feels it isn’t necessary in these confined quarters, which are cut off from regular hospital activity. There are yells and threats, while everybody stands around in amazement. It suddenly ends with Skloot throwing a handful of the day’s schedules at Newman and stalking off cursing.
When the 1st A.D. calls “Second team in!” to notify the stand-ins that they are needed on the set, an attractive woman with honey-colored hair, dressed in a smart gray pantsuit, walks into the place marked for Brando, to the surprise of the crew. She turns out to be Marie Rhodes, wife of Brando’s makeup man.
Later she explains, as she works at the embroidery that will keep her and Alice Marshak, Brando’s secretary, busy during the long days behind the scenes:
“I still do some acting, but mostly I work as stand-in for Marlon. We’ve known him and worked with him for about 20 years. We acted with him in his last stage appearance, as Bluntschli in Arms and the Man. It was a summer package. We played stock theaters on Cape Cod and around New England. Marlon was usually very good, but he’d already made some films and the discipline of the stage didn’t appeal to him any more. A few of his performances were disastrous.”
14th DAY OF SHOOTING: WEDNESDAY APRIL 14
Location at 128 Mott Street, in the heart of Little Italy. The set representing the interior of the Genco Olive Oil Company, built at Filmways, is now mounted on the fourth floor of an old loft building. With its dark mahogany walls and office partitions, it is marvelously authentic-looking. The schedule calls for three days at this location, including some exterior street shots and long dialogue scenes. The area to be filmed is larger than any that has been used so far in the film and requires more detailed lighting. The tall windows facing the street have been covered with sheets of gel to filter the daylight and keep the interior light-level more constant. The tech crew works quickly and smoothly. Many of the men have worked together before, and they have at hand almost anything they might need—an enormous array of equipment and materials in readiness for rain or shine, hot or cold and for any natural or manmade emergency.
The first shot is lined up and ready to go at about 10:30 A.M. Brando comes on the set from the small office set up as his private dressing room. Today he looks older and uglier. He walks slowly and heavily, already in character. Coppola rehearses the scene with the actors while the camera crew dolly and pan with the action. It is obvious that the entire day will be spent on this scene, contrary to the schedule.
For lunch, Brando and some of the cast, on Al Lettieri’s recommendation, go down the street to Vincent’s Restaurant. The place is jammed as usual at this hour, and some of the actors, including Brando, are in makeup and costume. They are told they will have to wait for a table. When someone mentions that Marlon Brando is in the group, the waiter replies, “Yeah, and I’m Winston Churchill. You’ll have to wait like anyone else.” Brando, still unrecognized, decides he’d rather eat in his dressing room. He returns to the loft, and an assistant is quickly dispatched to the takeout counter of Vincent’s.
The director’s parents, who first appeared at the Luna Restaurant in the Bronx, are now familiar faces on the set. Coppola put his father in the “mattresses” sequence, playing the piano, and today he decides to use his mother as an extra. He casts her as a switchboard operator in the Genco office scene. Mrs. Coppola is very excited and runs off to get a costume, have her hair done an
d be made up. While the scene is being rehearsed Coppola tells her to improvise some small business at the switchboard but not to move so much as to be distracting. She follows his orders carefully, but when, after the first take, the director asks his cameraman how it looked, Willis says quietly, “It was perfect, except your mother froze at the switchboard.” The director sighs and tells his mother to move a little or she won’t look natural. Mrs. Coppola blushes in embarrassment and promises to do it correctly the next time, which she does.
After her scene is over she rushes up to one of the assistants: “How did I look? With this 1940s hairdo and makeup no one will recognize me. I don’t know how to work a switchboard, but I was afraid to tell Francie. Could you tell? He has so much on his shoulders, I don’t know how gets through the day, but I bet he gets the Academy Award for Patton. I’m his mother and I’ve got a special intuition about it. Wasn’t his screenplay a masterpiece?”
15th DAY OF SHOOTING: THURSDAY APRIL 15
The exterior street shots of the attempted assassination, scheduled for this afternoon, must be postponed until Monday because the period car required for the scene has broken down. This means an extra day at this location. At present, production is falling behind at an average of two days a week. It is the general opinion of the crew that Coppola is overcovering scenes by shooting many more takes than is necessary.
In the hope of saving time, for about half an hour Coppola, Brando and a few other actors remain after wrapping at 5:30 to rehearse the first scene scheduled for the next day. As the crew leave, many wish Coppola good luck: tonight is the presentation of the Academy Awards. Richard Castellano has been given the day off to be on hand should he win the Best Supporting Actor Award for Lovers and Other Strangers. Being behind schedule, Coppola has decided to continue filming in New York, and his secretary has arranged for someone in Hollywood to pick up his Oscar if he gets it.
When Brando finally leaves for the day, he is dressed in his street clothes: black dungarees and blue denim motorcycle jacket. All he needs to complete the Wild One image is a black leather cap, but in spite of being out of makeup and costume he retains much of the Godfather’s presence as he walks slowly off the set to his waiting chauffeured station wagon.
17th DAY OF SHOOTING: MONDAY APRIL 19
Location on Mott Street. Dozens of extras, pushcarts loaded with fruit and vegetables, and period cars set the scene for Christmas 1945. Behind ropes and wooden barriers several hundred inhabitants of Little Italy wait for hours to watch the gunning-down of Marlon Brando as the Godfather. The crowd includes many reporters and photographers, and Paramount’s publicity men are hard put to keep photographs from being taken. (In return for exclusive photos of Brando, Life Magazine has agreed to publish a cover story on the film at the time of its release.) One enterprising photographer has stationed himself on a fire escape and refuses to be moved by threats from Paramount men, TPF officers and local representatives of the Italian-American Civil Rights League. (A series of his pictures later appears in a front-page story in the National Enquirer.)
The morning’s shooting goes well. Each time Brando rushes across the street and falls to the ground in a blast of gunfire, he receives a tremendous ovation from the bystanders, who ignore the pleas of the 1st A.D. to wait until “Cut” is called. After one especially exciting fall, Brando rises and with a sweep of his hand gives a low bow to the crowd.
By noon filming is called to a halt because the direct sunlight is too bright. The footage shot here must be matched with other scenes, already shot under different lighting conditions, which are supposed to be occurring simultaneously in various parts of the city.
Lunch break. Brando’s secretary Alice gives the star’s order.
“Marlon will have the usual: a double order of squid with hot sauce. No bread, he’s still on his diet. He’s hungry; he didn’t have any breakfast this morning. I can get him black coffee from the urn upstairs. Thanks.”
Since his first day on Mott Street, when he failed to get a table at Vincent’s, Brando has developed a taste for the spicy Italian food which is the local restaurant’s specialty. So have many people on The Godfather, for whom lunch at Vincent’s has become a daily ritual.
Today, just down the street from the restaurant, at the corner of Hester and Mulberry Streets, Red Buttons and a small production crew are shooting a scene from Whatever Happened to What’ser Name. The onlookers are soon joined by some of the Godfather crew, enjoying a busman’s holiday.
It has been decided to spend the afternoon reshooting the long dialogue scene of the meeting between Sollozzo and the Don, the dailies of which, screened the other day, were not well received. Coppola felt that the acting was way off. While the cameras are being set up Bob Duvall, who plays Tom Hagen, paces impatiently on the sidelines.
“Tense. Very tense. They’re not all like this. It must come from the top. Pressure, money, bigness does it. Very tense atmosphere. This film should have been made with an all-unknown New York cast, low budget and no big studio pressures.”
Duvall’s work in The Godfather looks very good. The legitimate stage actor received a lot of favorable attention as the hypocritical chaplain in M*A*S*H. (Audiences will remember his “love scene” with Sally Kellerman.) Duvall is currently being seen in the title role in THX 1138, produced by Coppola’s San Francisco studio, American Zoetrope, and distributed by Warner Brothers. Between acting stints he has been directing and producing, with the help of his wife and two daughters, a 16mm documentary about a family in the rural Northwest whom he met while on location for yet another film.
It is discovered that Dick Castellano, who is needed for the Sollozzo-Don scene being set up, is still in Hollywood where he went for the Oscar ceremonies. A hasty decision is made to shoot instead the short street scene of Sollozzo’s car arriving at the Genco Oil Company. When it is over, Al Lettieri, who plays Sollozzo, whispers to an aide, as he is getting out of his costume:
“Don’t tell anyone, but the kids in that last scene were wearing winter clothes and it’s supposed to be the middle of summer.” The aide replies, “At this point, with all the problems on this film, it doesn’t really make any difference!”
18TH DAY OF SHOOTING: TUESDAY APRIL 20
Mott Street again, two days behind schedule. Early in the morning, while the street is prepared for the final shooting of the assassination scene, a group of extras waits upstairs on the Genco set. One of them, a Chinese actor named Conrad who is to play a shopkeeper in the scene, takes some of the children off the hands of their “real-life” mothers by patiently teaching them how to fold paper birds and airplanes.
Coppola has sent an assistant to make sure that Franco Corsaro, cast as Genco in the hospital scene to be shot the following day, knows his lines.
The old Italian character actor greets his visitor at the door of his modest room in the Hotel St. Moritz, shaking hands and bowing slightly in European fashion. His fine old face displays genuine pleasure at finally meeting someone from the production; he has been waiting for instructions since his arrival from Hollywood the day before.
“I don’t understand it! I thought I was to play Bonasera and when I got the call in California to come to New York, I discover I’m to play Genco!”
Corsaro goes on to explain that he was sorry to learn that his good friend Frank Puglia was too ill to play the part of Bonasera, for which he had already attended rehearsals in New York. Subsequently, after auditioning twice for Robert Evans in Hollywood, Corsaro received the impression that he was to take Puglia’s place.
“Bonasera is a much better part, but …” His voice trails off, he shrugs his shoulders and smiles.
“Now I know my lines perfectly, but I want you to listen to see if you can understand every word with my accent.”
He lies down and acts out perfectly the dozen or so lines of the dying Genco.
“How was that? You could understand everything? Do you think the director will like it?”
As the
young man starts to leave, Corsaro stops him with, “Just to be sure, let me do it for you just once more. After all, it isn’t every day I get to play a scene with Marlon Brando!”
Back on Mott Street, during the afternoon, Al Martino, the nightclub and recording singer who will make his film debut in the role of Johnny Fontaine, puts in an appearance to observe the filming for a few minutes.
19th DAY OF SHOOTING: WEDNESDAY APRIL 21
Location at the New York Eye and Ear Hospital for Genco’s deathbed scene.
It is Al Martino’s first day in front of the cameras. The singer looks very dashing in his costume: white linen suit, Panama hat, ruffled pink shirt and formal bow tie. Martino is excited by the new experience and attentive to everything going on around him.
Coppola is in a bad mood and says that he hasn’t slept for the past three nights. Several times he shouts, “For once in my life I want complete quiet on the set!” The work goes very slowly and at the end of the day production is further behind schedule.
In a taxi on the way to the screening of the dailies at Gulf and Western, soundman Chris Newman talks about how filming is going.
“I’ve worked on lots of features, but this one’s a real bitch. I wish it could be more like working with Alan Arkin on Little Murders. You know Gordy shot that one too. Arkin created a marvelous working atmosphere. Everyone knocked themselves out for him. Shooting went so well, often we’d finish the day early. We completed filming ahead of schedule, and the picture came in under budget by about $100,000. We all got a nice bonus from the producer on account of that. On this one, I think there’s some big trouble up ahead.”
The Godfather Journal Page 4