In the street scene where Joey Zasa is killed, a Catholic parade is in progress. A group of people who look almost exactly like Ku Klux Klansmen are bearing a statue of the Madonna (or perhaps a saint). While I know that they aren’t really KKK, who are they? Is this a Catholic thing, an Italian thing, or a NYC Italian Catholic thing?
On the director’s commentary on the DVD, F.F. Coppola says that Luchesi was based on an actual person, but he doesn’t name him. Does anybody know who this was?
Actor Raf Vallone portrays Cardinal Lamberto. When Paul VI dies, Lamberto is elected pope and chooses the name John Paul I. All sources give John Paul I’s real name as Albino Luciani; was Lamberto another name, or is it just a roman’a’clef combo of fact and fiction?
Also on the DVD commentary, Coppola states that he has considered a GODFATHER IV which parallels the rise of Sonny and the family during the Depression (1930s) with the decline of the family as it moves into narcotics and street crime under Vincent Mancini. Does anybody think this would work?
(As proof of paternal devotion, Coppola also knocks critics who bashed Sofia Coppola’s performance by saying “they were just trying to attack me through her”- considering he cast some of the greatest talent of the 70s in the original movies, just how blind is he to attrocious acting?)
I believe that Coppola was basing Godfather III on the alleged plot to kill the real Pope John Paul I by people who were profiting from the Vatican Bank.
Some newspaper accounts said that Pope John Paul I was reading an audit report of the bank before he died, while the official Vatican line was that the Pope was reading a religious work.
I believe that any chance for a Godfather IV passed away with Mario Puzo.
I say any Hollywood producer who would dare attempt to cast Leonardo diCaprio as the young Santino Corleone should end up with a horse’s head in his bed as a warning. :mad:
The hood wearing procession certainly isn’t German-Irish Catholic thing AFAIK.
Here is a link discussing the Vatican Banking scandal that is rumored to have caused the alleged murder of Pope John Paul I.
Googling Immobliare (the real estate organiztion the fictional Michael Corleone wanted to buy) + Blackfriars (the bridge in London where real life Vatican banker Roberto Calvi was orignally thought to have committed suicide) will return some interesting articles.
The movie’s Pope John Paul I is the roman a’ clef. Luciani was the Patriarch of Venice not a Sicilian Cardinal. JP I also died in 1978, not 1979.
Yes, Sofia Coppola’s acting <?> in GF III was terrible. Although her-- “Dad?” as she died-- was done well.
FFC blindness–well he can’t come out and say that his daughter’s performance was dreadful. What kind of a father and director would he be?
Actually, the last I heard, Puzo’s heirs were looking for someone to write “The Godfather: Part IV”.
No details were provided. I’m sure this would be a novel, but no doubt a film or TV series would follow.
“The Godfather” series has been a curse on one hand for Coppola and a salvation on the other hand. While fat paychecks have been a large part of his motivation for doing the films (especially parts 1 and 3), they are MUCH better work than his professed “personal” films like “One From The Heart”.
And he was the most self-destructive person ever to cast his daughter in “Godfather 3”. Watching this film gives the feeling of watching a masochist beat himself; it makes a person wonder if he was purposely trying to fail.
I also heard that they were looking for someone to write the screenplay for Godfather IV. I promise it won’t work, though. Puzo lived in Hell’s Kitchen as a kid (that was the cruddy, gang oriented part of NYC). He had first hand knowledge of what the Mafia is. I doubt some joe shmoe will do half as good a job as Puzo did with his books.