I know you are asking…who am i to question on of the greatest moveis of all time? My gripe is with the character of the Godfather played by Marlon Brando. Why exactly did they pick someone who looked so un-godfatherish if u will forgive my deviation from English as we know it?Brando did not look scary or intimidating at all. Even worse, he had that raspy cant-hear-shit voice…why was it this way? Does this grate anyone else? The voice especially really bugs me.
THe character had been shot in the throat as a younger man.
And please explain how giving the part to a cliche-badguy looking actor would have made it a better film?
Heresy!
One of the points was that although he did not LOOK scary, he was someone that it was in your best interests to be “friends” with. This gets explained better in GFII. The young Vito was anything but scary; as a child he appeared to be mentally deficient. As a young man he appeared to be an innocent, easily taken advantage of, non-aggressive, and so on. Until the night of the fiesta…
He never shouted or threatened. He just quietly “made you an offer you couldn’t refuse,” as Michael explains to Kay at the beginning of the movie.
What would you define as “Godfatherish”? And why would this kind of character have to be scary or intimidating? Vito (and Michael) Corleone were far more complex characters than the kind of godfather you’re looking for.
Marlon Brando nailed that role.
Does this man look scary or intimidating to you?
http://www.murderinc.com/fam/gamb.html
Looks can be deceiving, which is one of the points of the movie.
Don’t forget, the early candidates for the role included Abe Vigoda (Tessio) and John Marley (Jack Woltz). Maybe Vigoda would have fit your image of a gangster, but Marley certainly would not have.
I think it should have gone to Puzo’s own choice, Don Knotts.
“The Tattaglias are moving in on our territory… we gotta nip this in the bud!”
or maybe John Wayne
“I’m not gonna order a whack on you… I’m not gonna order a whack on you… like hell I’m not!”
One person who really was considered was Lawrence Olivier. I’m sure he’d have been as much like the Godfather as he could have been, but I can’t imagine him reaching Brando. Brando’s interpretation was somebody you could at once believe as a loving grandpa and a man who could order the decapitation of a horse- not being evil and scary is what made him evil and scary.
I feel sorry for Vigoda because his acting career started with a classic and then quickly started working its way down. He doesn’t feel sorry for himself though; when asked if he regretted being the butt of jokes on Conan O’Brien and the like he said “The year before Godfather I was driving a cab at nights… I make more money making fun of myself on one episode of Conan O’Brien than I made in a month of risking my life to drive a cab through Hell’s Kitchen.”
I’m curious about what you think “godfatherish” should look like. John Gotti? Lucky Luciano?
The interesting thing about Vito Corleone is that he was not bombastic or overtly intimidating. He was a man who greeted you with a handshake and a smile while seeking out your weakness and vulnerability.
As Wumpus points out, some very dangerous Mafiosi have been very humble, unassuming looking men. Carlo Gambino looked like a harmless little old man, and liked to sit around corner cafes, sipping coffee and munching canolis while making small talk with housewives and children. But people who crossed him had a way of turning up dead!
There was no one Mafioso that Mario Puzo had in mind when he created Don Vito Corleone, but I’m sure Carlo Gambino was somewhere in the back of his mind.
When the movie first came out, my mom was disappointed in Marlon Brando being cast, as well. She said he just wasn’t her idea of Vito Corleone (having read the book first).
The hilarious part is (and I just can’t wrap my mind around this, btw) is she thought Dean Martin would have been the perfect Vito!
Sorry, while Brando may not be the incarnation of a great Godfather, my brain just kinda implodes thinking about Dean Martin in that role.
[sub]And my grandmother and her friends agreed with her![/sub]
"The hilarious part is (and I just can’t wrap my mind around this, btw) is she thought Dean Martin would have been the perfect Vito! "
Hey–how’d all these Barzinis get in my room? When the moon-ah hits your eyes/like two great pizza pies…"
A Rat Packer who reversed himself on the Godfather movies was Frank Sinatra. He became furious when the first one came out and assumed that the Johnny Fontanne character was based on him just because he was an Italian singers who used mafia connections to break his contract with a bandleader then lost his voice, married a superstar actress, and only got his fame and fortune back through being cast in a blockbuster war movie. He cornered Puzo in a restaurant and lambasted him for several minutes, threatening and cursing him.
By Godfather III, he not only had reversed his opinions on the first two but wanted in. He tried to get cast as Don Altobello (the role that went to Eli Wallach) but was rejected because he was too Frank Sinatra-ish.
I read the book when it first came out, then saw the movie when it first came out. As I recall, I was little disappointed with Brando’s version of Don Vito, but now I couldn’t imagine anyone else doing the role.
Yeah, that was the point-that he was able to keep his family self separate from his mafia self-which Michael wasn’t able to do.
I watched the movie after reading the book and I thought Brando was brilliant as the humble, somewhat fragile Vito. But it was mainly because he broke the ‘gangster’ or mafia stereotype so well, that made people love or dislike him as Vito. Just my opinion.
My big problem with the Godfather was that Pacino didn’t get a Best Actor Oscar for either of the first two films.
The interesting thing about the “GODFATHER” series films: In an interview on NPR (around 1996) Mario Puzo admitted that he made up most of the mafia “traditions” that were used in the book/movies. For example, the meetings and the wedding-day “justice” dispensations were all products of Puzo’s imagination. The reality was…by the 1930’s, the mafia was totally Americanized…allof the traditions of the sicilian mafia were pretty much dead. However, due to the Godfather, the crooks started reviving the traditions! For example, when Raymond Patriarca Jr. (the “godfather” of the NE mafia was busted in 1992 (at a mafia induction ceremony held in Revere, Ma), he was using a ritual that he got out of the “Godfather”. Today, the Mafia is just a bunch of criminals…yopu would not seek out your local “godfather” for justice, any more than you would seek out a mad dog.
My problem is with The Godfather 2 – just how did Clemenza die?
Reminds me of my favorite line from Godfather III:
Johnny Fontaine: Where’re you going, Godfather?
Michael Corleone: I’m going in the kitchen to listen to some Tony Bennet albums.
Just in case someone might have missed the Sinatra connection in the first two.
I don’t know if it was ever mentioned, but I heard somewhere it was a heart attack or something similar.