# What makes "The Godfather" a great film? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 10, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707 "2010-06-10T21:38:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/41 "2010-06-11T20:09:52Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Michael tells this story about show business and violence by saying “True story…That’s my family, Kay, that’s not me”. That line “true story” is a show business line. Michael is trying out a role, for himself and for Kay. He is trying convince her, as well as himself, that he can remain withdrawn from his family - that the violence inherent in his family’s way of life will not involve him. He is trying to convince himself, and Kay, that his father is not making him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The rest of the movie is finding out that he is wrong. One of my favorite Michael-Kay exchanges is from after he returns to America and begins courting her again. > [@](#): > > MICHAEL > > My father’s no different than any other powerful man – Any man who’s responsible for other people. Like a senator or a president. > > KAY > > You know how naive you sound? > > MICHAEL > > Why? > > KAY > > Senators and presidents don’t have men killed… > > MICHAEL > > Oh – who’s being naïve, Kay? _The Godfather_ has a lot of improv as well. Luca Brazi’s hopelessly mangled “on your daughter’s wedding day…may their first child be a masculine child” speech was an honest flub from Lenny Montana who absolutely could not get his lines down, yet Coppola told him and the other actors “whatever happens, keep it going”. The cat Brando holds in the opening scenes was a stray that wandered onto the set that day. Clemenza’s famous “Leave the gun…take the cannoli” line was a joke by Richard Castellano during rehearsals that Puzo loved and left in, and Abe Vigoda dancing with the little girl at the wedding was another thing that just happened and got filmed when all were told “No lines, just have a party, do what you would do at an actual lavish wedding you were invited to”. (I’ve read the girl was Vigoda’s daughter- a lot of actors had family members who were extras- Castellano’s wife and kids played Clemenza’s wife and kids for example- but I don’t know if it is Vigoda’s daughter.) A large part of the mythos of the movie is also the “mighta beens”. Actors who were either considered or were heavily lobbying for the role of Don Corleone, for example, included Laurence Olivier, Charlton Heston (?!), Ernest Borgnine, Edward G. Robinson (way too old but the first thought when people thought “American gangster”), Gene Kelly, Robert Mitchum and others. One of the weirdest was Danny Thomas: his ownership of _Make Room for Daddy_ and _The Andy Griffith Show_ and his interests in _Gomer Pyle_, _The Real McCoys_, _Mod Squad_ and other series along with real estate investments made him one of the richest men in Hollywood (so rich that he gave away well over $100 million during his life) and he wanted to play Don Corleone so badly he actually considered buying Paramount just so he could cast himself! Who knows how he would have done, but today it’s impossible to consider anybody other than Brando in the role even though the studio execs had seizures and strokes over the thought of casting him because by the early 1970s he was considered the kiss of death to any movie he touched. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/42 "2010-06-11T20:13:37Z")
It may be a great movie, but it’s not a movie I like. Oh, well - there are plenty of great movies that I do like. I do feel it’s required viewing, part of the western film canon. You need to be familiar with it if you want to know about modern film. But I just don’t _like it._ It’s silly but true - it does insist upon itself. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/43 "2010-06-11T20:14:53Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > It’s silly but true - it does insist upon itself. Mention it. Don’t insist. The OP’s a man who’ll know that without being told. I honestly don’t understand how anybody could dislike this movie, but then I have friends who wonder how I can dislike Tolkien. De gustibus non est disputandum. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/44 "2010-06-11T20:52:14Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > One of my biggest, longest-lasting questions about GF2 was the nature of the “deal” between Roth and Michael - what was going on there, what was the $2 million to purchase, etc? It wasn’t until a few years ago that I realized: It was Barzini all along. Seconded about the plot of GF2. I still have no idea (ok, I could read the threads) what the deal is with Pentangeli and Hyman Roth. Sonny Corleone is one of the most memorable movie characters of all time. He’s just a force of nature. Love James Caan (in a perfectly manly sort of way). ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/45 "2010-06-11T21:03:41Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Seconded about the plot of GF2. I still have no idea (ok, I could read the threads) what the deal is with Pentangeli and Hyman Roth. My nutshell understanding: [spoiler]Pentangeli and the Rosato Brothers (who are backed by Roth) have reasons to order the hit on Michael’s Nevada home and he honestly doesn’t know which one it was when he first goes to see Pentangeli [who was supposed to be Clemenza but the actor wouldn’t agree] and Roth to figure out who it was. He somehow- not quite sure- figures out it was Roth. Roth meanwhile gives the Rosato Brothers permission to kill Pentangeli and take his territory. When they fail, Pentangeli believes that it was Michael who tried to kill him, so he decides to save his own life and take down Michael by betraying him. Michael doesn’t attempt to kill Pentangeli, but his attempt to kill Roth fails when he’s removed from his hotel room due to legitimate illness. Then he has to deal with the betrayal of Pentangeli/Clemenza at the time when he needs his muscle the most. And of course he learns that Fredo is indirectly working for Roth through “buffers… the family had a lot of buffers”. They intimidate Pentangeli into submission by bringing over his brother [explained by Coppola as having to do with an illegitimate family who was under his brother’s protection in Sicily that would have been mentioned in the flashbacks had Pentangeli remained Clemenza] and Michael resumes his war with Roth. So really the Roth-Pentangeli war is over after the attempted asssassination of Pentangeli and the rest is all Michael.[/spoiler] It’s absolutely Shakespearean in complexity. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Alan\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Bird)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/46 "2010-06-11T21:06:34Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > [Do you appreciate SCTV parodies, Tom?](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVCO71f-Ge8) > > (I wish I could find the opening of that episode in which Floyd the Barber asks Don Caballero to kill Opie.) Eugene Levy was brilliant as Floyd. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/47 "2010-06-11T21:35:03Z")
> [@Alan\_Bird](#): > > Eugene Levy was brilliant as Floyd. Not the Godfather episode, but Levy as Floyd at [1:25 in this one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSLKXdJ1Vrk&feature=related). ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/48 "2010-06-11T23:59:04Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Coppola did this intentionally. He virtually never showed the Corleones interacting with anyone except other criminals. This way the story was good criminals and bad criminals rather than criminals and non-criminals. Very true. You forget (due to the way Coppola crafted his film) that the Corleone family is rotten and corrupt. Don Corleone seems more like s successful businessman..until you realize that he is responsible for much death and suffering. yet, the guy refused to be a drug pusher-at least he drew the line at certain activities. ---
**Author:** ![poker\_in\_the\_rear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dc4da7/32.png) [@poker\_in\_the\_rear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/poker_in_the_rear)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/49 "2010-06-12T00:10:26Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Well, it wasn’t too late to note that it was also shallow and pedantic. Shallow and pedantic. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/50 "2010-06-12T00:10:52Z")
IMO he would have been a “better” gangster if he sold drugs, and gave up loan sharking, shakedowns, political influence peddling, and prostitution. Well, I’m just guessing about most of the stuff other than the influence peddling. IIRC that was about the only specific ‘business’ that was attributed to him personally. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/51 "2010-06-12T01:51:28Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > IMO he would have been a “better” gangster if he sold drugs, and gave up loan sharking, shakedowns, political influence peddling, and prostitution. > > Well, I’m just guessing about most of the stuff other than the influence peddling. IIRC that was about the only specific ‘business’ that was attributed to him personally. Except for the undertaker that comes to the Corleones when his daughter is raped by two well-off kids. Corleone has a couple of goons beat them thoroughly. Carleones, avengers on those who would assault women! Yeah, that’s the Mafia alrighty! It’s spelled H-A-G-I-O-G-R-A-P-H-Y. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/52 "2010-06-12T03:31:01Z")
That’s not what I got from the movie at all. There is no question that Michael loses his soul by the end. Vito is a different sort of ganagster even by the standards of other gangsters. He does have a semblence of a moral code. He has a sense of “family” which Michael compeletely distorts to the point where he actually alienates (or kills) everyone in his family. The undertaker originally wanted the rapists killed, by the way. Vito tells his guys to beat them up instead because “we’re not murderers, after all.” ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/53 "2010-06-12T03:50:01Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Except for the undertaker that comes to the Corleones when his daughter is raped by two well-off kids. Corleone has a couple of goons beat them thoroughly. Carleones, avengers on those who would assault women! I think it was just an attempted rape but that she was beaten severely. The father of the girl stands proudly and says “She **kept** her honor.” ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/54 "2010-06-12T04:20:56Z")
I don’t understand **Evil Captor’s** rather simplistic (and factually incorrect) denouncing of this film. _Hamlet_ is about a guy who is a murderer. _Oedipus_ is a guy who kills his dad and sleeps with his mom. _Paradise Lost_ is about Satan. All of these characters, just like the Corleones, get what’s coming to them. I mean… so what that the film is about bad people? We know that going in. It’s like complaining that the film _Downfall_ is about Nazis. :rolleyes: The fact that EC repeatedly calls the films a hagiography shows that s/he completely missed the point. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/55 "2010-06-12T05:59:29Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > IMO he would have been a “better” gangster if he sold drugs, and gave up loan sharking, shakedowns, political influence peddling, and prostitution. > > Well, I’m just guessing about most of the stuff other than the influence peddling. IIRC that was about the only specific ‘business’ that was attributed to him personally. He controlled some [numbers games](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_game)(illegal private lotteries). The “living” he gives to Carlo is as banker of a numbers game in the family territories. They were extremely lucrative since the numbers usually paid 600:1 on 1000:1 odds it had a lot of room for profit, and since most cops played the numbers as well even if they weren’t being paid off they probably still wouldn’t have done much to stop it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/56 "2010-06-12T13:11:07Z")
Because we were only seeing gangsters, we were in effect seeing them the way they saw themselves. Mafiosi are as prone to self-delusion as anyone else. They didn’t really see themselves as criminals - they saw themselves as businessmen whose business was essentially no different than any other (the government and legal businessmen were just as corrupt as they were but they had the advantages.) They saw themselves as following a code of honor - while ignoring how regularly they broke their code. They saw themselves as family men - while actually doing terrible things to their families. Basically the entire cast were unreliable narrators. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/57 "2010-06-12T14:45:13Z")
One other point…GF is a technically correct movie. Coppola took great pains to make it as historically accurate as possible. For example-when the Don is shot, watch the windshield of the car-it carries a Gasoline Rationing Sticker-correct (as a car in 1945 would have). When Sonny goes up to Harlem to beat the crap out of Carlo-there is a truck in the background bearning the beer brand name “Rheingold”-which was a popular beer brand in 1940’s NYC. I also noted that when Michael and Kay are on their little love tryst, the Radio City Music Hall billboard sports the movie “The Bells of Saint Mary’s”-a popular 1946 flick, starring Bing Crosbie. For other GF mavens out there-did you spot any gross mistakes in the film? I’d be eager to know!😃 ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/58 "2010-06-12T22:36:28Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > For other GF mavens out there-did you spot any gross mistakes in the film? > I’d be eager to know!😃 The [anachronistic US flag](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/goofs) is the famous such error. Personally, I consider that anyone with reasonable taste should recognise that _Godfather I_ is out of the ordinary by the end of the opening shot. That’s one hell of an efficient fragment of cinema. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/59 "2010-06-12T22:44:59Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > For example-when the Don is shot, watch the windshield of the car-it carries a Gasoline Rationing Sticker-correct (as a car in 1945 would have). One of the deleted scenes has Clemenza cursing because the new car he just ordered (one of the first manufactured after VJ Day) has a wooden bumper with an IOU for the metal bumper which is not yet back in production. The anachronisms on the imdb page include some “Oh dear Jesus” items: the wrong NYC fire commissioners for the 1940s or a 1951 baseball game being broadcast in the background in 1949. It makes you wonder if the people who noticed those are “excellent drivers but only on the sidewalk, yeah…”. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2010, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707/60 "2010-06-12T23:01:58Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > That’s not what I got from the movie at all. There is no question that Michael loses his soul by the end. > > Vito is a different sort of ganagster even by the standards of other gangsters. He does have a semblence of a moral code. He has a sense of “family” which Michael compeletely distorts to the point where he actually alienates (or kills) everyone in his family. > > The undertaker originally wanted the rapists killed, by the way. Vito tells his guys to beat them up instead because “we’re not murderers, after all.” Yeah! Who ever heard of mobsters who kill people? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-the-godfather-a-great-film/542707.md?page=4)