The Godfather Film Thread

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I liked the book. I always wanted to read Puzo’s book about his own mother, even though one of my friends told me it wasn’t very good. I hope to read it soon.

It’s been a long time since I saw the movies. I always liked Don Corleone’s cat. Other than that, my favorite character was Tom Hagen because he was a German-Irish lawyer like me. I had a joke with one of my old friends that I would be his consigliere.

The most annoying character was Kay, especially as she is portrayed in the film. Never understood why Michael married her. She just didn’t get it.
Also the ending of Godfather 3 was really lame.
 
The “dry stones” is probably the most profound quote from Godfather Part 3:

 
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Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, consider this justice a gift on my daughter’s wedding day.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The most annoying character was Kay, especially as she is portrayed in the film. Never understood why Michael married her. She just didn’t get it.
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A couple of people have mentioned the poor movie portrayal of Kay, and I have to agree. Her character is more interesting in the book.

Among other things, Mama Corleone teaches her that it is her job , as Michael’s wife, to take Communion daily for his soul. (Which of course, as a Catholic, is not an economy I support, but I do find strangely charming)
 
Tommy999 said:
I was both intrigued and appalled by The Godfather movies, and unfortunately it affected my view of Italian-Americans for a little while because I didn’t know many in real life and so I stereotyped them based on these movies, which was wrong of me to do, but I was young and didn’t know any better.
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Your very first reaction is normal.

Italians have flaws as I imagine everyone, but they do not resemble the characters of The Godfather, at least the main characters.

Indeed, the Italians love the trilogy very much, because it is a way of joking and distancing themselves from clichés, making it less dramatic.

If the (main) characters really looked like us, we would be furious about these films.

If you make a film about the Italians who are ruining Italy because they cannot give up partisan controversy, you’d see how we’d get angry: because this would be pure truth and truth hurts 🙂
 
I think he married her out of convenience.

He loved Appolonia. After her death, he changed. He became very serious and a bigger part of the family business. I always found the scene where he pulls up next to her In his car and she asks how long he has been back very interesting. Though he has been back in the U.S. for a couple of years, he only comes to her now. There was a very disengaged look on his face. He was saying what she wanted to hear, but it was just words. He knew she still probably loved him and it would be easy to win her back. He needed a wife and she was convenient. She was also naive enough to go along with his family’s “business,” so she was a good catch.
 
Well, that is also a problem I have with the movies in particular.
I felt that the Godfather book ending was much better. It left open what happened to Michael and had his wife praying for his soul. (I still couldn’t really understand how an Italian guy raised in Italian culture and previously married to an Italian girl would end up married to some Baptist miinister’s daughter, but whatever.)

By contrast, I felt that the Godfather film series was trying to make Michael pay for his crime in the end to avoid making a Mafioso into a hero and also just to end the film series once and for all. It was forced. The trope was also done better back in the “Is this the end of Rico?” and “Top a’ the world, Ma!” days.

I really don’t like when movies become heavy-handed. I prefer them to remain ambiguous. Ambiguous doesn’t sell well to a general audiece though.
 
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Regarding Italian American portrayal, many Italian Americans actually feel the same way, that the film perpetuates Italian American stereotypes.

I grew up in New York, daughter of Italian immigrants. I never saw that point of view so much, because my family and other Italian Americans I grew up with were all hard working and law abiding. I started to see that Pov as I got older. I’ve been asked, “You’re Italian do you know any mobsters?” :roll_eyes:

Regarding the juxtaposition between the sacred scenes, like the Baptism scene and the murder scene, and Fredo praying before he got “bumped” are purposeful. It’s to show the baseness of the characters.

Michael is a very complicated character. I think he picked Kay to marry is because with Kay as an “American” he could distance himself from the “business”. And his own personality, with an American girlfriend might be saved from the becoming his father.

His first murders I think are the catalyst for his change. Theoretically, Sollozzo and the captain could have been killed by anyone else. Michael wanted to do it.

I feel for Apollonia. All she was doing was singing “Ciuri ciuri” on a hill with her friends. Michael should have left her alone. Maybe he thought she’d be like his own mother. But he should have realized marrying her would be dangerous for her.
 
:running_man: 😡 😉

There’s an Italian series called “Gamorra” about the Camorra (organized crime from Naples),

I haven’t seen it, but it’s apparently a much more realistic portrayal of organized crime.

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2049116/

A side note, a number of actors in that series are in the series, “My Brilliant Friend”. I’d recommend that series.
 
I’ve never been one to ask anyone about their “connections”, as it would be rude. If people want you to know, they’ll tell you without you asking. But it seems that most of the Italians I knew in my youth, and many non-Italians also, did have connections to the local mob. A lot of it was through organized labor. Perhaps I was just living in a mob-heavy area then. I spent a good deal of time in college over at my boyfriend’s house eating food that “fell off the back of a truck”.
 
The actress who played Apollonia was only 16 when she appeared topless in the movie. I believe that part was filmed in Italy where it was legal for her to do that; it would not have been legal for someone that age to film that scene in the U.S.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’ve never been one to ask anyone about their “connections”, as it would be rude. If people want you to know, they’ll tell you without you asking. But it seems that most of the Italians I knew in my youth, and many non-Italians also, did have connections to the local mob. A lot of it was through organized labor. Perhaps I was just living in a mob-heavy area then. I spent a good deal of time in college over at my boyfriend’s house eating food that “fell off the back of a truck”.
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Indeed. The barber I used to go to (before I started cutting my own hair a la Covid) I went primarily for the entertainment (and cheap haircuts):
  • He ain’t making a living at $9 per head
  • He always has the lottery number written on his calendar
  • Little old Italian gentlemen shuffle into the shop, hand him a wad of lire, and shuffle back out without exchanging a word
  • He frequently tries to sell me pharmaceuticals and meat that fell off a truck
I’m sure he is known on a police blotter somewhere as Tony “The Barber” Montague (not his real name)
 
There was a (very non-Italian) barber in my hometown who seemed to have a great deal of interest in the horse races. And football games. And basketball games.

And a lot of people stopped by his barber shop to (cough cough) share their opinions about the horse races. And football games. And basketball games.

And occasionally the nice people from the law enforcement community would stop to see him. And the barber shop would be closed for awhile. And then it would be open.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
 
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Titivillus said:
Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, consider this justice a gift on my daughter’s wedding day.
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I actually do say this to people (in my best Vito Corleone imitation) to people who ask me if there is something they can do for me after I do something for them (it’s my way of saying, “Don’t worry about it, I’m fine”).

Additionally, I once opened a user meeting at work with “I’d like to thank the members of the Five Families…” and thereafter referrered to the user meetings as the “Five Families” meetings.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
(I still couldn’t really understand how an Italian guy raised in Italian culture and previously married to an Italian girl would end up married to some Baptist miinister’s daughter, but whatever.)
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Interesting note: in real life, in order to get to the higher rungs of the Mafia (like being “made”), you generally cannot have non-Sicilian blood (presumably so they can trace your family lineage to Sicily).
 
Yeah, I think both Godfather I and Goodfellas made that point.

It’s interesting if you think of it as a way of him keeping his kids out of the mob.
 
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