Althouse: "Paramount was famously opposed to the idea of your playing the role"/"Well, they rejected his entire cast! They rejected Brando. They rejected Jimmy Caan and Bob Duvall. There was conflict."

March 9, 2022

"Paramount was famously opposed to the idea of your playing the role"/"Well, they rejected his entire cast! They rejected Brando. They rejected Jimmy Caan and Bob Duvall. There was conflict."

From "'THE GODFATHER' AT 50/Al Pacino on ‘The Godfather’: ‘It’s Taken Me a Lifetime to Accept It and Move on’ Fifty years later, the actor looks back on his breakthrough role: how he was cast, why he skipped the Oscars and what it all means to him now" (NYT).

30 comments:

rehajm said...: Knocked off Sound of Music for the box office record before Jaws took over three years later. Today it’s hard to imagine the best film of all time also being the biggest box office success.; 3/9/22, 6:09 AM
Humperdink said...: My all time favorite movie. As it was reportedly Saddam Hussein's favorite also.; 3/9/22, 6:10 AM
gilbar said...: rehajm said...
Today it’s hard to imagine the best film of all time also being the biggest box office success

Wait a minute?
Are you trying to say, that "Avengers 19: The Wokest of The Woke" ISN'T the best of all time?; 3/9/22, 6:13 AM
Heartless Aztec said...: Godfather 1 & 2 are a great night of movie watching.; 3/9/22, 6:47 AM
rehajm said...: Are you trying to say, that "Avengers 19: The Wokest of The Woke" ISN'T the best of all time?

It makes, it doesn't make any difference to me what a man does for a living, understand…after all, we are not Communists; 3/9/22, 7:13 AM
Rory said...: The movie remains a model of how to adapt existing material. The novel follows Johnny Fontane around Hollywood endlessly, and also takes Lucy (the girl Sonny does at the wedding) to Las Vegas. Coppola just crossed out page after page. Most of the good material he left out was Vito's back story, which eventually got used for the flashback portion of the sequel.; 3/9/22, 7:14 AM
Jersey Fled said...: So many great scenes. Overall I like 2 tha best.; 3/9/22, 7:15 AM
David Begley said...: Famous Hollywood quote, “Nobody knows anything in this business.”

Given my lack of success selling my “Frankenstein, Part II,” I know this is true. My script is great!; 3/9/22, 7:26 AM
Humperdink said...: Fredo succumbed in the Godfather, was resurrected by CNN, then met his demise a second time.; 3/9/22, 7:30 AM
MikeR said...: I like that line at the end: "and move on... It's not like I played Superman."; 3/9/22, 8:00 AM
daskol said...: Like watching Godfather III, I love the first two movies too much to read that article—not gonna do it.; 3/9/22, 8:11 AM
BarrySanders20 said...: Al Pacino was great in I and II which are two of the best movies ever. I think he pretty much sucked in everything else he was in.

Just finished reading the novel. In an unusual plot twist from the usual case, the movies are better than the novel.; 3/9/22, 8:44 AM
Howard said...: Coppola's "The Conversation" from the same time holds up better than the Godfather duet.; 3/9/22, 8:51 AM
daskol said...: Coppola was on a creative tear, and The Conversation is a terrific movie, but Godfather duet is timeless in a way the former can’t be by virtue of its subject.; 3/9/22, 8:56 AM
MadisonMan said...: I have seen very few Al Pacino movies. ..and justice for all. It says he was in Ocean's Thirteen -- and I think I saw that.; 3/9/22, 9:23 AM
Maynard said...: Al Pacino was great in I and II which are two of the best movies ever. I think he pretty much sucked in everything else he was in.

I tend to agree. Pacino is one of the all-time over-actors. FF Coppola deserves credit for reining him in.; 3/9/22, 9:35 AM
Yancey Ward said...: I second Howard on the quality of "The Conversation"- one of the most overlooked movies of all time, though, today, lots of people say exactly that which means it isn't overlooked any longer. Still, the "The Godfather" holds up well and is in my top three movies of all time. Seen it multiple times beginning to end. It is the movie for which I have my earliest memories that I can still recall- I was with my parents when they went to see it in 1972 and I was 6 years old.; 3/9/22, 9:36 AM
Yancey Ward said...: Pacino does tend to over-emote- sometimes this is very effective- see Dog Day Afternoon ,The Devil's Advocate), or, especially, Heat- however, a lot of the time is grates on the performance. Nonetheless he doesn't always do this- I loved him in Sea of Love and Insomnia- great low key, simmering performances in the vein of his most famous role.; 3/9/22, 9:42 AM
rcocean said...: Robert Evans head of the Studio didn't want Pacino or Brando and he was against Coppola making the film so "Italian". He want James Caan as Michael. He contacted Rod steiger to play the Godfather.

Pacino should have been nominated for the lead, and Brando for Supporting. But the Academy always loved Brando. The Godfather disappears from the movie for a long time after he's shot, and of course is completely gone for the last 15-20 minutes, since he's dead. Pacino was the key to the Godfather being a success, not Brando.; 3/9/22, 9:51 AM
Iman said...: Who ate all teh gabagool?!?!; 3/9/22, 10:17 AM
Joe Smith said...: That was back when he was a good actor and hadn't yet morphed into the scenery chewer he was to become.; 3/9/22, 10:45 AM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: "Coppola's "The Conversation" from the same time holds up better than the Godfather duet"

Shit! Something I almost agree with Howard about!

The Conversation has so much going for it, but it's unmistakably a '70's movie in terms of capturing the zeitgeist. Which is part of it's greatness.

The astonishing thing about The Godfather is that you could release it today and it wouldn't seem a bit dated. What other pre-Star Wars movie could you say that about?; 3/9/22, 11:30 AM
Bill Peschel said...: My wife and I finally saw all three movies recently. All I had seen were clips beforehand (and the Mad magazine parody).

I agree that they were good, and the recut III had some great moments, too. The last scene of Michael dying in his wheelchair, alone, bereft of the family he wrecked, emphasizes that the series was an epic family tragedy and not just a gangster picture.

In fact, Shakespeare would have loved the saga. The conflicts are right in his wheelhouse.; 3/9/22, 11:41 AM
rcocean said...: I found the conversation boring. But Film nerds like it. The Godfather doesn't feel "Dated" because its set in the 1940s.; 3/9/22, 11:56 AM
Michael K said...: I also liked Pacino in "Sea of Love."; 3/9/22, 1:19 PM
Kai Akker said...: Pacino recently (?) filmed King Lear; imdb says "in production."

Watched the Ian McKellen version the other night. Starts very well. For its rep as a major Shakespeare, it just seemed to come unwound in the second half. Careless plotting, was my reaction. Send it to Rewrite, Will.

Despite the several positives on The Conversation, I found it tedious and one-paced (sloooww). An awful lot of Gene Hackman.; 3/9/22, 6:28 PM
Chris Lopes said...: "Rory said...
The movie remains a model of how to adapt existing material. The novel follows Johnny Fontane around Hollywood endlessly, and also takes Lucy (the girl Sonny does at the wedding) to Las Vegas."

Definitely agreed. The book also spends an odd amount of time on Lucy's girl parts her and a romance with a doctor the Corleone family sets up in Vegas. All of it comes off has background material Puzo just stuck in there. So yeah, Coppola did us all a favor by sticking with the main story.; 3/9/22, 6:39 PM
Lurker21 said...: One game that surfaced in the last few years was trying to figure out if people were "Sonnys," "Toms," "Michaels," or "Fredos." Try it out. There was some disagreement about whether Andrew Cuomo was a "Michael," but general agreement that Chris Cuomo had to be the family "Fredo."

Pacino did two movies critical of liberals. He was the corrupt mayor in City Hall and the seedy publicist in People I Know. You can add his Jack Kevorkian to that. There wasn't anything ideological about it. It's just when you make a movie about corrupt New Yorkers, they aren't likely to be Republicans or conservatives. He's also portrayed his share of corrupt cops, who probably weren't exactly liberals or progressives.

Pacino did work at Commentary magazine in his younger days, but they were a liberal magazine back then, and in any case, he was only working in the mail room.; 3/9/22, 6:47 PM
Andrew said...: The Godfather is my favorite movie, but I have nothing original to say about it. Except I always wondered, did Michael plan out the assassination of his enemies (the baptism sequence) or was it his father?

On a lighter note, my favorite overlooked Pacino performance is as the main villain in Dick Tracy. He uses his overacting to comic effect: https://youtu.be/wV-Z2hEQV7Q; 3/9/22, 9:19 PM
PM said...: Bob Duvall.
Jimmy Caan.
The best Hollywood name-drop was during the Oscars when Eva Marie Saint referred to Alfred Hitchcock as Fred.; 3/10/22, 11:42 AM