How the clash of Hollywood sharks, Mafia kingpins, and cinematic geniuses shaped a Hollywood masterpiece. VFArchive
best-seller list and was translated into so many languages that Puzo said he stopped keeping track. Paramount had bought a blockbuster cheap, but the studio bosses didn't want to make the movie. Mob films didn't play, they felt, as evidenced by their 1969 flopstarring Kirk Douglas as a Sicilian gangster. Evans and Bart, however, thought they knew why: the Mob films of the past had been written, directed, and acted by"Hollywood Italians.
"Is he nuts?" was Evans's reaction to Coppola's take. But with Paramount pushing to sell the rights to the book for $1 million to Burt Lancaster, who wanted to play Don Corleone, Evans felt that he had to act fast or lose the project. So he dispatched Coppola to New York to meet with Bluhdorn. "It became clear very quickly that the Mafia—and they did not call themselves the Mafia—did not want our film made," says Al Ruddy's assistant, Bettye McCartt."We started getting threats."
Evans, Bluhdorn, and the other executives hated Coppola's casting choices, especially Pacino, who they felt was far too short to play the soldier who becomes the future don."A runt will not play Michael," Evans told Coppola. Evans says he had to enlist his own godfather—Sidney Korshak, the notorious Hollywood superlawyer and fixer to the Mob—to get Pacino released from his MGM contract to appear ina comedy based on Jimmy Breslin's novel about the Mob. Thus, Coppola says, the cast that he had shot on the sly in San Francisco"eventually got the parts." And Carmine Caridi was out as Sonny.
Once he'd been through all that, Martino says, what was a movie director to stand in his way? He shows me a picture of himself with Puzo, Coppola, Ruddy, and some casino bosses in Vegas, all with their arms around one another, on their way to a party—complete with showgirls,"the works"—the singer says he threw at a cost of $20,000 to convince Coppola that he was the right choice for the Johnny Fontane role.
"I knew what Frank was up to," Martino says."He was trying to minimize the role. You know how much Johnny Fontane was in the book." According to Coppola, however,"Johnny Fontane's role was only minimized by [Martino's] inexperience as an actor." Martino fires back,"I was completely ostracized on the set because of Coppola. Brando was the only one who didn't ignore me.
But Coppola fought hard for him, and finally the executives agreed to consider Brando on three conditions: he would have to work for no money up front ; put up a bond for any overruns caused by him; and—most shocking of all—submit to a screen test. Wisely, Coppola didn't call it that when he contacted Brando. Saying that he just wanted to shoot a little footage, he arrived at the actor's home one morning with some props and a camera.
In mid-March 1971, Coppola gathered his actors at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, and with the Corleones finally sitting around a dinner table together, rehearsals began. True to Coppola's conception of the movie as a family saga, he cast many of his own family members in the film, most notably his sister, Talia Shire, as the Don's daughter, Connie Corleone, whom Shire describes today as"a pain-in-the-ass, whiny person" in the shadow of all-pOwerful men.
While the actors were getting acquainted, the producers were getting familiar with the Mob. According to one account, the film's production offices, in the Gulf & Western Building on Columbus Circle, were"dominated by a large bulletin board covered with 8-by-10 news photos of gangland slayings and mobster funerals of the 1940s and 1950s ... and photographs of New York streets and nightclubs, even of furniture auctioned from the homes of famous racketeers.
"So what the fuck do we have to read this script for?" said Colombo. He told Ruddy,"Let's make a deal.
Ruddy was fired on the spot, but before leaving he addressed the board:"Guys, I don't own one share of your goddamn company. I'm not interested in what happens to Gulf & Western stock. I'm interested in getting my movie made."
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