Fifty years later, it’s still a film we can’t refuse | Editor’s notes - Chico Enterprise-Record

I remember the first thing I heard about “The Godfather,” and it involved a horse’s head.

You know the horse. And you know the head.

I was 12 when the movie came out in 1972. At baseball practice one day, I heard a kid say “There’s a scene where a guy wakes up and there’s a horse’s head in his bed.” Then, after a question from another kid, the first kid said “No. Just the head. And lots of blood.”

That didn’t sound like anything 12-year-old me wanted to watch. I was far too busy reading “The Sporting News” and throwing baseballs into the pitchback net while waiting for Saturday’s “Game of the Week” to roll around.

It was several years before I finally watched the entire film on TV — sometime in my late 20s, I believe. Afterward, I went out and rented it so I could watch it again. Then I rented “The Godfather Part 2.” Then, before returning that, I rented “The Godfather Part 3.” The next day, I watched all three, and some might claim I’ve barely stopped watching them ever since.

My biggest surprise during that first viewing was this: I already knew much of the dialogue, because I’d heard so many of those lines spoken elsewhere through the years. That’s how engrained in American culture those films had become, especially the first two. From “Leave the gun, take the cannoli” to the first-known use of the phrase “bada-bing!” (a James Caan ad-lib) to “It’s not personal. It’s strictly business,” barely 5 minutes went by without me saying “Oh. THAT’s where that line originated.”

I bring all of this up because March 24 — just over a week ago — marked the 50-year anniversary of the release of the original Godfather film.

It was early 1972, and nobody had ever heard of Al Pacino or Diane Keaton. Caan was best known for playing a dying football player in a made-for-TV movie called “Brian’s Song,” Robert Duvall was some guy who had a bit part in “True Grit” and Marlon Brando was just another washed-up actor, riding a decade-long string of box-office bombs.

The fact that it’s been 50 years left me with no choice but to write about it this week. You might say it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

(Yes, I could easily pepper every sentence in this column with lines from the movie, but no, I won’t. I swear on the souls of my grandchildren.)

Occasionally I’ll run into someone who claims they’ve never seen the film. I always find myself envying them. It means they’re going to experience something I’ll never enjoy again: The thrill of seeing that movie for the first time, knowing you’re going to need to watch it three or four more times just to get it straight. And get to know all the characters.

Ah, the characters. That, to me, is what really sets this film apart. Whereas most good films might introduce you to four or five key characters — and the great ones might get you on familiar terms with seven or eight — “The Godfather” literally introduces you to everyone in “the family” and beyond, with director Francis Ford Coppola taking the concept of character development to previously unimaginable levels. I just scrolled through the cast list and counted nearly 40 characters I know on a first-name basis — and could recite their lines at the drop of a hat. (Don’t worry. I won’t. That would be an infamnia.) From Luca Brasi to Virgil Sollozo and Jack Woltz to Bonasera the undertaker, we know these guys. Each were perfectly cast pieces in one Cosa Nostra-sized puzzle, right down to the people Fredo kicks out of Moe Greene’s suite when Michael Corleone decides it’s time to discuss the family business.

And the performances — they weren’t just ground-breaking, they were genre-defining. Fifty years later, Vito Corleone and his oldest son, Santino, are remembered as prototypical Mafia kingpins. Yet appearance-wise, both were as far from that as it could possibly get. Brando became Vito by rubbing shoe polish into his hair and stuffing cotton into his cheeks. Caan had reddish-brown hair. How many other red-headed Sicilian movie gangsters can you think of? Doesn’t matter. They made these characters so believable, and so comfortable in their other-worldly power, it actually came as a shock when that hail of bullets cut down Sonny at the toll plaza. You kept expecting him to jump up and kill a dozen armed men by beating them senseless with his bare hands, like brother-in-law Carlo near the gushing fire hydrant.

(OK, just one line from Vito: “I never thought you were a bad consigliere. I thought Santino was a bad Don — rest in peace.”)

Some people liked Part 2 even better than the original. I didn’t. As brilliant as it is, it doesn’t have Brando or Caan (save a brief cameo at the end). I hated seeing Fredo get whacked by Al Neri on the lake. And who wanted to see Frankie Five Angles die by his own hand in prison? Not me. But those scenes of the shooting at the family compound, and in Havana at the time of the Cuban Revolution, and especially the courtroom showdowns — classic. From the first time you see them until, well, the last, those scenes grab you by the throat with such a grip, you practically forget to stop and take a breath.

Not as many people liked Part 3. Personally, I think its biggest flaw is the same as every other film that’s been made the past 50 years: It just wasn’t as good as the first two Godfather movies.

It had its moments. I thought Andy Garcia was fantastic as Santino’s son (and reason enough to make a Part 4 that never happened) and on a personal note, one of my old friends from Corning, Anthony Guidera, had a small role as a bodyguard. It was his first film, and he refined his craft by hanging around people like Pacino and Eli Wallach. How’s that for on-the-job training?

I could talk about “The Godfather” all day. I won’t go so far as to say it really does contain the answers to all of life’s problems, but I’ve yet to watch it without coming away with something new, even after hundreds of viewings. And of all the times I’ve watched it, my favorite memories are of watching it with loved ones who hadn’t seen it before, yet get hooked and quickly end up asking all of the right questions.

Yeah. That’s the part I like best. After all, a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.

(Whoops. Couldn’t resist.)

What are your favorite memories of “The Godfather?” Editor Mike Wolcott is on the newspaper payroll, and he might like a story like that. Email him at mwolcott@chicoer.com.

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