Italians, Stallions, and Corporate Lackeys

Finals, the most fear-inducing word in a college student's vocabulary.

But a little extra help can make a huge difference.

So from now through May, ChatTBT Plus is free.

Meaning no limits on all the ways you can ask ChatTBT to help you.

Help quiz you on an entire semester worth of your notes.

Help describe Keynesian economics with charts and graphs for a visual learner.

Help design a meal plan to keep you energized through the week.

And help land a summer internship when finals are finally done.

Chat TPT Plus, free for college students through May.

Restrictions apply.

Behind every healthcare breakthrough are passionate people pushing the boundaries of scientific

innovation.

I am Alberto Grignolo, a pharmaceutical industry veteran and host of Clinical Trial Blazers,

a new podcast from Priccell Biotech.

In each episode, I talk with biotech visionaries about the decisions, risks, and triumphs that shape their legacies and drive the future of scientific innovation. Join me to uncover their unique stories and tune in at trialblazerspodcast.com.
This is what you do when you have high standards and fancy all the fancy things, like a Dior saddlebag or that diamond tennis bracelet.

You go to eBay.

There, you'll find new loves that will never disappoint.

Expertly authenticated.

Whether it's that vintage pearl necklace or brand new ruby earrings, a Prada crossbody bag, or classic watches like that Rolex Oyster or that Cartier tank. On eBay, there are no limits to your high standards.
Yeah, eBay, the place for new pre-loved vintage and rare fashion. eBay, things people love.
The best AI assistant isn't one that knows the whole world. It's one that knows your world.
A custom assistant built on Watson X with IBM's granite models can leverage your trusted data, be easily trained on your workflows, and integrate with your apps. It can be tuned to do just what you need.
Because the more AI knows about your world, the more it can help you do. Learn more at IBM.com slash productivity.
IBM, let's create. It's March 17th, 1971, St.
Patrick's Day. The Corleone family is sitting down to dinner with the man who brought them all together, Francis Ford Coppola.
Earlier that day, every member of the newly minted cast received their first call sheet, 3.30 p.m., Patsy's Restaurant, 117th Street and First Avenue. Coppola's idea was to have everyone sit down to dinner, Italian family style, and Patsy's was perfect.
It was a known hangout for gangsters and made men. When Gianni Russo, who'd landed the role of Carlo,

reports for his first day on the set, he feels right at home.

So I go up a little early because to see all the guys,

I know everybody.

They're all hugging and kissing.

I go around the corner, see the hat.

People I had to pay my respects to.

And they say, oh, we're so happy for you.

It's so crazy. Gianni walks into the back room where the cast is gathering.
It was the first time everybody met everybody. And I'm watching, like, Sterling Hayden, Richard Conti, John Moley.
These are the great actors. These guys, they were the legends to me.
Marlon Brando arrives, wearing an orange cashmere turtleneck sweater. Producer Al Ruddy described it as Christ coming down from the cross.
The room falls silent. Then the world's greatest living actor cracks a joke.
From that moment forward, the cast doesn't just respect Marlon Brando. They love him.
And here comes Brando. He's like God.
You know, I watched every Brando movie, man. As everyone stands around, not sure what to do with themselves, Marlon opens a bottle of wine.
He takes his seat, and the rest of the cast follows suit. Robert Duvall remembers how easy it was to look to Brando as a father figure.
We all sat around as if we were kind of approximating the family situation around Brando. And he was, you know, when we were young, Brando was like the godfather of actors to us, really.
We all respected him. Coppola looks at his newly minted cast, the family he had fought so hard for.
Brando at the head of the table, James Caan on his left, Al Pacino on his right. For the first time, Coppola can feel the production coming together just as he had envisioned it.
I'm Mark Seal. And I'm Nathan King.
And this is Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli. In today's episode, we shoot our first frame of what turns into 90 hours of film.
We'll detail the day-to-day life on the set, including cast pranks and crew turmoil. Mark, I'm always amazed that amid Coppola's constant power struggle with executives, he was able to play the part of a strong leader with his cast.
Yes, that's right. He was a great compartmentalizer.
The sky is falling. People are threatening to fire him.
But he has a job to do, and he gets it done.

So let's back up.

The cast meeting wasn't really the first step in filming,

which is what we're getting into in today's episode.

No, I'd say it was the creative production meeting that started it all,

which Coppola had called for a few months earlier.

January 25, 1971.

That's right. He invited the production team together to establish the visual style of the film.
I first heard about this meeting from Dean Tavalaris, the film's production designer. That two or three hour meeting cemented the look of the film.
And I emailed Francis Coppola about the meeting, just asking if he could

tell me more about it.

And he said,

I'll do one better.

I'll send you the transcript

from the meeting,

which was incredible,

because you can really see

the workings of a film

in progress

and the vision he had

for so many things

in the movie

that actually came to pass.

And he had a,

he didn't record it, he had a stenographer, a quartz stenographer, with a little type machine that a quartz stenographer has. And this is the transcript right here.
This is massive. That's right.
It's 84 single-space pages written on what seems to be a manual typewriter. So tell me about this meeting, Mark.
We've got Coppola, Tavalaris, a court stenographer. Who else is there? Well, it's Gordon Willis, cinematographer, and the great Anna Hill Johnstone.
Tell me about Gordon Willis. He was a bit of a legend, right? He sure was.
Gordon Willis was an esteemed cinematographer. People called him the Prince of Darkness.
He liked shooting his shadows. Gordon and Francis had a bit of animosity between them, didn't they? Well, they would later, but at this meeting, they were very much on the same page.
Okay, what about Dean Tavalaris? Tavalaris is great. He's a longtime production designer, artistic designer, and artist himself.

I got to know Dean quite a bit, and I was able to even visit him in Paris not too long ago.

And he found so many of the classic locations in The Godfather.

As he told me for the book, he spent a lot of time looking for places to kill people.

And then we have costume designer Anna Hill Johnstone, who got her start on Broadway and made a name for herself on movies like On the Waterfront and East of Eden. Coppola is the youngest in the group, right? And at least for now, he's the group's undisputed leader.
Okay, let's crack this transcript open. How does the meeting start?

Well, at first, Coppola sets his intentions.

He wants to have a freewheeling discussion and take the script scene by scene.

He had his vision for the film.

He did not want to make a traditional gangster movie.

Here's Dean Tavalaris again.

He wanted to show them as human,

see the human side, the family side of their lives. The ironic thing of them loving their children, et cetera, and then turning around and committing terrible crimes and brutal murders.
And what about the look of the film? Well, in the production meeting transcript, you know, they go back and forth, and one word kept jumping out, and that was operatic. Both Tavallaris and Coppola seemed to use that word a lot.
This dark operatic image where the camera is fixed and things come into the frame and things leave the frame, but the camera doesn't cut that much. It doesn't pan that much.
You can really see that fixed camera technique in the film. So tell us a little bit more about the production meeting because they go over a lot.
They talk about every detail of the wedding, from the wine that's going to be served to the wait staff. They talk about costumes at length.
Take us through some of what they go over. Yeah, it's pretty amazing because so many things, so many of the classic scenes that you remember from the movie were first outlined in this production meeting.
They talk about the bridge, which bridge should we use,

where Michael's going to meet Sollozzo and the corrupt police captain.

You know, where the Don is hospitalized after getting shot,

which hospital should we use?

Even the wedding, of course, was a major, major thing that Coppola talked about quite a bit.

He wanted the wedding to be like the weddings that he had gone to in his youth or, you know, that he was going to even now at the time when he was still a young man, of course, where everybody's talking all at once. Johnstone would say, do you think 10 waiters would be enough for the wedding? And Coppola said, no, we're not going to, there's no waiters at an Italian American wedding.
They didn't have that. The women would do it.
The sandwiches would be ordered from a

place on 9th Avenue, and people would bring in their own food. Everything was done homemade and

natural. And so that was the key to this incredible scene.
He was adamant in the meeting that they not

over-formalize it. He said the only people in formal attire would be the wedding party, and that

kids would wear their confirmation clothes, and everyone else would wear their Sunday dresses and outfits, but it wouldn't be too buttoned up. Yeah, he said he's going to try to make the wedding an experience instead of a scene, take the dialogue out of it and immerse the audience with hundreds and hundreds of details.
They also talk a lot about how the wedding will be juxtaposed with the setting inside the house in the Don's office. So here's where the Prince of Darkness comes in, the cinematographer Gordon Willis.
He uses the shadows to show the darkness of the Don's office as juxtaposed against the bright lights and the sunny scene of the wedding where Johnny Fontaine comes in and sings a song and everybody's happy and dancing. It's amazing how granular they get.
At one point in the meeting, they're talking about Tom Hagen's flight to Los Angeles and the type of airplane he would fly on. And they decide it's going to be a 1946 Lockheed Constellation because that's the type of airplane that would make that trans-American flight in those days, in the late 40s.
They debate the pros and cons of that plane, you know, and that plane is only on the screen for a second, you know. It lands and then you see Tom walking into the Waltz studio.
So there's a million little details in this film that they discuss in this production meeting. And I think that's where the magic of this film was born, obviously in the script as well.
But once the script was done, then they had to hammer out all these other details that were in this meeting. One of the most visually lush parts of the film is Jack Waltz's house in Beverly Hills.
What did they say about that in the meeting? Koppel says this in the meeting, you know, I like the idea of Tom with a big shot where you can't even sit down with him. You have to catch him between other things.
Talk to me while I'm walking and talking kind of thing. That really puts Tom in second place.
They go into great detail about the fake blood with corn syrup to give it the right viscosity. Coppola said, blood never looks right to me in a movie.
You know, and he wanted this blood to look real. And Coppola said in a meeting, why don't we use real blood, 20 gallons of animal blood? Any butcher can give you some blood.
And Tabularis points out real blood coagulates, so you can't use real blood. They had to mix their own blood.
It's funny because reading the transcript, you get a sense of harmony and that they're all excited about working together and they share a lot of the same ideas or could come to agree on a lot of these things, but it doesn't betray what's going to come. Yeah, they're all on the same page and you can see the back and forth.
It goes on for some time. I mean, they only get halfway through the script and then Kofala calls it a night and says, we'll get together again.

And then there's no more transcript. This is the only one that exists.
Do you think they ever got together again? I don't think so. Or they would have a transcript of it.
So this is the only kind of window you have as far as some of these artistic and creative decisions were made. Your business deploys AI pilots everywhere.
But are they going anywhere?

Or are they stuck in silos, exhausting resources, unable to... decisions were made.
Design, integrate, and optimize AI solutions. So you're not just deploying AI, you're scaling it across your business.
Learn more at ibm.com slash consulting. IBM, let's create.
When you're trying to reach your client's investment goals, complacency in the face of change may not get you there. At T.
Rowe Price, we asked what would? Because asking the questions others don't is kind of our thing. That curiosity is what led to our active ETFs, designed to outperform the index.
That's how better questions can lead to better solutions. Driven by rigorous research and experienced risk management, our time-tested active approach to ETFs gives you the edge you need to help reach your clients' investment goals.
It means we stay agile, facing change head-on, and uncovering opportunities for growth, so you and your clients can feel confident and in control. Not to mention, our active ETFs are cost-effective, tax-efficient, and convenient.
That's what 88 years of helping clients thrive in an ever-changing market can do. See? Amazing things can happen when you ask better questions.
T. Rowe Price.
Invest with confidence. Learn more at troprice.com slash explore ETFs.
T. Rowe Price Investment Services, Inc.
Distributor. Fall 2025 auditions for AMDA are closing soon.
Are you ready to take the leap? Whether you're an actor, singer, or dancer, world-class performing arts college AMDA wants to meet you in person. This is your shot to get expert advice, showcase your talent and energy, and change your career.
And spots are filling fast. Go to amda.edu and schedule your audition now.
That's amda.edu. Click Schedule Audition and take the first step today.
Not everyone who handles your personal information is going to be as careful as you are. And it only takes one mistake to expose it to hackers and identity theft.
Maybe that's why there's a new victim of identity theft every five seconds in the United States. Fortunately, there's LifeLock.
LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity. If your identity is stolen, a LifeLock U.S.-based restoration specialist will help solve identity theft issues on your behalf.
Guaranteed. Thank you.
You can't control how diligent others are with your personal information, but with LifeLock, you can help protect it. Act now and save up to 40% your first year.
Call 1-800-LIFELOCK and use promo code IHEART or go to lifelock.com slash IHEART for 40% off. Terms apply.
Mark, you write about the filming process with such detail in your book. You have scenes pinned down to the day of shooting.
What was your research process like? Well, luck counts for a lot of it, and I was very lucky that we have a day-to-day accounting of filming from none other than Coppola's then assistant, Ira Zuckerman. He wrote The Godfather Journal, which is a short but very detailed accounting of the shooting of the film.
Well, let's get into it.

For starters, we know that the cast of The Godfather had a lot of fun on set. Yeah, they sure did, and it started right away.
James Caan told me a great story about riding home from that first cast dinner at Patsy's with Robert Duvall when suddenly Brando's car pulls up to them. So we're coming back down 2nd Avenue, and Brando was in the backseat of a station wagon.
He goes, come on, move him. We're going down 2nd Avenue.
I go, are you crazy? I don't do that. You're the king of that.
He said, I can't. I'm in a bad spot.
You know, da, da, da, da, da. He said, come on now.
He started with, you gotta do this. it'll be funny.
So I pull up next to Brad, though. I roll my window down.
I just stick my ass out. This is the first day he's met us.
He just started falling down. And we went away, you know, crying, laughing, you know.
So that was the first moon of my life. Yeah, and that first moon really set the tone for the shooting.
The cast was constantly pulling pranks on each other, and this really made everyone feel comfortable from the start. Have you ever mooned anybody? Probably when I was a kid, yeah, not a long time.
And did that culture of camaraderie last? It seems like it did with the cast for sure. With the crew, well, not so much.
There was a lot of turmoil behind the scenes. Coppola has repeatedly called the Godfather the most miserable time in his life.
Was it just the micromanaging? It was micromanaging to an extreme degree. Robert Evans was trying to control Coppola's moves from across the country.
Just weeks before filming starts, Coppola's finalizing locations, meeting with his creative team, making last-minute script revisions, coordinating lighting and makeup tests, and Robert Evans is sending him these memos, just picking apart every decision he makes. Nathan, maybe you can read this particularly scathing memo sent on March 5th, just 18 days before filming is set to begin.
Sure, I can do that. Evans said, quote, Feel that the character of Sonny is not nearly as flamboyant and exciting as in the book.
The sexuality that everyone remembers is totally missing in the script. I think that the size of his cock and the horse's head are the two most remembered scenes from the book, and the former is so lacking that I think we would be criticized for not doing more with Sonny.
Yes, and this goes on and on. A few more excerpts.
Who's going to play Mama Corleone? Fredo's casting. I'm not sure I'm satisfied.
Are you sure the picture can be cut with a straightforward story if you decide not to go with flash forwards? And Coppola is still living in an apartment with his entire family at this point, right? Yes, and apparently it's being painted sort of rigs of paint fumes. He described that time as going to war every morning.
And once again, it's a miracle that this movie got made. But somehow, filming begins on March 23rd, 1971.
What was the first scene, Mark? The first scene? Christmas in springtime at Best and Company, the department store on Fifth Avenue. The store had conveniently shuttered the year before, and so it had been restored to its 1940s glory for filming.
And in keeping with his ability to make miracles happen, the amazing Al Ruddy makes it snow. He's fresh off of being fired and rehired by Charlie Bluedorn, right? Yes, but that doesn't stop Al Ruddy.
He brings in snow machines, and when the temperatures rise too high for them to work,

he turns to Plan B, synthetic snow and wind machines,

to create the magical scene of Kay and Michael walking out of the store amid a swirl of fake snow.

And then the crew moves through the city,

landing at Radio City Music Hall,

where Michael and Kay are leaving a movie

and about to find out the terrible news. Would you like me better if I were Ingrid Bergman? Now, that's a thought.
Michael. No, I would not like you better if you were Ingrid Bergman.
And these scenes are all coming together to create the iconic montage that ends with the attempt on the

Don's life. It seems like this first day should be a triumph, but Coppola doesn't feel that way,

does he? No, unfortunately, all anyone can seem to see is Coppola's shortcomings, and it really

is getting to him. He's having nightmares about being fired, and he's getting more and more

paranoid. Do you think that paranoia is justified?

I really do.

The studio essentially sent a spy to keep watch over him,

a paramount finance guy named Jack Ballard.

Here's how Gray Fredrickson remembers Jack.

He was like a shaved head and a tough, rough-speaking kind of a staff sergeant kind of guy, scaring everybody. He sounds like a cartoon villain.
Well, you know, I wasn't able to talk to Jack Ballard. He had passed away years before, but to Coppola he was, and here's what he had to say about Jack Ballard.
Jack Ballard was hired basically by Robert Evans to be there on the set and to haunt me and to constantly be challenging my decisions and telling me what I could do or not do. And he was the enforcer, as it were, for Paramount.
And he knew about classical film production, but he had no idea of what I was trying to do. So as Ira Zuckerman wrote in his book, Ballard's task was to keep an eye on the day-to-day production planning, scheduling, and shooting, and to immediately advise Paramount on any budget overruns.
Even with Jack Bauer reporting back to Evans every day, shooting must go on. Let's transition to the restaurant shooting scene if we can.
This is really a turning point for Michael as he goes from college boy to his father's successor. And it's also a turning point for Al Pacino, isn't it? Oh my gosh, that's right.
I mean, the restaurant scene, it's so much going on. It's a turning point both in the movie and it's a turning point for Al Pacino in real life on the set because he's really struggling with his confidence.
Like Coppola, he thinks he's on the verge of being fired. He later said they only hired him because they liked his performance in The Panic of Needle Park, which hadn't yet been released.
But so far, the Paramount execs don't like what they're seeing. So what changed? Well, Coppola really encouraged him, and when the time came, Pacino steps up to the plate and hits a home run.
What I want, what's most important to me, is that I have a guarantee. No more attempts on my father's life.

It really is a magical scene.

I have to go to the bathroom.

Is it all right?

Not only is Al Pacino's performance incredible,

but the visual and the sonic elements all come together so perfectly. You know, a huge amount of preparation went into the scene.
Here's Koppel in that interview about his prompt book. Scene 26, Michael picked up by Sollozzo and the killing, parenthesis, key scene.
The core, to show the killing as terrifying and explicitly as possible, having taken attention to an unbearable degree. to further define Michael's character in regards to his cool, totally calm execution of these men.
But even that scene wasn't immune to the disasters that seemed to follow filming. Ira Zuckerman writes that just as Al Pacino is leaving the restaurant to jump onto the getaway car, he leaps onto the side of the car and injures his ankle.
He's rushed to the emergency room and he'd later say, I thought it was a sign from God that now I was injured and they would have to release me. It feels symbolic that right when things start going well, they shoot this iconic scene and disaster strikes again.
Absolutely, like in the movies, as they say, it's got to be one thing after another. Pacino has a sprained ligament, but the show's got to go on.
Brando is due on the set the next morning for his first scene as the Don, and the execs at Paramount are anxious to see if the fading star can deliver. Does Coppola feel responsible for him because he pushed so hard to have him as Don Corleone?

Oh yeah, I'm sure he did.

He's truly under a microscope,

and he really needs Brando to come through and deliver an amazing performance.

So what happens?

Well, Brando's flight from L.A. lands in New York City at 6 a.m., and Brando's not on it.

He missed his flight?

And Coppola's fuming.

But Brando eventually makes it to set. And when he does, how does his first scene go? Well, it went pretty well because all he has to do is lay in a hospital bed.
But apparently it was great for morale. The cast, crew, and even the staff at the hospital were so excited to have the greatest living actor among them.
Well, that excitement follows the film all the way to Little Italy, right? It sure does. Pretty soon, the crew descends into the center of Italian-American culture in New York City, and the word is out.
The Godfather's in the neighborhood. Nicholas Pelleggi was a reporter back then, and he was working on a story about the movie for the New York Times magazine.
He was the only reporter allowed on the set.

And here's how were shooting the scene where the Don is shot by the fruit stand, and Fredo's fumbling with a gun and a crowd of locals form with so-called wise guys peppered through the crowd. And Marlon Brando knows he's playing to an audience.
He sort of hams it up. So when the shot is done and they say cut and he starts to get up, he hears this roar of applause.
It must have reminded him of when he was in the theater. It was such a moving thing to me.
And when he stands up, he bows just like a theater actor would. Every time Coppola would yell, cut, Brando would hearken back to his theater days, take off his hat, and take a deep bow before the crowd, which would obviously roar with applause.
What about Gambino? Well, according to Nicholas Pelleggi, Gambino came to the neighborhood on the day of shooting and held court at a coffee shop nearby. Can you believe it? I mean, Gambino, this is really fact-meeting fiction.
Don Corleone is at least partially based on Carlo Gambino, right? So it's sort of amazing that he found his way to the neighborhood on the day of shooting. Well, I don't think it's a coincidence.
Nick said that after conducting his business, he popped around the corner and watched a bit of the shooting. I don't really got, father.
Watched a gun, father. So do things ever turn around for Coppola? At some point, even Jack Ballard has to admit they're seeing a real masterpiece unfold.
Well, I'm not sure Jack Ballard ever comes around. In fact, a month into shooting, things are more tense than ever.
What's going on? Well, Coppola is running further and further behind schedule, and according to Gray Fredrickson, he's under siege. He was consumed with taking us down and getting Francis out of there and saving the picture.
Gray apparently would hear Jack on the phone with Evans, reporting every time shooting went long or went over budget. And it always is in Hollywood.
And there was particular contention with the scene of the Don in his office. Yes, apparently there was $100,000 spent on that office set in the Don's office,

and when the execs saw the dail Plus, Brando had picked up a cat. The cat, of course, is iconic now.
Don Corleone pets him throughout the opening scene. But that was a total accident.
It was a stray cat that wandered onto the soundstage. And apparently when Marlon Brando picked up the cat, it was purring right into his microphone, which only made things worse.
So the cat was purring into the mic. He was speaking, and it was his first day, and he had that implant in his mouth, so he couldn't speak very clearly.
So he was bumbling with a cat purring. On a scene, so dark that no one could see.
And they said, we're finished. This is over.
The movie's not going to work. You gotta get rid of those guys.
It's a disaster. The most memorable things about that scene are the darkness, Brando's voice, and the cat.
But it seems like those were the things the executives thought would be the movie's downfall.

Yeah, the studio just didn't see Coppola's vision. In fact, there was believed to be an effort between Jack Ballard and Coppola's assistant director, Steve Keston, to have Coppola fired and replaced with the editor, Aram Abakian, who, by the way, Coppola had actually hired for the movie.
Do you think any of this was justified? Well, you know, Coppola was having arguments with his cinematographer, Gordon Willis. And apparently in the beginning, it was really very tough to understand Brando's mumbling.
But, of course, Francis insisted he needed more time. Does he know about the plot against him? Word travels really fast on a movie set, right? Especially bad news.
Coughlin decided to strike first and fire six of the conspirators at once. The assistant director, Steve Keston, and script supervisor, Aaron and his crew.
Francis fired a bolt. And how does Robert Evans respond to all of this? Robert Evans claimed that he had no idea about the mutiny on the set.

He claimed instead that he spent an entire weekend editing together the scene of Michael shooting Sollozzo and McCluskey in the restaurant. And upon seeing it together, I realized that I'm dealing with a brilliant guy.

So conveniently, once Evans is behind the editing,

it's coming together brilliantly.

Well, of course.

So with Evans suddenly behind him,

do things turn around for Coppola?

Well, he does have a brief moment of glory.

Charlie Bluedorn takes him and his father to the Palm,

his favorite restaurant in New York.

They order steak and they order lobster,

and according to Coppel, at least,

they're best friends from this point forward.

The best AI assistant isn't one that knows the whole world.

It's one that knows your world.

A custom assistant built on Watson X

with IBM's granite models can leverage your trusted data,

be easily trained on your workflows, and integrate with your apps. It can be tuned to do just what you need, because the more AI knows about your world, the more it can help you do.
Learn more at IBM.com slash productivity. IBM.
Let's create. When you're trying to reach your client's investment goals, complacency in the face of change may not get you there.
At T. Rowe Price, we asked what would.
Because asking the questions others don't is kind of our thing. That curiosity is what led to our active ETFs, designed to outperform the index.
That's how better questions can lead to better solutions. Driven by rigorous research and experienced risk management, our time-tested active approach to ETFs gives you the edge you need to help reach your clients' investment goals.
It means we stay agile, facing change head-on, and uncovering opportunities for growth so you and your clients can feel confident and in control. Not to mention our active ETFs are cost-effective, tax-efficient, and convenient.
That's what 88 years of helping clients thrive in an ever-changing market can do. See, amazing things can happen when you ask better questions.
T. Rowe Price, invest with confidence.
Learn more at troprice.com slash explore ETFs. T.
Rowe Price Investment Services, Inc. distributor.
iHeart is looking for the next big performing arts star. Do you have what it takes?

The ultimate talent competition is your chance to win a full tuition scholarship to AMDA College of the Performing Arts

and perform live in New York City at iHeart's Broadway in Bryant Park.

If you sing, dance, or act, this is your spotlight moment.

But the deadline is almost here.

Submit your audition now at iHeartAMDA.com.

That's iHeartAMDA.com. Don't miss your shot.

The stage is waiting. Think you know your breaking point? If you're a woman with weak bones due to

osteoporosis after menopause, sadly, you may not. Women can lose up to 20% of their bone density

within five to seven years after menopause, making bones weaker and more likely to break.

And after the first fracture, we're five times more likely to break another bone within a year. It could happen from a simple slip or just bending to lift a bag of groceries.
Don't wait for a breaking point. Visit BoneBreakingPoint.com to learn about how osteoporosis medications can reduce the risk of fractures.
So Coppola's riding high. What's next on the shooting schedule? Another killing, of course.
This time, the victim is that cutthroat, Pauly Gatto. Pauly Gatto picks up Clemenza at his home, and they're supposedly going shopping for mattresses for the war that's about to begin.
And Clemenza's wife yells from the stoop, don't forget the cannoli. And they drive out to what turns out to be a desolate road in the middle of nowhere with the Statue of Liberty looming in the background.
The Statue of Liberty's back to the scene that's about to unfold. Clemenza gets out of the car to take a leak.
Pauli Gatto is shot from behind, slumped over the steering wheel. Clemenza zips up his pants, comes over to the car and tells the driver, leave the gun, take the cannoli.
Do you think they knew that the scene was going to play so well when they filmed it? Well, I think they knew it was going to turn out to be a great scene, but they didn't know about that line, leave the gun, take the cannoli, which turned out to be one of the great lines in the film, totally ad-libbed by Richard Castellano as Clemenza. So it turned out to be a lot more than they expected, I'm sure.
And then we move on to the wedding. Mark, the wedding scene was always more than a wedding, right? Well, the wedding scene that opened the movie would show all the themes that Coppola wanted to explore in the movie.
It would set the stage for all the things that were coming. It would show that the mob was more than brute force and bloody fights.
It would show that it's fathers and sons and aunts and uncles and cousins. It would show that the mob is made up of families.
And what could be more family than an Italian-American wedding? And let's talk about the location, because there was some trouble locking down the Staten Island compound. Yes, there was, as always, trouble.
It was actually a few houses adjacent to each other to give the look of a compound, and one of the homeowners was holding out. According to Al Ruddy, they had to call in a favor from the production's new guardian angel, Joe Colombo.
And the guy said, look, Mr. Ruddy, you don't understand.
I've worked my whole life, and I've saved my whole life out to buy this house. And I don't like what you want to do with my home,

because I want the home of a gangster.

So I looked at Joe.

Joe says, give me the fun, Pat.

Sign the fucker.

Joe says, it's good for our people.

As he said, it's good for our people.

And he did.

Are you kidding?

The pen almost went through the paper.

And of course, the wedding scene gives us Johnny Fontaine

crying to the Godfather and the iconic slap.

I don't know. the pen almost went through the paper.
And of course, the wedding scene gives us Johnny Fontaine crying to the Godfather and the iconic slap. Which takes us to the classic scene of the producer, Jack Waltz, waking up to find a horse's head in his bed.
And Coppola gave us some insight into his thinking on acquiring the horse's head. Personally, I would not kill any living creature for a movie.
It's not in my philosophy or my personal conviction. I don't believe movies are something that any creature, even a fly, should be hurt in order to do it.
It was very controversial, but they came up with a really creative plan to acquire this horse's head, which had to be fresh. Yes, that was a real horse's head.
But the way we did it is we went to a dog food company. All the animal lovers who feed their little dogs and cats pet food have to, maybe they don't realize it, but the pet food is very often made from horse meat because when the horses are killed, they go as their main ingredient in pet food.
So we went to one of those companies, and they, of course, had a whole bunch of horses. And we chose a horse that looked like the real horse in the movie, was the same coloring and had a unique marking.
So we chose the horse to be like the horse that was in the pet food company. We asked the pet food company to not kill that horse until we said, OK, it's time to do that.
And then we wanted the head. I don't even know what to say about this.
It's such an outrageous thing. Mark, do you think that they would have done something like this today? Well, I don't know if people today would be that adamant to find a real horse's head.
Maybe they would be able to do it with animatronics or something like that. I mean, would you really have to go and find a real horse's head to put in the bed? I think you could find a lot of ways to do it today.
But you can't deny that it was one of the most effective and bloody scenes in the movie. Truly.
So Coppola fondly quells the mutiny. But things aren't going much better for him, right? Not at all.
Jack Ballard's still breathing down his neck, and now Coppola and his cinematographer, Gordon Willis, are going at it. And the root of their disagreements comes from the fact that Coppola wanted to work too quickly for Willis.
Well, Coppola and Willis drove each other crazy. One day Coppola wants to go handheld, the next he wants a thousand millimeter lens, so they went back and forth on a lot of things.
And amid the turmoil, Coppola's wife Eleanor has a baby. Right, right in the middle of filming, Sofia Coppola is born.
She would, of course, later become a director, but first she would become an actress, and her first role as an infant is in the Godfather. At just three weeks old, Sofia Coppola appears in the baptism scene in St.
Patrick's Old Cathedral, playing the son of Connie and Carlo Rizzi. A huge talent from day one.
Let's move on to the succession scene, because there's quite a story here. Yes, and the succession scene wasn't even written yet.
There's no succession scene in Mario Puzo's book, but Coppola thought it would be a really important thing to show the transfer of power. Why did they have such difficulty with this scene? Coppola felt he needed some help.
I mean, he's directing this movie, there are a thousand things happening, and he wisely tapped Robert Towne, who was one of the

great legendary screenwriters of Hollywood. He was still a young man at that point and still early in his career.
And so Robert Towne told me for the book that he gets a call in his house one day in L.A. and Coppola's on the phone asking him to come to New York to write this scene.
Takes his Typewriter flies to New York, stays in Buck Henry's apartment. And here's how Robert Town remembers it.
As it happened, I had one night to write the scene and I had no idea what to do, but I remember looking. Do you remember the book, The Godfather, the cover of it? Yeah, of course.
And he stays up all night, and he's looking at the cover of the novel, and he sees those puppet strings, you know, dangling down on the novel's cover. I remember looking at the book cover and thinking, that's a possibility.
All of a sudden, maybe at 4 a.m. or whatever, these words come to him.

Coppola picks up town at Buck Henry's apartment really early the next morning. He didn't say much, and I didn't say anything.
And Francis, finally about halfway there, said, any luck? And I said, well, I think so. I gave him the script, and he read it.
He said he liked it. Copeland nods, and he says, you show it to Marlon.
And Robert Townley went, what? You mean I have to present this to Marlon Brando? And he said, yeah, yeah, show it to Marlon. Takes it to Marlon on the set.
Apparently he loved it, as everyone else did. It's one of the great scenes in American cinema history.
At the end of the day shooting, Marlon turned to me and said, who the fuck are you?

And I said, yeah, I'm nobody really.

I thought that when it was your time, that you would be the one that holds strings.

Senator Corleone, Governor Corleone, something. We'll get there, Pop.
We'll get there. So great that when Coppola won the Oscar for screenwriting, he thanked Robert Towne for this scene.
And the interesting thing is the scene was written on cue cards for Brando, as were many other scenes, and you could see them holding up the cue cards for this scene in some of the classic pictures from the shooting of the movie. Because at this point in his career, he had trouble memorizing his lines.
Right, right. So he had cue cards for a lot of these things, including this succession scene.
Let's fast forward to June 28th, 1971. It's the 66th day of filming in New York, and Coppola is about to shoot a love scene at the St.
Regis Hotel. Yes, and just a few blocks away in Columbus Circle, the Italian-American Civil Rights League is hosting its second annual Unity Day.
The lineup includes B.B. King, Frankie Valley and the Four Seasons, Sammy Davis Jr., and of course, the headliner, Joe Colombo.

And Al Ruddy had planned to attend, right?

Yes, but the night before the rally, he received a call.

I was supposed to have been under dais, standing next to Joe Colombo when he was shot, okay?

And I was told not to be there that day.

Not asked me not to be there.

Under no circumstance, you'd be in Columbus Circle tomorrow,

sitting next to Joe Colombo.

And the phone goes click, dead.

No one from the movie attended the rally.

And it's probably best that they did not.

Because at 11.45 a.m., Joe Colombo is walking through the crowd

when he's approached by a man who appears to be a press photographer. The man crouches down, but he's not pointing a camera anymore.
Instead, he points a pistol at Colombo and fires three times. In the St.
Regis Hotel a few blocks away, Coppola is watching this scene play out on the news. And in that instance, the mob and the movie makers become one.
Filming in New York ends days later on July 2nd, as Joe Colombo languishes in a coma at Roosevelt Hospital. But filming isn't truly over, because they still have a few pivotal scenes to shoot.
For those, the crew needs to head to the birthplace of the Mafia, Sicily. Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli is a production of Airmail and iHeart Media.
The podcast is based on the book of the same name, written by our very own Mark Seal. Our producer is Tina Mullen.
Research assistance by Jack Sullivan. Jonathan Dressler was our development producer.
Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our executive producers are me, Nathan King, Mark Seal, Dylan Fagan, and Graydon Carter.

Special thanks to Bridget Arsenault and everyone at CDM Studios.

A comprehensive list of sources and acknowledgments can be found in Mark Seal's book,

Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli, published by Gallery Books, an imprint of your life on track. And ChatGPT can help with all of it.
It can quiz you on your econ exam, make a study guide from your French notes, plan out your meals and study breaks. It can get really specific on how you like to learn.
It can even help you come up with ways to stop procrastinating. So from now until summer break, take advantage of all the ways ChatGPT can make your life easier.
Restrictions apply. Comcast Business helps retailers become seamlessly restocking, frictionless paying favorite shopping destinations.
Thank you for shopping. It's how nationwide restaurants become touchscreen ordering, quick-serving eateries.
And how hospitals become the patient-scanning, data-managing, healthcare facilities that we all depend on. With leading networking and connectivity, advanced cybersecurity, and expert partnership, Comcast Business is powering the engine of modern business, powering possibilities.
Restrictions apply. I feel so alone.
I'm embarrassed to talk about it. How can I help my kid? If I can't help myself, I can't remember when I wasn't stressed.
When you feel overwhelmed by your thoughts and emotions, it's okay to get help.

You are not alone.

CalHOPE is here for you with free, safe, and confidential mental health resources for youth, young adults, families, and you.

Find support now at calhope.org.