The Godfather - Part 1 (Part 1)

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Hello, listeners.

This is a special announcement.

As many of you all know, Chris, David, and I all live in Los Angeles.

We do live in the Pasadena and Altadena area.

And we want to take a moment to let you all know that while we are all safe, unfortunately we have been impacted by the Eaton fire.

David and I were evacuated and we are currently displaced, but we got really lucky.

Our house is still there.

Chris and his family, unfortunately, were not as lucky.

They did lose their home completely.

Chris is handling it exactly as you would expect he would with grace and care.

And surprisingly, he's still making us laugh,

even in the face of everything that's going on.

We just wanted to say that we're thinking of everyone who's been affected by the fires in Southern California this week, and we are extremely grateful for the love and support that you've already shown us and for all of the joy and stability that this podcast provides us with.

We're going to do our best to continue with minimal interruptions.

Please be patient with us while we are dealing with this, but we want you to know that now more than ever, we are so excited to keep bringing you these stories.

So, without further ado, here is the story of The Godfather Part 1.

Hello, and welcome back to my show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of What Went Wrong, your favorite podcast full stop that just so happens to be about movies and how it's nearly impossible to make them, let alone a good one, let alone a great one.

As always, I am Chris Winterbauer, joined by People's Host, Lizzie Bassett.

Lizzie, how are you doing tonight?

And what are we talking about?

I'm doing great.

I feel a little crazy because I've read a lot.

I've watched a lot.

This is maybe the biggest undertaking yet for me on this series, just because it is a very beloved film franchise, a very famous film franchise.

And I'm, you know, I'm a little scared, but that's okay.

So was Michael.

We are, of course, talking about The Godfather.

Part one.

Part one.

Speaking of which, this is going to be a two-part series.

Part one.

Part one.

One, part one.

Great.

Yes.

Yeah.

Just to be clear, there will be two episodes.

There is absolutely no way to fit everything in about this movie into one episode.

I'm excited.

I'm very excited.

Chris, I have to imagine you have seen what is surely at the the top of many people's lists of the best films of all time before.

What was your first reaction to seeing it?

And what did you think this time?

Yes, I'd seen The Godfather before.

Always really liked it.

I liked the mafia genre quite a bit, actually.

The Sopranos, I think, is.

Careful with that word, as we'll learn.

Right.

This thing of ours, as they say.

I think The Sopranos is one of the crowning artistic achievements of the last hundred years.

I don't think that's an exaggeration.

I think it's the greatest television show ever made.

And I'd always gravitated more toward the more modern organized crime films, even something like The Departed, for example, I thought, you know, was very fun.

So, revisiting it, I was just struck by how incredible and timeless this movie feels upon a rewatch.

Obviously, there are things that date the film, and it's a period piece in and of itself, but there are some scenes that feel as

modern and groundbreaking

and defiant as ever.

In particular,

the scene with Michael taking out Salazzo and McCluskey at Louise Diner remains like an incredible example of sound design and cinematography with the slow push-in.

And I just got to say, I forgot just Brando, so good.

Pacino.

Pacino is amazing in this movie.

He's so subtle, right?

We've gotten used to a much bigger Pacino in his later years.

So anyway, it was a really, really, really fun rewatch.

It's obviously an incredible movie.

I'm very excited to talk about it and learn learn everything because I know little things, you know, about the making of this film, but I know not very much, just glimmers.

So I'm super excited to hear more.

Oh boy, buckle up.

Yeah, I did not know most of this.

I will say when I decided I was going to do this, I watched the offer.

I don't know if you watched that.

It was a series that came out on Paramount Plus.

I've seen a couple.

I've watched the first two episodes.

Yeah, I haven't finished it yet.

Here's what I'll say about it.

If you haven't done your seven-day Paramount Plus free trial, this is not a plug because I did that and then canceled it.

It's a fun watch.

The show itself is like totally fine and decently accurate.

The one standout and the reason that I would say I highly recommend watching it is Matthew Good as Robert Evans.

He,

I think that performance should have gotten more attention.

And we're going to talk about Robert Evans quite a bit in this episode.

Boy, is he a treat.

Yeah, I just, I really loved him in that.

And to your point, Chris, this movie,

I think, is the beginning of the modern, as you said, mafia organized crime film.

All of those things you referenced, the departed, the sopranos.

I don't necessarily know that they exist without this movie because this movie doesn't actually, like, yes, it has a lot of crime in it, but the focus is the family and the personal connections.

And I don't think that anyone had seen that.

prior to this, which is part of what makes it so remarkable.

Yeah, it's like a classic American, you know, rise,

fall, move west type of story, like a family trying to make it in America, obviously.

Yes.

In fact, the first line of the film is, I believe in America.

All right.

So as always, the basic info.

It premiered on March 14th, 1972, directed by, of course, Francis Ford Coppola, written by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo based on his novel.

Starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Kahn, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, and and John Cazal, among many others, which is just a bonkers lineup, even though most of them were not well known at all at the time.

Produced by Paramount Pictures Albert S.

Ruddy Productions and Al Fran Productions.

My sources for really both of these episodes, the main sources, are a great book called Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli by Mark Seal.

Highly recommend reading this.

It is absolutely comprehensive.

It's a fun read.

It really gives you so much more detail than I'm able to pack into this episode.

Also, of course, can't do an episode about Robert Evans without talking about the kid stays in the picture.

Have you ever read that, Chris?

Yeah, we read it in film school, or at least sections of it.

Yeah, it's a great book.

It's great, and I highly recommend doing the audiobook.

He narrates it.

Cool.

And his delivery is just, it's incredible.

Please go listen to it.

If you don't know what Robert Evans sounds like, it is a real treat.

Also used The Godfather Journal by Ira Zuckerman, which we will talk about more in part two.

He was an assistant to Francis Ford Coppola, who basically recorded a diary of almost every day on set.

Now, Chris, I want to start with a quote from someone who attended the world premiere of The Godfather.

And there's different variations of this quote that I've seen, but here's the gist.

When you can sit and watch a gangster who's killed hundreds of people, and yet when he dies, the audience is crying, you've made yourself a masterpiece.

Now, the person who said this was a guest of Bob Evans, who we'll talk about, as I said a lot in this episode.

But this guest was not a film critic, nor was he involved in Hollywood, but he was quite famous.

This guest was Henry Kissinger.

And he wished they were talking about him.

Exactly.

If you don't know, he was Richard Nixon's national security advisor at the time, soon to be Secretary of State.

And to Chris's point, he was a man who was both awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and accused of war crimes.

That is actually the least weird thing that we're going to learn today.

And I wanted to just start there.

It's a great quote.

But did Vito actually

kill anyone?

As he says, we're not murderers, despite what these people think?

Well, Michael for sure is.

Oh, no, Michael is.

Absolutely.

And as we learn in part two, yes, Vito definitely does kill people.

I'm just saying in the first film before that he had seen the second one.

Yes.

We're not murderers.

Yeah.

Now, we always say that every movie is a miracle, but by the end of The Godfather, it really was a miracle that no one was sleeping with the fishes.

One of the first times that the term the godfather became public was when a man named Joseph Valachi testified before Congress in 1963 about interstate organized crime.

These hearings were televised and everybody tuned in.

This was a big deal, including a absolute bombed out failing writer named Mario Puzzo.

By this time, he was substantially in debt.

He had a huge gambling problem, which will continue for the rest of his life, and a huge Italian food problem, which will also continue for the rest of his life.

Because we are covering so much across these episodes, listeners, I am not doing as comprehensive of backgrounds on some of these people as I normally would.

Here's a quick rundown on how he got here.

He had grown up dirt poor in Hell's Kitchen, New York, born to an Italian mother whose second husband, and his father, had deserted her, leaving her with seven children.

His mother was illiterate.

and apparently was also probably the biggest inspiration for Vito Corleone.

Wow.

Yeah.

So a lot of the lines that Vito says came right from his mother's mouth.

He also pulled quite a bit from his childhood.

I'm assuming that you have seen part two of The Godfather.

If you remember when Clemenza throws the bag of guns across the airway, that actually happened to Mario's mother.

The guy did, in fact, come back, pick up the guns, and just like in the movie, offered her a very nice rug

that was.

also stolen.

Very different time.

Yeah.

That neighbor continued to take care of his family and the kids in the neighborhood did take to calling him godfather.

Now, Puzo had bounced around quite a bit.

He served in World War II where he met and married his German wife, who he brought back to New York City.

But he publishes his first book in 1954.

It sold basically zero copies and all he got was a $3,500 advance.

By 1960, he had count on Chris, one, two, three, four, five kids.

Oh,

rack them up.

Gotta love being Catholic.

Gotta love it.

Also, again, a very serious gambling problem, and was under investigation by the FBI for taking bribes as an army clerk, which it seems like maybe he did.

Allegedly, unclear.

He's a prolific gambler, but maybe not a good one.

He does leave that army clerk gig and takes a job writing absolute pulp for magazine management, which was a publishing company for a bunch of men's magazines.

We're talking like majorly exaggerated war stories and very sexually explicit scenes, among other things.

He did write under a pen name for that.

He publishes a second novel in 1965, and it's even worse than the first one in terms of how it performs.

But he did get one note from an editor, which is that maybe it would have made more money if it had a little more of that mafia stuff in it.

And he remembers that.

He also is like, I have 100 million children and I'm very poor.

So I would like some money, please.

And I'm going to write the book about the mafia.

And that is where the codfather comes from.

Wow.

It was a money grab, for sure.

It was not something that was a passion project at all.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

That's right.

Now, the novel, which I have not read, does feature lots of sex, explicit sex, as far as I understand, as well as a character.

not so loosely based on Frank Sinatra.

We do see this person in the film.

Johnny Fontaine.

Much more prominent in the book than he is in the movie.

Also worth noting, Frank Sinatra maybe, probably had some associations with the mob.

Absolutely.

The biggest open secret in the whole world.

Yeah, not even a secret.

So Mario gets a deal with a publisher.

Finally, this is actually a pretty good deal.

And gets to writing in between, of course, spending his advances at casinos.

As his children sit at home, waiting for dad to bring home any money.

His wife is a saint.

Now, he did claim that he had never met an honest to God gangster in real life and was instead drawing very heavily on research, including the testimony of the guy that I mentioned at the very beginning of this, Joseph Valachi.

Because again, that's some of the only really public testimony of someone who was like explaining how these crime families worked.

Before Puzo had even finished the book, a guy named George Weezer came calling.

His job was to seek out books that would make good movie adaptations, and his boss was Robert Evans.

Chris, what do you know about Robert Evans?

Headed Paramount.

Head of production, yes.

Head of production.

Film producer, Rosemary's Baby, I believe.

Chinatown, love story.

Ironically, held the rights to The Detective, which we discussed in our Die Hard episodes.

Yes, he did.

But did not get a chance to make it after Gulf Western, I think, bought Paramount.

I don't know what else.

I can walk through it a little bit.

So we did talk about him, as you said, in our Chinatown episode.

Here's a very brief rundown.

He had started out running a successful women's clothing business with his brother when around 1956 he was very famously discovered poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel by actress Norma Shearer, who campaigned to cast him as her late husband in Man of a Thousand Faces.

This launched a pretty brief acting career for him, including a role in The Sun Also Rises.

Now, when actual Ernest Hemingway and the stars of the film tried to get him fired, producer Daryl Hannock said the now famous line, the kid stays in the picture.

Fun fact from that book, by the way, is that he went on to date Ernest Hemingway's granddaughter, and he really only did it because he wanted to piss off dead Ernest Hemingway.

And he told her that.

He was like, this is really the only thing that turns me on about this.

And she was like, okay.

I hated him too.

At one point, Evans realized that he doesn't want to be an actor.

He wants to be the guy who decides whether an actor keeps his job or not.

He wants to be Daryl Zanik.

So he managed to get himself a three-picture deal at Fox, and he gets written up in the New York Times by a reporter named Peter Bart.

Remember that name.

He will come back.

This caught the attention of a man named Charlie Bluthorn, who, he just mentioned this, but had just bought Paramount in 1966 and added it to his conglomerate, Gulf and Western.

Now, Blutom brought Evans on, literally just from reading that article.

He was like, I want this guy.

12 people in Hollywood.

This was the time.

Yep.

Initially, he brings him on as VP of production in 1966.

Then for a little bit, he's like heading up international.

And then by 1967, he has bumped up to head of production at Paramount.

It is a meteoric rise that much of the press made quite a lot of fun of him for.

They called him Bluthorn's Folly.

They also called him Bluthorn's Blowjob.

There were many more, less flattering names that he got called.

Bluehorn's butt boy, Bluetorn's just all this

offensive, very immature stuff.

Yes.

The gist was like, why does this guy deserve this?

This is an actor, basically.

So, 1967, Puzo arrives in Hollywood at Paramount to meet with Evans.

Pardon this interruption.

You may notice that all of a sudden, for some reason, I start calling Mario Puzzo Mario Puzo.

Can't really tell you why, other than that I watched an interview right before recording this episode and someone pronounced it Puzo, and I began to then second guess myself and just did it all wrong.

So instead of making my beloved husband go back and replace every single time I said this very famous author's name incorrectly, I'm just going to tell you right now that I fed up.

And I hope you're all happy with that.

And if you're not, I don't really care.

Love you all.

Back to the story.

At this point, Paramount is not doing great.

They were hit very hard by the vertical integration crackdown on the studio system by Congress in 1948.

Chris, can you give us a little explanation of what you remember happened there?

Yeah, so the studio system basically had vertically vertically integrated all aspects of production and distribution.

So, you know, Paramount would not only own their writers, they owned their actors.

There were exclusive contracts.

You had to work on all of these pictures, a certain number of pictures a year, for example.

And then they also owned the means of distribution.

And so there were no opportunities for negotiation.

And Congress broke the studio system up, which resulted in a separation, most importantly, I would argue, between theaters, distribution, and studios, but also actors, writers, and this is where the strength of the guilds comes out at this time as well, had the ability to negotiate and work with whatever studios they wanted to.

Yes, perfect.

Also, Charlie Bloodhorn had purchased Paramount kind of because it was a bargain basement loser.

That was kind of his M.O.

He just kind of snapped up businesses that weren't doing great that he thought maybe he could turn around.

And you know what?

For the most part, he did.

Also in 1969, by the way, way, he allegedly turned to financing from a Sicilian mafia fixer when the studio was bleeding cash.

Now, this is the first of many connections to the actual mob that we will see throughout this story.

TV was starting to become an equal or bigger pull than movies, and Paramount really was not keeping up in the way that some of the other studios were.

And history repeats itself with Paramount Plus, the sterling endorsement that Lizzie just gave.

I loved my free trial.

Right.

So, Bob Evans was desperately looking for properties to save Paramount because they are tanking with bomb after bomb.

And again, he's brand new.

So these are not necessarily bombs that he's producing.

And he was operating under the assumption that books, aka existing successful IP, were going to be Paramount's ticket out of the dumpster.

Man, time is really a flat circle.

So that is why he had this guy going out looking for essentially unpublished manuscripts for him.

As Evans tells it, Puzo arrives in his office clearly in trouble, and Bob Evans basically did him a favor by offering him $12,500 up front and a $50,000 deal if Paramount made the movie.

Now, Chris, as we'll see across these episodes, Bob Evans is not a reliable narrator.

No.

Because remember Peter Bart?

He is now Evans' right-hand man and VP of production, and he says the godfather came to him.

Mario Puzzo also says he never met Evans prior to the novel being finished.

I'm going to go with Peter Bart's version of this.

And Bob Evans said, well, who the hell did I just give 12 grand to?

That's probably true.

But regardless, to that point, he really did take $12,500 upfront and $50,000 total for the film rights on The Godfather.

And again, he is not, it's not done.

Right.

The book is not done.

Some reports do put his total at more like 80,000 after additional clauses, and then 0.5% of profits, which come from him writing the screenplay later.

So shortly thereafter, Puzzo took a trip to Vegas for research, aka

Strippers and cocaine.

And gambling.

Gambling.

I wasn't just gambling.

He's a pretty chill guy outside of the gambling addiction.

Got it.

But he did genuinely try to learn about organized crime while he was there, including just blatantly asking pit bosses, hey, do you know anything about the mob?

And they're like, who is this man?

It's great.

He did get some good material, though, including the line, I made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

Interesting.

That did come from just asking connected men in Las Vegas.

Now, the next thing I'm going to say is also, again, heavily disputed, but Bob Evans is said to have shown up to help absolve Puzo of his mounting debts to some really scary dudes and then helping him go back to New York to finish his novel.

Who knows?

In 1968, though, Puzo does turn in a draft of The Godfather to his publisher and promptly takes his family to Europe, which is, of course, a family vacation and also a chance to spend all of the cash advances he had left at European casinos.

Yeah, and they went to Monaco and he spent all the money.

Literally.

That's literally what he does.

I'm sorry.

Now, he didn't think much of his book at all until he found out the paperback rights had been purchased for $410,000.

Wow.

And he just sold the film rights for

one-fifth of that.

Yes.

That is over $3 million today.

By the way, I love his mom's reaction to this.

He called her and told her, and she was like, $40,000.

Okay, great.

And he's like, no, mom, $410,000.

And she just goes, don't tell nobody.

She lied to his siblings about how much money he'd made because she didn't want them to know.

Smart, smart woman.

I know.

Incredible.

It was published on March 10th, 1969.

And The Godfather was a smash success.

It sold over 9 million copies in its first two years.

So this is great news for Paramount, right?

Yeah.

They got the film rights for $12,500.

It's like buying Twilight before it comes out.

That's right.

It really is like that.

Except the development department at Paramount doesn't want to make it.

What?

I honestly don't.

There is supposedly a reason for this, which is that they had just released a movie called The Brotherhood, which was a gangster movie starring Kirk Douglas that had absolutely tanked.

And so these guys are just like, no, gangster movies don't perform.

Oh, God.

I hate that.

I believe it.

And I hate it.

It doesn't make any sense.

You've got something that is an enormous success, a runaway success.

With an incredible name and a very recognizable name.

Yes.

Like just on the title alone, you know, you can sell your 9 million tickets initially.

Also, broad appeal.

This is not just like men buying this.

Women love this book, too.

Yeah.

In fact, Paramount wanted to sell the Godfather Rights to Burt Lancaster's production company, who were offering $1 million for it.

And they're like, that's a good deal.

We bought it for $12,500.

They're offering a million.

But Bob Evans, say what you will about him he does know a good property when he sees it so he's like no that i'm just gonna start making the movie in the hopes that will shut them up and it kind of does work yeah nope sorry it's in process

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Now, the initial budget is somewhere between 2.5 and 6 million, which means they need a producer who can make this pretty cheaply.

Right.

This 69, sorry, Lucy, you said 70-ish?

We are in about 1969 right now, yes.

Okay.

They also do want at this point want to set it in contemporary times and film it on a back lot.

to try and reduce costs.

So this could have been a 1970s Godfather.

Goodfellas.

Goodfellas, yes.

Which, listeners, if you don't know, I assume you've seen it, but if you haven't, The Godfather is set mostly in the 40s and 50s.

Yeah, it starts in like 46 and then ends in the 50s, yeah.

So, they found their producer and a man named Al Reddy.

Al was a hustler and incredibly hard worker, like Bob Evans.

He jumped from a job as a programmer at the RAND Corporation doing research for the U.S.

government and Air Force, and simultaneously part-time shoe salesman.

I don't, how do they have the energy?

Jumps from that to selling the TV show Hogan's Heroes to CBS, which ran for six seasons starring in 1965.

He could have stayed on as a writer and producer, but he didn't because he really wanted to make movies.

So he met Evans and got an office on the Paramount lot.

And from there, he managed to produce two pictures, neither of which were big hits, but very importantly, both of which came in under budget.

So Peter Bart, good old, oft-forgotten Peter Bart, was apparently responsible for hiring Al Ruddy.

And when he called him about the Godfather gig, Ruddy lied and said, Oh, yeah, I love the book.

It's great.

He'd never read it.

And they were like, Fantastic.

Get on the plane immediately and come to meet with Charlie Bluthorn at the Gulf and Western offices in New York City.

So he gets there.

Again, he's not read the book.

He had a whole plane ride.

What's he doing?

He read part of it, maybe at this point.

But when asked what he wanted to do with the movie, he said, Charlie, I want to make an ice blue, terrifying movie about the people you love.

Okay,

I don't know what that means.

I'm into it.

I don't know how I feel.

That's right.

Right.

That's exactly what they said.

He got the job.

Pretty much immediately, he goes to Puzo and asks him to write the screenplay.

This was not the first time that they had approached Mario Puzzo.

He actually turned down the first offer to write because it was too low.

And Mario finally had some money.

For now.

But Mario Mario accepts.

In April of 1970, he goes to LA to write from an office at Paramount.

Part of this deal to get him to accept was that Ruddy had to promise Puzo's wife that he would not let diabetic Mario Puzzo eat everything in sight.

And Ruddy promised to pick him up in the morning and have dinner with him at night.

Now, Ruddy kept this promise, and Al Ruddy was losing weight.

feeling great, but somehow Mario just kept getting bigger and he couldn't figure out what was going on.

Only to discover that Puzo had been ordering himself entire pizzas every night to his suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel after they'd gotten their healthy dinners.

There's takeout, guys.

You can get stuff delivered.

It reminds me of the Mankowitz story in Citizen Kane as well.

Like, keep him in the desert.

Do not let him drink.

Make sure he pumps out 10 pages a day.

So one night, Ruddy took Puzo out to dinner at Chase and,

where they noticed one Frank Sinatra also dining with friends.

Now, Sinatra was absolutely pissed about the character of Johnny Fontaine, who we mentioned earlier in the book, who was pretty clearly a thinly veiled take on him and not a flattering one.

So Al Ruddy is like, listen, do not go anywhere near Frank.

Avoid him at all costs.

I'll be right back.

I got to go deal with something.

But for some reason, some person recognizes Mario and is like, oh my God, Mario, come here.

You got to meet Frank.

This ended in Frank Sinatra and Mario Puzzo screaming at each other in the restaurant and Frank Sinatra telling him to go ahead and choke.

Wow.

Don't worry.

Old Blue Eyes will be back several more times in this episode alone.

Now, with the screenplay underway, they needed a director.

They approached everyone from Arthur Penn, who'd just done Bonnie and Clyde, to Otto Kreminger, and everyone said, no thank you.

Why do you think, Chris?

Don't want to touch a mafia movie?

Yeah, they said, We don't want to glamorize the mafia.

Yeah.

I love Bob Evans' response to this.

What about your agents?

You deal with them every day.

That's a good response.

One director who did want the job, though, was Sam Peckenpaugh, who has come up before.

But it sounds like his take was too bloody even for The Godfather.

He literally just wanted like 70 bodies piling up and people getting mowed down.

I'm guessing he'd done the wild bunch probably shortly before this.

What's funny is like Arthur Penn was also known for being a little bit graphic with Bonnie and Clyde, which obviously had an extremely shocking ending.

They also offered the job to Warren Beatty.

Very good director.

He would do Reds, I think, shortly after this.

I think it would have been a very different movie.

For sure.

I think there would be a severe lack of understanding about certain parts of it.

There'd be a lot of sex and Warren Beatty would be having it.

That's true.

That's true.

He did turn it down.

But finally, Bart and Evans decide that they've cracked the code, which is that the Godfather has to be directed by an Italian.

That must be it.

That's what they're missing.

Right.

So Peter Bart suggested a young Italian director who had just co-written the screenplay for Patton, Francis Ford Coppola.

Now, Bart insists that Coppola being Italian is not why he wanted him for the job, but it does seem like it is how he convinced Bob Evans to give him the job.

Yeah, because he didn't have any like big movie credits at this point.

I mean, Patton co-writing, he'd done The Rain People, which was a pretty small film.

He'd done a few other very small films before that.

And The Rain People is basically a road drama, so it wouldn't suggest epic, sprawling American gangster film.

Not at all.

Not an obvious choice outside of, oh, yeah, you like the spaghetti.

Literally, Chris.

Because ahead of the first meeting with Evans, Bart coached Coppola to, quote, talk about some Italian recipes, talk about pasta.

Don't be so goddamn cerebral.

Talk about Italian shit.

That's the direct quote.

That's amazing.

I love it.

And of course, Coppola probably just started talking about like cinema and Rome and Augustus.

You'll see.

Now, I didn't know this.

A little bit of background on Francis.

His father was a flutist.

orchestra conductor and composer who was at least somewhat established by the time that Coppola was kicking off his film career, though he wouldn't really gain recognition until he started working on Francis's movies later, but comes from somewhat of an an industry family, obviously spawned a massive industry family.

Peter Bart had met Coppola very early in his career.

At the time, he was a UCLA student who was filming a very specific type of movie.

Nudie films.

Oh.

Pornos is not accurate.

These are very tame compared to what we would consider porn at this time, or even by those standards, I think.

But titles included Tonight for Sure and The Bellboy and The Playgirls.

Fun fact, he was so broke at one point and had nowhere to live that he actually slept on the sets at night that the nude films used during the day.

He then went on to work for What Went Wrong All-Star Roger Corman, who we just talked about in Gremlins as his assistant.

He lost a ton of money in the stock market early on and found himself in debt by the time he was offered the writing gig on Patton, which, by the way, he does go on to win an Academy Award for.

And he co-wrote that.

And he's also kind of a degenerate gambler in the sense that he gambles with his films in an incredible way.

Well, I mean, he he gambled on the stock market to a certain degree.

And he goes broke multiple times.

In the course of this episode, he goes broke like four times.

Exactly.

There's an incredible quote, brief departure in Heart of Darkness, the documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now,

where his wife is talking about, and they have this amazing vineyard and it's like this beautiful location.

And she's like, Are you worried about losing your money?

If we do, like, we'll make some more.

We'll find it out.

And you can tell.

She's used to it.

She's just very much along for the ride.

It was very much a family affair.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

So then he moves on to writing Is Paris Burning?

which was a pretty big bomb for Paramount, but his UCLA MFA thesis did get him some critical buzz, at least screening at Cannes in 1967.

In 1968, he launched Coppola Company in partnership with Warner Brothers, and its first project was...

Is it something he directed?

No.

You've talked about it somewhat recently.

THX 1138?

Yes, exactly.

Because I knew he was involved with Lucas at that point.

Yes.

Listen to our Star Wars episodes for more on that.

In 1969, he packed up his family and moved them to San Francisco to start his own studio, American Zoatrope.

Right.

But when Peter Bart called Coppola with the Godfather job, initially, Coppola said, no, thank you.

His reaction to the book was, quote, I thought it was a popular, sensational novel, pretty cheap stuff.

I got to the part.

Hold on.

I got to the part about the singer supposedly modeled on Frank Sinatra and the girl Sonny Corleone liked so much because her vagina was enormous.

And I said, my God, what is this?

I love Coppola quotes.

Yeah.

He's amazing.

But finally, a pesky $600,000 that American Zotrope owed in overhead to Warner Brothers and a massive amount of unpaid taxes changed his mind.

And George Lucas.

Peter Bart called Francis at George Lucas's house, and Francis finally asked George if he should make the gangster movie.

Now, Chris, since you are our resident, George Lucas, I'm going to give you some lines to read.

It's not actually a good impression.

I just have a bit of a Kermit the Frog voice that sounds like his Kermit the Frog voice.

It's a great impression.

Okay, I want you to only read what's in quotes, and I'll read everything else.

Francis, don't turn it down.

We are broke.

We're out of business.

We're closed.

You have to accept the job.

We have no money.

And the sheriff is coming to chain up the front door.

But Francis is like, I want to make my art.

So Lucas said, well, find something in it that you like.

Very good advice, honestly, from George.

I agree.

So Francis goes back to the novel.

He called up Peter Bart and he said he would do it if it could be a film about a family and a metaphor for capitalism in America.

Chris, what do you think Bob Evans said to that?

He said, like, kid, make it about whatever you want it to be about.

Incorrect.

What he said was, fuck him and the horse he rode in on.

Is he nuts?

Got it.

All right, fair.

Yeah.

Still, Evans desperately needed a director, and Coppola managed to give an impassioned pitch to the Paramount execs and Charlie Bludhorn.

So they do go ahead and bring him on board.

On September 29th, 1970, Evans announced at a press conference that the Godfather finally had.

a director.

Now, if you think Paramount gave Coppola a good deal, you would be insane.

They offered him 10% of the net profits and $125,000 up front or 6%

and $175,000 up front, which ends up being pretty good because of how much money this makes.

But he was absolutely broke with two kids and a pregnant wife.

So he took the latter.

He took more money up front, fewer points on the back end.

Got it.

He correctly suspected that he'd been hired in part because the studio felt like they could push him around and also that they would get a free draft for the screenplay, which they did.

So just like Puzzo, he immediately celebrated his signing bonus by taking his whole family on a cruise to Italy,

where he started working on a draft of the screenplay.

Tax write-off research.

Now, by the time he was working on the screenplay, Puzzo had already written two drafts, and he'd been pushed around quite a bit by the studio on those two drafts, including setting the film in present day

and opening with a sex scene between Kay and Michael.

Which is such an odd choice because their whole relationship is meant to be defined by its innocence and kind of like how chaste it is.

And so then she kind of, when the door closes on her, is like the final

shot of the film that completes his arc, you know, the tragic corruption.

So anyway, yeah, not a good note.

Nope, makes no sense.

He was pretty relieved when Coppola showed up because it seems like he knew that Francis would help bring the story back to where it needed to be.

They also got along incredibly well right from the beginning.

Coppola did say that he liked Mario much more than he liked his script.

He was not a huge fan of what Mario had written.

He also noted it was clear that Puzo couldn't speak Italian, and there were some technically incorrect things like Vito should have actually been called Don Vito, not Don Corleone, but it was a little too late at that point.

Got it.

At one point, Coppola took Puzzo to a casino in Reno to work on the screenplay together because he realized that there aren't any clocks.

You can order food at any time, which we know Mario loves.

And Puzzo could take breaks to go lose thousands of dollars downstairs, which he did constantly.

Good for you, Mario.

Apparently, it worked really well.

Early on in the casting process, Al Reddy had announced that they weren't going to use any big name actors in The Godfather, and this started an absolute feeding frenzy.

He said this was to not distract from the book, but as we know, also, Chris, big stars, big money.

There we go.

So, people start coming out of the woodwork for this thing.

One guy spent $2,000 on his own screen test for Michael, and that's $2,000 in 1970-ish.

That's $7 million now.

Another showed up at the Paramount lot saying to Al Ruddy's office, Michael Corleone is out here to see you.

And this man then handed out Michael Corleone business cards.

I mean, shoot your shot, but aim better.

Yeah.

So-called talent schools came up to people on the streets and offered to film their screen tests for $100.

Of course, the scams show up.

Yeah, these were totally predatory, and they were actually issued restraining orders from Paramount.

Ruddy said, in a way, it's sad.

We're not going to use amateurs, just unknown faces.

There's a big difference.

Yeah.

But, Chris, normies aren't the only ones who wanted parts in this movie.

So did actual mobsters.

That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah.

So here's some of the fun things that happened to the poor people who were trying to cast this movie.

One of the casting directors received a dead fish wrapped in newspaper.

Unclear how that was supposed to get someone cast.

He also received a visit from a scary man after a young woman auditioned where he was essentially told his legs would be broken if he didn't cast her.

To his credit, he didn't cast her.

And he never walked again.

Andrea Eastman, the New York City casting director, got a guy calling her at home, threatening her and the production if they didn't cast someone named Mr.

Dante.

A few days later, she went to lunch with Al Ruddy and some other people, including a man in a brown suit who said his name was Mr.

Butter.

We gotta love the names.

So, this was likely George.

I don't know if this is the right way to pronounce this, but Butterass DeCicho, a capo in the Gambino crime family.

Butterass.

It's in quotes.

So I don't know if that's some kind of nickname.

I'm not going to pry.

She is casually at this lunch telling Mr.

Butter about the guy who called her, and suddenly he looks at her and he goes, You want me to drop him out a window?

She's like, No, no, thank you.

But the man never called her again.

Thank you, Mr.

Butter.

Three huge dudes also showed up at Ruddy's office at one point asking for Puzo, and Ruddy's assistant grabbed a prop gun to try and scare them away, which apparently worked.

Quick thinking by the assistant, but also very bold that these men who may have been armed could have pulled out real guns.

Gianni Russo, a Las Vegas MC and nightclub owner who ended up playing Connie's shitty husband, Carlo Rizzi, allegedly had close connections to to both Carlo Gambino and John Gotti.

But take everything this man says with a grain of salt.

He also claimed to have slept with Marilyn Monroe and Leona Helmsley at some point, apparently.

So he's just playing himself in the movie.

Yeah.

He also later on in life would go on to kill someone.

I believe it was justifiable homicide later, but interesting man, as we're going to learn.

He filmed his own 37-minute screen test as Sonny, Michael, and Carlo.

He had also put himself on a wine and popcorn diet to lose 87 pounds.

That's what I plan to do after this baby is out.

I gotta say, he looks great.

That must have worked.

Wine and popcorn.

Then he somehow heard that Al Ruddy loved flashy cars and Asian women.

So he got a showgirl from the Tropicana, dressed her up as a scantily clad chauffeur, and had her drive the footage to Al Ruddy.

Ruddy still said, no, thank you.

So Rizzy taps some of his underworld connections to get through to Bluthorn, who remember, maybe probably had ties to the mob himself, and he got a reading.

First half of the reading doesn't go that well.

Halfway through, he starts up on his trusty wine and popcorn diet, except this time it's just wine, comes back pretty hammered and goes nuts on the secretary that he's reading opposite of, who's playing Connie.

Evidently, he got the part just mostly because everyone wanted him to stop.

Right.

They're They're like, it's yours.

It's yours.

Just leave.

Yep.

And they did.

Now, Al Letieri, who plays Salazzo, who you mentioned at the top, the guy who double-crosses Vito and who Michael shoots in the restaurant, was a professional actor when he was cast.

However, his brother-in-law was also allegedly an actual capo in the Genovese crime family.

So he didn't have to go far to draw inspiration for his character.

And then there is Lenny Montana, who played Vito's loyal bodyguard, Luca Brazzi.

Lenny was a 6'6, 300-pound former wrestler who was by this time, it's gonna be a lot of allegedlies in this episode, just because I don't know who's still alive, allegedly an actual bodyguard and enforcer for the Colombo family.

Remember the name Colombo, it's about to come back big time.

Remember Frank Sinatra?

Old Blue Eyes?

Oh, yeah.

He's still mad.

But Coppola personally talked him him down from a ledge and promised to reduce the Sinatra-based role in the movie, which he does.

And Sinatra was like, sounds good.

I want to play the Godfather.

Of course he does.

Yeah.

Coppola says, thank you, but no, thank you.

And that is because it seems like both Coppola and Puzzo always had one person in mind for the Dawn, and that is Marlon Brando.

It was apparently Mario Puzzo who had first suggested Brando for the role of the godfather.

He'd actually turned down a role from Coppola in the conversation back in 1969.

Oh, really?

I wonder if it was the Hackman role.

That would be interesting.

I think it might have been.

Age-wise, it might have made sense.

Yeah, they were very close in age.

I think Brando was a hair-roller.

Well, and also at this point, he was known pretty much as box office poison.

He was also 47, which was way too young in theory for this part.

He's, he, yeah, they play him so old compared to how old he actually is.

We will get to this in part two, but the makeup is incredible.

It's incredible.

It still looks so good.

He was also known as an absolute nut job and a real problem on sets.

Someday we will do an episode of Mutiny on the Bounty, I'm sure.

So we will save some for that.

Now, Bob Evans and Bluthorn are like, absolutely not.

Anyone but Marlon Brando, you have lost your mind.

They suggested Ernest Borgnine, while Burt Lancaster and Danny Thomas were both still after the role.

And in fact, when Puzo heard that Danny Thomas was interested in the part and was allegedly considering buying a controlling interest in Paramount to get it, he took Matters into his own hands and sent Marlon Brando a letter along with a copy of the book.

Now, Brando shoved the book and letter aside at first because he didn't want to glorify the mob.

But his assistant was desperately trying to get him out of a mountain of debt, a valium problem, and it seems like a general depression.

So she kept at it.

And finally, she managed to get him interested by telling him the other actor who was most likely to nab the part.

Do you have any guesses, Chris, Chris, as to who this might have been?

Most likely to nab the part of the godfather?

Of the godfather.

More age-appropriate.

Okay.

Did Brando hate this person?

Well, he didn't want him to have the part.

I don't know if he personally hated him, but he did not feel that he was right for it.

It was Sir Lawrence Olivier.

Oh,

okay.

I should have guessed that.

Could you kind of see that?

Absolutely.

Sure.

He's an incredible actor.

Yeah.

And this was true, by the way.

Olivier was Coppola's only other choice for the role.

So Coppola met with Brando for dinner and it seemed like they were on the same page about the film, even though Brando had not read the book.

I just want to say that might not be Kookie Marlon Brando being kooky.

He was very likely dyslexic and had always had a really hard time reading.

And later would obviously like even wear an earpiece to be fed his lines.

in order to, he said, remain spontaneous on set, but it may have been very difficult for him to learn lines as a result of dyslexia.

So Coppola goes into a meeting with all the Paramount execs and Bluthorn saying he can get Brando, and they still say absolutely not.

At this point, Francis Ford Coppola drops to the ground and fakes a full-blown epileptic seizure.

What a time to be alive.

I know.

I'm sad we didn't get to see it.

Me too.

He had suffered from epilepsy as a teenager, so he knew what it should look like.

Right.

And he also had noticed that there was carpet on the floor, so he knew he wasn't going to hurt himself.

Got it.

This freaked them out enough to listen, I guess, because they finally said, fine, you can have Brando on these conditions.

One, he had to put up a $1 million bond.

Brando did.

And Chris, you've explained this before, but basically that's insurance.

Yes.

He had to take a major pay cut and he had to screen test.

So that's like three forms of insurance, basically, right?

The million dollar bond is like he defaults his million dollars if he in any way disturbs or disrupts or puts the production in jeopardy.

And then obviously reducing his fee is further insurance and then screen testing.

I feel like they do the screen test thing to try to get him to say no.

100%, which Coplo was worried about because Marlon Brando doesn't screen test.

Of course not.

I mean,

no one above a certain age that established, I mean, would be screen testing.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, he was, even though he had been in so many bombs, he was still Marlon Brando.

Like, you know, so Copla ends up calling it a makeup test because he doesn't want to scare him.

He's playing someone older, too.

It does kind of make sense.

It does.

And they do it at Brando's house.

It was all improvised.

But Marlon Brando really took this very seriously.

And he worked with his personal makeup artist on the makeup to get it really right.

And unfortunately, this footage seems to have been lost to time.

Oh, it's too bad.

Yeah, but it sounds like what he did was like he greeted them as Marlon Brando.

They sort of start filming.

And then while they're filming, he does kind of the transformation

into Vito.

And, you know, I always grew up hearing like, oh, he has cotton balls in his cheeks during the Godfather.

He does not in the actual filming of the movie.

He's wearing sort of prosthetic mouthpieces.

Yes.

But he did just jam Kleenex into his cheeks for this.

He looked absolutely perfect.

Now, Coppola skips over Bob Evans and takes the tape right to Charlie Bluethorn, who sees the magic and says yes.

But this may have been a mistake because Bobby, Hollywood golden boy and the Playboy Peacock of Paramount, as Life magazine called him, did not like to be passed over.

And something else happens in December of 1970.

Bob Evans finally got Paramount a massive hit with something you mentioned earlier, Love Story.

The film starred his then-wife, Allie McGraw, and and it would end up bringing in over $106 million

worldwide on a very meager budget.

It was an absolute sensation that earned Evans a round of applause when he walked into his regular booth at his favorite restaurant, and this only boosted Evans' surety that he knew what was best for his next big hit, The Godfather, particularly when it came to the part of Michael.

Now, while some casting, like John Cazal as Fredo and Richard Castellano as Clemenza, were smooth and easy, casting Michael was an absolute nightmare.

Everyone wanted the role, including Rod Steiger, who you may remember as Marlon Brando's older brother in On the Waterfront.

Yeah, I was like, he's off by a generation and a half.

Yes, he was 45 at the time and absolutely did not look like a college kid returning from his first military tour, buddy.

Despite what you may read in Robert Evans' account, though, it does seem like Francis Ford Coppola had a specific cast in mind for the main roles from the beginning, and that cast was James Kahn as Sonny, Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen, and Al Pacino as Michael.

He nailed it.

He knew exactly what he wanted.

Yeah.

Now, James Kahn and Robert Duvall, they didn't pose such a problem.

Had he worked with Duvall, and wasn't Duvall Rain People?

Yes, he had.

Right.

And also, remember, Robert Duvall was.

Oh, he was established.

Yeah, yeah.

He was established.

He wasn't a big star, but like he's a big boo-radley.

I mean, he'd been around.

He'd done quite a bit.

And I think James Kahn had done a little bit as well.

There's just one problem, which is that Bob Evans absolutely hated Al Pacino.

Pacino was, to be fair to Evans, completely untested as a film actor at this point.

He had a movie in production called The Panic in Needle Park, but it had not come out.

And he had made a splash in a Broadway show called Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie, which he won a Tony for.

But that was not enough for Evans, especially because at five foot six, Pacino is short.

He's so diminutive when he stands next to Khan, when he's saying goodbye to him in the doorway.

Who, by the way, is not that.

James Khan is 5'10.

But he looks 6'3 compared to Pacino.

Well, for some reason, Bob Evans really hates the fact that he's short.

Bob Evans, I think, is a...

Isn't he decently tall?

He is.

He was a very handsome, like tall, you know, sort of lanky man.

Really did not like that this short guy was going to be playing Michael and really clung to that as a problem.

Yeah.

He wanted Robert Redford, you know, classic Italian, Robert Redford.

Who could have worked as Tom Hagen, but would not have worked at all as Michael.

Or Ryan O'Neill.

Again, doesn't work.

But Coppola insisted that they cast as many actual Italians as possible.

He wanted to, these are his words, not mine, smell the garlic coming off the screen.

And you do.

You do.

So he spent $500 on screen tests for his top choices, Pacino, Duval, Khan, and Diane Keaton, who at that point was best known for a deodorant commercial and starring in Hair on Broadway.

He sent the tests to the execs and

they hate them.

They decide they're going to take over casting and they start seriously doubting Coppola as the director at this point.

Oh, no.

So it's completely backfired now.

It's horribly backfired.

Right.

Basically, Charlie Bloodhorn says something along the lines of these actors can't all be bad.

There must be a common denominator, which is the director.

Right.

They go on to test literally hundreds of actors for all of the main roles.

Meanwhile, Coppola moves his family to a tiny studio apartment in New York City to be closer to the action.

He has two children and a pregnant wife at this point.

Again, this lady, a saint.

Names for Michael on the studio list now include Dustin Hoffman, by the way, even shorter than Al Pacino.

How did he get in there?

I know.

This is before Marathon, man.

So I believe.

So I don't.

But after the graduate.

It's after the graduate, though.

It's after the graduate.

What's funny is that's the most similar

to Pacino.

Well, that's the only one that Coppola seemed potentially open to.

I think it arguably would have worked.

Dustin Hoffman's an incredible actor.

He's obviously the right age, but it feels like a similar vibe.

Totally.

Also on the list were Warren Beatty, Ryan O'Neal, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Frank Langella, James Kahn, and Robert De Niro.

Bobby obviously shows up later.

He'll show up later in this episode as well.

The whole time, Coppola insisted that Pacino was the only one who was right for the part, and his dedication to him is like really remarkable.

Pacino even flubbed a screen test by not knowing his lines at all, and Coppola still fought for him.

Meanwhile, on February 3rd of 1971, Bob Evans did an interview with Variety with the headline, cut directors down to size, and the subheader, Bob Evans, We Keep Control.

Well, and this is the, this is kind of the birth of a tour cinema, right?

In the late 60s, early 70s.

So, like, French New Wave has infected Hollywood.

Cinematography is moving out of the studio into the streets, and directors now have control much more so than studios do, or that's the trend.

And he's saying, we at Paramount are not doing that.

We are going to, I'm going to touch every single part of this production.

Yeah.

But boy, Bob Evans will touch his director.

Blow jobs.

This pissed off both Coppola and Al Reddy for obvious reasons.

And the cost of these extra screen tests ran up to $420,000.

And remember, he spent $500 on the initial screen test with the people who will end up in the actual movie.

So good job, Bob.

Not great, Bob.

Not great, Bob.

It also exhausted the actors who had to audition.

Diane Keaton apparently read for Kay more than a hundred times.

Oh, my God.

And James Kahn was so pissed off by his experience that he said, I tell you what, stick this picture up your ass.

I'm out of here.

Yeah, that sounds a lot like James Kahn.

Yes.

Yep.

Yeah.

By the way, James Kahn, obviously not Italian.

James Kahn is Jewish.

However, he did grow up, as we will learn, in an area that meant that he was relatively connected.

Coppola let his sister, Talia Shire, audition for Connie because he thought for sure he was going to be fired at this point and that he might as well, even though he didn't think she was right for it.

He thought she was too pretty.

She also was a bit concerned that, you know, you don't need your sister.

hanging around like, you know, to be accused of nepotism, basically.

But Bob Evans really liked her.

So she got the part and she's great.

Yeah, then so would begin the Coppola reign

of nepotism over Hollywood.

Although I quite like the Coppolas, I do too.

And I think she's wonderful.

Polystar is great.

Yeah.

It's such a tragic role.

I know.

So finally, Evans and the studio had decided on their Michael.

And it was someone on Coppola's original list, though not Al Pacino.

Any guesses, Chris?

Original list for Michael?

Uh-huh.

Was it Robert De Niro?

No, it was James Kahn.

Oh, so they were going to move him.

Had he been cast as no, he had not.

Just he was wanted for.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Then it's like, how do you cast a hothead opposite Khan?

You know what I mean?

It's like you back yourself into a corner.

Exactly.

With Khan and the Michael role, they were planning to cast another actor named Carmine Cariti as Sonny.

They told Caridi he had the part.

So he started going around town saying he was playing Sonny.

He even gave his two weeks' notice for the man of La Mancha, which he'd been acting in on Broadway.

But

we talked about height a lot, Chris.

Cariti was 6'4,

and he was very built.

He was a big guy.

He's too tall.

Can't get the camera that high.

Simply can't tip it up.

But while watching the screen test, it became apparent to everyone that James Khan and Al Pacino were much more believable as brothers because Khan was only about 5'10, even though he does look burly next to Al Pacino, which works.

But even if you put 5'10 James Khan next to gigantic Carmine Cariti, it didn't work.

Well, Khan works

under Brando very well, I think, because Brando's a physically imposing person, much more so than Pacino.

And then Pacino and Casale.

He's not that tall.

I mean, Brando's probably 5'10, 5'11, but he's but I'm saying, but he's compared to Pacino, he's much bigger.

But then I think Casale and Pacino work extremely well as brothers, too.

So I think overall, the blend is really good.

They look right.

I mean, it looks like a family.

So casting director Andrea Eastman saw that and suggested going back to the way Coppola had it from the beginning.

And shockingly, it was Bob Evans who admitted that he was wrong.

Good for you, Bob.

Yeah.

I mean, credit to him.

He's a nut, but he does, he is willing to admit when he's bungled something.

Poor Carmine Cariti was out of a part that he thought he had.

Just remember, it is never official until you have literally signed a contract.

And even then.

No, it's never official until you watch the movie.

Yeah.

This poor guy.

I think it's haunted him forever.

Yeah.

So finally.

It could have been a contender.

He could have been a contender.

Finally, Chris, Coppola was going to get his way.

Except there was one problem.

Al Pacino had thought for sure he wasn't going to get the part, so he had taken another part on an MGM movie called The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight.

Stunningly, it was again Bob Evans who fixed this for Coppola.

He struck a deal that traded Al Al Pacino for another actor who had been cast in a small role in The Godfather, and that was Robert De Niro.

Interesting.

He was cast as the guy who, the driver, who gets shot.

Pauli?

Yes.

The leave the gun, take the cannoli guy.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Astron Gulf.

Is there any other wedding?

Yes.

Wow.

I'm so glad that's not De Niro.

Yeah, we might not have Robert De Niro if that had happened.

And the actor that plays that role is perfect for it.

I can't remember his name.

Oh, wow.

And I love that Bob Evans is just training actors like baseball cards.

Well, I don't even have time to get into this, but he did this by calling up a very close friend who was a somewhat known fixer who was able to literally call someone, who was able to then threaten to force a union strike at the MGM casino.

And this is how, yeah, it was a whole thing.

It's absolutely crazy.

I love it.

Okay,

so the cast is in place and Coppola has won the battle with Ruddy and Paramount to shoot in New York City and not somewhere cheaper like St.

Louis or a studio backlot.

That was a big fight.

But there's just one problem at this point, Chris.

All of their confirmed filming locations were suddenly dropping out.

The union controlling deliveries and drivers was threatening a strike.

Why?

Well, let me introduce you to the Italian American Civil Rights League.

Do you know about this?

A little bit, only because they talk about it in the Sopranos.

Okay.

So it was a relatively new organization at the time run by a man named Joe Colombo.

Remember, that is the family that Lenny Montana, aka Luke Cabrazzi, worked for.

They had been incredibly successful at organizing protests and raising a shit ton of money, all in in the name of fighting for better representation and rights for Italian Americans.

They'd even gotten Frank Sinatra on board as their chairman, and he'd performed at a benefit at Madison Square Garden.

Now, they particularly hated the word mafia or any implication that Italian Americans were involved in organized crime.

A New York Times magazine article in 1967 pointed out the irony of bringing totally not at all connected to the mob singer Frank Sinatra on board as their chairman.

The article basically said, listen, are most Italians involved in organized crime?

No, of course not.

Are a small percentage of Italians very involved in organized crime?

For sure, yes.

Joe Colombo, however, continued to deny the existence of the mafia, saying, quote, there is not a mafia.

Am I head of a family?

Yes.

My wife and four sons and a daughter.

That's my family.

Here's the thing, though.

Joe Colombo was almost certainly the head of an actual mafia family and an incredibly powerful one in New York City.

Oh, and by the way, the guy who wrote that article for the New York Times magazine, any guesses, Chris?

No.

Mario Puzzo.

Yeah.

What?

He's just freelancing now?

Yeah, he was just freelance.

He was just running around.

I mean, I think he was pissed.

I need some scratch for the tables.

Yeah, at the bottom of the article, it literally said Mario Puzzo is working on a novel about a mafia family.

Oops.

Whoopsies.

Whoopsies.

So the league absolutely had it out for the godfather and likely had not forgotten about that.

And they were shutting down its ability to film in New York City, period.

Al Reddy was also paid a visit by notorious LA gangster Mickey Cohen, who seemed simultaneously threatening and also curious about who was going to play the godfather.

That's what I love.

Like, I love these stories because on the one hand, they want to shut it down, but on the other hand, they're kind of fascinated by, you know, Hollywood.

And like, so who's good?

Who do you think is going to play me?

That sort of thing.

100%.

Ready's assistant, Betty McCart, had a much scarier experience, however.

She and Ready had taken to switching cars when they left the Paramount lot due to the number of death threats that their office was getting at this point.

One night, she noticed a car was following her all the way back to her house, which was way up off Mulholland Drive.

And if you've never been to LA and are not familiar, this goes way up into the mountains.

It's very windy, very twisty.

You would definitely be able to tell if someone was following you.

And feels very isolated even today with a much higher population than

50 years ago.

This car didn't just follow her to her driveway.

It followed her down her very long and winding driveway to her house.

She called the cops and the car took off.

But in the middle of the night, she heard gunshots and came out in the morning to find all of the windows of the car completely shot out with a note on the windshield saying, stop making the movie.

Jesus.

I would be like, okay.

Yeah, I know.

Shut it down.

You got it.

Pull the plug.

Yeah.

Paramount's New York offices were evacuated multiple times due to bomb threats, and even Bob Evans got a creepy call at his suite.

According to Evans, this caller said, take some advice.

We don't want to break your pretty face, hurt your newborn.

Get the fuck out of town.

Don't shoot no movie about the family here.

Always the same person calling, by the way.

I know.

Sorry.

I can't do any other voices.

Bob Evans replied, Fuck you, Mr..

If you've got any problems, take it up with the producer, Al Ruddy.

Yes.

Fuck you, Mr.

Yes.

Fuck you.

Fuck you.

Amazing.

Nonetheless, Evans was very rattled by this, especially because they're talking about his wife and his newborn son.

So he called up.

Agent Eddie Goldstein, who had several clients on the film, including Coppola Reddy and James Kahn, and asked for help because Eddie was a good negotiator.

So James Kahn is the one who arranged a meeting between Joe Colombo and Eddie Goldstein because James Kahn, quote, always knew the big boys downtown.

Oh,

James Kahn may be one of the most connected ones in the cast.

Amazing.

This meeting goes pretty well and Colombo agrees to talk directly with Al Ruddy.

Now, prior to the big meeting between Ruddy and Colombo, Ruddy had agreed to a few terms.

First of all, the words mafia and cosinostra, which you referenced at the top, meaning, I think, our thing, would be completely eliminated from the film.

This was actually really easy for Ruddy because he already knew mafia only appeared in one line in the film.

He agreed to let Joe Colombo read the script, and he agreed to turn over the proceeds from the premiere to the league's hospital fund.

Yeah.

We're going to buy some new beds.

Uh-huh.

Are ya?

They fell off a truck.

Now, how much of that money would actually go to a hospital is anyone's guess.

What Ruddy thought would be a private meeting on February 25th, 1971, actually ended up being a gigantic meeting helmed by Colombo with more than 600 members of the league in attendance.

Ruddy handled it beautifully.

As it turned out, what they wanted was mostly to know who was cast.

Right.

And they wanted to know about Marlon Brando.

And also, could some of their buddies get bit parts in the film?

And the answer to that was yes.

No problem, guys.

He also told Colombo to come to his office the next day to read the script.

And Colombo showed up with Mr.

Butter.

Remember him?

I do.

Now he read basically one page of the script, asked what fade-in meant, and decided that was enough.

I mean, I love that he pretended like he was going to do it.

It's great.

But also, I do think if you've never read a screenplay, it feels very different than reading anything else.

And I do remember, I sent my dad one of my scripts once and

quite a bit of time passed.

And I said, you don't have to read it.

And he's like, no, I'm reading it.

It just is taking me a while because he's never read a screenplay before.

So you have to kind of learn how to read it.

So I can imagine you're sitting down and you're like, oh my God, I'm going to have to read this in front of this guy.

No.

Yeah.

No, he literally read a page, did not make it to page two.

They agreed to the initial terms and Ruddy agreed to come to just a small little press conference, Chris, a few days later.

Except turns out it was not small.

Every major newspaper was there and all three TV stations to cover Paramount's brand new deal with the actual mob, because that's what Al Ruddy just did.

Paramount immediately came out and said that they had not authorized any of this, which it seems was true.

Bob Evans did not know about this.

He had not authorized it, nor did CEO Stanley Jaffe.

And they were pretty, pretty pissed.

Not only that, it briefly tanked Gulf and Western's stock because this was such big news.

Oh, wow.

They called Ruddy into the office with Bluthorn and all the major players, and Bluthorn made it very, very clear to him that they were not going to honor this deal and they were going to immediately, publicly, fire Al Ruddy.

Ruddy grabbed a fistful of Charlie Bluthorn's cigars and left the office at Gulf and Western.

Oh, man.

And that's where we'll pick back up for part two of our coverage of The Godfather.

Oh,

ending on a hit that's brutal yeah i can't wait this is far juicier than i even anticipated part two is going to get a lot crazier i'm really excited and in case it doesn't come up i would also just like to mention apropos of nothing i know we talk a lot about tom cruise's distinct run al pacino has a very distinct run he's very light on his feet he keeps his arms to the side it's true and it's just like pita patter pita you can see it in heat too which i also re-watched recently Anywho, so I think we'll forego what went right this week.

We'll save it for next week.

Lizzie, thank you so much.

I am so excited to dive into part two.

Are there any announcements we need to make before we thank the folks that made this podcast possible?

I don't think so.

We will be dropping part two next week as opposed to in two weeks from now.

So keep an eye out for that.

And then we will be back with a new episode the week following that and then back to the regular bi-weekly schedule.

I think that's it.

All right, guys.

If you're enjoying this podcast, please know that it only exists because of listeners like yourself and, of course, the people that have taken the time to leave us rating and reviews on whatever podcast platform you listen on, as well as our patrons on Patreon.

Guys, if you don't know what Patreon is, it is a platform that allows you to support creators, artists, people that you like, and the things that they make.

You can join for free.

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Or for $50 a month, you get a personal shout-out at the end of every episode, just like the ones we're about to do.

So if you're interested in any of those perks, head to www.patreon.com slash whatwent wrong podcast.

That's www.patreon.com slash what went wrong podcast.

And Lizzie, what voices are we going to do this week for our good friends?

Chris, you sent me a text message this week when watching this that you said you tried to do Marlon Brando's accent in this movie and you threw open your mouth.

So I think we only have one choice, which is that you must do Marlon Brando as the godfather.

Yes,

they massacred my boy.

Perfect.

Jerome Wilkinson,

Lance Data,

Rilla Dunn, Nate the Knife,

Lena,

just Lena, Andrea,

Ramon Villenueva Jr.

Half Grey Hound, Lauren Dunn,

Brittany Morris,

Darren and Dale Conkling,

Jake Killen, I knew it with you, Jake,

Andrew McFagel Bagel, Matthew Jacobson,

Grace Potter, The Pipes on Her, Blaise Emeralds,

Christopher Elna,

Jen Maastramorino,

C.

Grace B.

Ellen Singleton, Jewish Reese Samott, Scott Kerwin, Sadie, just Sadie, don't know what family she's from, Brian Donahue, Adrian Pang Coria, Chris Leal, Kathleen Olson, Leah Bowman, Steve Winnebar, my godfather, my father,

Don Scheibel, George, Rosemary Southwood, Benton Brown,

Kate Elrington,

Alan Moffat,

David Fruscalanti, that's a good Italian name,

Galen,

Zach Everton,

Tom Kristen, Soman Cainani, Michael McGrath.

Thanks so much, guys, for supporting the podcast at $50 tier.

As always, we wouldn't be able to make this without you.

We have big plans for this podcast this year.

2025, I think, is going to be a really fun, big year for us and hopefully for all of you.

Yes.

So thank you again to everybody that's helped us along the way.

And we will see you back here in two weeks for part two of our coverage of part one of The Godfather.

Bye.

Go to patreon.com slash what went wrong podcast to support what went wrong and check out our website at whatwentwrongpod.com.

What Went Wrong is a sad boom podcast presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer.

Editing music by David Bowman.

Research for this episode was provided by Sarah Baum.