The Making of The Godfather

Via Jason Kottke's wonderful site, I discovered the article The Godfather Wars, written by Mark Seal for this month's edition of Vanity Fair. It chronicles the real-life struggle which took place behind the scenes between Hollywood and the New York Mob during the making of the famous film.

In many ways, the men who made The Godfather—director Francis Ford Coppola, producer Al Ruddy, Paramount executives Robert Evans and Peter Bart, and Gulf & Western boss Charles Bluhdorn—were as ruthless as the gangsters in Mario Puzo’s blockbuster. After violent disputes over the casting of Marlon Brando and Al Pacino, they tangled with the real-life Mob, which didn’t want the movie made at all. The author recalls how the clash of Hollywood sharks, Mafia kingpins, and cinematic geniuses shaped a Hollywood masterpiece.

Fans of The Godfather movies will love this article. For us any background is anxiously gobbled up, especially a story which contains a glimpse into the family of Al Lettieri who played the unforgettable Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo. Al died much too young of a heart attack, just a few years after this.

The best part happened after the story was published in Vanity Fair. Described here, entitled Meadow Soprano is on the Line, it's almost too good to be true. Lettieri's niece contacted the magazine and agreed to be interviewed in order to flesh out the story, as it were.

The real Mafia played a significant—if hidden—role in the creation of Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece The Godfather, and Mark Seal’s story in the 2009 Hollywood Issue (“The Godfather Wars”) detailed most of it. But one of the most remarkable anecdotes came to light only after the magazine was published, when the daughter of a reputed mobster told V.F. how her family befriended, tutored, and overfed the Corleones.

Here's the video of the author, followed by one of the greatest scenes ever. The Italian which Al Pacino is supposed to have learned in the Lettieri family home in Fort Lee served him well. He sounds exactly like a first-generation Italian American more comfortable with English. Their conversation, by the way, is actually more Sicilian than Italian.