10 surprising things you didn't know about the making of 'The Godfather'
Frank Olito
- Since the release of Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece, "The Godfather," in 1972, those who took part in the film have shared surprising details of what happened on set.
- Studio executives at Paramount Pictures reportedly did not want Al Pacino or Marlon Brando to play the lead roles, but Coppola convinced the studio to hire them.
- The famous cat that sits in Marlon Brando's lap almost ruined an entire scene because its purring was too loud.
In 1972, "The Godfather" debuted to critical acclaim, and decades later, the film is still considered one of the best in history. Getting the film to icon status was no easy feat, however.
From casting to lighting, director Francis Ford Coppola experienced several pushbacks from studio executives at Paramount who challenged his vision at every turn.
Here are 10 other surprising facts about the making of "The Godfather" that you might not have known.
Al Pacino was not the first choice for the role of Michael Corleone, and he said he was almost fired during filming.
Executives wanted a notable to play the breakout role, like Robert Redford, according to the Washington Post. But Coppola saw Pacino on Broadway and knew he had found his Michael Corleone. Reluctantly, the studio agreed.
But it wasn't smooth sailing from there. Apparently, the studio executives thought Pacino was doing a poor job and described his performance as "anemic," he told the Washington Post. He added that they tried to fire him three times during filming.
The studio also didn't want to cast Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, but then they saw his legendary screen test where he stuffed his mouth with Kleenex.
The studio thought Marlon Brando would be a problem on set and thought of him as "toxic," according to The Hollywood Reporter. But Coppola made a strong case for the actor by going to his house and helping him create an audition tape.
Coppola said in an interview cited by THR that he remembers Brando stuffing his mouth with Kleenex and smearing shoe polish in his hair to transform into Don Vito Corleone. Once the studio saw the tape, he was given the role.
Brando won an Academy Award for playing the crime boss.
Brando didn't memorize any of his lines for the film. Instead, he relied on cue cards.
Brando was well-known in the industry for using cue cards instead of memorizing his lines, and that is also true for his role in "The Godfather." The actor said the technique helped him be more spontaneous instead of having to think about each line, Time reported. At times, the cue cards would be taped to lamps or even other actors in the scene to hide them from the camera.
The cat in Brando's lap was a stray and not supposed to be in the film. In fact, the cat's purring almost ruined the scene.
"The cat in Marlon's hands was not planned for," Coppola said, according to Time. "I saw the cat running around the studio, and took it and put it in his hands without a word."
When Coppola and the team listened back to the scene, they could barely hear Brando's dialogue because the cat was purring so loudly.
The lead actors liked to play pranks by mooning each other while filming.
Brando, Robert Duvall, and James Caan liked to pull down their pants and moon each other on set — Brando once mooned almost 500 extras.
"During the wedding scene, we all were mooning each other," Duvall said during a cast conversation at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival, Business Insider previously reported. "Some woman turned to me and said, 'Mr. Duvall, you're fine.'"
Talia Shire, who played Connie, was Coppola's sister, and she had very little acting experience. She even knocked down the camera at one point.
Coppola did not want his sister, Shire, to play the role of Connie because he pictured the character to be more "'homely,' an adjective he'd never use to describe his sister," Vanity Fair wrote.
Additionally, she didn't have much acting experience.
"One of my first scenes, I walked into the camera and knocked it down," Shire said at the Tribeca Film Festival reunion in 2017. "It was Marlon Brando who said 'That's OK.'"
It all worked out in the end, as Shire was nominated for best supporting actress.
"Leave the gun, take the cannoli" is one of the movie's most famous lines, but it was improvised.
Based on the original script, Richard S. Castellano, who played Clemenza, was only supposed to say, "Leave the gun," after he killed Paulie, Insider previously reported. But Castellano's wife, actress Ardell Sheridan, suggested he add, "Take the cannoli." It referred to an earlier scene in which his character was asked to pick up dessert.
When Castellano added the line, Coppola decided to leave it in the film, and it has become one of the most famous lines from the movie.
Coppola had a habit of leaving actors' mistakes in the film because he felt they were genuine.
Coppola is known for changing the script and adding in lines while filming. Sometimes he even kept in scenes where the actors made mistakes.
For example, Lenny Montana, who plays Luca Brasi, was so nervous during his scene with Brando that he messed up his lines. Coppola liked the nervousness and kept it in the film.
After filming the wedding scene, Pacino and Diane Keaton got drunk together because the actor was scared the movie would flop.
At the Tribeca Film Festival reunion, Pacino admitted that he and Keaton — who played his on-screen girlfriend — got "so loaded after that wedding sequence." They bonded over the fact that they both did stage productions before, but Pacino also talked about how much he worried the film would fail.
"We started drinking and we were just talking about 'Where do we go from here? We're done. It's the worst film ever made,'" Pacino said.
Studio executives felt like the film was lit too darkly, and they had to be convinced that the artistic choice would work.
"The Godfather" is famously dark — literally — thanks to cinematographer Gordon Willis, who became known as the "Prince of Darkness." He purposefully lit each scene dimly to mirror the shady and dark events happening in the script.
Executives at Paramount felt Willis went too far and that the movie was poorly lit. Coppola and Willis had to convince them otherwise.
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