'The Godfather' is regarded by many as the best mobster movie ever made, and definitely one of the best movies of all time (some even call it 'the perfect movie'). Released in 1972, it was based on a novel of the same title written by Mario Puzo. The movie was directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
The movie opens with a wedding reception scene in 1945, showing the opulence of the Corleone family's lifestyle. Don Vito Corleone's daughter Connie (played by Talia Shire) has just been married to Carlo Rizzi. Don Vito (played by Marlon Brando) is also the head of the Corleone crime family. Known as the "Godfather", he finds himself hearing requests for favors from various guests instead of 'celebrating' outside. As the "Godfather", he will grant almost all of these requests, knowing that someday he can call upon these people to return the favor.
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Figure 1. The Corleone Family's portrait. |
Vito's youngest son, Michael (played by Al Pacino), is idealistic - a war hero who doesn't want to have anything to do with the family's criminal activities. He returns home with a girlfriend named Kay Adams (Diane Keaton), who gets assurance from Michael that he will never be like his father.
People called upon by the Godfather to return a favor very seldom refuse him, because they are aware of the bad things that happen to those that do. In one instance, a studio head who has refused to give Vito's godson a movie role simply found himself soaking with blood in bed one morning. The blood isn't his - it came from the severed head of his highly-prized stud horse named Khartoum under the sheets. This ghastly scene will forever be etched in the minds of movie fans worldwide.
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Figure 2. The famous scene involving Khartoum's head. |
The real action in the movie starts when rival family Tattagglia, through Virgil Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) requests the Corleone family for investment and protection in a heroin trade operation that they are into. Vito refused and is soon gunned down in the streets. Vito survives the ambush but Luca Brasi, who has earlier been sent by Vito to bring back information on Sollozzo's organization, has been killed.
With the don in the hospital, his hot-headed eldest son Sonny Corleone (played by James Caan), tells the Tattagglia family to surrender Sollozzo or face war. They refuse and instead try to kill Don Vito in the hospital, whose security people are mysteriously absent. Luckily, Michael is visiting his father at that time, and is able to move his father away from harm and pull off a bluff with a baker that his father is heavily guarded by men. The corrupt police captain McCluskey soon arrives and breaks Michael's jaw when the latter implies that McCluskey was paid by Sollozzo to make his father unguarded and therefore vulnerable.
