Bada bing! Fourteen years after the 86th and final episode of the landmark HBO mob series "The
Sopranos," the franchise is back with the prequel "The Many Saints of Newark". Here are a few small
details in the film that viewers may have missed.
Fans should pay close attention to the voice of the person who provides the opening narration of
"The Many Saints of Newark." If that voice sounds familiar, there's a very good reason: It's Michael
Imperioli, the actor who played Christopher Moltisanti, and the only original member of the
"Sopranos" cast to be involved in the prequel. The character is speaking from beyond the
grave as the opening shot in the film sweeps over tombstones in a graveyard,
until it lands on Christopher's headstone. The narrator goes on to recount how his mentor,
Tony Soprano, would go on to murder him. For those who need a brutal reminder of how
things went down, you can revisit the tragic scene when Tony chokes Christopher to death instead
of calling 911 following their car accident in "Kennedy and Heidi," which is the 18th episode
of "The Sopranos" Season 6.
In one ironic scene, Dickie Moltisanti introduces baby Christopher during a
"family" dinner attended by Tony. Given the close relationship Dickie has with Tony,
he tries to hand off his new baby, Christopher, to his young protégé, and the infant responds
with a crying fit in front of his future mentor. In a subtle bit of foreshadowing of Christopher's
untimely death at Tony's hands in "The Sopranos," the young Tony responds to the
crying infant by saying, "It's like I scare him or something." After that, an elderly
dinner guest responds with this bit of wisdom: "Some babies, when they come into the world,
know all kinds of things from the other side." It's a sobering observation to contemplate the
next time you encounter a colicky baby.
"The Sopranos" was never afraid of being meta when it came to references to classic mob movies,
including several tips of the cap to Francis Ford Coppola's "Godfather" trilogy and Martin
Scorsese's "Goodfellas." Scorsese seemingly appears in a cameo in "46 Long," the second
episode of Season 1, although the famed director is actually being played by actor Anthony Caso.
The biggest nod to "Goodfellas" throughout the series, though, is the casting of Lorraine
Bracco as Tony's therapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi. In "Goodfellas," Bracco stars as Karen Hill,
the long-suffering wife of real-life mobster Henry Hill, played by Ray Liotta. Among the impressive
ensemble cast of "The Many Saints of Newark" is Liotta, who stars as Dickie Moltisanti's
fiery father "Hollywood Dick" Moltisanti. While Liotta's appearance is far from a bona fide
"Goodfellas" reunion with Bracco, it rather serves as an appropriate bookend to Bracco's pivotal role
in "The Sopranos."
Longtime Bruce Springsteen guitarist Steven Van Zandt starred as Silvio Dante in "The Sopranos,"
and it was obvious from the pilot that he was sporting a mega toupee. But who was going to
have guts to call him out on it? After all, he was Tony's consigliere and best buddy.
Even so, those fans longing for official confirmation of Silvio's balding noggin
finally get a look at it in "The Many Saints of Newark." Played by John Magaro — who
earlier this year played the young version of Harvey Keitel-portrayed gangster Meyer
Lansky in the biopic "Lansky" — Silvio and his combover hairstyle appear in the film,
as well as scenes where he's wearing a bouffant hairpiece. To top things off,
there's a hilarious scene in the film that shows the early failings of Silvio's toupee.
Presumably the techniques that held Silvio's hairdo together in "The Sopranos" advanced
quite a bit since the early '70s to prevent any embarrassing moments. That still doesn't take away
from the combover and toupee scenes in "The Many Saints of Newark," which provide amusing homages
to Silvio's larger-than-life mane in the series.
While Vera Farmiga's version of the young Livia Soprano finds her in the
early phases of the character who would become the monstrous matriarch
played by the late Nancy Marchand in "The Sopranos," David Chase apparently
couldn't resist throwing in the character's signature line in "The Many Saints of Newark."
"Oh, poor you!" Given some of the
strife Livia encounters in "The Many Saints of Newark," it's no wonder Livia grew bitter as
she got older and had zero patience for crybabies — especially given how she endured her husband
Johnny Boy's reckless and violent behavior. When Farmiga delivers the classic line in
"The Many Saints of Newark," it's naturally during an argument with the iteration of Tony
played by Michael Gandolfini. Farmiga clearly studied Marchand's mocking delivery, as her "Oh,
poor you!" is so spot on that it feels like it was directly lifted from the actor's dialogue in the
"Sopranos" sound archives.
While "The Many Saints of Newark" includes younger versions of "Sopranos" characters,
fans almost got to see an original cast member of "The Sopranos" in the film. In the weeks
leading up to the release of "The Many Saints of Newark," director Alan Taylor revealed that Edie
Falco shot a scene as Carmela for the film, but it ended up on the cutting room floor.
Still, a character who appears to be Tony's future wife is featured briefly in "The Many
Saints of Newark," and can even be seen at the beginning of the film's first trailer.
In the scene, Tony is calling Dickie Moltisanti from a pay phone booth to ask his mentor to
purchase him some beer for a party. One of Tony's two friends standing by is a
blonde high schooler who he later addresses as Carmela. As any "Sopranos" fan could tell you,
Tony and Carmela go on to marry, but there's no real indication in the scene that the teens
are a couple yet.
Without divulging who the victim is, there's a funeral scene in "The Many Saints of Newark,"
and among the mourners is a distinctive-looking individual that "Sopranos" fans will recognize
as series creator David Chase. While Chase has predominantly been a writer
and producer throughout his career — and taken a few turns as a director,
including "The Sopranos" pilot — he also popped up in numerous brief cameos in "The Sopranos."
Basically, Chase has taken the Alfred Hitchcock approach to his cameos,
as the famed mystery director would mostly only appear in subtle walkthroughs in his
films. Not nearly as prolific as the Master of Suspense in the cameo realm,
Chase only turned up in three "Sopranos" episodes during the series' run — in 2000,
2004, and 2006 — in which he was nondescriptly billed, respectively,
as "Italian Man," "Man" (when he was just a voice on the phone) and "Airline Passenger."
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