(Music)
Aah.
- 'The Godfather' recently celebrated its 45 year anniversary.
It's hard to believe we've never done an episode on it.
But to be honest, we really just need a bit of a palate cleanser
after that last episode on Fast and Furious.
So here are seven things you didn't know about The 'Godfather' ,probably.
(Sound) - I'm gonna make him
an offer he can't refuse.
- 'The Godfather' is dark.
I'm not just talking about the subject matter.
The actual film is, at times, literally dark.
Particularly in these interior scenes with Marlon Brando.
The cinematographer Gordon Willis was even named the Prince of
Darkness because of his work on 'The Godfather'.
But most people don't know that the minimal lighting wasn't done
only to create a mood.
They were also trying to conceal the heavy makeup that Marlon Brando had to wear.
Brando sat through three hours of makeup each day which included
a dental prosthetic and resin plumpers to create Don Corleone's jaw line.
By the way, Marlon Brando wasn't the only one wearing fake teeth.
James Caan's fangs were made more prominent with dental prosthetics applied
with a quick setting acrylic.
Kind of seems like a waste of time since you can't even tell, but
it's still kind of cool, I guess.
Boom, bonus thing you didn't know.
Boom, moving on.
(Sound) - What the hell is this?
- That's to send you a message.
It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.
- Sonny's fangs are just one of the many details that the production team
came up with to make the world of the film as rich as it is.
Another is the wooden bumpers on so many of the cars.
Because of World War II, many car owners removed their chrome bumpers and
turned them in to help with the war.
The chrome bumpers were replaced with wooden ones, and it took a long time for
many of them to be switched back to metal after the war ended.
And, since 'The Godfather' takes place in the 1940s and 50s, the wood bumpers
are pretty accurate, which actually seguas us perfectly into thing number three.
(Noise).
'The Godfather' was made in the 70s, but
it's a period piece that takes place some two to three decades before that.
But it almost didn't happen that way.
Originally Paramount wanted 'The Godfather' to be a present day,
made in the 1970s gangster movie set in Kansas that they would make on the cheap
for around $2.5 million.
Paramount was broke at the time and just didn't want to invest in a period piece.
At Francis Ford Coppola's insistence,
Mario Puzo tossed out his original script, which had 'The Godfather' as
the low-budget 70s mobster shoot them up that Paramount wanted.
Coppola revamped the story.
Got the studio to put up a $6.5 million budget and
went on to make one of the most iconic films of all time.
Not that it was easy.
That's a tease for our next thing.
Francis Ford Coppola was under threat of being fired
nearly the entire time he was making 'The Godfather'.
The studio butted heads with him on almost every decision.
For one they essentially vetoed casting Marlon Brando as Don Corleone until
Coppola came to Marlon Brando's home to film a screen test.
A screen test that was impressive enough to finally convince the suits that
Brando was their guy.
The studio as also against casting Al Pacino as Michael.
They were pushing hard for Robert Redford or Ryan O'Neal.
Martin Sheen did a screen test and they even had James Connery for the part.
But Coppola was unrelenting in keeping Pacino at the top of his list.
Paramount also believed that Coppola was going over budget and
over scheduled with frivolous production expenses,
though by the time the film wrapped he was both under budget and ahead of schedule.
Coppola saved his job by reshooting some key scenes that the studio didn't like and
adding in this fight scene to silence their fears that the movie lacked action.
He also wound up firing his assistant director who he suspected had been bad
mouthing him to Paramount.
Lastly it probably helped that Copollo won a freaking Oscar for
writing Patton while all of this Godfather drama was going on.
(Music)
- (Foreign).
- Here's the thing that reiterates just how (Bleep) up a place Hollywood is.
Morgana King played Mama Corleone to Sonny, Michael and Fredo.
The thing is, she's only ten years older than James Caan and Al Pacino, and
only five years older than John Cazale was, RIP.
Five to ten years older playing their mom.
Yeah, just let that sink in while we move on to our next thing.
(Sound).
You might be surprised to hear who out this crime montage together.
It was this one guy you may have heard of before named George Lucas.
Coppola and Lucas are friends from way back.
Coppola even executive produced THX 1138.
Well the year after that, Lucas was an uncredited assistant on 'The Godfather'.
Lucas did it mainly as a way to thank Coppola for
helping him get American Graffiti funded.
And he was tasked with putting together this footage sometimes called a demetress
sequence by hardcore Godfather fans.
Lucas used photos from real life crime scenes in the montage.
For example, this is Frank the Enforcer Nitti, who was Al Capone's top guy.
And who actually wasn't murdered, but committed suicide by shooting himself.
Jumping back to George Lucas' work on the film as a whole, he gave Coppola a small,
but important note.
(Music)
For this part with the looming assassination attempt at the hospital,
Coppola neglected to get enough footage for
this critical moment with the sound of the footsteps in the hallway.
Lucas suggested that Coppola just repurpose the ends of any shots
of the hallways where the actors had already left and cleared the frame.
Lucas and Coppola scrubbed through all of the footage that they had in the can and
found these all too important seconds of empty hallway
to be able to create this brilliant moment of dread in the sequence.
Did I say brilliant moment?
Sorry guys, movie listener is next week.
Tasty hoots, hot cans, Okay, I feel better.
Last thing. (Noise)
- I spoke to Fredo.
I'm going to buy some fruit.
- Okay, Pop.
- We're going to wrap this up by busting a bit of a Godfather' myth.
A lot of people have pointed out that oranges appear throughout the film as
a way to foreshadow an impending death.
Well even though that may be true, it's only true retroactively.
The oranges and
their proximity to the deaths in the film is little more than a coincidence.
The production designer Dean Tavoularis added oranges to the sets because the sets
were just kind of drab.
He liked using oranges as a pop of color, but no one involved in the film ever
premeditated using them as a harbinger of death.
It just kinda worked out that way, and the fan theories took on a life of their own.
I guess they should've switched up those oranges with some papayas, or kumquats,
or something.
We have barely scratched the surface on all of 'The Godfather' things we have up
our sleeve.
For example we didn't even mention that this baby in the famous baptism scene is
actually Sophia Coppola.
So if you guys want a part two let us know.
And or if you want us to do a part two on 'The Godfather Part Two' sound off.
Unlike choockie-palooza, we'll actually do it.
Thanks for watching, and subscribe to Cinefix for
more truish things about movies.
And sometimes oranges that don't really mean anything
right here on 'Things You Didn't Know'.
(Sound)