The Godfather

it happens every now and then...i read The CLub Dumas after having seen it's film counterpart the ninth gate...and thought that the movie was superior...

MarkQuinn said:

Would it have something to do with me having seen the movies 47 times before picking up the book?

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Yeah, I would imagine so. I mean, you obviously really, really enjoyed the films. After having viewed them that many times and having been impressed by them to such an enormous extent, I don't imagine that any novel could have lived up to your expectations.

MarkQuinn said:

I'm reading Mario Puzo's The Godfather for the first time. I'm about a third of the way through. It's nice. A good page-turner. But something keeps bugging me. That is, it's not as good as the movies.

Would it have something to do with me having seen the movies 47 times before picking up the book?

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Nope. Coppola thought the book was awful. He thought it was populist trash, the kind of stuff people buy at airports. Didn't want to direct it.

It was Robert Evans who pressed him. Evans believed the only way the movie would appeal to a wide audience is if they believed it, and the only way to achieve that was to find an authentic Italian-American director. He said audiences needed to "smell the spaghetti."

Coppola just didn't know how to make a bad movie back then.

Matthew Colville said:

Nope. Coppola thought the book was awful. He thought it was populist trash, the kind of stuff people buy at airports. Didn't want to direct it.
.

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On the contrary, I read somewhere (I think it was IMDB) that Coppola insisted on the film's title being "Mario Puzo's The Godfather", including the author's name, as a tribute to Puzo.
I haven't read the book. I did read The Last Don some years ago and was slightly underwhelmed. But the Godfather movies are just brilliant.

I say thee nay!

"When Coppola was invited to make The Godfather, he got around to reading the book for the first time, but he never got past page 50. He dismissed it as 'pretty cheap stuff.' He was offended by some of the sub-plots [and] thought the book read like a lurid potboiler by the likes of Irving Wallace, books he considered below the belt and beneath discussion."

But Paramount had him over a barrel. He'd just done a flop, the Rain People. As Chili Palmer said "sometimes you do your best work when you got a gun to your head."

I concede defeat, O Great One!

However,I was not mistaken in my memory. Maybe he changed his mind later on.

Paramount's original idea was to make this a low-budget gangster film set in the present rather than a period piece set in the 1940s and 1950s. Francis Ford Coppola rejected Mario Puzo's original script based on this idea.

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http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000338/

Francis Ford Coppola insisted on the film being called "Mario Puzo's The Godfather" rather than just The Godfather (1972), because his original draft of the screenplay was so faithful to Puzo's novel he thought Puzo deserved the credit for it.
Link this trivia

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Sometimes the movie is better than the book. It happens. Deal with it.

The Sicilian was a far superior book anyway.

Loved LOVED the movie and have seen it only four or five times. Years later, I tried reading the book but could not get past the first fifty pages and gave up. Some movies are just that much better than the book. It also depends, I think, on how you're feeling at the time. Although I usually find books so much better than the movie adaptation, I must say I much preferred the movies to the book for The English Patient and Remains of the Day.

I loved them both, What I got from the book that really enhanced the movie for me was the set-up of the characters we lose in the movie...

1. Luca Brazzie was incredible feared by all 5 families and that Don Corleone saved him from his past as a child molester. (adds scope to the types of degenerates the mob would employ for their own benefit)

2. The director Wolf, again a child molester.

3. Santino's trouble finding women big enough to take his massive manhood.

4. The trouble Michael had after his jaw was broke by McClusky

5. Michaels surprise at the vast real estate holdings the Family had acquired.

When I watch the movie now, I'm certainly with the op in dozen's if not more, these extra tidbids add a lot for me...

"Rain People" was a flop? I loved that movie. Godfather was just a great movie, not a bad book. I thought Puzo's 'Fortunate Pilgrim' was better than Godfather.

Since this is now in the movie forum...

Movies that (I think) are better than the book:

JAWS
Shawshank Redemption
Silence of the Lambs
Bladerunner
Stand by Me
Gone with the Wind
Atonement (well, just slightly -- I loved the book, too)
The Hunt of Red October
The Godfather
No Country for Old Man
There Will Be Blood
True Grit
Psycho
The Princess Bride

Is there anyone besides me who thought Godfather 3 was just as good as G 1? I thought it was the perfect end tot he story.

G3 was not bad except nepotism (Coppola cast his daughter Sophia, who can't act, in a pivotal, major role when Winona Ryder bowed out) ruined it.

p.s. Sophia turns out to be a much better filmmaker than actor. Glad she found her calling and followed her dad's footstep.

I thought GF 3 was terrible, so did Coppola. He said he was rushed by the studio and forced to shorten the film much more than he wanted

Don Allen said:

I loved them both...

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So did I, but I have to admit, I read the book first - Was thrilled beyond belief that it was made into a movie(s).

While we're discussing it, I was very disappointed in them casting Diane Keaton as Kay. I thought Mia Farrow would have been perfect.

Oh, and I've seen them all at least 50 times.

MarkQuinn said:

I'm reading Mario Puzo's The Godfather for the first time. I'm about a third of the way through. It's nice. A good page-turner. But something keeps bugging me. That is, it's not as good as the movies.

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I agree, with both your views: Good novel, fabulous series of movies. Other examples of the same thing would include One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Exorcist.

There is a full spectrum here, ranging from great novels made into horrible movies (the most recent incarnation of Great Expectations), bad novels turned into at least good movies (Forrest Gump), great novels made into great movies (To Kill a Mockingbird, Little Big Man, Everything Is Illuminated), and horrible novels made into horrible movies (Battlefield Earth).

aruna said:

Is there anyone besides me who thought Godfather 3 was just as good as G 1? I thought it was the perfect end tot he story.

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There was a Godfather Part III?

Actually, I hate that movie like a sickness. EVERYTHING is wrong, wrong, wrong with it.

Start with the fact Paramount rushed Coppola and Puzo into production with a script they wanted six months to work on and were given six weeks to whip out. And brother, does it show!

Robert Duvall dropped out after a dispute over his pay in comparison to Al Pacino and the film was supposed to center around Tom Hagen and Michael Corleone. Instead Duvall was written out and replaced by---wait for it---George Hamilton! WTF?

Talia Shire seems to be playing an entirely new character as Connie goes from the mousy little sister to Lady Macbeth. Diane Keaton is even more wooden than in the first two films.

As regards poor, miscast Sofia Coppola, her part passed from Julia Roberts, who couldn't do it due to scheduling conflicts, to Rebecca Schaeffer who was murdered, to Madonna who at only 11 years younger than Diane Keaton was way too old for the part, to Winona Ryder who dropped out after production had started. Enter Sofia complete with a "Valley Girl" accent, no real acting talent and tons of screen time in a pivotal role.

Throw in a hopelessly convoluted script and the unintentionally hilarious ending as Michael literally drops dead and The Godfather Part III proves it's true the first time you make a movie you do it for love, the second time because you have more stories to tell and the third time just for the money.

nighttimer said:

Actually, I hate that movie like a sickness. EVERYTHING is wrong, wrong, wrong with it.

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You maybe need to get an offer you can't refuse.