A book you can’t refuse: Mark Seal, Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli: The Epic Story of the Making of The Godfather (New York: Gallery Books, 2021)
Reviewed by Brian M Downing
The Godfather is part of the American mind and we’re the better for it. Phrases and situations in the film come readily to mind in day-to-day life. Who hasn’t wanted to ask the Don a favor, whether it was his daughter’s wedding day or not? Whenever I make pasta I think of Clemenza instructing Michael on the fine art.
Many of the backstories behind book and film are well known. Johnny Fontane is a stand-in for Frank Sinatra. Coppola had to go to the mattresses with studio bosses. Brando was an unwanted has-been and Pacino, Caan, and Cazale were unknowns. However, freelance writer Mark Seal has delved much deeper. He pored over scores of interviews and memoirs that have accumulated over the last half century and interviewed key figures, including Coppola, Pacino, studio head Robert Evans, and several supporting figures. The result is a fascinating, well-written, and rewarding book.
Mario Puzo wrote pulp fiction for manly war magazines such as Stag and For Men Only whose lurid covers of near-naked women and Thompson-toting GIs stood out from magazine stands in the 50s and 60s. His income was barely enough to support his family and fondness for gambling. Then he decided to write a mafia novel.
Some passages were based on boyhood experiences in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. One day a neighbor hurled a blanket containing guns across the tenement airway and asked his mother to hide them. The man thanked her with a rug purloined from a posh house. Puzo spent time in Vegas casinos, gambling of course but all the while chatting with pit bosses and managers. Carl Cohen, one of the latter, told him of the time David Janssen was disorderly and he had to take care of the situation. How? “I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” Cohen had previously quieted an unruly Frank Sinatra by punching him so hard the crooner lost tooth caps, but Puzo already had the Tommy Dorsey-Willie Moretti story involving Old Blue Eyes.
Paramount was in bad shape when it acquired the rights to The Godfather after its 1969 publication. The studio was owned by Gulf+Western, a conglomerate Charles Bluhdorn had built from trading coffee futures and stamping out auto parts. Bluhdorn hired Robert Evans, a former actor who’d done well in the clothing business (Evan-Piccone), and charged him with turning Paramount around. Bludhorn and Evans had high hopes for a Godfather film and hired Albert Ruddy, who had given the world Hogan’s Heroes, to produce it. The parsimonious pezzonovante opted for young Francis Ford Coppola to direct it.
Coppola wanted Brando for the lead but higher-ups wanted no part of him. His day, they thought, had ended years ago and he was a nuisance on the set. But when Coppola showed them tape of Brando in character they were immediately won over. Casting Pacino as Michael was a tough fight too but the director won that one as well.
A film about organized crime would naturally attract the interest of organized crime, which had a presence in Los Angeles where the film was being planned. Coppola had already wanted the film to center on a strong Italian family, more so than in the book, and Ruddy conveyed that to LA underworld boss Mickey Cohen.
When Coppola et al set up to make the film in New York, truck drivers and owners of important locations were uncooperative. Ruddy then met with Joe Colombo and assured him the film respected the Italian community and would not use the terms “Mafia” or “Cosa Nostra”. Columbo made some calls and work went on.
A few months into filming, Colombo was shot at an Italian-American pride rally. A few people associated with the film, including Ruddy and Gianni Russo (Carlo, Connie’s husband), planned to be present but were warned not to be there or at least not to be near Colombo.
Seal’s book offers wonderful insight on transforming a book into a movie – studio oversight and interference, arguments with crew, and practical jokes on the set and between scenes. If the idea of Brando and Caan mooning each other is off-putting, the pages on getting the horse head and filming that famous scene might be skipped. Poor Jack Marley had to sit in blood-stained pajamas and sheets for the better part of a day as Coppola did take after take.
After only a few pages of Seal’s almost 400-page work, it’s clear he has done his research and has a deep fondness for The Godfather. That has made his book as pleasurable to read as the Puzo novel. I’d like to buy him dinner at Louis’s someday. I hear the veal is the best in the city.
© 2021Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.