10 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘The Godfather’

There have been a lot of famous cinematic mouths, but no onscreen jowls are more iconic than Don Corleone’s. The Godfather: The Official Motion Picture Archives breaks down exactly what went into achieving that look. According to the in-depth book, Marlon Brando had to sit in make-up for three hours every day as he was fitted with steel-bar dentures. These dentures sat below and in front of his lower teeth and were lined with circles of resin to give Brando his puffed out jawline. It’s also been rumored that when Brando first auditioned for the role, he stuffed his cheeks with cotton wool because he wanted to make Don Corleone “look like a bulldog.”

Though it’s widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, the production of the movie was stressful for everyone involved. The trouble started before shooting even began. The then up-and-coming Francis Ford Coppola, who almost passed on the movie, demanded a $5 million budget and refused to let the film be shot in Kansas. He got his wish, but when he asked for an 80 day shooting schedule, Paramount only gave him 53. For their parts, Coppola and Al Pacino were constantly afraid of being fired from the movie. “It was the most miserable film I can think of to make,” producer Al Ruddy said, according to The Telegraph.

Funnily enough, this mob family film became a real family film for the legendary director. Altogether, the movie features six of Coppola’s relatives, including his sons and daughter. Here they all are in chronological order:

• Talia Shire (Coppola’s sister) played Connie Corleone
• Italia Coppola (Coppola’s mother) played an extra in the restaurant meeting
• Carmine Coppola (Coppola’s father) played the piano player
• Gian-Carlo Coppola and Roman Coppola (Coppola’s sons) can be seen as extras
• Sofia Coppola (Coppola’s daughter) played the baby Michael Rizzi in the baptism

Director Sofia Coppola would also appear in The Godfather Part II and The Godfather Part III. Her performance in the last film was universally criticized.

Though Brando’s portrayal of Don Corleone later earned him his second Oscar, he probably couldn’t have done it without Robert Duvall. Several of the movie’s scenes used cue cards with Brando’s lines printed on them, and sometimes those cue cards were posted on Duvall himself. During an interview with The Huffington Post, Duvall said, “I wondered why he did it. He said it was to keep him fresh. I think it’s part fresh and groping and searching, part laziness. But it worked for him.”

In 2010, the Oscar winner told Larry King that Coppola almost fired him from his role as Michael Corleone. Pacino credits the disagreement to how he approached his character. “I was going to do him slow and let him discover who he is,” Pacino said. However, those casting worries disappeared after the infamous restaurant scene was filmed. In that same interview, Pacino praised how supportive and sensitive his co-star Marlon Brando was to him.

There’s been a lot of speculation as to why Sollozzo’s (Al Lettieri) monologue wasn’t translated from Sicilian onscreen. While it certainly adds to the reflective tone of the scene, the real reason for the missing subtitles is more mundane. According to Coppola on The Godfather’s DVD commentary, the actors spoke too quickly for subtitles.

Here’s roughly what Sollozzo says when Michael returns from the bathroom: “Everything all right? I respect myself, understand, and cannot allow another man to hold me back. What happened was unavoidable. I had the unspoken support of the other family dons. If your father were in better health, without his eldest son running things, no disrespect intended, we wouldn’t have this nonsense. We will stop fighting until your father is well and can resume bargaining. No vengeance will be taken. We will have peace. But your family should interfere no longer.”

The Guardian’s John Patterson goes into this particular scandal in detail. Before the film was released, the Italian-American Civil Rights League became very involved in the movie. The League demanded consultation right in exchange for access to New York locations — something that producer Al Ruddy desperately wanted. However, the League was led by one of the heads of New York’s Five Families, Joe Colombo, who liked The Godfather’s press attention a bit too much. According to the documentary The Godfather and the Mob, Colombo’s love of the media spotlight made his more secretive colleagues nervous. That paired with a newly launched turf war and internal struggles led to a mob hit being taken out on Colombo at the second annual Italian-American League rally.

Everyone in Hollywood knew that Brando was going to win the Oscar for Best Actor, including Brando. Instead of using the acceptance of his second statue as a sort of victory lap, the actor boycotted the ceremony and sent American Indian activist Sacheen Littlefeather in his place. When Littlefeather took the stage and explained that Brando was refusing the award to protest Hollywood’s portrayal of American Indians, she was booed.

Al Pacino also skipped that year’s Academy Awards. Many claim that Pacino’s absence had to do with his nomination for Best Supporting Actor instead of Best Actor.

Almost everyone assumes that Johnny Fontane (Al Martino) was a stand-in for a real life singer and star who allegedly achieved his fame through mob connections — Frank Sinatra. It’s been an ongoing debate as to whether Johnny Fontane was supposed to mock Sinatra or whether he was just a Sinatra-like character as Coppola put it on The Godfather’s DVD commentary. Either way, Sinatra was less than amused by the character. When he saw author Mario Puzo at a Los Angeles hot spot, he made his displeasure known. Sinatra chewed Puzo out so thoroughly, Puzo left the restaurant, which caused Sinatra to yell after him, “Choke. Go ahead and choke.”

Perhaps because the shooting schedule was so stressful, there are a lot of accounts of behind-the-scenes pranks, especially among the trio of Robert Duvall, James Caan, and Marlon Brando. Sometimes when Brando was reading lines, a cast remember would swap out his script with a wedding invitation, and it’s a widely believed legend that during Don Corleone’s death scene, Brando put weights under his bed to make the scene more difficult. However, The Godfather is probably best known for its behind-the-scenes butts. Because the main cast would constantly moon one another, some of the most iconic moments in film history have been framed by offscreen all-star nudity.

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Where to stream The Godfather