Posted on 08/13/2011 4:18:16 PM PDT by EveningStar
Would Lord Laurence Olivier have made a better Don Vito Corleone than Marlon Brando in The Godfatherc?
Coppola's casting choices were unpopular with studio executives at Paramount Pictures, particularly Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone. Coppola's first two choices for the role were both Brando and Laurence Olivier, but Olivier's agent refused the role, saying, "Lord Olivier is not taking any jobs. He's very sick. He's gonna die soon and he's not interested" (Olivier lived 18 years after the refusal)...
If the one your talking about lived in the Sterling Heights/Utica area I know who you are talking about..My daughter went to a party at their house...nice family...the world sure is strange isn’t it...
> What if Olivier had portrayed him instead of Brando?
The Soprano’s characters would have all been skinny?
> What if Olivier had portrayed him instead of Brando?
The Soprano’s characters would have all been skinny??
I don’t think it would have worked if Olivier was the Godfather. The chemistry with the other actors and the feel of the movie would be different. The movie would have been a success. Same with changes to other cast members.
Brando nailed it.
Brando was so great as the Godfather that to this day nobody could play the part again. Its a one time deal.
I've read the book and seen the movies, but I don't understand what you mean. Could you please explain?
On one hand, as unlikely an actor to play a Sicilian mob boss as Lord Olivier would seem to be, given the range he had, I wouldn’t have bet against him. (For that matter, Brando wasn’t actually Italian either.)
On the other hand, Brando worked out awfully well, didn’t he?
You are absolutely right about Luca Brasi. If there is a shortcoming in Godfather I, it is that Luca’s character is not fully developed. I always thought this was a big shortcoming because in the book, his fearsomeness is simply chilling. The portrayal of him murdering 2 Capone hitmen from Chicago who came to kill the Godfather is terrifying. Then his gruesome killing of an illegitimate baby he had just chilled me to the bones. This came across so real, and the movie never did Luca the proper ‘justice’ to explain what a cold-blooded killer he was portrayed in the book.
I could not agree more... like Bogie as Rick... or Gene Kelly in Dancing in the Rain... once and only once.
LLS
Where did he overact early in his career? In Streetcar he was playing an over the top character. But in On the Waterfront he underplayed and made a potentially cliched character interesting.
Splicing the films together was a terrible idea. The flashbacks in the second film form a counterpoint to the contemporary scenes and the two comment on each other. Splicing them chronologically renders the whole thing into a TV miniseries style soap.
Me neither. I can watch the GF I and II in their entirety. It takes me 3 or 4 days to watch GF III. GF III has got to be one of the worse sequels EVER!!!!
I read the book when I was a youth, before I had an adult understanding of Evil. (Back in the day I was a voracious reader and would read anything printed in English!) I don’t think i could reread it now. That said, I can’t imagine anyone else but Brando as The Godfather...
Without doubt, the Gone With the Wind sequel was the worst.
It didn’t even follow the story line.
Go to IMBD and read the list of movies he made and then you will know which ones he over acted in. All of them that I ever watched including the Wild Ones.
In the book,Don Vito” rarely got mad. He thought showing your temper was a weakness.
Look at what happened to Sonny when he blew his top. Mowed down by enough .45 bullets to sink a battleship.
He never did the obvious. In ‘The Wild One’ he could have played that guy as a generic tough guy but he made him interesting and sensitive. He invented modern film acting.
P. 28
Sonny nails the bridesmaid
Who in the Godfather III is the mother of Andy Garcia, Sonny’s love child. In the book, she doesn’t have Sonny’s baby, but gets shipped off to Vegas and finds love with a doctor.
Yep. Take this as a lesson, kids. No posting after several glasses of wine on a relaxing Saturday evening. :-)
I have, several in fact. Many lived in the western Chicago suburbs during the forties through the seventies. Some still do.
The Oak Park home where Sam Giancana lived was just a block or so from my grammar school. Giancana was killed gangland-style there in his own basement where he had a full kitchen installed for his cooking hobby. He was preparing Italian food when an unknown assailant broke in, came down the stairs and offed him before the pasta could even be served.
When I was a young lady, my boyfriend and I plus another guy drove to the River Forest home of The Big Tuna, Tony Accardo, where "the other guy" was picking up HIS date who happened to be Accardo's daughter.
I was dying to see the place, so I walked up to the door of the beautiful home with the "other guy"....and was invited in. The Tuna wasn't home, but the daughter gave us a tour. What a place! If I went into detail describing it, it would take all day.
I had a Chicago mob member and his family living in my Villa Park precinct when I was committeeman. He was a Republican. His front job was as a bartender in a local steak house....although he never tended bar there. He never failed to vote, either.
Many gangstahs lived in wealthy Oak Brook which was part of my district when I was in elective office. I'd ring their doorbells and hand them my polical brochure and ask for their vote.
A lot of the Oak Brook mobsters hung out at the old Andy's Restaurant. They'd sit at the bar with their beefy bodyguards actually standing back-to-back with them, silently watching the door like hawks till their bosses decided to get up and leave.
They weren't into politics per se, at all. Their lieutenants took care of payoffs to pols. But they absolutely loved to hang out with politicians at the local restaurant bars.
Well dressed and manicured, most of the mobsters were short and homely like heavy-lidded frogs, had heavy accents, were totally uneducated, had bad complexions and dead eyes. As conversationalists, they were complete duds. They owned lovely, but not flashy, homes in the better parts of suburban towns and villages. Except for family gatherings and basement "business" meetings, they never plied their trades where they lived, never fouling their own nests. But they never mixed with neighbors, either.
My cousin Ginger owned a beauty salon on Lake and Harlem in Oak Park where the mobsters' wives and daughters went. When the women of the family went to visit Europe, mostly to visit and bring money stashes and precious jewelry "investments" to hide with family members in Italy and Sicily, they took my cousin with them to do their hair and nails....sometimes for stays up to a month. She became very-well-to-do taking care of first and second tier mafioso female relatives. She was also in their homes all the time. Can you imagine the chit-chat she participated in?
I could tell lots more tales, but I never want to possibly bore people with reminiscing about the interesting characters I met in two decades spent in the political arena on the doorstep of Chicago. I could write a book about the good, the bad and the beautiful....but I'd never be able to cook pasta again without looking over my shoulder!
Leni
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