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Was the Godfather pleasantly surprised that someone saw the light after waking up with a horse head in his bed? Don’t think so. But for some reason, CNN host Alisyn Camerota expressed surprise and delight that the guy who created the video of Donald Trump taking down someone with the CNN logo superimposed on his face has apologized — after CNN tracked him down and threatened him with exposure. View the video here.

The closing night of the Tribeca Film Festival brought together the cast from two of the most important and influential movies ever made: The Godfather and The Godfather: Part II. Led by the festival’s co-founder, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Talia Shire took the stage with their director, Francis Ford Coppola, to look back on the iconic films after they screened back to back for the audience. The discussion, which was led by director Taylor Hackford, focused mainly on the first film, which allowed De Niro — who only appeared in Part II...

On this day in 1972, The Godfather–a three-hour epic chronicling the lives of the Corleones, an Italian-American crime family led by the powerful Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando)–is released in theaters. The Godfather was adapted from the best-selling book of the same name by Mario Puzo, a novelist who grew up in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen and got his start writing pulp stories for men’s magazines. Controversy surrounded the film from the beginning: Soon after Paramount Pictures announced its production, the Italian-American Civil Rights League held a rally in Madison Square Garden, claiming the film would amount to a slur...

Character Abe Vigoda, whose leathery, sunken-eyed face made him ideal for playing the over-the-hill detective Phil Fish in the 1970s TV series "Barney Miller" and the doomed Mafia soldier in "The Godfather," died Tuesday at age 94. Vigoda's daughter, Carol Vigoda Fuchs, told The Associated Press that Vigoda died Tuesday morning in his sleep at Fuchs' home in Woodland Park, New Jersey. The cause of death was old age. "This man was never sick," Fuchs said. He liked to tell the story of how he won the role of Detective Fish. An exercise enthusiast, Vigoda had just returned from a...

Legendary actor Abe Vigoda -- who starred in "The Godfather" -- died under hospice care at the age of 94 ... TMZ has learned. Abe's death had been falsely reported countless times, dating all the way back to 1982. Abe played Tessio in "The Godfather" and also "The Godfather Part II." In fact, he was still doing the voice for Tessio in 'Godfather' video games as late as 2007. His most famous role on TV was as Detective Phil Fish on the '80s sitcom "Barney Miller" ... which once worked the infamous hoax reports of Abe's death into a storyline.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Just days ago, the nearly 1,300-pound, powerful jumping horse with a shiny chestnut coat named Phedras de Blondel arrived at his new home in the U.S., a farm owned by a champion rider in Florida. On Sunday morning, his owner discovered a horrific scene near his stall: the 12-year-old gelding had been slaughtered and butchered, most likely for his meat. Only his head and neck were left intact. Now, detectives are trying to find the perpetrators. “What they did to this horse had nothing to do with his value,” Debbie Stephens, who owns the 27-acre...

Alex Rocco, the veteran tough-guy character actor with the gravelly voice best known for playing mobster and Las Vegas casino owner Moe Greene in The Godfather, has died. He was 79. Rocco died Saturday, his daughter, Jennifer, announced on Facebook. No other details of his death were immediately available. Rocco, who studied acting with the late Leonard Nimoy, a fellow Boston-area transplant, also was the voice of Roger Meyers Jr., the cigar-smoking chairman of the studio behind "Itchy and Scratchy" on The Simpsons, and he played Arthur Evans, the father of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character, on the stylish Starz series...

Alex Rocco, a longtime character actor has died at the age of 79, according to the examiner.com. His death was first reported by his daughter on her facebook page. One of his best known roles would be as casino owner Moe Greene in “The Godfather” who had the famous line, “Do you know who I am”? He appeared in many films including “Freebie and the Bean, “Cannonball Run II”, and “Dream a Little Dream” (1989), which was directed by his son Marc Rocco who passed away in 2009. He also appeared in such popular movies as “Get Shorty” in 1995...

Vice President Joe Biden demonstrated that he is slipping deeper into senility this week when he gave a speech swearing that he once violently ambushed an unsuspecting kid who allegedly kicked his sister off of her bicycle. The tale told by Biden bore a remarkable resemblance to a scene in “The Godfather,” in which Sonny Corleone pummels Carlo Rizzi for abusing Corleone’s pregnant sister, Connie.

A piece of American cinematic history is for sale again. The Staten Island estate where “The Godfather” was filmed is back on the market for $2.89 million.

Although to date there has been no evidence directly tying him to either matter, Chris Christie has been accused of playing politics with the GW bridge closure and the granting of hurricane-relief funds to Hoboken. So naturally it's fair game to analogize Christie to the head of cinema's most murderous crime syndicate. Fair game, if you're MSNBC that is. Today's Morning Joe segment on Christie treated viewers to a 'Govfather' logo, based on the famous puppet-master logo from "The Godfather." View the video and images of the original and MSNBC logos here.

NEW YORK, - Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo confirmed he has ended his decades-long boycott against "The Godfather" and watched the 1972 film. Cuomo, 81, long refused to watch Francis Ford Coppola's film due to his vocal opposition to stereotyping Italian-Americans as being involved in organized crime. But he said Sunday at the 2013 Forum Film Festival at the Forum on Law, Culture and Society at Fordham Law School in New York that he has finally watched the movie, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Cuomo admitted that "maybe this thing was a masterpiece." The former governor, speaking on...

Once, it was thought of as the gangster movie to end all gangster movies. Before he played Don Corleone, Marlon Brando had been all but written off after several flops. But of course that's exactly what "The Godfather," which opened in New Jersey 40 years ago this Saturday, was not. Instead, it was the gangster movie that began all gangster movies, at least as we know them now: not just its own sequels, "The Godfather: Part II" and "The Godfather: Part III," but also "Goodfellas," "Donnie Brasco," "Analyze This," "Scarface," "The Freshman," "Prizzi's Honor" and "Married to the Mob," not...

One reason for the longevity of "The Godfather" over the past 40 years is that, behind its gangster plot, is a classic story of an American family, tracing its journey from immigration and poverty toward assimilation and success. In fact, it's not just the story of the Corleone family, but of the Coppola family as well. The movie feels like a personal glimpse into a family album, but it's director/co-screenwriter Francis Ford Coppola's family album as much as it is the fictional Michael Corleone's. True, the characters came from Mario Puzo's novel. But, on screen, Coppola not only invested them...

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)... Source

Al Pacino has told how he was nearly fired from his iconic role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather and said he hasn't defeated his alcoholism, but 'just doesn't drink'. The 70-year-old Oscar winner also told CNN's Larry King how Marlon Brando's support helped keep him in the career-making Godfather film. Talking about working with Brando and nearly being fired from The Godfather, he said, 'Brando was a source of inspiration. 'It was unnerving playing with him in Godfather. But he was good to me. He was sensitive to me. 'They thought I was wrong for Michael and they were...

-snip By recreating the pasta sauce that Clemenza taught Michael to make in the Godfather, and pitting it against the sauce that Paulie and Vinnie made while in the slammer in Goodfellas, I could once and for all determine which pasta sauce was better and, by extension, which was the superior film. The first step was to capture the recipes. A ton of information is given out onscreen and in the dialogue, but it takes some digging to get at it. We see two cans each of tomatoes and tomato paste on the counter in Godfather;we hear Vinnie talk about...

Al Martino, 82, the South Philadelphia bricklayer who became a chart-topping crooner and who also is remembered for appearing as Johnny Fontane in The Godfather, died today at his Delaware County home.

Just like the film, the making of 'The Godfather’ was an ugly story of fear and dysfunction. What was the formula that made The Godfather one of the most successful films of all time? Surely it would take an unusually harmonious combination of talents working in concert, a rare balance of commercial entertainment and artistic challenge, a run of luck those involved couldn’t miss. Related Articles The Godfather - memorable lines But all wasn’t plain sailing on Francis Ford Coppola’s film in 1972. It was nominated for 11 Oscars, winning three, and on its $6 million budget grossed $101million for...

The reason I wrote The Godfather was to make money. My first novel, The Dark Arena (1955), received very good reviews and netted me $3,500, so I thought I was going to be rich and famous. But when my second novel, The Fortunate Pilgrim, came out ten years later and netted me just $3,000, I was going downhill fast. While the book received some extraordinarily fine reviews, my publisher was not impressed. I asked them for an advance to start on my next book (which would be a big classic), and the editors were cool. They were courteous. They were...