![]() ![]() The Mafia continued to keep close tabs on the film, with members hanging around the set and appearing as extras in scenes. The Italian-American Civil Rights League and pressure from the New York Mafia pushed Coppola to omit the words from the script, pulling the story closer to fiction even as it was based on a real culture. The words ‘mafia’ and ‘mob’ are never mentioned in the movie: He had the crew tape cards with his lines to lamps, bushes, and even actors to keep them out of the shot. However, Brando refused to learn his lines completely, and he insisted on reading his lines during the take to improve spontaneity. Marlon Brando received an Oscar for Best Actor for his role as patriarch Vito Corleone, and his performance remains an indelible part of the pop culture imagination forty-six years later. This meant that actor John Marley’s visceral, panicked screams were in fact real, in surprise of bloody, enormous horse head in front of him. ![]() The amateur actor was so nervous to act with Marlon Brando that he stuttered and looked visibly nervous in his scene, but Coppola liked the shot and it became an iconic scene for the humanisation of a supposedly merciless killer.Ī fake horse head was used in the rehearsals for the scene when the movie producer Jack Waltz wakes up to the bloody, severed head, but Coppola managed to replace it with the real thing for the actual take. During meetings with the Italian-American Civil Rights League, who were monitoring the portrayal of the mafia in the film, Coppola met Montana, who was working as a bodyguard for the Colombo crime family. However, director Francis Ford Coppola stuck by Pacino, and the rest is history.Ī real mob enforcer played the role of Luca Brasi:įormer pro wrestler turned Colombo family bodyguard Lenny Montana played Luca Brasi in the film. Paramount Pictures wanted established stars Robert Redford or Ryan O’Neal to portray Michael, and other big names including Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, and Rober DeNiro all expressed interest in the role. None of this fits with your interpretation of Brasi but, again as I mentioned, the impression given by the movie leaves a lot of Brasi's story on the cutting room floor.Pacino was far from the first choice to play Michael Corleone:Īl Pacino’s portrayal of Michael Corleone is so definitive both in his career and in cinema history that it is hard to imagine anyone else in the role, but the young actor wasn’t the studio’s pick for the part. So Luca wasn't "infiltrating the ranks" per se, just gathering intelligence by association with the Tattaglias. The Don had told him to keep trying but merely as a sideline, not to press it. After waiting for two months with nothing else happening, Luca reported to the Don that obviously Sollozzo was taking his defeat graciously. In that fashion he might hear something about Sollozzo’s plans if the Turk had any, or whether he was getting ready to step on the toes of Don Corleone. The general idea had been to lead the Tattaglias to believe that he knew about the lucrative narcotics operation and that he wanted a piece of it freelance. I understand that he must put his sons before me in the Family business.” At one such meeting, Luca pretended to be swayed, then said, “But one thing must be understood. Luca played his role of man infatuated with a young beautiful girl, Bruno Tattaglia the role of a businessman trying to recruit an able executive from a rival. The flirtation went on for nearly a month. The first meeting was all above-board, Tattaglia offering him a job to work in the Family business as enforcer. He sends Luca to feel him out more as a mole, or maybe to lay a future potential trap. Corleone was suspicious because he knew Sollozzo needed them and knew that Sollozzo wouldn't give up the drug racket. After a week of this affair with the call girl, Luca was approached by Bruno Tattaglia, manager of the nightclub. He needed Corleone's bribed judges and police officers to protect his drug distributors. In bed with this call girl he grumbled about how he was held down in the Corleone Family, how his worth was not recognized. He had done so by frequenting the nightclubs controlled by the Tattaglia Family and by taking up with one of their top call girls. ![]() He had done so on the orders of Don Corleone himself. Luca Brasi had made contact with the forces of Sollozzo several months before. Any word otherwise would be laughable, given the circumstances.īrasi was sent on a mission that required subtlety and cunning.not something you'd use a "meathead" for. The opposing family would have surely known about Luca, and his strong affiliation with the Corleone's. I see Luca as more of a loyal meathead/hitman than a cunning spy. Unfortunately, this is one instance where the movie glosses over Vito's plan. ![]()
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