April 9, 2025 • 25 mins
It’s difficult to imagine “The Godfather’s” torrid Sicily scenes being filmed anywhere but Italy. Yet, if Paramount executives had gotten their way, Michael Corleone’s love affair with Apollonia—played by Simonetta Stefanelli, an unknown actress who spoke no English—would’ve transpired on a Los Angeles studio lot. Fortunately, things didn’t turn out that way. “The Godfather” decamped for Sicily in the summer of 1971, and no one was more pleased about this change of scenery than Francis Ford Coppola, who was finally able to distance himself from the overbearing Robert Evans and his spy Jack Ballard. Coppola’s respite wouldn’t last long, though. He returned to America with 90 hours of footage badly in need of editing. Naturally, Evans and his fellow bigwigs had opinions about that, too. In Episode Eight, Mark and Nathan follow Coppola and the cast and crew on their journey across the Atlantic and back again, discussing the director’s original three-hour cut of the film, Nino Rota’s iconic score that almost never was, and Evans’s tennis injury and subsequent drug addiction.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
It's July of nineteen seventy one. A car rolls down
the ancient roads outside of the sprawling city of Palermo.
Inside the car are a local driver and three American filmmakers.
The Godfather has arrived in Sicily. Francis Ford Coppola, his
(00:23):
production designer Dean Tavalias, and producer Gray Frederickson are scouting
locations near Corleone, the town whose name Mario Puzo appropriated
for his American mafia family.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Dean Tavalius takes his camera out of his bag and
starts taking photos from the back window of the car.
The driver goes berserk. No camera, no photos, someone will see,
he says.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
On this summer's day in nineteen seventy one, many mobsters
still live here, which causes the furor over Tavalerus's.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Tensions are high. A judge was recently assassinated, and the
authorities think the culprit is hiding out in Corleone.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
But Corleone is too urban, dirty and crowded to capture
Coppola's vision. The group travels on. They finally reached the
tiny villages in the hills, just a few miles away
from the coastal resort town of Taramina. Here is Coppola's
land of ghosts, where Michael comes to live in exile.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I'm Mark Seal and I'm Nathan King, and this.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Is Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
In today's episode, we're making our way from the Sicilian
light to the darkness of Hollywood editing studios and the
tumultuous season of post production.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
From drug induced obsession to compulsive defiance. The war behind
the making of The Godfather rages on.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So we escaped grim New York for the hot, bright
light of Sicily in July of nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yes, and it comes as a relief for Coppola and
our beleaguered crew.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
The slim down cast and crew went to Sicily for
two weeks, which was yet another fight that Copla had
with the studio.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
The studio brass, of course, thought it would be a
lot simpler and a lot less expensive to shoot on
the back lot of the studio than to travel all
the way to Sicily with a crew and shoot there.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Can you imagine how different that would have looked?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, I think it would have made a big difference.
I mean, you can feel these scenes when Michael's walking
through these back roads of Sicily with his bodyguards, and
then he meets Apollonia by chance and is hit by
what he calls the thunderbolt. Even Gordon Willis the fronts
(03:00):
of darkness embraced the Sicilian light. Here he is in
a two thousand and two interview on NPR.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
So I figured at that point Sicily should look, you know,
mythical and sonny and kind of storybook feeling, So that
there was a juxtaposition between these two places, New York
and Sicily. And there was a counterpoint when I went
back and forth.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Willis and Coppola were finally getting a long once they
got to Sicily. Why the sudden congeniality. Were they just
happy to be in Italy?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, I think the pressure was a little turned down.
Filming was almost over, and crucially, Jack Ballard was an
ocean away, no longer breathing down their necks.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
If Jack Ballard has gone, how is Robert Evans keeping
tabs on filming?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, he's really not. Jack Ballard had this idea that
dailies could be overnighted to him every day, but that
didn't really work out.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I have a feeling they got lost in the mail.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, it wasn't the best plan. Listen to this memo.
Twa flight eight forty five leaving Rome two pm every
day and arrives in Los Angeles one h five am
the next day. This means Monday's dailies would be sent
on Tuesday, arrived Hollywood Wednesday running Beverly Hills the same day,
(04:21):
and we in turn would ship Thursday morning.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, no wonder Copola was happy. By the time he
gets notes on the first day of shooting, four days
have gone by.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, exactly, And it didn't work out the way Jack
Ballard wanted. According to Al Ruddy, the shooting in Sicily
just went smoothly. They got in, did their work, and
got out with very little fanfare.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
So tell me about casting the Sicilians. I know the
casting of Apollonia was so important to Copola.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It was and Coppola gave an interview in two thousand
and one that we've mentioned before where he takes us
through his prompt book. I'm in the Sicilian section.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
I see it says the corps to show how Michael
meets and falls in love with Apollonia and demonstrate that
he intends to marry her, and indicate Fabrizio's desire to
go to America.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And even at this stage of early planning, Coppola knew
that Apollonia had to be a true beauty.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Five pitfalls If Apollonia doesn't make your heart stop just
to look at her.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
How did Coppola end up finding the woman who would
play Apollonia, Semonetta Stephanelli.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well, there were a list of twenty two front runners.
They were looking at really more well known young Italian actresses,
but ultimately they still weren't quite there with the casting
of Apollonia, and a casting director sent Coppola a photo
and he said, let's meet her, and so he met
her for an audition, and she apparently was perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
And for such a short lived character, she delivers an
incredible performance and her and Pacino have an incredible chemistry
as well.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yes, and she spoke no English, but she later said
in an interview that she could tell Cino wanted to
talk to her, but they mostly spoke with their eyes.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And Sicily was a bit of a homecoming for Pacino,
right his grandparents were from there.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I phenom mistaken, yes, and I think he felt so
at home there, freed up from the pressures that he
had in New York where he felt like he was
going to be fired, and in Sicily he knew the
role was his and he was able to relax a
little bit. You know, I was able to interview Pacino
by email for the book, and I can read you
a bit of what he said about filming in Sicily,
(06:31):
and I quote the Sicilian people embraced us. I loved
their honesty, openness and hospitality. I had not become well known,
so I had the luxury of just being another person.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And that very much mirrors his character in the movie Michael,
who sort of escapes New York and lives in relative
anonymity in Sicily. My name is Michael Kohli.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
Sama, Miguel Gorlone. There are people who pay a lot
of money for that information so that a better kids think.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But then your daughter would.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
Lose a father a lot of our given that.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
A bombas it, instead of gaining a husband.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And I suppose I think Paccino felt freed up from
the pressures that he had in New York, where he
felt like he was going to be fired, and in
Sicily he knew the role was his and he was
able to relax a little bit. And you can kind
of see it, you know, you see him in the villages,
drinking at that bar, meeting Apollonia's father and walking down
(07:40):
those ancient roads. I mean, you feel he's more relaxed.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So filming in Sicily ends with the literal bang of
Apollonia's untimely death.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
The day as Simonetta Stephanelli so simply put it in
that interview. I met him, I married him, I.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Died when it came time to leave Sicily, the production
moves back to Los Angeles, where the mood is quite different.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Now the fight over post production begins.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
But for this fight, Coppola has a slightly different Robert
Evans to contend with.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
That's right, during the height of filming, when Evans was
watching dailies and absolutely obsessed with the movie, he injured
his back supposedly playing tennis. Here's what his then wife
Alan McGraw told me.
Speaker 7 (08:46):
He played very good, but very un beautiful tennis and
he just, you know, it's just a freak thing. He
just swung back and tripped and torqued his back severely.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
He was in immense pain, completely drugged up with painkillers
and cocaine and literally being wheeled between the paramount editing
rooms in West Hollywood on a gurney. Here's Peter Bart
but he was.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
In such terrible shape that he was physically a myth,
and he looked like a ghost.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I feel like this whole episode goes to show how
dedicated Evans was. Nothing was going to stop him from
leaving his mark on the film.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Certainly not. But as he wrote in his memoir several
years later, the drugs really took a toll on him.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So Evans is running his empire from mcgurney. Where's Copola?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Copola basically recuses himself back to San Francisco to take
a first pass of the edit. He and his wife
Eleanor had just bought a huge Victorian mansion in San
Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
That's a step up from the borrowed apartment in New York.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
It was a step up, but according to Eleanor, these
previous owners had a lot of and so they woke
up in the middle of the night scratching, and they
had been bitten by fleas.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
But at least he's not in La Copyla had insisted
from the beginning that the Godfather was not and should
never be an La production.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I think it was a technicality. Coppola is in San Francisco,
but Robert Evans' presence had followed him there. Coppola later
said that Evans threatened to take the edit away from
him if he delivered a movie longer than two hours
and fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So where does he begin.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Well, Coppola hires two editors, Bill Reynolds and Peter Zenner,
and the trio start the editing process right in that
flea ridden Victorian home, where they screen almost ninety hours
of footage. It was so much to get through that
the two editors flipped a coin. Reynolds would take the
(10:55):
first half and Zenter the second, and somehow the three
of them got a cut together that was two hours
and fifty three minutes long.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, that's it. Copola loses the addit if Evans's rule
is to be.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Believed, Yes, in his characteristic defiance, Coppola delivers a cut
that he knows it's too long. He showed it first
to his colleagues an American Zoo trope in a San
Francisco screening room, and then to the suits at Paramount
at the Gulf and Western Building in New York.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
How does Robert Evans make it to New York but
it's bad back.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I have no clue.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Maybe with the help of some drugs.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So what are the reactions to the screening?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Well, Coppola remembers the San Francisco reaction being just so so.
Walter Murrat remembered it being incredible, but the New York
screening was a different story. Here's Peter bart And with.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
The president in charge of Italy. The territory said that
the picture would never play in Italy. He said, I do.
I'm not sure it's even worth advertising it overseas. Not
a good movie, so it was very negative at that point.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Apparently Evans was in a feud with Paramounts new president
Frank Yablans, who were both buying for the approval of
Charlie Bludorn.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Frank said, too long, won't play it often enough, and
he didn't like the picture that much.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
So word gets back to San Francisco. The Coppola has
to cut forty minutes from his masterpiece. Oh now he
gets worse. Not only does he have to cut forty minutes,
he has to take the new cut down to La
to screen it in the poolhouse at Woodland for an
adult Robert Evans.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And how does Evans feel about the new cut?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Robert Evans groans. He says the shorter version, which by
the way, is still two hours and fifteen minutes, feels
even longer. Here's Evans sparing no words about how he
felt in his memoir.
Speaker 8 (13:01):
The picture stinks, friend has got it. The Untouchables is better.
You shot a great film. Where the fuck is it
in your kitchen with your spaghetti? It's sure ain't on
the screen. Where's the family?
Speaker 6 (13:12):
The heart?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The feeling is that lift of the kitchen too.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
He immediately calls New York and tells al Ruddy that
if they leave it at two point fifteen, then he's
walking and they can close the fucking studio.
Speaker 8 (13:24):
Name me a studio head that tells the director to
make a picture longer, only enough like me would sounds
about right.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
The movie consumed him, and keep in mind he's still
being rolled around on this gurney and insists that Coppola
stay in La so they can edit the movie together.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
This guy can't escape.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
No, you really can't. And to make it worse, Coppola
is strapped for cash at this time. He's waiting on
his next paycheck, so he's staying in James Conn's guest room.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
And how long does it take?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
About two weeks. But the facts are fuzzy, partially, I
think because Evan's later would recall it like something out
of a bad acid trip. Here's Evans again, reading from
his memoir.
Speaker 8 (14:07):
I was feeling like a fucking cartoon character, having various
hands turned me over from one orthopedic bed to another,
from bedroom to home screening room to paramount screening rooms,
to bed on wheels, going from sound stage to sound stage.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
He was completely consumed by the Godfather, and I think
he went a little nuts.
Speaker 8 (14:25):
My priorities are so fucked up and nothing bothered me.
Nothing got in my way, including my health, my wife,
my kid, my finances. My obsession was the Godfather.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
And how did that obsession show up in the edit?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Well? According to Evans, he made the radical decision to
make the film longer, and he painstaking the extended shots
and found new scenes, but.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Coppola wanted it longer from the beginning exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I was able to communicate with Coppola over email when
I was writing the book, and I sent him a
list of questions. Next to the question what were Robert Evans'
contributions to the final edit of the film, he just
left a blank, So no contribution apparently, And it makes
sense that they have different recollections of this time. According
(15:17):
to Peter Bart, they weren't even speaking. They just spoke
through him. Here's what Peter told me.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Now, Bob feels that he found scenes that Francis had
left out and nuance, scenes had great nuance about character,
and restored those. I do not know who is right.
I suspect that A that Francis is correct, that b
(15:46):
that Bob also had a brilliant take on the picture
and did let scenes run long that had been cut
too abroughly.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
And it wasn't just a behind the scenes There was
a public press war going on too. Can you tell
us a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yes, the press caught win that the premiere was being
pushed from Christmas to March, which according to Evans, spells
disaster for a movie.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
And it was exacerbated by Bob then foolishly confiding in
Joyce Habro the Calumnists that he had saved the movie.
Then he recut it and saved The.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Godfather that's a pretty brazen insult. Why do you think
he did this? It can't be good press that a
director and studio executive rewarring over the edit.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well, it certainly drummed up excitement for the movie. But
according to Bart, Evans and Joyce Haber were friends and
it might not have been premeditated.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
So in a moment of weakness, Bob says this, and
it gets in the paper in Francis. Rightly. As fragile
as their relationship had did, it became more fragile because
Fress's copeless opinion. Movie didn't need to be saved. Ninety
percent could have been done by restoring the cut that
(17:06):
Ya Bons had seen and rechecked it.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Well, whatever happened, Evans and Copla must have done something right.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yep, and everybody wants credit right. Al Ruddy put a
Hollywood spin on the famous quote a bad movie is
like an orphan, but a great movie has twenty eight fathers.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
At the height of the post production battle, things came
to a head between Copola and Evans. With the film's
iconic score. Tell us about this final battle mark.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Well, if you can believe it, this is a bigger
knockdown drag out fight than the editing.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Oh, I can believe it with these guys.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Apparently, while in Sicily, Coppola could hear the haunting score
of The Godfather in his head. He knew exactly what
he wanted, But the problem was that Evans knew exactly
what he wanted as well, and they were polar opposites.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
In fact, Evans had already commissioned a composer to the score.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yes and get ready for this. It was Henry Mancini,
who had done Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And Copola, on the other hand, felt that the film
needed something a little bit darker, and he wanted Nino Rota,
who was called the Italian Mozart.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Rota was an elusive Italian who had composed the score
for Franco Zaffarelli's Romeo and Juliet. The only problem was
Nino Rota lived in rome and he wasn't easy to find.
His nephew had told me that he was like a phantom,
(18:41):
you know, and he didn't want to be found. He
simply disappeared.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
So how did Coppola find him?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
So Coppola had to hunt down a phantom of sorts, right,
But he found a connection It was an Italian actress
and screenwriter Suso Checchi Diamico, who a meeting at Nino
Roto's apartment in Rome, where Coppola screened an early cut
of the film.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Dar I ask how long it was?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It was five hours. He showed him a five hour
cut of the movie.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Can you imagine? What did Roda think?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Well, apparently Roda loved it. There was an immediate connection
between these two artists, and Coppola left Roda with the
cut and instructions for each piece of music that he
felt was needed. By the time Coppola went back to
Rome for his second visit with Roda, he had an
edited version of the film and Roda had a surprise
(19:36):
for him.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
What was it?
Speaker 1 (19:39):
He picked up Coppola at the airport and he was
humming a song that's it and Evans hated it, You're kidding.
Six weeks before the release, which would be March of
nineteen seventy two, Robert Evans called an emergency meeting at Woodland.
(19:59):
It was a hot dog lunch served by his wife
Ali McGraw, and in this meeting he makes his case
for using Henry Mancini's music for the film. He says,
the dark movie needs some bright American music to counter
all of the blood and all of the bodies.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
How did Coppola react to this?
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Not well? He goes on one of his signature diactribes
and says that they want to change the music, they
can fire him, hire another director, and make them take
out the music. Evans says he wants to screen two
versions of the film to test audiences and let the
audiences choose.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Isn't it a little late for that?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Of course? And luckily, just as he's making this argument,
Ali McGraw walks into the room with more hot dogs
and reminds Evans that they have plans to go to Acapulco.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Saved by the bell.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Finally, Evans and Coppola strike a deal. They'll screen just
the latest cut with Coppola's music to a small audience
and if they don't like the music, Coppola will take
it out.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
What did the audience think, of course, they loved it.
And did Evans ever come around to the music?
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yes, And Walter March tells a fantastic story about Coppola
leaving him in La to finish the music with Evans.
Here's Walter March.
Speaker 6 (21:19):
What is it about the movement his music? That Bubjet's
great music? Why doesn't he like it? And for some
reason I thought, well, wait, a minute piece ahead of
a studio and there's a scene with the head of
a studio, Waltz Studios, and that guy finds a horse's
(21:39):
head in his bed in his music, and it is
a little soft music. Maybe is there something that I
can do in the music editing to make it a
little more hitchy than it is? And so I did
things that I had done on GHX thirty eight, which
(22:01):
was to take two copies of the music and slide
one part of the music against the other one so
that there's a sort of dissonance going on. So I
called Vin this up and said to have something to
show you, and he came in and he laid down
on the on the bed and we pushed the button.
(22:24):
We played it, and when the scene finished, he jumped
off of the bed and said, it's great. It's great.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Do you think he knew that he had lost the
battle and wanted to be on the right side of
the story.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
It's possible. I also think this was an incredible moment
in the movie, and that small change must have swayed him.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And I have to ask what happened with Jack Ballard.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Well, in an almost surreal moment of karma, Jack Ballard
took his last stand and was properly cut down the size.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
We were at the Paramount Lots screening the sound effects
to reel right after John Corleone leaves the hospital.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Jack Ballard walked into the room and listened to a
few minutes of sound effects, and then he stood.
Speaker 6 (23:12):
Up and said, these are the worst sound effects I've
ever heard in my life. And if the final film
is going to sound like this, you're never going to
work in this town again.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
The twenty eight year old Walter March spoke up.
Speaker 6 (23:26):
And I said, Jack, you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
There was a long silence.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
And he was swaying slightly, and I said, on top
of editing everything else, you're drunk. And he's looked at
everyone and he said, you're right, damn drunk. Can I
told him what the hell I'm talking.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
About, keep up the good work, and with that he
turned and left the room.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
So Copla and his team won every battle, casting, location, filming, editing,
and me music. He vanquished his enemies and got to
make exactly the movie he wanted.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
And after all of that, he still thought he'd made
a long, boring movie. Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli
as a production of Airmail and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
The podcast is based on the book of the same name,
written by our very own Mark Seal.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Our producer is Tina Mullen.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Research assistance by Jack Sullivan.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Jonathan Dressler was our development producer.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our executive producers are
Mee Nathan King, Mark Seal, Doan Fagan, and Graydon Carter.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Special thanks to Bridget Arseno and everyone at CDM Studios.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
A comprehensive list of sources and acknowledgments can be found
in Mark Seal's book, Leave the Gun, Take the Conolly,
published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster.
It's July of nineteen seventy one. A car rolls down
the ancient roads outside of the sprawling city of Palermo.
Inside the car are a local driver and three American filmmakers.
The Godfather has arrived in Sicily. Francis Ford Coppola, his
(00:23):
production designer Dean Tavalias, and producer Gray Frederickson are scouting
locations near Corleone, the town whose name Mario Puzo appropriated
for his American mafia family.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Dean Tavalius takes his camera out of his bag and
starts taking photos from the back window of the car.
The driver goes berserk. No camera, no photos, someone will see,
he says.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
On this summer's day in nineteen seventy one, many mobsters
still live here, which causes the furor over Tavalerus's.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Tensions are high. A judge was recently assassinated, and the
authorities think the culprit is hiding out in Corleone.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
But Corleone is too urban, dirty and crowded to capture
Coppola's vision. The group travels on. They finally reached the
tiny villages in the hills, just a few miles away
from the coastal resort town of Taramina. Here is Coppola's
land of ghosts, where Michael comes to live in exile.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
I'm Mark Seal and I'm Nathan King, and this.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Is Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
In today's episode, we're making our way from the Sicilian
light to the darkness of Hollywood editing studios and the
tumultuous season of post production.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
From drug induced obsession to compulsive defiance. The war behind
the making of The Godfather rages on.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
So we escaped grim New York for the hot, bright
light of Sicily in July of nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yes, and it comes as a relief for Coppola and
our beleaguered crew.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
The slim down cast and crew went to Sicily for
two weeks, which was yet another fight that Copla had
with the studio.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
The studio brass, of course, thought it would be a
lot simpler and a lot less expensive to shoot on
the back lot of the studio than to travel all
the way to Sicily with a crew and shoot there.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Can you imagine how different that would have looked?
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Yeah, I think it would have made a big difference.
I mean, you can feel these scenes when Michael's walking
through these back roads of Sicily with his bodyguards, and
then he meets Apollonia by chance and is hit by
what he calls the thunderbolt. Even Gordon Willis the fronts
(03:00):
of darkness embraced the Sicilian light. Here he is in
a two thousand and two interview on NPR.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
So I figured at that point Sicily should look, you know,
mythical and sonny and kind of storybook feeling, So that
there was a juxtaposition between these two places, New York
and Sicily. And there was a counterpoint when I went
back and forth.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Willis and Coppola were finally getting a long once they
got to Sicily. Why the sudden congeniality. Were they just
happy to be in Italy?
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, I think the pressure was a little turned down.
Filming was almost over, and crucially, Jack Ballard was an
ocean away, no longer breathing down their necks.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
If Jack Ballard has gone, how is Robert Evans keeping
tabs on filming?
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, he's really not. Jack Ballard had this idea that
dailies could be overnighted to him every day, but that
didn't really work out.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
I have a feeling they got lost in the mail.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Yeah, it wasn't the best plan. Listen to this memo.
Twa flight eight forty five leaving Rome two pm every
day and arrives in Los Angeles one h five am
the next day. This means Monday's dailies would be sent
on Tuesday, arrived Hollywood Wednesday running Beverly Hills the same day,
(04:21):
and we in turn would ship Thursday morning.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, no wonder Copola was happy. By the time he
gets notes on the first day of shooting, four days
have gone by.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Yeah, exactly, And it didn't work out the way Jack
Ballard wanted. According to Al Ruddy, the shooting in Sicily
just went smoothly. They got in, did their work, and
got out with very little fanfare.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
So tell me about casting the Sicilians. I know the
casting of Apollonia was so important to Copola.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It was and Coppola gave an interview in two thousand
and one that we've mentioned before where he takes us
through his prompt book. I'm in the Sicilian section.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
I see it says the corps to show how Michael
meets and falls in love with Apollonia and demonstrate that
he intends to marry her, and indicate Fabrizio's desire to
go to America.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
And even at this stage of early planning, Coppola knew
that Apollonia had to be a true beauty.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
Five pitfalls If Apollonia doesn't make your heart stop just
to look at her.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
How did Coppola end up finding the woman who would
play Apollonia, Semonetta Stephanelli.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well, there were a list of twenty two front runners.
They were looking at really more well known young Italian actresses,
but ultimately they still weren't quite there with the casting
of Apollonia, and a casting director sent Coppola a photo
and he said, let's meet her, and so he met
her for an audition, and she apparently was perfect.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
And for such a short lived character, she delivers an
incredible performance and her and Pacino have an incredible chemistry
as well.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yes, and she spoke no English, but she later said
in an interview that she could tell Cino wanted to
talk to her, but they mostly spoke with their eyes.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And Sicily was a bit of a homecoming for Pacino,
right his grandparents were from there.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
I phenom mistaken, yes, and I think he felt so
at home there, freed up from the pressures that he
had in New York where he felt like he was
going to be fired, and in Sicily he knew the
role was his and he was able to relax a
little bit. You know, I was able to interview Pacino
by email for the book, and I can read you
a bit of what he said about filming in Sicily,
(06:31):
and I quote the Sicilian people embraced us. I loved
their honesty, openness and hospitality. I had not become well known,
so I had the luxury of just being another person.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
And that very much mirrors his character in the movie Michael,
who sort of escapes New York and lives in relative
anonymity in Sicily. My name is Michael Kohli.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
Sama, Miguel Gorlone. There are people who pay a lot
of money for that information so that a better kids think.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
But then your daughter would.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
Lose a father a lot of our given that.
Speaker 5 (07:09):
A bombas it, instead of gaining a husband.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
And I suppose I think Paccino felt freed up from
the pressures that he had in New York, where he
felt like he was going to be fired, and in
Sicily he knew the role was his and he was
able to relax a little bit. And you can kind
of see it, you know, you see him in the villages,
drinking at that bar, meeting Apollonia's father and walking down
(07:40):
those ancient roads. I mean, you feel he's more relaxed.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So filming in Sicily ends with the literal bang of
Apollonia's untimely death.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
The day as Simonetta Stephanelli so simply put it in
that interview. I met him, I married him, I.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Died when it came time to leave Sicily, the production
moves back to Los Angeles, where the mood is quite different.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Now the fight over post production begins.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
But for this fight, Coppola has a slightly different Robert
Evans to contend with.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
That's right, during the height of filming, when Evans was
watching dailies and absolutely obsessed with the movie, he injured
his back supposedly playing tennis. Here's what his then wife
Alan McGraw told me.
Speaker 7 (08:46):
He played very good, but very un beautiful tennis and
he just, you know, it's just a freak thing. He
just swung back and tripped and torqued his back severely.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
He was in immense pain, completely drugged up with painkillers
and cocaine and literally being wheeled between the paramount editing
rooms in West Hollywood on a gurney. Here's Peter Bart
but he was.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
In such terrible shape that he was physically a myth,
and he looked like a ghost.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
I feel like this whole episode goes to show how
dedicated Evans was. Nothing was going to stop him from
leaving his mark on the film.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Certainly not. But as he wrote in his memoir several
years later, the drugs really took a toll on him.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
So Evans is running his empire from mcgurney. Where's Copola?
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Copola basically recuses himself back to San Francisco to take
a first pass of the edit. He and his wife
Eleanor had just bought a huge Victorian mansion in San
Francisco's Pacific Heights neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
That's a step up from the borrowed apartment in New York.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
It was a step up, but according to Eleanor, these
previous owners had a lot of and so they woke
up in the middle of the night scratching, and they
had been bitten by fleas.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
But at least he's not in La Copyla had insisted
from the beginning that the Godfather was not and should
never be an La production.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
I think it was a technicality. Coppola is in San Francisco,
but Robert Evans' presence had followed him there. Coppola later
said that Evans threatened to take the edit away from
him if he delivered a movie longer than two hours
and fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
So where does he begin.
Speaker 1 (10:33):
Well, Coppola hires two editors, Bill Reynolds and Peter Zenner,
and the trio start the editing process right in that
flea ridden Victorian home, where they screen almost ninety hours
of footage. It was so much to get through that
the two editors flipped a coin. Reynolds would take the
(10:55):
first half and Zenter the second, and somehow the three
of them got a cut together that was two hours
and fifty three minutes long.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Well, that's it. Copola loses the addit if Evans's rule
is to be.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Believed, Yes, in his characteristic defiance, Coppola delivers a cut
that he knows it's too long. He showed it first
to his colleagues an American Zoo trope in a San
Francisco screening room, and then to the suits at Paramount
at the Gulf and Western Building in New York.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
How does Robert Evans make it to New York but
it's bad back.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
I have no clue.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Maybe with the help of some drugs.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
So what are the reactions to the screening?
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Well, Coppola remembers the San Francisco reaction being just so so.
Walter Murrat remembered it being incredible, but the New York
screening was a different story. Here's Peter bart And with.
Speaker 5 (11:54):
The president in charge of Italy. The territory said that
the picture would never play in Italy. He said, I do.
I'm not sure it's even worth advertising it overseas. Not
a good movie, so it was very negative at that point.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Apparently Evans was in a feud with Paramounts new president
Frank Yablans, who were both buying for the approval of
Charlie Bludorn.
Speaker 5 (12:22):
Frank said, too long, won't play it often enough, and
he didn't like the picture that much.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
So word gets back to San Francisco. The Coppola has
to cut forty minutes from his masterpiece. Oh now he
gets worse. Not only does he have to cut forty minutes,
he has to take the new cut down to La
to screen it in the poolhouse at Woodland for an
adult Robert Evans.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
And how does Evans feel about the new cut?
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Robert Evans groans. He says the shorter version, which by
the way, is still two hours and fifteen minutes, feels
even longer. Here's Evans sparing no words about how he
felt in his memoir.
Speaker 8 (13:01):
The picture stinks, friend has got it. The Untouchables is better.
You shot a great film. Where the fuck is it
in your kitchen with your spaghetti? It's sure ain't on
the screen. Where's the family?
Speaker 6 (13:12):
The heart?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
The feeling is that lift of the kitchen too.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
He immediately calls New York and tells al Ruddy that
if they leave it at two point fifteen, then he's
walking and they can close the fucking studio.
Speaker 8 (13:24):
Name me a studio head that tells the director to
make a picture longer, only enough like me would sounds
about right.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
The movie consumed him, and keep in mind he's still
being rolled around on this gurney and insists that Coppola
stay in La so they can edit the movie together.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
This guy can't escape.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
No, you really can't. And to make it worse, Coppola
is strapped for cash at this time. He's waiting on
his next paycheck, so he's staying in James Conn's guest room.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
And how long does it take?
Speaker 1 (13:54):
About two weeks. But the facts are fuzzy, partially, I
think because Evan's later would recall it like something out
of a bad acid trip. Here's Evans again, reading from
his memoir.
Speaker 8 (14:07):
I was feeling like a fucking cartoon character, having various
hands turned me over from one orthopedic bed to another,
from bedroom to home screening room to paramount screening rooms,
to bed on wheels, going from sound stage to sound stage.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
He was completely consumed by the Godfather, and I think
he went a little nuts.
Speaker 8 (14:25):
My priorities are so fucked up and nothing bothered me.
Nothing got in my way, including my health, my wife,
my kid, my finances. My obsession was the Godfather.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
And how did that obsession show up in the edit?
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Well? According to Evans, he made the radical decision to
make the film longer, and he painstaking the extended shots
and found new scenes, but.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Coppola wanted it longer from the beginning exactly.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I was able to communicate with Coppola over email when
I was writing the book, and I sent him a
list of questions. Next to the question what were Robert Evans'
contributions to the final edit of the film, he just
left a blank, So no contribution apparently, And it makes
sense that they have different recollections of this time. According
(15:17):
to Peter Bart, they weren't even speaking. They just spoke
through him. Here's what Peter told me.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Now, Bob feels that he found scenes that Francis had
left out and nuance, scenes had great nuance about character,
and restored those. I do not know who is right.
I suspect that A that Francis is correct, that b
(15:46):
that Bob also had a brilliant take on the picture
and did let scenes run long that had been cut
too abroughly.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
And it wasn't just a behind the scenes There was
a public press war going on too. Can you tell
us a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
Yes, the press caught win that the premiere was being
pushed from Christmas to March, which according to Evans, spells
disaster for a movie.
Speaker 5 (16:13):
And it was exacerbated by Bob then foolishly confiding in
Joyce Habro the Calumnists that he had saved the movie.
Then he recut it and saved The.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Godfather that's a pretty brazen insult. Why do you think
he did this? It can't be good press that a
director and studio executive rewarring over the edit.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Well, it certainly drummed up excitement for the movie. But
according to Bart, Evans and Joyce Haber were friends and
it might not have been premeditated.
Speaker 5 (16:44):
So in a moment of weakness, Bob says this, and
it gets in the paper in Francis. Rightly. As fragile
as their relationship had did, it became more fragile because
Fress's copeless opinion. Movie didn't need to be saved. Ninety
percent could have been done by restoring the cut that
(17:06):
Ya Bons had seen and rechecked it.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Well, whatever happened, Evans and Copla must have done something right.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yep, and everybody wants credit right. Al Ruddy put a
Hollywood spin on the famous quote a bad movie is
like an orphan, but a great movie has twenty eight fathers.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
At the height of the post production battle, things came
to a head between Copola and Evans. With the film's
iconic score. Tell us about this final battle mark.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Well, if you can believe it, this is a bigger
knockdown drag out fight than the editing.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Oh, I can believe it with these guys.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Apparently, while in Sicily, Coppola could hear the haunting score
of The Godfather in his head. He knew exactly what
he wanted, But the problem was that Evans knew exactly
what he wanted as well, and they were polar opposites.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
In fact, Evans had already commissioned a composer to the score.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Yes and get ready for this. It was Henry Mancini,
who had done Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And Copola, on the other hand, felt that the film
needed something a little bit darker, and he wanted Nino Rota,
who was called the Italian Mozart.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Rota was an elusive Italian who had composed the score
for Franco Zaffarelli's Romeo and Juliet. The only problem was
Nino Rota lived in rome and he wasn't easy to find.
His nephew had told me that he was like a phantom,
(18:41):
you know, and he didn't want to be found. He
simply disappeared.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
So how did Coppola find him?
Speaker 1 (18:47):
So Coppola had to hunt down a phantom of sorts, right,
But he found a connection It was an Italian actress
and screenwriter Suso Checchi Diamico, who a meeting at Nino
Roto's apartment in Rome, where Coppola screened an early cut
of the film.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Dar I ask how long it was?
Speaker 1 (19:09):
It was five hours. He showed him a five hour
cut of the movie.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Can you imagine? What did Roda think?
Speaker 1 (19:16):
Well, apparently Roda loved it. There was an immediate connection
between these two artists, and Coppola left Roda with the
cut and instructions for each piece of music that he
felt was needed. By the time Coppola went back to
Rome for his second visit with Roda, he had an
edited version of the film and Roda had a surprise
(19:36):
for him.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
What was it?
Speaker 1 (19:39):
He picked up Coppola at the airport and he was
humming a song that's it and Evans hated it, You're kidding.
Six weeks before the release, which would be March of
nineteen seventy two, Robert Evans called an emergency meeting at Woodland.
(19:59):
It was a hot dog lunch served by his wife
Ali McGraw, and in this meeting he makes his case
for using Henry Mancini's music for the film. He says,
the dark movie needs some bright American music to counter
all of the blood and all of the bodies.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
How did Coppola react to this?
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Not well? He goes on one of his signature diactribes
and says that they want to change the music, they
can fire him, hire another director, and make them take
out the music. Evans says he wants to screen two
versions of the film to test audiences and let the
audiences choose.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Isn't it a little late for that?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Of course? And luckily, just as he's making this argument,
Ali McGraw walks into the room with more hot dogs
and reminds Evans that they have plans to go to Acapulco.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Saved by the bell.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Finally, Evans and Coppola strike a deal. They'll screen just
the latest cut with Coppola's music to a small audience
and if they don't like the music, Coppola will take
it out.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
What did the audience think, of course, they loved it.
And did Evans ever come around to the music?
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yes, And Walter March tells a fantastic story about Coppola
leaving him in La to finish the music with Evans.
Here's Walter March.
Speaker 6 (21:19):
What is it about the movement his music? That Bubjet's
great music? Why doesn't he like it? And for some
reason I thought, well, wait, a minute piece ahead of
a studio and there's a scene with the head of
a studio, Waltz Studios, and that guy finds a horse's
(21:39):
head in his bed in his music, and it is
a little soft music. Maybe is there something that I
can do in the music editing to make it a
little more hitchy than it is? And so I did
things that I had done on GHX thirty eight, which
(22:01):
was to take two copies of the music and slide
one part of the music against the other one so
that there's a sort of dissonance going on. So I
called Vin this up and said to have something to
show you, and he came in and he laid down
on the on the bed and we pushed the button.
(22:24):
We played it, and when the scene finished, he jumped
off of the bed and said, it's great. It's great.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Do you think he knew that he had lost the
battle and wanted to be on the right side of
the story.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
It's possible. I also think this was an incredible moment
in the movie, and that small change must have swayed him.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
And I have to ask what happened with Jack Ballard.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Well, in an almost surreal moment of karma, Jack Ballard
took his last stand and was properly cut down the size.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
We were at the Paramount Lots screening the sound effects
to reel right after John Corleone leaves the hospital.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Jack Ballard walked into the room and listened to a
few minutes of sound effects, and then he stood.
Speaker 6 (23:12):
Up and said, these are the worst sound effects I've
ever heard in my life. And if the final film
is going to sound like this, you're never going to
work in this town again.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
The twenty eight year old Walter March spoke up.
Speaker 6 (23:26):
And I said, Jack, you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
There was a long silence.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
And he was swaying slightly, and I said, on top
of editing everything else, you're drunk. And he's looked at
everyone and he said, you're right, damn drunk. Can I
told him what the hell I'm talking.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
About, keep up the good work, and with that he
turned and left the room.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
So Copla and his team won every battle, casting, location, filming, editing,
and me music. He vanquished his enemies and got to
make exactly the movie he wanted.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
And after all of that, he still thought he'd made
a long, boring movie. Leave the Gun, Take the Canoli
as a production of Airmail and iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
The podcast is based on the book of the same name,
written by our very own Mark Seal.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Our producer is Tina Mullen.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
Research assistance by Jack Sullivan.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
Jonathan Dressler was our development producer.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our executive producers are
Mee Nathan King, Mark Seal, Doan Fagan, and Graydon Carter.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Special thanks to Bridget Arseno and everyone at CDM Studios.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
A comprehensive list of sources and acknowledgments can be found
in Mark Seal's book, Leave the Gun, Take the Conolly,
published by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon and Schuster.
Hosts And Creators
Mark Seal
Nathan King
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!