Godfather Collection, The (DVD)

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What more can anyone say? We've got at least two of the best films ever made, restored and/or remastered. Short of Blu-ray high definition, these standard-def DVDs are about as good as one could ask for.

When Paramount first released the three "Godfather" films on DVD back in 2001, I commented in my review at the time that they looked a bit on the soft side, with slightly faded colors and a touch of noise. Shortly after posting the review, I received an e-mail from the transfer engineer, who told me that the DVD picture looked exactly like the originals prints. I had no doubt this was true, but I also believe the original prints were by then probably showing the effects of age. Apparently, Francis Coppola and Paramount had second thoughts about the prints, too, because now we have the official "Coppola Restoration," with the first two films getting clean ups, color corrections, and restorations, and the third film a remastering. They look better than ever.

It took a while for Coppola to restore "The Godfather" films, but here they are, "Godfathers I, II, and III," looking better than we've ever seen them before in the home, packaged together in a grand, five-disc DVD boxed set that also includes a whole mob of extra materials. The Coppola Restoration of "The Godfather Collection" will delight motion-picture buffs, gangster-movie buffs, home-theater buffs, and just about anybody else who values good filmmaking.

So, anyway, a few years back I was watching one of those cable TV documentaries about gangsters, and the narrator remarked that by the early seventies real-life Mafiosi had lost touch with any sense of pride in their dubious heritage. Then "The Godfather" came along, and many of the younger crowd of hoods began imitating what they saw on the screen. The clothing, the style, even some of the talk they copied from the movie. Art imitated life and, in return, life imitated art. The circle goes round and round.

"The Godfather":
Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 classic, "The Godfather," is to gangster films what Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" was to super spectaculars. It's among the grandest of the lot in scope and vision, a film eclipsed in this regard only by Coppola's own 1974 sequel, "The Godfather, Part II." Yet "The Godfather" tells a uniquely personal story that places it in a league of its own. It's no wonder, then, that the American Film Institute voted it the second-best American film in history or that some people even consider it THE best, as "Entertainment Weekly" said in their book, "The 100 Greatest Movies of All Time." It would be over a dozen years before Coppola attempted a third installment in the series with 1990's "The Godfather, Part III," which didn't live up to expectations but turned out to be a pretty good movie in any case.

"The Godfather," as you know, actually chronicles the life and times of two fictional godfathers of crime, Don Vito (Marlon Brando) Corleone, the old man and patriarch of the Corleone family, and his son Michael (Al Pacino), who eventually inherits the mantle of "Godfather." Based on the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo, who co-wrote the screenplay, the story begins in 1945, at the close of the Second World War, during the wedding of the old Don's daughter, Connie (Talia Shire). Coppola has a wonderful eye for detail, and the wedding reception is as good an introduction as any to the big Sicilian family that would dominate all three "Godfather" films. Above all, these films are about the importance of family, and in almost every other scene Coppola has a baby crying to emphasize the point.

But it's when Coppola takes us into the Corleone home during the festivities that we get to see what's really up; the kindred family may be in the midst of celebration, but the business family goes on as usual, as supplicants come to do homage to the powerful Don and ask him favors. Coppola and Puzo also introduce us here to son Michael, a returning War hero; his fiancée, Kay (Diane Keaton); Michael's older, hotheaded brother, Sonny (James Caan); and the weaker brother, Fredo (John Cazale). Then there are the Mob family associates: Peter Clemenza (Richard Castellano), Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda), Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana, who has one of the most memorable scenes in the whole "Godfather" saga when he comes to congratulate the Don on his daughter's marriage), and consigliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall). In addition, we meet Al Martino as pop singer Johnny Fontaine (supposedly patterned after Frank Sinatra) and Richard Conte as a powerful rival gangster, the dapper Don Barzini. Later, we meet Sterling Hayden as a crooked police captain, McCluskey; John Marley as a Hollywood mogul, Jack Woltz; and Al Lettieri as a ruthless killer, Virgil Sollozzo.

Interestingly, I've read that in order for Coppola to make the first "Godfather" film in New York, he had to agree not to use the words "Mafia" or "Cosa Nostra" anywhere in it (the film refers to the Mob as the "family business" and the "syndicate," instead). Otherwise, the New York Mob might have caused some trouble with the production. The gangsters, though, liked what they eventually saw. Also interestingly, I've read that Coppola initially wanted Sir Laurence Olivier to play Don Vito Corleone, but novelist Puzo wanted Brando, and Brando won out, thanks to his own eager desire to play the role and despite Paramount's less-than-enthusiastic appraisal of the idea. Indeed, the studio showed its displeasure with most of Coppola's choices for the major roles, including using relative unknown Al Pacino as young Michael; according to Coppola on the commentary track, it almost came to the point of the studio firing the director. Brando later said he tried to imitate gangster Frank Costello's voice in the movie, but he had to redub some of his dialogue because it was so hard to understand.

Yes, the movie received its fair share of criticism and still does, regardless of its importance. Mainly, we find people criticizing what they perceive as Coppola popularizing the gangster myth, romanticizing and glamorizing it. Certainly, the director and screenwriter go out their way to make Don Vito an honorable man. But they don't for a moment let us forget about the corrupt business they're in. Despite a tight budget, Coppola produced a classic, and the film eventually won three Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (Brando), and Best Screenplay Adaptation.

Film value: 10/10

"The Godfather, Part II":
Thanks to the enormous success of "The Godfather," Paramount gave Coppola more money and a freer hand in directing the sequel, "The Godfather, Part II" (not that it pleased Coppola to do a sequel. Again on the commentary track he says he did not have a good time doing the first movie, and he was in no hurry to do another one. I guess they made him an offer he couldn't refuse.)

Using a broader canvas, Coppola provides not one but two stories in the longest of the three "Godfather" movies. Not only do we get to see Michael's consolidation of strength as new head of the Mob family and his move West to open casinos in Las Vegas, we get to see how it all started in flashbacks to a young Vito Corleone's rise from poverty to power during the early part of the twentieth century. For me, these early days are the best parts of the picture, providing an epic landscape of events and an exquisite tapestry of characterizations.

Everyone assumed Brando would come back to star in the sequel, but he said he had done the first film as a social comment on American corporate power and had no interest in doing another one. The fact that Paramount still didn't want much to do with the tempestuous Brando probably added to the actor turning down the role. So, Coppola worked around him, filming a few scenes with the older Don present but out of the room. Fortunately, the rest of the cast was to shine with even greater brilliance. Actor's Studio director and "method" advocate Lee Strasberg made his screen debut as Hyman Roth, the moneyman of the mob families, a character patterned on real-life gangster Meyer Lansky (after seeing the film, Lansky congratulated Strasberg on his portrayal but wished he had made him a little more honorable). And, of course, Coppola tapped Robert De Niro to play the younger Don Vito, a milestone in the actor's career (and another casting choice of which the studio did not initially approve).

This second film garnered twice the Academy Awards of its predecessor, again for Best Picture and this time also for Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (De Niro), Best Screenplay, Best Score, and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration. By the way, if the Corleone estate at Lake Tahoe looks impressive, it should be; it was the property of former industrialist Henry J. Kaiser.

"Michael, we're bigger than U.S. Steel," says Hyman Roth.

Film value: 10/10

"The Godfather, Part III":
By the time Paramount released "The Godfather, Part III" in 1990, public interest in gangster films was beginning to wane, and the movie fell short of its progenitors in critical appraisal and box-office receipts. Reviews of the day tended to point fingers at Coppola's decision to cast his own daughter, Sofia, in the major role of Michael's now-grown daughter. Ms. Coppola had done only a little acting in films previously, and many critics thought her performance detracted from the overall high standards of the production. Actually, I don't think many viewers among the general public even noticed her lack of theatrical experience, and, in fact, she carries off her part with a sweet naïveté that is fully in accord with her film character.