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The Godfather

 | Movie | Book | Author | Director & cast | Famous quotes |


Movie: The Godfather (1972)
Book: The Godfather (1969)


Premise movie:
"Popularly viewed as one of the best American films ever made, the multi-generational crime saga The Godfather (1972) is a touchstone of cinema: one of the most widely imitated, quoted and lampooned movies of all time. Marlon Brando and Al Pacino star as Vito Corleone and his youngest son Michael, respectively. It is the late 1940s in New York and Corleone is, in the parlance of organized crime, a "godfather" or "don," the head of a Mafia family. Michael, a free thinker who defied his father by enlisting in the Army to fight in World War II, has returned a war hero. Having long ago rejected the family business, Michael shows up at the wedding of his sister Connie (Talia Shire) with his non-Italian girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton), who learns for the first time about the family "business." A few months later at Christmas time, the don barely survives being shot by gunmen in the employ of a drug-trafficking rival whose request for aid from the Corleones' political connections was rejected. After saving his father from a second assassination attempt, Michael persuades his hotheaded eldest brother Sonny (James Caan) and family advisors Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) and Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda) that he should be the one to exact revenge on the men responsible. After murdering a corrupt police captain and the drug-trafficker, Michael hides out in Sicily while a gang war erupts at home. Falling in love with a local girl, Michael marries her, but she is later slain by Corleone enemies in an attempt on Michael's life. Sonny is also butchered, having been betrayed by Connie's husband. As Michael returns home and convinces Kay to marry him, his father recovers and makes peace with his rivals, realizing that another powerful don was pulling the strings behind the narcotics endeavor that began the gang warfare. Once Michael has been groomed as the new don, he leads the family to a new era of prosperity, then launches a campaign of murderous revenge against those who once tried to wipe out the Corleones, consolidating his family's power and completing his own moral downfall. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards and winning for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, The Godfather was followed by a pair of sequels." 

from: http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/
movie.html?v_id=20076

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Premise book
"The story of Don Vito Corleone, the head of a New York Mafia family, inspired some of the most successful movies ever. It is in Mario Puzo's The Godfather that Corleone first appears. As Corleone's desperate struggle to control the Mafia underworld unfolds, so does the story of his family. The novel is full of exquisitely detailed characters who, despite leading unconventional lifestyles within a notorious crime family, experience the triumphs and failures of the human condition. Filled with the requisite valor, love, and rancor of a great epic, The Godfather is the definitive gangster novel." 

from: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg
/detail/-/0451167716/104-0543604-2577531?v=glance

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Author:
"Mario Puzo was born October 15, 1920, in "Hell's Kitchen" on Manhattan's (NY) West Side and, following military service in World War II, attended New York's New School for Social Research and Columbia University. His best-known novel, The Godfather, was preceded by two critically acclaimed novels, The Dark Arena and The Fortunate Pilgrim. In 1978, he published Fools Die, followed by The Sicilian (1984) and The Fourth K (1991). Mario Puzo has also written several screenplays, including Earthquake, Superman, and all three Godfather movies, for which he received two Academy Awards®. Mario's latest novel, 1996's The Last Don, was made into a CBS television miniseries in May 1997, starring Danny Aiello, Kirsty Ally and Joe Montegna. In 1997, Part II was aired. Also in 1997, Mario's The Fortunate Pilgrim was re-released by Random House. Mario passed away July 2, 1999, at his home in Bay Shore, Long Island. His novel Omerta was released a year later. He is survived by his companion of 20 years Carol Gino and five children."

from: http://www.jgeoff.com/puzo/

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Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Cast: Marlon Brando (Don Corleone), Al Pacino (Michael Corleone), James Caan (Sonny Corleone), Richard S. Castellano (Clemenza), Robert Duvall (Tom Hagen), Diane Keaton (Kay Adams).

from: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/

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Famous quotes:

Don Corleone "What have I ever done to make you treat me so disrespectfully? If you'd come to me in friendship, then this scum that ruined your daughter would be suffering this very day. And if by chance an honest man like yourself should make enemies, then they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you. "

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