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The Godfather (1972) More at IMDbPro »

The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Only the biggest ones (if any) will be covered with spoiler tags. Spoiler tags have been used sparingly in order to make the page more readable.

For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for The Godfather can be found here.

Yes. The Godfather (1969) is based on a novel written by Italian-American author Mario Puzo [1920-1999]. Puzo also wrote the screenplay for the movie. The book was later developed into a trilogy of films, including The Godfather: Part II (1974) and The Godfather: Part III (1990).

In the canon of The Godfather, there are five organizations, or "Families," in the New York area--Corleone, Barzini, Tattaglia, Stracci, and Cuneo. While the Tattaglia and Barzini Families weigh pretty heavily into the plot, due to the tensions between their organizations and the Corleones, there is little mention of the Cuneo and Stacci families, who are mentioned only as part of the Commission "sit down" with all of the major mafia bosses from around the country. There is some confusion in The Godfather, because Vito makes mention of "the other Five Families," which would imply that the Corleone Family is one of six families. However, this is just an error; there are only five families in the New York area. The idea of the "Five Families" is based on real-life Cosa Nostra structure. Believe it or not, there are rules and an expected code of conduct within the mafia, and there are certain actions that require the approval of a family Boss. The "Commission" acts as a kind of mafia board of directors or mini U.N. to ensure that all of the families stay in line and avoid actions that might be dangerous to organized crime as a whole.

Vito, as the Don of the Corleone family, was against narcotics. Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo, a big-time drug dealer, wanted the Corleones on his side because of their numerous connections with politicians and judges, but Vito refused. However, Sollozzo noticed that Vito's son and apparent heir, Sonny, was interested in doing business with him. He arranged for a hit on Vito, which would place Sonny as the new Don, and then hopefully, a deal with the Corleones would soon follow.

Technically, no. Vito's goal in bringing the Commission together is to bring an end to the war in the hope of allowing Michael to return safely to America. Sonny has just been brutally murdered, and the war has gone on long enough. Despite their differences, the other men in The Commission know Don Corleone to be a man of his word, so when he swears that he will not seek vengeance for Sonny's death in the interest of ending the violence, the other heads of the Families believe that they will be safe from any acts of vengeance under Don Corleone's orders.

However interested he may be in restoring the peace, Vito is hardly a pushover, so it is somewhat puzzling to Tom Hagen (and the audience) why Vito would be so quick to roll over and promise to not seek vengeance in the murder of his eldest son. However, if you listen carefully to the words Vito chooses, he says: But that aside, let me say that I swear, on the souls of my grandchildren, that I will not be the one to break the peace we have made here today. In that speech, Vito is only making promises about his own actions, but he says nothing about his successor (Michael) being able to seek revenge later on. When Michael returns from Sicily, he immediately begins learning the ropes from Don Vito, in preparation for the day when Vito would retire or die, and Michael would take over as head of The Family.

This is specifically addressed in a deleted scene. Michael and Vito are talking in the garden after Michael has taken over as the Don, and Michael says "You gave your word that you wouldn't break the peace. I didn't give mine. You don't have to have any part. I take all responsibility." Vito smiles and responds "We have a lot of time to talk about it now", showing that this is what he had always hoped Michael would do.

From the beginning, Carlo was never a trusted member of The Family, as evidenced by his low position as bookmaker and Vito's instructions to Tom to allow Carlo to earn a living, but to never discuss Family business in front of him. Carlo knows that he is not valued by Don Corleone, but he cannot take his frustrations out on Vito, Sonny, or any of the other high-ranking members of the Family, so he does the next best thing - he beats Connie.

Carlo's treatment of his wife leads to further distrust by Don Corleone, but in addition to that, it puts strain on his relationship with Sonny, who once considered him a friend. After Sonny beats Carlo on the street in his own neighborhood and in front of his men, Carlo feels completely humiliated and seeks vengeance against Sonny. When Barzini approaches him and asks for his help in setting up Sonny, Carlo is more than happy to comply.

Vito himself likely suspected Carlo's role in Sonny's murder, but since he could not prove it (and he didn't want to tip his hand so early), he pretends not to know. Vito dotes on Connie and doesn't want to see her widowed during his lifetime.

Michael is informed of the sequence of events that took place the day of Sonny's murder - a mystery woman calls Connie and Carlo's apartment to ask for him, Connie gets angry and starts to throw a tantrum, giving Carlo an "excuse" to beat his wife, knowing that she will call Sonny and tell him that Carlo has beaten her again, and Carlo lets the Barzini people know that Sonny is on his way to the city, giving them the opportunity to trap him at the toll booth on the Causeway. It's all a little too convenient, and yet Michael still cannot be 100% certain that Carlo was involved.

When Michael sits down with Carlo in the final scenes of the movie, he needs to know without a doubt that Carlo was responsible before giving the go-ahead. He decides to bluff in the attempt to get Carlo to admit to his role in Sonny's assassination. It works, and once Michael has confirmation that he has good reason to make his sister a widow, he gives the order to kill Carlo.

Carlo's position as son in-law was the only thing that allowed him to live as long as he did. Had he been anyone else, he would have been taken out right after Sonny's murder.

It is more apparent in "The Godfather Saga" as there is additional footage shown pertaining to this. However, Paulie calls out sick on that day forcing the semi-incompetent Fredo to drive Vito that day and knowing that Fredo is incapable of defending Vito they made their hit. Similar to the Carlo situation, it's just too convenient that Paulie was out sick on the day of the hit; therefore, they got rid of him.

In the book, the Corleones have a contact at the phone company that gives them a log of calls by Clemenza (who was also a suspect) and Paulie. By these, they figure out that Paulie was the traitor.

Also, in the film; while we now know for certain that Paulie did in fact betray the family, in the original cut of the film Sonny gives the order to whack Paulie without any hesitation or concrete evidence. This could have been meant as a foreshadowing of Sonny's reign as Don; it also shows that he'd rather just act on impulse and have a member of his crew killed without any concrete evidence that he did betray them.

Because Virgil Sollozo and the Tattagilia Family knew that Fredo was only a harmless and incompetent man, Fredo was not a major member of the Corleone Family and would never take on a position of power (he is Underboss only in name in "The Godfather Part II", Al Neri is the real Underboss) so Sollozo decides to have his men kill only Vito and only kill Fredo if he poses a real threat to them, as killing Fredo would only cause additional bad blood and make Sonny even more unlikely to agree to a truce, Fredo is also too low key and useless to ever pose a threat to anyone so he is ignored and left alive by Sollozo's gunmen.

Indeed there was. It was an somewhat obscure cover by Mike Patton's band "Fantomas". The song "The Godfather" can be found on the "Director's Cut" album.

"This Loneliness" by Carmine Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola's father. Mr. Coppola is playing the song live in the scene. The song is not on the soundtrack album but was on the LP "The Godfather Wedding Album" which is out of print and not available on CD.

There are many events in this film that cause him to take such a turn. The first being, he felt he was forced to join the family in order to help keep his father from being killed. Also he committed two acts of cold-blooded murder on Virgil Solozzo and Captain McCluskey because he felt he was the only one who could get close enough. Then he had to spend about a year hiding out in Italy. This is probably the point which turned him into the Don he would become. He meets and falls in love with a young beautiful Italian woman. They marry and shortly after they're married, they plan to move back to America, but one of Michael's trusted bodyguards betrays him and places a bomb in a car which killed Michael's wife. This probably caused Michael to close off his emotions from his business, which in turn let him become a much more calculated and ruthless Don.

Although the film makes this pretty obvious, it gets asked on a message boards a lot. Bonasera's service is to patch up Sonny's dead body so that he looks presentable for his mother at his funeral. And given how many times he got shot with those machine guns, it must have been one hell of a job.