FAQ for
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 is based on a novel of the same name (written by Italian-American author Mario Puzo [1920-1999]. The novel was published in 1969. 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). The Godfather won the 1973 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture.

The story spans the years between 1945 and 1955.

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 Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) 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 allowing his people dealing narcotics. Vito considered such a product to be much more dangerous than alcohol, gambling and prostitution, the mainstays of business conducted amongst the Five Families. He believed that the politicians and judges that did business with his family, enabling them to become as powerful as they were, wouldn't be willing to continue to do so if his business was drugs. Virgil "The Turk" Sollozzo (Al Lettieri), a big-time drug dealer, wanted the Corleones on his side because of their numerous connections with these politicians and judges. The Turk hoped they could be influenced, coerced or bribed to be lax on the trade of illegal drugs, but Vito refused for the reasons mentioned above. However, Sollozzo noticed that Vito's son and apparent heir, Santino 'Sonny' Corleone (James Caan), 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.

Because Virgil Sollozo and the Tattagilia Family knew that Fredo Corleone (John Cazale) 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 (Richard Bright) is the real Underboss) so Sollozo decides to have his men kill Vito and kill Fredo only 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.

Here is a translation of what they say in Italian:

Sollozzo: I'm sorry.

Michael: Leave it alone. ( or ) Forget about it.

Sollozzo: What happened to your father was business. I have much respect for your father. But your father, his thinking is old-fashioned. You must understand that I am a man of honor.

Michael: I understand those things. I know them.

Sollozzo: You do?

Sollozzo: You must understand that I helped the Tattaglia family and once I make a deal, I seek nothing but peace. Leave aside all this nonsense.

Michael: How do you say? [Then Michael returns to speaking English.]

[After Michael returns from the bathroom]

Sollozzo: Everything all right? I respect myself, understand, and cannot allow another man to hold me back. What happened was unavoidable. I had the unspoken support of the other Family dons. If your father were in better health, without his eldest son running things, no disrespect intended, we wouldn't have this nonsense. We will stop fighting until your father is well and can resume bargaining. No vengeance will be taken. We will have peace, but your Family should interfere no longer.

It's explained in the book but not very well in the film: Sicilian and Italian tradition dictates that NO ONE, no matter how powerful or influential, will interfere in an Italian/Sicilian marriage. Vito's a very traditional man and had no intention of intruding in his daughter's marriage, even if it meant that Carlo (Gianni Russo) was abusive. There's a brief moment when everyone is eating lunch after Vito returns home from the hospital where Carlo tells Connie (Talia Shire) to shut up, Sonny tells Carlo never to say that to her, and Sonny's mother quietly tells Sonny "don't interfere." In the novel, Connie goes to her parents a few times to tell them how abusive Carlo is but her parents, especially the Don, are very coldly unsympathetic to her plight and tell her to go home and learn how to be an obedient wife who won't be physically abused. Of course, no matter how Connie acts, dutiful or not, Carlo continues to beat her and eventually uses his abuse as a rouse to entice Santino to leave his compound without protection which is when he was murdered on the causeway.

Although the film makes this pretty obvious, it still gets asked a lot. Vito asks Bonasera (Salvatore Corsitto) to patch up Sonny's dead body so that he looks presentable for his mother at his funeral. Sonny's body was probably shot up so badly by the Barzini hitters (and kicked in the face) as an insult to the Don so they couldn't have an open casket at the funeral. Given how many shots were pumped into Sonny with Thompson machine guns, it must have been an incredibly difficult process for Bonasera, which is why the Don says "I want you to use all your powers and all your skills..." Also, such a job probably would have cost the Don tens of thousands of dollars, even at that time, and Bonasera's "favor" must have also included waiving his fee or at least reducing it heavily.

After the meeting of the Five Families, Vito expresses to Tom his conviction that the Barzini family is running the narcotics operation and that they were behind Sonny's death, Tattaglia being too much of a "pimp" to outthink Santino. During the meeting, it is Barzini who repeatedly reprimands Vito for not sharing his police and political protection to the drug operation. Vito figures he would only be taking offense so strongly if he were the man behind the operation.

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. Additionally, 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 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 - remember Connie's hysterical rant to Michael when she found out her husband was dead? She specifically says to Michael "you waited until Poppa died so no one could stop you, and you killed him!!" Had Carlo been anyone else in ranking, 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 (John Martino) calls out sick on that day, forcing the semi-incompetent Fredo to drive Vito and knowing that Fredo is incapable of defending Vito during the 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 Paulie and Clemenza (Richard S. Castellano), who was also a suspect. By these, they figure out that Paulie was the traitor. 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 eliminate 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.

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.

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 (Sterling Hayden) 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. (In the novel, Puzo makes mention of the boredom that Michael feels at having to wander Sicily.) 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 meet 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.

During a gang war, the soldiers stay in "safe houses" set up by the Family, instead of in their own houses - in order both to keep dependents out of the line of fire and to ensure secure communications. These safe houses are apartments the majority of whose rooms are filled with mattresses for soldiers to sleep on. Thus, to go to the mattresses is to begin a war with the other Families.

Yes, but the scene didn't make it into the final version of the film. There's a deleted scene in the DVD extras that shows Fabrizio (Angelo Infanti) getting into a car outside a restaurant. The car explodes an instant later. In the novel, the scene is much different. Fabrizio is found working in a pizzeria in Buffalo, New York and is shot by a Corleone operative. The killer IDs Fabrizio by an elaborate tattoo he had on his chest.

While Michael (Al Pacino) is attending the baptism of his godchild, Carlo and Connie's new son, each of the Dons of the other leading Families in New York plus Moe Greene (Alex Rocco) in Las Vegas are murdered by Corleone assassins. Following the baptism, Michael ties up the rest of loose family business. First, he has Sal Tessio (Abe Vigoda) escorted away, presumably to be killed. He visits Carlo, having learned of his involvement in Sonny's murder, and gives him a plane ticket to Vegas. When Carlo gets into the car for his trip to the airport, he is garroted from behind. Michael goes home, where he is confronted by an hysterical Connie, who has figured out that it was Michael who ordered the assassination of Carlo. Kay (Diane Keaton) asks Michael if it's true, but he denies it. When Kay leaves the room to fix some tea, three of Michael's capos enter. One of them kisses Michael's hand and calls him 'Don Corleone.' Kay realizes then that Michael has become the new Don.

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. It also is not the same as the one on the Godfather Wedding Album LP. The version in the film is piano only, whereas the version on the album lasts a little longer and has other instruments.

Actually, he's quite the opposite. In the books, Sonny is described as being a kind and loving man to both his wife and children. Although he is most certainly a bad Don (something that his own father, even after Sonny's death, couldn't deny) he is a wonderful father and husband. His infamous temper is never taken out on his children or wife; Sonny is described as never being able to bring himself to hurt something helpless, especially women and children. As for his infidelity with Lucy Mancini, there's an explanation for that in the book as well. In a highly unusual turn of events, Sonny's wife, Sandra, is well aware that Sonny sleeps with other women and actually prefers it that way. It is described in the book that Sonny Corleone has an abnormally large penis, so large that it actually gives his wife stomachaches. Lucy Mancini, who it turns out has a congenitally loose vagina, is able to deal with the size of Sonny's penis and thus they start an affair. Their affair, however, is purely sexual: Lucy doesn't love Sonny and barely knows him outside of their affair, and Sonny is purely in love with only his wife.