30 Years Ago Today, THE GODFATHER PART III Tarnished A Hollywood Legend
I don't remember exactly when I watched THE GODFATHER or THE GODFATHER PART II for the first time. It was probably in my early teens via VCR, sometime in the '80s. Like everyone else who watched them, I was blown away. I certainly remember watching the hell out of it when I worked at my uncle's mom-and-pop video store from the mid-'80s til the mid '90s.
After I burned through the new releases that dropped every Tuesday* or perhaps threw on CHEERLEADER NURSES for the 6034th time, I would more often than not throw on one of Francis Ford Coppola's two Mafia masterpieces to pass the time between Ticketmaster sales and renting out pornos.
*---(This was back when a VHS movie cost 90 fucking dollars to buy on the day of release! For one copy! In the goddamn 1980's! Once those cocksuckers at Blockbuster opened up shop in Woburn Center and had their Rentrak system in place, joints like uncle Richie's Movies and More were fucking toast, gobbled up by the monopolistic maw. But we had the one thing that those judgemental pussies at Blockbuster didn't: legal porn. And lots of it. We went from one rack in the back to a private room that ate up half the store. Sex sells. And sex was paying Tricky Dick's mortgage and keeping him afloat. Until the feds showed up re: that label they show before movies. But that's a different story for a different day.)
Soon enough, I became obsessed with the films and spoke 'Godfather' as if it were a second language, endlessly quoting endlessly quotable movies. While watching, I would often break down Part II's plot and gangster machinations with uncle Richie, a guy who was more than familiar with gangsters after bartending at the Charlestown Navy Yard's lovably infamous Blue Mirror for many years. (The bar was a mix of Townies, in-port sailors, wise guys, drunks, and people just our for a few pops. A sort of Bos(ton) Eisley. Needless to say, things occasionally got out of hand.)
When there was a new VHS box set release, the store was sent these cool promo posters that you couldn't buy in stores. I put aside two of them to save for a proper future use. 20 or so years later, they would end up framed and here...
Everybody assumed The Godfather Epic/Saga/Duo would be it. But then word came that Paramount, Mario Puzo, and FFC would go back to their cash cow intellectual property and turn a beloved two-part saga into a trilogy 16 years after PART II. The stakes were pretty fucking high.
While they were able to cover Al Pacino's $5M fee (of course, there's no GFIII without Al Pacino), Paramount wouldn't meet Robert Duvall's number so Tom Hagen, the quiet conscience of the Corleone Family, would simply be written out of this coda via a heart attack or some shit and thus rob the second sequel of a powerful and essential presence from the first two films.
Coppola was dealt another creative blow when Winona Ryder had to bow out due to exhaustion. She flew to Italy straight from filming MERMAIDS and doctors determined she was in no condition to be making movies. But the director himself would be the one to place the albatross around his neck when he summoned his own 18-year-old non-actor daughter to play a prominent role in a purportedly prestige production.
Now listen, I'm a huge fan of Sofia Coppola's work as a director. LOST IN TRANSLATION is one of my favorite movies of this century. Yet casting her on a whim in a last-second crucial decision was a huge miscalculation on Coppola's behalf. She didn't ruin the movie---there were many elements (i.e. screenplay) that did that. But her green performance sure didn't help and made her an easy punching bag for the over-budget, late-running production. FFC would later feel immense guilt for the shitty position he put his daughter in.
Anyways, Coppola finished the movie on time for it's national debut on Christmas Day of 1990. I was a freshman at Northeastern* that winter. I kept in touch with a few HS pals for a bit before time does its thing so me and a Southie buddy went to see THE GODFATHER PART III at the Revere theater the day after Christmas. We both went in wanting to like it, hopefully love it.
*--(When you were raised on ANIMAL HOUSE and REVENGE OF THE NERDS, taking the T to college fucking sucked. I went to Cancun in Spring of '91 (the second of 9 Spring Break trips in 8 years) then quit Northeastern when I got home. Oddly enough, I can still claim to be an alumni which doesn't feel right.)
What I remember was a theater full of people in an Italian city who were initally buzzing in anticipation at this event film. Hollywood royalty was returning to big screens across America at the height of the holiday season. Me and my pal were fired up to see the next chapter of the Corleone Family. But once the movie started, audiences were never roped in, got distracted by a nepotistic hire, and then confused by a snooze-worthy labryinthine plot.
Advertisement
While writing this blog, I put the Blu-ray on to freshen up on the material. And I gotta say, the beginning is some boring-ass stuff. It doesn't even come nearly close to what the first two movies do in their initial moments. We go from Don Corleone's meetings during Connie's wedding to Sicilian funeral murders/orphan's escape to U.S./Lake Tahoe to...Mikey getting some award from a priest then he has an event. Alrighty then.
Less than 10 minutes in, Mary Corleone begins her seduction attempt with her bastard cousin. "Hi Vincent. I remember you." Fuck you eyes are given to to her very fuckable forbidden relative Andy Garcia. This is when we take a second to recognize how hot Sonny Corleone's bastard son is.
George Hamilton? Really? I mean, I'm sure he's a nice guy and all. But what the fuck is he doing in a Godfther production in the year of our lord 1990?
We're 40 minutes in and all we've seen is Andy Garcia bite Fat Tony from "The Simpsons" and hear more mumble-jumble.
Almost 80 minutes in, Garcia inserts himself into Godfather canon with this...
To steal a quote from my guy Biz, Andy Garcia can say, "I had my guy" when it comes to this movie.
I'm not doing a full play-by-play for the duration because this movie just doesn't call for it. It's a bloated and sleepy white-collar crime drama that even taken on its own---that is to say watched as if it wasn't part of an historic legacy---is no more than a B- movie.
There's been a film Twitter "reconsideration" about the movie since Coppola recut it for a new MARIO PUZO'S THE GODFATHER CODA: THE DEATH OF MICHAEL CORLEONE edition. Apparently, this version might be good. It cleans up the plot and changes the ending (I haven't seen it and I'm not exactly in a rush). And some critics love to be ahead of the curve when it comes to changing public perception about a movie. (See: HEAVEN'S GATE, the epic overindulgence best known as the movie in which directors handed Hollywood back to the producers. After it got dusted off for a re-release a few years back, some folks started pretending it was an actual great movie instead of a sprawling albeit gorgeous mess.) But I can't imagine Dr. Frankenstein Ford Coppola's surgery 30 years later puts GFIII anywhere close to on par with what he gave us in '72 then '74.
Advertisement
In short, THE GODFATHER PART III wasn't anywhere close to the first two iterations. But what I'll remember most of all was at the end of the movie when a certain character loses their life and people in the theater just laughed. This was supposed to be the final emotional climax of a huge chapter in Hollywood history, a devastating scene. And Showcase Cinemas Revere literally laughed in its face.
If nothing else, THE GODFATHER PART III gave us an all-time line/GIF/meme that will forever apply to so many things. Because no matter how many critics get starry-eyed at a fresh new cut, PART III will always be Fredo.