which won the Academy Award for best picture. The first film was the top-grossing movie of 1972, and the top-selling video of 1980, the first year in which Billboard published such a list. Mario Puzo cowrote the screenplays for all three of the Godfather films, the first two of which won Oscars as well.
The mob movie genre had been around for a long time, but until 1972, most of these films were moral tales about the nasty doings of gangsters. One could, of course, read between the frames and see the characters in films like Little Caesar (1930) and The Public Enemy (1931) as romantically attractive, as did many young boys, who added gangsters to cowboys and Indians as part of their playground repertoire. Still, these were clearly stories meant to expose the unmitigated evil of the bad guys. On TV, starting in 1959, The Untouchables told the story of Prohibition-era gangsters from the standpoint of the heroic, incorruptible federal agents out to get them.
As the novel had, the movies about the Corleone family transformed the genre. The first two Godfather films are among the most critically acclaimed in the history of American movies, and other acclaimed movies, most notably Goodfellas (1990), have built on the new tradition. One cannot imagine The Sopranos without the Godfather films, to which characters in the HBO TV series occasionally make reference.
As was the case with other spectacularly popular American novels, such as Huckleberry Finn and Gone With the Wind , The Godfather , and the genre it inspired, has been attacked for the nature of its ethnic portrayals. These concerns became more pronounced with the release of the films. The objections of the Italian-American community were not unfounded. In fact they were a testament to the power of the myth wrought by The Godfather . Images of Italian-Americans as mobsters, the argument went, had dissolved every other cultural image of Italian-Americans, including Columbus Day.
In the end, however, the mob story is as popular as it is because it represents a larger American story. This nation has a long tradition of throwing off one authority in favor of another, sometimes with violence, and many of our ancestors came here as fugitives from the law. America is a rowdy culture, and both its history and its present are filled with wise guys.
For Anthony Cleri
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
BOOK I
Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
—BALZAC
Chapter 1
A merigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.
The judge, a formidably heavy-featured man, rolled up the sleeves of his black robe as if to physically chastise the two young men standing before the bench. His face was cold with majestic contempt. But there was something false in all this that Amerigo Bonasera sensed but did not yet understand.
“You acted like the worst kind of degenerates,” the judge said harshly. Yes, yes, thought Amerigo Bonasera. Animals. Animals. The two young men, glossy hair crew cut, scrubbed clean-cut faces composed into humble contrition, bowed their heads in submission.
The judge went on. “You acted like wild beasts in a jungle and you are fortunate you did not sexually molest that poor girl or I’d put you behind bars for twenty years.” The judge paused, his eyes beneath impressively thick brows flickered slyly toward the sallow-faced Amerigo Bonasera, then lowered to a stack of probation reports before him. He frowned and shrugged as if convinced against his own natural desire. He spoke again.
“But because of your youth, your clean records, because of your fine families, and because the law in its majesty does not seek vengeance, I hereby sentence you to three years’ confinement to the penitentiary. Sentence to be suspended.”
Only forty years of professional mourning kept the overwhelming frustration and hatred from showing on Amerigo
The mob movie genre had been around for a long time, but until 1972, most of these films were moral tales about the nasty doings of gangsters. One could, of course, read between the frames and see the characters in films like Little Caesar (1930) and The Public Enemy (1931) as romantically attractive, as did many young boys, who added gangsters to cowboys and Indians as part of their playground repertoire. Still, these were clearly stories meant to expose the unmitigated evil of the bad guys. On TV, starting in 1959, The Untouchables told the story of Prohibition-era gangsters from the standpoint of the heroic, incorruptible federal agents out to get them.
As the novel had, the movies about the Corleone family transformed the genre. The first two Godfather films are among the most critically acclaimed in the history of American movies, and other acclaimed movies, most notably Goodfellas (1990), have built on the new tradition. One cannot imagine The Sopranos without the Godfather films, to which characters in the HBO TV series occasionally make reference.
As was the case with other spectacularly popular American novels, such as Huckleberry Finn and Gone With the Wind , The Godfather , and the genre it inspired, has been attacked for the nature of its ethnic portrayals. These concerns became more pronounced with the release of the films. The objections of the Italian-American community were not unfounded. In fact they were a testament to the power of the myth wrought by The Godfather . Images of Italian-Americans as mobsters, the argument went, had dissolved every other cultural image of Italian-Americans, including Columbus Day.
In the end, however, the mob story is as popular as it is because it represents a larger American story. This nation has a long tradition of throwing off one authority in favor of another, sometimes with violence, and many of our ancestors came here as fugitives from the law. America is a rowdy culture, and both its history and its present are filled with wise guys.
For Anthony Cleri
NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
BOOK I
Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
—BALZAC
Chapter 1
A merigo Bonasera sat in New York Criminal Court Number 3 and waited for justice; vengeance on the men who had so cruelly hurt his daughter, who had tried to dishonor her.
The judge, a formidably heavy-featured man, rolled up the sleeves of his black robe as if to physically chastise the two young men standing before the bench. His face was cold with majestic contempt. But there was something false in all this that Amerigo Bonasera sensed but did not yet understand.
“You acted like the worst kind of degenerates,” the judge said harshly. Yes, yes, thought Amerigo Bonasera. Animals. Animals. The two young men, glossy hair crew cut, scrubbed clean-cut faces composed into humble contrition, bowed their heads in submission.
The judge went on. “You acted like wild beasts in a jungle and you are fortunate you did not sexually molest that poor girl or I’d put you behind bars for twenty years.” The judge paused, his eyes beneath impressively thick brows flickered slyly toward the sallow-faced Amerigo Bonasera, then lowered to a stack of probation reports before him. He frowned and shrugged as if convinced against his own natural desire. He spoke again.
“But because of your youth, your clean records, because of your fine families, and because the law in its majesty does not seek vengeance, I hereby sentence you to three years’ confinement to the penitentiary. Sentence to be suspended.”
Only forty years of professional mourning kept the overwhelming frustration and hatred from showing on Amerigo
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