THE GODFATHER PART II: Blu-ray reissue (Paramount, 1974) Paramount Home Video

BEST PICTURE - 1974

In many ways, The Godfather: Part II (1974) is a much more immersive contemplation on themes of familial succession and self-destruction Coppola had hoped to investigate more deeply in the original movie. The pacing of the sequel is decidedly different; more methodical and more subtly engrossed in the finer nuances of a man’s slow and self-inflicted tragic demise. The outbursts of violence are less gratuitous, though no less powerful in expressing the thematic implosion of a dream and waning modicum of self-preservation. The parallel cutting between two stories in this sequel – following young Vito’s (Robert DeNiro) rise to power as the unlikely head of a crime syndicate, and, Michael Corleone’s (Al Pacino) own hegemony to reign over the so called ‘five families’, reluctantly forced to step into the Don’s shoes – makes for a startling contrast between a - perhaps - good man’s descent into purgatory, coming to know the ominous strength and purpose of his convictions.  Both men become Don Corleone out of necessity. Yet, unlike his father, Michael is never comfortable in the role. Indeed, Vito’s sanctioning of ‘justice’ by satisfying ‘requests’ is viewed with nonchalance. By contrast, while Michael steadily professes “it’s not personal…it’s just business”, his reign is increasingly marked – and marred – by selfish motives: to assert and cement his authority in the underworld hierarchy not yet having seen enough of his potential might to take him seriously. 

In the sequel, Michael aligns his interests with Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) a dying puppet master who nevertheless, derives a certain unquestionable autonomy from the same generational wellspring as his late father. Late in The Godfather: Part II, Michael counsels his mother (Morgana King) about his presumed failings to the family, a good husband to his wife, Kay (Diane Keaton) and loving father to his children, Anthony (James Gounaris) and Mary, expressing the belief he has gradually allowed himself to become un-tethered from his roots, to which she assuredly replies, “You can never lose your family.” But what Michael is perhaps expressing is an acknowledgement he has already lost ‘control’ of the variables that once made up their tightly-knit solidarity. And, indeed, The Godfather: Part II remains a story about losing one’s way; of fate’s chronic intervention to deprive Michael of the life he would have chosen for himself and – manipulating others to preserve the myth of family as a never-changing and united front. This absence of legacy wounds Michael’s confidence – though hardly his stubborn resolve – throughout this second pivotal chapter in the Corleone family saga. Michael’s purpose is both flawed and gauche; desperate, even, as he chooses murder rather than exile to resolve a misguided betrayal from a disloyal, though decidedly easily swayed/simpleton elder brother, Fredo (John Cazale). We get a sense of this looming cruelty as Michael quietly threatens to disinherit his sister, Connie (Talia Shire) if she marries Merle Johnson (Troy Donahue) - clearly a fortune hunter – having already ordered the hit on her first husband, Carlo (Gianni Russo) to satisfy a vendetta for Sonny’s murder in the first movie.

After the monumental success of The Godfather, it was inevitable Paramount would order up a sequel. Coppola’s place in the cinema firmament – precarious a few scant years before by a few abysmal misfires – had suddenly, and justly, been secured for the ages. Already immersed in the material, Coppola brought Mario Puzo back to co-author The Godfather Part II  – something of a sequel and prequel to his original movie. In splitting the narrative into flashback and a continuing saga, Part II ambitiously evolved into a cinema language all its own – drawing parallels between the young Vito Corleone and his son, Michael assuming control of the family business, only to rule it with an iron fist. Coppola’s original desire to bring back Brando to reprise his role in flashbacks was quashed by Robert Evans, perhaps, due in part to Brando, having already won the favor of his harshest critics and peers for this ‘comeback’, pulling a ‘fast one’ on Oscar night – absent from the annual telecast, but sending Sacheen Littlefeather (actually a half-native, born Marie Louise Cruz, wearing native attire, no less) to reject the honor on his behalf – partly as a politicized stand against Hollywood’s treatment of Native Americans in the movies (though also, to draw attention to the standoff at Wounded Knee). Littlefeather’s comments would illicit boos and mixed applause from the audience.  

Today, many forget that The Godfather: Part II was the first movie to use ‘Part II’ in its title; Paramount’s initial apprehensions unfounded when the second movie proved just as popular with audiences as the original. However, it might have gone the other way. Al Pacino almost did not sign on to this continuation of the Corleone family saga; Coppola, re-polishing the script to satisfy the actor’s needs and flesh out his role. A sneak peek of Coppola’s ‘final’ edit left a select gathering of critics cold; the crosscutting between two concurrently running narratives considered choppy, with not enough time to flesh out character. As a result, the picture grew longer, at 175 minutes, complete with intermission, one of the last ‘road show’ events to emerge from Hollywood. Undaunted, Coppola returned to his editing room, combining several flashbacks together with less back and forth between the past and present. Regardless of how one feels about sequels today, it is nevertheless true The Godfather: Part II ushered in the era of the big studio-committed franchise film-making that has all but taken over – and sadly - bastardized the industry’s collective output today. Shooting at Lake Tahoe between October and June allowed Coppola to run the gamut of seasons, adding more girth to the ‘period’ and passage of time; the globe-trotting continuing in Palermo, New York and Santa Domingo in the Dominican Republic, the latter subbing in for Cuba which, owing to the embargo was decidedly off limits. The studio-domineering yolk loosened after Coppola’s vision for the first movie proved a runaway success, Coppola vacillated in his new-found autonomy; still working at a feverish pace, but with a decidedly more leisurely approach to hand-crafting his material.

In retrospect, The Godfather: Part II is a much darker movie (figuratively speaking) than its predecessor; beginning, rather ominously with a funeral in Sicily set in 1901; young Vito Andolini (Oreste Baldini) and his mother (Maria Carta) following his late father’s funerary cortege through the craggy terrain. Their mourning is interrupted by another assassination; Vito’s elder brother, at the behest of local Mafia chieftain, Don Ciccio (Giuseppe Sillato). Begging for Vito’s life, his mother momentarily takes Ciccio hostage at knifepoint before being murdered in front of the boy with a double-barreled shotgun by one of Ciccio’s henchmen. Miraculously, Vito escapes the Don’s assassins and is sent to America, mistakenly registered by a well-intended Ellis Island official as ‘Vito Corleone’. The Ellis Island sequence is among the many tour de forces in the sequel; Coppola particularly tuned into the immigrant experience.  Perhaps desiring a counterpart to Connie’s wedding in the first movie, Coppola cuts to 1958; the First Communion of Vito’s grandson, Anthony Michael Corleone (James Gounaris), lavishly staged as an outdoor party at Lake Tahoe. Like his father before him, Michael is entertaining various business ventures on this otherwise festive afternoon, petitioning Senator Pat Geary (G.D. Spradlin) for a gaming license to further dig into his holdings in Vegas. Publicly, Geary cheerily professes his gratitude for the Corleone’s charitable works; but privately he attempts to squeeze Michael for some quick cash, believing his political clout far outweighs any thug muscle Michael might choose to exercise in order to enforce his will. Of course, the Senator is mistaken, although it will be a while before he figures this out for himself. In the meantime, Michael is visited by Corleone caporegime, Frank Pentangeli (Michael V. Gazzo), who is bitterly disappointed Michael will not back him in his dispute with the Rosato brothers over the Brooklyn territory.

Michael is faithful to Pentangeli – a holdover from his father’s time. But his present business venture with the supreme puppet master, Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) precludes divulging the particulars of his plan to his old friend just yet. Aside: Hyman Roth was loosely based on real-life mobster, Meyer Lansky who, upon seeing the movie is rumored to have telephone Strasberg to inquire, “Why couldn't you have made me more sympathetic? After all, I am a grandfather.” One of the great tragedies that befall Michael in this sequel is losing the trusted support of Pentangeli, who cannot see the bigger picture and decides to betray Michael after he erroneously assumes Michael is responsible for his botched assassination. Immediately following the party, Michael and Kay narrowly survive a bungled plot to murder them in their beds. Michael is incensed and departs Nevada at once to unearth the truth; leaving Kay and his children behind on the heavily guarded family compound. Before his departure, Michael confides in Tom Hagen he will become the new Don for a time and oversee the evolution of Michael’s grand plan while Michael keeps a very low profile.

We flashback to 1917, Vito (now played by Robert DeNiro), working hard in the dried goods business for a local merchant in New York (production designer, Dean Tavoularis’ immaculate recreations of the dingy tenements of ‘little Italy’ superbly realized down to the very last detail). Vito already has a wife, Carmela (Francesca De Sapio) and infant son, Sonny. But he loses this job when his boss is forced to placate Don Fanucci (Gaston Moschin) – a member of ‘The Black Hand’ by hiring his grandson instead. Vito’s first brush with organized crime is anything but brief. Concealing several guns wrapped in a blanket for his neighbor, Peter Clemenza (Bruno Kirby), Vito is later invited by Clemenza to help him burglarize a posh estate; the two stealing an oriental rug from the parlor and narrowly averting discovery by a policeman casually walking the beat, momentarily pausing to peer in through the window. Clemenza suggests entering the lucrative ‘black market’; Vito, putting up the Genco Olive Oil Company as its front.

In the present, Senator Geary is framed for the murder of a paid escort he frequented at a brothel managed by Fredo. Awakening from his drug-induced stupor to find the girl chained to his bed, having hemorrhaged to death, presumably after a night of kinky sex, a frantic Geary is comforted by Tom Hagen who, knowing what the scandal could do to the Senator’s career, insists the incident will be managed by Michael in exchanged for the Senator’s loyalty. Meanwhile, Michael suspects Hyman Roth as the architect behind his botched assassination. Drawing on an old adage about keeping one’s enemies at arm’s length, Michael, accompanied by Roth’s protector, Johnny Ola (Dominic Chianese) enjoys Roth’s hospitality in Miami. Each feigns ignorance about the other’s complicity in the incident; Roth suggesting Frank Pentangeli is responsible. Knowing this to be untrue, but determined to maintain a successful façade, Michael confronts Pentangeli at first, but behind closed doors explains he knows there is a snitch lurking somewhere very close, but as yet unknown to him. Once again, Michael implores Pentangeli to pretend to make his peace with the Rosatos.  Alas, Roth is two steps ahead of the game, setting up an ambush for Pentangeli inside a local bar where the Rosatos, Carmine (Carmine Caridi) and Tony (Danny Aiello), are waiting to garrote him with piano wire, planting the notion it was Michael who has betrayed him. The murder sabotaged by a cop just passing by while the crime is taking place, Pentangeli survives the attack, but fearful of reprisals and not knowing who to trust, turns state’s evidence on Michael to save his own skin.

Meanwhile, Michael travels to Havana with Geary, Fredo and Roth to ring in the New Year and negotiate their mutual ‘business’ interests with Fulgencio Batista’s (Tito Alba) government. Before attending the lavish state dinner, Fredo takes the men (all except Roth, who is gravely ill, and Johnny Ola, electing to remain at his side) slumming inside some of Cuba’s seedier nightclubs; one of them where a simulated sex act is performed by a freak of nature with a rather grotesque endowment. When Geary laughingly inquires how Fredo discovered this place, Fredo accidentally lets it slip he has known Johnny Ola long before their presumed first meeting only a few days earlier. Michael sends his bodyguard to Roth’s penthouse to kill both him and Johnny Ola. Alas, the unnamed assassin is only successful at Ola’s murder before paramedics burst in to the penthouse, presumably telephoned by Roth, who is ailing. The assassin follows Roth to the local hospital, but is killed by police after attempting to smother Roth in his hospital bed. As midnight approaches, Batista’s government is overrun by Castro’s rebel forces. He abdicates and urges all his guests to make haste to the docks to escape the city as his forces can no longer guarantee anyone’s safety. Amidst the chaos, Michael and Fredo are separated, but not before Michael makes Fredo aware he knows he is the one who betrayed him. 

Back in Nevada, Michael learns from Tom that Kay, pregnant with their third child shortly before he left for Cuba, has since ‘miscarried’. The news is devastating. But even more so is Fredo’s confession to Michael: that he took Johnny Ola’s side to become his own man rather than remain a ward of Michael’s charity. Michael cruelly exiles Fredo from the family. Behind closed doors, Michael instructs Al Neri that Fredo is to remain untouched until after their mother has died. Not long thereafter, Kay tells Michael she is leaving him for good. At first, Michael believes Kay is merely bluffing. But then she confesses to the ultimate betrayal; having deliberately aborted Michael’s son to avoid continuing the Corleone family bloodline. Michael has Kay declared an unfit mother and legally separated from her children. Connie is sympathetic, allowing Kay regular visits to the compound when Michael is not around. However, when Michael learns of this, he promptly ambushes Kay during one of her visits. She will not see young Anthony or Mary again. 

Again, in flashback, we find Vito and Carmela with two more sons, Fredo and Michael, now living comfortably; thanks to Vito and Clemenza’s lucrative business; peddling stolen goods on the black market. Learning of their enterprise, Fanucci attempts blackmail; Vito suggesting to both Clemenza and their other ‘business’ partner, Salvatore Tessio (John Aprea) Fanucci will settle for far less of a payment than he has initially proposed. Bewildered, Tessio and Clemenza leave the decision-making to Vito. Instead, Vito stalks Fanucci through the streets of Little Italy during a noisy neighborhood festa, cold-bloodedly gunning him down in the hallway of his apartment before disposing of the pieces of the murder weapon down several rooftop chimneys. At this juncture in the story, Coppola breaks for an intermission; when next the story commences, we are once more in the present – this time, in Washington D.C. at the senate committee hearing on organized crime where several witnesses testify to Michael’s reign as ‘the godfather’. However, the FBI’s linchpin is Frank Pentangeli. Too late, Frank finds Michael has brought over Pentangeli’s brother from Palermo to witness the trial. Fearful Michael will not hesitate to exact revenge on his brother in his stead Pentangeli rescinds his sworn statements, claiming he was bullied by the FBI. Realizing he has painted himself into an impossible corner – no longer Michael’s confidante and likely to be ousted from the Witness Protection Program – Pentangeli elects to take his own life by slashing his wrists in the bathtub.

In flashback, Vito visits Sicily for the first time since emigrating. He and Don Tommasino (Mario Cotonne) are admitted into Don Ciccio’s compound, ostensibly to ask for Ciccio's blessing on their olive oil business. Instead, Vito gets close enough to exact his childhood vengeance by gutting Ciccio with a knife. In their daring escape, Don Tommasino is shot and paralyzed. The last act of The Godfather Part II escalates the liquidity and frequency between these flashbacks. Upon the death of their beloved mother, Connie encourages reconciliation between Fredo and Michael; one Michael ostensibly takes to heart, allowing Fredo to come live at the Nevada compound and be a devoted uncle to his son, Anthony. Alas, this too is a ruse, Michael ordering Al Neri to assassinate Fredo while the two are fishing out on the lake. Meanwhile Roth, who realizes he is a dead man, is refused political asylum in Israel, soon to be publicly executed at the airport by Michael’s other caporegime, Rocco Lampone as stunned members of the press look on. This sequence has always reminded me of the brutal public execution of Lee Harvey Oswald, although I could find no reference in Coppola’s records to suggest he shared as much in his inspiration. Indeed, while The Godfather: Part II reports to be based on incidents derived from Mario Puzo’s original novel, only the flashbacks bear a marginal resemblance to passages from the book; the bulk of the story re-imagined from scratch by Coppola, once again collaborating with Puzo.

The last moments of The Godfather: Part II are devoted to Michael’s conflicting reminiscences of the life he has squandered – a reflection as bittersweet as it remains imbued with an overriding Shakespearean sense of a man having completely lost his soul; beginning with the final flashback; young Michael’s decision, made shortly before Vito’s surprise birthday party, to enlist in the army after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Sonny is furious; Connie and Tom sparing the two a physical altercation; everyone, hurrying into the next room to meet the returning patriarch with a cake and their ebullient good wishes. Coppola had intended this to be a more detailed sequence with Brando brought in for a day’s shoot to complete the scene. Regrettably, Paramount refused to hire Brando back, forcing Coppola to re-stage the moment in the actor’s absence. Interestingly, the scene is more ominously heartbreaking as we hear the off-camera cheers of ‘surprise!’ while, in the foreground, a forlorn Michael sits in the dining room all alone; the moment, dissolving into another; this time, of Michael, isolated on the Nevada compound, staring blankly off into the distance.  Are his final thoughts about what he has done to his father’s legacy, of the breadth of realization he has murdered his parent’s son, or immersed in sincere regret over his complete inability to keep his own family – Kay and their children – safe from the devastating effects of these outside influences? Coppola leaves us guessing, as does Al Pacino’s haunted, far away, vacant gaze of absolute, morbid dread. 

In the end, The Godfather: Part II is an infinitely more complex and masterfully put together reflection of the self-inflicted cruelties that derive from a life in crime. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences bestowed more little gold statues on the sequel; including another for Coppola and Best Picture.  Many of the scenarios developed for Part II were, in fact, augmented from unused bits ported over from Puzo’s original novel. Apart from Brando’s absence, the entire cast reunited – a near unheard of accomplishment and major coup for Coppola who, only two years before had had to beg Paramount executives for every casting decision made. Reportedly, after screening Coppola’s 5-hour rough cut of The Godfather: Part II, fellow film maker, George Lucas told his friend, “You have two films. Take one away.” Instead, Coppola chose to rework both as a two-sided parable running in tandem and continuing the arc of familial succession begun in the original movie.

Eleven years after the release of The Godfather Trilogy: The Coppola Restorations on Blu-ray and still no 4K release of these iconic movies in sight. Oh well, what’s here – on standard Blu-ray, is quite startling and light years ahead of the way these movies have looked on home video in the past. The ground-breaking rescue of these fragile and decaying original camera negatives, under preservationist, Robert A. Harris’ supervision, has yielded a rich and vibrant resurrection of Gordon Willis’ sepia-richness. These elements have been reassembled in 1080p, utilizing the very best archival materials culled from innumerable sources; all of them scanned in at 4K resolution, then dumbed down to 1080p. The original grain structure is exceptionally well preserved, save a few brief shots. Concurrently, the audio masters herein also have been given a superior cleanup in 5.1 DTS. The only extra included on the ‘single’ disc of The Godfather: Part II is an audio commentary from Francis Ford Coppola. For those relishing a densely packed Godfather Trilogy experience, my best recommendation is that you purchase the complete trilogy, reviewed elsewhere in this blog. Either way, The Godfather: Part II on Blu-ray is highly recommended.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

1