richard conte as barzini

...conte played barzini in the godfather, excuse me, he played MISTER barzini, one of the top management guys in charge of the crime families. he was a general manager or a president or something, from los angeles i think, and you'll note he's sitting at the head of the table when all the dons convene for an important conference. it's not vito at the head, it's barzini. he doesn't have many lines in the godfather, maybe two or three. it's a cameo. then i came across a little gem conte starred in from the '50s called the big combo. lee van cleef's got a role in it too. conte is totally amazing in this film. he plays a cold-blooded crime boss here too and there's a gorgeously delicious scene were he tortures a cop by forcing booze down his throat. after torturing the cop he lets him go. seemed like he should've killed him, i was hoping he would, but it was a fifties movie and we had to wait for tarantino to update this type of sequence in reservoir dogs.

conte was also in an italian grindhouse movie called the violent professionals. okay first off i have to say i love the title. it's so basic it's downright primal. it hits home. professionals who are violent. god bless ya. gotta be about hit men doing hit men jobs right? well no. and that's the thing you learn with the grindhouse genre. it was all about cashing in on succesful genres with overblown hype. you'll find the posters and trailers for the movies are always way better than the films themselves and violent professionals is no excpetion. this one really excited me going in. the name, the poster on the box and the cherry on top - featuring richard conte from the godfather!

after i saw the big combo i wondered why didn't coppola utilize more of this totally cool actor? why the miniscule bit part? then i saw the violent professionals. now i know maybe why coppola's use of conte was restrained in the godfather. i read somewhere conte died of cancer in '75 and he doesn't look too healthy in this film which came out about that time. his speech is a little slurry and he appears unwell. it breaks your heart. he's a ghost of the man who starred in the big combo. having seen the violent professionals i can see why coppola perhaps couldn't have used much more of him anyway. i should never have doubted the master. when you second guess professionals it can be unwise since they probably have good reasons for doing things the way they do. that's why they're pros..

TALES OF WAR AND REVOLUTION

"... top management guys ...???? Bizarre.

Well, what more of a part was he supposed to play?

Conte didn't die of cancer but of a heart attack. I think his performance in GF is pretty vivid, especially when he is rolling down the stairs

I read that at one point he was considered to play Vito Corleone. Does anybody know more about that?

Eduardo Cianelli was mentioned at one time as a contender for the Vito Corleone role. So was Sir Laurence Olivier. Puzo, in an introduction to the 25th Anniversary VHS edition of GF, says that Danny Thomas was prepared to buy Paramount to get the role. But I never read anything about Conte being considered as Vito.
To LeroyBrown's point: the understanded way Conte played Barzini was consistent with the way Barzini was portrayed in the novel. He was the epitome of the "modern" Don--cold, calculating, all business, with none of the "charm" or "warmth" of Vito. Leading indicator: Note the extreme coolness with with he embraces Vito at Connie's wedding. Another little indicator: at the Don's conference, he's the only one smoking a cigarette--the others are smoking old-fashioned DiNobile cigars.

I guess the Paramount boss didn't have horses. So he wasn't really scared when he woke up with the head of his hamster in his bed.

I also would have liked to have seen Richard Conte have a little more screen time, but the film was about the Corleone family and their overall way of doing business, not just how they dealt with one of the other heads of the families.

...i'd like to have seen more of the part he was playing, more of the barzini character. however i now trust that coppola made the movie perfectly. incidentally, regis philbin reminds me a little bit of conte...

TALES OF WAR AND REVOLUTION