The Sonny-Carlo fight scene

Does anyone remember the fight scene between Sonny and Carlo? Am I the only one to notice when Sonny hits Carlo with a right he swings right past his face? It's really noticable. I never realized how fake that fight looked until the second time I watched it.

Well I don't know that Gianni Russo would agree with that. I believe that he wound up with a couple of broken ribs shooting that scene. But you are correct, if you look closely you can clearly see the misses when the punched are being thrown.








Don Cardi

I don't doubt that shooting the scene was hard for Gianni Russo and I read somewhere that he did break some ribs. I just think the scene wasn't given 100% effort in making it realistic, but it is a movie and I know I couldn't do any better than the fine actors in the movie. They did a great job in the whole movie.

AFAIC, that is one of the most impressive scenes in the whole trilogy. Look at Sonny's face, he got something really savage in his look. And all the people gathering to watch, the kids, the rubbish. I like that scene, as violent as it is. Don't care much about the minutia.

Kevin Smith did a really funny send up of the Sonny/Carlo fight in one of his Clerks animated cartoons. It was a shot for shot spoof with even the missed punch in there. I believe it was a fight between Jay and Charles Barkley. Really funny stuff.

Welcome to LaFamiglia,

The phantom punch is one of the most blantant "goofs" in the movie and talked about incessantly (but that's OK). But as Lavi points out...very intense. I'll bet none of us who saw that scene for the first time picked up the phantom punch. We were all enthralled by the vicious, purposeful attack by Sonny and the wimpy, save-my-ass reactions of Carlo. Great directing, great mood-setting.

Thank you for the Welcome, MaryCas.Grazie.

I was a little shocked that the horrible punch was in the movie, but nothing is perfect. The movie is great no matter what. When I first saw the fight it had me at the edge of my seat. When I saw the movie for the second time it had my finger at the edge of the rewind and play button. I wasn't sure if I was seeing things or not. But what are we going to do about it, ya know. The movie is 34 years old now.

Here's a bit of an interview Russo did ... in it he mentions that missed punch:

"We had thirty seven marks for that scene, 37 we had to hit," he says. "Took days
to rehearse it. But what they didn't realize was that in 1971, all of those tenements on the street had
air conditioners sticking out of the windows-what were they gonna do to get rid of them, not to mention,
get the people not to wander on the set dressed like it was '71. So I told Frances, you gotta pay these
people off, or else they'll throw shit out their windows, not move their AC's, the works-that was what
I did all the time anyway."
Russo still blanches over the thought of the famous fight. "Coppola left that
missed punch, where Jimmy swung at me and missed. When they put it out again
at the reunion a few years back, I couldn't' believe it, it was still in there!"

yeah, also I believe they were lagging behind schedule when it came time to film the fight scene. Francis Ford Coppola had to quickly rush through it. I still think it's a great scene, and there have so many parodies of it.

The phantom punch for me is in a sense very appropriate, here's my reaction. The Godfather films are VERY operatic with grand sweeping stories spanning decades, just as does most opera. Opera is deliberatley staged to be just a few steps shy of reality. The phantom punch forces the audience to reality that we are watching something not quite authentic.
At least that's me waxing poetic.

I think it is a minor error. I seem to remember that even though Sonny misses, there is a sound effect to the contrary.

I always laugh when Sonny bites him.

hey, since we're talking about that fight scene, can anyone answer this question. Members have cited several anomalies inthe scene. I think I noticed one. What is that light colored building in the background? It looks like an office building or maybe a government building. I think it has what appear to be windows the length of it near its roof.