GFIII - What went wrong?

Where did FFC go wrong? Was it because of the lengthy gap between the two sequels? Or the fact that they tried to redeem Michael Corleone? What could have been done to prevent this failed film compared to GF & GFII

1) I think, "The Godfather" tells a classical tragedy: A young man trying to break away from his criminal family. But it's the good features of his character - his love for the family and his ability to decide quickly - which leads him to a position and a life that he never wanted. He tears out his heart.

2) "The Godfather 2" is artistic in a way that it amplifies the tragedy by showing the parallels of the lives of father and son. One becomes a loved person who builds a family and an empire, the other one loses his family the more he fights for it. It adds to GF2 that it looks beautiful, colorful, rich - Nevada, New York of the 20s, Cuba in the 50s, etc.

3) "The Godfather 3" tries to heighten once more the tragedy: Michael trying to get out, but they pull him back, and in the end he loses what he loved most - his daughter. The problem is: we never really see the love for his daughter, we see Michael as a tired Mafia boss. Why should we feel really moved about his conflict with Immobiliare or with anybody else? It's a gangster movie, alright. But it misses the momentum of the classic tragedy.

It wasn't the so called redemption of Michael. That was actually a valiant idea because the character had to have grown in the 20 odd years since the close of GFII; otherwise he would've been impossible to watch for two hours.

Basically, I think FFC just TRIED TOO HARD to both bring the story forward a notch and yet, rest it on the shoulders of the first two. That opening party scene mimicking those of GF and GFII was the first mistake, and it went downhill from there.

He added things to the story that were absolutely unnecessary (like Vincent) and let go of things that were (like Duvall). It was over-written and over-produced. Several crucial roles were pathetically miscast. Pacino over-acted (Although if you think about it, what choice did he have?).

So many factors contributed...impossible to list all, yet the bottom line is from the word GO...GFIII just wasn't meant to equal the greatness of its predecessors. Perhaps if FFC had begun on simply that premise, he might've come up with a less ornate, yet far better movie.

Apple

I really think the film was kind of cursed from the get-go. First, Joe Spinell died during pre-production, so they had to re-write the Willie Cicci part into Joey Zasa. Joe Mantegna did a fine job of playing the part, but the story lacked continuity.

Then FFC made the colossal blunder of being too cheap to pay Duvall (I still believe Paramount would have given him the money. I blame Coppola).

Then Winona Ryder dropped out, so Coppola had to tweak the script to suit his daughter a little better.

But I think the major problem was the redemptive theme of the movie. I posted this two years ago. It's Pacino's take on why the movie missed it's mark, and I happen to agree with him.


Pacino on GODFATHER III:

"You know what the problem with that film was? The real problem? Nobody wanted to see Michael have retribution and feel guilty. That's not who he was. The thing about the other scripts was that in his mind he was avenging his family and saving them. Michael never thought of himself as a gangster, ever. Not as a child, not while he was one, and not afterward: That was not the image he held of himself. So anyone who says to me that I played a gangster, I say, 'Not Michael'. He didn't come up that way. He's not a part of the GOODFELLAS thing. That's just not who Michael was. I've played gangsters ... but not Michael. Michael had this code--he lived by something that made audiences respond. But once he went away from that and started crying over coffins and making confessions and feeling remorse, it wasn't right. I applaud Francis for trying to get to that, but Michael was so frozen in that image ... Like he says to the priest, This is pointless to do this. but there was in him a deep feeling of having betrayed his mother by killing his brother. That was a mistake. And we are ruled by these mistakes in life, as time goes on. These crucial, brutal mistakes that we make in life. his choices--he was wrong. Like the way in SCARFACE when Tony kills Manny, that was wrong. And he pays for it. And in his way, Michael paid for it."

Bottom line? It's been said that FFC's was on the verge of losing his winery business, so he slapped the GFIII movie together fully knowing that it would take in a lot of money.

Yes. On its own, GFIII isn't a bad film, but it can't compare with its illustrious predecessors. It has many of the great elements of GF and II, but the plot just falls apart, and the script is weak. One of my astute friends observed, "there must be 18 hours of film on the cutting room floor."

I think what bothers me most about Godfather 3 is that it has MOMENTS of greatness, almost like seeing a diamond covered in mud. Every once in a while - BAM - you get a flash of brilliance, only to see it disappear again.

For example, I've always loved the scene between Kay and Michael where he's trying to justify his life choices and she is probably the first person to be honest with him about what kind of man that he truly is.

Then it would be buried under the mud of scenes like the gnocchi-making one.

On its own, it is a TERRIBLE film. "The plot just falls apart and the script is weak." What's 'not bad' about that?

It is ONLY the elements (more like remnants) of GF and GFII, that even make it worthy of a second glance.

Can anyone just try to imagine this movie minus the familiarity of the Corleone history and the reprisal of so many of the characters? It would've been an even bigger joke than it already is.

Al Pacino's statement is correct. Nice try by FFC, but the audience just wasn't ready to accept Michael in that way.

(And apparently, neither was Al Pacino!!)

Apple

Let's hope FFC's winery is doing well in this economy! I don't know if we can handle another GF like 3.

I think we denigrate III too much. As SB pointed out, it has some pretty good scenes. Critics forget that I was based on the novel. II was a natural follow-up to I just a couple years after I. III was on its own. I think it did a good job of melding alot of variables together, filling in historical gaps and putting together a future for its characters. I & II didn't teach us anything. III did.

Can't speak for anybody else, but this critic does not forget that GF and parts of GFII are based on the novel. I doubt many others forget either.

If we "denigrate III too much"...it's because it deserves to be denigrated, and especially by those of us who are so enamored of the other two. Who better to pick apart its numerous flaws, that far outweigh those occasional 'gems' like the Michael/Kay scene.

Apple

It's a frustrating movie because there were just a few things they could have changed to make it great.

1) Sofia Coppola... I know Wynona was supposed to be there and it was a last minute thing but... She was just too "Duh" and un-convincing and spoke in a mono-tone.

2) The scene at the beginning with Michael's award from the pope felt like it was trying to relive the wedding scene from GF1 with the singing but badly. Good to see Fontaine but.. Ugh.

3) Connie. Connie in my opion had way to bigger hand in this film, being in the sit down with Vincent and Zaza, making decisions on clipping people.. Her singing in the beginning, her quip with "Will somebody please hail mary" in front of the bishop..

4) Vincent. I know he's supposed to be Sonny's boy but he was over the top, he was the 'Jackie Jnr Aprile' of the Godfather, he would never have been a Don, the shouting, the lack of control etc... Just thought it was a bit over the top.

5) The Helicopter hit in Atlantic city...

If these things were different, it could have been so much better. Just my opinion.
Thoughts?

Its the difference between film as art and film as a commercial venture. FFC only made the film because he was going broke, and the studio wanted to exploit the franchise.
What cannot be criticized enough is the horrible performance of Eli Wallach.

IMHO a GFIII should depict the breakup of the Corleone family, the destruction of Michael's financial empire (legitimate or otherwise) and possibly the indictment, trial, imprisonment and subequent death of Michael Corleone. As TB
often says the moral of the story is "crime doesn't pay." I cannot think of a better way to drive that point home.

I've always felt that GFIII was a good movie with some HORRIBLE performances in it. It simply pales in comparison to the great movies that came before it.

However, in contrast to dt, I believe FFC handled Michael's downfall in the right way. Dissolution of the financial empire, imprisonment, etc. would not have been nearly as tragic a comeuppance of Michael as what transpired in the film - Michael getting everything he wanted but losing everything that was important, and dying alone and broken.

What i hate about GFIII is quite simply the immobliare thing and the arch bishop. It was just really dull, really boring. We wanted to see the characters get involved in deep deception but there was just to much talk about the vatican

GF III does have some excellent moments thought, the Confession of Mike to Lamberto - a standout scene to be sure, plus the delicate deviance of Altobello. But overall, the pathetic Sofia Coppola's performance is so bad that Garcia looks to want to burst out laughing. Some characters, like the twins, Calo, and Neri don't get enough screen time, and Connie's dialogue is just dumb, really dumb.

End of the day, FFC struck once with managing to nearly emulate the first film, to do so again without Duvall was impossible.

I still don't get why FFC and Puzo introduced so many new characters! This confused a lot of people when GFIII came out...including yours truly. This is Creativity 101 suicide. As a cartoonist/graphic artist/writer, I can tell you the first and biggest mistake any creative project faces is the introduction of too many new (and confusing) characters. This mistake has been made at one time or another by every creator, including yours truly. This is a "rookie mistake" and I expected more out of FFC and Puzo. That is only one of many things that went wrong with Part 3 - IMHO.

Agreed with Finochio about Duvall - BIG mistake not paying him to be involved with this. It was a huge mistake.

Give the man what he wants! He's one of the reasons why the first two films were as good as they were.

FFC never bothered to explain what Immobiliare was--and why it was so all-consuming important to Michael. Immobiliare's got all these conspiratorial Europeans and the Vatican in it--and it's a friggin' real estate company!

That's because he chose a great actor--Raf Vallone--as the Cardinal. One of the few brilliant casting choices in that film.

Bad as she was, Wallach was worse. See dt's post above--he's right on the money.

Wallach was annoying, but Sofia's performance grated on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. UGH! Add that to the ZERO chemistry she had with Garcia, who I actually liked in the film, and she pretty much ruined the film for me.

The confession scene with Lamberto is great. I loved almost all of the Sicily scenes, especially those with Kay. And although some here don't feel it was in Michael's character, I loved Michael's monologue at Don Tomassino's coffin. I've always felt that Michael was actually speaking to his father, since Tomassino was a father figure to him.

I disagree that Wallach was poor. I think the opposite, I think he did a good job.

I hated every scene with Kay, It just boring her taking digs at everyone. Also apalling to make Anthony go against his dad. Didnt seem right to me. Especially with the way it was left...Anthony spurning Kay. Kay was redundant by part III

It occurred to me that it's interesting how Bridgette Fonda is almost never mentioned when a discussion of GFIII's flaws is taking place.

Must admit I've never seen ANY of her scenes in the film except at the beginning party when she tries (and fails) to get Michael's attention. I'm guessing that she was adequate enough in the part, but that the role was not one that would make any difference one way or the other. She had nothing to do with what was bad about the movie, yet apparently didn't help it either.

Apple

Many of the flaws that have been pointed out here are valid ones. However, when it comes to the Connie character, (yes, there were a couple of Cheesey lines on her part) Talia Shire actually was the best in that she was able to complete the way that her character morphed from this innocent abused little sister in GF to a revolting and defiant sister at the begining of GFII, finishing up as the matriarch of the family who did what ever she could to try and save the Corleone family by the end of GFIII.

She gets my vote as 'comeback character' of the trilogy!

While Connie's coming full circle to 'matriarch' and loving nursemaid to her brother is depicted well and there was nothing wrong with Tala Shire's performance...I have to agree with veneratio that it was ridiculous to see her have such a prominent role in business matters. Also...so stupid to have her prop up 'Sonny's boy' when it might've been so much more interesting to see some kind of interaction with and on behalf of her own grown sons (are they even mentioned in this movie?)

Great point, Apple. Connie's children or Sonny's real son was never mentioned either.

I was actually repsonding to the job that the actors and actresses did in the movie and not so much the characters themselves.

Some have said that Eli Wallach sucked, Sofia was horrible, Diane Keaton wasn't that good, etc. In comparing Actors and Actresses I just feel that Talia Shire portrayed her character, the way that it was written for her, the best out of everyone else.

Joe Mantegna did, what I thought, was an excellent job playing one of the better GFIII characters.

The writing and the way that the writers/director wrote the parts of most of the characters left a lot to be desired.

And once again I'll say that both George Hamilton and his B.J. Harrison character were totally ridiculous! A horrific acting performance of a totally imbecillic character!

"We had an agreement!" My goodness. Talk about a horrible piece of acting delivering such a cheesey line!

They should have killed Harrison in the begining of the movie!

I know, I'm pretty alone with this opinion, but I hate Garcia's overacting in GFIII. It's no better than Douglas Barr's "Howie" in "The Fall Guy".

LOL....why imbecillic?

He was shockingly shite though

Of all the other things that went wrong with GFIII - to this day it's still incredible to me that this B-Movie actor was cast in what was considered such an major motion picture. So they let Duvall slip away...you would think that to fill that void, they would've at least gotten an actor who would've been taken a bit more seriously. And he wasn't even the director's son!!!

Apple

Absolutely, Apple. When Castellano dropped out of GF2, FFC did an excellent job with Gazzo. What the hell was he thinking with George Hamilton as a replacement for an actor and character as amazing as Duvall/Hagen?

As for Bridget Fonda, her role was inconsequential and she was perfectly adequate. As Roth would say, she was small potatoes.

Turnbull, I hope I'm not mistaken, but I believe that Vallone was considered for the part of Vito in I. I think we can safely say that the better actor got the job. Nothing against Vallone, just that Brando was marvelous.

Kind of crazy for all the money that these movies made that they could not come to terms with Duvall somehow - instead create an inferior movie to last for all eternity

Just think how insignificant the salary dispute is now compared to all the money made

Sopranoleone, Harlan Lebo, in his definitive, "The Godfather Legacy," makes no mention of Raf Vallone being considered as Vito. He does say that "hundreds" of people wanted to be considered, including Rudy Vallee(!), David Janssen and Vince Edwards. Supposedly the Mob preferred Ernest Borgnine. In his introduction to the VHS 25th anniversary edition of the Trilogy, Puzo said he heard that Danny Thomas(!) was planning to buy Paramount so he could play Vito. That prospect, according to Puzo, stimulated him to write Brando about playing Vito. In the end, two actors--John Marley and Richard Conte--were the finalists in Paramount's estimation. But Coppola and Ruddy wanted Brando, and they got him.

He made this movie.

Don Cardi hit it on the head... the only reason the movie was made was so FFC could save his wine (and that's no sour grapes). The movie wasn't made for the art or for the story but rather it was solely done for the money. By cashing in on Parts I and II, FFC sold out on Part III and the bottom line.

As a "Godfather" fan, that's an infamnia.

On it's own it's an ok movie. It's to bad they won't redo GFIII and do it right this time. If they ever do I hope the Puzo estate don't let that pezzonavante Winegardner have anything to do with it.

That's a good point, Mig. An open question to all BB'ers...if FFC/Puzo Estate announced today that they were going to remake GFIII (we assume that this time would be the "right" way), would you all be forgiving enough to accept it and look forward to such a project? Or should he just go forward and do a part 4 completely ignoring the majority of the part 3 flawed storylines altogether? It's my opinion that a part 4 is inevitable - it may be 5 or 10 years from now and FFC may or may not be involved but nonetheless a part 4 will evolve some day - studios will never let a cash cow franchise just sit on a shelf...IMO.

However misguided FFC may have been, I remember eagerly awaiting the release of GF3. Before it opened, HBO had a "Making of" special. I remember being impressed by the scenes that they showed. I also remember being impressed by FFC's passion for the project.

They were showing the scene between Michael and Kay, which I mentioned earlier in this thread. FFC was describing the interaction between the two characters and he spoke about Michael Corleone as if he were a living, breathing person.

Despite his errors in making GF3, I don't believe I would want to see any other additions to the franchise in anyone else's hands.

What went wrong with GF3?

Someone had an idea to make it. It was all downhill from there.

That's odd. Thanks for the info. I wonder where I remember reading that about Vallone, though. If I find it, I'll post a link.

In that scene, I always thought Hamilton was trying to emulate Duvall yelling out, "This committee owes an apology!"

Of course, he missed his mark. By quite a bit.

Of all the lousy performances in Part III, Hamilton's was undoubtedly the worst. I mean, "Zorro the Gay Blade" as consigliere?

Gimme a freakin' break.

Hamilton is absolutely at his worst when he makes the crack to the Archbishop about his grey hair. The scene at the breakfast
table where he is explaining to Michael that the Corleone Foundation is no different than any large corporation is equally nauseating.

I remember Turnbull saying the same exact thing a few years back when we were having dinner together and I thought that it was an excellent observation on his part!

Hamilton couldn't come close to shining Duvall's shoes as an actor let alone emulating him on the big screen.


Hamilton's best role was in 'Love At First Bite'......


....he should have remained a bat!

Watched a bit of III last night....Hamilton really sucks doesn't he.

Great minds . . .

Definitely agree with you Danito, I forgot to mention that.
Well over the top in parts. He may have been Sonny's boy and supposedly a hot head but..
Was just a bit too much.

Personally I always thought Garcia tried to portray a younger version of Michael in GF and GFIII. Yes, Vincent was supposed to have his father's 'famous temper'...but Garcia made him more cerebral/thoughful and supposedly intelligent enough to head the Family.

I neither liked nor disliked Garcia's performance, thought of it as just ok. Not good enough to make any difference whatsoever in the quality (or non-quality) of the film.

To be honest though, I never could figure out what he did to earn that Oscar nomination!!

Apple

I didn't realise he got an Oscar nomination for that performance.
Yeah it was an okay performance, but it didn't help the movie.

Apparently FFC never wanted to make Part II either... but I've come to accept that what FFC says depends on how he is feeling that day.

The bottom line is that FFC and Puzo didn't exactly have the motivation they had back in the 70's. They knew this was a cash-in, and approached it as such. That doesn't stop the movie from having flashes of brilliance, but overall, it's a sad end to a great trilogy.