Near the end of the party scene in GFIII Mike and Mary end up dancing with a little girl. I'll bet that was improvisation. What other improvisations did you notice in the Trilogy?

Not sure what you intended re. "improvisation." My feeling about that party was that FFC was deliberately throwing in references to the other two movies for the delectation of dedicated fans like us--i.e., Enzo da Baker, Sandra, Neri saying he's got Zasa "waiting in the lobby," etc. So I took the dancing with the little girl as a clever reference to Tessio dancing with the little girl at Connie's wedding.

I thought of Tessio as well. What really caught my eye in comparing the festive opening scenes of I, II, & III, was the way in which the police and the press are treated. In GFI they are spat on, in GFII they are delivered sandwiches, and in GFIII they are allowed into the main area to take pictures (while Michael, Mary, and the little girl are dancing) -- in sharp contrast to the camera smashing in GFI. Similarly, in GFI the politicians and judges don't attend the wedding (on Vito's recommendation, according to the novel), whereas in GFII they are giving speeches, and in III they are sending official representatives to see Michael ("We can always use a good judge"). All of this parallels, of course, the successive degrees to which Michael is trying to penetrate the 'legitimate' world.

Well, I don't think the little girl's grabbing Mary's leg and her's and Mike's reaction to it was in the screenplay - it just happened that way. Vito's slapping of Jonhnny was improvised also.

So, what other improvisations dd you notice?

TB,

Thanks that scene with Tessio and that little girl didn't even cross my mind. I can always count on you to help out.

An improvisation mentioned on one of the commentaries occured in Godfather II: When Signor Roberto pays a visit to DC at the new Genco Olive Oil Business, a nail was placed to prevent the front door from opening. Genco knew of the nail and slyly removed it when opening the door for Roberto, but replaced it to repeat the improv. for Roberto's attempted exit from the office as well.

I don't have the script for Part III so I can't say for sure if this was improvised or not, but I always thought Michael's line about going into the kitchen to listen to Tony Bennett records was improvised.

Dunno why.

I'm not exactly sure about that.

In the novel, Vito grabs Johnny fiercely by the hair, but since Al Martino wore a toupee, that would not have worked. It was decided to have Vito slap Johnny, and they did the scene several times until FFC was satisfied. Martino, reportedly, was not particularly happy about being slapped in the face over and over (as well as having his scene trimmed down to the bare minimum during script rewrites). This was mentioned in the book The Godfather Journal by Ira Zuckerman.

Nevertheless, the scene certainly worked.

Signor V.

I read in one of Brando's bios that the first scene w/ he and Luca was sort of improv, in that Vito was supposed the take the envelope from Luca's hands. Instead, Brando wanted to use it to read his lines! So.... the envelope stays in Luca's hands where Brando can see it, and the two have sort of an embrace w/ the envelope/dowry.

(Of course this may be just another example of a hollywood lure/fable. Its hard to say which of these supposed improvs are that, and which ones are just fables passed down from the generations.)

Agreed TB....I wonder if the dancing with the little girl inspired The Wedding Crashers.

dt, "inspired" is not a word that I'd use anywhere near "The Wedding Crashers."

And here I was about to say that Tessio and Barzini crashed Vito's funeral.

And Frankie's inspiring the musicians at the party of GF2 may be improvisation.