Gatsby, Gatsby, Gatsby (Gatsby)

I'm re-running this piece as today marks the 100 Anniversary of the publishing of The Great American Novel, "The Great Gatsby".

It is in the public domain; the copyright expired January 1, 2021. 

 

"There are no second acts in American lives"

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Maybe in America, but in Hollywood, there are.

We call them "remakes."

Like Dashiell Hammett's "The Maltese Falcon"; Warner Brothers did three versions before they got it right and then, wisely, they stopped. If they tried it again, the end-result would be reviled, because it would inevitably and unenviably be compared to the 1942 Humphrey Bogart-John Huston version and it would be found lacking, not only as a film, but as an adaptation of the source material. It is so close, in spirit, if not the letter, there'd be no point. You can't improve on it.

But not "the great American novel"—"The Great Gatsby," written in 1925 by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was finding his feet trying to define the American culture that was exploding out of the fortunes garnered during The Industrial Age into The Post-Gilded Age. It seems that every decade somebody unearths it from American Literature 101 and tries again to do right by it.

And the attempts started the year after it was published...

"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses . . ."

John Winthrop, 1630

(Herbert Brenon, 1926) Based on the Broadway adaptation by Owen Davis and directed by George Cukor, the silent adaptation in the words of New Yorker critic Richard Brody "got the parties right"—why wouldn't they being so close to the source?—and featured Warner Baxter as Gatsby, Lois Wilson as Daisy Buchanan, Neil Hamilton as Nick Carraway and William Powell as George Wilson (eh? Powell could have played either Gatsby...or Tom Buchanan...and nailed it), this version (despite extensive searches) is one of those silent films that has been lost through the ususal causes of time, neglect, poor storage and the explosive nature of its nitrate stock. The only evidence remaining of it is the trailer, which you can see below, old sport. 

 

Reportedly, Scott and wife Zelda saw it in 1927 and walked out half-way through. Their opinion Zelda mentioned to their daughter Scottie in a letter: "We saw The Great Gatsby at the movies. It's ROTTEN and awful and terrible and we left."

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"He Did It All On Her Account"

The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.

Balzac

(Elliott Nugent, 1949) Richard Maibaum—who is best known for scripting so many James Bond films—was the guy behind the '49 version, urging friend Alan Ladd to make it. As producer-writer of the film, Maibaum had casting control, and as Ladd saw it as a great acting opportunity (and Paramount had him under contract), the studio used it as a carrot to influence Ladd to do other films. Maibaum and the original director John Farrow (interestingly, father of Mia, see below) disagreed over who should play Daisy and when Farrow wouldn't let go of the idea of Gene Tierney, he was canned over Maibaum's choice, Betty Field.

This version starts in the present as Nick Carroway (Macdonald Carey) and Jordan Baker (Ruth Hussey), old married couple, visit Gatsby's simple grave ("But it's not him, Nick, it's not his style." "No, he'd have fancied something like Grant's Tomb.") etched with an inscription from the Bible—Proverbs 14:12 (which is "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man but the ends thereof are the ways of death.")

Just to position us time-wise, Carey's Nick lamely has to add "He seems like someone we knew in another time, another life, another world..." Well, it was "the Jazz Age" and Prohibition and, since then, there'd been a world war (with selfless rationing) where everyone was doing their part (as legend goes), but it is only useful hand-holding for those who have no idea the story takes place in the past (it doesn't help that knowledge that the fashions and dances are more contemporary, but the cars have a vintage feel). One would think one could get a clue from the dates on the head-stone, though.

This moral distancing from the story probably served a short-sighted convenience at the time, post-World War II, but it certainly doesn't serve the story very well. Perhaps it was to provide an enveloping "Happy Ending"—it all turned out all right in the end for Nick and Jordan, the secondary characters, so everything's fine.

Too bad about the folks the story is about, though, huh?

In the book it is rumored that Gatsby once killed a man, but the 1949 makes it clear that he has...at least one...as he guns down a car full of holes and sends it crashing while on a bootlegging run. Ladd's Gatsby is less a man of mystery than a man of many mysteries, none of them seeming to ring true. We see Gatsby accompanied by Myron Lupus (Ed Begley) and "man" Klipspringer (Elisha Cook, Jr.) the day Gatsby drives up to "the valley of ashes" to find the lavish house at West Egg. Lavish it may be, but this version of "Gatsby" has a studio feel to it, all back projection and false sky-prosceniums. It's slightly claustrophobic and, despite the abundance of faux-white marble around, looks fairly cheap. Gatsby buys the West Egg mans' and walks outside through studio-"fog" to see the beckoning light from the Buchanan dock "just" across the way.

Cut to a party with Nick Carroway in attendance, but no idea why he's there. He runs into Gatsby purely by accident, suspecting him to be just another partyer and, after "bouncing" one of his "bootlegger" pals from the premises, imposes on Nick to host "the get-together" with cousin Daisy (Betty Field), he takes the opportunity during one of his parties to explain his history with an out and out fabrication that even Nick sees right through, so he tells another one about working for a man who bequeaths him a tidy sum of money. "That was in the old days when I was a sucker. Then I wised up." He doesn't waste any time asking Nick—second-cousin to Daisy Buchanan—to arrange a meeting, even offering some stock market business: "Every man has his price, Mr. Carroway. What's yours?"

The meeting is arranged with an anxious Gatsby and an ambivalent Nick and the affair between the two parted lovers begins anew. At least, that's what we're lead to assume—Ladd was so concerned about his image that he does not allow his Gatsby to be shown kissing a married woman. In fact, there's a lot of self-censorship going on: it's okay to show Gatsby plugging away at his gangster rivals, but any extra-marital affairs, whether between Gatsby and Daisy (or Tom Buchanan (Barry Sullivan) and Myrtle Wilson (Shelley Winters, nice casting that) or lost between scenes; there's even an attempt by Daisy and Tom to try to warn Gatsby that he's being hunted by a murderous George Wilson (Howard DaSilva), just to show you that they're not "bad people," despite all appearances to the contrary.

That's just not the book.

Where the movie shines is in Ladd's portrayal of Gatsby—movie-star confident, but almost child-like in his devotion to Daisy (when the Buchanan's attend a Gatsby party, Ladd's host is only too anxious to steal her for a dance and the look on his face is ecstatic), which leads to a dull confusion of realization when his dreams go south. It's a nice portrayal, even if it's been buffed to appease the censors. And there's something of a practical casualness when he's seen shooting people at the beginning, a reflection of the casual cruelty that will lead to his down-fall later in the movie.

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"What'll I Do?"

(Jack Clayton, 1974), The only reason Paramount's head of production, Robert Evans, wanted to make a movie of "The Great Gatsby" was because his wife (at the time) Ali MacGraw wanted to play Daisy Buchanan.* That was enough for Evans—at the time, the Paramount "golden boy"—to start an elaborate pre-production of a multi-million dollar picture, hiring his Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola to write the script and Jack Clayton to direct.

Then, MacGraw signed to do The Getaway with Steve McQueen and the Evans-MacGraw marriage collapsed. Evans was not about to continue the picture with MacGraw in the lead, so he went casting to no real satisfaction, until Mia Farrow, who'd worked with the producer on Rosemary's Baby wrote him a note that said "Bob, can I be your Daisy?" She was signed, which rounded out an otherwise excellent cast, which included one veteran from the 1949 version—Howard DaSilva, who played the cuckolded George Wilson in that version, plays Meyer Wolfsheim "the man who fixed the 1919 World series" (who was identified as "Myron Lupus" in the 40's version—showing that the latter film wasn't afraid to tackle the anti-semitism of the novel or the prejudices of the moneyed upper-class as expressed by Tom Buchanan, played snakily by Bruce Dern in "the Redford version").

This was the first adaptation I had seen, and my memories of "The Great Gatsby" are always associated with the season of Summer. I read the book during a vacation and this one was released in that season and it's reflected in the shimmering cinematography suffused with scrimmed lenses and star-filters as well as the veneer of sweat carefully applied by the make-up staff that provides its own kind of veil for the stars. The '74 Gatsby has a distance to it that separates its audience with a gauzy wall that undercuts the drama and makes us not care a fig about the people in it. Everything looks great, but the figures in the center could use some work.

Part of the fault lies in the stars: Robert Redford is a great choice for Gatsby as a vision of the man, but Redford is an intelligent actor who has always fought his looks, and here he overthinks it. His meeting with Nick is faltering, fumbling, and a bit embarrassed, it is not that of a man setting up the gambit for which he has compromised his integrity and risked his soul. The only time you see a flash of how good Redford could be is when he nearly comes to blows with Tom Buchanan—Clayton cuts to his fist tightening, then to a close-up of Redford flashing his million dollar smile. He wants the fight. He's the poor boy who didn't get to marry the rich girl and wants to paste the face of the guy who did.

But, it's just a flash. Mia Farrow groused that Redford was too engrossed in the Watergate hearings during filming to create a believable screen relationship with her Daisy. But, the problem apparent on the screen is that Farrow makes her such a flighty presence, but with none of the tragedy that she might know that her casual cruelty might make her unworthy of a deeper happiness and destined to be trapped in the golden "Iron Maiden" of her marriage. Roger Ebert nailed it when he said that her Daisy was "all squeaks and narcissism and empty sophistication. In the novel, Gatsby never understands that he is too good for Daisy. In the movie, we never understand why he thought she was good enough for him. And that's what's missing."

William Goldman desperately wanted to do the screenplay for Gatsby—at the time Truman Capote was taking a stab at it—but came away delighted with Coppola's screenplay. Not the movie made from it, however ("they basically ignored it" said Coppola). Goldman blamed Clayton's direction—"Jack Clayton is a Brit...he had one thing all of them have in their blood...a murderous sense of class," he wrote in his follow-up to "Adventures in the Screen Trade", "Which Lies Did I Tell?" The people, the revelers, are fools and he shows the squalor, rather than the foolish hope that befalls every one that burns the candle at both ends, gambles on a "get-rich-quick" scheme, or thinks that there might be a reckoning.

That's the spirit you want to end the Tragedie of "The Great Gatsby." What does Clayton's version leave us? With a tacked on credit sequence of decamping partiers over a squeamish version of "Ain't We Got Fun?" Maybe they wanted to leave us with something upbeat to walk up the aisle to, rather than contemplate what has gone before. I remember seeing that part of the movie as a slap in the face.

It made a facile treatment only that more cynical.

* Well, maybe not the only reason—Evans still harbored the idea of becoming a movie-star despite having much more power in Hollywood that a mere actor would. Given his ego and the dream-world in which he lived, he might have imagined himself in the Gatsby role, as he certainly lived the lifestyle. He certainly must have saw himself as some prototype of Gatsby. But, after this movie's box-office, his productions became more desperate, less sure—he was set up to star with Jack Nicholson in the second part of the Chinatown trilogy—and he became addicted to drugs and it all came crashing down. He must have certainly read the Gatsby novel...he just didn't heed it.

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Written at the time of the film's release....

"Yours in Great Depression" During the Baz Age
or
I'm Half Crazy All for the Love of You....

There have been several versions of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great American Novel that have hit the big screen since the novel was first published in 1925, and nobody seems to get it right, if "right" can be got at all.  There's a "lost" silent version with Warner Baxter, a 1949 version adapted by Richard Maibaum with Alan Ladd that emphasized Gatsby's gangster roots, the Robert Evans vanity production of 1974 with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, directed bloodlessly by Jack Clayton. It's a challenge to produce such a tragedy that has a boisterous first act, and such a downer of a second, but that is what makes it so special, and so American. In fact, the best version must be taken out of the novel, which was written in the midst of the period in which it was set, and take into account future events—the stock market crash in 1929 and the following "Great Depression," which sounded the death-knell for The Jazz Age with a long sustained flat note. Fitzgerald's prescient, cautionary novel proved historically accurate with 20/20 foresight to the extent that you cannot make a movie of it un-ironically, given the past that was its future, and you cannot make a complete movie of it while remaining blind to what it did not foresee in reality, but captured artistically and thematically.

Baz Luhrmann's version of The Great Gatsby jumps into that irony with both feet and splashes around in it, kicking and squealing like a child drunk with a secret. It was a weird decision to film it in 3-D, but given the way Luhrmann uses it, in vivid eye-popping colors, emphasizing the swoop of camera moves and the solidness of glass partitions, and the illusion of the reflections shimmering over it—and particularly in how he photographs our last views of East Egg, in a way that rather lovingly visualizes the novel's last line ("So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past")—one begins to wonder any other way to do it.**  In a way, the movie feels like one big "Vertigo zoom" in three-dimensions (starting at the beginning credits) with an art-deco pattern that falls away to the production company logos and ending with an unfamiliar one—until you see it pop up again in Jay Gatsby's monograms.

Then, we begin the touchstones, green light on the dock, the Egg's, the parties, the infinite closet of shirts, the infidelities, "the man who fixed the 1919 World Series" (played by Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bacchan...) Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, Oculist (correctly spelled this time—it wasn't in the 1974 version), the fights, all done in Luhrmann's hyper-speed (which is maintained throughout, as opposed to his previous film Australia, which flagged after the first 45 minutes), in a style somewhere between Preston Sturges, Sam Raimi, and Tex Avery, making the performances somewhat inconsistent (but more on that later). The swooping, veering style allows for some fore-shadowing plummets down skyscrapers and serves as a visual counter-point to Jay-Z's thumping, pumping soundtrack, which is surprisingly synchronous, although slightly discordant and certainly anachronistic. It does lend the film a sense of vital excitement, however shallow, that communicates to the spirit of those times to the "youngsters" in the audience. 

"One big 'Vertigo' zoom"

The neatest touch that the director throws into this Great Gatsby is the framing story paralleling F. Scott Fitzgerald, as Nick Carraway (Tobey McGuire), incarcerated in a sanatorium to dry out, composes the story at the behest of his psychiatrist (Jack Thompson), which allows Fitzgerald's words to flow out and become part of the story (the name of the sanatorium is Perkins Sanatorium, after Fitzgerald's editor, the brilliant Max Perkins, a nice little in-joke) and become part of the narrative, succinctly and effortlessly, providing a touch of elegance and perspective to the visual shenanigans.

Even that is a little problematic, as you can't believe those words and that phrasing are coming out of McGuire's googly-eyed Candide in this version—Sam Waterston's Nick in the '74 vintage and even Paul Rudd's in the 2000 BBC take, both have the mature feel for Carraway's observer/muse/co-dependent enabler—something you can't see in McGuire. It's a miscalculation, but not due to any mis-casting issues, so much as Luhrmann's ADD approach to direction. 

Leonardo DiCaprio's Gatsby is prone to such inconsistency as well. After establishing Gatsby as a figure of extravagant mystery and a certain false style, Luhrmann has him marching up to Nick's cottage, servants in line behind, an image that recalls a parade. It brings a laugh, but is far too comic for the character. Sure, he's nervous, anticipating the forthcoming tea, and he's slightly out of his element. But the effect takes away from all aspects of the character, even though it plays into Gatsby's too-romantic notions of reclaiming his past. Nor does it help that DiCaprio still looks like a boy-child here.

But where the casting falls off the most is Carey Mulligan as Gatsby's lost-love, Daisy Buchanan, the instrument of his downfall. It's a tough character to cast, as difficult as Gone with the Wind's Scarlett O'Hara, seemingly worldly-wise (but actually sheltered), and fatally shallow, selfish in the moment, and murderously practical in the long run.** She needs to be someone who can dash all hopes by merely averting her gaze, and fascinating enough to attract it. And she has to evoke some sympathy for her acts, despite her flaws and practiced weaknesses. As good an actress as Mulligan is (and has been), her Daisy comes across, finally, unknowable and not interesting enough to be an object of obsession, as she must be for the whole tale to work. 

In fact, it would be tough to think of a modern actress who could be so cool in her actions, and attractive to risk everything for. Stanwyck could do it, and Hepburn (Katherine), but it would take a full infusion of actorly personality to pull off. With Mulligan, there's no spider's web of promise, only a longing weakness, around which the story can revolve. And at the pace Luhrmann spins the film, that character needs to have a substantial spine to keep it from flying apart, to make you realize what someone would risk everything for, and that spine can't be made of pixel-dust.

It's not there. Luhrmann provides substantial spectacle and very crowded frames with detailed evocation of the times, but the people caught in it cannot hold the thing together. It's just another variation of the theme. As such, it's an interesting, but not a great "Gatsby."

Maybe—in another decade, after the book has aged a century—some entrepreneurial spirit, with hope and devotion in their eyes, will take on "Gatsby" and, rather than repeat, try to re-create the past and give us a truly great "Gatsby."

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And then one fine morning--

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

F. Scott Fitzgerald

"The Great Gatsby"

** The 3-D also helps the special effects, which, in Luhrmann's vision have a distant postcard version of things and see quite a bit distanced from the real live action going on out front. In fact, I imagine the film looking pretty crummy in 2-D, especially in the shots where the large estates look like models (this was confirmed when I later saw it on television).

** “Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.”

Don't Make a Scene: The Godfather Part II

The Story: Up until The Godfather Part III (or as it's now known The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone) this last scene from The Godfather Part II was the last we would have seen of Mafia chieftain Michael Corleone, who—as that particular film makes plain—has a path as Mafia Don far different from that of his father, Vito.

The previous Don managed to keep his family (only to see it torn asunder by the events of the first "Godfather" movie) while his son, in an effort to protect his father, sacrifices his future...and his family...for a security that may never exist, especially as his trade involves organized crime.

At the end, it is apparent that Michael, now aging, is isolated, alone, and without his wife and children...as far as blood relatives, he's managed to have killed quite a few of them. At the time the film was released, there was no doubt that Michael, in his quest for power, has lost everything, and the future that he had such high hopes for (in his youth) would never come to be despite his ambitions and earlier protestations. Oh, it's true that he wouldn't become a man like his father...but, one suspects that he never suspected that he would be worse.

But, that last scene reveals the "Godfather Saga" to be a tragedy (despite the lionization of "Godfather culture" among fans). There is no triumph in gaining power if you lose everything else. And, if The Godfather Part II wasn't abundantly clear in that point, Coppola's return to the story for Part III/Coda made it unambiguous and twisted the dagger of Fate. 

But, I remember this scene of Michael reflecting on the time when he "broke" with the Family, and remember being elated that they got so many people back from the first movie for the flashback: James Caan's Sonny, Gianni Russo's Carlo Rizzi, and Abe Vigota's Tessio. And then you realize with a thump that two of those characters died on Michael's orders, as did John Cazale's Fredo in events of Part II. Maybe it isn't so much a flashback as a "haunt." 

But, if you read all the way to the end, what we got on-screen at the end of Part II isn't what was originally written for the movie. What's on-screen is superb. What the plan was, though, is much richer.

 

Also, apologies for the racial slurs. But, the people uttering them are violent mobsters, so please put that in context. Don't end up like Sonny...or Michael.

 

The Set-up: It is 1961. The main branch of the Corleone Family has moved from New York to Lake Tahoe with their business in Las Vegas. But, the cost has been huge: Mike Pentangelli (Michael V. Gazzo), the last of the Corleone capo's in New York is dead; Mama Corleone (Morgana King) has died of natural causes; Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton) has divorced The Don, Michael (Al Pacino); and Michael has ordered and had carried out the death of his last remaining blood-brother, Fredo (John Cazale). Alone in his Lake Tahoe retreat, Michael contemplates what has become of his family...and him.

 

Action.

 

MICHAEL sits down in the boat house

DISSOLVE TO: 1941 the Corleone family is sitting at the table in the kitchen.

SONNY Hey 

SONNY ...everybody come on pay attention. Come here. 

SONNY EVERYONE this is my friend CARLO RIZZI.

[CARLO RIZZI walks in.]

SONNY This is my brother FREDO -- oh you know FREDO sure don't you.

FREDO (Sure)

SONNY This is my step brother TOM. 

SONNY That's his uh, girl Theresa. 

SONNY And this cute little thing over here -- this is my sister CONNIE. I was telling you about her, huh. 

SONNY Come on say hello to CARLO. 

SONNY He's good looking isn't he?

CONNIE Yes.

SONNY Oh, that droopy thing over there -- 

SONNY that's my brother Mike. 

SONNY We call him JOE College, you know what I mean. 

SONNY Go ahead. Sit down. Talk to each other.

TOM Sit down.

SONNY Hey, Mr. Einstein...  (It's a) joke.

[Salvatore TESSIO walks in.]  

TESSIO Here's the cake. 

TOM Hey, Sally, get in here!  

TESSIO I was scared -- I was scared. 

TESSIO Where's your father?  

TOM We sent him on a wild goose chase -- Christmas shopping.

CONNIE Here..

SONNY Oh, let's see that thing.  

[TESSIO reveals the cake.]

CONNIE Beautiful!  

SONNY Oh, golly that's nice. Huh.  

CONNIE Should I put the candles on now.  

SONNY Yea go on -- 

SONNY you help her, right CARLO.  

CARLO Sure.  

[SONNY takes a lick of the frosting.]

MICHAEL How are you, Sal?

SONNY Hey what is that, rum? 

TESSIO Yea.  

SONNY Boy that's good.

SONNY Hey...

[SONNY wipes some on TOM.]

TOM Hey, get outta here.

[Then touches some pasta.]  

CONNIE Hey SONNY don't touch the ante-pasta until Pop gets here.

[Fredo slaps his wrist]  

[He begins to mock-fight with FREDO.]

TOM He's not ugly! 

(TOM laughs)  

SONNY Yea, come on.  

[SONNY sits down and begins to smoke.]  

SONNY Ah, say -- what do you think of the nerve of those Japs -- those slanty eyed bastards, huh. 

SONNY Dropping bombs in out back yard -- and on Pops birthday ya know.  

FREDO Aw, they didn't know it was Pop's birthday.  

SONNY "They didn't know it was Pop's (birthday)." 

TOM Well, we should have expected it after the oil embargo.  

SONNY What do you mean expect it -- expect it or not they have no right dropping bombs. What are you a Jap lover or something -- are you on their side? 

TESSIO I understand thirty thousand men enlisted this morning. 

SONNY A bunch of saps.  

MICHAEL Why are they saps?  

CONNIE SONNY come on we don't have to talk about the war.  

SONNY  Hey beat it -- you go talk to CARLO alright. 

SONNY They're saps because they risk their lives for strangers.

MICHAEL Now that's Pop talking.

SONNY You're god damn right that's Pop talking.

MICHAEL They risk, they risk their lives for their country.

SONNY Your country's not your blood -- 

SONNY you remember that. 

MICHAEL I don't feel that way.  

SONNY "I don't feel that way.."

SONNY Well if you don't feel like that why don't you just quit college and go to -- go to join the Army. 

MICHAEL I did -- 

MICHAEL I enlisted in the Marines.  

[Everyone is silent.]  

TOM MICHAEL why -- why didn't you come to us? 

MICHAEL What do you mean?

TOM I mean Pop had to pull a lot of strings to get you a deferment.

MICHAEL I didn't ask for it.  

MICHAEL I didn't ask for a deferment -- and I didn't want it.  

[SONNY punches MICHAEL and begins to get in a fight.]  

SONNY What's wrong... 

TOM Come on, come on knock it off. 

TESSIO SONNY --  

SONNY Punk! 

TESSIO SONNY -- SONNY sit down.  

SONNY Go on! 

TESSIO Sit down. Siddown. 

KATHRYN CORLEONE (One of Sonny's twins) Mommy, 

KATHRYN CORLEONE (One of Sonny's twins)Daddy's fighting again.  

SONNY Go show CARLO the tree.

KATHRYN CORLEONE (One of Sonny's twins) Go Ahead!  

FRANCESCA CORLEONE (One of Sonny's twins) -- Uncle MICHAEL, MAMA. Daddy!

SONNY Nice -- nice -- 

SONNY break your father's heart on his birthday.

FREDO That's swell, Mike -- 

FREDO congratulations.  

SONNY That's right, go on, encourage him. 

SONNY I want -- I want you to get me a drink -- 

SONNY Go on.

TOM Mikey...  

TOM Now you don't understand but, uh, 

TOM your father has plans for you. Now many times he and I have talked about your future.  

MICHAEL Talked to my father about my future?

TOM (quietly) Yeah.

MICHAEL My future.

TOM Mikey, he has high hopes for you. 

MICHAEL Well I have my own plans for my future.  

SONNY What'd you go to collage to get stupid? You're really stupid.  

CONNIE He's here, come on.  

[Everybody but MICHAEL walks out.]  

SONNY Come on -- 

SONNY come on -- 

SONNY stupid! 

[MICHAEL sits alone at the table while the rest are heard in the distance waiting to their surprise the Godfather.] 

EVERYONE Surprise! -- 

EVERYONE For he's a jolly good fellow, for he's a jolly good fellow

EVERYONE that nobody can deny -- 

EVERYONE that nobody can deny 

DISSOLVE TO: 

VITO holding MICHAEL's hand 

and waving good bye in Sicily. 

DISSOLVE TO: 

MICHAEL sitting alone at the compound.

FADE TO BLACK 

THE END OF "THE GODFATHER PART II" 

 

The Godfather Part II

 

Words by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola 

Pictures by Gordon Willis and Francis Ford Coppola

The Godfather Part II is available on DVD, Blu-Ray and 4k UHD from Paramount Home Video.

Interestingly, this is not how The Godfather Part II originally ended. Things change when making a movie, though. Like Marlon Brando doesn't show up for his one day of shooting as the Don and it has to be re-written...that day. Or maybe make-up doesn't work the way you think it will. Or Al Pacino wants a re-write. Richard Castellano wants more money and to write his part. For all sorts of reasons, things changed. As did the originally scripted ending. There's a lot that's similar. There's a LOT that's different and those things incorporate things from the original Godfather, and also things that would not be discussed again until the writing of The Godfather Part III.

 

This is the SECOND DRAFT 

dated September 24, 1973

MED. VIEW The peninsula of the private Corleone Harbor. We see the figures of two people, seated at a table. 

MED. VIEW Michael sits at a table having a sparse lunch. He is attended by his sister Connie, who seems to be the closest person now living on the estate with him. We see from the way she pampers him with his lunch, that she has fallen into the role of a surrogate Mother-Wife. He seems older than his years, as though his illness, diabetes, has taken its toll. 

CONNIE Don't worry; I'm sure he got here on time. The roads from the airport are so windy, it takes forever; I've driven them myself. 

She picks up some of the serving plates that he has left untouched. 

CONNIE I'll bring him out to you as soon as he comes. 

She moves back to the main house. 

 

MED. CLOSE VIEW ON MICHAEL 

He turns and looks at the rough water of the lake for a moment. He slowly takes a sip of wine. 

 

EXT. A PLACE IN THE GARDEN - DAY 

There are a few chairs. 

 

MED. VIEW ON ANTHONY CORLEONE 

He is eighteen years old. 

ANTHONY Hello, Dad. 

VIEW ON MICHAEL squinting up at his son. 

MICHAEL Anthony. 

He rises, and reaches up to his son, who is now taller than he; he embraces him. 

MICHAEL You've grown so tall... so tall in the last year. You're much taller than me. 

ANTHONY I was taller than you when I was fourteen. 

MICHAEL Sit down. Your Aunt Connie and I waited for you to have some lunch, but now it's all dried out. 

ANTHONY I'm not hungry. 

MICHAEL Well, that's alright... alright. Good. You'll graduate in another year, isn't that right? You know... I never finished college. I was a good student, but I never finished. Of course, there was a war then. 

Connie approaches them. 

CONNIE Don't let me interrupt anything, this will just take a second. Here.

(she takes out a small needle, and begins to prepare it) 

CONNIE Your father has to have his insulin shot. Why don't you go to your room and put your things away, Anthony. 

She begins to give Michael the shot. 

MICHAEL Hurry back; we'll talk. We'll talk. 

Anthony goes on his way to the house with his things. Connie gives Michael the shot. 

CONNIE Whenever I see that lake so cold, I think of poor Fredo, drowned. Lake Tahoe is very cold. They say if a person drowns in it, that the body will remain mid-suspended -- perfectly preserved. Some say it will remain forever. 

She finishes the shot, puts her things away. 

CONNIE Your boy will be right back. 

She leaves. 

VIEW ON MICHAEL Alone in the garden. 

OUR VIEW begins to MOVE CLOSER to him. We begin to HEAR MUSIC of the forties; happy music, swing music, as we move CLOSER to Michael. 

 

DISSOLVE TO: INT. OLD CORLEONE HOUSE - MED. VIEW - NIGHT 

SONNY CORLEONE, his arm wrapped around a smiling red-faced Carlo Rizzi, pulls him into the Corleone dining room. 

SONNY Hey, who knows my buddy Carlo Rizzi. Here... my brother Fredo, here's my Mom. Mom, whatcha got cooking? And Carlo, this is my kid sister Connie. Here, pull up a chair, Carlo is sitting next to Connie. Oh, the droopy kid over there is Mike. The college boy. 

An older, lanky man enters the room, his arms laden with presents. 

SONNY This is TESSIO. 

TESSIO Buon Natale, everybody. Buon Natale... (he smiles at Tom Hagen) Hi, Tom, how's every little thing? 

HAGEN (helping him with the presents) Wonderful, Sal. 

Now the study door opens, and DON CORLEONE enters. 

DON CORLEONE Is dinner ready? 

MOM Two minutes. 

The Don happily regards his family; his sons and daughters and even some Grandchildren. He raises a glass. 

DON CORLEONE A good life, a long life to all my children, and friends. To my grandchildren, and those that will be. To our family. 

They all drink. They refill glasses; then Tessio proposes a toast. 

TESSIO To our Godfather. 

They all drink. 

 

INT. THE DINING ROOM - MED. VIEW - NIGHT 

The family is happily at Christmas dinner. Don Corleone seated at the head of the table. 

SONNY What'd you think of those Japs, eh? The nerve of those Japs, coming right here in our own backyard dropping bombs! 

HAGEN Well, we could have expected it after the embargo. 

SONNY Hey! Expect it or not, those Japs don't have a right to drop bombs in our backyard. Whose side you on? 

MAMA Please, do we have to talk about the war at the table? On Christmas, much less. 

 

VIEW ON MICHAEL He has been listening to this discussion. 

MICHAEL Pop, I've decided I'm going to enlist. 

A quiet hush descends over the table, as though everyone knows the effect this will have on the old man. Sonny tries to make light of it. 

SONNY Kid, stay in college. The girls are cuter, if you know what I mean. 

HAGEN Pop had to pull a lot of strings to get you your deferment. 

MICHAEL I never asked for it; I don't want it. 

VIEW ON DON CORLEONE Disturbed; but wise and prudent. 

DON CORLEONE My son wants to talk about this, and so we'll talk, but not at the dinner table. 

He rises, and starts across the room toward his study. Then he looks back. 

DON CORLEONE Michael. 

He disappears into his study. Michael rises, glances around. People are generally tense over the situation. Michael follows his father into the study. 

 

INT. DON CORLEONE'S OLD STUDY - NIGHT 

The Don closes the door behind his son, and then moves across the room. He stops at the little bar there, and pours himself a brandy. 

DON CORLEONE Would you like some? 

MICHAEL No, Dad. 

DON CORLEONE Now what is this talk about joining the army? Eh? 

MICHAEL It's not talk; I'm doing it. 

DON CORLEONE You would risk your life for strangers? 

MICHAEL Not for strangers; for my country. 

DON CORLEONE Anyone not in your family, is a stranger. Believe me, when trouble comes, your country won't take care of you. 

MICHAEL That's how it was in the old world, Pop, but this is not Sicily. 

DON CORLEONE I know. I know, Michael. It's Christmas, your brothers and sister are all here -- we are happy. Let's not spoil this. Go your own way, but when you are ready, come to me the way a son should. I have hopes for you... 

CLOSE VIEW ON MICHAEL looking at his father with a mixture of great love, and also fear, and confusion. 

MICHAEL I won't be a man like you. 

 

DISSOLVE TO: EXT. THE TAHOE ESTATE - HIGH FULL VIEW - DAY 

The leaves are blowing. MUSIC comes up.

Michael and his young son, Anthony, walk through the grounds of the estate, talking about things we cannot hear.