1990 - THE GODFATHER PART III, dipping into the well one more time.

 Is The Godfather Part III a good film?  The answer is yes.  Did The Godfather Part III need to be made? Probably not.  Paramount once again dipping into their Godfather franchise persuaded Francis Ford Coppola to write and direct another sequel to the original film.  Coppola's last two films, Gardens of Stone (which nobody remembers) and Tucker: The Man and his Dream had been box office flops.  The Godfather Part III was Coppola's run for cover film, something that would be guaranteed to make money.

The film is actually not bad, Michael Corleone who has now turned his family's organized crime business legitimate, has to face down one more challenge as he attempts to figure out who is trying to kill him and take over the Corleone family business.  The film has Al Pacino back as Michael, Diane Keaton as his ex wife Kaye (still a nothing part) and Talia Shire as Michael's sister Connie.

New to the cast were Andy Garcia as Vincent, illegitimate son of his deceased brother Sonny and Coppola's own daughter Sophia as Mary Corleone, Michael's daughter and Vincent's love interest.  There was a lot of criticism of Coppola for hiring his own daughter for a major role in the film.  She was an untrained performer.  But she has an interesting look and she does fairly well in a challenging role for the most part.

 

The Godfather Part III carefully follows the outlines of the first two films.  Some intimate family time, moments of violence, lots of scheming and subterfuge and once again a cathartic mass killing at the end of the film.

 

As in the first two films, Al Pacino, and this can't be emphasized enough, really holds this film together.  He has been essential to the series since the first film.  Coppola's skill in directing large scale crowd scenes and intimate family moments is still superior film making.  If you are a fan of the first two films you will probably enjoy this look into the snake pit that has become Corleone family.

The screenplay is by Coppola and Mario Puzo agian, the running time is 162 minutes.

1974 - THE GODFATHER PART II - second film in the trilogy

Paramount had a big commercial and critical hit with The Godfather, so movie studios being what they are decided a sequel was called for.  Francis Ford Coppola was lured back with the promise of creative control.  More importantly Al Pacino returned as Michael Corleone now the head of the family and an extensive power player in the Las Vegas gambling scene.

The Godfather Part II is about Michael Corleone's plan to become the major player in the organized crime world.  The film's plot follows Michael as he travels from Nevada to Cuba to New York in an effort to consolidate his power.  With a bigger budget, Coppola has a much wider canvas to stage some epic scenes.

A lot of the original cast is back, Diane Keaton is Michael's wife (she still doesn't have much of a part.)  John Cazale is Michael's clueless brother Fredo, Talia Shire is Michael's sister Connie  and Robert Duvall is the family lawyer Tom Hagen.  But as in the first film Al Pacino is the whole show, he completely dominates this story.

 

The film jumps between the present day gangster stuff and the 1920's which tells the story of the early days of Vito Corleone and his rise to power as a Mafia Don.  Marlon Brando obviously to old for these scenes is replaced by a young Robert De Niro as Vito.  De Niro apparently couldn't speak a word of Italian but you would never know it, his performance is that good.

The Godfather Part II is based on a lot of real life characters in Mafia history during the 1950s. Understandably the names of these characters were changed for the film. No sense looking for trouble.

This is quality film making on an epic scale.

The running time is 202 minutes, the film was written by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola

1972 - THE GODFATHER - the classic modern day gangster epic

A few thoughts on Coppola's legendary film.  The Godfather is about a loving supportive Italian American family in the 1940's who also happen to be a group of organized crime killers.  Marlon Brando who was on the outs with Hollywood mostly because of his behavior on previous film sets had to audition for the part of Vito Corleone.  Interestingly enough Brando's comeback role plays like a supporting role in the film.  He's barely a presence in the middle part of the the story.

The other actors in the film were future stars to watch.  James Caan as Sonny Corleone, Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen, and John Cazale as Fredo Corleone.  Diane Keaton played the wife of Michael Corleone but her part is  the usual "please dear don't go out and be a murderous gangster tonight dear."  Some film cliches are hard to change.  The Godfather succeeds because the film rests on the shoulders of Al Pacino who basically moves the story along with his very impressive performance.

Francis Ford Coppola co-wrote the screenplay with the original author Mario Puzo and the film cleverly jumps between the domestic lives of the Corleone family and some impressively staged scenes of violence. Coppola was aware he was playing to a 1970's audience so he includes some sex scene stuff when he must.  Puzo's novel is in many ways kind of a trashy story classed up by Coppola.

The Godfather made the career of Francis Ford Coppola.  He was more than  happy taking the credit for being a film making genius.  However this film benefited greatly from the contribution of cinematographer Gordon Willis.  Willis's skill in lighting and composing images for this narrative was a major and extremely important contribution to the success of this film.

 

The Godfather has a lot and I do mean a lot in common with Paramount's previous attempt at a gangster epic, The Brotherhood which was released in 1968.  That film is forgotten today but I think people viewing The Brotherhood would be surprised to see how many of the plot points are similar between the two films.  The Godfather was a big success for everyone involved but Paramount's desire for a sequel (more money to be made after all) led them to surrender most of their control over to Coppola for The Godfather Part II, a more impressive film than this one.

The film was written by Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo, the running time is 175 minutes

1984 - THE COTTON CLUB, Coppola's gangster musical

The version of The Cotton Club is called the encore version but I've seen the original film and there's really not much difference.  Coppola appears to have cut out all the actors playing 1930's celebrities and added more musical numbers.  Other than that it's basically the same film.

Clearly the plan of the producer Robert Evans was to get lighting to strike twice with another gangster epic.  To that end he hired Mario Puzo to write an original story about the famous 1930's Harlem jazz club that was essentially run by white gangsters.  Dissatisfied with Mario Puzo's story, Evans turned to his Godfather director and writer Francis Ford Coppola to rewrite the film and eventually direct it.  Robert Evans must have been really desperate since he and Coppola had feuded a lot during the making of the Godfather films

The film has a notorious backstory involving real life gangsters and murder but lets not get into that here, that story can be easily found all over the internet.  With Coppola in charge the budget shot up and he was able to wrestle final cut away from Evans.  The resulting film is beautiful to look at with the carefully recreated sets and costumes from that era.  The musical numbers are all extremely well done.  If there is an issue with this film it's kind of with the story.

For all the work Coppola and his production team put in on this film the main love stories are rather on the thin side.  Richard Gere is a trumpet player who falls in love with gangster Dutch Schultz's mistress played by a miscast and far to young Diane Lane who was  probably 19 years old when she appeared in the film.  She hardly seems like the tough 1930's broad who falls in love with Gere.  Gregory Hines and his brother Maurice are tap dancers who appear at the Cotton Club and Lonette McKee is a light skinned black woman passing for white who Gregory Hines falls in love with.  This would have made an interesting story line but it's barely touched upon.

 

For all the flaws in the story telling this is a very entertaining film.  Coppola succeeds in mixing the musical numbers with the gangster story line rather well.  As one critic pointed out, in retrospect this film with it's mixed genres was the one he was attempting to make with the disastrous One From The Heart.

The film was written by  Francis Ford Coppola and the novelist William Kennedy, the running time is 139 minutes.

1962 - BATTLE BEYOND THE SUN, Battle? Sun?

Roger Corman picked up a Russian science fiction film called The Sky is Calling, hired Francis Ford Coppola to rework it for American audiences and the finished product was called Battle Beyond The Sun for some reason.  

The original film was about a race to Mars in the year 1997 between the Russians and the Americans.  Coppola got rid of this cold war type stuff and created two countries called North Hemis and South Hemis.

The spaceships from North Hemis and South Hemis end up on an asteroid instead of Mars where surprise, surprise they confront some goofy space monsters.

The special effects are fairly decent for an early low budget 60's film.  The film is short and nothing special,

75 minutes. written by Mikhail Karyhukov, Yevgeni Pomeshchikov,  Aleksei Sazonov this was after all originally a Russian film.

1974 - THE CONVERSATION, impressive film from the 1970's

Thematically linked to Blow Up, The Conversation is impressive personal film making with an outstanding central performance from Gene Hackman as Harry Caul the for hire surveillance expert.

Hackman really gets inside this worthless little weasel of a man who has chosen as his life's profession wiretapping people .  This is an outstanding performance in a difficult non expressive role.

Shot on interesting San Francisco locations with a really small budget, Coppola used a lot of excellent acting talent such as John Cazale, Robert Duvall, Cindy Williams (before she sold her soul to Laverne and Shirley), Harrison Ford and Andrew Garfield.  

Coppola has certainly had his share of career highs and lows, but this is a film that completely succeeds as a character study and as a very good thriller as well.

Sound design (which is a really big deal in this film) and editing were by Walter Murch who was probably as responsible for the finished film as Coppola was.

 113 minutes, written by Francis Ford Coppola.

1986 - CAPTAIN EO, Michael Jackson's 3D film

Michael Jackson is Captain EO who will use the power of music to turn an evil alien Queen into a much nicer person in Disney's 23 million dollar 3D short made for presentation at the Disney theme parks.

This was released at the height of Jackson's fame, and re-released at the second height of Jackson's fame his death.  The 3D film had some big Hollywood talent, Francis Ford Coppola directed, George Lucas was the executive producer, Vittorio Storato was the cinematographer.  The result looks pretty mediocre

I saw this film when it was originally released at Disney world and remembered being some what impressed but not exactly overawed.  The viewing experience in the theater was fairly comfortable and the 3D glasses didn't hurt my face.  As I recall the 3D effects were decent if unspectacular.

Re-watching this 25 years later Captian Eo looks mighty cheesy.  The whole thing was probably a quick cash grab for Coppola and Lucas.  The dancing is nothing special and the two songs by Michael Jackson are equally unmemorable.  The crew of misfits that Jackson commands are the usual bunch of science fiction creatures created to sell stuffed animals at a Disney tourist trap store.  

Michael Jackson was never anyone's idea of being a charter member of the  "he man woman hater's club member."  He doesn't really seem to have much screen presence and doesn't bring a lot to the party.  Considering the talent and personalities involved the whole thing could have been a little better.

17 minutes, written by George Lucas, Rusty Lemonade and Coppola.

1979 - 2001 - APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX, the extended version shows how good the original version is

This review should be more about my foolish purchase of the extended version of Apocalypse Now.  Francis Ford Coppola who hadn't had a hit film in a while and possessing a large ego added back in almost an hour of footage into his original cut of his film.  The additional scenes mostly consisted of the crew's visit to a French Plantation in Vietnam and more of the Playboy bunnies.  Coppola re-released it calling it a reworking of the original film.

Where the original Apocalypse Now ran into trouble was towards the end where Coppola went all surreal on the audience with a weird Dennis Hopper spouting gibberish and Marlon Brando appearing to improvise his entire performance.  This extended version didn't even attempt to clarify those scenes. 

Still, you can see the original film among the new mediocre scenes that were reinserted after probably being deemed disappointing in the first cut.  The big helicopter attack with the Wagner music is extremely well done and the cinematography by Vittorio Storato is very impressive.  Coppola had plenty of brilliant scenes in the first part of his film to make you forget the complete mess that the last  part of the film turned into.

Apocalypse Now was a big production with big problems.  Advised by Roger Corman not to film in the Philippines during the monsoon season.  Coppola went ahead anyway only to see a hurricane destroy his sets.  Martin Sheen had a heart attack and Marlon Brando showed up extremely overweight forcing Coppola to shut down production while he rewrote the last part of the film to incorporate Marlon Brando's appearance and somewhat irrational behavior. 

There is an even longer version of Apocalypse Now called the bootleg version which runs 289 (almost 5 hours).

202 minutes, written by John Milius and Coppola.

1982 - ONE FROM THE HEART, Coppola's big budget musical mess.

When Francis Ford Coppola flopped with One From The Heart, he flopped very big.  The goal was to tell a simple love story with musical background numbers in a highly stylized manner.  Somewhere along the line Coppola embraced the somewhat revolutionary technology of word processing and video pre-visualization to blow this film completely out of the water. 

Coppola spent three months rehearsing with the actors, but during filming he directed in a trailer with a video monitor and a loud speaker giving direction to Terri Garr that consisted of him yelling over a loud speaker "show more boob," very classy directing stuff.

Gene Kelly was hired as a creative consultant for the musical numbers but quit the production.   Kelly felt that Coppola appeared to have no feeling for this type of genre, he was probably right.  The overblown sets and the over stylized photography completely overwhelmed the simple and frankly uninteresting love story.  Coppola not a director with a light touch saw the critics and audiences reject his film. 

28 years later the film still looks very pretty but is still pretty bad.  The love story that Coppola envisioned is just not that interesting.   Coppola was past the point in his life where he could relate to a working class couple trying to live together.  Terri Garr, Frederick Forrest and the then hot Nastassji Kinski are not interesting actors. Garr a dancer before she was an actor had to carry the musical numbers, but she is really not that good a dancer.

Tom Waits background songs have to do all the work to put some emotional meaning in the film, but  after a while if you've heard Tom Waits croak one song you've heard him croak them all.  

Probably the most revealing aspect about this film are the special features on the DVD.  Here is where you can see a production and a director completely out of control.  It appears that almost every day on the set was a big carnival with lots of catering and partying go on.  All of this energy was not directed at making a good film.  

An amazing failure like Hello Dolly another musical behemoth, One From The Heart is not even fun to watch.

One From The Heart is an example of a director with grandiose artistic pretensions being allowed to run out of control without any kind of studio supervision.

107 minutes and nobody wished it a minute longer. Written by Armyan Bernstein and Coppola

1988 - Coppola's Capra film TUCKER THE MAN AND HIS DREAM

Francis Ford Coppola a maverick filmmaker working in the studio system had wanted to make a film about a maverick car manufacturer named Preston Tucker. His plan for Tucker The Man and His Dream was to film it as a musical. But Coppola's luck had run out, One From The Heart his expensive love story/musical had flopped several years ago and he had been forced to make mainstream commercial movies the last several years.

However, George Lucas committed to producing the film for Coppola to secure the financial backing for the film. Lucas also persuaded Coppola to abandon the musical concept. Coppola agreed and decided to turn the film into a Frank Capra "little guy against the system" film. The final film while interesting, well acted and at times flamboyantly directed if disappointing, it lacks the sense of energy and spark that Capra in his prime could give a film.

Jeff Bridges pours on the charm playing the semi crazed inventor but the film seems kind of tired as if most everyone else is just going through the motions of the story.  All of his energy can't bring the film to life. The elegant and classical photography of Vittorio Storato constantly overwhelms the film and makes everything look just too pretty.

The story tries to make the case that the major automakers stopped the innovative Tucker from building his car of the future, so a lot of time is spent on stock options and board of directors meetings which is  very boring stuff to sit through.

  

Tucker The Man and His Dream is a disappointment because as a story about an unconventional person the film sinks into it's own conventionality by the end. The original musical concept would probably have been difficult to pull off but it would have been a lot more interesting than the final version of this film.

 110 minutes written by Arnold Schulman and David Seidler

1968 - FINIAN'S RAINBOW, a musical about the invention of the perfect menthol cigarette

At 2 hours and 20 minutes, Finian's Rainbow, is a musical about racism in the South with a magical leprechaun running around. It required several nights of viewing to sit through. 69 year old Fred Astaire was way past his prime and it was a little embarrassing to watch him perform some of the dance numbers. He still had a lot of grace and charm which compensated for his diminished skills as a dancer. 

 

 Tommy Steele as Og the leprechaun always seemed to be one of the most strident musical comedy performers in this history of musicals. He over performs every song in the Liza Minnelli tradition of clobbering the audience over the head to show how talented he is.  

 

 

 There are a lot of nice things about Finian's Rainbow. The score is really good with lots of decent and several very good songs. Petula Clark is also very good playing Astaire's daughter and sings the two best songs in the film. 

The producers wanted a younger director for this musical and hired Francis Ford Coppola to direct. He must have had his hands full with an aging star, an outdated story about sharecroppers living in racial harmony and non existent choreography. Working with a larger budget, the young director had previously only made small independent and cheap films. Coppola staged many of the musical numbers outdoors to bring some movement to the film. This was an approach that Astaire apparently didn't much care for.

 

 Compared to something like Hello Dolly, or Star, Finian's Rainbow at least has some charm to it. Unfortunately the movie was pretty outdated by 1968.

 141 minutes, written by Yip Harburg and Fred Saidy.