On the Making of The Godfather: The Godfather and the Mob (tv documentary, 2006)

[See follow-up: "The Ultimate Hollywood Survivor; the bimbo and the mangina: Al Ruddy, Part II (videos)"]

By Nicholas Stix

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0819367/

For some reason, the mook who re-posted this at youtube changed its title from The Godfather and the Mob to “The Real Story Behind The Making Of The Godfather Mafia Epic Masterpiece.”

Towards the end, The Godfather’s producer, Al Ruddy, claimed “It’s the first movie to beat Gone with the Wind. Gone with the Wind was the box-office champ until The Godfather.”

Sorry, Al (1930-), who’s now 92, and still working. The Sound of Music (1965) beat out GWTW (1939).

This documentary, which was made for British TV, is so-so, and that is mostly because it only runs for 47 minutes. At 48 minutes, it would be intolerable.

However, there are some interesting stories about the efforts of the Columbo family, one of the New York City mafia’s Five Families (with Gambino, Bonanno, Lucchese/Tommy Ryan and Genovese) to shut down the production, and then to influence it, and squeeze it for kickbacks (e.g., paying the Columbos to use Italian businesses in Little Italy, which would get a tiny portion of the extortion money).

A weird aspect is that most of the narration is provided by Ruddy and his secretary at the time, Bettye McCartt (1932-2013), along with Joe Coffey (1938-2015; the nypd’s chief rackets investigator, at the time of filming in 1971); Richard Capozzollo (who ran the Italian American Civil Rights League for Joe Colombo, until the other mob bosses paid a black guy to shoot Joe in 1971, whereupon they immediately killed the black guy); Peter Bart (VP at “Pramount Pictures,” according to imdb.com); and Gianni Russo, who played Carlo in The Godfather, the guy who married Don Corleone’s daughter, Connie (Coppola’s sister, Talia Shire) and beat her, in order to set up her brother Sonny to get executed at a toll booth on the Long Island Expressway, whereupon Sonny’s brother, Michael, ordered the hit on Carlo. Russo comes off as a mob-sniffer. (Joe Colombo lingered on in a coma for another seven years, until he died in 1978.)

(British starlet Juno Temple [1989-] has been playing Bettye McCartt in The Offer, a 2022 Paramount+ mini-series about Al Ruddy’s experiences making The Godfather. However, even in her mid-forties (fifties?), the real Bettye McCartt was much sexier than Juno Temple. By the way, Al Ruddy refers to McCartt as "my secretary," while Simon George identifies her via the inflated title, "executive assistant." Every time you see or hear of someone referred to as an "executive assistant," think to yourself, "That's the boss' secretary.")

Juno Temple as Bettye McCartt

Bettye McCartt as Bettye McCartt

We do get to see an interview with Shire, which I doubt was done for this documentary, in which she (carefully) talked about how much more nervous mob hitmen were about acting, as opposed to “whatever it was they’d been doing previously.”

Speaking of which, we learn that the vignette during the opening wedding scene, in which Corleone family bodyguard and hit-man Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana) is practicing his speech to Don Corleone congratulating him on his daughter’s wedding, where he’s sitting in a corner in the mansion’s foyer, as guests swirl nearby, was shot without Montana’s knowledge. He thought he was rehearsing, just like Luca Brasi was doing!

Prior to The Godfather Montana, who had also been a professional wrestler, had supposedly led the same sort of life as Luca Brasi.

While director Simon George was working on this project, all sorts of people who’d been in the picture, or worked on it were still alive: The Bum (1924-2004); Jimmy Caan (1940-2022), may he rest in peace, about whom we hear quite a bit (he used to hang out with mobster Carmine Persico, which led the FBI to surveil Caan, who was then an unknown, as well); Bob Duvall (still alive today, at 91!); Al Pacino (ditto, at 82); Al Martino (1927-2009; he played Johnny Fontaine, and once drove me to work at a Wall Furniture Outlet, in 1991, when he was driving a taxi—nice guy); and of course, Coppola, who is now 83. However, none of them appears in George’s documentary.

George never says if he tried to get interviews with the aforementioned people.

Speaking of Simon George, I was unable to find out anything about him, beyond his credits, not even his age.

So, why did I re-post this documentary, and do the necessary research? Because I'm a sucker for knowledge about The Godfather, even the trivial kind. And lookee, lookee, now 92-year-old Al Ruddy has re-made The Godfather and the Mob as a dramatic mini-series, and millions of civilians have learned who Bettye McCartt was! Talk about coming 'round full circle!