I AM ADVISED THIS POST IS A RIPOFF OF PB'S RECENT POST. SORRY I MUST BE GOING SOFT IN THE HEAD. I noticed this time around watching the saga that a nmumber of deleted scenes showing Sonny's behavior after Vito is shot and he has leadership of the family thrust upon him really fill out his character and IMO should have been left in the movie itself.

What emerges is a character who is trying his best to to the right thing...he is brilliant in the scene with his mother, and handles himself very well, but otherwise we see someone who is very unsure of himself and probably very scared.

For example in one scene he calls Tom and finds out he isnt home. Of course he doesnt know Sollozzo is holding him yet, but you can see the disapointment register on his face when he realizes Tom isnt there to help him right away.

We also see it in the two scenes where he is making contacts with people who have information about Vito. In two cases when they help him (which they are on the payroll to do) he goes out of his way to tell them that they are going to get bonuses. He tells one that there's an extra grand coming, and he tells another that he is going to have an extre marry Christmas. Vito or Michael would never have done that. They would have expected to get that kind of information from their people and they would never show their feelings in such a way. Also he forgets to bring Teresa Hagen into the inner circle, which Michael has to do.

Each of these things shows a more complaex character than the movie makes him out to be, and closer to the character of Sonny in the novel.

I mentioned this in another thread just last week, Don T!

If those scenes were left in, I think Caan would have won the Oscar, instead of Joel Grey for that sissy movie, CABARET.

Those scenes certainly give a better-rounded picture of Sonny. In the novel (after going through that boys'-school BS about Sonny's dong ) Puzo writes that "His heart was as big as his organ" :p. But, absent the deleted scenes, the only act of "generousity" we see from Sonny was the money he threw in front of the photographer he roughed up outside Connie's wedding.

Hollywood finocchio

As much as I am a sucker for "more and more" godfather storyline... Sonny wasnt "the Godfather"... Michael was... so I didnt need to see more at that time....

but...if they make a GF4 in a similar flashback way as GF2... then I would like to see the rise of Vito/Sonny paralleled with maybe Vincent or others in future....

I know, I know.... there is a forum for this...