He wanted to look good for his "spoiled Guinea brat".

lol, nice picture Mark

I love all of the deleted scenes that are in this epic! A few of my favorite are when Tom is told he is no longer the consigliere and he informs Mike that he knows that he is building a secret regime around Rocco. Another is the scene when Clemenza, Rocco and Paulie are going around town looking for places for their men to hold up in and Clemenza makes them wait while he has his lunch. Also when Neri informs Michael about the whereabouts of Fabrizio and Michael gets his revenge for Apollonia's murder. There isn't one scene in the first two movies, deleted or not, that I don't like. Now the third movie that's a different story but I still like the movie.

As happens so often, while watching the Epic for the umpteenth time I noticed a couple of things I never noticed before.

In the scene where Vito and Genco see Fanucci extorting the theater owner, Vito asks Genco why Fanucci bothers Italians. I find that inconsistent with a later scene where Vito asks Signor Roberto to let Signora Columbo stay. In that scene he finds out that Roberto is Calabrese and he tells Roberto that we are almost paisan. The upshot of both scenes is that Sicilians don't necessarily consider themselves Italians and especially in the 1920s.

...or, alternatively, that mainland Italians didn't consider Sicilians as Italians...

Has anyone been able to sit down and watch this start to finish in one sitting? Much as I would like to, I can't even come close.

I should have done it during the blizzard we received in January but I didn't have HBO back then.

In November, Regan Arts will release The Godfather Notebook, a collection of Coppola’s notes and research for the film. Pitched as “The Publishing Sensation of the Year For Every Film Fan,” this enormous tome will be a lavishly assembled version of the “prompt book” Coppola used to develop the project, and then carted around with him on the set. As a 2011 video makes clear (watch it above), it’s an exhaustive compendium of every thought, idea, and plan the filmmaker hatched regarding his mob opus.

Sounds interesting. I've always credited Coppola with the Godfather's longevity more than Puzo. I found the book to be underwhelming, way too much on Johnny Fontaine. I think Puzo was a hater who had a stick up his butt about Sinatra. Coppola took what was a great concept and good story by Puzo and turned it into a great story as well, then made II to solidify the epic.

I believe that notebook was known as 'Coppola's Bible', and it will certainly be a Bible to me! Looking forward to it.

Agreed.

If you haven't already, take the GF quiz:

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/godfather-quiz.htm?mkcpgn=i600004268&utm_source=gemini&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=HSWGodfather(desktop)

Fair test for someone on my level, who's never read a book about the film's production. I couldn't figure out a context in which the question about how many cast members won Academy Awards yields what they're saying is the correct answer.

I watched the Epic last night. It's funny how you watch something a million times, but keep noticing new things.

At the communion party, it's late. Michael tells Anthony that he's going on a trip. He then goes to his bedroom where Kay is already in bed and takes off his coat. Then the assassination attempt, the conversation with Tom, and the disposal of the bodies. Next thing Michael's on a train at night (the same night?) with his bodyguard headed for Florida. How did Michael manage all of that in just a few hours. Previously, he went to his bedroom to go to bed because he didn't plan to leave on his trip until the next morning, right?. Where was the nearest railroad station?

There was most likely some time in between, like a day or so.

Well, on the train he was wearing the same suit as he wore at the party and he told Anthony goodbye the night of the assassination.

Directoral license. He told Tom, "If what I think has happened, has happened, I leave tonight." But, that bodyguard must have been on standby...right? And he took a train instead of flying...right?

It's been a while since I've seen the movie and forgot about that line. So then he did leave the same night. Also, I think the pill he took in the train could've been a sleeping pill. But TB is right, it's indeed directorial license.

The Corleone Tahoe compound is set in Stateline, NV (the actual mansion is on the California side, a good 60 miles up the lake...). The nearest train station to Stateline NV is at the Y terminal (current Amtrak station, where US hwy 50 meets CA hwy 89), which is just right down the road from Stateline. Certainly plausible Michael and his badass old bodyguard dude could have caught a train that night, assuming that station was there in the 1950s.

Also, consider that the train schedule must have been rather accommodating: leaving in the middle of the night. On the train he's about to eat which he had already done that night.

The stress hormone cortisol probably made him hungry again. If I'd survived such an attempt on my life I 'could eat a horse' too.

Could have been a sleeping pill. But, I bet it was Miltown, the ubiquitous tranquilizer of the era.

Directorial license aside, another possibility is that Michael had some sort of safe house that he went to immediately, then arranged the bodyguard and train trip.

Sleeping pills or tranquillizers are basically the same, so we agree.

I'm watching the Epic (for the umpteenth time) and it prompts me to ask about something that as been discussed quite a bit on the Board. I reprise it here.

Vito refers to Kay as Michael's American girlfriend. Was Vito really that contemptuous of America? Were his references to Michael's heroic deeds for strangers more evidence of that contempt? If so, what was the source of his contempt since, along with Bonasera, America had made his fortune?

Yes to both, Olli: Vito was contemptuous of Michael's "miracles performed for strangers," and of the fact that he had an "American" (not Italian, not Catholic) girlfriend. I don't think he was being critical of America--just critical of Michael's choices that so obviously rejected his family's values and his father's plans for him. In the flashback at the end of II, Tom refers to those plans, and the arrangements Vito made to keep Michael from being drafted (a one-year draft lottery was in effect before Pearl Harbor).

Do any Board members know of a source that provides the GF Italian dialogue (in Italian) such as Sollozzo and Michael's exchange in Louie's?

From IMDB... Not sure how accurate, oli.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068646/faq#.2.1.10

Here is a translation of what they say in Italian:

Sollozzo: I'm sorry.

Michael: Leave it alone. ( or ) Forget about it.

Sollozzo: What happened to your father was business. I have much respect for your father. But your father, his thinking is old-fashioned. You must understand that I am a man of honor.

Michael: I understand those things. I know them.

Sollozzo: You do? You must understand that I helped the Tattaglia family and once I make a deal, I seek nothing but peace. Leave aside all this nonsense.

Michael: How do you say? [Then Michael returns to speaking English.]

[After Michael returns from the bathroom]

Sollozzo: Everything all right? I respect myself, understand, and cannot allow another man to hold me back. What happened was unavoidable. I had the unspoken support of the other Family dons. If your father were in better health, without his eldest son running things, no disrespect intended, we wouldn't have this nonsense. We will stop fighting until your father is well and can resume bargaining. No vengeance will be taken. We will have peace, but your Family should interfere no longer.

In Italian!

D'oh!

My bad. Apologies.