I was just finishing high school when the book came out in 1969. I read Dick Schaap's review of it (March, '69) and bought the book a few weeks later. I always loved gangster stuff but the book had a special interest to me because it took place right here in New York.

I saw the movie a few months after it came out in 1972. I loved the movie immediately (I was a little put off of the novel because of the too many sequences about Lucy Mancini, Nino Valenti, etc. that I felt weren't necessary).

I remember thinking (at the time) that the cast wasn't that much of a draw for me. I always liked Brando but he hadn't done much of anything recently (the last thing I saw him in was the movie in which he played a southern sheriff co-starring with Robert Redford and the movie wasn't too good). I knew of Robert Duvall (seeing him in "M*A*S*H") and Richard Conte but wasn't all that familiar with anyone else.

I never imagined that some 30+ years later I'd be "living" in a "Godfather" community.