How many times have you been at a dinner with friends and overheard someone, while talking about work, say, “I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”? How many times have you stood at an Italian bakery and heard two customers joke, “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli”?
Nearly 55 years after Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 classic, The Godfather, premiered, it is still everywhere.
I first watched the film at age 14—now 50 years ago. I had heard about the movie from some of my friends and regularly pestered my dad to see it. After my 14th birthday, he finally relented and watched it with me. We popped it into the VCR, and as the face of Don Vito Corleone (played by Marlon Brando) came on the screen, I felt my stomach tighten in anticipation. I winced at the violence, shook my head at the murder of Sonny “on the causeway,” and found myself fully immersed in the drama of every scene. After the movie, Dad and I went to get ice cream, and I talked his ear off about how much I loved the movie. I left that ice cream parlor feeling like a man.
Since then, I have watched The Godfather dozens of times. That makes me like most men in America; just ask them. You may wonder why. Or, in the words of Meg Ryan’s character in the famous 1998 film You’ve Got Mail, “What is it with men and The Godfather?”
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