The Godfather at 50

Conceived as a quick payday fashioned from a lurid novel, the landmark gangster movie became a cultural phenomenon and quite possibly the greatest movie ever made

- By Marshall Fine

A movie magnate awakes in his palatial home to find the severed head of his prized stallion tucked between his bloodstained sheets. A motorist tries to hurry through a toll booth only to be hemmed in and then mowed down by assassins with submachine guns. A patron retrieves a hidden pistol from a restaurant lavatory and uses it to dispatch his dinner companions—one of them still holding a forkful of veal.

That level of gore—only halfway through the movie—sounds like the stuff of third-rate horror flicks. And yet The Godfather, which shocked audiences of the time, is revered a half-century later as a cinematic classic, a sweeping epic with Shakespearean overtones. Critics proclaim that it rivals such masterpieces as Citizen Kane and Casablanca for distinction as the best movie ever made. It is so deeply ingrained in the culture’s psyche that almost everyone has a favorite line ready to uncork under the right circumstances: “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse;” “Leave the gun, take the cannoli;” “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes;” “Don’t ever take sides with anyone against the family;” “And at that meeting you will be assassinated.”

The Godfather, which turns 50 this year, is still hot on the minds of critics— as well as audiences—as if it were born yesterday. This is a movie that struggled against all odds even to be made, only to make its mark as a perennial favorite.