What Should’ve Won That Could’ve Won: 1977

The Year: 1977
What the Nominees Were: Annie Hall, The Goodbye Girl, Julia, Star Wars, The Turning Point
Other Movies That Should Have Been Considered: How on earth did Close Encounters of the Third Kind not get a nomination??

What Did Win: Annie Hall
How It’s Aged: Look, what can I say here? It’s undeniable that Annie Hall is absolutely brilliant. Very funny (I quote it frequently), beautifully shot, and one of the best actress showcases of all time. But…

What Should’ve Won: Star Wars
How Hard Was the Decision: Choosing between Annie Hall and Star Wars is very hard, but choosing between the filmmakers is easy, so I’ll give it to Lucas. You might think that, after I passed over Jaws and Rocky, I just don’t think the Oscar should go to popular movies, but in this case the most popular choice was also the best. (I did consider Close Encounters, but c’mon, Star Wars is literally the most rewatchable movie of all time.)

Director: George Lucas
Writer: George Lucas
Stars: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness

The Story: Luke Skywalker, a farmer on a distant planet, comes into possession of two droids with plans to blow up a planet-destroying weapon called the Death Star. Luke joins forces with a mystic hermit, a rogue pilot and a spunky princess to save the day.

Any Nominations or Wins: It lost Picture, Director, Supporting Actor for Guinness, and Original Screenplay, but it won just about all the technical awards: Art Direction, Costume Design, Editing, Score, Sound, Visual Effects and a special Scientific and Engineering Award.
Why It Didn’t Win: To this day, there are many who look down on the artistic merits of this movie, and they were legion in 1977. It was a box office phenomenon, but it just didn’t feel like an award-winner. Remember that even 2001 wasn’t nominated, because science fiction (or, in this case, science fantasy) wasn’t remotely considered to be a respectable genre.

Why It Should Have Won:

1. It’s almost impossible to grasp how good John Barry’s production design is. Why is this movie so cool and timeless, while Zardoz and Logan’s Run are so lame and dated? There’s just one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment that shows us what could have been. Originally, Luke’s vehicle was just a normal car with decals on the hood, before they all decided they could do better. But the original car shows up in this one shot. Look at this car. This is what this movie could have been, if Lucas and Barry hadn’t been so visionary.
   
2. I have no patience for those who carp about the quality of the movie’s dialogue. In retrospect, Harrison Ford’s infamous on-set complaint (“George, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can’t say it”) probably refers not to overly simplistic lines, as is generally implied when that quote is cited, but to all of the bizarre unexplained specifics that the actors were expected to casually sell to the audience (“Nerf-herder!”). Those specifics are the heart of great dialogue!
3. Probably the most brilliant moment in this movie is the opening title card. Let’s go back in time and change just one thing. What if, instead of “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” the opening crawl had started with the line: “It is the year 25,172!” Even if the rest of movie had stayed the same, I doubt it would have been as big of a success. That opening line is brilliant. It de-fangs the audience. It says, “Hold on there, buddy, this may look like science-fiction, with space ships and lasers and robots, but it’s not. It’s a fairy tale. So don’t expect a lot of time-travel paradoxes or super-computers. Instead, you should expect princesses and swords and magical mentors.” Lucas was managing our expectations. He was establishing a certain tone, before we in the audience could start making false genre assumptions that would have just left us frustrated.
   
4. If you want to hear more about this movie, go back and listen to all 48 episodes of “The Secrets of Story Podcast”, because James Kennedy and I ended up mentioning the movie in almost every episode, as an example of good writing. James’s theory of “The Holy Moment” (where he talks about how many movies end with a “let go and let God” sequence) owes a lot to this movie, and there are many episodes where we talk about how many movies have a “Snake in the Basement”, which this movie may be the ultimate example of.
   
5. Infamously, this movie has never been released on DVD or Blu-Ray, meaning that you have to go to Bit Torrent to watch it, which is (kind of) illegal, but there are no other options. If you decide to sail the pirate seas, you might as well go all the way and also download the documentary “Star Wars Begins” while you’re there, which is the best place to see all of the fascinating deleted scenes. As is so often the case, the scenes were deleted with good reason, but they also include much crucial information (such as why Luke wants to join the air force of an empire he hates).
   
6. As with 12 Angry Men, this movie is another great example of how heroes, no matter how morally pure they are, get what they want through tricks and traps. Luke uses a lot of indirect and manipulative dialogue, in an admirably crafty way. We think of Han as the slick one, but he’s actually transparent and plainspoken, while Luke is far more wily, and more likely to wrap Han around his finger. This culminates in the finale, when Luke finally convinces Han to totally betray his own self-interest by hitting him below the belt one last time: “Well, take care of yourself, Han... guess that's what you’re best at, isn’t it?” Han just can’t stay away after that. Obi Wan isn’t the only one who knows how to play mind tricks!
   
7. And finally, as I was writing this piece, the real hero of this movie, editor Marcia Lucas, died. Everybody hated the rough cut of the movie and she moved heaven and Earth to make it come to life, rewriting the movie on the fly. Lucas would not be the only director who relied heavily on the efforts of his first wife and, once they divorced, never matched the work he did with her.

Ah, 1977: This is what fashion looked like at the time, which makes it all the more amazing how timeless the movie looks.

What Should’ve Won That Could’ve Won: 1976

The Year: 1976
What the Nominees Were: All the President’s Men, Bound for Glory, Network, Rocky, Taxi Driver
Other Movies That Should Have Been Considered: Those are five pretty great movies. They also could have considered Arthur Penn’s oddball western The Missouri Breaks and Paul Mazursky’s autobiographical masterpiece Next Stop, Greenwich Village.

What Did Win: Rocky
How It’s Aged: It’s a wonderful movie.  Much darker and more authentic than you probably remember.  Ignore the avalanche of sequels and appreciate the original. But...

What Should’ve Won: Network
How Hard Was the Decision: Really hard choice between Rocky, All the President’s Men, Network and Taxi Driver. Rocky is great and a deserving winner, but Network is even better. (The number one reason I was inclined not to choose Network is a behind the scenes story. As Wikipedia sums it up: “Lumet wanted to cast Vanessa Redgrave in the film, but Chayefsky did not want her. Lumet argued that he thought she was the greatest English-speaking actress in the world, while Chayefsky, a proud Jew and supporter of Israel, objected on the basis of her support of the PLO. Lumet, also a Jew, said ‘Paddy, that's blacklisting!,’ to which Chayefsky replied, ‘Not when a Jew does it to a Gentile.’” Yet another way that this movie predicts the events of 2026. Ultimately, the quality of the movie caused me to hold my nose and ignore this problematic backstory.)

 
Director: Sidney Lumet again
Writer: Paddy Chayefsky
Stars: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall and Ned Beatty

The Story: Nightly News anchor Howard Beale begins to have mental breakdowns night after night. His best friend and boss, Max Shumacher, wants to take him off air, but Max’s boss and mistress, Diane Christensen, keeps him on and promotes him as “The Mad Prophet of the Airwaves.” Ratings peak when Beale insists that everyone go to their windows and shout, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Beale eventually steps on the wrong toes when he tries to stop a deal between the network and some Saudis, but the conglomerate boss manages to get him back in line. As ratings plummet, Diane realizes she must do something drastic.

Any Nominations or Wins: Finch posthumously won Best Actor, beating out Holden who was nominated in the same category. It also won Actress, Supporting Actress for Straight, and Original Screenplay. It lost Picture, Director, Supporting Actor for Beatty, Cinematography and Editing.
Why It Didn’t Win: The Academy clearly loved it, giving it three acting Oscars, but Rocky marked a return to feel-good filmmaking and this very sour lemonball was looking out-of-style in comparison.

Why It Should Have Won:

1. This is, I would say, the sharpest satire ever made, and the movie that most accurately predicted the future, right up to the events of 2026 as I write this book. There have been no shortage of Howard Beales that have risen and fallen in the intervening time, most notably Glenn Beck, who had a very similar trajectory. It’s really shocking the degree to which the America of the Sesquicentennial resembles the America of the Bicentennial, with multiple presidential assassination attempts in rapid succession, a middle-eastern stranglehold on the world’s oil supply, and, of course, a late night populist (on the left this time) getting fired because of a corporate takeover that needs approval from the FCC. Chayefsky wasn’t just predicting the next 50 years, he was specifically predicting a year exactly fifty years away. It’s gobsmacking to watch this today.
   
2. Of course, one thing this movie failed to predict about the future is that the quality of fictional TV programming would generally go up and it would no longer be seen as the cesspool it seemed to be in 1976. (Max says, “You’re television incarnate, Diana. Indifferent to suffering, insensitive to joy, all of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality.”) TV has had a few peaks and troughs since then, but it’s generally regarded as a higher quality medium than movies now, maybe because TV has gotten better or because Hollywood has undeniably gotten worse.
3. Lumet told Dunaway that he would edit out any attempts on her part to make her character sympathetic or present her with any vulnerability, but he failed to do so, because, though she is undeniably evil, her performance has a tenderness and rawness to it just under the surface. Some part of her wants Max to save her from herself. Of course, the main reason we accept her is not because she’s redeemed in any way, but because she’s really good at her job, and we can never help but admire that.
   
4. When Beale first announces that he’s going to commit suicide nobody in the booth hears him because they’re chatting amongst themselves. Chayefsky, in his research found that the people who worked in TV never watched it themselves, because they thought they were too good for their product.
5. This is one of Aaron Sorkin’s favorite scripts and predicts his body of work, for good or ill. This isn’t realistic dialogue. People generally speak in speeches here, which are quite high-toned. Diane brags that Howard will be “a strip Savonarola,” which I had to look up. Somehow it works wonderfully. As with Sorkin, we wish people could actually speak this way. (And since Chayefsky is a more incisive observer than Sorkin, it’s even more so.)
6. Straight won her Oscar for a five minute, two second performance as Max’s scorned wife, and Beatty deserved one as well for his six-minute performance as the Corporation boss who brings Howard to heel. (“You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won’t have it!”) Chayefsky knew how to sketch great characters quickly. 
   

Ah, 1976: I used one of these to write, of my brother, “STEVEN IS A COCKROACH” and attached it to a bookshelf, where it sat for 30 years.

What Should’ve Won That Could’ve Won: 1975

The Year: 1975
What the Nominees Were: Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Other Movies That Should Have Been Considered: In America there was Smile and Three Days of the Condor. Overseas there was Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.

What Did Win: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
How It’s Aged: Not great. I bet you don’t remember what Nicholson’s character was in prison for. Hint: it’s a crime we take a lot more seriously today. I rewatched this, and it’s very well made, but, for multiple reasons, the hero is not one we can root for in this day and age.

What Should’ve Won: Dog Day Afternoon
How Hard Was the Decision: There were a lot of great movies released in 1975, but ultimately this came down to a very hard choice between Jaws and Dog Day Afternoon. Both are all-time greats, and they’re so different that it’s hard to compare them. They both have a lot of punch to them, but, ultimately, this one punches harder.

Director: Sidney Lumet
Writers: Screenplay by Frank Pierson, story by Thomas Moore, based on the magazine article “The Boys in the Bank” by P. F. Kluge and Moore
Stars: Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning and Chris Sarandon

The Story: Local losers Sonny and Sal try to rob a bank but when the cops show up it turns into a 12 hour hostage negotiation. Sonny asks to talk to both of his wives, a cis woman and a trans woman, then arranges a jet to Algeria, but before they make it on board the FBI intervenes and resolves the situation.

Any Nominations or Wins: It won Original Screenplay (despite being adapted?) but lost Picture, Director, Actor for Pacino, Supporting Actor for Sarandon, and Editing.
Why It Didn’t Win: Clearly Cuckoo’s Nest was a juggernaut, becoming one of only three movies in Oscar history to win all five top awards. How did it steamroll this superior film? Surely the LGBT element came into play here.

 
Why It Should Have Won:

1. A trans character and her husband? In 1975? Surely that must be dreadful, right? Nope. Today of course, we would hope the character would be played by a trans woman rather than a cis man, but it can’t be denied that Sarandon is incredible in the role, and Pacino is even better as her unapologetic husband. Their long phone conversation is heartbreaking and profoundly human. The film’s final line is an onscreen title: “Leon Shermer is now a woman and living in New York City.” Not “is living as a woman,” just “is now a woman.” This movie knew in 1975 that trans women are women. That’s pretty remarkable.
   
2. This is neither our first nor our last Lumet film. American filmmaking had changed greatly since his debut 12 Angry Men in 1956 and he had changed with it, making a film that could not be more gritty, funky and electrically edited. The brilliant opening montage of life in the streets of New York pulses with so much life that we’re onboard for the movie to take us anywhere.
   
3. Look, I love films about geniuses doing bank robberies (think Inside Man) but that’s not reality. In reality, robbing a bank is a really dumb thing to do, which is precisely what terrifies the cops. Geniuses can be reasoned with, and their actions aren’t actually that unpredictable, but morons like these guys who are dumb enough to burn the register, sending out literal smoke signals? They might do anything. This is a true story, and the thing that makes it so thrilling is that nobody could have made something this crazy up.
4. Cazale only made five films: The Godfather, The Conversation, Godfather II, this, and The Deer Hunter. All five were nominated for Best Picture and three won. This is considered to be the best batting average in film history. He was never nominated himself, but he should have been for this, his meatiest role, as the dim-witted partner who wants to avoid extradition by fleeing to Wyoming.
   
5. Lumet built a bank branch with moveable walls for ease of shooting, but he built it on a real NYC block, which crucially allowed them to move seamlessly from interior to exterior. The movie would have been terrible if the bank scenes were shot on a Hollywood soundstage. He then surrounded the bank with some extras, but also just whoever showed up to hoot and jeer, which was better than anything they could have paid for. The seething crowd becomes its own character.
   

Ah, 1975: Fascinating

New Episode of "A Good Story Well Told" on Hardball, with Special Guest Austen Rachlis!

It's the final episode of our Guilty Treasures season! Award-winning podcaster Austen Rachlis stops by to profess her affection for Hardball, in which Keanu Reeves coaches an inner-city little league baseball team, including a young Michael B. Jordan! Will we wholeheartedly endorse her choice?

What Should’ve Won That Could’ve Won: 1974

The Year: 1974
What the Nominees Were: Chinatown, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Lenny, The Towering Inferno
Other Movies That Should Have Been Considered: Scorsese had another great one with Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. And if we grant that the Academy should have been more accepting of comedy, then we have to acknowledge that Mel Brooks released both Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein that year!

What Should’ve Won and Did Win: The Godfather Part II
How Hard Was the Decision: Very hard. Chinatown is an equally great movie, but Coppola wins the tie because of what we now know about Polanski. I am factoring “retrospectively problematic” into my equations.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Writers: Coppola and Puzo again, still adapting material from the same novel
Stars: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro

The Story: We flashback to Vito’s origins (now played by De Niro) in the early 1900s and show Michael’s moral collapse in the 1950s, as he gets tripped up by the Cuban Revolution, televised mafia hearings, and his wife leaving him.

Any Other Nominations or Wins: It won Picture, Director, Supporting Actor for De Niro, Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction and Score. It lost Actor for Pacino, Supporting Actor for Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg, Supporting Actress for Shire and Costume Design
How It Won: The juggernaut was still going from the first one and momentum carried it through. Equally good reviews, added to somewhat-diminished but still very strong box office (especially impressive because the epic 3:21 running time meant fewer showings per day) were enough to win over the Academy and stamp out Chinatown’s chances.

Why It Won:

1. We all know from her later work in Rocky that Shire was a very good actress, but how on Earth did she get a nomination from this instead of Keaton, who is stunning here? Kay is still shell-shocked from the events of the first movie until she finally gets her own and does what no rival don can do: Ruins Michael’s life.
   
2. De Niro almost got cast in the small role of traitorous chauffeur Paulie in the first movie, but thankfully passed, leaving him available for the much stronger role of young Vito. Sharing a role with Brando is a tall order, but De Niro is just as much of a generational talent, and rose to the challenge. He mimics the gravelly mumble a bit but decided not to stuff any cotton into his cheeks to replicate the jowls.
   
3. Coppola has said, “I had two films that didn’t make sense together. They were shot in a different style; they had a different smell to them. My friend George Lucas said to me, ‘Francis, you have two movies. Throw one away. It doesn’t work.’ But I had this hunch that if I could ever make it work, it could be fantastic.” In the end, Coppola was right and Lucas was wrong. Neither half of this movie would be satisfying on its own, but informing each other, bookending the events of the first movie, they’re profound. And the different looks (or “smells”) compliment each other nicely.
4. The sequence in which young Vito stalks Don Fanucci across the rooftops above the Feast of San Gennaro, then descends into a building to shoot him with a towel wrapped around his gun is one of the most stunning in the history of cinema. When the gun going off lights the towel on fire, we can tell that Vito hasn’t done this before, but his calm reaction assures us that this won’t be his last hit.
   
5. The first film has about ten legendary lines, but it’s easy to forget how many of Michael’s memorable quotes come from this one (such as “My offer is this: Nothing”) It’s also embarrassing to admit that one of his most quoted lines (“Every time I think I’m out…”) actually comes from Part III, about which nothing more will be spoken.
6. There is no opening speech about America this time, but the metaphor of America-as-mafia still comes through loud and clear. When the mobsters and heads of supposedly-legitimate corporations plunge their knives into a cake with a map of Batista’s Cuba, we understand that it’s not just the mafia that’s being condemned. (And they actually had the courage to say the words mafia and cosa nostra this time!)
   
   
   

Ah, 1974: My parents would serve these as suggested, then I, as a little kid, would take them out, suck the salt off them, and put them back in the glass dish. I was a little monster

What Should’ve Won That Could’ve Won: 1973

The Year: 1973
What the Nominees Were: American Graffiti, Cries and Whispers, The Exorcist, The Sting, A Touch of Class
Other Movies That Should Have Been Considered: The Academy missed out on most the great American films that year, including The Last Detail, Scarecrow, Mean Streets, Serpico, Badlands, and Paper Moon.

What Did Win: The Sting
How It’s Aged: It’s delightful. I considered sticking with it just so I could watch it again. But ultimately, it doesn’t quite have the dramatic heft of our winner, which was a very similar movie.

What Should’ve Won: Paper Moon
How Hard Was the Decision: A very hard choice between Mean Streets, Serpico, The Sting and Paper Moon. Mean Streets and Serpico are masterpieces, but if I chose either, that would mean that I might have to do three (or maybe even four, depending on what I choose for 1975) Italian-American crime sagas in a row, and that’s tiring (of course, at the time, they couldn’t’ve known that might be a problem, but I’m granting myself retrospective vision.)  That left the two con-man movies, and Paper Moon edged out The Sting.  

Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Writer: Alvin Sargent, based on the novel “Addie Pray” by Joe David Brown
Stars: Ryan O’Neal, Tatum O’Neal, Madeline Kahn and John Hillerman

The Story: Petty con man Mose Pray stops off at the funeral of a former lover only to get saddled with a kid named Addie who may just be his daughter. He first intends to palm her off on relatives, but she starts helping him with his cons and they bond, so he keeps her around.

Any Nominations or Wins: Kahn and Tatum went up against each other for Supporting Actress and Tatum won (she’s still the youngest winner of a competitive Oscar). It also got nominations for Adapted Screenplay and Sound but lost both.
Why It Didn’t Win: It’s surprising that it didn’t get a picture nomination, since the Academy liked it well enough to give it Best Supporting Actress. It is, of course, very similar to The Sting (both about depression-era conmen) and maybe the Academy decided it could only have one movie in that vein.

Why It Should Have Won:

1. This movie is best remembered for Tatum O’Neal’s performance as Addie, and it remains one of the all-time great marvels of acting. Obviously it helped to have her real father as her co-star, giving his own best performance, but she acts circles around him and everyone else, as outwardly hard-as-nails, but secretly very self-conscious Addie. When her little moments of weakness poke through her exterior, it’s heartbreaking every time.
   
2. Kahn, who was in 18 minutes of the movie, was not happy about having to compete for Best Supporting Actress with Tatum, who was in all but 3 minutes. Indeed, Tatum should have been nominated for (and won) Best Actress and Kahn should have won Supporting, because she’s also phenomenal as a floozie who travels with the pair for a while, before Addie gets rid of her. Kahn, like everyone else in this movie, would never get a part this good again.
   
3. Alvin Sargent wrote a wide range of screenplays, from Ordinary People to Spider-Man 2 (the Tobey Maguire one, which remains one of the best super-hero movies). At 103 minutes, this is a master class in economy that today’s screenwriters desperately need to take.
4. Bogdanovich’s mentor was John Ford, and watching this movie’s astounding rural-Kansas compositions, one can’t help but think of the scene in Spielberg’s The Fabelmans where Ford (played by David Lynch) teaches a young Spielberg where to put the camera. Clearly, Spielberg wasn’t the only one Ford gave that advice to.
   
5. But the real star of this movie is unfairly credited merely as the production designer. Polly Platt was Bogdanovich’s wife until he left her for Cybil Shepherd, the star of their movie The Last Picture Show. Astoundingly, Platt was willing to keep working with him and found this novel then did most of the work of making this movie happen. Listen to Karina Longworth’s excellent (but long!) season of “You Must Remember This” about her to learn more. Bogdanovich’s first four movies, the ones he made with Platt, are all brilliant films. After this movie, their working relationship finally fell apart and Bogdanovich never made a great movie again.

Ah, 1973: Romantic!

What Should’ve Won That Could’ve Won: 1972

The Year: 1972
What the Nominees Were: Cabaret, Deliverance, The Emigrants, The Godfather, Sounder
Other Movies That Should Have Been Considered: John Huston’s Fat City was a late masterpiece.

What Should’ve Won and Did Win: The Godfather

How Hard Was the Decision: Surprisingly hard. Everybody knows that The Godfather is one of the most worthy winners in Oscars history, but I have even more affection for Cabaret, which would have won most other years in the 70s if I could only move it. I was tempted to take this Oscar away but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Writers: Coppola and Mario Puzo, based on Puzo’s novel
Stars: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton

The Story: Mafia don Vito Corleone refuses to take up drug dealing, which ignites a mob war. His son Santino aka Sonny gets shot up at a toll booth. His law-abiding son Michael gets drawn in and volunteers to assassinate a rival boss and a chief of police, then gets exiled to Sicily. Michael comes home to take over the family entirely from Vito, who dies of a heart attack while playing with his grandson. Michael finally orders the assassination of all of the family’s enemies.

Any Other Nominations or Wins: It won Picture, Actor for Brando and Adapted Screenplay. Caan, Duvall and Pacino were all nominated against each other for Supporting Actor and all lost. It also lost Director (to Bob Fosse for Cabaret), Costume Design, Editing and Sound. Nino Rota was nominated for Best Score, but then it was decided that he had borrowed from a previous score and the nomination was revoked.
How It Won: The critics loved it and it was a big hit with audiences, too. The movie became a phenomenon, and thus a shoo-in (but Fosse’s director win means that the Academy also knew that Cabaret was great.)

Why It Won:

1. Universal wanted a cheapo quickie, so they hired Corman-vet Coppola, but Coppola had a vision. He hadn’t yet distinguished himself as a director, but after he was hired for this movie he won an Oscar for writing Patton, and he clearly decided that a mafia film could rival that one in scope: Longer running time, more epic sweep, more to say about the nature of America. Both movies begin with a fixed camera as a man gives a long speech about believing in America, but this one (delivered by the wronged undertaker Bonasera) is more devastating.
   
2. Coppola had a secret weapon: Casting director Andrea Eastman. Pacino, Duvall, Caan and Keaton, had all made a few film appearances that hadn’t set the world on fire. Eastman saw in them the potential for greatness, when put together in the right combination.
3. If the studio had had its way, the movie might have starred Kirk Douglas as Vito and Dustin Hoffman as Michael. Two great actors, but they would have been horrible in these roles. Coppola and Eastman insisted on Italians playing the Italian characters, and that authenticity is crucial.  
   
4. The production design is perhaps the greatest of all time. This truly feels like the ‘40s. But, to its credit, it doesn’t look like a movie shot in the ‘40s at all, not only because it’s in color, but because cinematographer Gordon “Prince of Darkness” Willis creates sumptuous blacks that look like nothing seen onscreen before. This feels like real life. (And I love all the incongruous background noises in many scenes, creating a startlingly realistic soundscape as well.)
   
5. This is certainly the most violent movie we’ve looked at, and it’s kind of hard to take for that reason, but you have to hand it to the movie for coming up with so many unique and shocking ways to kill men (or just leave a severed horse head in their beds.)
   
6. There are 13 deleted scenes on the DVD. As is frequently the case with great movies, many of them add interesting elements, but you can see how they were cut for pacing. There’s just one that I really miss, where Vito expresses contempt for Michael’s medals after the wedding and Michael is just as contemptuous back to him.  This is key for setting up the gradual transformation of their feelings about each other, but it happened in the middle of a storyline that had to go. The art of filmmaking is as much about what comes out as about what stays in.

Ah, 1972: Tragically premature prediction...