Somehow I managed to review The Godfather, Part II, but not the Godfather. I think that's because when I originally started doing these, the criteria was a bit different. It'll be noted that my entry on the second movie is extremely short (at least right now, it's likely to be added to at some time).
The Godfather, of course, was the first of this three part series of films and perhaps is the best, although the second film is excellent. The third film, The Godfather Part III, is lousy and not worth watching.
This 1972 film presents the story of a New York mafia family. Based on some discussion with a friend of mine who knows the mafia quite well, this movie, based on Mario Puzo's novel, is very closely based on real mafia characters and events and presents a highly accurate look into the Sicilian American mafia.
The film takes place in New York, Sicily and Las Vegas, giving a fictionalized account of the spread of the mafia into narcotics and Las Vegas gambling. It shows in detail the mafia culture of the time and its activities, including how various mafia families looked at different topics, such as the introduction of the illegal narcotics trade. Very well done, the film presents 1940s New York, so naturally it doesn't seem to be a period piece. That it is a period piece is more obvious in the portions of the film set in Sicily, but then they'd have to be.
This film is an excellent film in every way, including in cultural and material details. It's also an acknowledged masterpiece of American film making and worth seeing for that reason alone.
Related pages:
Movies In History: The List
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