The Godfather Part II

( 20 )

Overview

Francis Ford Coppola's legendary continuation and sequel to his landmark 1972 film, The Godfather, parallels the young Vito Corleone's rise with his son Michael's spiritual fall, deepening The Godfather's depiction of the dark side of the American dream. In the early 1900s, the child Vito flees his Sicilian village for America after the local Mafia kills his family. Vito Robert De Niro struggles to make a living, legally or illegally, for his wife and growing brood in Little Italy, killing the local Black Hand ...
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Overview

Francis Ford Coppola's legendary continuation and sequel to his landmark 1972 film, The Godfather, parallels the young Vito Corleone's rise with his son Michael's spiritual fall, deepening The Godfather's depiction of the dark side of the American dream. In the early 1900s, the child Vito flees his Sicilian village for America after the local Mafia kills his family. Vito Robert De Niro struggles to make a living, legally or illegally, for his wife and growing brood in Little Italy, killing the local Black Hand Fanucci Gastone Moschin after he demands his customary cut of the tyro's business. With Fanucci gone, Vito's communal stature grows, but it is his family past and present who matters most to him -- a familial legacy then upended by Michael's Al Pacino business expansion in the 1950s. Now based in Lake Tahoe, Michael conspires to make inroads in Las Vegas and Havana pleasure industries by any means necessary. As he realizes that allies like Hyman Roth Lee Strasberg are trying to kill him, the increasingly paranoid Michael also discovers that his ambition has crippled his marriage to Kay Diane Keaton and turned his brother, Fredo John Cazale, against him. Barely escaping a federal indictment, Michael turns his attention to dealing with his enemies, completing his own corruption.
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Editorial Reviews

Barnes & Noble - Ed Hulse
Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 sequel to The Godfather is an audacious tour de force believed by many critics and movie fans to be superior to the original film -- and with good reason. Coppola resisted the urge to make a conventional sequel; instead he crafted a film with dual story lines that bookend the events of the first Godfather. In one narrative Al Pacino returns as Michael Corleone, now deeply entrenched as the leader of a Mafia “family” whose influence extends to the lavish casinos of Eisenhower-era Las Vegas. Locked in a desperate struggle with shrewd Jewish mobster Hyman Roth played brilliantly by veteran acting teacher Lee Strasberg, Michael also clashes with those closest to him, including wife Kay Diane Keaton and brother Fredo John Cazale. The alternate plot features Robert De Niro as Michael’s father, Vito -- the character played by Brando in the first movie -- who is seen as a young man coming to New York from Sicily and locking horns with a fellow countryman, the neighborhood crime boss. Coppola develops the parallel stories with equal vigor and intensity, although the showdown between Michael and Roth, quite properly, forms the film’s unforgettable climax. More atmospheric and introspective than The Godfather, Part II is less a slam-bang gangster film than a Greek tragedy in contemporary settings. Michael Corleone grapples with the consequences of his decision to lead the family “business,” sacrificing his most intimate relationships -- and even his very soul -- to the compulsive desire to retain power and destroy his enemies. With their dual-story concept, Coppola and co-writer Mario Puzo make certain we realize that Michael’s fate was, to a large extent, sealed by the choices his father made decades before. Thirty years after it was made, this extravagant, epochal sequel remains vital and gripping, and it may well be the greatest film Coppola has ever made.
All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola
Both sequel and prequel to The Godfather (1972), Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Part II (1974) delves further into the dark side of the capitalist American dream by paralleling the young Vito Corleone's 1910s rise with his son Michael's 1950s spiritual fall. To create a more contemplative view of the Corleones' American success story, Coppola cross-cut between Vito's story (in subtitled Italian) and Michael's, revealing how the honorable aim of protecting the family degenerates into an excuse for wielding lethal power, for the sake only of business. Images of Vito's parental concern and immigrant neighborhood dealings dissolve to Michael's familial disintegration and U.S. Senate subterfuge. Cinematographer Gordon Willis' warm sepia tones for the Vito sequences recall period photographs, contrasting sharply with the crass brightness and cold shadows of 1950s Lake Tahoe and Havana. With the memory of The Godfather present in Robert De Niro's uncanny evocation of Marlon Brando and in flashbacks to 1942, Coppola underlines how much The Godfather's potentially alluring myth of family unity begat horrific violence; the film becomes both a critique of responses to the first film that may have glorified its family-oriented violence and a more explicit and mournful allegory of American corporate violence and corruption across the 20th century. These aspects, together with the unique cross-cut narrative, give the movie a richer dimension and a wider scope than the first one's family drama, and it was hailed by most observers as the rare sequel that equaled, or even surpassed, the original. A box-office hit, it was nominated for ten Oscars and won six, including Best Picture, the Director prize denied Coppola in 1972, Supporting Actor for De Niro, Art Direction, and Score. Years of sequel plans finally produced The Godfather Part III in 1990; and parts I and II were later cut together in chronological order for TV as The Godfather Saga, eliminating this film's cross-cut structure. Often equated with Citizen Kane (1941), The Godfather Part II remains one of the most artistically challenging popular films ever made.
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Product Details

  • Release Date: 2/13/1998
  • UPC: 097360845938
  • Original Release: 1974

    • Rating:

  • Source: PARAMOUNT
  • Format: VHS

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits
Al Pacino Michael Corleone
Robert Duvall Tom Hagen
Diane Keaton Kay Adams
Robert De Niro Vito Corleone
John Cazale Fredo Corleone
Lee Strasberg Hyman Roth
Talia Shire Connie
Danny Aiello Tony Rosato
John Aprea Young Tessio
Carmen Argenziano Michael's Buttonman #2
Oreste Baldini Vito Andolini, as a boy
Kathleen Beller Girl in "Senza Mamma"
William Bowers Senate Committee Chairman
Richard Bright Al Neri
James Caan Sonny
Carmine Caridi Carmine Rosato
Maria Carta Vito's Mother
Dominic Chianese Johnny Ola
Roman Coppola Young Sonny Corleone (uncredited)
Sofia Coppola Child (uncredited)
Vincent Coppola Street Vendor
Roger Corman Senator #2
Mario Cotone Don Tommasino
Tom Dahlgren Fred Corngeld
David Baker FBI Agent
Francesca de Sapio Young Mama Corleone
Nick Discenza Bartender
Troy Donahue Merle Johnson
Peter Donat Questadt
Phil Feldman Senator #1
Ezio Flagello Impresario
Carmine Foresta Policeman
Michael Vincente Gazzo Frankie Pentangeli
James Gounaris Anthony Corleone
Marianna Hill Deanna Corleone
Morgana King Mama Corleone
Bruno Kirby Young Clemenza
Tere Livrano Theresa Hagen
Gastone Moschin Fanucci
Joe Pantoliano
Ignazio Pappalardo Mosca
Tom Rosqui Rocco Lampone
Gianni Russo Carlo
Giuseppe Sillato Don Francesco
Frank Sivero Genco
Joseph Della Sorte Michael's Buttonman #1
Fay Spain Marcia Roth
Joe Spinell Willie Cicci
G.D. Spradlin Senator Pat Geary
Harry Dean Stanton FBI Man 1
Herkulis E. Strolia Tahoe Band Leader
Amerigo Tot Michael's Bodyguard
Leopoldo Trieste Signor Roberto
Abe Vigoda Tessio
Richard Watson Custom Offical
Erica Yohn Governess
Carmine Coppola Conductor
Technical Credits
Francis Ford Coppola Director, Producer, Screenwriter
Newt Arnold Asst. Director
Burt Bluestein Asst. Director
Carmine Coppola Score Composer, Musical Direction/Supervision
Jane Feinberg Casting
Mike Fenton Casting
A.D. Flowers Special Effects
Gray Fredrickson Producer
Michael S. Glick Production Manager
Angelo P. Graham Art Director
Alan Hopkins Asst. Director
Henry J. Lange Jr. Asst. Director
Joe Lombardi Special Effects
Barry Malkin Editor
Richard Marks Editor
Walter Murch Sound/Sound Designer
Chuck Myers Asst. Director
George R. Nelson Set Decoration/Design
Mario Puzo Screenwriter
Vic Ramos Casting
Fred Roos Producer
Nino Rota Score Composer
Charles Schram Makeup
Dick Smith Makeup
Dean Tavoularis Production Designer
Theadora Van Runkle Costumes/Costume Designer
Gordon Willis Cinematographer
Peter Zinner Editor
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4.5
( 20 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(13)

4 Star

(4)

3 Star

(0)

2 Star

(2)

1 Star

(1)

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Sort by: Showing all of 20 Customer Reviews

  • Posted October 1, 2010

    You Mean Nothing to me now...

    This is definitely not a sequel where the director revives a dead plot and swaps the characters and scenery for something equally shiny. This story is a sequel and a prequel. We get to see young Vito Corleone come to America and rise to the five family status with clever tactics and a bag of pistols, while on the other end we see Michael Corleone narrowly avoid assassination and travel to Cuba where he looks for investors in his casinos and searches for whomever put the hit on him. This story is as clever as the original and has most, if not all, of the original cast.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 1, 2010

    A reviewer

    I felt that this was a okay movie, overall, but I felt that it was way too long. The contemplation of suicide crossed my mind because of the utter length. I also felt the plot was boring, and contained little to keep me interested.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 1, 2010

    Blood ,guts, honor, and family

    This movie is so accurately portrayed that it has now become one of my all time favorite and greatest movie. The scenery and beauty of this movie is excellent. But the famliy ties in this movie show what it truly was like when times were hard and family and the respect for them was all any one had. Respect for those who hold your life in thier hands is certainly the ones you want to hold up high or place on a pedestal. This movie is great.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 1, 2010

    A Movie I could not Refuse to watch

    In many ways this movie was superior to its prequel. Less extravagent but no less violent, it has an instropective and an almost Shakeperean tragic touch with it as Michael becomes the unheralded and unrivaled king of the "family business." The film has a certain corrolary between Michael and his father, Vito, as they both rise to fight their enemies and they both display the necessary traits for the job--cunning, ruthlessness, scrupulousness and intelligence with the image of a benevolent family man. I think also that Michael exhibited an almost Lear-like vindictivness towards his brother and his ever growing dark side.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 1, 2010

    Setting the scene...

    The sequal to prehaps the greatest film ever produced was very different to the blood shed first movie: The Godfather. The fil m delivers a parralell storyline, comparing Michael Corleone's rise of power with Don Vito's in the 40's. I think that this film was celverly written by Puzo to set the scene for the ultimate finalie: The Godfather III....

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 21, 2003

    Poor Cousin of Godfather

    It's true that sequels are made only for money. Most of them don't make it but this one did ! That's the only difference. Loose storyline - Michael consolidating his empire in parallel with his father's rise to power. Commonplace ideas ( There is an instance of forcing a senator to grant license to Michael's new Casino. He is framed for murdering a prostitute. ). Ordinary music. Pauses which are used so well in this kind of movies are not used. It's shouting from begining to the end ( I could only come halfway. Didn't want any remaining sweet memories of Godfather to be erased ). Very disappointing !

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  • Anonymous

    Posted October 21, 2001

    A Movie you can't refuse

    Godfather II is the second in the series of three. It's not a sequel, rather, it's a continuation of the story as good as the origional. GFII continues the story of Michael Corleone but also adds in at the same time scenes of his father Vito's growth in power. Vito goes from a Sicilian immigrant to a Man of Respect in Little Italy. Meanwhile, we see Michael's downfall. Great story. 5 stars.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted September 22, 2000

    FAMILY HONOR: GF-2 CONTINUES A BLOODLINE OF GREATNESS

    Just as every Kentucky Derby winner's fole has a million dollar price tag on their head and an expectation of greatness, GODFATHER PART 2 (GF-2) continues the winning heritage of its 1972 fore-father. Coppola brings two stories of the Corleone family to the screen and keeps their seperate continuity on an incredible unequaled track. The film never bogs and when the final frames roll, you sit in shocked amazement. The age old arguement: Which of the two films is better can be the chicken and egg debate of celluloid. DeNiro won his first Oscar for his role as young Vito Corleone. The film is almost stolen by the supporting work of Michael V. Gazzo as old school gangster Frankie 5 Angels and Lee Strassberg as Hyman Roth. Both were nominated for Best Supporting Actor, but lost to DeNiro. This is a great film.

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    Posted February 1, 2009

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    Posted March 6, 2009

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    Posted October 19, 2008

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    Posted April 21, 2009

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    Posted September 11, 2010

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    Posted October 1, 2011

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    Posted October 30, 2008

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    Posted May 27, 2009

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    Posted December 16, 2008

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    Posted December 5, 2008

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    Posted June 13, 2010

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    Posted May 18, 2010

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