:41:02
It's hard to believe that, just four
years earlier, we were in ninth.
:41:05
It was the beginning of the Golden Era.
:41:10
Over the next four years,
we would collect 144 Oscar nominations...
:41:15
...stay number one, and go through a streak
of hits that, to this day, is unprecedented.
:41:26
If I had to pick our crowning jewel...
:41:29
...I'd say it was a 30-page treatment to
a novel called Mafia, written by Mario Puzo.
:41:35
In turning treatment into novel, Mario asked
if he could change the name to Godfather.
:41:40
"Sure, why not?"
I never thought he would finish it anyway.
:41:44
Well, he finished it.
It became the biggest book of the decade.
:41:47
And there I was, holding the Hope diamond.
Euphoria? Wrong.
:41:52
Paramount didn't wanna make the film.
"Sicilian mobster films don't play."
:41:56
That's what these
distribution guys had to say.
:41:59
And when you bat zero,
don't make another sucker bet.
:42:02
I called up Peter Bart
at the studio late that night.
:42:05
What the fuck do we do?
Peter shook his head, laughed.
:42:10
"Evans, we got a problem."
:42:12
No, we don't.
We've gotta find a solution, Peter.
:42:16
It must have been after 2
in the morning, and we found it.
:42:19
Outside of red ink, every one of the
films shared another thing in common.
:42:23
They were written, directed
and produced and usually starred...
:42:28
...Jews, not Sicilians.
:42:31
There's a thin line, Peter,
between a Jew and a Sicilian.
:42:34
We're gonna make a picture that's
gonna be Sicilian to the core.
:42:37
You're gonna smell the spaghetti.
:42:40
There was one problem.
:42:42
It's hard to believe, but in 1969...
:42:45
...there wasn't a single Italian-American
director, that's with any credibility.
:42:50
Bart looks at me and he says,
"What about Coppola?"
:42:53
Are you nuts?
One thing for sure is, he is.
:42:56
Bart snaps right back at me,
"Brilliant, though."