: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."
:43:00
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's your
esoteric bullshit coming out.
:43:03
Let's face it, Bart.
This genius has made three pictures:
:43:06
You're a Big Boy Now, some artsy-fartsy
kind of picture, did no business.
:43:11
Finian's Rainbow, which was a top Broadway
musical. He made it into a disaster.
:43:16
And now he's got The Rain People out there,
which everyone's rained on.
:43:19
There's gotta be someone else, come on.
:43:21
There wasn't.
But then there was another problem.
:43:25
Coppola didn't wanna do it.
:43:27
This guy couldn't get
a cartoon made in town.
:43:30
Yet he didn't wanna make The Godfather.
:43:32
I gotta give the guy credit.
His convictions were strong.
:43:36
He didn't want to immortalize the families
that blackened his Italian heritage.
:43:39
After three long days of discussion with
this guy, Peter's on the horn.
:43:45
"Coppola will make the picture.
On one condition.
:43:47
That it's not a film
about organized gangsters."
:43:50
It's not about organized gangsters?
It ain't a musical, Peter.
:43:54
I told you the guy's nuts.
:43:56
"He has an idea, Evans.
It's not bad.
:43:59
He wants to make it as a family chronicle,
a metaphor for capitalism in America."