The Godfather Book

by Peter Cowie

The story of the evolution of Francis Ford Coppola's trilogy of gangster films which began with "The Godfather" in 1972. Peter Cowie's account is based on access to Coppola's archives, and also interviews with him and other relevant people.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, American History, Crime

300 pages, Paperback

First published November 3, 1997

About the author

Peter Cowie is a film historian and author of more than thirty books on film. In 1963 he was the founder/publisher and general editor of the annual International Film Guide, a survey of worldwide film production.

Reviews

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting details about the making of all three Godfather movies. The book has some excellent production photos of the actors, crew and the composer Nino Rota. I have Peter Cowie's book on Apocalypse Now which is on my "To Read" list.

This is a good book to read in conjunction with watching the Godfather films.

[Dale · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good overview of the trilogy, the first part concerning production is the real juicy stuff although a lot of it has been covered and discussed elsewhere. The second part explores the themes of the films to less interesting results but still has the occasional nugget. The most interesting part for me was the chapter concentrated on the creation of Part II, which has some material I've never seen before - Coppola's original outline for the film, and discussions between Coppola and Puzo - that made this book easily worth the 2 quid I paid for it.

[Benedict Reid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much enjoyed the first half of this book as it goes into some detail of the difficulty making the 3 Godfather movies. I'd just finished watching "The Offer" and this book corrected many of the exaggerations of that series (perhaps over-corrected, as the series seemed more honest about some of the tensions between personalities). Peter Cowie relies heavily on Frances Coppola's archive and so it is not surprising that there is a bias towards Coppola's view of events.
We are offered glimpses of storyboards and annotated scripts, it would have been good to see more of this.
The second half the of the book is a "critical" analysis of the films as a whole. But as Peter Cowie is coming from the point of view that they are some of the best films every made (he only dares to suggest faults in the third film), it's not that useful an analysis. It feels like an introduction to media studies, and was frankly hard work to get through.

[Vincenzo Ridente · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very excellent book about the making of The Godfather movies I really enjoyed this book

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty light and spotty, especially given it tries to cover all 3 movies and the television omnibus. I found this used at Green Apple in San Francisco, feeling myself lucky. I can sort of see why it was there. There are interesting bits here and there, but nothing that would lead you to read the book again. It's truly for the hardcore Francis freak, who wants to sop up every bit of that 70's geniuses.

Much better are Elanor Coppola's Notes, and Peter Cowie's Apocalypse Now book. Check them out.

[Steve Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seminal, like the films