THIS IS SOME REALLY INTERESTING INFO THAT I READ IN THE BOOK ENTITLED "THE GODFATHER JOURNAL". IT IS WRITTEN BY ONE IRA ZUCKERMAN WHO WAS AN ASSISTANT TO COPPOLA DURING THE FILMING OF THE GODFATHER (1972).

• Troy Donahue (January 27, 1936- September 2, 2001) was born Merle Johnson, Jr. Ironically, he decided to use his real name, Merle Johnson, in The Godfather Part 2 instead of his stage name, Troy Donahue.

• Gianni Russo (Carlo Rizzi) lost 78 pounds to get his role for the Godfather by eating one meal a day and drinking one glass of wine a day

• Coppola took Russo's empty half gallon wine bottle and, in anger, threw it down a hill into the roadway. This broke the wine bottle into many pieces. Coppola thought about breaking it over a tombstone (they were doing the Don's funeral scene), but changed his mind.

• Hot weather really irritates Coppola and it just happened to be hot when him and the crew were filming the wedding scene. The scene was delayed and he was getting angry. He was quoted as saying, "This is my last movie. I say that every time, I've got a wife and 2 kids. What else can I do? The money's hard to walk away from, but my God- it's so boring. It's so stupid."

• Robert Duvall messed up on his lines and said, "Fuck this shitty scene!" Nobody paid any attention to him!

• Marlon Brando mooned the over 350 extras before he began filming the wedding scene.

• Brando didn't like the lines between Michael & the Don in the scene when Michael returns from Sicily. When Brando was told that the actual lines would be dubbed in later, and to improvise around the lines, he told dirty jokes to Al Pacino instead!

• The scene where Michael has to get into the getaway car after killing Sollozzo and McCluskey was never fully rehearsed and was neglected. Pacino leaped onto the car and hurt his ankle badly. The driver was not told to stop to let him in and the crowd of onlookers gave Pacino a standing ovation when they saw him jump onto the car.
  Pacino was diagnosed with a sprained ankle and was ordered to stay off of his feet. Coppola, however, allowed Pacino to film. Al got around with crutches, wheel chair, or cane and in between shootings, he would get pain-killin injections.

• The scene where Vito slaps Johnny Fontane took about 12 takes!

• After a long and unproductive rehearsal period, Gordon Willis who was the director of photography, ran off of the sound stage and yelled to Coppola, "You don't know how to do anything right!" Everybody froze in their places. Coppola continued working on the set as if nothing had ever happened. When Coppola called out to the actors, "Let's shoot it now." However the camera operator looked uneasy and made no move to carry out his order. All of a sudden, Coppola yelled, "Fuck this picture! I've directed five fucking movies without anyone telling me how to do it. I want to make the fucking shot now and we will, even if the fucking director of photography has to be thrown off the picture."
  Gray Frederickson tried to calm down Coppola, but to no avail. Coppola quickly got off of the set and off of the soundstage to his second floor office. Then everybody heard a loud sound which resembled a gun going off. "My God! Maybe he's shot himself!" someone said. A break was called and after 10 minutes, the scene was ready to be filmed, Fred Caruso (production manager) called for two of the carpenters, "Please go upstairs and put a new door on Mr. Coppola's office."

• A stuffed horse's head was going to be used for the famous "horse's head scene". However, the stuffed head was rejected because it looked too fake so an actual severed head was purchased from a slaughterhouse in New Jersey.

• Coppola's parents were in the film. His father Carmine was playing the piano during the "mattresses" sequence and his mother Italia was operating the switchboard in the Genco's office scene.

• Caan and Duvall mooned Coppola/Brando to pass time.

• When Lenny Montana (played Luca Brasi) was rehearsing the scene where he goes into the Don's office and reads from the piece of paper, instead of doing the scene he stuck out his tongue which had a piece of tape on it which had the words "Fuck You" on it. Brando began laughing hysterically.