The Godfather shot in New York from late March to early July. From virtually the first week, director Francis Ford Coppola feared he’d lose his job. Paramount expected a cheap little crime picture, just the kind of job Francis couldn’t bring himself to perform. The studio hovered over him. They hadn’t liked his cast, and they didn’t like what they saw in the dailies. Allegations that the film was anti-Italian, encouraged by the New York mob, made them nervous.
“I was 29,” Francis remembered later. “I had no power. They could easily push me around, which they did and tried to.”
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On Thursday, April 15, 1971, Francis sat at home with his wife, Ellie, who was nine months pregnant, and Marty Scorsese, back in New York to visit family, and turned the TV to NBC to watch the Academy Awards. Two hours
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