Paramount Plus 'The Offer’: Why the word 'Mafia' was never mentioned in ‘The Godfather’
'The Godfather’ is considered one of the greatest movies ever made. The movie tells the tale of a New York crime boss handing over control of his empire to his son. The movie is a landmark of the gangster genre. It won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
And now, Paramount Pictures is coming up with a biological drama miniseries 'The Offer’, which is about the development and production of Francis Ford Coppola's landmark gangster film 'The Godfather' (1972). Despite the movie running for almost three hours, there’s one word that surprisingly isn’t mentioned at all in 1972 classic and that word is 'Mafia'.
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Why isn’t the word ‘mafia’ mentioned once?
The Italian-American Civil Rights League (IACRL) was a political organization founded in 1970 by mobster Joseph Colombo to combat negative stereotypes of Italian-Americans. When it was announced that Paramount Pictures was making a movie based on Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel, 'The Godfather', the Italian-American Civil Rights League wasn’t happy.
Desperate to stop the movie from being made, people associated with the Italian-American Civil Rights League launched an intimidation campaign against producer Albert S Ruddy, director Francis Ford Coppola, and Paramount executive Robert Evans. Joseph Colombo, the boss of the Colombo crime family, would make it hard if not impossible for Francis Ford Coppola to finish his movie. They didn’t want the film being shot in the neighborhood and they certainly didn’t want it to depict Italian-Americans in such a negative light. The actors and crew of the movie were often threatened by Colombo.
A deal was struck
At one point the film’s producer sat down with Colombo and asked if he might be allowed to continue the movie without any further intimidation tactics. Joseph Colombo had one request and that was that the movie never mentions the words ‘mafia’ or ‘Cosa Nostra’. Moreover, the production had to promise to donate the proceeds from the film’s preview to a hospital building fund supported by the IACRL. Colombo had also asked that the characters in the film be given less Italian-sounding names. The answer was “no." Nonetheless, a deal was struck.
At the request of the Italian American Civil Rights League, the producer of the film 'The Godfather' had eliminated all references to the Mafia and Cosa Nostra from the screenplay, which is based on the best‐selling novel about the Mafia family. Al Ruddy, the producer, also confirmed in an interview that proceeds from the premiere of the film would go to the league.
'The Offer' is scheduled to release on Paramount Plus on Thursday, April 28.