Word: coppolas
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...good tomato sauce with meatballs in Part I, was written out. Reason: Richard Castellano, who played him, was making exorbitant demands, including a huge salary and the right to rewrite his dialogue. Then the script was redone once again, three days before the scheduled start, after conferences between Coppola and Pacino about adding "shadows" to Michael's character...
...madness from the first. It took months to convince Francis Coppola to do another Godfather at all. He demanded that it be not a sequel but an extension of the original, which Coppola would embellish considerably. Now he dreams of some day cutting both features together into a single huge family epic. He also wanted to have Marlon Brando in just one scene of Part II. Brando refused, not because of the film, but because he was furious at Paramount Executive Frank Yablans, who was furious at him for rejecting the Oscar...
When filming actually began, the company moved from Lake Tahoe to Santo Domingo, which was to serve as prerevolutionary Cuba. They were rained out for days on end, although Charles Bluhdorn, chairman of the board of Gulf & Western, Paramount's parent company, comforted Coppola when he complained about the weather. Gulf & Western has holdings in Santo...
Domingo, and Bluhdorn reassured Coppola that "the rain is good for my sugar cane." It was not so beneficial for Pacino, who caught pneumonia, forcing a month's delay. Principal photography was finally completed in nine months, but the problems had just started. Editing, always a trial, threatened to go out of control. With whole plots altered or dropped, there was substantial doubt that the film could meet its opening dates at the theaters...
...sneak preview in San Diego on Nov. 27, just two weeks before the world première, Coppola, his wife Eleanor, John Cazale (who is superb as the hapless Fredo), a crew of film editors and a contingent of buddies watched a packed house respond enthusiastically. But the assembled loyalists all knew the film was seriously flawed; the last hour seemed jumbled, confused, cold. All during the showing Coppola muttered notes to himself into a pocket tape recorder. Some scenes needed lengthening, others were dropped. The idea of an intermission was scrapped...