“The Godfather” at 40!

 

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One of the things I remember as a kid, was when Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” first came out.  It was a huge sensation and the start of the “Mafia” craze.  I was too young to go see it, though, because it was . . . Rated R, but the movie generated a lot of new buzz, for Mario Puzo’s book. 

I wasn’t generally reading popular novels at that time.  I was barely doing my assigned school readings, for that matter.  However, word spread very quickly – even without an internet – about a graphically steamy scene, which came to be known as “Page 28”.  Ooh!  Exactly what it said?  I don’t remember.  It’s been 40 years, fer Chrissakes!  All I do remember is it was like literary porn, at the time, especially to a 14 year old boy.  And, every kid who could get a hand on a copy of the book, did get his hand on a copy of the book.

From the movie, I do remember it was early on, during Connie‘s wedding scene.  Sonny Corleone (James Caan) takes Connie’s maid of honor, Lucy Mancini (Jeannie Linero), to . . . some available room, and they end up doing it, standing up, against the wall.  I don’t remember seeing a whole lot.  And, by today’s standards, I’m sure it’s considered pretty tame stuff.  But, reading it, back in 1972?  Wow.  It was right up there with “reading” a found/stolen copy of you best friend’s father’s Playboy Magazine!  Hee, hee, hee!

Good thing Mom belonged to the book-of-the-month club!

—   YUR

Related articles

• Forty Years After: Remembering The Godfather (fictionfreedom.wordpress.com)
• What films remind you of the 1970s? (tamelaquijas.wordpress.com)

We bear Witness – A 9/11 poem

This poem was written by JoAnn Wendl on September 17, 2001

We bear Witness
 
Sure footed rescuers, alerted hearts and minds, balancing on dusty
smoldering broken steel and glass, pass countless buckets back and
forth in sobering brigade, gently and reverently remove the fallen
broken dead, scattered and in pieces from the treachery of that
tangled grave.
 
With a searching hope that will not die, born live within their
memory’s reach, they stop at the urging of a canine friend. In the
clarity and brilliance of an azure sky, they listen, unmoving, perched
upon the stillness, hearing nothing but the beating of their own brave
hearts.
 
In the eerie glow of work lights as our heroes labor on, amidst the
horror wrought from desperate sickened minds, our broken hearts are
crushed beneath the cranes that come to search their nests, a message
to the world for all mankind.
 
We feel America rising out of the ashes of her dead, a giant anguished
womb on eagle’s wings.  We pray to hold her temper well, her empathy in
tact, to work with a united hope to deliver peace at last. We are the
children of the sacrificed, from families around the world.
 
We are the mourners, and we bear witness.
 
Addendum: September 11, 2008 (Also by JoAnn Wendl)
 
The questions for the Bush administration still remain; Why weren’t
our jets scrambled at the first report of hijacking? And did the
Administration encourage FEMA’s failure to respond to the Katrina
Disaster in an attempt to prove we could handle it ourselves?