Marlon Brando and 'The Godfather.'

I think the movie was brilliant - Brando's performance? Hmmmm - certainly odd - like a great hulking toad, bloated with his past....it will beinteresting to see what others say. I tend to remember other performances from that film. My main vision of Brando is at the end - dying amongst the tomatoes. He did that whole last bit very well, I thought.

Hi Andy, I haven't consulted with every person on the planet, but so far you're the only one I know of who doesn't think that The Godfather was a great movie. As for Brando's performance, I loved it. Very stylized, a bit strange, unintelligible, but with real power. I believed he could be who he was supposed to be. I think that Lee J. Cobb or George C. Scott (do you have a penchant for middle-initialed actors?) would have been forceful but in the wrong way.

So, I disagree with you about the movie, disagree with you about Brando, disagree with you about Scott and Cobb. Otherwise I agree with you 100 percent.

As below par Brando's performance of Fletcher Christian was, it was still better than Mel Gibson's "the Road Warrior as Fletcher Christian" performance. Brando did try to play up the feyness of the character and the result made one question Christian's sexual orientation. It seems like too many good actors being to take roles they can't really deal with -- it would be like Beverly Sills trying to sing "Aida" late in her career. I admire his performance in "The Godfather" and I think Brando knew what he was doing there. Curiously enough, his best late performance was brief but effective and in "Superman," yet! There are a few other high points but too many low points like "The Island of Dr. Moreau." There he did come off as some kind of quirky drag queen and it was a laugh riot, but then that whole version of the story was a bad movie.

What did you think of him in Apocalypse, LW?

I had a problem with that film -- it was two different films trying to make sense out of one another. One was a satrirical look at the folly of war, the other a rather uneven and pompous adaptation of "Heart of Darkness." Brando's death was an anti-climax which is why the "Redux" lopped off most of the fiery ending to the rogue camp. It didn't fix what is a major flaw in what is otherwise a masterpiece of cinematography, visual effects, staging and writing (up until the last half hour of the film where the dialogue became contrived and inconsequential). I thought Brando did the best he could with what was offered to him. Great actor, not so great material.

When "The Godfather" came out, I was 18 and had all my prejudices against it. Reluctantly, after 10 or so weeks, I went to see it. By the moment of the gun in the bathroom scene I noticed my heart was pounding. It was a very good movie indeed. Not the greatest, but a fine work. Brando's performance was bizarre, but it certainly delivered.

Merry Andrew, my father -who didn't particularly love cinema- is the only other person I know who didn't like it either. His comment was: "Why did I go to the theatre to see that film, if I can watch The Untouchables on TV for free?".

Brando's performance as Don Corleone was never strange or bizarre to me. What was bizarre about it?
He seemed to be a very simple man. Not jazzy, flashy nor flambouyant in any way. A basic, old world gentleman who happened to be head of a Mafia family.

LW, I agree with you wholeheartedly about 'Apocalypse.' A potentially great film, flawed by the director's inability to decide just what it is that he's trying to say. Ironically, it may be Coppola's best work in terms of visuals. It is far from his best over-all.

fnaezer -- I'm so glad I have at least one friend who shares my opinion. Your father must be a wondefully insightful man.

Roboita, so glad you agree with me 100 percent.
(uh...on what, exactly?)

eoe -- sorry, but Brando doesn't come across as an old world gentleman in my eyes. Maybe I need new glasses. I've known quite a good number of old world gentlemen, including a number of Italian-born Americans. Brando doesn't cut it for me.

dlowan -- so, since you brought up the subject, what's your take on Apovalypse Now?

On the waterfront, The wild one, Streetcar-brilliant

Godfather cracking film, brando's performance was ok but would have been better for me if it were not so obvious that his cheeks were padded with cotton wool or whatever it was.

Apart from the above I thought the rest of his films were not much to write home about.

Apocalypse now I thought was pretty mediocre and Brando's character absolutley incomprehensible.

I remember reading a film critic's comment on Apocalypse when it was first released. Don't recall who, maybe Michael Blowen in the Boston Globe. Anyway, quoting from memory, the comment was, "Brando almost ruins the movie; Robert Duval almost saves it."

Oh come on now, everybody loved Brando in "Island of Doctor Moreau".

You're being facetious again, cav. He looked and acted like some deranged drag queen.

Guilty again....

Don't know what to say on this one.

As far as I am concerned, The Godfather was one of the best films of all times -- and Brando's performance was exceptional.

I think I liked Godfather II just as much.

Not sure what you problem is with the film, MA, but I think it was tops -- and I don't personally know of anyone who disliked it.

"On the Waterfront" is still his best performance in my book. There was just a PBS special on Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan and their relationship before and after the HUAC fiasco. Brando's Terry Malloy was Kazan in the ending that Kazan dictated (not Schulberg's concept -- he was going to die). It was the man who named names and triumphed in the end.

OK. Andrew. Although I loved The Godfather... Am I the only one who thought "Chicago" was very slow moving? The ending was neat, though.

Ok, I watched the Godfather before I met my wife, I then met my wife and had some experiance with uncle max and uncle tony and ocie lee well where is this going....I likr the movie even though it is a lil off I liked Brando's preformance really it was a good mvie but sonny souldnt have been killed off the way he was.

I thought Sonny's death was total violence and the perfect way to go for his character.

Maybe the problem is that I had read -- and liked -- the book long before the movie came out. Maybe that's why Brando's portrayal didn't move me in a positive sense. It wasn't the way that *I* had imagined Don Corleone.

Sonny's death, on the other hand, was very well done, I thought. Just like in the book.