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Sonny Corleone
Santino "Sonny" Corleone is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel ''The Godfather'' and its 1972 film adaptation. He is the eldest son of the mafia don Vito Corleone and Carmela Corleone. He has two brothers, Fredo and Michael, and a sister, Connie. In the film, Sonny was portrayed by James Caan, who briefly reprised his role for a flashback scene in ''The Godfather Part II''. Director Francis Ford Coppola's son Roman Coppola played Sonny as a boy in the 1920s scenes of ''The Godfather Part II''. Novel and film biography In both the novel and the movie, Sonny is the eldest of Vito Corleone's four children. Unlike his quiet, level-headed father, Sonny is fiery-tempered and prone to violence. At age 16, Sonny commits a robbery. When Peter Clemenza, Vito's right-hand man and Sonny's godfather, informs Vito about it, Vito demands his son explain himself. Sonny replies that he had witnessed Vito murder the "Black Hand" gangster Don Fanucci years before, and he now ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Godfather (film Series)
''The Godfather'' is a trilogy of American crime films directed by Francis Ford Coppola inspired by the 1969 novel of the same name by Italian American author Mario Puzo. The films follow the trials of the fictional Italian American mafia Corleone family whose patriarch, Vito Corleone, rises to be a major figure in American organized crime. His youngest son, Michael Corleone, becomes his successor. The films were distributed by Paramount Pictures and released in 1972, 1974, and 1990. The series achieved success at the box office, with the films earning between $430 and $517 million worldwide. ''The Godfather'' and ''The Godfather Part II'' are both seen by many as two of the greatest films of all time. The series is heavily awarded, winning 9 out of 28 total Academy Award nominations. Film series ''The Godfather'' ''The Godfather'' was released on March 15, 1972. The feature-length film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based upon Mario Puzo's novel of the same na ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmela Corleone
Carmela Corleone (1897–1959) is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel ''The Godfather.'' Carmela is portrayed by Italian-American Morgana King in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 film adaptation of the novel, and in ''The Godfather Part II'' (1974). She and her husband Vito, a crime boss, have four children: Santino ("Sonny"), Frederico ("Fredo"), and Michael, and one daughter Constanzia ("Connie"). Background Carmela was born in Sicily in 1897 and emigrated to the United States shortly after the turn of the century. She married Vito Corleone in 1915; they were married for 40 years until Vito's death in 1955. They had four children – Sonny, Fredo, Michael and Connie. They also took in Sonny's friend Tom Hagen, who later served as the family ''consigliere''. In the book, Carmela Corleone is portrayed as a traditional Italian immigrant woman who speaks in very broken English. In the movies, however, she speaks fluent English as an adult, with a marked New Yo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Fanucci
Don Fanucci is a fictional character appearing in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel ''The Godfather'' and the 1974 film ''The Godfather Part II'', a sequel to the 1972 film version of Puzo's novel. Fanucci is portrayed by Gastone Moschin and is based on the personality of Ignazio Lupo, a real-life Black Hand figure. In the original novel and ''The Godfather Part II'' Fanucci is a notorious Black Hand extortionist in Little Italy who supports himself by demanding and collecting protection money from neighborhood businesses. Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) witnesses Fanucci threatening to disfigure a young girl when her father refuses to pay him and is about to intervene when he is stopped by his friend, Genco Abbandando, who tells him who Fanucci really is. Vito also loses his job as a grocery clerk when Fanucci strong-arms Genco's father into employing his nephew. In the novel and in ''The Godfather Saga'', the film adaptation re-edited for television, Vito witnesses an attack on Fanucci b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Hand (extortion)
Black Hand ( it, Mano Nera) was a type of Italian extortion racket. Originally developed in the eighteenth century, Black Hand extortion came to the United States in the later nineteenth century with immigrants. Black Hand was a method of extortion practiced by gangsters of the Camorra and the Mafia. American newspapers in the first half of the twentieth century sometimes made reference to an organized "Black Hand Society", a criminal enterprise composed of Italians, mainly Sicilian immigrants. However, many Sicilians disputed its existence and objected to the associated negative ethnic stereotype, but this was not the only viewpoint among Italian-Americans. ''Il Telegrafo: The Evening Telegraph'', a newspaper for the Italian American community in New York City, printed an editorial on March 13, 1909 in response to Joseph Petrosino's assassination, which read in part, "The assassination of Petrosino is an evil day for the Italians of America, and none of us can any longer deny ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Clemenza
Peter Clemenza is a fictional character who first appeared in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel ''The Godfather''. He is played by Academy Award-nominee Richard Castellano in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 film adaptation of the novel, and by Bruno Kirby (as a young man) in ''The Godfather Part II'' (1974). ''The Godfather'' Born near Trapani, Sicily, Peter Clemenza is one of Don Vito Corleone's '' caporegimes'' and oldest friends, as well as the godfather of his eldest son, Sonny. He has a reputation as a superb judge of talent; his regime produced five future ''capos''—Sonny, Frank Pentangeli, Rocco Lampone, Al Neri, and Joey Zasa. The novel also establishes that when Sonny asks his father to join the "family business", Vito entrusts Clemenza, already a seasoned criminal, with the responsibility of mentoring Sonny. Clemenza is a supporting character in the main story, but several of his actions are key to the plot. For example, he is ordered by Don Corleone, via ''consigliere'' Tom Hag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five Academy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Palmes d'Or, and a British Academy Film Award (BAFTA). After directing '' The Rain People'' in 1969, Coppola co-wrote ''Patton'' (1970), which earned him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay along with Edmund H. North. Coppola's reputation as a filmmaker was cemented with the release of ''The Godfather'' (1972), which revolutionized the gangster genre of filmmaking, receiving strong commercial and critical reception. ''The Godfather'' won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay (shared with Mario Puzo). His film '' The Godfather Part II'' (1974) became the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Highly regarded by critics, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Godfather Part II
''The Godfather Part II'' is a 1974 American epic crime film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The film is partially based on the 1969 novel ''The Godfather'' by Mario Puzo, who co-wrote the screenplay with Coppola. ''Part II'' serves as both a sequel and a prequel to the 1972 film ''The Godfather'', presenting parallel dramas: one picks up the 1958 story of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), the new Don of the Corleone family, protecting the family business in the aftermath of an attempt on his life; the prequel covers the journey of his father, Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro), from his Sicilian childhood to the founding of his family enterprise in New York City. The ensemble cast also features Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Morgana King, John Cazale, Mariana Hill, and Lee Strasberg. Following the success of the first film, Paramount Pictures began developing a follow-up, with many of the cast and crew returning. Coppola, who was given more creative contro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don (honorific)
Don (; ; pt, Dom, links=no ; all from Latin ', roughly 'Lord'), abbreviated as D., is an honorific prefix primarily used in Spain and Hispanic America, and with different connotations also in Italy, Portugal and its former colonies, and Croatia. ''Don'' is derived from the Latin ''dominus'': a master of a household, a title with background from the Roman Republic in classical antiquity. With the abbreviated form having emerged as such in the Middle Ages, traditionally it is reserved for Catholic clergy and nobles, in addition to certain educational authorities and persons of distinction. ''Dom'' is the variant used in Portuguese. The female equivalent is Doña (), Donna (), Doamnă (Romanian) and Dona () abbreviated D.ª, Da., or simply D. It is a common honorific reserved for women, especially mature women. In Portuguese "Dona" tends to be less restricted in use to women than "Dom" is to men. In Britain and Ireland, especially at Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, the word is u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sicilian Mafia
The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily and dating to at least the 19th century. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organisational structure and code of conduct and honor and present themselves to the public under a common brand. The basic group is known as a "family", "clan", or '' cosca''. Each family claims sovereignty over a territory, usually a town or village or a neighbourhood (''borgata'') of a larger city, in which it operates its rackets. Its members call themselves " men of honour", although the public often refers to them as ''mafiosi''. By the 20th century, following wide-scale emigration from Sicily, mafiosi established gangs in North and South America which replicate the traditions and methods of their Sicilian ancestors. The Mafia's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Godfather
''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Richard Castellano, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte, and Diane Keaton. It is the first installment in ''The Godfather'' trilogy, chronicling the Corleone family under patriarch Vito Corleone (Brando) from 1945 to 1955. It focuses on the transformation of his youngest son, Michael Corleone (Pacino), from reluctant family outsider to ruthless mafia boss. Paramount Pictures obtained the rights to the novel for $80,000, before it gained popularity. Studio executives had trouble finding a director; the first few candidates turned down the position before Coppola signed on to direct the film but disagreement followed over casting several characters, in particular, Vito (Marlon Brando) and Michael (Al Pac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fictional Character
In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, play, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or based on a real-life person, in which case the distinction of a "fictional" versus "real" character may be made. Derived from the Ancient Greek word , the English word dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in ''Tom Jones'' by Henry Fielding in 1749. From this, the sense of "a part played by an actor" developed.Harrison (1998, 51-2) quotation: (Before this development, the term '' dramatis personae'', naturalized in English from Latin and meaning "masks of the drama," encapsulated the notion of characters from the literal aspect of masks.) Character, particularly when enacted by an actor in the theatre or cinema, involves "the illusion of being a human person". In literature, characters guide readers through their stories, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Connie Corleone
Constanzia "Connie" Corleone is a fictional character in ''The Godfather'', a 1969 novel by Mario Puzo, and the 1972 film ''The Godfather''. In the film, Connie is portrayed by Talia Shire, the sister of the director Francis Ford Coppola. Shire was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Connie Corleone in ''The Godfather Part II''. ''The Godfather'' Born in 1925, Connie is the youngest child and only daughter of Mafia don Vito Corleone and his wife Carmela. She is the sister of Sonny, Fredo and Michael Corleone and adopted sister of Tom. In 1945, she marries Sonny's friend Carlo Rizzi. Vito disapproves of the match, due to the fact that Carlo's mother is from Northern Italy rather than Sicily, and only agrees to the marriage on the condition that they have a traditional Sicilian wedding. Puzo characterizes Carlo as "a punk sore at the world", and his angry behavior is exacerbated by the Corleone family shunting him aside after mar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
