The Michael Corleone Deleted Scene That Would Have Changed The Godfather Forever
In November 1977, NBC aired The Godfather across four consecutive nights — and it was not the movie anyone had seen in theaters.
Francis Ford Coppola and editor Barry Malkin had taken The Godfather and The Godfather Part II apart and rebuilt them into one chronological story, adding roughly seventy-five minutes of footage that had been cut from both films. Among that restored material was a scene with Al Pacino that answers a question the theatrical cut deliberately leaves open: what happened to Fabrizio, the bodyguard who planted the bomb that killed Apollonia.
Millions of families watched it on console sets with the TV Guide folded open on the arm of the chair. Today, that broadcast has never had a clean, complete home release.
This video covers what was restored, what network censors took out in exchange, why Coppola reportedly agreed to the whole project in the first place, and the ending Mario Puzo wrote that would have made The Godfather a completely different film.
A note on accuracy: where the record is disputed — particularly the details of Fabrizio's death in the deleted footage, and whether the novel's ending was ever filmed — the video says so rather than picking the more dramatic version.
If you watched it that week in 1977, tell me what you remember. I'd like to know how many people still have it on tape.
The Michael Corleone Deleted Scene That Would Have Changed The Godfather Forever
In November 1977, NBC aired The Godfather across four consecutive nights — and it was not the movie anyone had seen in theaters.
Francis Ford Coppola and editor Barry Malkin had taken The Godfather and The Godfather Part II apart and rebuilt them into one chronological story, adding roughly seventy-five minutes of footage that had been cut from both films. Among that restored material was a scene with Al Pacino that answers a question the theatrical cut deliberately leaves open: what happened to Fabrizio, the bodyguard who planted the bomb that killed Apollonia.
Millions of families watched it on console sets with the TV Guide folded open on the arm of the chair. Today, that broadcast has never had a clean, complete home release.
This video covers what was restored, what network censors took out in exchange, why Coppola reportedly agreed to the whole project in the first place, and the ending Mario Puzo wrote that would have made The Godfather a completely different film.
A note on accuracy: where the record is disputed — particularly the details of Fabrizio's death in the deleted footage, and whether the novel's ending was ever filmed — the video says so rather than picking the more dramatic version.
If you watched it that week in 1977, tell me what you remember. I'd like to know how many people still have it on tape.