Before i clicked to see the comments, I said inside me the exact words " thank God " and "the rest "they didn't let James Caan to play Michael, and then I saw you've already written those words thank God 👍😂😂😂😂😂
Duval nailed it as Tom Hagen, the slick lawyer intensely focused on repaying the trust of the Don and his family that saved him from the gutter as a young kid.
Caan cannot pull off the sheer ruthlessness & coldness required for the character of Michael. One look in Pacino's eyes & you know full well the man was like a Tiger or panther. Just waiting, watching, scheming, always looking around him, ready to pounce at the first sign of danger moving towards him. Caan is too explosive, too talkative, too animated, too reactive. Michael is always measured, always thinking. Caan does not give off this perception.
agreed. too extroverted. sonny didn't have the capacity for deep schemes and for his quiet brooding. you always knew what he was thinking because he couldn't control himself. i find it hard to imagine james caan being silent and subtle in his performance
I can’t see him playing anyone but Sonny Corleone. Like you said he’s too fiery and has a boisterous personality which would make him a poor choice for Michael but a great Sonny. Doesn’t have that “Ill let you think you made it out but you won’t get far when I’m done with you” like Al Pacino did.
it is so funny how James Caan had the cigarette in his mouth and just didn't have that innocent look Al Pachino had as Michael. That was always funny and probably very obvious to Francis as well as Jimmy
You knew jus tby the tone of his voice he dident want to play the role of micheal when he was acting you felt he wasent being himself he playe a wayyyyyyyy better sonny and personlly he should have one a best actor or at least be nominated for it
Gosh... I'm SO glad that James Caan got the part of Sonny instead of Michael. I love him in The Godfather, don't get me wrong, but that role was made for Pacino. xD
jesus! looking at these godfather audition tapes truly makes you realize how well casted this movie was. James Caan doesnt pull off the modesty of Micheal the way Al Pacino did, he seems to be hiding a subtle arrogance which makes him better suited to play Sonny
@DarkProphet94 Agree, except Michael wasn't weak! Or even shy, he was just always very quiet. Enlisting in the navy was an act of courage on two levels, the obvious one and... to stand up to his father was even more scary! :)
Was Diane Keaton reading those lines like that on purpose? It was a little dramatic and annoying...but then again I find her annoying in every movie she's in
I initially thought Caan would have made a good Michael. But then I saw his performance as Paul Sheldon in Misery. Rob Reiner didn't want anyone else for that role, and the reason is obvious--Caan comes off as a street tough who made good, which makes him perfect for Sonny.
You know what, Caan is more believable as a ex-Marine. No one ever mentions the fact that Pacino, as good as he was in the role of Michael, is simply not someone you would ever think was a jarhead, especially a WW2 Veteran. Pacino doesn't have the bearing, he doesn't have the force. Caan does. That said, Caan was great as Sonny and Pacino was still great as Michael.
Back then there wasn’t that though view of a marine. Because of many kids going to ww2, there wasn’t really any standard for a soldier, just a bunch of young men
@@omarjimenez6479 Michael Corleone was not a soldier in ww2. He was a Marine. And yes, the USMC did have a storied tradition going into WW2 and people that joined the Marine Corps did so because they wanted to be Marines.
I thought all 3 of the movies were good. I also liked Andy Garcia as Sonny's son, with Sonny's temperament, and the forbidden love he had for his cousin played by Sofia Coppala. Just wish Caan's role could have lasted a bit longer.
@2112murphy I agree with you three was an alright conclusion but movie it was not and the fact that they killed off Duval ruined it for me becuase my favoured caracters are Young Vito Hagen Neri they are my favoured three.
WiKi Handshar, check out History Channel of the Muslim-NAZI connection. Hopefully we can agree on the often quoted but rarely followed phrase by Dr. Martin Luther King "...a man should be judged by the content of his heart not by the color of his skin."I'm not perfect, I find myself slipping sometimes, but I'll admit it, and damned it, I am trying.
I like Caan’s delivery as the simpleton Michael. But I just don’t see him doing the rest of the tortured-soul then fully-darkness-embracing Michael parts.
No way. That part wasn’t for him. Pacino could do the mean dramatic dark part of the role which is what was its essence. Not a charming, pretty boy womanizer type.
@Snako85 Huh? "Michael wasn't even gonna join anyway like Vito told him that". Told him what? That people die during a war? Vito 'pulled his strings' so that Mike wouldn't be drafted. But if you mean he didn't want to join Mafia - that was Vito's plan. To make him a lawyer/politician, maybe 'senator Corleone'. It could be a fassscinating debate if you stayed on topic (The Godfather, the movie. It's not a docudrama) ADD? Focus, soldier! :)
@Snako85 Enough already! :) Same dif. To this tiny bunch of people who happen to be non-Yankees I'm close enough... I'd be happy to see one answer to my POINT. Saying that Michael was (ever) 'shy and weak' is like saying that Vito Corleone was old, weak and could barely speak. Did you, 116 people see the movie... once? 40 years ago? Otherwise, you'd remember the last scene in GF 2, when he defies his father. That was much more courageous than enlisting in Maaariiiines....:) You guys ARE funny.
How interesting, two of the toughest Italian characters of the '70s were played by Jewish actors, Sonny Corleone and Arthur Fonzarelli. Sad most Jewish characters were cast as wimpish neurotics like Woody Allen. I'm very happy to see movies like Defiance and Inglourous Basterds that show Jews as something other than helpless victims.
al pacino was better suited for michael cause he could do the slow transition from shy and weak to power hungry in the movie. james, on the other hand, gave off that im an asshole feel to the test, which worked out fantastically as sonny
@pimpdaddyandrew Oh that’s what I’m talking about. Why would I waste my time on ’doing research’ on your army… structures, whatever 'before opening my mouth'. Nobody outside your ‘greatest country in the world‘ cares... The clip is about something else, and this is like arguing what kind of shoes Mike was wearing… Cheers.
@Snako85 Oh, and I didn't suggest that there were more sons killed by their Mafia bosses-fathers than people killed during the WWII! Yeah, that would be stupid. But we're onto something...:)
@mehditai He's German-Jewish. His mother lost family in the Holocaust, he said it on an episode of inside the actors studio. I was thinking the same thing lol
@Snako85 "You went to college to get stupid? Dad has plans for you!" - Sonny. Defying dad's will (not 'not joining Mafia') was courageous (and I hoped I made it clear that by comparing it to fighting in war I used figure of speech...) But my POINT is - it drives me nuts when one goof says sth stupid and 115 sheep follows him. Michael's transition was so 'slow' that it took him a week or so to go from Christmas shopping with Kay to his calculated decision to kill two people in a public place...
When Sunny is wearing Marine Corps uniform, if you look at the insignias on the collar, they are on the wrong sides and crooked. The correct way is for the bottoms of the anchors to be facing each other. And the Eagles should be facing up.
@pimpdaddyandrew So, joking aside, what's your answer to my point? None? When I don't have the courtesy... don't give a shit what someone is saying, I just... say nothing. See, we can all learn from each other.:)
The casting for this movie couldn’t have been better than what they ended up with! Caan as Michael? I don’t think so😊the role of Sonny was made for him !
