The Godfather: Part II (1974) on Netflix
As a boy, Vito Andolini leaves Sicily for New York and grows into a respected don. His son Michael now heads the family and pushes its business into Las Vegas and Cuba.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb9.0/101,513,372 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
The story runs on two tracks. In Sicily a boy called Vito Andolini loses his family and escapes to New York, where an immigration officer records him as Vito Corleone; married in Little Italy by 1917, he supports his household by stealing with his neighbor Peter Clemenza, and later takes his family to Sicily to set up an olive oil importing business. In 1958 his son Michael is the family's new Don, holding meetings at his Nevada estate while his son Anthony makes his First Communion. Johnny Ola arrives with an offer from Hyman Roth about a Las Vegas casino, Frank Pentangeli wants backing against the Rosato brothers, and Senator Pat Geary asks for money. Roth also invites Michael to invest in Cuba.
Cast
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Godfather: Part II (1974)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Marlon Brando agreed to return for the birthday flashback sequence, but, feeling mistreated by the board at Paramount, he failed to show up for the single day's shooting. Coppola rewrote the scene that same day.
- Production nearly ended before it began when Al Pacino's lawyers told Coppola that he had grave misgivings about the quality of Puzo's script and was not coming. Coppola spent an entire night rewriting it before giving it to Pacino, who approved it, and the production went forward.
- James Caan agreed to reprise the role of Sonny in the birthday flashback sequence only if he was paid the same amount he had received for the entire previous film, for that single scene in Part II. He got it.
- Richard S. Castellano, who played Peter Clemenza in the first film, declined to return because he and the producers could not agree on his demand to write the character's dialogue. The part intended for the older Clemenza became the new character Frank Pentangeli, played by Michael V. Gazzo.
- Coppola offered the role of Hyman Roth to James Cagney, but Cagney refused it because he had retired from acting by then.
- Coppola decided to make this the first major American motion picture to use "Part II" in its title. Paramount was opposed, believing the audience would not be interested in an addition to a story they had already seen, but the director prevailed and the film's success began the common practice of numbered sequels.
- Only three weeks before release, film critics and journalists pronounced Part II a disaster, judging the crosscutting between Vito and Michael's parallel stories too frequent. Coppola and the editors went back to the cutting room to change the narrative structure but could not finish in time, leaving the opening poorly timed.
