Why doesn’t Marlon Brando appear in ‘The Godfather Part II’?
Marlon Brando’s performance in the 1972 crime epic The Godfather was a triumph both of acting prowess and of cinematic suspension of disbelief. The 47-year-old Brando transformed into the much older Sicilian mafia don Vito Corleone so convincingly that it would have been impossible to imagine the story without him.
That’s precisely what audiences had to do when it came to the movie’s sequel, however. Brando doesn’t appear in the film following his character’s death in The Godfather and the ascension of Vito’s youngest son, Michael, to the position of crime family patriarch.
Vito Corleone does appear extensively in The Godfather Part II, in a parallel narrative set during an earlier historical period. However, in this narrative, young Vito is played by Robert De Niro.
Nevertheless, Brando was expected to return for a cameo appearance as the older Vito in a flashback scene at the end of the sequel. James Caan reprised his role as the deceased Sonny Corleone for the flashback and received the same acting fee for his two minutes of screen time as he got for the entirety of the first film.
The scene, which involves the Corleone family eating dinner together on Vito’s birthday while Michael is still at college, was written with Brando in mind. In fact, Brando was very much on board to shoot it.
So what went wrong?
That is, until suddenly, he wasn’t. Upset with the film’s backer, Paramount Pictures, for their treatment of him, Brando simply didn’t show up. He’d felt slighted during the casting process for the first Godfather when the studio insisted on placing strict limitations on his pay and professional behaviour. When he was passed over for the role of the young Vito Corleone in the sequel despite being director Francis Ford Coppola’s first choice, that was the final straw.
The actor gave no notice before skipping the single day’s shooting for the scene. It appeared to be in jeopardy, until Coppola came up with some clever rewrites on the spot which made the flashback possible without Brando’s character appearing in person. He turned the meal into a precursor to the rest of the family surprising Vito with a birthday cake off-camera.
If anything, this final result is even more effective than whatever the Brando version would have been. The rest of the family exits the room to go and prepare the surprise, leaving Michael Corleone alone, out of place and out of touch with his family.
This ending focuses on the real heart of the drama, Michael’s transformation from college boy to cold-blooded killer, while bringing his narrative arc across both movies full circle.
