A Deleted Scene From The Godfather Provoked A 'Pissed Off' James Caan
The films of Francis Ford Coppola, at their core, are all about family. That theme goes for behind the camera as well as in front of it; according to interviews with Coppola on the Blu-Ray and 4K Ultra HD special features of the "Godfather" films, the director wished for the actors portraying the Corleone crime family to feel as much like a real family as possible before cameras began rolling. So, prior to making "The Godfather," Coppola arranged for the primary family members — Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, John Cazale and Talia Shire — to meet at an Italian restaurant in New York City, have dinner together and improvise as their characters the entire time.
With all that preparation, and the fact that the filmmakers were adapting Mario Puzo's 400-page novel into what became a three-hour movie whose narrative spans the length of a decade on screen, it stands to reason that there would be a ton of material developed and shot for the film that didn't make it into the final cut. Sadly, one of these sequences was a lengthy scene involving Sonny Corleone (Caan), whose character had a lot more to do during the section of the film where he takes over the family business while his father, Don Vito Corleone (Brando) is convalescing after an attempt on his life.
According to Coppola, Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans had given the director a mandate about how long "The Godfather" was to be, and even though Evans eventually acquiesced to a runtime of 175 minutes, a good chunk of footage had to be let go. When Caan first saw the finished film and realized that a scene that meant a lot to him had been cut, he was so incensed that he walked out of the screening.
Caan's mixed feelings on 'The Godfather'
A few months before the actor passed away in July of 2022, Caan spoke to The Hollywood Reporter regarding his issue with the final cut of "The Godfather" and how seeing his work go missing upset him:
"When Michael tells me he is going to take care of the cop and Sollozzo, I say, 'You'll get brains all over your nice Ivy League suit.' There was a scene before in the same room that I had with Bobby [Duvall] that was like 10 pages long — and Francis cut all of it out! I was so pissed off, I couldn't watch the rest of the film."
Although Caan wasn't so upset as to totally denounce the film or Coppola (following up his statement by clarifying that the director gave him "a great honor" of his role in the film), he clearly still harbored some resentment over the missing material. After all, the actor put himself on the line for the film, agreeing to have his body wired up with 147 squibs (small explosive charges placed behind bags of fake blood) for the infamous moment of Sonny's demise. Yet, lest he be seen as an art for art's sake actor, Caan was quick to clarify while speaking to The Guardian in 1999 that "I wouldn't have done it if there hadn't been so many girls around the set to impress."
The missing scene
Just what the deleted scene that Caan loved so much was is another matter, however. Although Coppola has recut 1990's "The Godfather Part III" three times, he hasn't touched "The Godfather" or "The Godfather Part II" since their theatrical release, save for a special 1977 television version of the first two films cut into chronological order. In this version and several subsequent re-cuts of the trilogy that have appeared on TV and streaming platforms, a large amount of deleted material was put back into the films, and all of this material has turned up on the physical media releases in their own separate deleted scenes section of the supplemental features.
As such, the scene Caan seems to be referring to — one featuring Sonny and Tom Hagen (Duvall) in Vito's den shortly before Michael (Pacino) arrives and agrees to assassinate Sollozo (Al Lettieri) — doesn't appear to be included amongst all this deleted footage, especially as per stills of the scene that do exist. That's not uncommon; after all, large swathes of deleted material from a film don't always make it to the public for various reasons, whether or not other deleted footage does. That said, Caan's temper may have been triggered over not just one scene being cut but many, as there is a lot of material involving Sonny trying to solve and avenge his father's attack while keeping the Corleone business going that was lost, as seen in this montage of deleted scenes from the first film. It's good stuff, showcases Sonny a great deal, and it's plausible that it's this material the actor was referring to. Yet if it turns out that we haven't yet seen the moment Caan was so sorry to see go, however, then perhaps we have more "Godfather" to look forward to the next time Paramount searches their archival vaults.