Is the actor/singer supposed to be Sinatra?

You're right, everything serves the story FFC wanted to tell.

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I think so. A couple of sex scenes instead of 30 or so -- but they mattered.

And Coppola ruthlessly excised some scenes of violence and payback. For instance, in the book, we see the two young punks who beat up Buonsera's daugther get beaten bloody(but not dead) by the Don's men.

I think also in the book, we see Enzo get killed after fleeing Italy to NYC.

One scene that was filmed and deleted made Jack Woltz a more evil and deserving victim of that horse head: the one with the young underage girl pimped out by her mother to Woltz , and seen after as a disheveled mess by Tom Hagen before he leaves Woltz's home. This was in the book and I've seen the scene somewhere.

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The first time he read The Godfather he didn't think much of it, but when he read it again he discerned the story within that would become the movie -- family and business intertwined, and so on.

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That story WAS there, all the time. Its rather weird that Puzo spent almost as much time on Fontane(Sinatra) and the Vegas couple as the "good story." It seems weirdly clear that Puzo decided to write a sex-drenched guess-the-celebrity bestseller and then accidentally saw it become a great film.

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The one part he dropped that he didn't want to was the flashback sections describing Vito's rise to power -- which would become half of GF2. The reason for dropping it was budget constraints.

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I personally didn't miss it. I felt it had slowed down the novel. Came Godfather II, Coppola could film it -- which is why Godfather II is HALF still Godfather I. Interesting to me: sequels weren't inevitable in the early 70's. We just might have had only the one Godfather in a different era -- with Vito's early years left on the page.

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CONT

> Nor I. But I read ABOUT [Robbins and Susann]

I never did that, but it wasn't necessary. In those days, merely watching a normal amount of television ensured hearing about them. I said earlier Robbins was notorious; same for Susann.

> [Peyton Place was a] very racy book , evidently

I wonder if that still holds up today. I'm thinking of two movies made circa 1970 which I didn't see until much later, after 2000 IIRC -- Rosemary's Baby and Deliverance. During their initial theater runs both were reputed to be extremely shocking, but viewed through jaded, modern eyes both struck me as quite tame -- worth a PG rating (but what movie isn't) but not even close to an R rating. I thought, "That's it?" I also didn't see The Exorcist until long after its release and although I thought it held up better, I had the same reaction to a lesser degree.

Another sex-shocker from that era was Mandingo, written by Kyle Onstott in the late 1950s; later made into a movie in 1975. It's set on an Alabama plantation in the 1830s. Onstott, born in the 1880s, did not intend the novel to be an accurate depiction of slavery; instead he took the worst and most bizarre stories he had ever heard and went from there. One present day commentator noted the reaction to the novel this way (paraphrased). "This book has incest. It has torture. There's so much alcoholism that a reader is likely to get a contact buzz. A man is murdered by being immersed in boiling water. It even has nude men biting chunks out of each other. And yet -- the thing that shocked 1950s readers more than anything else was that a black man and white woman had sex. Wow!"

Wow indeed. People had different standards back then.

> [Jaws] simply wasn't as good a novel as The Godfather

I recall my reaction when I read it was that it was OK, nothing more. I never re-read it nor felt a desire to, whereas I've revisited Puzo's novel several times. So although I don't recall Benchley's novel in detail I agree with you.

> And Coppola ruthlessly excised some scenes of violence and payback. For instance, in the book, we see the two young punks who beat up Buonsera's daugther get beaten bloody(but not dead) by the Don's men.

He originally planned to include that. In his notes, scenes 5 through 8 are "Woltz's Limo and Estate," "Gatto and the Beating," Hagen's Meeting with the Don and Sonny," and "Woltz's Bedroom." From his notes on scene 6:

In the previous scene we have the Don handle one of his promises in a cagey, wiley, but essentially reasonable way. Now, just as we are coming to love, and be fascinated with the old man and what he stands for, we are given another side of it, and though we see some justice in it, we are repelled.

This a professional job; it must be just enough, but not too much. [...] each blow of terrifying violence, but carefully and precisely placed.

[Ways this scene could fail include] going soft; not going heavy enough; it's the first real violence in the film, and must be shocking, or else the contradicting nature of the Don will not be in evidence, and everyone will think he's a kindly old man.

> It seems weirdly clear that Puzo decided to write a sex-drenched guess-the-celebrity bestseller and then accidentally saw it become a great film.

From what I've heard, he wrote it for one reason only -- he was near broke and wanted to make a pile of money.

> sounds like FFC should have better left that alone!

I'm guessing that FFC didn't know which Tom/Sonny/Vito scene he'd use -- before or after Tom visits Woltz -- so he filmed both. He certainly didn't intend to use both, just one or the other.

The Godfather Saga contains deleted scenes from both GF1 and GF2. For example, there's a scene with young Hyman Rothstein being advised by older mobsters to change his name to Hyman Roth -- IIRC, in order to better blend into conventional American society.

> I think also in the book, we see Enzo get killed after fleeing Italy to NYC.

No, Enzo disappears from the story after the scene at the hospital. You might be confusing him with Fabrizio. Enzo was the employee and later son-in-law of Nazorine the baker; one of the men who asked favors of Vito at Connie's wedding. Enzo and Nazorine's daughter had fallen in love, but Enzo was to be deported back to Italy (he had been captured in the war and was in NYC as a POW, but apparently was in some sort of "work release" program). Nazorine asked the Don to arrange for Enzo to become a US citizen. Vito agreed but said it would take a special act of Congress which would cost $2000.

Later, when Michael found Vito unguarded at the hospital, Enzo, who had come to visit Vito and pay his respects, insisted on helping guard Vito until the Corleones could send in replacements. He was the guy standing with Michael in front of the hospital when the car (Sollozzo?) drove by. I'm pretty sure that's the last time he's in the book.

Fabrizio was the shepherd who put the bomb in the car that killed Apollonia. Later, he had a pizza parlor in the US; in Buffalo. NY IIRC. In the book he was killed by gunshot. IIRC, in the movie he's killed by a car bomb -- fitting justice -- but I don't remember whether or not that was in the movie or was a deleted scene.