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Could any other actor have played Don Vito besides Brando

posted 7 years ago by lonnieanixt
20 replies | jump to latest

I cannot visualize another actor doing what Brando did with that role, in truth he was too good, lending his charm to the monster Vito, humanizes Vito and makes him beloved, but in reality Vito is a heartless killer. Yet without that humanizing affect the Godfather is a completely different movie. Brando, in my opinion is the greatest actor in the history of cinema. And he poured everything he had into playing Don Vito, getting lost in the part, disappearing , creating a perfect character, a powerful man, aging out of his strength, becoming careless in his old age. just about every scene Brando is in is powerful, there is no filler, We see Vito at the height of his power, his fall, dealing with the murder of his Son, the meeting of the five families, seeing all his hopes shattered with Michael, and finally Vito at the end of his life when he is practically a child again. Is there any other actor who could have possibly handled that part.

In a similar fashion i can't see any other actor playing Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.

[–] Musashi94 7 years ago

Burt Lancaster is the only other actor I could see in the role, but even that is difficult to imagine.

[–] jwalsh67 7 years ago

Castellano and Vigoda could have done just as well.

He who conquers himself is mightier than he who conquers a city.

[–] TrapLordRonSwanson 7 years ago

In a remake, I could see Daniel Day-Lewis.

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career.

[–] lonnieanixt 7 years ago

in a remake, I could see Daniel Day-Lewis.

Not bad. A similar actor who can get dissolve into a role and come up with something shockingly beautiful.

[–] vicky_lc2001 (1907) 7 years ago

Edward G. Robinson? He played gangsters in plenty of 30s & 40s films and is a legend. They tried to get him as well I think? Plus he looks Italian though Brando in his old age could pass too.

[–] DamienThorn1976 (74) 7 years ago

Thought Gregory Peck could have pulled it off.

But it's too hard to see anyone take over the part that Brando made his own.

[–] roreyking (561) 6 years ago

Gregory Peck?? LOL!

To play Vito, Coppola wanted one of the 2 most respected actors of his generation: Brando or Olivier. Olivier was either ill or already committed (possibly to Sleuth, which also came out in '72). Brando was considered undependable, erratic, and was out of favor with the studio heads. But he wanted the part badly enough that he was willing to submit to a screen test. His willingness to do that, and the quality of it, won the studio heads over.

[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

That's absolutely true about Coppola demanding Brando or Olivier (and a little bit "snobbish," too.)

Other actors under consideration or seeking the role included Burt Lancaster, George C. Scott, Rod Steiger and Ernest Borgnine. Had the production been a "cheapie"(as once contemplated), John Marley was under consideration (he is studio exec Lou Woltz in the finished film.)

I thought in Brando, we lost the volcanic rage that the above actors could have given us, but Brando WAS a great actor in the fifties and The Godfather DID give him a chance to reclaim his throne.

We all take Brando's "Godfather voice" (whispery, gravelly, lispy) for granted now, but it was a real shock in '72, a very strange and different interpretation of the Don Corleone many of us had imagined from the book. It was a brilliant move on Brando's part. It got him the Best Actor Oscar he didn't want, and it made history. Impressionists both professional and amateur do that voice all the time, now.

[–] MIchiganJFrogg (-35) 6 years ago

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I think Ernest Borgnine would have been a very interesting choice and could have done very well.

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I was a teen around the time of the film's pre-production and I recall Borgnine guesting on The Hollywood Squares and host Peter Marshall introduced Borgnine by saying, "Ernie, is it true you are being considered to play the Godfather?" and Borgnine confirmed it and crossed his fingers while laughing that big friendly gap-toothed grin of his. Recall that Brando, Olivier, Steiger, Lancaster, Scott and Borgnine all had one thing in common: Best Actor Oscar winners.

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It would have been a very different movie. I suspect Borgnine would have played it more like a Tony soprano character. More overtly menacing.

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Yep, I can see that. A fascinating thing about The Godfather book was that is was hard TO picture "the man in action." The paperback had a "partial facial" drawing of The Godfather on its cover, and as I recall, he looked a bit like Lee Strasberg(the Jewish gangster in II).

Anyway...picture Borgnine, you can SEE Borgnine. Picture Scott..you can SEE Scott. Etc.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

One great thing about the way Brando portrayed the character, was that he really seemed outwardly gentle and not menacing. He was so powerful, and knew that you knew he was so powerful, that he did not need to make a show of it. He could crush you, and he knew that you knew that.

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Yes..Brando had a reputation in the late sixties as lazy and no longer interested in giving a great performance, but he really seems to have made a series of great choices in his 1972 version of Don Corleone. He's a quiet man, not big on menace, but...its there.

I think the movie is wonderfully set up to give us the butchery of the horse's head fairly early on...followed by Don Vito getting congratulatory flowers from Johnny Fontaine for getting the movie role. THERE, we are told -- again early on : THIS is what quiet Don Vito is capable of. Cross him at your peril.

I also like how this frail old man can humiliate -- several times -- his tough muscleman son Sonny("A man who doesn't spend time with his family is not a man"); and how he gently chides Tom Hagen about needing a drink before breaking the news about Sonny's death("You have something to tell me -- but first you needed a drink. Well, now you've had your drink.") Brando's Don Vito has quiet threat, quiet power. You never really forget it.

[–] MIchiganJFrogg (-35) 6 years ago

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

I may be biased, because Borgnine is one of my favorite actors. He had several great movie roles.

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That's for sure.

The big, lucky one was, of course, Marty (a role played by Rod Steiger in a TV play version first.) Borgnine sold that part with perfection, but...it changed his life. No longer just a "heavy"(as in From Here to Eternity and Bad Day at Black Rock), Borgnine could now, occasionally, show his nicer side.

And then he did that Navy sitcom "McHale's Navy" and got REALLY famous(he said he took the series because he felt TV series stars were more famous than most movie actors)..and then he went BACK to starring roles in movies, and had a great run from 1967(The Dirty Dozen) to 1972(The Poseidon Adventure), with Ice Station Zebra, The Wild Bunch(his "other classic"), Willard(a sleeper that made him richer) in between.

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Also when I saw him on talk shows and interviews he seems like a genuinely nice person. Brando was of course a great actor, but he seem to be an arrogant, selfish jerk

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The answer seems to be "yes, they were" with regard to both men. Its why Borgnine worked all the time(he was liked) and Brando worked less.

Borgnine also lived to his 90's and was still acting at that age("Red.")

PS. Trivia: In "The Wild Bunch," Borgnine is roughly the same age as his "pal" William Holden in the movie. Well, as originally written, the Borgnine character was meant to be MUCH YOUNGER than Holden, a "surrogate son." But the producer of The Wild Bunch liked Borgnine and wanted him cast in the movie and director Sam Peckinpah(back from exile in Hollywood) "aimed to please his boss." So the role was re-written for Borgnine.

[–] MIchiganJFrogg (-35) 6 years ago

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[–] ecarle (14979) 6 years ago

Yes, I have seen that...amazing I keep forgetting it, given that it comes right after Poseidon Adventure. (Less big of a hit, though.)

He's an awesome villain and, interestingly enough, he is pitted against "hobo hero" Lee Marvin -- the lead of The Dirty Dozen and Borgnine's "co-henchman" versus Spencer Tracy years before in Bad Day at Black Rock.

One of the reasons I suppose Emperor of the North wasn't much of a hit is that it had the courage to focus on two middle-aged men as foes(and to realistically make both actors LESS good looking than usual) -- but it sure was meaningful to see Marvin and Borgnine go at in middle-aged savagery (chains, hammers, axes) during the train-bound climax.

A Borgnine "sleeper" comes right after Marty, and from the same writer, Paddy Chayefsky. The movie is The Catered Affair, and Borgnine plays the long-suffering cabbie husband to borderline poor Bette Davis. He does it with some "middle aged" make-up. Davis is hellbent to give daughter Debbie Reynolds a wedding that Borgnine can't afford; Borgnine is very, very good as the husband and father who tries to do the right thing and burns slow for most of the movie before(as I recall) striking out in frustration and dismay. There's also a great early scene in which an exhausted Borgnine goes immediately to bed -- and immediately to sleep -- as Davis tries to share her innermost thoughts with him.

[–] snepts (11123) 6 years ago

I probably read this on IMDb, but the story goes that Ernie was so convincing at playing the Heavy, he once asked his wife, "Am I really that bad ?" (One of my rare LOLs)

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

George C Scott

[–] MaximRecoil (4192) 6 years ago

I wasn't impressed with Marlon Brando in this movie. He looked and sounded fake, i.e., there was obviously something stuffed in his cheeks and his voice and manner of speaking were obviously unnatural, not to mention hard to understand at times. Some people are really good at "doing voices", so much so that you'd never know it wasn't their natural voice / manner of speaking unless someone told you, but Brando sounded phony as a $3 bill to me.

Al Pacino was the standout actor in this movie in my opinion.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Robert De Niro could do older Vito now. He was great as young Vito. Not many actors have that tortured inner soul and alpha male power. Jason Robard maybe but he’s not italian. The character needs authenticity.

Why did they have to stuff his cheeks? What did that add to the character? Couldn’t Brando have carried the character without that feature?

[–] MARYSMITH129 (2) 6 years ago

He was great as young Vito. Not many actors have that tortured inner soul and alpha male power.ms1492409 @ g mail