What Should’ve Won That Could’ve Won: 1974

The Year: 1974
What the Nominees Were: Chinatown, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Lenny, The Towering Inferno
Other Movies That Should Have Been Considered: Scorsese had another great one with Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. And if we grant that the Academy should have been more accepting of comedy, then we have to acknowledge that Mel Brooks released both Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein that year!

What Should’ve Won and Did Win: The Godfather Part II
How Hard Was the Decision: Very hard. Chinatown is an equally great movie, but Coppola wins the tie because of what we now know about Polanski. I am factoring “retrospectively problematic” into my equations.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Writers: Coppola and Puzo again, still adapting material from the same novel
Stars: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro

The Story: We flashback to Vito’s origins (now played by De Niro) in the early 1900s and show Michael’s moral collapse in the 1950s, as he gets tripped up by the Cuban Revolution, televised mafia hearings, and his wife leaving him.

Any Other Nominations or Wins: It won Picture, Director, Supporting Actor for De Niro, Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction and Score. It lost Actor for Pacino, Supporting Actor for Michael V. Gazzo and Lee Strasberg, Supporting Actress for Shire and Costume Design
How It Won: The juggernaut was still going from the first one and momentum carried it through. Equally good reviews, added to somewhat-diminished but still very strong box office (especially impressive because the epic 3:21 running time meant fewer showings per day) were enough to win over the Academy and stamp out Chinatown’s chances.

Why It Won:

1. We all know from her later work in Rocky that Shire was a very good actress, but how on Earth did she get a nomination from this instead of Keaton, who is stunning here? Kay is still shell-shocked from the events of the first movie until she finally gets her own and does what no rival don can do: Ruins Michael’s life.
   
2. De Niro almost got cast in the small role of traitorous chauffeur Paulie in the first movie, but thankfully passed, leaving him available for the much stronger role of young Vito. Sharing a role with Brando is a tall order, but De Niro is just as much of a generational talent, and rose to the challenge. He mimics the gravelly mumble a bit but decided not to stuff any cotton into his cheeks to replicate the jowls.
   
3. Coppola has said, “I had two films that didn’t make sense together. They were shot in a different style; they had a different smell to them. My friend George Lucas said to me, ‘Francis, you have two movies. Throw one away. It doesn’t work.’ But I had this hunch that if I could ever make it work, it could be fantastic.” In the end, Coppola was right and Lucas was wrong. Neither half of this movie would be satisfying on its own, but informing each other, bookending the events of the first movie, they’re profound. And the different looks (or “smells”) compliment each other nicely.
4. The sequence in which young Vito stalks Don Fanucci across the rooftops above the Feast of San Gennaro, then descends into a building to shoot him with a towel wrapped around his gun is one of the most stunning in the history of cinema. When the gun going off lights the towel on fire, we can tell that Vito hasn’t done this before, but his calm reaction assures us that this won’t be his last hit.
   
5. The first film has about ten legendary lines, but it’s easy to forget how many of Michael’s memorable quotes come from this one (such as “My offer is this: Nothing”) It’s also embarrassing to admit that one of his most quoted lines (“Every time I think I’m out…”) actually comes from Part III, about which nothing more will be spoken.
6. There is no opening speech about America this time, but the metaphor of America-as-mafia still comes through loud and clear. When the mobsters and heads of supposedly-legitimate corporations plunge their knives into a cake with a map of Batista’s Cuba, we understand that it’s not just the mafia that’s being condemned. (And they actually had the courage to say the words mafia and cosa nostra this time!)
   
   
   

Ah, 1974: My parents would serve these as suggested, then I, as a little kid, would take them out, suck the salt off them, and put them back in the glass dish. I was a little monster