Everyone is aware of The Godfather. If they’re not aware of Mario Puzo’s 1969 book, they are most likely aware of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 film of the same name and probably even of its two sequels. Even if they haven’t seen these films, they have likely seen parodies of the classic work of fiction that have been done by everyone from Rodney Dangerfield to The Rugrats. The franchise’s imagery is universally recognizable, from the puppet master’s hand gracing the cover of the book and movie posters to that of Marlon Brando stroking a cat and wearing a tuxedo with cotton balls stuffed in his cheeks.
This book and its better known films did not invent their genre, but they perfected it. The Godfather is to the crime genre as Star Wars is to science fiction. It has inspired generations of artists to create classic works from GoodFellas to The Sopranos. The Godfather put lines like “I’ll give him an offer he can’t refuse,” and “Leave the gun; take the cannoli,” into our collective awareness and shaped our very views of gangsters and the mafia. Maybe this is why Book II has been so criminally (pun intended) overlooked.
The Godfather Book II is a two chapter chunk of Mario Puzo’s gangster epic centers around the fictional character of Johnny Fontane, a character that Puzo based on Frank Sinatra. The character goes far deeper than a Sinatra impression however. As of the start of the book, we have already been introduced Johnny in Book I. (Perhaps you’re aware of a certain scene with a hacked-off horse head?) A bit of a tragic character to begin with, Johnny is a famous singer in Hollywood who has lost his voice to drinking, smoking, and partying. He is left only able to sing for a short time before needing nearly a month to recover. This character description alone highlights a major theme of the book, that of the corruption of that which is pure by Hollywood.
Puzo does not hold any punches in his critique of the soulless machine that is Tinseltown. When the book begins, Johnny is sharing dinner with Sharon Moore, a new girl in Hollywood, in his apartment. By this time in his career, Johnny is something of a has-been, praying that what F. Scott Fitzgerald said about “no second acts” isn’t a reality. The description of how this evening plays out is almost alien. It seems that Johnny, inching ever closer to going to bed with the girl, is acting more out of habit than honest desire. Still, he tries to get to know the girl and makes it clear that he is not purely interested in an emotionless quickie. By the end of this evening, when the girl ultimately turns him down, Johnny isn’t so much disappointed as he is understanding. He understands her motivations in refusing to sleep with the great Johnny Fontane. Even so, he is clearly somewhat bothered by this, enough to slyly make sure she knows that he hadn’t truly tried his hardest to spend the night with her.
He does feel sorry for this almost immediately, not wanting to belittle her, even offering for her to call her if she ever need someone to talk to. This endears the reader to Johnny and allows them to empathize with him. He is our window into the heartless beast of Hollywood, but he is not Hollywood. He is a human, and he is a victim of the town. We are given hints of his inner humanity that are contrasted with his familiarity with the vices of the town, but we are not fully convinced of his goodness yet. For that, Puzo carries us directly to Ginny, Johnny’s first wife.
Johnny calls Ginny after Sharon leaves and asks if he can come over just to talk. He does so, and they discuss the date as well as Johnny’s new film. Their interaction is caring but wholly unromantic. As you read, you feel glad for Johnny that despite no longer being married to her, he has Ginny in his life as a sort of emotional stability. This is something that Johnny needs since, as was clearly demonstrated on his date, it is not something that he can find from anyone else in Hollywood.
As they talk about his movie, Johnny remains comical, but it is clear to Ginny that he is not well. Though the success of the movie is imperative to the continuation of his career, it is not clear if this is what Johnny truly needs in his life right now.
Johnny ends up spending the night at Ginny’s house in her guest bedroom and wakes up to a breakfast in bed and his two daughters running to him with hugs. It feels almost as though we are seeing a perfect, happy, American family. (Though it is not explicitly stated, it is nearly impossible for one to read this section and not envision a white picket fence outside the house.)
This scene is a stark contrast to the one that follows in which Johnny picks up Tom Hagen, Don Corleone’s lawyer, from the airport. The Don helped to land Johnny the big role in the movie to begin with, and now Hagen has come to tell him that his chances of winning the Academy Award currently seem to be slim to none. Johnny is enraged by this, nearly driven to tears. Hagen doesn’t take long to correct himself, saying that the Don is capable of changing the current circumstances through his influence. This calms Johnny, but doesn’t change that we have seen a new side of him, one that was grown of a seed planted in him by Hollywood.
A condition that the Don gives Johnny is that he must start along the road toward producing his own movies as he feels that this will help Johnny to support himself in the future if Hollywood big shots turn on him as they have before. The Don offers to support him along the way, and it is incredible to see how, with the Don’s support, Johnny is easily able to hit the ground running and already be in pre-production of a new film with just a few phone calls.
It is here that the narrative takes a break to reflect on what has brought Johnny to this point in his life. It discusses his second wife, Margot Ashton, for whom he left Ginny. She is a personification of the evils of Hollywood, a gorgeous but cold and uncaring starlet who laughs in Johnny’s face in his lowest moment which she is the reason for. She is the perfect contrast to Ginny, a kind, Italian woman, beautiful but not in the unobtainable way that the women of Hollywood are.
After making the phone calls to begin the turning of gears of his next film, Johnny Fontane makes another phone call, one to Nino Valenti. Nino Valenti was Johnny’s close friend and singing partner growing up in New York whom he had always promised he would find work for should he make it big in Hollywood. This, of course, never occurred though Johnny had been a successful movie star. Now, as the sun rises on a new set of opportunities for Johnny, he calls his old friend to invite him to come to Hollywood in order to correct his past transgressions and please the Don. This sets up Nino, a character being newly introduced to the alternate dimension of Hollywood as the perfect contrast Johnny, a character with a similar background to Nino but who has been almost entirely appropriated by the town’s twisted ideologies. Having set up this interaction, Puzo ends the chapter here.
This chapter is a great work of literature. It is one that both makes the reader empathize with its protagonist and worry for him. It is also, perhaps, more relevant today than ever before with more and more of Hollywood’s underbelly being exposed to us with every passing day. As this chapter is only one half of Book II of The Godfather, these themes are further dealt with in the second half where Puzo further ups the scale. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone interested in reading this fascinating character study.
