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Although hardly dealing from strength, Coppola fought to get his budget doubled, shift the style to the period in which the book is set (late 1940s and early 1950s), and alter the whole conception of the film. "I saw important ideas in this book that had to do with dynasty and power," he says. "Puzo's screenplay had turned into a slick, contemporary gangster picture of no importance. It wasn't Puzo's fault. He just did what they told him to do." With Puzo's collaboration, Coppola rewrote the script along the broader lines he envisioned. "It was my intention," he says, "to make this an authentic piece of film about gangsters who were Italian, how they lived, how they behaved, the way they treated their families, celebrated their rituals."
Puzo seemed to be bemused by the already dizzying changes. He had welcomed a Hollywood writing stint as a vacation from the hermit existence of the novelist. His office at Paramount had a refrigerator containing "an unlimited supply of soda pop free," he recounts in an upcoming nonbook entitled, naturally, The Godfather Papers and Other Confessions. "I had an adjoining office for my secretary and a telephone with a buzzer and four lines. This was living." However, between the soda pop and the tennis and the gambling, which Puzo plunged into with relish, he soon found that being the father of The Godfather had its drawbacks. At a Los Angeles restaurant he was introduced to Frank Sinatra, who was widely believed to be the model for Puzo's character of Johnny Fontane, the singer who is backed by the Mob. Sinatra, writes Puzo, never even looked up from his plate, but "started to shout abuse . . . The worst thing he called me was a pimp, which rather flattered me. But what hurt was that there he was, a northern Italian, threatening me, a southern Italian, with physical violence. That was roughly equivalent to Einstein pulling a knife on Al Capone."
More troubles were to come for Puzo. He be came disgruntled because he had no final say on the picture. He was not allowed to view the finished cut when he wished to, and it was rumored that he had sworn — humorously, no doubt — a Sicilian vendetta against Paramount's Robert Evans.
Meanwhile it seemed that every actor in the world who was over 35 — and some men who were not actors — was scowling into his mirror and jockeying for the plum role in the picture: the Godfather himself, Don Vito Corleone. Under consideration were prospects who ranged from George C. Scott to Laurence Olivier to Italian Producer Carlo Ponti, Sophia Loren's husband.
Flamboyant San Francisco Lawyer Melvin Belli let it be known that he was available. Coppola and Puzo agreed that the actor they saw in the role was Brando (see CINEMA). Once again the Paramount bosses howled. They saw Brando in his more familiar role as the star of money-losing pictures and a moody troublemaker on the set. Brando's shenanigans during the filming of Mutiny on the Bounty had become legend, and the star, who is currently divorced from his second wife, was famous for his sometimes tumultuous off-screen romances.