March 31 1972

Al Pacino isn't the big star of The Godfather--Brando is--but his much longer role as the Godfather's youngest son knits the picture together. Pacino's sudden emergence as a movie star is reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman's in The Graduate; his imprint on the role is so strong, a wagish critic has suggested, that the Oscar nomination Brando is certain to get for the picture should be "Best Supporting Actor." Several dozen other actors, including bigger names such as Warren Beatty and Jack Nicholson, were at once time or another considered for the part. Pacino at 31 had made only one previous movie, Panic in Needle Park, but has been in the theatre for almost a decade and earned a good reputation as an actor. The film's executives wanted a leading-man type; director Francis Ford Coppola wanted Pacino. Finally, Brando suggested that an actor who broods a lot would be right for the part. Somber, nervously intense, and a superlative brooder, Pacino won. "Once I got the role I was waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning and going into my kitchen to brood over the role," he says. Pacino had at least some natural background for the part. He grew up in New York's South Bronx and both his grandfathers were genuine Sicilians, though not the Corleone sort of Sicilians. So, Pacino says, he never had "real indoctrination in the Sicilian tradition." His childhood was sheltered: "I always wanted to please my grandparents. When my grandmother came to the Godfather premiere, she said, 'You were sweet, that suit you wore was nice.' "