The famous scene with the head of a horse would have represented a mafia threat for The Voice to get a role in a movie.
The film producer wakes up restless, with a strange sensation, and when he takes his hands out from under the luxurious silk sheets, they are covered in blood. The head of his thoroughbred horse lies on the end of the bed. And the man, affected, bursts into a howl that pierced the Beverly Hills morning. It has always been said that this macabre scene from the movie The Godfather is based on Frank Sinatra and his ties to the mafia to get a role in a famous movie.
In the fiction of the film directed by Francis Ford Coppola 50 years ago, based on the successful novel by Mario Puzo, the story began when Johnny Fontane (Al Martino), the godson of Vito Corleone -played by Marlon Brando-, asks him to help out after singing at his daughter Connie's wedding. It turns out that he wants to play in a movie to boost his struggling music career, but producer Jack Woltz (John Marley) refuses.
The Godfather's adopted son and legal advisor, Tom Hagen, Robert Duvallvisitts Woltz at his luxurious mansion. There he meets his greatest pride and the object of his devotion: Khartoum, a beautiful thoroughbred horse that cost him $600,000. Over dinner, on behalf of Vito Corleone, he asks the producer for the role of Johnny, but Woltz turns him down and even gets angry because he claims that this singer ruined the career of his handsome future star by dating her.
Then the camera slowly zooms in on the producer's majestic bed, who is sleeping uncomfortably next to the Oscar Award on the nightstand. He rolls over in bed, he wakes up covered in blood, and sits up. He pulls back the silk sheets and at the end of the bed, very close to his feet, rests the bloody head of his horse. His screams give chills.
24 years after the death of Frank Sinatra, the inspiration
Francis Albert Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on December 12, 1915. A singer with an exceptional voice and one of the most charismatic crooners on stage, he was considered one of the most important entertainment figures of the 20th century and one of America's most popular artists.
However, he had his down moments,. In fact, he was going through a rough patch in the early 1950s. His marriage to actress Ava Gardner, after separating from Nancy, the mother of his children, was falling apart. The Voice had a serious bleeding problem on the vocal cords. And a role, even if not a leading one, in the movie "From Here to Eternity" directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on a popular novel by James Jones, could bring him back to the Hollywood spotlight.
The film would star Burt Lancaster, Deborah Kerr, and Montgomery Clift. And Frank Sinatra envisioned for him the role of Private Angelo Maggio, a friend of Private Robert E. Lee “Prew” PrewitPrewitt, who played Clift. But they say behind the scenes that the powerful Hollywood producer Harry Cohn opposed it. He had reserved that character for the prestigious Eli Wallach.
However, the singer and actor got the role he wanted and even a place on the movie poster, along with the protagonists. There are two versions of how he accomplished his mission.
The one that has the most weight over the years ensures that a powerful mobster went to talk to the producer and "convinced" him after a "conversation". Another says that Ava Gardner talked to her wife, Joan Cohn, to persuade her of her. But few believe in this version. Frank Sinatra won an Oscar for Supporting Actor for that film.
Whatever the true story, everyone in the Hollywood world thought of Sinatra when American Mario Puzo's novel The Godfather was published in 1969. And everyone also thought of The Voice when they saw the iconic scene in the fictional story recreated. by Francis Ford Coppola in 1972.
And it seems that Frank Sinatra thought so too because, when he was introduced to Mario Puzo in an exclusive Hollywood restaurant, he yelled at him asking if the publishers had forced him to create and include the character of the singer who wants a place in a movie. in his novel.
