Released 50 years ago this week, "The Godfather" broke all box office records, won best picture at the Oscars and introduced millions of fans to a world of mafia bosses, murder-for-hire and cannoli.
But when director Francis Ford Coppola—then "about 29 years old"—was offered the job of adapting Mario Puzo's best-selling mob novel, he says he very nearly refused.
"I was greatly disappointed when I first started to read... it was really a potboiler that Mario Puzo had written to get some money (for) his kids," Coppola told a 50th anniversary screening event at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles late Monday.