The Godfather

July 30, 2012
The deck’s stacked against this audio adaptation of the novel that inspired one of the most acclaimed feature films of all time. The powerful visual imagery at the end of Francis Ford Coppola’s film adaptation of Puzo’s novel—the alternating between a baptism and coordinated hits on rival mob bosses—is so indelible that any other depiction must suffer in comparison. Hearing any narrator read that a character “put three bullets” in another’s chest just can’t hold a candle to seeing it, at least as Coppola filmed the scene. Ditto for the shocker when a certain animal head turns up in a certain character’s bed. However, that’s not to say that narrator Joe Mantegna’s reading is at fault. Turning in compelling and nuanced performance, Mantegna’s gravelly-voiced Don Corleone is close enough to Marlon Brando’s not to jar, and the narrator (who appeared in The Godfather: Part III) also pulls off female voices effectively. More notably, despite his decades of voicing a parodistic mobster on The Simpsons, Mantegna’s use of different accents and modes of speech insures that his characterizations never come across as stereotypical. A Signet paperback.

March 15, 2002
Though not out of print, this 1969 gangster potboiler here makes the leap to trade paperback. Thanks to Francis Coppola's brilliant film adaptation, this story has achieved cult status with millions of fans, who continue to read it. In addition to its larger size, this incarnation offers a new introduction and afterword. How could you refuse?

Copyright 2002 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.