Groovy it ain't but let's put aside the issue of whether this list is about really about the grooviness of the subject at hand or just an opportunity to rate things from the 70's.

This film heralded the arrival of one of America's great directors, Francis Ford Coppola, made careers fro Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, James Caan, Diane Keaton, Abe Vigoda, brought the career of Marlon Brando back from the dead and changed the public's view of the criminal underworld.

It also began a film era of personal story telling on an epic scale. It's not a story about world changing events, historic figures or the achievement of greatness. It's the story of a family business struggling to make its way in the world, it just happens to be a world where the business day is comprised of controlling the criminal world of New York in the 1940's.

That fresh perspective influenced film making for decades and became one of the two major types of movie making to come out of the 70's that still dominate cinema, the other being mega-event popcorn movies with giant sharks or aliens.

I’ve heard it referred to as the quintessential American story and one of the great movie masterpieces of all time. I heartily agree; after almost 40 years, it is still one of the most re-watchable and interesting films I have ever known. The music, photography, scripting, costumes, sets and casting all share a kind of rare opulence. “The Godfather” is definitely in the running for the best of the decade – as well as the entire history of cinema.

Classical mafia flick. Makes scarface look like complete crap.

  I was obsessed with the movie from the start, even before I was old enough to understand what it was all about. My parents had read the book, so they were naturally unwilling that their blue-eyed boy should see such a violent, salacious work. I begged and pleaded and begged and pleaded some more, even though, at that point in my life, I had no real conception of what the "Mafia" was supposed to be. I had a friend in grade school whose father was affiliated with the Colombo Family and who killed his bartender and maid at a drunken New Year's Eve Party (an event recounted in the true-crime book "The Luparelli Tapes"). I remember taking a long walk with my father after that incident made the papers and my friend disappeared from school, roughly at the same time as "The Godfather" came out, and shaking my head with bewildered incomprehension as he tried to explain to me about adult realities like corrupt policeman, venal politicians, graft and bribery, tainted juries, and how illegitimate gangsters are quite often accepted by the powers-that-be as legitimate businessmen (yes, I was a very, VERY naive kid in a lot of ways). Finally, my parents weakened, and told me that if I passed my swimming lessons, I could see the movie. I made Johnny Weissmuller look like a piker. As the movie was rated R, I obviously wasn't getting in by myself, so my parents, who also hadn't seen it, took me and several of my friends to the local theatre where it seemed to be playing for months on end. I loved it, even though I still had no real idea of what was transpiring on the screen (in addition to being naive, I was kinda dense). During the scene where Michael unveils the breasts of his virginal Sicilian bride, my friends and I cheered with lusty pre-adolescent enthusiasm, mortifying my parents. Years later, I became friendly at work with an older guy who grew up in NY with actor Richard Castellano (Clemenza) and was his best friend (I had my doubts until he showed me faded snapshots of the 2 of them vacationing together in the Virgin Islands). He's told me some great stories when we meet at a Jewish restaurant for lunch (I'm not partial to the food, but he only eats Kosher)-- Castellano liked Brando and Pacino, but disliked Caan...during the scenes at Calvary Cemetery, Castellano, Richard Conte, and Abe Vigoda ducked behind the gravestones to urinate when they had to, which, considering that they had been taking a surreptitious drink now and then during the filming of the scene, they often had to...Castellano disliked Francis Ford Coppola for a lot of reasons; in particular, in the scene where Clemenza jogs up the steps to shoot 2 Mafiosi emerging from an elevator, Coppola made the unhealthy and obese actor do the take dozens of times, nearly precipitating a heart attack, before deciding ultimately to use the first take. Castellano's widow still lives in the area and my friend sees her frequently (she is also an actress and played Clemenza's wife, who tells him from the doorway of their house before he takes Paulie Gatto to his execution, "Don't forget the cannolis."). Anyway, it's still a great, great movie...a true American classic...and maybe my favorite movie of all time.