Time for a little class and culture, as we look at one of the most honored franchises in movie history... and also, its idiot child of a third entry. I assume everyone has seen the movies (the way AMC constantly runs the first two, they’re rather hard to miss), so let’s not waste time on plot details.

The Godfather (1972): Starring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, James Caan, Robert Duvall, John Cazale, and Talia Shire

Without a doubt, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather is one of the greatest movies of all time, as well as one of the most often quoted, a least in Italian restaurants by guys drunk off their ass on cabernet. Based on the novel by Mario Puzo and released in late 1972, it tells the epic tale of the Corleone crime family, headed up by Don Vito (Marlon Brando).

Yes, I am discussing a legitimately great movie and its sequels on a site dedicated to ripping movies a new one. The first two movies are classics of cinema, iconic. Sacred cows, if you will. But the thing is, when I see a sacred cow, I get really hungry for a burger!

The movie is, as many have said, one of the greatest of all time. Brando gives his best performance, a legendary bit of acting that’s been imitated so often by so many people that calling it clichéd is, in itself, a cliché!

You realize how odd that is? Jesus, a thing like that should rupture the flow of time and send reality as we know it into a tailspin. I’m not sure what’s kept this from happening, but I’m fairly sure it’s connected to the Cubs not making it to the World Series. Sorry Chicago, but I think the safety of our universe’s existence may depend on your baseball team stinking like death for the rest of eternity.

Back to the movie. In addition to Marlon Brando’s wonderfully crafted performance, we also get choice turns from Al Pacino, James Caan, and John Cazale as the Don’s sons. Of the three, Pacino is probably the best, since in the end, it really is his story, and he gets much of the focus in the second half of the movie.

As tends to be the case with his early work, Pacino puts together a carefully crafted Method performance, with a subdued portrayal of a young man who wants nothing to do with the family business. You know, as opposed to what he tends to do nowadays, which is: show up, go from low-key (but still over the top) to shouting at the top of his lungs, collect accolades, and call it a night. Makes for a lively résumé, though. I will give him that.

His finest scene is probably the restaurant scene, where he takes revenge on the guy who almost killed Vito. It’s an expertly crafted bit of physical acting (to be fair, few people play “nervous to the point of shitting your pants” as well as Pacino) that’s helped immensely by some subtle camera work. To watch it is to see a young actor truly finding his groove in an amazingly difficult scene to pull off.

Caan and Cazale are equally fine in their roles, with Caan making Sonny an oddly likable nutcase, and Cazale painting a nice portrait of a man who exemplifies the notion of Middle Child Syndrome, which will be expanded upon in the second movie. Diane Keaton and Talia Shire are also good in their roles, but we’ll get into that more in the second and third movies.

Robert Duvall is also good as Tom Hagen, giving a certain measure of sanity, along with Pacino and Cazale, to the proceedings that the more extroverted actors (Brando and Caan) don’t. And by that, I mean they avoid making you laugh when they shouldn’t.

Not that Caan and Brando do, but there’s a very good reason comedians took to Brando’s performance like a fish to water. It’s a masterful piece of acting that just so happens to leave itself wide open for smartasses.

Probably my favorite funny non-Brando moment (it makes me laugh, at any rate), comes when Robert Duvall goes out to talk with a studio head who won’t give Vito’s godson (a singer loosely based on Frank Sinatra) a juicy role in a movie he’s making. The studio head blows him off, tossing in some ethnic slurs directed at Italians, to which Duvall replies, “I’m German-Irish.” Amusingly, the studio head, without missing a beat, mind you, simply switches up ethnic slurs and continues to tell Duvall to go screw himself.

It’s... Well, it’s just damned funny is what it is. Making it all the more effective is the horrific response said blow-off provokes. I don’t know about you, but put a horse’s head in my bed, and I’ll do pretty much anything you damn well want!

Coppola’s direction is impeccable. He applies a deft touch to the storytelling process, drawing you into the richly detailed plot with an elegance that makes for an absorbing cinematic experience. He is truly in the zone for this movie.

The hard work paid off, as the movie was a smash hit at the box office and garnered many well-deserved awards. Brando won Best Actor at the Oscars (and promptly made himself look like a bit of a prick in refusing it), and the movie was instantly ingrained into our collective subconscious.

The Godfather Part II (1974): Starring Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, Robert DeNiro, John Cazale, Talia Shire, Michael V. Gazzo, and Lee Strasberg

With that kind of success, a sequel was all but guaranteed. In 1974, The Godfather Part II was released to just as much fanfare and rave reviews. It charts Michael Corleone as he tries in vain to move the family into a more legitimate line of business, running into such obstacles as lies, betrayal, and recurring flashbacks to Vito as a young man.

Vito is played here by Robert DeNiro, fresh off his breakthrough role in Mean Streets. DeNiro does a fantastic job emulating what Brando did, while still making the character his own. The flashbacks are actually the highlight of the film as far as I’m concerned, as unlike the majority of the film, they’re a little more coherent and better written. That’s not to say the stuff with Michael is bad, but it tends to meander every now and then... which in all fairness is somewhat excusable in a movie that runs three hours and twenty minutes.

One of the benefits to the longer running time is expanded roles for some of the supporting characters, namely brother Fredo (Cazale) and wife Kay (Keaton). Cazale expands on his rather pathetic weakling character, adding a little bit of resentment (Michael was picked to head things over him) that lets you sympathize with him, even when it’s pretty clear that he’s trying to off his own brother.

As for Keaton, she really comes into her own as an actress, making Kay into the moral center of the movie. The scene where she and Michael have it out is a real knockout, as Keaton matches Pacino blow for blow, giving us two riveting performances in a well put-together scene.

Speaking of Pacino, he’s excellent here, giving maybe his best performance of the ‘70s. Pacino plays it low-key again (with a few bursts of the Pacino we know and love today), but this time he infuses Michael with a certain coldness that’s effective in showing how the man’s moral compass has decayed since we last saw him.

Supporting roles are also well done, with standouts beings Lee Strasberg and Michael Gazzo as two fellow gangsters. Strasberg is as good as one would expect, considering he invented “the Method”, playing his role with an almost reptilian gleam in his eye. And Gazzo does a fine job of playing a man who seems to have succeeded in crime just by being lucky enough to not screw up too badly, and smart enough to know the rules but dumb enough to not be that much of a real threat.

The story, as I said, is divided between the Michael stuff and a parallel flashback plot concerning Vito. I sort of enjoy the DeNiro stuff more. Not because I tend to dig him more than Pacino (though I kinda do), but because the plot doesn’t get bogged down in intrigue.

Michael embarks on a rather cunning yet really convoluted plan to find out who tried to kill him. It’s expertly crafted and all, but to be honest, it sort of bogs down towards the end, and goes more for memorable moments than anything else. Fredo and Michael confronting each other, Fredo getting killed, Kay leaving Michael... it doesn’t culminate in anything, as much as it simply shows Michael at his low point before fading to the credits.

This is one of the few sequels that seems to have been made for both artistic and financial reasons. It paid off on both counts, making a decent amount of money and also earning numerous awards, including Best Picture at the Oscars, the first time a sequel ever won it.

Some feel it’s better than the first, but I disagree. The first one is tighter in terms of story, and in general just flows better. The flashback structure is just fine, but Coppola seems to have forgotten to make the stuff outside of the flashbacks equally compelling.

Still, it’s a very good movie. If only they had left well enough alone.