Sonny Corleone
From Sopranopedia - The Sopranos Encyclopedia
| Santino 'Sonny' Corleone | |
|---|---|
| Sonny Corleone played by James Caan
| |
| Born | December 31, 1910 New York City, New York, USA |
| Died | October 3 1948 (aged 37) Long Island, New York, USA |
Santino 'Sonny' Corleone (December 31 1910 - August 7, 1948) is a fictional character in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel The Godfather and its 1972 film adaptation.
In the novel and film, he is the oldest son of New York Mafia Don Vito Corleone and Carmella Corleone. He has two brothers, Michael and Fredo, an adoptive brother, Tom Hagen, and a sister, Connie. Sonny was portrayed by James Caan in the film.
Table of contents |
Role in the Godfather saga
Sonny is the most impulsive and violent of Vito's three sons, and, before Michael's rise to power, the most involved in the Corleone crime family. Vito always blamed himself for this, as the boy saw his father murder a rival at the age of 11. (If one checks the dates given in the book, however, Sonny would have been a mere two years old when his father killed his rival, but the novel and movie are known for dates to contradict each other.) Sonny is not without a softer side, however; while 11, he met a homeless boy, Tom Hagen, who thereafter lived with the family. He also acted as a protector to his younger siblings, especially Connie due to the traditional fierce Sicilian affection for sisters.
The normal course of events in Sonny’s life is upturned when Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozzo comes to Don Vito with an offer of entering the drug business, backed by the Tattaglia family. The Don does not want to enter the drug business, Sonny shows interest in the deal. This led Sollozzo to believe that if the Godfather could be taken out of the way, Sonny would agree to work with him. An assassination attempt on the Godfather is arranged.
The assassination attempt fails but leaves the Godfather near death, although he eventually recovers. Sonny, now acting as the Corleone Family's Don, prepares for an all-out war against the Tattaglias and Sollozzo. Michael, who had previously distanced himself from the family's criminal enterprise, volunteers to kill Sollozzo and his bodyguard, police Captain McCluskey. Sonny is initially against the idea, but Michael eventually talks him into it. Michael kills both Sollozzo and McClusky, and is sent immediately to Sicily to wait out the inevitable crackdown on the Five Families. Bruno Tattaglia, Don Philip Tattaglia's son, is also killed in his nightclub.
In retaliation, Tattaglia's partner and the Don of one of the most powerful of the Five Families, Emilio Barzini, enlists the help of Sonny's brother-in-law, Carlo Rizzi, in setting a trap for the impulsive new Don. To draw Sonny out into the open, Rizzi inflicts a particularly vicious beating on Connie, who telephones Sonny, begging for help. In a fit of rage, Sonny leaves the family compound unaccompanied and heads for Connie's apartment to take revenge upon (and perhaps kill) Rizzi. As Sonny approaches a toll plaza, a number of Barzini's men emerge from the toll booths and car ahead of Sonny's with submachine guns (Thompson 1928 models) and viciously gun him down after spraying his car with lead, forcing the wounded Sonny to make an attempt at a hasty retreat, but he is shot in the head before trying to escape. He is dead at the age of thirty-seven, four months short of his thirty-eighth birthday. Sonny's death persuades Vito to call a truce with the other Families.
After Vito's death, Michael takes revenge by having Carlo Rizzi killed, after promising Connie he would not; she resented him for years afterward, even though Rizzi abused and cheated on her during their marriage. In the novel, however, Connie forgives him a week after his death and later gets remarried in Las Vegas.
Role in Godfather sequels
Sonny appears in the original Godfather and in its sequel, The Godfather Part II. In the latter film, he briefly appears in a flashback scene portraying the family dinner in which Michael announces he is volunteering to fight in World War II. He is angered by Michael's decision, and he berates his brother for risking his life "for a bunch of strangers." It is shown that Sonny was the one who introduced Carlo to Connie and the rest of the family, hence their later marriage.
In the novel as well as the films, Sonny is portrayed as a womanizer, despite being married. The reason Sonny cheats is explained in the novel due to his very large penis and the pain it causes his wife. Early in the film, Sonny whispers into the ear of a woman who is not his wife. After this scene, his wife can be seen showing the other women at her table how large his penis is with hand gestures. His most prominent dalliance in the saga is with Lucy Mancini, a friend of Connie's. The Godfather Part III reveals that he fathered a child out of wedlock with Lucy (this was invented for the film, as Lucy in the novel does not have any children by him.) That child, Vincent 'Vinnie' Mancini-Corleone, grows up to succeed Michael as Godfather. This is entirely inconsistent with the novel, as in the book Lucy Mancini leaves for Las Vegas, falls in love with a surgeon and gets married.
Family
- Vito Corleone — Father; played by Marlon Brando
- Costanza 'Connie' Corleone-Rizzi — Sister; played by Talia Shire
- Fredo Corleone — Younger brother; played by John Cazale
- Michael Corleone — Youngest brother; played by Al Pacino
- Tom Hagen — Unofficially adopted brother; played by Robert Duvall
- Mary Corleone — Niece; played by Sofia Coppola
- Anthony Vito Corleone — Nephew; played by Anthony Gounaris in Godfather I, played by James Gounaris in Godfather II, played by Franc D'Ambrosio
- Sandra Corleone — Wife; played by Julie Gregg
- Vincent 'Vinnie' Mancini-Corleone — Son; played by Andy Garcia.
Trivia
- Coppola staged Sonny's death scene in The Godfather to be reminiscent of the final death scene of Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) and Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) in Bonnie and Clyde.
- Among the actors auditioning for the role of Michael during casting for The Godfather, one unknown off-Broadway actor named Robert De Niro also read for Sonny's part, as well as Michael's, without success. Raw footage of him in the scene where Paulie Gatto offers to kill Carlo can be seen on the DVD. Eventually, Coppola cast Caan in the role and gave De Niro the part of Paulie, but "traded" him to the film Bang The Drum Slowly for Al Pacino, who soon got the part of Michael. Anthony Perkins not only auditioned for Sonny, but also for Tom Hagen.
- Sonny's death scene has been parodied several times on The Simpsons, including in the final scene of "All's Fair in Oven War," an episode in which Caan lent his voice. In that episode, the tollbooth death scene is re-enacted as part of Cletus Spuckler's revenge on Caan for "stealing" his wife Brandine's heart. The scene where Sonny beats Carlo Rizzi has also been parodied, in the episode "Strong Arms of the Ma".
- The tollbooth scene was parodied along with the execution montage in the final scene of the "Dabba Don" episode of the series Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. In this scene the Ant Hill Mob from Wacky Races gun down Judge Mightor from their car. This would explain how the Mightor character was effectively "killed off" as he would no longer preside over any cases in future seasons of the show.
- Sonny's car is riddled with bullets and the windshield is blown out. Later, as Sonny lays next to it, the car is seen with its windshield in perfect condition; completely unshattered.
- In the MAD Magazine parody of HBO's The Sopranos, the Tony Soprano character impulsively shoots a toll booth clerk, stating that he has hated them since watching Sonny's death scene.
- In the book, Sonny is known for his large penis (this is also hinted at very briefly in the wedding scene of the movie); his wife said that it was "so big it made her stomach feel like macaroni".
- For his cameo in The Godfather Part II, Caan received the same amount of money he received for the first film. [1]
References
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