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| | Guardian Unlimited Film | Features | John Patterson explains how the mafia tried to shut down the filming of The ... |
 | | As Joe Spinell, playing one of Michael's button-men, pumped six slugs into a fictional New York mob boss trapped in a midtown hotel's revolving door, a for-real, blood-on-his-hands New York mob boss called Joe Colombo Sr, was being gunned down at an Italian-American rally in Columbus Circle, not four blocks away from Coppola's location. |
 | | That didn't prevent him from achieving such an impressive degree of authenticity that by the time the movie was a runaway hit, many real-life mafiosi had begun comporting themselves according to the rituals solemnised by Puzo and Coppola - the cheek-to-cheek kisses, the quasi-papal pledging of fealty to the Godfather's ring. |
 | | A fl triggerman in a mob hit was then unheard of, and totally alien to the mafia's modus operandi, but no one was fooled. |
| film.guardian.co.uk /patterson/story/0,,1758640,00.html (1200 words) |
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