Toll riddled: This is how the Godfather who changed James Caan’s career was shot

James Caan died at the age of 82, but he left us with memorable scenes. One of these, perhaps the most remembered, is the one about the execution of Sonny Corleone at the toll booth in The Godfather.

Francis Ford Coppola’s classic wouldn’t be the same without Santino’s death. This moment that has been burned into everyone who has seen the film is key to the plot and visually impressive.

In the scene, Sonny, one of Vito’s sons, is intercepted by the barzini at the Jones Beach Causeway toll, Long Island.

At first it seems that everything is going well, but little by little you notice how Sonny is locked up. When we see the booth clerk drop a coin and stoop to pick it up, we stop suspecting: something bad will happen in corleone.

And this happens. The Barzini come out from all sides and hole up Sonny without giving him any chance of escape or retaliation.

the magic of cinema

According to Fandom Godfather, Mario Puzzo he probably confused the Jones Beach Causeway with the Loop Parkway when he wrote the novel on which the film is based. Those were considered the “real” murder toll booths until they were removed in 1978.

But for The Annotated Godfather, Sonny’s death scene was filmed at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Airfield.

There is also a third version, the one on TheGodfatherTrilogy.com, which claims to have been filmed at Mitchel Field in Mineola.

In 1972 it was not very common to see such a bloody scene in a popular film, although if some viewers were prepared it was because they had seen Bonnie and Clyde five years ago.

For the shooting scene, Coppola drew inspiration from the 1967 film by Arthur Penn in which the protagonists die in the same way as Sonny: shot and for all to see. Neither sequences skimp on violence, nor soften it.

So that everything is convincing, Caan had over 400 detonators attached and the toll booth and his car must have exploded at just the right moment.

The scene took three days of shooting and the technicians specially hired to make it and the explosives cost $ 100,000. Bearing in mind that the film cost 6.5 million, it can be said that the filming of Sonny’s death absorbed a significant portion of the budget.

On the Quora forum, a user named Ken Irvin provided interesting backstage details of the scene.

Irvin indicates that the bullet holes in the car and at the toll booth were pre-drilled and then filled with explosive detonators and covered to be detonated in sequence.

With Caan it would have been the same for Ken, except of course they didn’t puncture him, but they attacked him with firecrackers and bags of blood so that they exploded at the same time they shot him. He even wore bags of blood on his face which he covered with faux leather.

James Caan

James Caan was, in addition to Sonny in The Godfather, Paul Sheldon in Misery Y Ed Deline in the tv series Las Vegas.

His death was confirmed by his family on the networks: “With great sadness, we inform you of Jimmy’s death on the night of July 6. The family appreciates the outpouring of affection and sincere condolences and asks for their privacy to be respected in this difficult time. “.

In Coppola’s film, Sonny is Vito’s first child and Fredo’s older brother Michael and Connie. He was a tough guy, described as “brave, impulsive and a womanizer”.

Sonny is the underboss of the family. During his sister’s marriage it is seen that he is already married. He is also known for having lovers. Santino was called to succeed Don Corleone (Marlos Brando) for his tough character and his physical strength and, in fact, he will occupy that post temporarily from the first attack on Vito, at the end of 1945, beginning of 1946.