And we continue with our American stories. Up next, the story of the Godfather, and its unlikely journey to the screen.

The director of Francis Ford Coppola was a renegade filmmaker who never made a profitable

picture.

The producer Al Ruddy was hired because he could stay below budget.

The star Marlon Brando had a reputation for being difficult.

A formula for disaster?

Nope, not quite.

It was the makings of one of the greatest films of all time.

Here to tell the story is Harlan Lebo, author of The Godfather Legacy.

The Godfather really is very much a family story. It's certainly not a family picture by any means in the traditional sense of a rated G film.

But it is a movie about a family. Of course, there are many things about

the mafia and violence in the film. But at the heart of the story are the struggles within a

family, a very powerful man, his three sons and his daughter. And in particular, the struggles

of Michael, his youngest son, who wanted to stay out of the family business, as they call it,

but winds up, of course, at the end of the godfather of the film and the book, both, as powerful and as ruthless as his father could have ever imagined.

So it's very much a family picture.

I mean, it's the same way as looking at Gone with the Wind.

It's Gone with the Wind isn't a movie about the Civil War. It just has the Civil War as a backdrop.

It's about the struggles of a woman during the Civil War. But the Godfather is the same way.

The whole issue of family and trust and love are very much a part of the Godfather. In fact,

they're integral to the godfather.

Michael, the youngest son, played by Al Pacino,

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