#17- Raees: Bollywood's Answer to The Godfather

0:01 The mob, Hollywood, the Rat Pack, Frank Sinatra, Abdul

0:06 Latif, the Godfather, Rais. We're here.

0:11 Welcome back, y'all. Let's go.

0:14 You know, I'm Amy. You know what we are here about

0:17 to do. Now let's get into it.

0:21 Where we last left off. We were talking Abdul Latif and

0:26 how his family felt about the film race and what they chose to

0:29 do about this. And what does that have to do

0:32 with Hollywood favorite classic smooth Frank Sinatra and another

0:37 film, another notorious gangster we love in The Godfather.

0:42 Wow. Abdul Latif and Frank Sinatra

0:45 occupy opposite ends of legality and genre, but both are widely

0:50 seen as real life inspirations for fictional characters in Rais

0:58 and The Godfather respectively. OK, so we already talked about

1:04 how Abdul Latif's family felt about this as well.

1:09 We all know he was no longer with us when Rais all came

1:14 about. And how did Frank Sinatra feel

1:18 about his inspiration for a character in the infamous

1:24 Godfather film? Oh boy.

1:28 The thing is, we all figure, and we are probably all correct,

1:37 that certain types of people do not play when it comes to

1:47 respect on their name. And probably we also all know

1:56 somehow, Don't ask me how, do not react super passively when

2:03 it comes to disrespect or what matters to them, you know?

2:12 Yeah. Oh, I love this stuff.

2:17 And so in my excitement to share with you, I, of course, am

2:22 getting ahead of myself here. All right, All right.

2:25 So Frank Sinatra or the Rat Pack of Hollywood.

2:28 It was never in the Godfather film, but he is closely

2:33 associated with it because many people believe the character

2:39 Johnny Montane was modelled after him.

2:41 Remember him Johnny Fontaine and the Godfather and the character

2:48 is a a popular Italian American singer and actor with a

2:55 faltering career rescued by his powerful mafia godfather, which,

3:01 if you may have noticed can resemble here now public stories

3:07 about Sinatra's actual career struggles and alleged mob

3:11 connections. The character Johnny Fontaine as

3:18 Don Don Vito Corleone to help him get a crucial movie role,

3:27 echoing rumors that mob influence helps Sinatra secure

3:32 his Oscar winning part as Maggio.

3:39 Shots fired. Oh wow, Yikes.

3:46 So I guess you can imagine Sinatra was reportedly furious

3:55 about the perceived portrayal like him and confronted the

4:02 author Mario Puzo in public, telling him, calling him a,

4:10 saying he would and telling him to.

4:14 And then which caused A followed by, yeah, I mean, I'm not going

4:23 to spell out what happened and was said right here and now, but

4:32 I'm sure you can imagine what a went down.

4:37 And that is just what was seen and heard publicly.

4:41 So, yeah. His lawyers sent letters

4:46 demanding to see the manuscripts of the Godfather novel and

4:49 pushing for change as an early attempt to control or derail the

4:53 portrayal before it became a film.

4:56 Sound familiar to another person and another film?

5:02 He's reported to have use threats and pressure in show

5:06 business circles, including a warning relayed to actor Owl

5:12 Martin Martino that Sinatra would bar him from Las Vegas.

5:18 You heard me right, all of Las Vegas.

5:24 Can you do that? If he took the Johnny Fontaine

5:27 role, an effort to scare people away from even participating,

5:34 accounts and later retelling suggest he learned the role.

5:40 And then he leaned on mob linked allies and Italian American

5:45 groups that were already fighting the movie, hoping

5:49 industry and underworld influence could help Black or

5:54 reshape the project. Puzo publicly denied that

6:00 Fontaine was literally Sinatra, calling him a composite of

6:06 several Italian American singers rather than a 1 to 1 portrait of

6:12 Sinatra, in part to blunt legal or personal blowback.

6:17 But director Francis Ford Coppola later acknowledged that

6:24 Johnny Fontaine was clearly Frank Sinatra like reinforcing

6:31 long standing association, effectively confirming that

6:36 audiences were meant to recognize the resemblance

6:40 without the film naming Sinatra directly.

6:45 Wow, no plot twist there. Not for us here anyway, right?

6:50 I mean, come on. So it turns out long standing

6:56 gossip does say that mob associates pressured Columbia

7:02 pitchers to cast Sinatra in the film From Here to Eternity after

7:09 he'd initially been rejected, which some writers connect to

7:14 the horse head offer He can't refuse.

7:19 Storyline and The Godfather FBI files, testimony and biographies

7:28 document Sinatra socializing with figures like Willie Morati,

7:34 Sam Giacana and other mobsters, feeling the belief that the film

7:41 was riffing on real underworld Hollywood intersections rather

7:47 than pure fiction. To Sinatra, Fontaine was

7:53 insulting because the character is needy, shallow and dependent

8:01 on the mob, implying Sinatra's success came less from talent

8:08 and more from criminal patrons, precisely the narrative he spent

8:13 decades trying to knock down. To gossip columnist, columnist,

8:19 and many fan like us, a film, the Fontaine Sinatra link became

8:26 a Safeway to talk about mob rumors in public.

8:32 Everyone could get the reference, you know, while the

8:38 names were changed just enough to keep it in the realm of

8:43 deniable fiction. What do you think?

8:48 Do you think it's possible? I don't know about you, but I

8:53 am, Well, big surprise. Curious, should we dig deeper

9:00 just for a moment? It's a quick, you know, pit stop

9:04 on this ride we are currently on but want to play Detectives peek

9:13 into this story for a second to see what we think is the truth

9:22 with this small detail. How did Frank Sinatra get that

9:27 wrong? We would never really know.

9:32 It's too late to go back in time and try to hide behind a plants

9:38 or something. But a closer look never hurt

9:43 anybody, right? You want to come with?

9:48 Come on, I swear it'll only take a minute.