He certainly doesn't look so good later on in the movie.  More like a rather intense young rabbi.

Interesting initial point; never thought of it in those terms.  I think you might be right.

"In Sicily women are more dangerous than shotguns".

Pacino is great in that film - I love the bit when it all kicks off and whilst Sonny is holding a council of war with his soldiers, Johnny Five Angels merrily teaches Michael how to make pasta sauce.

Food in ganster films, always very important......

I liked Pacino best when he was living down the road from me with David Bowie, Michael Caine, Jimmy Hill, Mick and Keith and Mrs Huggett.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y42yl_N_DQ&feature=related

"and buddading! Blood all over ya nice ivy league suit!" Sonny to Michael.

Hows about Tom in his Seersucker suit in part II, blue oxford and knitted tie. He's the German Irish that you ought to watch in The Godfather, some quite nice clothes on him.

I have absolutely no interest in the Mafia BTW and loathe these silly new British gangster flicks with the likes of Ray Winstone etc.  'The Godfather', however, contains many minor pleasures, often to do with Brando's character.  The ending - the shutting out of womanhood - is unfortunate if inevitable.  Shame that the excellent Sterling Hayden disappeared so quickly, and that Michael seems to get over the murder of his first wife with such aplomb.

He's just the American man, what did you expect? I like Connery's sound, but I can imagine that for you it's like Bavarian sounds to me...

Caine's one of my favourite actors - Alfie, Sleuth (the original one), the Black Windmill, Get Carter, Mona Lisa, etc. he's obviously limited by not doing other accents, but in the right role i think he's perfect. and he's a worthy pairing for Olivier in Sleuth, which says something i think

not sure i care if actors are in bad films - they have to keep working! and often the original script and proposal (which is what they accept) can be very different to the finished product - blame the director, producer or studio! never been that impressed with Sean Connery after the early Bonds, but i did think The Hill was excellent when i saw it 10 or 15 years ago.

Cage, Stiller, Carrey, etc are pretty awful, although Carrey is enjoyable in A Serious of Unfortunate Events.

Mafia stuff is mostly boring, including a lot of the Godfather Trilogy, and all that crap about families and so on. Mafia guys being killed is fun though, i like the restaurant assassination etc in Black Caesar, or Ghost Dog which puts a good spin on the whole thing

Duvall wanted too much money to appear in G III, true. He was supposed to figure in the plot as Michael's adversary. The money thing goes for Brando who was supposed to make an appearance at the end of part II, as well.