The Godfather教父 1972 Movie Script

But why, this time? Because I think this drug business will destroy us in the years to come.

It's not like whiskey or gambling or even women which most people want and is forbidden them by the pezzonovante of the Church and the Government. But drugs? No. Even policemen, who help us in gambling and other things would refuse to help us in drugs. But...I am willing to do whatever all of you think is necessary.

DON ZALUCHI:

I don't believe in drugs. For years I paid my people extra so they wouldn't do that kind of business...$200 a week. But it didn't matter. Somebody comes to them and says, "I have powders, if you put up three, four thousand dollar investment, we can make fifty thousand distributing." Who can resist such a profit?

There's no way to control it, as a business...to keep it respectable.

(rapping the table) I don't want it near schools! I don't want it sold to children.

That is an infamita.

(thinking) In my city I would try to keep the traffic in the dark people, the colored. They are the best customers, the least troublesome, and they are animals anyway. They have no respect for their wives or their families or themselves. Let them lose their souls with drugs.

But something has to be done, we can't have everybody running around doing just what they please, like a bunch of anarchists.

BARZINI:

Then, are we agreed; the traffic in drugs will be permitted, but controlled; and Don Corleone agrees to give it protection in the East.

DON CORLEONE nods.

BARZINI:

That's the whole matter then, we have the peace, and let me pay my respects to Don Corleone, whom we have all known over the years as a man of his word.

(noticing TATTAGLIA is uneasy) Don Philip?

TATTAGLIA:

I agree to everything here, I'm willing to forget my own misfortune.

But I must hear strict assurance from Corleone. When time goes by and his position becomes stronger, will he attempt any individual vengeance?

They all look at the DON; especially HAGEN, who feels that DON CORLEONE has given a great deal, and must have something else in mind. Slowly the DON rises.

DON CORLEONE:

I forego my vengeance for my dead son, for the common good. But I have selfish reasons. My youngest son had to flee, accused of Sollozzo's murder, and I must now make arrangements so that he can come home with safety, cleared of all those false charges. That is my affair, and I will make those arrangements.

(with strength) But I am a superstitious man...and so if some unlucky accident should befall my youngest son, if some police officer should accidentally shoot him, or if he should hang himself in his cell, or if my son is struck by a bolt of lightning, then I will blame some of the people here. That, I could never forgive, but...aside from that, let me swear by the souls of my Grandchildren that I will never be the one to break the peace we have made.

EXT NITE:

DON'S LIMO (SPRING 1946) The DON's black limousine. He sits quietly in the padded rear seat; TOM HAGEN next to him.

It is night. Lights flash by them every so often.

HAGEN:

When I meet with Tattaglia's people; should I insist that all his drug middle-men be clean?

DON CORLEONE:

Mention it, don't insist. Barzini is a man who will know that without being told.

HAGEN:

You mean Tattaglia.

DON CORLEONE:

(shaking his head) Barzini.

HAGEN:

(a revelation) He was the one behind Sollozzo?

DON CORLEONE:

Tattaglia is a pimp. He could never have outfought Santino. But I wasn't sure until this day. No, it was Barzini all along.