HOLLYWOOD (UPI) -- Movie people are obsessed with "The Godfather".
It overshadows next months academy awards.
Once every few years an overwhelming motion picture is produced that excites even the old pros: "Sound of Music", "Love Story", "Ben Hur", "Gone with the Wind."
They are infrequent. The reviews for "The Godfather" are almost universally raves despite its R rating.
But even if the reviews had been negative, the boiling enthusiasm for the film version of Mario Puzo's novel would have inexorably moved it among the top half-dozen box-office champions of all time.
Produced for $6 million by Albert S. Ruddy, the studio already has advance bookings of $13 million. "We expect this picture to be right up there with Sound of Music," said Ruddy confidently. "It wouldn't surprise us to see the picture earn $75-80 million or more."
There was no black tie premiere for "The Godfather" in Hollywood. Just an invitational preview this week.
But more stars appeared for the screening than for any other I have seen in more than 20 years of attending previews and premieres in and around Hollywood.
Former Oscar winners were commonplace: Burt Lancaster, Ernest Borgnine, Anthony Quinn, Jack Albertson, Peter Ustinov, Walter Matthau, George Kennedy and Red Buttons.
For once the stars had turned out en mass to see something rather than one another.
Usually a studio and its executives are uneasy about a theater packed with professionals. They are aware of every flaw, superficiality and trick of the cinematic trade.
Laughs come at the wrong places. Some celebrities get up and leave.
But not for "The Godfather." The audience responded exactly as director Francis Ford Coppola might have wished. The silence of concentration was eerie.
Absent, too, was the frequent claque which applauds every scene that comes off well.
There is violence aplenty, perhaps the most brutal ever filmed.
The language is surprisingly mild for a story of the roughest, toughest hoodlums in organized crime -- the Mafia. "Sure we agreed not to use the terms Mafia or Cosa Nostra," said producer Ruddy, "But I don't think the audience will confuse these people with anyone else. It's not an indictment of Italians, just organized crime."
Many in the audience had had hopes of playing the title role in "The Godfather." Few came away feeling they could have dene a better job than Marlon Brando who will, doubtless, be nominated for an Oscar in 1973.
The rest of the cast reads like the Palermo telephone book: Pacino, Castellano, Conte, Lettieri, Vigoda, Russo, Cazaie, Martino, Corsitto, Rocco. Giorgio, Scotti, Liv-rano, Rendina and Stefanelli.
They did themselves proud.
