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On this day in New York · March 14, 1972

The Godfather Premieres in Times Square

A snowbound Broadway crowd watched a three-hour mob picture shot on the city's own streets turn into the movie that rewrote what a New York gangster story could be.

The facts

Date
Tuesday, March 14, 1972
Where
Loew's State Theatre, 1540 Broadway, Times Square
Wide release
March 24, 1972, ten days after the premiere
Academy Awards
Best Picture, Best Actor (Marlon Brando), and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 45th Academy Awards

On the night of March 14, 1972, Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather had its world premiere at Loew's State Theatre, a 3,200-seat house at 1540 Broadway in Times Square. A late-winter snowstorm buried the marquees in ice and slowed traffic to a crawl, but the house filled anyway, with producer Robert Evans walking in alongside Ali MacGraw and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Coppola had shot most of the picture on real New York ground, from the Corleone wedding on Staten Island to the olive oil business scenes on Mott Street in Little Italy, turning the city itself into a character in Mario Puzo's story. Profits from the premiere went to the Boys Club of New York, and the film opened wide ten days later. By year's end it was the highest-grossing release of 1972.

In their words

The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.

  1. In March 1972, State I held the world premiere of The Godfather, which also opened the following day at State II.

    Wikipedia, describing the theater's opening night

    Source: Wikipedia

  2. when you can sit and watch a gangster who's killed hundreds of people, and yet when he dies the audience is crying, you've made yourself a masterpiece

    Henry Kissinger, speaking to producer Robert Evans after the premiere screening, March 14, 1972

    Source: The Federal

Why it still matters

The Godfather proved a movie could be both a smash hit and a work of art, and it made New York's own social clubs and side streets look as mythic as anything built on a Hollywood backlot. Every mob movie made since, and half the lines New Yorkers still quote at each other, trace back to that one snowbound Tuesday on Broadway.

Sources

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