Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Notebook: Rare Book of the Week

Mario Puzo’s copy of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Notebook filled with Puzo’s annotations alongside those of the filmmaker will go under the hammer at Heritage Auctions on December 7.

Its Hollywood/Entertainment sale features one of the three-ring binders overflowing with character studies and scene synopses and Coppola’s page-by-page breakdown of the bestseller which was published in 2016.

As Coppola read the novel he created a “prompt book” which he called “an old tradition in theater” as it was meant to be used by the stage manager. As Coppola initially went through Puzo’s novel, the filmmaker underlined passages and phrases, wrote notes in the margins, and then pasted those pages to larger sheets inserted into the binder. Coppola divided the novel into sections and then scenes, focused on “core” moments and warned of “pitfalls,” then made three copies — one for producer Al Ruddy, two for Puzo — and then wrote the screenplay with Puzo’s input.

Coppola carried his The Godfather Notebook in a leather satchel and this copy is currently in The Art of Moviemaking: The Godfather exhibit at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles until January 5. This copy coming to sale belonged to Puzo's personal secretary Janet Snow through whom the author would relay his changes to Coppola. A copy of the novel, with an inscription from Puzo to Snow, is also included with the notebook. It bears Puzo’s handwritten notes alongside the filmmaker’s breakdowns and breakthroughs.

“The script was really an unnecessary document,” Coppola has said, “because I could’ve made the movie just from this notebook.”