“There is one reason that movie is successful and one reason only,” Al Ruddy observed decades later. “It may be the greatest family movie ever made.” To that point, Mario Puzo’s son Anthony wrote of his father, “He believed that nobody had more family values than Italians. That’s why they were so good at being in the Mafia. What is The Godfather, he often said, but a heartwarming story about a family with great, solid family values?”
