Rating America’s Contemporary Directors

The fact that the absence of Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen in “Part III” didn’t even warrant an explanation through dialogue irks us to no end. Why was it impossible to explain the absence of the Hagen character yet easy to introduce a key character (played by Eli Wallach) who is supposedly an old-time friend of the Corleone family and general peacekeeper yet is never even mentioned in the first two films?

It’s a shame that Coppola needed the money badly enough to let Paramount rush him into a film that shows lack of thought and preparation in the story line. Now that what was one of the screen’s most powerful family stories has been tainted, we can only hope that in the event of more financial woes for Coppola he sees fit not to make “Godfather IV” (unless as a replacement for “III”) or, worse, to make “Apocalypse Now Part II.”

BILL GUCWA

ED MASTERSON

Universal City