The phenomenal Sopranos TV series has a very modest origin. In the beginning was a galley proof of a Mafia page-turner by an unknown Mario Puzo. As it did not seem promising, the film project was palmed off on a young, untested Francis Ford Coppola, with a no-name cost bolstered by the washed-up Marlon Brando. The resulting Godfather trilogy (1972, 1974, 1990) mode stars of all the principals and
... [Show full abstract] revived the gangster genre. It is also one of the great epic works of art and a searing examination of how the American Dream has been corrupted. And so The Godfather begot The Sopranos, perhaps Americo's most revealing TV series ever.