During the past couple of months, film fans got to see a recut version of The Godfather Part III called, Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. Francis Ford Coppola, the director and co-screenwriter of the “Godfather” movies (who is also Sofia Coppola’s father, Nicholas Cage’s and Jason Schwartzman’s uncle, and Talia Shire’s brother) (and a vintner) (who knew?), decided to re-release the movie, changing the “beginning and end and [making] alterations throughout to excavate and clarify the narrative that he always believed it contained about mortality and redemption.” This “new” movie caused us to revisit the Godfather movies, including the first two (with the not-so-creative titles of The Godfather and The Godfather Part II), which the American Film Institute ranked, respectively, as the 2nd and 32nd greatest American film. As we suspected, because these movies about the exploits of the Corleone family deal with business and regulation (as well as many other subjects like loyalty, betrayal, love, and murder), they provide an excellent theme for this month’s article on securities enforcement actions.

Originally published in NSCP Currents - February 2021.