This deleted scene from The Godfather confirms the dark truth about the fiery director.
When Tom Hagen travels to Hollywood to meet with Woltz in order to secure a role for Johnny Fontaine it is alluded to that the director is quite the sleaze on the casting couch. In fact, Woltz himself makes this claim without hesitation. However, this scene reveals that Woltz has a taste for girls younger than is acceptable.
After their dinner ends prematurely, Tom is leaving Woltz’s house when he notices a young girl at the top of the stairs. She looks young and his quickly ushered away by her mother, the implication being that she is being kept in the house against her will. Hagan looks rightly appalled and the scene ends there.
Presumably this scene was cut to ensure the audience knew the horse’s head in Woltz’s bed was only to ensure Fontaine was given the lead role in Woltz’s new movie and not as punishment for taking advantage of aspiring underage actresses. Perhaps this confirmation of Woltz’s pedophilia would have transformed the decapitation of the horse from a criminal and brutal act of blackmail to a deserved dose of justice, thereby painting the Corleone’s as moral heroes instead of violently cunning criminals.
In any case, given that Mario Puzo allegedly based this character on a real person, the scene serves as a very early precursor to the actions of the likes of Roman Polanski and Harvey Weinstein, suggesting sexual assault has been rife in Hollywood since its early days. Maybe Coppola thought Hollywood would turn on him if this scene were included?
The novel covers this scene in far greater detail, but this short deleted scene from the movie really tells us all we need to know. Woltz is not simply a hard-nosed director, he’s a sexual predator using his position and power to abuse young girls.
In one way it makes little difference as Woltz was never portrayed as a likeable character. When he wakes to find Khartoum’s severed head under his sheets we feel more sympathy for the horse than Woltz himself.
RANDMIZD 