Thunderbolt, from "The Godfather" (1972), directed by Francis Ford Coppola
This beautiful, sun-drenched sequence provides a warm and humorous idyll amidst the carnage of the first Godfather movie. Remember this immediately follows the restaurant scene, with Michael (Al Pacino) gunning down Sollozzo and the police captain, which many would consider the most iconic sequence in the film (I'm not posting it because I'm trying to limit the number of murders in my list 😆). Michael flees to Corleone-clan safety in Sicily, and there he meets a goddess on the trail. As Apollonia, Simonetta Stefanelli is a vision -- one easily understands Michael's gobsmacked reaction. I recently learned that Stefanelli was just 16 years old at the time of filming, rendering somewhat problematic her later nuptial nude scene (which I certainly appreciated when I was 16 years old). Spoiler alert: though the courtship is consummated, things don't end well for Apollonia -- Stefanelli summarized her role as "I met him, I married him, I died" (see profile below). It's one of those great stories of love stymied and foreclosed by "family" considerations -- almost Romeo and Juliet, since even if Michael escapes the car-bombing intended for him, he's dead and cold and calculating thereafter, right through The Godfather, Part II. Apollonia could have restored his soul after he committed his murders, and she is on the way to doing so when her life is brutally cut short. Stefanelli, for her part, went on to enjoy a long career in Italian film, which continues for all I know.
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