Is The Horse’s Head In The Godfather Real?
Few viewers could forget the gruesome scene involving a severed horse head in The Godfather, and many audience members were left wondering whether a real animal was used to provide the prop. Adapted from Mario Puzo’s novel of the same name, The Godfather is an epic gangster movie by director Francis Ford Coppola. Often listed among the best movies ever made, The Godfather tells the story of an aging mafia don who looks back on his criminal legacy. As Vito Corleone prepares to pass his empire on to the next generation, his son Michael struggles with the responsibility this entails.
While Vito is central to the original movie, The Godfather trilogy as a whole centers on Michael’s story. The transition from Vito’s leadership of the mob family to Michael’s era is messy, and there are a lot of bloody incidents before The Godfather’s iconic ending. One of the most memorable is the off-screen killing of producer Jack Woltz’s prized race horse Khartoum. After Woltz refuses to give the mob-affiliated entertainer Johnny Fontane a role in his next project, he is cajoled by Vito’s consigliere Tom Hagen. This results in one of the nastiest scenes in all three of The Godfather movies.
Yes, That’s A Real Horse Head In The Godfather
The 1972 Gangster Epic Used A Real Horse’s Head For The Infamous Scene
Tom fails to convince Woltz to cast Fontane since the Hollywood hotshot isn’t afraid of the mob’s potential reprisals. As a result, Woltz wakes up to find Khartoum’s severed head in his bed surrounded by a pool of blood. Shockingly, The Godfather used a real horse’s head in this scene, with Coppola complaining that the fake prop looked too unrealistic. According to Time Magazine, the art director selected a horse that was soon to be slaughtered from a New Jersey dog food plant. Coppola himself claimed that the selected horse’s head arrived in a crate of dry ice.
It is tough to imagine a fake horse’s head looking as convincing as the one that Woltz wakes up beside, so Coppola’s choice was understandable. Although The Godfather’s cast were universally superb, the movie’s success can also be partially attributed to this sort of granular detail that went into its production. The Godfather’s horse head scene is infamous partially because it uses a real horse’s head, but this is only one of the many elements that make the moment so effective. Tom’s nonchalant attitude toward Woltz’s insults in the preceding scene sets up a menacing tone that soon escalates.