When it comes to twentieth-century novel about Italian-Americans there are really just two that deeply past the specific ethnic culture which could find instant communion with them to reach into the full consciousness of American life. By the dawn of the millennium only one of those novels had retained its status and a very powerful argument could be made that this is only due to the films which were adapted from it: Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. Thirty years before the appearance of the now-legendary story of the Corleone crime family, Pietro Di Donato published Christ in Concrete and assumed the mantle of the author of the most important American novel yet written about the Italian immigrant experience in America.
Ten years following publication, a film would be adapted from the novel, though not nearly to the acclaim which met the film version of The Godfather. Despite this, the story of the making of the movie of version is such a perfect thematic fit with the story told in the novel that it is almost hard to believe. In fact, a movie about the making of the movie based on the novel would be a worthwhile enterprise. The title had to be changed to Give us This Day because British censorships law forbade using the word “Christ” in the title of a movie. And the reason why this matters is because the film had to be made in England. And the reason it had to be made in England is because it was directed by Edward Dmytryk who was suffered the consequences of being blacklisted in Hollywood as part of the communist witch hunt. The novel’s tale of capitalist corruption, the collapse of faith in the institutions one is raised to trust will be their salvation in their darkest moments, and the ultimate rejection of the god they trusted are all retold much better in the making of Give us this Day than in the actual movie itself.
Which should not come as a surprise to view familiar with source material. Many elements distinguish Christ in Concrete from The Godfather. Taken together, they present what are really the two stereotypical views of Italian-American immigrant life: the honestly hard worker exploited into low wage manual labor and organized crime. A very significant difference lies within that division: crime stories are simply more cinematic than socialist tragedies. It would take a masterful director, indeed, to transform the narrative of Christ in Concrete to a place where it expresses the power of the writing of Pietro Di Donato. Perhaps Scorsese could have pulled it off in the 1980’s, but that is a very enigmatic perhaps. All this commentary on film is directed towards why The Godfather now sits alone on the status of the most significant novels about Italian-American immigrants in the 21st century when it was not only forced to share that honor, but also considered second-best during the previous century.
Successful movie adaptations—especially wildly successful adaptations like first two Godfather films—have a way of keeping the source novel in the consciousness in a way that might not happen otherwise. Although this is purely speculation, of course, it seems almost beyond question that if Francis Ford Coppola had never gotten his hands on the rights to Mario Puzo’s novel, today it would be The Godfather which is the forgotten and Christ in Concrete which stands high as the defining 20th century novel about Italian-Americans. The Godfather is pure entertainment while Christ in Concrete is literature.
It is not by accident that the film comes to its conclusion with the horrific tragedy that occurs at the beginning of the novel and sets the stage for its penetrating study of faith in religion and belief in god is put to the test under the tortuous corruption of American capitalism when given its greatest opportunity to exploit workers into servitude: The Great Depression. The story told within its pages are not custom-made for the story of Italian-Americans moviegoers want to see portrayed on screen. There is no crime boss with a name ending in a vowel who comes to the rescue of the Italian community. There is only the unbreakable power of the corporate owner class and the zealot-like faith in the myth of Protestant work ethic of the working class, and both of those are more than strong enough to turn down even offers that supposedly can’t be refused.
