Godfather and man at NYU: 'The Freshman' turns 35

Marlon Brando reprised his Godfather role, sort of, in this 1990 comedy that’s much stranger and more unconventional than you probably remember.

In 1990, just a few months before the arrival in theaters of The Godfather, Part III, Marlon Brando played a version of his role as Don Vito Corleone in a comedy called The Freshman, the story of a first-year NYU film student who stumbles into a mob plot unlock any other in the history of movies. Even if the mobster looks very, very familiar.

Written and directed by Andrew Bergman, who co-wrote a different classic of the 1970s, Blazing Saddles, The Freshman starred Matthew Broderick as Clark, the titular Tisch student, who shows up from Vermont having very little savvy about New York, Italian-Americans, the Mafia, or much else. It is, however, a believable running joke that no one who meets him can remember which state he’s from.

His name is “Clark Kellogg,” not to be confused with basketball player-turned-broadcaster of the same name; it’s not clear if the homage was intentional or if Bergman just liked the name. Broderick was a senior in high school in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, in 1986, but a freshman in college for The Freshman, four years later. He must have taken a very long gap year, although in reality, Broderick was 28 years old when The Freshman was released, 35 years ago this month.

By contrast, only 18 years passed between The Godfather and The Freshman.

Mugged of his luggage upon arrival at Grand Central by Bruno Kirby, Clark soon falls into the orbit of Carmine Sabatini (Brando), a man who looks, talks, and acts almost exactly like Don Vito Corleone. Even better, perhaps, since in The Godfather, Brando was playing much older than he was; by The Freshman, he was about the right age. It’s a comedically ingenious performance, one of Brando’s last on-screen triumphs.