The Sicilian (film) of his backer, Mafia Don Masino Croce. The Don, in turn, sets out to kill the upstart by convincing his cousin and closest adviser Gaspare to assassinate him. Due to the huge success of "The Godfather", Mario Puzo was given $1 million for the film rights to his novel "The Sicilian". David Begelman, head of Gladden Entertainment at the time, hired Michael Cimino to direct. When producer Bruce McNall met with Cimino at a dinner in Los Angeles, he complained loudly about the script and Begelman's interference with casting. Cimino wanted Christopher Lambert for the lead role and Begelman was
The Town and the City held briefly as an accessory after the fact. Kerouac began writing "The Town and the City" in late 1945, according to Ellis Amburn, who edited Kerouac's last two novels and wrote the biography "Subterranean Kerouac". Heavily influenced by Thomas Wolfe, he sent the completed manuscript to Wolfe's publisher, Charles Scribner's Sons, in 1948. Kerouac told his friend Allen Ginsberg that he hoped that he would hook up with Wolfe's editor Maxwell Perkins, not knowing that Perkins had died the previous year. Scribner's rejected the book. Ginsberg lobbied his former teacher at Columbia University (Kerouac had also attended Columbia), Mark Van