Despite being considered one of the greatest films ever made, 'The Godfather' was a nightmare to produce. Paramount Pictures originally wanted a 'cheap and quick' gangster movie set in the 1970s to save money, rather than the 1940s period piece director Francis Ford Coppola envisioned. The studio hated Coppola's casting choices: they thought Al Pacino was 'too short' and Marlon Brando was 'box office poison' due to his reputation for being difficult. Brando only got the role after a secret screen test where he used shoe polish on his hair and cotton balls in his cheeks. Even the real-life Mafia tried to stop the film; the Italian-American Civil Rights League (led by mob boss Joe Colombo) protested the production until Coppola agreed to remove the word 'Mafia' from the entire script.