SOURCE: "One Man's Family," in Time, March 14, 1969, pp. 103-4.

In the following review, the critic provides a generally favorable review of The Godfather.

Although the last word on this robust, casually served novel about the Mafia should come from the voluble Joe Valachi, the moral will be evident to a jaywalker: The Family That Preys Together Stays Together.

A corollary lesson is that crime pays—or, to quote Mario Puzo quoting Honoré de Balzac: "Behind every great fortune there is a crime." When Puzo gets around to updating Balzac's ever so slight overstatement, he has the youngest and smartest son of the oldest and smartest New York Mafia boss tell his lank Yankee bride: "In my history course at Dartmouth we did some background on all the Presidents and they had fathers and grandfathers who were lucky they didn't get hanged."

As usual, after money and power are...