A MOVIE REISSUE OFFER YOU CAN'T REFUSE : COPPOLA'S `THE GODFATHER' RESTORED FOR BIG SCREEN ON 25TH ANNIVERSARY.

Byline: John Hartl Seattle Times

Originally released in March 1972, Francis Ford Coppola's ``The Godfather'' has been given a 25th-anniversary restoration by Paramount Pictures that includes a remixed, digitally remastered stereo soundtrack. It opens in 20 cities, including Los Angles, on Friday.

The reissue is not expected to duplicate the success of ``Star Wars'' and its sequels, but the company is hoping Coppola's three-hour Mafia epic can ride in on the coattails of George Lucas' science-fiction trilogy, which appears to have stirred up interest in a number of older films.

A quarter of a century ago, ``The Godfather'' became the first film in history to gross $85 million in its initial release. It had taken ``Gone With the Wind'' 33 years and ``The Sound of Music'' seven years to reach the $75 million mark.

These sound like puny figures today, and ``The Godfather's'' record didn't last long. It was quickly eclipsed one year later by ``The Exorcist,'' then by ``The Sting,'' then by ``Jaws,'' which left them all behind in the summer of 1975.

At the time, however, Coppola's success was a major shot in the arm for the movie business, generating what Variety called ``a new-found optimism of proportions rarely if ever experienced before.'' Coppola went on to help Lucas make ``American Graffiti,'' which led to ``Star Wars'' and today's $1 billion grossers.

Like so many pictures that become blockbusters, ``The Godfather'' was a movie hardly anyone wanted to make. That includes Coppola, who turned it down when Paramount first offered him the job of directing it.

When the book became a best seller in 1969, Paramount owned the rights but was reluctant to make it because another Paramount Mafia film, ``The Brotherhood,'' had lost money.

One year later, the company cautiously approved a $2 million budget, but such prominent directors as Richard Brooks, Fred Zinnemann, Constantin Costa-Gavras, Peter Yates and Otto Preminger passed on it. The job was finally offered to Coppola, who had directed four movies, none of them hits - though he was about to win his first Academy Award for co-writing ``Patton.''

Coppola was initially put off by the sensationalism of the book, but the producer, Al Ruddy, persisted in his belief that Coppola was the man for the job. Eventually the director was won over: ``I got into what the book is really about - the story of the family, this father and his sons, and questions of power and succession.'' The budget was upped to $6 million, and production began in early 1971.

The story is told in fascinating detail in Harlan Lebo's new book, ``The Godfather Legacy'' (Fireside Books; $15), which includes many little-known or forgotten facts about the movie's birth: Paramount's anyone-but-him attitude toward the casting of Marlon Brando; the equally nervous attitude toward hiring Al Pacino as his heir; the near-casting of Robert De Niro in a minor part (he wound up making ``The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight,'' in which he replaced Pacino).

But almost from the day it appeared, ``The Godfather'' was recognized as an American classic. It went on to win Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor (Brando) and spawned a second film, ``The Godfather, Part II,'' that became the only sequel to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Re-edited versions of the films turned up on video and television, and a weak, commercially unsuccessful sequel, ``The Godfather, Part III,'' appeared in 1990. (There are no immediate plans to reissue the sequels.)

The new restoration of ``The Godfather'' was handled by Paul Haggar, a Paramount executive who claims the original negative is in excellent condition. Gordon Willis, who photographed all three ``Godfather'' movies, assisted in the process of timing new prints.

Walter Murch, who worked on the 1972 soundtrack as a post-production consultant, was in charge of remixing the original mono track for stereo.

With all the emphasis on stereo today, it's easy to forget that stereo films, which were all the rage in the 1950s and 1960s, were almost discontinued in the early 1970s. Only the emergence of the Dolby system in the mid-1970s, paired with the 1977 release of ``Star Wars,'' brought it back to theaters.

Murch, who earned Academy Award nominations for his soundtrack work on Coppola's ``The Conversation'' and ``The Godfather, Part III,'' describes his work on the reissue as ``taking an AM radio and turning it into an FM radio.''

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Photo: The bumpy road that ``The Godfather'' took to the big screen 25 years ago included Paramount's reluctance to let Marlon Brando, right, portray Don Vito Corleone.