THE Godfather is considered one of the greatest movies ever made and tells the tale of a New York crime boss handing over control of his empire to his son.

But despite the movie running for almost three hours, there’s one word that surprisingly isn’t mentioned at all during the 1972 classic ... Mafia.

So why isn’t the word ‘mafia’ mentioned once? Well, because of the mafia.

When it was announced that Paramount Pictures was making a movie based on Mario Puzo’s best-selling novel, The Godfather, the Italian-American Civil Rights League wasn’t happy.

The political group was headed by Joseph Colombo [who was the boss of the Colombo crime family] and its aim was to combat derogatory stereotypes about Italian-Americans.

Desperate to stop the movie being made, people associated with the Italian-American Civil Rights League launched an intimidation campaign against producer Albert S. Ruddy, director Francis Ford Coppola and Paramount executive Robert Evans.

“There were major threats, they were serious,” Gianni Russo, an actor who appeared in the movie and had real life mob connections, said to ShortList.

“[The Colombos] had idiots around them who would do anything. Francis [Ford Coppola] went to Little Italy to do some tests before filming in a movie mobile, like an Airstream. They went in for lunch and when they came back the truck was gone. A million dollars’ worth of equipment.”

When staying in a New York hotel with his wife and son, Evans received a sinister phone call.

“We don’t want to break your pretty face, hurt your newborn,” the mystery caller said.

“Get the f**k outta town. Don’t shoot no movie about the family here. Got it?”

In an attempt to sort out their differences, the film’s producer arranged a meeting with Joseph Colombo who revealed that he had one simple request.

“They demanded that he [Albert Ruddy] delete all mentions of ‘mafia’ in the script,” author of The Godfather Effect, Tom Santopietro, said.

“But they didn’t bother to read it ... So Paramount agreed and [the League] thought it’d won this great victory despite the fact there was only one use of ‘mafia’ in the script.”

Ruddy also agreed that the script wouldn’t include “Cosa Nostra,” another name for the mafia and he vowed to donate the proceeds from the film’s premiere to the Italian-American Civil Rights League’s hospital building fund.

Joseph Colombo gave his blessing for The Godfather to go ahead, but not everyone was thrilled that he had waged such a public campaign against the film.

In 1971 as the movie was being filmed, Colombo was shot in the head and neck by a hitman.

“Carlo Gambino [head of the Gambino crime family] and Frank Costello [head of the Luciano crime family] had warned him,” Gianni Russo said.

“He was bringing too much attention [to the mafia way of life]. If that doesn’t tell you that what was happening [in The Godfather] was real, then I don’t know what can.”

Colombo was paralysed after the attack and died seven years later in 1978.