Far more people have seen Francis Coppola&#8217;s &#8220;Godfather&#8221; films on their televisions than in a theater.</p><p>And that&#8217;s a crime.</p><p>But here&#8217;s a chance to defy that cinematic outrage and watch these gangster classics the way they were supposed to be seen: on the big screen.</p><p>Beginning today with the original &#8220;Godfather,&#8221; the Tivoli Theatre in Westport will show all three films in the trilogy, giving each a one-week run. Kansas City is the last stop on a limited national tour of new prints of the films.</p><p>&#8220;This is a pretty big undertaking,&#8221; Tivoli owner Jerry Harrington said. &#8220;We&#8217;re showing all three films. Most theaters only have shown the first two.</p><p>&#8220;But I think &#8216;Godfather: Part III&#8217; is underrated. It&#8217;s better than most people think. And I figured, well, if you&#8217;re going to do this, you might as well do it right.&#8221;</p><p>The prints being shown were created as part of a recent DVD release of &#8220;The Godfather,&#8221; but Coppola had an ulterior motive, Harrington said.</p><p>&#8220;He wanted there to be good 35mm prints available. The negative of the original &#8216;Godfather&#8217; had been severely damaged and was pretty much unusable. The one we&#8217;re showing was put together from other sources and cleaned up with digital technology.</p><p>&#8220;You know, my employees in their 20s and 30s have never seen these movies in a theater. So this is a rare opportunity &#8230; and probably the last opportunity. I think it&#8217;s unlikely we&#8217;ll see this again because of the expense and time involved. Each movie is about three hours long. That&#8217;s a lot of film to ship around.&#8221;</p><p>Coppola and cinematographer Gordon Willis supervised the films&#8217; restoration, including frame-by-frame studies of the movies and the use of digital technology to remove dust and scratches, correct faded colors and tweak the soundtracks for modern multi-channel effects.</p><p>You may think you&#8217;ve seen these movies, but even with a big screen television you&#8217;re on the outside looking in. On a movie screen these films pull the audience into the action.</p><p>Why should you care? Well, for starters the &#8220;Godfather&#8221; films represent an exceedingly rare marriage of popular storytelling and artistic endeavor.</p><p>The films have been criticized for humanizing criminals and for promoting Italian-American stereotypes, and praised for daring to blur the line between legitimate business and criminal enterprise.</p><p>And then there are the awards. The first &#8220;Godfather&#8221; was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won three &#8212; for picture, actor (Marlon Brando) and adapted screenplay.</p><p>&#8220;The Godfather: Part II&#8221; also picked up 11 nominations and won six Oscars: picture, director (Coppola), supporting actor (Robert De Niro), art direction, music and adapted screenplay.</p><p>&#8220;The Godfather: Part III&#8221; was nominated for seven Oscars.</p><p>Without the &#8220;Godfather&#8221; films there probably would have been no &#8220;Scarface&#8221; remake (&#8220;Say hello to my lil&#8217; friend &#8230;&#8221;), no &#8220;GoodFellas,&#8221; &#8220;Casino&#8221; nor &#8220;The Sopranos.&#8221; Coppola and friends reinvented the gangster genre in ways we&#8217;re still enjoying today.</p><p><hr></p><p><strong><span class="infobox-head">&#8216;GODFATHER&#8217; DISCOUNT </span></strong><br /> All three &#8220;Godfather&#8221; films will play at the Tivoli Theatre in Westport:</p><p>&#8226;<strong>&#8220;The Godfather&#8221; </strong>(1972): Today through Dec. 4.</p><p> &#8226;<strong>&#8220;Part II&#8221; </strong>(1974): Dec 5-11.</p><p>&#8226;<strong>&#8220;Part III&#8221; </strong>(1990): Dec. 12-18.</p><p>Buy a ticket for the first &#8220;Godfather&#8221; at the regular price and get a discount card valid for reduced prices on &#8220;Part II&#8221; and &#8220;Part III.&#8221; The card is also good for reduced-price concessions.