I WAS dumbfounded with consternation when I discovered, just this week, that I had exchanged marriage vows with someone who had never seen the film The Godfather.

I was horrified.

The revelation prompted a rather tense stand-off where I was quizzed about which films I’d never seen.

It was elicited from me, in a tit-for-tat exchange reminiscent of the good old days from the height of the Cold War, that I myself had never sat through the film the Sound of Music.

So there we sat in crackling silence. Face-to-face across the breakfast table. Two gaping holes in our cinematic pasts revealed. Laid bare. Disrobed.

Although we had our dressing gowns on of course.

The simple answer is, that we each watch these films and fill the void.

But it’s not that simple. It never is.

They’re not short films. We are busy people. The Godfather runs 2 hours 55 minutes The Sound of Music runs a very close second just three minutes shy of that at 2 hours 52 minutes. That’s nearly six hours of film watching.

Far easier then if we create a hybrid of the two films. With some creative casting and tasteful photo editing I think the whole exercise could be brought together and we’d be done in under an hour.

If we recast Marlon Brando in his guise as Don Corleone in place of Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp we could pick up the gist of both stories.

The famous scene where she bursts into song on the mountain tops might lose a little in terms of articulation due to the cotton wool stuffed into the cheeks of Brando and his mumbling delivery may not lend itself to the soaring cadence of the song but what it lost in lyrical clarity it would certainly gain in some of the undercurrent and sinister threat of violence that pervades The Godfather. A sentiment that has hitherto been underdeveloped, I feel, in The Sound of Music.

Similarly if Julie Andrews were to step into the role of Mafia chief and head up the Corleone family, the murder of chief henchmen Luca Brasi might be given a more exuberant and tuneful flavour if it were Maria Von Trapp announcing that he now “sleeps with the fishes” and then bursts into song to illustrate it.

The hills are alive with the sound of...... New York mafia gangs murdering each other.

There are all manner of creative possibilities once you allow yourself to mix-and-match.

Back in the homestead we’ve circumvented the budget required to re-shoot both films by adopting personas. I am of course Julie Andrews with my wife the brooding Don Corleone figure.

Our poor little 12 year-old is most confused. He doesn’t know whether he’s supposed to be leading the singing with his Von Trapp siblings or reeking vengeance on our neighbours as Al Pacino.

As long as I don’t wake up with a horse’s head in the bottom of my bed I’m happy.