History Headscratchers / TheGodfather

* How exactly did Fredo betray Michael? It's never explained. We know that he talked to Johnny Ola but that's it. The best guess is that he told Roth's people where exactly Michael and Kay's bedroom was on the Corleone compound.When Fredo gets a phone call from Ola and Fredo says "You lied to me." then later tells Michael "I didn't know it was going to be a hit." he could mean he thought they were just going to steal something from his room instead of shooting at it.

** That's also the entire point of the affair, spelt out more explicitly in the book. It ''shouldn't'' have been possible. Woltz had security, they were all working that night, nobody turned up dead or missing the next day or "coincidentally" called out sick, and yet they all swear they saw and heard nothing. This means that either the Corleone muscle was good enough to outmaneuver all of them, or they managed to corrupt enough of them to betray a man like Woltz and still be able to face him the next day woth a straight face. Either way it's a clear show of power, and why Woltz gives in.

** Realise that Luca threw his newborn child into a furnace, was arrested and charged and Vito got him off, somehow. While everyone else is terrified of Luca for very good reasons, Luca is terrified of Vito because he can't fathom anyone being that powerful. He's surprised in a good way, because this great man has deigned to invite him to a personal event.

** Exactly. He wanted to study their reactions. Roth is not unsympathetic towards Michael, but is mostly businesslike (because he wants Michael's money) and obviously doesn't care about the prospect of Michael taking Pentangeli out (''"He's small potatoes"''). Pentangeli, on the other hand, acts horrified about the attempted hit, immediately ingratiates himself towards Michael, offers all the assistance he can, and even agrees to a deal he hates (making peace with the Roth-backed Rosato brothers) because Michael wants it.

*** Exactly. In the novel, Tom specifically asks about this and is told that Sollozzo would know all the top Corleone button men and immediately recognize it as a hit. When Tom asks if they could use an unknown newbie, Tessio responds "it would be like asking a rookie to pitch Game 7 of the World Series," meaning the newbie might or might not come through, and they could ''not'' afford to tip their hand and then not have Sollozzo taken out. This was the only shot (no pun intended) they were likely to get.

** To them, neutrality is not good enough, because it doesn't stop prosecution. It's implied that proactive help from the Corleones' network of corruption is needed in order to make it worthy. At least the other families think they are not profiting enough from it without the network. Tataglia and Barzini are visibly annoyed, Vito's "selfish and unfriendly" gesture means they are taking too much risk and not gaining enough money. In addition, Tataglia is a pimp, greedy and easily manipulated (he's not invited to the wedding, he's a longtime foe), and Sollozzo is an upcoming player who is eager to climb-up and has contempt for the old Don, who "was slipping", so overthrowing the old order comes only natural to him, a generational thing, a literal Young Turk vs a Moustache Pete.

** One more note that could have triggered the violence: Tataglia and Sollozzo may have been perfectly fine being neutral, but Don Vito sends in Luca Brasi, the Family's most feared Enforcer, as a spy (under the guise of defecting). It's possible they saw through this rather obvious attempt to spy and dig and reconsidered their neutral stance.
** Though its not in the movie, the novel's narration outright says that Barzini (the actual instigator of the entire war) wants to replace Vito as the most powerful Don of New York. It could have been a Xanatos Gambit on his part; (a) if Vito refuses, he gets to complain to the rest of the Dons that Vito is trying to keep them down; (b) if Vito agrees he can collect his share from Sollozo until he figures that the Corleone family has become dependent (heh) on the drug business and then try to have Vito killed. Sonny expressing interest in the deal was just a happy coincidence for him.

*** While the stuff about honor is crap, except for a time in the 80's where you had to be pure Italian on your fathers side (to let John Gotti's son John Jr who is part Russian join), you have to be full blooded Italian in order to join. Even highly respected Jewish gangsters like Meyer Lanskey were never admitted. He was respected for his intelligence and his money-making skills, but he never ordered anyone in the Mob, not without the okay from Lucianno or other high-ranking officials. The blood oaths by all accounts are real.

--> Hagen had filled the Consigliere’s post for the past year, ever since the cancer had imprisoned Genco Abbandando in his hospital bed. Now he waited to hear Don Corleone say the post was his permanently. The odds were against it. So high a position was traditionally given only to a man descended from two Italian parents. There had already been trouble about his temporary performance of the duties. Also, he was only thirty-five, not old enough, supposedly, to have acquired the necessary experience and cunning for a successful Consigliere... The Don had broken a long-standing tradition. The Consigliere was always a full-blooded Sicilian, and the fact that Hagen had been brought up as a member of the Don’s family made no difference to that tradition. It was a question of blood. Only a Sicilian born to the ways of ormerta, the law of silence, could be trusted in the key post of Consigliere.

*** Putting aside the fact that his temper would be a hindrance for a position that calls for the person to act as a family diplomat, Sonny would rightfully view it as a demotion. Possibly undercutting his effectiveness because it would always be weighing on his mind about why he went from being underboss to Consigliere.
*** Clemenza and Tessio were probably better as street Capos. Plus as we see later they want to form their own families so taking a lofty position like that would stifle their ambitions.

** A simpler reason could be that if the consigliore were to be turned or arrested, it could spell ruin for many of the high ranking members. Both the Corleone consigliores have something in common: they owe their lives to Vito. To elaborate, Genco was a simple grocer who could be pushed around by a nobody like Fanucci, Vito made him a millionaire and gave him a life he could never have dreamed of; Tom would have starved to death on the street if not for Vito's generosity. These are people he feels confident will never betray him.

** After Solozzo and [=McClusky=] are killed, ''all'' the families go to war against the Corleones, so those two have to go too, since they were part of a unified enemy. Also Michael is not seeking mere victory, but total supremacy.

* Who's the fifth family? In the book and the movie, we've got Stracci, Cuneo, Barzini, Tattaliga. Who's the fifth?

** Favoring Carlo and showing his close ties in public also contributes to the image of the helpless, clueless Don that Michael wants to project. An image that makes his enemies underestimate him and uncovers traitors like Tessio.

*** This could be a case of heartwarming, earlier in the novel Sonny asks Michael to guess whether it was Paulie or Clemenza who betrayed their father and Michael remembers Clemenza as some kind of fun uncle. He might actually be relieved that its Tessio.

* Along a similar line, wouldn't Pentangeli identifying Tom as Consigliere(as seen in the "family tree" during the hearings) disqualify him as Michael's attorney?
** Michael's public persona is that of a legitimate businessman. Tom Hagen's public persona is that of Michael Corleone's lawyer and adopted brother. If Michael is accused of being a mafia chieftain, it wouldn't make sense for him to trust any lawyer more than he would Tom. Doesn't seem like much of a conflict of interest here unless you know for a fact what their real relationship is. And in-universe, that hadn't been proven to the committee.

* In the third film, when Michael is offering to help the Vatican Bank pay its massive debt, in return for shares in Immobliare, it turns out that the deal is a fraud, but what's the fraud?

* In the third film, when Michael is speaking at the Immobiliare shareholders meeting, he mentions something about "Eastern methods of manufacture" in order to turn Immobliare into a European conglomerate, however Immobiliare (which is a real company) is a real estate company, it doesn't manufacture stuff, this is even stated in the film, when Michael's lawyer states that it holds a huge amount of real estate. Is this ever explained?

* In Part II, Michael visits both Roth and Pentangelli, telling each that the other was responsible for the attempted hit on his Tahoe compound. Was that to feel out their reactions to see who would crack?

* Why was the conversation between Michael and Solozzo not subtitled when all the other Italian dialogue was?
** Solozzo and Michael didn't talk about anything the audience didn't already know or couldn't be worked out from context, so subtitling would have been unnecessary. Besides, Michael wasn't there to actually listen to Solozzo's offer- he was there to pretend to listen to his offer until he found an opportunity to kill him and [=McCluskey=]. Subtitles would have distracted from Michael's emotions and the tension in that scene.
* Luca Brazi is Don Corelone's hand of vengeance, an important man in his family. So why was he surprised to be invited to his daughter's wedding?
** As mentioned, Luca Brazi is an absolutely terrifying person. I think he wouldn't be expected to be invited to something like his don's daughter's wedding because he's not family or a friend of the family. He's an attack dog.

*** Simple - with his wife leaving him and a major "business" deal being unsuccessful, Mike feels powerless as these events are due to facors outside his control; so he tries to convince himself that he is in control by having all threats removed just like he did all those years ago.

** When Michael figured out the truth of Carlo's treachery, he waited. Waited patiently, then had Clemenza strangle him in the car. But if we're referring to the first incident when Sonny beats Carlo in the street, well...let's pretend Michael wasn't in hiding for the Sollozzo / [=McCluskey=] assassination. At this stage in his life, Michael is very different from the man he'll be when he gets back from Italy. The murder of Appollonia changes him in that it hardens him and makes him more cautious. That said, even before his exile, Michael did show signs of being a strategic thinker, being the one who came up with the idea of how to make a unsanctioned cop killing look good for them in the papers. So if it was him who showed up at the apartment, he would have first sent Connie to the compound to ensure she was safe. Michael does not make any rash decisions nor does he let anything slide, so he would have patiently determined a way to put Carlo in a situation where he would have voluntarily sought forgiveness from Connie and the family for his actions, and if necessary, sanction a hit on Carlo.

*** The problem is uncertainty: even if Michael kept the secret to himself and Fredo (i.e. without letting Tom and Al Neri know), Michael can't know if someone else who might have survived in the end is in on the secret. Ola was obviously in cahoots with Roth to lure Fredo in. Probably they both had assistants who might have heard something. Or nmaybe not, but how can Mike really know? Fredo accidentally spilled the beans about the meeting with Johnny Ola in a Havana night club. Who else besides Fredo and Mike was there in that group? A handful of drunk politicians. But what if one of them was lucid enough to remember what Fredo said? And even if everyone in that group died without spreading the gossip or figuring out the meaning of it, where else would unreliable Fredo inadvertently drop clues of the meeting? Who knows! Was the FBI perhaps eavesdropping on Roth and Ola? Michael doesn't know. That's the thing: even with Ola and Roth out of the picture, Michael can't be sure if there is someone out there who has the quite interesting information that a dissatisfied member of the Corleones is dangerously close to the top.

*** This could be a case of heartwarming, earlier in the novel Sonny asks Michael to guess whether it was Paulie or Clemenza who betrayed their father

*** But that's the thing: Michael figured out by himself that Fredo had been contacting others behind his back. Had he kept it quiet (i.e. if their bodyguards had not been present when Michael tells Fredo that he doesn't want to see him again), after wiping out the Corleone rivals, no one besides Fredo and Michael would have known about the slip-up.

*** But that's the thing: Michael figured out by himself that Fredo had been contacting others behind his back. Had he kept it quiet (or at least, if their bodyguards had not been present when Michael tells Fredo that he doesn't want to see him again), after wiping out the Corleone rivals, no one besides Fredo and Michael would have known about the slip-up.

*** But that's the thing: Michael figured out by himself that Fredo had been contacting others behind his back. Had he kept it quiet (or at least, if he had talked to Fredo without their bodyguards present near the end of the film), after wiping out the Corleone rivals, no one besides Fredo and Michael would have known about the slip-up.