[spoiler]In Godfather II who killed the assassins that shot at Michael and his wife through the window? Was it Fredo? And who opened the curtains? Was that Fredo? I can’t believe he opened the curtains. If he did he would have to know it was a hit. But if he didn’t open the curtains, that would mean there was another traitor, right?
So did Fredo open the curtains and kill the assassins?[/spoiler]
I’m pretty sure Fredo or his men let the assassins into the gate in order to perform the hit on Michael. His men were also the ones who got rid of the assassins after the hit so that they wouldn’t squeal.
I don’t know about that. Fredo claimed “he didn’t know it was gonna be a hit”, and although he could have been lying I don’t see him letting men through the gate. Didn’t he say something about only leaving the curtains open?
I welcome corrections to my crappy memory.
I don’t think he ever said anything about opening the curtains.
Could be. I might be confusing the scene of Michael noticing them open.
I think Fredo knew there was going to be a hit. He tried to deny it, but it never seemed plausible to me.
Re-watching Fredo’s confession, I think I have to agree. Fredo knew it was a hit and he wanted to take over the family. The scene in Cuba were he and Michael are having a drink shows this, too.
I dunno. Fredo is weak and stupid, bit I’m not sure he’d want Michael to be murdered. I think he probably just wanted him taken down a peg or two.
We never really see what kind of power Fredo has in the Family. Does he run a regime, or are his ‘men’ just the guys who run his clubs and brothels?
Alex.
Fredo was underboss, but probably only nominally. I don’t think Michael was much for delegating authority.
And I doubt Fredo knew it was a hit, because if he did, Mike would have found that out. I think the fact that he didn’t know is why Michael let him live (at least while their mother was alive).
Fredo was either:
(1) as dumb as a rock or
(2) sly and vicious, and hated brother Mike as well
It’s too bad that John Cazale died soon after Godfather II-it would have been interesting to see him in another sequel.
I vote for “dumb”=proof of this is his hanging around the Corleone compound after old ma Corleone croaked-if I had been fredo, I would have hightailed to the nearest FBI office !
When Michael wakes up and realizes killing Fredo was all a dream?
I’m thinking the spoiler tag has become moot at this point.
Fredo simply let the guys in. Hyman Roth was an associate of the Don and worked with Michael. Fredo was not bright enough to think Hyman Roth would try to kill Michael.
Fredo met with Johnny Ola and Roth in Cuba beofre, Roth sensed Fredo was unhappy with his lot in life and like Solozo thought if he bumped off the resisting head of teh family then the next in line could be easily used.
Fredo was duped into believe… I don’t know what… I guess someone would leave a message but not a hit. Would Fredo have killed them? Nope I’m guessing another mole (The one who opened the curtains??) was responsible for their deaths.
Fredos conversation on the phone when he was asked to do one more thing betrays his lack of foresight to think he might be oer heard (He practically admits he was part of the hit) and therefore has no reason to lie about not knowing there was to be a hit. he seems to genuinely be shocked by it and that is why he didn’t want to talk any more about it… of course there are a lot of weird holes in that movie in both dialouge and actions that seem to hint at other bigger things taht may have been dropped.
For example Did Michael try to kill Frankie Five Angles if not why did the guy garotting him say “Michael says hello” unless he hoped the police would show up at the last moment…
And that is what doesn’t make sense. Two moles?
Perhaps Fredo was persuaded to let a Roth henchman into his gang who did the actual dirty work.
Alex.
My take on this was always that Michael did not order the hit on Frank Pentangeli - it was Roth ordering the Risottos to do it. Remember Frank was having trouble with them, which is why he went to Michael to try and get him to go against Roth for this one favor.
The hitman saying “Michael Corleone says hello” was simply a way for the Risottos to make Frank suffer even more for thinking he was betrayed by Michael just before he died.
To the OP - I always thought Fredo vouched for someone to get someone inside and that was the extent of his involvement. He probably should have thought it was a hit, but I he was too stupid to put that together, which was in part why Roth used him.
Then there would have been another person on the grounds. This person would have been found. The reason the assassins had to be killed is they couldn’t escape. So how did this other person escape?
Michael did not have anything to do this the hit on Pentangeli. Pentangeli was a trusted friend of the family. From the movie it is hard to know who Pentangeli is. The character was supposed to be Clemenza but since Richard S. Castellano was unable to play the part they had to bring in a new character. Which is too bad because we are left wondering who this Pentangeli guy is.
That’s what I said - Michael did not order the hit. It seems like you’re disagreeing with my quote, so I’m a little confused, but we are arguing the same thing here.
In the DVD commentary and in a biography on Coppola I read lately, it’s mentioned that Puzo objected to the killing of Fredo. Puzo felt that would never have happened. Coppola managed to overcome Puzo’s objection by yielding to Puzo’s insistence that Fredo be killed after Mama’s death.
The footage for GF2 was cut severely in order to get it down to the playing length and it’s quite possible that scenes that might have helped make better sense of the mysteries being discussed here were left on the floor or in Coppola’s private stash.
My own suspicion of why we don’t have solid evidence of the plot on Michael is that if we did, the suspense value of the movie would be much lower and would be close to boring by the time the whole thing unfolds. I don’t doubt that Puzo and Coppola had script to cover all the intricacies mentioned so far, but I do suspect that in weighing which footage to cut, they opted to leave out some of the explanatory things in order to keep the suspense up.
I can honestly say that after dozens of viewings these questions had never occurred to me.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I wasn’t disagreeing with you. But I think in the movie the role of Pentangeli is confusing. That is what I was trying to say. Pentangeli is supposed to be so close to the family, but this is the first we hear of him.