Also, we need to remember that the book and movie both say that without Don Vito, the family loses half it’s strength.
Especially because nobody anticipates Michael becoming the new leader of the family. Everyone assumes Vito’s replacement will be Sonny, who’s a quick-tempered hothead. The leaders of the other families know that they can defeat Sonny just by pushing his buttons.
The hit attempt took place around Christmas 1945. Vito lived until 1955. He could have possibly lived longer if he took better care of himself.
Sollozzo couldn’t afford to wait very long. He needed to establish his business in the early part of the post-war/post-depression era before others got in and dominated.
One thing to keep in mind about real mobsters is that they aren’t all that good with long term thinking. Almost all of them think short term and quite emotionally. The Tommy DeVito’s of Goodfellas are quite common. They make Sollozzo look like a deep thinker by comparison.
And hadn’t had to recover from almost being killed in late middle-age.
But I think this is one of things the movie fails at - documenting the passage of time. Michael is in Sicily for almost two years, while the Corleone family is at war with the other Five Families. It’s another two years after that before Michael sees Kate again and they don’t get married until the following year. After returning from Sicily Michael serves under his father for six years before taking over and his father lives another year beyond that.
In the film all that is unclear, which makes the relationship with Apollonia and the re-courtship with Kate seem a bit like a shallow whirlwind, rather than something that occurred over a five years span. And it makes Michael’s return and takeover of the family seem near-instantaneous, when he instead put in years as the Don’s right hand learning the ropes.
Who’s this Kate person ?
Katherine Corleone. She apparently preferred “Kay”, but I stubbornly insist it is Kate just like her mother always called her. Maybe ;).
Another thing that Sollozo and Barzini factored in was the death from cancer of Genco Abbandando, longtime consigliere to the Corleones, one day after Connie got married. His replacement, Tom Hagen, was both young and more importantly, German-Irish. To Sicilian mobsters, anyone outside their ethnic group was automatically not as good, and it didn’t matter that Tom had lived with the Corleones since he was 12. Even Sonny at one point tells Tom that Genco gave better advice to Vito that he got from Tom. After peace is made, Michael comes home and a murderer is bribed into confessing he killed Sollozo and the police captain, Vito tells Tom that he never thought Tom was a bad consigliere, he thought Sonny was a bad don. Which is kind of a backhanded compliment.
Even real mobsters kill to get what they want, where it’s smart or not.
Heh. Someone on the IMDB board for The Godfather posted in one of those “things you’d like to hear the characters say” threads:
Sonny: Pop had Genco! Look what I got!
Tom: Genco had POP. Look what I got.
(Which would, of course, have been followed by Sonny beating the piss out of Tom, but maybe Tom would’ve figured it was worth it.)
That would make a great thread!
Sonny inadvertently gets Vito shot because he speaks at the meeting with Sollozo. Several years at the meeting of all dons nationally, when Barzini speaks instead of Tattaglia, Vito realizes that Barzini was behind it all. Tattaglia was just a pimp who could never outfight Sonny. Who knows, Vito may even have realized right then, that when Vito died, Barzini would use someone in the family to help him kill Michael. Tom does figure this out, only he guesses it will be Clemenza, not Tessio.
Motto: keep your mouth shut at mob meetings.
I figure Barzini manipulated Tattaglia into bringing Sollozo over from Italy. What figured on was Michael knowing what he was doing and being willing to wait for the right time to do it.
Another post I remember from the same thread:
Clemenza: Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
Mook: You want I should wipe the blood and brains off it first, boss?