Michael was simply lying to Kay. Again.
A bigger question to me- whatever Michael’s real motives were, why did the SENATE just sit there and ignore what SEEMED like a death threat?
It sure LOOKED to all observers as if Michael Corleone was leaning on a key witness by threatening his family. Why didn’t the Senate committee take some kind of action? Why didn’t they send the bailiffs to take the brother into custody and find out what was going on?
I always thought it was the shame thing. It works logically and IMO it reads that way in the actor’s performance. The brother enters and sits more or less on his own, rather than with a thug’s hand on his arm. Isn’t he only accompanied by Tommy Hagen? Not a muscle guy.
The scene where Frankie talks with Tommy about his family being taken care of, I always thought was about financial support rather than any implied threat of violence.
They couldn’t. As Tom Hagen pointed out, he was not on the witness list, not under subpoena, a visitor in the country, etc., etc. They had no probable cause to detain him in any way. There would have been no time to search for any, either, because he was on the plane back to Italy as soon as the purpose for his being there was fulfilled.
There was also no evidence that there were any threats. Again, Tom said he was there of his own accord, spoke no English. “Does he know anything about these matters?” “To my knowledge, no.”
It was definitely shame. First of all, if the brother was a tough guy back home, then he’s not going to let himself be used as an obvious threat like that.
It ws really a reminder that Frankie Pentangeli was turning on his own family. By having the brother show up under his own free will, it was made clear to Frankie that this extended to his own literal family, including his brother. Basically, if he testified he was done. He’d have no home, nowhere to go, and would have to live with the knowledge that he disgraced his own family.
I think this was made explicit by the statement that it was ‘between the two brothers’. I think that what happened was that the brother was phoned, and told what Frankie was doing, and he volunteered to come to America to stop him.
Does Congress need that?
IT WAS BOTH!
Michael was using the brother to shame Frankie, and also to make clear that anyone Frankie cared about could be got. I always read the scene as the brother willingly risking his own life to ensure Frankie didn’t besmirch his honor, because honor is important to the brother, too – and so he sees it as something worth dying for, if he must. And Frankie understands this, and he is shamed, as well as afraid.
–Cliffy
There wasn’t any muscle near the brother. The testimony first blew up in their faces and they were afraid that if they delved into it it was a trap that would get worse. One person did in fact try to ask what the man was doing there and who he was, and it wasn’t going well. Politicians almost always retreat in those situations because they know it is scripted to make them look stupid. Bush Sr fell into one of these traps during the 1980 primary debate when he tried to keep John Anderson, a distant third from joining the debate. Reagan was using Anderson (w/out Anderson’s understanding) to split the more liberal votes first in the primary and then in the general election. Reagan had ready “I paid for this microphone” ready to blast Bush with. It was from a Spencer Tracy movie. It was set up from the get go. Reagan later had Carter’s prep book and got off some great one liners because of the stolen prep book.
I believe Coppola mentions the illegitimate family/brother’s protection/omerta thing on the commentary of the DVD. Originally, when it was Clemenza there was to be some exposition about it. You already learned Clemenza is an immigrant, that he has a wife and a bunch of kids in Godfather 1- “Don’t back over the kids” as he takes Pauly for a last ride, and in the 1910s part of Godfather 2 you see Clemenza putting the smooth moves on ladies [the one he gives a dress to for a quickie for instance. A soldier (or Tom or somebody) was to be given lines like "Can you believe that as old and fat as he is and as many kids and grandkids as he’s got he still tries to score with young women? with a quick “Yeah, and he does score sometimes— you know that he’s even got a girlfriend in Sicily? Sent her there with their kids when his wife found out… live with his brother who’s a badass there- women look over a bunch of fat and old for money”- to set it up.
Unfortunately Castellano and Coppola couldn’t come to terms and they literally replaced Castellano/Clemenza with Gazzo/Pentangeli on the day shooting was to begin. Since this is the first time that you ever see or hear of Pentangeli and the only thing you know about his family is that his wife (and maybe a daughter) show Michael into his den (Vito’s old office) when he goes to visit him in Brooklyn there’s no real backstory to build onto- it’s no shock to learn Pentangeli has an illegitimate family than to learn he exists. When switched to Pentangeli they decided to skip it. Let people wonder if his brother was going to be killed if he cooperated, or if he was going to shame the family. (Of course due to that damned ad lib they left in by Danny Aiello [“Michael Corleone says hello!”] the audience was already super confused.)
In GODFATHER there’s a scene where Clemenza tells Mike that the U.S. never should have let Hitler get away with annexing the Sudetanland. When Tom goes to see Pentangeli he mentions how Pentangeli was talking about Hitler annexing the Sudetanland mean there was going to be another world war before anyone else; it’s one of the ‘leftovers’ from the fact it was supposed to be Clemenza.
Since the original question of this thread has ran the course, I wanted to put my input into this question.
I saw it at the theater when I was a teenager then. I saw the “Something is wrong with Anthony” as a reference to Anthony being gay. And that being a source of distance between Anthony and his father Michael. It was clear as a bell then. But watching the movie today, in a more enlightened world, you might not see that.
Now remember that The Godfather came out in 1972. Even Elton John wasn’t (officially) gay yet.
Not that there is anthonything wrong with that. That is just how I took it.
Hmmm . . . I guess the Godfather II is a bit of a rorschach thing (as with ghardester’s post above, which I never saw. I just thought Anthony was fearful and withdrawn but wanting love from his father. (Didn’t anybody else see the picture of he left on Michael’s pillow as pretty sad?)
As for my own interpretation, which others might not see: When Tom tells him that Kay supposedly had a miscarriage, his seeming calm curiousity in asking, “was it a boy?” was the moment his mind started to crack. And when Kay told him it she had had an abortion, that’s what sent him over the edge. He sold his soul to protect his family, and he was losing his family anyway: he couldn’t handle it.
In the Winegartner books (which are not canon but are officially authorized) he reveals that Kay
had a miscarriage, but told Michael it was an abortion because she was so furious at him and knew that the lie would hurt him more than anything else she could say; he has the doctor he assumes performed the abortion (the same one who “fixed” Lucy Mancini’s big problem) killed.
Tony was sent to live with Kay when it was revealed he had witnessed (or bluffed Michael into thinking he had witnessed) Fredo’s killing.
The next to worst thing about Godfather III is that parts of it are so good. (The worst is of course Sofia Coppola.) You sometimes see the brilliance of I & II pop through. Then it falls into “Coppola wrote this earlier that morning, didn’t finish it, and just told the actors to make something up” crapola, and Anthony is one of those things.
In 1979 would be almost 30 years old. That’s hardly old but it is old to be considering becoming an opera singer. Opera’s not like Broadway or pop, where you can have natural raw talent and conceivably succeed without ever taking lessons- operatic singing requires MAJOR training and not just of the college/part time variety Anthony would probably have had.
In any case, assuming Anthony was his college’s opera star (if there is such a thing) it’s unusual that he’d suddenly at 28 decide to go pro, and it’s damned near unthinkable that he would just happen to premiere as a professional not as a chorus member in a NYC production or a supporting role of a second tier Paris opera company but as the romantic lead in a production that’s in- coincidentally- Sicily, very near where his grandfather was born and his father lived in exile. (True, having a father who’s a billionaire with mob ties can’t hurt, but Anthony has made it clear he wants absolutely nothing to do with his father- though apparently changes his mind when dad comes to see the show.)
My biggest beef though is the appearance of Don Altobello (Eli Wallach’s character). It would be believable if he were just an old don who’s known the family for many years, but he’s Connie’s godfather.
Okay, Altobello was head of a syndicate family in his own right for many years. Since he was never mentioned in the first two films then he must not have been a big shot in the Corleone Family- certainly not when Connie was born- or he’d have been as prominent as Tessio or Clemenza or at least of Ciccio or Abbandando you would think, someone in line before Pentangeli to inherit from Clemenza at least. So apparently he’s from one of the other families- though not so prominent as to be present at the meetings or targeted in the Christening Massacres, so he had to be fairly low level, yet 25 years before those massacres he was an important enough man for Don Corleone to ask him to be Connie’s godfather.
They just didn’t think that one through. To me it would have made more sense if he was perhaps an uncle- I don’t think we ever learn Mama Corleone’s name, he could have been her baby brother who rose later and thus his treachery is unexpected. Or, better yet, Connie’s third (or fourth or however many-th) husband who betrays her and pays with his life because unlike with Carlo her loyalty to the family is now so complete she won’t even farm out the execution. But to think that he’s some guy who just happened to rise up out of nowhere and become a major player without being mentioned in the first movies is almost unthinkable. (It’s hard to believe Pentangeli wouldn’t have been mentioned also BUT that was a special case because of Castellano playing prima donna; I wonder if he often regretted that decision when he was doing poor rated sitcoms or playing Clemenza-esque characters in medium budget and long forgotten TV mob miniseries.)
Speaking of Lucy Mancini, that’s the skeeviest subplot about vaginas I’ve ever read. “I’m so…BIG, no man will ever love me except this sexy mafioso and his huge dick, and ooh, a nice doctor to tighten me up so I’ll be as tiny as a 5 year old girl!”
It makes me wonder if Mrs. Puzo or some other woman of Mario’s acquaintance had that problem and he decided to tack it on as a PSA. It was as out of place as if he’d worked in a side plot about Tom’s wife’s lactose intolerance or Mama Corleone’s recurring hemorrhoids (and of course also disallows any chance of Vincent from the print version).
Hellooo (*hellooo . . . * *hellooo . . . * *hellooo . . . *)
Lucy? (*see? . . . * *see? . . . * *see? . . . * . . .) Um, I hate to tell you this (*this . . . * *this . . . * *this . . . *) . . .
We found Hoffa!
**The next to worst thing about **Godfather III is that parts of it are so good.)
Perfectly put. Michael’s confession scene is flat out superb. And the killing using the eyeglass very clever.
Biggest problem to me (second biggest after Sophia, natch!) is that Joey Zaza would have been eaten alive by the likes of Sollozzo from the first of Roth from the second. He wasn’t a very scary adversary.
And Michael wasn’t scared of him. Michael knew he was only the face of someone far more clever. Joey was based on a mafia figure from the 1970s that headed a very public anti-defamation of Italians organization and he was publicly gunned down.
No, Sophia was sweet in her way, simple and believable. Anyway, I agree, the confession would have been a great scene if it wouldn’t be for Lamberti saying “in nomine patris et filii et spiritus sanctus”, entirely unthinkable for a catholic priest, or anyone with knowledge of the ancient languages. “et spiritus sanctus”, I still don’t believe it.
Ooh! Zombiefather III!