I haven’t seen a Godfather questions thread in while, so what the hey:
[ul]
[li]Who gave the go-ahead to have Frank killed? Roth right? Then why does the assassin say “Michael Corleone says hello?” [/li]
[li]At the time of the senate hearings, why did Michael think Frank was dead? He did think Frank was dead, right?[/li]
[li]What exactly did Fredo do for Roth/Ola to betray Michael?[/li]
[li]Hyman made a comment to Michael about cash and being president. What’s was that all about?[/li]
[li]Do you think the Godfather would have had an innocent woman killed in order to frame someone, the way Michael did with Geary?[/li]
[li]After the first hearing, Michael appears back in Lake Tahoe without any explanation. It seems he hopped a flight out there, and then came back to D.C. for the next day of hearings. Not really a question, but something I never realized before.[/li]
[/ul]
I saw an answer to the first question in a previous thread, but thought I’d ask it again to get more opinions.
I think it was me who responded in the first thread b/c I read on IMDb that the line was ad-libbed, and Coppola just liked it so much he kept it in. I guess you could argue that they were just freaking him (Frank) out.
ETA: About having an innocent woman killed…are you asking if that’s something that Vito, when he was Godfather, would have done? If that’s the question, I’d say no. Considering he didn’t want drugs sold to schoolchildren either. He was pretty old-school. Violence against women, always a no-go.
My theory is that they knew Frank could potentially survive–and, if he did, they wanted him blaming Michael.
I didn’t get the impression that he did
I believe he gave them information about where Michael and his family were staying. Enough to make the attempt. I don’t think he connected the dots.
Honestly, I always thought of this as a sort-of metareference to JFK, who lots of people say was mob-influenced.
Absolutely not, and I think that might’ve been the point of tying the two stories together in the second movie. Michael went a step beyond what Vito did, because he was trying to hold on to power, not to provide for his family and friends. Which makes his actions more unforgivable.
[li]Who gave the go-ahead to have Frank killed? Roth right? Then why does the assassin say “Michael Corleone says hello?” [/li]
Roth gave instructions to have an attempt made, but not kill Pentangele, trying to get Pentangele to betray Michael to the cops or to Roth. It worked.
[li]At the time of the senate hearings, why did Michael think Frank was dead? He did think Frank was dead, right?[/li]
Because when Pentangele turned against Michael, the government put out the story that he had been killed.
[li]What exactly did Fredo do for Roth/Ola to betray Michael?[/li]
Fredo told Roth/Ola what the layout of the compound looked like and eventually they asked him to leave the drapes open in the bedroom after the party. The drapes bit might have been over Fredo’s head, but the layout of the compound was pretty much clear to even a moron like Fredo that they were going to try to kill Michael, even if they lied to him about the reason. Fredo thought he would be the Godfather.
[li]Hyman made a comment to Michael about cash and being president. What’s was that all about?[/li]
I don’t remember
[li]Do you think the Godfather would have had an innocent woman killed in order to frame someone, the way Michael did with Geary?[/li]
Vito would not have had the prostitute killed. Ultimately she would have worked for him, and without betraying him, he would be loyal. Although Tattaglia or Barsini would have done so. Michael combines the ruthlessness of his opponents with his father’s brains.
[li]After the first hearing, Michael appears back in Lake Tahoe without any explanation. It seems he hopped a flight out there, and then came back to D.C. for the next day of hearings. Not really a question, but something I never realized before.[/li]
I think it is a whole weekend. Maybe even a three day weekend (counting Friday as weekend) But still for late 50’s so much air travel is problematic. Getting Pentangele’s brother there from Sicily over the weekend is an even bigger feat.
I saw this as a serious continuity error. The judge pretty much said they were continuing right away, next scene Michael and Hagen are in Tahoe. Somehow he went to Tahoe, consulted with his men, and got back to DC, all overnight.
Also at that Tahoe meeting is when he finds out Pentageli is alive, and is seriously miffed, as he didn’t know that before he perjured himself. By this time it has to be nighttime in Sicily – how they found the brother, got him on a plane, and got to DC by the following morning, I have no idea. Obviously they have contacts in Sicily, but that seemed awfully fast to me.
It’s been a while since I watched the movie (I should watch it again) but is it possible that the hitman did think he was carrying out Michael’s orders? Roth was connected to the Corleone family and there were betrayals. Roth might have been able to find somebody in the family who could order one of the low-level Corleone soldiers to make a hit. Fredo, for example, could have told them that Michael wanted Frank killed.
When in the movie do we get this info? I don’t remember anyone saying this.
I always assumed Fredo pulled the drapes back, but I don’t remember anyone explicitly saying that Fredo told Roth/Ola about the compound layout. When did this happen?
Hardly. While Coppola whitewashes the Don and the Corleones in general, trying to make them seem if not actually heroic at least less evil than their competitors, but Vito is ruthless and didn’t get to his position as the head of one of the Families by being squeamish about who necessary violence was being done to. And remember, Vito had a bunch of politicians and judges in his pocket (which is why the other families are aligned against him); he presumably blackmailed at least some of them, and no doubt Michael learned many of his tricks at his father’s knee.
As for drugs, Vito had two good reasons for not getting involved in the drug business. One, it would alienate the politicians and judges he held; while they would accept the other vices (provided they were kept out of site of the voters) drugs were unacceptable. The second was that unlike vices such as prostitution, racketeering, gambling, et cetera, he wouldn’t be able to keep his children and those of his protectorate away from drugs. The old Don knew (as Sollozzo pointed out and Sonny argued) that drugs would be a major part of organized crime in the future, and hence, part of the reason he wanted Michael to be respectable and the family to be legitimate, as Michael explains to Kay when he returns from Sicily.
I thought the whole thing was a set-up by Roth to turn Pentangeli against Michael. Even the “cop” coming in and saving Pentangeli was a set-up. That’s why, when Frank’s brother from Sicily showed up and sat with Michael, Frank knew he had been tricked, recanted his testimony, and then committed suicide.
While I agree with you about the ruthlessness of Vito, I agree with Freudian Slit that he would not have involved an innocent person in any frame-up attempt and that he would have been clever enough to come up with another method to get Geary.
I’ve read that the actor who said the line improvised it. If so that means of course that Coppola didn’t originally have it in the script, in which case your set-up idea falls apart. In any case, I’m watching the movie now with the commentary. Hopefully Coppola will say something about this.
Earlier, I asked two questions about why Michael thought Frank was dead, and when it’s said in the movie specifically what Fredo did to betray Michael. Anybody have an answer?
This stuff is implied because there is no other way to do it. Godfather movies assume an intelligent audience and do not overly exposit on every detail.
Yes, a real cop, but a dirty one. Roth played it beautifully. The big mistake that Pentangeli eventually realized that it was a set up was Roth’s guy giving him a 100 dollar bill as an insult. Roth hadn’t planned that part, but it meant that the guy was trying to insult him and not set up a real meeting. Pentangeli realized that Micheal needn’t have had any part and that was the message Michael was saying when his brother showed up: “I could have killed you any time I wanted, why would I do it that way and then botch it? Your brother will fly around the world on my word, you would have done the same and nobody would have seen you again.” If Michael had really wanted Pentangeli dead, he would have been dead without any screw ups. Roth went to a lot of trouble to convince Pentangeli that Michael betrayed Pentangeli at the meeting, but it was always going to count on Pentangeli being slower than Michael.
I think that the line or something like it is necessary or Pentangeli has no reason to believe that it wasn’t Roth.
When they get back to Tahoe and Tom finds out from Geary that the witness is Pentangeli, one of them says, “so Pentangeli is alive” meaning they thought he was dead.
Remember the story that Michael tells Kay at Connie’s wedding? “Luca Brasi held a gun to his head, and my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.” Vito did not hold ordinary morality about innocent people high on his list of virtues.
I agree that Vito is smarter than Michael, which is, of course, the tragic flaw; however hard Michael tries and however ruthless he is prepared to be, he’s just fated to be not quite good enough to overcome his own weaknesses. The flaws of Sonny and Fredo are apparent to everyone; Michael’s flaws are more subtle, but ultimately just as fatal. The Godfather, in its essence, isn’t a Mafia movie like Scarface or Goodfellas; it’s a Greek tragedy cloaked in Sicilian black robes.