Fredo was no ineffective at the time of the meeting with Sollozzo. There were doubts about his ability to take over the family when Vito died, as there were about Sonny, although for different reasons. It was after seeing his father shot that Fredo suffered PTSD. So having both sons at the meeting is reasonable.
Sonny was a lot more non-committal in the war council before they meet Sollozzo, saying there is a lot of money in heroin but it could be dangerous to their law and political allies. Tom argues for it, saying that Tattaglia and others will gain power with the money from the drug trade although he feels Vito will reject it.
3)Vito always tried to keep Clemenza and Tessio separate for good business reasons. A Don would not want his capos getting together and possibly plotting against him. Tessio understood this and realized Vito wasn’t paranoid, it just made good sense. So they wouldn’t be at the Sollozzo meeting.
The Sollozzo-Barzini-Tattaglia plan was with Vito and Brasi dead, the Corleones would have suffer massive losses in political influence, and also their killing machine was gone. When Vito died, Michael still didn’t have 100% of the contacts; they had wanted five years but Vito dropped dead. With the other families all lined up against the Corleones, Sonny wouldn’t fight too long and Sollozzo wouldn’t ever give Sonny a chance to kill him. Which kind of backfired, since Sonny said he would never compromise but Barzini probably really wouldn’t care too much if Sollozzo was dead. Oh, he had contacts in Europe but those could be replaced. As far as Sollozzo, he probably figured it was worth the gamble to be a big shot. Even if he only had a few years of luxury, better than a life of eking out a living as a common hood.
Puzo’s novel really reads at time as if it was a parody, how the baker was happy to be the first one in the union Vito set up and other things as to how Vito was protecting his people in a harsh and cruel world. Puzo found himself getting a lot of drinks from strangers with sunglasses, diamond rings who had large breasted women around. The mob guys thought Puzo portrayed them as relatively favorable.
The Corleone’s got lucky when Vito was in the hospital that Sollozzo and McCluskey couldn’t kill him there. Michael was in town (to tell Vito that he and Kay were eloping), he happened to go to the hospital at the right time and the Italian POW whom Vito arranged to stay in the country and marry the baker’s daughter was also there and knew his obligations. I suppose Sonny still would have fought on with Vito dead but it made the fight easier knowing Vito would recover. And Michael came up with the plan to kill Sollozzo and the police captain that was suppose to be Sollozzo’s bodyguard.
Au contraire, mon ami. Vito dying, Michael dying are things that happen to everybody, so, that can’t be used as an argument against them being glamorized.
Tessio gets whacked; well, the fuck betrayed the protagonists-the power of the family to root him out and eradicate a threat to them, with so little effort, is, indeed, a glamorous aspect. Same for Pentangeles; prick was a rat, and we see the suave Tom Hagen talking in vague terms, and 5 Angels is sleeping with the fishes. Clemenza did not get murdered in a contract dispute.
Sonny getting ventilated shows what a bunch of fucks the Tattaglia family was, with their brutality. Also, getting ventilated doesn’t mean anything in re glamorization, either. Lots of good people get murdered, brutally, in movies.
One feels the mafia is mythologized, not due to anything in regards to the plot or the characterizations, but due to the *staging * of the first movie, from the warm buttery tones of the images to the fact that many of the scenes are set in boardrooms, gardens, weddings, business offices… not the usual trappings (warehouse, police station, speeding cars and lengthy shootouts) of a typical crime movie.
The family atmosphere, from the crying babies to the stout women making pans of sausages and peppers for their men give the impression that if mean, old Solozzo and Barzini hadn’t ever bothered with poor Don Corleone, family man that he is, not a single crime would need have ever been committed.
The 2nd movie is far more stark and less nostalgic, but if you don’t see how the first one works to mythologize the Corleones, (and by extension the mafia) you’re not looking close enough.
The flip side to that argument is that if you think the Corleones are glamorized, you’re looking too closely at the veneer. By focusing on the staging and atmosphere, you’re judging them by their cover, not their character or actions.
I realized later that the source I used for Godfather body counts had left this one out. It also left out Barzini’s driver and guard but that doesn’t matter so much. The driver clearly needed to die for parking illegally.
Wonder what else was missed.
For the elevator hit on Stracci, there are three people:, the boss, presumably one of his goons and the elevator operator. Clemenza hits them with two shotgun blasts, presumably one each to the mob guys. Later, we see the aftereffects of the other hits, but not this one. We don’t know if the goon or elevator operator are hit. So possibly one more innocent.
We also don’t see what happens to Moe Green’s masseuse. It wouldn’t be surprising if he was also taken out to eliminate a witness, but since it isn’t shown, we can’t count him.
There were also some innocent oranges harmed in the film.
Probably not, since the waiter and the people in the restaurant aren’t killed when Michael kills Sollozzo and McCluskey. Later on, when a man on death row confesses to the murder, they have to change somewhat their description of the gunman.
With the Don gone it is not a foregone conclusion that all of their soldiers stay with the family. Maybe Tessio or Clemenza or some other underboss turn against Sonny and try run their own family. Sonny is going to need to consolidate power before being able to move against Tataglia. Sonny is going to need lots of new money to consolidate power by buying off the politicians and all of the family’s soldiers and that money is only available in the drug trade. Sonny has already shown he does not share his father’s distaste for the drug trade.
Tom was right to advise Sonny to make peace if the Don dies. The Corleones are just too weak without the Don to successfully fight a war. That is why the Don makes peace as soon as he is well and back in power and acquiesces to everything they wanted him to do at the original meeting.
We know that the Don threatened to kill a bandleader who wouldn’t let Johnny Fontaine out of his contract. However unfair the contract was, Johnny Fontaine signed it and it was legally binding. To put a gun to his head and make him release him is not a victimless crime. (Had Johnny’s contract been with Suge Knight his godfather probably would have said “You’re on your own, kid.”)
We can be pretty sure that all of the foot soldiers, so numerous that not even the Don and Sonny know them all, aren’t being supported just by what trickles down from numbers running and labor union dues and annuities from money made during Prohibition. It’s likely there are Fannucci like protection rackets all over the territories to pay the hoods.
They liver very well though and are respected and feared.
People are attracted to that and there is a glamour to that. Frankie’s death is absolutely glamorized given that he is seen to do the “honourable” thing by killing himself. Indeed, even their crimes are seen as appropriate in the context of the world in which they live in. The Don is seen as being better than the other criminals because he doesn’t want to deal in drugs. That is a form of glamorization. Of course, we never really see their victims who have to suffer from the various criminal acts.
I’m actually looking past the plot of the movie given that, upthread, real life mobsters were discussed. As has been noted, the real mob really is nothing like what you see in the Godfather movies (the author himself states that) and the movies did create a veneer of respectability to the mob by glamorizing them.