Posted from a previous thread:
Perhaps it would have been better if they’d played it with a Graham Chapman type as Tony.
MICHAEL: I did all this for you. One day it will all be yours…
TONY: What the curtains and the over the top penthouse?
MICHAEL: No… well, those two… and a multibillion dollar international business conglamerate so legitimate it’s blessed by the Pope.
TONY: But I don’t want a multibillion dollar international business conglamerate.
MICHAEL: What do you want?
TONY: I want… I want… I want to sing…
MICHAEL: Hoo-wah! Stop that… I said @*#$ing stop that…
This is followed by a hit in which many guests are killed but Tony’s fiancee, the daughter of an Immobilaire tycoon, survives and Michael adopts her in a “fatherly and legally binding sort of way”.
It doesn’t really, or at least I don’t see it. Here’s the plot of the opera.
Turridu comes back from the war to his village in Sicily to find out his girlfriend, Lola, married somebody else, this successful guy named Alfio. So, he’s mad, and seduces this guy named Santuzza. Lola finds out about it, gets jealous, remembers why she was dating Turridu in the first place, and has an affair with him.
So, Santuzza finds out Lola’s knocking boots with Turridu, and she’s not happy about it, so she goes and visits Turridu’s mother, who owns a wineshop, because she wants to confront him about the whole sleeping with Lola thing. So Turridu’s mom says he’s out of town, which Santuzza knows is a lie, because he was hanging around Lola and Alfio’s house.
So then everybody goes to church, except for Santuzza, who everybody figures is too much of a slut, because they know about her affair with Turridu, and Turridu’s mom, and Santuzza spills the beans to Turridu’s mom, about the whole sleeping with Lola thing.
So then Turridu’s mom goes into church and Turridu shows up. He and Santuzza have this big fight, where he says, basically, you’re a slut, I love Lola, so leave me alone. Then he goes to church. Then Alfio shows up, and Santuzza tells him about Turridu and Lola, and as you can imagine, he’s pissed.
Church gets over, and Alfio challenges Turridu to a duel to the death. Alfio and Turridu go offstage, where Alfio kills Turridu and Turridu’s mom and Santuzza are both sad. No idea what happened to Lola, who started this whole thing by dumping Turridu in the first place.
So it’s a bisexual love triangle? That’s pretty racy. (Well, Michael referred to the beauty there being “more Greek than Italian”, guess this just goes to show.)
Yep, GFIII was a lousy movie…but it did have its moments-like when Michael speaks with the Pope (the honest guy):
Michael: “I am beyond redemption; I have ordered men to be killed, and I have killed”
Pope: “Your sins are terrible; still there is redemption”
Michael is not a totally soulless monster at the end; he retains some conscience.
Oops, sorry. While that WOULD be more interesting, it would be a little too interesting for 19th century Italy. Santuzza’s a girl.
Yep, by all accounts, including the IMDb.
I loved the soon-to-be-Pope’s analogy with the stone in the fountain in that scene.
Could as easily be the U.S.A. of course, particularly the most Christian of states.