I’ve seen the movie but in the flow of action I’m still not quite sure what exactly Fredo’s act of betrayal was that was so egregious it was worth his life.
In the movie re Hyman Roth etc. what exactly was the act of betrayal that Fredo did?
What did Fredo think would happen in his doing this?
What exactly would Fredo get out of it?
Did Fredo have plausible deniability?
Was Michael being set up to die by Fredo or was Fredo misled by Roth?
Maybe he deserved it for being such a lousy kisser.
It’s never explicitly stated what sort of assistance Fredo gave to Ola and Roth. This is all we have:
FREDO
(after a pause)
I don't have a lot to say, Michael.
MICHAEL
We have time.
FREDO
I was kept pretty much in the dark.
I didn't know all that much.
MICHAEL
What about now, is there anything
you can help me out with?
FREDO
I know they get Pentangeli, that's
all I know.
Fredo gets up, walks to the glass panel that separates the
terrace from the lake.
FREDO
I didn't know it was a hit. I
swear to you I didn't know. Johnny
Ola contacted me in Beverly Hills --
said he wanted to talk. He said
you and Roth were in on some big
deal, and there was a place for me
in it if I could help them out.
They said you were being tough on
the negotiation, and if they had a
little bit of help, they could
close it fast and it would be good
for you.
MICHAEL
And you believed that story.
FREDO
He said there was something good in
it for me...me on my own.My impression is that Fredo was resentful of the way Michael ran the family and his own lowly position in it. He felt he was entitled to a higher position.
Roth and Ola played on this. They told Fredo that if he gave them information they would be able to best Michael in some business negotiation. This would knock Michael’s status down. Meanwhile they would reward Fredo, which would raise his own status.
Fredo wasn’t trying to have Michael killed. He thought he was just using Roth and Ola to shift Michael and his positions. But Roth was of course using Fredo; the information he got was to be used to eliminate Michael not merely beat him in a dispute.
Michael however had a very black and white code. He didn’t care what Fredo was trying to accomplish. As far as he was concerned, Fredo had betrayed the family by working with Roth and Ola at all against the family (and Michael defined the family’s interests as his own). And the only punishment for such a betrayal was death.
didn’t fredo also throw a fit in that scene saying he was tired of cleaning up the shit jobs of the family in so many words ?
It’s this entirely. Michael knew that Fredo was a weak, stupid person, but he was his brother. This works into the almost-great tragedy that is GFII. The Don would never have murdered his son, but Michael has degenerated so far into this power and protection paranoia mind-state that no other option is available. He lets him live till Momma dies. He’s no threat. But there can be no other way. Very Shakespearian.
Also the don kept fredo in vegas running the casino and he wasn’t all that great at even doing that the don knew he couldn’t accomplish anything overly important …why didn’t mike just have him stay there ?
I think it all goes back to the whole thing where sonny shot his mouth off and it was looked ta going against the family and resement in being brought in the family business in the first place
missed the edit …I think it all goes back to the whole thing where sonny shot his mouth off and it was looked as going against the family and the old resentment in being brought in the family business in the first place
It’s a nitpick because in essence you are correct, but very technically Fredo was as high as he could reasonably get. He was Michael’s underboss, the titular #2 man in the hierarchy ( you even see him so listed on the chart at the hearing ). Technically. Of course it’s a nitpick because in reality his position was made out smoke. He had exactly as much authority as Michael allowed, which apparently wasn’t much - Michael ran the key family interests with Neri and Lampone as direct reports ( and Pentangeli as seemingly a semi-autonomous one ), instead of through Fredo and Hagen.
Best Fredo could hope for was to be given more freedom, not to actually advance in rank. Of course the reason he couldn’t ever displace Michael, would never be given more real control or that he got himself killed were all one and the same - he was dumb as a box of rocks :).
Michael knew this. Everyone else in the family knew this. All of us in the audience knew this.
But Fredo didn’t. Part of his incompetence was that he couldn’t see his own limitations. In his mind, he thought he could do as good a job as Michael did and was more entitled to it as the older brother. So he saw their relative positions in the family as just a fluke of circumstances that could be reversed.
I think there might be an inside joke there. Francis Ford Coppola and his contemporaries in the seventies were regarded as the new young generation of film directors. If you look on the chart, you’ll see there’s a Frank Forducci, whose nickname is “The Kid”.
Some people think that it was Fredo who opened the drapes in Michael’s bedroom which facilitated the assassination attempt, but as mentioned, there is nothing explicitly linking him to it.
