So he’s pretty much pure evil, then. what prompted this outbreak of venality?
The midwife, speaking to Michael while he was in Sicily, did not know. Brasi showed up to her place and she was afraid her husband had done something, but no, he was there for her services. Summoned to the woman in labor( who was described only as “an Irish girl”) she heard the girl say “Luc, I’m sorry”. After the baby was born the midwife told Michael she was stunned by the hatred between Brasi and the girl, they had an argument that “blazed hatred”, but the midwife did not know what had happened. Brasi made the midwife go with him to the basement, with the baby, to where the furnace was, and told her she’d go in if the baby didn’t. The midwife did it, and was later so ashamed she had a nervous breakdown. It was actually after that that Luca Brasi killed the mother, and Don Corleone smoothed things over for him.
So the Don is nearly as nasty a piece of work as his henchman, but he did help the midwife, sending her home to Sicily after her breakdown. She simply wasn’t able to work at her profession anymore, and when Michael met her she was working as a housekeeper for the local don Michael had been sent to stay with.
No explantion for the hatred, no more background than that. Brasi was a sociopath, a thug, and the only person who could make the Don nervous.
It wasn’t a deleted scene, at least not in the UK it wasn’t - it was right there in the frickin’ movie, and one of the funniest scenes, too.
I can’t believe they would delete that!
Well, they say cash is a great aphrodisiac 
Actually I just checked on IMDB, and the “dead henchman” scenes were in the first Austin Powers movie, not TSWSM.
As I recall, there were two separate scenes - one after the henchman is run over by a steamroller, with a painfully lingering detail shot of his wife, distraught, having just been informed by the police of his death; and the aforementioned “bachelor party” scene. (“Yeah he should be here soon… he’s really enjoying his new job as a henchman for Dr Evil…”)
No joke. IMHO, this goes a long way in explaining why the Don ordered Luca on that last little errand to speak with Sollozzo in what was in essence a suicide mission. A lot of Godfather fans used this example to hypothesize that the Don was losing it, but I think that deep down inside, Vito Corleone knew exactly what he was doing.
So either Luca suceeds in bluffing the Tataglias and finds out what The Don needs to know, or the Don is relieved of the problem of having Luca around. Win/win. Nifty.
It’s fun to watch the movie and realize just how bad pretty much everyone is. Tom Hagen seems like a nice guy, until you realize that he probably had to plan the horse operation, and I understand he gets his hands dirtier in the sequels (which I need to see). Clemenza, the likeable fat guy who cooks for 20 men (and looks like he might eat for 3) , is the one who seems to get the work of planning most of the hits we see in the movie, even getting his own hands dirty on at least two occasions.
Overall, I see the first movie as the story of the fall from grace of Micheal Corleone, with him starting out refusing to get involved in the family business, being a war hero, having a nice girlfriend (and perhaps more importantly, not lying to her about what his family does), but gradually getting more and more involved, with the initial catalyst being that his father’s life was in imminent peril, and at the end of the first movie, lying to his wife about what he does.
That’s the first time I’ve thought of it like that, but it sounds exactly right!
And as bad as they were in the movie, everyone was much worse in the book, not just Luca Brazzi. The book begins at the wedding with the Don talking with Michael while conspiring to use Michael’s war service to his own advantage. The director who wakes up with his horse is a pedophile. Sonny is shown to be twice the hothead he is in the movie thanks to some exposition. Michael shoots McCluskey with a smile on his face, and so on.
Mario Puzo actually complained that the movie mobsters were all too nice.
Wow. I’ve always thought of Michael as being a good guy at the start of the first movie- does that change?
the old Man from U.N.C.L.E. took shots at the cliches of spydom, and in one they had an old henchman at T.H.R.U.S.H. retiring. Napoleon Solo intercepted him on his way to his retirement dinner to try and convince him that , instead of a gold watch, he was going to get the axe. nteresting stuff.
I always suspected the henchmen were in it for the cool T-shirts and baseball-style caps, both embroidered with the villain’s logo or the latest Evil Scheme patch (“Piz Gloria team Virus”)
Before I forget, I thought I’d jot down what, from what I remember from the cartoons (and whatnot), some of the benefits of enlisting with Cobra were…
•The Crimson Guard, at least, claimed to be unionized, and had a guaranteed coffee break time.
(Come to think of it, didn’t Sweden or some other scandinavian country actually try unionizing their military, back in the 70s? How’d THAT work out?)
•According to a Cobra recruiting brochure that Shipwreck once found during a raid, “Hey…Cobra’s got a medical plan!”
Of course, as an addendum to the above, from what I’ve seen (on TV, and at least one file card), the medical staff includes a LOT of sadistic mad scientists. Which, even if it gives you a VERY good chance of cheating death, also means it’s not going to be a very pleasant experience. Worse, if you DON’T pull through—or if you’re considered “too far gone” or “no longer useful”—you’re probably going to end up as a Super-Soldier prototype.
•Speaking of recruiting brochures, as I remember, one episoee of the DiC animated season showed a Cobra recruiting office hidden in a back alley, in an otherwise normal U.S. city. You didn’t have to go thrhugh a secret passage or nothin’.
•And…a massive Cobra R&R base was once discovered—sports, fine dining, musical theater (or possibly a burlesque)—and a lot of the attendees looked to be low-ranking troopers, not “elite” officers.
Ah yes, and GI Joe, being the despicable folks that they are, went in and captured the R&R base, capturing many vacationing Cobras in the process 