Hamlet - You should have added one more scene: when Kay tells Michael that she is leaving him. He tells her that she must stay and that he was so sorry that she lost the baby. He says he understands her pain and really says “stay” with his expression until BAM she tells him that she had an abortion and not a miscarriage. In that brief moment following her confession, you can see Michael’s expression go from sympathy for Kay, confusion on what he just heard to hatred of her betrayal of him, family, subculture values against abortion.
He physically attacks her.
This particular scene, for me, was a nutshell description of Michael’s psyche, the theme of the Godfather trilogy and the best piece of acting I have ever seen.
Ahhh, Godfather arcana! Bliss! Allows me to register my complaint that GF III wasn’t subtitled Death Comes to the Archbishop. (Rimshot, howls of outrage)
Michael snuffing Fredo makes no sense. While its clear that Fredo didn’t truly realise the implications of his betrayal, it isn’t made clear just what that was. What did he tell Roth? Which room was Michaels? Somebody set something up, remember Kay noticing something was different in the windows? Fredo wasn’t there, somebody who was there did that. Who?
It is clear from the movie that Fredo never knew anything of any real importance, he had nothing to betray with. In none of the earlier scenes is Fredo included in anything relevent, they ship him off to Vegas “to learn the hotel business” when things get rough.
And the Fredo hit itself: utterly unbelievable in the context of the movie so far. He was shot in the head. (Should have included a scene of Richard Dreyfuss fuming “this was no boating accident…”.)
Crafty guy like Michael would either (a) have him leave the compound where some accident would befall him or (b) set up the “boating accident” much more realisticly. Or, better yet, leave him just as he is and keep an eye out for anyone approaching Fredo.
The shooting scene in the boat was Coppola yielding to a desire for a Dramatic Scene, regardless of whether it made sense. He should have left it with the “hard stare at Neri”, that was drama! We already knew Fredo was fish food at that point.
As to Lucy’s “medical condition” in the book, Coppola would have had to have been insane to include that in the movie, feminists would have ripped down the screen with thier fingernails!
Michael didn’t shoot Fredo. Coppola shot Fredo 'cause he just couldn’t resist one more dramatic scene.
what I want to know is:
Did Michael give his sister the money to go to Europe and marry that guy? He yells at her and tells her not to marry this guy but she doesn’t seem to listen. Or did he get his way and they just don’t show it. If he didn’t then isn’t this the only instance of him not getting his way.
also ,
is there a map of who is who is the 2 movies and the flashbacks? I get confused. like is the guy that turned informer in the first movie. who is the guy who died of the heart attack “that was no heart attack”.
lucy was the girl that sonny was with upstairs at the wedding. she had a condition that only extra large men could satisfy her (hence thats why sonny liked her). she finally meets a dr that laughs at her shyness and fixes (sews) her up. they marry and everyone lives happily ever after. dont really remember what that had to do with the plot though.
Me neither-I never got the point of it.
Just something stupid, I suppose.
Either that, or just the excuse for Puzo to include the part about Sonny being REALLY REALLY well endowed.
That part is subtly included in G1–at the wedding, just as Sonny is sneakin’ off, his (long-suffering) wife is indicating the length of something with her hands.
Other things cut from the book: Johnny Fontaine’s buddy Dino (in case you couldn’t figure it out), and the name of Vito’s original consigliere (Genco Abbadanando)–again, just an echo remains in G1: Sonny tells Tom “Pop had Genco, and I’m stuck with you.”
Clemenza died (and was almost certainly killed, see below) between GF1 and GF2.
Near the end of GF1 Clemenza and Tessio go to Michael and ask permission to start their own families. Michael tells them they have to wait until the Corleones relocate to Vegas. Tessio betrays Michael and is killed. Clemenza stays behind in NYC, presumably becoming a higher capo, but to what extent is not made clear.
At the beginning of GF2, Pentangeli and Cicci, who were in NYC with Clemenza, are wearing black armbands. To quote the transcript:
PENTANGELI
Hey, FREDO – you remember, uh, WILLIE CICCI, he was with old man CLEMENZA in Brooklyn. Yeah, look here –
FREDO
Look, we were all upset about that, Frankie. Heart attack, huh?
WILLIE CICCI
No - No, that was no heart attack.
Clemenza’s by far my favorite non-Corleone character, but I could have definitely done without that shot of him half-naked on the mattress. (shudder)
Isn’t Genco the guy in G2 that Vito went into the olive oil business with. And the guy he saw the play with at the beginning, where Fanucci crosses in front of him. When they put up the sign at the new office (after the landlord leaves), it has Genco’s name on it, IIRC.
Incidentally, there’s a young man with Vito and the others as they watch the sign being put up, with no explanation of who he is. As a deleted scene that is included in the TV version of the Godfather sage makes clear, that is the young Hyman Roth.
I believe this was because the guy who played Clemenza wanted some sort of exhorbitant concessions (including writing his own lines) from Coppola, so they wrote him out. Also, I think Brando wanted some insane amount of money to appear in the flashback.
Even though it’s assumed that only Michael and Neri witnessed Fredo being shot, and Connie says in GF3 it was a shame how Fredo “drowned”, no enemy of Michael Corleone would believe that anyone – anyone – associated with Michael would die innocently. (Especially Connie, after Carlo’s death, wouldn’t be that naive.)
They might have believed that Fredo was whacked by another Corleone enemy, maybe someone associated with Roth, Pentangeli, Barzini et al. But someone so close to Michael? Wouldn’t Fredo be practically untouchable?
And it was definitely not a secret that Michael was very, very upset (to put it mildly) with Fredo. The kiss of death at the New Year’s Eve party, Connie’s plea for reconciliation and the extremely tense mood at their mother’s funeral…
I think that, yes, Michael had Fredo killed to “send a message” to his enemies to some extent. But also, at that point in his character, Michael had no idea how to “handle” Fredo as far as eliminating him as a threat, except by killing him. IOW he wasn’t really thinking it through, and just responded the only way he could.
Plus (and this is kinda stretching) I think he wanted to feel guilt for the things he’d done. And having Fredo killed would be the kind of guilt that would never, ever leave him. Why did Michael watch Fredo’s murder through the window? Why would Michael want to actually see his brother, “my mother’s son”, get his brains blown out? To make sure Neri did the job? Come on, this was Fredo. It was about as hard as assassinating a legless cow. Michael watched because he knew that would be an image that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
(This is what is so incredible about GF2. So many unanswered questions and ways to interpret motives. I’ve seen it countless times and I pick up something new every time.)
Jeez, he had his brother killed. What do you expect, a half-page ad in the Post?
Though the G1 and 2 pair are the best film treatments of any novel I’ve ever seen, you still have to have read the book. When 8 year old orphan Antonio Andolini (Later known as Vito Corleone) was sent from Sicily to America, he was sent to live with immigrants from Corleone, the Abandandos. One presumes young Vito was raised as a member of the family (remember how Vito informally adopted Tom Hagen as a son?) and Genco was his ‘brother’. Fannuci had Vito fired from the Abandando shop so his nephew could be hired in. You might remember Genco taking Vito aside to explain what Fannuci was doing taking money out of his father’s cash register.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure it was young Tessio, Genco and Clemenza celebrating the sign being raised. What the hell would Hyman Roth be doing in Little Italy then? It wasn’t until prohibition or after prohibition did Vito Corleone really become known as a ‘Man of Respect’ outside of those couple of blocks north of Canal St.
No, the preceeding (cut) scene has Clemenza (IIRC) introducing Roth to Vito, as some guy he thinks could be useful. Something about Roth knowing how to fix the truck.
When they are looking at the sign, Roth and someone else come out of the garage to stand with the others. He’s the scruffy, dirty looking guy in the back, and doesn’t say anything.
And of course, the camera cuts away before we hear the last part of the prayer: “now and at the hour of our death”. I always wondered if Fredo subconsciously knows what’s about to happen–from his tone of voice, it doesn’t sound like he’s just praying for the sake of catching a fish.
i think that there is one thing that has been terribly overlooked on the gf pts 2 & 3 questions and responses, and that is, that coppola did a crappy job of tying it together…the part 2 where connie comes back saying how “i rebelled…to hurt you” junk is the old writer’s ploy called deux ex machina, and i think that people are dissing the concept because they think that anyone who directed the original which was great couldn’t have possibly have directed one and have such idiotic stunts as those in pt 2. the “i always wanted to be thought of as a brother by you” by tom…where did that come from??? not from the book or from the original (wshere it was shown that he was thot of as same) and there certainly wasn’t any foundation for it in pt 2. more of this all thru movie. No, coppola gave us crapola! sorry. 3 was better tho.
I recently rented GIII (mainly because I watched the first two on AMC and was sufficiently curious to see how the story resolved) and I’ve come to the conclusion that Michael killed Fredo largely so he would have something to agonize over in Chapter III. Michael apparently didn’t much regret the other murders he had a hand in.
GIII was a real let-down. It’s as if Coppola and Puzo didn’t bother to review their own earlier work before they wrote the screenplay. I guess they forgot Lucy Mancini had been married off - they brought her back as the mother of Santino’s illegitimate child, Vincenzo Mancini, Michael’s eventual successor. But what happened to Sonny’s legit children? Didn’t he have several kids running around the Corleone compound in GI? Why wasn’t Michael obsessed with “being strong” for those members of his family? Are Sonny’s children mentioned in the GIII novel?
> I guess they forgot Lucy Mancini had been married off -
> they brought her back as the mother of Santino’s
> illegitimate child, Vincenzo Mancini, Michael’s eventual
> successor.
Lucy was married off in the book and had no illegitimate children there. In the first movie, she has an affair with Sonny and nothing is said about her after Sonny’s death. No mention is made either way about her being pregnant when Sonny is killed. Clearly, Coppola decided to ignore the part of the novel where Lucy moves to Las Vegas and marries the doctor and do something entirely different with her character.
