# Wotlz's optioms? Godfather question. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 30, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136 "2015-10-30T00:45:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/21 "2015-11-04T02:48:16Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Just as an aside, in real life, the Mob didn’t use its clout to get the role he wanted in “From Here to Eternity.” Eli Wallach won the role fair and square, but dropped out of his own free will when Tennessee Williams called him about starring in his newest play. > > Sinatra just caught a lucky break. ``` There is a story that somebody's wife (director Fred Zinneman's? Harry Cohn's?) suggested that a small, scrawny Sinatra would be more sympathetic getting into fights with the big, burly Ernest Borgnine). ``` ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/22 "2015-11-04T03:56:38Z")
If Woltz hadn’t given in, the Corleones would have had him killed in something like an airplane accident. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/23 "2015-11-04T05:34:50Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > _“Won’t they take that as a sign of weakness?” > “It is a sign of weakness…”_ > > Michael and the Don may have thought about someday seeking revenge. But they were acknowledging that they had lost the current war and were seeking terms. That seems like backing down to me. > > The alternative would have been to acknowledge they had been defeated but go down shooting. They would have taken out a few more of their enemies but the Corleones would have ended up being annihilated. But that’s the way that was called being Sicilian earlier in the movie. You fight regardless of the cost and never surrender. I’m a little confused. You think Michael and the Don didn’t plan the ending together? ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/24 "2015-11-04T06:26:52Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Except that “Woltz” (AKA Jack Warner) OWNED the studio.:smack: I’ve seen the film dozens of times but never read the book. Yeah, him being the head of the studio would complicate things… ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/25 "2015-11-04T15:47:41Z")
If Woltz wanted to risk _everything_, and fight back, he had to bring the white-hot glare of publicity upon both himself and the Mob. The Corleones just killed a _champion race-horse_, one of the most famous in the world. Imagine the publicity if Woltz invited the police and the media to his home for pictures of the severed head in his bed. This would be front-page news in every newspaper in the country. For comparison, imagine if you woke up tomorrow and learned that American Pharoah had been decapitated by the mob. And even that isn’t a good comparison, because horse racing is way less big today than it was in the 1940’s. The Mob doesn’t like publicity. Front page stories about dead race horses are bad for business. They tend to attract prosecutors and legislative hearings and Congressional hearings and demands that law enforcement _do something_, and all of this makes smooth and profitable operation of organized crime more difficult. Quite obviously, Woltz would have been putting his life, his fortune, and his reputation at risk by taking this path. We can be sure that Woltz’s own involvement with mob unions and his dalliance with nymphettes would promptly have been leaked to the press. On a physical level his life would be at risk, although for the Mob to take him out once battle had been joined and publicized would have been clumsy and obvious and would have invited even _more_ law enforcement attention. And as the Don surmised, Woltz was not the type of person to take those risks. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/26 "2015-11-04T16:18:11Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > There is a story that somebody’s wife (director Fred Zinneman’s? Harry Cohn’s?) suggested that a small, scrawny Sinatra would be more sympathetic getting into fights with the big, burly Ernest Borgnine). > [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > There is a story that somebody’s wife (director Fred Zinneman’s? Harry Cohn’s?) suggested that a small, scrawny Sinatra would be more sympathetic getting into fights with the big, burly Ernest Borgnine). Another story had Ava Gardner using her influence to get her husband the role, as his career was in the dumps at the time. Mario Puzo of course didn’t use this. Instead he opens the book with the Ava-avatar as a stupid nymphomaniac. Later, someone tried to introduce Sinatra and Puzo at a restaurant, but Sinatra went on a tirade as he sat eating his dinner. Puzo wrote how weird that Sinatra never looked up from his plate while yelling insults. (Many parts of the book that Coppola wisely left out of the movie, because Puzo wrote them like a horny 12 year-old boy: nympho Ava, sex parties where aging movie starlets paw at young actors, and Sonny’s girlfriend with the big vagina). However, the mob may have been behind the earlier event when the Dorsey brothers released Sinatra from his contract when he was a red-hot commodity (“either his signature or his brains would be on that contract.”) ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/27 "2015-11-04T20:48:25Z")
> [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > I’ve seen the film dozens of times but never read the book. Yeah, him being the head of the studio would complicate things… I wonder if Woltz could cast Johnny but then sabotage the film with a low budget, little advertising and a crappy release date. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/28 "2015-11-04T22:57:17Z")
Johnny wasn’t actual family. He was a godson. Fairly important, but not quite as personal. Vito and Michael sort of made plans for after Vito’s death. But note that they didn’t know who the traitor was. Hence Vito’s warning about whoever sets up the meeting. So obviously a lot of details had to be left out. I don’t think Vito envisioned going after the heads of all the other families plus Moe Green either. Just Barzini and Tattaglia. (And the traitors: Sal, it turned out, and Carlo.) Family wasn’t absolute protection. Ergo Carlo (in-law) and Fredo (blood). ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/29 "2015-11-04T23:15:11Z")
I have a problem with the baptism scene being intercut with the mob hits. Just last Sunday, All Saints Day, there were two infant baptisms at our church. The dean was asking the parents and godparents, in the name of the children, "Do you renounce the forces of evil?’ and the response was “I renounce them.” He asked all the same questions asked of Michael. So now, whenever there’s a baptism, I think of that scene in the movie, and all the violence.:smack: ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2015, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/30 "2015-11-04T23:59:39Z")
> [@zbuzz](#): > > I’m a little confused. You think Michael and the Don didn’t plan the ending together? Sure they did but that’s not the point. Regardless of what their future plans were, they were backing down. There had been a war between the Corleones and the other families and the other families had won. And everyone saw it that way - Michael and the Don acknowledged it by calling it a sign of weakness; Clemenzo and Tessio were soon saying that the Barzinis were stealing their territory; and Moe Greene openly told Michael that everyone knew the Corleones were washed up. Michael was able to start a second war and regain the power his family had lost. But that doesn’t cancel out the fact that they had lost that power. They had backed down in the face of a threat that was bigger than they could handle - which is the same thing Woltz did. I think this was a subtle message about the reality of the mafia (which both Puzo and Coppola have spoken on). Mafia figures would tell themselves that they were guided by a code of honor but this was a lie. The reality was that it was just the strong preying on the weak. They could tell themselves that Woltz wasn’t man enough because he didn’t defy them and therefore deserved his fate. But when the Corleones faced the same situation, they did the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/31 "2015-11-05T00:35:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There had been a war between the Corleones and the other families and the other families had won. And everyone saw it that way - Michael and the Don acknowledged it by calling it a sign of weakness; Clemenzo and Tessio were soon saying that the Barzinis were stealing their territory; and Moe Greene openly told Michael that everyone knew the Corleones were washed up. The argument goes, though, that the Corleones were playing possum. Knowing they couldn’t win a protrated war against all the other families ( which Barzini had orchestrated ), they ( specfically and only the Don, later with Michael ) strategically took a knee and played weak. Even weaker than they otherwise were. Things like forbidding Clemenza and Tessio from retaliating when they were moved on. All to lull the other families into a false sense of security and set them up for the sucker punch. Not saying you’re arguing otherwise, but in that sense they never actually lost anything - it was just but one stage in a long con. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/32 "2015-11-05T03:40:34Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Sure they did but that’s not the point. Regardless of what their future plans were, they were backing down. There had been a war between the Corleones and the other families and the other families had won. And everyone saw it that way - Michael and the Don acknowledged it by calling it a sign of weakness; Clemenzo and Tessio were soon saying that the Barzinis were stealing their territory; and Moe Greene openly told Michael that everyone knew the Corleones were washed up. But does it matter that they backed down if that was part of the plan? Like Tamerlane says, backing down was a feint, ending the war was deception designed to make the other Families drop their guard and get Michael back home. What Woltz did was short sighted, what the Corleones did was strategic. Also, when in the movie does the Don actually say it’s a sign of weakness? I don’t remember that dialog. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/33 "2015-11-05T15:20:52Z")
Woltz was also told (by Tom Hagen) that his studio was in for “labor troubles”, and that one of his big stars was using heroin. It was implied that giving the role to Fontaine would be a “very wise thing to do”. The Corleone family was big into labor racketeering, and the Don could probably have the union local (at Woltz’ studio) call a wildcat strike that could shut him down. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/34 "2015-11-05T15:44:51Z")
Did any of the studio heads have mob relations/protection through Mickey Cohen or any other West Coast mob boss? ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2015, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/35 "2015-11-05T23:09:46Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Woltz was also told (by Tom Hagen) that his studio was in for “labor troubles”, and that one of his big stars was using heroin. It was implied that giving the role to Fontaine would be a “very wise thing to do”. The Corleone family was big into labor racketeering, and the Don could probably have the union local (at Woltz’ studio) call a wildcat strike that could shut him down. ``` In the novel, after the movie is made Tom flies to California and sets Fontane up as a movie producer. The war with the other families reduces the amount the Corleones can finance but they do invest. They use their influence with the unions and others to get Fontane the Oscar that Woltz refused to campaign for. Fontane is successful in these (his voice is shot for a few years until the abortionist that diagnosed Lucy's big vagina diagnoses warts on his larynx). Fontane gets the author who Woltz ripped off to write for him. The labor union whom Tom used to threaten Woltz tries to shake down Fontane and gets shot for his unwillingness to reason with the Corleones. ``` ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/36 "2015-11-06T00:54:10Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > I’m guessing a horse wakes up next to Woltz’s head. Man…this is…excellent! ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/37 "2015-11-06T03:33:44Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Sonny’s girlfriend with the big vagina). Incidentally, what was up with that? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/38 "2015-11-06T04:17:21Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Incidentally, what was up with that? Per the novel, it was so big that Sonny, being so well endowed, was the only guy who could satisfy her. Later she got a nip and tuck from a plastic surgeon so she was snug enough for normal guys. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/39 "2015-11-06T04:56:00Z")
> [@zbuzz](#): > > But does it matter that they backed down if that was part of the plan? Like Tamerlane says, backing down was a feint, ending the war was deception designed to make the other Families drop their guard and get Michael back home. What Woltz did was short sighted, what the Corleones did was strategic. > > Also, when in the movie does the Don actually say it’s a sign of weakness? I don’t remember that dialog. He said it in the same scene. I quoted the dialogue. And this indicates that backing down wasn’t just a feint - it was a genuine sign that the Corleones were weaker than their enemies. And let’s not lose site of the time involved. It’s not always clear in the movie but a lot of time is passing by. The Don seeks terms to end the war in 1948. Michael’s revenge attack takes place in 1955. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136/40 "2015-11-06T04:56:23Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Per the novel, it was so big that Sonny, being so well endowed, was the only guy who could satisfy her. Later she got a nip and tuck from a plastic surgeon so she was snug enough for normal guys. Does that even make anatomical sense? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wotlzs-optioms-godfather-question/736136.md?page=3)