Ok, so I'm talking about the gun that Clemenza fixes up for Michael to be planted at the restaurant and eventually assassinate Sollozzo and McClusky. Clemenza says: "It's untraceable, don't worry about fingerprints, I put a special tape on the butt and the trigger." What kinda of tape is that? I mean, surely everything attracts fingerprints,after all the prints are just natural greases. What about the fingerprints he left on it when taking it from it's hiding place behind the toilet? I just want to know what tape the guys using and how it stops fingerprints. Oh, and to what extent he goes to making it "untraceable" - Scratching out serial numbers? What else?

The short answer is that it's one of those lines in which FFC and Puzo took some dramatic liberty with the script. They want us to believe that the Mafia is omnipotent--so Clemenza can, on demand, provide a gun that is untraceable, and he has some kind of magic tape that doesn't attract fingerprints. But the real point is to reinforce that, in order for Michael to literally get away with murder, he can't be connected with the gun in any way. That's why Clemenza (and later, Sonny) kept emphasizing that Michael had to drop the gun after using it. And, of course, his prints can't be left on the gun.

"Magic tape" or no, in reality, the gun could have been wiped down with alcohol or oil to erase existing prints. Michael could have grasped the gun with a handkerchief when removing it, then wrapped the handkerchief around the gun butt before leaving the john. "Untraceable" isn't as difficult as you might imagine. If the gun had been stolen from a big shipment from the factory years earlier, and never registered with any individual, it wouldn't be traceable to anyone.

I know it added to the drama to have Michael dropping the gun, eventually, as he had been instructed.

In theory though, there was no real reason for him not to take the gun with him into the car and have someone do what young Vito did after shooting Fanucci.

Yes but "in theory" is nmot as gopod as in practice. In fact it was Tessio's men who picked Michael up at the scene of the murders. What if they had held on to that gun? After Tessio's betrayal the gun cojuld have been given to to cops and matched up with the bullets.

...or the cops could have been coincidentally right around the corner, busting Michael and company seconds after the shooting, in possession of a firearm that just was used to kill a New York Police Captain...

plenty of guns the corleones would have access to are untracable (high-jacked, burgled, acquired from less scrupulous dealers) and fingerprints can't be taken from cloth rough tape or wrap even today...let alone in 1946 - just not enough printable surface area. (the cylinder or barrel? - let's assume Mike wipes the gun down after he grabs it and before returning to his seat)

Clemenza's bit of dialog I've never had much problem with - assuming "I kept it noisey" - refers to a lack of silencer - (which couldn't have been put on a revolver in anycase) means something akin to - "in case you were asking why I'm not giving you a silenced Walther e.g.?"

...but give them credit for choosing the right weapon for that particular job. Contrast this with the "Dirty Harry" series, which got famous in part because the producers had Eastwood using a weapon that no real plainclothes cop would ever carry.

In all my years associated with law enforcement and law breaking - I have never seen ANYBODY use a Model 29 S&W anywhere but the gun range....

I did catch something on tele recently about a .44 Desert Eagle being used by some kid in a gang murder - but his choice of firearm was about as clever as his crime...

standout - overkill - hard to conceal - innocent bystander - "shoots through schools" all come to mind

of course it remains popular in movies - Live and Let Die, and Taxi Driver both featured a .44 of one sort or another...

To borrow a line from George V. Higgins, my favorite crime author: someone who tried to conceal a .44 Mag "looked like he was stealing melons..."

I don't know anything about guns. But this post got me to thinking....what would CSI: NY do with these crimes? Gary Sinise would have a field day.

Imagine them in Louis Restaurant - dusting the gun, the table, the chair, the toilet, Sollozo's head, McCluskey's veal. They would be checking out angles, sound bites...and snapping pictures galore....and don't forget the autopsies to see what S and M actually ate. AND, they'd be snooping around with the stupid little flashlights.

I checked hte Journal of Forensic Science and it stated that there can be difficulties associated with lifting fingerprints from tape especially if one does not use the latest technology. Given that the gun involved was circa 1946, the technology back then was relatively primitive.

So, apparently tape generally and a "special" tape in particular could present fingerprint identification problems. But also consider that when Mike pulled the gun from behind the toilet he apparently had both his hands all over the gun.

Can someone PLEASE answer this question- short of the dramatic impact, why did Michael have to be the one to pull the trigger? If they knew where to plant the gun, why couldn't they have planted a button man along with it? Granted, they would have had to find a different hiding place than behind the toilet, but some guy having his dinner could've waited until Mike went to the bathroom, gotten up and wasted Solozzo and McCluskey, and been out of there. Michael may have had to answer a few uncomfortable questions when the police arrived, but that might have created enough plausible deniability to prevent a war against the Corleones by the rest of the five families- lousy movie, but speaking hypothetically, can anyone disprove this theory?

Sammy The Fish

Well, 'hypothetically speaking'...as Vito's son Michael may have wanted to pull the trigger himself.

Also, can you suggest a 'different hiding place than behind the toilet' for the gun and hypothetical 'button'...considering the fact that they knew where Michael was to be taken only an hour and a half before the meeting was to take place?

Not to mention the fact that in order for this 'hit' to be successful...Sollozzo & McClusky had to completely trust Michael and feel safe with him and no chance whatsoever could be taken on some armed button being discovered.

Also can you suggest any 'plausibile deniability' Michael may have possibly come up with while being questioned by police...if the hit 'coincidentally' took place just as he happened to be visiting the Boy's Room during a crucial meeting with Virgil 'The Turk' Sollozzo and Captain McClusky in a location that the Corleones were not even supposed to know about? And how this would have prevented a war?

I'm sure there are more reasons why it HAD to be Michael pulling the trigger...but those are some of the first that come to mind.

Apple

Sammy, the short answer is that it made for the highest possible drama in that situation: the final transformation of Michael from "nice college boy" to Don-in-Waiting. It made credible his flight to Sicily and everything that happened afterward. Even though Michael was never formally "made" in the Mafia (his father wouldn't have stood for it), he "made his bones" in the shooting. That's how he got to be accepted as his father's successor.

The scenario you suggested was, as you know, used by Charlie Luciano to get rid of Joe (the Boss) Masseria in the Castellemmarese War. It worked for him, but it wouldn't have worked for the storyline of GF.

Also, it's important for Board members to read the novel. It provides amswers to many Board questions especially about motivations. Such is the case regarding why it had to be Michael. In this case, I believe it's Sonny who says that if they used a button man, Sollozzo would catch on right away.

Well, my idea is that if they knew where to plant a gun, they could have had a button man (or men) there in advance, waiting inside or outside the restaurant, to do the hit either inside while Michael was in the bathroom, like (as Turnbull mentioned) the Luciano hit on Joe "The Boss" Masseria, in the Nuova Villa Tammaro in Coney Island (which is the hit that originally inspired my question) or outside the restaurant, as in the John Gotti hit on Paul Castellano outside Spark's Steakhouse in Manhattan.

As far as the plausible deniability question, Luciano, to the best of my knowledge, made no effort to hide the fact that he was in the restaurant with Masseria, nor would Michael have had to. He was involved in a buisness meeting with some associates of his Father. The more pertinent question would be "Why was this Police Captain having dinner with a known top narcotics man and the war hero son of an infamous syndicate big shot?"

Finally, how could it have avoided the war? The tiny grain (and I grant you, it IS tiny) of doubt that would be in the minds of the heads of the five families would be based in the question, "Would they risk the life of Don Corleone's previously un-involved non-combatant son, just to draw out Solozzo and McClusky? And if they were going to do that, why go through the trouble of sending in a hit team? Why not just have Michael do the deed?" I'm not saying that would have prevented the war outright, Barzini wouldn't have bought it, and Tattaglia would have gone along with it if for no other reason because of his son- but Stracchi and Cuneo may have withheld support to anyone, and may have thrown their hats in with the Corleones instead.

Turnbull, I grant you that this was the way to develop the maximum drama and that my scenarios would have probably made for a lousy movie (or at the very least, a very different one that probably would have made Michael a character secondary to Santino) but my intent was to try and explore how the hit might have been done in a true-life Mafia world. I should have been more clear on that in my original post.

Finally, Olivant- I shamefully have not read the novel in about ten years- yes, I know, it's an infamnia! and I'm a total disgraziare , but I will try to rectify that as soon as I can find a copy of the book here in Iraq.

Thank you all for your replies, hope we can keep this going- it's stimulating.

Sammy The Fish

Indeed it could have gone down differently--even bloodlessly. Before you joined us and began your excellent and stimulating posts, Sammy , I offered this possible scenario:
As Michael told Sonny, Tom and Clemenza, the family had newspaper people on the payroll who would have liked a story about how McCluskey, a dishonest cop, got mixed up with rackets and murder. What's more, the Corleones had extensive dealings (novel) with McCluskey, and could provide details. Without another gun being fired, Tom could have gone to the papers with the "crooked McCluskey" story, including his involvement with Sollozzo, and how the captain pulled the guards off Vito. The papers would give it a big sendoff. And, considering the high profile of Vito's shooting, the Police Commissioner would be unable to look the other way. At minimum, McCluskey would have been transferred or suspended "pending investigation." With some push from Vito's judges and politicians, McCluskey might even have been dismissed or tried for corruption. Sollozzo would have been hunted down, and either charged with Vito's shooting, or deported back to Sicily. The Commissioner would have been forced to put policemen around Vito's hospital bed to prevent another public relations disaster. With McCluskey alive and exposed, there'd have been no crackdown on the Five Families' rackets, and thus no reason for a Five Families War. The Corleones would then be free to squash Tattaglia like a bug. Since Vito wasn't aware of Barzini's involvment at that time, he'd have gotten a pass. Michael would have remained a civilian, gone back to college, and married Kay.

And there would have been no Godfather Trilogy.

Why? Since you & Turnbull have been discussing how it WAS done in the true-life Mafia world.

The thing about The Godfather is that besides being about a Crime Family...it is about a Family. Father, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, even Godsons. Without that, it would've simply been another mob story (not that there's anything wrong with that...).

And that's why it HAD to be Michael doing the shooting.

That's also why, when making the movie, FFC wisely kept the primary focus on the Corleones themselves and steered clear of the background stories of other characters...however interesting they may have been in the original novel.

Apple

Okay, I conceed- it was a lousy idea, both for the scenario that Turnbull related (quite good, by the way) and for the reasons that Apple has brought up. As a mere "wiseguy" I defer to the more experienced members- but someday, and that day may never come, who knows what might happen...

Sammy The Fish