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Re: The Five Families
#50114
11/23/04 07:57 PM
11/23/04 07:57 PM
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 15,058 The Slippery Slope
plawrence
RIP StatMan
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RIP StatMan
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 15,058
The Slippery Slope
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They are all mentioned in both the book and movie.
The book devotes a paragraph or so to each of the other four besides Don C.
"Difficult....not impossible"
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Re: The Five Families
#50117
01/26/05 04:02 PM
01/26/05 04:02 PM
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Joined: Dec 2004
Posts: 111 South Jersey
MistaMista_Tom_Hagen
Made Member
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Made Member
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Posts: 111
South Jersey
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yea Cunio and Strachi are mentioned numerous times in GFR, Barzini and Tattaglia limitedly.
I never understood, this big debate over whether the Corleone's are one of the 5 Families or not. Considering a 5th family besides Barzini, Stracci, Cuneo, and Tattaglia is never mentioned, wouldn't it be obvious to conclude that the Corleone's MUST be the fifth family? I don't understand what people are debating.
"By the way, I admire your pictures very much." - Tom Hagen
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Re: The Five Families
#50119
01/26/05 11:30 PM
01/26/05 11:30 PM
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238 The Ravenite Social Club
Don Cardi
Caporegime
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Caporegime

Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 18,238
The Ravenite Social Club
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Originally posted by MistaMista_Tom_Hagen: yea Cunio and Strachi are mentioned numerous times in GFR, Barzini and Tattaglia limitedly.
I never understood, this big debate over whether the Corleone's are one of the 5 Families or not. Considering a 5th family besides Barzini, Stracci, Cuneo, and Tattaglia is never mentioned, wouldn't it be obvious to conclude that the Corleone's [b] MUST be the fifth family? I don't understand what people are debating. [/b] I believe that in the movie a reference is made to killing the heads of the 5 families! So there lies the debate. Obviously Moe Green was the 5th hit, but Green did NOT have his own family. And If memory serves me correctly ( been a long time since I read the book) Cuneo and Stracci were not part of the hit. Only Tattaglia, Barzini and Moe Green are killed in the book. Don Cardi 
Don Cardi Five - ten years from now, they're gonna wish there was American Cosa Nostra. Five - ten years from now, they're gonna miss John Gotti.
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Re: The Five Families
#50121
01/28/05 01:03 PM
01/28/05 01:03 PM
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 15,058 The Slippery Slope
plawrence
RIP StatMan
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RIP StatMan
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 15,058
The Slippery Slope
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Originally posted by MistaMista_Tom_Hagen: I never understood, this big debate over whether the Corleone's are one of the 5 Families or not. Considering a 5th family besides Barzini, Stracci, Cuneo, and Tattaglia is never mentioned, wouldn't it be obvious to conclude that the Corleone's [b] MUST be the fifth family? I don't understand what people are debating. [/b] This has been an oft-discussed and debated topic here. I suggest you read this thread: http://www.thegodfathertrilogy.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004457 There are numerous passages in the novel which would seem to indicate that there were Five Families besides the Corleones, must notably the one cited in the thread above by SC. The only thing that I think everyone is willing to agree to is that this is a case (and not the only one) of sloppy writing by Puzo. As I said in my post in the thread above, he was sloppy in either a) writing passages that clearly indicate the existence of another family when he did not intend there to be another family, or b) writing passages that clearly indicate the existence of another family because he intended there to be another family, but failing to name them. From the novel: "The representatives of the Five Families of New York were the last to arrive and Tom Hagen was struck by how much more imposing, impressive, these five men were than the out-of-towners, the hicks." Clearly, Don C. had already arrived, and was not one of the five. Originally posted by SC: Puzo, for whatever reason, simply left out the name (and description) of one of the New York Families. The novel explains that there were to be representatives from ten other Families besides the New York Five Families. Only six of them were identified (Carlo Tramonti from Florida, Joseph Zaluchi from Detroit, Frank Falcone from the movie unions on the West Coast, Anthony Molinari from San Francisco, Domenick Panza from Boston, and Vincent Forlenza from Cleveland). The fact the other four Families weren't described doesn't mean they didn't exist. So it is with the "missing" New York Family.
Puzo clearly made a distinction between Vito Corleone and the other five Families. He wrote that Vito had arrived first, and later the five New York Dons arrived.
I cannot even offer a reason why Puzo didn't describe the fifth Family, but that descriptive omission doesn't mean the Family didn't exist.
In short, there were five New York Families PLUS the Corleones.
"Difficult....not impossible"
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Re: The Five Families
#50124
02/07/05 03:11 PM
02/07/05 03:11 PM
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,696 AZ
Turnbull
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 19,696
AZ
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As pl and others noted, this is an oft-discussed topic. I'm not sure there's ever going to be a definitive answer. It is a fact that Puzo refers to "five families" and "The Five Families" in many places. And, as in the quote pl reproduced, he refers to "these five men" as if there were five of them in addition to Vito Corleone, strongly implying that there were six families. It is also a fact that he never names more than five families. [The five that are named are always Corleone, Barzini, Tattaglia, Stracci and Cuneo. My gut tells me that, since he never named a sixth family, there were five total--including Corleone--and that the references to "The Five Families" either represented Puzo referring to them generically, or sloppy writing, or both.
Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu, E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu... E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.
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