Another question: Are there any references to made men in The Godfather? I don’t remember ever hearing anyone talking about someone having their button or being straightened out like they do in other mob movies and areas of entertainment. It seems to be such an honor for people in that life and while it’s safe to assume that the main male characters have all been made, there is no mention of it. Michael most likely went through the ceremony and was made acting boss as soon as he got back to New York.

I didn't realize this thread was the book forum!

Sonny was a hothead can't talk business with him Tom's appointment was in peace time

Vito wasn't exactly overrun with choices He knew Sonny was a bad Don, Tom wasn't a wartime Consiglieri

I don't think Tom put all the pieces together of Michael's baptism murders master plan In fairness they played everything close to their chest and needed him to be clean

He knew they were going to come at Michael but then says he thought it would have been Clemenza not Tessio He knew Tessio was a dead man but I reckon he didn't figure the brutality of it all No one did!

He did find out about the existence of Rocco's secret regime but reckon that was because of the finances, they were being paid more than their jobs worth and Rocco was reporting direct to Michael not through him

In his Senate subcommittee testimony in II, Cicci mentions that "at first I was a button," and explains what "button" means. It's not clear that Michael was "made," since he happened into the job after Sonny was killed. For that matter, it's not clear that every made man went through a ceremony we're familiar with. One of the nice things about being an absolute sovereign (the Don) is that he can do what he wants. Fat Vinnie Teresa, a former New England mafioso turned government rat, said that there was no ceremony there: "the boss just called you to The Office one day and said you were in."

Fair point Evita makes sense

So no “My compliments” to Geary Poor Tom still copped the look from Michael
The licence seemed done deal, with good man Turnbull Nobody saw the squeeze coming!

Fair point. Like you, I think that it is implied that they were “made”. But during this period in the mafia, some families seemed to be much more close-knit so maybe a ceremony wasn’t always necessary for some people. Vito’s kids were very much born into that life and grew up in it even though he did not want them to enter his world and his two key capos Clemenza and Tessio were with him from the beginning. Before the american mafia was organized into separate families.

Another note is that Lucky Luciano actually wanted to get rid of the ceremony altogether but Vito Genovese persuaded him to keep it.

Thanks for the link reference

Vito liability more than Tom He caused all the problems
1 permitting Carlo marry Connie
2 treating Carlo outcast
3 allowing Carlo beat Connie
4 appointing Tom consigliere
5 letting himself be shot
6 Sonny bad Don
7 Sonny killed because Carlo beat Connie
8 Fredo was well
9 Michael never wanted this for you

10. Sending Luca Brasi to his death

Why do we never see a loose side of Michael? Just for some character involvement etc.. I always get the impression Pacinos character is a bit..just one sided...

I understand the films and the seriousness, but to have or at least see another side of him as a charachter might of added some depth that’s maybe missing...

Good point, Fergie. We do see one example of Michael's playful side in a deleted scene from GF. He's in a hotel bed with Kay in NY. He convinces her to play a telephone operator, calling Tom Hagen "long distance" so Michael can tell Tom he's still in New Hampshire and will be at the Mall later. He and Kay giggle.

As far as I know, Michael makes one--count 'em, one--joke in the Trilogy. At his party in III, Johnny Fontaine sings "Salcicc' His Own" (a pun on "To Each His Own), and Michael leaves the room. He says he's going to the kitchen to get a "salcicc' sandwich." Yuck yuck.

There's this deleted scene in the hotel room with Kay:

https://youtu.be/gX2nxwYkXDA

I don't know if it gets into any video versions.

Edit: what TB said above.

There's also the deleted scene when Michael interviews his niece's fiance and jokes about his wealth.

What might have been....perhaps glimpses of “loose side of Michael”!

The Godfather

• Michael and Kay

after “The Bells of St. Mary's” at Radio City Music Hall -

Kay: Mike, would you like me better if I were a nun? Like in the story, you know?
Michael: (after pausing) No

Kay: Then would you like me better if I were Ingrid Bergman?
Michael: Now that's a thought...

• Michael and Clemenza

during Clemenza tutoring Michael about the noisy gun to kill Sollozzo and McCluskey -

Clemenza: All right, you shot them both Now what do you do?
Michael: Sit down, finish my dinner...

• Michael and Apollonia

Sicily scenes

The Godfather II - deleted scene [what Olivant said above]
Sonny's daughter Francesca and fiancé Gardener Shaw

This was a really nice scene indeed showing Michael having a heart! as the loving, caring family man, joking and laughing as opposed to the ruthless, murderous Mafia Don

Sadly, it also showed how Fredo was not part of Family matters nor Family business nor....“And Fredo -- well -- Fredo was -- well --”

...and, sadly, earlier in the boathouse, Tom excluded from the discussion with Johnny Ola.

The Francesca scene is, as you said, really nice. As I've mentioned before: in the "Saga" version of GF and II shown many times on US cable TV, there's an additional ~10 seconds at the very end of that scene. Michael turns to a hulking young man in a plaid sports coat and says, "How's the football, Santino?" "Fine, Uncle Michael," he replies. That guy is Sonny's second son (his oldest son, Frank, was shown reading a "Get Well" card to Vito when he returned home from the hospital in GF).

I'd be curious to know about the evolution of Fredo from book to movie? In the book, Fredo is portrayed as a tough guy who falls to pieces when Vito is shot. Were they writing with Cazale in mind when they changed him into a pipsqueak bumbler? Did they audition tons of guys for the role?

Well, not really Pete. In the novel it says that at 30 he's still living with his parents, is dutiful, and has no animal force. It's Sonny who says that Freddie was always a pretty tough guy. So, there's really nothing in the novel except Sonny's statement to assess Fredo as a tough guy.

True Turnbull but Tom had his wife and kids Fredo had no one No wonder he was latching onto Greene, Ola and Roth for attention, respect and love!

Uh ... Deanna.

Uh ... Deanna. like a hole in the head

Fancy telling the Mafia crime boss I have heard a lot about you!

You go to college to get stupid? Really stupid

I might have read somewhere that when Coppola was scouting, he saw John Cazale in a play and had found his Fredo

Michael telling that Michael was more father! than uncle to Sonny's daughter Francesca when Michael -

• didn't bother to say goodbye to his own daughter Mary, only to his son Anthony when leaving for Miami, New York and Havana after the Tahoe shooting
• didn't even inquire after his own daughter nor a Christmas gift for her, at the Desert Inn on his return from Havana

Anthony's friends were his button men who were Mary's?

No goodbye but he inquired Kay know I'm back? after the wet towel

Well, this isn't the "just one" question I could ask, but it is a question.

In GFII when Michael returns from Cuba and enters the motel room, he tells Neri and Lampone to leave. He then asks Tom a few questions one of which is about Fredo. Instead of answering him, Tom informs Michael about his bodyguard and Roth. I wonder why he didn't simply answer Michael's question right there and then. Of course, when he does answer about Fredo, he states that he "thinks" Fredo got out of Cuba and he must be in New York. Why the speculation by Tom. If Tom knows, he should just tell Michael; if he doesn't know, he should say that. .

Oli, I suspect that Tom was trying to conceal, or at least soft-pedal, that Fredo had called him as soon as he got to NY from Havana. I enlarged on it in a thread I started a while back. Don Cardi even imagined some dialog:
http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=977661&page=1

Tom didn't say he didn't talk to Fredo, but he didn't admit he did. Two curious things about this interchange:
1. Michael easily could have seen right through Tom's circumlocution. Why didn't he confront Tom and press him for what else Fredo told him?
2. We saw that Michael was frantic to get Fredo on the plane that would take him out of Havana. But, in that hotel room, he simply tells Tom to "get word" to Fredo, when he could have had Fredo hauled out of NY and brought to him. He didn't summon Fredo until he learned that the subcommittee had Pentangeli. Why?

BTW: I've always believed that Tom had a soft spot for Fredo, perhaps because he believed that Fredo, like him, was being treated by Michael as an outsider, not as a brother. Even after Michael learned about Pentangeli's survival, Tom tells Michael: "Fredo says he knows nothing, and I believe him." As it happened, Fredo knew a lot--enough to have gotten Michael out of that perjury trap Roth and Questadt set for him, if Fredo'd done the right thing and voluntarily told Michael what he knew.

I think that a couple things are going on with the script there. Within the scene, they're running up the emotional ladder from Anthony's electric car to "Was it a boy?", so they can't get bogged down on Fredo. They have to keep his whereabouts vague, because his big reveal has to come later.

Within the movie, the scene sets up Kay hurting Michael by specifically gloating that she aborted his son. That doesn't really resonate unless they establish that Michael's irrational on that specific point.

Here's another question which I've asked before and which noone has yet answered. Given that the Trilogy is on TV the next few days, maybe one of you can watch and answer.

The final scene in GFII (after the flashback) is Michael sitting on his estate contemplating his life and decisions (no doubt). Look closely at the top of the screen in the background of that scene. You will see several people walking from left to right. You can barely see them. There seem to be several of them walking two by two. They are dressed in black, but you can only see them below the knee. Who are they? What are they doing in that scene? It's driving me crazy?

Looking real close, I can make out George Hamilton, Eli Wallach, Joe Mantegna, C-3PO, and a Wookie. I suspect that the images may have been added sometime after the film's original release.

All I have is a guess that they're allegorical, demonstrating that Michael's actions have left him alone, even when others are nearby. That might echo the last shot of the surprise party scene.

Well, it could be allegorical. However, those people in that scene are hardly detectable by the average viewer.