Originally posted by Tony Soprano:
If Roth was sly enough to coordinate a whack job so fine-tuned that it would 1) involve whacking Pentangeli 2) have a cop interrupt the job 3) make Pentangeli think that the whole job was Mike's idea 4) Scare Pentangeli into thinking running to the FBI.....I would say that Roth is smarter than Vito himself!! Turnbull can elaborate on this scene for us, I'm sure. haha
Clemenza was a wonderful character, but Michael V. Gazzo as Pentangeli was just as wonderful. He's "Everyman as Capo," bewildered by the new way of doing things, trying to do his best, often doing his worst.
As for "Michael Corleone says hello:
As I've posted many times: Why would Tony Rosato utter that line to a guy who was only seconds away from death—unless he intended him to live? Doesn’t it prove that Roth had planned for the New York cop to come in and foil the “murder attempt,” so that Frankie would live to indict Michael?
In a word: No. Not even Roth was clever enough to have bet his life on a split-second-timed plot to turn Frankie against Michael. Why would he even try, when he already had Michael in his killing-bottle in Havana? The simplest explanation is one that has been uncovered by Godfather scholars in an interview with Danny Aiello, who played Tony Rosato. Aiello admits he ad-libbed the famous line, and Francis Coppola, for some reason (probably inadvertence), permitted the ad-lib to remain in the film, to the eternal bafflement of Godfather fans. But it’s also possible that Coppola, the most careful of directors, allowed it to remain because it fit the plot, even though the Rosatos intended to kill Frankie all along. “Michael Corleone says hello” was intended not for Frankie—but for Richie, the bartender, whose ginmill was being used to set up Frankie.
It’s obvious that Richie is a “civilian,” not a Made Man, and he’s nervous as hell about his bar being used for a murder (“Carmine, NO, not HERE!” he screams at Tony’s brother (played by Carmine Caridi) after the cop enters and Carmine draws his gun). The Rosatos know that Richie might be squeezed by the cops investigating Frankie’s murder. Richie would be too fearful of the Rosatos to identify them as the killers. Still, as a civilian, Richie is not bound by the code of omerta. So they hand Richie something he can give the cops so that Richie can get off the hook: “The murderers said, ‘Michael Corleone says hello.’ ” That line would set the police after Michael, and would be picked up by the press-- another nail into the coffin of Michael Corleone’s “legitimacy.” Clever Roth!
