Since everyone agrees that it wasn't Fredo who killed the hitmen, then it must have been a part or paties unknown. On that we all agree, right?

What you are doing, Ceasar, is insisting that the killer had to be a character with whom we are familiar: Rocco.

What the rest of us are saying is that because the Rocco theory has so many flaws, it could not have been him, and in the absence of any other suspects whose participation would fit the facts, that is was "parties unknown" who were responsible.

Turnbull makes the point that since it was parties unknown, it makes little difference who they were, since the main thing from Michael's POV was to discover who the traitor in his family was.

I take a more critical view, on the other hand, calling FFC's failure to identify the killer or killers of the shooters a flaw in the film.

You want a scenario that raises no new questions of its own in addition to the holes in the asassination plot that we are already aware of (How did the assassins get onto the property in the first place? How could they depend on those drapes being open?), I'll give you one:

Fredo was told it was going to be a kidnapping, and that his role was to leave the bedroom drapes open so the kidnappers wpould know when Michael was in his room and they could grab him.

There were four of them. They got onto the property through Roth and his Nevada connections.

Roth was able to plant the four of them as workers for one of the caterers, or maybe as workers for the guys who delivered the tables and chairs or the tent.

They got onto the property, did their catering work or helped set up the tables and chairs, and then, when the trucks that they arrived on departd, the four of them slipped off into the woods to hide.

While waiting for night time when they would attempt the actual assassination, two of them killed the other two.

They were garrotted of course, since gunfire would have attracted attentiom.

Then, when it came time to open fire, the two shooters who were still alive dragged the two ones out from the woods and dumped them in the ditch.

Then they opened fire, and after the shooting, made their escape through the drainage ditch, which led to a large pipe that they were able to crawl through.

This led them to the shoreline of the lake, several hundred yards down from the compound, where a boat was waiting for them to help them get away.

It was necessary for the actual shooters to kill the other two guys because, as we see, once they were found the search stopped. So the two dead guys in the ditch were merely decoys who facilitated the escape of the real shooters.

So Fredo's role was to take care of the drapes, show Roth or whoever where along the lake's shoreline the getaway boat should be positioned, and point out to one of the assassins which ditch led off the property to the shoreline where the boat would be waiting.

None of this had to be depicted in the film, because as Turnbull suggests, it was unimportant.

We never learn the actual identities of the two guys in the ditch, and we never learn the identity of who killed them, because it doesn't make any difference.

There's a lot that we don't know about how the plot itself worked or was supposed to work, but that is unimportant because what we don't know are merely "operational details."

All that is important for the purposes of the film is that it was Fredo who was the traitor within the family.

So what did Fredo mean when he said "You guys lied to me."?

And why did Roth need "non-Roth assassins"?

And here's a better one:

If Fredo supplied the assassins through Pentangelli, how do you explain the conversation that Fredo and Frankie had upon seeing each other at the party for the first time?

PENTANGELI: Hey, FREDO -- you remember, uh, WILLIE CICCI, he was with old man CLEMENZA in Brooklyn. Yeah, look here --

FREDO: Look, we were all upset about that, Frankie. Heart attack, huh?

WILLIE CICCI: No - No, that was no heart attack.

PENTANGELI: Tha's -- Tha'sa -- That's what I'm here to see your brother Mike about. But wha' -- what's with him?

FREDO: What do you mean?

PENTANGELI: I mean, what do I hafta do, get a letter of introduction to get a sit-down?

FREDO: You, you can't get in to see Mike?

PENTANGELI: He's got me waiting in a lobby!

Isn't that strange conversation for two guys to be having who are in the assassination plot together?