Thats it.

I know their marriage was bad from the start. But it seemed like it was going on for some time at that point.

It was their wedding night.

The whole Carlo situation has always confused me. I am sure he knew the family he was marrying in to. Did he marry Connie just to be part of the family? Assuming he did, why would he allow himself to be a target of the family by abusing Connie? It seems to me that since Connie grew up in the family, she was knowledgeable in the way a family members wife should act. In other words Carlo would have have lots of freedom, without Connie constantly questioning him, so why would he take the chance of flaunting his "activities", and why would he beat her? At least Ray Liotta as Henry Hill in "Goodfellas" learned by Carlo mistakes.

He abused Connie because he was bitter that the Corleones did not make him an important part of the family and instead gave him just a living.

There is a deleted scene where Connie and Carlo are fighting in the Corleone house and Mama complains to Vito about it and Vito tells her not to interfere. Then later on, after Vito is shot, the family is sitting around for dinner and Carlo tells Connie to shut up at the table and Santino almost jumps over the table telling Carlo "Hey, don't you ever tell her to shut up again" (Another classic Sonny scene ) and Mama Corloene cuts in and says "Santino, don't interfere."

The "don't interfere" by Vito and then the "don't interfere" by Mama were, in Carlo's eyes, a license to treat Connie however way he wanted to. So he abused her because deep down he knew that what the Corloene's had given him in within the family business was menial.

I think that in the novel there is even a part where Puzo tells us that Carlo would get abused verbally by some of his friends because he didn't have a "real position" in the Corleone family, so he went home and took it out on Connie. (Olivant or TB should be able to confirm or deny this for me).

Sounds very similar to my avatar, Paul Castellano, and the situation with his daughter. She was married to a guy that was in the Gambino organization that was abusive to his daughter. Castellano didn't do anything about it, but as soon as they divorced the ex son in law disappeared and was never heard from again.

You have to wonder - how stupid do you have to be to beat up the daughter of the head of a crime family?

Really really really stupid!

Really, really, really, really stupid, DC!!


As soon as Big Paul's daughter miscarried her baby that was "all she wrote" for hubby.

Stupid bastard.

I didn't realize it was after she miscarried - I thought they divorced. It was still incredibly stupid!!

As the novel says, Carlo was punk sore at the world because he felt the Corleones had shunted him aside with a small bookmaking operation and had not given him one of hte houses in the mall.

But I am surprised that Vito allowed his wife to get beat up. I don't really understand that on Puzo's part unless he was trying to set up Carlo's betrayal. But keep in mind that when Connie asked her dad if he ever hit momma, he replied "She never gave me reason to." That is not very reassuring, is it?

Barbaric as it sounds to most of us in this day and age, it was fairly typical in most cultures for a husband to have the right to "discipline" (as the English common law put it) his wife under certain circumstances. If mama had gien Vito a reason to hit her, he would have.

To read a chilling account of this practice in Afghanistan today (and to read a really great novel), pick uo A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Exactly right DT. It was almost "accepted" by the old school people in those days. Horrible and disgusting as it sounds, it was not uncommon.

Did we ever see Carlo in a wife beater T-shirt?

*Usually worn by men, although sometimes worn by women. They are generally made for underwear, generally have large sleeve holes and a large neck, down to near the breasts, in fact. also known as a-shirts

The term originates from frequent depictions of aggressive middle aged men, usually living in low conditions (such as living in a trailer) and having low income, who would be depicted as beating their wife or children and sitting in front of a TV, watching a football game and drinking beer in a stained white sleeveless shirt.

In the Chicagoland area, this type of shirt is often known as a Dago T. This is due to its popularity with men of Italian descent. In fact, this is the undershirt usually seen being worn by Tony In the Sopranos.

I think the reason why Vito did not interfere to stop Carlo's beating of Connie- and I think this was mentioned in the novel- was that Connie was married to him. She chose him. Had they not been married, Vito most definately would have interfered. Disgusting, but kind of like a "she's not my problem / property" type attitude.

Actually, Vito was showing his wisdom concerning human behavior. Ask any policeman, and they will tell you how difficult it is to answer domestic violence calls. They can appear on the scene and the couple with be at each others throats with guns and knives, but as soon as an cop touches one of them, they get really defensive. Lets face it most men have their hands full keeping harmony in their own marriages without having to get involved in their childrens.

A stretch:
I'm guessing that Vito, a generally shrewd judge of character, knew Carlo was worthless--note that even on Carlo's wedding day, he warned Tom never to discuss the family business with Carlo. If Vito knew that, he probably discouraged Connie from marrying him. When she married him anyway, Vito might have taken the attitude, "Well, she made her own bed--let her sleep in it."

Since . . .






History: Design of the Constellation began in 1939, when Pan American Airways and Transcontinental & Western Air (later TWA) issued a design requirement for a 40-passenger airliner for their domestic routes. Production of the resulting L-49 by Lockheed began, but was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. The US Army Air Corps commandeered at least 22 of the aircraft off the assembly line, designated them C-69s, and used them as transports.

After the war, when civil production resumed under several designations, the military ordered a new, longer-range version called the C-121. Civilian variants included the 48-81 passenger L-649, which was replaced in 1947 by the longer-range L-749, and then by the 109-passenger L-1049 Super Constellation in 1949. The last of the "Connies" was the L-1649A Starliner, with a completely new wing and greater fuel capacity and range. Production of all Constellations ended in the late 1950s, but the type lived on for decades as an airliner and freighter in many smaller countries.

If I'm not mistaken, the Constellation in the photo above is housed at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson, AZ. I saw it there last January during a visit, and boarded it. That aircraft supposedly was used by JFK and LBJ. Perhaps it was a backup to Air Force One, a Boeing 707 that was the site of LBJ's famous swearing-in photo on 11/22/63. Boy, was that Constellation ever cramped for space. Probably the only reason the Presidents used it was that it couldn't accommodate any reporters.