Welcome, .45ACP [big slow round]. You've posted in the right spirit for these boards.
1. (Part II) Vito Corleone was 9 years old when he came to America. He was married and had his first child (Santino) in 1917, right? Do we khow how old was Vito in 1917?
Dates are all over the place. In GF, the tombstone shown at his burial shows his birthdate in April 1887, which would make him 13 in 1900, when GFII opens. But he looks younger in that GFII opening scene--about 9 years old, which would jibe with a birth year of 1891. The flashback at the end of GFII shows Vito's birthday as December 7, not April 29, which is what's inscribed on his tombstone in GF. Go figure...
As for Santino: we never know his exact age in the films. The novel says he was 35 in 1945, giving him a birth year of 1910, same as Tom.
2. (Part II) Was Tessio the young guy who invited Vito to go to the theater with him to see his girlfriend/actress, and later told Don Fenucci to "sit down" inside the theater?
That was Genco, not Tessio.
3. (Part II) Vito hides the pistols and later meets their owner, young Clemenza, who helps him steal a rug for his wife. What was the baby's name that Clemenza set on the new rug?
That was Fredo.
4. (Part II) Was this young Clemenza the same "fat" Clemenza of the 1940's, who later "dies of a heart attack?"
Yes.
5. (Part II) Was Tessio the other guy at the Corleone dinner table with Vito and Clemenza the day Vito offered to take $50 from each of them and settle with Don Fenucci?
Yes again.
6. (Part II) How much time passed between the rug theft and the murder of Don Fanucci?
Not much time. Since Vito was out of work and his family presumably starving, he'd have had to have acted soon.
7. (Part II) Immediately after the murder, Vito returns to the stoop in front of his apartment and sits down with his wife and children. Santino appears to be about 6, and a "chubby" Fredo (obviously healed up from his bout with pneumonia) about 12 months older than baby Michael who Vito holds. Have I properly identified the children?
Yes, broadly. I say "broadly" because the movie timelines are inexact compared with the novel's timelines, which aren't exactly models of precision, either. But that's not a big deal: we know the sequence of births of the Corleone children, and that's the important thing.
Bonus question: Does anyone recall a scene in GF or Part II where Godfather Michael smiles?
In a deleted scene from GF, Michael is positively giddy in bed with Kay in a hotel in NYC, when he calls Tom to say he'll be coming to the family Xmas gathering at the Mall--prior to Vito being shot. I think I discerned the ghost of a smile on his face in Havana when Roth said, "The doctors would disagree, but what do they know?"
The only actor who smiled less than Pacino in the Trilogy was Robert Stack in the run of "The Untouchables" on TV.
