You're right, Oli:
Vegas was Nevada's fourth largest city with 5,000 (count 'em, 5,000) souls until 1931. That's when work began on the Hoover Dam. The state legislature knew the project would bring ~10,000 workers to a site only 20 miles from Vegas. They were going to gamble (illegally) anyway, so the legislature legalized gambling in order to bring revenue to Nevada and to tax the profits. At that point, Vegas became a boom town.

It pleases a lot of people to think Bugsy Siegel (aka Moe Greene in the movie) "built" Las Vegas. Fact is, it was a thriving city by the time he opened the Flamingo in '46. The real builder of modern Vegas was Moe Dalitz.

Orange dress! she is a dead woman

Roth's speech about Moe Greene to stoic Michael - Ola is looking smug that Michael has no idea Pentangeli is alive

Why did Johnny Ola turn up at Michael table in the Superman club
It clearly made Fredo uncomfortable

Finally, I watched a Mafia documentary last night about Las Vegas that told the truth: the Flamingo was the brainchild of Billy Wilkerson, not Siegal.

I was also surprised to learn that there were three people in the house on the night that Siegel was murdered: one was a companion of his and the other two were Virginia's brother and his girlfriend.

Perhaps Ola was trying to back up Fredo's earlier “No I never met them” with his “we never met” which means to me they were in contact in Havana

I reckon it is a reasonable assumption he would have known that Roth and Ola were in Havana
Then why did he ask Michael anybody I know in Havana? I reckon that was his pre-emptive bid of his treacherous role He is smart not dumb

Did Al Pacino really slap Diane Keaton

When Michael slapped Kay in Hotel Washington after Kay's abortion / unholy and evil denouncement, Kay's reaction to the slap was either very good acting or Kay had no idea the slap was coming....

Kay gasped, jerked and staggered, falling back on the couch, in a heap [left handed slap from right handed Michael who was still holding the cigarette in his right hand!]

The above perhaps is not dissimilar to the below

I seem to recall,
Marlon Brando improvised slapping Al Martino to “act like a man”
Johnny Fontane's confused reaction was real as the slapping was not in the script

John Marley was not aware that a real horse head had been substituted for the prop used during rehearsals
Jack Woltz's screams were real when he saw the severed head of the horse which was obtained from a dog food factory

I hope he did! for what she did!!

Well, that scene raises a couple of points:

First, Kay shouts with vehemence: "And it was a boy, Michael!" Kay was in her first trimester (when Michael asked Tom, after he got back from Havana, if it was a boy, Tom replied, "Michael, after three months?"). Amneocentisis was unknown in the US in 1959. Kay couldn't have known for sure if it was a boy. She spit that out at Michael to hurt him.

Second, how did Kay get the abortion? Although abortion was illegal in the US before Roe v. Wade (1973), any woman or girl with a few hundred bucks could have gotten one from a real doctor, in a medical office or clinic. But, Kay was a virtual prisoner at the Tahoe estate while Michael was away. Kay might have told Tom that "something wasn't right" with the pregnancy. He would either have arranged for her Dr. to see her at Tahoe, or had her taken under guard to a hospital. Either way, the Dr.'s identity would be known, and he would have had to certify that she had a "miscarriage." Think Michael would have let him get away with that? For that matter, do you think that any Dr. in his right mind, knowing who Kay's husband was, would have stuck his neck out?

Yeah, there's no way Kay could have known that. It was either directorial license or Kay just saying it to hurt Michael as much as possible.


There's a draft version of the GFII script floating around the internet in which Kay escapes to her parents' house in New Hampshire while Michael is in Cuba. I assume that is when she got the abortion. It probably wouldn't have been too hard to find a doctor there who either didn't know who Kay's husband was or would have been close enough to Kay's old-money family that he would take the risk.

Whether Michael would let the doctor get away with it is an interesting question. One the one hand, it certainly would be in character for him to hunt down the doctor. On the other, the abortion was so painful and humiliating for Michael that I can see him just wanting to sweep the whole thing under the rug rather than getting other people involved with making inquiries, pushing a button on the doctor, etc.

Can we be sure that she had an abortion? Maybe it was a miscarriage.

If it was an abortion and Michael did murder the abortionist, that would certainly emerge during the divorce/child custody hearing. Given the investigatory/legal attention that Michael was receiving, would he add to it with a murder suspicion/charge?

Kay's abortion Following on similar thread

My take, for what it is worth!

I too believe, it was a miscarriage [caused by the bedroom shooting trauma]

If it was an abortion [unconvincing indeed] Neri undoubtedly could / would have made discreet inquiries “to hunt down the doctor” who dared to abort Michael Corleone's child and the doctor would be sleeping with the fishes

From what we saw in the movie -
1. Kay told Michael, when they were dancing at Anthony's party [they seemed happy and Kay sounded genuine] the baby felt like a boy
2. Kay was a virtual prisoner at the Tahoe estate while Michael was away

If Kay wanted / needed to see her Obstetrician / Gynaecologist, agree, Tom would either have arranged a home visit to Tahoe or Kay would have been escorted to the medical clinic and escorted straight back to Tahoe, after the consultation

No doctor especially the family doctor would dare perform an abortion on Michael Corleone's wife
They would “realize what will happen as a result” of aborting Michael Corleone's child – sleeping with the fishes

I doubt there would have been any divorce/child custody hearing [Kay didn't seem to have any visitation rights even] as Michael would “use all his power to keep something like that from happening”

See this for a discussion of the possible divorce process and the aftermath:

http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=36402&Searchpage=1&Main=2074&Words=%2BHow+%2Bdid+%2BKay+%2Bget+%2Bthe+%2Bkids&Search=true#Post36402

..

and Michael will never see the New Year

Ref: How did Kay get the kids? [Thanks Turnbull for the link]
Wow! so many threads! There isn't enough time!

I still doubt there would have been any divorce/child custody hearing [Kay didn't seem to have any visitation rights even] in Godfather 2

I concede the children “did end up with Kay eventually” as we found out in Godfather 3

However...
We are none the wiser when Kay got the children....“We don't know when the epiphany started”

Never thought of it like this before. Why do you think that they resented him at times? I think michael and sonny both loved Tom. But there could have been some jealousy there. I’m sure Tom did refer to Vito as his dad but in the scenes we saw he didn’t.

I think Sonny did regard Tom as his brother, but he said two stupid things that may have shown resentment: When Tom advised him to make the deal with Sol if Vito died, Sonny said, "It's easy for you to say, he's not your father." Later, before dinner, Sonny shouted at him, "Pop had Genco, look what I got." But Tom was Sonny's choice for brother, not Michael's. Despite his introducing Tom to Kay at the wedding as "My brother Tom Hagen," and calling him brother after the Tahoe shooting, I don't think Michael ever loved him as a brother the way Sonny did, and he probably did resent Tom--certainly he did in that flashback scene at the end of II.

TB, you're right about Sonny for the most part. But Sonny's mean words said to Tom were the product of Sonny's temper, nor disaffection.

On the other hand, I've maintained for years in these threads that Michael blamed Tom for the Corleone's misfortunes (so have some Board members). Following Michael's introduction of Tom to Kay as his brother, Michael states that although Tom might become Consigliere, he's not a Sicilian. After the hospital thing, it's Tom who advocates waiting and it's Michael who opines "We can't wait." which cements Michael's negative opinion of Tom.

What misfortunes was Tom responsible for? Also, would Tom have made a good boss? Or do you think that he wasn’t ruthless enough like Michael?

I think it’s clear that Michael did think of him as a brother as he dearly missed him in Godfather 3.

Michael Franzese said that The Godfather wasn’t realistic because Tom would never be consigliere. He clearly didn’t know that Vito knew that his decision would not come without gripes from the other families. But he knew Tom was best suited for it and he could be trusted as he was a son to him since he was a young child.

Leave it to Franzese to start taking on The Godfather now.

He said that a while ago but you hit the nail on the head lol. Sammy the Bull said the opposite. Many mobsters have said that it actually mirrored the Italian American mafia life and inner workings. Plus, The Godfather was based largely in the 40s and 50s. Franzese was not exactly in his mafia heyday yet at that time.

Tom wasn't Sicilian, so he didn't fully understand a Sicilian's overarching need for honor and vengeance against all logic. And, as a lawyer, he was oriented toward conciliation and negotiation, not toward force.

Those two traits combined in Tom's failure to anticipate that Carlo would beat up Connie a second time to provoke Sonny losing his temper and falling into his fatal trap. In the novel, Tom, after learning of Sonny's murder, tells himself that he's "no wartime consiglieri; old Genco would have smelled a rat." I'm guessing that Tom's original sin against Michael was in that failure, which resulted in Sonny's death and Michael's having to step into the Donship in Sonny's stead. What was more, Tom failed to learn that Pentangeli had survived, and that the Senate lawyer, Questadt, belonged to Roth. He said to Michael, "Our people with the NY detectives said Pentangeli was half dead, scared, talking out loud about how you betrayed him." Duuh, Tom--how come you didn't check in with "our people with the NY detectives" before you let your one and only client perjured himself five times?

Michael and Sonny were also American so maybe that’s why certain things go by them as well. But Vito should have seen retaliation from Sollozzo coming

TB, good analysis. I would add the scenes in II when Michael introduced Tom simply as his lawyer and when he told Ola that Tom only handled certain family business. In addition, I always thought that Michael blamed Tom for Geary's knowledge of Michael's intention to move against the Tropigala.

Tom also clearly does not like the direction that the corleone family is taking at the end of 2. He remarks to Pentangeli that “it was” in reply to his comment saying “Corleone family was like the Roman Empire”. I have never read the novel at all, but does it say Tom’s reaction upon finding out about Fredo’s murder?

My two cents worth!

Brothers, all sentiments aside....

I reckon the brothers loved each other but it is the business they had chosen

I don't believe Michael blamed Tom for the Corleone's misfortunes

Michael's comment to Kay at Connie's wedding "He's a good lawyer. Not a Sicilian but I think he's gonna be consiglieri" was long before Vito getting shot, Sonny's murder

I agree if not for Michael, Vito would have been killed by Sollozzo, with Police Captain McCluskey letting it happen

Sonny agreed to Tom's advocacy to waiting and it appeared so did the most experienced Clemenza and Tessio too
It doesn't constitute to me, negative opinion of Tom as I reckon it was all about Michael being the better strategist

I reckon Michael would have resented anyone mapping out his future, in that flashback scene at the end of II

No doubt Turnbull
Vito was slipping If anybody is to be blamed, first and foremost, it is Vito for appointing Tom as consiglieri
Michael's concern was justified and in times, detrimental too

Tom seemed clueless It was his sheer incompetence "Duh-h-h, Tom!"