KAY CARPING HARPIE

As a newcomer to this site, I notice postings and threads from time to time about Kay Adams, which frankly, caused me to re-evaluate her character.
She really is an ungrateful, shrill b*tch when you think about it. Michael (if not the plot) would have been better off with Apollonia as his wife, and you gotta read the book "Blink" to understand the impact of his being hit by a thunderbolt. Michael was really "thin slicing" when he proposed to her.

Kay should have known exactly what she was getting into, and she could never have seriously believed that the Corleone family would be legitimate in five years. When they get together Michael plainly tells her it is a condition of their marriage that she is NEVER to discuss the family business, so what does Kay do? Just as soon as Michael whacks the heads of the other five families and resotres the Corleone family -- at the moment of his triumph, she comes in and asks him about the family business.

Next thing they move to Nevada (helloooooo did anyone with a brain think Vegas was on the up and up in 1958?) and here is poor Michael trying to go head to head with a US Senator over a casino operation, and what does Kay do when he gets to relax that night? She complains that the family has not become legitimate (and she gets her dates mixed up in the process). Then she retaliates against Michael when she learns she can't take her kids to New Hampshire by going off an having an abortion, which she tells Mike about immediately after he has gone through the stress of the Senate hearings. My God, no wonder the poor bastard was a nervous wreck having diabetic strokes in GFIII. With support like that who needs enemies? Somehow between GFII and GFIII Michael who previously told Kay he would use all his power to keep her away from her children actually gives her custody because it is in the children's best interest. Then she goes off and marries some wimpy guy who she drags to the ceremony in New York, which she uses as an opportunity not only to convince Michael that Tony should not have to finish law school and be an opera singer, but also to tell Michael how she liked him better when he was a common "mafia hood," and how she dreads him. Then of course in Sicily while Mike is showing her around she is making snide comments about the puppet show, about his marriage to Appolonia, and then she sits there at the table and tells him she really DOES love him. Yeesh!

Yes DonT, I agree! She was a real bitch to him. To add to what you have said, in GFIII when he takes her around Sicily, there is another draft in the script that has them "making love." If memory serves me correctly, when we watch GFIII, there is an implication that they had made love. As you said, she always did things to put him down and question his motives. Then she finishes it off by making love to him, her "common mafia hood!"


Don Cardi

Well, either you are naive about mafia hoods or blind to Michael's transgressions.

First of all, her question about Carlo's murder was in response to Connie's accusations against him. He "chose" to lie to her. He also chose to tell Kay that the family would be legitimate in five years; nothing compelled him to tell her that. He lied again not only because it had been seven years since he told her that, but also because he was doing nothing to extricate himself and his family from underworld involvement. Oh, and then there was that little assassination attempt whereby the assassins sprayed his bedroom with an untold number of bullets - a place he described as "where my wife sleeps and our children come to play with their toys."

Michael did say he was "trying"

This is just another example of how women go into marriage with a man who has some undesirable elements thinking that somehow she will be able to change him!! If ever there was a more erroneous concept, this is it! I agree that Kay knew EXACTLY what she was getting into when she married Michael. When her plan of changing Michael doesn't work, she resorts to the most heinous of acts: abortion. She knows all too well how Michael will react.

This is one of the reasons why I feel GFIII is so unbelievable and so far removed from the GFI and GFII. Only in a soap opera would an ex wife who aborted their child wind up back in the arms (and bed!) of the husband she not only spurned, but stabbed through the heart! Knowing Michael and the values he grew up with, I doubt very much that he could ever bring himself to make love to her again. And, I doubt if the REAL Michael Coreleone would ever agree to allowing his children to be raised by her. That goes totally against everything he believes. So, that's why GFIII is so ridiculous in light of the other GF parts.

~~ Lollie

Lollie, have you watched the same GF movies that I have watched?

What is it about Michael that Kay anticipates changing when she marries him? He is the one that pursues her. He is the one who tells her that he loves her and wants them to marry and have children. He's the one who tells her that his father's way of doing busines is over and that the Corleone family will be legitimate in five years. So, I repeat: What is it that Kay anticipates changing in Michael? I don't remember that dialogue.

In GF III there is no affection shared between the two of them. Or did I miss that torrid love scene? Did he not ask to show her Sicily and did she not reject his offer? Did he not disguise himself as her driver in order to circumvent that rejection? So, again, who was pursuing who?

She spurned him, huh? How awful of her to let a little thing like having their bedroom sprayed with bullets, murdering her sister-in-law's husband, being surrounded night and day by murderers, thugs, and theives, cause such spurning. And, oh, what was that other little thing? Oh yes, murdering his own brother. The nerve of her!

We had an interesting thread a few years back on whether or not Michael and Kay's relationship was a long-running power struggle twixt the two. It's true, as Lollie says, that some women (men, too, for that matter) go into a marriage thinking they're going to change their men, when in fact nearly every adult already has 99% of his/her behavior cast in concrete. Kay was dreaming when she thought that Michael would change. But Michael jollied her along. He isn't blameless.
The parallel between the two is that Michael also was dreaming: he thought he could change everyone around him into thinking that he was "legitimate," when in fact, as Kay said near the beginning of III, he was a "common Mafia hood." The key to Michael's fantasy is the scene in GF when he goes to New Hampshire to woo Kay. He's saying that, if Senators and Governors can get away with lying, cheating, even having people killed, and be considered "legitimate," then so can he. That's a fantasy every bit as unrealistic as Kay's belief that she could change him.

yeah, this is called the "nurse syndrome"!

No, I don't think that this is so unrealistic. A man can make love to a woman (and viceversa) for many reasons and love is not necessarily one of them. We shouldn't see Michael has a spotless hero. He's just a man. Maybe he just wanted to reaffirm his possession of Kay, maybe he only wanted to have sex. Maybe it was just nostalgia of past years. And love is an extremely complex and contradictory feeling, anyway.

Oh, yes! I agree very much on this point!

Olivant, please! Or Kay was stupid (and I don't think so) or she had to know what marrying a mafioso was all about. If she wanted a quiet marriage, she could marry, say, a teacher, an insurance agent, a plumber....But all the terrible things you above mentioned are very typical of a mafioso's lifestyle...so why should she complain of Michael's behaviour? Let's say they both made a mistake. Michael should not have asked her to marry him (and I tend to think that he did so just because he was shocked by Apollonia's death and he needed to elaborate mourning) and Kay should not have accepted his proposal. He still was in family business at the time he proposes and very likely to stay, in spite of his illusions to legitimate.

As I said in a post above, there is a version of the script that was to show them making love in Sicily! As for actually showing the "torrid love scene" it was never actually shown in the movie, but the intent and implication was there.


Don Cardi

Here's an exchange between Michael and Kay in GFIII :

>>MICHAEL

"I love you, Kay. Don't dread me, anymore. You know, every night here in Sicily. I dream, about my wife and my children. And how I lost them."

KAY

"I guess, if it’s any consolation, I want you to know that – that -- I always loved you, Michael. I always – I always will.<<"


I an early version of the script, right after this exchange of words between them, they make "torrid" love. But right here is proof that there was a display of affection shared between the two of them.

Don Cardi

You know, If I can bear grudge to FFC for the 1-st film, it must be for the way he screws up Mike's relationship with Kay.
In the novel the inner logic of actions, and decisions, is so elaborate that you cannot just take it and change to the opposite! Their relationship as it described by Puzo is a masterpiece, and what is most important, it is SHE who pursues him. It is she who finds him, and says before anything: "I don't care, I love you, I don't care.<...> You're really a gangster then, isn't that so? But I really don't care. What I care about is that you obviously don’t love me."
This is a very significant dialogue, it shows that Michael never in fact deceived her. And he never promised to make family legitimate. He said:
" If everything goes right , Corleone Family will be completely legitimate in about five years. Some very tricky things have to be done to make that possible." And he didn’t say that it was the chief aim of his life, and he would be very much upset if everything didn’t go right and it wouldn’t be possible. He was not so naïve, I strongly believe. And he didn't say that he could be legit himself... Only business. And maybe. IF everything goes right. Appreciate the difference!
And in fact it was no condition of marriage, he told it after she assured him that she didn't care who he was, because she loved him. That is a certain obligation, huh?

Lollie, I subscribe.

Here's what I wrote on this subject, err, don't know how many months ago.

"The most important of all things that make GF3 plot absolutely unbelieveable is that Michael would NEVER give children to Kay. If something is impossible, that is. After all that we see and read, especially after the stare he gives her when he catches her visiting children, we must be convinced that he would never let her even approach them. That by killing his child she made him feel such pain, disappointment an even hatred, that it killed all his love and respect for her, whatever it could be, and killed forever. She could have no illusions about that, she wished to do it, she said “there would be no way Michael, no way you could ever forgive me.” And there is no way. Even if he didn’t kill her, that never means that he could forgive. And certainly, he is not an idiot to send his children to the only person in the world who would most surely teach them to hate him.
And of course, he would never say “I love you…Forgive me everything...” NEVER! And he would never complaint being feared. Anyone else could. Not he.
I think that he would rather marry again it would be more natural for him, and not only for the sake of his present children, but to have more. He could not be too desperate about losing Kay herself. And he was not the man to dream every night about losing her, and children he is supposed to have given up himself. He is not so sentimental and snotty, and there is a lack of logic in all this.
We know from the book, that he never loved Kay very much. Not even as much as she loved him. He easily forgot her for Appolonia, and then, when he returned home, would never resume their relationship if she didn’t seek it. She found him, came to him, he agreed to sleep with her and said something like, well, what about marrying me, if so? And when she asked him, why did he want to marry her, since he “obviously didn’t love her”, as she said few phrases before, he answered: “because I want you and I want a family. I want kids, it’s time”. In fact, then, having lost Apollonia, he would marry anyone who could give birth to his kids – just because if he was going to become the head of family, he had to have family and kids, the more the better. And kids were his strongest passion in life, remember him nagging Kay: “Does it feel like a boy”? He wanted sons, to help him in business, numerous sons, because he knew what business it was, and remembering Sonny, he knew if he had one son, anything could happen to him. And even if he had only two, the first of them might be killed, and the second might be Fredo…
Pain about the son she killed must have been much stronger than anything he could feel about losing herself. To that he was ready, as we know from the novel, she tried to part with him once, and Puzo gives us enough to show that their marriage could not last long after that lie of his, something most important, their mutual trust, was broken and they could never be what they were to each other. When in GF2 she comes to say that she wants to leave him, and does not feel any love for him at all, he is not surprised or grieved by it. He doesn’t give a damn about her feelings for him, he dismisses it as nothings. He says ”we'll have another child, and we'll go on.” He is not so much interested in her as a person, she is “His wife but not his partner in life”, as he said she would be, when he proposed her marriage. And wishing that child as he did, we can be sure that after losing it he would suffer much and would wish it still more.
And he is a normal man, and rather young, about forty. He can’t live like a monk; the novel describes him as a hot-blooded Italian male, who never refused making love, on the contrary, was quite devoted to the process.
Of course, being broken-hearted as he was, he would not perhaps feel a tremendous romantic love, but it will help him to chose rationally. And personally, I think his choice would be Sicilian. Having already kids with a half of fishy blood of “that washed out rag of an American girl”, he could not expect them to become real Sicilians, and we know from the novel, how difficult it was for Tom to be in the family business because of his not being a Sicilian, not having Sicilian cunning and subtleness. If he would marry a Sicilian, he would have at last truly HIS children, full works, who will understand and accept him, and will never prefer singing and law to the manly deed of family business. "

Michael didn't "pursue" Kay in GF I and II so much as she pursued him. In fact he cut off the relationship when he decided to protect his father and throw himself into the family business. Then when he is in Sicily he falls for Apollonia and what is Kay doing? Showing up unannounced at the Corleone estate right in the middle of a well publicized Mafia war to try to get Tom Hagen to deliver a letter to him. Then she goes back to New Hampshire and Michael, after being back for "a year, maybe more," finds himself in a position in which he wants to start a family, so he takes Kay more or less by default. What's Kays initial reaction? She starts whining at him for not calling or writing and she asks "what do you want from me after all this time?" Talk about passive-agressive. Even when he is telling her the family will be "legitimate" in five years, he is simultaneously saying that "legitimacy" is a relative thing when he suggests that his father is no different than any powerful man, to which she replies by calling him "naive" to believe that Senators and Presidents have men killed. I agree with those who are saying she went into the marriage with her eyes open and may have wanted to change Michael, which she could nothave done.
But as I have said before the one thing she NEVER whined about was her lifestyle. She sure didnt mind spending all that blood money, now did she.
I wonder how much alimony and child support Michael paid?

AH AH AH!!!

Kay is definitely our fav GF character!!

Sì!!!! Apparently the "process" is our males' fav sport, after soccer of course!

Yes my dear. She is inferior, maybe, only to Fabrizio himself in our affections.

STANDING OVATION, JM!!!

I'm speechless, really. You are a talented writer and a more talented critic. I'm not joking, JM.

OMG Thanks my dear. I didn't expect it to be so highly appreciated.
Actually, to be a writer was my long-given-up childhood dream...
I guess, it is the company of so many witty and talented people that makes interesting thoughts come to your head, don't you feel it here yourself?
And wait - soon you'll get sick of my writing style...

not in this life, JM!

You know how naive you sound?
I bet, when you'll see just the size of my last chapter analysis, you'll fall from chair.
BTW, reading what you said about umm process , I begin to think if it was possible that Mike was already cheating on her? You know, all those Miami, Havana and Vegas temptations...

impossible, I got a safety belt! Seriously, JM, I'm looking forward to reading it!

mmmmm......I don't know.....I don't think Michael is a cheater....he's a hot lover, not a womanizer...

Michael disapproves of extra marital cheating and made that clear at different times to Carlo, Tom Hagen, and later to Vincent. As for his being a hot lover, he may have been in GF I but by the end of GFII he seemed pretty cold, and in GFIII he was half dead.

everybody gets old, even a Sicilian hot lover!

Well - just one more of those stupid unnatural ideas in GF sequels...
But then, Don Cardi said there was a script that had them making love with Kay... (BTW, DC, is it in the internet?) That implies a hot lover in his sixties... I wonder where did they get the idea. Maybe they thought that the ongoing romance between Pacino and Keaton will give them credibility?

Yes, well it seems that most of you perceived what I was trying to say: that Kay knew what she was getting herself into. But, she was crazy about Michael and no matter what, she overlooked a lot of what she probably knew was going on. In no way did I ever even hint that Michael was some kind of saint! I don't know why some people like to put words in my mouth/writing!

I was commenting on the fact that apparently Michael and Kay had some kind of reconciliation during GFIII--at least that is the impression I got from what OTHER PEOPLE HERE SAID. THAT is what I was commenting on. Knowing Italian men in my own family, all I meant was that only a soap opera would have the situation turn around like this.

Olivant, why do you reply to my posts with such derision and antipathy?? I don't understand it. I make it a point to treat the people here on this board with the utmost respect--as I hope to be treated inkind--which is what I've gotten except from you.

~~ Lollie

I did not find that version on the internet. However I believe that I heard this in an interview with either Pacino or FFC a while back. But I do remember one of them saying that the original shoot was to have them make love. But then it was decided to keep it out and just show the "implication" of the feelings of love that still were between them. She does say that she always loved him in the scene we see.


Don Cardi

What the hell is carping harpie?!?!

JM:

For some reason, I missed reading your whole article a few posts back. It is absolutely excellent! You are absolutely correct in your assessment of Michael and his relationship with Kay.

Kay was DEFINITELY more in love with Michael than he was in her. I think Michael was genuinely fond of Kay, after all, she was the mother of his children! But I don't think there was that "thunderbolt" with Kay that he had with Apollonia.

In GFIII, does Kay ever learn of Michael's marriage to Apollonia? If so, what was her reaction/feeling about it? Did she ever feel as though she was competing with a dead Sicilian wife who was 1) Sicilian, and 2) gorgeous? How long were Michael and Apollonia married? Was there any indication in the book or script of what Kay had written in her letter to Michael that she wanted Tom to deliver to him?

AGain, as I said before. Kay was very much in love with Michael. I believe that she was well aware of the kind of life he was involved in--at least to some extent. She had to accept it or get out--she chose to stay, as most women do who think that somehow or other they have the magic wand to "change" their husband/boyfriend. It NEVER works out that way. (Believe me, I speak from experience!! )

~~ Lollie

Thanks, Lollie!
Yes, when Mike tells "In this room I spent so many months thinking of you", or something like that, she says "and then got married."
There's no text of that letter anywhere.

There's no text of that letter anywhere. [/QB][/QUOTE]


There's no text of the letter anywhere cause when Kay tried to give it to Tom, he refused it saying that if he accepted it they could prove in a court of law he knew Mike's whereabouts. I wonder if that is a valid legal point?

just resurecting this thread because it has been the subject of a newer one.

It seems that you folks have more of a problem with Kay's "harping" than Michael does .

When Michael asks Kay to marry him, he makes it a point of trust to tell her that the family business will be legitimate in five years. I think it's a goal he aspired to as well. In light of the proposal, his uttering that statement to her has the implication of a vow, a promise, made especially for her. In fact, it was the one confidence regarding his business that he would share with her. Therefore, Kay has every right to ask about it.

And Michael's actions denote that even he believes she deserves that right. When she broaches the subject at Anthony's party, his reaction is not to snap at her, or to reply with stony silence, but to answer her gently with, "I'm trying." The voice is resigned, as if expecting this moment when he would be called to account; and it's also somewhat rueful: he knows he has disappointed both her and himself.

I think someone once wrote on these boards that Kay was Michael's conscience. Other times Michael can rationalize and fool himself into believing that he has already achieved legitimacy. But when confronted with Kay's simple, direct questions, he has difficulty preserving that illusion. Maybe Michael needs -- even welcomes -- Kay's prodding, just as a dreamer needs a pinch -- that small kernel of discomfort -- to prove that he or she is awake and back in reality.

BTW, we only see Kay remind Michael of his legitimacy plan once in seven years. If a guy has a wife who nags him only once every seven years, I bet he considers her a real find .

Well she whined about a lot of other things, like not being able to to go see a show because Michael had to help his father plan the assassinations of the heads of the othe families, and she had a lot of eye rolls going.

Actually, she didn't harp about that. It was Michael who OFFERED to go see a show after Kay harped about him having to talk w/ his father....

Anyway, I'm gonna now do something I once thought I'd NEVER do. Quote from the novel !!!

In their final 'talk' at the close of the book, Tom says the following to Kay:

"...You're mad because he lied to you. Well, he warned you never to ask him about his business. You're mad because he was Godfather to Carlo's boy. But you made him do that..."

Actually, Kay WAS whiney and ungrateful, because much as she loved Michael she could not accept certain things about his life...even though she married him knowing about them. Which is why the rebellious Kay in GFII is somewhat inconsistent with the Kay we see at the end of The Godfather. By the time of the infamous 'abortion', she really should have known better.

Apple

Yeah, but then as Michael is exiting the car she brings up the fact Connie and Carlo want him to be godfather of their baby, he says, "We'll see" she then continues to "harp" about it and he says again, "We'll see" in a little more terse manner. I always visualized him standing there as the car drives off saying to himself, "Jeez, give me a f**** break" before he turns and walks into his father's house.

Actually, here's what happens:

MICHAEL I have to see my father and his people, so have dinner without me...

KAY Oh, Michael...

MICHAEL This weekend we'll go out. We'll go to the city, we'll see a show and we'll have dinner. I promise.

KAY Okay...Oh, Michael, your sister wants to ask you something...

MICHAEL Well let her ask...

KAY No she's afraid to. Connie and Carlo want you to be Godfather to their little boy.

MICHAEL Oh, well we'll see...

KAY Will you?

MICHAEL Lemme think about it -- we'll see. Come on.

******
So...she's apparently disappointed that she will be having dinner without him, he promises the dinner & show and then she nags just a teensy bit about the Godfather thing...on behalf of Connie & Carlo. Not knowing of course, what plans are in store for Carlo.

This harping comes in handy since, as Tom also says during that last conversation in the novel:

"...Actually, it was the right move for him to make (standing Godfather) if he was going to take action against Carlo. The classic tactical move to win the victim's trust..."

So in this instance at least, Kay's harping was to Michael's advantage. Perhaps he didn't think "Jeez, give me a f**** break" after all...



Apple

Wow! Apple is with us! I always said that Puzo made it all fairly clear.
Apple, you are doing so very fine that I read your posts with real pleasure.
Only thing I have to add, since you begun quoting the novel, is that there was no kind of wow, obligation or promise on Michael's side when he proposed to her. She pronounced a very important thing: "I love you. I don't care." (About him being gangster etc.) And only after that he told her about his legitimate plans, just sharing thoughts, and adding carefully " If everything goes right..."

Yes, he did make certain things VERY clear in the novel and for that reason it's interesting that in GFII he allegedly fought the idea of Fredo being killed because of the betrayal to Michael. Luckily, Puzo eventually conceded on the basis that GFII was FFC's baby, not his.

While Tom is explaining to Kay why both Tessio and Carlo had to die, how neither could be excused for their betrayals to the Family, despite Michael's fondness for Tessio and Carlo's family ties...he is also setting the stage for Fredo's punishment (although it is not written until years later). If these two were once and future dangers to the Family, then of course, so was Fredo. And therefore, brother or not...Fredo had to go.

But of course, that's another thread....

Apple

Very good observation Apple---but MAYBE he thought, "Jeez give me a f**** break----HEY wait a minute, Godfather to Carlo and Connie's baby....hmmmmmm"

One of themes I've always been fond of in The Godfather is tradition vs. modernity. I always loved that scene in GFII where Michael seeks the advice of his mother, the "traditional" woman...cleaning, cooking, raising the family AND NOT ASKING ANY QUESTIONS. When Mama Coreleone finally tells Michael "You can never lose your family..." Michael seems to shake his head in disbelief. His mother is a woman of another age and can't possibly understand what he means by the question...Michael then concludes that "Times are changing." And indeed they are.

To relate this to Kay, she personifies the new, "modern" woman's role. She demands fully equal footing in the marriage. She wants to know what's going on. She has a career. Michael would have obviously been much better off with Apollonia (a woman much like his own mother), the traditional Sicilian girl who knows in her blood that you don't ask questions about the Mafioso. So of course this tension, of Kay being the only "modern" woman amidst a sea of tradition results in conflict...which can make a person seem unlikable.

However, I completely agree with notions of Kay's naivete in believing that Michael, a full-blooded Sicilian, could somehow turn his back on tradition. When Kay finally realizes she's powerless to change him in the hotel room scene after Pentangeli's renegging, she even mentions "the Sicilian thing thats been going on for 2000 years." But Michael was quite naive as well, thinking that Kay would quietly go along with his gangster lifestyle as Apollonia or another "traditional" type would have. As a WASPy, modern American, Kay was doomed from the start. This line of thinking really makes you appreciate their exchange in GFI, "You know how naive you sound?/Who's being naive now, Kay?"