Senator Garry

It puzzeled me for quite sometime:
How come that Michael let the Senator come out so easily?
That SOB said unspeakable things about the family... true, he got a "message" that reminded him who were his friends - but still (we know that Michael eliminated ALL his enemies at the end of GF2)...

Besides he sits in the famous Senate hearing and then leaves...
I simplly don't get it...

The Corleones are then blackmailing the Senator and own him. They keep him around because they can control what he does in Congress.

I think the Senator made his speech and left because he wasn't a member of that specific committee, so that it was unusual for him to be there at all.

I think he was a member of the committee. He asked a question that helped out Michael and then excused himself from the hearings because he didn't "believe" in the commission's mission to bring down Michael.

I'm pretty sure Sen. Geary was a member of the committee, and probably through no choice of his own. He asked his obligatory questions & at Michael's appearance made his statement and promptly exited because as a result of the prostitute incident he was most definitely owned by Michael Corleone.

He had to act accordingly to both save face in the Senate and also not rub Don Corleone the wrong way. You can see in his expression at a certain point in the hearings that he was not at all happy nor proud to be in the position he was in.

While he certainly gave Michael a bit of a hard time at the beginning (asking that enourmous price for the gaming license and smugly demanding never to be contacted again) and did say aweful things, Geary did not exactly betray and eventually was made to fall into line. Therefore he was never really and 'enemy' and not subject to 'elimination'.

Plus as moustachepete indicates...it's always nice to have a U.S. Senator in your pocket.

Apple

when hagen meets geary at the brothel hagen tells geary to call his office and tell them that he stayed the night at michael corleones house, if that got out in the hearing and he had stayed at the hearing he would of been in trouble

I have a contrary view:
Geary was a member of that committee, and so he had to know that Frankie Pentangeli had survived and was being hidden away as a perjury trap for Michael. Geary was part of that trap:
When Michael first testified, he and Tom didn't know about Frankie--they thought Cicci was the highest-level witness the committee had against the Corleones. Geary asked Cicci a question that was seemingly helpful to Michael: "Did you ever get a direct order from him? Or were there always buffers?" "No, I never talked to him," replied Cicci. Michael relaxed: Since (it seemed) no one could say they got a direct order from him, he was free to lie under oath about the charges the committee leveled against him.
Then, bada- bing! The committee produced Frankie, who could corroborate those charges. Michael could be sent away on five counts of perjury--in large part because Geary had made him relax enough to lie under oath by asking Cicci that seemingly helpful question.
Some people here might believe that Geary wouldn't have knowingly tried to trap Michael--it'd be suicide. Certainly it would have been risky. But as we saw so many times in the film, people bent on revenge (like Carlo and Fredo) don't think logically--and Geary had every reason to want to avenge himself on Michael.

After being caught in that brothel with a murdered prostitute with whom he had '...done it before...', and subsequently saved by Tom Hagen himself...I don't think Geary was in any position nor would he have a desire to 'avenge himself' on Michael.

Even if he later realized it was a setup (which he probably did)...they had too much on him and even a Michael Corleone in prison could pull strings to disgrace Geary and end his career in politics.

Apple

Yes, but Geary finessed that whole senate investigation. He had to have gone to Michael and said "Look I am just a member of a committee, and there is nothing I can do excedpt put in a good word for you and then excuse myself from the proceedings. I have no doubt, as has been said elsewhere that he was simultaneously telling the chairman that he would ask a few questions about "buffers" to help set the perjury trap and then say some nice things about Italians and leave the room. He was claerly playing both sides. If Michael had gone to prison for perjury his allegations about the senator and the prostitute would never have been believed.

Still not convinced.

There was another topic a while back where the possibility of someone (I forget who) being a traitor to Michael was discussed. It was bantered around a bit & pretty much dismissed on the premise that if that were true, FFC/Puzo would have made it known to the audience that this was the case.

I believe the same with regard to Geary. If it was his intent to gleefully sit on the Senate Committee and take an active part in the taking down of Michael Corleone, that would have been made absolutely clear to us. We would have probably seen him not being murdered, but hauled off to jail or resigning in disgrace in that montage at the end when we see Fredo & Frankie getting their own just desserts.

As it is, the last time we see Sen. Geary is when he smoothly excuses himself from the hearings after making that glowing speech about the great Italian people.

The implication is that Geary survives to remain at Michael's service on some future occasion.

Apple

Politicians are nothing if not two-faced. That glowing speech could have been a two-faced speech, IMO. When he says "These hearings on the Mafia," who might he have meant by "Mafia," if not the witness in the chair? And when he says, "An' it'd be a shame, Mr. Chairman, for just a few rotten apples to spoil the whole bunch," who could he have been referring to by "bad apple" if not the witness in the chair?
I also think he was playing that two-faced game at Anthony's party. He knew that Michael was a gangster, and assumed that others at the party knew that Michael was a gangster--and that Geary knew it. So, he refers to Anthony as "Anthony VY-toe Cor-lee-ON," IMO deliberately mispronouncing the name so the thousands of people there would get the impression that he wasn't very close to the Corleones--just making another stop on the rubber-chicken circuit. Later, in private, he sharpens it up to "Mister Cor-lee-OWN-nee," and then makes with his hair-and-clothes critique.

All that 'Cor-lee-OWN-nee' stuff was definitely intentional, and it was also before the incident with the prostitute. Geary was not at that point owned by or beholden to Michael.

I still don't think he was avenging himself at the time of the hearings.

Apple

Is perhaps killing Senator Geary a little out of Michaels depth? A killing like that would surely be investigated and it could possibly get back to him. Mike lets the insults to his family slide as he knows having Sen. Geary on side is to his advantage.

I think that Geary says that he's leaving to chair a meeting of "my own committee". It COULD be that he's the chairman of some other committee, and calls that one his own committee, but in that case he would have the ability to schedule things as he pleased.

In a practical sense, if Geary was a member of the committee, then he would have to sit through the whole thing. It would be very suspicious, to either the press or to Michael, if he bolted the televised organized crime hearings to go talk about wool subsidies or something.

It does make sense, though, for Geary to extract a few minutes with the microphone when his constituent was the target of the investigation. Even if he were honest, committe counsel would probably have been overjoyed to find some way to deflect that he was being unfair to Michael.

Michael was at all the meetings with the capos, so he didn't need Cicci to say there were buffers. There were always buffers, so Michael would always be free to lie - that's why Vito set up the system the way he did in the 30's.

Of course he didn't need Cicci to say there were always buffers. He thought that Cicci was the top witness that the government had--and since Cicci reaffirmed that he got no direct orders from Michael--and since Michael thought the committee had no other witnesses to use against him--he thought he could get away with lying under oath.

I think that Michael always thought that he could get away with lying under oath, not just in the Senate hearing, but in any proceeding that he would face. He knew the names of the people he dealt with directly - Frankie, Tom, Neri, Rocco - and he always knew that as long as those people were under his control, then he, at least, was insulated. Geary's question about buffers wouldn't add anything to what Michael already knew about his legal position.

I think that Geary was running interference for Michael on the public relations front. Michael would want the question about buffers to be raised as quickly as possible, so that his allies in the press and politics could all say, "He doesn't even know Michael", in answer to any questions.

Exactly TB... and he also deliberately acts like he forgot Kay's name ..he says Mike...Pat..uh Kay please stand ... then he "forgets" to introduce the choir, and when he is reminded by the (non italian) bandleader he just says they have selected a "special" number for their host.

Thank you all for your responses!!
Very enlighening!!
H.

[/qb][/QUOTE]Politicians are nothing if not two-faced. That glowing speech could have been a two-faced speech, IMO. When he says "These hearings on the Mafia," who might he have meant by "Mafia," if not the witness in the chair? And when he says, "An' it'd be a shame, Mr. Chairman, for just a few rotten apples to spoil the whole bunch," who could he have been referring to by "bad apple" if not the witness in the chair?
I also think he was playing that two-faced game at Anthony's party. He knew that Michael was a gangster, and assumed that others at the party knew that Michael was a gangster--and that Geary knew it. So, he refers to Anthony as "Anthony VY-toe Cor-lee-ON," IMO deliberately mispronouncing the name so the thousands of people there would get the impression that he wasn't very close to the Corleones--just making another stop on the rubber-chicken circuit. Later, in private, he sharpens it up to "Mister Cor-lee-OWN-nee," and then makes with his hair-and-clothes critique. [/QB][/QUOTE]


As a Pre-Law and Political Science major with aspirations of Public Office I find these comments offensive. Lets not let some rotten apples spoil the whole barrel!

I dunno... if he just left the room quietly, then I ride with you. But that cornball speech was the tell; he was still Michael's bitch, no ifs ands or buts.

But you remind me... what about Cicci? How did HE get off so scot-free?

I suspect he did not

They can't show everything

He probably got a reduced sentence. Since they didn't have a witness protection program at the time, he probably served it at some out-of-the-way prison, in solitary, as did Joe Valachi.

Refresh my memory. What exactly did Cicci do wrong? He was under subpoena. He didn't directly implicate Michael. I might have missed something.

He DEFINITELY implicated Michael. Weren't you listening, he said Michaels name plain as day, and said he had served under Clemenza who had served under Michael. His evidence wasn't enough to indict Mike, that would be Frankies job, but every litttle helps.

WHY Willi did this is the question. I guess after he was run down, he was picked up and threatened with prison if he didn't talk

HF,
You are right. I'ts been a while since I saw GFII. I stand corrected.

I think that one of the reasons people get promoted in these organizations is that they give some sign they WON'T talk if they're threatened with jail.

What worked with Frankie was that he was convinced (whether intentionally by Roth or not) that Michael had set him up, so that the family wasn't protecting him any more. I would think that something similar happened with Cicci - he may have even been told that Frankie was alive and talking.

If Willi wasn't scared of going to jail, then there must be a reason why he'd rat. I don't think hearing things on the grapevine from Frankie is enough, I can't see how the two of them could have got to eachother after the Rosato's incident

If Willie knew that Frankie was talking, then Willie would know that Frankie could put him in the electic chair.

Did Cicci implicate Michael? Yes...and no. Yes, he testified that Michael Corleone was the boss of the family--bad for Michael. No, he said he never got a direct order from him because "the family had a lotta buffiz." That was helpful. Recall that, near the end of GF, Cicci says, "Tom, Sal, the boss says for you to go ahead and he'll come in a separate car." That indicates that he did get a direct order from Michael that implicated him in a hit--Tessio's murder. But he didn't testify to that.

We didn't see ALL of his questioning

Tessio's murder was 'Family Business' and therefore probably not an issue that would need to be explored in the Senate Hearings.

As for 'ALL' Cicci's testimony, let's remember this is fiction not a documentary.

Apple

True. I reckon he began telling a story about the time Clemenza fell through the floor under his own weight

In addition to the benefits of cooperating with the police that you pointed out, I always believed that Cicci turned rat for one of the same reasons the Pentangelli did, Michael Corleone betrayed them. Remember at that point in the movie, Cicci was working for Pentangelli, not Michael. Pentangelli still reported to Michael so he wasn't really the Don, but he was in control of the Family's old NYC operations. As far as Cicci was concerned, Pentangelli was the boss and his boss has been betrayed. He didn't hear the, "Michael Corleone says hello" line, but Michael sent Pentangelli and him to meet the Rosattos and the Rosattos tried to kill them both. Even without hearing the famous line, it would still look like Michael set them up.

Or The Rosato's just went against what they said they'd do. Cicci would have to be slicker then your average to know it was Michael without proof