Puzo's history of the Corleone Family

I want to discuss that chapter here. It is actually one of my favorite chapters in the book and I am disappointing that a good portion of it never made it to film. I would liked to have seen the evolution of the Corleone Family from Little Italy to Long Beach.

I like how Puzo has taken actual history and tinkered with it a little bit. Even the name Maranzano is similar to names of the period and the method of Maranzano's execution is similar to Joe Masseria's real life execution. I also like how Puzo uses Al Capone, the only real-life underworld figure that could be used because of his non-influence outside Chicago.

One of the things I would have liked to have described though is a little bit of how the Families were formed. Unless I missed something, the Five "powerful" Families were sort of suddenly already there (the Tattaglia's are mentioned), it would've been interesting to see Vito forming the commission, etc.

My reading has been that there were many, many crime organizations, some of which were tiny. The Irish gang that tried to assassinate Vito may not have been much bigger than Vito's gang in their dress stealing days.

I think that what Vito saw was: (1) there was more money to be made if the gangs cooperated than if they competed; and, (2) there were too many independent groups to get everyone's cooperation.

There's an economic concept, "barrier to entry," which basically encompasses everything that would deter someone from entering a line of business or a market. Before Vito, the only barrier to entry in the New York crime market was the price of a gun. Vito's big idea was to raise a big barrier to newcomers, in the form of an agreement among the most powerful half-dozen to support each other, and hunt down anyone who tried to operate outside of the system.

Yes, Puzo based the story of Vito's rise on the Castellemmarese War of 1930-31, with Vito actually taking part of the role of the real Maranzano, and the novel's "Maranzano" being assassinated as was the real Masseria.

The Capone story in the novel is loosely based on a real event:

Capone was fighting Joe Aiello in Chicago. Aiello, a Sicilian, resented Capone, a Neapolitan, taking over the booze rackets. Masseria traveled to Chicago and "promised" Aiello territories west of Chicago if he'd whack Capone. In that way he sought to have a Sicilian ally with reinforcements he could call on in Chicago. Aiello, recognizing the absurdity of Masseria's claim, warned him that it would be "unhealthy" for him to remain in Chicago. Masseria immediately reversed himself and allied himself with Capone against Aiello. When things got tough in the war, he asked Capone for help.

According to Joe Bonanno, Capone was rumored to have sent 12 men to NYC to help Masseria. He and some other Maranzano men were sent to wait for them. But Bonanno and the others were arrested, and it is not clear that the Capone men ever arrived in NYC. Capone, says Bonanno, was too busy fighting Aiello to be of much help to Masseria.

There were five Sicilian families in NYC prior to the Castellemmarese War. The general view was that Don Vito Cascio Ferro of Palermo, Sicily, spent several years in NYC in the decade 1900-1910, forming the loose Sicilian underworld into what became the Five Families. A new book, "First Family - Birth of the American Mafia" by Mike Dash, claims that Giuseppe Morello, "the clutch hand," was the prime mover of the Five Families, though he acknowledges Cascio Ferro's presence in NY and the respect he commanded.

Some good facts.. Another fact is that singer Al Martino who played Johnny Fontain was actually about Frank Sinatra.

Puzo was not in the mob, but he was a solo mafioso if there is such a thing. The reason I say that is 'cause I've heard him speak in past interviews and he sounded like a true mafia don. I know he has said before that when he was growing up in Brooklyn he saw a lot of mobsters around his hood.

Puzo grew up in Manhattan (Hell's Kitchen).

I believe you but I swear that I've heard him in an interview once say he was raised in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. It was an NPR interview back in the mid 90's.

There was no Mafia in Sheepshead Bay.

Puzo said in interviews that the only two incidents in "The Godfather" that he actually witnessed in his life were guns being passed through windows, and a widow evicted from an apartment because of a dog. But his account of the inner workings of the Mafia was so convincing that real Mafiosi regarded the novel as their Bible, and actually began speaking and acting like the characters in the novel and the film.

"Why does a Napolitan involve himnself in a quarrel between two Sicilians?" Awesome. I love that stuff.

Anyway, are we to take the Maranzano in GF as the actual Salvatore Maranzano that took part in the Castellamerese War?

No.
The real-life Castellemmarese War was between Joe (the Boss) Massaria and Salvatore Maranzano. Maranzano was the victor. He won by getting one of Masseria's trusted aides (Charlie Luciano) to lure The Boss to a relaxing afternoon of lunch and cards at a Coney Island restaurant. When Lucky excused himself to go the the men's room, three shooters (some historians think they were Bugsy Siegel, Joe Adonis and Albert Anastasia) riddled Masseria with bullets, and stuck the Ace of Spades in his outstretched hand. It's possible he was still chewing bread at the time, as in the novel. So you see, in the novel, "Maranzano" plays the role of the real-life Masseria.

I also liked this part of the story. True to his rational nature, Vito first had tried to reason with many of the smaller and/or more violent independent gangs, but reached the conclusion that they could not be reasoned with and would have to be gotten rid of. I think the book says something like there were five or six families that were too big to bother but everyone else operating without the proper , that is paid protection, would have to go. So Vito declared what was in effect a colonial war and threw all the resources of the Corleone Family into it.

I don't think the other Families helped with this, although they certainly gained from it. Darned Free Riders.

After Luca had wiped out all of the Irish gang that had tried to assassinate Vito he also on his own assassinated another Family Boss who had attempted to protect the independents.

I alwasy thought of Luca as an amalgam of people like Pittsburgh Phil, Albert Anastasia or Gurrah Shapiro. Puzo must have been aware of such men.