Hi, there's something which has been bugging me for quite a while and I was hoping some of you guys could help.

In the begining of GF2 after the party when michael is shot at...I understand it is Roth who ordered the shooting?

But what part does Fredo play in all this?

Am I right in saying that he agred with Roth to go along with the shooting?

because when michael says to him how he broke his heart and he knew it was I wondered what that was in reference to?

thanks
vince

What part Fredo played is not very clear and there is not much consensus on that here. Some people beleive he opened the drapes, some others beleive he did not know that it was a hit attempt.

However, michael did not have to know the exact details of fredo's involvement to say "you broke my heart". Infact he did not know the details when he said that. When he saw Fredo mention the name of Johnny Ola and Roth in the context of going to the Superman show and other such places, michael suspected that Fredo must have colluded with Roth in the assasination attempt.

You may use "search" feature on the top right of the page to find out the old threads discusssing this.

Welcome, Vince! There have probably been more threads here on the shooting and Fredo's role than on any other subject. svsg gave an excellent summary.
I'm one of those who believes that Fredo opened the drapes. If so, I have a hard time believing that he didn't know that violence would follow. Why else would they want him to open the drapes? So they could peeping-Tom Kay getting ready for bed? Look at the violent resentment Fredo expresses to Michael in that boathouse scene and it's not hard to conclude that he could wish his brother dead.

But Turnbull, remember the scene where Fredo gets the late night phone call from Johnny Ola. He's pretty miffed at Johnny, telling him, "You guys lied to me." He pretty much breaks his clandestine ties with him right there, not giving him (and not offering to uncover) the further information Johnny requests.

This indicates to me that Fredo did not know he was colluding in a plot to murder his own brother, and that he was angry that he had been misled. Yes, he had deep resentment and yes, he was willing to double-cross Michael or place him in a victim's position in order to build himself up; but I believe his ambitions did not extend to fratricide.

I think there were a number of excuses Johnny Ola could have given to Fredo for opening the drapes and that Fredo, not being very savvy, would have believed them. These would have centred on Ola's men needing to "see" when Michael was in that room. Maybe Johnny told Fredo that a kidnapping was planned (as an early draft of the script indicates) and that the bedroom was the best "capture point" (on the ground floor, closest to the woods, etc.) Perhaps he said that they wanted to scare Michael by holding Kay at gunpoint or something, until Michael agreed to Roth's demands. Maybe they had to plant recording devices in every room with a telephone and they needed to "see" when the room was empty so they wouldn't get caught.

Fredo had a love-resentment relationship with Michael. When the two of them have drinks the afternoon Fredo arrives in Havana, one can see that Fredo basks in the closeness and rapport he has with his brother; it's apparent in his plaintive question, "Why didn't we do this before?" Just going as far as he did with Ola has left him guilt-ridden. As much as Fredo also longs for respect, I don't see him going to the lengths of murder to obtain it.

Fredo was just plain stupid and gullible. As he said in the boathouse scene, Mike was being tough on the negotiations and he thought they just wanted to scare Michael. Che stupido!

Cristina, others here have agreed with your thesis that Fredo may already have broken with Roth/Ola by the time of the shooting; or that he thought it'd be a kidnapping, not a shooting; or that Fredo, terminally stupid, fell for a cockamamie story, etc.
I'm not denying those possibilities. But, IMO, the logic of opening the drapes favors shooting--however dumb or naive Fredo was, he'd have had to be totally brain-dead not to figure that out. The vehemence of his feelings against Michael that were expressed in the boathouse tells me that, at minimum, he wished harm to come to his brother. "You guys lied to me" could have applied to something other than a hit--maybe they told him that they wouldn't ask for anything else after he opened the drapes.

TB what has always troubled me was Fredo's line "I didn't know it was gonna be a hit." Was he lying when he said that?

Well, dt, he sounded convincing. But then Fredo said that Johnny Ola said, "there'd be something in it for me..." Then he launced into that rage-filled diatribe against Michael--"want respect," "passed over," "send Fredo to do this," "smaht, not dumb..."
What could that "something in it for me" have been, given all the insults, slights and bad stuff Fredo attributed to Michael? Would he-- could he--have gotten anything if Michael had survived whatever Roth and Ola planned in the Tahoe attack? I don't think so. I think all the things that Fredo wanted could only have been gotten if his brother were dead.

I agree, TB, and I think that's when Michael truly realized what a danger Fredo was. I think that when Michael first realized that Fredo was the traitor, he gave himself the "poor, dumb, weak Fredo, who was probably lied to..." speech (probably to protect himself from the hurt he was feeling). But when Fredo launched into his little tantrum in the boathouse, revealing the extent of his rage and resentment, Michael knew that Fredo may well have gone into the deal with Roth with his eyes wide open.

Even more than that, and the biggest single piece of convincing evidence in my mind is his line to Ola during the late night telephone call:

"You guys lied to me. You get me in deep enough already."

What could he have been lied to about, other than what the result of his aid to Roth et al would be (i.e kidnapping, murder, watching Kay get undressed, or whatever)?

Well said, SB!

The novel has a passage that speaks directly to your point about the danger of forgiving treason:
After the Great Massacre of 1955, Kay bolts, and takes the kids to New Hampshire. Hagen goes up there to convince her to return. She says she knows that Michael was behind all the killings, and asks why he couldn't have forgiven Carlo. I'm sorry I don't have the novel in front of me, but Hagen basically says that if Michael forgave Carlo or any of his enemies, they'd be a danger to him and his family all of their lives.
Puzo also made the point that gratitude is one of the shortest-lived of human feelings. He said it in the context of Bonasera getting that call from Hagen to meet the Don at his funeral parlor to attend to the dead Sonny. But it might well have applied to Fredo--if Michael had really given Fredo a pass. How long would Fredo have been grateful to Michael for having spared him--vs. stewing all over again about being passed over, Mickey Mouse nightclubs, etc.?

TB,
I was always sorry that they changed the ending and omitted that scene between Kay and Tom. It has one of my favorite lines from the book. When Kay asks Tom why Carlo couldn't be forgiven, citing the many years that had passed, how he had become a better husband to Connie, etc., Tom looks around at the pretty New England scenery and says something to the effect of "Maybe in this world he could've been forgiven."

To me, that one line summarized how Michael and Kay came from two different worlds, a point well made in GF2.

As for Fredo, as much as his murder was the one sin that Michael couldn't live with, it was also a treachery he couldn't let go. As he says to Kay in GF3, he did what he had to do to protect his family. And Fredo, with his delusions about his abilities, would always be a danger.

Well Turnbull and Sicilian Babe, you make good arguments in favor of Fredo knowing it was going to be a hit all along.

It's another issue we'll probably have to agree to disagree on . Personally, I felt that the brotherly bond Fredo felt with Michael during the afternoon talk they had in Havana was the missing ingredient that Fredo was searching for. At that moment, Fredo was not just an "errand boy," but was Michael's confidant and, for once, a true partner.

We know from the boat house scene that Fredo wanted to earn "something on his own." He wanted to be seen as capable, smart, worldly wise. He wanted respect. If he were content to get respect from Roth and Ola, then I suppose abetting them with a hit on Michael would be a possibility.

But I always believed that most of all, Fredo wanted respect from Michael -- from the family at the very least. As I view it, two complex emotions of Fredo's would have found release if Michael were kidnapped, frightened, blackmailed, or harmed in another way short of murder. A part of Fredo would have relished Michael's vulnerability. In everyone's eyes, Michael would be brought down a notch: "Mr. Smart Guy" who never makes a wrong move is not so smart after all. Michael would experience what it feels like to be doubted -- a small taste of what Fredo feels. And Fredo wants to see Michael go through this, which would be impossible, of course, if Michael were killed.

I can envision Fredo's expectation that "respect" would evolve from this, as he sees himself stepping in to help, with the family finally recognizing his "talents" (in his mind).

But the situations that really convinced me that Fredo didn't know it was going to be a hit are cinematic ones:

(1) When Michael has Fredo killed at the end, we are meant to see this as the climactic unspeakable act and the prime illustration that Michael has become the worst evildoer of them all. For me, that realization would lose a lot of its dramatic impact if I believed that Fredo had planned to do the very same thing to Michael. I think the singular crime of killing one's own blood -- of even considering it -- is meant to be Michael's alone, the crowning tragedy of his criminal life.

(2) I've often written that the ending murders of GF2 have a common thread: all the victims are enemies of Michael who are now so weak and powerless that it's practically unnecessary to kill them. Roth is terminally ill and will die in prison; the FBI is, after all, ready and waiting to capture him at the Miami airport. Pentangeli is so terrified for his family after seeing his brother with Michael at the Senate hearing that he wouldn't dare double-cross a Corleone again. I've always believed that if these two men had been left to live out their natural lives, they would have been no threat to Michael.

I think the same thing has to apply to Fredo in order for his murder to fit thematically with the others. It's easier for me to believe that Fredo is no longer a threat if I believe him when he says he didn't know it was going to be a hit. Furthermore, I think that Fredo's (perceived) reconciliation with Michael at Mama's funeral deeply affected him. I got a strong impression that the separation from his brother truly pained him and that he had learned his lesson about trusting outsiders.

My two cents .

I couldn't agree more. You guys lied to me about what? If Fredo knew it was going to be a hit then why would he say this to Ola?

After the attempted hit on Michael Fredo was scared and realized that he screwed up big time. He realized that whatever Ola and Roth told him was a lie and now his brother had almost been killed because of something that he did. He was so scared when Ola called him because he never knew that Ola and Roth would attemt a hit on Mike.

This makes me realize even more that it HAD to be Fredo who opened the drapes. Fredo must have been mislead into believing that his opening the drapes for Ola would lead to some sort of a kidnapping, or something of that nature.

And when they opened fire on Michael, almost killing him and Kay, Fredo knew at that moment that he had been lied to, mislead and that HE screwed up big time.

He didn't know it was gonna be a hit. But he did know that Ola and Roth were behind the attempted hit because Ola was the one who asked him to open the drapes.

I am now convinced more than ever that Fredo was the one who opened those drapes, but did so never dreaming that they would attempt to kill Michael.


Don Cardi

Yes, but that leaves the arguement open to say as far as his resentment that he got stepped over (as seen in the boathouse scene), that he may of full and well known that it was a hit and openly accepted it knowing he would be the new boss, which he complained about being passed over for. It is only a theory of course, and while we don't know for certain that he knew or didn't know it was going to be a hit, he could have played it off like he didn't know, so that there was no evidence to get back to him.

I think a lot can be deduced about Fredo's involvement in the plot against his brother by examing not Fredo's actions after the hit attempt, but instead Hyman Roth's and Johnny Ola's. The simple fact the Johnny Ola plays along with Fredo's act like they never knew each other says to me that he felt a certain sense of responsibility for misleading Fredo.

I think that if Fredo had suddenly acted like he didnt know a hit was planned after the hit failed even if he did have prior knowledge, then Ola and Roth would have more openly protested against his cutting of all ties with them.

Since Ola plays along quietly, I believe he had misled Fredo.

That's a good point, scarfacetm. Here's what I think: Sicilian Babe (in a past post on another topic) had rightly pointed out that Fredo also had a lot of unexpressed anger toward Vito, which he then directed toward Michael, who is now acting the role of "surrogate Vito."

It was Vito who never sat down with Fredo to explain why he was passing the torch to Michael, nor did he ever ask Fredo how he felt about it. It was Vito who assumed that Fredo was too simple to be bothered by this issue. Most significantly, it was Vito who didn't take the time to know his own son. Vito didn't realize that Fredo had pride, that Fredo had ambitions, that Fredo knew what people were whispering behind his back.

When Fredo exclaims that he was "stepped over," I think a lot of the sentiment in that regard is meant for Vito, as it was more his doing than Michael's that Fredo's entitlement was taken away from him without a word of explanation. If it weren't for Vito's underestimation of him, Fredo would at that moment be don, taking care of his kid brother, which to Fredo's mind is the natural order and the way it should be.

Michael's offense in the boat house is in not seeing any of this. (Fredo's question, "Did you ever once think about that?" comes to mind.) And this lack of empathy and consideration is, in my opinion, what makes Fredo's resentments -- toward Michael and Vito -- really spill out. I don't believe that Fredo wanted Michael out of the way so he could take over as don because being don on his own didn't carry the same meaning for him as being don with Michael under him. At this point, I think his ambitions were to be treated more like a co-don to Michael and for Michael to actually see him and consider him in the Family equation.