What do you guys think? What was the deal? Fredo honestly doesn't seem to have known that it was going to be a hit. He says to Johnny Ola on the phone that he and Roth lied to him, and he swears to Michael that he didn't know it was going to be a hit. But what do you think he gave them? What did he do which helped the attempted hit on Michael happen?

He seems to know a lot about Roth--at least the big item that Roth has Questdat in his pocket. But I've always wondered what the extent of Fredo's treachery was--How much he knew and how much he gave to Roth and what they promised him in return.

Was he simply misled? Did he want his brother dead?

Also, the Senate hearings--Did Michael know they were going to indict him before Willie ever took the Witness stand?

What about the Rosato Brothers and Cicci? Cicci was going to be the new Frank Pentangelli in the original GFIII script. Is it possible that in order to "redeem" himself, he took out the Rosato Brothers off screen? In Michael's path of revenge, only Pentangelli, Roth and the Rosato Brothers are named.

Little things like this would've made the twists and turns of the story easier to understand. And there was a lot of little loose ends like what was going on in New York beforehand and what the original deal between Roth and Michael (prior to the Tahoe shooting) was. Why the Rosato Brothers wanted Clemenza/Pentangelli's territory. What happened to the Rosato's and Cicc'?

I'm surprised Pentangelli didn't get a pass. He was an unwitting "enemy" of Michael, and in the end, he didn't testify. He was just as played as Michael was. It wasn't like Tessio where Tessio betrayed Michael simply due to a lack of respect in him.

Danito reprinted a letter from Coppola to Richard Castellano in the recent Castellano interview thread. To me, the most interesting thing in the letter was that it seemed Coppola was doing the writing and production work on GF2 at the same time that he was directing "The Conversation." The Conversation is a very ambiguous movie that may even be said to be about ambiguity. I understand that the GF2 script had a lot of plot changes and that many scenes had to be cut, but I also think it likely that Coppola wanted for some things to remain unknowable.

It's all there in the boathouse scene - all Fredo wanted was something for himself, something not granted as charity by his younger brother. Whatever Roth & co promised would have been some sort of independent money-earner. A chance to make a name for himself. The details don't matter, because it was all a lie, anyway.

And no, I don't believe for a second that Fredo had any idea that his 'treachery' involved Michael's death. He just got hoodwinked by Roth and his people. When Michael says to Tom that Fredo "has a good heart, but he's weak", I've always taken that to imply, "and stupid."

Hyman Roth and Johnny Ola played Fredo for a sucker, which Fredo was. Weak, gullible, vulnerable and jealous.

As far as the attempted hit was concerned, I don't think Fredo had anything to do with that specifically (e.g. letting anyone in, informing anyone where Michael would be). Killing Michael was just a part of Roth's overall plan, which Fredo played a part in at another level.
In Michael's eyes, of course, that was still as bad as if Fredo had led the killers to his bedroom with a torch, a few rounds of ammo and a packed lunch.

I started a thread on this subject a while back:

http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=554277&page=1