I just finished watching the Godfather Trilogy for the first time (yes, I know I'm late). I tried to see if my questions have been asked and answered already, but I didn't see them. Sorry if my post is a repeat of questions that have been asked a million times already.

1. Exactly WHAT is the business deal between Michael and Roth? Is it that they are both going to take over the casino owned by Klingman <--not sure of the spelling? But, Roth wants all of the money, which is why he plots to kill Michael?

2. What is the point of the meeting in Cuba? I missed the significance of that whole section. Michael was supposed to bring 2 million...for what? He never gives Roth the money, right?

3. Fredo--He basically tells Roth's men how to get to Michael, right? that's the betrayal? then, how could he not know that they were going to kill michael, as he says to johnny ola.

Of course these questions are asked before. But that doesn't matter. Welcome too you!

1: There was no deal at all. It was all set up by Roth. Roth made Michael believe he would take over a lot of his business ("Were bigger then US Steel". So he had a lot of good working business) when he was gone. But all the time it was his intention to let Michael feel that he was close to him and then badabing...kill Michael. That was the whole point. Kill Mike.

2: 2 Milion was just for investments (if I'm not wrong). But by not giving Roth the money Roth immediately saw that Michael knew the plan of him.(Maybe I'm totally wrong on this one)

3: Yes he does. But as he said: "I didn't know it was gonna be a hit Mike." But he was not the smartest of the family so....

BTW It's time for me to see the Trilogy again. When you asked these questions I had to grave deep in my memory and still I know that the answers on 2/3 are not correct.

Why does Roth want to kill Michael? Roth did business with his father, so why go after Mike now? Was it because of the hit with Mo Green?

Havana, Cuba was at that point a very prosperous location to do business....remember this was on the very eve of the Castro takeover.

The reason Fredo did not realize that Roth was planning a hit on Mike was simply that Fredo was too stupid to figure this out. That is why Roth & Ola approached him in the first place, they had probably done their research well and knew Fredo was the one who could be most easily duped into cooperating.

Apple

Thanks to you all for responding.

MMFloors--If there was no deal between Michael and Roth about hotels/casinos in Vegas, what was Senator Geary talking to Michael about at the beginning? And the fact that Johnny Ola tells Michael that the hotel he's (Michael) is trying to buy is partially owned by Roth? Plus, doesn't Mike mention to Pentangeli that he and Roth have business dealings going on?

DJ Godfather--That's the reason that Roth gives for trying to kill Mike. He goes into that long story about Moe Green starting Las Vegas and not getting credit for it while he and Michael are in Cuba.

Apple--Maybe I'm trying to get too detailed, but exactly what kind of "business" was going on in Cuba? Establishing casinos and the like? I think that Coppola/Puza expected the viewers to have more knowledge about Cuba at the time in order to understand this, but obviously, I don't have it

Also, what do you all think Roth and Ola told Fredo in order to get him to betray his brother. Yes, they told him that Michael had a business deal, but what did they offer fredo?

According to Fredo's own lame explanation to Michael, they really didn't offer him anything specific; just the promise of 'something in it for him', if he helped them out with 'negotations'. That was all the temptation Fredo needed; all the more proof that he was the perfect dupe.

It's all right there, in the classic boathouse scene between Mike & Fredo.

As for the further detail you seek regarding business conducted in Cuba, I'll let someone else handle it who can perhaps better articulate it.

Apple

Thanks, some very good ?'s brought up here!

i am not too knowledgeable of the way the casinos work exactly, but i think there was a benefit in running a casino/nightclub in cuba because you had (as roth put it) "a partnership with a friendly government".

read the transcript i think this best describes the advantage of working in cuba

ROTH-Here we are protected -- free to make our profits without key follow with the goddamn Justice Department and the FBI. Ninety miles away, partnership with a friendly government -- ninety miles. It's nothing. Just one small step, looking for a man that wants to be President of the United States -- and having the cash to make it possible. MICHAEL, we're bigger than U.S. Steel.

Hyman Roth is based on the real-life Meyer Lansky, a big-time gambling gangster and adviser to Mafiosi. He was well-known for operating honest gambling games because he believed that the odds so favored the "house" that there was no need to cheat gamblers.
When Fulgencio Batista returned to Cuba as dictator in 1952, he found that the tourist industry was suffering because the casinos in Havana were so crooked that tourists were staying away in droves. He invited his old pal Lansky to Cuba as a "consultant" to clean up the casinos and give the gamblers a fair shake. Lansky had total carte blanche over the casinos. He invited his Mob pals from the US to share in the casinos. That's why in GFII, Roth, based on Lansky, was all-powerful in Havana gambling. Anyone who wanted a piece of the action (like Michael) had to go through him.

Yes you were right. Mike wanted a part of the action as Turnbull said. So there was a kind of a deal neaded.

I had the understanding that the $2 million was for Batista. A payoff so he would look the other way on some possible illegal dealings.

That's what Roth told Michael. But since Roth indended to have Michael killed (Michael to Fredo: "And after the reception, I'll be driven home in a military car, for my 'safety,' and I'll be assassinated"), it's clear that Roth intended to either keep the $2 million, or use it as his own payoff to Batista.

There has been much speculation on exactly how Fredo betrayed Michael, or how he helped Johnny Ola (Roth.) One theory is that Fredo opened the drapes in the bedroom. If Fredo did this, and "didn't know it was going to be a hit", then he is stupdier than we suspect. What did he think Johnny O was going to do? spy on Mike and Kay having sex? see what color undies Mike was wearing?

Which is why I do not go along with the theory that it was Fredo who opened the drapes.

What Fredo later confessed to Michael was that Roth & Ola promised something in it for him if he helped with negotiations. He had to do this without letting Michael know that he had actually spoken to Johnny Ola. That leaves the possibility that there were other inside men involved with whom Fredo had to work. In all the times this has been discussed, I recall no one considering the two thugs who fired the shots into the bedroom, and were later found dead in the drainage ditch. Michael had wanted them found alive for a reason, and that was to get information on who they were working for and how they got into to the compound. With these two silent, Michael was now on his own and Fredo was out of the woods...for a little while, anyway, until he dug his own grave and spilled the beans at the Superman show.

Bottom line is we may never know exactly WHAT it was that Fredo did to help Roth, what he was asked to do, what he told them; it's all up to speculation. I do NOT think he was the one who opened the drapes - they wouldn't have bothered asking him to do such a thing, and even Fredo would become suspicious of THAT. But he obviously WAS involved in a network of communication and activity masterminded by Roth, he provided some kind of information to Ola, somehow made it possible for the hitmen to slip into the compound (and open the drapes) amidst the activity of the all-day First Communion party...and Fredo was the (unwitting) link in the chain that made the assasination attempt possible.

AppleOnYa