Now here's how I see it. Vito was a noble man brought into a life by a few circumstances. The movie (unlike the book where he is said to have murdered to cause fear (the union cheif working on fontane's movie))portrays VC as a great man, which indeed he was, patient, wise, thoughtful, compassionate, amicable. He had all the qualities that the classic leader should.

Michael on the other had had many of these qualities, however he does get tyranical in GF I to a certain degree. He although many of the qualities of Vincent, does not have the same qualities of fairness or justice that VC has, since he did kill his own brother after being convinced of his total betrayal. He has by GF III become a man who has matured with age, gotten out of his bad habits. Still he allows the family to fall out of Legitamacy and back into the cycle under Vincent's tutiledge.

Vincent on the other hand has all the qualities of the 3 brothers. He has the thoughtfulness of Michael and all the other mental characteristics that made him great. He has the strength and good looks of Sonny as well as the passion and anger. He likewise has the charm and heart of Fredo. He is in many sense a different incarnation of Vito, in some ways.

Though Vito was a wise man, I feel Mike made the best Don.

We tend to wax rhapsodic about Vito because he showed his "compassionate" side and was against drugs. But let's remember that Vito's regular businesses--gambling and unions--hardly constituted "victimless crimes." The big money in illegal gambling comes not from the odds favoring the house, but from loansharking--a business of broken kneecaps or worse. And every dollar that Vito got from the unions was a dollar taken from a workingman's pocket. Vito's business "ethic" was to present the utmost reasonableness, and back it with utmost violence.

I'd say it's close between Michael and Vito. If I had to pick, I'd say Mike.

Good call TB. There is an irony in the GF in that Vito is a romanticized hero where as Michael is shown to be ruthless. It's only elluded to in the book that he gave orders to hurt someone (Amerigo Bonasera's daughter's assailents)and the assassination of the union hold-out on Johnny's production in GF I. This ellusion is not even present in the movie olbviously due to the extraneous nature of it. More-over we are only really shown the beginning of Vito's reign and his end, both of which are more positive. We never see his middle life, it's only elluded to.

Vito, I will venture more over, is more noble than not, but he is still a criminal. He has very stringent ideologies which almost make the whole concept of leading a crime family justifiable ro at least convincing. I think we are drawn into the closed world of GF I so completly that we tend to forget about the inequalities present and the actual negativity going on.

I think Vito was the better Don. He kept both family and business in balance.As Michael neglects his family and moves to Nevada, and on short term, I think that made him a better businessman than Vito, but neglecting his family, eventually had to turn against him. I think the last scene of GFII says enough: he has nobody, his wife left him, his kids don't want to be with him, he doesn't even trust Tom anymore, and there is also no sign of Rocco or Neri.

I said Vito, because he was the one who actually built the Corleone empire. Mike only inherited it. It doesnt take much to inherit something, but to built an empire...thats a diffrent story. Mike is shown to be this ruthless guy by killing his own brother, but there is no doubt in my mind that if Vito were in that exact same situation, Paolo who have gotten whacked, so I didnt base my opinions on how they ran the business.

Yeah I agree, Micheal could have never built the Corleone empire like Vito did. Vito knew what he was doing-he always made the right choices. Micheal made many wrong ones. Now don't get me wrong, Micheal was a pretty good don. He went against a lot of things that Vito would have never done, but Micheal did a lot for the business side of the family. However, he could never be a great don like his father.

Mike on the one hand lost one of the most important teaching of Vito, to be reasonable. Everything he did in GF II, was not too reasonable. All his enemies were serverly punished or debilitated, Roth was taken into custody, had a major stint in the hospital and the end was near. Fredo, ousted from the family, at least the inside and Pentangeli was a prisoner, all got their punishment, but he still saw it fit to have then squashed and to what end? They all lost, lost something so humungous. The only one who really deserved it in certain terms is Roth, but Mike even lost Rocco in doing so.

The bottomline is Vito spoke from the head and the heart. He was very compassionate and Mike wasn't, although Mike was very brilliant, no doubt, he was never truly compassionate. I think MP was a little ahead of his time with this commentary. Even the Dali Lama said that we spend so much time developing our minds (in the west) we neglect our hearts.

We have to consider that they lived different situations. In GF II Mr. Hagen and Pentangeli remember the old times with nostalgia. The first families, how they got organized. Vito was a pioneer and his partners had that italian philosophy.
And Michael had to face the struggle to get the bigger piece of the cake. Had a lot of pressure from politicians and the society. He had to take mean decicions.

Ciao.