Originally Posted By: SC
 Originally Posted By: SenGeary
Now, here's where its cloudy for me. Was the killing of Tattaglia, Stracci (sp?), and Cuneo just to prevent them from coming after the Corleones for killing Barzini, or was it something else???


If I'm not mistaken, only Barzini, Tattaglia and Moe Green were killed in the novel. Tattaglia was killed as further payback for Sonny's death (despite the fact that Tattaglia's son was already killed). Moe Green was killed because of the way he handled Fredo and Barzini was killed to stop the threat against the Corleones.

I could only suggest the others were killed to juice up the movie.

That's exactly why the others were killed--to provide some dramatic assassination violence. The novel's murders were more businesslike: Moe Green was killed before the Great Massacre day because he needed to be out of the way for Michael to move on his hotel. Cuneo and Stracci didn't have to be killed because they were not active conspirators against Vito and Michael (although they may have taken sides against Vito during the war). But, by killing Tat and Barz, Michael had made his point: he was the new top dog, and the others would fall in line without murder.

Ntra la porta tua lu sangu � sparsu,
E nun me mporta si ce muoru accisu...
E s'iddu muoru e vaju mparadisu
Si nun ce truovo a ttia, mancu ce trasu.