Michael makes this assertion at Vito's funeral when he explains why it was Tessio, not Clemenza who betrayed the family.

What evidence there is of this?

Yes Tessio looked smarter, maybe cause Clemenza was so fat, but in following the story it seems Clemenza had a fairly substantial role to be considered the less smart of the two.

Clemenza was Vito's first accomplice, and always remained close to him. Even when they suspected him of being mixed up in the assassination attempt on Vito, he vindicated himself, wiped out Paulie, and seemed to be the one doing most of the strategy to set things up on the West Side when they went to the mattresses.

When Michael made his plans to kill Sol, he wanted Clemenza to tape the gun to the back of the box with the chain thing, and he had Clemenza train him in how to kill Sol and McC, and how to get away with it.

During that session Clemenza waxed philosophical about how wars had to havven every ten years or so to get rid of the bad blood, and he even made a comparison to nipping things in the bud which he compared to the appeasement of Hitler. I think this knowledge of history spilled over into the Clemenza replacement character Frankie, whr was also a stuent of history.
Tessio was also the one who had his ear to the ground right after the assassination attempt on ito and had to calm Sonny down after he delivered the news that the word on the street was Vito was already dead.

And on top of all that he made a mean pasta sauce, and delivered the line Leave the gun, take the Cannoli."

In other words I don't see where there is anything showing Tessio was the smarter one. Am I missing something?

The thing is - we just don't know very much about Tessio. In the novel he doesn't even have a first name. Clemenza is smart in the way he plans the revenge on the two young guys who hurt Bonasera's daughter and the killing of Paulie.
But I've always had the feeling that some of his actions were a little risky.
- When they steal the carpet, he's ready to shoot a police officer. For a carpet!
- When he tricks Paulie, he goes for lunch. This could have gone wrong.
- Telling Rocco to leave the gun wasn't smart because of fingerprints, unless of course, he had prepared it with the magic tape.

For the "box & chain thing": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flush_toilet#History

Although there is little or no evidence in the film that Tessio was smarter, there is such evidence in the novel. Vito instructs his capos to not associate even socially. "He [Vito] explained this to the more intelligent Tessio, who caught his drift immediately, ..."

Of course, one could argue that in the film as well as in the novel that from all appearances the Corleones were doomed and that Tessio has assessed the situation correctly while Clemenza didn't have a clue.

It's also possible--just barely--that Michael was being sarcastic. Clearly Clemenza was smart enough to stick with him. Tessio wasn't.

I don't know about that TB. Clemenza's decision to stick with Michael was probably more a function of loyalty than intelligence. Besides, Vito and Michael purposely represented the Corleones as vulnerable. That charade was good enough to fool Barzini; thus, it was good enough to fool Tessio.

TB could be right. Michael did have a tone of sarcasm in his voice. He well could have meant that Tessio was too clever by half.

Oh DT, I don't recognize any sarcasm at all.

Yeah, something is there...after all he is doing his favorite thing, contradicting Tom. Maybe it was irony not sarcasm..."It was the smart move. Tessio was always smarter." He says it with a kind of tone as if to say "I knew it would be Tessio." But back to the question...where was Tessio so smart? IN THE MOVIE NOT THE BOOK!

That's because the restaurant was located in Clemenza's territory in The Bronx and that made him the logical choice.

Well, in the movie, it's quite evident (consistent with the novel) that Michael presents a Corleone family that is just a shadow of its former self. That was his objective. He accomplished it. Tessio figured that he was going to get wiped out along with the rest of Corleone hieracrchy. It was a smart move; Clemenza bought into Michael's Potemkin Village ("Let us recruit some new men."). Clemenza was willing to go down with the ship.

I beg to differ. The secret Rocco regime was there and the Corleones were not going down. Maybe Clemenza was smart enough to figure it out. tom was.

If Clemenza had known, he wouldn't be there whinning about things.
The only reason Tom knew was that he saw what they were getting paid and he knew the money was for more then just hanging out there.

And one more thing: A film and a novel don't have to show every detail. FFC lets us know that Michael thinks that Tessio was smarter. That's enough for us speculate about his history.
And it's more than the plot holes in GF2.

Come on DT. Your own words: "... secret Rocco regime..."

I always thought the "Tessio was always smarter" comment was very ironic because there he is trying to pull a very predictable move thinking Michael wouldn't catch on.

OK a quasi secret Rocco regime. Tom knew, Vito knew, Michael knew, Rocco knew, Neri probably knew, and the members of the regime knew. Whats the old saying about things not being secret if three or more people know?

(Deleted kithen scene)
Tom - Clemenza thats a huge pot of sauce you got there.
Clem - Yeah, Rocco asked me to make it he said I gotta feed a hundred guys.
Tom - Mind if I have some with my pasta.
Clem - Yeah sure. So whats with Rocco and these guys?
Tom - Can't tell you. I've been in Vegas so I really can't say.
Clem - I think Mike is up to something. Maybe it has to do with cutting me and Tessio out so we can form our own family.
Tom - Well you'd have to ask the Don about that.
Clem - Well I aint saying nothin' but think Mikey has something planned, and I mean something big. If the Don doesn't cut us loose then I know they're gonna need me for some suprise meets.
Tom - Youre a good man Clem. Just remember to save some extra for Manolo.

Watching it again, it doesn't seem to me that he's saying that Tessio was actually smarter in the sense of intelligence, but saying that Tessio was always smarter meaning a smarter choice. That makes sense because of how loyal Clemenza is to both Vito and Michael and Barzini probably knew that he'd be less likely to go along with it than Tessio.

I think that what some of you are forgetting is that Michael doesn't say only "Tessio was always smarter." He also says just before those words "It's a smart move."

Michael knew with the way he let it seem that the family was just about done, with so little left that a smart person would be the one to try and cut a deal and get out with something rather then nothing. It was just a smart business kind of thing to do.

Clemenza would have rode the ship all the way down to the bottom. Loyal but not very smart, Vito and Michael both knew that it was a smart move to leave. In fact you have to some what blame them for the false setup that caused Tessio to be disloyal when he looked at what was happening.

By staying loyal as Pete was/did, they knew they could now trust him to go foward with them into the future. It was almost like checking the loyalty of your men in a way. To see who would be behind Michael once Vito passed.

Thats what i mean, taken in context with that it seems more that by saying "Tessio was always smarter" he's saying that Tessio was always the smarter choice.

It wasn't too smart since The Corleones saw it coming from a mile away.

Telling Sonny to never lose that temper wasn't very smart.

I think that was more of Barzini and Tessio underestimating Michael.

Obviously.

They all did, that was noticeable when Michael said he'd kill Sollozzo and McCluskey and they all laughed at him. That part always seemed strange to me when Sonny remarked about him being a nice college boy, like he forgot that Michael was in the Marines and undoubtedly had to kill someone before. It did seem as though Sonny believed him and realized he was serious until Clemenza started laughing but I also think Sonny really had alot of respect for Michael after he planned out how to be able to divert some of the heat from killing a cop and was seriously going through with it.

Michael would've made a good wartime Consigliere...Maybe one who could've gotten through to Sonny's hot temper.

Imagine a team with Sonny as Don, Michael as Consigliere....I think it could've worked.

I think Sonny would of been better as Michael's underboss, his temper would keep the troops in line and if Michael handed down a hit order Sonny'd be best to carry it out, that being said though I don't think the baptism hit would of went down as well if Sonny was around.

I can't imagne Michael being number two to anyone. Maybe thats one of the underlying reasons he didn't want to get into the family business in the first place.

Not really, what Michael was before his father was shot and what Michael became were two different people that is for sure.

Your talking about what Michael had become as a result of working to protect his father and the family.
Michael was a fun loving easy going type of guy as you can tell by the wedding and the hotel where he is shacked up with Kay right before the shooting.
No matter how you try and spin it. Michael is a product of his Enviroment- plain and simple

I agree FS, but something happened to Michael after the incident with McCluskey. He told Vito he was now "with him" which of course was both a physical fact and a metaphor, but then the following day I think he saw the way Sonny and Tom were running things, and he realized they both didn't get it. Thats when he announced the plan to "kill them both." After everyone had a god laugh, he took apart Sonny's argument and then Ton's argument, and he found an ally in Clemenza (the smart one) who said "Mikey's right." He seemed a transformed man who knoew he was destined to lead the family.