Sonny's one good idea

Sonny: "So why don't we just blast whoever's in the goddamn car?"
Clemenza: "Too dangerous - they'd be lookin' for that."

What does that mean? Who'd be lookin' for that?

Hagen adds: "Sollozzo might not even be in the car, Sonny!"

Well, he was in the car. Wouldn't things have gone a lot easier if the had followed Sonny's idea at that point? (Except for the fact that the story would have ended then...

Sollozzo was going to meet face to face with the son of the man he'd been trying to kill. So even though he misread Mike as a civilian he still would have been initially on high alert for ANY sign of danger. Once he's picked up Mike, frisked him and possibly thrown off any tails, he's fractionally more relaxed. And that's all the edge Michael needs.

As it turned out Sollozzo was in the car but 1) Sonny was going more by intuition than planning. Over time planning is going to be more effective and 2) The Family had ONE chance to get Sollozzo.

It was better to get very close and do it right than have Michael (or anyone else) try to shoot someone in the back seat and possibly be shot himself, run over by the driver or worst of all fail to do the job on both McCluskey and Sollozzo.

If you play out the possible scenarios, you'll see why Lilo is right:
As Clemenza said, they were expecting (or at least guarding themselves against) an attack right at the point of picking up Michael. For all they knew, the Corleones might have sent someone of Michael's approximate size, dressed like him, to "do the job" on them right then and there. That's why they specified that the pickup point would be in front of Jack Dempsey's Restaurant--smack in the middle of Times Square, "the Crossroads of the World," the most crowded nighttime area of NYC.

If Michael had tried to take them out as soon as the car pulled up, he would have needed a machine gun--not exactly a concealable weapon--to nail them with certainty. Then he'd have to try to get away amid the crowds. If he had a handgun and tried to use it after getting in the car, he might miss, or fail to kill them immediately; or the car would careen out of control.

As Lilo said, he had only one shot at Sol and Mac. Getting them inside the restaurant, where they'd be far more relaxed, was the best shot.

He could have thrown a hand grenade....or shot them from a mile away like in the army...

Ok, so that wasn't such a great idea. So did he ever have one?

Yes. Sonny wanted to kill Sollozo, while Tom wanted to negotiate.

Banging Lucy and beating up Carlo the first time.

Seriously, his wanting to get into the drug trade was actually a good idea, especially in the long run. It was the way that he blurted it out that was stupid, but his wanting to get into it would have actually been good for the family. In truth, Vito was being somewhat ignorant and old fashioned in not wanting to get involved in the drug trade.

So in reality, yes, Sonny did have a good idea when he told Vito that there was a lot of money in that stuff and then having an interest in it when he saw that Tattaglia's were going to guarentee the Corleone's investment.

He just opened his mouth at the wrong time.

Good point DC,and of course had Sonny prevailed on the drig idea, he would not have been killed.

It iccurs to me that the Corleone family was not really set up to be in the drug business. Other than providing political protection and finance, in exchange for the drug money was actually a great idea, and it would have probably worked as long as Vito was aloive and had all the judges etc in his pocket. Further the compromise into which they entered... only to sell it in the "dark areas" and to keep it away from schools and children would have probably passed political and judicial muster in the late forties and early fifties. But when Vito's time was over, I doubt that Sonny would have been able to keep the political connections Vito had. He was too much of a hot head, too much of a big mouth and too much of a "street guy" to be discreet enough with politicians. Once that happened, I would bet the drug money would start drying up and the other families would have tried to squeeze the Corleones out.

Interesting.

I always thought that the Don was being old-fashioned (and implausibly scrupulous) in not wanting to get involved in narcotics. However I also think that while perhaps the Don wasn't looking at the immediate next 10-20 years as Sonny/Tom were, he might have been looking REALLY, REALLY long term (30-50 years) and at the fate of the Families at a whole, and not just the Corleone Family.

While the narcotics business was very profitable, over time it also attracted an enormous amount of legal and political attention, caused criminal penalties for trafficking to go through the roof, helped build massive federal and international anti-drug organizations, weakened the control and discipline that top mob bosses had over lower level members and associates, reduced legal protections for those accused of trafficking, inevitably brought more drug users into the Families, and helped to make omerta something of a joke.

So I think the Don may have been thinking of some of this (for the greater good of all of the Families, not just his own) when he initially turned down Sollozzo's offer.

After all the Don was a statesman...

Yes. And that's EXACTLY how FFC and PUZO wanted us, as viewers to perceive him. I've written about this many times in the past. It's a director and a writer's way of making you root for the bad guy. You look at Vito and say,

"Hey he's not that bad of a guy. He won't deal in drugs and he looks down on infidelity. He won't kill at the request of Bonasera. After all, he's not a murderer like that undertaker thinks he is. He just handing out the deserved justice. That's a man with scruples."

But when push comes to shove, he's really no better than the drug dealer, the whoremaster or the womanizing pimp. Because no matter how many times you throw it in the wash, it still comes out the same - he's a manipulating law breaking murderer. Crime is crime and sin is sin.

But we still like him and look on him with more respect than we do Tattaglia, Barzini and The Turk.

Oh, I agree, which is why I wrote it was implausible for the Don not to get involved in narcotics.

FFC went to great lengths in the first film to show the adversaries of the Corleones as evil men. We NEVER see the evil that the Corleones do. We never seen Corleone loan sharks terrorizing dock workers or Corleone labor racketeers shooting some businessman who had the temerity to open up a garment factory or garbage hauling company.

FFC was alternatively amused and irritated by criticisms of his depictions in the first film which was part of the reason he made the second film darker. There the victims of the Corleones are not as deserving of their fates - a prostitute just doing her thing, an oldtime gangster who got confused and the protagonist's older brother.

You could even argue that everything Roth did was in self-defense...

Having said all that though I still wonder if the Don really was looking WAY ahead when he spoke against drugs.

Perhaps he was. We need to keep in mind that Michael was not in the picture at that time and it was Sonny that was being groomed for the Donship. As one of the posters above correctly pointed out, Sonny did not have the ability to schmooze and keep those politicians in his pocket the way that Don Vito had. And Vito knew this. There are hints in the novel of the doubts that Vito had for Sonny suceeding him as the Don.

But I still think that Vito failed to see the bigger picture. Even his consigliere advised that the Drug trade would eventually make the other families more money which would make then even more powerful thatn the Corleones somewhere down the road.

Sonny was in it for the $$$. Tom had the foresight to see that they should get into it to retain their power in the future.

I don't doubt that the Don underestimated the initial benefit of getting openly involved in the drug business. I also think it was unrealistic for the Don to think that he could run an international criminal enterprise and not have to get involved with drugs at some point. That was Vito's mistake.

And I agree that Tom was on point as to all the reasons to get into narcotics.

But I think that the Don believed that open or even hidden involvement in narcotics would complicate or delay his own plans for legalizing much of the Corleone Family business. That was his selfish interest. Like I said above I believe the character also had slightly altruistic interests, "I think this drug business will destroy us in years to come".

One of the themes that runs throughout the Godfather novel and Trilogy as well as Puzo's other crime novels is the desire for the Italian-American crime family to enter the larger society and be fully Americanized (except with greater power than the average schmuck).

As Michael told Kay, the Don did not see himself as a criminal.
So circa 1946 (per novel) Vito's already laying the groundwork to move the Family more closely into society, making more money from legal or at least non-violent businesses when along comes Sollozzo and upsets the apple-cart.

A Michael whose older brothers are Damon Runyonesqe "gamblers" or "union bosses" can still become "Governor Corleone" or "Senator Corleone". But perhaps it's not as easy if the news headlines are
screaming about "Santino Corleone: East Coast drug boss".

I agree. Joe Valachi was doing time on a drug trafficking charge when he suspected he was marked for death, killed the wrong man and started cooperating. If the mob had followed its own ban on dealing who knows how long they could have continued keeping their secrets.

Some of these posts hae nailed it. Puzo and FFC wanted us to relate to Don Corleone as a kind of Robin Hood figure. He helped the poor paisan against the unjust pezza novante, he obtained jusce when the corrupt courts and police did not deliver it, and he kept the old neighborhoods safe. We don't ever see the seamy underbelly of book making, loan sharking, numbers, and union thuggery in which he was heavily involved.

Didnt Sonny want to kill all the heads of the families?

That was a good idea and an idea that Michael actually carried out. They never saw him coming.

They would have seen Sonny coming a mile away. But it was still a good idea, right?

Exactly, DC.
Vito correctly assessed that the penalties associated with drug trafficking would eventually be the downfall of the families. Had he taken Sollozzo more seriously, he could have temporarily delayed drug trafficking by having Luca murder Sol and making the other Dons suck it up. But, as the Don of Cleveland said later, there was too much money in drugs to stop the trafficking.
As you said, Tom correctly viewed a simple equation: drugs=profits=police/political protection=Corleones remain on top. But, I'm guessing Vito figured that, while he might be able to control drug trafficking, when he was gone, Sonny's greed and rashness would screw the pooch.

No question about it TB. There are parts in the novel that talk about the doubts that Vito had about Sonny one day taking over as the Don.

And as pointed out above, Vito probably did have aspirations and dreams of taking the family legit. I believe that deep down inside, he believed that one day he would get Michael to align with him in the legitimate end of the family business and then would have used all of his political contacts and connections to set Michael up in the "legitimate" political world.

TOM : (after looking off toward Sonny, bends his head toward the Don) "It was Michael -- who killed Sollozzo. But he's safe -- and we're starting to work to bring him back now." [The Don, markedly upset and angry, gestures that they leave him alone. They exit.

VITO : "But I never -- I never wanted this for you -- I thought that -- that when it was your time -- that -- that you would be the one to hold the strings. Senator - Corleone. Governor - Corleone, or something... this wasn't enough time, Michael. Wasn't enough time..."


For me that sums it all up. Earlier I said that Vito was not really looking at the big picture, and he wasn't in terms of the drug trade and how it would grow in the underworld.

But at the same time, in his mind he WAS looking at the big picture realizing that Sonny could never keep the political connections once he ( Vito) was gone and therefore Vito had plans to protect those political connections that he had and not jepordize those connections just for the sake of making money off of drugs. He wanted to protect those connections because he had plans of using them once he guided Michael into the "legitimate" polical world.

But when he learned that Michael was the one that killed Sol and McC, those dreams went right out the widow. Now he had no choice but to alter those plans in order to protect his son and save his family.

There truly wasn't enough time.

Maybe we are buying into Vito as a great guy a bit too much here.
First of all I don't think the whole drug thing was presented to Vito the right way. Because of his "Sicilian Cunning," he smelled a rat from the beginning. He tells Sollozzo he doesn't care what a man does for a living, and tells him as long as his interests don't conflict with the Corleones, he wishes him good luck in his drug dealing. Minutes later, he confides in Luca that he wants to see what Sollozzo has got underneath his fingernails. He tells him to to to the Tattaglias, etc. Maybe he already suspects that the Tattaglias are fronting for another family....bottom line is he does not trust what is going on, and he knows there is more to all this than meets the eye. What Vito doesn't quite see at this point is Barzini's ambition to become Capo di tutti Capi, and the backhanded way he is going about it.

In reality Barzini played this all wrong. He should have sent Tattaglia to meet with Corleone one on one, and not put Sollozzo out there to begin with. Had he done that it is entirely possible they would have eventually negotiated a deal much like the one Vito was forced into when he had to bring Michael home.
Perhaps a meeting of the commission at that time, during which the bosses from all over could tell their tales about how they don't like drugs but the money involved corrupts the people who work for them, and how they "can't resist." despite being paid extra not to deal. Vito as a practical businessman would then have seen that this drug business was unavoiable, and he may have gone along with restricting the drug trade and controlling it, with the understanding that and violations of the code would have negated his obligation to provide political and judicial protection. Such a compromise IMHO would have tempted the likes of Sollozzo to overplay his hand, and end up being rubbed out by consensus. On the other hand, Tattaglia could have made a fortune selling pot and coke to all the johns and the rest of them could sell heroin in the "dark areas," keeping it away from the old neighborhoods. During this period, Vito could have started moving on Vegas, as Michael ebventually did, and "legitimize" things through Tom, and hpefully Michael.

So aside from not having enough time, the Don "was slippin."

Yes, per novel that was Sonny's idea, his master stroke. The other Family heads went underground and did not surface until after Sonny's death. It was a good idea but he didn't have quite the tools to pull it off.

Sonny wanted to kill everyone who opposed the Family.
It's alluded to in the film when after the Don comes home Sonny tells Tom to help him find "that old pimp Tattaglia". Tom demurs and sarcastically notes Sonny's growing reputation for violence.

I wondered if Sonny's character was at least somewhat inspired by Albert Anastasia or Lilo Galente, two bosses known more for violence than brains...

Vito's world was at peace. Who knew better than he that involving himself in the drug bsiness might alienate his political and legal support? Why take that chance? Why disturb that peace? In the real world, he has been proven correct. Made guys are turning state's witnesses when threatened with long drug-related sentences.

Yes, he suspects that there's more to all this than just the drug proposition. He says as much. That's why he sends Luca to check things out. And he was right. Barzini wants to be No 1.

But Vito was no better than any of the other hoods portrayed in the film. He supported, directly or indirectly, all kinds of illegal, illicit, and immoral activities. He murdered when those activities were threatened.

Sonny's idea to kill all the heads of the families was a bad idea for its time. It was typical, hotheaded Sonny--predictable--the worst place for an acting Don to be in a time of war. And as we saw, Sonny's predictable reaction to Connie's second beating cost him his life.
Michael's killing of the other Dons was, as noted, not predictable. He made them think he was weak, then he struck. BUT, in the novel, Michael only whacks Barzini and Tattaglia among the Dons. He didn't have to whack the others--they saw the example he was setting and, presumably, got the message. I could make a case that, if Sonny had reacted by going after only Tattaglia, he might have split Cuneo and Stracchi away from Tat--they'd want to have a truce so they could go back to making money instead of hiding and fighting. That might have made Barzini show his hand. But it'd be too subtle for Sonny.

Well papa had Genco, look what he had!

Michael's murder of all the Dons was, of course, fictional. But can you imagine the chaos that would ensue in the underworld if that were to happen? That's why Puzo's limited attack in the novel was believable.

Well I disagree somewhat...

There's novel Sonny and movie Sonny.

In the novel Sonny does not consider the murders of all the other Family heads until the Corleone Family position becomes dangerously precarious. The Family is somewhat overmatched. The Don's political network is neutralized; Tom is not quite a wartime consigliere; Tessio has mellowed and Clemenza lacks "youthful energy". Sonny had wanted to fight a holding action until his father could rejoin the fray but events on the ground made that impossible. Sonny was nearing a point where he had to either "go long or go home".

Eliminating the other Family bosses could probably end the war but at the very least it would definitely buy the Corleones some breathing space until the Don recovers.
That down time would allow more businesses to get up and running and reduce the likelihood of internal dissension/treachery.

In the film I believe the only time Sonny is shown even considering such a move is when he's yelling at Tom that he will end the stalemate by killing Tattaglia (and the others?) It's unclear if he means everyone. In the beginning he also states that he doesn't care if he has to fight all the other Families.
But his primary ire seems to be at Tattaglia. If Sonny had been able to get to Tattaglia and Barzini he may well have given Tom permission to set up peace talks with the remaining bosses.

But since Sonny thought of it (novel), Vito planned it (film) and Michael actually carried out the murders of all the other bosses I think that Sonny was not really that different than his relatives. His caginess and analytical skills definitely weren't on Michael or Vito's level but all three Corleones had the same instincts when it came to dealing with their enemies.

I agree. That's why I wrote above "While the narcotics business was very profitable, over time it also..(snip)..helped to make omerta something of a joke."

Military strategists will tell you there are three aspects to winning a war.

1. Goals - what you want to achieve
2. Strategies - How you plan on achieving your goals
3. Tactics - How you execute your strategies

Sonny's main problem is that he is totally missing #2. (His goals also aren't too well thought-out.) But without strategies, you really can't hope to achieve your goals.

Yes, and you have to be dispassionate when setting and executing these goals, something Sonny was not.

Exactly.

Absent well-thought out goals and clear strategies, I have trouble crediting Sonny with *ANY* good ideas, even if some of his thoughts were later executed successfully by Michael. Sonny would have screwed things up, somehow or other.

I think that some of you are being a bit too harsh on Santino. Let's face it, the Don was slipping and he let Sollozo and company get to him. Something that he never would have let happen 5 - 10 years earlier. And Sonny was "thrown" into a
mess. The key was that Sollozo and company were able to take out Luca Brasi at the same time. The strongest force that the Corleones had. A good move that weakened Sonny and the Corleones quite a bit.

Now I'm not saying that Sonny was anything like his father, or his brother Michael in the cunning and leadership department. But he actually was a good wartime street warrior /
streetfighting / boss who's only real mistake was that he let his temper get the best of him on a personal matter which cost him his life.

Let's not forget ( and I'm taking the liberty of crossing over to the novel ) that years earlier he and Luca ran a street war and he did a good job of running and saving the family.

I think that had Sonny still had Luca Brasi at his side, and a wartime consigliere like Genco, things would have been much different. I think that he just may have successfully wiped out most of his enemies and may have been able to sustain the family during the war until the Don was healthy enough to get back in the chair.

Let's say Sonny had managed to kill Bruno Tattaglia, whom he believed to be behind Sollozzo. With Vito still alove but weakened, such a move would have probably forced the remnants of the Tattaglia family and all the other families into an alliance with Barzini, and perhaps other families from out of New York, including the Molinaris on the coast against the Corleones. To that end Tom was right in his advice to Sonny...that with the stories about McCluskey circulating, things were starting to loosen up and money was starting to come back in. At that point, the family was considerably weaker han it had been, and Tom was absolutely right to tke a wait and see approach.

All the sibling rivalry stuff that we have covered in other threads considered, Sonny refused to take Tom's advice, assuming he was not a wartime consigliere like Genco was, and made the incredibly bad decision that "business will have to sufer."
This is 180 degrees opposite to what Mike and Vito eventually did. They went out of their way to lay low. They knew the family did not have the kind of muscle it needed to win a war, and they knew they had to keep things greased lest the other families turn on them (which they were already doing, i.e. chiseling away at Tessio and Clemenza's territories). Michael secretly built up the Neri regime, something that did not escape Tom's eye, and when the time was right he mde his move. His brilliance was in the timing. He waited until he had the muscle, until after the Baptism and his being named Godfather to Connie's child before he paid his "visit" to the heads of the families and to Carlo.

All of this is pretty much in line with what Hagen would have recommended IMHO, and in fact Hagen played an integral rle in the planning and execution of the hit on Tessio, which he handled brilliantly, as well as the hit on Carlo. He was also an instrumental layer in the hits at the end of GFII. So what I am saying here is that while Sonny and Michael were always quick to dismiss Tom as not a wartime consigliere, perhaps he was not as bad as all that after all.

Good post, DT.

I agree. I think Tom was at least as good a Consigliere as Sonny was a Don.

He did!


"After the hospital thing, Sonny got mad. We hit Bruno Tattaglia 4 o'clock this morning."

I know who you really meant. Good post DonT. Some good points,

"All you people want is more, more, more. Leave Sonny alone!"

Bruno Tattaglia, Phillip Tattaglia....they all look the same to me.

Nice post DT.
I agree that Tom gets a bad rap in a lot of respects.

But Sonny didn't have the freedom to lie low and play possum for two or three years.
He was in a hot war he didn't choose and the entire Corleone power was at stake.

He couldn't negotiate the Sollozzo deal (without Sollozzo) which is the least of what the other Families wanted.
He could not replace the consigliere or get new capos as Mike/Vito did.

His only choice was to surrender or come out swinging.

Mike and Vito were able to make their plans and lay low because as Boss, Vito had the power to unilaterally change the Corleone Family policy on drug trafficking. This brought them the critical time to train Michael, build secret regimes and expand/transfer political power. Sonny didn't have that kind of time.

Even though Sonny disagreed with the initial policy and was at least tangentially to blame for the ensuing war, there's no way Sonny would have gone against his father in a matter of business and told the other Families that he would now support drug trafficking, regardless of what Vito had said.

We can really ask the question of why didn't Vito order Sonny/Tom to give in and make the same plans with them as he later did with Michael. The story wouldn't have been as interesting of course.

Vito was holding out for his position--no drugs--until events forced his hand. I think he was depending on Sonny to mount a holding action until he got better and could take command. But when Sonny was assassinated, he had to act in a conciliatory fashion--he had no choice. And he had to give in to bring Michael back safely from Sicily, to assume command of the family. Those needs made Vito change course.

And I agree with Turnbull in that Vito was depending on Sonny to hold things together until he was healthy enough to take back control.

We agree on that.
Yes, Vito was depending on his eldest son to hold things together.
And Sonny was not as smart or as cunning as Vito or Michael.
All I'm saying is that Sonny's hand was forced in a way that Michael's wasn't. So his aggressive defense of Family power was the best move that could be made at that time.

If Vito had given Sonny permission to assent to the drug deal (for strategic purposes) and Sonny refused because he wanted immediate revenge that would be a different story.

I'll agree with that Lilo. And that is why iinitially said that although Sonny may not have been as calculating and as cunning as Vito or Michael, he was dealt the hand that he had to play and really didn't do a bad job, in regards to fighting a war, considering the manner in which his hand was forced and his losing a major ally, a major force, in Luca Brasi.

I agree with that too.

Sonny was the Patton of the underworld. He knew how to fight and win, but not when to fight. He was brash and rash, stubborn, and pedantic.

EXACTLY! I was thinking of using that very analogy earlier...
Perfect, Olivant..

Yes olivant, an EXCELLENT analogy!

I disagree with the when to fight part, Sonny's downfall was his rash judgment which caused him to fly off the handle (at Carlo) instead of being careful and sending someone to get Carlo and bring him to Sonny.

"A rose by any other name ..."

And that translates into knowing when to fight vs. knowing when to retreat, back off and plan your next fight.