The Controversy of the Families

Yeah its true, there is controversy of the heads of the five families pacino made an error in the baptism saying that he was getting a meeting with the head of the five families..his father was dead so what is the missing head of family even though he killed him..he didnt beacuse they provided Fredo protection
1.Corleone
2.Barzini
3.Tattaglia
4.Cuneo
5.Strachi
6.MOLINARI

The biggest godfather controversy or polemic..Is now answered..have a nice day

i dont beleive the molinari family was apart of the New York faction of families.

so you could tell which one is instead

there isnt a 5th, this has been debated many times on the board before. im sure someone can link you to earlier threads on the subject. turnbull?

Weren't the Molinari's out in Nevada?

No. Their territory was San Francisco.

The issue of whether or not there were five families or six is probably THE most-often discussed topic on these boards. A current discussion is on in the "Godfather Novel" board.
One thing's certain: if there were a sixth New York family, it wasn't the Molinari's. Here's the transcript:

MICHAEL

Wait a minute -- you took Freddie in because the Corleone Family bankrolled your casino --

because the Molinari Family on the Coast guaranteed his safety. Now -- we're talking

I always thought the "five families" referred to the five New York families, and not "families" from other territories.

I'm pretty sure there is a fifth family.

Whether there is a sixth or seventh family (Bocchicchio), that I don't know.

The persistence of this question is amazing.

Michael says to Tom that he is going to meet all the heads of the five families and then he kills four.

Does this boil down to either

A) the Corleones are one of the five familes
B) he blew off killing one of the heads
C) one of the heads was killed (or died a peaceful, natural) off camera

?

Couldn't Michael be including the Corleone's into the Five Families thing?

They regularly called themselves the 5 families, so when there is a meeting, it would be called "meeting the heads of the 5 families." Not "the other 4."

Does that make sense?

yes your right my mistake i meant that the corleones are the 5th but when they refer to the other "five" families theres actually only 4 others. (cuneo, stracchi, barzini, tatalliga).

Tom does say that the 5 families would come after the Corleone's if Sonny tried to war with the Tattaglias, so does Tom mean they'll come after themselves?

That's what I believe--that there were five families including the Corleones; and the Corleones referred to "the Five Families" in a generic way. Those here who believe there were five families in addition to the Corleones can cite many examples in which the context unmistakably leads to that conclusion. But the sixth familiy, if there was one, is never named, either in the book or the film. The Bocchiccios were a New York area family, but they weren't players on the scale of the other families. They're never mentioned in the film; and in the novel, their only role in the Dons' Convention was to supply hostages to assure the safety of participants.

From Puzo page 222

(circa 1935-1937)

“There were five or six “Families” too powerful to be eliminated”
“It was Brasi operating alone, when one of the six powerful families tried to interfere and become the protector of the independents….”

– which imply at that time, there were six powerful families plus the Corleones. – which would make sense in a historical sense being that in the real world there were five main Sicillian/Italian gangs and Louis “Lepke” Buchalter’s operation. The others being what have become today’s modern five families, with Buchalter’s operation being assumed by the other five.

Puzo- Page 249
“The war of 1947 between the Corleone Family and the Five Families combined against them proved to be expensive to both sides.”
Page 251
“The New York five families had no desire to make more enemies by going into Vegas after Freddie.”
Page 254
“The Five Families and the Corleone Empire were in a stalemate”
Page 271
“The Don must take command or order Hagan to surrender the Corleone power to the Five Families”

Ok - dumb question/comment time....

I'm going to preface this by saying i do have a slight hearing problem, and AMC seems to be one of those channels that i have to turn way up to hear...

But whenver i watch this scene when Vito is introducing the other Dons - it seems like he makes a reference to a Corleone Family from Brooklyn.

Am i hearing things?

And if not, could this be the missing 5th family?

There was a mini-debate about this a while back. Even though the name he utters sounds very much like 'Corleone', and the line reads 'Corleone' in the GF transcript found on the Trilogy website...Vito is actually saying 'Cuneo'. Brando mumbles this name so badly that if you're not paying attention, it really does sound like Corleone. But to listen carefully it does come across as the correct name.

Apple

I think it is entirely possible, given the nature of their business, that "The Five Families" is their way of saying "the New York mafia", but without direct reference. I believe that may be the case, in the same way that they never use the word "Mafia" or even directly refer to themselves as an organisation at all. Historically it has helped them to pretend that they don't exist, and the tradition still continues to a much lesser degree today.

Why doesn't everyone stop arguing its obvious the Corleone's were one of the five families in every gangster movie I've seen they refered to the families in New York the five families like someone else said what it would sound stupid if someone said I'm going to have a meeting with the four other families.

Thats right. The term "Five Families" is used as a euphemism for the "Mafia". However, even in this fictional reference something is based on "fact", and that is there were five Families (apart from the Corleones). Mario Puzo is quite clear about this - he often wrote that the Corleones were waging war against the five Families and was quite specific in his detailing how the New York dons were the last to arrive at the sitdown setup by Barzini. Puzo wrote "The representatives of the Five Families of New York were the last to arrive and Tom Hagen was struck by how much more imposing, impressive, these five men were than the out-of-towners,"..... later he added, "Of the five New York Families opposing the Corleones his (Stracci's) was the least powerful".

The fifth Family was never named.

It was NOT the Corleones.

The Corleones actually may have been the 7th family. The Bocchiccios were probably included at that meeting.

In the movie Don Corleone starts out the meeting saying :

"Don Barzini, I want to thank you for helping me organize this -- meeting here today. And also the other heads of the Five Families --"

Don Corleone is thanking Don Barzini, the head of one of the families, and then in general he goes on to thank the other heads of the FIVE families.

He's obviously not thanking himself, and he obviously thanks them in addition to thanking Don Barzini.

So this line, in addition to what some others have posted above, says to me that there were 5 families + the Corleones and The Bocchicios, which makes it seven total families.

The Corleones were at war with 5 of them, and the Bocchicios were never involved in an actual war as they were the family that made their living being paid to give members of their own family as peace hostages during a negotiation between other rival families at odds.

Don Cardi

Like it has been stated the five families refers to the five new york families I mean if your gonna say it like that then if Don Corleone said the heads of the five other families then there would be seven so please just let it rest already.

Thank you Toni, you are correct that there actually were 7 families by what I wrote above. I went back and clarified what I was thinking by now mentioning the Bocchicios in the mix.


Now on the other hand, why should we let it rest? Because YOU no longer care to discuss this issue? If that's the case then just don't bother posting under this topic and move on to, or start another topic that interests you. But don't come off like that telling us to "just let it rest already."


Don Cardi

Lack of punctuation notwithstanding, Toni, I liked the way you put it in the other recent thread on this topic some much better.....

It was so much more definite, so much more foreceful, so much more expressive.....

So indicitive of the type of truly outstanding, articulate, and intelligent argument that we know you are capable of......

HERE IT IS ....let me refresh everyone's memory, just in case they missed it:

(BTW, hope you don't mind, but I added a little bit of punctuation on your behalf so as to improve the post's readability. I didn't want anyone to miss the full impact of it.)

PWNED!

So why did Michael say he killed the heads of the 5 families, when he only assasinated 4 dons + Moe, Tessio and Carlo

Look all I'm saying is that there are only suppose to be five New York Families the Corleones were New York based and so were the other four.

The five families are.
1.The Corleone Family
2.The Barzini Family
3.The Cuneo Family
4.The Stracci Family
5.The Tattaglia Family


Much like these real families.

Bonanno
Colombo
Genovese
Gambino
Lucchese

So, the movie fucked up, right?

And all I'm saying is that Puzo created a fictional 6th family, so as to avoid speculation as to which of the actual five NYV families the Corleones were supposed to represent.

The "fuck-up", if you will, was Puzo's failure to name the sixth family during the scene depicting the peace conference among the various Dons.

It's pretty clear to me that from all of the evidence that has been cited here by way of quotations from the novel that this was just one of many examples of sloppy writing in the book.

Now it's true that the sloppiness could have been Puzo's implying that there were six families in the first place, except that he says it so many times, vs. only one example of sloppy writing in the is area if you think tht he intended that there be only five families in total - the "sloppiness" in his failure to name them.

There were many passages in which Puzo said one thing in the book and then went on later to contradict what he said originally which could be considered sloppy writing.

His constantly writing about six families in total and his failure to subsequently name all six is just another example.

How else did Puzo contradict himself?

Let me just say and then I am done with this topic.

If Puzo wanted six families he would name them all at the meeting of the five families.

Let me just say and then I am done with this topic.

If Puzo wanted the 5 families families to include the Corleones, he would not have written phrases like:

The representatives of the Five Families of New York were the last to arrive and Tom Hagen was struck by how much more imposing, impressive, these five men were than the out-of-towners...."

or

Of the five New York Families opposing the Corleones his (Stracci's) was the least powerful".

or

“The war of 1947 between the Corleone Family and the Five Families combined against them proved to be expensive to both sides

or

"For the last year the Corleone family had waged war against the five great mafia families of New York"

or

“There were five or six “Families” too powerful to be eliminated”

or

“It was Brasi operating alone, when one of the six powerful families tried to interfere and become the protector of the independents….”

or

"(this) was the first challenge to trhe Corleon family and their power in ten years. There was no doubt Sollozzo was behind it, but he never would have dared attempt such a stroke unless he had support from at least one of the five great New York families."

There are, of course, others......

That's terrific.

Because judging from your contributions to this thread in particular, your attitude seems to suck almost as badly as mine.

Apple

Here are two examples which come immediately to mind (all citations and page numbers are from the 30th Anniverary paperback edition):

In the opening scene at Connie's wedding (page 15),' Puzo writes about Don Corleone and his tuxedo:

"The guests so exclaimed at how well he looked in his tux that an inexperienced observer might easily have thought that the Don himself was the luck groom."

Then, just 30 pages later (page 45), in the scene describing Don Corleone's visit to the hospital with his sons to see the dying consigliere Genco, Puzo writes

"He (Dr. Kennedy) was surprised when his (Genco's) wife and daughters turned to the short heavy man dressed in an awkwardly fitting tuxedo."

Then Puzo writes about Michael's war injuries.

In the scene at Connie's wedding (page 17), he writes:

"When Michael Corleone was discharged early in 1945 to recover from a disabling wound...."

Then, writing about how Michael felt after killing Sollozzo and McCluskey (Pages 151-152), Puzo writes:

"The feeling was familiar and he remembered being taken off the beach of an island his Marine division had invaded. The battle had been still going on but he had received a slight wound and was being ferried back to a hospital ship."

There were others; We had an entire thread about them once, but I couldn't find it.

Good. Now we can have a decent discussion about this without anymore of the meaningless "let it rest" and the "I am done with this topic" replies.

From what's been discussed, does anyone believe that the Bocchiccio family was represented at that meeting?


Don Cardi

[whispering] Pssst, maybe its now OK to admit there really were only five Families now.

In my opinion, the Bocchiccio Family probably did have a representative of some sort (i.e. Boss, Underboss or Consigliere) present at the meeting of the Bosses of the Five Families. I can't imagine a Family who are playing such a big part in the war of the Five Families being unaware of the topics (being discussed) at that meeting.

The Bocchichio's were not present at the meeting, they were completely ommitted the family from the book, when it was decided to not show how Mike got back to the US. If they were present, The Don would have announced them at the start

In the book, what did Michael say to Hagen at the funeral about killing everyone?

In the novel he doesnt say it at the funeral and he never specifically says who he's going to kill. He basically just says how Barzini will set him up, and then how Tessio is the traitor (interestingly, Hagen makes the comment that he bets the traitor is Carlo).

I'm still waiting to have a decent discussion on the "Godfather IV?" board. It seems every thread on that has at least two "let it rest" posts, usually by Apple.

I don't go into that thread very much. But I'll have to check it out.

I don't understand it. If there are a few people who are interested in having an ongoing discussion about the GF movies, what is the problem? If you or I do not think that there is any reason to continue a discussion, and others are still having one, then you or I should just move on instead of making posts like " end of story, enough about this already," etc.


Don Cardi

Mike at the funeral in the book? - doesn't say much - but more importantly Cuneo and Stracci are not murdered like they are in the movie.

I figured that Molinari was on a level of, say, Zalucchi (aka Mr. "I don't want it near schools").

Molinari was from the west coast.


Don Cardi

Don Zalucchi was the Don of Detroit, and a thinly veiled Joe Zerilli of the the Zerilli/Tacco clan.

My take on the issue having read the books is that the Corleones were above the five other (Italian) families, including one not named - the Corleones alone controlled most of the political/legal scene - in addition to Unions and Gambling (which are the best things to have)

But if we need a real life fifth family or gang in addition to the standard four plus Corleone why not the Roth-Green-Lakeville Road-combine that fills in for the real life Lansky-Siegel-Dalitz (along with the Mayfield road gang)

This is the historical period were Jewish mobsters were transitioning either into legitimate business or the grave - but still held some power in New York and Chicago and points in between.

Jews would not sit in on a modern day commission meeting of book and movie, but would certainly be a force to be considered, and were so in both GF and GFII.

It is unlikely most Italians would use the familia styling, but Lepke Buchalter had a seat on the commission before his demise.

DC, DC.. tsk tsk.. That's what you get for making sense.

In the first case, weren't the guests simply sucking up, excuse me, showing proper respect? These were the same guests that besieged Johnny Fontaine with drinks after the Don complained that no one had thought to wet his godson's throat.

Possibly, I suppose. But Puzo might have mentioned that had it been the case - it would have been an interesting note to add, wouldn't it?

And why leave it that way to possibly confuse the reader?

What I'm saying here is that there were places where the book was sloppily written, and Puzo's failure to name the sixth family may have simply been another one, especially considering all of the times he took pains in his writing to indicate that there were six.

There were several other inconsistincies in the book besides the two I cited.

One of these days I'm gonna go through the entire book with a fine tooth comb and find them all and write a post about it.

That was exactlhy what I thought when I first read that line.. that everyone was just being nice to Don Corleone because of who he was (and the fact that you NEVER insult your host, mafioso or not)

Even if you guys are right - and you may very well be - it's still an example of sloppy writing by Puzo.

He's leaving the reader confused as to whether or not Vito really did look good in his tuxedo, or if people were simply saying he looked good out of respect for him.

Maybe it's not necessarily sloppy writing. Maybe Puzo wrote this way to make it an open ended possibility. Beauty, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. Don Corleone probably looked like God himself to people like Bonasera or Enzo who desperately needed him for a service. To others, such as Don Barzini, he was merely an enemy, and Barzini probably saw him that way.

Who knows, it may be sloppy writing, but I'd like to pretend that there's more to it than just that.

I thought we settled this a 100 years ago. Puzo initially refrred to the five families that controlled Newy York and New Jersey. The Corleones were one of them. For artistic and poetic reason, he kept refering to the five families in a generic sense such as someone else has already pointed out the Board. it would have been awkward to start refering in the novel to the four families.

The Molinaris were never part of the five any more than the Zaluchis or Falcones were. You have to read the novel more closely and rememeber what it says.

Tom never tells Sonny that the five families would come after the Corleones. He says that the other families would and the Corleones would be outcasts.

Madonne!

Nope.

Thats never been established. If anything, Puzo hints at just the opposite (in the 30's the five or six Families other than the Corleones who were too powerful to be eliminated; at the sitdown orchestrated by Barzini where the five New York dons were the last to arrive; etc.).

Not true. Tom tells Sonny, "Now nobody has ever gunned down a New York police captain -- never. It would be disastrous. All the Five Families would come after you, Sonny. The Corleone Family would be outcasts!"

Well, we agree on that!

The representatives of the Five Families of New York were the last to arrive and Tom Hagen was struck by how much more imposing, impressive, these five men were than the out-of-towners...."

Of the five New York Families opposing the Corleones his (Stracci's) was the least powerful".

“The war of 1947 between the Corleone Family and the Five Families combined against them proved to be expensive to both sides

"For the last year the Corleone family had waged war against the five great mafia families of New York"

“There were five or six “Families” too powerful to be eliminated”

“It was Brasi operating alone, when one of the six powerful families tried to interfere and become the protector of the independents….”

"(this) was the first challenge to trhe Corleon family and their power in ten years. There was no doubt Sollozzo was behind it, but he never would have dared attempt such a stroke unless he had support from at least one of the five great New York families."

For all those nay-sayers about their not being 5 families besides the Corleones....see this THIRD DRAFT of the Godfather script:
http://www.awesomefilm.com/script/THEGODFATHER.txt
-------------------------------------------------------
The VIEW ALTERS,

and we see that the line is endless. JOHNNY FONTANE, tears
openly falling, takes his turn.

Children are taken by the hand, and lifted for their last
look at the great man.

CLEMENZA whispers into the ear of LAMPONE. LAMPONE
immediately arranges for the members of the Five New York
Families to pay their respects.

First CUNEO, then STRACHI and then ZALUCHI. Then PHILIP
TATTAGLIA, who merely passes by the Coffin.

Then BARZINI in a black homburg, standing a long time.

MICHAEL watches the scene.

BARZINI crosses himself and passes on, immediately rejoined
by his men.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Welcome, Capo Molinari! Hope to see many thoughtful posts from you.
As you see, scripts for the Trilogy underwent many revisions. Quite a few people here have surfaced earlier versions of one or the other of the films that sometimes show interesting nuances or even dramatic deviations from the storylines that actually appeared. But the bottom line always is: what was in the film(s) as shown?
In this case, Zaluchi was never mentioned in the film. He appears in the novel, but as the Don of Detroit.

...and Zaluchi's dialog in the book is nearly identical to the man credited as being Zaluchi in the film - who speaks about "his city" implying he is not from New York City in the movie.

Zaluchi's name is also very similar to the actual real-life then Don of Detroit, I beleive the other Don in the movie is supposed to be from Cleveland if compared with the book.

Could The Roth/Moe Green Syndicate have been considered the fifth family?

No.

There are alot of Dons at the table and anyone of them could have been a Bocch, but I don't think so. I see them as a family that simply provided a service to other Mafia families and that they made their living primarily from that without engaging in actual crime. Possibly they werethere as an observor, but I doubt it.

Why not?

Roth is Myer Lansky who was a financial and strategic advisor to the mob. He did not command troops. He had no family. Moe Green is Bugsey Siegal who was a Murder Inc. hood who found his niche in Las Vegas. He had ties to the Mafia and Jewish hoods, but he did not have a family either.

I just posted on Murder Inc. and Siegel's brush with them in the Mob Myths vs. Reality thread:


http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=421421&page=0#Post421421

Hello,

I'm new to this forum. I'm really enjoying all of your insights, and all of the different ideas and interpretations.

I don't think the Bocchiccio's would have been considered one of the "Five Families." They didn't have any operational function. They merely provided a hostage service to the mafiosi. They would provide a hostage while two or more parties had a truce and negotiated. If anything happened to cause their hostage to be harmed, they would extract their revenge on whichever party caused the break in the truce.

I think of the "Five Families" as a group name like the singing group "The Five Satins." If I were a member of "The Five Satins" and I left the group, I would say I left "The Five Satins" not "The Four Satins."

Welcome, FreddoN!
"How many Families" is one of the all-time durable topics on this board. I agree with you about the Bocchicchios--they were a "service" outfit for the Five Families, and anyway, no real major family would hire its people out as hostages. I also agree that "Five Families" was used generically by the Corleones, even though they were one of the Five. Puzo's sloppy writing in the novel has given many here the impression that there were five in addition to Corleone.

If you were a member of the Five Satins, you'd be leaving the group because, after 51 years, you could no longer abide singing "In the Still of the Night" and "To the Aisle."

Corleone
Cuneo
Stracci
Tattaaglia
Barzini

Thats the five imho

"... could no longer abide singing "In the Still of the Night" and "To the Aisle." Madonne!