Tom Hagen Forever

I have posted before that IMHO Genco was an overated consigliere. There is no evidence anywhere (other than anectodal evidence) that he was anything more than someone Vito considered to be almost a brother whose family took him in and allowed him to work in their grocery store. In the trilogy we only see him as a besotten wimp pining for an actress, a yes man opening the office door to the hapless landlord, and then acting as Vito's foil as the lady's rent gets negotiated down, and a delusional dying man who thought VIto could bargain for his life.

There is never any indication that he was a great wartime consigliere. In fact the only past mentions of war have to do with the novel, not the film, and that deals with Luca Brasi's incredible brutality, not Genco's tactics.

Moreover, I do not think Vito would name the olive oil company ater his most trusted advisor.

The good stuff we hear about Genco and the negative stuff we hear about Tom all comes from Sonny and Michael. Sonny the hot-head shouts "Pop had Genco and look what I've got." And then immediately apologizes. Michael cooly tells Tom "you're out" when he dismisses him before killing the heads of the other fmilies. Even this dismissal is sketchy because Tom sees through this ruse both in a deleted scene where he tells Michael he knows about the secret Rocco regime, and Vito announces he knew this would be something Tom was smart enough to figure out.

INstead of Tom being a bad consigliere who seems to be blamed for everything that goes wrong, I think we need to look at the shortcomings of Sonny and Michael who used him as a scapegoat when things went badly.
Tom was always looking for a peaceful way out, and had his advice been followed there never would have been a need for more violence after the hit on Vito and the retaliation on Tatt Jr. But SOnny and Michael wanted a war with more bloodshed and the consequences that followed.

It was Tom who Figured out the Tatts were in for a pieze of Sols action. It was Tom who found Fredo in New York and got him back after the Cuba episode. It was Tom who saw Michaell through the Senate debacle, and ended up demanding an apology from the committee. It was also Tom who calmly and methodically talked Pentangeli into committing suicide.

Despite the abuse his step brothers heaped on him, he remained loyal to the end, and even raised a son who became a priest.

He oversaw the money machine that was the original casino investents, and he was constantly being asked to leave the family to take legitimate jobs, which he always turned down.

All in all he was a brilliant consigliere, who never got the credit he deserved from Sonny, Michael or most of the people on these boards.

Vito summed it up best, and at the expense of his dead, beloved son. "I never thought you were a bad consigliere. I thought Santino was a bad Don, rest in peace."

dt, everything you said about Tom is broadly true. But it doesn't prove that Genco was an overrated consigliere. He was a different man for a different time. Vito needed a Sicilian whom he could trust, and who thought like him, on his way up. After he became Numero Uno, a trained lawyer and absolute loyalist fit his needs. And, in any event, we saw little of Genco in the Trilogy.


Tom suffered too much gratuitous abuse from Sonny and Michael. But he admitted to himself (in the novel) that he was "no fit wartime consigliere." I also think he screwed up badly by not knowing that Pentangeli had survived, thus allowing his only client to open himself up to five counts of perjury. Tom told Michael, "Our people with the New York detectives said he was scared..." If "our people" knew, why didn't Tom?

Why interpret what the novel and film doesn't say about Genco as a criticism of him? Neither the novel or the film was about Genco. If Puzo and FFC have the novel and film characters say good things about Genco, then who are we to dispute it. Fictional as those characters are, they were there, we weren't.

The novel tells us that Vito's naming an Irish (non-Sicilian) consigliere was one of Vito's few mistakes. I have no body of knowledge on which to base any disagreement about that. I know that I don't know what is a wartime consigliere. So, I have to defer to Michael's judgement about Tom.

Don't forget that Tom also never thought that Sollozzo and Tattaglia would smell a rat when Luca Brasi of all people said he was unhappy with the Corleones (granted, neither did Vito, but isn't it the job of the Congligieri to point those things out to his boss, even if the boss doesn't listen), he didn't think that Sonny was being set up by Carlo with the final beating of Connie, he perhaps didn't think that the lure of drugs would be too much for some people (i.e. Paulie Gatto) and something should have been done to increase the stipends those men were getting to keep them from getting involved in the street trade (or in Paulie's case from selling out; I'm sure he was promised something in return)

I agree with dt. I think Michael brought back Tom because he was not a bad consigliere. After Vito's death it was his choice. At the funeral Michael says having him not around when during the planning of the massacre was a luxury that he could not afford any more. And Tom survived in the movies and the book (yes I know he is dead by GF3 but it was because of the actor). I think Michael would have killed him in an instant if he had doubts about how he worked.

Did Michael and Vito changed they system after the massacre? It seems like they changed the family empire into more of a coporate company. That's why Tom went from a traditional consigliere now to a coporate lawyer for the family.

It's very probable that Vito laundered money through real and phoney corporate and other business enterprises. The hotels and casinos were already corporate entities. That's why they had to skim money from them. Thus, they didn't change the system; they simply expanded it.

I don't think Tom was even informed about Vito's plan to send Luca to find out what was underneath Sollozzo's fingernails, so you can't blame that one on him. Also he did not know about the set up with Carlo, athough he did try to stop Sonny from leaving the compound at the risk of Sonny running him down.

Agreed, dt: Luca took his orders directly from Vito.

I was thinking about this too, but I came to a different conclusion. I think, Vito must have informed at least Tom about this move. If some informers had seen Luca hanging around in the Tattaglia bars and frequently talking to Bruno, they would have told Tom anyway.

It was never filmed so it's meaningless, but the original Part III script where Tom Hagen is featured in it shows Michael and Tom working together again, and even goes further to show Tom's loyalty and love for Michael when Michael is killed at the end.

If Puzo and FFC never intended to play out the tensions between Mike and Tom in their original III script then I think all the "Mike hates Tom" stuff from I and II was just character flourishes to show how ruthless and conniving that Michael was when he wanted something.

I also believe that we as obsessive fans have looked into things a lot more than they should be looked into. As great a film as these movies are and as chess-like as some of the frictions are between characters, I think way more gets milked out of them than Puzo and FFC intended.

I agree. However, that's one big reason why the board exists.

I've maintained that Michael was not comfortbale with Tom in the family for whatever reason. One cannot ignore Micahel's comment to kay at the wedding that Tom was not a Sicilian. But more, importantly, a consigliere is supposed to protect his family's interests. Tom did not resulting in the attempted murder of Vito and Sonny's murder. Michael blamed him for all of that. Still, in a clutch, he knew that he could take advantage of Tom's never-ending loyalty to Vito.

Agreed Oli.

Thew thing is that by the era of Tahoe the money was no longer in the olive oil business. It was in casinos and dealing with Cuba and Hyman Roth..not Sicilians. Obviously Michael wanted to keep his finger in the New York pie, so I guess Tom's ethnicity still factored in. Its interesting in III how he goes out f his way to coment how great a lawyer Tom was (perhaps he was puttig down the George Hamilton character?).

Tom was only book smart. He didn't have the instinct to protect the family. Michael lost faith in Tom for those reasons and only consulted him when it comes to clean up work.

Olivant I always thought that the non-Sicilian comment was for the viewers of the movie. I mean someone had to explain what was explained in the book in detail and the side comment by Mike had all the content in it. I think throughout the movies Tom remained the closest to Michael(although everyone was getting more distant). Also really I do not see Michael blame Tom for anything which is strange but it is only a movie.