No thanking me for pointing out the obvious, but the Godfather was an awfully nice man - to grant huge favors, and in return, heck, you're only going to do for me what you would have done anyway!

Most people, like Bonasara the undertaker, were afraid to be in the Don's debt, but when you think about it, it wasn't so bad! When the time came for Bonasara, all he had to do was work on the Don's son at no charge! Its not like Bonasara had to drive the getaway car during a bank robbery (picture that).

I wish I had a Godfather like Don Vito Corleone in my life!

Be careful of what you wish for.

Yes, a really nice man!


What happens is that the veiwer plays right into the hands of the writer and director in liking Vito Corleone. They convey this false message that says " Hey, this man has morals. He won't deal in drugs, he won't cheat on his wife, and he grants favors to people, how can you not like him?" It's the classic way of making the viewer "root" for the bad guy.

This is a man who ordered the murder of many people. Ordered acts of violence to be taken against many people. A man who believed that his own form of law was justified. A man who ran an organization that sucked the life out of the average working man. A man who was responsible for acts of stealing on his behalf. Vito was a man who made his money by shaking down the average businessman, demanding money from those who worked legitimately for what they earned.

Don't believe for one moment that Bonasera paid his debt to Don Vito. Once a person like Don Vito does what he disguises as a "favor" for you, you are in his debt for the rest of your life. And the moment that you refuse to carry out a request on his behalf, he'll have you killed on the spot.


While there is a part in all of us that admires the "fictional character" of Vito Corleone on the big screen, in truth he is NOT a man that I would want in my life.

He could have easily asked Bonasera to dispose of someone that he ordered murdered.

And more than once too. Bonasera probably had to fullfill every request, no matter how many were made.

Just to add to what DC said:
We're encouraged to "love" Vito because he's a "family man," and because his business is gambling and unions--"victimless crimes"--and because he eschews drug trafficking. Uh-uh! In illicit gambling, the big money doesn't come from the odds favoring the house, it comes from loansharking--a business of broken kneecaps or worse. And every dollar Vito got from his labor rackets was a dollar lifted from the pockets of a working stiff. He rejected Sollozzo not because he was concerned about the bad effect of drugs on society, but because of the bad effect on the police/political protection for his own rackets.
And to add to what Olivant said:
In the novel and in a deleted scene, Bonasera feared just what Olivant said--that Vito would want him, a registered mortician, to dispose of a high-level victim of the war--which would make Bonasera an accessory under the law, and a target for Vito's enemies. In real life, that's exactly what would have happened. Mob lore is rife with "double coffins" and junkyard body disposals--no doubt forced on people to whom some Don was "generous."

Buttmonker -

I highly suggest that you CLICK HERE and read.

I read somewhere, (paraphrasing here) in regards to an act you do to repay a debt, "Each act covers the interest on the debt, the principle stays"

I've posted before about my uncle and my Godfather who's name was indeed Sonny and who was one of those guys. When I came back from the Army, he and my Dad had "arranged" a job for me with the City's Park Police. Knowing that Sonny was involved, and despite the fact that I pretty much thought the world of him, I turned it down. I don't believe that Sonny would ever do anything to harm me, but just knowing about him and the arrangement he had made, I realized that I might be condoning something that I would never do myself.

I have nothing to add. I've made many posts in other threads on the subject of reel life vs real life .

Buttmunker, I've enjoyed many of your posts since you joined the boards, so please don't take this personally, but I don't think you've ever been around these guys in real life. And I'm NOT asking, the name game is for children. I can only tell you this, from a lifetime of having seen these people for what they really are, a good part of that lifetime impressed by the "glamour" of it all - You do not want a Godfather like Vito Corleone in your life. You want the guy who'll nurture you, encourage you, take you to a ball game. Not the guy who extorts the peanut vendor at the ballpark.

Ditto!

olivant,do you mean that there's a real Don around you. Does he live his life as Vito did. I mean they have consigliere and caporegimes and soldiers and have men killed?

See my posts which is just a couple of PGUPs above.

I don't think Vito every really intended to call-in a favor from Bonaserra UNTIL Sonny got killed...or maybe if Mama Corleone passes away before Vito. And I don't believe the Don EVER would have asked Bonaserra to do anything more than the service Bonaserra was capable of providing.

I think he saw the sense of entitlement that Bonaserra brought to the office that day and probably realized that Bonaserra would never have any gratitude for, or any appreciation for, the favor granted.

I always think of the moment in Bronx Tale when Sonny counsels "C" to forget about the twenty bucks that guy owes him...how it's worth the twenty bucks just to get rid of a**hole like that, just to keep him out of his life.

Bonaserra went to the police, saw the injustice of the courts, uses the occasion of the Don's daughter's wedding to ask a favor when he knew it couldn't be refused, enters the office NOT with hat-in-hand but rather that attitude of entitlement, and finally overplays his hand by asking for vengeance and retribution that the Don correctly observes as exceeding an eye-for-an-eye.

Contrast that with Enzo the Baker who does his best work for the wedding reception BEFORE he approaches the Don, then does so humbly and literally with hat-in-hand. Later, after the don is shot, Enzo visits at the hospital (not afraid to be associated or seen with him personally) and VOLUNTARILY ("for you father, for you father...") steps in harms way with Michael.

I think the Don figures a beatdown to make Bonaserra go away is twenty bucks well spent. On the sad occasion in which the Don chooses to ask for a service in return, he gets his money's worth. That's reflected in his almost sarcastic tone when he says, "I want you to use all of your skills..." just so Sonny's body could be viewed at very least by his mother and perhaps be given an open casket wake rather than what Bonaserra was probably thinking...if it was anyone else's son, he'd be in a sealed box now.

I hadn't thought much about that scene until I watched A Bronx Tale the other night. These people may forgive a debt...they just don't FORGET that debt. Not sure I want to live my life wondering when something might jog their memory...

tony b.

I think that Vito, being the smart, calculating and cunning man that he was, saw it as an opportunity to "file it away" in case he ever needed something done down the road, hence him saying "Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do me a service, but UNTIL that day..." etc. etc.

Using the word UNTIL was his way of telling Bonasera that WHEN the time came, he had better remember this favor and do what was needed of him without any resistance.

Puzo's novel dwells on this and goes into detail about how nervous Bonasera was when he was called on and how he cursed the day that he ever went to Don Corleone for a favor. Bonasera knew that he was now indebted to Vito for life.

Very insightful posts, Tony and DC!
I agree. Bonasera did approach Vito as if his "justice" was an "entitlement" to him: He saw Vito as the dispenser of justice, and thought he could buy him. He didn't acknowledge that it wasn't strictly a monetary transaction until the very end of their encounter. And yes, I agree that Vito probably didn't think of an immediate pay off from Bonasera, but rather as a favor to be stashed away against a day when he might need Bonasera's particular services. I doubt that Vito was envisioning those particular services on Connie's wedding day. If memory serves, Michael in the novel makes an analogy to the favors Vito stores up as analogous to the caches of food that Arctic explorers leave behind, "just in case."

Good thread.

Vito's way of doing things was always to build up a store of favors and then gat other favors in return. He is more offended that neither Bonasera nor Bonasera's wife ever invited him or his wife over for a cup of coffee to show their friendship, and he refused to lift a finger for Bonasera until he offered his friendship and fealty to the Don. It is at that point where he says someday he may call on him to do a service in return for what Bonasera asked. This would be the act of a friend....i.e. returning a favor.

DC, there is a deleted scene that echoes what you mentioned about the passage in the book which also shows that despite his eventual returning the favor, he was never a true "friend" to Vito.

For some reason this also brings to mind how just a man Vito was. In the scene in GFII when the grocer has to let Vito go so he can hire Fanucci's nephew, Vito is not angry at all. He tells Abbandando that he raised him as a son, and that he was aloways good to him, and he pointedly says he will not forget it.
Considering that he made Abbandano's son the Consigliere, he certainly didnt.