If you google around a bit and look at the state of U.S. commercial aviation in 1945, flying from New York to Los Angeles was a lot more difficult and arduous than the movie leads us to believe. In fact it appears transcontinental routes were not introduced until 1946. After promising Fontaine he would take care of his problems, Vito tells Tom to get on a plane tonight, and go to Hollywood and straighten things out with this Hollywood bigshot.
Likewise, on his return to New York, Tom says he "slept on the plane."

Considering that the wedding probably took place on a Saturday, and further considering that there had to be a meeting "next week" with Sollozzo, I have some real questions about how Tom could pull this off.

Even if you assume there was a plane leaving New York late that day, it would have taken Tom about 20 hours to fly coast to coast. There were no set intercontinental routes until 1946, which means Tom would have to take puddle jumpers stopping in more than half a dozen (at least) places between the two cities, and in all likelihood he would have had to change planes. The best case scenario then is that Tom would have arrived in LA on Sunday, checked into his hotel and manage to get an appointment with Woltz the following day. It would also mean that the dinner with Woltz took place that same day, which means Woltz was able to "check him out" and make dinner arrangements that same day. After Woltz does his rant, Tom asks if Wolts' car could please take him to the airport. This means that Tom had already checked out of his hotel and knew there was a flight back to New York on Monday night. Another 20 hour flight and
consideration for the 3 hour time change at best would put Tom in New York late Tuesday night when he tells Vito "I slept on the plane." If you watch the saga you know that they planned to send Luca out to kill the horse. Woltz finds the horse head in his bed in the morning, which means at best Luca would have flown out Tuesday night (again assuming there was a flight with tight connections) arrived Wednesday, and killed the horse Wednesday night, meaning that Woltz awoke on a Thursday. If this is to be believed, then the meeting with Sollozzo was on a Thursday because that same day Vito got the flowers from Johnny
thanking him for getting him the role. This would mean Woltz called Johnny who was in New York someplace resting and eating at Vito's request, and told him he had changed his mind.

Furthermore, it would mean that Luca got out of LA Wednesday after he killed the horse and got back to New York in time to have the meeting with Vito about going to find out what was underneath Sollozzo's fingernails.

I could not find anything specific about flight shcedules in those days, but it seems highly improbable one could just hop on a plane to LA (as one can do today) at any given hour of the day, let alone do a round trip and the Luca trip in such a short time period, in which case the timing of the Solozzo meeting is impossible, even if you assume it happened on a Friday.

Any aviation enthusiasts out there who can help out with this one?

And please no smart ass "Maybe the Corleones had a plane" comments!

P.S. Oddly, in GFII at the dawn of the time when people flew comercially on jets, Michael goes to Miami on a train!

Great post, Don T, but where do you get the time?

No clients? Don't tell me Florida went crime free.

My answer is in a PM, but for the record I don't do criminal law.

DT -


The answer is simple. Vito made American Airlines and offer that they couldn't refuse!

Seriously though, you make some excellent points.

We know that everything has to be done very quickly because Johnny tells Vito : "It's too late, they start shooting in a week."



As for Michael taking the train instead of a plane in GFII, I believe that it was Turnbull who pointed out that Michael probably wanted to travel incognito because someone was trying to kill him, and therefore found it easier to do so by train than traveling on a plane.

Good points.

The novel says that he owed his access to priority transport to a grateful Pentagon official.

Tom can't go to the hospital to see Genco because he's suppposed to leave that night for CA. He ends up leaving Sunday night.

Despite the arduous flight, Tom checks into his hotel, doesn't sleep, but orders breakfast then meets with Woltz at 10.

It's a pretty tight schedule, but that's show business.

Mike that's impossible -- they'll turn him over to the Internal Revenue, customs, and half the FBI.


MICHAEL

It's not impossible. Nothing's impossible



Before WW2 ended their production, ten Boeing 307 commercial transports, named Stratoliners, had been built. TWA bought five and flew domestic routes between New York and Los Angeles for 18 months until the Army purchased them following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The intended wartime use was long-range transatlantic flight with a payload of VIPs or critical cargo. TWA converted their five Stratoliners for military service in the spring of 1942, and its Intercontinental Division (ICD) then operated these C-75's under contract to the Army's Air Transport Command (ATC) until July, 1944.[1] These were the only commercial landplanes able to cross the Atlantic with a payload until the arrival of the C-54 Skymaster in November, 1942.

Of course the fly in the oitnment was that the plane shown in the film wasn't a C-75, it was a Lockheed Constellation.

As for Luca, wouldn't it have been possible that he went with Tom?

But wouldn't that work against his favor should it leak to Roth? A train from Nevada to Miami is surely to be at least a good 20 hours or so. But, then again, if the only one he told was Tom, nobody would have found out. With Mike's manipulation of Tom in the "you're the only one I can completely trust" speech, Tom had no itentions at all of betraying Michael.

OK, thanks to johnny ola's information about the plane (he knows his planes as well as he does his cars) and to olivant's scenario we're able to pretty much figure that the timing was impossible to happen as it appears in the novel.

We're told that "it was late Sunday night before Tom Hagen could kiss his wife good-bye and drive out to the airport". Lets be generous and give him a little extra time and assume he arived at the airport and the plane took off at 10:00 p.m.

Now, that plane he would have taken had a cruising speed of 220 m.p.h. and a range of about 2,300 miles. The air distance between NY and LA is about 2,450 miles so the plane would have needed to stop at least once to refuel. Allowing for one hour for that to happen it would have taken, at minimum, some 12½ hours to complete the trip. Subtract the 3 hours for the time difference and Hagen would have arrived in LA at 7:30 a.m. (local time).

The novel says, "it was still dark when the plane landed in Los Angeles. Hagen checked into his hotel, showered and shaved and watched dawn come over the city". Even assuming that Hagen got to his hotel in a VERY short time and showered quickly it would be about 8:00 a.m. at that point.

The sunrise for LA at the end of August is about 6:20 a.m.

OK... I've learned two things from this:

1. I have totally too much time on my hands.
2. Puzo wasn't completely accurate.

The fact we post on this Board is evidence that we all have too much time on our hands.

Even some of us who really don't have too much time on our hands find the time anyway to post here. To me it's enjoyable and is somewhat relaxing.

Hate to be nit picking but.......


[edit] Specifications (L-1049G)
Data from Great Aircraft of the World[7], and Quest for Performance[8]

General characteristics
Crew: 5 flight crew, varying cabin crew
Capacity: typically 62-95 passengers, up to 109 could be seated
Length: 116 ft 2 in (35.42 m)
Wingspan: 126 ft 2 in (38.47 m)
Height: 24 ft 9 in (7.54 m)
Wing area: 1,654 ft² (153.7 m²)
Empty weight: 79,700 lb (36,150 kg)
Useful load: 65,300 lb (29,620 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 137,500 lb (62,370kg)
Powerplant: 4× Wright R-3350-DA3 Turbo Compound 18-cylinder supercharged radial engines, 3,250 hp (2,424 kW) each
Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0211
Drag area: 34.82 ft² (3.23 m²)
Aspect ratio: 9.17
Performance
Maximum speed: 380 mph (330 kt, 610 km/h)
Cruise speed: 354 mph (310 kt, 570 km/h) at 22,600 ft (6,890 m)
Stall speed: 100 mph (87 kt, 160 km/h)
Range: 5,400 mi (4,700 nm, 8,700 km)

We really don't know what type of plane it was. It could have been a military aircraft.

Ah but I believe we do, it was a Boeing Constellation.

WELL, EXCUUUUUUUUSE MEEEEEEE

I'm certainly not gonna argue the specs of this plane with you but I was using the figures from the C-75.

You're such a nit-picker!

Me a nit-picker??? I wasn't the one that brought up all this plane to Los Angeles business, and detailing Hagen's movements If I wanted to nit pick (by the way what is a nit and where do you find them ), I would have asked how come all this took place in 1945 when in fact the whole scenario revolved around what is to be believed Frank Sinatra getting the part in "From Here to Eternity?" happened in 1953?


By the way, why did you use the specifications for the C-75? Is that the plane that was shown in the film clip?

I always thought it was a Lockheed Constellation, of course I could be wrong, and it wouldn't be the first time.

Dunno what plane they showed in the movie but I used the C-75 figuring it would've been the aircraft that was being flown in 1945. You're the expert, not me! I'm only guessing.

Goofs for
The Godfather (1972)

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Continuity: A glass of wine in the wedding scene.


Continuity: When Don Coreleone is talking to the pastry shop owner during the wedding scene, the man is holding a small shot glass. As he is getting up to grab Don Coreleone's hands, the glass is still in his hand but in the next shot it is gone.


Anachronisms: In several scenes wine bottles are shown with the DOC Italian wine classification designation shown on the bottle. DOC designations did not come in effect until the 1960s.


Continuity: The waiter fills Tom Hagen's glass twice within seconds during his dinner with Woltz.


Continuity: Kay's hands when she asks Michael when she will see him again.


Anachronisms: A building reflected in the window of the police car during the assassination of Barzini would not be built until more than ten years after the supposed time frame of the assassination.


Continuity: Level of wine in the glasses while Michael and Kay are having dinner following the attempted assassination of Vito Corleone.


Continuity: The windshield of Sonny's car is shattered by machine-gun fire, but is whole again by the time his bodyguards arrive.


Revealing mistakes: The bullet hole on McCluskey's forehead appears (in the long shot) before Michael fires the gun.


Anachronisms: 50 star U.S. flag in 1947 (on the building where the "peace conference" is held).


Anachronisms: At the airport at night, a swept tail Cessna 182 is shown. Production of this airplane didn't start until approximately the mid-1960s.


Continuity: A shot of Michael in the hospital walking past the camera is obviously reused a couple of minutes later.


Continuity: The placement of Moe Green's drink during his meeting with Michael.


Continuity: Fredo removes his sunglasses twice during Michael's meeting with Moe Green.


Crew or equipment visible: During Vito's funeral, when Michael stands up to talk to Tessio, the face of Mama can be briefly seen under his arm, tinted orange-red and chewing gum. After Roger Ebert reported this in his "Movie Answer Man" column in 2001, Francis Ford Coppola and Kim Aubry investigated: they confirmed that King was not supposed to be in the shot, but had gotten into it by an accidental reflection in the optics, probably off a filter (hence the tint) in the matte box.


Continuity: The level of wine in Vito Corleone's glass when he is discussing Barzini's move to kill Michael.


Continuity: When the dons meet, one of them sits back twice: once before and once after an edit.


Continuity: When Sonny is machine-gunned on the causeway, bullet holes appear at the roof line of his car, then disappear, then appear again.


Factual errors: When Michael Corleone calls home after his father is shot, the dial on the pay phone is clearly out of alignment.


Continuity: The death of Barzini: During the string of shootings during the baptism, Don Barzini (Richard Conte) is shot on the courthouse steps. In the medium close shot, the squib bullet-hits are clearly visible. In the long shot, however, Conte's stunt double tumbles down the stairs without any bullet holes on the back of his jacket.


Continuity: During the string of shootings during the baptism, the guy in the bed with the woman falls down twice. Just before and after the cut from far to close.


Continuity: When McCluskey is harassing Michael at the hospital, Michael's jacket changes. Michael's jacket is open a few inches near his tie as McCluskey is puling back his arm to hit Michael. After the cut his jacket is closed and straight when he gets punched.


Anachronisms: The first anachronism has to do with the DOC designation on Italian Wines. It actually took effect in 1963.


Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The exterior set-up shot for the summit meeting of all families is of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. While this seems like an unlikely place for a "family" meeting, it's an indication of how high their influence reaches.


Continuity: While Michael is talking to Apollonia's father after he has given her the necklace. The same two people pass by twice - once in a close-up of Apollonia and the other in a wider shot.


Revealing mistakes: The blood on the bed in the "horse head" scene. First it's there, then it disappears.


Continuity: When Woltz first sees Khartoum's head lying on his bed, the blanket is covering part of the neck stump. In the next shot, the blanket has been completely removed from the stump.


Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The punch to Michael's face broke his cheek bone which gave him a permanent black eye (and caused his sinuses to continually run - hence the use of a handkerchief all the time) until he got back to America and had surgery to fix it (Freddie says, "that doctor did a good job.")


Anachronisms: The movie's chronology indicates the time frame of the movie when Sonny is gunned down is late 1948 or 1949; however, he was listening to the 3 October 1951 radio broadcast of Russ Hodges calling the Dodgers-Giants playoff, a half-inning before Bobby Thomson's "Shot Heard 'Round the World," specifically identifying the date of the murder as two years later than the movie's timeline indicates it should be.


Continuity: The amount of blood on Sonny after he is murdered on the causeway.


Anachronisms: Just before he is shot, Don Corleone shops for fruit at a shop. Cardboard boxes of Sunkist oranges in that shot feature graphics that weren't introduced until the Seventies. And in 1945 most oranges were still shipped in wooden crates.


Revealing mistakes: When Vito Corleone shows Johnny Fontane out of his office, we see an extra walk onto the frame from the left, but as soon as she sees Vito, she quickly lets out a little smile and backs away, as if she was in the wrong place.


Anachronisms: When Michael is arriving in Las Vegas, supposedly set in the very early 1950s, when he, Fredo, Tom and others are getting out of the car in the hotel driveway, two long-haired, bearded "hippie types" from the early '70s can be seen through the window in the lobby. (In the DVD commentary, Coppola admits that he is embarrassed by this oversight, but that the shot was done on the cheap by the second unit)


Revealing mistakes: When Michael gets out of the car in front of the hotel in Las Vegas, he is with his brother, Fredo. However, it is clearly not John Cazale (Fredo) getting out of the car, but someone else (notice the hairstyle in the scene).


Continuity: In the wedding scene, immediately after Kay Adams meets Tom Hagen, the cigarette in her hand disappears and then reappears.


Crew or equipment visible: When Clemenza goes for a pee, crew reflected in side window of car in which Rocco has just shot Paulie.


Continuity: The gun that Sonny gets from the drawer in the dining room when Clemenza comes to the house following the attempt on the Don's life, is in his belt, disappears when he throws Clemenza against the counters and reappears as he turns around after talking to his wife.


Anachronisms: The stop sign in New England when Michael returns from Sicily is red and white. Stop signs were yellow and black at that time and did not change to red and white until the 1960s.


Continuity: While Michael is telling Kay the story of Luca Brasi, the gun and the contract, Michael is leaning back in his chair, but we cut to Kay on the other side of the table and Michael is leaning forward.


Anachronisms: In late 1945, the Empire State Building is shown with the 222-foot television antenna mast that it did not acquire until 1950.


Continuity: When the cop shoots the man at the top of the stairs during the baptism sequence, three shots are fired, but only two can be heard.


Revealing mistakes: When Sollozzo's car pulls a "surprise" U-turn to throw off any tails on the way to the sit-down with Michael, the car in the left-hand lane slows down and stops before Sollozzo's car cuts in front of it.


Continuity: When the package of dead fish is placed in Sonny's lap, the position of his hands changes in close-up.


Audio/visual unsynchronized: During Sonny and Carlo's fight, one of Sonny's "movie" punches is shot from the wrong angle and clearly misses, but still produces the sound of an impact.


Anachronisms: When Michael moves his father's bed from the hospital room into the hallway, there is a sign on the wall over Michael's shoulder which lists Robert O'Lowery as the Fire Commissioner. He was Commissioner during the time the movie was filmed, not during the 1940s (it should have been Patrick Walsh).


Anachronisms: Sonny is killed on Captree State Parkway, so named until 1963 when it was renamed the Robt. Moses Causeway.


Continuity: When Sonny talks to Paulie in the meeting room and tells him to get some brandy for his cold, his right hand is between his legs. In the next shot, Sonny's right hand is on top of the couch.


Revealing mistakes: When Michael is moving his father to another room in the hospital, the apparently unconscious Don Corleone pulls his hand away when it hits the door frame.


Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Vito is gunned down by the fruit stand, one of the hitmen's pistols emits a muzzle flash, visible just after a cut to the overhead shot of them running away, but there is no accompanying sound effect for this last gunshot.


Anachronisms: Tom Hagen flies to California to see the movie producer in a Lockheed Constellation. The first production model of the Lockheed Constellation was not produced until 1947, and did not enter commercial service until even later. Tom's flight was apparently in 1945 ("almost 1946" according to movie dialog).


Revealing mistakes: When Cuneo is killed in the revolving door of the hotel the first shot breaks the glass in front of him but no blood squib appears on his shirt. It is not until the second shot goes off does blood appear.


Continuity: In the first scene of the film, Bonasera approaches Don Corleone to whisper to him. He keeps his left arm by his side. In the next shot he takes his left hand from Don Corleone's chair back.


Continuity: When Tom addresses Woltz studio, he is carrying the suitcase in his left hand. But indoors he appears with the suitcase in his right hand.


Continuity: After he gets shot, Don Corleone lays on his back with his right arm folded on his chest. Thereafter he appears turned to his left side, with his right arm stretched-out on his right side.


Continuity: When Tessio brings the package of dead fish to the meeting in Don Vito's study, the paper is disarranged and a little open. But when Sonny takes it, it is tidy.


Continuity: While he instructs Michael how to behave after to kill Sollozzo and McCluskey, Clemenza has a cigarette in the mouth. From one shot to another, when Michael passes in front of him, the cigarette jumps to his left hand.


Continuity: When Michael gets in the car in which Sollozzo and McCluskey are, we see that there is a long distance between the two men on the back seat and Michael on the front seat. However, in the next shot, with Michael in close-up, the two others appear just behind him.


Anachronisms: When Vito is taken home in the ambulance, the curbing on the side of the road is painted yellow to indicate "no parking". However, this practice was not incorporated until the 1960s.


Revealing mistakes: After Michael shoots Sollozzo and McCluskey, he bumps into the camera as he passes it exiting the restaurant


Continuity: When Michael is telling Kay about Luca Brasi, she has a cigarette in her left hand which disappears and reappears between shots. A few seconds later, the cigarette is gone and Kay has a fork in her left hand which then jumps to her right hand.


Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Connie is yelling at Michael because he had Carlo killed, she says, "That's your husband, that's your husband." Her lips do not match what she is saying.


Revealing mistakes: During the fight between Sonny and Carlo, when Carlo is pinned against the wall one of Sonny's punches doesn't come close to hitting him, but Carlo acts like it did.


Continuity: When the car that Appolonia is driving explodes, Michael is knocked backwards into the bushes and immediately disappears.


Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Sollozzo releases the abducted Tom Hagen, he says to him "...and bad luck for you if you don't make that deal!" His lip movements, however, show that he only says "...and bad luck for you!"


Factual errors: The main gate of Woltz International Pictures shows the rear of a car which is either a 1952 or 1953 Chrysler. The scene supposedly takes place in the late 1940s


Continuity: Enzo (the baker) visits Don Corleone in the hospital after he is critically wounded. Enzo is holding a large bouquet of pink carnations and baby's breath. Later, when he is standing outside the hospital with Michael, the bouquet has been changed to a much smaller one with orange carnations.


Audio/visual unsynchronized: After Fredo yells at Michael for trying to negotiate with Moe Greene, we see a shot of Michael smoking. As Michael exhales, we see a cloud of smoke quickly disappear from his mouth as the camera splices to another take of the shot.


Miscellaneous: After Sonny is gunned down, when his bodyguards arrive you can see shallow breathing from his chest.


Factual errors: Michael was awarded the Navy Cross for heroism while in the Marines but he does not have the ribbon for this decoration on his uniform during the wedding scene. The highest ribbon that he is wearing is for the Silver Star, which is the next lowest in order of precedence for US bravery awards. In Godfather Part II, during his testimony to the Congressional hearing he states that he was awarded the Navy Cross in the war.


Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When the hit men tried to kill Vito Corleone, they fired - at close range - at least ten times. But Solozzo says he was hit five times.


Continuity: When Michael reads the paper about his father being shot, he crumples it and then starts to run across the street. The paper is crumpled in his hand as a car passes in front of him on the street. After the car passes, Michael throws the paper down. When he does this, the paper is very smooth and neatly folded.


Anachronisms: When the funeral procession drives into the graveyard, modern 18-wheelers and vehicles can be seen on the freeway at the top left and top right of the scene. The freeway with these vehicles is visible throughout the scene during various shots.


Factual errors: In the wedding scene, Michael is wearing a number of ribbons. One is the Army Good Conduct Medal and he is supposed to be in the Marines. The other is service in WWII in Europe, Africa or the Middle East. The problem here is there were very few Marines in that theater and he is showing a battle star on the ribbon. Very unlikely that a Marine would have such a decoration.


>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Goofs below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.

Revealing mistakes: SPOILER: After Michael kills Virgil Sollozzo and the crooked Captain McCluskey, the camera slowly pulls away from the two bodies in the restaurant. During that time, the dead McCluskey blinks.

According to this site...

http://open-site.org/Business/Transportation_and_Warehousing/Aviation/History/1940_to_Present/

...regularly scheduled coast-to-coast commercial airline service began with DC-5's and Lockheed Constellations on March 1, 1946, fairly close to Hagen's coast-to-coast flight in August 1945. Same site says Flying Tiger Lines began coast-to-coast freight service in August 1945. Perhaps Tom's grateful Pentagon contacts (mentioned in the novel) got him a seat on one of those Flying Tiger flights in August 1945.

As for the headless horse: Tom obviously met with Vito and Sonny as soon as he returned from California. But neither the movie nor the novel says that Luca hit the horse immediately--or even that Luca himself did the dirty deed. Soon, certainly, because Johnny said that filming would begin in a week or so. But, perhaps Luca subcontracted the job to one of Vito's labor contacts on the Coast.

So to recapitulate Hagen's trip to LA:

-We have established that the plane shown is a Lockheed Constellation.

-The Lockheed Constellation was the only aircraft in service at that time, that was able to make the trip in least amount of time, and able to go non stop.

-In order for Tom to be able to be on Lockheed Constellation at that time, either the Don had to reach in his pocket and contact one of his friends in the military who had access to that type of aircraft, or more likely FFC took "editorial" license to get Tom to LA in the shortest period of time.

-Whoever actually performed the dastardly act on Khartorum has never been established.

-Kudos to dontomasso for being astute in his observation of the inaccuracy in the time line of Tom's trip to LA, and causing the subsequent discussion about aviation at the time.

I say that it HAD to be an inside job. Someone on the inside of Woltz's estate had to be bought off. It's the only way that the job could have been done. Someone close and trusted by Woltz. My bet would be that the stable guy, which I think is named Tony, was the guy who was bought off. It did not appear to me that Woltz was the kind of guy who was loved by his workers. Now I don't think that Tom would have been the one to approach Tony the stable guy. It would have had to be done through a third party, perhaps someone from the Molinari family, as to not tie the job directly to Johnny and The Corleones.

As occurs many times, some of the info presented in posts is a combination derived form the novel and the film. In this case, some have definitely used novel material. For example, while the Constellation is in the film, it looks quite like daylight when it landed. However, the novel says that it was still dark when the plane arrived. The film shows a Constellation; the novel does not identify the aircraft.

I believe the novel says that Woltz realized that right away, which contributed to his sudden realization that Vito was greatly to be feared.

I always had a problem with the Saga's scene. When Tom gets back, Connie and Carlo are already arguing and based on what Sonny said, it's been going on for a long time. If you go by the timeline of the book, they just got married the day before.

I think the fightning started when Connie first showed Carlo the Christmas tree, and he was pissed he didn't have one as nice.

The book also said that Carlo spent his wedding night wrestling the "little silk purse" away from Connie--blackening one of her eyes in the process.

They were married on a saturday; Tom left Sunday night; he met with Woltz on monday; he stayed with Woltz into the evening on monday; if he then left immediately for NY, he got there at the earliest late on Tuesday.

I believe that the novel tells us that Carlo gave his bride two black eyes on the night of their wedding.

I think it says"he blackened her eye" Maybe its eyes.

"one of her eyes."