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?