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.