One thing I've wondered is:

Michael, under the guise of meeting for a "peace meeting" (where he'd be assassinated), had the Bosses of the four other families murdered, in essence leaving Michael temporarily the only living Boss of the Five Families. But, wouldn't there have been some fall out from this? Consider that the Five Families engaged a long, bitter and bloody war after Vito was shot.

Wouldn't at least one of the new Bosses of the other Families have retaliated, re-launching the War? Or at least some Capos or Underbosses loyal to Barzini, Tattaglia, Cuneo and Stracci launching campaigns against the Corleones in reponse?

How did the Corleone Family manage to maintain any peace? I would think Michael's action would've just relit the War officially.

The only answers I can think of are that Michael became in essence "Boss of Bosses", with the new heads of the other Four Families becoming in essence puppets of him, or, that Vito/Michael had made secret, long term arrangements with powerful and power hungry Underbosses or Capos in the other four families, who were sympathetic to the Corleones, that he'd whack their current Boss and in turn they'd become Boss--Which is how I could see someone like Don Altobello coming to power. Or that the strike impressed so many soldiers that they move to the Corleone Family.

We do know that Vito and Michael were planning the Massacre for several years, which included Rocco Lampone slowly building a secret regime. It's possible that many of Rocco's soldiers were culled from the other four families, and the way the hits went down to me implies that the Corleone Family had informants in the other four families who were willing to give up their Bosses--Telling Michael where the other Bosses would be so his buttons would know when and where to be.

[quote=Crazy_Joe_Gallo]One thing I've wondered is:

Michael, under the guise of meeting for a "peace meeting" (where he'd be assassinated), had the Bosses of the four other families murdered, in essence leaving Michael temporarily the only living Boss of the Five Families. But, wouldn't there have been some fall out from this? Consider that the Five Families engaged a long, bitter and bloody war after Vito was shot.

Wouldn't at least one of the new Bosses of the other Families have retaliated, re-launching the War? Or at least some Capos or Underbosses loyal to Barzini, Tattaglia, Cuneo and Stracci launching campaigns against the Corleones in reponse?

How did the Corleone Family manage to maintain any peace? I would think Michael's action would've just relit the War officially.

The only answers I can think of are that Michael became in essence "Boss of Bosses", with the new heads of the other Four Families becoming in essence puppets of him, or, that Vito/Michael had made secret, long term arrangements with powerful and power hungry Underbosses or Capos in the other four families, who were sympathetic to the Corleones, that he'd whack their current Boss and in turn they'd become Boss--Which is how I could see someone like Don Altobello coming to power. Or that the strike impressed so many soldiers that they move to the Corleone Family.

We do know that Vito and Michael were planning the Massacre for several years, which included Rocco Lampone slowly building a secret regime. It's possible that many of Rocco's soldiers were culled from the other four families, and the way the hits went down to me implies that the Corleone Family had informants in the other four families who were willing to give up their Bosses--Telling Michael where the other Bosses would be so his buttons would know when and where to be.

[/quote There are a few reasons i can come up with why families didnt retailiate. first off whacking all the heads of the 5 families along with moe greene had never been done before probably so i dont think they wanted to mess with mike. also whoever was underboss or even a top capo of the other families would take over as boss which meant more money for them. So in the mafia even if you are in the same family when you ahve the oppurtunity to make more money even if it means turning the other way when your boss gets whacked thats what you do

Yes, money's what it's all about.

In another thread, I posted that, in the novel, only Tatt and Barz were whacked; presumably the other families fell in line under Michael, or at least stayed out of his way. Probaby FFC had Cuneo and Stracci whacked in the film to provide more drama for the ending.

BUT: The key is to look at what Michael wanted. He wanted to be "legitimate" in Nevada. But he also wanted to hold onto the NYC "olive oil business" under loyal Clemenza for two reasons. First, it was a continuing source of tribute, and made a natural synergy for Clemenza's high rollers to come to Nevada and be fleeced big-time at Michael's casinos. Second, Clemenza was Michael's muscle-in-reserve. Without the threat of his NYC army, Michael might have been a sitting duck for other Mafiosi wanting to muscle in on him in Nevada.

So, if Michael convinced the new heads of the other families that they had nothing to fear from him and Clemenza as long as they stuck to their businesses,kept peace and concentrated on making money, they'd probably go along with him. Money, money, money...

N.B.: In a deleted scene from II, Neri tells Michael that he's located Fabrizzio, who entered the US in 1956, "...sponsored by the Barzini family." That tells me that someone in the Barzini hierarchy thought it important to pay their debt to Fabrizzio. Although Fab was operating a pizza joint somewhere far from Nevada, and probably posed no threat to Michael, I'd still take that as a sign of lingering grudges in the Barzini family against Michael.

I agree completely even though clemenza was given control he was basically only street boss while mike was still the main man.

Yes. Clemenza had proven his loyalty to Michael, and he was too old to have big ambitions on his own. Michael probably kept him on a long leash, so that Clemenza, on a day to day basis, was more or less like a Don.

Well, I think it's a distinction without a difference. Michael approaches Frankie about the Rosatos only because Frankie's relationship with the Rosatos threatened Michael's relationship with Roth. Otherwise, Michael stayed out of it. In the end, a Don is what a Don does. When this subject comes up I think of the relationship of Tony Accardo to the Chicago bosses even after Accardo retired. Accordo still had the power and respect to pull a few strings behind the scenes if he wanted to and he did especially rgarding Giancana. Michael had that power and respect also, but he pretty much stayed out of it. And I definitely don not see Clemenza or Frankie as only a street boss.

And by the way, it's the '51 massacre.

Actually i think the OP is right it was 55 im pretty sure. But i agree mike stayed out of frankies affairs unless they conflicted with his own

It was 1955. It occurred soon after Vito's funeral, and we see 1955 on his headstone.

Shall we embark upon that debate again?

It's pretty simple:
-Sonny beats up Carlo and behind him there are specifically placed Thomas Dewey 1948 election posters, meaning it's probably sometime in 1949, or perhaps even as late as 1950.
-Sonny is listening to a broadcast of the baseball playoff game won by Bobby Thomson hitting the Shot Heard Round the World just before he was killed. This happened October 3rd, 1951. This was put in specifically.
-Vito's tombstone has his death date as July 29th 1955. Many of the cars in the later scenes (after Michael returns home) are 1950s cars.
-The novel has Vito's death as being specifically just about TEN YEARS after Connie's wedding. Connie's wedding is established as Summer 1945. This would put Vito's death, even in the novel, as being sometime around or during Summer 1955.
-The script for Godfather I has the ending (from Michael's trip to Vegas on) as being in 1955. It has Michael returning in the Spring of 1951.

The only point of contention in the timeline is Sonny's death. The script has it as early 1946. This makes sense. The War couldn't last for years and years, and it wouldn't take Vito six years (1945-1951) to recover from his wounds enough to run the Family. It'd only be a matter of about 6-8 months probably--Still a long enough conflict to cost The Families a lot of money.

The Dewey posters are explainable: They're just leftovers from the election of 1944, which would've been only just a little over a year before 1946.

If Sonny dies in 1946, the Don begins arranging for Michael's return sometime after the Commission Meeting--which was probably a few months after Sonny' death. It takes a few years due to the publicity surrounding the murders of the Turk and Sollozzo. Michael returns in early 1950. The Sicilian has 1950 as the year of Michael's return and it falls in line with Michael telling Kay he'd been back a year. In the Senate scene in II, the Chairman states that Michael devised the slayings as of the other heads of the Five Families in 1950--which make sense when you see the deleted scene with Michael and Vito, where the seeds for the Massacre of 1955 begin to be planted.

Vito needs a few years to teach Michael the ropes of how to run the Family and manage the front organizations and maintain the Family's political contacts, as well as formally give Michael his button. They also need a few years to begin their plans for the move to Nevada (not something you do overnight), and how it will be handled, along with a few years to have Rocco slowly build a regime in secret. They do it slowly, lulling the other four families into thinking the Corleone Family has grown weak and complacent in peacetime, which allows Barzini to begin chiseling away at Corleone territory.

He meets up with Kay again sometime early in 1951; They're married and she gets pregnant not long after, probably giving birth in late 1951--Which allows for Anthony's confirmation in 1958.

Vito dies in the summer of 1955--Anthony in the garden with him appears to be about 3 or 4. This makes sense if we consider that he was born in late 1951.

Really, the beginning is 1945 and the end is 1955. The only thing worth debating is the exact dates of what happens between those two dates.

Not necessary. It was 1955.

In the movie, the scene in which Michael meets Kay again takes place during Autumn. Based on the movie timeline, it would have been before 1951 when Anthony was born. The Annotated Godfather lists it as Autumn 1950, but in regards to Turnbull's timeline of the novel, it would rather be late 1948.

Since you cited statements from the novel, one of them is as follows after the Dons' meeting: "But it was to be nearly another year before Don Corleone could arrange for his son Michael to be smuggled back into the United States."

Take it from there.

Let's go by the film only.

Let's say a timeline like this then:

Summer 1945: Connie's wedding.
Late Summer 1945: Meeting with Sollozzo
December 1945: Vito is shot. Michael saves Vito in the hospital. Paulie is killed.
Very early 1946: Tattaglia's son hit.
Early (January or February) 1946: Michael kills the Turk and Sollozzo; Departs for Sicily.
Spring 1946: Vito comes home from the Hospital. Sometime afterward, Fredo is sent to Nevada.
Summer 1946: Sonny beats Carlo.
1946: Connie's oldest child, Victor, is born (he's referenced by Michael in GF II as being arrested for a petty theft).
Late Summer/Early Fall 1946: Sonny is killed. Appollonia is killed.
Fall 1946: Vito and Barzini arrange the Commission Meeting. Peace is declared.
1947: Vito begins arranging for Michael's return from Sicily.
1949/Early 1950: Michael comes home from Sicily.
Autumn 1950: Michael and Kay meet. They are married not long after.
1951: Anthony is born.
Late 1954/Spring 1955: Vito semi-retires. The meeting with the Capos (where Tessio asks Mike to "take off the handcuffs"). Michael becomes Acting Boss. Tom is demoted from Consligiere; Vito becomes the Unofficial Consigliere of the Family.
1955: Michael Rizzi is born.
Spring/Early Summer 1955: Michael undertakes the trip to Nevada to meet with Moe Greene.
Summer 1955: the scene with Michael and Vito in the Garden.
Late July 1955: Vito's death.
August 1955: The Baptism. Connie, Mama Corleone, Kay and the rest leave for a vacation, which gives Michael the cover to kill Carlo. The assassinations of Barzini, Tattaglia, Stracci, Cuneo, Moe Green, and Carlo.
Late August 1955: The final scenes. The moving trucks are outside the Corleone Compound. With Vito's death and the Massacre of 1955, Michael is officially crowned Boss of the Corleone Family by Neri, Rocco and Clemenza.

(Just my own thoughts here on what happens between I and II in terms of timeline)
Late 1955: The family settles firmly in Lake Tahoe. Michael begins buying up stake in Casinos not long after (unless the Corleone Family already had stakes in the Casinos).
1957: Michael and Hyman Roth enter into business negotiations. Around this time, the Rosato Brothers begin causing trouble. Clemenza dies not long after under mysterious circumstances and Michael appoints Pentangelli as Capo/Unofficial Acting Boss. Willie Cicci becomes Pentangelli's either Top Soldier or Underboss.

April or May 1958: Anthony's communion.

I believe the Corleone Family ran like this, despite the FBI chart; they probably had it a bit wrong:

Michael- Boss
Fredo - "Official" Underboss (but in reality had little power, in essence a Capo with a small crew, running the family's prostitution businesses and clubs)
Pentangelli - Acting Boss (acts as Michael's man on the streets in New York, running the Olive Oil Business and probably responsible for the Family's gambling and policy operations and also getting a taste of the Narcotics trade).
Rocco Lampone- Caporegime/Head of Security (Nevada, reporting to Michael, essentially Michael's muscle)
Al Neri - Caporegime (going between NY and Nevada, reporting to Michael, running the Casinos and other businesses in Nevada, basically acting as an Assassin and as the buffer between New York and Nevada)
Willie Cicci - Caporegime (NY, reporting directly to Pentangelli, probably running the family's gambling and liquor)
Buschetta (aka Michael's Bodyguard)- Chief Enforcer of the Family.

It'd make sense that the guys who were selected to pick off Barzini, Tattagelia, Cuneo, Stracci and Moe Greene got promotions, and I believe Michael's Bodyguard aka Bushchetta (the guy who garrotes Johnny Ola and attempts to kill Roth) is the same guy who killed Moe Greene.

Besides the return of Michael, which I now think happened earlier, it's a pretty decent timeline. And btw, Part II starts in early Autumn 1958.

Aren't first communions usually in April or May, though? I was raised Catholic and I made mine on the 1st of April.

They are.

It's hard to defend a firm timeline due to inconsistencies within the canon.

For instance, Crazy Joe uses the Senate Chairman's statement "in the year 1950 you devised the murder of the heads of the so-called five families in New York" to support 1955. But how would he possibly know when the killings were "devised?" And why would he bring that up rather than the actual dates of the killings?

But, if we look past that and acccept the Chairman's statements as firm evidence of a timeline, we must consider also his statement placing the Sollozzo/McCluskey killings in 1947. With all the attendant publicity, it's hard to imagine that he would have mistaken that date by an entire year, which we would have to believe according to the proposed timeline above.

Also, I don't think it's likely that Buschetta killed Moe Greene. Michael's use of "buffas" indicates that he would not have given a kill order to a buttonman himself. That means that Moe's killer would have come from the ranks of Neri or Rocco - the very people Michael mistrusted. I think Buschetta was someone from the outside Michael had in reserve.

1) They might've gotten from Frankie or Willi's statements that Michael had planned the murders of the heads of the Five Families as early as 1950. It seems like Frankie gave the Senate Committee EVERYTHING he could give when he made his affidavit. Which makes sense if you consider the deleted scene in GF I with Michael and Vito in the Garden where Michael tells Vito that he gave his word he wouldn't break peace, but Michael didn't, that Vito would have no part of it--The beginning of the vengeance. Add to that a few years spent in Michael trained how to be a Don, along with preparations to move the huge Family business to Nevada, and more time in to have Rocco build up a secret regime and you could see why it'd take from 1950-1955. Also, the Massacre takes place after Michael and Kay's talk (about the Corleone family going legitimate), which was in the fall of 1950.
2) Remember that whether it was 1946 or 1947, it was still more than a decade before the events of GFII. Yes there was a lot of publicity about it, but it was over a decade ago, old news. It is possible the Chairman made a simple mistake.

The screenplay states it's Autumn at the beginning, and the first scene of Anthony's party was filmed in the first days of October. You see people in their shorts and some even swimming so it definitely couldn't have been any later. Even in early October, the temperatures at Lake Tahoe are low, so the weather during that first scene would have been an exception.

In any case, FFC could practically do whatever he want at the time of Part II. If he wanted to start filming in May he would have, but he didn't.

Yes W, you make a point that I have made in previous posts. It's the film's timeline v. that of the novel and within the novel there are timeline related discrepancies.

However, I posted elsewhere what you did: why would the Senator refer to Michael's devising a murder plot , but completely ignore and never mention the murders themselves? It makes no sense: "Mr. Corleone, we know you arranged the murder of these guys, but what we want to know about is the devising of it. To tell you the truth, that was brilliant. Can you walk us through it?".

In additon, I find it, at the very least, incongruous that Vito and Michael would let nearly ten years go by before they carried out their revenge murder plot. Think about it: Michael and/or Vito could die; Michael and or Vito could come under singular law enforcement scrutiny; Michael and/or Vito could be imprisoned; Michael and or Vito could be murdered. Need I go on?

It's impossble to derive an accurate timeline from the films--too many inconsistencies. I did one based on the novel, but that's a different story because the novel didn't include the post-1955 Part II material.

Don't be misled by the Dewey for President poster in the scene where Sonny beats up Carlo. Dewey ran for president in 1944 as well. That could put the beating in 1946, which is where I think it belongs.

Consider
1) Vito had to train Michael how to be a Don, how the Family really operated, how to reach and maintain the mass of political contacts and other people on the Corleone payroll. Consider that it took years to train Santino for his position in peacetime.
2) Vito still may not have been 100% recovered when Michael came back--So he might've had to recover some.
3) Rocco had to build a secret regime, and he had to do it slowly so as to not draw any attention or suspicion from the other families.
4) The Family also began taking interest in the Casinos around this time.
5) The move to Nevada had to be planned and slowly executed, along with the sale of the Olive Oil Business. Imagine a GIANT Corporation moving the core of it's business--That doesn't just happen overnight.
6) Time had to pass to lull the other Families into a false sense of security and a false perception that Michael was a weak Don who could be messed with.
7) Michael (and thus the family) had to lie low for a while after his return given how controversial his return back was due to the murders.
8) In the interim, he got back together with Kay, married her, and had a son.
9) Business had to get back to normal after the Commission meeting. The War had ground the Family Business to a halt. Things had to start up again and go back to peacetime operating and regain lost revenue or territory (for example Sonny mentions blacks taking advantage of the Family's policy banks in Harlem) before anything major could be done.
10) Slowly seducing/recruiting informants in the other four families who could provide Michael and thus his buttonmen with where the other Dons would be to orchaestrate the hit properly.
11) The actual planning of the hit probably took time. A lot of things had to be considered: How to hit the other four family heads, how to minimize any potential blowback/retaliation, etc. How the hits would be organized and orchestrated so as not to restart a War.

Add in all these factors and you could see why it'd take Five Years. Consider that when we see Vito at the Comission Meeting, he doesn't look much different than he did at the wedding, despite being shot. He doesn't look much older. Now compare that to the scene where Vito and Michael are meeting with the Capos to discuss the Family's future--Michael and Vito are both at least several years older in appearance. Hell, compare how old Vito looks in his last scene to the wedding. His black/greying hair is now almost white; it's long and unkempt; He looks like an old man whereas at the beginning he looked like a middle aged, but still virile man.

Another thing to consider:
Anthony is 3 when Vito dies. He makes Communion in 1958, at 7 years old. Now, if Anthony is JUST 3--As in, not turning 4--then the end is 1954. If he's 3 turning 4, then the end is 1955.