I know they were involved in gambling,racketeering.

I think they were in tourism(?,dirty politics maybe? That's what I got from second Godfather film.

Just want a better understanding of what was all included in the "Family Business." Sorry if this is a stupid question but whenever it came to the "business" part of the novel/movie I get a little lost. Could someone explain please? Thank you.

Not a stupid question at all. The films touch upon it, but don't get into it in much detail.

You get part of the story from the discussion between Vito, Sonny & Tom just prior to the Sollozzo meeting. IIRC, Tom mentions that they're already into labor racketeering, gambling, and prostitution, I believe. (In Godfather II, Roth mentioned that he & Vito had been running rum together during Prohibition, so there's also that.) And then of course, at the big meeting with all the Mob chiefs, Vito reluctantly agreed to provide legal, political & financial support for the narcotics trade as well.

As Michael began to transition the family to Nevada, the family retained a presence in both gambling and prostitution - but in Nevada it was legal gambling (casinos) and legal prostitution (brothels) - and expanded into the hotel business, and I believe, the entertainment business as well.

I'm sure someone much more knowledgeable about these things than me can elaborate further...

As Q said, early on in GF we learn that Vito's main businesses are gambling and unions. He augmented his income later by agreeing to provide police/political protection for the drugs trade for a fee. We also saw that Michael was muscling Moe Green out of his hotel, so his involvement in the Nevada gaming industry began in GF. The novel alludes to Vito (and perhaps Michael) wanting to get into the movie business, although I think it was still union business rather than making films.

In II, we know that Michael owns or controls three hotel/casinos and muscles Klingman out of his interest in a fourth. Fredo runs a legal brothel. All legit. But: Michael is still the Don of the "olive oil business" in NYC, with Pentangeli as his underboss. Presumably, that's still gambling and unions. Plus, Michael is backing the Rosato brothers who, Pentangeli claims, are into "women, broads...and a babania, junk." Was Michael getting a piece of that? Also, was he still providing police/political protection to the drugs business? True, Vito was forced into it as a condition of getting Michael back home safely from Sicily. But I can't see Michael walking away from a source of profit.

...and as Hyman said, "We're bigger than US Steel". What did he mean? Revenue? All that from casinos? Was the "we" only meaning Roth and Corleone? and did that include narcotics, prostitution, gambling, etc. or just the casinos?

Supposedly stated by Meyer Lansky, it's probably apocryphal.

He meant organized crime.

Yes, that statement was taken from a federal wiretap on Lansky, and he was referring to organized crime as a whole.

Labor racketeering, extortion, loan sharking, bookmaking, gambling, horseracing, numbers, bootlegging (alcohol, records), armed robbery, burglary and of course real estate, banking, trucking and olive oil.

Because of Vito's preferences and the disdain he had for Tattaglia I doubt the Corleones were directly involved in prostitution but as we see by the time of Michael's ascent that probably was no longer the case.

Thanks Q, that helps clears it up a bit.
I'm surprised about the prostitution though, wow I thought Vito was (or at least in his mind) above prostitution from what I read from the book. But then we see Fedro at the brothel in part II when Geary "killed" that poor woman. I suppose it's possible.

Yea that would make sense when Michael took over that he would go against some of his fathers ways for money.

Maybe he was getting something from them because he seemed really protective of the Rosato Bros. when he talked to Frankie at Michael's house. I know he said it was because of Roth but I always felt even if Roth wasn't in the picture he wouldn't want them dead.But then again he could just take it if they were dead couldn't he?

[/quote]Also, was he still providing police/political protection to the drugs business? True, Vito was forced into it as a condition of getting Michael back home safely from Sicily. But I can't see Michael walking away from a source of profit. [/quote]

Well didn't that die with the heads of the families when Michael "settled all family business" in part I?

I don't get that impression at all. Even though Michael's attempts were doomed, his quest was for legitimacy. The Corleone *crime* family made up only a portion of the Corleone Family's operations by the time they made the move to Nevada. I think it is very strongly suggested in the Part 1 (it's been years since I read the book) that all the plans to move into casinos and hotels had been planned by Michael *and* Vito. As I said in my post on another thread, I think Vito was plotting the move away from organized crime even before Michael returned from Sicily. In the second to last scene of Vito's, when he is warning Michael of how to identify the traitor, Vito makes it clear that he had wanted something different for Michael, and the way it is said suggests that Vito must have been planning for years to legitimize the Corleone family.

In Parts 2 and 3, it's clear that the Corleone Family has already split into two pieces; with Clemenza, and later Frank Pentangeli and much later Joey Zasa running the Corleone crime family in New York, certainly with a nod to Michael, maybe even a cut of the action, but largely independent of Michael.

My theory was that Michael's intent, once he was certain that Vincent Mancini had the brains to run the criminal half of the family, was to permanently divide the family into two pieces. Vincent would succeed Zasa as head of the Corleone crime family, and Michael would hand his children a vast and completely legitimate real estate empire, that the Corleone family would, as it stated in Part 3, be washed clean. Handing of control to Vincent at the time he did was Michael giving his approval for the murders, without ever having to give the orders, so that he would never again be placed in a position like he was during the Senate hearings.

That being the case, I don't think Michael ever had any interest in profiting from crime. He wanted to fulfill his and his father's dream of legitimizing the Corleone family. And that is, to some extent, what I think made both Vito and Michael different from their peers, and even from Sonny and Tom. For Vito and Michael, organized crime was a means to an end, and not the end itself. The end itself was a legitimate business empire, a sort of Italian-American version of the Kennedy, Rockefeller and Carnegie families, shady or controversial pasts to one extent or another, but now fully legitimized, with even wealthy foundations like the Corleone Foundation, to dole out money to further legitimize the families and wash away their darker pasts.

I'm sure if Michael's plan had come to fruition, there would be have been a Governor Corleone, a Senator Corleone, who knows, maybe even a President Corleone. This was obviously Vito's dreams from his earliest days. For him, being a crime boss was a only a few rungs on the ladder to the very pinnacle of the American Dream.

Logic is on your side, Toad. But, it doesn't take into account Michael's overarching lust for power, and that his power is rooted in criminality. Even as he's celebrating being made a Knight of St. Sebastian, and inviting the press to his party, Vincent reminds him that he's still "the Pope" of the underworld. Even as he claims to have "sold the interests in the casinos," he's presiding over a Commission meeting--fellow big-time criminals. And, in Sicily, he's ordering an updated version of the Great Massacre of 1955.

In the novel, Vito said more than once, "A man has but one destiny." Michael's destiny was to be a criminal. Yes, he certainly sought "legitimacy," but on his terms. The most revealing statement is in GF, when he's wooing Kay in New Hampshire. "My father is just like any other powerful man with responsibilities toward others," he says, "like governors and senators." Kay remonstrates: "But governors and senators don't have people killed." "Now who's being naïve, Kay," he replies. Sure: if they can be considered legitimate, why can't I?

I don't know. I still think Michael's quest for power was all aboutlegitimizing the family. But the theme of the films seems to be that getting a Mafia family out of organized crime is well-nigh impossible. You need to be able to cower your opponents in the underworld with naked demonstrations of force; the killing of the heads of the Five Families at the end of I, the second set of executions of Michael's enemies in II, and the third set of executions in III, though that was technically done by Vincent, as the Immobliere deal had at least technically washed Michael and the legitimate side of the family of their sins.

Michael wanted sufficient power and wealth to basically buy him security and legitimacy, and to make sure that the other Families or any other criminal interest would never come after the Corleones again, and with the death of Altobello, the Arch-bishop and the others who had conspired to screw him over on the Immobliere deal, he came pretty close.