we of course all know that it was roth who tried to have michael killed in his home, but as a viewer of the movie for the first time, does one know exactly when michael figures this out? does he know before his trip to miami, or does he go to miami and then to new york to see frankie to figure out which one of them set him up, and if so, what happens on this trip to make him realize who it was?
I know this has been discussed here many times but i watched part 2 again yesterday and I think that the only way for the rosato brothers trying to kill frankie makes sense is if you say that they never intended to actually kill him. because we find out later that it was roth who was behind that hit and frankie was only useful to roth if he was alive and had thought michael had double crossed him. the fact the cop comes in confuses this point. i feel like it was a mistake to have it in the movie. also people say that the line "michael corleone say hello" was adlibbed by danny aiello. according to my understanding however this is a crucial line. otherwise we would have no idea who it was supposed to be that looked like they ordered the hit.
please share your thoughts on this matter.

i think michael suspected it was roth from the beginning. when he is sitting down talking to tom about "what has happend...." he says he needs to head to miami. i believe the only reason for going to miami was to find out who was the "inside" man that was working with roth that went against the family(fredo).

i think roth had every intention of killing pentangelli. when the cop walks in the rosato brothers act very surprised to see him, surprised enough to put their own lives on the hand with a street battle. roth had no idea that pentangelli was going to be of any use to him because michael was scheduled to be killed new years eve. if you remember michael tells fredo there will be an attempt on his life. so what good would pentangelli be with michael dead. but michael lived through the new years.
senate lawyer questadt was on roth's payroll, they grab hold of pentangelli, who is under the impression that it was michael who wanted him dead, and convince pentangelli to prosecute against him.

rob

robo, i think what youre saying makes a lot of sense and it is a very good point. roth just got lucky with the way the pentageli situation turned out.

1. Roth decided to kill Michael because Michael had been horning in on his Western gambling empire ever since he came back from Sicily. He chose Anthony's Confirmation party because he knew Pentangeli would be there, contentious over the Rosato Brothers, whom Michael and Roth favor over Frankie. Thus Frankie has the perfect motivation to kill Michael--and will make the Roth decides to kill Michael at Anthony's First Communion party because he knows Frank perfect fall-guy for the crime.
But Michael saw, right away, that Roth's plot was a little too pat, a little too convenient for Roth. But he pretended to go along with the notion that Pentangeli made the attempt to "relax" Roth while he found out who the traitor was in his family
As for "Michael Corleone says hello": Not even Roth was clever enough to have bet his life on a split-second-timed plot to turn Frankie against Michael. Why would he even try, when he already had Michael in his killing-bottle in Havana? The simplest explanation is one that you mentioned re. Danny Aiello ad-libbing the line. Why did FFC permit the ad-lib to remain in the film, to the eternal bafflement of Godfather fans? It's possible that Coppola, the most careful of directors, allowed it to remain because it fit the plot, even though Carmine intended to kill Frankie all along. “Michael Corleone says hello” was intended not for Frankie—but for Richie, the bartender, whose ginmill was being used to set up Frankie.
It’s obvious that Richie is a “civilian,” not a Made Man, and he’s nervous as hell about his bar being used for a murder (“Carmine, NO, not HERE!” he screams after the cop enters and Rosato draws his gun). Carmine knows that Richie might be squeezed by the cops investigating Frankie’s murder. Richie would be too fearful of Carmine to identify him as the killer. Still, as a civilian, Richie is not bound by the code of omerta. So Carmine hands Richie something he can give the cops so that Richie can get off the hook: “The murderers said, ‘Michael Corleone says hello.’ ” That line would set the police after Michael, and would be picked up by the press-- another nail into the coffin of Michael Corleone’s “legitimacy.” Clever Roth!

I think Mike knew it was Roth when he said,"Stupid, people behaving that way with guns."

thats right, how did roth know they used guns??

Yeah, but c'mon, who is gonna get close enough to the don to garrot him or whack him with a knife? Rocco? Neri? FREDO? No way. Like Michael said, everyone is a business man.

I think it was only logical the attempted hit utilized guns.

I disagree even though it was a different time, didn't Vito Corleone kill a Don with a knife? Don Cicco? yea thats what I thought

i think dub-j meant who's going to get close to michael, not just any don. yea vito killed don ciccio with a knife but look at the SIGNIFICANT security differences michael had compared to don ciccio. the only possible way of getting to michael with all that securtiy is unloading in his bedroom hoping that maybe one bullet could get him.

rob

Don Ciccio was all talk as he didn't work for the black hand. He collected payments for himself and worked the neighborhood that way. He was overconfident and didn't have any association with the true mafioso such as Marazenllo.

I think you have Ciccio confused with Fanucci... Ciccio was a legitimate mafioso in Sicily, and the fact Vito killed him when he was about 80 or 90 and could hardly defend himself doesn't say much, if anything.

And if that old man killed your entire family and changed the course of your life forever, what would you do when you had the chance to kill him regardless of age etc.

I'm sorry, this is no offence to you or anything, but ligit mafioso?! Isnt that an oxymoron?

Yes, yes it is.

yeah sorry about that for getting my characters mixed up and next time I'll type slowly and read it more carefully.

oh please! they didn't necessarily need guns to get to him, they could get to him with soup for godsake

Turnbull, we have had this discussion before and I was in agreement with you about this until now. My theory is that Roth certainly gave the order to kill Pentangelli to the Rosattos. However, would it be too much to assume that because Michael had told Roth of his plans to kill Pentangelli, Roth gave the order under the pretense that Michael had told him to do so?

It just seems that your theory is a bit of a stretch. Not that it is unrealistic, but that there is too much reading between the lines, which is never a good thing in a film, especially at a pivotal moment like this one. Occam's razor leads me to believe in my theory, a simpler one: Roth told the Rosattos what to do, and to make them feel safe about their fate after killing a Corleone capo, he sid it was at Michael's behest.

Of course, we will never know the truth, I suppose.

but wouldnt an order have to come directly from the mouth of the person requesting the order? you dont think the rosatto bros would have been somewhat questionable as to wondering why michael himself, as powerful as he was, didnt come to them with the order? wouldnt roth be overstepping some type of boundary by speaking for another person? i dont think roth had anything to hide from the rosatto bros

rob

Michael didn't tell Roth to kill Pentangeli--he asked Roth's permission to have Pentangeli killed ("Frank Pentangeli is a dead man...you don't object?").
In my posts on this subject, I said that Roth could have justified his ordering Pentangeli's death by claiming that he was only doing what Michael said he (Michael) was going to do anyway. Yes, that would have been a bit of a stretch. But, as it happened, Roth never had to use that ploy: In Havana, Roth brilliantly deflated Michael's indignation over Pentangeli's killing by implies that the assassination was tit-for-tat for Michael’s ordering the murder of Moe Green.

Doesn't the line "Roth played this one perfectly" suggest that Roth told the buttonmen to almost kill Pentangelli, and so he will testify against Mike?

Also, in the scene outside of the bar, is Cicci simply shot and not killed?

Also - how did all of that suddenly turn into a senate investigation?

Last - why is Cicci not killed for breaking the code?

No. As clever as Roth was, he wasn't clever enough to stake his life on split-second timing of the entry of that cop to save Pentangeli. It means that Roth was clever enough to use the Senate lawyer, Questad, "who belongs to Roth," to trap Michael into committing perjury five times.

Also, in the scene outside of the bar, is Cicci simply shot and not killed? [/QUOTE]

Yes, and he's also thrown over the hood of a 5,000 lb '57 Lincoln Capri, which proves that the guy had at least nine lives.

Also - how did all of that suddenly turn into a senate investigation? [/QUOTE]

Roth found out from his allies, the Rosato brothers, that Frankie was still alive, "scared stiff, talking out loud about how Michael betrayed him." He arranged with his stooge, Questad, the Senate lawyer, to convince the Senate committee that they could use Frankie to trap Michael. They arranged with the NYC police to keep Frankie's survival quiet, and to turn him over to the FBI. No one else knew that he was alive. When Cicci testified that he never got a direct order from Michael, Michael relaxed: he figured that Cicci was the committee's top witness; and since Cicci admitted that he didn't get direct orders from the boss, Michael was now free to lie about the crimes that the committee grilled him about. Little did he know that they had Frankie waiting in the wings. If Frankie had testified against Michael, he'd have been open to five counts of perjury.

Last - why is Cicci not killed for breaking the code? [/QUOTE]

We don't know that he wasn't killed eventually. But Cicci didn't do Michael any direct harm because his bottom line in his testimony was that he didn't get any direct orders from Michael.

Right, but when you break the law of omerta- you die right - regardless of whether it does any damage?

We have to assume that Cicci made some kind of deal in exchange for his testimony, and in custody and well protected.