GF III establishes a few things:

In the 19 years since Hyman Roth's assassination in 1960, Michael Corleone has:

-Amassed roughly at least a billion dollars in personal and corporate wealth, enough so that he can easily cut a check for 200 million

-Removed himself from having any direct involvement in Mafia life, except as it seems an elder statesman of the Mob and Commission member. Nothing in the film indicates any direct involvement.

-Has become in these 19 years well known as a philanthropist and Wall Street level businessmen, such that only a few in the media even bring up his questionable past.

-Has successfully rehabiliatated not only his personal image, but that of the Corleone name.

-Has sold all the casinos, and presumably has amassed most of his wealth from both ownership and sales of the Casinos, as well as his (mentioned in GF 2) shares in the stocks of IBM and IT&T.

-Has become "clean" enough to be awarded one of the highest honors a layman can be bestowed by the Catholic Church.

As such, why does he seem to obsessively want/need Immobliare? The film's reasoning is that the purchase would "clean his family name"....But given all the things listed above, wouldn't he and his family name already be clear? It's never quite clear WHY he wants Immobliare, or what he intends to do with it once it's gotten, other than pass it down to his children.

But that circles back to point 1 - he already has at least a billion dollars to pass down; why spend 600 million of it investing in a real estate company?

It can't be to fund a Presidential or Governorship for his family; His son wants no part of being a lawyer, Tom's son is a Priest, and his daughter is a female in 1979 with seemingly no practical life experience or public or political experience. So, he's not amassing more wealth to push for a "Senator Corleone" as his father dreamed of. He's not amassing wealth to be able to "buy himself out" of the Mafia; that was what he was doing in Godfather II already. It can't be to cleanse his family name; he's done that.

So why? This is the device that drives the entire plot, and it makes no sense to me.

In GF I, what drives the plot is both Vito's refusal to deal in drugs and its ramifications, as well as Michael's personal character arc and the passing of the torch from father to son, from one age to another.

In GF II, what drives the story is Michael's expanding casino business interests, which make sense on several levels and mirror the Mafia's takeover of Vegas in real life as well as the chess match between him and Hyman Roth as well as the further isolation of Michael from everyone else emotionally.

But what is the point of Immobliare?

Beyond that, what is the point of GF III? He's already a changed man - kindler and gentler - wracked with guilt and desperate to rebuild a connection with his family. He's already a man cleansed of his past sins and is a legitimate businessman, which is what he always wanted to be. So what the fuck does Immobliare have to do with it?

I've asked myself that question a thousand times and never come up with a satisfactory answer. It's one of the major weaknesses of III.

The best I can do (and it's pretty feeble) is that Michael saw Immobiliare as a way to launder the money he had left after selling the casinos, cashing out the other Dons and bribing the Vatican. Perhaps he thought he'd be subject to less scrutiny in Europe than in America, and the Vatican's imprimateur on Immobiliare would protect him.

I appreciate you trying, but even that really makes no sense (not meant to offend you, you didn't write the script). He's a billionaire. If he's totally out, as the film seems to imply, why even need to launder money? He cashes out the other Dons as we see even before he has control over Immobliare.

And subject to less scrutiny for WHAT, exactly?

Be protected against WHAT?

It's a shame that the central premise of the movie doesn't work because the movie around it (the Vatican/Mafia ties, Altobello, Lucchesi) are all interesting things. The weakest point of the film is actually Michael himself IMO both his central story and the way he is portrayed. We don't get to see WHY or how he changed back to being more like his pre 1945 self.

We're left with an embittered and alone Michael Corleone in 1968 at the end of II, and then in 1979 we have this talkative, nice guy who actually has a personality that is more a mix of Vito and an older Fredo than his old self. He's weak like Fredo (in that he is too foolish to see the threats around him and wishes to make peace with his enemies), overly ruled by his emotions like Sonny (IE letting his personal disdain for Zasa cloud his judgement) and timid like the older, sickly Vito was. It's almost like he had a stroke and his personality changed. Not even a semblance of the quiet, contemplative, almost genius level intelligence is there. Michael in II is like a master chessplayer whereas III he's like...A guy? Some weak mix of the worst of Vito, Sonny and Fredo? Too mired in the small details to see the big schemes around him?

If I had written the script, I wouldn't have written in Immobiliare, or Altobello, or a love affair between two first cousins...

I think it was 1960 or '61 at the latest, if we take the cue of Roth returning to the US to vote in the presidential election (1960). Neither he, nor Rocco (when he assassinated Roth, nor Michael brooding in the boathouse, looked eight years older than Roth did in Havana, and Michael and Rocco did in the penultimate boathouse scene where Michael has his kill-'em-all-and-humiliate-Tom scene.

From the writing side, you can see a path where they may have started talking about the Vatican bank and the death of John Paul I as backdrops, and then came up with this European company as a vehicle to tie the Corleones into similar events.

I've seen proposed a progression, from the first movie being essentially local, to GF2 being national in scope, and GF3 international. If that's intentional, then GF4 seems inevitable, as space gangsters would just be too cool.

Pete, as you points out, the real Vatican Bank scandal provided an historical backdrop for FFC. To that, FFC added Michael's efforts to finally achieve the elusive Corleone legitimacy that he sought. His acquisition of Immobiliare would solidify that legitimacy and make the Corleones unassailable. He also probably wanted to hand that legitimacy off to Mary and Tony untainted by the Corleone's sordid history.

I believe I read in the original shooting script, the final scene was supposed to be set in 1968 with Anthony denouncing Michael, and leading to what we do see, and that they were going to film it, but lost the light. If you look at Michael in that final scene you'll see his hair is shorter and a little differently styled than in the 1958-1960 segments, little graying added, and more wrinkles around the eyes than in the scenes leading up to Roth's assassination.

Per IMDB:

"According to the script, the movie's last shot in the film centering on Michael Corleone as he gazes at the lake, occurs in 1968. That accounts for Al Pacino's additional wrinkles and slightly receded and greying hairline. It was actually the concluding aspect of a scene with his son, Anthony Corleone, who declares that he will not follow in his father's footsteps. Anthony was portrayed by an actor about eighteen years old; the scene was halfly filmed, but Francis Ford Coppola lost the light before wrapping for the day, and was unable to return to complete the scene."
]

Well, this is another of those pain-in-the-ass script/filming discontinuities. Yes, it might have been part of a 1968 view of Michael from a discarded scene. But why leave it where it is, when there was no way Michael would have let Roth live another nine years after Havana, and the continuity is in the 1960 time frame?

Years ago, an alert poster spotted the Senate lawyer Questadt sitting behind Roth in the scene where Cuban President Batista is greeting the gringo businessmen. What was he doing there? If Michael had seen him there, he'd have taken the Fifth at the later Senate hearing. Another astute poster found an earlier script treatment (discarded) where Michael was to meet with Questadt in Havana. Evidently FFC filmed him as part of that (discarded) plot line, then left him in because the entire Havana sequence was filmed in the Dominican Republic and it would have been impossible to return to just re-shoot that snippet.

If Paramount recycled all the discarded script treatments for the Trilogy, the paper industry would never have to fell a tree again. Too bad they can't recycle movie film--must be a million feet of discarded film from the Trilogy on cutting room floors.

The intention in the script is Roth's assassination is in 1960, and the final scene, of Michael realizing he's lost everything, is set years later in Autumn 1968, interwoven with the flashback to 1941, and the film ends as it does with that shot of Michael alone. No attempt is made to seem that Roth lived until 1968; even in the script he dies in 1960; we simply jump forward in time at the very end to when Anthony is 18.

And in the finished film as it stands, in that last frame, when Michael is looking back at a turning point in his past, and seeming to consider all that has happened since 1941, he DOES look different and noticeably older than the 1960 segments with Roth, which is why I believe that last scene is still 1968.

In that scripted ending, Michael is already sickly with diabetes by 1968 (which the film hints at earlier by his consumption of that pill and eating sweets) and Connie is taking care of him in what the script describes as a "sister-wife" sort of way. You can see the differences in his age in the two scenes even in the finished film, the wrinkles added to under his eyes, slightly greying hair and subtle wrinkles to his hands for a 48 year old Michael.

I disagree that the Immobiliare is some sort of pointless plot device.

Gilday himself lays out the reasons why Michael would want it: This deal with Immobiliare can make you one of the richest men in the world. Your whole past history, and the history of your family, will be washed away.

So, there's a financial impetus for it (and just because you're a billionaire doesn't mean you don't want more money; quite the opposite).

More importantly. Michael's whole life has been spent in a (hypocritical) pursuit of legitimacy. What could be more legit than a major partnership with the Vatican? The Archbishop shrewdly discerns Michael's longing for legitimacy and uses it against him in the negotiations.

The Immobiliare deal, and the accompanying situations are a natural progression from the first two films.

\\I completely agree Woltz. As I posted above, the Immobliare deal could whitewash the Corleone past and he would have all of the derived goodness to pass on to Tony and Mary.

I don't think the pill he took was for diabetes. There was one pill in 1957 used in Canada. I read somewhere long ago that it was supposed to be a sedative. But everything else you wrote D.A. I completely agree with.

If it was the pill he took on the train (with Buscetta) after the Tahoe shooting, I bet it was Miltown, the universal tranquilizer of the late Fifties and into the Sixties (the Stones sang about it in "Mother's Little Helper").

Turnbull, do you agree that the juxtaposition of the pictures I linked, the scene discussing Roth's assassination, and the final scene of the film, show a clear aging of Michael? Note the differences in hair style, the greying of the hair, the wrinkles under the eyes and on the hands, and the longer sideburns (consistent with a late 1960s time period).

DA, I don't disagree that Michael may look older in the second picture. I just find it annoying that FFC put in a snippet of film from a different scripted ending that wasn't used, without any time/continuity context.

This is another plot weakness in III. The Vatican already had washed away Michael's sins by making him a Papal Knight, thanks to his charities. Why voting to give him control of a real estate company provide further cleansing? Why would he need it? And, it's one thing to bestow religious honors on a questionable character like Michael in the service of "charity"--all major religions do, under the rubric that the money is going toward charitable ends (no matter how it was made). But, the Vatican would be taking a very big public relations risk by putting their share of a huge, money-making company into the hands of a supposedly reformed Mafia Don so that he could get richer. Michael would be taking a big risk, too: It'd look like his Papal Knighthood was a bribe for bailing out the Vatican Bank and getting Immobiliare.

LW makes a good point about continuity. In this instance, I see a continuity from Michael telling Kay that his father is no different than other powerful men with responsibility for others; to Nevada, where, as Geary puts it, "...the way you pose yourself and your whole f....ng family" as legitimate with his big donation to the university and his lying under oath; to his hooking up with a corrupt senior cleric of the Church in another corrupt scheme to make him look "legitimate."

Both Michael and Gilday were desperate men: Michael desperate to find absolution for his past sins; Gilday to escape blame for the Vatican Bank's peril.

TB, the Church's anointing Michael as a Papal Knight only washed away some of Michael's sins. It was an outward symbol of that washing of which the public would be aware. That helped him to some extent because of the accolades it would earn him. But Michael's guilt, aggravated by his diabetes, ran much deeper. Who knows for sure what he felt. However, money, power, and manipulation was all that he knew. Immobliere would give him the money and power which, in turn, would allow him to manipulate the absolution that he sought. Of course, no amount of manipulation would achieve that.

What the hell happened here?!

What could have made Godfather 3 better?
This thread may be of interest

Mr Turnbull could you, uh -- amplify your answer a bit? Thanks

Michael attended the Senate hearing with his carefully planned strategy to -
[granted being totally in the dark about Pentangeli is alive, Questadt belonging to Roth Still...]

1. not taking the Fifth amendment
2. lying under oath denying all the nefarious charges against him
3. committing perjury
4. showing he has nothing to hide, nothing that would incriminate him
5. reading his prepared statement extolling his virtues!

Then Tom's gloating

If Michael takes the Fifth all his carefully planned strategy out the window, no response because of self-incrimination, legitimacy shot to pieces and a lot more!

If my memory serves me right, Vatican Archbishop Gilday was going to swindle Michael – take Michael's money but no sale? of Immobiliare

Whilst I understand the business and financial impetus of the Immobiliare deal - making Michael one of the richest men in the world

• if the Vatican 'sold' their stake, Michael already a sizable shareholder gets controlling interest ie: there is no partnership? Vatican is no longer involved with Immobiliare?
• how would Michael's whole past history and the history of the Corleone family, will be washed away? by the Immobiliare deal
• Michael's 'legitimate' gambling operation didn't fool! anyone

As regards Michael's (hypocritical) pursuit of legitimacy “even after he had achieved the semblance of legitimacy” Everybody undoubtedly knew who Michael really was – among others
1. Top Mafia Don
2. involvement with the underworld
3. Michael's nefarious power in New York
4. 'legitimate' gambling businessman in Nevada
5. connections with Las Vegas gambling

Could Michael have gone legit if....

If Michael takes the Fifth all his carefully planned strategy out the window, no response because of self-incrimination, legitimacy shot to pieces and a lot more![/quote]

I explained why Michael couldn't take the Fifth at the hearing:

http://www.gangsterbb.net/threads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=976975&Searchpage=1&Main=38741&Words=%2BUS+%2BConstitution&Search=true#Post976975

Mr Turnbull you are contradicting....!


Yet you seem to be saying?

Whilst seeing Questadt as a member of the later Senate hearing committee, would have been a shock, I still can't see Michael taking the Fifth under any circumstances

Michael and Hagen towards the end of 1?