The general consensus of opinion on this board seems to agree that Fredo was the sole identifiable traitor within the family and that his actions alone led to the shooting within the Corlene family compound at Lake Tahoe. Although Fredo was one of the conspirators, but perhaps not totally cognizant of the implications of his actions, I have a hard time accepting he opened the drapes. I think even he would have realized something was amiss. Also, I think while he certainly was weak and unfit for the family business and angry at being left out, he ultimately loved his brother and would abhor the suggestion of killing Michael. Also based upon his character portrayal in GF1 and II, he did not possess the will and fortitude to slit the throats of the two gunmen after the deed. There must have been other conspirators as well. This has also been suggested in the movie and on the board. The purpose of this essay is to identify another high-ranking conspirator, Rocco Lampone, who may have participated in the shooting at the Corleone compound.

While it is probably an impossible task to correctly determine motives and actions of fictional characters, clues and circumstances presented in the story may suggest motives for an educated hypothesis to be constructed. Explanations by the authors also may be useful in determining motives of characters but, in this case both Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola have not offered any insights that I am aware of. Furthermore, if one examines the story utilizing the Reader's Response theory towards literature, then the author's viewpoint becomes subordinate, or even irrelevant, to the reader who assigns meaning.

While viewing GFII, I was puzzled by three seeming inconsistencies related to the compound shootings: 1) who had access to the bedroom and opened the drapes, 2) how did the shooters attain access in such a well-guarded compound protected by competent security personnel, and 3) why was the character of Rocco Lampone, a caporegime, chosen for what essentially was a suicide mission which could have been carried out by any competent hitman. Therefore, I suggest a plausible explanation accounting for these three questions would be that Lampone was directly involved in the shooting incident.

The first piece of evidence suggesting the participation of Lampone was due to his position and the level of access he had. Lampone was obviously in charge of security. As such, he would have had complete, unquestioned access to all areas of the compound, such as Michael's bedroom, as well as the ability to allow others access to the compound.

Statements he himself make cast suspicion on his true motives. For example when the two shooters are found dead with their throats cut, Lampone immediately asserts “it looks like they were hired out of New York.” How does he know this based on a cursory glance--or is he possibly trying to cast suspicion on Pentangeli who had a recent altercation with Michael.

Another piece of evidence casting suspicion upon Lampone is that Michael does not directly answer Hagen's question of whether Neri or Lampone might have been involved in the shooting but instead states that “our people are businessmen-and their loyalty is based upon that.” So was Michael, who has an intuition for sniffing out plots, already suspecting Lampone? He could have also been suspecting Neri as well but eventually chose Lampone based on other cumulative evidence mentioned previously.

The last piece of evidence suggesting Lampone may have had an actual hand in the compound shooting is that he is chosen to perform the hit upon Roth. As has been previously noted by posters on this board, Lampone seems to be forced into acquiescing that a hit upon Roth was not impossible. However, the question remains is why would Michael send a high-ranking caporegime to carry out what was essentially a suicide mission? Is it in the realm of possibility that Michael, already cognizant of Lampone's treachery, offered him a similar way out as he did with Pentangili--your family will be taken care of? Also it is important to note Lampone intentionally contributed to his own death by turning around and raising his own gun at the policeman pursuing him. Other options were available to him resulting in capture but not immediate and violent death.

Opinions have been proffered that Michael no longer saw the need for a redundancy in bodyguards, those of Lampone and Neri, and eventually opted for Neri. This may be a possibility, but I don't think Michael, an astute businessman, would have arbitrarily discarded a valuable human asset in a high position that took years to groom. Also it is possible that Lampone was a lax and unfit security administer prone to hasty misjudgments (the remark that the hitmen being from New York). Each piece of evidence by itself is inconclusive but when taken together casts suspicion upon Lampone motives. At least, it seemed to convince Michael who did not completely rule out the possibility of Lampone's complicity and treated Lampone as expendable.

What an excellent first post! Welcome to the boards, Mr. Levy.

You bring up many valid points and arguments, and while I don't think Rocco had any part of the assassination attempt, I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility either.

I'll address a few of your points with my 2¢:

I'm not so sure it was Lampone who spoke those lines (about the hitmen being out of New York). The voice of the speaker is different, and it may have been one of Michael's buttons who spoke the line. He (the button) would have had time to take notice of the dead hitmen's clothing (which apparently was the determining factor about them being from New York).


At the point of that conversation with Tom Hagen I think Michael was suspicious of EVERYONE (except Tom); I don't think he was singling Rocco out. The second draft of the movie script expands on this, but the dialogue was removed for the movie:

Hagen: "But your people...Neri...Rocco; you don't think..."

Michael: : "No, I have confidence in their loyalty..."


This is the hardest of your points to argue against. I can only suggest that Michael was so consumed with the need "kill everyone" (as Tom Hagen put it) that he allowed his judgment to be clouded, and sent Rocco on his one-way trip. A big hit needed a big hitter.

Welcome, Mr. Levy. Always nice to have a new member who can write more than two coherent sentences in a row.

Clearly you've been lurking and have read some of the other threads and posts on this well-worn subject, including, probably, mine. But, as much as it has been debated and discussed, we have never really been able to reach a consensus here about all of the circumstances surrounding the Taho assassination attempt, and I have no problem with debating and discussing the subject yet again.

I am of the mind that there are four significant unanswered questions remaining with respect to the Tahoe incident:

"Who opened the drapes?"
"How did the shooters get on the premises?"
"What exactly was Fredo's role?", and
"Who killed the assasins?"

These questions, particularly the second and fourth, are, and will remain, unanswerable, as they are simply major plot holes: Questions to which the answers have been lost to either the cutting room floor or the thoughts of the late Mario Puzo.

But,in attempting to answer, or at least discuss these questions, I believe that we can look to the following sources:

1) Direct evidence from the film.
2) Unused scripts, which, although "unused", may give us valid ideas about the thought process of the screenwriters.
3) Inferences which may be logically drawn from the film.

The only direct evidence we have about any of this is that Fredo was in some way involved, although there is no direct evidence with respect to exactly what his actions were. From the evidence of his direct involvement and the development of his character, I think we can draw only one logical inference: That it was he who opened the drapes. Given his character, I think it illogical to assume that he did any thing else (like kill the assassins, for example).

The key here is that we know that Fredo was in some way directly involved. If he didn't open the drapes, then what exactly did he do?

There is also an unused script floating around in which Hagen tells Michael that Fredo believed he was participating in a kidnap plot, which is backed up by Michaels comment to Fredo ("I know Roth misled you") and Fredo's comment to Ola ("You guys lied to me"), and later to Michael ("I didn't know it was gonna be a hit").

That is what I believe. I think that Hagen's comment to Michael probably made it into the final shooting script but that part of the scene was cut (what we wouldn't give to see all of the deleted scenes...)

That's basically my argument for "What was Fredo's role?" and "Who opened the drapes".

Of course, we are still left with the other two questions, "How did the shooters get on the premises?", and "Who shot them?"

Absent any direct evidence from the film, unused scripts, or thoughts that Puzo or Coppolla have made public, your argument that Rocco was in some way involved can only be based on "logical inferences" that we may draw from what we do know for certain.

And while you obviously draw certain inferences to point to Rocco, I'm not sure that they are all logical, in all cases correct, or supportable by the direct evidence and what we do know about the characters.

I'll try and take some of your points one by one here (your quotes are in bold italics):

Although Fredo was one of the conspirators, but perhaps not totally cognizant of the implications of his actions, I have a hard time accepting he opened the drapes. I think even he would have realized something was amiss. Also, I think while he certainly was weak and unfit for the family business and angry at being left out, he ultimately loved his brother and would abhor the suggestion of killing Michael.
If he didn't open the drapes, what did he do? What was the action for which he was "not totally cogniznt of the implications"? His role, opening the drapes, was what he was told would aid the kidnappers ("You guys lied to me"). I agree that he would have abhorred the suggestion of killing Michael. That supports the kidnap theory.

The first piece of evidence suggesting the participation of Lampone was due to his position and the level of access he had. Lampone was obviously in charge of security. As such, he would have had complete, unquestioned access to all areas of the compound, such as Michael's bedroom, as well as the ability to allow others access to the compound.
While this statement is true, it also applies to Neri, as well as the individuals who I'll refer to as Rocco and Neri's "second in command". I'm not trying to be facetious here, but I'm sure both took vacations and had sick days, and had high ranking family members working directly under them with the same "security clearance". I don't think that the fact that Rocco was in charge of security has any evidentary value with respect to his participation in the plot.

Statements he himself make cast suspicion on his true motives. For example when the two shooters are found dead with their throats cut, Lampone immediately asserts "it looks like they were hired out of New York." How does he know this based on a cursory glance--or is he possibly trying to cast suspicion on Pentangeli who had a recent altercation with Michael.[i/]
We have discussed this here before, and if I'm not mistaken we reached a consensus that it was [i]notRocco who made that statement. You may want to re-watch the scene. Also, he was not present at the Michael-Pentangelli meeting, and there is no evidence to suggest that he was aware of any altercation they may have had.

Another piece of evidence casting suspicion upon Lampone is that Michael does not directly answer Hagen's question of whether Neri or Lampone might have been involved in the shooting but instead states that "our people are businessmen-and their loyalty is based upon that." So was Michael, who has an intuition for sniffing out plots, already suspecting Lampone? He could have also been suspecting Neri as well but eventually chose Lampone based on other cumulative evidence mentioned previously.
At that point, Michael did not know who the traitor was, so his answer to Hagen was quite direct and very logical. I think at that point, he basically suspected almost everyone except Hagen ("Right now, you're the only person I can trust").

The last piece of evidence suggesting Lampone may have had an actual hand in the compound shooting is that he is chosen to perform the hit upon Roth. As has been previously noted by posters on this board, Lampone seems to be forced into acquiescing that a hit upon Roth was not impossible. However, the question remains is why would Michael send a high-ranking caporegime to carry out what was essentially a suicide mission?
Michael assigned Rocco the job having Roth killed. We cannot assume that Rocco was the one who had to be the killer. Had he presented Michael with an alternate and feasible plan for killing Roth - one that did not involve himself as the shooter - there is no reason to think that Michael would not have approved it. I think that Rocco, realizing the importance of the mission, had the attitude that "If I want it done right, I have to do it myself."

Perhaps Rocco viewed the killing of Roth as his way of getting back in Michael's good graces by making up for the failure in his security responsibilities on the night of the shooting.

Also it is important to note Lampone intentionally contributed to his own death by turning around and raising his own gun at the policeman pursuing him. Other options were available to him resulting in capture but not immediate and violent death
We can conclude nothing more from his actions here than that he was simply trying to escape by shooting his way out. If he accepted the whole thing as a suicide mission, why fire his own gun at all?

OK. All of that said, let me raise a few more points and questions of my own that indicate, at least to me, that Rocco is "not guilty"

If Michael knew, or even suspected that Rocco was involved in the plot, there is no way that he would have kept Rocco around and alive in such a sensitive and important position for as long as he did. As soon as Michael knew or suspected Rocco, he would have been sleeping with the fishes. Mike let Fredo hang around because of his mother, and because he did not perceive Fredo as a physical threat. But Rocco, an expert killer, would have posed too great a danger to Michael for him to be allowed to live as long as he did.

Now let's go to the night of the shooting. Your theory, I presume, has Rocco as the killer of the would-be assassins. While I can't tell you who did kill them, I find the Rocco-as-killer- theory totally implausible.

The shots are fired. The floodlights immediately go on, the dogs are realeased and brarking, and everyone is running around willy-nilly. Amid all of this scene of fervent activity, Rocco must meet the assassins and kill them both by slitting their throats (no mean feat, BTW. What was the second one doing? Standing around, calmly watching his partner get killed and patiently waiting his turn?) without being seen.

What first brought me to this forum was the question "Who killed the assassins?" I had watched the film maybe a dozen or so times, and figured I must have missed something. I was delighted to find this website, and was sure when I posted the question I would be immediately enlightened by those more knowledgeable than myself, who would answer my question by supplying me with the piece of the plot I had missed despite my numerous viewings.

Well, needless to say, I remain, along with everyone else, unenlightened. The evidence and the answer simply isn't there.

It's just a big black plot hole, IMO, and unless FFC someday enlightens us, it will remain so.

Well, SC beat me to the punch with some of the same points.

Problem is, SC thinks I'm a windbag, and he may be right. It took me almost two hours (with interruptions) to write my little essay.

Welcome to our boards! As SC said, great post!

I too have had to rule out Rocco as a suspect for exactly the reason that Plawrence has posted above. Heck, Michael had his own brother killed. Don't you think that had Michael serioulsy suspected Rocco, he would have had him wiped out before having his own brother killed?

I have to agree too that Fredo's role was to open the drapes.

To me the serious question that remains unanswered was how exactly those two hitmen form "New York" gained access to the compound. Is it possible that Fredo allowed them access earlier during the party, unknowing that they were actually hitmen? Perhaps Fredo thought that they would be the so called Kidnappers? Others in past posts have felt that perhaps these hitmen slipped in with Ola, but I don't believe that, as Roth & Ola would have never taken that chance that Ola be seen with them earlier just in case they bungled the hit or were found dead as they were. That is why I do believe that Fredo somehow let them have access to the compound nievely thinking that only a kidnapping would be going down.

As for who killed the hitmen, well perhaps they took thier own lives once they realized that they were trapped. Lets face it, if they were caught, they would have been torchured foir information and then executed. Or perhaps they realized that they botched the whole hit, and therefore knew that they could never show thier faces again because the one who hired them for Roth would have definately had them executed for screwing up and not finishing the job! Roth, being the cunning guy that he was, knew that by hiring the hitmen out of New York, it would look like Pentangelli was behind the attempt in case the hitmen were caught or killed and identified.

So as I said, in my opinion the real question is " Who allowed the Hitmen Access to the Compound?"


Don Cardi

I don't think so, given that they were either garrotted or had their throats cuts.

It's not clear to me which, but you can clearly see the red marks around their necks.

Kinda hard to commit suicide by either method. Either way, it would have required two men to do the job

I paste this from older post in another thread. It is just a theory. Plaw doesn't like it though. Right? Anyway here it goes.
-----------------------------------
Hymen Roth is a Meyer Lansky model. I don't give much credit to Fredo to come up with the idea to kill the hitmen that fast all alone. Fredo is the one who was standing there confused and crying when Vito got shot. But I give lots of credit to hymen Roth. Roth didn't merely wanted to kill Michael because of Tropicalla or murder of Moe Green, he figured if Fredo become the Don, he can use all Corleone's money in Havana easily. But he has to make Fredo indebted to him and get something from him so Fredo would fear him and do as he says. Also he can not leave any evidance linking Fredo to this matter and those hitmen has to be killed right after the hit. That way Fredo has to listen to him. So this is what I think happened. There was a third man involved. He had more information than the other two. While the other two hitmen thought they come back and he arranges things for them to flee, he told Fredo he has to help kill those guys or it is his ass.
They never searched Fredo's house or they might have found some surprises. May be that was the reason Deanna didn't wanted to go back to her house.

I don't think so, given that they were either garrotted or had their throats cuts.

It's not clear to me which, but you can clearly see the red marks around their necks.

Kinda hard to commit suicide by either method. Either way, it would have required two men to do the job [/QB][/QUOTE]


Pl,

I have to watch that scene again. I don't recall being able to see thier throats, but I will look closer. Does anyone say that they were choked or had thier throats slit?

Don Cardi

Pl,

I have to watch that scene again. I don't recall being able to see thier throats, but I will look closer. Does anyone say that they were choked or had thier throats slit?

Don Cardi [/QB][/QUOTE]

Don Cardi, Don J Geoff posted some photos of the movie regarding your question in this thread:

http://www.thegodfathertrilogy.net/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=004607#000000

Hmmmmmm. Very Interesting!


Now as for the pic of Rocco greeting and walking with Ola and his men, that could be explained. He was in charge of security and is one of Mike's right hand men, so it is obvious that Rocco would be the one to greet them while at the same time size them up and see who was accompanying Ola.


I am still not convinced that Rocco was in on the hit. Could be someone in Rocco's regime was a traitor, someone close to Rocco who would have some inside knowledge, and then kill the hitmen himself.


By the pics posted by our Don Geoff, the hitmen did not kill themselves as you can clearly see that their throats are damaged. My mistake.

A plot in the movie that will never be explained..... unless Coppola himself replies to one of these posts!


Don Cardi

Very good theory,but I dont think that is exactally what happened,either.
The picture of the assassins Geoff posted looked like they had tuxedos on.Maybe they were left over from the party.But then again,you dont just let party guests wander around your estate alone in the dark.That makes me think they had to be buttonmen of somesort.Probably not Fredo's because A)I dont think Fredo really had anyone at his control and B)even if Fredo had men,and they were his who shot at Mike,he'd have to have someone else take care of them,them someone would have to take care of them....so on and so forth,and Fredo just didnt have the brains to pull that off.
I dont really think "who opened the drapes" is a pivital part of the storyline,but it is a gapping hole. If it was Fredo,he had to know that something was going to happen other that just a kidnapping,which wouldnt work with the rest of Fredo's character throughout the movie.Maybe he thought they kidnappers could see when Michael came into the room Wouldnt Kay have noticed the drapes being opened before that though?
I also agree w/Plaw and Cardi that if Michael really suspected it was Rocco,he would have been long gone before Michael came back from Havana.
Intersting post though,I hope you stick around and bring some more new ideas to the table.

I think Fredo is the main suspect in leaving the drapes open. Only an immediate family member would be allowed access to Michael's sleeping quarters. I doubt they'd even let Al Neri in there unless he was invited by Michael.

I don't think Fredo knew a hit atttempt on Mike was coming, he just thought it would be a kidnapping or something. Thus his statements, "You guys lied to me" to Ola, and "I didnt' know it was going to be a hit" to Mike.

I've wondered off and on about the Roth-Pentangeli connection. Maybe the hit really was set up by Pentangeli, and it wasn't a ruse by Roth as is probably more commonly believed.

I dunno. The last thing we hear out of Pentangeli before the hit attempt, he yells out in a loud voice, "There's not going to be no trouble from me!"

Which, of course, implies that there probably IS gonna be some trouble, which later on in the movie certainly comes true. But maybe Pentangeli really was in on the hit attempt later that night.

Gotta chew on this some more.

See theory above

I don't think I said I didn't like it, or maybe you misunderstood.

It's as valid as any other. I think we all agree that there had to have been at least one and possibly two others involved in the plot besides the hitmen who were on the premises that night.

The problem with your theory is that it's just that - a theory. No hard evidence from the movie to back it up, and no logical inferences that make it plausible that we can draw from what the movie does tell us.

Well I agree with the idea of Rocco having something to do with the shooting, my only disagreement for this theory is that FFC didn't show it in the movie, but maybe he wanted it like that!

Great first post.

Great last post, too.

Was it something we said?

This board is full of some scary people though,it takes a special kind of person to last here Apple's scarred off too many people to count.