After Kay revealed her abortion, Michael decked her and shouted, “You won’t take my children away from me!” And, the last we see of Kay in GFII, she’s being rushed by Connie to finish her visitation with the kids—and she runs into Michael and the Dreaded Corleone Stare. Their divorce may already have been final by that scene: Nevada, and Idaho were the only states at that time that permitted relatively quick and easy divorces. Judges routinely gave custody of children to the mother, except if the mother was mentally or morally “incompetent.” But Michael, with his money, influence and fear factor, would have had no problem convincing a judge that Kay’s abortion (illegal at that time) would make her “morally incompetent.” No doubt about it: He had the kids at the end of GFII.
But, at the very beginning of GFIII, Michael’s letter to the kids reveals that he gave up custody to Kay: “…although I entrusted your education to your mother for your own best interests, you know how I look forward to seeing you [emphasis added], and to a new period of harmony in our lives…” Since Mary and Anthony were of school age at the end of GFII, Kay must have gotten the kids not very long after the Dreaded Corleone Stare scene. And the phrase, “…I look forward to seeing you…” implies that Michael hadn’t seen them, perhaps for a long while.
This puzzles me because it seems inconsistent with Michael’s character. How did Kay get the kids, given his obsession with controlling everyone and everything, and his long-demonstrated unwillingness to give a traitor a pass (and Kay’s abortion, and her decision to leave him, certainly made her a “traitor” in his eyes)? I want to offer several possibilities; perhaps you’ll offer others:
1. Kay, her assertiveness hormones surging following her decision to have the abortion and leave Michael, decided to contest the child custody issue. She threatened Michael: if they went to court, she’d tell the judge all about “this Sicilian thing,” and everything else, that made her decide to have the abortion. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: “Kay Adams Corleone is a dead woman.” But Michael, fresh from his narrow escape from the Senate committee, could ill afford another attack on his “legitimacy.” And he’d have to explain Kay’s disappearance or death to his kids—and probably to the authorities, if divorce proceedings had been initiated or concluded. And maybe—just maybe—Kay was the one person Michael couldn’t kill.
2. The kids, especially Anthony, demanded to be with their mother. The phrase in Michael’s letter, “…a new period of harmony in our lives,” implies disharmony. And, as we saw, Anthony was estranged from his father at the beginning of GFIII.
3. Michael may have voluntarily agreed to give Kay custody shortly after the Great Corleone Stare scene as a way of leaving the door open to an eventual reconciliation with Kay. We saw him wooing Kay almost desperately in GFIII.
4. It’s simply another of those myriad plot gaps and inconsistencies in GFIII that plague and diminish the film.
What do you think?
