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Originally posted by Turnbull:
It’s time for my annual (or is it semi-annual?) seat-of-the-pants Top Ten Most-Frequently-Asked Questions on these boards. This isn’t scientific: your comments, corrections and additions are welcome:

1. Did Roth engineer the cop’s entry into the bar, thwarting Frankie Pentangeli’s assassination? (This thread gets the Lifetime Achievement Award.)
2. Who killed the Tahoe shooters?
3. Did Connie really think that Fredo drowned?
4. Who is the “ghost lady” at Vito’s burial?
5. Was Michael wrong to kill Fredo?
6. Would Sonny have made a better Don than Michael?
7. If Clemenza (rather than Pentangeli) had been in GFII, would he have betrayed Michael?
8. Why didn’t Robert Duvall appear in GFIII?
9. Who was a better Don: Vito or Michael?
10. Which Don was the old guy who sang at Connie’s wedding?

Many regulars here get annoyed by newbies who ask these and other familiar questions without doing searches. They’re not wrong, IMO. But I don’t mind repeat questions because, once in a while, someone comes up with a new and interesting angle that hadn’t been posted before.
Grazie, Turnbull. Here's a fan's stab at it:

1. No. He was going to leave him hanging all along but he didn't have anything to do with the police.

2. Fredo's men. He intended it to be a hit all along. He got "passed over" and he never forgave Mike for it.

3. Of course not. She was the Matriarch of the family at that point and she was soothing Mike with a well known, family accepted lie.

4. 1972 movie camera problem.

5. Yes. A true Don would never have killed his brother. He would have banished him.

6. No, simply because Sonny would have been killed anyway due to his behavior. Mike was more wise, Sonny more street smart.

7. Yes, it was in the original script, I believe.

8. Money.

9. Vito. He knew how to seperate himself from his emotions while Michael never did. It may have been generational.

10. I believe the old man was a relative of Carmella's and not a Don, per se. He seems harmless and fun. Maybe it's Maranzalla's successor? orange


"The Godfather was a man to whom everybody came for help and never were they disappointed. He made no empty promises, nor the craven excuse that his hands were tied by more powerful forces in the world than himself. It was not necessary that he be your friend, it was not even important that you had no means with which to repay him. Only one thing was required. That you, yourself, proclaim your friendship. And then, no matter how poor or powerless the supplicant, the Godfather would take that person's troubles to his heart. He would let nothing stand in the way to a solution of that person's woe. His reward? Friendship, the respectful title 'Don' and sometimes the more affectionate salutation of 'Godfather.' Perhaps, to show respect only, never for profit, some humble gift - a gallon or homemade wine or a basket of fresh baked goods on a holiday. It was understood to proclaim that you were in his debt and that he had the right to call upon you at any time to redeem the debt by some small service." -- Mario Puzo, The Godfather (1969).