Originally Posted By: olivant
Don't you think that Sonny uses Tessio more as an errand boy? He orders Tessio to recruit men after Vito is shot; he sends Tessio to see what was delivered at the gate; he orders Tessio to escort Mike to Louie's. Clemenza appears to be used by Sonny for more important matters such as training Michael and explaining to Michael the strategy for the Sollozzo meeting.


This could be a remnant of what's in the book. Tessio's at much more of a distance from the main family at the start of the book (as I've written before, he's not even mentioned at the wedding), so it could be that in bulking up the character for the movie Puzo and Coppola gave Tessio a lot of the little transactional stuff that has to be assigned to some character when you have a limited cast.

"All of these men were good listeners; patient men."