Originally Posted by Turnbull
Originally Posted by Revis_Knicks
Was it ever Vito’s dream to become “legitimate” like Michael?

No. Vito's hope for Michael's legitimacy ("Senator Corleone...Governor Corleone...") was based on Michael's prospects before the Sol-and-Mac shootings. He would have been a college grad, possibly a lawyer, with no criminal record or Mafia notoriety. Some here have compared Michael to JFK, in that JFK's father's notoriety didn't hinder his political career, while his father's money and influence were major assets in JFK's campaigns. But Vito was uneducated, probably not even officially a US citizen, and was identified as a major Mob boss. Didn't matter to Vito: he derived his legitimacy through his position as "justice dispenser" to his fellow Sicilian immigrants.
Originally Posted by Revis_Knicks
This is also an important question. Would it be possible at all for a mob boss like Michael to reach the level of wealth and pseudo legitimacy in America like he did in Godfather 3?

Yes. Moe Dalitz, a major Prohibition-era gangster who was head of Cleveland's Mayfield Road rum-running gang (the "Lakeville Road boys" in GFII), started going legit in the laundry business, won commendations as a laundry officer in the Army in WWII, then moved to Vegas in '47, where he built the Desert Inn, the Stardust and the Sundance hotel-casinos; financed and ran the re-election campaign of Sen. Pat McCarren (Senator Geary in GFII), Sunrise Hospital, the Las Vegas Country Club and the Las Vegas Convention Center. Dalitz, not Wayne Newton or Liberace, was known as "Mr. Las Vegas." Dalitz was named Humanitarian of the Year by the American Cancer Research Center and Hospital in 1976. In 1982 he received the Torch of Liberty Award by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.


I wish they went deeper in Godfather 3 into how Michael made his billions so quickly. He was giving away hundreds of millions like candy LOL. Even though Vito did not want the mafia life for Michael, it seems like he was proud of how he was running the business. And I think Vito felt all along that Michael was the best choice to be his heir because he could take the family business to a level that his other sons could not. And that is exactly what Michael did. But even with all of the money and power that Michael had as Don, he never commanded the same respect that his father had. I truly believe that he is chasing that throughout the trilogy. Just look at how Senator Geary speaks to him at the beginning of the movie compared to how the people speak to Vito at the beginning of Godfather 1.