What did Fredo Corleone actually do?

[John Ho]

Did Fredo think the guys in Tahoe were just going to shoot at Michael to scare him rather than kill him? That is hard to believe but Fredo is pretty stupid. Remember that Michael was convinced someone on the inside helped with the attempted Tahoe hit. And clearly that insider was Fredo.

So, from Fredo's perspective, what does helping outsiders into the compound help with Roth's Cuba situation? Seems like he isn't telling the whole truth to Mike in that last scene.

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I umderstand Fredo had already been to Cuba and lied about it. I still dont know what actions he took to betray the family. Maybe he gave away some of Michael's plans for the future to Ola and/or Roth?

Thanks for the responses,

KennyBanya

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If you read the latest Godfather Novel, (I forget the title), they give the explanation.

Fredo was giving Roth information about Michales plans for Cuba... nothing else. In return Roth was going to finance a fancy cemetary devlopement that Fredo had proposed to Michael, that was turned down. So basically Fredo would have his own little nitch.

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[Dynasty]

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Did Fredo think the guys in Tahoe were just going to shoot at Michael to scare him rather than kill him? That is hard to believe but Fredo is pretty stupid. Remember that Michael was convinced someone on the inside helped with the attempted Tahoe hit. And clearly that insider was Fredo.

So, from Fredo's perspective, what does helping outsiders into the compound help with Roth's Cuba situation? Seems like he isn't telling the whole truth to Mike in that last scene.


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And, somebody killed the assassins. It was never explicity stated who killed them before they got out of the compound.

[Blarg]

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If you thought the Godfather I and II were great and III sucked, you should read the book because the book encompasses I and II. What is amazing is I think the book is better than the movies, and I think those are some of the best movies ever made.

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I was surprised how good the book was. So often either the movie or the book is good, but not both. And so often they're drastically different, and usually in an unsatisfactory way, the movie falling dismally short of the book, sometimes even unnecessarily. But The Godfather was a very good book, well worth reading.

I read it a very long time ago, but still remember the Don advising Michael to always make sure your real enemies underestimate you, so you can lure them into weakness and spring the trap harder. In a world that seems to be all about strength, much of it false, choosing the appearance of weakness has always struck me as a very interesting choice, a choice for only the higher level players who can properly negotiate the risk and pull off the pretense without it easily leading to their undoing. It takes a great confidence and a flare for vicious sudden reversals. The Don and his family's high-stakes maneuvering was very well done and tremendously entertaining.

By the way, my opinions are very much in line with Roger Ebert's. I think the second film lacked the coherence of the first one, and fell well short of the mark of the first one. I also felt the real rise to power of Robert DeNiro's version of the Don was almost instantaneous and felt like a cop-out. There was no "there" there, to quote some famous stupid lady. Right at the part where I wanted to know more -- what happened AFTER the killing of the Black Hand dude -- we got no story, but a fait accompli or whatever, after the mere prequel to a story. The story of his rise was already over at its very beginning! What a gyp.

Here's Ebert's review. It's well worth a read.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...401010314/1023

And here's the pertinent part of the review for those who don't want to click:



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The flashbacks give Coppola the greatest difficulty in maintaining his pace and narrative force. The story of Michael, told chronologically and without the other material, would have had really substantial impact, but Coppola prevents our complete involvement by breaking the tension. The flashbacks to New York in the early 1900s have a different, a nostalgic tone, and the audience has to keep shifting gears. Coppola was reportedly advised by friends to forget the Don Vito material and stick with Michael, and that was good advice.
There's also some evidence in the film that Coppola never completely mastered the chaotic mass of material in his screenplay. Some scenes seem oddly pointless (why do we get almost no sense of Michael's actual dealings in Cuba, but lots of expensive footage about the night of Castro's takeover?), and others seem not completely explained (I am still not quite sure who really did order that attempted garroting in the Brooklyn saloon).

What we're left with, then, are a lot of good scenes and good performances set in the midst of a mass of undisciplined material and handicapped by plot construction that prevents the story from ever really building.

There is, for example, the brilliant audacity of the first communion party for Michael's son, which Coppola directs as counterpoint to the wedding scene that opened "The Godfather." There is Lee Strasberg's two-edged performance as Hyman Roth, the boss of the Florida and Cuban operations; Strasberg gives us a soft-spoken, almost kindly old man, and then reveals his steel-hard interior. There is Coppola's use of sudden, brutal bursts of violence to punctuate the film's brooding progress. There is Pacino, suggesting everything, telling nothing.

But Coppola is unable to draw all this together and make it work on the level of simple, absorbing narrative. The stunning text of "The Godfather" is replaced in "Part II" with prologues, epilogues, footnotes, and good intentions.


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Here's the URL to his Godfather Part 1, if anyone's interested:


http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...201010312/1023

And this is the link to his "Great Movies" review many years later:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/...401010321/1023

[Lottery Larry]

I generally agree.

But more importantly, whom does that great ass belong to?

[Anacardo]

I propose a Keyra Augustina sticky, so that all ass-related questions can be directed and answered efficiently.

[jakethebake]

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I propose a Keyra Augustina sticky, so that all ass-related questions can be directed and answered efficiently.

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This is an excellent idea.

[ackid]

"Hey, Joey Zaza up your ass"!

GF III.

[Dynasty]

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"Hey, Joey Zaza up your ass"!

GF III.

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Quite a step down from either:

"My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse" -GF

"There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer." -GFII

[Cyrus]

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More importantly, whom does that great ass belong to?

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Wikipedia entry

[AffleckKGB]

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By the way, my opinions are very much in line with Roger Ebert's.

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Roger Ebert is a good writer, but unfortunately a total idiot.