Who found Carlo? Do you think he was a plant?
Listen hear me out.
Give me a moment
Ok so Sunny found carlo? Do you think he was a plant from the other 4 families?
No, Carlo was just an immigrant Sonny befriended, kind of like Tom Hagen (Hagen wasn't an immigrant, he was just a street kid Sonny made friends with).
There was never a "plan" to undermine the Corleones with Carlo. What led to Carlo betraying Sonny was a number of things:
1) Vito looked down on Carlo due to his Northern Italian heritage. Vito never wanted to bring Carlo close in the family, allowing him only a small sports book to run, which was compromised when the Families went to the mattresses.
2) Carlo was frustrated and wasn't willing to put the work in to gain trust. He lost even more trust when he started beating Connie. Italian men are very protective of their daughters, and though Vito, traditional to a fault, would not intervene, he could still he angry about it.
3) Sonny's public, humiliating beating of Carlo made it easier for him to kill his former friend, his wife's brother, and the temporary head of the Family.
Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment. -Michael Corleone
Makes no sense Vito looked down on Carlo I mean after all Carlo was still 100% Italian. Vito makes it seem Connie married a black or a Jew. Carlo was itlaian.
shareWell, it happens. Sunni and Shi'ite often don't get along, North and South Koreans often don't get along, Black Americans used to judge each other on whether or not our skin tone was lighter than a brown paper sack, etc etc.. just because on the surface you belong to the same general group doesn't necessarily mean you can't be prejudiced.
Allowing people without Sicilian roots to be members of a Family is a relatively new thing.
Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment. -Michael Corleone
Quite true. Also keep in mind that in the pre-World War One period, the Sicilian Mafia and the Neapolitan Camorra was fighting it out in New York and Chicago for control of the rackets. Part of the reason Luciano and Costello lead the Young Turks in taking over the mafia in the early 1930s was because the older mafia leaders were still very into the tradition always of looking where you came from. Mafia leaders in the US were fighting over insults that happened a century before in Italy. Costello was from Calabria, and they had associates who were Jewish, Irish and everything else.
My cousin is half Sicilian and in the family we always joked about that. Another is half Jewish and we used to call her "our little pizza bagel".
But today it does not matter as much. My wife's parents came from Germany and one of my sons is blond haired, blue eyed with really pale white skin.
It makes a huge difference. My parents were both full Italian. My mother was half Sicilian. My father's family was from Naples. They hated her and looked down on her because of that. They wouldn't speak to her until the day she died. I can only imagine what they'd think of today's standards where, not only do Italians marry non-Italians, but people of all different religions, races and ethnic backgrounds.
shareI am formerly known as HillieBoliday....Member since May 2006
I agree! It was her brother Sonny who introduced Carlo to his sister and the family! If the Don did not approve of Carlo...why let her marry him???
I was always under the impression that Italians were very strongly family oriented and protective....especially toward their women! I would think that Connie chose to fall in love and eventually marry Carlo...because her family approved of him!
I have my original copy of the novel that I bought back when it was first released. I remember there was a page in the back of the book for you to fill out suggestions, and mail in for actors you wanted to portray the characters in the film they were planning to make. My suggestion for Don Corleone...was Nehemiah Persoff.
Anyway...the issue with the family not intervening on behalf of Connie, is the only thing I have ALWAYS strongly disliked about the book and the movie! If my husband had ever, ever been abusive toward me and my father and four brothers found out about it....he would be dead and buried...never to be seen again...not to mention my mother, who would have split his head open with a bat...and then bothered to ask questions later with his brains spilling out on the floor!!
SOMEBODY explain if this is really true to Italian culture...not to intervene....and why??? Good grief....he was beating his pregnant wife....and Sonny was the only family member who would do something about it!!
"OOhhhooo....I'M GON' TELL MAMA!"
But Vito told Sonny to give Carlo a living but not to let him in on the family business. Carlo wasn't Sicilian and couldn't be on the inside. It's not so much being looked down upon, it's a matter of trust that the cultural ties to Sicily brings.
It is interesting that Tom Hagan was allowed on the inside as an "adopted" son. Still, even Tom wasn't viewed as being complete a consiglieri as he could have been if he'd been Sicilian. Remember, Michael points out that Tom is not Sicilian. And then, he gets pushed out because he's not "a wartime consiglieri. They might have thought different of him if he'd been Sicilian.
"Smokey, this is not 'Nam, this is bowling. There are rules. "
-Walter Sobchak
^^ 100% the same assessment as mine.
Which probably means that we're both wrong.
- What are you gonna do, when the world catches on?
I mean after all Carlo was still 100% Italian
Carlo was NORTHERN Italian. There is a huge difference. Sicilians tend to view Northern Italians with slightly less disdain than they do non italians. N Italians are viewed as spoiled and weak because they didnt have to endure any of the hardships a S Italian had to endure. share
Sounds right to me.
Minor quibble, I suppose, is that I don't know that "looked down" may not be th precise concept. It's reasonably safe to say that he didn't trust Northern Italians as much as Southern. I don't think he would've looked down on Northern Italians in the traditional social-hierarchy sense. Kind of more the opposite, though I suppose you could say he looked down on Northern Italians in the same way a tough working class kid from the East End of London looked down on a posh kid from the West End.
I like to think that as much as Vito might have 'looked down' on Carlo because of his heritage, it was equally a spot on character judgement that Carlo was a wrong 'un. I would imagine within about five minutes of meeting him, Vito had got the gist of what Carlo was about, and judged him accordingly. Had Carlo been Northern Italian, but still an honest, loyal, hard-working guy, who was in love with Connie because of who she was, rather than the wealth and prestige marrying a Corleone would bring, he would have eventually earned a trusted position. But he didn't love Connie, he just wanted an easy life with money and power handed to him on a plate, and Vito probably saw him coming from a mile off.
shareAll good points, but your #3 is really good!! Makes the most sense to me.
One thing is for certain; he was an imbecile!
You have wife that looks like Talia Shire...and you mess that up?!!!