MovieChat Forums > The Godfather (1972) Discussion > Luca Brazzi unhappy with Corleone family...

Luca Brazzi unhappy with Corleone family?


Did the Godfather really believe Bartzini would fall for this? Luca's fate shows they caught on pretty quick.

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I asked that a few years ago:

https://moviechat.org/tt0068646/The-Godfather/5c60b5d294ad9a7fa7578c3b/Question-for-those-that-read-the-book

The short answer is that the movie only glossed over the plot with Luca, the long answer is far more involved. I posted the link because summarizing the discussion wouldn't do it justice. Worth the read.

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Thanks!! Obviously a lot more to it than my simplistic take.

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Not true!! It's an excellent question. Watching the movie, it looks like Vito comes up with this bonehead plan, Luca approaches Tartaglia and tells him he's not happy with the Corleones, and immediately goes for a swim. Why wouldn't Tartaglia see through this?

MC'r BullSchmidt really goes into details on that thread I linked, but Tartaglia heard about Luca's dissatisfaction with the Coreleone family second hand through a hooker - Luca did NOT go directly to the Tartaglias. Bruno Tartaglia approached Luca and made Luca an offer that he did not immediately accept, etc.

Sometime after the first of the year I'm going to pick up a copy of the book and read it.

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Thanks!
Another thing I wondered about. When Sonny leaves for the causeway, it seemed he was followed relatively closely by family members (with the presumed purpose of catching up with him or at least following closely) yet it seems like at least 30 seconds from the time he is shot until the family car arrives. It also seems by the time the car arrives, all the killers have left. Was that car detained as part of the plan?

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I also wondered about that, but dismiss it as editing. They should have shown a bit more time between Sonny's abrupt departure and the bodyguards leaving to follow.

Sonny was driving a Lincoln, and back then, luxury cars usually were the fastest cars on the road, so maybe Sonny had a two or three minute lead on his bodyguards by the time he arrived at the toll booth.

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Not to beat a dead horse but think of the timing of Sonny’s murder. If memory serves, they relied on Connie calling Sonny at a particular time (because the ambush was set up), then Sonny going by himself through the Causeway and as we talked about, no guards nearby, then enough time for the killers to leave before anyone else arrived. A lot left to chance?

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Again, that was also something I ran through my pea brain. It did require a lot of things to fall into place for the hit to work, and the best I can come up with (still haven't read the book!) was that there may have been several attempts to draw Santino out and leave him exposed that might have fizzled, but this particular episode worked as planned out. If Sonny didn't show up or if they couldn't get the "blocking" car right in front of Sonny to keep him from driving away, they would have aborted and gone to plan B, C, D, etc. I realize there were only so many times Carlo could beat up Connie to set up Sonny before *someone* like one of the button men wouldn't beat Carlo to within an inch of his life or just kill him.

Everyone knows that Sonny was both hot headed and quite predictable if nothing else. Not a stretch to imagine Sonny would immediately head to beat the snot out of Carlo as soon as Connie called him.

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I think that even if Solazzo and Tataglia believed Luca, they would have killed him. They were going to kill the Don and couldn't take the chance that Luca would go on the rampage against them.

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My take is that Don at the time felt he was dealing with Sollazo and Tattalgia. He felt that neither of them were shrewd enough to see past the ruse with Luca Brasi. He knows Tattalgia is “just a pimp,” for example.

What likely happened is that Sollazo / Tattalgia went to Bartzini, who was the smart one. He then said, “nah, no way Luca is unhappy with don. It’s a trap.”

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