Good shit. I can tell how well you know this movie.
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Also the movie can be fully relived in a minute.
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I thought this was going to be a supercut. Pleasant surprise.
Since you seem to have a great handle on this movie, can you explain when exactly we (i.e. the viewers) know that Fredo has no potential for the family business and is sidelined by Vito? Also do they ever give us a precise reason? Is he just not that bright? I mean Santino wasn’t exactly a genius either.
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It does just seem to be about him being stupid. Probably the first sign of this comes from outside the family rather than inside; the whole plot to assassinate Vito came down to “make a deal with his usual bodyguard, causing him to withdraw at the last minute and making it so the only person who will be there is Fredo,” which Sollozzo correctly assumes means that Vito has no meaningful help at all. Sure enough, Fredo reacts too slowly, then fumbles the gun, then Vito gets hit with five shots that should have killed him.
From there, Vito is incapacitated, so the natural succession is for the eldest son (Sonny) to stand in for him. It’s during this time that he just gets sent off to Vegas to go learn the casino business, which we can infer was likely Sonny’s call and not Vito’s (as Vito is informed about the plan upon returning home from the hospital; we see this as Fredo tells him sheepishly, “I’m going to learn the casino business” in that homecoming scene). We get left in the dark as to what goes on between Sonny’s death and Michael’s ascension to the head of the family, as there’s a time lapse of about a year, but during that time Fredo is already out west. It may have just been a convenience to leave him out there and let the clearly more competent son (Michael) have the reins.
However, in Part II, we do get a bit of exposition that suggests this was an active choice by Vito rather than passive happenstance.
Fredo: “I’m your older brother, and I was stepped over!”
Michael: “That’s the way Pop wanted it.”
Fredo: “IT AIN’T THE WAY I WANTED IT!”
Similarly, when Michael voluntarily cedes control of the family during the first half of Part II, he clearly points to Fredo’s incompetence as the reason he’s asking Tom to temporarily take over instead. “Fredo, he’s got a good heart, but he’s weak and he’s stupid and this is life and death.”
It’s not altogether clear whether Sonny was dumb also; mostly what we know for sure is that he just absolutely does NOT have the temperament to make level-headed decisions, making him a poor head of the family. Probably a distinction without a meaningful difference to compare “stupid” versus “unable to make good decisions because he’s such a hothead.”
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Thanks! That was way more insightful and in depth than I could have possibly hoped for.
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There is a funny little curiosity in Part II when the Senate is holding hearings to investigate the Corleones and they have an exhibit that shows a Corleone org chart.
Fredo is listed as “Underboss.” No real explanation as to what that means. Or even if that’s a real term in the mafia world. I suppose that’s just like when a failson is given one of many “VP” jobs within his father’s organization and gets nothing meaningful to actually do.
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Thanks for this. Putting it on rn. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen everyone’s faces.
Bill stops to note The Apartment as, “uhh…a 1960 movie with, umm…Jack Lemmon…”
Pretty sure Bill just found out The Apartment exists this week while researching to podcast about Jerry Maguire.
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They had a similar scene in The Sopranos, so I looked it up at the time. The Underboss is essentially the VP. Second in command. The Consegliere is the Boss’ right hand man.
Think Cheney v. Karl Rove.
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Sterling Hayden is taking too much heat imo.
I don’t remember if they gave it to him on the actual podcast, but I’m going Jack Woltz here, with Carlo second. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve watched it, but I think of Hayden just playing a dumb cop effectively.
This is just a terrible choice when Al Martino playing Johnny Fontane is on the board.
Luca Brasi winning the Vincent Chase award is a great call in terms of how he’s portrayed in the movie. But in the book, his reputation is more warranted. Throwing a baby into a furnace is pretty scary!
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I give you Woltz. McCluskey was no worse than Woltz. Neither Gianni Russo as Carlo or Al Martino as Johnny Fontane really struck me as bad performances.
Agree about Luca Brasi in the book, obviously. The movie just pares the character down, and on top of that, it seems like a pretty big mistake by Vito to send him on some undercover mission when we’ve seen that he has to aggressively rehearse saying “congratulations” to the father of the bride on a wedding day, just one of the most basic social acts a person can carry out. As portrayed in the movie, the character has essentially no verbal skills, and you’re going to send him out to run a con on the Tattaglias and Sollozzo? As Sollozzo said, the don - rest in peace - was…slipping.
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Alright this may not be the right thread, but screw it, I’ll dump it here since it’s Rewatchables-adjacent. This was great. https://x.com/thebigpic/status/1790890141592273181
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Lol wow
“Oh, so she’s Zendaya” really got me
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“…who is light skinned”
Everyone’s faces 
But especially Cowboy Van.
That was fantastic.
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Rewatched Spotlight tonight for the first time since it was new. I already knew this, but: what a picture.
It left me even more annoyed that Mark Ruffalo gets name-checked for the “over-acting” award on The Rewatchables. That scene they pull audio from is awesome.
I know, I know, Simmons thinks he gets to call it “over-acting” and then be flummoxed when everyone thinks that means he’s being critical. I’ll never stop complaining about this.
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Listened to the Spotlight Rewatchables. They loved the movie, but at the end Producer Craig says that he doesn’t think Ruffalo is very good in it, which leaves Russillo and CR gobsmacked. And then Bill says he kind of leans Craig’s way.
But no, we shouldn’t take “over-acting” as an insult! Grumble grumble.
Ruffalo rocks in this movie and would have been justified in winning the Oscar he was nominated for.