Vito is a young husband with a son, Sonny. He loses his grocery job to a Black Hand thug named Fanucci. Desperate, Vito joins two petty thieves, Clemenza and Tessio, in a silk robbery. Fanucci demands a cut. Instead of paying, Vito watches Fanucci at a street festival, follows him to a tenement stairwell, and shoots him dead—not with bravado, but with cold, surgical nerve. That night, the neighborhood murmurs a new name: Don Vito Corleone .
Sollozzo sends assassins. Vito is shot five times. 1946. Michael, who swore he was “not like his father,” visits Vito in the hospital. Finds no guards. Realizes Sollozzo will finish the job. He moves his father’s bed, stands outside with a rearranged visitor’s chair—and nerves of ice. When the police captain McCluskey arrives, Michael understands: McCluskey is bought. He volunteers to meet Sollozzo and McCluskey at Louis’ Restaurant. the godfather trilogy 1901-1980
Michael: “I can. I have.”
Vito builds an olive oil empire, a legal front for gambling and protection. He returns to Sicily, finds Don Ciccio old and blind, and slits his belly open on the anniversary of his mother’s death. He adopts the orphaned Tom Hagen. His youngest son, Michael, watches all this but says nothing. Michael goes to college, enlists in the Marines, and returns a war hero in 1945. Vito is a young husband with a son, Sonny
Vito is a young husband with a son, Sonny. He loses his grocery job to a Black Hand thug named Fanucci. Desperate, Vito joins two petty thieves, Clemenza and Tessio, in a silk robbery. Fanucci demands a cut. Instead of paying, Vito watches Fanucci at a street festival, follows him to a tenement stairwell, and shoots him dead—not with bravado, but with cold, surgical nerve. That night, the neighborhood murmurs a new name: Don Vito Corleone .
Sollozzo sends assassins. Vito is shot five times. 1946. Michael, who swore he was “not like his father,” visits Vito in the hospital. Finds no guards. Realizes Sollozzo will finish the job. He moves his father’s bed, stands outside with a rearranged visitor’s chair—and nerves of ice. When the police captain McCluskey arrives, Michael understands: McCluskey is bought. He volunteers to meet Sollozzo and McCluskey at Louis’ Restaurant.
Michael: “I can. I have.”
Vito builds an olive oil empire, a legal front for gambling and protection. He returns to Sicily, finds Don Ciccio old and blind, and slits his belly open on the anniversary of his mother’s death. He adopts the orphaned Tom Hagen. His youngest son, Michael, watches all this but says nothing. Michael goes to college, enlists in the Marines, and returns a war hero in 1945.