I Totally Agree. There's A Definite Difference Between Tom's Attitude When He's Sending Tessio To His

I totally agree. There's a definite difference between Tom's attitude when he's sending Tessio to his death and when Carlo is about to be killed. He looks rather sad, reluctant and uncomfortable when he has to give the order to have Tessio taken away and killed.

When he joins Michael, Al and Rocco to confront Carlo, he seems almost eager. Tom's whole attitude here is much more aggressive and confrontational. The way he steps into the room and leans against the wall he's menacing here, very much the gangster. There's no reluctance or mercy in his expression. Plus he loosened his tie to give the signal immediately after Tessio is taken away. He didn't even wait to hear his confession. He wants' him dead ASAP and Tom looks at most, slightly discomfited, while watching Carlo being garrotted. He's certainly not sorry to see him die.

Usually I have a revelation during each rewatch of The Godfather. I watched part one tonight and didn’t have one up until Karl is killed and my takeaway is I think Tom was fine with him being killed because he helped Sonny’s murderers. As always I am deeply invested in the Sonny and Tom relationship.

Also, this movie and part II absolutely rules.

This scene gives me so many feelings. Sonny's words are so shockingly and incredibly cruel, especially considering how sensitive and insecure Tom already is. He wanted to hurt him here and could hardly have chosen a more effective weapon than those two sentences. Yet you can see how he much instantly regrets his words, he loves Tom so deeply that in spite of his pride, he doesn't hesitate to back down and try to make amends.

I wish that we'd been able to see Tom's expression here. He's obviously badly wounded by those words but I also get the impression that he was also angry and came very close to hitting him and probably would have if Sonny hadn't backtracked. That hand gesture Tom makes says fuck you Sonny even as he tells Sonny that it's over.

I like to think Sonny would have been the most fashionable if he had lived in Vegas

Tom Hagen might not be Sicilian but he's fluent in the language, uses Sicilian hand gestures, has Sicilian facial expressions, even prefers the language over English at times and has married an Italian wife. Clearly he's done everything possible to absorb a language and culture that he wasn't born into to the extent that Vito even says that he made Tom a Sicilian and yet almost every character in the book spends every 5 minutes reminding him that he isn't one of them.

Today's book.

I've had this for years and I've read it before but all this Deer Hunter talk made me want to read it again.

Unfortunately it isn't a fully fledged novel unlike The Godfather but a novelisation, and it's under 200 pages which is very little for an adaptation of a 3 hour movie but I'm still looking forward to reading it.

So in The Godfather novel Johnny Fontane is trying to produce his own movies and a Union official, Billy Goff, who is connected to the Corleones, tries to extort 50K from him. Johnny is considering just paying up, instead turns to Tom Hagen, who has been helping him with the whole project. Tom advises him not to pay up, says he'll deal with it and a few days later Tom has the Union official shot dead in his own home.

Vito has just been shot at this point, and is too ill to be consulted so Tom says that he'll talk to Sonny about the situation but that he will be the one who makes the final decision as to what will be done about the Union official so he personally ordered him to be killed.