Essay/Term paper: The godfather

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Cliff Notes

The Godfather

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Based on Mario Puzo's novel



The Godfather was based in the late 1940's in New York City. The story is about the Corleone family, which is headed by Vito Corleone. He had four sons. The quick to act older son is Santino, also known as Sunny. The next son is Fredo and the youngest son is Mechael which was in the military at the start of the movie and later stepped up to be the head of the family business. Finally, there is the adopted son Tom who Sunny found in the streets of New York homeless. He took him in seeing how his life was so terrible and Sunny's life was so good. Vito also had a daughter, Connie who went through the pain of the family business and she was not even involved in it.



The movie starts off at the wedding of Connie and her husband Carlo. Vito promises Carlo a good future, but will not ever let him be a part of the family business. After the wedding, Virgo Salatso, a herione dealer from Italy is looking for the Corleone family backing by money and protection from the law, as they have control over the local government. Vito wants no part of the heroine dealer and little does he know all of the other mob bosses are going along with Salatso. Vito had no idea his noncompliance with Salatso would start a war between the families of New York. This led to Virgo's men to shoot Vito but not killing him. This outgraged Michael and this led to the revenge of him shooting a police captain under Virgo and the shooting of Mr. Salatso. After this, the family sent Michael to Sicily to hide out. While Michael was in Sicily, he fell in love and got married to a woman named Apolonia but their love was short lived because a hit was put out on Michael. Apolonia was killed by the car bomb that was intended for Michael. Also, while Michael was in Sicily, the bosses put a hit on Sunny. The other bosses used Carlo, Connie's husband to set him up. Carlo beat yup Connie and Sunny and was sent to her aid. On the way he had to ggo through a tollbooth where he was met by heavy machine gun fire and was killed. After everything died down, Michael was summoned back to America. With Sunny dead and Vito tired and rapidly aging, he needed to pass the responsibility of the family over to Michael. Michael called a meeting of the five families to announce the Corleone was going to drop all of their operations in New York and go to Las Vegas, but before the y moved to Las Vegas, Michael had to settle all debts. During the baptism of Carlo and Connie's son Michael, who was the child's godfather, had the other five family heads killed. He would also kill Moe Green, who stood in the way of Michael owning a casino in Las Vegas and he also confronted Carl0o about setting up Sunny and going behind the family's back by making deals with the other mob bosses. A few weeks later the Corleone family moved to Las Vegas. Before they leave Michael's wife confronts him about the killing of Carlo and he denies it. He asks her to never ask him about the family business again.