Who Killed The Hooker In The Godfather Part II? An Investigation.

Detective Ben is on the case.

Recently, I was doing my tweets and I casually mentioned something about the Godfather Part II and a lot of people were like “Ben” and I was like “what” and they were like “you have misunderstood this famous scene,” and I was like “no I haven’t. You have,” and they were like “you should be embarrassed right now,” and I flipped over the table and stormed out To Do My Research.

The scene in question is the famous scene where the Senator is in the brothel with a dead hooker and Tom comes in and is like, “this girl has no family.”

Remember that scene? Good. We’re going to talk about it at length. If you haven’t seen it in a while, this might be easier to follow if you watch it quickly.

Who do you think killed the hooker? I think the senator killed her. But I am apparently the only person alive who thinks this. But guess what? I am right.

So let’s do a little dialogue about this.

What is the Godfather Part II?

Is this a joke?

It’s not a joke, but I do think you should do the bare minimum job of writing essays and remind readers about the details of the thing you are about to discuss.

Shut up.

Wow, ok. Hot out the gate!

I’m sorry. I was up until 4:30 in the morning reading everything ever written about the Godfather Part II.

Sounds like you’re qualified to quickly give the reader a synopsis.

Before I go on, I’d like to make some general points about life.

Should I ask ChatGPT to summarize the Godfather 2?

1) Just because lots of people believe something, doesn’t necessarily mean it is true! A lot of people used to think the Earth was flat! In Turkey, nobody believes the Armenian genocide happened.

What?

In Pakistan, a majority of people think 9/11 was an inside job.

…

But 9/11 wasn’t an inside job and the earth isn’t flat and the Armenian genocide happened.

What does this have to do with the Godfather Part II?

2) A lot of people are sheep who just believe whatever the corrupt mainstream media says.

Uh-huh.

3) Authors have interesting insight into their work but they are not the final word on how their texts should be interpreted.

This seems like foreshadowing.

4) “First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.” — GHANDI

Ghandi didn’t actually say that.

5) I, Ben Dreyfuss, am generally acknowledged to be one of the world’s best movie detectives. Before me, no one had considered that Quint killed Ben Gardner and framed Jaws. But now that is canon and it is taught in every film school.

The Truth About Jaws

ChatGPT: "The Godfather Part II" is a crime drama that explores the rise of Vito Corleone and the challenges faced by his son Michael as they navigate the world of organized crime.

Wow, thanks for nothing. This is the sort of superficial movie watching that demands an iconoclastic movie detective like myself take the case of the Godfather Part II

I guess I would add to ChatGPT’s synopsis that it’s about Michael Corleone completely losing his soul as he ascends to higher levels of American class, wealth, and power.

Right, so, in the first film, Vito is a powerful mobster who has to deal with the problems one would expect mobsters to have to deal with. Rival mobsters, drugs, corrupt cops, etc… In the second film, the Corleone family has grown in stature and success and has nominally begun moving into the legit world of investments and casinos. But with this elevation, new types of villains arise. This is Senator Geary, who we meet in the opening sequence on Lake Tahoe.

Geary is a corrupt senator who has come to this celebration Michael is throwing for his son’s first communion. They retreat to the boathouse for a private conversation. Michael already owns two casinos. He wants to move into a third, and, if successful, he’ll need a gaming license. The Senator can get that for him, but he demands a $250,000 bribe. He also displays casual racism towards Italians and says mean things to Michael Corleone that he really shouldn’t say, considering how many people Michael Corleone has killed. Michael tells him to fuck off, in so many words, and the meeting ends acrimoniously.

There are other things that happen in that scene that might be relevant.

WE’LL GET BACK TO THOSE.

Ok, ok.

A bit later in the film, Tom Hagan lands at an airstrip in Carson City. He and Fredo walk into a seedy brothel. Hagen is shown to a room by the brothel, uh, attendant? He goes in alone. In the room is a shaken Senator Geary. There is a dead hooker handcuffed to the bed, covered in blood. It is not entirely clear how she has been killed, but it’s clearly violent.

Geary says he passed out and when he woke up, she was dead.

Hagen tells him that the girl won’t be missed and they’ll cover it up, with the implied quid pro quo that now they own the senator.

Right, it’s one of the most famous scenes in history.

There are three ways of interpreting what has happened.

Seems like there is one way.

Wrong. THREE WAYS.

1) Everything happened in the most straightforward way possible. The senator killed the girl in a blackout, the brothel called Fredo—the owner of the establishment—he called Tom, now they are taking advantage of their good luck.

LOL.

2) The senator is innocent and has been framed. The basic idea is that he was drugged, and then, at Corleone direction, this innocent hooker was bludgeoned to death so that the senator would think he had killed her and Tom Hagen could save his ass.

Right, this is obviously what happened.

3) in some shots in the scene, the actress who plays the dead girl is clearly breathing. Some people on the internet think this means that she isn’t dead and that it was a setup that she was in on. I guess the blood, in this case, is corn syrup or something.

Two of those are dumb.

No, one of them is dumb. Two must be considered.

Your presentation of facts is selective and misleading!

I…

So, in the first scene in the boathouse, when the Senator insults Michael’s family and demands a bribe, Michael is totally undisturbed. He is as confident as possible that he will get the gaming license without having to pay this bribe. The only way in which he betrays any consternation or surprise at all is by repeatedly glaring at Tom Hagen. The film cuts to Hagen’s reaction a few times, and Tom is looking increasingly agitated. In addition, at one moment, Geary rudely barks an order at Al Neri, who he has just been told is one of Michael’s “right arms,” to get him some water. He then takes some pills out of his pocket and uses the water to wash them down.

This sets up four things:

1) Michael is confident because he has a plan, but he is on some, well-masked level, upset. He blames Tom Hagen for this somehow.

2) Tom Hagen understands this and receives the message that this is his problem to fix.

3) Geary takes drugs.

4) Al Neri hates him.

…

Any rebuttals?

Proceed, Congressman.

Why does Al Neri matter? Because Al Neri is Michael Corleone’s number-one hitman! And where does he show up? IN THE BROTHEL. It’s actually worse than that. He’s not just hanging around the lobby of the brothel, ok? He is in the bathroom of the senator’s sex/murder room. When the senator is looking away, Neri pops his head out, and Tom gestures for him to go back in the bathroom.

Why is Neri there if he didn’t kill her? He didn’t get off the plane with Tom. He didn’t walk in with Tom. He is a killer. That is what he does.

Let me…

No, shut up. If Neri didn’t kill her at Michael’s direction, how fucking convenient! This senator, who was just really mean to these noted killers, just so happens to, for the first time in his life, kill a prostitute in a brothel secretly owned by the killers. If that is what happened, why would Michael even bother owning a casino? Just go to someone else’s and take them for all their worth at craps. This guy is the luckiest man ever to breathe!

I regret to inform you that you have walked into a trap.

Like the senator.

No, the senator killed her.

No, he didn’t.

You, bold type, are the sort of simpleminded fool that is destroying this country.

The difference between you and me is that I have read early versions of the screenplay.

I’m talking about the movie that exists, not the movie that doesn[t exist.

The third draft of the script is dated September 1973. The only difference between the first scene in the boathouse in the draft and in the film is that the screenplay scene is longer. I do not know this for a fact, but I bet they actually shot the longer scene and just cut it down in editing. Like, the film version is word for word the same, it just starts later and ends earlier.

So what?

So what? So, the rest of that scene in the script is relevant. And it sheds light on some of the things you brought up:

The reason Michael keeps glaring at Tom is because Tom had moments earlier told him explicitly that the senator was not corrupt.

According to the senator’s aide, Turnbull, who is deep in debt to the Corleones for gambling losses, Geary thinks of himself as a clean guy so Michael would need to be indirect about everything and offer campaign donations and stuff. Michael does not like being told this like he’s an idiot and they have a tense moment. Then the senator is immediately like “Hi, I’m the most corrupt prick on earth,” so Michael looks at Tom to shade him for his bad reconnaissance and the fact that this Turnbul guy sold him fake news. In addition, he is saying, “oh I thought you were so much smarter than me, idiot.”

In the end of the scene, in the script, there is a brief moment where Tom apologizes to Michael, and Michael is like, “don’t worry. We’ll talk later.”

NEXT

Al Neri and the pills. You say those pills foreshadow the drugging that would be required to get him to pass out long enough for them to kill the hooker.

Yes.

Guess what, dipshit? Though the scene in the boathouse is identical in the September ’73 screenplay, the second scene is entirely different.

So?

I don’t mean a little different. I don’t mean the brothel is actually two stories instead of one. I mean, there is no brothel. There is no dead girl. She doesn’t have a family because she doesn’t exist.

In the script, Tom Hagen goes to Geary’s office and then pays the bribe.

What?

He doesn’t just hand him money—and he doesn’t give him a percentage of the take—but he gives him $30,000 in a way that also could become public if he doesn’t play nice.

Hmmmm.

This is important because it means that: 1) the fact that Michael is offended in the boathouse scene literally means nothing. It means that Al Neri being barked at means nothing. It means the pills mean nothing.

Did Michael tell him to pay the bribe?

Unclear. In the movie, there is a scene after the attempt on their lives in Tahoe where Michael confides to Tom that he suspects there is a traitor in their midst. He then flies away to Miami.

In the screenplay, that scene is longer.

Michael tells Tom that he is basically going off the grid. He gives Tom a secret letter with info about his plan.

He also says he wants Tom to do three things. One of those three things he explicitly says is about Kay. But he doesn’t give any indication to us what the other two are. Tom then, in short order, is shown going on two errands, which presumably are the other two tasks: one involves sending bribery money to Hyman Roth via courier…

…and the other is the thing with the senator.

But we don’t see Michael actually give these orders so it’s not clear how specific his instructions were. Maybe he was just like, “the third thing is: handle this senator mess.”

It sort of doesn’t make sense that it would be more specific than that. This is the same night as the party. Just a few hours earlier, Michael didn’t know anything about the senator. Tom had briefed him.

While interesting, I’m not sure what this has to do with anything.

In both versions—the script and the film—Michael immediately leaves that meeting with Tom and flies away. He is on his own for the next hour on his Roth adventure.

So. What.

So, you fucking idiot, while it is potentially possible that Michael gave Tom instructions like “pay the bribe,” it is not realistically that he gave instructions like “wait for him to go to a brothel in Carson City and then drug him and kill his hooker and trick him into thinking he did it.”

Michael never had time to plan the hooker’s death. He didn’t know anything about this dude like an hour earlier! He’s been rather busy getting shot at. He didn’t have time to learn that the senator was into sex tourism.

If you are right and it is a setup, then it is Tom who comes up with that plan.

SO WHAT?

SO WHAT?!?!?! So it means people are wrong to think Michael killed the hooker!!! It means Wikipedia is wrong!

I don’t care. So Tom came up with the idea to kill her just like in the first movie he came up with chopping off the horse’s head? When people say “Michael did it,” they just mean Michael’s organization did it. I am not invested in whether it was Tom and not Michael.

Except that the entire theme of the movie, you stupid prick, is about Michael’s descent into evil. Not Tom’s.

It can be about both. That’s how themes work.

Now, in the brothel scene, there are things YOU LEFT OUT

1) when Tom and Fredo walk into the brothel, all the hookers are standing around because they know one of their colleagues is dead in the other room. You have to walk past them to get in there. Did no one notice Neri walk in and kill her?

He was hiding in the bathroom.

Right, because it is totally impossible that someone could want to use the bathroom.

We don’t ever actually see inside the bathroom, so maybe it’s a really big bathroom. I mean, Ben, what is he doing in the bathroom if he didn’t kill her?

Maybe he was on the scene before Tom and was the person who told the senator to stay there and wait for Tom to come.

Why was he in the bathroom?

Maybe he was peeing.

Get a life.

He’s not a killing robot! He’s a human being, ok? He goes to the bathroom once in a while, just like Mother Theresa.

He’s wearing a perfectly clean white button-down shirt when he pops his head out. Seems like he would probably have blood on that shirt if he had just chopped up the orphan sex worker.

Maybe he put on a fresh shirt.

Get a life.

Why does Tom motion for him to go back into the bathroom when he pops his head out if he’s there for a total innocent shit and a shave?

Because the senator is having a moment, and he doesn’t want it to be interrupted. But you bring up a good point, if this elaborate con is for Neri to kill the hooker and make the senator think he did it, why would Neri POKE HIS HEAD OUT OF THE BATHROOM? Is he an idiot? If he were seen by the senator, the jig would be up.

Maybe he is an idiot. He’s a hired killer for the mob. Seems possible he’s not the smartest guy in the world.

He’s like the only Corleone soldier still alive by the third film. Must be pretty smart!

I have places to be, Ben.

I’m paraphrasing you now from earlier: “How convenient that this senator killed some girl for the first time ever in the place where it would help the Corleones the most.” He says in the film that he handcuffed her to the bed because of an S&M sex game that they have played before. “I remember she was laughing.” He also admits he drank himself into a blackout.

Kinkshaming.

The next time we see the senator is in Cuba on New Year’s Eve, where he is laughing it up at a sex club. If it is totally inconceivable that he actually did go too far and kill this girl while blacked out, you’d probably expect him to be a little glum about it. But he’s not. He’s happy as a clam.

Because he’s a sociopath.

This is the sort of “they aren’t mourning properly” nonsense that the Italian police pulled on Amanda Knox.

Except she didn’t kill anyone! Your contention is that he thinks he did kill her and just doesn’t care.

I’m not saying he’s a nice guy.

I honestly don’t find it hard to believe that the two-face sociopath killed his S&M partner in a haze of drugs and alcohol.

It is the fact that he is morally depraved that makes it the perfect setup! HE BELIEVES HE DID IT.

Who gives a shit if he believes he did it? Why go through all the trouble? The movie producer didn’t think he cut off the horse’s head in his sleep.

If he knew he hadn’t done it—if they were just like, “we’re going to frame you for this”— he could go public.

The senator was going to call a press conference and say, “While I was having sex with a prostitute, I blacked out, and when I woke up, she was butchered, and I would like you to know that this is the work of a war hero with no criminal record who is investing lots of money in this state”?

Yes.

Who is being naive now, Kay?

You.

Why bother killing this girl at all? Why not just drug him and take photos of him with a male prostitute? It was 1959. Far more damaging to publish a photo of the senator with a dick in his mouth anyway. Why randomly kill this girl? They aren’t thrill killers. They are goal-oriented killers. They kill with purpose.

I don’t know.

Why not just fucking call him a communist? That would have ended his career!

I don’t know.

Or why not just threaten to blow his head off? The mafia loves that one.

I don’t know.

Lastly, WHY NOT JUST FIND SOME OTHER PERSON TO BRIBE?

Because the senator insulted Michael’s family, and Michael was mad!

But as I have proven, that didn’t matter because it happens in the earlier draft where he still pays the bribe!

The earlier draft doesn’t count!! Francis Ford Coppola made a new draft, and then actors committed the dialogue to memory and performed it before a camera, and then that footage was edited together and released as a film called The Godfather Part II—and that is the only admissible evidence.

No, that’s stupid and ignorant. We don’t need to limit ourselves to what Francis Ford Coppola thinks.

Just because he wrote and directed it?

Yeah.

Which brings us to the endgame here. What does Francis Ford Coppola say about this?

On the DVD commentary, he says the Coreleones killed her lol.

Took you more than 3,000 words to just say that.

I alluded to it earlier.

“That’s how lethal the Corleones were,” Coppola says, “that they would send a guy like Neri to hurt a woman and kill her just to get a politician in their pocket.”

So, dude, what the fuck are you talking about?

I grant that Francis Ford Coppola thinks that the senator is innocent. Guess what? He also made the movie Jack, ok? He’s not perfect. I think he’s wrong.

He decides.

No. The jury decides. I think they will agree that my argument—the corrupt drug-addled sociopath with a fondness for sadomasochistic sex who woke up in the victim’s blood and won’t even defend himself is the killer—is more than enough reasonable doubt to obligate the acquittal of Al Neri and Tom Hagan.

Who is the jury?

The open-minded subscribers of my substack.

Do a poll.

I’ll do a poll, but it’s not binding because, as everyone knows, polls sometimes get it wrong for any number of reasons. The only poll that matters is election day.

Anything else before we go?

We’re both in agreement that the fact that the actress is breathing in some of the shots doesn’t mean anything.

Yes.

Good.

It’s a movie. Mistakes are made.

Right.

She’s dead.

Yep. Killed by the senator.