Daily Dialogue — January 16, 2019

“I frisked him, he’s clean.”

— The Godfather (1972), screenplay by Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola, novel by Mario Puzo

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Bathroom.

Trivia: At the meeting in the restaurant, Sollozzo speaks to Michael in Sicilian so rapidly that subtitles could not be used. He begins with, “I am sorry. What happened to your father was business. I have much respect for your father. But your father, his thinking is old-fashioned. You must understand why I had to do that. Now let’s work through where we go from here.” When Michael returns from the bathroom, he continues in Sicilian with, “Everything all right? I respect myself, understand, and cannot allow another man to hold me back. What happened was unavoidable. I had the unspoken support of the other family dons. If your father were in better health, without his eldest son running things, no disrespect intended, we wouldn’t have this nonsense. We will stop fighting until your father is well and can resume bargaining. No vengeance will be taken. We will have peace. But your family should interfere no longer.”

Dialogue On Dialogue: There’s no dialogue in the bathroom when Michael goes to retrieve the pistol planted there, but it’s a critical scene in that it marks his embrace of violence, forever marking him as a mobster.