As Fredo boards the fateful vessel, Anthony is called away by Connie, who claims the boy is needed for Michael's trip to Reno. This, of course, is a lie, and part of Michael orchestrating his ...

Like Vito, Michael occupied a middle ground between the hot-headed Sonny and the gaffe-prone Fredo, and it was these similarities that made Vito's youngest son the ideal Corleone family successor ...

Al Pacino talks guilt and death in the newly edited and renamed final chapter, "Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone." ...

Fredo roars. Michael responds that it was how their father wanted the business to run. “It ain’t the way I wanted it! I can handle things. I’m smart.

Fredo Corleone (John Cazale) holds his brother Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) at a family funeral in The Godfather: Part II. John Springer Collection/Getty Images.

Given that Michael is the youngest, and given Fredo’s insecurity, this creates a rift between the two brothers. In The Godfather: Part II, ...

Fredo melts into a chair, and Michael banishes him from the family. Soon after, as Fredo sits on a rocking boat, a family strongman puts a pistol to Fredo’s head and pulls the trigger as Michael ...

So asks Michael Corleone to Tom Hagen in one of many memorable scenes from The Godfather, a turning point in the film and the life of Michael. Chris, for his part, lost it. The CNN primetime star ...

Needless to say, Fredo is not a compliment. It comes from "The Godfather" movie epic, a reference to Fredo Corleone, the failed, envious brother of the Mafia family chief Michael.

But "Fredo" isn't a slur with tenure. It didn't become a heckler's dart until after Francis Ford Coppola made "The Godfather" and "The Godfather II," which included a second son who was neither as ...

Michael Schulman writes on the character Fredo Corleone, played by John Cazale in “The Godfather” and “The Godfather: Part II,” as Chris Cuomo, Donald Trump, and others weigh in on the use ...