MISTER MYSTERY RESPONDS

WHICH ONES ARE THE MOST INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT MICHAEL CORLEONE AND WHY IS THAT? First of all, we cannot keep closing our eyes to the fact that Michael Corleone is actually a woman. But why! Why? Why on earth is he posing as a man?! The answer is that the mafia is a male chauvinist institution, which does not give a woman the opportunity to climb positions in the organization even though she has gained a reputation as "tough guy". The case of Vincenza ‘Bigfoot' Costratti is paradigmatic. In an attempt to ingratiate herself before the boss of the Detroit mafia, Vincenza took down the entire Porcoparco “famiglia" in one fell swoop. (She dropped a one-ton bomb on its headquarters from a zeppelin.) And yet, the one who got promoted was a slavish "consigliere" whose only "merit" was to serve the coffee too hot when the boss received visits from other "famiglias" (A mafia family is not composed of a dad, a mom and the kids, but of about thir...

Of course there is a connection. But to understand this connection you have to take into consideration that, when he was young, Vito Corleone had a plantation of pear trees in New Mexico, but a guy named Guillermo Rodrigues stole it from him. Both men had been arguing passionately about which of them should grow a bigger moustache. The next morning Vito left his cabin to get to work and found that there was not a single pear tree in the entire estate. In fact, the estate itself had disappeared, so he had to run back into the house to avoid falling into the void. This traumatized him for life. This is also the reason why the word 'pear' is always inserted in each sentence he pronounces in the movie. For example when he says “There are men in this world who go about demanding a pear to be killed. Luca Brasi was such a man. I made him my weapon. I was the only person in the world that he hoped wouldn't kill him".

Paul Kelly, leader of the Five Points gang, had given Squattedman the name of the person who occupied the next link in the hierarchy of Tammany Hall. And it was a name that Squattedman knew well for having paid him a courtesy visit as soon as he first stepped on the streets of New York. It was Boss Tweed. So he decided to pay him another visit. Tweed was having breakfast in his office when a large bird landed on the windowsill. But when he looked at it carefully, he realized that it was not a species unknown to him. Quickly he drew his revolver and emptied the cylinder on the intruder. Then he rediscovered that the bullets bounced off his naked body and he became demoralized. This feeling of unease, of futility, is normal in gangsters who go through such an experience, as psychoanalysts well know. Much of the gangster's power lies in the use of violence, and when he discovers that violence is useless, it is normal for him to fall into a deep despond. This discouragement should ...

Meanwhile, the mayoral elections had taken place and for the umpteenth time they were won by the Tammany Hall candidate, a certain Morgan S. Fitzpatrick, of whom an investigative journalist discovered that he had been dead and buried for ten years. (Interestingly enough, shortly after publishing the news, it didn't take long for the journalist to be dead as a result of a hunting accident happened in his very apartment in Manhattan.) In Five Points and other adjacent neighborhoods, the victory of the late mayor had been overwhelming: 120% of the voters gave him their confidence. Naturally, all this raised the suspicions of Squattedman, who decided to change strategy. Instead of dismantling the corrupt organization from the cusp, he would start from the bottom and go up as if by a ladder. So he started to frequent Five Points. The first day he was assaulted by the members of a new band, heiress of the Dead Rabbits. The name of this newly created band was not as original as that of i...

Although Squattedman has embarked on a crusade against political corruption embodied in Tammany Hall and the man in the cow mask, common crime does not rest. Squattedman is there to face it. So he sticks the ear to the ground and intercepts a warning to the police: in Hell’s Kitchen, the gang of the Gophers just stole the pavement from the streets. Quickly, he takes his clothes off and, through the usual procedure, he shoots off towards that dangerous area of the city. There, a crowd receives him with hostility and the rest of the neighborhood with violence: a shower of rubble falls on him from the windows. By midmorning, a mountain of rubble covers him completely, and in the afternoon the mountain has already become Mount Everest. When, according to his calculations, all stolen pavement accumulates on him, Squattedman emerges from the bottom of the rubble mountain and, before it gets dark, he has paved the streets again and he has still enough rubble left to pave the nose-bridge of ea...

Next to Boss Tweed, in his Tammany Hall office, there is a bricks of cash's stack which the Boss is storing inside his large safe. Suddenly, something covers the light coming from the window. He turns to look and discovers a squatting man perched on the windowsill. Quickly he takes hold of his revolver and shoots at the intruder. But, as the bullets bounce off the intruder's naked body, Boss Tweed proceeds to slam the safe’s vault door. Doing his waddle reminiscent of a dizzy duck gait (Squat and try to walk! Go on, wise guy, try!), Squattedman aproaches Boss Tweed who, inexplicably, begins to dance the rumba. "What-What-What do you want? I warn you that I have no money.” Squattedman looks at the bricks of cash that still remain stacked on the ground and Boss Tweed hastens to clarify: “I mean rubles. I don't have rubles, if that's what you're looking for.” "And what is this?" Squattedman asks pointing to the bricks of cash. “That’s American dolla...

The death rate among the Dead Rabbits is very high, especially among newcomers to the gang. Because they risk much more than veterans. In many cases they are taken in by their own cover. Not only do they go hopping and sniffing around like rabbits, but they also believe they are dead. (In fact, one of their worst fears is being roasted and eaten.) They are a typical product of what anthropology calls "idiotic thinking," which is halfway between "magic thinking" and the "no-thought". Since they are allegedly dead, they think they cannot die and when, say, giving two fingers to an elevated train, instead of being at a safe distance from the rails, as veterans do, they stand right in the middle of the track, and die mowed down by the train while they give the two fingers to it. Their buddies pretend to believe they were heroes and brave ones, but in reality they think they were dumb like a fish. There was one O'Malley who volunteered for a maritime missio...

Michael is reading the newspaper with his feet on the desk in the office of ENIGMA CONSULTANTS S. L. while Jacob tries to fit the pieces of a two-piece puzzle. “Hey, Jacob, the newspaper says that strange phenomena occur in the Bronx Zoo. How about we take a look?” “I was there just this Sunday with Maggie and I didn’t see anything strange.” “Who is Maggie?” “Your girlfriend’s girlfriend.” “My what?!” “I didn’t want to tell you not to demoralize you, Michael, but Violette is a lesbian. She goes out with you just to save face. Her girlfriend, Maggie, goes out with me for the same reason.” It’s worth remembering that we are in the thirties, when the majority of the population not only frowned upon homosexuality but was not even capable of conceiving such a phenomenon. When the Roosevelt administration launched a campaign to try to explain it, many Americans entered into a catatonic state and the campaign had to be aborted. A few hours later Michael and Jacob are walking around th...

Alphonse Capone, the famous Chicago mafia boss, never left home without a wheel of parmesan cheese under his arm. When graphic reporters waited for him at the entrance, the cheese was held by one of his bodyguards. That's why you will not find any picture of him with a cheese. His gangsters were in charge of the dirty work: the shootings, the contraband of liquors, the salmon fishing out of season... He merely transported a parmesan cheese through the streets and avenues of Chicago. That's why a serious crime against him could never be proven. Transporting a cheese on the street is not punishable by law, unless it is for illicit purposes. But the purposes of Al Capone did not seem illicit at first sight. The most famous gangster in history did the work of a cheese delivery man! At first, he was distributing Swiss cheeses, but the holes did not convince him, so he went over to Parmesan. A cheesemaker from Parma made them especially for him. Each week he received a supply of twel...

Chicago, May 11, 1925. When Joe Maurizio, an accountant, came home from work, he paled. Before the door was a huge piece of Parmesan cheese. He quickly opened the door, whimpering and calling his wife like a frightened child. "What's wrong?!" she asked. Trembling, Maurizio pointed to the cheese. "Oh, what a detail. You have brought cheese”, she said kissing him on the forehead. "But what's wrong with you? You're shaking". Speechlessly, Maurizio dropped himself on an armchair while his wife went grab the cheese. "Don’t touch it!", he shouted. She picked up the cheese and smelled it. "Mmnn, how good it smells." She picked up a knife from the kitchen and began cutting slices. "And it tastes better". He looked at her in awe. "What are you doing?" "Honey, you're very weird. What the hell happens to you?". "How can you eat it like that?" he said, stunned. “Do you mean with the fingers?” “Like...

It is known that the famous gangster Al Capone flirted with the paranormal and that, in his luxurious apartment in Chicago, he used to perform mysterious rituals with Parmesan cheese during which he recited spells in an obscure Italian dialect. That's why one of the worst threats you could receive from him was to find on your doorstep a big piece of cheese. It is also suspected that he possessed clairvoyance skills, which would explain why Elliot Ness founded so difficult to hunt him down. To fight him with his same methods, Ness had in his office a rag doll named “Capona” to which he used to nail pins while performing a voodoo dance. That explains why, at the time of his arrest, Capone appeared before the press with endless pins stuck all over his body. (By the way, Ness was such an honest man that, when Capone tried to bribe him, not only did he not accept the money but gave his failed briber a monthly wage from his own salary, which was also paid out of his own pocket.)  Anothe...