“That Kid’s Name was Moe Greene!” (The Godfather II, 1974): One of the Greatest Speeches in the History of Pictures Runs Only 1:50, and Yet, I Remembered It as Having Run Much, Much Longer

By N.S.

In 1959 Havana, Jewish gangster Hyman Roth (really, Meyer Lansky, as played by Lee Strasberg) speaks to Corleone Mafia family godfather, Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), about the late Moe Green (really Bugsy Siegel, played by Alex Rocco in The Godfather, 1972).

One of the greatest speeches in the history of pictures, it’s a bookend speech to Michael’s brief one in The Godfather, justifying his desire to kill Irish NYPD Capt. McCluskey (Sterling Hayden), that it’s “Strictly business, nothing personal.”

Both speeches were ironic, in that the speaker says the exact opposite of what he means.

Killing McCluskey was nothing, if not personal. McCluskey was sent to murder Michael’s father, Godfather Don Vito Corleone (The Bum), at the hospital where he was recuperating from an earlier assassination attempt. When McCluskey found Michael in front of the hospital, acting as his father’s personal bodyguard, an enraged McCluskey had one of his reluctant men (“But he’s a war hero.”) hold Michael up straight, while McCluskey broke his jaw.

And Hyman Roth loved Moe Green (Bugsy Siegel) like a brother. And his name was Moe Green! As soon as Michael had one of his button-men shoot Green/Siegel through the eye, Roth resolved to kill Michael.

Although Roth’s speech only lasted 1:50, it was so powerful that I recalled it running much longer. My mind’s eye filled it out, based on its dramatic power.

Preamble: Michael: “Who had Frank Pentangeli killed?”

Roth: “The, uh, the Rosato brothers.”

Michael: “I know. But who gave the go-ahead? I know I didn’t.”


The Speech

Roth: “There was this kid I grew up with. He was younger than me. Sort of looked up to me, you know?

“We did our first work together. Worked our way out of the street. Things were good. During Prohibition, we ran molasses into Canada. Made a fortune. Your father, too.

“As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on, he had an idea to build a city out of a desert stop-over for G.I.s going to the West Coast.

“That kid’s name was Moe Greene, and the city he invented was Las Vegas!

“This was a great man. A man of vision and guts. And there isn’t even a plaque, signpost, or statue of him in that town.

“Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order.

“When I heard it, I wasn’t angry. I knew Moe, I knew he was headstrong. Talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he turned up dead, I let it go. And I said to myself, ‘This is the business we’ve chosen.’ I didn’t ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!”




Postscript: Either Francis Ford Coppola or his script writing partner, Mario Puzo, ripped off the brief speech “Strictly business, nothing personal” in The Godfather, from a crime b-picture, The Naked Street (1955). A youthful Anthony Quinn played the crime boss who said the line to his goons, when he ordered them to murder their best friend, Farley Granger.