MovieChat Forums > Darker Than Amber (1970) Discussion > DiCaprio as travis McGee

DiCaprio as travis McGee

posted 14 years ago by chrish1967
13 replies | jump to latest

DiCaprio is listed as playing Travis McGee in an upcoming film. Oliver Stone(?!?) listed as director.

[–] 14 years ago

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[–] Bobby_Dupea 13 years ago

Why would they have a pussy like DiCaprio doing this?

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Bobby_Dupea 13 years ago

Jeez, I'd settle for a re-release of the 1970 film on DVD, myself. Why f'ck with something that worked the first time.

Better still, film some of the other MacDonald novels that have never even made it to the screen before. There's all kinds of stuff out there that Hollywood could do besides resort to yet another sh!tty remake with today's boy-men or kewpie dolls as action heroes.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Bobby_Dupea 13 years ago

I saw DARK OF THE SUN many years ago on videotape and it's certainly better than something like THE LAST GRENADE, another African mercenary film that came out during that same period. I believe MGM released the VHS of this in the mid-90s.

I also made some comments about it over here since I believe I saw the same print of DARKER THAN AMBER that you did.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065610/board/thread/144647680?d=173751282 &p=1#173751282

I've never seen the U.S. cut of it so I can't comment on that.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Bobby_Dupea 13 years ago

The only reason I heard of DARKER THAN AMBER was because I looked up Robert Clouse a few years back to see what else he directed besides ENTER THE DRAGON.

Since ENTER THE DRAGON was such a huge hit back in '73, I wanted to see what other kick-ass pictures he did and I ran across this one as well as BLACK BELT JONES (1974), which wound up being a weak-ass film with a kick-ass soundtrack.

There's also a Wiki devoted to the DARKER THAN AMBER, so somebody else misses it besides us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darker_Than_Amber

Yeah I'd like to see Warner Bros release a DVD-R of it through their Archive Collection. I'd buy it and I'm not really known for buying DVDs.

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] TheGreatWhiteHunter 12 years ago

The original novels were great, but they contain multiple layers of introspection that I'm not sure translate well into film. MacDonald's later Travis Mcgee books -- The Green Ripper and Free Fall in Crimson -- probably have more cinematic potential.

No way is DiCaprio Travis McGee. I'd find an unknown, 6 foot 4 ex-football player type with more Alpha male qualities. Definitely more true to the source material.

[–] Muskox53 12 years ago

Whatever one may think of DiCaprio's skills as an actor (and I, for one, am pretty impressed), he's simply the wrong physical type McGee, who was at least 6' 4" and a college football player (linebacker, I seem to remember). Leo, for all his many gifts, simply isn't big enough.

[–] PopperTheKungFu-Dragon 9 years ago

Well Rod Taylor was only 5'10 and DiCaprio is actually listed as being at least an inch taller than him, so if Rod could play McGee, then I don't see why DiCaprio couldn't, if we're talking about size alone.

Of course, I'm not a big DiCaprio fan, but this is a rather silly reason to give when Taylor was shorter.

Very good. But brick not hit back!

[–] liscarkat (16530) 2 years ago

There's more to it than size. Taylor captured McGee perfectly. DiCaprio is a decent actor, but no matter how old he gets, he looks and sounds too much like a high school kid. No amount of facial hair has been able to make him seem like a mature grownup.