Was that FBI tv show real or made up?
Thx
shareIt was a real episode. Leo DiCaprio was edited into the footage.
The episode was called "All the Streets Are Silent."
And there's some fun to it:
The bad guy played by Leo(as Rick Dalton) who kills two US Marines, in a truck ambush was played in the original episode by...Burt Reynolds. Well before he became a movie star.
However, research indicates that the real episode aired in 1965, not 1969.
And Burt Reynolds was originally signed to APPEAR in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. As George Spahnn, the blind old owner of the Spahn ranch Western backlot. Bruce Dern took over Reynolds' role when Reynolds died of a heart attack right before filming (Reynolds lived long enough to do table script readings with the cast and to suggest a line for Bruce Lee to say to Brad Pitt: "You look too pretty for a stuntman." Pitt accepted the line(which he didn't like) in honor of Reynolds.
You can see the original Burt Reynolds version of the opening FBI truck ambush side-by-side with the Leo version, on YouTube.
And this: Notice how earlier, Squeaky Fromme (Dakota Fanning) the surly girlfriend/captor of George Spahnn, preps us for this by saying that she and George "always watch The FBI on Sunday nights." This is planted nicely.
And this: even though Leo and Pitt make some fun of it, the opening scene of an FBI episode was always "serious business" as a bad guy did something bad(here, murder of military men with children at home) and a freeze frame came up with the baddie's name and case number before the main credits came on in portentious power with that usual Quinn Martin narrator guy.
Great post! Thank you. 👍
shareYou are welcome.
That YouTube "side by side" of the Burt version and the Leo version is a real kick to watch.
They also have ONLY the Burt version posted there.
I love all the detailed homages in QT’s films and I still find them often in Italian genre films. We ought to do a topic somewhere and and do postings similar to yours here.
shareI would enjoy reading your posts on the topic. I can't say I am as well versed in what QT homages, but it would be fun to read more.
shareI did make a posting and I hope you will copy and paste yours there. :)
https://moviechat.org/nm0000233/Quentin-Tarantino/6338f02080ee017930129e2d/References-Homages-and-Inspirations
Yes, great post. Well done.
Funny, after reading what you wrote i remember seeimg burt in that clip years ago. Somewhere, cant recall, but i did see it.
Imo burt was a much better actor than he got credit for. Especially his early stuff.
Thank you.
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Funny, after reading what you wrote i remember seeimg burt in that clip years ago. Somewhere, cant recall, but i did see it.
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That's true of a lot of old TV episode in our minds, I think. If we saw them (or the clip) somewhere -- its in our memory. It was probably in QT's memory.
And there is this: I can never remember Burt Reynolds playing the kind of merciless killer he played in The FBI. You can tell just with only the clip itself that this is a bad guy:
Partner: They're both dead.
Reynolds: Good.
(And we had been told that one of the victims had children.)
Honestly, did Burt Reynolds ever play a bad guy other than that? He was SOMEWHAT of a bad guy in 100 Rifles, I guess.
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Imo burt was a much better actor than he got credit for. Especially his early stuff.
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Deliverance proved he had the chops for drama. And he established himself as a Cary Grant-light level comedian in Semi-Tough and Smokey and the Bandit. He could do "macho" or suave believably.
And then he sort of frittered it away on a series of bad comedies(Stroker Ace, Cannonball Run II) that insulted the audience and took all his star gravity away.
Oh well, it was a very long career. He was a Number One star for five years. And he does have some fine movies (and evidently quite the FBI villain) on his resume.
PS. Leo DiCaprio is certainly a big, Oscar winning star. But in OATIH, he goes up against Burt Reynolds and Steve McQueen in clips from their productions(The Great Escape for Steve)....and really isn't up to their level of male macho, is he?
Totally agree. I like leo but he is no match, testosterone-wise.
Came off semi comedic, to me
The entire Leo DiCaprio career is almost an anomaly.
Titanic made him a superstar of sorts, but his sweet child-ish face in that film long left him long ago as he grew up and -- like a lot of child stars -- developed a face that wasn't really all that handsome or special(as compared to , say, Brad Pitt.) Big head, too.
But he DID have acting chops -- from "Gilbert Grape" early on and through his Oscar winning turn in The Revenant. What he mainly had was luck -- going from "Titanic" to being Martin Scorsese's "house star" in a bunch of movies to doing two for QT. Successful movies, luck and acting talent have made him a star but not necessarily his looks or charisma(see: Steve McQueen and Burt Reynolds.)
Leo's Oscar-nominated work in OAITH IS rather based on the comic nature of the role. He's playing a spoiled crybaby neurotic in contrast to Pitt's laid back macho guy. Also: points for Leo's stutter-stammer in the part.
Never thought about that before but you are right, his stardom is more due to picking good projects than anything else. That is a good point. Very insightful.
shareAre any actors today as tough as the old actors? That might just be a reflection of society in general. 'Tough' guys don't tend to go into acting anymore (no doubt there's a stigma attached to acting and there shouldn't be).
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