Flash Gordon

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of The Film Preservation 2015 Blogathon that is being co-hosted by Ferdy on Films, This Island Rod and Wonders in the Dark.

After the phenomenal success of Star Wars (1977) every studio was eager to capitalize on the movie-going public’s renewed interest in feel-good space operas. This resulted in numerous rip-offs and wannabes with arguably the most hyped of them all being Flash Gordon (1980). It was the brainchild of legendary film producer Dino De Laurentiis who, ironically, was responsible for Star Wars when he bought the film rights for Alex Raymond’s comic strip when George Lucas was unable to thereby paving the way for him to create his own science fiction epic.

Alas, Flash Gordon was a debacle from the word go. Early on, De Laurentiis decided that the movie should be filled with humor and hired Lorenzo Semple, Jr. to write the screenplay. Semple had written several episodes for the 1960s Batman television series and proceeded to apply a similar camp aesthetic to the movie. During filming there was some confusion between the cast as to the tone of the movie. The end result is a lavishly mounted production with absolutely stunning production and set design, which is in contrast to the rather silly tone for a fascinatingly jarring effect.

As a result, Flash Gordon barely surpassed its budget at the North American box office but performed well overseas. However, it failed to reach the dizzying heights of Star Wars that De Laurentiis was hoping for and was derided by many critics that felt it was a horrible, cinematic trainwreck. Then, something happened. Over the years, Flash Gordon quietly became a cult classic among science fiction fans, counting director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead), comic book artist Alex Ross and comedian Seth MacFarlane (Ted) among its admirers who have all paid tribute to this much-maligned movie.

The movie sets its peculiar tone from the opening credits that feature Queen’s bombastic theme song playing over panels of Raymond’s comic strip interspersed with Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow) wreaking havoc on the Earth’s weather system. “Flash” Gordon (Sam J.Jones), the star quarterback for the New York Jets football team, meets travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) on a small airplane that struggles with turbulence, which mysteriously turns into a meteor storm coupled with an unscheduled solar eclipse.

The “irrational” Dr. Zarkov (Chaim Topol) is convinced that the storm is an attack and plans to launch a counterattack with his own rocket. After a meteorite hits their plane causing the pilots to mysteriously and suddenly disappear (?!), Flash and Dale manage to crash land right into Zarkov’s laboratory. The clearly mad scientist tricks Flash and Dale into his rocket and the ensuing struggle accidentally manages to launch them into outer space where they pass out from excessive g-forces.

The rocket finds its way into the Imperial Vortex where it is guided by Ming’s forces to the planet Mongo. Our heroes are captured by Ming’s troops, sporting a curious mix of samurai and Star Wars stormtrooper armor. It is only but one of many odd touches that populate Flash Gordon – like the enigmatic Lizard Man, a guy dressed in a poorly-made costume, and who is quickly vaporized by Ming before he can make any kind of meaningful impression.

Flash, Dale and Zarkov are led through a red-saturated hallway that answers the question, what if Dario Argento applied his 1970s era Giallo aesthetic to a space opera? They are brought to Ming’s throne room where they meet a truly odd assortment of characters: Prince Vultan (Brain Blessed) and his Hawkmen clad in skimpy armor and giant wings, and Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton) and his men that come across looking like a futuristic riff on Robin Hood and his Merry Men. Along with Ming, they participate in a bizarre ceremony that is intended to demonstrate their loyalty to the emperor.

Another odd detail includes the fact that the women populating Ming’s throne room are scantily-clad in some of king futuristic bikini outfit, chief among them Princess Aura (Ornella Muti), Ming’s daughter, who becomes mildly aroused when Flash employs some of his gridiron moves to best a few of Ming’s finest troops in a wonderfully cheesy sequence that involves Dale doing her best cheerleader impression and Zarkov employing slapstick comedy to end the struggle. As a result, Dale becomes Ming’s concubine and Flash is imprisoned, scheduled for execution. He must figure out a way to escape and free Dale while convincing Barin and Vultan to unite against their common foe.

The tonal shifts among the cast are illogical and could almost give the viewer whiplash, but they only add to the wonderfully absurdist vibe of Flash Gordon. God bless ‘em, Sam Jones and Melody Anderson play their characters with aw shucks earnestness right out of a 1950s sci-fi movie while Chaim Topol and Brian Blessed ham it up for the cheap seats with the latter looking like he’s having the most fun of anyone in the cast. Max von Sydow and Peter Wyngarde play it absolutely straight almost as if they’re reciting Shakespeare with the former perfectly cast as Ming and making the most of hi s character’s evil plans monologues. Part of the fun of watching this movie is to see these contrasting performances bounce off each other as the cast try to spout the ridiculous dialogue convincingly. It makes for a heady experience that you either submit to or reject – there is no middle ground with Flash Gordon.

At times, the dated special effects, especially the extensive use of rear projection, look pretty bad and yet there is something authentic about it. The old school effects and astounding sets have a tangible quality that is missing from a lot of contemporary SF epics. In particular, the effects for Mongo’s atmosphere are quite breathtakingly beautiful and one has to admire the filmmakers’ audaciousness. The movie also has several exciting action sequences, including a surprisingly bloody gladiatorial battle between Flash and Barin on a platform that is constantly shifting and with spikes emerging and disappearing with unpredictable frequency creating a real sense of danger. Seeing this fight play out at a young, impressionable age scared and thrilled me in equal measure. Along with David Lynch’s Dune (1984), Flash Gordon is one of the most distinctive-looking SF movies to come out of the ‘80s.

Flash Gordon’s weakest aspects are the obvious attempts to ape Star Wars with nods to stormtroopers, a flying droid and General Klytus (Peter Wyngarde), Ming’s second-in-command, serving as a poor man’s Darth Vader. He gets little to do except bark orders and supervise torturing Princess Aura. The movie is at its best when it subverts aspects of Lucas’ film, like taking the earnestness of Luke Skywalker and placing it in a football player’s body or splitting Princess Leia into two characters – the bland eye candy that is Dale Arden and the duplicitous Princess Aura who has a kinky streak (what’s up with her pet dwarf Fellini?) and the hots for Flash.

After writing the screenplay for a remake of King Kong (1976) for legendary Italian movie producer Dino De Laurentiis, Lorenzo Semple Jr. was given a coffee table book of the Italian translation for the Flash Gordon comic strip and told that it would be the basis for his movie. He was told to make it funny: “At the time, I thought that was a possible way to go, but, in hindsight, I realize it was a terrible mistake. We kept fiddling around with the script, trying to decide whether to be funny or realistic.” Semple admitted that he didn’t think the character of Flash in the script was particularly good, but that “there was no pressure to make it any better.”

Initially, Nicolas Roeg was hired by De Laurentiis to direct Flash Gordon. He had just come off another science fiction film, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) when the producer approached him to direct. He wasn’t sure and took some time to read Raymond’s comic strip. Roeg came to the conclusion that Raymond was a “genius, an absolute genius.” He became really excited at the prospect of making a Flash Gordon movie and went off to write the screenplay. His concept for the movie was Flash as a “metaphysical messiah.” Roeg spent a year writing and showed it to De Laurentiis who didn’t want to make that version. He wanted to make his version and Roeg left the project.

Mike Hodges was approached to direct the sequel and turned down the offer but when Roeg left the project, the former changes his mind because “it was totally different from what I had previously done.” The director admitted that he was not a fan of the science fiction genre and didn’t consider the movie to be part of it but instead wanted to “keep to the comic book version.” According to Hodges, Raymond’s original comic strip became the bible that was referenced while making the movie.

One of De Laurentiis’ family members saw Sam J. Jones on the Dating Game show and from that he received the call to meet the producer. The aspiring actor consulted a few friends that were fans of the old Flash Gordon serials and they brought him up to speed on the character. He was flown into London and interviewed by De Laurentiis. Soon afterwards, he was cast in the movie and almost immediately immersed in rehearsals, costume fittings and daily workouts in order to prepare for the role. In addition, his hair was dyed blonde and he tried on blue contact lenses but they hurt so much that he did not end up using them. Lacking in experience, Jones worked with an acting coach on the set every day. Jones not only did most of his own stuntwork but also helped choreograph all the action sequences.

Melody Anderson was set to appear in a television series when she received a phone call from De Laurentiis who proceeded to convince her to do Flash Gordon instead. She flew all night from New York City to London only to be taken immediately to the studio where she had her blonde hair changed to brown, costume fittings, screen tests and a meeting with Hodges. Twelve days later, she found herself in Scotland with filming starting the next day. “We didn’t have any preparation time at all … It’s such a large special effects picture, the actors really are secondary in it.”

The massive production was spread over six sound stages at Shepperton Studios, the Star Wars facility at Borehamwood, and an aircraft hangar at Brooklands. Principal photography was synchronized with the special effects department because most of the live-action footage would be matched with opticals in post-production. To add to the chaos, the crew was a mix of Italian and English crew members who did not know how to speak to each other.” Anderson said, “The actors were caught in the middle.” Semple blamed the chaos of the production on the “great leeway given to the art director, Danilo Donati,” who had worked with Frederico Fellini, among others, describing him as a “crazed Italian who literally never read the script, but instead went off on his own.” Semple said that an example of the rampant spending on the production was the $1 million Donati spent on the Arboria set, which was only used in one shot!

Jones and the rest of the cast were instructed to play their parts seriously and he said, “When the crew watched the rushes and were laughing hysterically, Dino said, ‘Why are you laughing?’ And they discovered they had a comedy.’” Anderson backs up Jones’ approach to acting in Flash Gordon: “I’m surprised that (people) are laughing, because we weren’t out to make a funny film. In fact, De Laurentiis was very upset when he showed the film and people started to laugh, because he thought they were laughing at it and not with it.” Semple said, “And Dino, especially, had no idea what he wanted. He wanted something Flash Gordon, and I adored Dino, but he didn’t have much idea about the difference between sort of camp and Star Wars.”

For the movie’s score, Hodges persuaded De Laurentiis to take a chance and have the popular rock band Queen compose it. Lead guitarist Brian May said, “As I remember the film’s producer, Dino De Laurentiis, was not convinced that rock music could work as score i.e. as background music for a film that was not about rock music!” The band spent a week creating demos of all the themes for the movie and played them for De Laurentiis. May recalled, “He was pretty stony-faced. At the end, he said something like, ‘I don’t think this music is right for my film,” and left. The band was understandably crest-fallen as a result, but Hodges assured them that it would work out. A couple days later, they heard that their music was approved.

Unfortunately, the experience of making Flash Gordon was a bittersweet one for Jones who was sued by De Laurentiis for breach of contract. He, in turn, counter-sued, claiming that he hadn’t been paid according to the original agreement. This, and the movie’s poor performance at the North American box office, doomed any prospects of a sequel.

Flash Gordon does what a movie of this kind should – transport us to strange new worlds that don’t resemble our own. The movie is pure escapist entertainment. Cinema needs more ambitious oddball movies like it that refuse to play it safe and dare to risk failure. These fascinating trainwrecks are often more memorable than the ones that adhere to the same old tired formulas. In retrospect, the ‘80s was a great time for eccentric genre movies with the likes of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984) and Big Trouble in Little China (1986) managing to navigate their way through the studio system and find their audience thanks to home video where they could be rediscovered and watched repeatedly. Watching this movie again, it really is amazing that something like this exists. Only a European sensibility fused with the desire to ape the success of an American blockbuster could result in something like Flash Gordon and the world is a better place for its existence.

SOURCES

Brender. Alan. “Mike Hodges: Director of the New Flash Gordon.” Starlog. March 1981.

“Flash Gordon and the Storyboards of Mongo.” Prevue. September-October 1980.

Kennedy, Harlan. “Bad Timing.” American Cinema. January-February 1980.

Khoury, George. “Hail Flash Gordon!” SFX. February 2008.

Swires, Steve. “Lorenzo Semple, Jr.: The Screenwriter Fans Love to Hate, Part Two.” Starlog. September 1983.

Willson, Karen E. “Melody Anderson.” Starlog. December 1980.

Willson, Karen E. “Sam J. Jones.” Starlog. December 1980.

15 of the Apocalypse

This week I will be participating in a monster blog collaboration over at the awesome Film Connoisseur blog. Along with him and The Sci-Fi Fanatic, we will be taking a look at 5 of our favorite post-apocalyptic films. The Film Connoisseur has already been posting some excellent picks, including a rare postive review of The Postman. Our collective picks will go online Friday so be sure to check it out and let us know what you think!

Lance Henriksen Blogathon: Nightmares: "The Benediction"

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Lance Henriksen Blogathon being hosted by John Kenneth Muir over at his blog and by Joseph Maddrey at his blog. These guys have put in a lot work on this and have produced some stellar tributes to this awesome actor. I urge you to check out their stuff as well as my fellow contributors.

Some of my favorite horror films are anthologies – a single film comprised of several segments that are either independent of each other or linked in some way. Originally written for an early 1980’s television anthology series known as Darkroom, four stories compromise Nightmares (1983). The powers that be originally deemed them “too intense” for the small screen and so extra footage was added to pad out the running time. The final result is a little-seen gem of a horror film that features the likes of Christina Raines (The Sentinel), Emilio Estevez (Repo Man), Richard Masur (The Thing), and genre veteran Lance Henriksen.


He stars in the segment entitled “The Benediction” playing a priest named Frank MacLeod who serves in a small parish out in the countryside. He has lost his way, hitting the sacramental wine pretty hard it seems as evident from a fellow priest (Tony Plana – excellent in a small role) having to wake him up and his general hungover state. MacLeod has trouble concentrating on his job. A bishop even asks him at one point, “You are asking Father, why we are given so many signs of evil and so few signs of good?” MacLeod has lost his faith and decides to give it all up and leave his parish, despite the protests of his fellow priest. “The well is dry,” MacLeod tells him simply. Once on the open road, he encounters a pitch-black 4x4 pickup truck with opaque windows. The truck cuts him off and drives off. It soon reappears and terrorizes the priest at every turn.

Director Joseph Sargent sets an ominous tone right from the start as MacLeod dreams of a snake biting a young deer. Inhuman sounds play in the background, creating an unsettling mood. This nightmarish vision foreshadows the living one that MacLeod will soon experience. Lance Henriksen is particularly good in these early scenes as a man wrestling with his faith and wracked with guilt. Known mainly for playing heavies in countless genre films, it’s nice to see him playing a conflicted protagonist in Nightmares. In flashbacks, he shows a rare, caring side as his priest helps a family whose son has been fatally shot. These sequences allow the actor to show off his considerable dramatic chops as we discover what made MacLeod lose his faith.

For a B-horror film, there are some pretty weighty issues explored in Nightmares and Henriksen is more than up to the task. While the cat and mouse chase with the truck is derivative of Duel (1971) and, to a lesser degree, The Car (1977), his solid performance almost makes us forget that. It also doesn’t hurt that there’s a showstopping moment where the evil truck comes bursting literally out from under the ground! Was the truck real or merely a manifestation of MacLeod’s fears and lack of faith? Regardless of whatever actually happened, he learns an important lesson. This could have so easily been a very silly segment but Henriksen’s acting grounds things and we find ourselves invested in his plight. This is quite impressive considering he isn’t given much screen time in which to do this but it is true mark of his abilities that the veteran actor makes the most of it.

Raimi Fest Blogathon: The Quick and the Dead

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of the Raimi Fest over at the Things That Don't Suck blog. There are all kinds of fantastic submissions going on, check it out!

Ever since Clint Eastwood's film Unforgiven (1992), the western has enjoyed a lucrative revival in Hollywood. That film's success paved the way for a whole slew of new takes on the genre from the traditional (Tombstone) to the gimmicky (Posse), with homages to all the old masters — most notably John Ford. However, no one had tried to pay tribute to Sergio Leone and his colorful Spaghetti Westerns (with the exception of Alex Cox’s surreal ode, Straight to Hell) that were wild, often surreal explorations of the western genre. No one that is, until Sam Raimi's film, The Quick and the Dead (1995) was released.

Raimi, best known for turning the horror genre upside down with his Evil Dead trilogy, was the ideal filmmaker to re-visit the Spaghetti Western. Like Leone, Raimi is not afraid to inject his own unique style into a film with the intention of breathing new life into a tired genre. Leone did this first with the western and later, the gangster film, while Raimi chose the horror film before tackling the western. The result: The Quick and the Dead is a playful, entertaining film that doesn't aspire to do anything more than take the viewer on a thrilling ride.

Essentially a series of shoot-outs, The Quick and the Dead distracts us from this simple concept with a twisted tale of revenge. Enter a mysterious woman (Sharon Stone) who is not only quick with her gun but with her snappy comebacks to snide remarks. She soon finds herself in the sorry excuse of a town named Redemption (you can almost cut the symbolism with a knife) conveniently before the start of its annual quick draw contest.

The competition throws all sorts of colorful characters into the mix: from Ace Handlen (Lance Henriksen), a preening card player and a crack shot, to The Kid (Leonardo DiCaprio), a young upstart who is as cocky as he is fast with a gun. To make the whole spectacle a little more interesting, the town's sheriff, John Herod (Gene Hackman), forces Cort (Russell Crowe), a lethal killer who used to ride with the lawman, into the contest. However, Cort has given up killing and turned into a repentant preacher with his lack of bloodlust adding a bit of variety to the proceedings.

The contest is run by Herod, a truly evil man, who delights in keeping the town under his tyrannical boot heel. It soon becomes apparent, however, that the contest isn't the only reason that Stone's character has arrived in this town. The competition serves as a convenient excuse for her to exact a little revenge and also for us to watch these wild personalities square off against one another.

The Quick and the Dead was a refreshing change of pace for filmmaker Sam Raimi. He had just survived an exhausting and often frustrating battle with Universal Studios over Army of Darkness (1993), the last film in his Evil Dead trilogy. His budget had been cut back considerably, to the point where Raimi and the film's star Bruce Campbell were forced to use their own money to finish the film. To make matters worse, critics and audiences alike subsequently panned Army of Darkness. Raimi viewed his new project as a way of putting this horrendous experience behind him.

But he was not the first choice to direct The Quick and the Dead. Simon Moore, a British screenwriter, wrote the script and intended to direct the film himself. However, the producers had other ideas when Sharon Stone came on board as one of the stars and a co-producer as well. She was great admirer of Raimi's work and recommended him as director. "He was the only person on my list. If Sam hadn't made this movie, I don't think I would have made it," she said at the time of its release.

Raimi accepted the job for a number of reasons. Up until that time, he had always been known primarily as an independent filmmaker working outside of the system. Raimi viewed this new project as his first Hollywood film with big name stars. "So it was time to see what it would be like to make a big Hollywood movie. It had always been a dream of mine, but I'd never done it." On another level, he saw this film as his homage to one of the masters of the western, Sergio Leone. No one had attempted to pay tribute to this particular filmmaker and Raimi thought it high time that someone did. As he commented in an interview with Cinescape magazine, "the current genre cycle, the 'Spaghetti Western,' which was Leone's cheesier, less-classy version of the big studio Western, hasn't really been re-explored. This script really hit upon that, updating it with a female lead and a different set of values."

What could have been just another novelty twist on the western is transformed by Raimi's Gonzo style into a slick film filled with dramatic slow motion shots, adrenaline-fueled zooms, tracking shots with unusual perspectives, and extensive usage of deep focus photography that resembles a demented Orson Welles on speed. This rather showy excess of style playfully sets the tone of the film between parody and seriousness to the point where you are never quite sure which side of the fence the film is on. This was Raimi's intention from the beginning as he saw this extravagant approach "as entertainment for the audience. This is a fun, entertaining Western for a '90s crowd."

Raimi's approach also keeps the film interesting to watch. In what is fundamentally a picture built around a series of shoot-outs, he keeps things fresh and exciting by filming each significant showdown in a different style. Raimi’s wild approach also gives The Quick and the Dead an almost surreal quality: we get an unusual perspective shot through a huge bullet hole left in one gunslinger's head that seems almost cartoonish in nature (only to be recycled in the director’s cut of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers). The bad guys are photographed at dramatically low angles as they chew up the scenery with their sneering, dirty looks and obvious contempt for anything decent. Pathetic fallacy also plays a large role in the film. When a fierce storm of biblical proportions hits the town, sure enough something rotten is bound to happen. Of course this all seems like some sort of pat cliché, but there is a playful quality and chutzpah on Raimi's part to use every camera trick and technique in the book, that gives the film real charm and makes it worth watching.

Another reason why The Quick and the Dead is so watchable lies in the fine group of actors that assembled to make this film. It’s a good blend of big name, marquee value stars like Sharon Stone, Leonardo DiCaprio and Gene Hackman, mixed with strong character actors like Lance Henriksen and, at that time, Russell Crowe, who just starting out in Hollywood. Even though most critics admired Stone’s turn as a no-nonsense gunslinger that ably holds her own against any man, I found Crowe’s tortured killer turned preacher to be the real standout performance of the film. You can almost feel the pain and frustration boiling inside Cort as Herod forces him to kill time and time again, even though he has renounced his violent ways. Crowe doesn’t have nearly the amount of screen time that Stone, DiCaprio or Hackman have, but he makes every scene that he’s in count by playing against type — his character is quiet and reserved when everyone else threatens to go over the top with their performances.

The Quick and the Dead wasn’t all that well-received by mainstream critics when it first came out. Roger Ebert gave it two out of four stars and wrote, “As preposterous as the plot was, there was never a line of Hackman dialogue that didn't sound as if he believed it. The same can't be said, alas, for Sharon Stone, who apparently believed that if she played her character as silent, still, impassive and mysterious, we would find that interesting.” In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, “The Quick and the Dead is showy visually, full of pans and zooming close-ups. Rarely dull, it is not noticeably compelling either, and as the derivative offshoot of a derivative genre, it inevitably runs out of energy well before any of its hotshots runs out of bullets.” The New York Times’ Janet Maslin wrote, “Suffice it to say that Ms. Stone's one tactical mistake, in a film she co-produced, is to appear to have gone to bed with Mr. DiCaprio's character … This episode has next to nothing to do with the rest of the story. And a brash, scrawny adolescent who is nicknamed the Kid can make even the most glamorous movie queen look like his mother.” In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe also criticized Stone’s performance: “Stone seems to conceive of acting as a series of fixed facial expressions. She goes from one to another — two in all — like someone playing with Peking opera masks … Suffice it to say, there hasn't been acting this mechanical since Speed Racer.” Finally, Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “C” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “Of course, the superficiality of the characters wasn't a problem in Raimi's other films; those pictures reveled in their lurid cartooniness. Perhaps he's trying to outgrow his brazenly adolescent style, but if so, he picked the wrong genre in which to do it.”

The Quick and the Dead has become something of a forgotten film in Raimi’s canon. Not weird enough for his hardcore fans and too strange for the mainstream, it has been relegated to cinematic limbo. I think it is time to re-evaluate this film. The Quick and the Dead may not have anything profound to say about the human condition but so what? That's not the film's goal. It serves as a piece of escapism, to make one forget about the problems of the real world and enter a fantastic realm filled with vivid characters and exotic locales that only the power of film can deliver. And on that level, Raimi’s film is a success.

The Spielberg Blogathon: Catch Me If You Can

BLOGGER'S NOTE: This post is part of The Spielberg Blogathon organized and run by Adam Zanzie and Ryan Kelly. It runs from December 18 - 28. I urge you to check out and support all of the hard work these guys have done putting it together.

I’ve never been a big fan of Steven Spielberg’s post-1980s film career as he juggled big budget box office blockbusters (Jurassic Park) with obvious bids for Academy Award validation (Amistad). It has been the more offbeat films, like Munich (2008) and Catch Me If You Can (2002) that I’ve preferred over the likes of Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). To me, Catch Me If You Can has a looser, more freewheeling feel to it reminiscent of Spielberg’s earlier films, like The Sugarland Express (1974) or Jaws (1975). The film is based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr., a clever con man who managed to steal millions of dollars during the 1960s and 1970s by convincingly assuming the identity of a Pan American World Airways pilot, a Georgia doctor and a Louisiana lawyer – all before his 19th birthday. He would become the youngest person ever placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Not only did Catch Me feature a more playful Spielberg, but demonstrated Leonardo DiCaprio’s genuine acting chops – something he hadn’t really done since What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993). The film began a terrific run for the young actor who went on to star in films directed by Martin Scorsese, Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolan.

The ‘60s style animated opening credits, accompanied by John Williams’ jazzy, atmospheric score, establish a fantastic retro vibe right from the get-go. It has the look and feel of a vintage Saul Bass credits sequence while anticipating the like-minded opening credits for the also ‘60s-set television show Mad Men. Catch Me If You Can cleverly begins during a T.V. game show To Tell the Truth where the announcer gives us a thumbnail sketch of Frank’s exploits and has us (and the game show audience) guess who is the real Frank out of three men claiming to be him. Of course, it is Leonardo DiCaprio but the irony here is that he’s on a game show where contestants have to guess his identity while the FBI had to do it for real. We flashback to Christmas Eve, 1969 and a sick, disheveled Frank (DiCaprio) is rotting away in a French prison. How did he get here? Why does he look so awful? What is this guy’s story? The film takes us back to 1963 and the beginning of Frank’s story.

He comes from a good home and nice parents – Frank, Sr. (Christopher Walken) and Paula (Nathalie Baye) – that clearly love him and each other. We see the inspiration for Frank’s future endeavors in his father who, early on, impresses his son by using his charisma to convince a sales lady to open a suit store early by concocting a story about an impending funeral. He then has his son pose as his chauffeur in order to impress a bank. That, however, does not work and Frank’s father has to sell their car and their home and move into a smaller one because he owes money to the IRS. And then, one fateful day, Frank’s father opens a bank account for his son and gives him a book of checks thus giving him the means to create his own fortune and his own destiny.

On his first day at school, he’s mistaken for a substitute teacher and goes with it just so he can get revenge on a bully but then continues the charade for an entire week! This incident, and the discovery that his mother is having an affair resulting in his parents getting a divorce, leaves Frank lost and disillusioned as the safe, idyllic existence he once knew is now gone. It is this lack of identity and security that inspires him to pose as other people in successful professions like airplane pilots and doctors. It’s an obvious reaction to his father’s failure to restore his family’s former way of life.

What is so amazing is how easy it is for him to pull off these elaborate schemes. It’s a combination of check forging and charisma. By maintaining a confident attitude and the ability to charm people, Frank makes lots of money and seduces several lovely ladies in the process (including then young up-and-coming actresses Elizabeth Banks, Jennifer Garner and Amy Adams). Eventually, Frank’s methods catch the attention of no-nonsense FBI investigator Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), an expert at identifying bank fraud and check forgers. He makes it his mission in life to catch Frank after he humiliates him during their first encounter.

Leonardo DiCaprio has a lot of fun adopting Frank’s various personas, including dressing like Sean Connery era James Bond after watching Goldfinger (1964). There is a delicious irony in DiCaprio, arguably the most recognizable movie star on the planet at that time thanks to Titanic (1997), playing a world class liar who jet sets around the world bedding high-class prostitutes and buying expensive suits. However, underneath the suave bravado, DiCaprio hints at a lonely young man looking for a father figure that he unknowingly finds in Carl. During their years-long cat and mouse game they develop a relationship and a mutual respect for one another. The role is a tricky juggling act as DiCaprio has to assume several different identities while revealing the real Frank once in awhile and also hint at his possible motivations.

Tom Hanks tones down his amiable persona to play the prickly Carl Hanratty. He hasn’t played this abrasive a character since the misanthropic stand-up comic in Punchline (1988). He does a good job playing a dogged investigator with a pronounced Boston accent. Carl even displays the same kind of humorless professionalism as a protagonist straight out of a Michael Mann film, albeit with a slightly whimsical spin that is Spielberg’s trademark.

Taking a break from playing the Christopher Walken persona he’s asked to trot out in almost every film he’s done in the last 20 years, the veteran actor is absolutely heartbreaking as Frank’s blindly optimistic father. He shows a range in this film that he hadn’t displayed in years (or since for that matter) and this is particularly evident in a scene where father and son meet over dinner at a posh restaurant. Frank tries to give his father a brand new car in the hopes of impressing his estranged mother but he has to refuse it (the IRS are still investigating him). He tries to reassure his son that he hopes to get back together with his wife but his voice cracks with emotion and he looks to be on the verge of tears. Walken comes off as incredibly sympathetic at this moment and your heart really goes out to his character as we realize that he and his wife will never reconcile.

Frank Abagnale sold the movie rights to his story in 1980 and for years they languished in development hell in Hollywood. In 1997, screenwriter Jeff Nathanson was given a tape of Abagnale talking about his life by producer Devorah Moos-Hankin. It reminded him of his favorite films that “focus on people who are working on the wrong side of the law; yet you can’t help but root for them because they’re so incredibly charming.” He thought that Abagnale’s life would make a good film. He pitched the project to DreamWorks because they had hired him to do rewrites on several films in the past. With Abagnale’s story, Nathanson saw a character he hadn’t seen in “a long time; Hollywood really stopped making that kind of movie in the ‘70s.” Initially, all he had were some “cool scenes” and “great cons” but it wasn’t until he met the real Abagnale that the script started to take shape. After several interviews with the man, he opened up to Nathanson and talked about his family life and the relationship with his father. He realized that this was the key to the film: “A kid searching for his identity, searching for the love he can’t find in his own house.” This realization helped Nathanson to start structuring the film and also introduce the character of FBI agent Carl Hanratty as a secondary father figure. The screenwriter spent three years rewriting his script. It was during one of these many drafts that Carl was given more of an emphasis and became a central character along with Frank.

Leonardo DiCaprio read Nathanson’s script and was fascinated by this man’s extraordinary life. DreamWorks became involved in 1999 based on Nathanson’s work. In 2000, Gore Verbinski had signed on to direct with DiCaprio starring and with a supporting cast that included Ed Harris, Chloe Sevigny, and James Gandolfini as the FBI agent in pursuit of Frank. However, delays on Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002) stalled the production and Verbinski and most of the cast went on to other projects. In 2001, Lasse Hallstrom was going to direct Catch Me If You Can with filming to start in March 2002. However, he also left the project. By August 2001, Spielberg came on board. He had just come off the dark, paranoid futuristic science fiction film Minority Report (2002) and was looking for something lighter to do. He had always been a fan of films about scam artists and con men and was drawn to Abagnale’s amazing exploits. Tom Hanks read the script and asked Spielberg and DiCaprio if he could be in the film and they quickly agreed. He replaced Gandolfini who had to bow out due to a prior commitment with filming another season of The Sopranos.

It was DiCaprio who first suggested to Spielberg that Christopher Walken play Frank, Sr. To play Paula, the director wanted to cast a French actress. His friend and fellow filmmaker Brian De Palma was living in Paris at the time and Spielberg gave him a copy of the script. He asked for help and De Palma conducted screen tests with several actresses, one of whom was Nathalie Baye who had been in Francois Truffaut’s Day for Night (1973).

To research their roles, DiCaprio and Hanks attended one of Abagnale’s lectures to a group of FBI agents. Ironically, Abagnale was now the head of an anti-fraud consulting firm. Initially, DiCaprio was skeptical about meeting Abagnale and talked to Spielberg who discouraged him from doing it. Against his director’s wishes, DiCaprio met privately with his real life counterpart and invited him to live in his Hollywood house for two days, which he did. The actor studied Abagnale’s every move and taped their conversations. His impressions of the man were that he was “an instinctual actor. He’s somebody that for whatever reason puts people at ease.” DiCaprio’s approach to portraying Abagnale was that “at a certain point you draw enough information from the person, and then you have to go off on your own and create that character and let the character have a life of its own.”

Catch Me If You Can was shot in a speedy 56 days utilizing more than 140 sets on locations in and around Los Angeles, New York City, Montreal, Quebec City. Among the many locations used, the production was able to film in the historic TWA Terminal at New York’s JFK airport, which opened in 1962, and was empty when they shot there. At times, cast and crew shot in three locations on a single day. Spielberg did not do very many takes and remarked, “moving so fast kept the momentum going for the entire cast and crew.” DiCaprio concurred: “It was like a theatre group. We were always creating new things and then moving to the next location.”

Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski strove to keep the film’s visual approach very simple: “Let’s create a world that’s slightly idealistic, and not too serious.” The film’s color scheme often mirrored Frank’s emotional arc. His initial, ordinary existence is reflected in a bland, slightly monochromatic look. As Frank’s life gets richer and more successful, the color palette gets more vibrant with striking oranges, yellows, reds and pinks. At the end of the film, when he becomes a part of bureaucracy, the colors go back to being monochromatic in nature.

Legendary composer John William adopted a progressive jazz score in keeping with popular tastes of the 1950s and 1960s. He was influenced by the film music of Henry Mancini who dominated the ‘60s with his “stylish, jazzy approach to films that we now associate with that period so nostalgically.”

Catch Me If You Can enjoyed a very positive response from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three stars and wrote, “This is not a major Spielberg film, although it is an effortlessly watchable one.” In his review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden wrote, “Catch Me is the most charming of Mr. Spielberg's mature films, because is it so relaxed. Instead of trying to conjure fairy-tale magic, wring tears or insinuate a message, it is happy just to be its delicious, genially sophisticated self.” While the Village Voice’s J. Hoberman was less impressed with the film, he did praise DiCaprio’s performance: “DiCaprio is far more successfully cast here than in Gangs of New York: His performance is all about acting; it's a mild kick to see how he'll manage to talk his way out of nearly every scrape.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Owen Gleiberman enjoyed Hanks’ performance: “It's a relief, after Hanks' funereal torpor in Road to Perdition, to see him having this much fun playing a law enforcer this dweebishly obsessed (the actor sports one of the few note-perfect New England accents in movie history).” In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe described it as “a movie that steadfastly refuses to be spectacular. At first, that seems to be its drawback. In the end, that's its disarming sweetness.” Finally, Time magazine’s Richard Schickel wrote, “Abagnale's story, combined with Nathanson's sensitivity to his family situation and Spielberg's interest in lost boys who manage to find their best selves, results in about the nicest movie you could ask for at the holidays: a gently funny, sweetly adventurous film that makes you feel genuinely good, that is to say, entirely unconned by false sentiment or sharp, overmanipulative Hollywood practices.”

Ultimately, all Frank wants is for things to be the way they were when he was younger: his parents still married and living in a nice home. He thinks that by accumulating wealth and projecting a successful image, he can save his father from financial ruin and impress his mother enough so that she’ll take back Frank, Sr. But life doesn’t always work out that way and no matter how many glamorous professions he impersonates or fake checks he writes, is going to make things right. It is this sober reality that makes Catch Me If You Can more than just an entertaining caper film. In some respects, this is a coming-of-age film as we see Frank go from an ambitious teenager to a disillusioned adult. This is also a coming-of-age film for DiCaprio that saw him move on from youthful characters in flights of fancy-type films like Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic, to working with prestige directors like Spielberg on more mature fare that dealt with weighty themes. It is a transition he has made successfully as evident with award-winning films like The Departed (2006) and critically-acclaimed blockbusters like Inception (2010).

Here's a neat little article about the film's stunning opening credits sequence.

SOURCES

“Another Catch For Leo’s Next Flick.” IGN. July 6, 2001.

Breznican, Anthony. “Movie Brings Colourful Capers Back to Haunt Frank Abagnale.” Associated Press. December 28, 2002.

Catch Me If You Can Production Notes. DreamWorks. 2002.

Ebert, Roger. “Leo Impressed Spielberg.” Chicago Sun-Times. January 2, 2003.

“Hanks to Catch Leo For Spielberg.” IGN. August 30, 2001.

Head, Steve. “An Interview with Steven Spielberg.” IGN. December 17, 2002.

Head, Steve. “An Interview with Leonardo DiCaprio.” IGN. December 22, 2002.

Kirkland, Bruce. “Leo’s the Real Deal.” London Free Press. December 24, 2002.

Portman, Jamie. “Catching Up with Tom Hanks.” Vancouver Sun. February 3, 2003.

Ryfle, Steve. “Catch Me If You Can: Interview with Jeff Nathanson.” Creative Screenwriting. November/December 2002.

Strauss, Bob. “Catch Walken Resting? Never.” San Diego Union-Tribune. February 28, 2003.