Ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!! No, it's not on the tube right now and this ain't about Pacino's favorite weapon. I received the DVD set of the first season of "Crime Story" yesterday. Some interesting trivia involving Michael Mann and his various characters:

• The Vincent Hanna/Mike Torello/Sam Cole character is based on Michael Mann's close friend Chuck Adamson, now a writer and producer, who was a lieutenant in charge of the Chicago PD's MCU during the sixties and seventies (Dennis Farina was one of Adamson's top detective sergeants on the MCU).
• Many of the high end jewel heists portrayed in Michael Mann productions are based on the actual exploits of former jewel thief/safe cracker turned actor Johnny Santucci, who played Pauli Taglia in "Crime Story" (he also played a crooked cop Urizzi in "Thief"). Santucci was a frequent target of Adamson's investigations and did time in prison.
• Michael Mann not only likes to use some of the same actors over and over, he incorporates some of the same lines over and over, such as "When they walk through that door, they're gonna get the surprise of their life" and "Who'm I talkin' to here?"
• Mann's westward migration of settings follows Chuck Adamson's same westward movements, first to Nevada and then to California.

BTW, does anyone know if the television pilot-version of Heat, L.A. Takedown, ever aired? Same characters as Heat, but different actors. Heat was supposed to be a remake of this.

[url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097700/releaseinfo]IMDB[/url] says that it aired, or at least was released, on 27 August, 1989. I suppose one could go to the library and look up old "TV Guide" issues or something. I don't recall it on TV. The first few episodes of "Crime Story" were good, I thought. I was always impressed with Farina as an actor.

"Crime Story" started out good and then the network got involved, instead of letting Michael Mann do what he does, and screwed it up. The original plot was to be serialized, but people whined about the violence (the show's original music director, Todd Rundgren, walked out over this), police groups felt that LEOs were unfairly portrayed (the show's setting took place in pre-Miranda days, you know), and NBC wanted to make money rather than a good show. The same damned thing happened to last year's "Robbery Homicide Division" on CBS. Michael Mann needs to take his stuff to cable. Fuck the networks.


<------- Oooooooh!!!! Palindrome post!!!!!