Richard Dickson
04-12-2002, 10:03 PM
Everybody seems to be mentioning adaptations, but I think there are a couple of true stories that could make fantastic films.
-- First off, I think someone could make one hell of a movie about the Hatfield/McCoy feud. The true story has it all -- love, revenge, you name it. It's a huge piece of American folklore that's been largely untouched. And I think it just begs for Michael Mann to direct it -- look at what he did for the same locations in Last of the Mohicans.
-- The story of Hiroo Onoda. He was a Japanese soldier on the Philippine island of Lubang whose sense of duty and honor was so great that he followed his orders -- for 30 years after the end of World War II. Despite desertions by his men, announcements by the American, Philippine, and Japanese military, and the pleadings of his own brother (whose emotional speech convinced Onoda he was an impostor), Onoda carried out guerrilla warfare on the island until 1974, raiding local villages for supplies and learning to survive using plants for food and medicine. It took the appearance of his old commanding officer ordering him to stand down to finally bring him out of the mountains and back into the world, and he returned to Japan a hero, a symbol of pre-war ideals.
At one point, his aging father trekked out to try to find him and persuade him to come home. Finding nothing, he left behind this haiku:
Not even an echo
Responds to my call in the
Summery mountains.
So, Not Even An Echo would be a pretty cool title (seeing as how The Last Samurai has already been taken). It would have been a great part for a young Toshiro Mifune, but I'm at a loss as to who could take the part today. But I think it would be a natural for Spielberg to take on -- it's epic, it spans many years, and it features the chance to direct a bravura lead performance.
-- The story of Michael Malloy, an alcoholic old Irish man living in Depression New York. A group of regulars at the bar Malloy frequented hatched a plan to make some quick cash off the old derelict by taking out an insurance policy on him with one of their number as the beneficiary and then arranging an "accidental" death. They had used this scheme successfully on a girlfriend of one of their group, and figured an aging old drunk would not only not be missed, but probably not cause much of a stir by showing up dead one day.
Thirty attempts on Malloy's life later, he was still alive.
They poisoned his liquor. They gave him free food laced with bad meat, sawdust, tacks, you name it. They doused him with water and left him to sleep in a room with an open window on a cold winter's night. They went so far as to run him over with a taxi cab. And Malloy kept showing up the next day as fit as can be. Finally the group had to resort to outright murder -- all for the $400 insurance policy.
Eventually, they turned on themselves. One of the group was killed when he tried to increase his split, and eventually the Bronx police got wind of the scheme and arrested the surviving conspirators, with four of them eventually getting the chair for their part in the crime.
Naturally, this screams to be a Scorsese film.
-- First off, I think someone could make one hell of a movie about the Hatfield/McCoy feud. The true story has it all -- love, revenge, you name it. It's a huge piece of American folklore that's been largely untouched. And I think it just begs for Michael Mann to direct it -- look at what he did for the same locations in Last of the Mohicans.
-- The story of Hiroo Onoda. He was a Japanese soldier on the Philippine island of Lubang whose sense of duty and honor was so great that he followed his orders -- for 30 years after the end of World War II. Despite desertions by his men, announcements by the American, Philippine, and Japanese military, and the pleadings of his own brother (whose emotional speech convinced Onoda he was an impostor), Onoda carried out guerrilla warfare on the island until 1974, raiding local villages for supplies and learning to survive using plants for food and medicine. It took the appearance of his old commanding officer ordering him to stand down to finally bring him out of the mountains and back into the world, and he returned to Japan a hero, a symbol of pre-war ideals.
At one point, his aging father trekked out to try to find him and persuade him to come home. Finding nothing, he left behind this haiku:
Not even an echo
Responds to my call in the
Summery mountains.
So, Not Even An Echo would be a pretty cool title (seeing as how The Last Samurai has already been taken). It would have been a great part for a young Toshiro Mifune, but I'm at a loss as to who could take the part today. But I think it would be a natural for Spielberg to take on -- it's epic, it spans many years, and it features the chance to direct a bravura lead performance.
-- The story of Michael Malloy, an alcoholic old Irish man living in Depression New York. A group of regulars at the bar Malloy frequented hatched a plan to make some quick cash off the old derelict by taking out an insurance policy on him with one of their number as the beneficiary and then arranging an "accidental" death. They had used this scheme successfully on a girlfriend of one of their group, and figured an aging old drunk would not only not be missed, but probably not cause much of a stir by showing up dead one day.
Thirty attempts on Malloy's life later, he was still alive.
They poisoned his liquor. They gave him free food laced with bad meat, sawdust, tacks, you name it. They doused him with water and left him to sleep in a room with an open window on a cold winter's night. They went so far as to run him over with a taxi cab. And Malloy kept showing up the next day as fit as can be. Finally the group had to resort to outright murder -- all for the $400 insurance policy.
Eventually, they turned on themselves. One of the group was killed when he tried to increase his split, and eventually the Bronx police got wind of the scheme and arrested the surviving conspirators, with four of them eventually getting the chair for their part in the crime.
Naturally, this screams to be a Scorsese film.