Any Fans Of "Crime Story"?

This is one of my favorite shows ever. "Crime Story" is the more ambitious Michael Mann drama that ran on NBC for two seasons from 1986-1988 at the same time as "Miami Vice". It is available on DVD as "Season One" and "Season Two". It has a great plot and also features many future stars such as David Caruso, Pam Grier, Ving Rhames, Kevin Spacey and Julia Roberts. If enough of you have seen it, and I'm not sure what enough means at this point, then I could do an episode by episode thread once a week or so much like Joey Self is doing with "That 70's Show".

 

I really liked it at the time and would happily rewatch it, a good series, different from anything else at the time and with high production values and good music.

 

I thought it was pretty good. I'm a big Dennis Farina fan.

 

"I'll give Torrello a lesson he'll never forget!"...

 

The show stays with me because of the surprisingly gratuitous primetime violence. Does anyone remebre the story line where someone was chained to a junkyard fence and beaten to death or near death.

The other surprising primetime moment was the rough foreplay between Joan Chen's 'Josie Packard' and Michael Ontkean's "Sheriff Harry Truman.'

Errrr. Cheers, Michael

 

The Dvds are fair at best ,with a lot of the Original Music missing , a real shame
at least they are out,The Show is great,and had a lot of great Music

 

This show was a must watch for me and my friends. We watched it religiously.

The Pauli character was the best. I remember the time he saw some Dom Pérignon champagne bottles and thought it was a new guy muscling in on their turf so he asked Ray if he should go take care of him.

I caught a few shows about a year ago on late night UK TV. They looked and sounded horrible. It was as if someone took a 2nd Gen VHS dub from a recording some guy made at the time of the original broadcast.

I haven't seen the DVDs. Do they look good despite the loss of music?

 

I was born in Chicago 1958 / lived there until late 1972 / I love music, and old cars, and cops BEFORE the Miranda Act, so...

 

Loved Del Shannon's "Runaway" being used for the opening theme song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is5ofSHZWTM

 

Do they look good despite the loss of music? like Miami Vice don't really look as good
as they did when they came out,The Crime Story dvds only look a tad better than the
Japanese Laser Box (which had more of the Original Music) which was done years ago
So the cheap company that did the dvds(cheap in Price too) didn't do much ,other than
release them

 

I have the VHS tapes, prerecorded of course, and never "upgraded" to DVD, after reading that they could no longer obtain the licensing for the original music...which for me, was a deal breaker ala WKRP In Cinncinnati.

 

Watched every episode and bought the DVDs, which I've gone through twice.

 

I liked the show for the fact the "good guys" were always pretty sketchy themselves.

SPOILER ALERT!




The show ended it's second season on a cliffhanger which was never resolved. 5 of the main characters get on a plane. The pilot gets shot in a scuffle & the airplane plunges into the ocean!

The "resolution" was in the shooting script which was revealed on air in 1988 by Chicago DJ John Brandmeier (1st cousin of Tony Shalhoub) who was orginally cast as the dead pilot, but ended up playing a Mexican police officer instead. Somehow I always remembered what was said because the actual series ending was such a dog & the fact that my hero Johnny B. was a total bust in Hollywood with a total of 2 tv roles!


Ending -

Plane crash fade to black

Cut to daylight a closeup on Ray Luca's face. The camera pans out to reveal that Ray Luca is on an emergency rubber raft. Ray awakes an slightly smiles because he is happy to be alive after the plunge into the ocean.

Cue music - Sea Cruise by Frankie Ford

Frank Torello - "Oh Luca!"

Camera cuts to Frank Torello who is smiling, pointing a gun at Luca on another emergency rubber raft!

The End.

Or something similar to that!

So the 2 main characters survived the crash. Someone on the IMDB asked Anthony Dennison (Ray Luca) where season 3 was headed and he said that they would have ended up in Vietnam!

 

Mike Torello.

 

Mike Torello - OOOOPS! My bad.

NBC pretty much doomed the show in the USA after a highly rated TV movie by putting it against ABC's Moonlighting on Tuesday nights for it's first 3 months.

 

I watched it on and off during its original run. I can't remember much about it now, I wouldn't mind seeing it again.

 

I worked on the first season shows for NBC, 1986-1987. When they got to the last episode, and we find out they're in a nuclear test zone in the middle of the Nevada desert, I laughed for five solid minutes. That was one of the most over-the-top shows ever. Really loved it. Good music, too. I think there's another music-clearance mess that prevents them from reissuing it on DVD with the original music tracks -- lots of soundalike and synthesizer crap instead of the real hits.

 

Interesting read about the plans for surviving the plane crash and going to Vietnam. I had not heard that before. Maybe it is just as well the show only lasted two seasons.

And yes, NBC doomed the show with their many time slot changes. I remember the movie being on a Thursday night and finishing near the top of the ratings. Then, things were still good on Friday night after "Miami Vice". The multiple other moves to Tuesday and after were a disaster and did indeed doom the show.

The DVDs do look good. It's hard to remember exactly what music is missing so they are enjoyable if you don't think too much about that.

If I decide to do the episode by episode thread, I will try to find info on what music is in the original episodes and missing from the DVDs. That should add to the discussion.

 

I'd like to see that!

 

The show owners, New World TV, are just too cheap to spend the money. You figure it might be $20,000-$30,000 per song to license the home video rights. If one episode has five songs, that'll be a hundred grand. 22 shows per season... two million bucks. They won't make a fraction of that on a 20-year-old series like this.

 

I have had no luck finding out what the missing music was in the series. Add to that the fact that only a handful of you have the series on DVD. And that is the reason I have not done the episode by episode thread, yet.

I'm surprised it is currently not on the air in reruns. It is an old NBC show so you would think one of their channels like cloo would be showing it.

Anyway, if that ever happens then I think that would be the time to get this thread rolling again when more of us could be watching.

Stay tuned.

 

I don't blame you, a LOT of work for a very few people ? Definitely not worth it now. I will tell ya...the nudge got me to watch an episode or two, and for that, I thank you.

 

You are welcome.

 

Found this over on IMDB - thought fans of 'Crime Story' here on the Hoffman Forum might find this fun and useful (though it is incomplete).

 

I used to have some tapes of The Japanese lasers which I think had the music
in it,I also some of the Columbia house tapes also had the orig Music
some trader made me a couple dvds from those

The dvds are slightly better picture wise,but still pretty poor,and without a lot
of the music