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Turning down offers to be in films like Kramer vs.
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Thief 1981 professional#
At the same time, Caan’s star power, which was primarily due to his role as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972), was diminishing due to Caan’s own disillusionment with acting, a distaste for most of the scripts offered to him and his quixotic decision to pursue a career as a professional rodeo rider for several years. Joining such films as Wolfen (Michael Wadleigh), Excalibur (John Boorman), Cutter’s Way/ Cutter and Bone (Ivan Passer), the film version of Pennies From Heaven (Herbert Ross), Reds (Warren Beatty) and Prince of the City (Sidney Lumet), Thief was part of a dying counterpoint to a growing audience and studio preference for genre oriented and high concept fare such as Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg), Arthur (Steve Gordon) and sequels like the Halloween and Friday The 13th series. 1981 was a record year for auteur-driven studio films going into general release and generally being neglected by audiences and maligned by mainstream critics. The Jericho Mile was released theatrically outside the US and attracted the attention of James Caan, who along with his brother, Ronnie, was looking for projects to produce.įinanced by a United Artists reeling from the highly public failure of Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980), a strong argument can be made that Thief represents one of the last embers of 70s New Hollywood expressionism.
Thief 1981 series#
From the time the Chicago native left the London International Film School at the end of the 1960s, he had worked as a documentarian for ABC news, shot commercials, written series television high and low ( Police Story, Starsky and Hutch) and completed the ur-feature, The Jericho Mile (1979), an extremely well-received made-for-TV film about a prison inmate who trains for the Olympics. Thief may appear to be Michael Mann’s debut feature, but its cold assurance is not accidental. Prod Co: Mann/Cann Productions Prod: Jerry Bruckheimer, Ronnie Caan Dir: Michael Mann Scr: Michael Mann, based on the novel The Home Invaders by Frank Hohimer Phot: Donald Thorin Ed: Dov Hoeing Prod Des: Mel Bourne Mus: Tangerine DreamĬast: James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Willie Nelson, Robert Prosky, Jim Belushi, Tom Signorelli, Dennis Farina