RE: RARA-AVIS: Hannibal/Red Dragon

From: JIM DOHERTY ( jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com)
Date: 17 Jan 2002


Erick,

Re your question below:

> Was not William Peterson the star of To Live And
> Die In LA? Ties
> back to the discussion of book to movie conversions
> -- pretty faithful in my
> view (from the Gerald Petievich book). And talk
> about HB!

He did play the T-Man in the film version of TO LIVE AND DIE IN L.A. However, I have to disagree that this was a faithful adaptation.

The book featured two different sets of Secret Service agents on the trail of the same counterfeiter. One set, the character played in the film by Peterson, and that character's partner (I can't remember the names); the other set, a veteran T-Man on the verge of retirement.

The Peterson character and his partner are willing to break any rules, written and unwritten, to get their quarry. The veteran pretty much goes by the book.

SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT

In the end, the Peterson character is dead and his partner is headed for prison. The veteran, sticking to his ethics, has made the case that the two hot dogs, throwing out the rule book, weren't able to make.

END SPOILER ALERT END SPOILER ALERT END SPOILER ALERT

The film completely scuttles the concept of juxtaposing of the two sets of agents competing to arrest the same criminal. In fact, the veteran agent, though he appears in the film, is killed very early on
(he's depicted as the Peterson character's first partner and this murder supposedly is what fuels his determination to get the bad guy by any means, moral or immoral).

The characters all meet ends that are quite different from the ones in the book.

The differences between the film and the book are particularly interesting given that Petievitch wrote
(or at least is credited with writing) the screenplay.

JIM DOHERTY

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