miscellanium (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
miscellanium) wrote2023-05-18 11:41 am
miscellanium) wrote2023-05-18 11:41 am
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the f.b.i.: the inside man (1969)
his hair looked soooo soft and fluffy in this episode
the "is it worth watching this for lawrence dane" rating: 4/5
he's not the main antagonist - that would be lloyd bochner's character - but his scenes take up a fair amount of the runtime and he opens and closes the episode as well. it's a nice performance too, appropriately intense but not hammy. also, this episode has one of the most bonkers death scenes i've seen him do and that gives it a full extra point on the worth-it-for-dane scale. like i knew he was gonna die but the way it happens.... i've never seen anything like it elsewhere in such a serious context lmao. maybe i'm just sheltered?? a clip of the scene is included at the end of this post so you can judge for yourself. (uploading the whole episode privately to youtube for autocaptions was a bust because of copyright bullshit, so i paid for captions, but it seems as though very short clips are fine so there's that at least. a dane cut wasn't necessary imo since he's in it enough and the rest is interesting enough especially when lloyd bochner is there.)
the plot: two men are working together as diamond thieves at the behest of someone who knows where and when diamonds will be in transit and thus easy to steal - an inside man. dane plays one of the thieves and lloyd bochner plays the inside man. (they were together again in 'it seemed like a good idea at the time' a couple years after this, though they don't interact as much in that.) dane has something of a homoerotic relationship with his robbery partner, played by a fellow named clyde ventura* - we're given to understand that they met in prison and promised each other that they'd buy a ranch together when they had the money, among other intimate little details, and they seem to be peers but dane cares more about the welfare of his partner than one might expect for the average heist team. (dane could have been fun in an episode of leverage but i digress.)
on the one hand, this show was written in partnership with j. edgar hoover and his top fbi agents, which, yuck. but on the other, the screenwriters give the "bad guys" a surprising amount of depth in this context and it seems pretty clear to me that we're even meant to find the situation somewhat tragic. at least, dane gives us a performance good enough to help us believe he genuinely cares about his partner and the pathos of that carries the episode. the narrative ends pretty abruptly and i wished they'd had the space to dwell a bit on how bochner's character is treated versus the working-class thieves, but at the same time if this was produced under hoover's watch they probably weren't allowed to go that far.
while i was starting to draft this post i was reminded of his performance in his first episode of the virginian (aired 1968) and how he feels less natural there compared to this fbi episode. at first i was thinking oh he must've started hitting his stride in 1969 but no, he was very good in yerma and in his episode of jericho (both aired 1967) among other roles. really makes me think that it comes down to the director, something i think i’ve touched on before - with the right director he can be phenomenal, but that isn’t consistent enough to make someone a star. a shame, because he really does do a decent job with the material he's given in this episode.
since this was a procedural show it’s difficult to find newspaper reviews for individual episodes, but there’s a fansite for the show - that site’s rating for this episode is a B and i think i agree. if you enjoy the style of police procedural that's heavier on investigation than on action, it's a solid episode. if you don't enjoy police procedurals at all, well, understandable. but perhaps you can at least enjoy how cute dane is in this one.
highlight:
(insert the GRRR BARK BARK HHRGRGHH chewing meme image here his clothes were PERFECTLY tailored in this episode it's ridiculous. might as well have just saran-wrapped him)
i'm having trouble getting the youtube embeds to center on the page but oh well.
his first scene involves him robbing a steve martin impersonator (joking) then booking it across train tracks on his long leggies. it doesn't screencap well tho :( there's a stunt double for a few seconds of the chase sequence, like when he's rolling over a bench or dropping down through a tree, but most of it is him.
his next scene is waiting for his partner in their hotel room, which opens with the image at the very top of the post and also gives us the highlight image. lovely man
gonna HONK his CHEST
and then he GRABS HIS PARTNER'S FACE AND SHOVES HIM DOWN ONTO THE BED AND HOLDS HIM THERE????? there's a screencap i could include but it's not like a nicely-composed shot or whatever it's just me being way too horny so. not going in here. ask me about post outtakes or watch the episode.
anyway. speaking of nicely-composed shots. i like this one a lot.
after some more stuff with the fbi agents we get a phone call between dane and bochner - he is SOOO cute here!! the rest of this particular scene doesn't cap terribly well so pls check out this clip of him and his crime boyfriend
and then we get some scenes developing bochner's character and motivations, some investigative footwork from the fbi detectives.... then we come back to dane and his boyfriend trying to jack a new target bochner ordered them to hit.
it does not go as planned.
(insert the GRRR BARK BARK HHRGRGHH chewing meme image here his clothes were PERFECTLY tailored in this episode it's ridiculous. might as well have just saran-wrapped him)
i'm having trouble getting the youtube embeds to center on the page but oh well.
his first scene involves him robbing a steve martin impersonator (joking) then booking it across train tracks on his long leggies. it doesn't screencap well tho :( there's a stunt double for a few seconds of the chase sequence, like when he's rolling over a bench or dropping down through a tree, but most of it is him.
his next scene is waiting for his partner in their hotel room, which opens with the image at the very top of the post and also gives us the highlight image. lovely man
gonna HONK his CHEST
and then he GRABS HIS PARTNER'S FACE AND SHOVES HIM DOWN ONTO THE BED AND HOLDS HIM THERE????? there's a screencap i could include but it's not like a nicely-composed shot or whatever it's just me being way too horny so. not going in here. ask me about post outtakes or watch the episode.
anyway. speaking of nicely-composed shots. i like this one a lot.
after some more stuff with the fbi agents we get a phone call between dane and bochner - he is SOOO cute here!! the rest of this particular scene doesn't cap terribly well so pls check out this clip of him and his crime boyfriend
and then we get some scenes developing bochner's character and motivations, some investigative footwork from the fbi detectives.... then we come back to dane and his boyfriend trying to jack a new target bochner ordered them to hit.
it does not go as planned.
if this were sold as memorabilia i would buy it in a heartbeat
when he goes to meet lloyd bochner's character in person, there's a brief instant where a couple kids run past him as he enters the park and he has such a cute little interaction with them. he's got a few roles where he has a scene or two playing with children and he always seems to have such fun with those moments that it makes me wonder how he felt about not having children. maybe he didn't want any of his own. unless i find an interview where he gets into this we'll never know.
his fingers are so long...... he's just a long guy. maybe [redacted]
throws myself at his feet!!!!
love the homoeroticism of this framing, like a guy smoking after a one-night-stand he knows he shouldn't have had.... except they're arguing about murder and when to call it quits with the robberies
HE IS TOO TALL FOR THE BED! LOOK AT HIS FEET! MAKES ME WANT TO BITE AND SHAKE HIM LIKE A CREATURE
and then he dies yet again. the clearest screencaps i could get really don't do it justice so please check out this video of the entire chase sequence so you can properly appreciate just how this escalates.
god i love watching him run with those long legs. it shows he's a former football player for sure. (that reminds me i found a photo of him on a team that won some sports championship when he was like 12 years old klsdghdfgh material for a different post) and the way he tries to protect his partner....
BUT. WHAT DID HE THINK HE WAS GOING TO ACCOMPLISH DOING WHAT HE DID AT THE END. I AM SO CURIOUS LMAO i am also dying to know whether this is actually what happened in the case that this is allegedly based on or if it's an embellishment by the writers.
some of my buddies have joked that dane dies often enough to the point where if i ever made a little museum for him there could be a dane death exhibit. hard to decide if this video should be the first thing people see in such an exhibit or the last thing. either way it's fucking incredible. even if it might be a stunt double after he gets shot (hard to tell) - if it is, massive kudos to that guy.
anyway this is a fun little episode if you can ignore the whole fbi glamorization angle lol. dane brings big bisexual energy and a complicated kind of confidence to the role without overselling it imo, and gives us a nice abbreviated portrait of a guy shafted by people better off than him. as i said at the beginning, i wish the episode's coda got into the injustice of it more but it's not hard to miss the vibe of "we Cannot touch that subject" in the way it wraps up so fast. if you watch it and come away with a different impression please share, i'd love to hear your thoughts.
*postscript: i looked up ventura because i was curious what else he'd done - more focused on directing and stage plays than television/film, and he was gay. that explains some of the chemistry between him and dane imo. glad to see the obituary linked acknowledges his "longtime companion" at least. may his memory be a blessing.
BUT. WHAT DID HE THINK HE WAS GOING TO ACCOMPLISH DOING WHAT HE DID AT THE END. I AM SO CURIOUS LMAO i am also dying to know whether this is actually what happened in the case that this is allegedly based on or if it's an embellishment by the writers.
some of my buddies have joked that dane dies often enough to the point where if i ever made a little museum for him there could be a dane death exhibit. hard to decide if this video should be the first thing people see in such an exhibit or the last thing. either way it's fucking incredible. even if it might be a stunt double after he gets shot (hard to tell) - if it is, massive kudos to that guy.
anyway this is a fun little episode if you can ignore the whole fbi glamorization angle lol. dane brings big bisexual energy and a complicated kind of confidence to the role without overselling it imo, and gives us a nice abbreviated portrait of a guy shafted by people better off than him. as i said at the beginning, i wish the episode's coda got into the injustice of it more but it's not hard to miss the vibe of "we Cannot touch that subject" in the way it wraps up so fast. if you watch it and come away with a different impression please share, i'd love to hear your thoughts.
*postscript: i looked up ventura because i was curious what else he'd done - more focused on directing and stage plays than television/film, and he was gay. that explains some of the chemistry between him and dane imo. glad to see the obituary linked acknowledges his "longtime companion" at least. may his memory be a blessing.