i recvall that there was an old pre-hopkins hannibal lecter movie and that it was pretty good. was it called red dragon or did they give it another name?
It was called “Manhunter”. It was directed by Michael Mann. Good movie.
i be a thankin’ ye, sam stone!
Just for the sake of trivia, the lead was played by a young and hirstute William Peterson…Grissom from the “C.S.I.” tv series.
It was also released at some point (after Silence of the Lambs came out, I think) as Michael Mann’s Red Dragon: The Pursuit of Hannibal Lecter
At least that’s what the cover of the video of it that I bought says. Though the end credits say “Manhunter”, IIRC (the vcr is busted and I haven’t decided if it’s worth it to replace it, so I can’t watch it to verify). I think they just wanted to work Hannibal Lecter’s name into the title to hitch a ride on the whole Silence gravy train.
It was pretty good. I wonder how the new one will stack up.
The original Manhunter was GREAT!
I can’t see why they’re re-making it, at considerable expense. I stumbled across it on cable shortly after its original release, and from only a brief clip, I was hooked. Mann’s direction is wonderful, his sense of setting very good. Hannibal Lecter’s cell is a sterile and pristine white – a far cry from the underground stine cell of the other Lecter movies. Brian Cox’s Hannibal was wonderfully cultured yet insane – and he seemed even more insane than Hopkins’ interpretation. The way he could manipulate peiople from inside his cage was wonderful (and he wasn’t a cannnibal in the first book and movie. I think that came to Harris later, meditating on “Hannibal/cannibal”). Hannibal Lecter was obviously the best thing in Manhunter, and it seems clear to me that Silence of the Lambs is almost a rewrite of Red Dragon, with Hannibal’s part enlarged.
I really liked Peterson in Manhunter. The scene with his son in the grocery store, where he explains Hannibal Lecter to his kid in a straightforward way, without pulling any punches, is a great scene. I’m sure Peterson got the part on CSI because of this role (Isn’t he one of the creators or producers, in fact? I’m sure the similarity between Graham in Manhunter and is role on CSI is no coincidence.)
One of the more interesting things to me was the scene with the sedated Tiger. it looked like such an arty scene, with so little to do with the plot, that I was sure Mann threw it in fort the visual effect. When I later read Thomas Harris’ novel, however, I was surprised to find it in there !
Tom Noonan did a great job as the psycho, as usual (I think there’s a rule that says that Bruce Dern, Tom Noonan, Jack Nicholson, and (when he was alive) Anthony Perklins weren’t allowed to get on the same plane together, because if it crashed they wouldn’t be ablem to make any more movies with psychos.)
It’s a great movie–Brian Cox plays Lecter with wonderful ickiness, especially when he scams his way into an open phone line-- but there are flaws (like spelling Lecter as “Lektor.” What, he’s a Superman villain here?). And the whole business with Dolarhyde’s dentures is briefly shown with no understandable context.
The new Red Dragon is supposedly a much truer representation of Harris’ book. Mann took a few liberties in his making of Manhunter, focusing the story almost entirely on Will Graham at the expense of giving the background story of Francis. He changed the ending as well. I’m guessing that Red Dragon will match the book ending.
And repackaging the movie as Michael Mann’s Red Dragon: The Pursuit of Hannibal Lector is false advertising to the extreme. Cox has little more than 10 minutes of screen time and is locked away in prison. Graham’s capture of Lector is mostly just hinted at and talked around. Important screen time it is, but the story is not about Lector. At least the current DVD of Manhunter isn’t titled as such.
Mann is usually spot on and solid, but Manhunter has not aged well. Even watching the cleaned DVD of Manhunter it looks more like a TV movie. The fact that the movie opens on a beach in Florida practically begs to make the connection to Mann’s TV work on Miami Vice. The movie absolutely screams MADE IN 1985!!.
Silence, OTOH, is pretty much timeless. I’m not expecting Red Dragon to live up to it, but hoping it removes the bad taste that Hannibal left behind.
Red Dragon should be interesting…great writing talent in Ted Tally (Oscar for Silence’s screenplay), top line acting talent, cinematographer Dante Spinotti, who was Michael Mann’s right hand for years (and did Manhunter too), and the director of the Rush Hour franchise and The Family Man. Which of things does not belong?
William Petersen was in another great movie, To Live and Die in LA. He plays a real nut of a cop chasing after Willem Dafoe as a counterfeiter. Petersen’s a fine actor, he just hasn’t had a lot of great roles IMO.
And I think the remake will be more faithful to the book. There’s no mention of any dragons as far as I can remember in Manhunter, which is the whole basis of the killer’s nuttiness.
I agree that they didn’t explain the bit about the dentures (I didn’t get that until I read the book), but the business about the beach is pretty neutral. I think it makes for a stark and effective opening, and doesn’t necessarily hark back to anything else.
As for the ending, give me the movie ending over the hackneyed ending of the book, with its
(SPOILERS)
“faked his own death” business that we’ve seen a zillion times already, and that you’d think Will Graham, knowing the trickiness of his prey, might have been wary of.