Retro Commercials

The local GM dealers show us the best of Winnipeg. (CKND, 1984)

Part 4 of Thief from 1981. Frank finally gets to keep his dinner-date with the lady at the restaurant he hit on back in part 2. Unfortunately, Franks work made him late, which leads to a really bad first impression for Jessie. So Frank takes her somewhere to have a serious sit-down, where they both share their backgrounds as ex-cons. Then Frank begins to tell an important story about his early years in jail. Here are some liner notes from the DVD box, which you wont find on Wikipedia or anywhere else that I can find. They supposedly come from the press release for the film: Although best known today for such uniquely American fare as Miami Vice TV series, The Last of the Mohicans, and Heat, Chicago-native Michael Mann began his filmmaking career in England as a director of commercials and documentaries. After spend 7 years in England, Mann returned to the US, where he began writing for TV shows (Starsky and Hutch, Police Story, Vega$). In 1979, he helmed the TV movie The Jericho Mile, for which he received a DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Specials. Thief marked Manns first feature film project. Manns screenplay is loosely based on the novel The Home Invaders, a veritable textbook on robbery, written by Frank Hohimer. The author, a real-life cat burglar, was still in prison at the time the film was being made.

Jim Varney talks to Joan Lunden about how the Ernest craze is sweeping the nation. You see him get to comment on one of his funniest commercials…the merry-go-round spot where he falls off and the camera comes back around and he is still laying on the ground.