To Live and Die in L.A.
All team (173)
Short description
When his partner Jimmy Hart is killed while working alone on a case, Secret Service agent Richard Chance sets out to bring down the counterfeiter responsible. The target is Rick Masters, a skilled and unscrupulous maker of fake currency operating in Los Angeles. Refusing to let the investigation follow normal procedure, Chance pursues Masters through methods that steadily cross the line between police work and crime, while his new partner, John Vukovich, tries to keep him in check.
William Friedkin directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Gerald Petievich, adapting Petievich's novel; Irving H. Levin produced. The film is the sixth of the sixteen features Friedkin directed, arriving after Cruising and before The Guardian. William Petersen plays Chance, with Willem Dafoe as Masters, and John Pankow, Debra Feuer, John Turturro and Dean Stockwell among the main cast. The production involved 52 credited cast members and 173 credited crew.
Released in November 1985, the film had a budget of six million dollars and took about seventeen million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.3 out of 10 from roughly 47,000 votes, on TMDB 7.1 out of 10 from around 840 votes, and its critics' rating stands at 7.2 out of 10 from 53 reviews, close to the audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- At the beginning of the film, Willem Dafoe's character prints money. At that moment, counterfeit money was actually being printed there; a convicted counterfeiter, hired as a consultant, demonstrated how it was done. Every time a helicopter flew over the building, Willem Dafoe felt that it was the police and they would all be arrested any minute.
- Director William Friedkin insisted that everything shown on screen be as realistic as possible. For the scenes involving the printing of dollars, two former convicted counterfeiters were hired as consultants, and FBI agents and police officers were also present on set.
- Gary Sinise initially auditioned for the role of Chance, and it was he who suggested William Petersen to William Friedkin when he himself failed to pass the audition.
- The car chase scene was filmed last. It took 6 weeks to shoot.
- Film director William Friedkin recounted that the counterfeit money turned out to be of such high quality that when some bills were accidentally left unattended on the set one day, representatives from the Secret Service (which was under the jurisdiction of the US Department of the Treasury until 2003) and the Attorney General's Office contacted him.
- Prison scenes were filmed at a correctional facility in San Luis Obispo County (west central California), and actual inmates incarcerated there played the roles of prisoners.
- For the paintings of Masters, played by Willem Dafoe, the filmmakers used works by German artist Rainer Fetting. In one scene in the church, he even briefly appeared on screen as a priest.
- Legendary cinematographer Robbie Müller refused to shoot the car chase scene; instead, it was filmed by second unit cinematographer Robert D. Yeoman.
- Despite the film crew’s best efforts, some counterfeit bills were still taken from the set and put into circulation.
- Friedkin decided not to include a scene filmed near the end of the film, in which Vukovich attempts to reconcile with his ex-wife. These scenes can be found on the DVD release of the film. The director later stated that he no longer remembered why he had filmed the scene, and said he regretted having done so.
- In the final scene at the warehouse after the shootout, when the ammunition has run out, the hero John Pankow continues to pull the trigger. The audience hears clicks, but the revolver's cylinder does not rotate.
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