New SZ movie debuts next month

[clervaux]

A new movie entitled Truth starring Stephanie Zimbalist and Dean Cain debuts next month on the Lifetime Channel. The production company Regent Entertainment www.regententertainment.com/thrillers.html provides this synopsis:

When a female reporter is killed while investigating a story, her best friend from college and her former journalism professor make the resolution to retrace her steps and solve her murder.

Lifetime www.lifetimetv.com provides a different capsule of the plot:

Two reporters learn that their mentor was killed while working on an assignment about corrupt land deals and decide to finish the investigation and solve her murder. They pick up the pieces and follow the story to the top of the local government.

The movie first airs on Monday, January 16, 2006 at 8:00 pm (CST) and is repeated on January 17th and 25th.

[Ace]

I assume Rregent Entertainment's is the more accurate since they produced it. It also makes sense for SZ to be the former professor since she's older than Cain (presumably the best friend)

Here's a photo:

[sparklingblue]

She still has the lovely Laura hair.

I hope I'll get to watch this in Germany as well some time.

[clervaux]

admin said:

I assume Rregent Entertainment's is the more accurate since they produced it. It also makes sense for SZ to be the former professor since she's older than Cain (presumably the best friend)

Yes, I would agree with you since Zimbalist and Cain are the "names" here and those roles would be age appropriate. Funny that Remington Steele (PB) has worked with Lois Lane (Terri Hatcher) and now Laura Holt (SZ) has worked with Clark Kent (Dean Cain). Can Maddie Hayes and David Addison be far behind?

[Ace]

Well PB already did a guest appaerance cameo as "Steele" on Moonlighting in the epsiode The Straight Poop.

For the future, I hope for SZ's career she works with Willis, and hope for PB's he's not working with Cybil Shepard.

[clervaux]

Agreed, working again with Shepard would certainly not be moving PB's career forward .....

[Yuliya]

And pairing PB with Willis instead will be a bit like Season 5 with PB getting out a lockpick and Willis kicking out the door?

[Ace]

yuliya said:

And pairing PB with Willis instead will be a bit like Season 5 with PB getting out a lockpick and Willis kicking out the door?

Well hopefully Willis would do it with more panache and actorly skill than Jack Scalia.

As for the lock picking, maybe unlike in Steele Pierce would be able to do it correctly.

Remember there was discussion on one of the Steele lists that they picked locks incorrectly on the show, well there's a reason. Have you listened to any of the commentaries on Season 2 yet? Gleason says TV's Standard & Practices said they couldn't show them picking locks because it would help criminals, so Gleason said wat if we showed it but wrong -- and they said that was OK. Voila!

Ace

[Yuliya]

admin said:

Well hopefully Willis would do it with more panache and actorly skill than Jack Scalia.

Of coures, he will. And he'll play a more likeable character, too.

admin said:

Remember there was discussion on one of the Steele lists that they picked locks incorrectly on the show, well there's a reason. Have you listened to any of the commentaries on Season 2 yet? Gleason says TV's Standard & Practices said they couldn't show them picking locks because it would help criminals, so Gleason said wat if we showed it but wrong -- and they said that was OK. Voila!

I can't truthfully answer the entire question without losing your respect.

No, I don't remember this discussion, even though I though at some point I went back reading old messages. Must've missed it somehow or maybe it was some other board. I didn't know Steele did it wrong; I don't know how it's done. It makes sense, though, that they wouldn't show the right technique, though I doubt that it'll help that much anyway; lock-picking can't be as easy as twisting a bobby pin in a lock - for majority of locks, at least.

[Lauryn]

No, I don't remember this discussion, even though I though at some point I went back reading old messages. Must've missed it somehow or maybe it was some other board. I didn't know Steele did it wrong; I don't know how it's done. It makes sense, though, that they wouldn't show the right technique, though I doubt that it'll help that much anyway; lock-picking can't be as easy as twisting a bobby pin in a lock - for majority of locks, at least.

There was a long ago discussion of this over on Mysterynet, in fact, I started it, LOL! I'll cut and paste the relevant post to make it easy on myself:

.. One item which never failed to inspire sarcasm was that Steele couldn't pick locks properly. There are more specialized tools (and locks) available these days but historically and in the 80's one needed two (not a mere hairpin): something to apply torque (bending the pins in turn in a clockwise direction) and a picking tool and both must operate in unison. Even on a show which I didn't have much use for like Magnum, PI they show the hero employing this method.

Maybe the showrunners at Magnum P.I. were bribing the bullyboys at Standards and Practices. Miami Vice, if I'm not mistaken, did it more or less correctly, too. I expect there's a strong likelihood that the censors might insist on, say, leaving out a step in what MacGyver might be rigging up so an impressionable child won't learn how to build his own gas-powered nailgun, that kind of thing. But, really, how often is TV lock-picking shown in extreme close-up? Even if it were, it's all done by feel anyway. The visual effect of it on screen could easily be left alone, for the sake of a touch of realism -- if one wants to bother. Of course, you could argue that the effect of doing it "wrong" is more old-movie-ish, and thus, more fitting for the show (old Hollywood generally liking the hairpin method). But that might get Mr. Steele drummed out of the union. Well, that, and the rumour about the "hospital standard."

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think there is a rogue episode of RS that shows the basic "two-tools" method, unless my eyes are playing tricks. Don't remember which.

(I should qualify, when talking method, that this relates to the garden variety door locks Steele usually picks in an eye-blink, not anything electronic or magnetic or such of an 80's vintage.)

[sparklingblue]

I think even if Mr Steele does not pick locks correctly, which I would have never noticed if you hadn't mentioned it here, he is easily vindicated by his expertise in opening saves "by ear".

[Yuliya]

I don't remember this discussion in MysteryNet; it was probably before my time.

Just like Lauryn, I can visualize a lock being picked with two wires, but not only can't I remember where it was, I'm not even sure it was done in RS. And while this technique will certainly work with more locks than the one-bobby-pin trick RS often did, it seems so right for Mr. Steele to open locks with one swift movement. "It's all in the wrist, Mildred." He just wouldn't go down on his knees, bending two wires in just the right way to force them into the lock, it would go against the image.

[Ace]

This is true, the ease and style with which Mr Steele picks locks trumps any need for versimiltude, and what's to saya master like Mr Steele needs the common tools of the trade anyway?

[curious george]

Back to the original post or two...

I like Dean Cain. Did anyone see him being his usual attractive Clark Kent self on L&O recently -- then turning out to be an absolutely disgusting creature? What is it with him taking on these Scott Peterson personas lately? It's particularly creepy because he seems like the nice guy type.

cg

[Lauryn]

sparklingblue said:

I think even if Mr Steele does not pick locks correctly, which I would have never noticed if you hadn't mentioned it here, he is easily vindicated by his expertise in opening saves "by ear".

My apologies. I feel like such a heel, LOL! I hope I haven't wrecked the illusion. I just brought up that old Mysterynet post because I thought it might be what Yuliya was thinking back on.

Michael Gleason's blaming the situation on network S&P's did strike me as a bit of a red herring, though. As I mentioned before, other shows in the 80's did a more proper job of it without the scenes hitting the cutting room floor. I think Ace and Yuliya's instincts are right, it's ultimately a question of style, and (despite what Gleason claims) I think that's really the level at which these decisions were made. A show billed more as a crime drama, or at least with pretensions to same like Miami Vice, had to appear more realistic; RS has always been more about old Hollywood-style thievery and roguery than realism and Steele's preternatural ease and artistry when applying that same lock picking skill also goes to a primary facet of his character.

One can show lock picking realistically on film, and it can still look elegant, but it does require a certain dexterity and proper angle. Given that RS had to show the technique fairly frequently I'm sure Gleason decided, given the look and ethos of the show, doing it "by the book" was both antithetical and more trouble than it would be worth when filming and a hairpin or single pick would do. And besides PB has all that lovely banter to concentrate on, those scenes being an excellent venue for same. That said, if I were writing a fanfic, I'd have Steele do it properly -- in my head and if it were described -- but I'm not under the gun filming an episode per week, LOL!

To be fair to Mr. Steele, it is quite possible, I'm told, to pick certain padlocks and handcuffs with a stiff piece of wire or a bobbypin. And there are a few cheap door locks that, after wear and tear on them, may not absolutely require a tension wrench, so one pick would suffice. That is, according to my quick refresher from some internet sites on the subject.

[Yuliya]

It's absolutely possible to pick some padlocks with one bent piece of wire; I saw it being done by one of the boys at summer camp, when we both we in very early teens, if not even younger.

Lauryn, you don't have to worry about ruining anything for me; I know locks and safes aren't picked up that easily. Men like Mr. Steele don't come round the bend every day, either, so what? Thanks for posting the piece from MysteryNet.

[sparklingblue]

My apologies. I feel like such a heel, LOL! I hope I haven't wrecked the illusion. I just brought up that old Mysterynet post because I thought it might be what Yuliya was thinking back on.

No need for apologies--I'm not disillusioned at all. My love for Steele was never down to his expertise in lock-picking.

And besides, Harry Potter also picks locks using only a pin. I came across that in one of the first chapters of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets today.

[Yuliya]

Who needs good locks when all doors are protected by spells?

[sparklingblue]

It was the lock to his own room at the Dursleys'. I'm sure they are the last people to protect their locks with spells.

[Yuliya]

No, of course not. But then, they probably jus twent in for a cheap lock, the kind that can be opened with just one pin.