First Blood (film)
First Blood (aka Rambo: First Blood) is the first film featuring the character of troubled Vietnam War veteran John Rambo. It starred Sylvester Stallone as Rambo, Brian Dennehy as Sheriff Will Teasle, and Richard Crenna as Col. Samuel Trautman.
Taglines:
This
time he's fighting for his life.
A one man war.
Based on a 1972 David
Morrell book of the same name, the film (which differs from the book in many areas)
was directed by Ted Kotcheff, produced by Mario Kassar and Andrew G. Vajna, and
released on Friday, October 22, 1982.
Various screenplays adapted from Morrell's book had been pitched to studios in the years since its publication, but it was only when Stallone, who at the time had limited success outside of the Rocky franchise (most of his non-Rocky films either barely broke even or were flops altogether), decided to become involved with the project that it was finally brought into production.
Stallone’s star power after the success of the Rocky films enabled him to suggest changes to the script, to make the character of John Rambo more sympathetic. While Morrell's book has the Rambo character kill many of his pursuers, in the movie version, Rambo does not directly cause the death of any police or national guardsmen.
Prior to Stallone taking the role, Steve McQueen expressed interest in it.[citation needed] Just before shooting began, Kirk Douglas quit the role of Col. Trautman over a script dispute; Douglas wanted the film to end as the book did, with the death of the Rambo character.[citation needed] Richard Crenna was quickly hired as a replacement; the role of Trautman became the veteran character actor's most famous role, his performance of which received much critical praise and talk of an Academy Award nomination. A suicide scene was filmed, but ultimately, Kotcheff and Stallone opted to have Rambo turn himself in at Trautman's urging.
First Blood, which had a modest shooting budget of $14 million, became a major hit, going on to earn an estimated $47 million in North America and $78 million overseas.
Cast
Sylvester Stallone - John J. Rambo
Richard Crenna - Col. Samuel Trautman
Brian Dennehy - Hope Sheriff Will Teasle
Bill McKinney
- State Police Capt. Dave Kern
Jack Starrett - Deputy Sgt. Arthur Galt
Michael Talbott - Deputy Balford
Chris Mulkey - Deputy
Ward
John McLiam - Orval the Dog Man
Alf Humphreys - Deputy Lester
David Caruso - Deputy Mitch
David L. Crowley - Deputy Shingleton (as David
Crowley)
Don MacKay - Preston (as Don Mackay)
Charles A. Tamburro -
Pilot (as Chuck Tamburro)
David Petersen - Trooper
Craig Huston - Radio
operator (as Craig Wright Huston)
Patrick Stack - National
Guard Lt. Clinton Morgan
Stephen E. Miller - Guardsman #1
Raimund Stamm
- Guardsman #2
Robert Metcalfe - Guardsman #3
Stephen Dimopoulos - Guardsman
#4
Bruce Greenwood - Guardsman #5
Earl Klein - Guardsman
#6
Danny Wozna - Boy
Peter Lonstrup - Attendant
Mike Winlaw - TV
reporter
Donald Adams - Don (National Guard commanding
officer)
David Menzies - Miner
Frank Richter - Man on street #1
Graham L. Galativik - Man on street #2
Ian Hutchinson - Man on street #3
Amy Alexander - Woman on street
Gary Hetherington
- Hunter
Alex Kliner - Hunter
R.G. Miller - Hunter
rest of cast
listed alphabetically:
Stephen Chang - VC Commander (uncredited)
Suzee Pai - (uncredited)
John Rigg - Bobby (base camp
radio operator)
Trivia
Plot
The film centers on John Rambo, a former member of the US Army's Green Berets (an elite Special Forces unit) who fought in Vietnam and was a Medal of Honor recipient for his actions there. Rambo has difficulty adjusting to civilian life and wanders the country as a drifter. The film begins as he is seeking out his friend Delmore Barry, apparently the only other Special Forces member from his unit to make it out of Vietnam alive.
Rambo finds out from Barry's widow that he died from cancer due to Agent Orange exposure, and she is clearly very upset that she lost the man she loved and is also left to eke out a meager existence on her own. Rambo, in an attempt to offer some cold comfort to her, gives her the photograph of her husband's unit. This also hurts Rambo deeply as now he realizes that he is the last of his unit.
Left to continue drifting, Rambo runs afoul of Will
Teasle, the sheriff of a small Washington State mountain resort town called Hope
(set in Hope, WA. - filmed in Hope, British Columbia). Teasle drives Rambo out
of town while telling him the people of Hope don't appreciate people of his kind:
drifters. Rambo asks for a place to eat, but Teasle refuses him courtesy in the
town. Rambo is dropped outside of town but heads back, refusing to be pushed out.
Teasle forcefully stops and arrests Rambo for vagrancy, resisting arrest, and
carrying a concealed weapon, a large survival knife, which he claims is for hunting.
Teasle brings Rambo back to the station, where he is beaten by Art Gault (Jack
Starrett), the sheriff's sadistic head deputy. Some of the officers are sympathetic
to Rambo, but are also ignorant or meek. During the beatings, Rambo has flashbacks
to his time as a prisoner of war. The sight of a straight razor, as the deputies
attempt to shave him, brings to Rambo's mind horrible torture when he was a POW
and causes Rambo to panic violently. He disables the officers with nothing but
his hands, escapes the police station with his knife, and heads into the mountains
on a stolen motorcycle. Teasle gives pursuit in his police car, which is overturned
after an extended chase. Rambo flees into the hills, wearing only his jeans, shoes
and a tank-top, useless in fending off the cold weather. Rambo quickly improvises
cold weather gear with items he finds at remains of a construction site.
The deputies go after Rambo on foot, aided by a pack of Dobermans, forcing
him to climb down a steep cliff overlooking a river gorge to elude capture. Deputy
Gault, ignoring Teasle's orders to capture Rambo alive, attempts to shoot him
from a helicopter while he is trapped on a ledge, unseen by the other deputies.
Rambo drops into a mass of trees, badly cutting himself, and is cornered by the
helicopter again. He throws a rock at it, causing it to pitch heavily and drop
Gault into the gorge, killing him. After sewned the wound, Rambo tries to surrender
peacefully saying "I don't want anymore hurt.", but Teasle ignores this
and opens fire on him, vowing to avenge his life-long friend's death.
Rambo's status as a former Green Beret is revealed at this point, prompting Mitch (David Caruso) to suggest that Teasle back down and let the State Police handle it. Teasle grabs Mitch and reminds him that he and Gault were friends while Mitch was still getting his nose wiped and vows to "pin the Congressional Medal of Honor to his (Rambo's) liver".
John Rambo confronts the Sheriff.Teasle
leads his deputies into the woods in an attempt to capture Rambo. The deputies
are inexperienced and fight amongst themselves, making them easy targets. Rambo
kills the Dobermans and disables the deputies using guerrilla war tactics, severely
wounding but not killing them. Rambo then confronts Teasle, knife to his throat.
He threatens chaos should he be pursued again: "I could have killed them
all. I could have killed you. In town it's the law, out here it's me. Don't push
it. Don't push it or I'll give you a war you won't believe. Let it go. Let it
go."
Richard Crenna as Colonel Samuel Trautman.Rambo then leaves
suddenly. Teasle is clearly shaken, but refuses to give in. He calls in the National
Guard and the State Police. A TV broadcast of the incident gets the attention
of Rambo's former commanding officer, Colonel Samuel Trautman, who warns the searchers
that trying to capture Rambo is suicidal; his combat training and experience make
him far better than anyone they have. Trautman suggests letting Rambo go; they
can probably pick him up working at a car wash and nobody else will get hurt.
Teasle dismisses that advice, claiming that Trautman was only sent by the Pentagon
to save face.
When the National Guard unit finds Rambo holed up in a mine entrance, they are afraid to go after him and take the easy way out- firing a M72 LAW (shoulder-fired rocket launcher) and collapsing the mine. Teasle is furious, as he wanted Rambo alive, but eventually accepts that his nemesis is dead. Unbeknownst to his pursuers, Rambo survives the explosion and cave-in. He crawls through tunnels in the mine, struggling to keep his torch burning and fighting rabid rats. Eventually he finds an exit near a main road. Rambo then steals an Army truck with an M60 Machine gun from the National Guardsmen and returns to Hope. Rambo then takes out his frustration on Teasle's "quiet little town" by destroying a gas station, a local surplus store, and a sporting goods shop.
John
Rambo fires a M60 Machine gun.Trautman talks to Teasle for the final time, advising
him to give up his mania of stopping Rambo. Teasle staunchly refuses, saying he's
not afraid of his inevitable death. Trautman candidly tells him that it's clear
which of them has any chance at survival, but not because Trautman is better then
Rambo; the simple fact that Rambo trusts him is the only advantage he needs. Teasle
is stunned at this callousness, but says that nothing will take "his town"
away from him. He himself hides on the roof, hoping to catch Rambo running around.
Rambo thwarts this by destroying power lines and cutting all the lights in the
town, making it impossible for Teasle to catch Rambo.
Rambo spots Teasle on the roof. After destroying the station, he manages to badly wound the sheriff and bring him down through a skylight. Teasle curses Rambo with what he thinks will be his final words. Meanwhile, the state police have surrounded the building, cutting off every way out.
Rambo is about to finish what he's started
when Colonel Trautman appears and tells him that his mini-war is over; there's
no hope of escaping alive, saying "It's Over Johnny. It's Over." Rambo
responds with, "Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don't turn it off! It
wasn't my war. You asked me, I didn't ask you!" He goes on to talk of the
people protesting him at the airport. He then rages about how what meant something
in the war - honor and loyalty - means nothing in the real world. He breaks down
sobbing and tells a story about his friend Danforth who was blown to pieces in
a Saigon bar by a shoe shining boy. He exclaims, "I can't get it out of my
head. Seven years. Every day I have this. Sometimes I wake up and don't know where
I am. I don't talk to anybody. Sometimes a day. Sometimes a week. I can't put
it out of my mind." With no purpose left, Rambo gives himself up to the authorities.
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