We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
There's violence, of course, in any true picture of crime. "Lee Marvin Presents — Lawbreaker" is as true as actual police files can make it. The documentary series, a Rapier-Latimer-UA-TV Production, is filmed in the real locations, using many real participants.
I admit I sometimes underplay violence in vicious fight scenes. If I played such scenes with realism, it would really horrify you — and myself! But I am still as close to realism as my own censorship will allow.
You see, I have my own code of ethics on acting.
I think to myself, "Does it have a theatrical value to the audience instead of only being realistic?" Sometimes I go past realism for theatrical value — yet the effect is even more realistic than it would otherwise be.
If violence is portrayed in a true theatrical manner, it has a creative rather than a destructive influence. The good things in life are shown to be that much brighter, from realizing its contrast to violence — as white is to black.
Three years and 117 episodes of playing Lt. Bollinger in "M Squad" became like a strait-jacket to me. Of course, I wasn't a heavy in that series. I was a cop in Chicago. The point is, we sold theatrical realism. We sold bravery that exists in fiction, not in reality. Who in real life ever shot as many people as Bollinger did?
The show (still seen in re-runs) couldn't have been too wrong, though. Most of the law enforcement officials I met liked it! That's because we were never too far out. We stuck within the realms of plausibility.
I have my own board of review at home: a wife and four
children ranging from five to ten. The children are all at the impressionable age. When I'm working, I say to myself, "I'd better do it well or they'll think I'm a phony." I want them to believe what they see, when I'm involved in a traumatic situation on-screen.
If I succeed, they'll say, "Daddy's a nice man, but he can be bad." Then I realize they got the message — that violence is such a horrible emotion, one should certainly think carefully before committing a destructive act.
Let's face the facts. Most of the time, when you see a fight on the screen, it looks easy. If there was any real violence, the persons watching would see what could happen — and that would be enough to stop the fight in the first place! When a guy gets into a fight then, he knows it's for real.
Regardless of how I play a violent scene, you'll always see me making it as violent (theatrical or otherwise) as I know how. If I can show how horrible it is to kill a guy slowly, I know the audience will see it, too.
They'll get my overall point, which is: Don't be influenced by that brute you see on TV. He's only playing a role which, in many shows, isn't even authentic.
Violence is a serious matter.
It's something to think twice about, before turning tiger!
— as told to Peter J. Levinson
63