1988’sDie Hardwas an excellent and tightly crafted film thatset the standard for action films of an entire generationand went on to inspire an entire series of excellent sequels. AndA Good Day to Die Hard. Even beyond the popularity of its own series, though,Die Hardhad an impact on action films that is still felt today: films that have an outmatched and down-to-earth hero in an enclosed environment doing everything he can to survive and win while dealing with the fallout from the actions of his past. Films likeAir Force One(Die Hardon a plane) and more recent films likeOlympus Has Fallen(Die Hardin the White House) to some degree owe their existence to the masterful formula and blueprint that the originalDie Hardfilm provided for the world of action movies. The superlative popularity of theDie Hardfranchise aside, the cinematic debt owed by the action movie genre to the original film hides an ironic twist: namely, that despite its originality,Die Hardis actually (arguably) not even the first film in its own franchise. And the actual original film, far from being a crowd-pleasing high-octane and intense action movie, is a gritty and edgy 1960s noir-style investigative murder mystery story starringFrank Sinatra,calledThe Detective.
Frank Sinatra Was the Original John McClane
To start off,The Detectiveis not officially connected to the franchise, butDie Hardowes an interesting debt to the earlier film.Die Harditself was a script that originally came out of a book:Nothing Lasts Forever, by Roderick Thorp. That book featured a retired NYPD officer named Joe Leland who came to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve and found himself fighting his way through a series of German terrorists and their leader to save his daughter and grandchildren who had been taken hostage. Some details were changed for the script, including the protagonist’s name and age, but the basic development of the plot remained the same between book and film.
RELATED:‘Die Hard’ Review: Bruce Willis & Alan Rickman Highlight a Christmas Action Classic
Where this becomes more interesting, though, is that the bookNothing Lasts Foreverwas actually asequelto an earlier book byRoderick Thorp, starring the same central character in Joe Leland. The book, originally published in 1966, was turned into a film of the same name in 1968.The Detectiveis in many ways extremely different from its later and more famous legacy. Instead of a guns-blazing action film, it is a somber and slow detective film with extensive (and mostly unnecessary) flashbacks. Instead of a quippyBruce Willis,it features a surprisingly nuanced performance by Frank Sinatra later in his film career. Instead of terrorists, it focuses on murder mysteries and suicides. In lieu of crowd-pleasing action and narrow escapes, the script focuses on topics that were edgy and pushed the boundaries of acceptability in the 1960s: namely, police corruption and a (somewhat) sympathetic take on homosexuality.
‘Die Hard’ and ‘The Detective’ (Practically) Have the Same Protagonist
In other respects, the film also contains many of the elements that are easy to see as the seeds of the later iconic persona of John McClane. While it is difficult to see McClane snooping around for evidence or solving murders with actual proper police procedure, he is a maverick who rubs many of his colleagues and relatives the wrong way, as seen inThe Detective. While Joe Leland would not exactly sound rightpopping off a “yippee ki yay,“the two characters both have an affinity for saltier language, and Sinatra’s monologue as he declaims on the stupidity of an artistic stage play while wolfing down a street hot dog could well have been a deleted flashback fromDie Hard. McClane’s dynamic salt-of-the-earth counterpoint to the sophisticated and suave Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) is one of the strongest consistencies of the character that carries over from the original Leland. Both characters have complicated marriages, and both struggle to save them in unorthodox ways.
How Did Frank Sinatra’s Character Become John McClane?
Perhaps even more curious is the way in which the more famous adaptation of a Thorp novel came to change as much as it did about the original storyline and character. Thorp was originallyinspired to writeNothing Lasts Foreverafter seeing the filmThe Towering Infernoin 1975, and came up with the idea of a man in a skyscraper trying to escape terrorists rather than an encroaching torrent of flame. While the book turned into the quintessential 80s action film, the original storyline was actually much more in line with the themes ofThe Detective. For one thing, the incompetence of the police handling of the hostage situation was more consistent with the corruption and frustration Leland experienced in the NYPD in the earlier story. For another, the ending was much more somber, as in the climactic showdown, when Leland shoots Gruber, the terrorist leader falls to his death and drags Leland’s daughter down with him as both plunge to their death. Leland then symbolically throws all of the money the group was trying to steal out the window himself, as a commentary upon the pointless nature of the endeavor.
Thorp himself originally wrote the story with the idea of a film adaptation and wrote it as a sequel toThe Detectivewith the idea that Frank Sinatra would reprise his role as Leland for the film version. Unfortunately, Sinatra himself, then in his 70s,did not feel up to the task, and so passed on the role. As a result, eventually, the entire character was changed, from an old man to a young one, trying to save his wife rather than his daughter. For the sake of the audiences, as well, a shirtless Bruce Willis admittedly probably cut a better figure than a shirtless 70-year-old Frank Sinatra would have.
‘Die Hard’ & ‘The Detective’ Share More Than Just the Same Author
Though the films are not officially connected, there are actually a few production overlaps between the two that establish a certain continuity. For one thing,Jacqueline BissetinThe Detectiveplayed Norma MacIver, a bereaved woman trying to figure out the mystery of her husband’s apparent suicide. InDie Hard, Bisset’s partnerAlexander Godunovplayed Karl, the chief henchman of Gruber in the film.Lloyd Bochner, who played the psychiatrist Dr. Roberts inThe Detective, also has a connection to the later film, as his sonHart Bochnerplayed the out-of-his-depth Harry Ellis inDie Hard.
Though not officially connected to the later movie,The Detectiveitself is a fascinating film both in its own right and in the way that it carries the curious germ of the later story and central character; much more of a gritty crime drama and much less of an action film thanDie Hard, it nonetheless has a consistency of character with the later film and features an excellent performance from Sinatra; just don’t expect him to ever win a one-on-one match with a fighter jet while driving a truck.
