Thoughts: Frank Abagnale, Jr.

“Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream.”

Frank Abagnale, Jr. donned a pilot’s uniform and copiloted a Pan Am jet, masqueraded as the supervising resident of a hospital, practiced law without a license, passed himself off as a college professor, and cashed over $2.5 million in forged cheques across America and around the world — all before he was twenty-one.

Let’s just say Frank Abagnale had major cojones. Reading his autobiography, “Catch me If You Can”, I was pleasantly surprised at how much of Steven Spielberg’s film was taken directly from Abagnale’s life and not exaggerated. Only the family circumstances from which Abagnale came from are  slightly altered in the movie.

Yes, Abagnale was actually on To Tell the Truth.

If anything, the amount of detail that went into his cons and stays in prison are downplayed. One example comes to mind: Peripignan. This is the prison from which Hanratty (Tom Hanks) extradites Abagnale (DiCaprio) to the States in the film. (This wasn’t the case in real life. He was extradited to the States from Sweden.) Abagnale was detained in Peripignan, France for six months. You might think six months isn’t that big of a deal for the amount of money he swindled out of the French People; Abagnale thought it was a light sentence as well. But then he saw his prison cell: “It was a hole, a raised dungeon perhaps five feet wide, five feet high and five feet deep, with a ceiling and door of steel and a floor and walls of stone”. Abagnale’s initial horror is only the tip of the iceberg. He was almost dead by the time he completed his sentence. Watching the film, I thought he was still conning Hanratty when he was coughing in his prison cell.

France wasn’t the only country with a warrant for Abagnale’s arrest. After his stint in Peripignan, he was transferred to Sweden for another six months while the governments of Italy, Spain, Turkey, Germany, England, Switzerland, Greece, Denmark, Norway, Egypt, Lebanon and Cyprus made formal requests to extradite Abagnale. Those goverments, however, never got the chance to arrest Abagnale. He was extradited to the United States. The plane didn’t even touch the ground before Abagnale was running again. If you’ve seen the Spielberg film, you have an idea of what I mean. Eventually, an RCMP caught up with Abagnale in Montreal and Abagnale’s short-yet-infamous career as a criminal ended.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to get across with this post. It’s not a review of the autobiography or the film, but rather a push for people to get out there and buy both of them. We all read books and watch movies for one thing and one thing only — for a world that is bigger and better and larger than life. For a good couple of years, Frank W. Abagnale, Jr. was able to recreate that ideal experience and live it for real. I find that pretty spectacular, you know, besides the — er — illegal aspects… Oh, by the way, I just got a job with the government.

Notes: Directed by Steven Spielberg; Produced by Steven Spielberg, Michel Shane, Walter F. Parkes, Laurie MacDonald; Written by Jeff Nathanson, Frank Abagnale, Stan Redding; Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks; Music by John Williams; Cinematography by Janusz Kamiński; Editing by Michael Kahn.