Customer Reviews

A & E Biography: Bob Crane a Double Life

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As I placed this in the VCR, my first thought was, "How will this compare to 'Auto-Focus'?" Then, I thought further and remembered to compare it to "A Murder in Scottsdale," the documentary on the "Auto-Focus" DVD. Here is some of my analysis.

This focused more on Crane's beginnings, rather than his tragic end. "Hogan's Heroes" doesn't come up until 20 minutes into the work. John Carpenter isn't brought up that much, compared to the A-F DVD. Whereas that DVD implied that Carpenter committed the crime even if a court didn't find him guilty, this work moved by the principle that he didn't if a court found him innocent. Besides saying, "like a jilted lover," the work never implied that Carpenter had a rainbow-flag nature. This work said nothing about Carpenter's Native American identity, unlike Willem Dafoe's character that suggested he was an "FBI" (full-blooded Indian) and then retracted upon that. As these events were happening in the Civil Rights and post-civil rights eras, I am surprised that neither this documentary nor A-F touched on the unique nature of this interracial friendship in that time period.

If I looked correctly, this documentary came out three years before the film. You can tell as Bob Crane's son is thinner and has less gray in his beard. This work only shows one of his daughters and the youngest child Scotty is never seen in this nor the A-F special features documentary, although he speaks often on his father through the Internet.

One interviewee said, "Marilyn Monroe slept with many men and that hasn't eclipsed her popularity and yet Crane's last years are held against him." In a way this is a good point. However, Marilyn had a significant body of work while Crane is known mostly just for his TV sitcom. This work said he had a failed, short-lived talk show, a fact never mentioned on the A-F DVD.

The documentary shows a bit of his home videos, but you see quick flashes of women undressed, but never Crane himself. But one amazing photo of him and his tool can be found elsewhere if you do your homework.

This will make you think about how tragedy can be interesting. It's soooo sad that 1,700 people died on the Titanic and a century later millions can't learn enough about that. As much as Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes upset me, info on him and his evil deeds are still fascinating almost 20 years after the fact. This work, like "Auto-Focus," asks how can a wholesome man turn into a raunchy one. That question is what draws me to almost anything about Mr. Crane.

This work was not award-winning. However, I appreciate that it exists and gave me more to learn.