We’re talking about Heat this week on the Everything Actioncast for its 30th anniversary, but you can watch Michael Mann’s first take on the story, L.A. Takedown, in the latest Everything Action Theater. Originally pitched as a TV series pilot to NBC, the project was reworked and aired as a TV movie in 1989. Scott Plank portrayed LAPD detective Vincent Hanna while Alex McArthur played criminal Patrick McLaren (who became Neil McCauley in Heat). The plot follows many of the same beats as Heat, such as the opening armored truck robbery and the massive shootout on the streets of Los Angeles, and many scenes include dialogue lifted verbatim into Heat. Michael Rooker, Daniel Baldwin, the late Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa, and Xander Berkeley co-starred in the movie, with Berkeley playing the psychotic Waingro. Berkeley returned in a minor role in Heat, playing Ralph. After directing The Last of the Mohicans, Mann returned to a longer draft of L.A. Takedown that he had written in 1986 and developed it into his iconic crime epic. You can watch L.A. Takedown below via the Internet Archive.
