Speed 2 Month Day 15: Jaeckel, not Hyde

Fifteen days into Speed 2 Month and only one negative comment means I must be doing well. On the other hand, maybe most people just agree that SPEED 2 is just the eyesore on American filmmaking that I’m trying to portray. Maybe.

As has been noted, SPEED 2 was released on June 13^th, 1997. On June 14^th of that year, Hollywood had another reason to weep, as Richard Jaeckel lost his battle with cancer. Jaeckel had a lengthy acting career on the large and small screen, mostly in supporting roles. Many of them were villainous or tough guy parts, where his bright blue eyes added an eerie dimension to the characters. Surprisingly, he also appeared as heroic figures, usually in war films. While not typecast in specific roles, he rarely received top billing, even though he worked steadily.

Western aficionados would remember him from the original 3:10 TO YUMA, Director Sam Peckinpah’s PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID or even the John Wayne history bender, CHISUM. War movie buffs would recall THE SANDS OF IWO JIMA, ATTACK! or, most likely, THE DIRTY DOZEN. All of these are good, if not great, films (although some may find CHISUM too stark Republican or even outright incorrect – history can be a right bitch at times), and all tower above the rusty trombone that is SPEED 2. In fact, if you look at some of the turkeys Jaeckel appeared in, I’m sure you’d find all of those are hands above the performances given in Jan de Bont’s whorefest film. Who’s seen THE GREEN SLIME? AIRPLANE II: THE SEQUEL? How about MAKO: THE JAWS OF DEATH? All of these were better than SPEED 2 just because Richard Jaeckel appeared in them.

Jaeckel’s final role was on the TnA wank show BAYWATCH. I… well… a man’s got to eat.

Besides acting alongside great film macho men such as John Wayne, James Coburn, Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, Jaeckel was one of those anomalous Hollywood journeymen who stayed married to his wife for 50 years. One of his sons became a pro golfer, winning the PGA Tour in 1978, obviously uninterested in Hollyweird. Melanoma took the veteran actor after three years, and there’s a quote from the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) that I’ll share, which sums up this guy pretty well. “I know people are pulling for me to beat this thing, but let them have a glass at the bar for me and let it go at that.”