Kirk Douglas almost played in one of the most emblematic action films of Sylvester Stallone

Aside from Rocky Balboa, John J. Rambo is the best known role of Sylvester Stallone, and as “Rocky” from 1976, the inaugural film “Rambo” had to overcome so many obstacles, it was a wonder that it was made in the first place. The 1982 “First Blood” script seems to have been one of the most problematic scenarios in Hollywood history (alongside the John Travolta Sci-Fi Flopta script that haunted his writer for years). Not only did Sly completely rewrite the scenario after having come on board to play, but it seems that the Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas abandoned the project because of creative differences with this same script.

“First Blood” sees the Vietnam veterinarian of Stallone and the old green beret go home in the United States which is not so happy to see him. After escaping the police custody and abstaining at the Washington Wilderness, Rambo is forced to take the Police forces of Hope, Washington alongside the State and the National Guard, which of course manages with relative ease. While the sheriff of Brian Dennehy, William Teasle, focuses on dropping the soldier Voyou, Colonel Samuel R. Trautman by Richard Crenna takes care of his advice. The former Rambo commander even offers a classic warning to Teasle and Co. When he says: “I did not come here to save Rambo from you, I came here to save you from him.”

This is the kind of thing that Stallone wanted more in the script. Sly initially thought that “First Blood” would ruin his career and had asked for important receipts which reduced his dialogue to a minimum and allowed other characters to talk about him, thus transforming Rambo into a sort of mythical all-powerful figure that others speak in misty tones. Obviously, no change in script was going to suit Kirk Douglass, however, who was originally ready to deliver the line of Trautman but who left the “first blood” due to “artistic differences”. In reality, he and director Ted Kotcheff could simply not agree on the dialogue of Trautman, and Douglas left despite the shooting of certain scenes.

It was not just script problems that held the inaugural film of Rambo. The “First Blood” shooting in Canada has led to a series of delays and according to AFI, producer Ed Carlin underwent a heart attack before being replaced by Buzz Feitshans. AFI also cites December 1981 Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety numbers as indicating that Kirk Douglas was initially interpreted as Colonel Samuel R. Trautman, and was even present in Vancouver for filming, but left the project by claiming “artistic differences”. At the time, the points of sale reported that these differences had to do with the script and the following year, the New York Times said that Douglas was initially played a “role of important cameo as a trainer of the army of Mr. Stallone” but that the actor “left after his little flashy cameo was radically cut”. But in the years following their emergence of these reports, we have learned a little more about what prompted the legend of the screen to leave production.

In 2017, the director of “First Blood”, Ted Kotcheff, spoke with Entertainment Weekly of Douglas time on the film and painted a fairly flattering image of the star of the veterans. According to Kotcheff, Douglas flew to Vancouver and was there for the very beginning of production, but was, according to the director, “a strange man”. As Kotcheff remembered, the actor “had a disturbing way of always talking about him in the third person” and demanded that he be authorized to say lines which were originally written for other characters, despite the director’s attempts to change his mind. “He was a big star,” said Kotcheff. “We wanted to lean back. I sent him the script when he performed in a room in San Francisco. He loved the script and said he wanted to do it. Then, when he went up there, he started to quarrely, before he even started to shoot.” This line should be changed. “” I don’t like this scene. “I said to the producers:” I can’t please this guy “”, said the director. “‘I rewritten this fucking scene four times trying to incorporate the things he says to me, then when he sees it in front of the page, he doesn’t like it.'”

Finally, Kotcheff received the green light to face Douglas and asked the star of “paths of glory” if he would simply be ready to turn the script they had written. Alas, the actor did not. “He said:” Okay, Kirk Douglas returns to Los Angeles. “”

After the departure of Kirk Douglas “First Blood”, Richard Crenna came to play Colonel Trautman. Although he was not as great as Douglas and was never going to be as perfectly played in the role that Sylvester Stallone was in the lead, he did an admirable job and brought decades of experience to a role that required a certain authority and wisdom. Crenna has also played the role in the next two films, and was there for the transformation of John J. Rambo of the veterinarian of Vietnam haunted to the unstoppable killing machine. But it seems that it belongs only in the first film. In fact, each of the characters, including Rambo himself, came only in a single film by Rambo as “First Blood”-which remains the best Rambo film to date-was initially supposed to be a single-don.

In his interview EW, Ted Kotcheff explained how he had considered the film as “Rambo’s suicide mission”, in which a soldier deeply disturbed by his role in the Vietnam War was a last unleashing which ended with him surrounded by the police and the army. “The colonel arrives there to get him out of his misery,” said Kotcheff of the original end. “”[Rambo] Said, “I know you have a pistol under your jacket there. You created me. Now you have to kill me. And he takes out the pistol. But [The Colonel] I can’t do it, of course. But Rambo reaches the hand, press the trigger and go out. The whole scene was terribly moving. He kills himself! “”

It was to be the grand finale of the film, and the crew even shot this scene before Sylvester Stallone suggests keeping Rambo alive and they reworked it to leave the hero intact. If Douglas had remained on the project, it would have been his biggest moment throughout the film, with Kotcheff grateful that he would have been the one who had the pistol that the hero of Sly uses to end his life. In the end, neither Douglas ni Crenna appear in this scene, which was replaced by the version in which Rambo survives, thus preparing it for several suites (and a sacred count).