10 Things You Didn’t Know About Shakedown (1988)

Last month after watching James Glickenhaus’ McBain for the first time, I was reminded of another Glickenhaus film I had planned on revisiting, 1988’s Shakedown.

So I recently popped in the Shout Select Blu-ray release of Shakedown and not only rewatched the movie, but did so with the commentary track on featuring the man himself, James Glickenhaus, who both wrote and directed the film. That commentary track served as the source material for this post as I present 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Shakedown…

1. Glickenhaus chose The Lyric Theater in New York City as Richie Marks’ “home away from home” in Shakedown for sentimental reasons. The Lyric is the theater that The Exterminator had opened in years earlier, where it enjoyed box office success… Marks (Sam Elliott) is “watching” another Glickenhaus movie, The Soldier, at The Lyric when we first meet him. Both The Soldier and The Exterminator are up on the marquee of The Lyric early on in the film, then later in the movie, the marquee changed to 1987’s Fatal Beauty, a movie that ironically starred Sam Elliott.

2. Glickenhaus got the idea for Shakedown after reading a story in the New York Times about an undercover cop who was killed by a drug dealer.

3. About three weeks prior to the movie shooting on 42nd Street (or The Deuce for those in the know), the NYPD had every rookie cop looking for overtime work the area and make as many arrests as possible to send a message to the skells to move on and most of them did.

4. Production was able to shut down 42nd Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue from midnight to 6am for four consecutive nights to shoot the big shootout scene between Big Leroy (Henry Judd Baker) and the cops (including Richie Marks) and the start of the chase scene with Marks and Roland Dalton (Peter Weller) on motorcycle as they pursue Leroy after he steals a car during his escape attempt.

5. On the commentary track, James Glickenhaus mentioned that Sam Elliott’s Richie Marks carried a Desert Eagle pistol in Shakedown. That information turned out to not be accurate. The gun that Marks carried was actually an LAR Grizzly. Thank you to those who sent over the correction.

6. The historic Tweed Courthouse, named after William M. Tweed (the corrupt leader of Tammany Hall when the courthouse was being built), was used for all of the court room scenes in Shakedown.

7. Warner Brothers originally made an offer to distribute Shakedown, but after viewing the movie they were worried that Clint Eastwood would be offended that his iconic “Make My Day” line was used, so they passed. Shakedown would ultimately be distributed by Universal.

8. Speaking of Universal, it was their call to change the name of the movie from Blue Jean Cop to Shakedown. Glickenhaus preferred the original name, but felt it was not a battle worth fighting. The movie was released as Blue Jean Cop in several countries around the world including the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.

9. Glickenhaus chose to use a Porsche in Shakedown as an ode to the famous Porsche jump of the Berlin Wall in The Soldier.

10. $300 million dollars in liability insurance was required for the big action finale where the jet carrying drug kingpin Nicky Carr (Antonio Fargas) and dirty cop Rydel (Larry Joshua) flies around the World Trade Center before it is forced to make an emergency landing thanks to Richie Marks.