Get Your Reps In: Michael Mann’s Made-for-TV Debut

The Jericho Mile (1979)

Peter Strauss’ Murphy looks like no other Michael Mann protagonist. The prison-yard distance runner is wiry and unglamorous, an inscrutable gaze tucked deep behind his bangs, mustache and bandanna.

But if you close your eyes during Murphy’s first big blowup at a prison doctor, you can hear Mann’s future in his first directorial effort. Rhythmically and philosophically, the bursts of Strauss’ self-disclosure echo those of Robert De Niro in Heat and James Caan in Thief. These are self-styled ascetic criminals for whom craft is life and expression is a last-ditch retort.

“I am into nothing! That’s how I do my time!” Murphy rebukes the doctor’s first invitation to begin training with Olympic distance runners. This, despite the fact that he’s posting four-minute miles in basketball shoes on packed dirt.

It’s a winning setup for this gritty, made-for-TV sports drama: A maximum-security athlete literally doesn’t know how fast he’s running. Meanwhile, the power structures of Folsom State Prison roil around him, as Murphy’s cell neighbor R.C. (Richard Lawson) gets caught between rival gangs led by Roger Mosley’s and Brian Dennehy’s characters, respectively.

Is The Jericho Mile a top-tier movie from a director who made The Last of the Mohicans, The Insider and Manhunter? Maybe not. But it’s anthropologically fascinating (in large part because it was filmed at Folsom), intensely acted, and a superlative artifact of an era when a legendary Hollywood career could be born on Sunday night on ABC.

The Jericho Mile plays at the Hollywood Theatre on Aug. 10 as part of its “Month of Mann” series.

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5th Avenue: The Cow Who Sang a Song Into the Future (2022), Aug. 7–9. Academy: Nacho Libre (2006), The Night of the Hunter (1955) and Blade (1998), Aug. 5 and 6. No Country for Old Men (2007), Donkey Skin (1970) and Pumpkinhead (1988), Aug. 7–13. Cinema 21: The Piano (1993), Aug. 7. His Girl Friday (1940), Aug. 8. Cinemagic: Starship Troopers (1997) and Mars Attacks! (1996), Aug. 6. Bad Moon (1996), Aug. 7. Clinton: Young and Healthy as a Rose (1971) and Bugs in the Head (1971) double feature, Aug. 5. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Aug. 8. Careful (1992), Aug. 11. Hollywood: Mikey and Nicky (1976), Aug. 6. Fantastic Voyage (1996), Aug. 7. Manhunter (1986), Aug. 7–13. The Land Before Time (1988), Aug. 8 and 9. Black Chariot (1971), Aug. 9. Moreland: Flow (2024), Aug. 5. Tomorrow: Skate Dreams (2022), Aug. 7. The Remains of the Day (1993), Aug. 9.