i want you to hit me as hard as you can... Between 1965 and 1970, Frank Abagnale Jr. pulled off a
series of elaborate schemes that would earn him the title of "the world's most savvy con man". On
top of an incredibly lucrative check forgery operation, Frank posed as an airline pilot,
a physician, a college professor and a lawyer, all before his 21st birthday. His exploits earned
wealth and women, but also a global notoriety that would eventually lead to his downfall.
In 1980, Abagnale's incredible story was novelized with the help of author Stan
Redding. The book would eventually catch the attention of Hollywood titan Steven Spielberg,
who would direct the 2002 film Catch Me If You Can, with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Frank and Tom
Hanks as the FBI agent hot on his trail. Does Spielberg's acclaimed film closely follow the
biography? Or is it more like one of Abagnale's clever cons? You're gonna have to catch me!
Let's uncover the truth - next slide - and find out what the [ __ ] really happened to this movie!
Speaking of the truth, the movie introduces Frank on the old TV game show To Tell the Truth, which
the real Frank actually did participate in. Will the real Frank William Abagnale please stand up?
We then rewind to his formative years as an only child - although in reality frank
had two brothers and a sister. Frank's mother Paula was a French woman that his father met
overseas in World War II. Frank Abagnale Sr., played by the incomparable Christopher Walken,
was the owner of a popular stationery store in New York and was involved in local politics. We get a
glimpse of this in the opening dinner ceremony where Frank Sr. recites a now famous story:
Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. While the general background here is accurate,
there isn't any evidence to suggest that Frank Sr. actually ever invented or shared
that memorable allegory. The film portrays Frank Sr. as a bit of a swindler himself,
like when he tries to get a bank loan, dressing his son as his personal chauffeur after using a
"lost" necklace to convince a woman to do his bidding - a deception that young Frank later tries
himself. Unfortunately the bank does not grant the loan for his failing stationery business,
and the Abagnales are forced to downsize from their house to a cramped apartment in Queens.
While the family did move to a small city apartment, Frank Sr.'s wily behavior was
fabricated for the film. Frank Jr. has stated that his father was "as honest as the day was long",
so it's unlikely he would attempt any such brazen scam. After the move, Frank is forced to attend
public school, wearing his old prep uniform to class. When classmates believe he's the substitute
teacher, he decides to act the part - for a full week before his real identity is discovered. This
is young Frank's first taste of the con artist life. But this never really happened - his first
scheme involved fraudulent credit cards, and he was caught after a couple of months. His father
had to settle the $3000 debt himself. When his parents divorce, Frank flees to New York City.
The real Frank did try honest work but the jobs didn't pay well for a high school dropout. Frank
appeared much older than his actual age, and so changed his birth date on his license by 10 years,
but even that didn't bring better wages. So he pulled out the checkbook his father had given
him for his birthday and started passing phony checks. Much like in the film, Frank's paper
hanging brought him some decent pocket change, but he was also gaining a reputation as a crook.
If he wanted to stay out of jail and increase his wealth, he needed to expand his operations.
This gave Frank the brilliant idea to become a pilot. Because they're always traveling, banks
all over the country and the world would be more willing to cash out of state or foreign checks.
And a pilot's uniform would give him status, since at the time they were like celebrities and
instantly commanded respect. Frank figured if he could get his hands on a genuine Pan Am uniform,
then no bank would ever reject a check from one of the superstars of the sky.
How would you like it? Frank poses as a high school reporter and interviews a Pan Am executive
to understand the basics of the occupation and its jargon. Impersonating a first-time pilot who lost
his uniform in a dry cleaning incident, Frank is able to acquire a legitimate Pan Am uniform,
at the company's expense. Even better. Not long after, he begins falsifying Pan Am payroll checks
for bigger paydays, using labels removed from model planes to make his counterfeits look real.
As he anticipated, those fraudulent checks are cached with a wide smile.
Once Frank is comfortable posing as a fake pilot, he starts deadheading all around the country,
flying on other airlines and footing the bill to Pan Am. Every few days there's a new city to pass
checks. The movie does leave out some challenges, like securing an FAA license and college degree,
but otherwise everything from Frank's uniform acquisition to his toy-assisted counterfeits to
his free travel was all an accurate depiction of the lengthy Pan Am scam. After more than a year
of being a phony pilot, Frank has a close call with the law and hangs up his uniform, renting
an apartment in Georgia under another fake name to live in luxury with his duplicitous earnings.
But it isn't long before Frank bluffs his way into another reputable profession. In the film,
Frank is smitten by a young nurse named Brenda at a local hospital. To get closer to her, he
decides to apply for a job, falsely claiming to be a doctor from California on an extended holiday.
With fake paperwork and lots of charm, he's surprisingly given a real job as a graveyard shift
ER supervisor. To fit his new role, Frank studies medical books and TV shows to become familiar with
the required vocabulary. As with his time as a pilot, he's forced to rely heavily on charisma and
quick thinking, especially to deflect more serious medical cases. He also begins a relationship with
Brenda, and they later get engaged and run away to Louisiana to be married. Spielberg's depiction
of frank's tenure as a doctor does get some things right, but plays fast and loose with other facts.
The real Frank did not seek this job due to an alluring hospital worker, but instead had claimed
to be a doctor when renting his apartment. As it turned out, one of his neighbors was a real doctor
working at the hospital. The two became friends and eventually the neighbor convinced Frank to
temporarily fill a position, but the original doctor never returned and two weeks turned to
11 months until a new replacement was found. The real Frank did study television shows and movies
to prepare, but also frequented the hospital library and kept a notebook of useful terms on
hand to stay up to date on lingo and occupational expectations. Do you concur? Concur with what?
And when the hospital finally found a replacement and Frank "retired", he believed he had once again
narrowly eluded discovery and he hastily packed his belongings and left Atlanta. In the film,
Frank and Brenda go to New Orleans so he can ask her father's permission to marry. When Frank
discovers that Brenda's father is a lawyer, he casually mentions that he had initially studied
law before his "medical career" and was thinking about picking it up again. Brenda's father offers
him a job if he passes the state's bar exam. The real Frank's foray into the world of law actually
began with a chance encounter at a party - he was staying with a stewardess he met during his
time as a pilot and claimed that he gave up the cockpit for the courtroom. A mutual friend who
was practicing law in the state offered Frank a job working under the attorney general, once he
passed the bar. How did you cheat on the bar exam in Louisiana? Similar to the film, Frank Abagnale
Jr. did legitimately pass the bar exam, on his third attempt. But unlike his corporate law job
in the movie, Frank never presented cases or led trials in real life. He was a glorified errand boy
and preferred to stay out of the spotlight rather than draw more attention. In the Spielberg version
of events, Frank's life as a southern lawyer comes to a screeching halt when FBI agents crash
his engagement party. Grabbing suitcases stuffed with money, he tells Brenda to meet him at Miami
airport in two days, and narrowly escapes arrest. But the end of the real Frank's law career was
much less exciting. An actual Harvard law graduate began working at the same office and wanted to
befriend a fellow Harvard grad, but Frank's lack of Harvard's social knowledge or law in general
was blatantly apparent. What in the hell is wrong with you? When the real graduate began making
inquiries into Frank's background, he simply left under the pretense of visiting family, and never
returned. Although there was an attractive nurse at the Georgia hospital, she and Frank were only
casual friends and the movie's entire Brenda romance was fabricated. However there might be
some hint of truth in the depiction - in the late 1960s, the real Frank settled in California for a
while and fell in love with an American Airlines stewardess, even getting engaged. But Frank knew
he couldn't continue to lie forever, so he told her everything. It wasn't long before she informed
the authorities, forcing frank to flee and hide out in Las Vegas until the heat died down.
But let's go back to Miami. While waiting for Brenda at the airport, Frank realizes the place
is swarming with feds. His fiancee sold him out. He's a known fugitive and needs a plan to escape
the country. So it's back to that snappy aviator uniform. Posing as a recruiter for Pan Am, Frank
visits a local university campus to speak with the student body about a new stewardess recruiting
program, where he and several women would fly around Europe on a public relations tour. After
interviewing over a hundred girls, Frank handpicks eight to join him on his European adventure.
Despite the airport still crawling with feds, Frank hides in plain sight, confidently strolling
through the airport and successfully evading capture once again. While the whole escaping
the country angle was created for the film, Frank stewardesss scheme was very real. For the most
part, the actual Frank followed the same tactics and told the same lies to find a perfect group of
young women to swindle. But the real Frank had a different motivation for his con: cold hard
currency. By this point in Frank's illustrious criminal career, he had already traveled Europe
and was really looking for more cash. During one of his visits to France, he posed as a Pan
Am manager and submitted an order for 1000 very real payroll checks from a print shop desperate
for business. Equipped with a huge stack of blank checks that even Pan Am couldn't tell were fake,
he concocted the stewardess scheme to maximize his illicit wealth. Every two weeks he would offer to
cash their payroll checks, since he held higher status at banks and hotels overseas, and he kept
part of their invented salary for himself. Before long, Frank was passing off nine checks at a time
and was making so much money he had to store cash in airport lockers all over the continent.
One of the most exciting aspects of Spielberg's film is the cat and mouse game between Frank
Abagnale Jr. and Carl Hanratty, the lead FBI agent assigned to the case. But for starters,
Hanratty is a fictional character, predominantly based on real investigator Joseph Shea - who's
referred to as Sean O'Riley in Abagnale's book, just to make things more confusing.
Go [ __ ] yourselves. Hanratty and Frank's first encounter occurs early in the film as the trail
of phony checks leads to a Hollywood motel. Frank takes advantage of the fact that Hanratty doesn't
know what his suspect looks like, so he introduces himself as Barry Allen, a secret service agent
also on Frank's trail. This lie works, and it buys Frank just enough time to escape.
Even with Frank's talent for improvised fiction, this might seem unbelievable - because it is.
Joseph Shea and the real Abagnale wouldn't meet until after his capture. And while Frank did have
a few run-ins with the law, and was even arrested twice, he pretended to be many things but never a
secret service agent. He also never made regular Christmas calls to his nemesis with the badge,
although it is a sweet development in the movie to build their relationship. Before long,
Hanratty learns that Barry Allen is actually the alter ego of speedy DC Comics character The Flash,
which leads him to believe that Frank is really just a comic loving teenager. Digging
through records of juvenile runaways eventually leads to Frank's mother, who shows Hanratty a
yearbook photo of Frank, confirming he's their guy. Hanratty's next visit is with Frank Sr.,
where he discovers a letter from Frank with a return address in Atlanta. But in real life,
Frank never reached out to his father during his law breaking years, never visited, never called,
and never wrote a letter. In fact, while Abagnale's book is scant on details involving
the investigation, it's implied that his pursuers didn't even know his real name,
let alone what he looked like, for most of his time on the run.
After frank's escape to Europe, the movie cuts to seven months later. Hanratty pages through a pile
of forged Pan Am checks all linked to Abagnale and cashed in different countries. Hanratty takes
these legit looking checks to a New York print shop and is informed they were printed in France.
while the real agents never consulted with printers about the origin of Frank's fraudulent
checks, it is true they were printed in France as part of frank's intricate stewardess plot.
Hanratty flies to France on Christmas Eve and finds Frank at the print facility eating tasty
beans and pumping out more fake checks. After being told a small army of French policemen
are outside waiting to shoot him dead, Frank surrenders. Much like other aspects of Frank's
life, his arrest in the movie deviates from reality in many ways. Frank was hiding out in
France, posing as a screenwriter named Robert Monjo, but he was arrested in a grocery store
after an Air France stewardess recognized him from his pilot days and informed the cops of his
location. They quickly apprehended him, ending his five-year reign as the slickest con artist in the
world. After his capture, Frank is sentenced to one year at France's infamous Prepignon Prison,
which we briefly glimpse in the film. He's in solitary confinement, living in a windowless
concrete room with no furnishings. The conditions appear brutal, but not nearly as bad as what Frank
really endured. In his book, Abagnale details what the experience was like: he lived in complete
darkness for six months, never leaving his cramped cell, and only had a bucket for a toilet. He slept
on the cold concrete floor with nothing but a ratty towel and the diseases and bugs that the
filthy conditions attracted. By all regards, it was like being kept in a medieval dungeon.
In the film, Frank is handed over to Hanratty and the FBI for extradition after serving half
his sentence. But in reality, Frank was given to Swedish authorities and spent the next six
months living in what he described as the most luxurious prison he'd ever seen. But while there,
he discovered that 12 other countries had warrants for his arrest and he would likely
spend the rest of his days on a rotating tour of European prisons. Luckily, Frank escaped this fate
thanks to a kind Swedish judge who contacted the American embassy to have his passport revoked,
compelling the government to deport him back to America. Though he was still required to serve
his prison sentence in the states, he would never have to suffer in a European prison. In the film,
Frank is personally escorted back to the states by Hanratty, who informs him that his father
died while Frank was in prison. Distraught, Frank isolates himself in the restroom, where Hanratty
eventually discovers he's escaped through the toilet covering and slipped out via the landing
gear. Amazingly, this runway escape happened, although it's likely he actually snuck out
through the galley. It was night when the plane landed, so once the coast was clear Frank hit the
tarmac and disappeared into the darkness. The main difference is that he was unaccompanied by any law
enforcement on the flight, so it was hours before the real agents discovered what happened. While
the real Frank flirted with the idea of visiting both his mother and his father, who actually
lived for several years after Frank's return to the states, he realized it was too risky.
Frank was eventually recaptured in Canada, not in front of his mother's house. After hopping a
train to Montreal to get some stashed money from there, he had planned to get on a plane to Brazil,
but the Canadian Mounties took him into custody before he could make the flight. While in prison,
Frank assists Hanratty with a fraudulent check case and is then offered a chance
to serve out the remainder of his sentence as a consultant for the FBI. While the real Frank did
end up working for the agency, the path was not nearly as straightforward as it is in the film.
After serving four years of his term, Frank was paroled to Houston, Texas, and picked up honest
jobs before getting fired once his criminal past came to light. With no one willing to hire an
ex-convict, Frank once again got creative. He realized that he was one of the world's
foremost experts on check swindling and forgery, and he figured he could turn that knowledge into
a mutually beneficial and prosperous career. So he visited banks, presenting himself as a
white-collar crime specialist, offering advice on how to avoid being ripped off by people like him.
Fortunately for Frank, everybody loved his pitch. Within months, his services were in demand
by hotels, banks, airlines and everything in between. This eventually led to a career as an FBI
specialist. Not quite as touching as the movie's happy ending with colleagues of circumstance,
but the real Frank did form a lifelong friendship with the agent that Hanratty was
partially based on. While Frank's various cons were mostly portrayed authentically on screen,
Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Jeff Nathanson extensively dramatized Frank's personal life
and the investigation surrounding his cunning crimes. Squeezing five years into a two-hour film
is no easy feat, requiring a condensed timeline and the omission of other significant moments,
like Frank's time pretending to be a sociology professor, not to mention his escape from the
same Atlanta prison where he would eventually be incarcerated, in a wild ploy that involved
a forged FBI business card and impersonating an undercover prison inspector. It is worth noting
that Abagnale's own biography takes a number of liberties - upon publication, the legitimacy
of Frank's "true story" was almost immediately questioned by reporters and readers, which isn't
surprising given Frank's reputation and unrivaled gift for fiction. Abagnale later admitted that the
account contained plenty of exaggeration. That being said, it seems like Steven Spielberg's
Catch Me If You Can is much like one of Abagnale's cons - more fiction than fact!
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