Trivia: It turns out that the movie "Catch Me if You Can" and the book it's based on aren't true after all. Many journalists, most notably Alan C. Logan, discovered that most of Frank Abagnale's stories about his crimes and cons were either heavily exaggerated or completely made up. This is not new information, as journalists discovered lies about his criminal life as far back as the late 1970s. He also has frequently lied throughout his life about his non-criminal life and accomplishments.
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
1 trivia entry since 21 Feb '23, 02:06
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken, Amy Adams, Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Sheen, Nathalie Baye
Factual error: In the scene where Handratty hits the button to stop the press, suddenly individual checks come flying up from the press. This could not happen. On such a large press the checks would be printed several up on a large sheet of paper, to be cut down after printing is completed. (01:53:10)
Paula Abagnale: Just tell me how much he owes and I'll pay you back.
Carl Hanratty: So far, it's about 1.3 million dollars.
Question: After Frank is essentially forced to abandon Brenda in order to avoid not getting caught at the airport he resumes his farce as a pilot and recruits young women as his accompanying stewardesses. Roughly how long does this thing with the stewardesses possibly last? Did he really risk to include them in his "trip" around the world to various countries to continue his fraud because obviously he abandoned them at some point and ended up in France where he was caught.
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Answer: It lasts several months. The stewardesses were juniors and seniors from the University of Arizona, whom he fake-recruited for a PR project for Pan-Am (they were not supposed to be real stewardesses, but dress like them and be photographed in various European capitols). Frank was frequently being asked where his "crew" was, so he thought it would lend him credibility.