It’s a funny thing how watching movies can give you ideas you might not have had otherwise. Even if, perhaps, you’re old enough to know better.
Take the case of 67-year-old Michael Crane. In November, Crane purchased a remote control airplane from Coastal Hobbies in Rockport, Maine. It was a combined birthday and Christmas present for his grandson, he said.
The plane apparently did not work. And when the doting grandpa took it back to exchange it, he was told that the plane would need to be repaired. The wait time? Indefinite, Crane reports.
When Crane asked if he could get his money back or exchange the plane for another that worked, he was told that those things were against the store’s exchange policies, which were clearly posted throughout the establishment.
Crane left, angry. He went home, in fact, and popped in Clint Eastwood’s 1965 Italian Spaghetti Western A Fistful of Dollars. And that, he claims, inspired what happened next.
Crane returned to the store with an Eastwood-style ultimatum: Give me my money back, give me a new plane … or I’m just going to take one. Punk. (OK, he probably didn’t add that last part). Store owner Kent Woodward was unwilling to comply with options A or B, so Crane made good on option C.
He’s now facing theft charges.
Now, admittedly, this cause-and-effect story is a bit different from the kinds we normally see—stories that generally involve young people imitating risky behavior they’ve seen in a movie, on TV or on YouTube.
But it does illustrate how media can give us ideas that might not have occurred to us—even if the idea comes from a 44-year-old film watched by a 67-year-old grandfather.
So how about you? Have you ever been inspired—for good or ill—to implement some idea or scheme you saw in a movie? What happened and what did you learn (if anything)?
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