The Falcon's Flight and the Snowman in the Cooler
There’s more to the story of “The Falcon and The Snow Man” than you might know.
So, the other night, given the greedy NFL’s decision to broadcast for the first time a play-off game solely on a for-pay streaming service (obviously, the first of many) and given the one-sidedness of the game that was shown to the masses, I opted for other video entertainment (I had finished Steve Martin’s so-so memoir, “Born Standing Up - A Comic’s Life” and wasn’t in the mood to start a new book, okay?).
Anyway, the fire stick threw up a surprise suggestion: “The Falcon and The Snow Man.” Those of you who have never seen this 1985 espionage thriller can stop right here and return after righting this wrong because it’s a classic, and you deserve to have seen it. For those who have and need a reminder, the film stars Timothy Hutton as Christopher Boyce, the son of a former FBI agent who works as a civil defense engineer when not indulging his love of falconry (“The Falcon”) and Sean Penn as his drug dealing childhood best friend, Daulton Lee (“The Snowman”). Based on a true story, the two affluent young Southern Californians begin selling military secrets to the Russian embassy in Mexico City; Boyce, after growing disillusioned by the American government’s duplicity, Lee strictly out of greed. Unsurprisingly, things do not end well.
On a “Kielty Konsideration specific side note: Hutton’s father, actor, Jim Hutton resided in your correspondent’s former collegiate home, Lynch Hall at Niagara University after being expelled from Syracuse for drunk driving a bulldozer through a bed of tulips. Tim Hutton (who became a Red Sox fan during a period of his youth living in Cambridge) co-starred in,“Everybody’s All American (1988), which was the impetus for my fandom of LSU football as well as “Beautiful Girls” with Natalie Portman who you may remember from the Konsideration episode, “Kielty for President… of Harvard!” Sean Penn once bummed a cigarette from me backstage at a Wilco show at the Universal Amphitheater that his brother, Michael, had played as the opening act and has legend status among a circle of people in the Boston scene after he abruptly left Maine where his then wife, Robin Wright, was filming a movie and drove directly to J.J. Foley’s. There he met my friend, Bob Logan, eventually accepting an invitation to return to Bob’s apartment to play cards until dawn.
But, I digress.
“The Falcon and The Snowman” ends *SPOILER ALERT* with Boyce sentenced to 40 years and Lee to life for conviction on espionage charges. As is often my wont, I was curious about where these two spies were now and the answer revealed that the story, especially for Boyce, was far from over.
After his 1977 guilty verdict on eight counts, Boyce began doing his time at California’s Terminal Island and eventually landed at the federal pen in Lompoc, CA in 1979, but not for long. Less than six months after arriving, where Lee was already residing, Boyce made a break for it, even telling Lee the previous day of his plan. Lee’s response, “I came in the front door and that’s how I’m going out.” This didn’t stop Boyce, who, with the help of fellow inmates, hid in a drainage hole, then used a makeshift ladder and tin snips to cut through some barbed wire and escaped.
For the next nineteen months, he supported himself by successfully robbing seventeen banks throughout Washington and Idaho before eventually getting popped while eating a burger in his car outside “The Pit Stop,” a drive-in restaurant in Port Angeles, WA. The August 21, 1981 bust by was apparently the result of disgruntled robbery accomplices tipping off U.S. Marshals.
While Boyce was on the lam, operating under the alias, “Anthony Edward Lester,” he was studying aviation and, according to which story you believe, was either hoping to relocate to the Soviet Union (the prosecution version) or hoping to bust Lee out of the joint (his claim). Lee, meanwhile, was dutifully doing his stint and working with activist/paralegal Kathleen Mills in hopes of being paroled.
Back in Boise, Boyce tagged another 28 years onto his tab - three for the escape and 25 for bank robbery, conspiracy, and breaking federal gun laws. With his running aggregate now totally 68 years, he was shipped off to Leavenworth where a group of white supremacists who had apparently seen “The Falcon and The Snowman” voiced their displeasure with treason in the form of beat down that resulted in his being relocated to isolation in Marion, IN for his own protection.
From there he bounced around the federal system, earning points by speaking to congressmen and defense contractors on insider spy threats, culminating in an address to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations as part of its Government Personnel Security Program. Still not the penal system’s most popular boy, he was nearly killed in January 1993 by mentally ill convicted pip bomber, Earl Steven Karr. This less than covert plan involved Karr planning to blind Boyce with a noxious chemical mix after luring him into his cell, and then electrocuting him with a do-it-yourself cattle prod. Karr slipped in a puddle of his homemade mace and the Falcon flew away.
In 1998, Lee finally got sprung after serving 21 years. His advocate then turned her attention to his partner and in 2002 Kathleen Mills secured Boyce’s release… and soon after married him. The two co-authored “American Sons: The Untold Story of the Falcon and the Snowman” and now live a quiet life in Oregon, where Boyce has renewed his passion for falconry.
Lee’s first job out of the joint was as a personal assistant to… Sean Penn. Long an advocate of convict rehabilitation and as a grateful gesture for allowing him to portray him, Penn felt “The Snowman” deserved a shot at societal reintegration.
Am I the only one thinking “sequel?”