The Onion Field (film)
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The Onion Field (film)
''The Onion Field'' is a 1979 American neo-noir crime drama film directed by Harold Becker and written by Joseph Wambaugh, based on his 1973 true crime book of the same name. The film stars John Savage, James Woods and Franklyn Seales, as well as Ted Danson in his film debut. Woods' performance as Greg Powell was the film's most widely praised element, earning him a Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award and his first Golden Globe nomination. Plot In 1963, LAPD detectives Karl Hettinger and Ian Campbell are kidnapped by criminals Greg Powell and Jimmy "Youngblood" Smith. They are driven to an onion field near Bakersfield, where Campbell is shot and killed before Hettinger narrowly escapes as a cloud passes in front of the moon, plunging the onion field into darkness. Hettinger's eyewitness account leads to the arrest of the two men, who are tried and convicted of first-degree murder. While they languish on death row, Powell and Smith learn how to exploit the legal system, and a ...
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Harold Becker
Harold Becker (born September 25, 1928) is an American film and television director, producer, and photographer from New York City, associated with the New Hollywood movement and best known for his work in the thriller genre. His body of work includes films like '' The Onion Field'', '' Taps'', ''The Boost'', ''Sea of Love'', '' Malice'', ''City Hall'' and ''Mercury Rising''. Biography After studying art and photography at the Pratt Institute, Becker began his career as a still photographer, but later tried his hand at directing television commercials, short films and documentaries. Becker made his feature film debut in 1972 when he directed ''The Ragman's Daughter'' with Souter Harris. Becker won the Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival Gold Prize for his short film ''Ivanhoe Donaldson''. Filmography Feature films *''The Ragman's Daughter'' (1972) - also producer *'' The Onion Field'' (1979) *''The Black Marble'' (1980) *'' Taps'' (1981) *''Vision Quest'' (198 ...
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True Crime
True crime is a nonfiction literary, podcast, and film genre in which the author examines an actual crime and details the actions of real people associated with and affected by criminal events. The crimes most commonly include murder; about 40 percent focus on tales of serial killers. True crime comes in many forms, such as books, films, podcasts, and television shows. Many works in this genre recount high-profile, sensational crimes such as the JonBenét Ramsey killing, the O. J. Simpson murder case, and the Pamela Smart murder, while others are devoted to more obscure slayings. True crime works can impact the crimes they cover and the audience who consumes it. The genre is often criticized for being insensitive to the victims and their families and is described by some as trash culture. History Zhang Yingyu's ''The Book of Swindles'' () is a late Ming dynasty collection of stories about allegedly true cases of fraud. Works in the related Chinese genre of court case fict ...
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Dianne Hull
Dianne Hull (born November 24, 1949) is an American actress whose film career spanned from 1969 to the early 1990s. The films she has acted in include ''The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart'', ''Aloha, Bobby and Rose'', '' The Arrangement'', '' Christmas Evil'', ''The Onion Field'' and ''The Fifth Floor''. Biography Hull is the daughter of model and actress Lorrie Hull and her first husband. Along with her mother, she has had an interest in cryonics and has attended the local cryonics group meetings and gatherings. Hull became a method acting teacher. Career Hull studied acting in California with Lee Strasberg, where she was discovered by Elia Kazan, who cast her in his 1969 film '' The Arrangement''. In this, her film debut, she played the role of "Ellen Anderson," daughter of the main character "Eddie Anderson" played by Kirk Douglas. In 1970 she starred as Cathy, the campus girlfriend of Don Johnson in ''The Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart''. In 1975, she co-starred wi ...
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Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Allen Lloyd (born October 22, 1938) is an American actor. He has appeared in many theater productions, films, and on television since the 1960s. He is known for portraying Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in the ''Back to the Future'' trilogy (1985–1990); and Jim Ignatowski in the comedy series ''Taxi'' (1978–1983), for which he won two Emmy Awards. Lloyd came to public attention in Northeastern theater productions during the 1960s and early 1970s, earning Drama Desk and Obie awards for his work. He made his cinematic debut in '' One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (1975), and his television debut in ''The Adams Chronicles'' the following year. He also starred as Commander Kruge in '' Star Trek III: The Search for Spock'' (1984), Professor Plum in ''Clue'' (1985), Judge Doom in ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' (1988), and Uncle Fester in ''The Addams Family'' (1991) and its sequel ''Addams Family Values'' (1993). He earned a third Emmy for his 1992 guest appearance as Alistai ...
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David Huffman
David Oliver Huffman (May 10, 1945 – February 27, 1985) was an American actor and producer. Personal life Huffman was born on May 10, 1945, in Berwyn, Illinois, to Clarence and Opal Huffman (née Dippel). Huffman married casting director Phyllis Huffman (''nee'' Grennan) in 1967, whom he had met as a student at Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri. The couple had two sons and remained married until Huffman's death in 1985. Huffman was an avid sailer, recreational painter, and country‐and‐western guitarist. Murder On the morning of February 27, 16-year-old Genaro Samano Villanueva, was taken into San Diego police custody after attempting to steal a radio from a car near his home. Released into the custody of his high school vice principal, Villanueva left school and went to Balboa Park. There he was spotted by Canadian tourist Jack Beamer prowling around inside the motor home of Beamer's friends. After Beamer accosted him, Villanueva fled the scene. Huffman, wh ...
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Jimmy Lee Smith
Jimmy Lee Smith (January 30, 1931 – April 6, 2007), also known as Youngblood,pages 48-50 was an American criminal who assisted Gregory Powell with the kidnapping of Los Angeles Police Department officers Ian Campbell and Karl Francis Hettinger on the night of March 9, 1963. There, Smith and Powell took Campbell and Hettinger to an onion field near Bakersfield, California, where Campbell was fatally shot. Infamously known as one of the "Onion Field" killers, Smith's story was depicted in Joseph Wambaugh's 1973 nonfiction book ''The Onion Field''. The book was adapted into a 1979 feature film of the same name in which Smith was portrayed by Franklyn Seales. Biography Smith was born in Texas to an unmarried teenage mother who abandoned him. He was raised by either his maternal great-aunt or his maternal grandmother. His great-aunt was partially disabled after accidentally shooting herself in the leg with a .45 caliber pistol. Smith had been abused by his stepfather. At age 1 ...
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Karl Francis Hettinger
Karl Francis Hettinger (October 29, 1934 - May 4, 1994) was an American police officer of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1958 to 1963. Hettinger formerly served for the United States Marine Corps from 1952 to 1958 and served in the Korean War and Vietnam War. He was known for surviving the "Onion Field" incident, in which he and his partner, Officer Ian Campbell, were kidnapped on the night of March 9, 1963, by criminals Gregory Powell and Jimmy Lee Smith and taken to an onion field near Bakersfield, California where Officer Campbell was fatally shot. Hettinger's story is depicted in Joseph Wambaugh's 1973 nonfiction book, ''The Onion Field''. The book was adapted into a 1979 feature film of the same name in which Hettinger was portrayed by John Savage. Biography Hettinger was born in Los Angeles, California, to Francis and Elsie (Eberley) Hettinger. He had two sisters, Miriam and Eunice. He was raised in Los Angeles. He was married to Helen Beth Davis in Las Vegas, Nev ...
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Kleptomania
Kleptomania is the inability to resist the urge to steal items, usually for reasons other than personal use or financial gain. First described in 1816, kleptomania is classified in psychiatry as an impulse control disorder. Some of the main characteristics of the disorder suggest that kleptomania could be an obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorder, but also share similarities with addictive and mood disorders. The disorder is frequently under-diagnosed and is regularly associated with other psychiatric disorders, particularly anxiety, eating disorders, alcohol and substance use. Patients with kleptomania are typically treated with therapies in other areas due to the comorbid grievances rather than issues directly related to kleptomania. Over the last 100 years, a shift from psychotherapeutic to psychopharmacological interventions for kleptomania has occurred. Pharmacological treatments using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), mood stabilizers and opioid recepto ...
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Impotence
Erectile dysfunction (ED), also called impotence, is the type of sexual dysfunction in which the penis fails to become or stay erect during sexual activity. It is the most common sexual problem in men.Cunningham GR, Rosen RC. Overview of male sexual dysfunction. In: UpToDate, Martin KA (Ed), UpToDate, Waltham, MA, 2018. Through its connection to self-image and to problems in sexual relationships, erectile dysfunction can cause psychological harm. In about 80% of cases, physical causes can be identified. These include cardiovascular disease; diabetes mellitus; neurological problems, such as those following prostatectomy; hypogonadism; and drug side effects. About 10% of cases are psychological impotence, caused by thoughts or feelings; here, there is a strong response to placebo treatment. The term ''erectile dysfunction'' is not used for other disorders of erection, such as priapism. Treatment involves addressing the underlying causes, lifestyle modifications, and addr ...
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Life Imprisonment
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for which, in some countries, a person could receive this sentence include murder, torture, terrorism, child abuse resulting in death, rape, espionage, treason, drug trafficking, drug possession, human trafficking, severe fraud and financial crimes, aggravated criminal damage, arson, kidnapping, burglary, and robbery, piracy, aircraft hijacking, and genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or any three felonies in case of three-strikes law. Life imprisonment (as a maximum term) can also be imposed, in certain countries, for traffic offences causing death. Life imprisonment is not used in all countries; Portugal was the first country to abolish life imprisonment, in 1884. Where life imprisonment is a possible sentence, there may als ...
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Death Row
Death row, also known as condemned row, is a place in a prison that houses inmates awaiting Capital punishment, execution after being convicted of a capital crime and sentenced to death. The term is also used figuratively to describe the state of awaiting execution ("being on death row"), even in places where no special facility or separate unit for condemned inmates exists. In the United States, after an individual is found guilty of a Capital punishment in the United States#Capital crimes, capital offense in U.S. state, states where execution is a legal penalty, the judge will give the jury the option of imposing a death sentence or life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. It is then up to the jury to decide whether to give the death sentence; this usually has to be a unanimous decision. If the jury agrees on death, the defendant will remain on death row during appeal and ''habeas corpus'' procedures, which may continue for several decades. Opponents of capital punis ...
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Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield is a city in Kern County, California, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Kern County. The city covers about near the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley and the Central Valley region. Bakersfield's population as of the 2020 census was 403,455, making it the 48th-most populous city in the United States of America and the 9th-most populous city in California. The Bakersfield–Delano Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Kern County, had a 2020 census population of 909,235, making it the 62nd-largest metropolitan area in the United States. The more built-up portion of the metro area that includes Bakersfield and areas immediately around the city, such as East Bakersfield, Oildale, and Rosedale, has a population of 523,994. Bakersfield is a significant hub for both agriculture and energy production. Kern County is the most productive oil-producing county in California and the fourth-most productive agricultural county (by ...
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