IN LINE TO BE FIRED

IN THE LINE OF FIRE (1993)
dir: Wolfgang Petersen

IN LINE TO BE FIRED
MAD #324, January 1994
w: Dick DeBartolo
a: Angelo Torres

Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) is a Secret Service agent who thirty years previously had been on duty during Kennedy's assassination and missed the opportunity to take a bullet for him, and is hoping for a second chance this time. His co-workers are Lilly Raines (Rene Russo) and his partner Al D'Andrea (Dylan McDermott). Throughout the movie, Horrigan is taunted about his past by would-be assassin Mitch Leary (John Malkovich).

In the splash panel, the car that is shot by John Wilkes Booth features David Gergen, who was an advisor to Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton. I think it might be Peter Graves of Mission: Impossible reading the newspaper because he also played an undercover agent. Calvin and Hobbes is probably a reference to Exxon's “Put a tiger in your tank” motto. The cat on the leash is a reference to the Clintons' cat Socks. In the last panel are pictures of assassinated presidents or associations with them such as James Garfield, Squeaky Fromme, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Marilyn Monroe.

In one of the pictures, Al sees Frank in the background of JFK's Dallas photo, which refers to Eastwood's movie Unforgiven. The name Leary uses on one of his many phone calls to Horrigan is “Booth”.

Malkovich takes on many disguises and identities. The Victorian costume is a reference to his film Dangerous Liaisons. “Get your tootsy frootsy ice cream” is a line Chico Marx uses working undercover in A Day at the Races.

Frank and the Secret Service finally trace a call to him after several attempt and he find them and chases Mitch/Booth through Washington, DC on foot. Mitch runs into traffic and totals a car getting away and leaves fingerprints on the car, so the USSS has to seize it. What they don't show about Frank's false attempts attempts on president's life (led on by Mitch) is that he's dismissed from physical duty because his supervisor's have decided he's too old.

They also don't get into how they discover while analyzing Mitch's fingerprints that he was once a CIA agent.

To give background in the movie to show Mitch is psychotic, he is in the woods alone with a plastic model gun he made himself, and two hunters see it and are impressed by it, and he shoots them. During a rooftop chase with Mitch, he ends up shooting Al. The President is doing a fundraiser in California and the Secret Service has inspected everything and frisked everyone. Mitch Leary has gotten through metal detectors with his plastic gun and hiding bullets inside a keychain. He has eluded agents checking for facial recognition by wearing putty on his face and going under the name James Carney (that's him in the next to last panel). Frank, who is not supposed to be there, has done detective work on his own, and knows the assassination will take place.

Frank has a standoff with Mitch in a glass elevator at the hotel. Ends up killing him, and becomes a hero. The last panel refers to Dave, a movie that year with Kevin Kline about the White House covering up for a President in poor health by using some who looks just like him.

Another plotline the parody doesn't get into is the romantic relationship Frank and Lilly end up having. It's the typical man meets woman twenty years younger, annoys her at first, but she warms up to him.

IN THE LINE OF FIRED
Cracked #286, December 1993
w: Lou Silverstone
a: John Severin

The Cracked parody shows a few things that weren't in the MAD parody.

The movie starts by establishing what Frank and Al regularly do as Secret Service agents. Frank unwinds by playing piano at a bar. Here it's the Lincoln assassination he didn't prevent.

Play Misty For Me was one of Eastwood's earlier films. Ray Charles did Pepsi commercials and I guess he's included because he was a piano player and/or the commercials were popular that year.

The White House's Chief of Staff (Fred Thompson) won't listen to Frank's requests to call off any Presidential events.

”Make my day” was an Eastwood quote from Sudden Impact.Janet Reno was the attorney general then and people made jokes about her looking masculine. Tom Cruise played a lawyer in The Firm.

Agents in the first panel appear to be Peter Falk and Robert Culp. The birthday party is completely made up.

A scene MAD doesn't use is that during the rooftop chase, where Frank almost falls and Mitch saves him.