(at around 9 mins) When Brock Peters opens the safe that has been brought up from the RMS Titanic, Lewis tells him, "You know, boss, this same thing happened to Geraldo and his career never recovered." On April 21, 1986, journalist Geraldo Rivera hosted a live, two-hour TV special, The Mystery of Al Capone's Vaults (1986), produced by Westgate Productions. An estimated 30 million people watched the heavily-publicized show, making it the highest-rated syndicated TV special in history. Broadcasting from the basement of the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, the former headquarters of 1920's gangster and bootlegger Al Capone, Rivera proposed to open a large vault door that had been found by construction workers. He speculated that inside the vault, they would find great riches, or even dead bodies that Capone had buried there. However, when the vault was opened on live TV, it was found to be largely empty. The term "Al Capone's Vaults" became a euphemism for an over-hyped event that leads to nothing, and Rivera's career as a journalist went into decline. Ironically, James Cameron's story about Titanic treasure hunters was inspired by another Westgate Productions TV special, Return to the Titanic: Live! (1987), hosted by Telly Savalas, in which a safe that had been brought up from the RMS Titanic was opened on live television. This time, however, the results were better, as the safe was found to contain several pieces of valuable jewelry, gold coins, and artifacts from the Titanic passengers.

Film

Nessun dato in archivio