9 More Films "Based On True Stories" That Missed Out The Best Part

9. Frank Abagnale's Last Escape - Catch Me If You Can

The finale of Catch Me If You Can already includes one daring - and barely believable escape - when Leonardo DiCaprio's Frank Abagnale escapes a plane, but the real life story featured a plot by Abagnale so ridiculous it was left out entirely. After all, nobody would have believed it.

Because he was generally in the charge of moron, Abagnale fortuitously had his detention commitment papers forgotten and was mistaken for an undercover prison inspector and given privileges and food far better than the other inmates. Naturally, he took advantage and instructed a friend to pose as his fiancée and smuggle him a business card belonging to "Inspector C.W. Dunlap" of the Bureau of Prisons she'd procured.

She also gave him another business card of the FBI agent in charge of Abagnale's case that she had doctored with her own phone number. Abagnale then "revealed' that he was indeed an undercover prison inspector (he had the card to prove it) and asked to speak to the FBI agent urgently, handing over the doctored card.

Naturally, the phone number rang his accomplice rather than the agent and the pair were allowed to organise an unsupervised meeting, which led to Abagnale fleeing to Washington. He even survived another near miss capture by again posing as an FBI agent when he was recognized by a motel registration clerk. Why that part of the story was left out is anyone's guess.