¶ Intro / Opening
Will you wait, miss.
Sill put the twist, if you smoke like a smoke like every day and if you as as a buster two one three, will.
Wag you lay?
Welcome back midnight viewers to midnight viewing. And if hey, if Warren g is on the soundtrack, then we're talking about the regulators and that can mean only one thing. We're talking about Young Guns tonight joining me as a permanent guest here. Look, we had such a good time talking about the movie Crossroads, and that was just a
midnight viewing one off thing. But as it turns out, having looked through the film credits of the writer of that particular film, mister John Fusco, turns out we like pretty much all of his films and he's his uns song as a screenwriter gets so turns out we're just gonna blaze on through his fucking filmography. Crossroads was his first. So next up is Young Guns joining me to do it. We did. We did Crossroads together. We're me doing all
of these. Host of Noise Junkies, Host of Night, mister Walter is a taxi podcast.
Mister h p annoy, did you follm alone? I gotta say you took my Nate dog joke. I was all ready. I thought, Oh, this is gonna be great to kick it off, and once again you're one step ahead of me. What can I say?
Hey man, we're gonna come out of that music. That's
¶ First Impressions and Historical Context
what's happening there.
No excited. The Crossroads was fun and this is going to be a blast.
Indeed, so Young Guns. This was released on August the twelfth, nineteen eighty eight, directed by Christopher Cain, written by John Fusco, starring Emilio Estevez, Keeper Sutherland, Lou Diamond, Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Dermott mulroney, Casey Shamasco, Terry O'Quinn, Jack Palins, and Terrence Stamp, with cinematography by Dean and Similar.
The Six Reasons Why the West Was Wild and.
No One's fool enough to go and after Murphy's people.
Emilio Stebs, I'm in deputize them. Keeper Sutherland, it looks like trouble. Trouble, you figure looks like trouble. I'm a poet.
Next weeen.
Those are just boys, ain't one of them?
Over twenty one Murphy's been on front of and half within a day. Casey Shimoshko, I'm a pugeisten gord to Jermy Dermott mulroney as lou Diamond Phillips by vision told me we're headed for blood. Charlie Sheen, we got words.
You're alone.
You're supposed to serve elemon warrants that exposed to ring.
It's time to went out.
You went on the war pen.
The Governor's revoked your deputization of powers.
You're now wanted by the legitimate law as well as goes outside law.
You're being hunted by trumps, the odds, young guns.
This is the story of Billy the Kid and the Lincoln County War. Now, this is one of dozens upon dozens of films about Billy the Kid, but one of
¶ Billy the Kid
the only few to touch on the Lincoln County War. Ordinarily, when they're telling Billy the Kid's story, it's about the Kid's gang being hunted by Pat Garrett, and the events of the Lincoln County War always loom large because that's what set his eventual fall to fall from grace in motion. But it's very rarely presented. The only film that I can think of that really did it prior to this was Chisholm in seventy one with John Wayne, and that was a boring slog. This is the only one that
kind that kind of doesn't and does it right. But we'll get into the nuts and bolts of it there are. It's a wildly historically accurate film for what is essentially a pot boiler Shoot them Up. HP. When did you first see Young Guns? What was your experience with it then?
Now?
So I did not see Young Guns the first one in the theater. I did see the second one, but this one, it probably it must have been on cable around that time. I guess we were in high school, so it's probably what did you say? This was eighty eight eighty.
Seven, nineteen eighty eight, August nineteen eighty eight, nineteen.
Eighty eight, so I probably saw it around then. I confess at the time the big critical knock against this, and I know we'll probably get into this a little more, was this was still kind of post brat pack. I guess this was. I think this was unfairly tagged as a brat pack Western, so that probably turned me off a little bit at the time. I wasn't necessary and I wasn't necessarily a huge Western ban in high school.
But I was surprised, as you said, to find out after the fact that this was considered one of the more historically accurate depictions of this time period in these events, So that thought that was kind of cool.
What's your opinion of it now?
Mixed mixed opinion, Father Malone. I, if I'm being totally honest as you should be, I should be I prefer young guns too, because well, we're going to get into all these reasons. I hate I don't want to this is too long, didn't read kind of a thing. But I think I have issues with the direction of this movie, which again we'll talk about, but I in rewatching it.
¶ Music
I probably haven't seen it in at least ten years. The performances, actually, I was impressed. They were better than I remember them being, so that was a big plus. And I forgot that Terry O'Quinn was in it. I forgot that Terrence Stamp is John Tunstall and he is always a welcome sight. So it was a bit of a mixed bag, but I'm sure we'll get into it.
In nineteen eighty eight, I, like you, had tired of the brat pack, both as a concept that the media was shoving down our throats and by the output of the members of the brat Pack except mister Emilio Estevez. I've never had any truck with mister Emilio Estevez. Look, man,
he's in Repo Man. That's where I first saw him and forever in always He's gonna be the fucking coolest no matter what he does, because he was in Repo Man and he is a really good actor, and I thought he was unfairly painted with the brush of these are young kids who just want to be famous for famous sake. None of them are interested in the craft.
I thought that was bullshit when it came to Estevez, and I'd liked everything he'd done, Outsiders, fucking soda pop Curtis for fuck's sake, with the Mickey Mouse shirt and the fucking switchblade. Are you kidding me?
I love?
Yeah, so I although I felt like the brad Pack themselves were annoying. I remember seeing this trailer for this film, which if you've watched the credit sequence for the film, it's the sort of solarized They're coming up over the
ridge and then they're all shooting their guns and stuff. Right, Okay, now imagine that without the solarization without any of the terrible music, and it's these masked figures coming up over the thing, and then each of them pulls their masks down, and it's like all of the fucking best of the youngest actors going right now, and then they're firing their guns, and shit, I could not be more excited. I was a huge Western fan. I was already a big fan
of Billy the Kid. I was always more of a wider doc holiday guy, but I still loved the Billy of the Kid to mythos, and here was like a version for us. There was a whole lot of sort of in the nineteen eighties. I remember thinking the same thing about Twilight Zone eighty five when it came out, like, wow, they're really pitching it toward us. This is it is a rehamann of like the Twilight Zone, but in a
modern context. And now here's an attempt at a Western and we're going to get it into modern context with modern actors. So I was very excited to see it. And then, of course, as you said, there are problems with this movie, the main one being the direction. The main I can't think of a better example than going from that trailer, which was nothing but pure excitement to
the credit sequence of this film. This solarized version, where the fucking music is the as bad as the direction is of this movie, is as historically inaccurate as the movie can be. In some places, the most unforgivable thing going on in this movie is the fucking music, which sounds like, I don't know, like nine O two one zero, kind of twenty one jump street.
Level, like airn aarn aar Hey, Look it's Billy the Kid.
That's another big tick for Young Guns two, because by Young Guns two you have Alan Silvestri doing the soundtrack. There's just so much more. I mean, I know we're here to talk about Young Guns, but that's one thing that's one big knock against this. Let me ask you a quick question, because you said unforgivable. When did Unforgiven come out in relation to this.
In nineteen ninety two ninety three?
Okay, so it was quite a few years after this. I didn't know if there was any friction between those two movies, but I guess they came out so far away from each other that there was no impact whatsoever. But yeah, the music is very eighties, it's very nine
O two one zero. It makes everything, I think, feel a little bit smaller to me, because when you have a real orchestral score or something that's real Western sounding, it really lifts like any good music should in a movie, and this just kind of lets it down in my opinion. It's not as Walt's Wall as that. In fact, there's less music in the picture than I remembered, but when it's there, it calls attention to itself in a very negative way.
Yeah, And that was when I was taking away from it too, Like I appreciated the moments without any music or source music because it didn't have the Reek of the twentieth century, not just the Reek of the twentieth centuries, just not the Reek of anachronism, but the Reek of nineteen eighty eight. Here I am. Aren't I doing a clever job here at my job writing for movies. That's what it fails.
Like.
Yeah. Even Blaze of Glory, as cheesy as it might be, a fit, was it fit? And it was so it was so exciting. It was such a great teaser for young guns too, that video Ryan on TV, and it was just it was great. This to me is it falls flat in a lot of different ways, but I to sort of circle back, I one hundred percent agree with you that Emilio Estevez is really good in this.
There's something slightly, well not slightly, there's something unhinged about his performance that I think is just perfect for the character and the way that everybody reacts to him. The gang in this handed Young Guns too. He's more of he's kind of more of a of a nuisance at times,
and more of like they really don't like him. I mean, they're a gang and they support each other, but at the end of the day, he's the one putting them in danger more often than not, and Estevez plays that beautifully. I love his performance.
I don't know if this is the most historically accurate portrayal of Billy the Kid, but it is my favorite portrayal of Billy the Kid for those reasons. He seems really not all there. The character of Dirty Steve, played by Derma mulroney has this running joke of like he's not all there. He's actually not all there. He's a troubling character, and the fact that he's as charming as he is while doing those things is because of Emiliostivius.
I think if you had a lesser actor, there a grubbier version, like if Dermot Mulroney, let's say, had been playing Billy the Kid dressed as he was as Dirty Steve, he would be unbearable as a character.
Yeah, he's make no mistake. Billy the Kid is the one who sets the plot in motion. Really, he's the one that gets who starts all the trouble to begin with, they've been deputized. Well do we want to get into the story.
Okay, Look, here's the thing. The Lincoln County War, such as it is in Lincoln County in New Mexico, there had been for at least a generation a group of ranchers, farmers, Irish, the Murphy's and what was the other fucking hold on keep forgetting Lincoln County? Well, Lincoln can't the regulator's baby. Who cares William Brady? Oh, I know, we're blah blah blah. Anyway, So basically it was the Murphy conglomerate. Like like, they
had herds of cattle and they had a store. So not only were they raising cattle and raising money that way, but they were selling goods to all of the people. And then an English fellas shows up named Tunstall, and he's backed by a local other irishman named Alex McSween. And they proposed that they're going to have their own heads of cattle and they're going to have their own store, and half the people, half the surrounding ranchers and folk,
side with the Irish, half side with the English. The ones that side with the English include young William Bonnie who is Billy the Kid. Also Josiah doc Skurlock, Jose Chavez. These are all real people, like Vic Charlie Bowdrey, also Dirty Steve, he's one of them. Interestingly, you know John Tunstall,
¶ Performance Highlights
the Englishman was twenty four years old.
I learned that after the fact. But what is a tern Stam must be fifty if.
He's a day exactly, I believe he's forty nine fifty years old. So yeah, but you know that's okay because what ends up happening is here Fusco script I think is incredibly clever in that it reduces everything down to sort of signs and signifiers, almost like each of these guys were like little independent outfits that were behind each other, and instead he turns them all into a group of street urchins being raised by the Fagan like, yeah, the JT.
Tunstall or J. H. Tunstall, Yeah and sorry, go ahead. So no so so William Bonnie's one is just a kid on the run. He gets taken in by this group of na'er do wells who were basically the enforcers around Tunstall's ranch. Anytime there's trouble. These guys take care of for him and basically they look that it's the two biggest kids on the block. Eventually they're going to come to blows. But unfortunately they bring the law into it.
So the Murphy people try to server warrant, but it is just really an assassination, which in turn gets through the regulators all deputized as a posse to go serve a warrant themselves. But it probably doesn't go down exactly the way it goes down here. But like I said, the script is combining and compacting events in the movie. But in the movie what happens is Billy just starts fucking shooting people.
Yeah, they've been deputized, it's all going to be above board. They're going to seek out because Murphy has everybody in his back pocket, he has the law, and they've been deputized to find all the men responsible for this killing of John Tunstall, and instead of doing this, serving the
warrants and bringing them into jail, they lose Canon. Billy just kills everybody and he doesn't stop like their deputies for a while, and it becomes a rampage essentially, and then it escalates to the point where the US Army has taken an interest in their exploits and everybody is after him. Bounty hunters are after the gang, Murphy's men are after the gang, the army, and it just that's
essentially the movie. It's just all of these escalating gun fights and people coming after the regulators until essentially they have no choice. They're hold up in a house and they have no choice but to basically have their last stand. But let me ask you a question, botherm alone, what do you make of we talked about Terrence Stamp playing John Tunstall. What do you make of Terrence Stamp's performance? I'm really curious.
I feel like this is a loaded question that their part, But I love his performance here. It's it might be it's not my favorite performance of this because there's so many great performances throughout a fucking amazing career, but it's certainly for me. My first experience with I'm sure like you with Terence Stamp was General Zod, so he was the most evil person in the world. My second introduction to Terrence Stamp was this film, where he was the
most fatherly. So I love his performance, Sarah, sure, and I don't.
I'm not presenting it as a loaded question because I love I strike that I adore Terence Stamp like you. General Zod was my first exposure I was. I'm not ashamed to say that I was scared of him as a child because he was a really scary dude in that movie. I mean, I never watched any of the old English movies that he did, Like, I didn't have any real exposure to him, and this was probably the
second time I saw him. I he's great, but what I couldn't help thinking is that there's something otherworldly about his performance in this something that I couldn't quite put my finger on. He almost seems above everything and anyone else in the picture. There's something kind of I don't know what's the word, just sort of a loof, not a loof, that's something a right word, huh. Saintly not saintly, just just something untouchable. Yeah, just just sort of ethereal.
I guess seem to just sort of he just says, just does seem to float from scene to scene, dispensing sage advice and calming everybody down. Even when there's a moment of violence. It isn't He's just very calm. And then let's Casey Schamasco step in do what he does and then continue to calm everybody back down.
Yeah. I like this is not to say that it's a bad performance. I think it's fantastic, but I did my memory of it was a little different watching it now, I was like, oh, that's interesting. He made a lot of interesting choices that I thought suits him. That's who he is. But but yeah, he's very paternal. He's great as John Tunsta willdn't get me wrong, but I just found his performance a little bit arm's length. I guess, for lack of a better phrase.
I could see that the other problem with this movie. I just want to get the problems with the movie out of the way, because there's so much that you like about this film, and I don't want to dwell on the negative. But look, whoever put the If Christopher Kine put this cast together, brava, okay, but he should not have directed this movie hiring that. Hiring Anthony Marinelli to do the score alone should have disqualified him as a director of this film.
Now.
I know he had previously worked with Estevez on That Was Then This Is Now. He directed that se hint and adaptation, and I believe Emilia Westvez wroped, so I can see them wanting to work together again. But he's out of his mind if he thinks this guy was right for a Western. We're gonna keep mentioning Young Guns Too in its superiority in every way. But Jeff Murphy
¶ The Regulators
is a fucking awesome action director and should have if they had him here for this one, Holy shit, and we would be talking about this as one of the greatest Bond Billy the Kid movies.
The fact is that Emilio Estevez himself was not entirely happy with Young Guns. He deliberately set out with John Fusco to make a better movie with Young Guns Too, and it's hard to argue that it's not better and almost every single way to this, oh my god, not to.
Say if that's their if that was their goal, they succeeded across the board. It's like it's night and dead again. I'm not saying that this is a bad movie. I like this movie. It's just that there are fucking fundamental problems that could have been avoided very easily.
Totally and like you, I think it all begins and ends with the direction just seems it lacks anything resembling like dynamics. It all seems rather flat and dour isn't the word, But it's not exciting. A lot of it isn't. The excitement is on the page, but it's not reflected in how the movie is photographed, how that how it all is depicted. I mean there's I love the story. I think the direction leaves a lot to be desired. It just seems to kind of just sit there. The
action is and all that interesting to me. It's not really shot. The gunfights aren't shot that interesting lead to me, it's sometimes hard to know exactly what's happening.
Some of the character scenes work despite the rest of the direction in the movie. I think like some of the sequences are fun, like the Peyote sequence I thought is photographed really well, and some of the interactions between Doc and the young lady. He's wooing like all that stuff. In fact, I was about to praise the direction, but I'm not going to praise the direction because it turns out it's another script thing and I only noticed it
really this time around. About Doc Skurlock in this movie, but the moment where they allow him to react after getting blood splattered on his face after Billy kills one of their own in front of him, that scene is well directed.
I love Keifer Sutherland in this he next to Emilieuistevez. He's probably my favorite of the regulators. I just think he because I think the character is allowed to be interesting. Not to say that Dirty Steve and Charlie don't have their own moments, and obviously Chavezy Chavez, but I just think Key for Sutherland gives a very grounded performance. He's allowed to react a lot. He often you see Billy's misdeeds through Doc's eyes, and I think that's in a sense,
it's almost like an audience proxy. Like that scene you talk about. That's one of my favorite moments in the whole movie, where Billy shoots McCluskey in the head because he believes that he's a spy. For the Murphy Gang. And it's such a great reaction because there's a horror to Sutherland's reaction, but he still does what has to be done. He still keeps his eyes on all the other goings on, but it really is a horrifying moment for him, and I love that it's really effective. But
I guess I can see your point. Is it a direct directorial choice to show the blood and have him react?
I don't know.
I give the credit to Key for sucklin how about that.
Look, it's in the script and it's in the performance. But the fact that he allows him the room afterwards to continue to react like it could have just been like a oh, that's a horrible thing. One of the things the direction does, at least right is this movie, as much as it is about the Lincoln County War and Billy the Kid and all of this other machinations and playing with the American myth of the cowboy, it's the story of Josiah Scarlock and what the Lincoln County
War does to him. Because when we first meet him in the opening scene, he is the sweetest character on planet Earth. He is just golden lightness. And by the end of this movie, he is hardened as fuck. In fact, I know we're going to talk about young guns too
when we get to it. But watching this movie now, the doc we get at the beginning of that movie and the way he's acting towards Billy makes so much sense to me, because this movie is as much Doc Skurlock's fall from grace or fall from innocence as much as anything else.
Yeah, they agreed. Was McClusky a real person on the regulator's father alone? Do you know that or is it created for this movie? The trader Frank.
McCluskey was a regulator, was a trader, or was perceived to be a trader, But I think that's pretty much all that is known about him. Each of the regulators presented were real people. There were originally eleven regulators. I believe we get six here, but in each of their
names are they match up? Like what's interesting is those in real life those guys were interesting on their own, Like Billy the Kid ends up getting a lot of credit for all of their exploits, and this would be true, like every gunfight in the Lincoln County War in the newspapers gets attributed to Billy the Kid. They play that off in the movie, like they even they have the wrong photo. Oh, and it's like as wrong, it's right
all the time. But you'll notice he keeps getting the credit for everything that would eventually be a problem for him because it's hard to get amnesty when you've not you've never disputed that you shot like twenty nine men.
Yeah. The reason I ask that is because I think one of the great things about that scene is there's this doubt as to whether McCluskey is actually a spy or not. Because what happens is they've got another bunch of Murphy's men at gunpoint, and they're debating whether to kill them or bring them into to jail to justice, and McClusky is the one who says, no, I don't think we should go here. I think we should. Murphy's
going to be looking for us. We should do this, And Billy is watching him, and Billy says, I saw what you did, and it kind of it's almost like a reservoir dogs kind of moment where all of a sudden you don't know who's telling the truth, or even the regulators themselves aren't sure if Billy's right about this. So I think that's actually another great moment is because
it's never they do in the performance. They do make it seem like the guy is actually a trader, but in actual fact, like the way the scene goes, he very well may not have been a trader. And this might have just been another example of Billy going a little crazy and killing people when he shouldn't have.
And speaking of Kiefer Sutherland and like sort of the audience proxy, you just watch the way he reacts to Billy throughout the entire movie. So there's the scene where they hole up at at that saloon and there's a bounty hunter that Billy goes and fucks with, like, oh, who you're looking for? What's he look like?
Huh?
Yeah. If you watch the way Doc is reacting to Billy, he's so frightened of him at that point he says, Okay, yep, whatever you say, Bill, Yeah, how a man Like they're all just trying to hold it together at that point.
Yeah, because at that point they've already been through the Ringer, they're very close to the end of their sort of adventure, and he's just this carries through to Young Guns too, by the way, this idea that they're just they're doing all they can to put up with this loose cannon of a gang leader essentially, And you're right, Sutherland plays it awesome because he's just like yeah, because he ends up killing this bounty hunter and he says, what does
that make it about about ten? And he's like, yeah, but whatever you say, Billy, Yeah, whatever you say.
It was five and let's call it ten. Okay, Yes, it's ten. Okay, wherever you get.
It's a nice antidote to what I think you would normally get in a movie like this, where they're all bonded, they're all pals, and they're all like one for all for one. These guys actively, at a minimum, they don't like Billy at maximum, they're afraid of him and what he's capable of. And that I think is a very interesting tack in this movie that I think makes it a little unique. I think it's one of the things I really like about it.
And I know we just keep going to keep talking about Young Guns too, but they went ahead and made that movie and they made it so good. And I sort of said it already, but the beginning of that film, if you haven't seen Young Guns, when they're getting the band back together. He's rescuing Chavez and he's rescuing Skurlock, and they're going to go out and have more adventures and everything. Like the way they're acting towards one another is so standoffish and it should be like a rousing
Western moment. But you watch this movie and you go, yeah, that's like the last thing you would want is to be back with this fucking crazy man. And now he's even more famous and he's even more untouchable.
All Doc wanted to be was a school teacher in Young Guns Too. He was happy, he was married, he was doing his thing. Now he's back in the pit literally with Billy, the last person on earth he wanted to be dealing with.
Again.
Again, that's Young Guns Too.
We'll talk about we'll get there. I know, I just want to I we just want to talk about it. But that's our next episode.
Basically, we were talking about performances. Another pleasant surprise to me, given how his personal sort of how his persona has evolved over time, is Charlie Sheen in it as Dick Brewer, that's the character's name. He is the basically the moral center of the regulators, and he's the leader of the regulators. He is so upright and Harry Cooper of this movie, he really is. He's like the old fashioned outlaw with
a sense of morals and a moral compass. And given the fact that now, like people may not remember, but what it wasn't that long ago? Was it ten fifteen years ago that Charlie Sheen went through his kind of nutty drug phase, remember Tiger Blood, and he was waitning, he cut a winning he went off the deep end. It's interesting to reconcile that public persona with his character here.
He does a wonderful job with Dick, because he's got to be the one to try to hold the regulators together in the face of all of this stuff happening around him, in the face of the chaos that is William Bonnie. I think he does an awesome job.
I noticed that. I don't know if this were purposeful or not, but he very rarely takes that hat off, keeping the upper half of his face in shadow for most of the movie, which I think is really wise considering he's acting against his brother, and really they do look a lot alike.
They do.
Speaking of them looking like things, there's a scene late in the movie where Billy is having a bath and he's dictating a letter to doc to the governor to basically kiss my ass. Where Emilio Westavis looks so much like Martin Sheen that I thought I was watching Apocalypse now.
It's crazy, mean that when he's coming up out of the water at the end.
No, just in general.
Yeah, he well, I always thought he did zemble him some of the roles. I mean, it's hard to say that he looked like Martin Sheen and Ripo Man, but yeah, for sure, there's definitely a resemblance there. But they're all I mean, I'm singling out Charlie Sheen this and Emeli
¶ Casey Siemaszko
west Has that, but they all do wonderful work. Derman mulroney, who kind of became a rom com lead later in his career. He's totally unrecognizable as Dirty Steve. He's a really like you can just smell him off the screen. He just seems like this filthy dirty He's always got tobacco in his mouth and his teeth are all gross, and he's got a great accent. He's awesome too. The regulators themselves, to a man, are fantastic.
Yeah, that Dirty Steve Stevens's character was my favorite when I first saw the movie, just because he looks so authentic, because you, as you said, you can smell him through the screen. You know that the Old West was peopled mainly by that guy. You know, just lunatics out there trying to forge a life in the fucking wilderness. Like just yes, that was my favorite performance when I saw it as a kid. Favorite performance. Now, Casey Shamasco is
Charlie Bowdrey. He is so sweet from moment one. That's the regulator who just wants to do the right thing, and he's the tiny man who can kick your ass, and he gets a fucking romance in it.
Come on, man, And for me, he's the most heartbreaking member of the Regulators because by the end, they're holed up in Alex's house, they're surrounded and he basically he freaks out. Basically they're getting shot at by every direction. He's already talked at length about how afraid he is of getting hanged, so what Essentially, he just basically has
a break. He just goes nuts, and it's heartbreaking to see this guy who's held it together, tried to hold it together through all of the bad shit that Billy leads them through and then to see this because you know the end is coming for him. I mean, there's no very little chance they're going to make it out of there alive, and you want him to because he is so sweet and like you said, he's he had just gotten married in Mexico and it's he plays it beautifully.
Casey Schremasko is awesome. He's so underrated. I liked him ever since. I think you talked about this in other podcasts Three o'clock High. He's so good.
Absolutely, un let's we forget. He's also three D a member of Fiff's gang in Back to the Future.
That's true. He was only in the first one though, right, he wasn't in the second and third one? Or was he?
No, he's in the second one, is he?
There were certain members of the gang that didn't make it.
Into the s oh in the second one, he's no, because they had old age him. He's got the leather sap. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We could do this the ease way or the hard way.
Where did Casey schmonsk go go? I fucking love him, man, Everything he was in I liked.
I don't know, that's a good question, because he he really did seem to be carving out quite a career for he was the lead in Three o'clock High.
He was the lead. He's a fucking character actor. He led that movie. The other thing I like about Casey Schamasco his sister Nina Shamasca.
Oh, I knew her from Airheads, very good looking airheads.
And what's it was the sequel to the fucking Mickey Ork movie, that horrible, fucking the one where he went to Rio for when he fell off man, when he came back all puffy and fucking and blowed it for the first time.
And he did that sex movie and like, yeah, he ended up with the girl he made the movie with, so that all this on screen fucking it's real. Fucking Oh yeah, you mean is that Wild Orchid? Yes? Yes, So there was a sequel to Wild Orchid called Wild Orcid two Two Shades of Blue, starring Nina Shamasco.
I'm looking at Casey Schumasco's IMDb.
Okay, tell me he's okay.
The last performance I have is he was a voice in the video game Red Day Redemption two.
Wonderful, but I love that game.
But it's that's a Landmark. I love that game. But the last like actual acting role, live acting role was a TV series called Billions. He hasn't really acted since twenty sixteen, which I think I'm surprised by. I don't know what. I don't know what movie. He's fantastic, he's well, he's great in everything he's in. But he is What did I write down here? I wrote that the character was the where is it here?
Blah blah blah.
He's one of the more affable members of the group. He and he's the one. Also, lest we forget, they sampled him extensively in Warre and G's regulated isn't it? Isn't it his speech that kicks off the whole song.
Indeed, it is you who taught me as a young man what a pugilist was.
I wanted to see more of that, though there's only that one scene where he beats the crap out of the guy.
You needed more pugilism from him, Come on, man, that was a fucking good plus. There was not going to be any more pugilism past that. Everyone was shooting at each other.
But if you can get Chavez twirling knives around in every single scene, you can have him doing a little bit of a.
Rope a dome kicking butt, just like shadow boxing. He's
¶ Pat Garrett's Character
just like punching alls and shit.
Maybe he could get into a tussle with Billy.
Let's talk about Buckshot Roberts for a second. Buck Shot Roberts is a fucking weird historical character to begin with, and then we get Brian Keith shows up for wat steam. It's one of my favorite scenes, the moment where he's like he shows up at the they're looking for him, like he's wanted by them. He shows up and says, no, I'm not with those fuckers anymore, but I understand that you're all wanted, so I'm here for you. Let's go dance. He says, let's dance and then start shooting. It's great.
He's totally fearless. I actually it's funny because I was watching that awful credit sequence and his name scrolled by and I went Ryan Keith, the Brian Keith, Who the fuck did he play in this? I totally forgot that he was that absolutely bad shit bounty hunter because he only shows up in that one scene and he's so blase about the prospect of taking them in and you get the sense that he's seen everything, he's done everything. He doesn't give a shit about these like these pipsqueaks.
He's just gonna it's just another day in the office for him. And it's such a He only appears in it really very briefly. He pulls out his gun and starts shooting, and then he basically hides in the outhouse, so you don't see him anymore. But he kills.
We don't know what happens to him. It's great.
Yeah, he's such a great It's just sort of out of nowhere kind of whirlwind that blows into their their path.
That's crazy, how engrossing this fucking screenplay was a fucking chaos. Agent shows up, fuck shit up, kills one of our main characters, and then we just forget all about him, like we don't even care what happens to him because we're so swempt up in the rest of it.
Yeah, he's awesome. Brian Keith, it was great in this two. I mean everybody again, the performances themselves are by and large right. The only one that I thought was a little bit odd was the guy who played Pat Garrett. It might have been just the actor wasn't quite right. I know he's John Wayne's son, was Patrick Wayne?
Patrick Wayne? Yeah, here's the problem with Patrick Wayne that I think you might have You saw Young Guns two first, and how are you gonna compete with William fucking Peterson? Are you kidding me? Look? Patrick Wayne is fine here because the character is not a character. They included Pat Garrett here just as a foreshadowing for those in the know.
Like really, his character delivers one line of he delivers a piece of information at the end, which may or may not be a trap that he's laying for them, But the earlier scene, because he's only in the two scenes, is just a hey, look, well these two might be friends, they might be enemies, who knows. We'll see. And if there was never going to be a Young Guns too, then it would have been just a nice bit of
for a shot. So he does fine within the parameters of he has to show up say hi, I'm Pat Garrett, and later say hey, kid, they're really coming for you. You got to get out of here.
That's fair, that's fair. I guess I.
Wasn't going to trust Patrick Wayne to handle the moral complexity of whether or not he can accept money and hunt down his former friend but get a better life for him and his family. William Peterson was needed.
Yeah, that's a great point. He really wasn't a character. He was kind of in a way, not an easter egg, but he was there as an interesting foible for someone who knows that they have a history Pat Garrett Billy the kid. I And it's also interesting I assumed that he was laying a trap for the gang. But you're saying it's up for debate whether he knew that they were going to get to drop on them when they went to go help out Alex.
Yeah, well I'm saying did he come there as friend or foe? Like he did he come there to let them know that's happening so that they would go there to be captured or did yes? Was it potentially like, look, you got to go now to get your friends because they're not there yet. They don't really they say it in the during the blockade moment, they're like, may I probably said, is it probably said us here as a trap? But who knows? You don't know.
I don't know.
I got to come back to the music for a second. James Horner was the original composer on this film turned in a score that was rejected and then replaced with this one. How can this be crazy?
Crazy?
I wonder if that's that we find, that is that available.
It's quoted as saying it was an electronic score. Oh so I don't know what that means, if that would necessarily be a better thing than that we got, because I wanted your classic, sweeping orchestral score like the one we got with Young Guns too. Who knows if it would, I mean, it couldn't. It certainly couldn't be much worse than what we got because what we got is very dated and kind of is at odds with the movie. I think in a lot of ways.
They could have had Tangerine Dream. That was the only acceptable electronic version of the scar that they could have had for this movie other than that col Allen Silvester, God damn it. Anyway, we'll get to Young Guns.
Too prior to watching it for this episode, FA them Malone. When's the last time you saw Young Guns? The first one?
It's been about ten or fifteen years, Yeah.
So similar to me. Was there anything that surprised you having not seen it for that long, something you didn't remember or thought, Hey, this is actually better than I remembered.
Well, as I said, sort of focusing in on Doc Skurlock's journey here this time I thought was very rewarding, as was not that it hasn't been before, but and mean the rest visits he's part. It's fucking out of hand here. Man, He's so good. I've already praised it, and I'm gonna praise it again for the exact same reason. Billy's a fucking psychopath and he just keeps making life
worse for them. But at any time you don't want to tangle with him, and the fact that there are moments where you actually want to follow him because Emelia List is the one doing the crazy things. It's like, well he did do that crazy thing, but he seems okay. It's kind of a marvel to me.
By the way, did you know that there was another outsider in this movie?
Yeah?
I know.
Tom Cruise is in the final scene on credited. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Yeah, well, during the sort of final big battle. By the way, Murphy eventually died a few months later from cancer, right I read that? Yeah, yeah, not to not shot between the eyes by a Billy the kid with a quipie one liner.
Well, and that is but can I just say that is a terrible on screen death because he's shot like the well, the direction of it made no sense because they Billy and Doc and Chavez escape right and Billy comes back in order to shoot Murphy through the right between the eyes. But he shoots him. But Jack Palance doesn't just fall dead as you would expect him to.
He turns into the He turns toward the camera with an anguish look on his face, like like this, if you're a shot between the eyes, I'm sorry, you're just gonna fall You're dead, no more brain like that bugged me when I saw this again, I'd forgotten that part. That really annoyed me.
It's Jack Palance. He was in Shane. He can do what he wants.
What did you think of Jack Palance in this?
He's terrible. I'm sorry, I love you and that's yeah. I'm I am a Jack Palance fan. Don't get me wrong. The accent is slippery and he's I don't know, he's just I don't know. Feel bad criticizing him, but he's an effective amount of creepy. But he doesn't seem like some sort of tactician fighting a war with these people. He just seems like a brute.
Agreed. But my issue with Jack Palance I think later in life he had a tendency to hiss a lot in his acting, Like just I'm thinking of him or not. I can't help thinking of him in Tangling Cash, which is probably the worst performance of his career. Granted, but yeah, there wasn't a lot of nuance with Jack Palance as Murphy. And maybe that's by design, but I guess Look, if it's a Western and you've got Jack Palance and he's willing to do your movie, you don't hire Jack Palance
to be in your movie. But still, I didn't love the performance. I found it a little bit to cartoonish.
Agreed, could have been better. I mean, they needed some better villains here, perchance. Considering on the good side, we not only had Terrence Stamp, but we've also got Terry O'Quinn, who just radiates decency, even as a villain, even as the worst villain's even as a smoke monster, he just radiates decency.
Yeah. I love Terry O'Quinn.
Remember him as Howard Hughes the Rocketeer. Yeah, man, he made Howard Hughes decent.
That might be my favorite sequence in The Rocketeer too, when he shows them the movie, the propaganda movie the Germans made where there's armies of rocketeers flying through the air.
Speaking of favorite moments featuring Howard Hughes, remember Tucker with fucking the boy with the green hair.
You got me?
Sorry, Candy colored clown. Come on, man, I don't remember.
It's been forever.
Tony No Phony, Baloney, Tony the Tiger. So I can
¶ Val Kilmer's Billy the Kid and Other Portrayals
name every character, the man who's played and his name escapes me.
You know who's in the Tucker? Miss Nina Shamasco is in Tucker?
Oh my god. All signs point to Shamsco.
As is of course, Christian Slater, who we would see in Dean Stockwell. Dean Stockwell, Holy could I forget Dean Stockwell?
Yes, Dean Stockwell. They call him Spruce Goose. That's funny to.
You, Well, it is his character's name. And that quantum leap.
He wasn't Iggy the one that wat.
I I'm not ashamed to say it. I watched it.
I bet you did.
It had one of the most depressing finales of all time.
And they meet God or something.
Oh, there was a final like text crawl that said that he never ever found his way back. He just kept.
The network. That's what that is. Those are our favorite Howard Hughes performances. What about Melvin and Howard with the Jason Robarts that's Howard is. We can keep going. There
have been others. Fucking Leonardo DiCaprio did a version of him speaking of Okay, you know what, here is something I want to talk about because the performances of or portrayals of Billy the Kid through the years, because there have been some big ones, including a movie I had fully fucking intended on bagging on right now, but now it's tempered because the fucking lead just died and we both love him and everyone listening loves him because we've
just lost mister Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer played Billy the Kid and gore Vidal's Billy the Kid, which is a TV movie and it's an interesting performance in a really bad movie. Gore Vidal thought he understood Billy the Kid in ways others hadn't, and thought he had uncovered facts that he didn't, and his version is really terrible, and that's a terrible movie. And Val Kilmer has chosen that. One of the facts of Vidal sort of harps on is that Billy the Kid had like kind of a
high nasally voice. So of course mister method goes for that, making an unlikable character even more unlikable. Imagine if Nicholas Cage's character from Peggy Sue Got Married was like deep, like very unwashed and not very nice.
That's what Val Kilmer was going for in that movie.
He was going for something, man. So that is one of the performances Billy the Kid. It's at least worth checking out. I mean, if you're a completist, now it's the time to do that. And we're gonna be talking about Welkomer and another projects. In fact, we're gonna be talking about a John Fusco movie that is a very good movie and the features a great performance by Val Kilmer.
So we will give mister Kilmer his due. It's not with Billy the Kid, nor is it with Chris Christofferson, who's got this somnambulant performance in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, this sort of like aloof rock star kind of fucking perform not even a rock star, like a fucking Folks star performance as Billy the Kid. It is. I don't want to say it's terrible, but it's very unwatchable. Oh dirty Little Billy. Ever seen that one?
No, I haven't seen any of these, but they also you're making them sound good.
Oh well, no, they're all worth a look. I'm just saying as portrayals of Billy the Kid, or performances of Billy the Kid, they leave a lot to be desired. The only one that is really good is from just a couple of years ago. It's from a movie called The Kid, directed by Vincent and Afrio and co written by Vincentinofrio, starring Ethan Hawk as Pat Garrett and Dane Dehan as William Bonnie Billy the Kid. Dane Dehan's performance
as Billy the Kid is really fucking good. I think that performance might be the closest to who that guy actually is. I think that might actually be Billy the Kid. I think Vincentinofrio and Dane to Hans somehow captured what the guy might actually have been like. I think in seeing the guy's context of these events. I think the Young Guns movies are the perfect movies for that. But as a character study, you're not going to do better than the Kid.
I knew that Vincent Andofrio had done some writing and directing, but I've never heard of that. I don't have to chase that one up as well.
Yeah, that's all I got for Billy the Kid. That's Billy the Kid moment. Everybody performances. Oh you know what, was it Billy the Kid or was it.
You're forgetting one Billy the Kid performance? Brother alone? Maybe you said that was the greatest Billy the Kid performance. I'm gonna push back on that because there's a certain actor by the name of Dan Shore. You might know him from Trump John. Yeah, okay, you're right, excellent adventure. That's right. He is like the he's great, he's Billy the Kid. He says bogus a lot. He befriends Aristotle. What's not to like about Billy the Kid, Bill and Ted.
Well, he also unfolds his own wanted poster to like show off to chick.
That's great. I mean, that's look, we're being silly with this here, but you know, it was kind of a it was a nice touch to have someone like Billy the Kid be amongst the assemblage that Bill, Bill and Ted brought back for their so their History paper.
I would like to have seen what Amelia Restivos would have been like. This came out the same year. That would have been an interesting crossover movie.
It would have been really cool. But yeah, no, Ultimately, there were some things that I remembered that I didn't like, some things that I forgot that I actually really liked. So I don't know it was. I was glad to have seen it again, but again I don't. We've harped on this more than we probably should. But Young Guns Too is the superior movie, and we will talk about it one day. But it's just more epic, more grand. The music's better. There's some interesting actors that are brought in.
But as a foundation for that film, though, we'll tell everyone to watch this, know that we know that the music sucks and the direction is workmanlike at best. There's one pretty great shot, but even it is done clumsily. It's during New Year's Eve. It's a crane shot, slowly tracking backwards, like pulling the street as everyone's shooting their guns off and stuff. It's pretty I just noted that that's all there. I don't want to be totally negative
¶ Final Thoughts and Upcoming Reviews
to the director, but the rest of it is terribly directed. But also the performances across the border really good. Here the script is really good. So watch this movie if for nothing else, key for Sutherland's performance, just to watch where Doc Skurlock starts from in Young Guns Too. Because
Billy is Billy no matter. Watch You don't need a primber for where to know who Billy the kid is at the start of Young Guns To you get everything just from the opening scene and Emilia west Visit's performance. I think for the character of Skurlock, you're not going to do yourself any service watching this movie.
It can only enrich the experience of watching Young Guns Too. But I stand by the fact that Estevez himself said that they wanted to make a better They weren't entirely happy with Young Guns Won. They set out to make a better movie, and by God, they made a better movie. Doesn't mean that Young Guns Want is a terrible movie. It's well worth your time to see it. It's not as good as a sequel, it's just a fact.
Hp Before we go, I want to point out one other thing I noticed for the first time. When they're in the throes of their Peote Trip, Dermott mulroney and Dirty Steve keeps yelling about you see the size of that chicken.
But that chicken.
Yeah. In the scene that follows, when they're no longer on the acid trip, if you'll notice, Dermot mulroney walks into a scene eating a drumstick the size of his head. So he found that chicken.
I never put that together, but you're absolutely right.
I'm the next well, the next version this we're following along. We're just doing the next movie. The next movie is Young Guns to so Here fuseco fast. I don't know. We don't even have a name for this yet, but I guess we're gonna have to call it something because this is its un cadicated thing here on Midnight Hearing though. So I hope you like Westerns because that we're gonna get a lot of those, and we're gonna get a We're gonna get a trip to locke Ness. Have you
seen that one yet? No? Buckle up, baby, ted Dance and I watched it last night. I loved it.
Cool. I've never seen it.
But until then, HP, where could people find.
You when I'm not watching John Fusco movies? You can find me elsewhere on the weirding Weed network. As fallom Alone said, I co host the Night Mister Walter's Taxi podcast with fathom Alone. I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast. I am an occasional guest on The Culture Cast with Chris Dashu, and last but not least, I have a band camp site HP Music Place dot bandcamp dot com. Please check it out, and yeah, that's where you can find me.
As for me, you're here right now. You're on the midnight viewing show. Mondays is Father Malone's weekly round up where Young Ripley, Gene, My Pug and I review of the latest new release type stuff. And here each week we do retrospectives, alternating obviously between this and Channels from the Dark Side that we do with Mike White and the Chris Statue from Projection Booth and Culture Cast, respectively. If you want to support us financially here on the show,
go to Patreon dot com slash Father Malone. Subscribers get episodes early commercial free, and you get bonus series, including one that HP and I do called Cable Box Theater, where we look at filmed theatrical productions that aired on cable television in the early nineteen eighties. I guess away case at Chamasco. We miss you.
Regulators. You regulate any stealing of his property.
We're damn good too.
But you can't be any geek off the street. Gotta be handy with the steel if you know what I mean, or you keep regular.
Man.
It was a clear black knight, A clear white woman was on the streets trying to conserve some starch for the eve.
So why could get something H sneaks s