Can movies be cursed?

Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. Like tongue is super big today for some reason for us, and this is stuff you should know. I know, it's like it sounds like Peter overbeef for God's sake, who's that? You know? That guy's voice anywhere? He's like an MPR reporter and like he he has me even beat for large tongues,

candy sucking sound. Do you remember when we first came out and people would write it and be like till Josh stop sucking on candy while these podcasting And I'd just be like, that's my that's my normal voice. Man. At Yeah, I appreciate that. But now now that we're high rollers, they provided me with a private nurse to um suction out the saliva every thirty seconds. Oh my god, and then Jerry has to edit it out. So gross. Gross but true, right, like a cursed movie story. True. Yeah.

Do you know what? I hated the dentists besides everything, Man, that was a pretty good segue. I hated the dentist. Now you know, you don't have to spit anymore because they do have those suction things, but it's still like I still do the fake swallow, you know how it feels like it builds up in the back of your so like they'll be in your mouth and you'll just go like that. I hate that. It's funny. Do you

do that? Does everyone do that? A gag reflex thing? Well, it's not even a gag reflex, is just the hard swallow that it's almost swallow. Yeah, the sort of swallow reflex. If that's such a thing, you feel like you're gonna break your vocal cords or your throat muscles. Hate that, I know what you mean. I don't hate it, though, I think it's kind of yeah, not enjoyable, but I don't know, and I don't know. When they talk to you and talk about they can talk, but yeah, it

can't be any questions involved. Maybe rhetorical questions that you can shrug at. My last hygienist I really didn't care for, like that was a personality thing. And they have TVs at my dentists that they'll put down in front of you, and which is fine, I don't really care. But she would stop and like look and make comments about the news and stuff. Yeah, why don't they just why don't they just let him do his job? I didn't like it.

It was it was really annoying. And then I came back in not too long ago and there was a new hygenis for me and she was awesome, and on the way out, I was like, by the way, I was like, um, I won't say your name. I was like, but this new hygenas I really like a lot um. She was like what about before? I was like, I wasn't crazy about her, and she went, no one was, and you guys need to tell us that. And we let her go because we got all these complaints started

flooding in. I was like, well, I feel bad, like I don't want to get anyone fired, but I didn't there was she wasn't good. Huh So, anyway, was this in brooke Haven? Uh? Yeah? Is it brook Haven? How do you know where my dentist is. Well, I just had an experience in Brookhven, and I'm like, this town is just small enough for that to be possible. Well, I'll go ahead and shout out my dentist, the great Doctor Darryl Kimchi. She's wonderful kimchi. That's one of my

favorite foods. But is that your dentist? Uh No, okay, but it's possible that we're talking about like a hygienius that gets fired pretty far. Maybe you know she's making the rounds and buckhead Brookhaven, right, yeah, Dr Darryl Kimchi of Atlanta Cosmetic Sports Dentistry. Wow, that is quite a shout out. I think Dr Kimchi owes us some free kimchi maybe as a thank you. She's sort of a celebrity then she does a lot of the uh sports

people in Atlanta and the Real Housewives. Maybe. But I went in and they have memorabilia up everywhere and when the TV show was out of giving them a poster and they never put it up. No way. That's hilarious. Yeah, wow, that's great. That reminds me of The Friends when Joey tried to get his head shot up at the I think it's like the dry cleaner or something. Right, and do it? Man, that is so stuff you should know. All right, Well this has got a nice loose start. Indeed, chuck,

but this is a this is this is a fun one. Um. But let's begin, shall we. Well, yeah, this was written by the Grabster. The article is ten movies that were supposedly cursed, and Ed goes to great as to point out how there's no way that anything can ever be really cursed. Right. I think probably his couple of lines where he's like, just so stupid it was edited out, you know, I get the only you got to sign this was like, God, are you kidding me? I want

to write about real stuff, like a satanic panic. But he does love writing about movies. He's definitely a movie guy, especially horror movies, and it seems like more than any other movie, horror movies they're the variety that that tend to be associated with curses more than other types, right, or at least the marketing department cooks that up. So yeah,

that's definitely part for the course these days. But there was a more innocent, gentler time when when rumors of Satan influencing the production of a movie was a legitimate rumor. You know, it wasn't a pr stunt, right. So, like you said, Ed goes to some trouble to point out

what's actually behind the idea of a movie. Curse that some things are bound to happen on just about any movie trip, especially when you stop and consider, especially in the early days, the kind of stuff they were doing with the technology they were working with at the time. Of course, bad things happened on movies. That's of course

people died. Like for example, I looked this up right, Um, there was a movie called Noah's Ark and they used six hundred thousand gallons of water to create the flood scene one take. They did one take and three extras drowned. One guy who did survive had to have a leg amputated. It was broken so badly because this is this is the flood scene, and you needed to to basically get it as real as possible. Isn't that crazy. That is

uh yeah, especially back in those days. But they didn't care back then, right, they were just like O, they're just extras who cares? Although John Wayne, it turns out, was an extra in that movie. But he's really obviously yeah, and actors into another curse he does. He also worked in this special effects department on that movie. Or prop prop sorry, prop like special effects was what he did early c g I. He would he would clap the coconuts together for all the horse scenes. Um. But but hold,

I have another one. Okay, so this is another movie years later they died with their boots on. I think it's about the charge of the Life Brigade maybe Okay. It was movie starring Errol Flynn and during this cavalry charge that they recreated. Three extras in that movie died just in that one shot. That one scene. One of the guys was thrown from his horse and he threw his sword like away from him. Unfortunately threw it ahead of himself and the sword stuck into the ground, handle first,

and he was impaled on the sword. This is this happened on a movie set, and it's not just like back in the day either. The Twilight Zone movie. Very fair. Abviously there was a disaster, right, Yeah, that was It's very sad. That's when Vick Morrow and two children, uh, we're chopped up by helicopter blade very infamously. It was terrible, terrible tragedy. Yeah, Shinty Chan and micah Din Lee were the two child actors who were killed. So things do happen on movie sets. And again, when you stop and

think about what they're doing, it's often very dangerous. So what Ed is saying is, when you start to put these things together and then you get rid of all of the things that don't support your point, you got a curse on your hands. Should we start with Poltergeist? Yes, polter Geist. That's one where people always list this as a cursed movie because quite a few of the actors died sort of unexpectedly after the movie. Um, and then

Ed goes on to say, very astutelee. But it's also a textbook example of why the idea, of course this is silly. If I mentioned that curses are silly, so over and over so three of the those first three Poulter guys eighty eight, I didn't see the remake, did you. I didn't even know there was one. Yeah, of course there was. They remade it a few years ago. No, I didn't. I didn't see it. No, I don't think it was very popular. But Um, Dominic done, nique dominique,

excuse me? Her father was Dominic done? Correct? And her brother was Griffin done? Is Griffin done? Yeah? She was well, she was murdered. Um, she was murdered by her boyfriend John Sweeney. Yeah, and that was a very disturbing case. Have you ever poked around that case? Like the signs were all there. It was one of those things that could have been prevented, and he got away with it. For part he did like three years in prison and

Dominic done her father. He was there every day for the trial of the man who was just just crushed by the injustice of the sentence that the guy received his life. He became a crusader, it did. Yeah. He You can read some of the best um coverage of high profile murder cases um in the pages of Vanity Fair that he covered for years and years and years as a direct result of him basically covering his own daughter's murders trial. Yeah, o j very famously he covered that, Yes,

he did, Um, and he Uh. Apparently the Dunes spent a great deal of time basically keeping tabs on John Sweeney for years, and he was a chef for a while. He was uh, And I even started tracking him down this. I just went down the rabbit hole like six or eight months ago on this for some reason. Yeah. This is one of those you know things where see something on Facebook and then all of a sudden he goes, oh yeah, and then you go down the rabbit hole. And I was I was trying to find this guy,

was like, where is where is he? And the last I saw he was some chefs somewhere. Um, I think he had changed his name even of course you had, did John Mora, I mean you are, Yeah, we'll keep changing that name, buddy, because it's it's gonna follow you around. Yeah. And I mean like there was no question whether he

did it or not. He admitted to to it. Like he told this guy who had who had been in the house at the time in um Dominique Dunn's house rehearsing lines to call the police, that he just killed his girlfriend. Um. But yeah, he he was hounded for many years, and I guess towards the end of his life Dominic Dunn said, you know what, I gonna waste my life like keeping tabs on this guy anymore. Um, just just dropped it. But yeah, there's a lot of people out there who don't like that, dude. Yeah, I

would imagine so so. Um, so she died by murder. Um then the the Young Girl, And this is like a couple of months after Poulter Guys came out, right, so it was very close to the production. Yeah, yeah, she wasn't not in the sequels obviously. Um, Heather O'Rourke was the Little Girl and poulter Geist, and she passed away after after poulter Geist Too was wrapped and she

initially was diagnosed with the flu. We talked about this in her flu episode a little bit, but what she really had was an intestinal blockage and at the tender age of twelve, she had a heart attack and sepsis and passed away. Super tragic. Yeah, and um, so those two dying so close to the production of the actual movie she died. It was Poultry Guys three. I believe that Heather rourke died after filming that We're basically done. Um,

get it wrong, I got it wrong, man. Uh. And then Dominique and died just a couple of months after the first Poultry Guys came out. So that's like one big hallmark of a of a movie being cursed story is the deaths that happened typically need to happen either during production or right around production. Okay, so those two are the big ones. But then people say, ohh still not convinced. Well, listen to this uh and pulls your

guys too. There was an actor named will Sampson who played h Taylor, the medicine man who helps the family, and he is better known for playing Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, one of the great characters of all time. Um he died, Uh, I guess after filming a few years after filming the year after filming. Um, he died following a heart and lung transplant. Yeah, and he had a he had a history of health issues. He was a giant man. And um, so that was,

you know, again tied to the curse. But what can you say about someone who just died sort of a natural causes after a heart and long transplant. I think there's pretty good odds, um. And then there's um. Julian Beck who played the scary, scary scary Preacher Kane and also in Poultry Guys Too, and he was creepy. He died I guess before Poultry Guys Too actually came out, so that would have been close to um the production

as well, so it checks those boxes. But he died of stomach cancer and he apparently had a long standing issue with battling it as well. UM, so you can make the case it doesn't really count. But are you really trying to make a case about curses. Yeah, well, let's just talk about him instead about that. Agreed? Okay, what's next? The Wizard of Oz is next. That's right.

Nine great great movie, but a great movie that was marred by for such a happy movie, it had some some rough stuff going on because it was in the early days of making movies, and like you said earlier, back then it was they didn't know or care as much about safety. Like for instance, the tin Man Buddy Epson. They said, all right, we need to make you look silver, and so we'll just coat you with aluminum powder, and that stuff was really dangerous. He went to the hospital.

That irritated his lungs uh, and he could not even continue in the role. Now, luckily he survived to go on to play Jed the Dad in Beverly Hillbillies, thank god, but he was out of the Wizard of Oz. He was so Buddy Epson was replaced by Jack Hayley, and they said, well, we probably shouldn't use that same aluminum powder, so they used an aluminum paste which didn't get into

his lungs, but to give him a really bad iron infection. Man, right, So the illuminium just the tin man role itself had a bunch of problems, but that was just one of many. Margaret Hamilton's The Wicked Witch of the West, she was burned pretty badly with some of the pirate technics from the movie, and um, I think she she was only she was hospitalized, but she came back and you know, completed work on the movie. Yeah, but she said she

wasn't gonna do any more firework. Apparently the trapdoor that she was standing on, the timing of it wasn't wasn't right, so it didn't open up and drop her right before the fireworks went off, but did it simultaneous to the fireworks going off, which is not what you want. I thought it right, So they were like whatever, what are you gonna do? Uh. There's the very famous urban legend which is not true, but it bears mentioning that one of the munchkins hanged himself in the background of a scene.

And if you just google image that junk hanged Munchkin Wizard of Oz, it will it will have a screen cap with a little circle around. I mean, he doesn't even look It just looks like something that is not a tree. In other words, it's not attached to the ground. It doesn't necessarily look like a hanging munchkin. But apparently there was a bird. Yeah, it doesn't look like a bird to me either, though, like supposedly it's a silhouette

of a bird. And if you watch the like a close up of the video of it, it does sway back and forth above the ground. So I mean you can see where where people came up with that for sure. Yeah, but that that is not the case. There was no munchkin that uh, that just couldn't take it anymore. There's actually there's a really great horror fiction story by I think a guy named Stevenage called The Hanged Man of Oz.

Looking up and reading. It's pretty good, but it's about this dude kind of becoming obsessed with that that um rumor and seeing it on video and not being able to unsee it and all the stuff that happens after. I think it's Steve Nagg. It's definitely called the Hanged Man of Oz. Right, we'll check that out. Um, other tragedies and Wizard of Oz anti m Miss Clara Blandic she killed herself, um A one. Yeah, and she left in her suicide note that um that she was going

on her greatest adventure. Well that's kind of nice, I guess. So it's about as pleasant as it can get with the suicide note. I think the Wizard himself, Frank Morgan, he was injured in a car wreck just a few months after they released the movie. And then, of course Judy Garland had one of the more tragic lives in Hollywood history. Yes, they're making a movie about her soon, I think she I can't believe they haven't already. I think they've done it on TV, but not a big

movie thing. I don't think she was basically owned by MGM, like almost almost the definition of being owned. Right. Um, she was, uh, like we discovered at age thirteen. I think in Kansas actually at a state fair and they said, um, well, we're just gonna buy you from your parents, basically, and they took her and they said, you can't get fat, so smoke eighty cigarettes a day. They basically prescribed her that they got her on ampheta means to keep her going.

They let they let her have one square meal a day. Terrible. Yeah, really so um she and she yeah, if there it makes a really good point. If there was any real tragedy that came out of the Wizard of Oz, it was Judy Garland's life. Yeah. Absolutely, so. She eventually would die by suicide herself on an overdose barbiturates. And um, I think it's she had the equivalent of ten seeking all capsules And lord wow, man, let's say it. I want to see that movie. Do you know who's going

to play her? Oh? Man, I just saw this the other day. I can't remember who, but I remember thinking, yeah, good casting, Like it wasn't Owen Wilson, it would be pretty come on, get happy. So right. She was forty seven years young, by the way, which is far, far too young to have lost Judy Garland. Uh, you want to take a break, Yeah, And that downer. Yes, all right, we'll come back and talk about the Man of Steel right after this. Alright, chuck um. So there's actually a

role Superman that's considered a cursed role. Did you know that? I did know that because I remember as a kid, even though I'm not, you know, sixty five years old, I'd like to watch reruns of stuff like Gilgan's Island and Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. Oh really, pet it good? Yeah, I mean you know, it was one of those old shows. They're all great, that true, probably one of my favorite stuff. True,

I'll watch all that stuff. Uh. Superman. Uh. The name of the show that I watched was called Adventures of Superman, and that was straight up from the nineteen fifties and stolen reruns in the mid seventies at least, because that's where I watched it. And that was the one starring George Reeves um as the not even very muscular and slightly tubby Superman. Yeah, like that kind of like fifties fit,

which chested, chunky and just weird like weirdly shaped. Yeah, Like what were they what kind of exercise were they doing back then? Well? I don't think they did exercise back then. Wasn't that the deal? Oh? Is that what it was? Yeah? They were just like, you know, you're gonna play Superman, So eat a bunch of steak, right, like, buff up a little bit, do some push ups maybe so he George Reeve Reeves, He's George Reeves. Christopher Reeve

is not plurals singular version, right, um. George Reeves became synonymous with Superman. Like everybody thought of him as Superman. He liked like they he wouldn't be cast in anything else, right, um, And he had some He had to put up with quite a bit being known as Superman who recognized his Superman. Apparently kids would come up and like punch him in the stomach to see if he was made of steal there. I looked into it. I learned this years ago from

the Uncle John's bathroom reader. And I looked into and I think it actually may be correct. But at one like public appearance, he um had to talk a kid out of shooting him, like this kid had brought his father's loaded thirty eight caliber pistol to shoot Superman to

see if the bullets really bounced off of him. And George Reeve got the kid to put to hand the gun over to like a cop or something, because he told them that sure, of course the bullet would bounce off of him, but it could ricochet and hurt somebody else who was standing nearby. Yeah, that was in the in the ben Affleck movie Hollywood Land, Is that right? Is about George Reeves, And that scene was in the movie. He does, yeah, it's it's okay, it's not great, but

you you lost me at ben Affter. It's not bad. But yeah, he talks a kid out of it in the in the movie, and um, and as I said, exactly what he said, like of course blah blah blah, and then he takes it. Then you can see him. He's just like God Jesus, like I almost got shot right. Yeah, Yeah that was. I can't imagine the relief that would wash over you after that. Yeah. So George Reeves, Reeves, Reeves. Yeah, he's the plural. It's tough to keep up with it, is he. He had a very sort of sad life,

which is in that Hollywood Land movie. He like you said, he couldn't get other work and he was only known as Superman, so I think he turned to the booze, and um, it was not a happy guy. And eventually in June of ninety nine, Um, that was he was having a party at his own house as fiance was going a party and he said, I'm gonna go upstairs and shoot myself in the head. Yeah, and Ed, it makes it sound like he was upset about the noise

or something like that from the party. I mean that may have been the straw, but he was upset about life. I got you, and I got the sense like legitimately depressed, you know, like clinically depressed. Right, Yeah, I mean like it's it's as we get to know more and more about like depression. Um, it's so much easier to look back at, like, you know, people who were depressed before. But that you just never really kind of pegged him like that because people didn't know about that kind of thing.

Then it's just sad to see, like how many people suffered like that because no one knew what was going on. They just thought it was the blues or you should just snap out of it. Yeah. Yeah, we we've never done one on depression. I think we should have. We not I don't believe we have. Man, Uh, well, then

we should definitely do that. We have the one on cats. Uh. And then Christopher Reeve played Superman and that is why some say it as a cursed role because he was very sadly injured in a in a horse riding accident in the mid nineties which lets him paralyze from the neck down. And he became very much an inspiration to people because he became an advocate for research into spinal cord injuries and he went on to direct and even

acts them as well after that. And it also points out that after Christopher Reeve died, his wife Dana, who saw him through this whole thing, Um, she died of cancer like two years afterward. Yeah. I've just man, I felt so awful for that family and this kid. Yeah, I mean just to get like that random, to be thrown from a horse and then just be paralyzed from the neck down. Yeah. So you put those two together and everyone says, well, Superman is a cursed role. What

would what would the Grabsters say? There such thing as curses? So stupid? The Conqueror is a movie that, like we said, John Wayne factored in and this one was definitely I don't know about cursed, but um, well, here's the story. It is very unlikely that John Wayne would play Mongolian Genghis Khan. He did, though, but it was Hollywood back in the day where they just would cast white people to play whoever, right, um, And he played Genghis Khan.

And they shot the Conqueror in Utah, less than a hundred and fifty miles from the Nevada Test Site, sorry Nevada test site where our own US government set off eleven nuclear detonations above ground the year before, just in the year before. Yeah, and that area was crawling with uh, with bad stuff lingering um fallout in the dirt and in the the rocks and like everything. It was in the soil. And they were just running around in their

filming movies. Yeah. I read this really interesting article in the Guardian called Hollywood and the down Winders about the people who lived in that area who suffered tremendously for health problems from the fallout and the government went to great links to cover it up and just assured everybody that there was no danger whatsoever to them, even though they were there. Their houses and schoolyards were covered in radioactive ash um and so from filming there when this

production came to town and they filmed there. Yeah, they were exposed to this the same radioactive debris, um and dust and dirt that these people who lived in the area were as well. And as a result, supposedly something like nine one out of two hundred and twenty cast and crew members who worked on location for the movie The Conqueror came down with cancer later on in life, which is highly unusual statistically speaking. Yeah, that's like forty

something percent of the crew and um. Years later, and People magazine in ninety actually did a special report on that movie in the cancer connection, like John Wayne, Agnes moorehead, Jean Jean Gerson, Susan Hayward, the director, Dick Powell, they all died of cancer. And in that People magazine, Uh, Dr Robert C. Pendleton, he was director of radiological health at the University of Utah, said that, like this would hold up in a court of law. That's such an

outstanding number of people. Yeah, and apparently not even um, just the people who worked on the production. It came to be known The Conqueror came to be known by the way, it's considered one of the best bad movies of the Golden Age. Of Hollywood. Um, but people who visited the set battle cancer later in life. To both of John Wayne's sons who came to visit him. There's a famous picture of him with two of his sons

and a guy using a Geiger counter on set. Um. Both of his son's head cancer later in life too. But supposedly the family uh and Dick Powell's son Norman, who's interviewed in that article I read, they discount the idea that it was that that people got cancer from that test site. They say, maybe it was a contributing factor, but these people all smoked heavily ate steaks like eight times a day, um, and that they had a lot

of other risk factors that probably led to it. But it's also entirely possible that they may not have died of cancer as early had they not filmed at that site. Well that Dr Robert Pendleton's said essentially, this is about three times the rate of cancer that you would expect, So right, I think that it definitely contributed. It's pretty curious. I want to see it. Have you ever seen The Conqueror? I gotta see this. I've seen pictures of John Wayne

is as uh Genghis Khan. Yeah, it's pretty pretty cringe. Yeah, super racist, but apparently, like even if you take all that away, just like the dialogue is awful. Like the whole premise of it is he kidnaps a woman and forces her to marry him, and of course romance blossoms as a result. You know, it's just the usual stuff

from the fifties. The Omen. Yes, this is a good one because, um, this is one of those where it's a movie about the devil, and so all these stories are going to be heightened, right because it's um kind of like poulter Geist. Like it wouldn't if this was when Harry met Sally and then some of the stuff happened that when Harry met Sally was cursed with great laughs, it was I love that movie. One of the few romantic comedies that were legit good movies. Yeah, you know,

so let's let's go back to the beginning of this one. Obviously, the omen everyone knows was the great movie from about the Antichrist taking um, well not I guess possession you could call it. But it's not like an exorcist thing. Basically, the Antichrist is this little boy he drmes back as a little boy. Yeah yeah, and uh a bad, bad, naughty little boy Damien who dresses like Angus Young. Ah yeah, sure, okay.

So Um Damien is adopted by Gregory Peck in the movie UM, and in real life, Gregory Peck's son Um killed himself. He died by suicide, apparently out of the blue, no suicide note or anything like that. And this was before production had started, but after Peck had agreed to do the movie, and he still went ahead and did the movie. Um. He left the US and went to London, and even even on the way to London, before he

even got to London to start shooting, something happened to him. Right, yeah, he said, I'm gonna get on a plane and fly to London. His plane was struck by lightning, right, and the producer's plane was struck by lightning separately. This are two different, two different planes struck by lightning on the way to start shooting in London. So this curse things being on legit this time. This is the one that

even Ed got a little shaky on. If you asked me, how about this The hotel where they stayed at least where the producer and some other folks stayed was bombed by the Irish Republican Army. Yeah, Hilton, the London Hilton. I don't know about a curse in that case, because the mid seventies there's a lot of that going on. Yeah, the Iria was bombing all sorts of stuff back then. So it was like a restaurant where the crew and the cats went to eat one night. Yeah, they were

about to go eat there. So there's actually like all these close calls actually make it seem like this this movie production wasn't cursed, but instead was actually being looked out for on high by the dark Lord. Right. So like the the crew that we was going to go to dinner, um didn't go to dinner. They didn't make it there in time for the bombing. The people who were staying in the hotel when it was bombed weren't

there yet. Um. There are a lot of close calls, but there was one close call that really is is just mind numbing. I would have freaked out had I been one of the people involved. The private jet. Yeah, so they chartered a private jet to um fly them around London to get some good aerial footage of London, and at the last minute, the charter service switched planes

who accommodate a group of Japanese businessmen. Well, the plane that that the Japanese businessman took that the crew was supposed to be on crashed on takeoff, actually crashed into a car and killed everybody on board the plane and everybody in the car crashed into How about that? And this is like a last minute switched to supposedly. Yeah, those make you think, yeah that I mean cursor, No, just knowing that you were that close, So just that

get you. How about this? A worker there was an animal animal sanctuary where they filmed, and a worker there was killed by a tiger. That one, uh I think I think that was the actual animal wrangler for the movie was killed. Yeah, which makes it even closer. This is the one, though, Chuck, you gotta take this one home. This is the one that really gets everybody, even though I think it's like a lot of it's made up. Yeah, there was a car crash with John Richardson, who was

a special effects worker. He designed the effects for the omen, including a very famous decapitation scene towards the end. Yes, very famous, And uh I thought that was at the beginning, was at the beginning, I think so. I think it's how open if I remember, but it's been a while either way. Um, he was in Holland after working on a movie called A Bridge Too Far, and he was involved in a head on collision in his car and was injured. But his assistant Liz Moore was decapitated and

killed in that car wreck. And he claims, and I don't know if this is lore or not, it sounds laurish. It does sound laurish, but he claims that he awoke from that crash and looked up and there was a street sign where they crashed, that's at the distance to the next town, and it was the town of omen O m N e N at a distance of six six point six kilometers. Bam. Now is that true. There's no way it's true, because I looked up on the internet that sign trying to find any picture of that sign.

If that sign existed, there would be so many pictures from tourists taking taking photos of it on the internet. There's not a single one. Do you think from back then those pictures will still be around? Uh, the sign would probably be still be around. Well. See, I think that's the presumption that may not be true, like they may have taken the sign down for that reason. Maybe I guess that's possible, but no picture of it whatsoever that no AP photographer went, I gotta get a picture

of that sign. Nobody did that. There's no existing photo of Yeah, that's the one that makes me think like that. Although there is a town called Omen in the Netherlands, so it's entirely possible that crash took place by there, so that checks out. That definitely checks out. So we're gonna take a break, everybody, we just decided, but we're gonna be right back, so don't worry because we're gonna

talk some more about Chris movies. All right, We're back as I promised, and we're on the Brainstorm, which I think Ed was just kind of showing off with this one because he even says, like, you're not going to find this on many lists of curse movies. Yeah, I'm not sure I get the curse in this one, but

we'll talk about it. Brainstorm was the Night three sci fi movie um most famously known as being the Great Natalie Wood's final film, right because she died in real life after the movie obviously, uh when she drowned after being out on a boat one night partying with her husband Robert Wagner in her co star Christopher walkin right

under some say, many say mysterious circumstances. Yeah. I was reading up about that ace and they apparently have been drinking since at least four in the afternoon, and they made it back to the boat pretty late, and they've been drinking um through dinner. They were all just pretty pretty crocked, right. Um. And supposedly Natalie Wood was either afraid of water and or couldn't swim um, And for some reason she had had tried to get into a dinghy that was attached to the boat that they were

staying on, and uh probably hit her head and drowned. Um. That's the story. That's the official story, right. But apparently in two thousand twelve it was reopened um or her cause of death was was changed from accident to um undetermined. Yeah. I mean there were stories that she and Robert Wagner had been fighting, that the captain, even many years later, said that he actually killed her. No charges were ever brought um. Christopher Walking for his I think he's never

talked about it publicly. If I'm not mistaken. Know. He finally did years and years later in a Playboy interview, and he basically said it was it must have been an accident that no one knows, but it was she surely it was aid. That was what he said, And that's probably the only thing he said, because I didn't think he ever said anything. Yeah. Uh, he said it's an accident. Clearly that it was great. Um that because that was that was Christopher Walkin with just a hint

of John Travolta. Yes, what's a little Trivolta esk um? So yeah, I mean that's tied to Brainstorm as being a curse, I guess because they were both in the movie. Um, even though the grabster points out that some people tied this back to a Rubble without a Cause curse, because that makes way more sense to me. Yeah, because James Dean and salmenio Um and Natalie Wood then all died from that movie relatively young. She she made it the longest. She was in her early forties, I think when she died.

But James Dean died very young in a car crash right after Rebel without a Cause was released. I think yeah, And I think wouldn't Samnio murder. He was murdered in nineteen seventy six, um at a pretty young age. Still um. He was stabbed to death in the heart and an ali behind his house. Yes, I have pizza man to me. Oh really yeah, huh, it's so weird. Well it is, but I mean we're talking about curses so well. I mean usually the pizza man gets stabbed, you know what

I'm saying. I think this guy was actually a serial killing pizza man. Yeah, I just saw recently. Is is there a serial killer in like central Florida? I don't know. I hadn't heard anything. But aren't there like at least fifty serial killers operating in any given point in time. I don't know, but I do. I do know that I saw something that I heard that like three murders in the Tampa area were just linked. Oh man, I think,

And that made me think. It's been a while. Yeah, you don't hear about him very often, But as I grow older and wiser, I'm starting to think, like there's a lot more serial killers out there than you would imagine. That, like human life has very little value to more people than you would hope. You know that the darkest thing

you can think of. It's pretty dark. The last high profile when I remember is b t K. But surely there's been one since then, right, Yeah, because he was like early two thousand's right, I know, but I can't think of one. I can't either, man, But it's been a long time since. You know, we've heard of like Jeffrey Dahmer's and man that was sad Bundyes and stuff like that. Yeah, thankfully, sure, the Son of Sam's and the Zodiacs. It seems like the seventies and eighties were

sort of the time where that was happening more. Yeah, I don't know why. Maybe it was harder to get away with it or easier to get away with it, or I'm listening to that Heaven's Gate podcast. Have you heard I haven't heard that. No, it's good. It's from our buddy Chris Bannon over at mid Roll put it out and um is he hosting it? No? No, no, Glenn Washington narrates it. But having through three episodes now, it's really good. But it's kind of funny, man, that

that's time of the sixties and seventies. It was just and we talked about it some in our Cults episode. It was people just believed more in trying stuff out like that and UFOs and it was all just kind of in the in the mainstream and it just all seems so unbelievable now, but back then it wasn't. It was kind of believable that someone might join up with the cult. Well, a lot of people were on Grass back then. On the Grass. That's crazy. I gotta hear that.

It's good podcast, man, that's that's just a fascinating story. But now that means we can't do Heaven's Kate because Bannon did it. Yeah, and then they did. You know, you can't cover in forty five minutes what they cover in whatever ten episodes? Sounds about right. I'm not sure I haven't done. I don't think released all at once, but it feels like a ten let's say seven to ten. So anyway, can we close on brainstorm or are we

still did we miss something? Yeah? I think yeah. I mean Natalie Wood's murders or death death sorry is unsolved, still in its mystery may always be. I had no idea about that about Robert Wagner. I just knew Natalie Wood drowned. I'd never heard anything about it being mysterious. Yeah, it's it's long been mysterious, and well here's how we'll finish it. Then she wasn't even able to finish filming on that movie. And they did use a body double

to complete some of those scenes. It was a big flop. Yeah, yes, it was okay, Chuck. So for the last one, then we're gonna combine two together. Strangely, they are almost the same story, but with two different films, and both of them were films that were never made or have yet to be made, I guess is a better way to put it. The first one is a confederacy of Dunce's the film adaptation of John kennedy Tools book. Um, I guess novel. Yeah, I've never read it. I really want

to have, just never read it for some reason. Yeah, it's a classic, classic book and very sadly Tool killed himself in nineteen sixty nine and the book was not out yet. And part of the reason he killed himself is because he he could not achieve success as a writer. His mother gets it published, it wins a Pulitzer Prize in one and uh, posthumously he became a famous author. Yeah. So people when it first was published in the early eighties. People were like, oh, we've got to turn this into

a movie. This is a great idea, A great book will be a great movie. And they said, who could who can possibly play the main character? Belushi? He'd be perfect. Belushi dies, Well, who's next. Let's let's wait a few years and let's see who else could play this main character? John Candy, John Carry, John Candy died. Okay, all right, everybody else, just take a breather. We'll wait a year or two. Who's the next guy who's gonna play this? I got it? This young up and comer named Chris Farley.

Chris Farley die. So a confederacy of Dunce has just kept getting put off and off and off right, and then finally Will Farrell steps in, and it looks like it's going to happen because Will Farrell is obviously indestructible, right yeah, And if you if you haven't gathered by hearing the people cast uh as ignacious, Riley he was. He was a heavy man in the book. So obviously Belushi, Candy, and Farley were all big dudes. And they all die. So finally to go to Farrell and they're like, well,

he's in shape, and we can bulk him up. Maybe you some special effects. I have no idea, but at least he's he's probably not gonna drop dead of a heart attack or something, right, He was a safe bet. Yeah, but that didn't happen either. Um. I think it was sort of in turnaround forever. It took a long time in development, and eventually Um the head of the Louisiana State Film Commission. It set in New Orleans, so they

would have shot there. He was murdered, and Hurricane Katrina came along to wipe out a lot of where the film would be shot, and so I think that kind of just helped to put it on indefinite hold at the very least. But they are I just saw I was looking this up see if it was back on track, and I saw there's a movie called The Butterfly and the Typewriter about John Kennedy Tool. So they're doing a biopic on him with um Thomas Mann. Now, uh, Thomas

Man playing Tool? Who's he? He's an actor, right, obviously, but what has he been? The thing that I saw him in was a movie out a couple of years ago called Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It's good, good little indie films. He's he's good, so he's playing tool. And then I think Susan Surandon places his mom um and Diane Krueger's in it as well. So a and Susan Sarandon's gonna totally try to date him to I'll bet why would you say that? Oh she likes younger dudes.

Oh yeah, maybe I have a shot. She likes young hipster dudes, no way younger than you, my friend. Good for her. I love Susan Srandon, so oh yeah, more power true. I think she's great. Um, but she is totally going to try to date Thomas Man. Well, good for him too. Then, um, I'm not being judge, no,

I know. Okay, So then that's um a confederacy of dunces. Right, yes, there's another script out there called A Took that has virtually the same story to it, right um, but the the story is totally different, But the cursed story is is virtually the same with a Took. It's like a fish out of Water movie about an Inuit man who um comes to New York and has to make his way in the big city. Right yes, Um, that script was early on, it was optioned um and John Belushi

was scheduled to play the main character. Right, Well, what happened to John Belushi? He died? So who was up next? Chuck John Candy? Isn't that crazy? Okay? Well, John Candy passed. God God dressed his soul. Who was after John Kennedy Chris Farley? That's right, Chris Farley. And so the narrative to this curse story takes a huge sudden turn when the next person up after Chris Farley is Sam Kennison. Yes, and Sam Kennison they were actually I mean they're actually

gonna make the movie. It was happening, and Sam Kennison kind of destroyed that because he wanted to He want to be really heavily involved in the script re rights, on the direction of the film. He wanted creative control. He battled with the studio. I think there may have even been lawsuits going on, and he eventually got to the point where he was like, you know what if I'm gonna if you're not gonna give me creative control, I'll be in your movie and I'll I'll suck on purpose,

on purpose. And they said, oh yeah, we're gonna sue you, and he said, oh, yeah, right, and then he died in a car wreck before anything could happen as a result. So I took for the moment died with him again. In't that bizarre? It is the idea that those two things crossed over like that that one. Obviously it's not a curse, but I think that it's pretty interesting at the very least. Well, if you guys want to know more about movie curses, just go start watching movies and

ask people or is this one cursed? And then if they say no, go watch another one and ask about that, and then eventually someone will say yes, this one's cursed, and then ask them the story behind. And in the meantime, Uh, Since I said all that, it's time for a listener. Now, I'm gonna call this just a very kind email from a kind I'll see nice. Hey, guys, discovered your show a couple of months ago, and I reckon I have listened to two or three podcasts a day since then.

I absolutely love you guys, and to say that your show is addictive would be an understatement. Until very recently, I was a news junkie. I live in Melbourne, Australia and would listen to Radio National at every opportunity, but since Brexit in the recent US election, listening to the news and current affairs has become a health hazard for me.

I also have two youngest children, eleven and nine, and having grown up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud myself, I don't want to subject my kids to the same fear. So finding your podcast has been a true joy. I love how enthusiastic and optimistic you both are about everything, and your curiosity is truly infectious, isn't it. You were

so gloriously accepting of different ideas and cultures. And I've even adopted Chuck's I don't want to yunck someone else's yum, which, by the way, bridget I did not to make that up. Now that was another listener who's from but we love to say it, uh, And I'm glad you've adopted that. But I love the podcast so much. I've got my husband and kids into it as well. And my husband is a radio ham listen to your episode on Ham

Radio together. He was impressed with your efforts. Keep it up, guys, and thank you for all the joint information you brought to my life. Cheers as from Bridget Foster and Melbourne cheers with some Fosters. And I'll tell you what, Bridget, We're coming to Melbourne in September of next year for shows. Yep. And you right in with a friendly reminder and you and your family can get on the old guest list. How about that awesome man, Chuck, you're the guy. You're

the guy. They're your passes too, all right? Cool? Well, thank you the out, thanks Allot, Bridget. It was Bridget and family, right yeah, Bridget with a D. Bridget. Thank you for writing in. And if you want to get in touch with us, like Bridget did, you can tweet to us. I'm an s Y s K podcast and at josh Um Clark Chuck's at Charles W. Chuck Bryant on Facebook and at Facebook dot com slash as Stuff

you Should Know. You can send us an email. The Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined said our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how Stuff Works dot com. H