Oh it's showtime.
People say good money to see this movie.
When they go out to a theater, they want clothed sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters.
In the protection booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Don at off, WHOOPI Goldberg.
She's just your average hard working burglar.
Is anybody hose.
Trying to turn a little what's behind gusting number one this time?
Oh, this is very nice man.
Instead of making a killing, she's going to witness one.
And for an independent woman, she suddenly got quite a following.
You see that guy out there.
That's my part.
I'm going out of the honest.
So this is really hip like the Brothers do It, met It and Father.
Wood bobwait clear the sidewalk the city of San Francisco.
Thanks you, And I think it's a burglar.
Tom a first rate comedy about a second story woman burglar. When you carryou to take the very bed, Dad to stop doing this stuff.
Welcome to the projection Booth. I'm your host. Mike White joined me once again as mister Colin Gallagher had he also with me this whole month long? Is mister Kevin Lahane.
And I get more asked in a toilet seat, olh Mike.
We continue Whoop Brewery a month looking at some WHOOPI Goldberg films with nineteen eighty seven's Burglar, written and directed by Hugh Wilson with some writing help by Matthew Weisman and Jeff Loeb. The film as an adaptation of Lawrence Block's thirteen book series about Burglar Bernie rodenbar Here. Bernie is Bernice, also played by Whoopy in another film That's a Who's Who, a familiar faces, including her sole confidante, Carl Heffler played by Bobcat Goldwaite in full Bobcat mode,
and Roy Kershman played by g. W. Bailey. We will be spoiling the twists and turns of Burglar as we go ahead, So if you don't want anything ruined, just go ahead and stop the podcast right now. All right, if you're still with us, Colin, when was the first time you saw Burglar? And what did you think?
First time was actually a week ago. When I got the opportunity, thanks to you, Mike, to join you all for this, I was thrilled because I absolutely love Lawrence Block, I absolutely love the Bernie books, and I had actually forgotten this adaptation existed because no one really seems to talk about it if they and I feel like the only the few people I had heard talk about it kind of like quickly moved the conversation away from it. I was delighted to find things that I really liked
about the movie. I thought Whoopee was great. I really like Bobcat. You can get more into it later.
I thought.
The weirdest thing for me was as an adaptation, it makes a lot of very strange decisions. But I'm coming at this from a Block fan. I feel like, if you're adapting a Bernie book, the thing that's really difficult is you don't have blocks narration, that first person voice. And as a reader, when I read blocks books, for me, first and foremost, it's for his voice. It's very musical. If you read his early sex novels up through his emails, they all sound like Bernie or or Scott like. He
just has a voice that permeates these different characters. For me, Block is such a New York writer and one of the greatest writers of New York, and so to have this taken out of New York was very jarring for me.
And then of course, I love his characters, and if I were reading Block it's for me, it's the voice, the characters, New York, and the plot blast and this movie like upends that in a weird way, like it completely gets rid of his narration, it gets rid of New York, it's rid of a lot of details from the book and puts the plot first and the foremost.
So that's it.
I did enjoy it, just a strange, an unexpected adaptation.
And Kevin, how about yourself?
And I also saw it for the first time this week, and I'm coming it from a totally different angle to yourself because I've never read any Lawrence Block books, so I had nothing to judge this against other than the film that we watched last week. So I was just viewing this purely as a whoopy Goldberg Star vehicle and was completely ignorant to the fact that it was even racewapped and gender swapped. So I was just looking at this totally as a film and judging it on its terms.
And yeah, I also really enjoyed it. But I have to say, just going by what you're saying, it sounds like I'm missing a whole character from the film, which is interesting. Because I actually wasn't able to track what was going on in this film until I read the script. So the script massively helped me in understanding it, and I watched the film twice. I'm coming at it from an ignorant film fans point of view.
I'm so glad you said that, because so mye with this movies. I saw it not at the theater, but I probably saw it shortly thereafter, maybe on cable or VHS or something, and I've kind of grown up with
this film. I watch it every few years. It's kind of like the other Whoopie films that we're talking about this month, with the exception of the last one, which was a brand new film for me, but when it comes to these first three, with Jump a Jack, Flash, Burglar, and Fatal Beauty, they were kind of in a rotation for me, and that's why I glombed onto them and wanted to do this month, just because I do enjoy these films, even though I really shouldn't enjoy Burglar as much, because,
like you, Kevin, I had no idea what the heck was going on throughout so much of it. It was just kind of an experience that I just would follow along, and I guess this kind of makes sense, and oh, here's Roy Kushman again, and I don't know what Bobcat's up to, but okay, this is still kind of fun. And yeah, until I listened to the books and then read the script, I was like, oh, okay, now it starts to make a lot more sense. But really it is hung together so loosely that it was just like, what,
what's going on? How does this Work's? She owns a bookstore, but we barely ever go back there. I think there's like two three scenes in there, and it's you know, you barely get that she is the one that runs that bookstore. For a while, I was like, is she an employee? No, she really runs this place. And then what's going on with the counterfeit stuff that comes in
later in the film. It just feels so loose, And I'm really glad now I have only listened to the first three Bernie books now, and I really enjoyed those, and I look forward to diving into more of those, because, like you, Colin, this is a character I think I can really get into.
You have even more great books ahead once and socially, once you know the third book hits. I think Block really figures out who his characters are, what is the template, and it stays golden all the way to the end. And the most recent book Burler read, Frederick Brown, is a really touching conclusion to the series.
So no spoilers about that.
Bernice in this movie is not a very good burglar, Like every time she goes into some place, except for maybe the last time she breaks into a place, otherwise she's constantly being walked in. We see that at the very beginning with her going to this kind of ritzy place, and again it starts off with like a voiceover of Ray Kershman, the GW. Bailey character, calling her, and so we don't see him, we don't see her. Luckily, we know this is a Whoopie Goldberg movie, so we recognize
her voice. And it's just the shot of fog covered San Francisco and him saying you have to go now.
And I'm like, what is their relationship because the relationship of Ray and Bernice in this movie is I think very different than what it is in the books, where Ray he does have some power because he's a police officer and can help her out, but he's like it's kind of like those cops that would come in and wake up Sam Spade or something where it's just like there's a grudging respect, but there isn't any sort of
respect here. And in fact, when Ray Kershman comes into her bookshop and calls her a peckin any I'm just well, that's it, Like this guy's a racist piece of shit, Like I don't want him in this movie anymore.
Basically, but it allows Whoopee to play one of her several personas and characters in this film, which he does
so well. But just as you're saying that, you know, going back to having read the script and figuring out more of what the story was about, I actually think it's a much better written script than it is a well directed film, because there's an awful lot of details that are dropped in the execution, Like when you talk about her owning a bookstore, there's a lovely detail in the script which I totally missed in the film, and
maybe it's, you know, something that's in the books. I'm sure it is, but that the bookstore is a front for her making keys and burglar locks and alarms, and I thought, ah, that's a clever front for a cap boarder and you don't really get that. It's it's just this master shot where it's a little subtitle on the signage, but in the script it spelled up for you, and I was like, Ah, never noticed that. Could have directed that a little better.
That's a really great point. That's a good detail to pick up on. Whoopy has so much fun with the Bernie character, and that's to me what really held the movie together is seeing her jump in out of character, putting on these different voices and disguises. She's just such a pleasure, you know, to watch and perform.
It's like she's jumping from an Eddie Murphy type persona to a Richer Prior type persona, and it's a lot. You can tell she's having fun.
Yeah, she has to do this whole thing where when she is caught in certain places, like she's about to pick the artist's lock and he opens up the door and finds her there, and she has to suddenly become almost like this crackhead type character.
Hey, what's her, nay Man, I'm looking for the apartment of Nita Boudet.
The very beginning scene that I was talking about, where she's burglarizing this very big estate on RaSE orders basically, and she dresses up as like an old maid, as in not somebody who's not married, but like a actual servant, and she's got the wig on and padded button. She's just kind of moseying down the street and that's a great cover. And then she gets to use that when
she accidentally again gets discovered. Yeah, I love that. I love that she does get to do this, and it's very similar to what we were talking about last week, where she gets to go through all of these different personas and it's very much you know, like with Jump and Jack Flash, it's a kind of another intrigue type thing, but with this one, she's more of the anti hero or yeah, I guess she's kind of an anti hero thief being our main character. But she's so delightful to
watch in this. But I totally agree with you, Kevin the script and the script is interesting because the script was dated that I read and that you read, I think twenty fourth, nineteen eighty six. It said final draft on it.
There's no, it's definitely a final draft. It's very it's very similar.
To it's so similar, and so I'm like, well, where did Weismann and Lobe come in. What did they do? Like? Even the voice of the Carl character is very bobcat Goldthwaite, and which is I would think really tough to write, but that kind of circular logic and kind of comming at things from different angles. He seems to capture that. Wilson seems to really capture that voice in the script.
Although one of his best scenes is entirely ad libbed, because I was comparing the script to the moment where he's trying to get Nabby's signature when they're on this whole quest to figure out who's connected to who and who leads where Carol is pretending to be like a ups guy, I think, and he needs a signature. And in the script it's very much like him playing on the sympathy, angling like please I need this job and you know my wife and all this kind of stuff.
And what he does in the scene and is he just plays deranged. He he goes crazy.
Tagget's delivery just just made it.
No tickets, you gotta sign point.
Kin be Knobe? Is that like in the Star Wars?
No idiot it's Knobby.
Oh, so it's like a nickname.
Yes, I think maybe it's something like that. Well, I'm gonna need your full name please.
Sorry, come on, it's the regulations. Hey fuck you, okay.
Fucking you, thank you very much.
I come here to give you a fucking package, and you decide to blow me ship like like like like like like like you're my idea of a dream come true, making ship from a build out with as you.
Know, when I was like five, is to dad, Dad, can I get.
A job where random fucking ship has blow me scrap all day?
I'm gonna break you and fucking happen. Use your head as a ballpoint. Now sign the top down right.
All right, all right, I'll sign a thing. Jesus's pretty name.
Thank you.
I want to see some many pal, you know what I mean, like get some sort of professional help.
Okay, thank you very much.
And it's far more entertaining and funny. But yeah, so there was leeway though.
I also very much liked the scene in the where he's being interrogated by John Goodman, which I also feel like that's.
That's not in the script either. That's that's a scene that I think they just dropped in there.
I thought that was in the script, and that he licked the window. I thought that was this thing rather than sticking his face up and blowing. But I could be wrong on that.
No, it was slightly different.
Wally Cots falling.
Apparently there's something a little bit more mysterious about the secret Square has ever let them believe?
And I'm a to cop dude, guy, I'm watching answers from product you play.
How beautiful?
I'm I'm being fu I come in.
You signed a release form for that earlier mister held so that.
Such a condiscending fuck book.
I'm sorry.
I mean that.
I hope it was like when I said that, kind of smacking a little.
The dialogue in the script is quite good, but I feel like every line reading Bobcat gives a little something extra.
I mean, a little Bobcat goes a long way for me. But I just I always enjoyed that persona that he was doing, and for me, he was kind of the best parts of the Police Academy films. And it's funny that so Hugh Wilson, the writer director of this, he wrote and directed the first Police Academy and I forgot the Bobcat isn't old? Isn't in that one? That he comes in is it two and four? I think it's been forever since I've seen that, and then eventually becomes
part of the police force and everything after. He's a villain in the second one, I think. But G. W. Biley is in that first one obviously, and I think that's where the connection is to have him in here. And I love him even though he's a racist jerk in this movie and just in it for himself. I just I love that actor. I always enjoy him and just how how skeazy he can be. And when they get in that big fight later on, you know, with the where he does call her a name and she
starts to fight him and everything. I think that whole scene is great, especially when it goes crazy and starts attacking the screen door after she you know, gets herself out of there.
Was he a disgraced police officer who's no longer on the force or is he just double dealing because I couldn't I couldn't pass that from the script or from the film.
In the book, he is not.
He's very much an active member of the police force, but he will take a bribe, like when he's caught Bernie in the very first book, Bernie's Scott I think a thousand dollars what he calls walking away money, and he ends up paying that to Ray and his partner, and then they he's able to get out there, and then unfortunately they find a dead body in another room that Bernie wessn't aware of, and then that screws up the deal a little bit. But Reza was there to be on the take, and he does want a fur
coat for his wife. That is definitely part of the third book book. But I don't think he's really disgraced. But yeah, to your point, as far as what the movie is, it feels like he might have been disgraced, and it feels like those two cops, the one played by John Goodman and the other one played by Ann DeSalvo, those two cops, it feels like they are looking down on him because he might have been a cop at one point and had been kicked out of the force. At least that's how I feel.
In the book, Block describes Ray as quote or but dishonest, which I think just kind of gives you the idea that he's not only a crooked cop, but he's not smart about it. And when the two cops are sort of going into one of the apartments looking for Bernie.
Bernie escapes, and Ray is at downstairs waiting as if he knows that Bernie's going to elude you know, the people he's there with, and he sort of drives away to you know, go around the block, and that's where he sort of is like, I know you did this. All I want on is half and it's just like, man, you're a shady cop. You're there with a couple buddies and you're you're willing to sell them out just for a little bit of stolen loot for yourself.
Yeah, And the way that he rolls over on her and lets cops know where she's going to be kind of sets her up. I think he kind of knows that she's going to escape when she's like, oh, I got to go to the bathroom, and he doesn't do anything to stop her. He just lets her go. And then when she comes tearing out of this alleyway on a motorcycle cop motorcycle, he's like all right, and they're off.
I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm glad that you are not trying to stop her, and then he actively helps her at the end of course with the idea of him. I love how he's like, oh, yeah, I stopped by the guy's car and got all the jewelry out of the trunk, and she's like, you did that rather than helping me.
So it's funny.
I was watching My Blueberry Nights last night of the Wangkar Wi film that Lawrence Block wrote, and one of the segments is Nora Jones working at a casino and Natalie Portman plays a gambler, and of course Natalie Portman goes busted and she talks Nora Jones into giving her all of her money for another stake. Natalie Portman is like, ah, lost that again. He sort of takes her on this road trip and at the end, the moral that Natalie Portman delivers is don't ever trust a gambler. And I
feel like that movie is very Wangkar Why. But there's a lot of Block and that sort of dynamic reminds me of Ray and Bernie. You can't ever fully trust Ray because he's a gambler and not literally, but he's gonna play whatever side might work for him. And yeah, that balance, you know, it is very interesting.
He's also a bit of a heel in this film, he gets his ass kicked multiple times, and it feels like that balances things owed a little bit.
So apparently this was another one that was turned down by Bruce Willis, which is funny because that was the same thing with Jump and Jack Flash, but with this one they swapped it out both race and gender for her, but then also swapped out because in the book it's the third book, the burglar who quoted Kipling were introduced to Caroline, and Caroline now becomes Carl, so they gender swap her buddy as well, which is interesting because Caroline is a very open lesbian and this being when was
that book at like seventy nine or something. I mean, that was great that they had this very open lesbian character. He treated her with a lot of respect, which I was very happy about. A block that is, so they gender swapped Bernice from Bernie to Bernice. They go from Caroline to Carl, but then doctor Sheldrakes also gender swapped the Leslie and Horn character and she comes in through kind of again a side channel where it's not that she is Bernice's dentist, that she knows the guy who
Bernice is fencing some jewelry too. But then otherwise it's kind of the same story as the burglar in the closet the second book, where it's this hole, all right, she's stuck in the closet, she hears what's going on, she has a briefcase. The briefcase gets stolen. The briefcase had all the jewelry that she was stealing. And that's another thing too, where she's going into the apartment and taking all this stuff, and then she has to just start kind of riffing again.
You know.
I talked last week with jump a Jackflash how she has to constantly talk to herself. But otherwise I think it would be pretty boring if we're just watching what you go around and steal things without talking about stuff, without joking around about fashion and critiquing the guy's clothes and all these things. I really enjoy what she's doing with those burglary scenes, even though I think it's pretty stupid with the first one that she goes in and
lights a cigarette and is sitting there. She smokes so often in this movie. It's just it's a weird choice, and especially to just stop everything in the middle of a burglary to have a cigarette.
My favorite part about that opening though. My first big laugh was that the UPS guy turns up the package and she has to think on the flight, and she accepts the package and then steals that as well. With what's like it, I thought, Okay, I like this character. That's nice. She's a complete croak in the Thief. Did you notice as well that when they introduce Whoopy, her title character goes over her padded ass when she's scratching it. I thought it is that a subliminal message? Did they
get on? Was just another one of the jumping jack flash situations of tension on set? But no good? Can I ask you then? Was the bisexual bad Guys a part of the original novels or is that something quite progressive for this film.
That was not in the book?
That was not in the book. No, it was a woman who was killed. So it's doctor Sheldrake's wife in the book, and she brought together the three guys Knobby, Gray, Bow and Carson or Johnny the lawyer is what they go by, because that's same twist Christopher. Christopher is a woman in the book. It's the wife character instead of a husband character. So she brings together the three bad guys and they're the ones that kind of come up
with the whole counterfeiting thing that they're doing. So yeah, there is like there is sex that's going on between them, but there's no sex between a male doctor Shell Drake and a male lawyer in the book.
So it's like Beverly Hills Cop where they ended up switching oats of us as still one for Eddie Murphy and inadvertently became quite progressive in a romantic relationship between him and the girl. And in this it's like by gender swapping and all that they've ended up being accidentally progressive. But I thought that was ahead of its time for the eighties.
It wasn't a way. But then at the same time that the guy becomes so jealous and is a murderer, you know, and that he starts to really enjoy murdering people, and he is like, he didn't really have to murder.
Frank killing with a phallic symbol.
Yeah, yeah, definitely p Falex. I mean, he's very what's her name, Catherine from the basic instances against yet another gay killer. But I agree with you that there is some progressive thought in there, But I just wish that he hadn't been a crazy murderer at the end of it.
To go back to something you were talking about earlier, both of you all about how loosely strung together the
plot seems in the movie. I think part of that is that, I mean, the challenge of this book is so much of it is through Lawrence, through the Bernie's first person narration, and a lot of it happens between he's sort of hiding out at the Dennis's assistance home of Jillian in the book and they're sort of having a bit of a fling, and so so much of it is dialogue based, and the movie doesn't have the Jillian character, and so they had to figure out, how
do we convey all this information between two characters that isn't one of the characters is missing, and how do we convey all this information that's normally filtered. You have direct access to Bernie's thoughts, and so I think Whoopy did a really terrific job of giving us access to the character through her actions, through these, you know, spontaneous responses to what's happening around her. I think that was a big challenge for writing this script and making the movie.
She could have used.
Carl as that sounding board. But I don't think that Carl played by Bobcat Goldthwaite as much of a sounding board, you know. It feels like he's living in another dimension,
so her using him to help solve the crime. And that's the thing with these female characters like Gillian, and I hope that this gets better as I read more of these block books, especially with Gillian and then I can't remember Ruth I think is the fake name of the woman in the first book, and then even a little bit with Carolyn in the third book, where it's like, oh, you're here with me, so I'm just going to talk to you, and you're and you're going to ask me
questions and then I'm going to give you theories, you know, like that's how they're dial Especially with Gillian, she just seemed like, well, what are you going to do about a Bernie?
Yeah?
What about this?
Yeah?
And it's like okay, yeah, I would really like you to have your own agency, but she doesn't. Jillian doesn't for me, like and I'm glad though that she has as much agency to be like, you know what, I'm really going to go with this dentist because he's much more rich and much better off than you'll ever be as a burglar, Bernie, so you know, she's very out for number one. I was like, okay, good, good for you, Jillian, I'm glad for that. You know, you go girl.
One of the other big differences between the character and the book and the movie is that in the book Bernie loves to steal. She is also good about it, and part of the narration is him waxing poetic about the different locks. He has these discussions in his head about alcohol and cocktails and wine and other points. He'll just go on and on about literature and authors, and you can tell that he's someone that is going to
run a bookstore. In the movie, Woopy has to steal because she's being blackmailed by Ray and she actively wants to get out of that life. That's a big difference in motivation.
It was expanded upon in the script as well. There's a whole other half of the scene, the first scene with her and Ray in the bookstore, where she says that the reason she has a bookstore she wants a quiet life and she doesn't want to do this anymore, and she's a reluctant thief, and you know, it gets expressed when she says she only from those who have a coming.
What are you doing?
What do you what are you doing?
Put it back?
No, you can't put it back.
You already opened, and now we have to pay for it.
I don't understand you.
You'd like to steal a Chrysler building, but now I'm gonna pay for a bottle of olive.
It's not where you steal, it's who you steal it from.
But yeah, she seems very different from the character in the books and not regard.
Well.
The thing I like too about that's that scene of the shoplifter coming in and taking all those books. Is that she in the book, and I think in the script as well, basically ends up getting the guy to pay her ten dollars.
So that's in book three, and in the in the novel, it's he has extra books in the backpack. She charges him sixty bucks. He says he doesn't have the money, and then she gets his wallet out and takes the money and forces him to take the books. And then he's like, well, what am I going to do with these books? And she's like, well, what is your intention? I was going to sell them? And she's like, well, I buy them. These are the types of books that
I would sell. They're worth ten dollars. So she didn't gives him back ten dollars of his own money, and so she still winds up fifty dollars ahead and with all the books.
Thank you. Yeah, I knew it was very clever the way that she worked that operation.
Here's such a patience. So the way that Lawrence Block writes scenes like that, and he's such a musical writer with his pros, like I could and do read him whenever I get the chance.
That whole idea of the narration, the what we're hearing through his brain. It reminds me of some of my favorite books where it's like, you know, Travis McGee, like the Adventures of Travis McGee. They're pretty repetitive sometimes, you know, and it's like, Okay, here's another broken woman that he has to take care of, and here's another time that he's going to fight some huge muscleman. He's going to get the shit kicked out of him, and then he's going to have to take you know, three or four
chapters the heels kind of thing. But the thing that I like about Travis McGee is his thoughts about the world and hearing him his narration of everything that's happening, like in his corner of Florida or wherever he ends up. And that's kind of what I like about these Bernie books too, as far as like I like Bernie, I like being on these adventures with him, and I do like the vicarious thrill of him picking these locks and going into places not knowing everything that's going to be
in there. The way that he is so cautious about calling first, and you know, this is definitely an era of you know, phones that are in people's houses rather than cell phones, so I don't know how this would play today, but calling the house, making sure there's nobody there, trying to get past the doorman, all of these things, and the doorman thing. You know, you're talking about the difference between New York and San Francisco. It's such a different feel when it comes to what we're doing in
San Francisco versus New York. And especially like hearing about all the places that he's going and he doesn't need a car, He doesn't need anything. You just take the subway or the bus or whatever, oriel steal a car if he needs to go out to the Burroughs. You know, I really like that, and I like that in New York setting. San Francisco definitely changes it. It gives us, of course, the chase scene where you're going over the hills and all those kinds of things, which we've seen
a bunch of times. But yeah, it's a different place, and I guess maybe that's where the whole Carson Christopher thing might come from as well, with it being such a progressive city. Not to say that New York City is not progressive. I mean, I've been to the village.
There is only really two moments in the whole film where she does actually any breaking in. It's picking the locks at the first mansion, and then it's cutting the alarm system at the pentos. In order to that she sort of inadvertently gains access or she's leaping across roofs and I'm blood force breaking in. But she's she's not a very stealthy cat burglar. This is much more of a detective story really than a cat burglar story.
I mean, really, if she wasn't a burglar, you could just say, oh, she's Philip mar Sam Spade or any of these detectives where it's like they kind of know that the you know, the law might actually come after them at some point and be like, oh, looks like you know more than you are telling us, Sam Spade, so we're gonna run you down to the station. We might even arrest you. So it's a whole like cat and mouse kind of thing of going around and trying to avoid the police. Very much the same thing here.
I do love that. I think this is completely wholesale to the movie versus the books. The whole thing of the cops trying to break in and then she's got this the second wall behind the closet. She's just there making the sandwich, and then she disappears, and you're like,
where the hell is she? And you see the cops and they're going through everything and burning down the door with the torches and everything, and then finally she comes out and you're like, oh, Okay, she just had this hidden wall that the cops were never going to find.
The books seem more out of like the Raffles tradition of the gentleman burglar, and even a little bit of you know, sort of the classic Golden age of detective fiction, like you know, Rex Stout and that's part of Block's charm is he knows how to do that sort of kind of gentlemanly, you know, genial, light hearted mystery where there's not a lot of violence or action, but then working that intol late seventies New York City and the movies. To your point, it's a little bit more gritty, it's
more action. It almost seems like a different sort of genre, like more emphasis on the s spence than the clever wordplay. But again, like the clever wordplay is going to work so much better on the page than in a movie where things have to be you know, visual. It didn't click the first time I saw, but this was shot
by William Fraker, who shot Bullet, which makes sense. I kept thinking, like, wow, that card, Yeah, the card chase with I'm like, this is very bullet And I'm like they're having a really great time sort of mimicking this sort of hard boiled thrills a bullet And I'm like, that's because this is literally the same photographer. And I think that's actually a smart decision, Like it's it is sort of shock kind of serious, like it doesn't play like a farce or a spoof.
They call it a comedy, but I wouldn't classic as a comedy. It's definitely much more of an action comedy with action being the emphasis, even though there's not that much action in it, but it's taking itself seriously and it's much more ground it other than the Bobcat Goldthwaite stuff, which is completely crazy. And he's describing the script actually is a dangerous screwball, and I think he nailed that.
I kept turning to point my finger, like, who, how would I describe Bobcat to.
Somebody who's never seen him? It's very difficult.
But I'm like kind of like an even more unhinged Jerry Lewis. The way he speaks in circles. I'm sort of starting and stopping, like going off in a direction where he's ranting at John Goodman and then very quickly slamming on the brakes and apologizing. And I hope you saw that I had a little bit of a glint in my eye and I was sort of smiling when I was insulting you. And as if he's being covertly recorded, I'm being bugged, but there's a giant recording device and
microphone right next to him. And then Jean Goodman's like, you know you're signed off on that.
Yeah, he's delightful presence.
The thing that I appreciated most about this film, though, I have to say, is that the energy of all the characters is very unique and I've not seen it overdone in other films. So the Bobcat character, of the Whoopee character, even the detectives with John Goodman and I can't think of that other actress's name, and the Salvo Todders and Niceander that's dynamic, that's sort of and avuncular and an ant like Detective Jewel when they are like
an old married couple. Even pickering about who gets to kick in the door and it should have been me, I should have done it. There's a nice energy to it. It's a frivolity with it being fast.
I'm surprised she didn't kill herself after kicking in the door and then falling down the staircase.
That was so stupid.
I loved seeing that police lock. I mean it brought back a memory which has nothing to do with the actual movie. But I used to hat sit for a friend who lived on fifty six between fifth and sixth Avenues, and he got that apartment in like nineteen sixty nine or nineteen seventy had never been renovated, and it had one of those iron bars coming out of the floor, and he taught me how to, you know, lock that in.
As I was leaving the apartment for the first time after feeding the cats, the doorknob just falls off, and I'm like, Jesus Christ, I'm having a heart attack.
You know.
I know my friend's away. What am I gonna do? I don't want the cats? How is he going to get back into his apartment? And I remember pushing against the door, and I'm like, this police lock is no joke, Like, you can't break this door down. And eventually I did get in touch with him and he's like, oh, yeah, the door numb falls off all the time. All I do is just use the police lock. Yeah, so those things are absolutely no joke.
I thought that that was just something that she had herself. I didn't know that wasn't a thing that people use. That's crazy.
I don't see them in new apartments, and I would feel much more secure if my New York apartment had one of those things. But they also take up real estate, which in New York is no joke, that's part of your floor. And do you really want to give that to a we're did on the building? Probably don't.
Can I ask you a question as well? It said in the script that when they were describing the Bernie character that she was a black woman with blue oise and then in the next scene when she's out of her disguise, she has bronis. And the only reason I registered it was because at the pivotal moment where she puts all the clues together and she gets that sort of epiphany moment where the here's Johnny advert plays and she goes, oh, of course it's going to be Carson.
Here's Johnny. That's his nickname. They push in one's face and she's got blue contact lenses in, and I was just wondering, what was the character had blue contacts and she put in burn contacts when she was not on the job, or what that was all about, because they specifically pointed out in the script and in the film she's got blue contacts and it's really disconcerting. It's like
these pale eyes. It looks strange. So I don't know what the significance of that would be, but I guess is it in the books.
No, No, it's definitely not in the books. And yeah, I was very curious about that choice as well, and I picked up on that, like you said, with the book or with the script, where I was like, oh, yeah, she does have blue eyes in there, and then I'm watching throughout the rest of the movie, I'm like, no,
she's got blue eyes in almost every single scene. I'm like, yeah, I don't know why they made that choice to have her have blue eyes unless she had been exposed to the spice Millange and you know, the spice of guy into her veins and now she's about to get the blue within blue eyes of the Fremen it's all connected. Well, yeah, no, I don't know why they made that choice. And there really wasn't a whole lot of behind the scenes stuff
that I could find. Like we were talking last week with Jump to Jack Flash and how there's a lot of tension on set. I don't know if there was tension on this set or if this worked pretty well, or what happened with this. I really couldn't find any behind the scenes stories nor why did they decide to have her have blue eyes to this whole thing, at least these contacts, I'm hoping weren't the real painful ones
that the actors had to wear before. I hope that these were soft contacts and that, you know, the whole glass thing.
There was one other thing that I noticed that you know, you read into these things and you think putting Whoopees credit over her bomb is that subliminal message or is it just a gag whatever. But at the very end they credit the actress Elizabeth Roussio. I think her name is pronounced twice, so she gets that highlight reel that all the main cast get, you know, with a flashing of everybody smiling, like a sitcom ending, and then when they go to the end credits scroll, he goes also
starring Elizabeth Russio. It was like a pretty obvious mistake that nobody picked up on. And I reading through things and think, were they at a rush? Were they sloppy? Were they not paying attention? Or what was the behind the scenes like? But I guess there's not much out there.
There was one clip and Entertainment Tonight clip that I found where it was love was it Whoopee, Bobcat and I can't remember who else it was that were kind of you know, vamping it up for here comes this new movie Burglar. Check it out kind of thing.
Comedian Whoopi Goldberg has been given the license to steal every scene in her new movie Merrily Beck has more. Whoopy Goldberg has come home back to the Bay Area to make Burglar with comedian Bob Goldway.
One of the reasons I wanted to be here, aside from having not been home in months, was that there's a lot of real good actors up here, a lot of real good people that people and who can movies rarely come and see.
This is a comedy pairing literally made in San Francisco. Both Woopy and the Bobcat made their names as stand up comedians here and now return as movie stars.
It's the best places where the.
Conducive to lunaticks.
They enjoy you when they respect you.
Here if you're bizarre, Burglar takes over the streets of San Francisco this week Merrily Beck Entertainment Tonight.
That was about it. I really didn't find anything else, and yeah, I don't know where. So I have a copy of this film that I've been watching for years now, and it's always confused me because at the very end of it, it's this very somber music that plays over the credits, and I'm just like, what the hell, this is the weirdest musical choice of all to have somber music playing over these credits, because they're supposed to be
light and fluffy. And I was talking to my wife yesterday and I'm like, no, no, you need like a saxophone. There's got to be a saxophone playing somewhere in here and just make it all and see and stuff. And so I was so confused. So I went out and I was doing some looking at some potentially illegal sites on the Internet and looking at different versions of this movie. Mine is the only one that has that somber music. Every other copy that I looked at had like kind
of music at the end. I'm like, yeah, this is the song. This is the right music. So I don't know where Mine came from. And then when I was watching it again yesterday, I noticed that the credits played for just a few minutes and then faded out. So I'm like, was this a made for TV? Like a But no other copies that I found they all had regular, real credits, So it's so strange.
I have to say though I loved the soundtrack in this film. I thought it was cracking, all the different needle drops and just the interstitial score as well. I thought it was brilliant. It was exactly what I wanted,
and I missed that in modern films. The other thing which I loved, and it's something which you don't really see anymore, is that when a film in the eighties, these kind of films especially take a turn at the end of second act, when things start to get a little bit more difficult for the protagonist, it starts raining and all the scene like at night with the rain and the'ing the phone book, making these tense phone calls and say, oh yeah, bring back weather as a foreboarding
force in movies. I love it.
Well.
Yeah, and the beautiful use of the fog in the end scene, I that was really loved.
Great.
Yeah, that was really nice.
In the book, it's in an office building and setting it outdoors with that little chase is terrific.
I thought that was a nice change.
I wonder know whether they made that change to San Francisco because of what was in that Entertainment Tonight episode which you showed me where they spoke about WHOOPI Goldberg and Bobcat Goldthwaite making their bones as comedians in San Francisco, and they're happy to be back and starring in a movie, and whether she had any sway at the time of saying I'd like to shoot in San Francisco.
The thing that really comes through in the books is since Bernie is a burglar, he can go wherever he wants. There is no limit, and it's just it's a matter of him being clever enough to get into a place mostly you know, going past security, going past doorman, those
types of things. That's the heart. I think the harder part than him picking a lock, like lock picking is second nature to him, and he's talking about like, oh, I can break into this within five minutes, you know, as long as I have my tools, or even at one point he doesn't have his burglar tools and he goes to like a five and diamond buys like nail files and things, he's still able. He's like, well, it took me ten minutes, so it would normally take me five.
But the thing with him being able to go wherever he wants is he plants evidence wherever he wants. And this whole thing of the once he finds out that counterfeiting is part of it. He goes into Knobby's apartment, he finds this whole huge briefcase filled with all of this bake money, so he starts planting some of that money around now apartment. Then he goes over to Graybo's house and he's still after he stashes the briefcase, he still has some of that fake money, so he starts
planting that where he needs it. And there's always a moment. Now I've only read three of these books, and Colin, I know you've read a lot more, but there's always a moment in these books where he will stop telling the reader what's going on in order to have like that last minute surprise kind of thing. He's just like, I had a few things to take care of, and he won't tell us what it is, and he'll you have like that big almost like a I swear in the third book, it's like a parlor room scene, but
it's all taking place at the bookstore. You know, it's like all of the players that are here and we're going to figure out who was where or when, And with every single one of those things, he's just like, oh, well, I'm sure they're going to find this book or this money or whatever it is, whatever evidence it is. I'm sure they're going to find that over at your apartment. Oh, they're going to find a gun in your drawer at
your place of business, like these kind of things. Because he can do whatever he wants, he can walk through walls.
Basically, that's a totally different character to who's on screen.
I would love to have seen more Whoopee Burglar movies because I think they created, you know, she created a really wonderful character that was unique from the book, and like that would have liked more. I would also love to see an actual, you know, New York City Bernie as well, and Mike. To your point, this sort of parlor revelation is very much a part of the Bernie books. Block is such a great reader. You know, he got his start at the Scott Meredith Agency reading manuscripts and
dropped out of college for super professional writing. But he knows the history of mystery literature and just literature and channel so well. And he has so much fun working with these tropes, these beats and rhythms and structures that are at the heart of miss story literature, and I think that's part of why the Bernie books, to me are so much fun. He really understands how to write an entertaining and fun mystery novel.
Yeah.
I was very excited to be able to talk with him, except that I'm talking with him about something he didn't want to talk about. He doesn't like this Burglar film. He doesn't like what they did with the Bernie character. And unfortunately, yeah, that came through in our interview. But let's go ahead. We're going to take a break and play that interview with Lawrence Block right after these brief messages.
Hello, this is Mark Bigley, the host of Wake Up Heavy recollections of horror. Wake Up Heavy is a show where I talk about movies that blew my mind as a kid, things like Phantasm, this Morning Shuns are bullshit, tourist trap, You're so pretty Dead and buried, Welcome to Potter's Blood and Halloween. Three Guests have included friend of the show and host of the Projection Booth podcast, Mike White, genre film journalists Anya Stanley, Jerry Smith, Sam Panico, and
Simon FitzJohn. Every once in a while, I even convinced my own daughter Cleo to join me.
That's me.
Usually though, it's just me, a Mike and my memories of some really wonderful horror films. So come check us out wakeupheavy dot com, SoundCloud dot com, slash wake Up Heavy, or your favorite podcast platform, and don't.
Forget anything can happen when you wake up Heavy.
When did you first start writing? And when did you first start working with television, movies any outside media like that.
As far as films like Burglar or any of the films, really, I haven't worked with them. They producer or a studio requires the rights and they make a film. My relationship is minimalist.
Now, it was Nightmare Honeymoon. Was that the first time that you had been adapted or had you been adapted before that?
I believe that was the first.
And then have you ever been approached to actually adapt your own work?
Yeah? I did a screenplay for what would have been a film called Keller a couple of decades ago, but it never got done. You know a signal difference between writing books and writing of anything in the film TV industry, and that is that with books, you write the book and the book is published. I have a lot of screenwriter friends who made a very good living over the years writing for the shelf. As they say, virtually nothing gets done, and I would have found that enormously frustrating.
I haven't done much work for the screen I did. The one thing that was produced is I did the screenplay such as it was for long Car Wise film My Blueberry Nights. But that's the only real credit that I have of something that got done. Oh and I did a couple of scripts for an ESPN dramatic series called Tilt About Poker. But aside from that, I did some work over the years that I got paid for so that I did enough screenwriting so that I get
a very small Writers' Guild pension. But aside from that, I haven't been much of a screenwriter.
Have they ever adapted your work such that you actually enjoyed it? Or is it always just a little bit painful to see what they do with your stuff?
Well, what they do is they make a film, and that's their business. If you're not prepared for that to happen, you don't sell the rights. And some friends of mine have made the decision not to sell the rights of their work. So Graft and Bob Crace both refused to sell any of their work to license filming of any of it, and I think it's probably not coincidental that both of them had had considerable experience as screenwriters beforehand.
But that's a decision and it's legitimate. Another decision is to sell the work and let go of the result, which is what I have done. I have not been happy with most There haven't been that many things made. Let's let's be clear on that. So the picture that I think is a good, good film. It could have been better, but anything could be better. Was a Walk among the Tombstones, Scott Frank's filmed with Liam Neeson, and that I thought was was quite good. I liked a
lot of it. There were some decisions and respect to plot that Scott made that I thought were a mistake, but one always has a reaction of that sort of one way or another. But I thought it was a good film. The other things Nightmare, Honeymoon, Burglar, and Eight Million Ways to Die I thought were not good films.
Well, I know you were adapted for television as well, with like Alfred Ditchcock Presents. I was wondering if TV treated you any better than film did.
I'm not saying that TV or film treated me badly. I really want to make that point that their object is not to please the writer of the original material. It shouldn't be. Their objective is not to necessarily reflect and be true to the original work. They're buying it because there's a film they want to make, and that's that's how they're going to do it. And the three pictures that we mentioned Nightmare, Honeymoon, Burglar, and Eight Million Ways to Die. My feeling about the films were simply
that they were not very good. And this was a view that was shared in three instances by all the critics and most of the audience. So it's not it's not an author's complaint.
Yeah. No, I'm not trying to antagonize you or anything.
I just know that, I know that. I just I'm just trying to explain.
Tell me a little bit more about Bernie Rodent bar And well, I know you've written about how he kind of came to be. I mean, he's a fascinating character and such an interesting way to have a investigator who was also criminal at the same time. I love that combination of those two things.
Uh huh.
So I was curious when they ended up buying the rights for Burglar. Did they buy just the one book or did they buy the rights for the whole character?
Unfortunately, the I had my literary agent decided he was he didn't need a film agent to share the work with him on this one, and the contract was terrible and as a result, they wound up having a hold on everything. And that's the reason there hasn't been another Burglar.
So that's still not in your control, line or back in your control. No, So can you walk me through kind of the process of when they bought that? I mean, how involved were you with that or did you see how the changes were made from what you wrote to what we ended up seeing on screen.
Well as I think is generally known as that. Originally they were looking to for Bruce Willis to play Bernie and he decided he didn't want to one way or another, and Whoopi Goldberg was going to play the Caroline character. Initially, somebody had a multi picture deal with whoob and she said that she could play the lead, and they shoehorned her into that in order to get a picture in between Jumping Jack, Flash and whatever the hell the other one was. And that's how that the casting came about.
It was certainly not how I had envisioned the character. But that's kind of beside the point. She It still could have been a bearable film. It could have been a successful film, and it would not have been a reflection of the book. But as I said, that's not the point of filmmaking. But it was to my mind just such a bad film and so many other respects that it didn't work. I mean, nobody went to.
It, so I don't imagine there was any talk of a sequel bringing back Bernie for another outing.
No.
I know you right about this a little bit in the Writer for Paris, But can you talk a little bit about the process that you have, especially when it comes to you know, when you're coming up with the ideas for things, do you think, oh, this will be a good Bernie story, or this would be a good Michael Scudder or do you just come up with the idea first and then kind of figure out what it's going to be as you go along.
I don't want to get into that.
No, Okay, that's absolutely fine. I'm just amazed at how prolific you are when it comes to your writing. I mean, is this like, are you nine to five when it comes to writing.
And then actually, Mike, I retired a couple of years, go, I haven't anything in a couple of years.
Yeah, oh okay, I think what I'm getting confused by some of the collections because I love that collection of Bernie stories. That was amazing.
Thank you.
What is keeping you busy these days?
Well, I spent a lot of time at the gym and read and sit around and be retired.
Well, mister Black, thank you so much for your time. I love talking with you.
Terrific. Mike, thanks very much.
I listened to that interview, Mike, and I really felt for you because he was giving you nothing. It was a polite way of saying, I don't give a fuck fuck off. But just listening to you guys talk about the books. I kind of understand it, though, because this is nothing at all like what he created. It's just taking some elements, just taking like the bookstores, taking the character's name. He seems like a totally different personality. And you understand it though, Yeah.
I mean, you're totally right, Kevin.
No.
What I kept thinking about is it's as based off of the books of Lawrence Block, and I'm like, they must have licensed and paid for all of these books.
Did yeah, and then they just shoved them into one movie.
And I'm like, you're basically making it impossible to have a series because you're taking from all these different things. It's like, well, why don't you just pay for one novel and adapt that, or if you're paying for multiple novels, you would think that they would want to set up something so that you could potentially have sequels.
It's so much the Burglar in the Closet and then there's just Caroline and the dog grooming stuff from the burglar who liked to quote kiplaying. You could have made another character. You could have made it a character named Carl, could have had him do something other than dogwashing, because that's it, you know, there's nothing else really from that second book. And then the idea of steal a stamp at the beginning, I'm like, I don't see Bernie stealing
stamps really, just because they're so hard to fence. Bernie loves coin collections, right, he absolutely loves stealing coin collections, And I understand, like Ray set him up to go in and steal this stamp, but he would think that Ray would have the fence for that if he's so determined, and then the way that they she lifts the stamp, puts it on his head, he gets blood all over it. I'm like, well, so much for that. It's not gonna be worth anything.
Now the book Bernie character would never do that, but that Fence character, Abel Crowe is in other novels. I really need to reread all of the books. But I think this ll right, Yeah, he's dead. He has like a cornery, they say, but he's in other books. And I swear there is a stamp subplot in one of the novels. But don't quote me because I can't remember exactly which book.
You mean, you can't remember We're out of thirteen novels which one it is? Like that?
Come on, yeah, I wish I couldn't. I was trying to like pull all the Bernie books and get as much as I could. I reread the novel twice for this, because I'm either blessed or cursed with the fact that I always forget plots. So even when I watch or read a book again that I love, there's always things that I don't remember. As of this morning, I was like, what's from the book? What's from the movie? So I did them both again.
Well, I have to say, going back to what I was saying at the beginning, the film for me was much harder to track than the script, just because of how it was directed. All the eyes are dotted and all the tea's are crossed. In the script, there's nothing that's extraneous. There's no sort of like loose ends, which when you watch the film it can kind of feel a bit random, and it's like they're bouncing from here today and who's Frankie and that seems a bit random.
But Frankie is introduced on the voice machine when she breaks into Christopher's apartment and she's on there, and it's like, oh, so it's all set up, but they're obfiscating in how they're directing it. It helped me an awful lot to be able to read it on paper and go, oh, I get it there. You should have shown us that. And for exposition especially, you want to be able to see exposition, not be told that. It's very hard to remember things you've been told because you don't know where
to put the emphasis. You don't know what's important and what's just background information.
Come on, Kevin, that's a screenwriter. You know that it's all about telling and not showing. And that's the golden rule, right.
It is today with Netflix, tell everybody so they can second screen it. I am sitting down at a table now, I am angry with you.
You know that?
Is that what it's called second screening?
Yeah?
I'd never heard the trays, but I love.
That Netflix explode all the characters to explain what it is they're doing and what they're feeling. And if they love somebody, they have to tell that person that they love them. It can't be employed by looks or through the usual things of like actions. It has to be said a load so that people second screening it. I can follow on the story without actually watching it.
Finally, my screenwriting career is going to blossom.
Just make audio books at this stage. Fooks sake.
It's funny that this is yet another movie where she goes into a place and listens to the answering machine. That's exactly what happened last week with Jumping Jack Flash, and we get to hear in that case it's you know, Jonathan Price's voice, and we don't see Jonathan Price until the very end of it, And in this one, we don't see Christopher at all other than like his bare ass and that's it. You know, Well do we see him with the see him the hotel chest?
Yi?
Thank you, But yeah, it's it's so funny that both of these movies have answering machines as critical parts.
There's another thing as well which both films have, which is in Jumping Jack Flash she bites a guy on the dick, and in this one she punches a guy in the dick. So having a dick in a Whoopie Godberg film is a liability.
Well that was our old friend Vito ruganess back in this one as.
Agreable the painter, the Terrible Artist.
I really like in the book how she finds him and how she tracks him down, and especially the art dealer that she has a long conversation, Well he be Bernie has a long conversation with I thought that was a great scene in the book as well. But you know, again, that's a telephone conversation that they're having, and it works for a book but probably not for a movie. So I'm glad she finds them faster in this one.
Correct me if I'm wrong, y'all. But isn't the art conversation different in the script than in the movie.
It's much longer. There's a lot of scenes where there's a lot more conversation happening, like the scenes expand, but you can see, like with the jeweler, the guy that she is going to be howking the watches too and stuff like that, there's a big build up with him where she's obviously been going to him a long time and that all gets cut right down to the quick where he's a blink and you miss a type character.
So same thing happens with the art dealer. I think her name's Vernata or something like that, where yeah, it's a pretty long scene and then it gets something with her just having a gag abit like I'm looking for something to go over my bed. So she wants this huge wallpiece.
And it's a man in the script because I think there's a little bit of sort of sexual attraction where she says i'd like a you know, a rain check, and then the art Dealer's like, I can't even do that same thing, but she's like no, no, no, for real, like i'll call you later.
Well, it's like we cannot have her have any sort of relationship like romantic relationship in this movie. It was so strange that it just felt like, no, no, keep any flirtation and stuff out of this. I was like, okay, because I liked that idea in the script of Oh, she finds this person attractive and vice versa, this is going to be good, Like they might go out for a date afterwards, or in the next movie they would say, oh, yeah, I tried to have a relationship with his art dealer,
but it didn't work out. I didn't know enough about cubism or something like that, but yeah, that would have been nice. So I was I forgot that. I was talking about how this was originally a Bruce Willis thing, and apparently when it was Bruce Willis supposed to be Bernie.
It was supposed to be Whoopee as his neighbor. And so I don't know if she would have played the Caroline character, but then that would have been this whole thing of like, oh, is she a lesbian because she's a lesbian in the book, and I don't think we're ready for that with Whoopee, you know, being anything other than a sexless, relatively sexless black woman, you know in our movies, because again it's very odd to have a female lead and a female lead who's black.
She does get to have a dick stuck in her face, and in the scripts she says wow, but she doesn't say WHOA. In the film she kind of just mouses as if it's almost like wow, that just happened to me, rather than in the script where it's like wow, what a big dick. They play it slightly differently.
She does say like, why don't I have this guy's number? So I found it there was at an LA Times article. I found it was like a retraction where they said, like an earlier piece mentioned that the Whoope Goldberg character is going to be gay. In fact, it's her friend Carl played by Golf.
Really he's flirting with all the women in the bar.
Yeah, exactly. I didn't get Karl as being gay at all.
He seemed like non sexual to me because like he just seems so incompetent at hitting on them, and I'm like, and it didn't seem to me that it's that because he didn't like when it was just like, you just seem to have no sexuality at all. You are just this force of nature that defies categorization.
I did get a huge laughter from him screaming at the and like, what do you guys do for fun? When you're not like blowing guys away? But it's the way that he screams, it's where he's just so incompetent. He can't even hold the conversation. But he always comes off like like a manic meth adult eight year old. To me, he's very boyish Bobcat, like a feral child.
I'm very curious because there is a song on the soundtrack which is called Bobcat's Rap, I believe, and I think I'm probably gonna end this episode with that song. I mean that was the thing, right to have weird raps in the eighties, like Rodney's rap or the Honeymooner's rap speaking of Eddie Murphy, you know. So I'm very curious what Bobcat's rap is going to be. I have a feeling it's just going to be quotes from the movie with him screaming in between or something like that. So Fingers Crossed.
Got that to look forward to. But again, a great soundtrack, the Jackson's I was listening to it in the pad.
I like that opening theme, I like the closing theme. Once I finally found the real one.
I like movies with custom themes, like I think it's It's wonderful.
There should be more of than I. It's catchy. I sing along when I'm watching it.
Last time I heard that was in the Deadpool movie.
I enjoyed this film though, I really did enjoy it. It was a throwback, and it's nice to discover these films which are time capsules and so much of the era, and to have no exposure to them whatsoever. Like I didn't even notice From existed until it was put on this watch list, and it was a trait for me. I really dug it. I prefer it much more to Jump a Jack Flash. It felt more cohesive.
I imagine I should just continue on with the Burglar books and read or listen to all of them. You mentioned Scudder before. I haven't read or listened to any of the Scudder books. How are those so?
The Scudders are very different? And that those are Lawrence Block's noir books. It's about an ex cop named Matt Scudder, who, at the beginning of the series just does favors for
people and sometimes they pay him. At the beginning, he is an alcoholic a few books in he starts going to AA and I believe Block, I mean Block also went through AA and it's a really harrowing part of that series, and it really touches a lot of people to actually see, you know, the effects of alcoholism and what it means to try and go through that recovery process. It's it's devastating. So totally just totally different, but they're
wonderfully written books. They are a lot more violent, sturbing in a lot of ways, but also to such incredible time collapse of New York City because he goes parts of neighborhood to parts of neighborhood and as he wrote from the mid seventies through, you know, he read him for almost forty years, so you really see all of New York City and the different bureaus change. I read those all in order a few years ago, and it's
it is worth doing it that way. There was an adaptation in the eighties of one of them, called eight Million Ways to Die, which is a great title. The book is great, the movie is I just thought dreadful. They move it from LA to Sorry, they moved from New York to LA. Jeff Bridges isn't the lead. It's not only the loss of New York that is a shame, but really loses that sort of tragic sense of an alcoholic trying to recover. Even though Jeff Bridges goes to
a couple meetings, that seems kind of willy nilly. Al Ashby, who had his own addiction issues, directed or didn't direct that movie, and it really feels like, well, I know for a fact it was an Oliver Stone script from the Earth, and then by the time they made it in the mid eighties, he was directing Salvador, so they brought Robert town on to do uncredited rewrites, and then during the editing process they hired yet another writer to write more dialogue into adr and so clotwise, it's just
such a mess to watch. It makes no sense. There was an adaptation a few years ago by Scott Frank with Liam Neeson.
Walk Among the Tombstones.
I pulled out the book this morning because I watched the movie last night. That's a terrific movie and much closer in tone to the novels. If you haven't seen it, it's not I love the recent Liam niss in action movie Renaissance. I enjoy all those but this is very different to me than those. There's really only one shootout at the end, and it's a lot more solemn, and it is shot in New York, so it really has the flavor of those books.
It seems, based on the interview that you did when it was like that that was his favorite adaptation of his work.
I haven't seen that one yet, but Scott frank Is it feels like it's such a kindred spirit when it comes to his adaptations and just the stuff that he writes on his own. I need to check that one out. I have recently watched Eight Million Ways to Die. There's that. I have this fascination with Jeff Bridges in the eighties and just some of the weird choices that he made,
some of the things that he was in. I mean, there's like the whole Jagged Edge against all Odds morning after some strange things that he was doing, and some of them work really well.
Isn't Against All Odds? Is that out of the past remake? Yes, it is, which has built My Gallows High by Jeffrey Holmes if I remember correctly.
Though I want to say that they're not it's not credited as a remake I'm trying to remember, it's been so long since I've seen it. I mean, Rachel Ward, Jeff Bridges, and James Woods altogether at that time that was an amazing combination.
I think the problem with Jeff Bridges as Scudder's not Jeff Bridges as a performer's fault. I think it's the opening and closing seem like Oliver Stone writing Scarface. It really just feels like someone the title and just decided to, you know, take a couple of big plot points and then just eliminated everything that made Lawrence block.
Lawrence Block with Bruce Willis have been a better Bernie based on who else could have conceived it being cast at the time, Not Whoop you Go, but who was out there.
Because this would have been moonlighting air Bruce Willis right, yeah, pre Diehard even and.
Definitely pre Hudson Hawk, where he also played a cat burglar.
Which I like and I know if people hate that film, I'd like it.
I think he could have worked. And I do like Whoopee as Bernie as well. I want to I feel like I have to keep, you know, I want to keep senecause I really like her version of that character. I think Bruce Willis would have also done a especially if he you know, with the script. I think he could have done a really good job.
I need to read these books.
Yeah, you definitely do.
I don't give up plugs. I hadn't seen it until last night, but my Blueberry Nights I thought was terrific.
I don't know why.
I sort of slept on that because I love wonk or Why. Maybe it's because the poster looked like cotton candy. I don't some reason that no one really seemed to talk about it, but watching it, I was It's a really natural blend of Wong in Block. And I know wank or Why had been a fan of Blocks writing, and I think he sort of came up with the concept of these two people meeting at a cassee in New York, and you know they had both sort of
just experienced a break up. And it's Jude Law who runs the cafe, and Norah Jones, who is the is visiting. And then she goes on a road trip around the country and keeps sending letters back to Jude Law. And so you get that sense of conversation because most of the movies these characters just talking with other people. And Block has such a good feel for interactions with human beings, especially in places like bars and casinos, you know, sort
of on the street. And I according to Block himself, it sounds like Wankhar Wai just sort of took the script and did what he wanted and there so I don't know how much was improvised. I don't know how much was changed, but it still felt like it had
a lot of Block's flavor. Like one of the segments, David Strasaron plays a top who keeps going to a bar and every night he says, this is my last night of drinking, and he has a good full of chips from AA and then in the day he goes to a diner and it's the Norah Jones works the diner by day, the bar by night, and Rachel Weiss's is soon to be x y. It gets really uncomfortable and sad, and you see you see the darker side of Block come out between them, and that's like, this
is something that could happen in a Matt Scutter book. I thought that was a really wonderful movie and just was a surprise to me.
It looks really vibrant and colorful.
It looks one hundred percent like a Wan Car Wi movie.
It has that.
This is a little like hazy and surreal as you put out the colors. It really just seemed like a really nice blend of both of their stunnils, and I liked all the performers.
I have to say, Wonkar Whi is a major blind spot for me. I still just have not if I've seen any of his stuff. I don't remember. I think maybe I saw twenty forty six and that's it. I really need to see more of his stuff.
Twenty forty six I really like, but it's a it seems like a strange one to start with, having I say that just from having started with his earlier work Days of Being Wild that was my favorites. That and Chunking Express are great early works.
Yeah, which feels like the most familiar.
I wonder I might have seen Days Being Wild just because that title is very familiar, and that was still back in what nineteen ninety when I would have just gotten into more Hong Kong films or in.
Early One feels a lot more sort of post John Wu because it kind of has this prime element to it, but it's very much not a you know John Wu type of movie, but it seems like, oh yeah, you know John Wu's selling well, yeah, you can get a shot doing this as Tears go By, which is wonderful as well.
He worked with some of my favorite actors. I mean, I know there's a lot of Maggie Chung in here and Andy Lao and Leslie Chung was held. Yeah, I don't know why I haven't watched these sounds like something I need to. Maybe I'll do a one car Why month. You know here I am Woopy Goldberg month and Victor Bono this year, but maybe one car Why in my future? Who knows you can't go one.
All?
Right, on that note, we're going to take another break and play a preview for next week's show right after these brief messages.
An earthquake. Just get La and her name is Detective Reader Whoopy Goldberg. Fatal Beauty Read it all starts funny at a theater here you check newspapers for showtimes.
That's right, we are still in Whooprary and we are going to be back next week to discuss Fatal Beauty. Until then, I want to thank my co hosts Kevin and Collins. So, Colin, what is the latest with.
You, sir.
I doing a lot more musically then I have done the passage I'm excited about and I am for once keeping my website updated. It's www dot Colin Gallagher dot com. It has links to my label, which is Bad Channels Records. I've been doing a lot more with my instrumental project, Modern Silent Cinema. I just got masters back for another solo piano album that should be out in February. And closing one four, I was excited to get a few
books out. I had one I wrote with Tevin Storer on King Vidor that McFarlane put out, and then I put out to myself about David Goodis's pulp work. One was sort of a little monograph about researching his pseudonyms, and then the second volume was actually tracking down all but five or six of the stories and you know, sort of synopsis, and then there is a sort of an introductory essay contextualizing that period of his career with the more famous novels and Kevin.
For folks who may not be listening to this all month, what is up with you, sir?
I'm still podcasting with my pole will Over on the Best Bits, where we just talk about favorite film scenes, different one each episode. And I'm still working as a screenwriter for my sins, So not much of a renaissance man like Colin, but getting boy.
Thank you so much guys for being on the show. Thanks everybody for listening. If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some of the other shows that I work on. They are all available at winning Waymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the projection Booth take over the world.
No, no, let me get a little bit about my silk name, Karl Tadler.
I'm a Gemini. I rebox me.
I never miss family time and I.
Caught my fil grand you busy up. I like to frown a bas of you, and I hope along my own suit.
I have a good.
American I'm alive in southa Rambo and the American Way, and you.
Know what.
My lot let you I'm not like you. I am every past dream. I am a living example.
I'm dying at it.
I have very may good job. I run a beauty slick but a beauty cli. It's a doggy slot.
You know.
I can contract. I clean them and I pushed them and I love him. Mostly I can throw out the laptops. Sometimes the more the mores make us much better watch stops.
I get brooming my dogs and little Cosmo.
Sometimes I stare at the press to the I just gon shoe on him.
Like a dog.
And I am a lot like him.
I am a mother like you.
I want to live another fall. I just want to hang out, you know, shoot the great. I want to say your daughter, I am a nat you you know what I'm about? Anything from us? Really? I at ansters.
You know, there's a lot of men answer you just got a lot of It's just an all big thing. Some people I want to rock a counsel and put him in my well to me and I want to hit a crock.
Don't need a doctor.
Some people like the doctor IM and you gives me a cash.
You know what?
That a one honey flocked one?
Do you like that?
Michael K.
Mo is real cheek.
And I am a lot like you.
I have you.
I cried for Captain your brother.
And you don't like when other guy Caeremiah Heart I'm with Amo, I.
So much like him. It's just chous me.
I don't know.
I can't wait for Rocky anymore. I guess that was good. Yeah, ever played that?
Wake up?
I look at my class and see all his eyes out cloth, and.
I said, what I can I read it?
Certainly not to the office. I'm never really into soft men. I know I don't fly, I wrote down way, I.
Haven't you know.
I'll live a change. I'll live a change when I over. I don't know why, because I'm that lets you doesn't doing a crang up job. A lot of you.
I'm a lot like you.
I want to bother you.
You say you don't know what yesterday do.
Let me come on, let me call your mother in law. I want to day daughter, not that I'm getting to come on the mind.
You know we're I a bee fall around.
Why did they fa Quinn? Why did they fire my queen? She was my favorite vision. I'm sorry, I gotta go, but can't be shown