Episode 743: Move (1970)

Oh he is, folks, it's showtime.

People say, good money to see this movie.

When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the protection booth.

Everyone for tend. Podcasting isn't boring.

Don it off.

Hiram Jaffi's world is just like yours, a little unreal.

No, you're listening to that nooise.

Move some people think is about movie.

Like I'm setting something into motion.

Dolly is something I don't understand.

Some people think Moved is about the system breaking down.

Your larger care's no respect for anything.

Some people think Move is about today's plastic culture.

What is that? It was? To me? We believe in a philosophy of joy and laughter, not in self recrimination and rebuke. No shit.

Some people think Moved is about the battle of the sexiest.

Doctor.

I don't think my husband understands me.

Is your wife so nice?

Dream?

Oh Jewish rega, isn't that disgusting?

I don't know what it is.

I haven't made love to Dolly in month's.

God, I think you really are going craggers.

Look and you're better tell me you love me or something. Hey, look that you've got green paste potsol over your chest. You've even got it on you. Oh that's kinky. You're gonna try something funny.

I mt when we start picking up weird balls, I come for you.

Some people think Move is just an entertaining comedy.

Who is this that?

Some people think Move is more than that?

Damn it, I don't need this.

In short, some people think, and some people don't, and some.

People just move.

Move the movie with a.

Message, Welcome to the Projection booth.

I'm your host. Mike White joined me once again as mister mike'sullivant.

Hey, it's great to be back again. The last time we talked was when we talked about the Finks, and that was like over four years ago, so it's great to be back on the podcast.

Got another winner for you, Mike, Always a winner with me.

Yeah yeah.

Also back in the booth is Miss Emily and Travia.

Hey, Hey, good to be best.

Our month of looking at rare, lost or underseen films continues with one from Stuart Rosenberg nineteen seventies.

Move.

The film stars Elliott Gould as Hiram Jaffy and uptight Zero Astrian who's about to make him move with his wife Dally, played by Paul Apprentis, he embarks on White Might be a fantasy about a girl played by Genevieve Waite while navigating New York in the late nineteen sixties.

Ma'am?

So one percent of first time watch? And I did not get any nudity, So I don't know who I should be mad about it, or that I knew nothing about it going in. And within the first five minutes there was a lot of Oh, this is really relevant and there are things I connect to here. I am in the middle of moving. I used to live in New York City and I was a dog walker for a period of time back when I was a young

I found out about Move it was the very first issue of Shock Cinema I ever picked up, which I think was issue eleven, and that movie is always intertwined with like Shock Cinema and myself and Steve ripped that movie apart. So it was when did I see that? About ninety seven? So I've been avoiding this movie close to thirty years. And the only reason I sat down and watch is because you ask you want to go on? The objection we talk about it is I'm not sure,

I saw this film years and years ago. I saw it on that questionable transfer, and I'm like just now seeing the decent print of it, that twenty century fox but out when I put this on the list. I did not know that this had ever been available, And I have a search on eBay for Elliott Gould, which is weird. Flex like, I've been trying to work out this your Yeah, I've been trying to work on the book about Ellie Gould since twenty ten, twenty eleven, right

In the bath job No last I guess they that must be some pretty good glue that you put on for that kind of thing. But it's impressive. Now that you say that about the editing for nudity, I feel like that also makes the version I saw it gives it a little bit of a pass on some things because the pacing, and I think this is probably the biggest issue the film has, because there's things I really

Is this fun?

He shouldn't be left figure? Is this going onlong?

Is that?

Is it intentional?

Too?

And some of that now I wonder some of it could have just been a lot of editing choices that had to get made because of Mpalea and such.

My issue with the film was I could never tell if we're supposed to be gold side or we're supposed to consider him an asshole and a joke. It seems like the film can never like that one scene with him and Jenevieve Wait where they're having like this, the film, I feel like film thinks it's a deep conversation, but it's just two like insufferable morons born lay deep thoughts, two like college kids just try and impress each other. And actually that's the one part where I'm just like,

I think that's a really good point. And that was definitely. In the beginning of the film. The problem I had with it was just this very basic and part of it is knowing, Okay, it's nineteen seventy, so it's these are the movies we're making, right, We're making movies about like men going through midlife crisis, and that's gonna always happen, but it's going to evolve a little differently. And it's

Yeah, yeah, I can see that, and yeah, I can agree with you that. I think somewhere inside of himself, he does know that he's being ridiculous. He does know that he's just such a martyr for so much of this and just going through this midlife crisis. And she wants to have a baby. I don't want to have a baby. There's no way that I'm ready to have a baby. And pry my best to get these plays sold and no one is buying my work, and instead I have to write pornography is what his profession is.

Yeah, they don't make that easy. It's a guess no.

And that also gives us one of the big clues towards the end, when you're talking about the Genevieve Weight scene where it's Paul Apprentice Dolly reading a story and reading a line about do you know anything about electricity? And then in the next scene Genevieve Weight comes up and says the exact same line. I was like, Oh, okay, we are in this because yeah, there's no line to tell us when we're moving from reality to fantasy. Sometimes no line when it comes to moving backwards and forwards

There's no visual cue, there's no sound cue, and it feels like a mistake on the part of the movie because I think that also, like the reading through some of the reviews, it was definitely something that turned a lot of viewers off. There's an element of that I feel like, had it, I don't know how it could have been done. I don't think that decision was necessarily

Work, Mike. I know, as I actually was looking at the Goodreads reviews of this today and I know this you're you're one of them for the So how different does I should have read the book? I didn't read the book? How different is the book from the movie. Does it have the sort of fantasy sequences in the book? Is that an element in that.

It has been probably decades since I've read it. I started rereading it the other night, and it just feels very much like this movie. So much of this opening scene you're like, oh, yeah, not the necessarily him getting run over by the steamroller and every The effect that I really like is right at the beginning, when everyone's moving backwards but he's moving forwards. That kind of stuff isn't in there.

Yeah, I love that. That's such a great way to start a movie.

It is. It's really nice. It's so European. That's the thing about this film. It's just that, like you, I dig the idea of moving back and forth in time and the fantasy the reality. We've talked about night Porter or The Conformist or these movies where you just kind of don't have this sense of time. I can't remember the Italian editor's name that would do that so well. I think he even worked on like The Passenger, some

It's easy, I think, to always read into a If a man writes a novel about a man having a mid life crisis, it's very hard not to read into that as Okay, let's make sense, this is what he was going through. And I did not get a chance to read a novel, So I don't know how much of that comes through. It certainly adds an element of

He died. I don't remember how soon after this he committed suicide. I should say, not just died, but.

It was a year after the movie came out. It was seventy one.

Yeah.

I don't imagine that the bad reviews in the movie probably helped them out either.

Because it had to be a very personal thing for if you're a novelist and you've written a novel that is maybe close to your life. I don't know, but it feels like it is such an interior this the movie is so interior, right. This is a man going through a whole lot of mental gymnastics and worries of here's my life and I am unhappy and I am this, and I'm not ready for this, and I'm not ready to be a father, and I'm not ready to move it three blocks down? So then do you have that then

No, And it felt a little bit like some of the critics were lying in wait for this. As far as we are tired of Elliott Gould and I was like, get ready, folks, because Gould's only made like a handful of films at this point is his career. You're going to get a whole lot more Gould here coming forward, and some of these are going to be a lot worse than this movie.

So what do you think that is? As far as him just being such a success in a mold that was not typical that he doesn't look he didn't look like a leading man of that time, but it's that era where you have him and Dustin Hoffmann and other guys that were not go would not have been matinee Idols ten years earlier. Was it just a matter of the press just waiting for a failure? Was it that kind of thing that happens still today? Certainly feels like.

It because I remember Gene Siskel's review was something like, I'm tired of seeing Elliott Gould. And it wasn't even I'm tired of seeing Elliott Gould play this type of character. It was just I'm tired of Elliott Gould. I was like, holy shit, Gean.

It'd be so mean, how because at that point it was what it was first, It was like Knight the Rayed Minsky is the Free Chin. Then it was like Bob and cheryld' ed Nallie. Then was Mash before this was it earlier in the year. So there's just how could you be tired of someone after just three movies?

Plus there was also Getting Straight.

Oh that's right, yeah, yeah.

And so yeah, in nineteen seventy he had four movies come out. He had I Love My Wife, Move, Getting Straight, and Mash and in.

The opposite or was he still married to Barbra Streisand at this time.

No, I think that was over by this point. I think that was over before Bob and Ted, Bob and Perrel and Ted Analyis. But I'm not sure I think that ended in sixty eight because.

I wonder how much and the different era obviously, but there was still Page six and there was still the gossip columns magazine on all those things that it should come with being a movie star as opposed to being

Yeah, like me and Timothy Shallamage one.

Day, just wait for it.

For years, I thought this was like the Matilda era, like the Whiffs era, when it was like the career was laying the downswing. A year after this, didn't he do like a Burger movie. So many times I've said this guy had like a tribolt to ask taste for projects, like an almost self destructive face for projects. But this was during a period where it was just like every other pretty much every movie. He was like knocking it out of the barn.

Yes seventy one, you've got the Touch, which you mentioned, and then you've got Little Murders seventy three, you've got the long Goodbye that he still has yet to do, California Split and Let's Together. Real good one back that I liked. I like Capricorn one. I really love The Silent Partner. But yeah, there's some uneven stuff in there, like a Bridge too Far. I'm not real hot on

I well, remember right, the bur Reynolds playboys around the real playgirls around this time, and then that was probably another part of it was And I mean, this was not my era, so I can't speak to him, but my understanding is he was like a raging sex symbol at the time.

This happens every couple of years, you know what the mainstream determined sexy changes. But I think you had this moment of no, we like women like a man who looks like a man who looks maybe looks like their husband, who maybe looks like a man they actually are going to meet in real life. Whether he leaned into that or whether just the everything leaned into it for him.

Yeah, you're right. It was just a strange era because you know, even his best friend, Donald Sutherland not conventionally attractive.

But incredibly sexy, and everybody understood it. And you couldn't explain it because you put you could take a guy that looks like him and put him next to him and it didn't work. But yeah, it was this time period where I think, again, it's the seventies, it's the late sixties. It's minds are expanding in a lot of different ways, but that feels very specific to this and that this movie is presents doesn't present him as I think he is very sexual in the movie, but also

And I don't know when it was necessarily okay to be very Jewish because there was so many years. You think of so many stars from like the thirties to forties, the fifties where they had to change their name and it's just that's way too Jewish sounding, can't do it. But he is very Jewish, and to the point where, yes he claims to be Zoroastrian in this film, but

Did you think that was a dream or do you think that was really his wedding?

That felt real to me, just though I don't know Roger Bowen is the gentleman's name. I don't know if the breaking of the glass was real or not. And then also so I'm guessing, or there's Joe silver Is in this movie as a character named Oscar, and we see him a few times, and we see him in that wedding scene, and I want to say, we see him in Dragon that wedding scene, and then we see him in Drag at the party. I think that's supposed to be his brother in this movie.

It's confusing because Oscar is playing this he could be his mother too, like he they're playing it like it, but it's just like, I don't I want to dress this. Probably it's a bit delicate because I think in some ways the movie is playing this as a joke. But I don't know, you know, and I couldn't tell like what they were going for that if it was like a genuine character, if it was just a joke. But because why do the bit where astors like mother or him. I don't want to put this the wrong way. I

This is definitely that end of the sixties era where it's look at how wild everything is. You've got the wild party in here and all these strange characters. And I think I wrote in my notes like I'm waiting for Joe Bucker, Stanley Sweetheart to show up in this scene because they would fit into this party for sure.

I was hoping it was going to turn into like Sweet Charity and have a whole dance sequence. But alas, because it opens. Yeah, I love the opening of this movie. I will always immediately click with a movie that has its own theme songs, and so as soon as those. But it's a very catchy song. It's been in my head all day. It starts playing, and it's a great sequence for the whole opening credit sequence. It's very literal.

But what can you Yeah, I know that stupid theme song that got stuck in my head the first time I watched this movie.

Ye all day, I've been singing it.

Oh yeah, it's so freaking catchy. Thank you Marvin Hamlish for that one.

I was excited to see the name of the credits too.

Yeah, he was on top of the world for you.

I was there and that I can always only ever think of the line from Role Models of the kid who played McK loving in super Bad when on a rand she said, and why does everybody saying you look like I got on? Marvin Emlish? The fuck Marvin Hamlish. It's always in my head whenever I hear the name, I just think, who the fuck is Marlin? Marvin Hamlish.

I'm not sure again with that party sequence, how much of that is supposed to be real either. Yeah, because there's the moment when he looks at the frog legs and then suddenly imagine as all of these frogs just scurbing around, I'm like, oh, okay, that are you freaking out? Did you take something? Are you dosed right now?

I think you could probably make a very real argument that really nothing that we see does happen. That it is him waking up one day, going to work with

The only other real reference to that is when he's out on the street and you see that diaper truck go by and you're like, oh, okay, So it's like haunting him.

Through that in mind. Yeah.

Yeah.

The sceneries on the horse of the cop, I feel like that was fantasy because one time I asked the cop like it at his forced and he told me no, oh.

In this day the Terrible dog Walker. As a former dog walker, you hold onto your dogs, you hold onto those leashes. You don't let them run around in Central Park and hope they come back to you. I was not happy with his dog walking abilities.

Yeah, And I think that's also part of his problem, is that he's not selling his plays, which I imagine that's a Joel Lieber thing right there. As far as the struggles of being a raid and also the struggles. So he did have books that were published one posthumously, but being a writer, it's not making a ton of money. And I think that one of Hiram's problems is that he's not the breadwinner in this family. And I guess that it's Dolly that's the breadwinner by her being the

It's also the seventies, it's the era when people were started talking like that.

Anyway, there is so much just nineteen sixty seventies, that kind of liminal space between the two decades where it's what the hell are we doing here? What is happening here? Trying to get our lives together. It is really interesting that he's got so many different types of people around him like that they actually have, and god forbid, I think it's an actual Indian person playing an Indian character. It's not just Peter Seller's in brown face or something.

That it's New York City's that is the reality of it.

I love it. Yeah, and then his landlord at the new place is definitely Latino and his wife is as well, And yeah, it's very New York melting pot kind of thing. Because then when we get Genevieve Waite later on, who I think is one hundred percent fantasy, but her kind of British South African type accent comes through, and then I think it disappears for a minute and then it comes back.

At one point, I was trying to figure that out because I didn't realize it first that she was British, and then she wasn't. And I don't know if that was pure acting choice or if it was her covering an accent and do a different taket at each time, But it works in a way because you just adds into the right. She is pure fantasy, and so everything about her should be a bit exaggerated and inconsistent.

I can ask you, is this the first recorded incident of the gag where a psychiatrist falls asleep while the patient talks about the problems.

All joke, Briar, that's a really good question. And yeah, I'm not sure because it feels like it's got to be old as psychiatry itself. I'm trying to think back to a symphony and slang because I think he, the main character in that goes to a psychiatrist, but I can't remember if he falls asleep or if he just realizes that the guy's crazy great summer prescription or something, because.

Yeah, how to be a New Yorker cartoon, you had to start life as a New Yorker cartoon.

That makes sense.

Yeah, I mean it really does feel like something that also that Woody Allen would be saying at the exact same time, and went to day Ellis in the Him to Sleep, I.

Was telling him about my dreams, and then I realized he was dreaming himself. I don't do a very good witty Ellen.

Neither do I. And then also even his the guy that takes over his apartment who played what was it Sarah no Jones right on the Star Trek. That's the only thing right that's him from but he is obviously gay and they don't make a big deal about it, and it just feels like you said, this is New York, this is.

This would be New York, New York today, but it certainly was New York in nineteen seventy.

It's all DEI. We just have to put a stop to it.

Yes, obviously, Yeah.

And I just feel bad for Paul Apprentice in this whole movie, the whole time, because he is just so unhinged.

She's an angel. I am a heterosexual woman, and I think she is just the sexiest creature in this movie. And I've always loved her Steppard Wives. She's both great in it and she is somebody that he is one of those actors that you can tell is just a

You might want to hit up your boss for some prosac which I don't think existed, so at least maybe some lithium at this.

Point, something going ether? Who knows?

Yeah the ether or yeah not.

Also, I realized something that I had never a connection I never made before, is how has nobody ever pared paul Apprentice and Paulina Poorzakova together in like a buddy comedy or something, because they are I think, around the same age. They are both these like tall, beautiful brunettes who have a very similar way of speaking and could play sisters so well in something but dream projects for one day. Keep that in mind, everybody.

And Gould acted with her sister in California Split, but I think I want to say her sister ended up committing suicide. She had a lot of problems. Sorry, to bring down the conversation.

We should talk about the dogs.

You should talk about the dogs, and then I want to talk about the harassing calls from the mover. But yeah, do you want to talk about Murphy? The incredible Saint Bernard.

Murphy is a perfect, beautiful creature. I love something I love. It's a very small choice in this movie and I feel like it happens more than once, where other characters keep referring to the dog that he and it's just this tiny thing that like can eagerly demonstrate whether the person you're talking to cares about dogs or not if they just if you think, oh, it's actually a girl, Okay,

Misgendering is the thing people love to do.

It.

Yeah, but she's a good girl.

She's a very good girl, better than those other dogs that he has to take to his apartment to try to chase away the quote unquote robber.

He's a dog trainer also, and that's who No, this guy. I don't know what they're paying him, but I would not give him good Business Bureau reviews. He is clearly also training the dogs, and I don't trust that at all. He's also using them as like guard dogs and lying to the owners, and I find that not respectable to the dog walking profession.

Yeah, showing up at their house at eight o'clock at night to take him for a one of his.

Clients is a sex worker and she's in the middle of work and he comes and says, I'll just I'll take your dog off your hands for a few No, I know it's before we could like text somebody and say hey, can I come over? But Phil the error when you ring doorbells, which is very strange.

Yeah, and that one dog just absolutely terrifies that poor woman in the hallway. When he's picking up the second dog, She's just there with her lip quivering and crying. I'm like, oh, this is awful. You are such a bad person.

No, he's not doing anything to diffuse the situation. He's a bad dog walker.

I know.

I said I was okay with him, but maybe I really didn't like this character.

The way I saw his character as if Franz cough. Because the trial was filtered through like a middle aged man who has to eat too long at the cheesecake factory death.

I like, it's true, there is a little Kafka to this, especially with the guy who keeps calling and taunting him and saying he's the mover, and also implying that he had sex with a prentice too. I tried out your wife, what I don't know if that's the same guy that's the cop, but it sounds like the same voice to me. But you've got so many good character actors in this and especially these older guys with the great voices.

The woman, right, the woman who's married to the mover with the she's doing something again, this is there's small choices in this movie that are really great. When you see her and you never quite see her face and you just see you hear her voice grasp thee and what is she doing. She is fixing a run in her stocking with fear nail polish, which is just such a cheap thing that you have to do sometimes, but it just tells you a lot about this woman in

All right?

There's got to be this big operation against him, that the movers are run by a psychopaths who abuses his wife and the cops are after him, and just these very elaborate scenarios to explain why just living light in New York City in nineteen seventy is impossible, right, It's you just you can't be who you want to be because everybody's out to get you in this bizarre city, when really it's just probably the movie's got the laid because the elevator wasn't working in the first building, so

What I find so weird about this movies because this was made during the with it era and they get this guy who's it. He's like a I don't want to see it. Get young novelist, but he's tapping into some kind of zeitgeist, whether it's the Phil Rod zeitgeist or something else. They're going for something different, they're going for something cool. So who do they get to punch up the script? They get a guy who writes to the Carroll Burnett showing Mad Magazine. It's such a weird choice.

I actually tracked him down and spoke with him for all of a minute, and I was trying to get him to talk about making this movie and working on this movie. It's just like it was so many years ago. I have no idea. All right, great, thank you, thank you. Yeah, and you'll hear an interview I did with Paul Apprentice in a little bit, and it's maybe it was ten minutes long. So she also didn't have a whole lot of memories of it because it was at this point

Fifty five years and it's nineteen seventy. Everybody was doing a lot of driff.

Talking about the guy who was moving them. I was so shocked to see that original trailer and that it ends with the disembodied hand of the mover coming out and flipping the bird at the very end of the of the trailer. I'm like, oh my god. And there's like boobs like crazy in the trailer as well, and I'm.

Just like the Red Band trailer in nineteen seventy.

Nineteen seventy, I was like, Wow, Okay, I guess we're really going for the appealing to the youth market or something here. So yeah, that middle finger was cut out of the version that I was watching that you guys watched. And then it's funny that you mentioned Doug Kenny because I was I just watched Funny Farm for the first time, and that whole beginning is all about the movers. They can't find the place, and this they're gonna turn down here and we're gonna yell at these movers when they

But I get apologics to you. To Mike, I know you have a Chevy Chase podcast. I haven't listened to it. Oh they keeping yet, And I love whenever I do an interview with anyone for Shock Cinema, they work with Chevy Chase. I always try to get a Chevy Chase story. I never do. I never do, but I keep forgetting. You have that podcast. I need to listen to it. I fucking love Chevy Chase.

You know, I don't know if you'll love my podcast.

Then He's like the reverse of John Candy, where whenever you hear an actor describe working with John Candy, no matter what, whether they worked on like with him for twenty movies or in a scene for five minutes, everybody has nothing, but they stop the interview and they're like, I have to tell you how he saved my life Like this, he made everybody he touched better. And the reverse of everybody who's ever with the Chevy Chase is, Oh, you mean that an asshole. There's always a story.

Always a story. Yeah, I'm kind of like that. But with Peter Falk, where I'm just like, tell me your Peter Falk story. I know we worked on Colombo like thirty five, forty five, fifty five years ago, but please tell me your Peter Falk story. And to a person, it's almost always Oh, he was so great to work with. He's s such an actor's actor, and he was just would run lines with me before our scene, and I was just like John Ashton was in one scene in a Colombo episode and he's oh, he was so great.

But Mike, he's an eight. He's a literal angel. You've seen Wings of Desire. He is an angel that he's he's that him playing himself in that movie because he is actually that.

All right, Yeah, no, fair enough, I give it to you.

Yeah.

I currently, as we're recording this, I do have the uncut version going on right now, and it is amazing how much may be. Yeah, so many boobs, a lot of butts as well. They even have a shot of the woman that he's talking to, the one from the moving company, and she's sitting there completely naked. At one point you just see her like from the side, because yeah, she's very fragmented. You never really get a clear shot

It makes sense because this is a sex comedy without sex, and that's what I think of most sex comedies as being it's often a lot of nudity, it's often a lot of like innuendo and everything, but also often the characters don't actually ever have sex in it, and that's this. Maybe he has the fantasy where he does with the blonde at the end, but so much of this movie is about him being horny but him not being able

Stet I would think of the same thing when you were.

Saying months, I feel like it. He usually needs more than two. You'll know very quickly if that baby is his based on what's on that back.

I love that the psychiatrist is played by the same guy who runs the tuna company from Mister Mom. Graham Jarvis, Graham Jarvis, Yeah, Graham. That was nice. I barely recognize me so young in this movie. I thought a little bit of Superman the movie when it came to him short changing the blind guy and the way that dog is barking at him when it comes to that, and again, I'm like, you should be way better.

With dogs, don't walker.

There are times in my life when I look and I'm like, I graduated college and I couldn't find a job, so I was dog walker. And what did that mean? That meant every day I woke up and I put on sweatpants, and I exercised all day, and I was outside in beautiful weather and I was playing with dogs, and that was my day. I was tan, I was fit, and I was playing with dogs all day long. That's a privilege. And you know what this lets somebody here's my dog. Shake them. No, they need to earn that

The one real genuine laugh I had while I was watching this was when he turns on the shower and then he eventually opens up the curtain to get in and it's all of the stuff in the tub. Then he literally breaks the fourth wall signals to the camera come closer, and then he starts talking about how all of his life is in these boxes. And I'm personally, I'm just like, good, you need to part with your past. You are way too fucked up and you need to do something, dude, to get out of this.

And I think, and that's what happens, right he goes to the cops. He thinks that he decide the movers have stolen his stuff, and then while talking to the copy, comes to that realization of you know what, maybe that's okay, let it go. Let me. All I need is my wife and my dog and the baby I'm about to have, and okay, let's do it. And so this movie ends in a really pleasing, hopeful way where I was like

The one line that made me a laugh, it's the only line that made me laugh, is when Goole says, I don't mean to be unpleasant. Also, I like when I quoted now that was odd.

All right, we're gonna take a break and we'll be back with a very brief talk with yourself, Paul Apprentice, and another chat with Elliott goul And we'll be back with both of those right after these brief messages.

Step into the gallery, dear friends, for Horrors, Nightmares, and spooky Tales. This is the Midnight Viewing Podcast, and we like to discuss the frightening world of television horror anthologies, from Rod Serling's Night Gallery to Tales from the Dark Side to Hammerhouse of Horror and more. Father Malone, Chris Stashu, and Mike White will be your docents during this midnight viewing available wherever you download your podcasts from Weirdingwaymedia dot com.

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What do you remember about the film. This was still fairly early in your career. You've done a lot of television before this, right, Well.

I did movies for a while because I was under contract to MGM. And I don't know if this was after my husband and I did our series or not. I did a series with my husband.

Was that he and She?

Yeah, uh huh?

And I don't know was Move after that?

I think it was. I think He and She was like sixty seven to sixty eight, and Move, I want to say, came out in nineteen seventy.

Yes, that that very well could have been. I hardly remember a thing except I know Genevieve. I think she called me out here and she well later this was after the movie. I think she called and said if she could rent my apartment in New York. And that was one thing that I remember. And Elliott was just, you know, wonderful.

It was fun.

We did go naked and get into a pool together, so that was fun.

I mean a tub.

Elliott is just a wonderful person. He's so in the present. If you talk to him, there's no you know, he doesn't leave you in a conversation, and he's always right with you whatever you're talking about. He has a real gift for being with people, he really does. He's a wonderful fellow, very sweet. Yeah, so that was.

Fun, but yeah, it was. It was those kind of couple's.

Angst kind of movies, wasn't it.

That was kind of There was kind of a flew of those for a while. Yeah, it was. It was fun.

But I remember the fellow, didn't he? Am I wrong about.

The author that he he committed suicide? I believe, Yeah, he.

Did, didn't he? I don't know's whatever his was going on in his mind he got in the script, which is probably the sixties, the drugs and things like that. Yeah, you know, the drugs and the divorces and no marriage or whatever that kind of.

Was in the air.

Did you meet the writer Joel Lieber?

I think I did meet him, Yes, I just well, I think actually I might be wrong about this.

You'd actually have to.

Check with my husband, but I think he came up to our apartment when we were on West end, and he had been out in the rain and he handed that script to us. Now, that may be something that I have remembered about, not Joel, but it seems to me that's what happened. And I can't remember. I think we were living in New York. Then, you know that I was able to It was filmed in New York, wasn't it.

Yeah, it was very much a New York story.

Yeah.

The director, Stuart used to live down the street from me here in California, but he no longer lives in that same house. Yeah, it was just one of those kinds of movies of that time. I wish I could remember more things to tell you.

Well, hey, you know, it was only what forty four years ago?

So wasn't it? My god, almighty, you're kidding me. You weren't kidding me. That's before I had children. Oh my goodness, gracious. Well, we see Elliott once in a while too out here. Yeah, but it's always nice, Uh huh, it's always nice. Gee, whiz, has it.

Been that long?

I can't get over how wonderful it is when you reach your seventies. I'm seventy six, and I can't get over how fantastic it is. I had no idea it was going to be so wonderful, that's the truth. And I had the good fortune of being in movies for a little while there, so that was fun. But it's just wonderful you begin to claim your life, do you know what I mean, and to see it as what you did, which is a really interesting thing.

So that never makes me feel bad.

It's just an amazing kind of you know, it's kind of an astonishing thing that that occurred.

But it's not a.

Sound sad thing at all, not at all.

It's wonderful to have been in the movies.

Yeah.

Sometimes I'll talk to people and they'll just be like, why are you asking me about this movie? This was so many years.

Oh no, I think it's just some sort of a miracle that had happened at all. I really do. Yeah, it's just amazing and I just was able to enjoy that movie career as you know, a way to be. I think we're all kind of defining ourselves as we grow up and you know, get into stuff like marriage and career and stuff like that. So it just helps you get to know yourself a little bit better and to be you know, what more charitable because you're more human something like that.

I don't know. But no, no, that doesn't make me feel bead at all.

Yeah.

I was curious. You've been in so many different types of films. When people recognize you for stuff with your movie career, what do they tend to gravitate to.

It's sort of different things. Some have seen the movie with Rock Hudson, or some have seen The Black Marvel I played a cop with that was Joseph Wambaugh and some people. And Where the Boys Are it's been done again, but some people have seen the original and some people think of I know because my son was three months old and now he's forty.

Stepford wise, that was.

An interesting one. Yeah, uh huh, that was an interesting one for people to think about. Oh and let's see we did Catch twenty two because that's the people who are interested in that, you know, remember that movie. Yeah, that's what they think about. And you know, my friend Delores Hart, she was in Where the Boys Are and she is a mother superior in Bethlehem, Connecticut. So as long as I've been married, which is fifty two years, she's been in the monastery. She's a mother superior there.

Is just a lot of fun. Yeah, it just is a lot of fun. And people do think of those of where the boys are and you know, man's favorite sport and things like that. Yeah, they really do.

What's New pussy Cat if you're kind of New York.

Or you think of that because it's a Woody Allen movie.

Yeah, I tend to gravitate to the parallax view.

Yeah, I got wiped out in the first five minutes. But it was an excellent part and a lovely fun time.

And I'm actually a big fan of Saturday the fourteenth.

Well, you know what, I broke my arm when we were doing that. So in a lot of scenes my arm is up either I'm holding my arm is you know, up at an angle like a broken arm, and I'm either holding the groceries or holding a coat or something like that. And then there's this scene where it's walking in sleepwalking and only one arm is up. That was fun because they use that.

Kind of fog stuff, you know. Oh gosh, Yeah, that was fun.

We were very surprised if people like them. Oh, yeah, we've got a poster from that, so our kids have seen. You know, we've got posters from some of our stuff. It's all right, that's all right, Wally, it's okay.

So anyway, Yeah, that's fun. Oh I'm glad. Thank you.

It was interesting because very recently I talked to Julie Corman and she and her husband Roger Corman, produced that. So yeah, so we have our poster that, which is fun.

Well, I won't blabor you with any more questions about move because I don't know if there's anything else you might remember from that shoot.

I don't think so, but that she said was enjoyable, and nice bathtub and the nice friends on the set, things like that.

And there's that big dog in that movie too, wasn't there.

Yes, I remember because I've got my little dog here, and I.

Remembered that little dog and a big dog. That's right.

Yeah.

Well, hey, thank you so much foranknight.

This has been great, Okay, and thank you so much. Enjoyed talking.

In nineteen seventy that was a crazy year for you. You were doing so much stuff all at one time.

It felt like, I mean, the first movie that I had participated in as an actor. I was called The Confession and it starred Ginger Rogers and Raymond Land and we made it on the Island of Jamaica. That's the first movie that I did. Then the second movie that I did was The Night They Rated Mintzki's That was with Jason Robarts and Griff Ecklund and berg Lar and a great cast. It was directed by William Freakkim I believe it was produced by the York and Lear of

Yeah, I wasn't sure if getting straight was next or move was next.

Oh, oh, you are right, you are right, you are absolutely right. Let me take another bite of this delicious piece of bread and butter that I had behave. That I auditioned for entitled A Way of Life, written by Murray Shiska, and I was fired. I'd never been fired before. It was shocking to me. And then I was asked to meet Robert Altman and he asked me in mash and what he said to me is, how how would you like to play the American Southerner? And I said, all I want to do is work because I had

They always say did not work with children or animals, but you had a lot of animals in there, especially that huge Saint Bernard.

She wasn't an animal, she was a huge Saint Bernard. She was a dog we had. I played Hiram Jackie, a guy I'd have to watch it and read it again. Iron Jackie would be. It was a dog walker and he a very Virgil fantasy life of being that his real life was rather suppressed. And that's the character that

Was nice to see ron O'Neill show up in there and just that small, small role. But he was great in it.

I mean, he's an African American star, and we got it. I was all in New York and on the Upper West Side. That had a great meaning to me since I'm a New Yorker.

Yeah, I really like the street scenes and just to capture New York City in late sixties, nineteen seventy it looked fantastic.

And I told you that Bill Daniels was our cinematographer, and I was told that he was Greta Garbo's favorite. He was from really vintage and he was just it's so amazing to work with artists like that. There was only one Bill Daniels, just like there was only one Greta Garbo.

You also shared a lot of scenes with John Larch as that mounted policeman.

And the horse, the amounted policeman. He made me a little nervous. I had to ride on his horse, and I remember I wore a sweater and they have also read I also had a life a very prototypical moccasy on my feet. John Large he was the interesting My mother knew him. I think my mother liked.

Him What was it like working with paul A Prentiss?

Oh? Great, she's brilliant. I loved working with her. And they took some quite a few photographs of the three of us fall up, Donaviev and me having a bath and that rather provocative. But it was very comfortable and charming and it was great working with Paula an Enipiev.

Did you have to strip down completely for that painting scene?

Yes, I don't mind. I mean I'm not when I said or mind. I trust the people I work with, so for hire them to be painting and to strip down, I also would have to look at the picture again because invariably each shot brings me back to what we were doing each shot, even no matter how long it takes. This picture was made more than fifty years ago and it didn't quite work. It was a bit abstract, but here we are talking about it and there was something

Yeah, I've seen some people compare it to Little Murderers.

Well because to the streets of New York. But we are going for a comedy, going for amusement. Little Murders, the script by Jules Piper was had been a play, and I missed Jules Piper, who's reaching has recently departed us. But we shot the picture in the same vicinity of New York as both pictures. But I'm happy to hear that that was at a top. I mean, it's always now,

I was curious what was Stuart Rosenberg like to work with.

He was quite good and quite experience experienced, and later on when he was doing a film with Paul Newman, who was divined, he was one of false directors and Stuart Rosenberg, I don't know if it was the right picture for him. I think he ambitious to take it on in relation to his sense of humor. I do know that the producers brought in a comedy writer, and like I said, I'm not a comedian and I didn't need a comedy writer. And for a picture that is so out there, like move is such an amazing thing.

I'm trying to I think that's Gary Bean g A R R.

I E oh, yeah, she was beautiful. Also, I got a son or two moved And that scene where everybody's walking backwards and I'm walking forwards, is that the way it is? They put the film backwards in the camera, so I'm walking backwards and everybody's walking forwards. And then when they developed the film, it's the opposite. It looks like everybody's walking backward and I'm walking forwards. But I

I was asking about Joel Lieber if you had met him, what was he like.

I guess he was a lot like Iram Jaffe. I think he must have written a script and then they had other writers. But I remember when they had I touched on this. Pat McCormick said it was a great comic mind come in and I said, I don't need eat comedians to tell me what's funny. I mean, just have to be here. So like being stuck in the tar in New York and that, and we rehearsed a little bit, which was pretty funny, as if I understood what I was doing. Hiram Jaffe didn't understand what he

That period of time at the end of the seventies or end of the sixties, I should say, going into the seventies felt like there was a lot of uncertainty in the world.

Is there more uncertainty than there is now? There isn't a bigger ego in space than the human And that's Joe Leeber's sons well, because they came to visit me in the West Village where I live at the eight Morton Street. What a place. And then of course I've befriended John Balucci when I started to appear on Saturday Night Lives, John Delucci and I understood one another. That

Yeah, you mentioned Saturday Night Live, and yeah, you were on there. I think you're what what do they call it, like the five times Club or the six times Club, because you were like one of the most frequent guests.

I'm a fine a five timer, but I believe I may have posted it six times.

I imagine that was a pretty wild time back then.

Pretty wild time right now, I mean a time it always now. Back then, what was my age? Oh my goodness, it's so amazing. Then to be able to participate in movies, you know, and the stories, and then having the opportunity to work with really grew some really great artists and technicians and crafts men. I was great. I was invited to do the fiftieth anniversary of Saturday Night Lot, but

So I know you said you're working on the Lincoln Lawyer. Do you have anything else that you're working on? Are you going to be I heard that there was supposed to be another Oceans film.

Oh yeah, but I can't do that one. I think I heard that that Clooney is fabulous in a good Night in Good Luck where he plays Edward Rmorrow. I know he's always interested in that, and I hear he's terrific on stage with that. And Coney and I have been friends for thirty eight years.

Yeah, because he was in that the Er show that you did before he did his R show.

I got on the air and then we brought him in and we met and we worked together. He's a great guy. I want to see pictures of his twins now in the present.

I think in nineteen seventy you also did I Love My Wife.

I did that one too, I Loved my Wife. That was David Walker, and that was Brenda Vaccaro, and also Angel Tompkins and the great Dabney Coleman was in Abney's Mill and it was directed by Mels Stewart and it's funny. It's not so funny, but it's humorous. The whole thing is humorous. It's humorous hour being here. I hope you if you recognize that is that Bob Aufman offered me McCabe and missus Miller, and I was committed to making I love my wife, and I felt I had to.

I was afraid for you when all of the fires were happening in La. Were you anywhere near that?

My friend lost her whole home. I was living in her for four years. She lost everything. I lost some shirt since thoughts and a suit or something. But to be afraid to be aware, oh my, and we haven't talked for quite some time. We've talked several times, most likely I don't know what seven o'clock is, so when it's our invention, in that case, it is always seven o'clock.

Just like it's always now that's the name.

Of my sequel to The Longer By talked.

About how that has kind of kept you in the public eye, and just like how people still really love The Longer Bye.

Give me a break here, I mean the public eye. Let's see, in order to gain experience and knowledge. Will put it this way. The two things that saved my life besides my mother who bore me, was a movie camera and philosophy. And in the I think it was the third movie. I think it was the third movie. I don't know. I realized that the camera didn't give me problems. I gave me problem the camera who was my friend. It just reported what I did. It didn't lie.

I have to say that the one movie that I wish more people would see of your filmography is California Split, which I know was big at the time, but I mean, I wish more people were familiar with that one because it is so good.

It was never big. Come on, Joe go said Breman Walsh, the guy who wrote it, and the guy who I play in the movie, and a guy who plays the book maker in the movie. George Siegel played me. And then when we realized that Steve McQueen wouldn't be doing a picture, Altman called me, called me in Munich, Germany, and asked if I play the other guy, and I said, I'll play anyone you want, but it's not my picture. It's Joey's picture. And I played it. Oh, you can't

If memory serves, you used to be really good friends with Groucho Marx too.

I always will be really good friends with Groucho Marx. I'm a believer Graus Show is a part of us as our older brothers. Groucho gave me the best review I'll ever get. I was changing a light bulb over his bed and Groucho said to me, that's the best acting I've ever seen you do. I'll never get a better review than that.

I can't imagine having conversations with them. And I also can't imagine having conversations with Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Every time I've seen him in interviews, he just strikes me as one of the most intelligent people I've seen.

It's about Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein. I played Albert Einstein. I'm not to be able to look at it. I can give you the name of it because it was a series, and I've played one of the subjects who happened to be Albert Einstein, and so Einstein is quoted. I'll give you three that I recall. Einstein is quoted as having said, it's not that I'm so smart, It's just that I take more time with problems. That's one.

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I do. I saw it in college. One of my professors was writing a book about Bergmann Hugh Cohen and so are you showing us a lot of Bergmann films. That was the first time I saw it.

Bergmann dismissed it. I think he was. He dismissed it. But the picture has been slowly gaining recognition because it's all about the woman. It has nothing to do about the man. It's all about the woman. And I was so privileged and so less to be able to meet him and work with him, and for him to want me to make this movie. So feel free to call me again. It seems to me that there's substance in our interview, and I appreciate it. Well.

I appreciate you very much. I really always appreciate the time that you take to talk with me. So thank you so much for sharing with.

Me my privilege. Thank you.

All right, we're back when we were talking about move. It's so funny that you found my good Reads review, because I don't even remember believing that I know I read more of Joel Lieber's stuff. I have a whole shelf, sorry, I keep pointing to the court, and I have a whole shelf of just all Elliott Gould stuff. And I've got all these like lobby cards and posters and things like if I died tomorrow, they would think I was like some weird obsessed fan or something. Yeah, I remember

What was the genesis of this movie ending up with the director it did?

That's a really good question, because I would not have picked Stuart Rosenberg for this film.

And I think a lot of people, wouldn't they, including those who watched it.

Some of the pre press type for this is insane, like twentieth century Fox was calling it a dirty Barefoot in the Park, which I don't. How do you like? This is nothing like Barefoot in the Park?

Does it?

And it's sant Combarison.

The couple in New York kind of thing like that's the only thing I can think of. Yeah, yeah, very different. I've seen a lot of Rosenberg's work, mostly like the Big Hits kind of thing I saw. Haven't gone back and watched all of the stuff he did with Paul Newman, because he and Newman really got along very well. I think they made three films four films together. WUSA seems like the one that I should be watching. I really liked The Laughing Policeman. That's one of those Walter Matthow

I was trying to figure out how old Rosenberg was when he made this, because I'm like, maybe that's it. Maybe he was just older than the material was weird the disconnect. But he was born in twenty seven. This was probably filmed in sixty nine, so he was what forty two forty three, which like forty three, So to me, that's young. It doesn't feel like he shouldn't have been

Maybe there was like some degree of studio meddling because Pocket Money the comedy, but it's more almost like French New Waves. I don't know if that's the best description of it, but Pocket Money works a lot better. I think that maybe had to do with the Terrence Malick script with Pocket Money. I think Pocket Mone he works better as as like a character piece of a comedy than this does. And I think maybe Rosenberg had a

I forgot that he did the Amityville Horror right.

Well, and then I remember I haven't seen Brewbaker in a long damn time. And I don't know if I've ever seen Pope of grantedch Village, but I think those were both pretty big when that came out in the early eighties. It was an odd choice. And then, yeah, I don't tend to think of him as a comic director. I haven't is the April Fools Is that just a funny title or is that supposed to be a comedy as well, because the poster looks a little project to me,

But the quick description on Wikipedia is a romantic comedy.

Okay, well, maybe I'll check that out, but it doesn't the poster doesn't bode well. I know not to judge.

I tell you you want to have it a bel music by Halt Nice.

The music for cool Head Luke is one of the best things ever, So maybe this guy just knew music very well.

It can make or break a film. Look at Halloween.

Then this is so strange. The poster campaign for Move just Ellie Gould trapped naked and a coke bottle that seemed to be the only image. Even the Italian poster for it was the same darn thing of him trapped in the coke bottle.

Mike's not lying. It is a coke bottle with a Elliott Gould crouched in there. He's wearing shorts, so he's not He's not fully naked, but it's Move. And then it says it's kinky, and then underneath the bottle in parentheses it says it's pure goold.

That's up.

That's beautiful.

Oh yeah, that is.

Worthy of being framed on a wall right there.

So that's got to be the name of his bog or his fragrance. Oh nice.

He ever puts out a cologne line, pure gold, pure Gold. There were a few movies Are Seeing Things that I wondered if were influenced anyway by or just things that

I guess like Little Murders is a better version of.

Move, Yeah, which a lot of people were comparing it to in the more like overall Gould retrospective kind of stuff. And it was only the next year. But when I brought that up to Gould himself, he was like, what not pure gold? I can see it too, Yeah, definitely, But like the image of him with all the blood on his shirt when he's in the subway car, it's just so different than what he looks like here with just green hain't splotches all over himself.

Avocado green, no list.

Yes exactly. Oh my god, this could only be the nineteen seventies, right very much? Yes, yes, yeah, I'm trying to think of another movie where our main character just keeps getting phone calls and like just taunting phone calls. I guess it kind of reminds me a little bit like Local Hero, when the psychiatrist would call up Burt Lancaster's character and just denigrate him on the phone, but that he knows who it is, Like this one, it's I guess he knows that it's the mover, but again,

Somehow, I feel like I'm gonna wake up tomorrow with eight movies in my head of that one. But there's like a bunch of different directions. I think you could take what other movies are, like move In, and one of them is just like, yeah, the Harry guy that just can't seem to get has to book something, and every time he tries to get and do what he can't.

But well, there's the Colin Farrell classic phone Boots where he gets true.

That is true involves definitely.

Or the beginning of Miracle Mile. Of course, there's like all of the killer movies, like Black Christmas or I don't know, I've never seen the Black Phone, but I imagine that has something to do with it as well, or like when a stranger calls all those things. But yeah, I'm trying to think of another movie where just like a regular person as being menaced by somebody calling him up and taunting him all the time.

Something there, and I can't think of what it is.

Maybe most these actors who I'm thinking of, Hey, I get.

A second check Amanda hogging Kiss.

Hey I'm looking for Amanda hogging Kiss. Why can't I find Amanda hogging Kiss?

Rive your standards are too hard.

Yet a spoh I have a find out who you are. I'm gonna shove a sausage down your throat and stick starving dogs in your butt.

All right, we're going to take another break and play a preview for next week's show right after these brief messages.

Lake Ship, a jew, Ontario.

This will be the best summer of my life.

Four friends on a vacation.

Little learner fishing, good fishing on chip Ag. There used to be a lot more people come here for the fishing.

Two Chinese investors.

I may only have a grade six education, but I watch the news and I understand the importance of global trading partners. They're in the speech of the East. Your business will go nowhere.

But one shady deal.

I'm doing a great job. A man at the ministry tells me they're storing all the results in their main computer.

A one eyed gas station attendant.

I know Willie t better than the inside of my mouth.

One psychotic pike.

What a nucky creature.

I'd you last many many deaths.

If I was you, I wouldn't be taking any moonlight walks.

They're safer inside until this thing gets started out and it will.

Be Psycho Pike, the Fish with Attitude What.

That's where. I will be back next week with a look at the lost Canadian film Psycho Piped. Until then, I want to thank my co host Mike and Emily. So, Mike, when's keeping you business there?

Before we get into that, I just want to say, if you want to talk more about Elliott Gould, I'm like a wealth of knowledge about films like Matilda, Dead Men Don't Die, Hits his Cameo, and Busted with Corey Feldman. If you ever want to talk about these films, I'm more than happy and willing discussing with you on the podcast.

Mike, I have so many interviews about the film Matilda. We definitely need to do an episode about that. And I'm being one hundred percent serious because I talked with Albert Ruddy, I talked with the man who's actually in the Matilda suit. I'm trying to remember who else I talked to from that movie because it feels like I had three interviews. And then I have a feeling that Elliott would love to talk about that one too.

I would like to be involved with that should it ever happen. So absolutely, okay, let's make it happen. I'll put on the schedule for twenty twenty six, and this time we won't have to wait an entire other administration to get to it. Yeah, it's sound goody believe or not.

But I'm just happy to still be writing, and Emily, how about yourself.

When I'm not spending hours putting on and removing my false eyelashes, you can usually find me writing at Deadley Dollshouse dot com, where I just usually write about mostly bad, occasionally good movies. And then on the podcasting front, you can hear me at The Feminine Critique, which is the podcast I do with the Fantastic One and Only Christine

Thank you so much folks for being on the show. Thanks to 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're all available at weirdingwaymedia 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.

Woke up and found a bitch headlanded on my best. It brought a little message, that's all.

It's sad.

I stepped into the Best, A model was a flukes inside. There was outkay move, somebody rose, don't I pull in shades and a lot good door and night.

It's come a drinking whole slip.

What the wind? No?

Who could be?

They're trying to tell me something? I thought of yourself?

What could do.

I take a look at.

That sky there, It is moved. Why did you right a move? Why did you a minute?

Don't pull it?

Shades and door at night coming through the keyhole slim many of the window good.

They're trying to tell me something. I thought i'd do something.

Walking do be good.

I take a look at bad scy.

There it is move.

Why use your right name?

Move?

Clive got moon fell t