Kiday, Peter Hell, are you here? Welcome to you ain't seen nothing yet?
The Movie podcast will rotch out to a movie lover about a classic or beloved the movie they haven't quite got around to watching until now. And today's guest writer actor legend Lucky Hume.
All below.
I want to stay you with you, go to the jobbery snake shucked?
Why fail? It couldn't happening right?
So you don't see nothing?
Quite simply. Lucky Hue is Australian acting royalty.
He broke into the beers by writing screenplays including Men with Guns and the controversial Let's Get Skase. But from there he has largely been a presence on screen, and what a screen presence. Lockeye is or Lockie is one of our most incredibly gifted actors.
He can play everything.
From Leo Nazis to politicians, from Kerry Packet to Welt Frank Packer. Audiences saw a softer side in Lockey's as Martin Klegg in Offspring, which Australians audience has just absolutely loved. He was so brilliant as the socially awkward doctor, surrounded by other acting royalist such as Asha Kenny and Kat Stewart and of course Dead Mailman.
I also urge you to check out his role as Rory.
The sperm donating stripper in an episode of It's a Date we shot alongside another icon magne Zebanski. Locky's credits also include Gallipoli, The Matrix Films, George Miller's Three Thousand Years of Longing, Secret River, Macbeth Preacher, and.
Of course gun Bus.
Seeing Locky work on set and go about his business is is to witness a true professional.
I've had the honor of doing it.
He is absolutely dedicated to his craft, but Lucky is also incredibly considerate of all cast and crew. He knows for any production to work, it needs to be a team effort. But he's also happy to be a leader on set in a truly wonderful way. Lockey is one of the most passionate and loyal people I know. He's constantly supporting the Australian comedy scene. He's insightful, he's engaged, and he's dedicated. These are to some of the reasons I'm stoked could be hanging out with Lucky Hume today.
Gooday, I'm Lucky Hume, Australia's actor and My three favorite films are The Godfather Part two nineteen seventy four, Francis Ford Coppola. We've got a college to get stillpord really steal The Godfather nineteen seventy two, Francis Ford Copola. What have I ever done to make your taken service? Respectfully?
It'd come to me in friendship, and this coum that wounded dollar would be suffering.
This very day.
The Conversation nineteen seventy four, Francis Ford Copola. I need to have no work of nine. And since I don't want you to think I'm just obsessed with Copola, I'm going to give you a couple more. My fourth favorite film, Supergo nineteen seventy three, Sidney Lamett.
Please I beg of your come out and potatoes come Out.
You're pretty fucking weird. Of all the President's Men nineteen seventy six, Alan J. Pacola, Follow the Money. I can't tell you that, but up until this week, I'd never seen Awson Wells nineteen fifty eight film noir Touch of Evil. Some groovy tunes from Henry Mancini.
You feel it.
When a car bomb explodes on the American side of the Mexican American border killing a wealthy businessman and his blonde stripper mistress, Senior narcotics officer Mike Vargas Shelton Heston, Yes, Chelton Heston plays a Mexican. It just happens to be nearby smooching his new bride, Susan Vargas pre psycho Janet Lye. Such is his nature. Mike can't help but get involved. But when local law enforcer Hank Quinland arrives, played of course by Awson Wells in a fat suit and heavy prosthetics,
He's keen to wrap this investigation up quickly. What follows is a study of justice, betrayal, racism, and corruption. Famous for its stunning opening, a four minute tracking shot. Touch of Evil is regarded by many as the last great noir film of the classic era. Citizen Kane, made by Well seventeen years earlier. May garanna or the kudos and acclaim, but there is just as much to admire in this dense thriller. Lucky Hume, be honest, have you ever planted evidence?
Not since Breakfast? Well, this is a special episode, mate, Well it's funny you should mentioned now listen. I just want to get some of the ground rules on the show here, Pete, because you know I like flying blind a little bit. But can we do spoilers on the show?
Yes?
Okay, yes, So if you haven't seen a Touch of Evil now and this episode, this podcast, what is fascinating Lockie is I assume when we started this people would watch the movie.
First and then listen to the podcast.
But I've had a lot of anecd evidence where people have been telling me that they will happily listen to the spoiler full episode and then go and happily watched the movie afterwards. So as long as it's the warning, you've been warned, spoilers all through this for a Touch of Evil and obviously Capola's entire filmography.
A lot of people will shoot me because they say, you haven't got a picked a couple of films, if you're your top two and you haven't got Apocalypse Now, And it's like, nah, but we'll talk about this later. He never got the final ten minutes right on Apocalypse Now. It's always been my big complaint. People have threaten to kill me over that. But anyway, we're not here to talk about Apocalypse and.
Beig caause and we'll get to your favorite movie soon. But let's this, This is like a big episode because you have been seen as the Unicorn, my white Whale. How do I get lucky Hume? How do we find a movie you haven't seen? People thought Tony Martin would be difficult. Tony actually had quite a few. We haven't seen Top Gunners where we we got to Tony fantastic.
And we had We've had many conversations.
We had like a three hour conversations during lockdown, and we're talked about we got sidetracked and we talked about other things.
Other things.
When I say other things, movies, maybe a bit of footy as well. But recently you just text me out of the blue and said got it.
Yeah. Well, I mean I initially all this process started, you sent me a huge email with hundreds of movies on it saying pick one. This is how the show works. Come on and talk about something you haven't seen, and I guess sent back to see them all because I had.
I went, well, it was one movie I hadn't seen what you refuse to do for this podcast, which is legally Blonde.
Yeah, I've seen half of Legally Blond, seen half so it's like that was enough for me. So tell you what. I was watching Get Shorty, which was part of the sort of the Travolter comeback in the nineties. You did it right. I booked it right after you did Pulp Fiction for Tarantino. That's a great film, Get Shorty. If people haven't seen it, it's one of the funniest satires of Hollywood. And it's based on Elmore Leonard's novel of
the same name. Fantastic movie. John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Renee Russo, Danny DeVito, on and on and on. And there's a scene where Travolta's character plays a sort of a standover man and a debt collector for the mob in Miami, but he's also a movie tragic and he goes off to he's in La finds himself through circumstance in Los Angeles and he goes to a revival movie house on Sunset Boulevard and he's watching Touch of Evil. So I was watching this on Blu Ray again. Yeah, I'm watching
Travolta watching Touch of Evil. And I've seen Get Shorty many times, and it suddenly occurred to me. I don't think i've ever seen Touch of Evil. And it occurred to me because at the end of this sequence where Travolta's character is watching Touch of Evil, he is lip syncing or mouthing the dialogue that Marlena Dietrich who has a great cameo and Touch of Evil towards the end, and I'm going he knows the dialogue, which means this must be a good film, and I haven't seen it.
And I went get on the phone to Hellia straight away. It was like, Bang, we've got it, buddy. It's Touch of Evil and so great. You're excited. I'm excited for the listener at home. I'm a huge believer. I'm not
a streamer. I don't I've been on shows that have been on streaming services and I've actually got a free subscription to Stand for Life, but I've never hooked it up because I actually believe in owning movies, and so I have a Sony Blu Ray multi region, which means I can just get a Blu Ray from anyone or plays DVDs as well, Okay, and so it's great because you get like a DVD from the States, from the UK, from wherever you are, Blu Ray from wherever you want,
and sometimes and you put it in, it says not compatible operating, you know, But with this machine, you just I always list laugh out loud. I see on my caction and go we can play this game all night. So what you do is eject it and as you as you hit it to go back in, you hit one of the buttons and it gets suddenly, did you've got your movie going? So I ordered the Blu ray of Touch of Evil and it has there. There's three
versions of it. Yes, So there is the work cut that Awesome Will submitted to the studio in nineteen fifty eight. They took it out of his hands inherently, which often happened with Awesin Wells, and re started re editing the movie.
Because he went on to another project.
It wasn't because when you hear of somebody taking a project out of the creator's hands, you know, you think, yeah, yeah, these an image of what that must have looked like. But I think it really was almost out of frustration that this wasn't moving fast enough. And now he's gone to work on another project. This is not going to happen.
Yeah, And you've got to remember that. I can't remember the name of the producer of Touch of Evil, but he was sort of one of the King of the b movies kind of guys who wanted those sort of get it done, get it done quick, get it done fast, get it into the cinemas, get it into the drive ins log Corman. Yeah, yeah, part of a double bill whatever. So Wells had gone off to act in another film, and so the studio and the producer assigning you editing team to it. So I've got that. I haven't watched
that version. I've got that was the theatrical release version. But anyway, as a result of that happening, Austin Wells wrote a very impassioned fifty eight page, single spaceed memo to the studio outlining his vision for Touch of Evil, the changes he felt should be made to it that
could still be made. It was ignored, but the memo became quite quite famous among movie buffs when the film was sort of rediscovered in the seventies by the sort of movie brat generation, the Spielberg's and the Coppolers and the Lucases and the Scorsesees and all those guys and part of that core, especially talking about Copler again, of course, he formed American Zoo Trophy's own company up in San Francisco. There was a guy who worked for copeler still does,
called Walter Mersch. Now Merks is one of the great film editors, but most famous in film history. When you see in the movie credits sound designer, that term was invented for Walter Merch for Coppola's film The Conversation, where he did the sound design for the film. And so Merch, who's part of that group of great filmmakers who believe in the restoration of films and the preservation of motion picture. He took Wells's fifty eight page memo, he got into
the vaults at Universal. They found a lot of the footage had been discarded that Wells had addressed in his memo, and Walter Merk's painstakingly put the film back together, which was released in nineteen ninety eight to greater claim. So that's the version that I've watched, and that's the version of Pete's Watch Listener. There's a little sidebar to that though, that Usen Hill's daughter sued them, Beatrius Well yeah, yeah, sued them for doing this. So it sort of really
gummed up the works. And getting this film out there. And then she said later she won the case, saw they done totally approved of it anyway, and so I wish they just told me that that's what they were doing. We wouldn't have had all this lawsuit to begin with. So I don't know where the lines of communications broke down there, But anyway, so we're going to be talking today about the I suppose you would call it the
Awesome Wells Vision version of Dutch People. Courtesy of the fifty eight page memo and courtesy of Walter Merch.
Possibly one of the earliest I guess director's cuts, because usually the director's cut is this we get used to. You know, Tarantina doesn't do directors cuting. He guess, no, because I've got you know, I've got Can't Blanche. I can make the film that you want to see. So this was one of the earlier examples of a director being able to, I guess put out his version even though he had passed. But based on this fifty eight page memo, so it's quite it's quite fascinating that Walter Merch.
I don't want to go too deep because I want to, but it's fascinating.
Can chatter about later Walter Merch, I assumed he did the SMA sign on the conversation. Yes he did, and then that comes out obviously the play would be fascinating that here in between the original towards the back of that film, the third act with the surveillance, and and how that sounds because I was watching it, going this sounds amazing, Like the sound design on this is incredible?
Are you talking about in Touch of Evil?
Following? And it kind of switches perspectives, and I wonder I would love to listen to the original and see the difference even he made it to the sound.
As I'm sure fascinating.
There be so much we are chomping at the bit.
Okay, let's get into what this story is about you.
I want to ask you about your favorite films.
Okay, so we're not going to talk about A Touch of It.
No, we'll be coming out the Touch of Evil.
Don't worry about that. We are coming back to that. We want to touch It. So we wont talk about all five films, but we can talk broadly. Maybe let's talk about Coppler. For first of all, do you actually Godfather Part two? I also have like a bees dick gun to my head, it's Godfather Part two, just ahead of Godfather from me.
Yeah, okay, what I always say with I was just trying to be good for your broadcast. Normally, normally what's your favorite film? I always say Godfather one, Godfather Too, Godfather to Godfather one. Okay, you can't have Godfather Too without Godfather one because you have no perspective. The Godfather is absolutely sublime. It's perfect cinema. As Stanley Kubrick said about it, if you put the two together, it becomes one Part one and Part two. It's a six and
a half hour viewing experience. And kubric said it is, hands down, over that six and a half hours, the greatest cast ever assembled in motion picture history. And he's right. I mean, it's just a shopping list of the greatest actors of all time. I think the thing about Godfather Part Two is the conception of it to do ultimately
what it is. It's the story of a father and a son at the same point in their lives using flashback and flash forward device, but it takes it continues the story of the first Godfather film really through the eyes of Michael Corleyoni played by Alpatuno, whose accumulation of power no longer centers around trying to tech the family. It actually becomes power for power's own sake, and it takes him down to the seventh level of hell, and he finds that he's perfectly comfortable being there. So it's
a dissent. It's I rate Chino's performance in Part two is the greatest on screen male actor performance in the history of cinema. It is an incredibly subtle, annuanced performance, and there's not a lot of arc for him to go on, okay, because he kind of starts bad and just gets worse, you know what I mean. And it's done by degrees, and it's so subtle, the degrees, I mean, if you're just getting inst to the mechanics of acting.
The flashback sequences. So, of course, in the first film, Marlon Brando most famously played Don Vito Corleone for the flashback sequences for his origin story, they cast a young actor called Robert de Niro as the young Vito Corleone. I mean, it's just astonishing when you think about it. And interestingly, up until Heath Leger and then later or Kent Phoenix, both winning Oscars for playing Batman's enemy, the Joker.
The only fictional character that's been awarded to Oscars was Brando for Godfather one for Veto and DeNiro for Godfather Part two for Veto. Okay, and it's interesting. I almosto a Batman fanic. So it's Godfather and Batman seem to
be the go tos are you're gonna win Oscars. But I think with part one and Part two also, and I saw Alec Ball when interviewed about it once and he said, you almost feel like you're watching your own family movies when you watch it, because you become so invested in these characters, even though it's the gangster genre.
It's very different for something like The Sopranos, where the characters in the Sopranos are actually really quite repellent, and it's a real difficult watch the Sopranos just I found the verbal violence between the characters is so confrontational, particularly between Tony Soprano and Carmella, his wife, when they get into it, it's really oh Man. Whereas the differences with the Corleone crime family in the Godfather films, I think Albert Raddy, who produced the first one, summed it up best.
He said, We're going to make a film about ice, cold blooded killers that you love, and that's really what it is. You love these people. You know. I was talking with Rob Sich once about the Godfather films, and he said to me, if you notice that the only actor who takes it really seriously is Baccino, said, everybody else plays it really light in the film. And it's true.
You think about it. You think about in the opening scene of The Godfather where Bonnasarah, the undertaker, is asking the don for revenge against the guys who raped his daughter, and you know, there's almost like a petulant, little child thing going on with Brando's performance, you know, he sort of shrugs. He said, I don't know if I want to do this. It's like, okay, all right. You know, if you look at James Kahn's performance is Sonny, which
is my favorite character. I read a great interview with Jimmy carn where he said I couldn't get my handle on Sunny until one night in New York during rehearsal period. I went and saw Rodney Dangerfield at a club. Okay, and he said it wasn't Dangerfield that switched it on for me, it was the nice started thinking about Riles, the insult comedian, and he said, so, Sonny is really don Rickles that it was Roddy Dangerfield that sent him off down that path. Allegedly, that's the story goes, and
it is. It's brilliant and so once he locked into that. I mean, you know that famous shot you in the wedding sequence at the high and wide shot with the FBI guys are taking down the license plates numbers of all the mafios were attending the wedding. When James Kn't comes out commit commit comme come here, commere it's my sister's wedding, and he smashes the camera and then throws the money at him. There was just action, do whatever
you want. Yeah, you know, they were so in the zone, which when you.
Think about it, the film is really about the one member of the family who now has a responsibility. He needs to be a responsible one and he's just come back from war, so you know, he's not coming back from the holiday. He is responsible. And where the others have that response.
You've got to think about them as trust fun kids. Yeah, in a lot of ways, you know what I mean. Whereas Michael. Now, this is the interesting thing about Michael. Everybody interviewed ever, you know, whether it be Spielberg talking about the godfil films or anything, they always talk about the transformation of Michael from World War II hero to mafia boss. It's not a transformation. It's a simple transition now you think about it. Right, This guy joined the
Marines on Pearl Harbor Day. Okay, all right, he was a college kid and joined the Marines. First of all, you choose them, they don't choose you. That's the United States Marine Corps. Right. He fights in the South Pacific at Guadalcanal. That got down to hand to hand bayonet content combat against the Japanese. Okay, that was one of the most bloodiest campaigns of World War Two. Michael wins the Navy Cross for his bravery in that situation.
It's fascinating because you don't like, they don't lean into that at all, right, which.
In fact, they make a joke about it. When Sonny is another the army where you shoot him a mile away, you're gotting him my course, like this, but a bang one of the brens Oliver and a saving league silt right, Okay, Sonny's conception is that soldiers are in trenches shooting rifles. Michael's reality of the war was getting a bayon out and cutting throats. Okay, So that's why he's so quiet about it. That's why they don't lean into it. Okay.
But if you've done your background, if you read Pizzo's novel and Stuff, which Mary puss novel, which is based on hints at that. Michael's also loosely based on John the future President, John F. Kennedy, who was a great war hero. I also served in the South Pacific, not in close combat circumcisces like that. But if you look at the structure of the Colioni family, it's actually the
Kennedy structure. Okay. You've got the favored son in Sonny, which is Joe, who died in the war in real life, and then you've got the middle son Jack, and then you've got the sort of perceived weakling son Ted, who's Freido. Okay. So Michael is sort of based on John F. Kennedy. So it's not a transformation into being a mafia killer and a cold blooded bastard. He already is one. Yeah, Okay, that's the key to understanding Bicino's genius in his performance,
the quietness of him, the watchfulness of him. He's like a cobra. Okay, He's ready to strike, and no one knows. He's completely underestimated by everybody in his own family. You know, there's little hints. You know, Clemenza sort of gets it a little bit when he says, you know, we're all
proud of you have being a war hero. Your father too, they know, you know, when Michael's down in Clemens's basement, in his garage, his workshop, practicing with the gun that he's going to use to kill salots on McCluskey, which, by the way, is Michael's idea to do it up close, point blank right, think about that? Ye all right? Notice that Michael's wearing his army sweater. He's a Marine Corps sweater.
He dressed militarily for that sequence. You know, there's little hints that's you know, that's all those little feathered details.
It's so good. I love the assassination scene.
I love it because and I had the pleasure of chatting to young young Miles Taller.
Who plays Albert Ruddy in the offer.
Absolutely fantastic series.
If you haven't seen it, and and we spoke about that scene of the difference. It's just a the best scene you can show somebody that kind of go. This is how they used to make movies. Yeah, the best movies. Not every movie was made. Like the gun, Like the pouring of the wine when they sit down, fascin.
I know, the pop of the pop of the wine bottle for stuff, right.
Can you imagine now that would have been You have Michael say I'll pull the wine thanks all you know, like get get the waiter away and let's start this scene. A couple of those that now, this is the scene. It's the tension. The audience is fucking feeling every fucking absolutely and the play that out is so because he knows he's got this tense scene when he goes back for the gun where the tension even are even more.
And then when he comes back out, so this intention.
I don't forget when he comes back out of the toilet where the gun has been hidden, take by you know, I want somebody good and iman very good to plant that gun. I don't my brother coming out of that toilet with just he's dicking his hands right and gets that he's got the gun, which, by the way, each take cope they can move in the gun, so that
Piccino didn't know where it was. And of course, like I still remember the first time we ever saw The Godfather, and I was third eight on VHS, terrified, terrified, Oh my god, the gun's not going to be there now. Clemenza is instructed Michael. Remember when you come out, you shoot him two times. And they had a beast right, literally, as soon as you step out of the bathroom, that's
when you do it. And so when Michael steps out, we're dirty over his shoulder in the shop where you see McCluskey and Salotso sitting at the table, and there's mcluskey wolfing down his veil. Trail, the veil. It's the best in the city. All right, Michael can shoot them. Then he doesn't.
He's down.
He stalks over very slowly and sits back down. All right. Brando wrote in his memoir that you know, it's the only film with Brando's that Brando's ever seen, was The Godfather. And it was only because he caught it late at night on a cable years and years later, and he couldn't turn it off right, and he said, watching My boy Alpuccino as the camera slowly starts pushing in on him as he's making a decision. I've never been able to read an actor's mind. You can read his mind.
That is true acting. And of course when he pulls the gun out and he's just point blank on these guys and he doesn't even blink while he's doing it. So this transformation theory is bullshit. It's just Michael doing what he does best. He didn't know how good he was, but he knows. I don't need I don't need my Marine Corps uniform to do this. I can just do it in a three piece suit.
Now, So do you reckon that. Michael came back and he was expecting. He knows who his family is, what the family business is.
So there's two ways.
Is he coming back thinking I will get involved, It's not the way that's sold. He certainly sold like he's coming back to restart it a new life. Yeah, he's almost awakened, so he's almost come back. I'm not part of the family, he tells, Kay, that's my family's business. I'm not part of the business. Obviously things change, so that awakens.
It's interesting, you said, Michael knows the family business. Michael knows the family business better than anyone. It's if you watch all of his interactions with his family. When it comes to the business, he's the only when it clearly
understands the hierarchies, the systems, the codes. You know, when he's when after the Don's the assassination attempt on the Don, when they're all in the Don's office and just before you know, they're having the discussion about you know, I want Pauly gadd I want that's you know that strungs he set up the old man, I want to dead. Make it in the morning, your list, all that stuff, and Michael's sitting around and there's so basically, Mike, you stay out of this. You stay out of what we're
doing here. But try Luca Bradsey again. Luca Bradzey, the great enforcer for the family, who's been bumped off earlier in the evening, and he's dial number when the when Tessio brings in Luca's body armor with the fish in at what theell is this? It's a Sicilian message. She means Luka brights he sleeps with the fishes. Before anyone else reacts Michael just who's been ringing words of Brackley's house. Mike just hangs the phone up. It's like, I won't
need to make that call. But it's like straight away, you know, when he proposes after McCluskey bashes him and breaks his jaw and disfigures him at the hospital where he's going to visit his father, he's saying, I'm with you now, I'm with you now. He's made the decision because he loves his dad. You know, I think the answer to you earlier, you know, your point being though, when Michael came back from the war, I don't think
he really knew what he was going to do. Like a lot of veterans, they come back a bit directionless. He's gone back to Dartmouth, colleague, that's the plan. He's going to go back and continue his studies in history and English literature, which we of course John F. Kennedy's topics, and political science, which is John F. Kennedy's major. Okay, at Harvard, not Dartmouth. Andover isi goes he goes to Andover College, and I think he's a bit directionless. He's
got his beautiful girl, kay. You know, it's he needed something to yank him into action, and which is of course part of the hero's journey. There is the call to action or the anti hero's journey in Michael's case, you know, and it's the attempt on his father's life. And he knows that Sonny's too hot headed, even though he loves Sonny and Sonny loves him. Fredo's beautiful but useless,
you know, he says in Godfather Too. Fredo's got a good heart, but he's weak and stupid, all right, Okay, he knows he's the right man at the right moment in history. So when he goes and when they're sitting around on the Down's office later after McCluskey's bashed his face in and he says, I'll kill him both. I'll kill mcluskey in slants and they all start laughing, but he says it's the pros Salatso is the key. We've got to get rid of Salatza. Okay, but he's I'll
kill him both. They all start cracking up, right, but test, after they had their bit of funny goes, you know, but make his right. You hear that in the background, Mike's right. Mikey knows it's the only way. The key to this is getting rid of slaughter. Everything will fall into place once we bumped that basket off, and.
We always see a Godfather too is did Nero bring everything to Niro brings? But I think the other X factor with there's two other X factors for me Godfather Too, which may in my mind emotionally kind of makes it a bigger film than Got a slightly preferred film.
Is the Fredo. The Fredo I've got sympathy for.
I don't know where it comes from, to be honest, but that that member of the family who can't quite be part of the family business is not quite like this the way you described where Michael describes Fredo was simple and beautiful but stupid and him finding his finding himself in his predicament and how Michael reacts.
Yeah, the other X factor is Harmon Roth.
Right, Well, let's talk about We'll talk about Friday too. Actually, in al Pacino's life, the two actors here, John Kazal, the late great John Cazal, who played his brother Freda, was Paccino's acting partner.
A batter one hundred five films.
Five films and every just as it's one of the great tributa questions what actor every single movie did he do? Was it either one or nominated for Best Picture? And that's John Gazzale did five films, and actually posthumously with the flashback scene and Godfather Part Three that was still nominated for Best Picture as well. So and of course
Hayman Roth is played based on Maya Lanski. The famous gangster is played by acting coach Lee Strasburg, who at the age of seventy two, did his first ever movie on al Pacino's recommendation, because I guess he was al Pacino's acting teacher. And the great thing about Godfather One and Godfather too are there villains. Godfather three doesn't have a great villain, and that's and the story suffers immensely
for it. And Godfather One you've got slots O the Turk, You've got Captain McCluskey, and then you've got Milio buzz and I and Philips t Talia towards the end of it. And in Godfather Part two in the flashbacks, first you've got Don Chicio in Sicily murders Veto's family. Then you've got Don Finucci in the little Lialy scenes he's like
this great pantomime bad guy. He's just fantastic. But in the late nineteen fifty sequences the Michael storyline, we've got the character of Hyman Roth, who is the most insidious of all characters in the Godfather film because he's this little, wise,
old man, gentle and self depreciating. He's actually a conniving, vicious snake who is simply motivated to kill Michael and destroy the Colioni family because at the climax of Godfather One, Michael orders the assassination of Moe Green and Vegas, who
is heimen Roth's spiritual brother. Mo Green based on the late Ben Buggsy Siegel and of course Hermon Roth is based on Maya Lansky, and they all grew up together in the slums, and of course Lansky s Hyman Roth gives the great speech about you know some aiden Morastill gave the ida about who put the bullet in his eye, right talking about Mogreen, and that is what is motivating Hymen. That's it. That is it. It's as simple as that. And the other thing is it's overlooked. There's a great line.
Everybody remembers the line from Harmon Roth Michael, we're bigger than us steel. It's what the line he says before that. Basically he's talking about, we're going to take over Cuba. It's going to fund our operations through the casinos, and that is going to fill up our coffers so that we get to pick the next president of the United States. That's what his master plan is. But he wants Michael out of the way because he wants it all for himself.
And it's simply because of Maogrn. But the Heyman Roth character is so brilliantly played. Originally, I know what you can probably YouTube this. Coppola was really interested in the
director Elia Kazan to play Harmon Roth. So the famous image in Godfather Part two where Michael goes over to Heiman's penthouse suite at the casino this day out in Cuba and he's lying on the couch with his shirt off, just wearing a pairis slacks, that came from Copola going over to Elia Kazanne's bungalow on I think it might have been the Paramount lot or the Warner's lot or something.
Went in to see Elia Kazan and he was lying it was the hot summer's day and he was lying on his catch with his shirt off, and it really struck Copola the image of an old man. He just I'm hot, I'm just taking my shirt if I don't care what anyone thinks. So he screen tested Kazan and this is what you might be able to find on YouTube.
I just I'd type in Elia Kazan godfather test or something like that, and you can see why he's not right for it, because when you see the nuance that that Strasburg brings to the performers, especially in his interactions with Picture, you know, because it's they've known each other forever.
I mean, it's the man's spreading the legs, breading on the couch.
I mean.
Not seriousness.
It sounds like, you know, something kind of flipping that he's sitting on the counts, but he's got his leg draped over one one of the art of counts. That's a that's a bold choice. That's somebody who obviously has a support of his co star and also to director and somebody who knows his craft, because you know, there'd be a lot of actors who would have that in their mind and then not go through the on the day because they're.
Like, oh, I think you know, Coppola with those films certainly encouraged, you know, real risk taking from his cast. I mean, the backing in of Brando and Piccino on the first film to begin with, you know, which wouldn't happen today. It's you know, a lot of people, there is debate that goes on. You know, you only gay actors should play gay characters, and only this should play that, you know, in other words, let's just remove the whole
concept of acting as a craft to begin with. People I've said, I've had actors saying to me, oh, you know, only gay actors should play gay characters, and I say, well, then therefore gay actors can't play stray characters. Is that what you're telling me?
It's a it's a weird line. And you know, I mean, we'll get the chut in Heston soon.
Yeah, which is good. This is all precursor to go with. But just Visia. But today you wouldn't able to cast you know, Marlon Brando as Veto because they'd say no, no, no, You've got to get a sixty five year old Sicilian American to do it. Yeah. Well, back then, you know, Coppola. They said, all right, find me somebody who's famous who
can carry this film. Or do we get a forty six year old white boy from Omaha, Nebraska, Marlon Brando who happens to be the world's greatest actor, and make him look like a sixty five year old Sicilian American and let him act. Well, yes, that's what you do. I mean, David Chase created the Sopranos. He still pictures by saying, you know, Brando's not an Italian, and James Kahn was an Italian, so who cares? Their performances are brilliant.
And you know Jimmy Kahn, who's actually a German Irish I think he won Italian American of the Year in New York two years running.
Godfather it is a strange one. I mean, there's the there's that film. There's a French film, the about the I'm sure it was paraplegic and in his care who was a black Frenchman, and they've remade it in the stage of Brian Cranston in the lead role. And there was some you know, some some corners of the internet that were upset that why didn't you get a you know, Brian Kranton's able body that how can he play this role? And Bill Byrd does I think a pretty great routine.
And I'm not I'm very much paraphrasing it, but it's almost like who are your favorite paraplegic actors?
You know?
And and there may be a fantastic actor, you know, actors who are paraplegic.
But the fact is, and these were the.
Grown up conversations have to kind of take place, and it needs to be a balance that there's some roles that some actors shouldn't play.
I think it's carte blanche as far as you know.
And again Charlton Heston, but I that movie doesn't get made if they don't. You don't have a name that people put. People putting money into this, they want to see it.
I mean, it's called show business, not show friends.
And there are lots of things that go into making it. Like, as you know, you've made so many movies, it's a miracle any of them get done. But the symmetry and the things that have to happen together, a perfect storm has to kind of brew for.
Any film to be made, whether it's any good or not.
So you know, I think some films just won't get made if certain people don't get cast.
Like I said, it's called elements.
That's basically called putting the elements together for the financials. That's really all it comes down to. And Brian Cranston is an excellent actor for a stunt, you know, I mean he's.
Off the back of breaking bad.
Yeah, you know what I mean.
That's just one example. And I just it's a very nuanced debate. And I think in society now, nobody wants to be nuanced. They just want to be you know, you know, like I said, gay actors kind of play gay actors and that's not Yeah, I'm not sure if that's where the element of acting. I have a lot of people, you know, a lot of actors say this to me. We still need to allow actors to act. We don't want to see lucky human be lucky hume.
No, you know, I don't ever do that, you know what I mean. I try to be the master of disguise.
Exactly, exactly right. That's the art, that is the craft. All right, let's get We can talk about Coppler all day.
And if you haven't seen Godfather one and Godfather to I envy you because you've got that to look forward to in your life.
It really is one of those things. It's like, Wow, what a treat. And if you're gonna watch Godfather Part three, I urge you to do so. But again, like Touch of Evil, watch the recent one that the code Yeah.
Yes, when Godfather three coda the Death of Michael Corleone is the full title.
There are some tweaks, some pretty small tweaks, but I.
Think they're significant, and I think it's a much more enjoyable experience.
Yes, But as we were saying, and Copler himself has said that the fatal weakness of part three is that we did not have a strong enough villain for Michael to combat, to outwit.
I completely agree.
Okay, Lucky Hume, let's get into it. Nineteen fifty eight, directed by Awson, well written and directed by It written directed, Yes, that based on the book A Badge of Honor.
Bage of Evil, Badge of Evil now Bage of Evil was written by a guy called Wit Masterson, who I did a little research in that it has actually a pen name for two guys who used to write together, so it was actually the book is written by Robert Allison Wade and H. Bill Miller wrote Badge of Evil.
Now, thank you for your work, gentlemen, if you're listening.
But originally this producer hired Paul Monash, who was a TV writer, to come in and do the screenplay. Paul Monash sort of, I suppose he did a lot of good films. He famous for producing books Cassidy and The Sun Dance Kid, for example, and also paulsh wrote the screenplay for the Friends of Eddie Coyle Star and Bob Mixham many years later, but it was adapted. The original story is set in San Diego, so the whole all
the events take place in San Diego. Charlton Heston gets attached to play not Miguel Vas the Mexican, but a guy called Mitch Holt, a detective. Okay, so it was Heston who goes to the studio and says, look, the script's not quite there. Why don't we get all some Wells convince him to direct it and do a rewrite. So Wells, I think, did a pass on the material. It took about four or five weeks everybody signed off
on it. But what Wells did was then set the milieu on this border town, which is brilliant.
Yeah, I think that's almost like, I can't imagine it not being partly about that.
That's right, and he wanted that wells wanted it because it brings in all these political implications, particularly to do with race and the whole bit. So the Mitch Holt character gets changed to Miguel Vargas. Now the thing is Heston's attached. He's a pretty big star at the time, so he is now playing a Mexican cop and prosecutor. My problem is getting back to this thing about you know, casting the right actor in the right role is you
take on responsibilities as an actor. Then if you are going to be playing Vito Corley, only you better look and sound like a Sicilian man. Okay, years ago, at an awards night, an actor came up to me, I won't say who. He just finished playing a very infamous Australian businessman in a mini series and he came up to me and he said he introduced himself to me.
And he.
Said to me, I hope this does for me what Kerry Packer did for your career when I played Kerry Packer and how I had seen the miniseries in preview and I just said, look, I'm going to give you a bit of advice. Don't get your hopes up. And he said why And I said, because the pro tip would be when you're going to play a real life person, trying to look and sound like that person. And you made no effort with either.
Wow.
Yeah, And I said, you asked me, and I'm telling you, And so don't get your hopes up. Okay. And this gets back to Heston with Charlton Heston, going from Mitch Holton mcgwell Vargas is Heston makes no effort at all to have any Mexican accent inflection anything. He's speaking like he's in the like the Wells has got the line and you don't sound like a Mexican. It's like, yeah, no, ship, dude. He sounds like he's doing freaking king we yes. Well, you know.
Occasionally there's like there's like an inference in some of his dialogue that you're gonna go maybe in that scene he's tried to nudge it towards something something Mexican, but like it's a very subtle inference. But he actually has been on the record to say his biggest regret is not doing a Hispanic accent.
He has said that Okay, Well, then I kind of because it's almost like the fatal floor of the movie because it by not really leaning into the mexicanness of this man. He's a Mexican man, he's married a white American woman, that in itself there's summitch fodder. By not leaning into it, you've robbed the audience of all the implied racism of Arson Well's corrupt cop Hank Quinn learnon. You know, it just removes a layer from the film that I would have added more menace, more threat to
it all. And it's just disappointing. It's like, man, come on, you had a god. It's almost like, oh, well, they just changed the name. So I put a bit of darker makeup on to sort of make my skin more olive, and I'll dye my hair black and that'll do.
Yeah, it will bush out the eyebrows.
Yeah, no, no, no, it's a little bit more effort would have been required.
Yeah, and I mean the hackback obviously to our conversation earlier. I think if this film is remade, Brad Pitt or George Clooney doesn't play this role.
This guy's a heavier bad damn Well.
It's interesting I did a little bit of research what famous Mexican American actors were there of that era. Number one Anthony Quinn, Right, okay, yeah, Anthony Quinn would have been perfect as Vargas. Yeah, you know what I mean, you really got You've got some juice that. But there's no point we're all playing Monday Morning quarterback on it. I mean, look, the fact is Heston did it. We're stuck with that, and it's interesting. It becomes more Quinlan's story as a result.
Yeah, I completely agree. This is this movie as much as it starts. And we're talking about the stunning start of this movie in a second, but I feel it's Quinland's movie too, like you know, yeah, but.
Let's just start from the start. This opening shot.
It's funny when I watched it back, I watched it and then I just basically rewound it and you know, click back and watch it again. And I noticed when they the first thing you see is that the bomb and the times and like the old egg time bomb, And I was how long is and I reckon, it's exactly three and a half minutes, That's what I thought, So I timed it and three and a half minutes later, exactly boom boom.
Okay, So we'll set the scene for you listener. So we're in this sort of border town and it's it's grubby, there's news bits of all news paper for scattering the wind, and there's dust everywhere, and it's festive, you know, but it's sort of border town stuff. So it's brothels and strip clubs and it's sleazy and dirty. And we open on this shot of this young hand setting the egg timber on the dynamite, putting it in the back of
a cadillac. Then this old guy, white guy gets into the cadillac with his stripper girlfriend and off they go. And as we start following the car, the cinematographer on this, by the way, is Russell Metti, whose next film is Spartacus, which he won the Oscar for. Okay, and we'd later work with Heston again on The Amiga Man, which is one of my all time favorite cult films, which was
later remade as I Am Legend with Will Smith. Yeah, anyway, and so we start following the car and then into this this comes Charlton Heston's Vargas with his is it Susie who yeah, played by Janet Lee whose daughter Jamie Lee Curtis just won an oscar Hollywood Royalty. They're walking along, it's date night and they're going to head across the border and then Bluey the car bomb goes off. But it is this astonishing tracking shot. But it's just one of many the whole film. I mean, it's like you
can see the influence on, for example, Goodfellas. You know the way Michael Bauhaus and Scurse is you put good Fellas together where the camera is constantly restless and moving, and I mean even just for they'll do a quick push in and a til top just for one shot. You know, it's it's so brilliantly shot, and it's in black and white. And the great advantage of black and white you can get incredible deep focus on your shots too, so you can fill the frame a lot easier than
you could with color. It's just a fact, you know. That's why Bogdanovic shot The Last Picture Show in black and white. Wells actually told him, if you want to get that focus, yeah, you know, you want to do it in black and white.
Episode of Josh Lawson if you haven't listen to that one, that one, that's a good episode But what I love about that opening shot is I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if that if the term ticking time bomb came from this this same because you are it is just the car is moving slowly through and it's it's almost weaving. There's a lot of pedestrians on the road, but it's enough for the weave through. It's going on one side
of the road to the other. And there's a dance that's going on between between Mike and Susie and the car.
Yeah, and you know there's a bomb in the car. This is going to second So.
It heightens the tension because you're thinking, we haven't even started in our are we going to do this in flashback? Our heros going to we know there? Yeah, heros? Are they going to get blown up at the beginning of the film, So you are you're still getting a little antsy right from the get goards.
And then there's a conversation happening with the border guards.
Yeah, and then they're informing us we learned that they're just married.
They're on their honeymoon.
And we know that that Fargas is well known because when he mentions to the border guard that the American border guar because they're crossing over to the American side. Yeah, we just got married. He's like, ah, great, because wow, Fargas is a big man on campus. That's a great So it's so cleverly setting all the and bobs up. When the bomb goes off, suddenly Vargas finds himself launched
into unexpectedly investigating what the hell has happened here? You know, technically it happened on the American side, so it's not his turf, so he's in. But he's the first senior officer on the scene. So he's injecting himself into other people's business effectively. And when I say other people's business, I mean awesome, well's business. As Detective Hank Quinlan, this obese,
grask grotesque looking creature, walks with a cane. We find it much later it's because he took a bullet for his partner, Mensies, and Mensies is one of this sycophanic hero worshiping Queenland guys that've been on the force together a long time. But it doesn't take long for us to figure out that with Quinlan, corruption has now become simply second nature to him, and it's disturbing. It's disturbing how quick he is to plant evidence, how quick he is to lie. And he keeps referring to it as
my instinct. I am an instinct for things, you know. It's his famous hunctures that he has. Yes, so they get their hands on this young kid who is secretly about to get married to the blown up guy's daughter. Yes, okay, And turns out he's a rich American businessman and the daughter is now slumming it with this Mexican guy who works in a shoe shop.
And can I just can I just say how quickly they get the daughter to identify the body is everything happens when that bomb goes off. Everything it's like the body's identified or the daughter arrives on the scene within a minute and identifies the body and then talks about I don't know my father's girlfriend. So there's there's a bit of friction there, which pays off later. But yeah, it's almost it's almost comical how quickly things happen.
And then you have.
Charlton Heston's character, Michael Vargas, who's kind of taking care of his wife but kind of not you know, he could have done a better job of getting her to safety. But he's he's all about the job, even more so than you know, the marriage.
Yeah, which leads to a big sequence segment which we'll get to the motel sequence, the gang rape sequence in the motel. Yes, it's family viewing this one touch of evil it is. Look, we should just point in this. This is dark stuff.
It's dark, it has it's in the film, but it's also it's got the title A touch of evil.
You can ask Molly coddle your way.
Yeah, that's right. First of all, there's a great score through all of this by Henry Mansoni, by the way, we should point out out it who's famous for the Pink Panther school. But there's that.
Well, guys, ask you about the music.
Yeh, was it just a stylistic because there's a music playing all the way through this? Is it playing through the radio you know in cars? Is playing in that And we'll get to the hotel stuff later, but the speaker into the hotel room constantly, and it's also playing.
And the piano from the pianola the pole.
Yeah, kids going, so is that do you think is that the stylistic purely stylistic.
Or is there something else that they're trying to do with the music.
Oh, I don't know. I'd have to do a deeper dive into really just paying attention to the music. Firstly, you've got Mancini's score, which is very tense, very cool. It's almost very sort of Lalo Schiffer and almost type score. Then you've got that bit of music you're playing earlier, that pianola, which is the closing music, which reminded me very much of the zither music from Third Man and which Wells didn't direct, but of course started and Caro
Read directed it. And it's almost a similar ending, you know, with the walk off into the distance of the woman.
I started at school Harry Lyon character its great, great film, great novelty by Graham Green.
So it's an interesting question. Yeah, the music is a constant thing. Noise is a constant in it.
It's a very busy film.
Is it's clatter and noise, and there's very very few down moments in terms of quietness. For there's very few moments of reflection. But let's get to the Quinland character. This guy we find out very quickly that he's been on the wagon, hasn't had a drink in a long time.
He bumps into an old girlfriend who's sort of like a played by a cameo by Marlana Dietrich, who's kind of like a prostitute slash fortune teller, kind of a woman who he reminds her that, you know, we once spent two weeks going through a whole case of whiskey together, and she points out to him that now your habit seems to be candy bars to explain his obesity.
She comes back to that point quite a few times. You really hammers that hard.
That's right. It's interesting. You know you said earlier that Wells was wearing a fat suit. I wouldn't be so sure about that.
Well he might be one of those things that he said he was wearing a fat suit, but maybe he was forty TuS he's playing somebody, you know, twenty odd years.
Yeah, he might have had a fat suit on him, had a fake nose, oh, and a lot of fake and a lot of prosthetic under the eyes, and the whole bit. It's in a stony wish when we grow test character really like Java the hut.
Yes, you know what I mean.
So he claims the investigation and he's you know, Hank Clinland is one of those guys likes to wrap things up quickly, and he doesn't like the interjection of this Mexican cop Vargas, which gets back to what we were saying about, had you know, heston Land into the Mexican a Mexican accent of a Latino aspect on him, it would have made for a much more effective performance and
movie overall. But anyway, they get their hands on the on the daughter's boyfriend, the shoe salesman, and they've got him in this fancy apartment, and Vargas goes off to freshen up in the bathroom and he accidentally knocks over this empty shoe box into the into the sink, and he picks it up and puts it back where it was.
And that's a little diversion, because there's going to be something for the audience, because what happens is they start accusing this young kid of dynamiting the old man because he won't approve of the marriage to the daughter. And so Menzies, the secophantic partner of Quentland, goes into the bathroom goes, hey boss, hey boss, Hank, I found it. I found the dynamite, and he brings up the shoe box and these two sticks of dynamite in it.
Let's have a listen. Let's have listened to something.
Let's say that's impossible. I found two sticks like fox, right number?
Where did you find this?
Right here? And you had of stas of course?
What are you trying to do? Trying to strap you to the electric chair?
We don't like it.
One innocent people have blown to jelly in our town. There's an old lady on main street last night picked up a shoe, shoe and a foot in it. We're gonna make you pay for them. They're trying to railroad me. I don't know why. I never stole any dynamite, So you know, Hindu mother. He swears on his mother's grave that there has never been any dynamite in this apartment. Sure, sure, take him in, book him, let's go. You say you found this dynamite their bathroom?
Pete founded?
Can't you do something to help me?
What are you scared of?
Point that stuff is nearly as easy to blow up as people seem to think.
It doesn't go.
Off quick any you found the dynamite in this box?
Yeah, Pete found it told you.
Then I looked in that box just now there wasn't anything there.
I know how you feel, sure, I do. You people are touchy.
It's only as human water come to the defense that you fell a countryman. Wow.
Regon in that saying you can as one of those things I was talking about where you can hear very subtle inflection in Heston's kind of accent where he's just he's just hinting at, you know, being Mexican. Not not enough. Obviously he hasn't. He certainly hasn't gone full blown. But really performance by Wells it is.
It's if you noticed that in the performance, the overlapping almost sort of precursing Robert Holtman's sound layouts things like Nashville and stuff to come. How it's like he's he's constantly rumbling through like he can't hear properly, or it's just it's it's not almost a David Mannett style dialogue where it's you know so through it. But that's the first indication of he's just happy to frame somebody now, which he doesn't really because it turns out the kid
did do it, my corrector I didn't. I've watched the film twice.
Well yeah, yeah, so right at the end, which is it's it struck me as a tad strange. It almost feels tagged on or that it's significant because the idea.
Is that Hank was actually right. Yes, his instincts were right.
Yes, So if he hadn't gone to war with maybe Vargas and actually just follow through it a proper investigation, yes, he could.
Have actually got it. I'm still unclear about. It's still been ambiguous to me because they say, oh, the kid confessed, but yeah, they could have been using the rubber hose on him or a phone book over his bloody head, you know. So it's under and we know that quinlanns this crappy two acre little turkey farm where that's where the dynamite came from. So it's all a bit ambiguit, but it's it's not. It's meant to be ambiguous. There is meant to be ambiguity and ambiguity.
And and in the way, it's not really about this bomb and this case. It's about it's about a career. It's about the rise and fall of Handkuick.
It is, and it's also about Vargas trying to bring down a crime family. So the implication is is did this crime family, the Grandees, did they plant the bomb at the start knowing that the car would be going past Vargas and Susie on their walk. That's another possibility. So now, but to talk about the Grande family, because they're the real bad guys of the peace. Yes, so Quinlan,
sorry not Quentlan. Vargas decides to get put Susie out Hahn's way as the investigations the plot starts to thicken and he gets Mensies Quinlan's partner to take him take her out to this remote motel.
Before we get to that remar.
There's a very weird there's a I mean, I would say, I just it's it's weak what this this scene as far as motivation, certainly by modern standards. So Susie is going back to the hotel. I think by this stage she's actually walking by herself. She's confronted by a local.
Tough is one of the Grande.
One of one of the Grande's. So he says, come with me, and she's like, no, I'm married, and you know, and then that is she's surrounded by three or four men. You know, it's daunting scary, and he says, no, wants I need to tell you something about your your your husband.
And she says, okay, well, what have I got to lose. You've got your fucking life to lose.
The switch from going Now I'm a married woman and this is a frightening.
Situation I got to lose.
I know, yeah, I know.
It's even as a piece of dialogue. The fact that she goes is one thing.
And Janetly, who I adore as an actor because I will never she performance in The Manchurian Candidate is still undelible to me. It's a brilliant that everybody's bringing in that film. But she plays suit you with a sort of a lightness of touch in that scene that there, it's like, yeah, it's so fro away that you go,
oh my god, will they lead her anyway? Now? Willingly to meet the uncle, the brother of the Grande boss whose Vargas is put behind bars, and so we get this show down with him, and that's all a bit weird, and.
They take a photo outside of the which they present to her like ten minutes later when and that doesn't really go anywhere.
It it's all, yeah, it's you know, I forgive ambiguity, but it's all it's it's it's I think that her characters is a little undercooked in terms of the writing process. And Janet Lee was from all accounts, you know, she wasn't backward and coming forward about She's a very assertive woman.
And I suspect I get a feeling like all that sort of stuff is sort of tacked on a little bit because she might have said, I need more to do here because I'm just a bit of a you know, an object being pushed around the chessboard here.
Who knows?
Who knows?
She said awesome, Myles was very collaborative, which it comes with surprise.
And so that's why I suspect you might have said, well, come on, can we do some more with this that or the other? But anyway, it's all a bit weird and cut a long story short. Yeah, Vargas says to wherever, we're going to put you on a plane and get you out of here, and somehow that goes out the window and instead of doing that, we're going to take you to this remote motel in the middle of nowhere where you'll be the only guest.
Yeah.
After the photo is presented and she's about a show and it says from a thousand with a thousand kisses from yeah, yeah, yeah, Pancho.
He brushes over her. Yeah, he is, like, it's like, look what they're trying to do. They're obviously trying to set us up. There's something more going on here. But he's being the bigger seriti of Charlton Heston man instead of saying, no time for that, dear, We've got to get you out of here. And that's so that goes nowhere alloy.
Yeah, but she has this again, another switch of going going no, I'm not leaving my husband. I'm going you know, but I want to stay on the American side of the border, because you know, for comfort, not safety.
She's trying to you know, iron iron across that.
She is playing it though, like she's exhausted. I'm really not making I'm not thinking clearly. I just want to get to bed. I just want to get rest. She's doing that well yeah, yeah, yeah from a performance point of view, so I buy that. It's like, you know what, I'm sick and tired, I'm full, I've had a big dinner. I just want to go home now. It's that kind of energy that she's bringing to it. Can we just move things along now.
So I get to the hotel and talk about lightness of touch. You talked about Dennis Weaver's performance, The.
Great Dennis Weaver. I was a big fan of was it McLeod that he did when he played the cop on Horseback? The TV series? But of course Jewel Spielberg's Jewels, which I think this.
Really this was the performance that got him that role.
I know wouldn't because Jewel was seventy one. This is fifty eight, so it's pretty pretty big leap.
Spielberg saw.
I'm not sure what he saw because I I just thought this guy was in a different film, and I, like, I wasn't sure if it was an offensive performance or not, but I just thought he was in a different movie. And I know that Austin Wells wanted it to be more comedic and he encouraged him to go for it.
Shakespeare in Loon.
Yes, that's right, So, folks, Dennis Weaver plays the nightman, the nightcaretaker at this desolate motel on the outskirts of nowhere. Just picture in your mind, like anybody who's seen No Country for Old Men, pretty much remotel in No Country for Old Men is like this plays the Coen Brothers. By the way, I'm not an advocate of remakes, but if you put this material in the Coen brother's hands, you'd have a very interesting.
I think there is a case of remakes, honest anyway.
So but he plays what I suppose you would call a simpleton, you know, to use that. I'm doing air quotes here, folks, you can't see it, but this podcast is a visual medium.
Imagine Forrest had at a brother, and Forrest was a smart one in the family.
You know.
It's like by it by a lengthy.
And so we'll got the band tuning up outside. I don't know whether you can hear that, folks, that's all right, And so he tries to be helpful. So we checked Channet Lee into this motel and she just wants to get some sleep. But there's this big wall mounted speaker in the motel and our friend Dennis Weaver the Nightmare and day man too apparently because he's the only one who works there. So it's bit Norman Batsy, you know,
it's a bit Baits motelly vibe. He cranks out this jukebox music into her room, where it's like, wouldn't you just pick up the phone straight away and say can you cut the music please? You're going to get some sleep.
Here, Yeah, you know, because he's saying I need to get some sleep, and I'm you know, and don't don't disrupt and and yeah, this music keeps on. That's why I'm not quite sure, because that's him doing it, and he's not part of this conspiracy theory, you know, he's not part of the you know, the the Grundes.
So as it turns out own the motel.
Yes, so they move in the gang, the gang move in Vargas.
You would think the man who put the head of the Grande family criminal empire away might know where some of their assets are, where some of the money's hidden, like this desolate motel where you've just made sure your wife goes to it. Well, then again, Fargas doesn't take her there. It's Men'sies it takes her there, So maybe he's in on it from that point of view.
Well, I think Mensies, I really I think you can make a case that Mensi is almost the heart of this film because I feel like he's the one you talk about betrayal and you think when he and there's important that see me. Just listen to Hank says, you know, Pete found it, so we think and he's his biggest you know, cheers squad.
He is Hank. He's done it again.
Yeah, and he's so happy and he has you know, and he's happy with not being part of this partnership, you know, and he knows that Hank's the genius and he is the guy who helps out. But he hasn't realized that he has been part of this conspiracy unwillingly.
And we're not sure. I kind of thought while they're both in on it together.
But he we learn later that Pete's not in on it, and he's kind of really hurt.
Well.
The scene in the records room, which is my it's my probably my favorite scene in the whole movie, where Vargas gets actually he knows this is after all the young kid away on the charges of blowing up, where Vargas knows the dynamite has been planted. We've sent Susy on her way to the middle of nowhere now teaming up with Schwartz, the local DA. Vargas gets access to the record room because what he immediately knows is I'm going to go through all of the arrest reports, all
the convictions that Quenland's got. Don't forget Quinland said in that scene, I'm going to send you to the electric chair. You know, we're going to send you to gas chamber.
Yeah, he's gone straight there, that's boom.
Straight away because because a little old lady picked up his shoe and it still had a foot in it, and you're going to pay for that. So he goes to the records room and he starts going through all the old Queenland case files and it course, every single case involves a piece of miraculous magic evidence that was planted because he knows it was planned, because every person who was convicted denied of and seeing that thing before,
every defense attorney said it's rubbish, it was planted. Anyway, Mensies comes to confront Vargas at the record room, which is brilliant set piece. This the whole design of the records room, and it's like, literally, you know, it's something out of Citizen Kane, it really is. And that's the most of You're right, you know, Mensis is the heart of the piece because he can be so distressed, you know when Vargas points out the bleeding obvious to him.
It's like, you know, there was a piece of false there was some false teeth found at the crime scene, and that linked to the suspect. There was this found at the crime scene. Quinlan's thirty. He's been doing this for years and you've been helping him.
And he's also before because before this is also witness Hank go across the road with Grunde Grundy.
It's at a bar, which.
I don't want to get we'll get to that because that becomes a major plot point. But this mensi says this incredible apps where he says you're going to ruin his life's work, and it's so heartbreaking, you can say that's the patheticness of it, and how easy years has all become for these guys. It's just like, we've got your guilty, will plant the evidence to prove it even if you're not. There's railroading people, so they're not really doing police people, or are they, Because you know that's
the question. Maybe Quenland's instincts, hunctures are correct and he just fills in the blank to get the conviction done. Who knows it's ambiguity yet again. So that's a brilliant sequence, and Vargas vows to bring Quinland down. So now we're right getting into the meat and potatoes of what the story really is about. It's a battle of wills between an old school cop and a new school cop, and obviously could have been a far more fascinating battle of wills.
I it was also a real culture clash y Sarga, but anyway, two little too late on that. So meanwhile, Grande takes Quenland across to his bar to hatch your plan. He says, we've both got the same problem, and that problem is Fargas. Vargas is going after my family. Vargas is going after your reputation. Okay, wow, dance.
Party, party happening without us, and I'm not getting invited to these things.
And so they go to get together in this bar, just the two of them, now, bearing in mind, folks that Quenland hasn't touched to drop and like something like eleven twelve years or something that they mention. And the first thing Grande does is poured two big double bourbons and puts one down in Quentland. In front of Quenland. It's like bait. It's like it's like literally, it's cheese
and the mouse trap. Show him. Okay, and what happens Quentlan starts drinking again, and Grande knows he's got him. I just keep him looking up and I'll get him thinking my way, which is what starts to happen. Yeah, okay, We're going to jump forward a little bit where Quentland says Vargas is a drug add actors his wife sent it too. In fact, I saw the hypodermics, you know, straight to the chase of corruption. Anyway, I'm jumping ahead a little bit there.
No, it's great.
There's a great scene then when Hank so Hank goes and confronts Vargas.
I want to get to the bottom of it. And and uh, and there's a.
Great debate about what the job of law enforces actually is and what makes a dirty cop, what makes a clean cup.
Let's listen to this friend.
Vargas has some very special ideas about police procedure. He seems to think it don't matter whether he kills Hangaring not, as long as we made the fine.
I don't think a policeman should work like a dog ketchen.
Criminals behind bars.
Now, in any free country, a policeman, you're supposed to enforce the law, and the law protects the guilty.
Is tough enough, it's supposed to be.
It has to be tough.
Policeman's job is only easy in a police state.
That's the whole point. Captain, who is the boss the cup with the law? Where's your wife? What do you what do you mean?
You know where she is as well as I do certain Mensi's drovers us at the motel.
You're still here? Yes, I'm checking out now and enjoining it. Do you have a reason, No special reasons. I just wondering what you know?
Rather pigeon in the nest pigeon, Captain, you did buy seven?
Done?
You are checking your story of Vargas. I don't have to answer your question.
I attended to a rat, says he sticks.
We've been spying on it, my rat.
For my knowledge, Hank, you use fifteen sticks of dynamite, Quinn, and that leaves two sticks missing, and two sticks were found in that shoe box.
He's just asking, Hank henk.
So that's there's a lot, a lot to be taken in there, because it is about they are two different men. They Hank just wants to get the results and and Vargas follows the process and the procedures. Is a great line where I think Vargas says, who's the master cop or the law?
Yeah, it's such good dialogue. It is so good. I mean, just listening to that again, I mean, watched it again last night. That's it. I mean, it's I think that you forgive so much because there are so many memorable moments in this film.
Well, that's right, because there are things about this film. There's and we're kind of creeping up behind characters there, you know that there is things that are I said, you know, Susan's kind of flipping of you know, like don't you touch me?
To say, okay, what have I got to lose?
There are some weird things and some performances that don't quite hit. But the performances that do hit, and the moments and the artistry on the screen, you don't worry about any of that.
It's phenomenal.
It's the Kubby Broccoli theory. You know, Cubby Brockley produced the James Bond films. You know, he before Spy Loved Me Opened, he said said sometimes of the movie you just got to sit down in your seat, open the top of your skull, take your brain out, put it underneath the chair, and enjoy. Just enjoy the show exactly. Yeah, you know, and it's true. It's true. It's got moments.
So you forgive, you forgive things. You know. It's talking about this the other day with some buddies, and we're talking about, you know, when you right yourself into a corner, how you can get out of jail really quickly. And one of the best examples of that is Raiders of the Lost Arc. Okay, the foot chase through the streets of Cairo where Marion gets into the basket. Okay, Indy's chasing her. The bad guys have got her in the basket, Indy, and he's chasing her down all the dead ends and
the alleys and the whole bit. They put her in the back of the truck loaded with explosives. Indy blows it up. Boom. Marion's dead. Okay. Later when he's when he gets to the to the dig site with Salah when they're gonna they're on the hunt for the Ark of the Covenant and they're undercover and he's to avoid some Nazi troops walking past. He sort of quickly Indiana Jones ducks into the tent and there's Marion alive, tied up against the pole with the gag in her mouth,
and he's like, Marion, you're alive. They must have switched baskets. Why would they, Hey, they didn't switch baskets. We know they didn't switch baskets. I'm not an idiot. I watched that sequence. Why would they switch baskets anyway? On the off chance that the truck was going to blow up, that that would hand it on that okay. So, but this is how they get out of it, because the second you start pulling threads on stuff like that, you're doomed. So this is how they get out of it. And
they wrote themselves into a complete and outer corner. And Lawrence Kasden, the screenwriter, gets us out of it so quickly by distracting us with shiny baubles. And we are easily distracted as the human species with movies. We're also film literate without even knowing it, but we're also still children when you go to the movies and it's like, oh, what's that show? Anything over there? Now?
Yeah?
Okay. And the way they get us to look over at the shiny bable is. He starts getting ready to escape with Mary and he's going to untire or they're going to get out of there, and he suddenly has a thought because she's gonna get me out of here. Jone's getting out here, and he suddenly has this thought, and he starts putting the gag back in her mouth and going, if they know if they find you missing, they'll know I'm here, and that means I won't be
able to get to the Ark. And you go, oh, yeah, right, that's what it's all about. So you completely forget right because the shiny buble is, Oh my god, Yeah, we're gonna go after the Ark. That's the mission of the movie, and so you forgive them. You know, los Ark arguably one of the greatest movies ever made in the action adventure genre. Some people say the greatest action adventure film ever made. It's got some riding into the corner stuff
that you get out of real quick. So it's perhaps far more definitely handled than saying I'm a married woman, I'm not going with you guys, Oh what have I got to lose? I think that touch of evil's not quite as ingenious as Lawrence Kesden's screenplay for Raiders. But you forgive films.
You do and this and this it plays with.
Apparently there's many, many more scenes with the Grundy family that were lighter, that they were going to even bring a bit more comic relief, because Joe Grandi is quite is quite an essentric kind of.
He reminded me, you know, talking about the Coen Brothers, the late great John Polito who appeared in a lot of the Coen Brothers films, you know, and Martin Finky's like, you know, he plays the fat Italian. My boss is constantly upset. He's slapping his should and it's like, oh no, darling, come here. It's kind of like a John Polito, yeah character who's also in The Big Lebowski is the private detective and all that kind of stuff. He really is. It's it's Amarov who played it to me, am I
think I'm getting wrong. Who's excellent he is. It's like a Danny de Vito, a kind of yeah character, you know, where's sleazy but sort of likable but could turn on you at any moment kind of thing. But he's thoroughly lighting up the screen with his energy of the performance. Now he meets a particularly brutal.
And so before we get to that, we mb just't cover off you refer to it earlier and this moment where the gang going to Genetly's yeah motel.
So basically the party shows up. So you can imagine the grande Boy gang. The boys in the gang, they're all the grande boys. They're kind of like traditional greases. You know. They've got the jeans, they've got the white T shirts, they got the leather jackets, they've got the ducky roll haircuts and the whole bit. And one of them, the sort of leader of the pack, menacingly, takes over
from the night watchman played by Dennis Weaver. And every time she starts ringing to say, you know, could you turn the music down, he says, oh, yeah, we'll get that done for your straightaway, Missus Vargas, and then chearings again, can you put me through to this number that cops and he goes, oh, the numbers busy. At the moment, Missus Vegas, this sort of the starts increased ractioning up the tension and leading to the inevitable where they burst
into her room. Now they've also got to part in the expression bull dyke by ky chicks.
With them, one of them being.
Of course. For those who don't know who Mercedes McCambridge was, if you've seen The Exorcist, she is the voice of the possessed Reagan. Your mother sucks caccent ol.
And she has a shilling line. Her one line is I want to watch watch terrifying it. And she was having she did this as a favorite awesome while she was having lunch with him, and she said, he said, can you can you do this part.
Today or tomorrow whenever?
It was so she basically Austin Wells cut her hair and they got her in the leather jacket and she won the oscar for all the King's Men.
Yes, and also was in a giant as well.
Wonderful great one of the great voice actors of all time. But she talk about leaning into the Mexican side of the character. She comes on set with the full Mexican accent haircut and dyed, looking the part scary as she's the one with the hypodermic needles. She's the one with the married Juana. Then when they've got they go, hey, lady in the next room. He generally puts her eer up against the wall. He goes, what and he goes,
do you know marijuana? You know the maddie ja. She goes, yeah, maybe, but what's it got to do with me?
I don't really know what the marijuana was really doing outside of drugging her, because she ends up drugged, which remember they.
Said to her though we blew it all over her body. The whole idea is that this is Grande's plan that he hatches with Hank offscreen, is that we're going to make Vargas look corrupt, that he's actually in on the narcotics racket that he claims to be busting wide open. He's just as bad as the people he's going on, so he can't accuse me of being bad when he's worse. That's what it's all about.
So do you then, because when the door shuts and there.
He says, grab her, grab her ankles, ankles, and and you think there's a rape about occur, and then later on they say it didn't didn't happen.
Yes, I don't buy that. I think that is something studio imposed, probably saying no, no, no, you can't. You can imply it, but then you've got to get out of jail on that one and say no, no, no, no, we just make her think that that's what happened. There's absolutely no way that those guys didn't rape her. There's no way. I mean, you don't end a scene with the door closing with her there's like six guys and two women grabbing, screaming, generally off the bed, physically off
the bed, and the last line is grab her ankles. Yeah, and they start spreading her legs and the door closes.
And what's Mercedes mc cambridge. Then what's what's what's her line? What's she watching? You know, she watching.
People blows, She's here to watch the rape?
And when because when Joe Grundy says that, who does he say that, Sue?
Because he says it to Hank and when they go into where she's been taken back.
To this she could actually be almost kind of, you know, covering the freeze actually happened.
In the game. That's what I think it is. But it seemed studio imposed to me. But he might be saying, yeah, you're right, I mean, logically he could be saying to Queenland, no, no, no, we didn't. We're just making.
It making it all a good job making happen, but it will serve.
Your purpose just from looking bad. So they get her back. She's been knocked out, and they said with sodium pentathole, which doesn't make any sense because Sodi and penthes all his truth serum, right, that's what you inject into That's.
Just that's exactly what they don't want.
Yeah, exactly. I mean they just said, we used to said it, right, but they don't. They say, Sodi and pentadon. I think back then in the fifties to the implication of marijuana, the demon and Sodi and PENTEO, what's that? It all sounds spooky with the reality marijuana. If they were all high, they wouldn't be sitting around doing gang rape. It would have been sitting around going where's where's the nark? Shows?
Many know what I mean. Yeah, but you know back then it was a reef for madness and all that kind of bizar. So they get it back to Grande's hotel, the Ritz, which he owns. It's part of his empire, and so genetly he's sweaty and she's in this dimly lit room and Quinlan comes in Grande and Grande is saying, look, we've done the job for you. She reeks of marijuana. You know, there's needle marks in her arms. So with the setup of Vargas is going to be complete because
you got earlier that bit. He goes, oh, Vigus, you know he's he's worse than the Grande's. He's worse. He's in on the rack and men, he's going you think he's in on it, chief, and he's like, I know it for sure. I've seen the hypodermics. He goes, well, I never saw no hyperdermis. He goes, oh, well, you don't have my hunction, you know, all that stuff and that that that's one of those shocking scenes that he gets. He's just so quick, he's so quick on his feet
just for the frame up. He's got a down pat.
He said earlier, not any framing, but sending someone through the chair. Yeah, it's it's phenomenal.
Yeah. Yeah. And so now you're gonna remember, folks, Quinlan is now absolutely shit faced. He's been on the booze now for like twenty four hours. Okay, he's literally necking bottles of bourbon. Okay, And so he comes into the room where gently he is and it's one of those God, anything could happen. He is, there's Grande Quinland, and there's
Genitly he passed out on the bed. Okay, it's all going to be to frame up mcgwell, her husband mcgwell, Vargas and earlier Quentland sets it up about the best way to kill somebody.
He is with mister strangle, to strangle them. You can leave fingerprints on string, that's right. And his wife he explains that his wife had been murdered that way and the one crime he didn't he wasn't able to solve that he was the guy could was caught in Belgium and murdered or God took care of him or something like that.
Yeah, And so they're they are in the room. And so now we're getting into the Quinlan tying up all the loose ends, which anybody who's ever seen a story about police corrupt is it's one of the great thrilling tropes of the police corruption saga, whether it be Dudley Smith and l A Confidential tying up the loose ends everywhere, or you know, sneelamitz Q and a where Nicknldy's cop Cop is to you know all the loose ends getting it's it's the to me, there's a lover of crime
and corruption films. It's like, oh, here we gow. How does the bad guy win? How does the bad guy win? And so what does he do? He chokes Grande to death. He garrets him in the in the in the hotel room, over and unconscious. It's literally over her.
She's asleep, so she wakes up to this kind of guy.
The guide cul lo tongue lolling out literally Jara the Heart style when Jarba gets choked.
Boson Wells wanted an ox tongue like to almost have it even more grotesque, and they tried it and it just said, that's okay.
That's too much, right, yeah, because it's it's full on already.
The way it is, it's a terrif. And you know, and always in the precursor' always seen this shot in the movies, but I Reckon Wells might have pioneered it in Touch of Evil, where the bad guys pull the pools on the black leather clubs. And when he starts doing that is he's talking to Grande and the gloves start coming on in years here we go.
That's the moment.
Yeah, we go and of course chokes him to death, and quite a terrifying scene too, because Grande's trying to escape. He's in his own premises and he's going to be killed, and it's all part of Quinland saying, look how depraved the Vargases are. They're doing drugs, that killing the hotel owner. It's all that kind of thing. And so Grande is dispatched, which leads us to what happens after that, because we're riding to the final the CLINICX of the show.
Yeah, around this time, this is where I think Pete is putting, putting the pieces together, Mensis Pete mensis. So then so Hank then tells people to get the vice boys and come down there.
He's found Susan.
That happens there is and that's when Vargas he is looking for his wife, and then you know, finds out what may have happened, and there's the bar fight and he oh, he takes on everyone. His shirt gets a bit rips.
And then when he says, when we say the bar fight we're talking about, he takes on the punks who raped his wife.
Yeah.
Yeah, so he's he's starting to cross that line, you know, and you know we understand why. And and then also Pete shows then the cane was found, the cane behind.
The cane, so we have were sort of lift this out. Of course, Quinland gets around, hobbling around with his walking stick and idiotically leaves it in the heat of the moment in the room where janet Ly has Bridge just committed the murder, where Genetly is so and why because he's drunk and he's not thinking clearly, you see what I mean? So what does he do? He staggers off,
then to Marlene. Back to Marlene and Dicres joint to sit alone, listen to the p andol are playing, where she's basically saying, get out.
You know you have no future.
You have no future. You know that's it. You know you're doomed. You're doomed. So what happens. Vargas convinces Quentland's loyal dog Mensies to wear a wire and we're going to get him on tape admitting what he's done and that he's behind all this corruption, okay, and which is heartbreaking. Now he's got to redeem himself. He knows that the line there's no future for you also applies to Menzies, you know, so he's going to go well.
He knows he's been betrayed out and not just on this one scene. Because the fascinating thing about this movie is it's Hank Quinland's self righteousness because this crime had nothing to do with him. Really, it was the fact that somebody was trying to encroach on his space and he.
Felt it was his pride. Pride was hurt.
And he could have he could have, like if he had a follow procedure, he would have actually finally left. If we were to believe that Sanchez actually did confess, you know, honestly, you know, and not under and not under duress, he would have solved the crime. But he gets himself in this because of pride. He gets himself in this, this awful situation where I think it's not killing.
People, not just pride, but I think paranoia too, because if you've got somebody else encroaching on your turf, god knows what they'll turn up, which is what happens.
And it's race as well, isn't it.
Like I mean, you know, it's always you people and you people this and you know, a foreigner looking at my Turkey Farm. You know, there's a lot of which I think is played, you know, for the time pretty you know, pretty well, it's it's it's it's certainly there, but in a way that you know, I think ages you know, it's not like hard to watch because of it, you know what I mean, Like it feels like part of the story and it's not grat shuitous.
Yeah.
So then and then well let's have a bit of a listen to our final scenes of Pete trying to get a confession.
Yeah, and bear in mind though we've got to get we've got to get Quenland out of Marlene and Dietrich's chamber because the p and ole was playing, so they won't get a good recording. And we should also point out when we're talking about wearing a wire, this is nineteen fifty eight technology, okay, folk, So it's not just like putting a little subtle microphone under the lapel and you know, the recording places like in you know, Miami,
which you can get away with. Now, no, no, no, Vargas is going to have to follow with the recording equipment with the antenna up close by. But we've got a lure quinlan out of the house.
First, and then and then there's there's all.
The high suspension wise much wise the oil dereks are pumping up and downside.
This seeming is about that's about the money. And he's and he's like, I could have you know, I could have earned a lot more, you know.
And I've got some lakers, a couple of lakers in a Turkey fun yeah.
And and and I mean the you know, the allegory going on here with you know, there's the the dirty river, there's the mess that's in the river, There's there's all this stuff going on. It's it's pretty perfect. And listen to the sound design as we refer to earlier. Between we we got to switch perspectives between Hank and Vargas.
Who's tailing him under the bridge?
Bargash feeling place around here.
Close to me? Wait, Vigas, why should he.
You sound kind of nervous?
Game leg it's tarting to talk to me, Burgus. Maybe he's tailing me with the bug.
Recording. Hey are you carrying a bag for him?
A microphone and.
Met nod you better commit that gun? Where is he?
Where is he?
How did you figure the frame?
Vigus with the.
Framed husband, Frank, where is he?
August?
Where is he?
Heck, look, I'm talking to Vargas.
Now, August, hear me.
Talk to you through this this walking microphone to work for me.
No, I ain't working for Bigus. I'm working for the department, Hank. But they give me the vigus is good. Okay, here this.
Stupid maybe's shot. Yeah, bye bye, Hank.
Yeah, I talk about telling up all the loose ends. Yeah, but also the sense of betrayal from both of them. But you know, yeah, of course he fucking shoots him and now correct him wrong. It's Vargas is gune.
That he is to do so then, so then Hank tries to basically tells him he's not he's not killed. Hank goes down to the river because he's he's hurt, and he's drunk. He's drunk, and he basically stumbles back in and he's lying down and he has one more interaction with Vargas, who has appeared now, and he tries to convince him that Hank Quinland he is still going to come out on top.
Well, Captain, I have a friend. His family is something you can't talke your way out of. You want him back, you'll kill him.
Bars commander, give me my gun back.
Yeah, it's just telling me you killed Pete.
Bullet is from here?
Gun?
Do you think anyone would believe that?
They always believe me anyway.
I never believe I killed him a gun.
You're resisting arrest.
How could you arrest me here?
This is my country?
This is where you're gonna die.
There wasn't no miss pocus. I was just to turn you around.
I don't want to shoot turn my back. I should rather try around for it.
So it's a brilliant shot in the film shot, not the actual gun shot. Then we have pet not quite dead, hanging over and gets a shot off, and we don't know if it's a fatal shot. Well it's not because he could who knows how he dies in the end, but he's probably died from the gunshot or he's round.
But he goes over and he.
Says, this is the second bullet I'm taken for you, which doesn't really I thought long and hard, where what was the first bullet?
There was a scene that was taken out.
No, no, no, this is where the limp comes from. I've always assumed that that's where the limp comes from, is that during many years ago, he took a bullet, took a bullet for Pete and got the limp and saved him.
Yeah, so there's a scene that was cut that was explained that went into that a little bit more, which I'm not sure if you completely need. I mean, I'm not saying it's a perfous, but it made that line at a critical moment in the movie where everything should mean something that this is a second bullet took for you, didn't quite land for me.
Well, what is the implication is that you've shot So there's a logic to it because you say you just shot me and that's the second bullet I took for you. But is he saying by taking that bullet, I'm saving your neck because I go out the bad guy? You draw that bow from it, you know, And of course that causes Quinland to stagger back into the into the sewer basically and drown and float away like a turd. Basically. He goes back from whence he came.
And Alena arrived and she said, is anyone going to fish him out? And they said, yeah, they will soon. There's no real.
Yeah, and that's of course when she says the line, what can you say about any man? You know? Was he he was? What was the line? He was a good detective but a bad cock lowsy cop, but he was a man? And what can you say about any man? Which brings us full circle, because that's the lines that John Travolta as Chili Palmer is mouthing in the scene from Get Shorty, which made me go, oh, ship, I better ring Ellie out? And I haven't sent touns of evil.
That's how you wrap up podcast, ladies and journal that is that is a man who knows how to tell a story.
And there are a couple a few little fun little facts that I want to share and a ho we.
Get to that? Can I gets it? Now that you've seen it? How do you feel about it? I feel about it?
Listen? So I watched it twice.
The first time I watched it, I wasn't sure about it. It was a second time watching it family enough with subtitles on. Sometimes I find with older films, I don't know it's my ear or the sound. The sound I just don't often pick up some detail. And there is if it's some overlase.
There is a lot of subtlely in the performances too.
Yeah, so I enjoyed it more and I've picked up a lot more the second time I watched it. I really like it. It's stunning. It's you know, like you said, there are things you forgive in this film, but I.
I really yeah, I look, I see you.
I watched it the first time, like you, I thought to myself, there's a lot of mist here. But I couldn't stop thinking about it now. I kept thinking myself, I can't wait to watch it again, and I put it off, put it off until last night, knowing i'd be seeing you today and so it was going to be really fresh. And I love it, you know. I tell you that my favorite shot in the film, this
is going to be a weird one. When Schwartz and Vargas decide they're going to team up together, and there's a shot where they're racing off in the convertible, but they've got a huge dolly that's on a crane chasing after them from sort of almost like a bird's eye point of view as they race off between.
What's that scene? I thought, this looks amazing because it's so use.
It was one of the first shots ever where dialogue was shot on the moving car.
Yeah, and can you know too, people can no. I mean obviously your audience on this show, you've got a lot of movie lovers, but you've got to remind people sometimes the size of the cameras back then to get away with these camera moves. We're talking if Pete and not pretty big guys. It's like like six of us, you know what I mean, Like we didn't you know, filmmaking wasn't changed until the Paniflects came out, you know, in the late sixties, which allowed Dennis Hopper to go
off and make Easy Rider. That's when you could just pick the camera up and put it on your shoulder and go. These things were behemoth. It's like the Imax cameras are now. They're huge. They sound like lawn mowers when you get started cranking the film through them. So some of the shots, I'm just going, man, who's ever in your grips department on this one? Where's the oscars for those guys?
Yeah?
You know what I mean. But it just the thing about the film, folks, is it sticks with you. It's haunting. You can see the influence on films like Chinatown. You can see the influence La Confidential in particular. La Confidential
actually lifts some shots directly from it. But it is really one of the last great film noirs of American cinema, and it's almost like it's really Wells's last great film as direct A lot of people love Is for Fake, but that was sort of cobbled together over many years, which you mean, you know, borrowing money here, there and wherever to get the film made. This is your sort of last really big, great studio film, and they bug it around with it, but you know, welcome Merge fortunately
got it all back together. I highly recommend it. I'm going to out of five stars, a deduct star for Heston not leaning into the Mexican accident, yeah, okay, yep, and but for everything else, yeah, four stars out of five.
I reckon fantastic and I'm I'm so glad you loved it.
I assumed you you would at least find it interesting, so you know, and now you can tick it off that you've seen a touch of evil and we'll spend another three years finding the next film for.
You to come back and talk about this.
I think it's a premier one of the early screenings was in the nine to fifty eight Brussels World Fair and at one top prize. Two of the judges was Jean Luke Gottarde and Francis a true faux who they make got Jean luc makes Breathless two years later and Trifoe makes four hundred Blows a year later.
So obviously those films will be.
They would have been prepping, but they both say this was a big influence and seeing that although at least inspired by this, so you know who knows with editing choices and even production choices, how that kind of manifested Marlon Ditrich, there was a lot of favors being done. He mentioned me, said he's mc cambridge.
Malena.
Dietrich did this as a favor to Owen Wilson. The Owen Wilson, I write, my notes have shortcuts, Owes Well, can you imagine.
Hey, you nothing gets by you, buddy, mister movie.
But she even the executives weren't.
It was kept top secrets, and the executives didn't even know that she was appearing in this movie. And and and shot all her in one night.
Oh wow.
And he was awsome.
Wells was so paranot about having any executives on set that the first day of shooting, knowing there was going to be like studio spies on set.
In fact, he might have actually known that they're on set for the first day.
So he just organizes quite simple shots for him and he started at nine am, finished the second one at nine to fifteen, had the second one done by nine twenty five. The executive ran over to the phone and said, no, I think we're all safe for you. He ran over and then he shot like a two day scene as soon as they left, which is its great generally broken arm before filming, and they kind of covered that up
in various ways. I mentioned that has one of the big scenes which if you watch the original scene and one of the things that Auson Wells was really fighting for. In that opening scene in the original they had credits going over, which Austin Wells did not want. He wanted this, you know, opening scene to speak for itself. And as you know, the older movies they have all the all the all the credit of course, yeah.
You know they you know.
Well, it was not only Studio Post because it became part of the Director's Guild of America that that had to happen, which famously led to the showdown between George Lucas and the d GA over Star Wars because there's no credits at the start of Star Wars, so he had to quit the DGA, and which is why Spielberg did not direct a return of the Jedi, because Spielberg didn't want to give up his DGA membership.
Rather, that's amazing, Yeah, that's fanta. I love that. I love it.
And the final one, the custom officer at the boomgates. This is the one tracking shot, and he kept on fucking up his lines. You must know you would have been in his scenes where you know the pressure of even a long you have when you have maybe lines at the end of it.
No, mate, I can tell you. I've just come off a film where big scene, whole cast in the scene, big long walk up, me walking up into close up line.
Fuck hit your mark line line. Oh the pressure.
Well, this custom officer kept on fucking up his line and eventually all some wells because I'm losing. Actually, I think there's one lunchhot towards you. You can see a little bit of morning light, you know, because they're losing. They losing and and.
So also Wells.
I said to him, just if you forget your line, just mouth the words. Just mouth something and I will put it in in posts. Whatever whatever you do, don't say again, I'm sorry, mister Wells.
So do you know how many takes they had to do to get that opening track?
I'm not exactly sure how many. It's probably it's probably around, it's probably available.
That would have been a whole night's worth of work, though. I mean they would have set up the timing and everything, blocked it during day and then had dinner break and then we're working. Let's go.
Got it done, got it done?
Well, mate, this this podcast comes with homework.
I appreciate you doing it.
Like absolutely pleasure.
But did you watch it your you're a man of ownership, so you actually had to wait for the criterion.
It's not the criteria I was hoping. I couldn't find it on criteria. I'm sure it's been done on criterion. But do you wait for the three version version to come? But I only watched the ninety eight cut twice.
Well, mate, you've gone above and beyond it. I love it as I knew you would, mate, love you. And there's an exciting things happening in the next thing, you know, which none of which we can talk about, none of witch you talk about.
But I'll tell you what this this this thing that I'm working on, not the film that I've just shopped at, this thing that we're going to be doing hopefully later in the year. Yes, you will be getting a tap on the shoulder, but you will be involved.
Oh well, I wasn't fishing, but I got more time in my hands, and so.
Well we all do, we all do? So yes.
No.
I was talking with Cavalier about it and said, you know, Hellia would be perfect for this part, and Ed said, yeah, you're right, that'll be that'll work.
It's on public record now, so that's good.
So I just deny it and backpedal, and so just say I wasn't sober for that podcast. I what the hell you're talking about?
When the investors go no, we actually we go on hall, we we want Hughes.
Yeah, we don't, we want hem which one? Anyone?
Just not HELLI Now, thanks so much, man.
After an hour I've talking now almost two hours of talking to you, I'm not sure if I want to watch another movie or watch some footy I'm not sure.
I'm confused.
Bring on the weekend, Bring on the weekend.
Love you mate, Thanks, love you too.
Brother. Come on read my future for me.
You haven't got any There you go the Unicorn episode. What a way to kick off season six. Have you ain't seen nothing yet? With Lucky Hume? We thought he had seen everything. We finally found one. When I got that text measure saying we you know I found one, I genuinely felt like it was Christmas. It was so exciting to get it, so exciting to finally find the time for both of us to sit down together and wrap this one out. And you know, I went and
picked Locky up before the podcast. We drove over here. It was very hard. We had to stop us force ourselves not to talk about this movie.
We always want to feel fresh.
So yes, Lucky Hume is finally seen a touch of evil and we're all the better for it. Such a passionate guys, as encyclopedia, as far as his knowledge of film and many things, and it's always I just love being in his company. So thank you, Lockie, You're a bloody legend, Matin and thank you bye and now
And so we leave Old Pete save man soul, and to our friends of the radio audience, we've been a pleasant good name.