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1934 - Crime Dentist
22 Plays2 years ago
The last year of the Pre-Code era! This episode we talk about the Three Stooges, a steamy wig movie, a proto-French New Wave drama, the quintessential romantic comedy, a proto-Shane Black Christmas detective movie, and Peter Lorre's English language debut!
You can watch along with our video version of the episode here on Youtube!
You can check out our Instagram, Twitter, and other social media crap here: http://linktr.ee/1w1y
And you can watch and form your own opinions from our 1934 Films Discussed playlist right here!
One Week, One Reel
Woman Haters
Our Feature Presentation
The Scarlet Empress
L'Atalante
It Happened One Night
The Thin Man
The Man Who Knew Too Much
See you next year!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'One Week One Year' Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to One Week One Year, a podcast where we watch and discuss every year of film history in order, starting from 1895, the dawn of cinema. And this week we've made it up to 1934.
End of Pre-Code Era in 1934 Film History
00:00:23
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts, Chris Ellie. I'm a film projectionist and joining me as always is. I'm Glenn Covell. I'm a filmmaker. And yeah, we're into 1934 right now, getting toward the end of the, I guess, at the end of the pre-code era. But we'll get into that.
00:00:39
Speaker
Glenn, what's going on? What's up? Uh, like with me as a person? As with you as a person.
Chris's Silent Film and LA Trip
00:00:45
Speaker
I don't know if I told you that the, um, the silent short film that I shot a while ago, uh, got into at least one film festival. Oh, that's fun. Nice. Got that to look forward to.
00:00:57
Speaker
What festival, can you say? I think so. The Tri-Buro Film Festival in Queens. That's all three boroughs. There's three of them. True, but it's the screening is in Queens. Southern New Godzilla movie, it was very good. I need to see that. Check it out. Yeah, it's very good. What about you? I just went on a bit of a short excursion to Los Angeles. Indeed, how did that go?
00:01:25
Speaker
Good, good. Good old time. I went to Disneyland for the first time, so that was pretty cool. What's your gate expression? Did you go to Galaxy Edge? So I did, and I was going to skip it because I was like, nothing's worth waiting two hours in line. Star Wars.
00:01:45
Speaker
The line got to about half an hour and I was like, okay, now's my chance. I'm going to go do it. And I will say it was incredible. It was one of the most amazing things that I've ever seen. I want to go. The scale of it is unimaginable. Damn, damn, damn, damn.
00:02:05
Speaker
And I also went to the Egyptian theater, which I saw a couple screenings there, which was super, super cool. Got to read a little bit about the history. They had some plaques up there, and they were like, here's an image from the first from the movie premiere of the mass or the movie premiere of The Thief of Baghdad from 1940 starring Douglas Fairbanks. And I was like,
00:02:30
Speaker
Oh, no, the 1940 version isn't the Douglas Fairbanks one. And they said, yeah, we know there's a lot of issues with these plaques and we need to fix them. What? That's a pretty big oversight. I know. Yes. Put in the Egyptian theater on blast. Yeah.
00:02:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's like, oh, it's the premiere of the original The Star is Born film from the 1940s starring Lady Gaga. It's like, no, different movie. Yes, I think they just Googled Thief of Baghdad and were like, that one looks right. Sure. Print it on a plaque. That one looks old. Great.
00:03:06
Speaker
But yeah, I was trying to not be an insufferable nerd. An insufferable nerd, and I was like, hey, just so you know. But yeah, it was really cool. It's a really impressive theater, so I really enjoyed seeing it. I guess I should say, as you, an audience, thanks for choosing us to listen to. So many podcasts you could listen to.
00:03:32
Speaker
Why choose this one? This boring podcast about old movies. Yeah, I don't have a good reason. Hopefully we can make an entertaining for people. Yes, yes. Yeah, thanks for listening. Check us out on the socials and keep an eye out for new episodes on YouTube and your podcast app.
00:03:55
Speaker
With that stuff out of the way, you know, we always like to give ourselves a little bit of that sweet context for what is happening in the year in which we are speaking, of which we are speaking.
Notable Events and Films of 1934
00:04:09
Speaker
So Glenn, why don't you take it away with the news? The news of the year, 1934. Arcatraz Island opens its doors to the first round of prisoners as a new federal prison. The Loch Ness Monster is allegedly photographed in Scotland.
00:04:24
Speaker
Decades later, it proves to be a hoax. Public enemy number one, John Dillinger, is gunned down by police outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago. Following the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler orders the execution of his rivals within the Nazi Party and declares himself the sole head of state. Outlaw couple, Barney and Clyde, are killed in a fiery ambush by police. Cole Porter's musical, Anything Goes, premieres in New York City. Bruno Hauptmann is arrested in connection to the Lindbergh kidnapping case.
00:04:54
Speaker
The first set of quintuplets to survive infancy are born in Canada. Gotta give it a peppy read for the human interest story. It reads sadder than it is. It's a happy story. Yeah, babies are alive and all you think about is babies dying. Right, yeah. The news from 1934, babies are alive.
00:05:19
Speaker
Except the Lindbergh baby. Oh, no. Yeah, correct. Leave all that in. I mean, oh, are you done? Yeah, that's it. That's all the news. Yeah, there wasn't there wasn't too much that happened aside from Nazis. Yeah, a lot of that in 34.
00:05:43
Speaker
Bad news, don't like it. A lot of criminals being killed in America and Nazis killing people in Germany. That's kind of the two big news stories for 34. So bright and fun. And then babies living in Canada, which is a good thing. Good for Canada. Yes. And those babies who are dead now. Maybe not, actually. No, I think two of them are still alive. Oh, nice. Yeah.
00:06:13
Speaker
Shouldn't quintuplets all die at the same time, you know? Wouldn't that make sense? I don't think that's really how people work, generally, but... If they were born at the same time, they should die at the same time. It would be poetic. What is this? Midsummer? G'day. Yeah, they all joined Heaven's Gate and died at the same time.
00:06:35
Speaker
god let's move on from all of this darkness to something silly for our one week one reel of this year which is uh the woman haters uh what a god god we can't we can't win everything everything's dark and grim right now well it it
00:06:55
Speaker
It's a hell of a title. The movie itself was not that dark and grim, thankfully. No. Because it's the Three Stooges. That's right. The first, like, canonical Three Stooges short. The first one that's, like, they're credited as the Three Stooges. They have, like, their names in place. The first, like, in quotes, real Three Stooges short. Uh, yeah. And they've been doing their act since
00:07:20
Speaker
22 on vaudeville and bit parts in movies and that kind of thing but yeah, yeah, this is this is and this is post Shemp pre-Shemp three stages because Shemp was part of the original act and was in some of the early some of the early film roles, but then was swapped out for for curly
00:07:42
Speaker
Curly's more iconic, anyway. I think so, yeah. I'm more of a Curly fan, as I think most people tend to be. Kind of the Pete Best of the Three Stooges. Sure. This run of shorts for Columbia went from 34 to 1959, which is pretty impressive. How familiar were you with the Three Stooges?
00:08:05
Speaker
I definitely watched a lot of Three Stooges when I was a kid. I don't think I've seen a Three Stooges short in a very long time. But it's very much the kind of thing that a dad chose their child, you know? Look at these funny guys slapping each other. I remember they used to be on AMC every night at like 6 p.m. in like a block. They'd play like, I think, two shorts.
00:08:33
Speaker
with like wrap commercial wraparounds with Lizzie Nielsen.
00:08:37
Speaker
as a professor of Stoogery. And so that was, I think, my intro to Three Stooges. I had some of the public domain ones on VHS as a kid that I watched a lot. Nice. So have you been classically a big Stooges fan? I guess. I mean, I watched them a lot when I was younger. There was a period of time where I watched them on TV every day because it was always on. It was like, gotta watch the Stooges.
00:09:07
Speaker
Eat my dinner real quick so I can watch Stoogery. No Saturday morning cartoons for you. Not watch those two. Tuesday morning Stooges. Tuesday evening Stooges. But I'd never seen this one. And this one's definitely like a...
00:09:25
Speaker
Atypical for a Three Stooges short. In that it is, it's very Susie, it's very Dr. Susie. The entire thing is kind of told in rhyming, not quite song, but rhyming. It's what was labeled a musical novelty short, which I guess was a thing in 1934 where they would do comedy shorts as he's kind of like rhyming not quite musicals.
00:09:55
Speaker
It's a fun gimmick. It is. But even that like the they don't even though they're I think they're credited at the start as like Mo Larry Curley. They're kind of names within the fiction of the short are not like Larry is Jim. I think another one is like another name like they don't have their like classic
00:10:17
Speaker
names as characters, which is kind of odd. Yeah, I mean, in many ways, I think because they had been doing their act in some way for like 12 years already, they feel very fully formed. But in terms of the Three Stooges that we know quite well, this is like kind of a proto version of that.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah, their classic bits haven't really fully coalesced. There is slapping and eye poking, but not to the degree that it is done later. I feel like a lot of their antics feels a little bit less refined in this one.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think. But honestly, you know, I haven't seen some of the later students stuff in a while, but I feel like some of the other stuff is just like all slapping each other just for 20 minutes. And I like the kind of back and forth where it kind of delves into a slapsticky segment and then back into other stuff.
00:11:20
Speaker
of this one. Basically, they are joining a club of woman haters. They get a little pin that says WH for Woman Hater on it, and it's a bunch of stodgy old guys in a room who talk about how much they hate women.
00:11:42
Speaker
Like, particularly their, like, desire never to get married or to, like, be in a relationship with a woman. Which really just makes it a club for incels, I think. Well, they're voluntary celibates, really. I mean, yeah, but also that's kind of part of why incels are dumb, because then they, like, get mad when someone, like, has a relationship with a woman. They're like, you're not part of the club anymore.
00:12:10
Speaker
They're joining a proto-Reddit forum, but in the 1934 version of that. Before watching this, I saw the title and I was like, oof, yikes, what is this going to be? And I was very thankful to see that the movie is making fun of people who declare themselves women haters. Right. It's very much a sort of like these old idiots.
00:12:35
Speaker
Because then the students join the club kind of just to be included and then Larry almost immediately starts.
00:12:43
Speaker
a relationship with a woman and they get mad at him. They're like, you can't. You're breaking the rules of the club. So they all put money down to to make sure that none of them will will fall victim to the praise, fall victim to women. And and then Larry tries to call off the wedding, but he is kind of physically threatened by by some very imposing people.
00:13:11
Speaker
There's there's a great like visual gag of like that guy over there. He's the last one who broke off an engagement and it cuts to the guy and he's like in a bunch of bandages and a sling and like a crutch. Yeah, and then like a kind of metaphorically audible gulp from from Larry. And so he decides to go through with it and maybe one of cinema's greatest gulpers in terms of just like
00:13:39
Speaker
Uh-oh. I just watched the Seinfeld episode where George is trying to call off a wedding. Yeah. So symmetry, poetry. A real Larry type, George Costanza. Yeah, I think so. So the rest of the short is basically them getting into antics, trying to stop each other from being around women and trying to not allow each other to see when they are trying to go after the ladies.
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah. Which sometimes devolves into slapping and poking and beating over the head and all that kind of thing. They incorporate the eye poke into the woman hater club initiation thing. To get initiated, you need to get your eyes poked. I don't think this was the first time they had done an eye poke.
00:14:35
Speaker
joke, but I think it's funny that they're like trying to incorporate it into the plot more, whereas later they're like, no, just poke each other in the eyeballs. It's fine. It all seems quite violent. This short, like in what they do, like it does seem like they're really hitting each other. Maybe not as hard as it looks, but like it would feel violent if it weren't for the sound effects, which I love.
00:14:58
Speaker
Three students sound effects are like world class, some of the best sound effects in in all of film comedy, I would say. See, this this feels like to me the kind of proper sound evolution of Silent Slapstick, because those sound effects really help to sell the cartooniness that is automatically sold without sound in right in earlier shorts.
00:15:24
Speaker
And so it all feels very goofy and light, even though I think that adding sound normally adds a bit more of a sense of realness to a work. Yeah, the sound kind of gives it almost like a hyper real quality to it. It makes all the slaps feel like just giant and way louder than they should be. And yeah, a lot of like doink, boink.
00:15:54
Speaker
You know, a lot of that kind of, yeah, great stuff. The guy who plays the head of the Woman Haters Club is Bud Jameson. He's kind of a classic Three Stooges straight man. He's always the one who's like getting exasperated by their antics.
00:16:13
Speaker
But he's already shown up in a bunch of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd stuff already. He's kind of a mainstay of the old Silent Slapstick movies too. I don't know, so that's fun. He bridges both eras.
00:16:32
Speaker
Yeah, it looks like he was in a few lonesome, like a lot of lonesome Luke shorts. Yeah. It's funny because I remember him popping up in one of those shorts that we watched for the show and being like, is that the guy from Three Stooges shorts? Oh, nice. Good face recognition. Yeah. Are you a telephone? Are you a robot? Prove, prove.
00:16:59
Speaker
Uh, do you have anything else on Three Stooges? Um, I don't think so. I mean, I this is like a notable one because it's like the first official one. But I hope we end up watching more of these two because I think they're fun and they're like fun. They're they feel very like like a lot of good 1930s lingo in three stooges shorts for sure. And and 1930s accents. Mm hmm. Yeah.
00:17:27
Speaker
Let's see. Well, I guess then we can move on to our feature presentation.
Discussion on 'The Scarlet Empress'
00:17:32
Speaker
And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation.
00:17:39
Speaker
So we were just talking about the three Stooges, and I think we can draw them in contrast a little bit to the Marx Brothers, who have taken a sort of less directly physical approach toward adding sound to comedy. So let's talk about a movie that has someone that reminds me of
00:18:04
Speaker
Let's talk about a movie that has someone that reminds me of Harpo in it, which is the Scarlet Empress. Oh, okay. It's funny, I know you mean now. It's a long mind up, but there's my segue. The Scarlet Empress is a movie about Catherine the Great, but Peter II is played very Harpo-like.
00:18:31
Speaker
True. I did not make that connection, but now that you point it out. Yeah. This is a movie from the classic team of Von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich. And I did not know this was about Catherine the Great before I watched it. I was just like Scarlet Empress. That sounds cool. And then I saw a bunch of wigs and costumes and I was like, oh, my God, so boring. Not a wig movie.
00:18:59
Speaker
I really have a hard time with wig movies. Yeah, although I think this movie does a lot to distinguish itself from other wig movies or other movies set during what I call nutcracker times. Big time nutcracker times visuals in this movie.
00:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, a costume drama, I think, is the word for it. Right, yes. But yeah, this is a movie that is kind of wearing its pre-code nature on its sleeve in certain scenes. There are Sophia, as she's initially known when she lives in Germany, and then she is kind of brought to Russia to become
00:19:47
Speaker
the wife of Peter II to give them an heir to the Russian throne. She's kind of learning about Russia and then there's just like like hear about the Ivan the Terrible and all these other
00:20:03
Speaker
violent people in in Russian history and then it flashes to all of these scenes of Like brutal torture and people's clothes getting ripped off and getting strung up on on Wheels that torture you and that kind of thing. Yeah beheadings Yeah, right cuz so the criterion release of this movie that I watched has the production code card at the start like stamped
00:20:30
Speaker
like approved by the production code of America. So then I immediately assumed, oh, this is like sort of one of the first, you know, like Hayes code era movies. Right. And then immediately, like five minutes in, I'm like, no, no, it can't be because there is so much nudity and torture in this.
00:20:48
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder what's up with that. The whole kind of pre-code, post-code thing is kind of a loose definition because the production code existed during the early 30s. It just wasn't really enforced. So I think this is just like it had a card on it.
00:21:04
Speaker
But it also wasn't censored by Hollywood. Huh. Yeah, true. I wonder, I guess as we move into 35, we might see a bit more about like what might be different about pre-code and post-code. Yeah. But yeah, that is interesting. So yeah, scratch everything that I said, because who knows? Don't know about that. There is a lot of violence and stuff in this movie and very specific scenes. But I would say that most of it is
00:21:33
Speaker
is people in wigs talking to each other. It's a pretty steamy movie too. There's a lot of making eyes, a lot of innuendo, a lot of blowing up candles. The whole crux of the movie is we're bringing you from Germany to Russia so that you can make us a baby.
00:21:57
Speaker
And it goes into detail about what that involves. This movie... I will say I didn't know too much about Catherine the Great until I did some reading after watching this. And I guess like...
00:22:13
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know, like the whole movie is structured in a very strange way where it's like two thirds of it is her kind of going to Russia and kind of initially becoming integrated into the Russian society. And then there's a time and for that entire period, she's very like doe-eyed and innocent and like
00:22:36
Speaker
I'm just a humble little German girl, I don't know what's going on. Right, very like against the kind of typical like von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich character archetype.
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah, and then like two-thirds of the way in, there's an inter-title that's like some time passed and she became brutal and power-grabbing, and then she's like a completely different person right after that. Right. Then after that point, she is like a very classical Mona Dietrich character that is like, not to say she plays like a scheming character in most things, but like a far more like
00:23:14
Speaker
kind of knowing like high status kind of aloof type of person. Right. Which yeah that that jump is weird that I I think that character arc is really interesting but they they like pull the whole metal out so you don't really see a lot of transition. It's I mean it's hypothetically interesting but I don't they don't right there is no arc they just show a beginning and an end. Right and that's kind of you know
00:23:41
Speaker
One of my issues with this movie is that it has that like big jump in it. It's like, no, but we want to see that happen. And that happens a lot in this movie is it will cut to intertitles of just explaining what happens. And then it's like, well, you could have just shown that.
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah as like a movie maybe. There are some weird choices in this movie for sure particularly related to the intertitles like we don't see intertitles that much anymore um it felt like it was coming from like a silent movie perspective in a bit of a way where they were like we can just explain all the complicated stuff in an intertitle but this movie you know it does it does
00:24:20
Speaker
use sound in at least at least music in in a bigger way than we've seen a lot of stuff. Probably in comparison to the other movies, there's a lot of soundtrack music in this one, including like the 1812 Overture, like stuff that's kind of related to Russia as far as classical music.
Catherine the Great Film Comparisons
00:24:41
Speaker
One of the Valkyries is in there.
00:24:42
Speaker
Yes. I think it's all classical music, I think, right? I don't know if there's any original score for this. I'm not sure. I don't know enough about classic music to say. Yeah, I mean, the thing that I think stick out the most to me about this movie is the production design of it.
00:25:01
Speaker
is really cool and it's like much more kind of expressionistic than I think a lot of movies have been. Like this movie feels very German even though it was made in Hollywood. Just in the sense of like how kind of surreal a lot of the sets are and like how dramatic a lot of the lighting is.
00:25:22
Speaker
I mean, it's not going as far as the Golem or Caligari, but it is- No, but it's leaning that direction, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. At least with the lighting. There's a lot of shots in this that are through fabric or netting or something like that.
00:25:44
Speaker
The netting itself is in focus. And so it's kind of this really interesting kind of filter over over certain things. And it sort of communicates different vibes, sultry vibes through through sheer fabric. Yeah, this is a very sultry film for sure. Yeah. But yeah, there's like in the kind of big Russian palace of the Emperor Empress.
00:26:10
Speaker
there's lots of like statues and gargoyles of like kind of creepy like deformed figures that are all like crying or like strangling each other or there's just all these very like you know spooky statues everywhere and it's like incorporated into like the chairs or the candle holders or the staircases and things and so it's like when
00:26:38
Speaker
Sophia later renamed Catherine because she needs to have a Russian name when she goes to Russia. When she arrives, it's like, oh, they're in hell now.
00:26:48
Speaker
like it's this very kind of like descent into darkness kind of feeling which is cool yeah i mean there's like um in the first part of the movie uh you know she's very innocent and there's all this like threatening auras around her that she is trying to figure out how to navigate different people trying to use her for different purposes or treat her poorly either like performatively or to like show their power over her or something like that
00:27:18
Speaker
And yeah, and then she kind of rises up to become the king of hell, I guess. Yeah. This movie like ends with her ascent to the throne rather than I was kind of expecting more like as she is the empress, what she is doing. But it really is like her journey from like kid to being brought into the royal family to seizing power. And that's it. Yeah.
00:27:48
Speaker
Which is like, yeah, on paper a really great story arc, but there's like chunks missing kind of. Yeah. Less so in plot and more just like in characterization.
00:27:59
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. The plot's straightforward enough. I felt like, yeah, I felt like the characters could have been better. This movie was not the only Catherine the Great movie that came out this year. Right. It's this kind of a right like Armageddon deep impact situation here.
00:28:20
Speaker
Because there was another one called The Rise of Catherine the Great that had Douglas Fairbanks Jr. playing Peter the Second, but it was generally less well regarded than this one. Not to keep going back to the set thing, but like, a scene that really started out to me, it's like there's a big banquet, happens fairly early on, that is like...
00:28:41
Speaker
this kind of nightmare wedding feast when Catherine is getting married to Peter. Peter is the guy that you said reminded you of Harpo, is played by Sam Jaffe.
00:28:56
Speaker
who is kind of famous for other stuff later on. This is, I think, his first screen role, but he's like the scientist in The Day the Earth Stood Still, and he's in Lost Horizon, and it's like, I've seen him in a bunch of other things. But he's very creepy in this movie.
00:29:19
Speaker
Yeah, edging into problematic, I guess. But he plays the royal halfwit. And the idea, I guess, is that the inbreeding has caused whatever's going on with him. And they brought in some fresh blood, which is Catherine, to just basically put some more diversity in their gene pool and give them a healthy air.
00:29:48
Speaker
But yeah, he just kind of spends a lot of time being like a creepy weirdo. Yeah. Even though he's been sort of set up to Catherine as like, oh, he's like the most handsome man in all of Russia. And then she shows up and he's this like weird old creep who looks like Harper Marks.
00:30:07
Speaker
Or at least she's acting like Harpo Marx. Right. Yeah. Drilling holes in paintings and stuff to spy on people. But there's there's kind of this through line through I think a lot of that like creepy production design of that like wealth is kind of like disgusting. Like this movie is so like crazy opulent. There's like so much like jewelry and wealth and like
00:30:32
Speaker
excess everywhere on screen and it's like I think that feast really kind of exemplifies it's like looking at that banquet table is like it doesn't look appetizing it looks like gross and upsetting yeah a lot of lot of exposed meat yeah and like bones and there's like this like bubbling cauldron with a skeleton next to it
00:30:55
Speaker
which I guess is the punch or something. I don't know what that is supposed to be, but it's like, ah, sure, put a skeleton next to the soup. But I like how much is expressed kind of through to like the lighting, the costumes, the set design. Like I think that stuff really stood out to me. It's like, this is a really, this is a very good looking movie. And not just because Marley D Dricks in it.
00:31:22
Speaker
We should probably talk about the other like lead character, who is Count Alexei, who's like the guy that brings Catherine to Russia and is like immediately trying to seduce her like before they even leave. And in an early scene just like
00:31:42
Speaker
plants a kiss on her, and then it's like, I love you. Also, I've done a bad thing by kissing you. You have to wit me now. And it's like, fuck the brakes, dude. I mean, I think it speaks to just like how she's being manipulated by people around her from the very beginning. She has like a pretty bad relationship with her mom, who's like kind of doing all the stuff to prepare her to become
00:32:12
Speaker
royalty and doesn't really treat her with a lot much like autonomy. Yeah, she's kind of treating her like property more than anything to be kind of sold off. Yeah. And then like the sexy guy who comes to pick her up. This Dracula looking dude. Yeah.
00:32:29
Speaker
I mean, honestly, I thought what was going to happen was they were going to go on this like eight week journey to Russia. And like he was like, yes, the the the prince is very charming. He's very beautiful. I thought it was going to turn out to be him the entire time. Yeah. Yeah. Instead, it's kind of this big disappointment. She's like, oh, no, like the sexy guy that I kind of like, but also kind of traps me in a corner and kisses me every once in a while is not the one that I'm with. And it's this this weirdo.
00:32:59
Speaker
Yeah, but I there's kind of a like in the first part of the movie when it's like she's kind of the one who's getting seduced by people and it's like manipulate her into doing different things and then by the end of the movie she's kind of like
00:33:16
Speaker
turning the tables on everyone. So, like, this guy who's, like, trying so desperately to get Catherine into bed with him, and then towards the end of the movie, it's like, all right, I've, like, he's finally figured it out. Because then this guy is also sleeping with the previous empress. And then that upsets Catherine. And so she, like, kind of turns the tables on him at the end, which is kind of a... I'm not explaining this very well, but it's a good scene.
00:33:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. She kind of gives him this idea that like he's finally made it and then she's like, go open the door for my real lover. Right. Yeah. There's a good line. What is it? Right. He's like talking to her or in the movie and he's like, oh, I could never like I don't I don't like Peter, but I like I could never be unfaithful to him. Like we're married. And he says those ideas are old fashioned. This is the 18th century, which feels like Joseph von Sternberg being very kind of like
00:34:16
Speaker
Even in the 18th century, marriage was a sham, kind of.
00:34:19
Speaker
Yeah, it gave me very like, it's the 90s. Feeling like those, the way that everyone in the early 90s are like, it's the 90s, women work now. Yeah, pretty much. That line stuck out to me is very funny. There's a lot of like, I think that line a couple of years like knowingly very funny. Like this movie has a kind of like undercurrent of funny wit to it, I think.
00:34:48
Speaker
Yeah, there's some kind of like strange scenes in this like the previous like strange comedy bits that are inserted into this like the the Empress Previous to Catherine she Kind of talks with this like
00:35:04
Speaker
I don't know, East Coast accent or whatever. Right. This is like this kind of fast talking sassy lady who like, yeah, it's very she feels out of place in this like high class. Right. It's also supposed to be 18th century Russian aristocracy. Molina Dietrich talks with the German accent, which fits her character and is just her natural speaking voice. But then pretty much everyone else is either British or American. And I think the Americans really kind of
00:35:32
Speaker
stand out because they're just they're talking just kind of like, well, hello, here we are in Russia. So. Yeah, but I feel like it's not quite this severe, but the the Empress, she's almost like, hey, what's the big idea? Yeah, yeah, it feels it does feel very out of place.
00:35:49
Speaker
There's a part where the comedy-ist bit almost in this entire movie is when the Empress is kind of taking her scepter and she is walking out of the banquet and she tries to grab her scepter to shake it around, to show people, to tell people, I'm your ruler, listen to me. And she accidentally picks up a turkey leg or something like that.
00:36:14
Speaker
And like, so she's shaking around the turkey leg and then her assistant's like tapping on her shoulder and it's like, your scepter's right here, like pick up your scepter. Yeah. And yeah, there's a definite kind of like, not necessarily a mean streak, but a kind of, this movie feels like it's trying to undercut the kind of the pomp and circumstance of like royalty.
00:36:37
Speaker
Shall we, uh, move a little bit east?
Influence of 'L'Atalante' on French New Wave
00:36:41
Speaker
Talk about a movie that is, um, sorry, move a little west. Talk about a movie that is dealing with, uh, some more working class people, uh, in France. Ah. La talente. La talente. Yeah, sure. Where to start on this one. I guess right off the bat, I didn't, I wasn't crazy about this movie.
00:37:01
Speaker
yeah me either yeah i know it's like well regarded but it didn't it didn't do much for me maybe i just didn't get it i can so this movie uh i think was brought into um
00:37:17
Speaker
the world in many ways, brought into the public consciousness because of how loved it is by French New Wave people. Specifically Truffaut really loved this movie.
00:37:33
Speaker
You know, a bunch of New York Times and Chicago Tribune film critics are all like greatest movie ever. Love it, you know. Yeah. But I think it has some of the stuff about French New Wave movies that connect less with me as far as this kind of meandering, I don't know, like.
00:37:54
Speaker
awkward dialogue or like kind of hyper real dialogue where it was kind of like mumbling at each other right it's kind of kind of a 30s mumblecore movie yeah and yeah it does have that kind of French I haven't seen a lot of French new wave movies but it does kind of have that like embracing a lot of the kind of mundane and like everyday
00:38:15
Speaker
life stuff of like, we're just going to follow characters around as they kind of do everyday things. In this case on a boat. Yeah, and I found most of the characters in this to be really kind of off-putting. Yeah. And yeah, in general, it was hard for me to get sort of emotionally invested in it.
00:38:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think that what this movie is going for is depicting some newlyweds who are immediately, they love each other a lot, but they immediately start fighting a lot and act like they hate each other. There's a first mate on the boat who mentions that the two of them are always either kissing or fighting, and that's basically the entire movie.
00:39:05
Speaker
And I think the idea of the movie is them kind of rediscovering their love for each other or like finding their way through these kind of like petty squabbles. But something about all of the nature of all the squabbles felt like fundamentally invalidating to the authenticity of their love. Right. I was left feeling like these people just shouldn't be married. They seem like they just don't get along in general. Yeah.
00:39:32
Speaker
Right, because the man Jean is the skipper of a barge that goes throughout the rivers and canals of France and he marries Juliet who is from this kind of small village. And kind of right away Juliet is like, I don't really like living on a boat, which seems like, you know, maybe a red flag that you married a boat captain and now live on a boat.
00:40:00
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. It's just that there's this movie definitely has a lot of details that I like of either kind of like weird, weird character moments. There's some really great cinematography in it. There's a lot of like low angles and kind of like, like, like industrial landscapes, which I feel like we haven't seen a lot of outside of maybe some of like city symphony type movies. There's some like references to the Great Depression in France, which is something that I thought was interesting.
00:40:31
Speaker
lines yeah lines for getting hired into like yeah work at places yeah it's like the kind of central relationship of the movie it doesn't really it's not that it feels dishonest but it just feels like i'm not invested in it i'm like no these people shouldn't be together this is bad yeah
00:40:53
Speaker
There's something that's sort of set up toward the beginning of the movie, which is Juliette saying that when you look deep into the water, when you put your head into the water, you see the person that you love kind of appear in the water. And Jean starts like sticking his head in the water. He's like, I don't see anything. I don't see anything. She's like, take this seriously.
00:41:19
Speaker
It's just like, it's real, it's real. But it kind of becomes this motif that wraps back around
00:41:29
Speaker
At a point in the movie, at their lowest point, they angrily separate from each other. Juliet really wants to see Paris. And because of some convoluted circumstances, she's not able to. And they could stay a little while longer. But he's like, I'm the boat skipper. I got to keep going. And it's overnight. She kind of sneaks out to go and see Paris, even though he told her not to go.
00:41:59
Speaker
And then when he sees that she's left, he's like, this is the worst insult that could happen to me. And he he leaves the boat. He leaves her to be on her own. She has to she only has what's on her back and she has to find work and food for at least a couple of days. She has money initially, then gets it gets stolen. Mm hmm.
00:42:23
Speaker
She's trying to buy a train ticket and someone steals her bag. There's also the whole thing with the sort of traveling salesman slash magician that they run into. Another Harpo Marx type, one could say. Yeah. He's just this very annoying guy that's trying to dance with Juliet and kind of steal her away and has like
00:42:47
Speaker
He's like, hey, you want to buy a scarf and pulls like 20 scarves out of his sleeves? He's charming. I mean, I don't know. He has a very kind of like French clown slash traveling salesman thing going on that I found very irritating. Well, and so did John, who just wanted to beat him up. He was just seething while he was looking at him.
00:43:11
Speaker
But yeah, as they separate, and yeah, he's mad at her for kind of dancing with that guy and all that. He takes off on the boat, and then as soon as they separate, they both go, oh man, I really like that person that I abandon now. Jean is just, in particular, is just staring off into space nonstop. Yeah, there's a great shot of him standing on the deck.
00:43:37
Speaker
of the boat as the shore is going by in the background behind him that is very striking and very good.
00:43:42
Speaker
Uh, and, and all of that kind of crescendos in him jumping into the water, into the cold sin. And is it the sin? I don't know. And, uh, swimming around deep in the water. And then you finally see these superimposed images of Juliet. Uh, and he's finally seen her in the water. He truly loves her. Uh, and then, but he doesn't know how to find her. And then the first mate helps, helps him find her.
00:44:12
Speaker
I guess a thing that I did like about this movie, I think that a thing that I think this movie does well is like the times when Jean and Juliet are getting along. I do think there is kind of like there's an aspect of just like how how they kind of like interact with each other that it feels more
00:44:33
Speaker
like people who are actually in love with each other, then I think a lot of old movies tend to be. There's kind of a certain degree of like, I feel like Jean and Juliet do a lot of like cuddling and just like, you know, they like hold each other very closely in a way that I feel like old movies don't tend to portray. That kind of stuck out to me. Because it's French.
00:44:57
Speaker
Yeah, the French are allowed to show people like sleeping in one bed like some other movies that we also watched.
Romantic Comedy 'It Happened One Night'
00:45:05
Speaker
I think my favorite movie moments of this are those parts when they're apart and it's very like kind of like wistful and yearning. And I think that's when the sort of disaffected
00:45:18
Speaker
French new wavy cinematography style like sort of helps uh sell those emotions yeah but yeah i i just had a hard time with this movie yeah and maybe it is just like i'm not i'm not like tuned into its wavelength or something um but hey you know it didn't
00:45:41
Speaker
Didn't do a lot. Like sunrise, which I also had mixed feelings about the romantic angle in. Maybe if I watch it again, then I'll feel it some more. Yeah, maybe. Another, I guess, romantic sort of travel film. Oh, OK. Yeah. Yeah?
00:46:04
Speaker
Sure. Is the Academy Award Best Picture winner of 1934. It happened one night. Directed by Frank Capra. Yeah. Good movie. I'd never seen this before, even though it's either a very famous film. It's a classic. I'd seen some of Frank Capra's other later stuff like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It's a Wonderful Life. This is like I feel like this is the like quintessential romantic comedy. This is like all of the things that
00:46:33
Speaker
at least I would associate with like romantic comedies as a genre, is like crystallized in this movie.
00:46:40
Speaker
Huh. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's like these it's definitely got that romantic comedy angle of two people who kind of initially dislike each other, spending a lot of time around each other and then learning to love each other. Then they don't realize how much they love each other until until something something happens to question it. Yeah. I mean, it literally ends with a runaway bride at a wedding.
00:47:04
Speaker
yes and as every romantic comedy ends with an auto gyro with a wealthy aviator flying landing an auto gyro on the lawn yeah that i feel like that's just like if they needed to prove that this is in fact a 1930s movie this movie is sort of like the way that i watch clear list now and it's like this is so obviously a movie from the 90s that it feels like a parody like it's like
00:47:32
Speaker
If you were gonna make a movie now and like put as much like a 90s-ness into it, that's what Clueless is. Whereas it happened one night, I feel like it's like if you tried to distill as much as you could about the 1930s into a single movie, I feel like this is one of the better examples.
00:47:50
Speaker
I definitely see a lot of DNA from this movie in aspects of O Brother or Art Thou. And in particular, there's this Bogdanovich movie that I really like called Paper Moon, which kind of takes this concept and applies it to a father-daughter relationship in a way. Also on black and white probably is an intentional throwback to these kind of movies.
00:48:17
Speaker
Yeah, this is a great kind of like road trip movie too. Yeah, true. The general setup is that there is a rich girl who wants to marry. She wants to marry the first guy who she's ever met, who outside the context of who her dad has told her to hang out with.
00:48:39
Speaker
So who happens to be an aviator, kind of a pompous douchebag. And so she leaves, she runs away from home in Miami, I believe, or somewhere in Florida to take a bus to New York City to meet up with him and the hijinks on the way, setbacks. Partly due to her being kind of insulated from the real world and not knowing, not being street savvy.
00:49:06
Speaker
Well, yeah, because she runs into Clark Gable as a kind of down as luck reporter, who then is like initially kind of trying to get her where she's going because he wants the story. But then very quickly, they both start falling for each other, which is very sweet and cute.
00:49:25
Speaker
A lot of falling asleep on each other's shoulders, that type of thing. Yeah. A lot of the 1930s style of like mean banter that they do with each other. Right. It's like mean banter of them kind of like trying to cover up what they're actually thinking or feeling. Right. Because she's wealthy and so like doesn't know how to like navigate the world super well. A thing that kind of highlights that, I guess, is that
00:49:54
Speaker
This movie is pretty direct in its references to the Great Depression, I think, of people who are out on the road who don't have money for bus tickets or food and staying at trailer parks and things where there's communal showers and you have to wait in line.
00:50:14
Speaker
use the shower she's never heard of a line before right yeah and so it's like very like fish out of water stuff which which plays very well the one scene of this movie that i'd seen before which is very good of them hitchhiking and clark gable is he has all his like different thumb techniques that he uses to try to get a ride which is really great like like physical comedy for him just like just the way that he does it is very like charming and funny of
00:50:43
Speaker
He kind of wiggles his thumb in a certain way, it's like that. This is the one that looks a little sad, and this is the one that looks like, I don't need you, but you should pick me up anyway. And then a comically, a comic amount of Kars go by without stopping while he's doing all his different thumb techniques.
00:51:05
Speaker
And then... And he starts like rapidly doing one after the other as like 30 cars pass by. Claudette Colbert as Ellie then says like, I'll get us a ride. And she says, I won't use my thumb.
00:51:21
Speaker
And so then she shows a little bit of leg and a car immediately stops. Like slams on the brakes. Yeah. There is like zero time between her revealing part of her leg and a car stopping, which is a funny gag. And then they eventually end up stealing that guy's car. Yeah, that part really doesn't go very remarked on that they literally just like take his car. Well, I mean, he was going to use tried to ditch him.
00:51:50
Speaker
Right, okay, but like, you know, you don't owe anything to a hitchhiker. Right, sure, yeah. Hey, Desperate Times, right? They gotta get to New York. That guy's being a jerk. Just steal his car. It's all in the name of love, really. And I think that's, if there's anything, if there's a thing about Christmas, it's that you tell people that you love, tell people you love what they mean. I don't remember the line from that film, but yes.
00:52:18
Speaker
Hang on, this isn't a Christmas movie. That's the next thing we're going to talk about. But hold on. Is there anything else to say about this film? Well, yes, there are a few more things to say. I mean, there are a good number of wipes in this movie, which I hadn't seen in anywhere else or many places before, used in a lot of places. I should mention also the other kind of cinematic
00:52:42
Speaker
novel technique in La Delant was that they had some kind of overdubbed, like, I'm remembering people saying things, and so they have the word, the people's voices appearing while she's thinking. There's a scene where they have had to ditch the bus because her dad, there's this whole angle of her rich dad is trying to catch her and bring her home.
00:53:08
Speaker
And so he's put out like a $10,000 reward to bring her back to Florida. Her face gets started being printed on newspapers and all that sort of thing. And so they're having to sort of duck away from society and the other people around them. And they end up having to leave the bus. And after this
00:53:33
Speaker
Scene that's really really good with Clark Gable and And this guy who it's kind of like sleazy guy on the bus who's trying another like annoying Traveling salesman type. Yeah, who says shapely is the name and that's how I like them which is a very You know at least creeps in the 1930s had the courtesy to talk in banter and
00:53:57
Speaker
Yeah, right? I'm sure banter would be a lot better. Clark Gable's character, he kind of, to throw him off the scent, or at least like, I don't know, like get him away from them. Shapely kind of comes up to them and he's like, he's like, hey, hey guy, like, I'll be good with you, I'll split it, we'll do 50-50. We each get 5,000. Clark Gable takes him aside and he's like,
00:54:25
Speaker
Look, buddy, there's a lot more money involved in this. I don't know how to explain it. He basically like pretends that he's a mafioso type. Yeah. Yeah. And scares this guy off. And he says, here's the pants off him. He says, you got to get a rod. You got any fireworks on you? Which is some great 1930s lingo to ask if he's carrying a gun.
00:54:48
Speaker
And he's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Shapley's the name. I didn't bother. I didn't want to trifle with all this stuff. And he's like, get out of here and don't let me see you turn around. There's a lot of funny, especially with Clark Gable, both him and Claudette Colbert pretending to be different people while they're on the run. There's the bit where they're faking a big, they're pretending to be a married couple in order to get a discount on their room.
00:55:17
Speaker
and they fake a big fight to throw off the scent because there's some detectives that get sent after them. Also give her a reason to hide her face. She becomes quite good at playing along with these bits. A lot of the growing affection that you see in this movie is them both getting good together at finding ways to avoid other people and scam other people. Doing bits.
00:55:46
Speaker
Yeah, but it's like they're they're like faking a big fight and then the people leave and they start laughing about it And then the people come back in they've like immediately start fighting again
00:55:57
Speaker
While they're on the run after they leave the bus, one of the most kind of lasting impacts that this movie has had is a scene where they are near a farm and finding a place to just fall asleep in the hay on the side of the road because they've left the bus, they've got no hotel. So she ends up getting hungry, Peter warm.
00:56:22
Speaker
Clark Gable's character, he goes out and finds some carrots to munch on. And she's like, uncooked carrots right out of the ground. I can't eat that. But he's chomping on carrots. And this in history, in the record, it is not 100% confirmed this is the case, but it is because Clark Gable starts chomping on carrots in a very Bugs Bunny fashion. Right.
00:56:48
Speaker
And Clark Gable already has, like, such a kind of 1930s, like, all right, now look, pal, kind of voice that it makes a lot of sense. But so Bugs Bunny seems to be based very much off of this scene of, like, a wise talking thirties guy chomping on carrots. And
00:57:10
Speaker
Fritz Freeling, one of the people involved in the creation of Bugs Bunny, is a big fan of this movie. So yeah, it shows up very much so in the Bugs Bunny characterization. So we have this movie to thank for that.
00:57:25
Speaker
also there's so while they're like staying at the trailer park or different places under the pretense of being married they they set up like the blanket between their two beds and that's it sort of moments of kind of romantic tension
00:57:41
Speaker
where it's like there's like putting up a blanket and they're both kind of like you can see on either end like both of the both of them really want to cross over to this side of the blanket but like neither one will. The wall of Jericho yeah they call it. And then it's also raining outside which just I feel like kind of gives it even more of this like charged you know it's wet outside get it
00:58:07
Speaker
But also, you know, they see each other undressed in silhouette on the other side of this blanket. And so it's like this very like, ooh, I want to see it. Not even in silhouette, but they're like throwing their clothes over the top of the blanket like a clothesline. And so it's just like, I know what that means.
00:58:28
Speaker
I think that this is considered a pre-code movie, but it has a lot of that pre-code innuendo stuff going on. Ellie eventually gets picked back up by her family and is mad at Peter. She's going to get married to the wealthy aviator anyway.
00:58:50
Speaker
And then Peter shows back up to get the reward money, but he only asks for his like dry cleaning bill. It's like what, like eight dollars or something. And so even he asked for the expenses related to bringing her. Yeah. So like the hotel and then the clothes and they kind of have a moment like right before the wedding where they they talk to each other again and are both like.
00:59:15
Speaker
being very, like, performatively angry at each other. And Ellie's dad is like, clearly there's something going on there. And way more than is going on with this asshole who flies up an auto gyro.
00:59:27
Speaker
So Ellie's dad is kind of the one to be like, hey, daughter, like, you sure you want to marry this aviator dude? Like, Clark Gable's right over there. And so, yeah, like while they're walking up to the, I don't know, the wedding platform, whatever you call it, she's she's being walked up by her dad. He's just kind of whispering, like, hey, you know, like I got a car waiting if you want to dash out of here and go marry that other guy.
00:59:56
Speaker
Which then she does. And it's great. And then the movie ends with, the walls of Jericho have toppled. Which we all know what that means. And at the end of the movie you see like a blanket being taken down.
01:00:11
Speaker
Yeah, the the walls of Jericho. I don't really know anything about the walls Jericho from like a religious perspective, but they actually play on. I believe they're playing on this movie in an episode of Neon Genesis Evangelion, if you believe not. I thought you were going to say the sentence.
01:00:30
Speaker
There is a scene where two of the characters who kind of like have some romantic tension going on are like, they set up like a barrier and they're like, this is the impenetrable wall of Jericho. I realized like, oh, they're doing it happened one night here. Yeah, this is definitely one of those movies that is just like,
01:00:56
Speaker
Everyone likes and will reference forever, kind of. It's a good movie. It's very fun. It is notably the first movie to sweep the Oscars. It won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay, which I think has only happened like three or four times. I know that Silence of the Lambs also did that, but it's pretty rare. And West Florida Cuckoo's Nest. Those are the only other two.
01:01:25
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, it's like the the influence of the kind of antagonistic like romantic tension feels very palpable of like that is such a romantic comedy staple. Which I mean, this movie didn't invent that, but it's like it's such a like clear example of it done really well.
01:01:44
Speaker
And I think the sort of like the chemistry between Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert also is like, that's what makes the movie I think. Like without them kind of having those moments where they're like either performatively being angry or just sort of like laughing over the bits they're doing or sort of like competing over little things like who can get a car to stop or whatever. Like those all are just really great scenes.
01:02:11
Speaker
Speaking of a couple who love riffing each other's bits, we could talk about The Thin Man, which is just
Comedic Mystery 'The Thin Man'
01:02:26
Speaker
about a married couple who love messing with each other and they love messing with other people and doing bits with other people.
01:02:36
Speaker
Much like King Kong, this I think is one of my favorite movies, just full stop. The dialogue in this movie is some of my favorite dialogue in anything I've ever seen. I love this movie.
01:02:49
Speaker
I'd seen it before, obviously. It wasn't like- Yeah, this was my first time. I didn't immediately jump to that highly in my brain. I don't know, this movie is so goddamn charming. I can't deal with it. It's a lot of fun. It is just two people who are just entirely sloshed through the whole movie. Right, yeah. Just having a good time while solving a murder.
01:03:16
Speaker
Yeah, this is a movie about a retired detective and a wealthy heiress who were married, Nick and Nora Charles, and their dog Asta, who's adorable, sort of being roped into solving a series of murders while drinking very heavily the entire time. And they made six of them.
01:03:42
Speaker
Like, this is the first of six Thin Man movies. I've only seen the first three.
01:03:47
Speaker
But they all kind of follow that same basic premise of like, they don't try to get involved in a murder, they're just at a party and someone's talking about murder and they're like, fine, like I'll help you solve the murder. But also, also let me drink eight martinis first. There's a scene where Nora kind of meets up with Nick as he has already been in a party for a while. And she's like, how many martinis in are you? And he's like eight. And she's like, bring me eight martinis.
01:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, speaking of like good romantic chemistry was Myrna Loy and William Powell. William Powell have some of the best romantic chemistry of like any two actors I've ever seen.
01:04:30
Speaker
yeah they get along so well and like you know in the last movie it is people pretending that they hate each other because they don't want to admit to each other that they love each other right and this is two people who clearly love each other pretending to hate each other as bits and then really just like just to amuse each other like yeah they're like their love for each other is never in doubt this entire movie it's like they're
01:04:58
Speaker
seemingly in a very healthy marriage but at the same time yeah do like to just like take take shots at each other through wordplay in in charming fashion yeah the wordplay and and just like the lines in this movie are so good uh that's the writing in this is world world class
01:05:22
Speaker
I feel like this is a movie I could talk about for far too long. Glenn's King Kong Corner. Yeah. I mean it's pretty notable that I think like who the murderer is in this movie is like not important almost.
01:05:42
Speaker
The plot gets quite complex and I sort of lost it after a while. It's based on a book by Dashiell Hammett who wrote Multisfalcon and a bunch of other stuff. And it's kind of one of the main American authors to kind of popularize or like kind of invented like horrible detective fiction.
01:06:06
Speaker
So it has a lot of really great detective lingo in this too. Stuff that's in Common Brothers movies or other later noir movies.
01:06:17
Speaker
Um, despite this having like a very kind of sort of light, silly tone. Yeah. Despite all the murder. This was the last book that Daschle Hammett wrote. And, uh, I think he kind of like wanted to take a break from this sort of more serious hardboiled detective stuff and do the same kind of thing, but have like a lighter tone, more, more just a romp.
01:06:43
Speaker
But so like most sort of like horrible detective stories or like noir stories, it has way too many characters and like a million red herrings and like an incredibly needlessly complicated murder plot.
01:06:58
Speaker
of who is angry at who and who was giving money and stealing money from what other people. It's so complicated that to the point where it's like, all right, so none of this actually really matters and ultimately kind of doesn't. I think this is the third time I'd seen this movie and I did not remember who the murderer is at the end because it's like, even when it's revealed at the end, it's kind of like, who cares?
01:07:24
Speaker
The important thing about this movie is just watching Nick and Nora go to parties with their dog, drink heavily, and then like also happen to solve a murder while they're there.
01:07:36
Speaker
They love partying so much that rather than just solving the murder, they're like, let's throw a party to solve the murder. Right. Right. They do end up solving the murder by throwing a party, which is great. We're going to invite all the suspects and have the most dramatic party. A very dramatic dinner party where everyone's a suspect. And a bunch of cops are obvious cops are dressed up as waiters. Yeah.
01:08:04
Speaker
There's a lot of really like fun side characters in this. There's kind of the titular Thin Man is not Nick Charles as often. A common misconception is like the Thin Man of the title is the guy that... Yeah, the guy who disappears and is thought to then be the murderer.
01:08:29
Speaker
So then all the sequels have to like bend over backwards to be like, how is this a sequel to Thin Man that keeps that title despite being about different people? One of my favorite side characters in this movie is Gilbert, the creepy nerd brother. Yeah. Who is just such a funny character. He's kind of just like a weenie mama's boy. Well, he said when like the first scene he's in, he says, I know I have a mother fixation, but it's slight.
01:08:58
Speaker
It's like, is it? And then he's like obsessed with murder and like psychopaths and like he's always like trying to like talk to cops and like just will just stare at them incessantly and freak them out. Like psychoanalyze people. Yeah. So it's like but like very ham fistedly. I just I love how everyone in this movie is freaked out by Gilbert. Like all the cops are just like, what is this guy's deal? Like get him away from me. And then he meets up like a bunch of like hardened criminals
01:09:25
Speaker
like a bunch of dudes who are like wielding guns and like getting in fights and they meet Gilbert and they're also just like, get this guy away from me, he's freaking me out. Another fun detail is like all of Nick's friends, because he's a retired detective, are all like criminals or like ex-cops. So like all of Nick's friends that show up are all these, this like kind of, you know, rough band of characters that show up to their apartment.
01:09:54
Speaker
If we're going to talk about filmmaking form stuff for a second, a lot of this movie is fairly normal as far as camera angles and that kind of thing, but there was a really cool part where they're casting a dragnet across the country, and then there's this image of a net exploding out of New York City and going across a map of America, which was a fun thing for sure.
01:10:21
Speaker
To call back to an earlier movie we're talking about, in La Delonte, the married couple naturally sleep in a bed. In this movie, Nick and Nora sleep in separate beds, which I guess even in a pre-code movie, in Hollywood, it was still like, no. They need to have separate twin beds with a nightstand in between.
01:10:44
Speaker
The nightstand is room for Jesus. Exactly, yeah. There's a scene I really like in this movie where Nick and Dorothy, who's kind of the daughter of the thin man who's disappeared, Dorothy comes in and is like trying to get Nick to help solve the case. She's crying and sort of crying on Nick's shoulder and Nora walks in on them.
01:11:08
Speaker
And it's this moment where you think it's gonna be like, oh no, like she walked in, like she's gonna think there's some something hinky going on. And they, no, they just like make goofy faces at each other and Nora then like helps the situation.
01:11:21
Speaker
They're very secure with each other. And that's the thing that I find so refreshing in any movie, really, is I feel like marital strife is so often, naturally, often used as a source of drama, that never comes up in this movie. There's never any doubt
01:11:39
Speaker
that, like, Nick and Nora will be, like, continue to be happily married, kind of. Right. Even after Nick, like, punches her in the face in one scene to get her to, like, knock her out of the path of gunfire. And she just complains, like, I wanted to see the fight. Like, would you knock me out for her? The whole time Nick is like, I'm retired. I don't want to solve a murder. Like, that's not, I just want to drink. Like, that's all I'm here for.
01:12:06
Speaker
And Nora's the one who's kind of like, I would really like to see you solve a murder though. Like, I think that would be really cool. Right. Like she got together with him after he was already retired, basically, or like he retired as they got together. And so she kind of has been wanting to see some of this action for a while. Yeah. And so she's almost like needling him to like do detective stuff. He's like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to do detective stuff. Like you can't can't get me.
01:12:37
Speaker
And I know just that is like their their whole dynamic is something that I find very refreshing in movies like this that I feel like doesn't get Surprisingly for how like popular this movie series is like I I feel like that kind of Character dynamic doesn't come up a lot
01:12:55
Speaker
Yeah, in movies in general, like they're it's hard to have a movie with romance that doesn't have some kind of romantic tension. Right. And and yeah, this movie I think does some really fun stuff by pushing that completely aside. Yeah, it creates like a really unique dynamic between the two characters.
01:13:15
Speaker
Yeah, there is a moment where Nick is going off to like at night to investigate. He's like finally kind of decided to help out at this point and like goes off at night to break into a building, basically. And that's like the first time that Norc starts to get kind of worried that it's like, oh, shit, like he is kind of like going off to an abandoned building at night. And that's kind of the one moment where it's like they start like he starts doing bits and she's like, no, I like stop doing a bit for a second. Like I'm actually kind of worried.
01:13:45
Speaker
That's also a thing that I think kind of helps ground all the bits. It's like a moment of actual kind of sincerity through all of the kind of...
01:13:57
Speaker
all the banter this movie yeah it does have this kind of ironic distance and they have this ironic distance this entire time because they're both drunk for the entire movie i don't condone alcoholism it's very bad please drink responsibly but i do really like how drunk they are for like the whole movie
01:14:19
Speaker
It gives it this really like loose vibe. Yeah. It's almost like a stoner movie of the 30s. Yes, very much so. It's like it is. It's like Pineapple Express, actually. Yeah, like that's kind of I I had never thought about that before, but that's it does feel like kind of like a precursor to that entire genre. This is a this is a drunk movie instead of a similar movie. But there's things like this, like the cops are trying to get Nick to like help help out.
01:14:48
Speaker
And Nora's like, oh, he already he's already he already has a case a case what case a case a case of scotch a Lot a lot of great lines in this that I want to steal and use like got your skates. Let's roll Yeah, when when they're they have their they're kind of big dinner party where they've invited all the suspects Nora says to one of the waiters. Will you serve the nuts? I mean serve the guests the nuts sure
01:15:12
Speaker
Or there's a point where the cops bust into their house and start looking around. And they're like, you can't come in here and come into our house. And the cops say, have you ever heard of the Solomon Act? And she says, oh, it's OK, we're married. Right, which I think, is that a reference to the Man Act? I don't know what the Man Act is. The Man Act was like an anti-prostitution legislation from, I think, the late 20s, maybe early 20s.
01:15:39
Speaker
Um, that was like you can't like, like women can't like cross state lines unless they're married or there was, it was some, I'm paraphrasing, but it was some like wacky law. My, my thought was that maybe it had some kind of, it was some kind of reference to sodomy, like the Solomon Act or something like that. Uh, but I don't know. It's just, it's just funny, no matter what it is intending to mean. Right. Regardless of what it means, it is just very funny.
01:16:08
Speaker
Nick has his big sort of like detective monologue where he's like running down like all right here's what happened you know this this guy was doing this this guy was doing this and this he's explaining the whole plot that's led to the whole movie and like halfway through Nora leans in and goes is any of this true and he's like I don't know which even that is like that's such a classic like detective story thing like the detective lays out all the facts right
01:16:33
Speaker
Yeah. And then meanwhile, Nick Charles is just like, I'm kind of making half this shit up, but that's the only way it makes sense. So you're just going to have to roll with it. He understands it better than I do. Yeah. That that scene where he was doing all of the explaining, it was a lot of stuff for him to memorize all in one take. And
01:16:54
Speaker
Myrna Loy and her autobiography was writing about shooting that scene and how they were serving oysters during the party and the oysters started stinking. Oh no. Because that scene lasted so long and they kept having to retake it over and over again. Also, those old from now lights, I'm sure, were not helping cooking the oysters.
01:17:16
Speaker
Dang. Yeah, this movie was nominated for Best Picture, lost to It Happened One Night, but had five sequels, a radio show, a TV show, a stage musical, and presumably an infinite playlist as well. Since I assume that's where that title comes from. It's a reference to that. It's a riff on this. Yeah. There's also a cocktail glass called the nikonora glass, which
01:17:44
Speaker
is named after those characters. And there's a cocktail called the Nick and Nora as well. OK. Is it just is it like a Long Island Iced Tea? It's just every type of liquor. It's like a it's a gin thing, I think. Yeah. It's like a riff on a martini. I knew that this movie was like a heavy drinking movie and I started making a cock. Like I started trying to make cocktails to
01:18:13
Speaker
for myself to watch, to drink while watching the movie. Get the 4D experience. To get the 4D experience. There were a couple of cocktails that are particularly featured in this movie, and the one that was the most appetizing to me was in Manhattan, which Nick says that you have to shake it to a foxtrot beat. So I put some foxtrot music on to shake my Manhattan too. I went to the liquor store because I was out of sweet vermouth.
01:18:41
Speaker
Which was a part of a long series just me getting distracted on the way to watching I can't watch it. I can't watch the thin man. I'm out of sweet vermouth
01:18:51
Speaker
Exactly what happened. So I went to the liquor store and then I didn't get carded, presumably because when I asked the guy, can I have your smallest bottle of sweet vermouth, that would not be a thing that anyone underage would ask for. Good point, yeah. Right. No one who's like going to a liquor store who's underage and is trying to buy liquor is like, hmm, I need a very small bottle of sweet vermouth, please.
01:19:17
Speaker
But yeah, then I got a headache because I drank a cocktail and then I got distracted with other things. And so it took me a long time to actually watch this movie because I was getting too distracted with drinking. Yeah, I think maybe the the 4D experience is maybe not advised for for watching this movie. We probably won't watch them for the show, but the
01:19:38
Speaker
The second two movies are are also very enjoyable. It's like After the Thin Man and like Curse of the Thin Man. Something like that. Yeah, it's they all have like increasingly kind of convoluted titles. But this is also a Christmas movie. Very timely to watch. It's a Christmas. It's a Christmas detective movie, a la Shane Black. Yeah. Yeah. So yet another reason why it's one of my favorites.
01:20:05
Speaker
this uh i should also note really quick that this has an early appearance of caesar romero oh the the joker from the 60s batman he plays the the boy toy of the uh the the rich ex-wife in this right yeah there's so many like great like the the
01:20:25
Speaker
Insanely large supporting cast is a lot of very fun kind of like 30s stock characters that all have their own dramas going on. Asta the dog is played by Skippy who was a wire fox terrier who had a long and successful career as an actor.
01:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, we saw Skippy in Merrily We Go To Hell. Right, uncredited in that film. And he's also in Bringing Up Baby. Yeah. I was trying to find out which Thin Man movies
01:20:56
Speaker
Skippy plays Asta in, but the dog is always credited as Asta in every Thin Man movie, so it's very difficult to kind of suss out, like, which movies Asta is played with the same dog. But, um, what a dream this movie is of just, like, I would love to one day drunkenly solve a murder with a dog.
01:21:19
Speaker
Another movie about crime and intrigue. Crime solving husband and wife situation. Yeah, very true.
Hitchcock's 'The Man Who Knew Too Much'
01:21:27
Speaker
Good segue to The Man Who Knew Too Much, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Yes, and Alfred Hitchcock made two movies with this title, another one in the 50s with Jimmy Stewart, with apparently a bit of a different plot. Jimmy Stewart, who appears in the second Thin Man movie,
01:21:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I haven't seen the other one, but I imagine that this is rather different because it seems there's aspects of this that are very post World War One. Yeah. I've heard that the other Hitchcock movie is like it is a remake, but it's like a lot of it is changed, like it takes place in different locations and it's.
01:22:09
Speaker
It's kind of the basic setup I think is the same but otherwise it's pretty different. But I don't know, I haven't seen it. The man who knew too much is the main character and he kind of has witnessed a murder of a friend, a sort of friend acquaintance of his who it turns out was a secret agent and
01:22:29
Speaker
He is trying to figure out what's going on with this mystery while also not letting the cops get involved because his daughter got kidnapped and they'll kill her if he goes to the police.
01:22:46
Speaker
He does not have a particular set of skills. He is just a wealthy British man. So he has to make do with just gumption. Yeah. And he's kind of he's kind of bumbling his way through a lot of this stuff. I think this is I don't know if this is the first example of this, but this is a very like classic Hitchcock set up of like ordinary person or people.
01:23:07
Speaker
kind of like fall backwards accidentally into some like crazy spy plot that they're not involved in but sort of like get caught up in and then have to make do despite not being spies themselves and kind of yeah just through the skin of their teeth like get out of the situation um i feel like north and northwest is probably like the most
01:23:30
Speaker
that's kind of like the peak of that kind of Hitchcock sub-genre. I feel like all of my favorite Hitchcock movies are this, like, or all basically just the man who'd do much over and over again. Like, it's just, it's such a great setup to have like, you know, someone who isn't a spy get caught up in spy intrigue.
01:23:54
Speaker
Yeah, this guy is like initially kind of jealous of this spy. He doesn't really have as good of a relationship with his wife, I think. I thought it was kind of strange at the beginning of the movie that he's always like telling his daughter like, hey, shut up, buzz off. Yeah, he's kind of a big old jerk at the beginning of the movie, which is kind of part of the thing is that he's yeah, he's like a wealthy, rich guy who's like kind of a jerk. His family doesn't really like him that much or it's seamlessly doesn't get along with his family great. And then it's like,
01:24:24
Speaker
crisis happens and he has to yeah become a man of action kind of right yeah there's there's a moment right because his uh so bob and joe lawrence are the the married couple and then their daughter is bette as they say some really like heavy duty english accents in this maybe yeah every time they say thank you in this movie they say thank you thank you and a lot of a lot of uh i say
01:24:53
Speaker
So Jill Lawrence is a like a sharpshooter or like an Olympic shooting person, whatever that's called. Clay shooting? Yeah, she's in a shooting competition with this other guy. Right as he's about to shoot, a watch goes off and Betty says something about it and then Jill misses the shot. And Bob, the dad, because it was all your fault, fat head.
01:25:22
Speaker
which is like, don't say that to your daughter, Jesus, man. Fatherly, the year over here. Her shooting rival, the daughter, I believe, says he's got too much brilliantine, which I looked up, it's like a hair gel for men. And so every time you see this guy in a scene, it starts with a closeup shot of his greasy hair, which is a very funny,
01:25:50
Speaker
like a very funny like recurring bit it's like oh you know this guy's in the scene because like we're gonna pull out from a extreme close-up of his greasy black hair oh boy it's funny i didn't notice the like all of the hair close-ups i thought that was just kind of like a weird flourish but um that is very funny uh but the the real reason why joe mister shot is because the watch went off and the watch
01:26:17
Speaker
is owned by Peter Lorry in his first English language role.
01:26:23
Speaker
Yes, he did not speak English yet. So a la early Jackie Chan English roles, he had to just like learn the sounds that he was making. Yeah. And then and then say them. I think he does. I kind of I would never have guessed that. Like, yeah, he doesn't sound he has like a slightly stronger accent in this movie than he does in like his later Hollywood movies, but not by a lot like he speaks very good English for not knowing what he's saying.
01:26:50
Speaker
Yeah. Peter Lorrie's watch is kind of another recurring thing, like his watch chime. Good use of sound too. Hitchcock making use of sound being a thing. It's like Peter Lorrie's whistling in M.
01:27:04
Speaker
Right? Yeah. This is all happening in in in Switzerland, like a ski resort. So Jill is dancing on the dance floor with with the spy who's like their old friend, I guess. And Bob, because he's jealous, ties a string to the back of the guy's coat so that like it'll unravel the string as they're dancing around and like get them caught up with everyone else's dancing. Very petty.
01:27:29
Speaker
Right, very petty. I do like how during the scene it cuts to Peter Lorre just laughing his ass off. There's a specific shot where it cuts to him and Peter Lorre sees this and he's like, oh boy, this is great. Yeah, you don't necessarily know that Peter Lorre is the evil mastermind and he's just kind of a funny guy who's around. Right, yeah.
01:27:55
Speaker
It's like you know that clearly he's like I mean he's on the poster so that's probably a tip off but it's like early in the movie right he is kind of a guy that's there and he's he's definitely featured heavily it's clear that he's like a main character but yeah I like the kind of like slow reveal of that he's kind of the the main villain and then there's a
01:28:16
Speaker
A shot through the window, the spy friend has to like very quietly die from being shot because he doesn't want to make a scene and because he has to like get information out of the country. Yeah, so he tells Jill to go up to his room and get a piece of paper outside, inside of a brush that he has.
01:28:37
Speaker
and then deliver it to like a certain person. It's a secret message with some information of political importance. And so after he dies, they run up to the room, but then they kind of get caught up with the cops trying to go up to his room as well. And they're only barely able to get a hold of the document.
01:29:07
Speaker
But in the meantime, the kind of rival sharpshooter, he initially tries to take the piece of paper from them, but then he gets cut off by the cops before he's able to. And he comes up with another plan, which is to kidnap their daughter and threaten them to say, if they tell, if they relay this information, then he'll kill their daughter.
01:29:35
Speaker
uh and thus begins this kind of like uh this tense uh this tense balance they have to play between like trying to figure out where their daughter is and getting to the bottom of this mystery is sort of like the way they do it they're approached by some people from uh some like spies and they're basically saying like it doesn't you have to let your daughter die because this is like this is a huge a matter of huge
01:30:04
Speaker
inter-country importance that we're trying to stop an assassination here. And they're like,
01:30:15
Speaker
We don't know who this guy is. If it's a matter of whether our daughter's gonna die or this guy's gonna die, then we have to rescue our daughter. Speaking of the kind of post-World War I aspect, like the spy guy, he says, in June 1914, had you heard of Sarajevo? Of course you hadn't. I bet you hadn't even heard of Archduke Ferdinand, but because a month later, a man you'd never heard of killed a man you'd never heard of and a place you'd never heard of, this country was at war.
01:30:43
Speaker
It's pretty good. Yeah, great, great moment. Yeah, like such a great setup of like spy stuff's happening. The main characters don't really care about that. Like all of the spy intrigue is kind of in a very kind of hitch cocky way. It's like definitely kind of taking a backseat. It's like the actual importance of like the secret documents and the, you know, all that stuff is like, you don't really have to worry about that. What matters is like parents,
01:31:12
Speaker
need to get their daughter back, that's what's gonna carry us through the rest of this movie. They do kind of like hatch a plan with the British spy agency to get their daughter back, and so they have to go to a small town in England where the bad guys are hit out, and there follows a series of kind of Hitchcock set pieces, I guess, I don't know.
01:31:37
Speaker
They start kind of deciding to solve this mystery, and as soon as Bob gets into being a detective mode, he puts on a trench coat and a fedora. Well, because that's the thing. This movie made me think about that, that it's like, that was a genuinely good disguise in 1934, because that's just what everyone wore. And you could blend into any crowd that way, right? Right, right. But it's funny that that became the sort of like,
01:32:05
Speaker
kind of cliche costume for like a detective or a spy or someone who like is supposed to be keeping a low profile and it's like I know this from experience if you wear a trench coat in a fedora you stick out in a crowd you you look like a cartoon so you know uh but it works in this movie because it's actually the 30s and that's how people dressed
01:32:26
Speaker
The mystery solving intrigue brings them to a couple really fun set pieces like you were saying. One is this sort of tense moment trying to investigate this guy who's posing as a dentist or he's a dentist but he's also a bad guy. There's a dentist office that's like a front for the bad guy's crime ring and there's a creepy dentist.
01:32:47
Speaker
And there's a point where the dentist realizes that they're kind of onto him. And so he starts forcing the nitrous onto Bob to knock him out. And Bob is able to rest it out of his hands and then spin it around and just force the dentist onto the chair and then ram the breathing apparatus onto his face until he knocks him out, which is really cool.
01:33:17
Speaker
And then he puts on, like, the dentist coat and the glasses and then he prints to be the dentist working on the now unconscious crime dentist and can, you know, overhear some conversations about where the bad guys are hit out.
01:33:34
Speaker
And so they follow them to like a church, but it's like a weird like sun cult church. Yeah. What a strange introduction or what a strange like inclusion in this movie. Right. And so then they're like trying to blend in in this like weird cult church while everyone's singing. And Bob is there with a guy named Clive. And so the way they're like communicating is like singing along to the tune.
01:34:01
Speaker
of what everyone else is singing in the church, but they're just talking. So he's like, Clive, Clive, Clive, what are we gonna do? The entire Sun Cult church is all like a secret society of bad guys, basically. So it's extremely obvious from the moment that they're in there that they are intruders. Yeah, then Bob starts a chair fight.
01:34:29
Speaker
Which is a very fun sort of action scene, I guess. They're just throwing breakaway chairs at each other. Right. There's like an entire church full of chairs that all get thrown. Him and the bad guys are just chucking chairs back and forth and all of them break.
01:34:47
Speaker
There's a point later in the movie where some cops walk in to that area and they're just like, what is all this mess? So good. But so then it's sort of Bob gets caught by the bad guys basically. So then it's like they have the daughter and Bob. Bob finds out that their secret plan is they're going to assassinate this ambassador at a classical music concert and they're going to use like the crescendo of the music to hide the sound of the gunshot.
01:35:16
Speaker
classic spy gag. I mean that like set piece at the concert is like almost verbatim in Mission to Possible Rogue Nation. Like I have no doubt that that is like a direct reference to this movie. Which is I find it so funny watching like just old movies in general. I mean like oh that's where this like other famous thing comes from.
01:35:44
Speaker
happens a lot. Bob is able to get out warning to Jill about what the plan is. And so then Jill goes to the concert and is like, if she tells the cops and they stop the assassination, then her husband and her daughter will get killed. But she knows that this ambassador is about to get assassinated. So like, can she do nothing? And there's this like very tense, very like
01:36:12
Speaker
quintessential Hitchcock set piece of like, she can kind of see where everything is. She can see her old rival posted up with a gun. She can see the ambassador. You can see where the cops are. And she's like... And she can kind of guess that something's going to happen, but she doesn't know exactly when.
01:36:31
Speaker
And so there's like this tension ratcheting up of like, you know that the moment in the song that the gunshot is going to happen is coming up, but she's like having to keep an eye on him to see when it seems like he's about to shoot because she like is not fully able. She doesn't know it could happen any second, basically. Yeah. But it's it's very the the Hitchcock thing where he talks about like suspense is
01:37:00
Speaker
telling the audience that there's a bomb under the table but not letting the characters know kind of and that's this is kind of kind of a variation on that of like both the audience and Jill know that this thing is about to happen but not exactly when or how um and yeah it's very tense like it it holds up very well Jill screams and so that causes the shot to only wound the ambassador so it's like initially it seems like it went off without a hitch but
01:37:28
Speaker
She gets back at this guy for his hijinks making her miss her shot in the beginning because she makes him miss his shot just slightly. And so then the police chase him back to the, follow him back to the hideout. There's this sort of standoff siege between the police and the bad guys. It's quite a violent shootout in between.
01:37:50
Speaker
Yeah, um, I mean like this and maybe like uh like Scarface or something it's like one of the only other movies I guess some of their like gangster movies you watch that have like Extended like gunfights in them. Yeah, and it is kind of like Peter Laurie during this part
01:38:08
Speaker
is like he's kind of like mildly frustrated by like being in a gunfight it seems like he's like he's very kind of like fine like i guess he's like a very confident a very confident criminal mastermind yeah uh and so like anything he just kind of rolls with all the punches right yeah
01:38:27
Speaker
And then you get the big like finale where Bob gets Betty at but is shot and wounded and then there's kind of like the rooftop showdown. The assassin who is the guy with the hair is like cornered Betty on a rooftop and like the police can see it and then Jill
01:38:46
Speaker
seeing this. Well, there's the police sharpshooter and he's like, I can't I can't make the shot. I can't take the shot. And then but then Jill, who we know is like, you know, an expert marksman markswoman grabs the rifle from him and shoots the bad guy.
01:39:04
Speaker
who was also her competitor in shooting. Her sports rival. Yeah. But it's such a great set up and payoff that they are sports rivals at the beginning. She's the one to save the daughter at the end by shooting the guy. I don't know. The satisfaction of that scene is so perfectly calibrated. It's really well put together. As soon as that happened, I was like, yes! Oh, this is exactly what I wanted to happen.
01:39:34
Speaker
Oh, and then another great like setup payoff thing is like the police bust into the the hideout and Peter Lorre is like hiding behind a door. But his watch chimes again and gives him away. And so they they get him. Peter Lorre is really good in this movie. He's really good. He's got like the scar over his eye and he's he's always like has like a cigarette like kind of hanging out of his mouth a little bit. He's very like just a great sort of sinister, but also like very like relaxed, like laid back villain.
01:40:04
Speaker
Yeah, he's like kind of above it all and it's like mostly just tired by like having to deal with What's happening? Yeah, really good writing really well put together. Mm-hmm. I like it Yeah, since we're do we did five movies this time instead of six. It's a it's much more manageable. Yeah. Yeah We're done What was your favorite film that we watched?
01:40:29
Speaker
That's tough. I really liked Man Who Knew Too Much, It Happened One Night, and The Thin Man. I like them all a lot. Maybe just because It Happened One Night is so charming. I'll go for that. Also, because I know that you're going to pick The Thin Man. Right, yeah. It goes without saying, Thin Man is my favorite. But yeah, those other two are also great movies.
01:40:54
Speaker
couldn't like, I would recommend them to like pretty much anybody, I think. But yeah, The Thin Man is like so calibrated to like what I like in movies also, where I'm just like, Oh, yes, this is great. Like I might watch it again, just because it's like, it's like a very enjoyable, like comfort food movie for me.
01:41:30
Speaker
less of a podcast of discovery and more rediscovery, where we're getting to experience these classics within their historical context instead of finding stuff that's necessarily completely new.
01:41:42
Speaker
Maybe I'll watch one of the other five Thin Man movies.
01:41:46
Speaker
And yeah, I think even the Thin Men like knowing that it came out, I guess I knew this before, but like knowing that it came out like right after Prohibition ended, too, is another thing where it's just like it's so kind of like celebratory about drinking. And it's like everyone in the movie is just drinking constantly that it's like, we can drink again. Let's all let's all just throw a party. Yeah, and getting
Favorite Films and Upcoming 1935 Lineup
01:42:08
Speaker
to see these genres sort of build themselves over the course of time has has been good. Yeah.
01:42:15
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot a lot of stuff in several of these movies that feels like it's like very kind of like foundational. And then it's like, oh, like tons of movies reference this thing. Well, with that being said, I guess we'll call it for this week. We have actually decided on what our movies for next week are. We could announce them right now. Oh, so you can a new.
01:42:40
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. It might be good to do, right? Yeah. This list is subject to a little change. We might add a little bit. But if you are trying to check out some of these movies before we talk about them, our 1935 movies are going to be Bride of Frankenstein, The 39 Steps, Triumph of the Will, Top Hat, and A Night the Opera.
01:43:03
Speaker
Hell of a lineup. We'll certainly have a tough time talking about some of those movies. That's all features, right? Yes. So there's probably going to be at least one short thrown in there.
01:43:17
Speaker
Also, which we haven't decided yet. Right. Yeah. But, you know, you can watch a short or whatever. Yeah. Easy. But yeah, I hope I hope having that list will help you out in in following along next week. And if you'd like to follow us on Instagram and all that kind of stuff, you can do that. It's that one week, one year. But the links are in the description of wherever you're watching or listening. You can listen on Spotify, your podcast app, all that kind of stuff. And and check us out on YouTube.
01:43:45
Speaker
And yeah, with that, Glenn, I think that's about it. So I'll see you next year. See you next year.