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1947 - Chekhov's Cliff
62 Plays4 months ago
The 1940s continue with the first appearance of Tweety Bird, Kenneth Anger's provocative sailor short, a trifecta of Film Noir thrillers, a Christmas courtroom classic, and a lush technicolor nun drama!
You can watch along with our video version of the episode here on Youtube!
You can check out our social media crap here: http://linktr.ee/1w1y
And you can watch and form your own opinions from our 1947 Films Discussed playlist right here!
See you next year!
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Transcript
Introduction to 'One Week One Year' Podcast
00:00:11
Speaker
welcome to one week one year a podcast were watching and discuss every year of film history and order starting in eighteen ninety five the dawn of cinema and where are we now this episode is ah nineteen forty sevenen i'm one of your hosts chris elli i'm a film projectionist and joining me as always is i'm glenn covell i'm a filmmaker
00:00:33
Speaker
We got like a little like a period on the end of that every time. Got it. Got to love it. Got it. You got to you got to have punctuation in there. um Very punked. Contra punked.
00:00:47
Speaker
I don't think that's what that means. How's it going, Glenn? What's up? It's going, you know, of doing stuff. and I went to some film festivals last week. That was pretty fun.
00:00:58
Speaker
To see some, you know, what's what's going on in the, you know, the realm of short films and such, which is always ah a good time.
00:01:08
Speaker
Not always good time, but this time it was.
Experience at Film Festivals
00:01:11
Speaker
That's good. Yeah, it's not always a good time. Yeah, i've I filled up my other notebook, so I've got a i got a new new notebook for all all my my fancy notes.
00:01:21
Speaker
yeah See, my strategy is i have Google Docs open, and then i download an extension to put it in dark mode so it doesn't ah blind me as much while I'm while watching a movie.
00:01:34
Speaker
And then I'll try and like type without looking at it. ah Yeah, I just talked to somebody who um ah screens movies for a short film festival. And i was saying, like, you know, I was really impressed with your selections for this film festival. Like, normally, ah ah short films that I see, like most of most short films are, and I kind of trailed off looking for the words. And then she goes, shit, they're shit.
Note-taking Methods for Films
00:02:00
Speaker
And i felt I felt vindicated because... I don't know. i've I've been to a previous short film festival, like a a different short film festival, and like a good 80% of the shorts kind of made me mad.
00:02:16
Speaker
So I got kind of mixed things going on. On the one hand, ah the National Guard is in D.C., and there are helicopters that are flying low over me ah all the time.
00:02:32
Speaker
Which is weird and bad. On the other hand, this weekend I'll be playing ah i'll be playing some 16mm and 35mm shorts relating to creatures.
00:02:46
Speaker
ah the Nature's creatures like octopi and salamanders and ah jellyfish. And... grasshoppers ah because I'm going to be playing the cameraman's revenge on 35 with a live score. Going rev up the 35 projector for a 12 minute short.
00:03:06
Speaker
Bring in a guy there. They're tuning the grand piano ah so he can play for 12 minutes. But I'm so hyped. Cameraman's revenge. We love it. Go back and listen the 1912 episode if you're if you're not familiar.
00:03:20
Speaker
Yeah. There are some good things in the world and those are or The things from 110 years ago. Old movies about
Historical Context of 1947
00:03:28
Speaker
creatures. Yeah. My entire brand, old movies about creatures.
00:03:32
Speaker
Right. Speaking of things from olden times, what was happening in 1947? Do we have any kind of segment in our podcast that gives us a little context for what's happening and in the year that we're discussing?
00:03:50
Speaker
Nope. Real shame that we don't. I'm kidding. Yes, of course we do. The Nose Ear, 1947. The first Canadians are born, that is, the first ones recognized as Canadians and not British subjects, in the Canadian Citizenship Act.
00:04:07
Speaker
The Polaroid instant camera is unveiled at the Optical Society of America. President Harry S. Truman signals a new foreign policy, one that opposes the Soviets and begins the Cold War.
00:04:19
Speaker
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists introduces the world to the Doomsday Clock. Strike one against segregation as Jackie Robinson joins the Brooklyn Dodgers. Supersonic flying saucers sighted by Idaho pilot.
00:04:33
Speaker
Kenneth Arnold spots nine shiny UFOs near Matt Rainier in Washington, kicking off dozens of sightings by others in the months following. Phoenix, Arizona, and Roswell, New Mexico.
00:04:44
Speaker
The National Security Act creates the CIA, DOD, and Joint Chiefs of Staff. The British Empire relinquishes control of India. However, using poorly understood religious distinctions as a faulty map, they split India and Pakistan into two distinct countries, causing immediate and long-lasting conflict.
00:05:03
Speaker
The British Empire relinquishes control of Palestine. However, using poorly understood religious distinctions as a faulty map, they split Palestine and Israel into two distinct countries, causing immediate and long-lasting conflict.
00:05:16
Speaker
The Harvard Mark II computer has issues after a moth flies into a relay, the first bug. Howard Hughes' spruce goose flies for the first and only time, the largest to ever take to the skies.
00:05:29
Speaker
Meet the Press broadcasts its first episode on the NBC television station. Ronald Reagan is elected president of the Screen Actors Guild, which begins forcing members to take an anti-communist oath.
00:05:41
Speaker
The so-called Hollywood Ten refused to testify in front of Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee. HUAC cites them for contempt of Congress, and they are blacklisted the next day. Elizabeth Short is murdered in a crime so gruesome she is given the moniker The Black Dahlia.
00:05:57
Speaker
The killer is never found. The actor's studio was founded in New York City, soon to be encouraging a new method of performance.
Exploring 1947 Films and Shorts
00:06:06
Speaker
Hollywood film attendant speaks at 4.7 billion tickets sold.
00:06:11
Speaker
Ernst Lubitz dies 55. A somber one to end with. Yeah, yeah. um A somber one. I think we don't usually cover, like...
00:06:24
Speaker
Famous deaths unless it's like, you know Hitler or somebody in the news segment But um, well, we yeah, and that one feels like a big deal i was remember we watched a lot of his movies for this. Yeah, I think i think the deaths that we have done that I remember have been Melies and aliski blachet And both of those really felt like right thing. They're sort of bitch like feels like among those. Yeah, you know, yeah Yeah, for sure A lot of news in 47. A lot of stuff happened.
00:06:56
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of stuff happened. i think that um I think that now that the war is over, it's just like, okay, time for stuff to happen. Time for stuff to happen again. Lots of stuff and lots of movies happened too, which is what we are here to discuss.
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. Yes, we're here to we're here to discuss movies. ah Movies, including short movies, it's time for One Week, One Reel.
00:07:25
Speaker
After a couple episodes off, the last two episodes had no shorts, so... Yeah, yeah. Just like me at a fancy dinner. No shorts. Anyway, ah we thought we'd do a little check in on both Looney Tunes and um the MGM cartoons, namely ah Tom and Jerry with Tweety Pie, which was the Academy Award ah winner for Best Animated Short this year.
00:07:53
Speaker
Academy Award winner for Best Animated Short. And it's the first, I believe, for Warner Brothers to win that award. MGM really had it ah on lock for ah the first couple of years. I mean, what I'll say about Tweety Pie is that ah it... So it is also the first appearance of Sylvester and Tweety.
00:08:13
Speaker
Although Sylvester is not called Sylvester yet. Right. And Tweety did exist, but not in... the the sort of iconic form. Right.
00:08:24
Speaker
And i will say that, like, in this form, it really is kind of feeling like a bit of a Tom and Jerry knockoff. Like, I don't want to... I don't want to like, i I mean, I know that like a lot of um cartoons are based on predator prey ah dynamics, hunting each other kind of thing.
00:08:42
Speaker
But like this whole setup of like trying to catch the little creature that the person who's, you know, head is above the frame and, and attacks the cat for being too mean to little creature who's a little stinker.
00:08:58
Speaker
Like it does kind of feel like, like it's basically the same thing. ah i it it Because it is exactly the same thing. It's what if it what if bird instead of mouse.
00:09:09
Speaker
um Even down to right Sylvester the cat being called Thomas in this one. So he even has the same name as Tom. Which is also another instance of a cartoon cat whose first appearance they had a different name.
00:09:26
Speaker
it does kind of feel like one of our brothers was like, Hey, these Tom and Jerry cartoons keep winning all the awards. What if we made a different cat catching a small creature cartoon? Maybe that'll get us, maybe that'll get us Oscar gold. And if, you know, we, we haven't had a lot of time to check in on Tom and Jerry, but I feel like the, there was some good, I got a couple laughs out of this one, but I think that like gag wise, um Tom and Jerry kind of is a doing a little better.
00:09:54
Speaker
I don't know. yeah Yeah. Yeah. The Tom and Jerry one is, I think, a bit more inventive in it because it's been doing this for longer. Yeah. And I think having all these piano jokes are a little bit more.
00:10:08
Speaker
They just feel a little bit more novel than the kind of like, oh, what we put a bunch of furniture and made a tower to catch the bird? And I don't know. It's just like it it all works. It's none of it's bad.
00:10:19
Speaker
the the you You mentioned the piano. The other short, I guess we can kind of talk about them both at the same time, is the Cat Concerto, ah which is like a very famous Tom and Jerry short ah where he's hitting Jerry with mallets inside of a piano and all that.
00:10:36
Speaker
Also like a kind of classic like cartoon setup of like somebody trying to play classical music and then silly things happen. Yeah, very true. Maybe the most kind of ah significant thing about Tweety Pie is it's, if I'm not mistaken, the first time that Tweety ever says, I taught I taught a putty tat.
00:10:55
Speaker
Well, what other putty tat would he see besides Sylvester? Right. I mean, had never interacted with putty tats before, as far as I know. Or if you did, it wasn't in the same form. I don't know. It is, like i feel like a lot of these, like, first appearance of whatever cartoon character is like, well, technically they were like, you know, there's there's usually a bit of an evolution where they kind of appear in some form and then kind of evolve into the the version of them that we...
00:11:21
Speaker
recognize today. This kind of like had me thinking about how when I was younger and I was seeing Looney Tunes on TV, it would be all broadcast out of order. They just play random shorts.
00:11:32
Speaker
And so just occasionally you would kind of see like off model Elmer or like or like oh Daffy and or one of the characters being called something that their name changed in like like but before they changed their name into Sylvester.
Analysis of Kenneth Anger's 'Fireworks'
00:11:49
Speaker
And yeah I don't know, you just kind of like ingested all of this as like a unit and kind of made some associations of it's like okay bugs looks a little weird so maybe this is like early bugs you know but so like and even tweety and this does not look yeah kind of in his uh in his final form i think you still see it with like simpson still gets syndicated right like yeah maybe not out of order but like And I haven't watched The Simpsons on television in a really long time, but I have been watching a bunch of season three, like Golden Age Simpsons, and it is noticeable how kind of different the animation looks.
00:12:30
Speaker
Yeah. Compared to like even later classic seasons. Right. Compared to like, you know, season nine of The Simpsons or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. There's what, like 47 seasons of The Simpsons at this point?
00:12:42
Speaker
I think they're up to 47. Yeah. For Tweety Pie, i like... ah I think my favorite gag in it is um when he Sylvester's trying to like pile up wooden chairs to ah get to the birdcage.
00:12:56
Speaker
And then he takes out like a saw and cuts the chairs down. And so he's like, aha, I'll use chairs with metal legs. And like, he thinks he's safe. And then Tweety kind of comes out with a blowtorch, which I think is, is it's's ah it's a pretty fun.
00:13:12
Speaker
It's a pretty fun moment. Yeah. Great example of cartoon logic. A perfectly, you know, Tweety bird sized blowtorch. Yeah. Yeah, just like the the very beginning where Tweety's outside warming his feathers and in front of what at first appears to maybe be a campfire or like a burning ah trash can. And it is a cigar that's been stuck in the ground.
00:13:38
Speaker
An errant stogie.
00:13:41
Speaker
I guess like one thing that's a little different about this from Tom and Jerry is that they talk or at least Tweety talks. It adds like a different, a different dynamic into it, I guess. Yeah. um I feel like that is very much kind of Tweety's whole deal.
00:13:58
Speaker
Right. Is that he he says silly things in a silly voice. He mugs to the camera and says, I did, and I did tour Puddy Ted. Yeah, exactly. A lot of, yeah, a lot of mugging for sure.
00:14:09
Speaker
And then Cat Concerto is, I think, honestly better. ah it But, you know, they do have their kind of game down a little stronger. ah and yeah, it's Tom. He is ah trying to play music for a fancy audience.
00:14:25
Speaker
He starts playing the piano. ah Jerry is sleeping on the strings of the piano or the hammers and it and it wakes him up. And then they ah the try and mess mess each other up, but also try and save the show at the same time.
00:14:40
Speaker
The show must go on. also, like, classic comedy thing of, like, trying to do something that's very serious while also trying to do something else and, like, not let it interfere. think that's very...
00:14:53
Speaker
i can be i can It's a plate in spinning. It's like it's like yeah engine in chaos. like you can You can really see the influence of like vaudeville and like silent comedy on i mean onm both of these, but like I feel like especially the Tom and Jerry ones because they are...
00:15:09
Speaker
built kind of the same way but yeah good gags classic bits it's a good it's a good short catoons cartoons cartoons it's hard to say it's hard to say so as so much about slapstick cartoons the other short that we watched uh is the earliest surviving kenneth anger short film uh called fireworks and and what fireworks there are
00:15:37
Speaker
Yes, yes. ah Kenneth Anger, provocateur, i guess we could call him. Avant-garde provocateur. It's funny, because i I... The main thing I knew Kenneth Anger from was the book that he wrote, Hollywood of Babylon, about sort of, like, early Hollywood, which is, as far as I can tell, like, 90% libel is, like, wildly inaccurate, and it, like...
00:16:05
Speaker
Very kind of um like gossipy and like, yeah, it's not not a thing that I think is was sort of super helpful to sort of like the culture.
00:16:18
Speaker
It makes a lot of ah lurid proto-QAnon accusations. Maybe that's unfair to say, proto-QAnon, but...
00:16:30
Speaker
But yeah, ah Kenneth Anger. um I've seen another one of his shorts, probably his most famous one, Scorpio Rising. i saw that in college. I don't really remember it too well, but um we'll cover it when when we get to it, I think.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yeah. What'd you think of this one? I mean, definitely... It feels very kind of handmade in the way that a lot of the other kind of, you know, independent experimental shorts that we've been watching have have been.
00:16:56
Speaker
i think this one is pretty like the Maya Deren stuff is like similarly kind of dreamlike, whereas the Maya Deren stuff, you're like, what is what is this about? What is, you know, what what's this movie trying to say? i feel like fireworks is pretty obvious what it's about.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yeah, but honestly, like you know maybe maybe it ah means I'm a big dummy because I want something to be you know didactic and obvious, but I was thinking about how it is nice for a a surrealist like short to kind of really be on theme, be kind of like locked in on theme so that I can like really parse it a bit better, you know? I mean, there's definitely, i mean, I'm surely like any avant-garde sort of surrealist thing. I'm bringing a lot of my own assumptions to it um as it's kind of the point, I think.
00:17:47
Speaker
um But yeah, I do feel like it is, it is much clearer to me. I think what sort of Kenneth anger is, is working through. Yeah. With this one.
00:17:58
Speaker
That being being gay in 1947. Well, and then because there is there's you right. There's there's lots of semen in this one.
00:18:09
Speaker
There's a compound compound word. I mean, arguably, there's the other stuff, too. But yeah. That apparently, i did read on, at least on Wikipedia, that that is somewhat, that Kenneth Anger witnessed the Zoot Suit Riots in 1948.
00:18:27
Speaker
Was it 42, 43? um Which was ah a riot where a bunch of ah Navy men ah sort of went on a a racist bender.
00:18:40
Speaker
And Kenneth Anger, I guess, sort of had a recurring dream or nightmare about this. And this is sort of at least partially what what the movie is based on.
00:18:52
Speaker
there There's a lot of... like eroticism in this for sure. There's a lot of like the male body in its all its sculpted form. that's the That's the voice that the movie would have if it had a voice.
00:19:06
Speaker
But there's also ah this like really kind of intense... violence and kind of anger and like body horror to it also yeah that i do think is very striking and feels very uh does not feel of its time feels very ahead of its time yeah yeah i mean it's it's it's a brutal movie yeah and And I think it's made even more brutal by the kind of the contrast between the beginning of it, which is this kind of just like appreciation of the male form. It's almost this romantic kind of thing.
00:19:45
Speaker
um It's ah it opens with somebody like waking up and Like a man waking up in bed, putting his pants back on and seeing all of these photos. and it It looks like he's pitching a tent, but it turns out it was just an idol that he had in the bed.
00:20:03
Speaker
An idol that kind of looks like the statues from everything, everywhere, all at once at the same time. Yeah, there's there's also like a whole kind of like maybe like a cult undercurrent to it also, which feel like it's definitely the thing that I'm the most I had the least kind of frame of reference for.
00:20:22
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah, yeah. I'm not sure exactly how to comment on that. But, like, definitely, definitely, like, I think that this movie is kind of... ah making this pretty political statement, right? About like the, the kind of joys of gay existence mixed with the kind of need for secrecy and fear of persecution.
00:20:47
Speaker
And then the re the realization of that persecution with this like roving gang of sailors ah who like, you know, the Navy has this gay reputation, but it's also like macho. It's also like they're, they're beating him up and everything.
00:21:02
Speaker
um Yeah, yeah. it's um it's it's It's striking, I think. There's a lot of in this movie that's striking. And, like, yeah, you were talking about the puns or or just kind of references.
00:21:14
Speaker
There there is There is a scene... um There's lots lots of ah fluids in this movie. There are, yes. I mean, there's there's a scene before it all gets violent where, ah like, pardon pardoned the slur, um but, like, there are three forms of faggots that...
00:21:36
Speaker
in the same scene at the same time. There is someone who is, ah they're smoking cigarettes, there are two gay people next to each other, and they are taking a bundle of sticks and lighting it on fire.
00:21:48
Speaker
um And they're just kind of taking all of this imagery and, like, putting it and just throwing it all into the same place. i That completely went over my head, but... That is so specific and pointed, though.
00:22:02
Speaker
yeah But yeah, I mean, you know, it's it's it's it's soaking it's soaking in symbols. And and unlike, you know, Unxian and Alou, you can kind of make sense of what he's doing with all of them.
00:22:17
Speaker
Right. It still has that kind of like avant-garde surrealist kind of imagery and storytelling, but it does feel a little bit more... Yeah, a little bit more kind of like anchored to like a single ah theme, I guess.
00:22:34
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, I'm i'm intrigued to see more Kenneth Anger shorts now, for sure. Yeah. Being like, yeah, very unfamiliar with like who he was as a person. Because like it apparently was like big into occultist stuff also.
00:22:48
Speaker
Which I think so there's definitely like, I was picking up a little bit of that in this short. Yeah. 20th century weirdo artists are always, I always want to like and find out more about them. That's true. Yeah.
Discussion on 'Out of the Past'
00:23:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:01
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, he was into Aleister Crowley or Crowley, however you say it, which um definitely had a lot of influence on the kind of occult and, you know, ah edge, edgy, you know, ah fringe people in the mid, in the middle of the 20th century.
00:23:20
Speaker
um ah Famously, ah maybe, as a crescendo appearing on the cover of Sergeant peppers. Um, uh, yeah, I mean, I guess like just a couple other kind of imagery things. Like you talk about like the fluids, there's like a part where like milk is being poured on top of him.
00:23:38
Speaker
ah There's a lot of blood in this movie. There's some like real gruesome violence in this movie, which I think like really underscores like what the kind of fear and agony that it's going for. It's definitely making some like Christ references ah with ah the way that he's suffering.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah. mean, one of my notes is just all caps meat, which because there is there is that bit of like kind of Not really tearing through, but kind of like, don't know, hands like pulling apart.
00:24:12
Speaker
What I assume is some kind of raw meat. But I think that kind of combined with all of the the shots of kind of of of muscles flexing does kind of create a bit of a parallel of like people are just meat. Yeah.
00:24:28
Speaker
Interesting. It feels like a very kind of proto Cronenbergian thing. Or his whole, you know, I feel like the thesis of every Cronenberg movie is people are goo.
00:24:43
Speaker
Nice. Nice. ah Got anything else to say on fireworks? There it wasn't this movie. Someone was arrested for showing this movie. Right. Oh, yeah. For like obscenity charges.
00:24:55
Speaker
Of course. Of course. So we do need to mention that. Yeah. Hounded. Hounded across and multiple of his works for obscenity issues. Yeah. I mean, there's a bit where someone ups their pants and ah like roman Roman candle pokes out and sorry that was very. violentrant That was very funny. I like that. Earned the title right there.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um It does kind of like the I guess like the the gore. Could be maybe more reasonably deemed obscene, but I I'm sure that that was not the obscenity that people were actually taking like I don't imagine and so much like the MPAA. They're kind of like gore is fine. We don't care about like no pull someone's head off.
00:25:38
Speaker
ah But we don't like smooch too much. Yeah, there is no there's no like, I mean, there's no actual like, quote unquote, explicit like homosexual like action in this movie. I don't think there's no kissing in it. Right.
00:25:55
Speaker
No, no. It's it. But it's but this movie very gay. Yeah, there's many interesting things about it. yeah
00:26:07
Speaker
um But i also i think that's notable for 47 because like totally hayes I think the Hays Code is like if if anything like the thing it is most kind of like locked down on is any sort of like homoeroticism.
00:26:25
Speaker
ah That's like the thing that the Hays Code is like, none of that ever for any reason. It's also like, you know, really interesting to see a manifestation of where like queer culture was existing at this time. Right. Like we haven't seen much come from out gay people on the show yet.
00:26:48
Speaker
And we haven't seen anything half as gay as this so far. Right. I mean, it is like it the closest has been like James Whale Frankenstein movies. Maybe. i don't know.
00:27:00
Speaker
Right. Actually, no, i I would actually say like or early Lubitsch stuff, like his German movies. I think there's. ah Yeah. Yeah. More going on there.
00:27:11
Speaker
That's true. um But like, this is like gay. This is like, yeah, you know, you're although you like you said, like smooching. No, there's nothing like explicit happening. Yeah.
00:27:22
Speaker
But there is just a lot of like. lot of men's bodies. Yeah. and it And it's like that you can feel the, you know, the the male gaze of it. Yeah.
00:27:34
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, I guess I should. I don't think I'm not sure if he's actually done anything on Kenneth Anger. But ah yeah I think one of the interesting things I was saying about this is just kind of seeing like ah where.
00:27:48
Speaker
seeing through this movie like this this station of queer existence in 1947 and I guess I'll just quickly shout out Matt Baum who is ah ah someone who does YouTube kind of historical deep dives on ah queer media history including stuff like really old ah so he makes very good stuff and I would recommend that too to to anyone Cool.
00:28:16
Speaker
Shall we get into our feature presentation? Let's do it. And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation.
00:28:27
Speaker
We are going to start off with Out of the Past, also known as Build My Gallows High, which I think is a cooler title. I mean... Yeah, they're they're both very, like, good noir titles.
00:28:41
Speaker
I think Out of the Past makes more sense for the movie, but Build My Gallows High is such a, like, hard-boiled ass name that it is hard to argue with. I mean, he says it at one point, and I feel like it is, like, you know, it suggests this kind of looming death in the movie. Mm-hmm.
00:28:57
Speaker
You've seen this before, right? I had seen this before. This was a movie that I had ah sought out during my early sort of like, when i realized that film noir was a thing and that I i liked that.
00:29:11
Speaker
This was one of the... This was, like, very quickly near the top of the list of, like... If you want to watch old noir movies, like, Out of the Past is kind of one of the the quintessential ones.
00:29:21
Speaker
I'm kind of surprised because I feel like I haven't heard of this movie. I hadn't heard of this movie. And, like, this is... the most noir movie I've ever seen, like by a mile.
00:29:32
Speaker
Yeah. don't know. Cause it's like, i was thinking about that a lot. And I, I, I do think there are like a lot of things in Dublin Demity that are just like primo quintessential film noir stuff.
00:29:49
Speaker
But I think this has kind of maybe just as much and in some cases maybe more. I mean, this has – because that movie is like this sort of crime gone wrong story, whereas this is a kind of – I guess more classical or what people associate with film noir of like a private detective – Who, you know, gets hired for a a job that goes bad. He falls in love with the woman he's supposed to follow. And then you got to run away. And it's like there's lot of nonlinear storytelling stuff, which leads to a lot of narration.
00:30:21
Speaker
He basically only ever dresses in a trench coat and a fedora. yeah um He's constantly smoking a cigarette, like even when it doesn't make sense. um And it has like a, yeah, it has like that like pervasive, like sense of impending doom, which I think is probably the most, the most kind of noir thing of with any noir movie is that kind of like feeling that just things are going to end badly.
00:30:48
Speaker
I mean, as the noir expert, I'll defer to you there. But I think the reason why I say it's the most noir thing is because it is the noiriest dialogue I've ever heard, which is kind of funny. I think it really makes a statement of itself because this movie starts off with the main character having an assumed identity. And he's he's created a new life for himself under a different name.
00:31:13
Speaker
And his old life catches up to him. It comes out of the past. Hmm. And the second that it comes out of the past, he stops being a regular guy and starts talking like a private eye from a forty s movie. Immediately.
00:31:27
Speaker
Like, he he his dialogue ceases to be naturalistic and starts being entirely, like, poetic. That's what happens. Which, you know, it's a lot of fun, but it's I found it to be, like...
00:31:40
Speaker
was such a whiplash cause it's really calling attention to itself. It's like, it's noir baby. It's noir time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think even that, like, i think this movie is kind of, that is part of like the text of it is that it's like part of takes place in this like pastoral small town, America, you know, Americana town.
00:32:01
Speaker
that he's tried to build a new life in that is shot basically all like outside during the day. you know, he's, he's, he works at the gas station and there's you lovely rivers and forests and mountains around.
00:32:16
Speaker
It's in Bridgeport, which I assumed they meant Bridgeport, Connecticut. And I was really confused for a minute, but Bridgeport, California. um And that is kind of contrasted with his his sort of past life, which is very yeah dark and urban and like shadowy.
00:32:35
Speaker
Of like in San Francisco and you know different... It's like the all of his past stuff is like in cities and at night and like in the dark. um I do like that kind of... Even just that visual contrast of like his old life and his new life.
00:32:52
Speaker
And yeah, even that, I was like, when once this his past kind of comes back to haunt him a bit, he starts like reverting to his old, more detective ways. yeah Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's showing a guy who's like trying, like he's not just trying to like duck out of his past. like He hates his past and he feels he wants to move on. and it drags him back in and and it drags him back into the filth and the and the and the the moral ambiguity and the evil. Yeah, cool movie cool movie.
00:33:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, um this was definitely like has been since i saw it i like i've considered it like this is one of the best kind of classic film noirs although i think actually upon revisiting it i'm i i liked it less than i kind of remembered a little bit i think only just because i've seen more now and so i have kind of a greater like i think the first time i saw this and double indemnity i definitely liked out of the past more and now i think that stuff that switched like I think that this movie, maybe because it ticks all of the boxes, I don't think it does anything extremely unique, extremely special.
00:34:05
Speaker
ah Like, it doesn't it it it doesn't have a super unique hook, on like the Maltese Falcon or something like that. Right, yeah.
00:34:17
Speaker
And so I think... it ends up being real cool, but not incredibly distinctive. Maybe. Right. but it it is like, if you want a a like forties film noir movie, this gives you everything that you would want out of that. Yes. Yes.
00:34:34
Speaker
um Which is great and ah like a big reason why I love it. It looks fantastic. It is directed by Jacques Tenure, who did Cat People. hu And so it has a very similarly sort of like shadowy, dark, spooky ah kind of aesthetic to it.
00:34:51
Speaker
Just you know very... Noir-ish. um The aforementioned just hats everywhere. Everyone's got a hat in this thing. It's always pulled down over their eyes. Yeah. Like ah Robert Mitchum, who plays the lead, um Jeff Markham or Jeff Bailey, as is his assumed name, not that different.
00:35:11
Speaker
He looks like a cartoon of a, like, noir private detective. detective Like, he's got his, like, sleepy eyes and just his yeah general, like, posture. It's like, oh, jeez.
00:35:23
Speaker
He's got that kind Yeah, but it's like, he's got this, like, really just, like, tired vibe about him that I think suits the character really well. But I also think... It stood out to me against, since we just watched The Big Sleep, the last episode, how like, for like Humphrey Bogart in noir movies has this sort of like slightly more upbeat, like, I think when someone pulls a gun on Humphrey Bogart in a movie, he kind of laughs at them.
00:35:49
Speaker
He chuckles and he's just like, you idiot, pulled a gun on me. Whereas I feel like Robert Mitchum is, he's much more stoic. He's much more of a like, a classical kind of tough guy in that sense.
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, there's ah there's a quote. is great, but I don't think it's quite as fun. There's a quote from Roger Ebert that I saw about roger Robert Mitchum's face, ah which is... His mug.
00:36:13
Speaker
ah Robert Mitchum was my favorite movie star because he represented for me the impenetrable mystery of the movies. He knew the inside story with his deep laconic voice and his long face and those famous famous weary eyes. Yeah. He was the kind of guy that you'd picture in a saloon at closing time, waiting for someone to walk in through the door and break his heart.
00:36:33
Speaker
Which is what happens in this movie. Yes, it is. I guess yes it's a short synopsis. Well, we talked about him ah trying to start a new life.
00:36:44
Speaker
He has a new girlfriend. A guy from his past kind of returns and says... you're not out yet. You got to come back and talk to this guy. And then he drives up to meet him. And then he, ah as he's driving up, he's telling his new girlfriend, the story, which allows them to have some diegetic narration filling in the background.
00:37:05
Speaker
It involves,
00:37:08
Speaker
A gambling kingpin ah who's hiring him to ah track down his his wife. His wife, I think, or his girlfriend or something. um Yeah, don't know they're actually...
00:37:23
Speaker
I don't think they are. ah But she um she plugged some lead in him and took 40 grand and he's hired to get her back.
00:37:34
Speaker
They fall in love. But also ah there's this constant back and forth about. but what side she's actually on and um yeah, and kind of stuff continues until basically everybody's like, I think the main thrust of the movie is he realizes that he's being framed for something and he's trying to like out manipulate the people who are framing him, which is a cool, cool kind of dynamic.
00:38:02
Speaker
Yeah, the the the thing where it's like he's kind of going through the the motions of like doing what they're telling him to do, knowing that they're trying to frame him. And he's like, all right, I see what's going on here. And he's sort of trying to do his own other things kind of behind their backs. too Yeah, yeah.
00:38:19
Speaker
like i do I do think the whole the whole kind of flashback section is probably my favorite part of the movie when it is like... Hinton, tailing this woman.
00:38:30
Speaker
But so when he's he's in, ah he's in like South America or Central America and there's just just a lot of him like, yeah, hanging out at bars, like waiting for her to show up.
00:38:41
Speaker
And then like taking, you know, night walks on the beach and such. I just feel like that section of the movie feels really, it's it's where I feel like the emotions kind of like hit the strongest. And then, because then it makes like her inevitable betrayal work a lot better because you are kind of buying into this like you do want to see them run away together and like escape this gambler who's hired him to find her yeah the beginning part of this movie reminds me a lot of the beginning of Notorious except because they're in this like tropical place and kind of have some weird other stuff going on while they're falling in love with each other Noir movies love a like a tropical setting is the thing I'm noticing. I guess I didn't really think about that as being a thing, but it seems that it is. It kind of is though. Yeah. I mean, I think of Noir mainly as like it's set usually in LA or at least some kind of city setting. Yeah. But I do feel like there are a lot where it's like, and now we got to go down to Mexico do some stuff. And then it's like, there's a band in the street playing and there's palm trees and yeah.
00:39:43
Speaker
Yeah, we're going to talk about another noir movie that has a lot of tropical stuff in it later. Yeah. But yeah, I think like, i feel like this, the way this romance picks up in this movie is kind of what I was wishing i was seeing a bit more of in Notorious.
00:39:59
Speaker
And I think that was, ah I believed it in the way that I didn't believe it in Notorious.
Themes in 'Nightmare Alley'
00:40:05
Speaker
But a rare misstep from Cary Grant in that one to me. Yeah, it's funny because I don't know. Notorious still really works for me.
00:40:14
Speaker
But um um yeah. ah Kirk Douglas is the the villain in this one. Yes. think we've watched anything else with him for show. This is one of his first movies. ah And yeah it is. And I was also realizing that he's. might ah oh my God. Robert Doug.
00:40:32
Speaker
What's his name? mike Michael Douglas. Michael Douglas. He is Michael Douglas's dad. Yeah. Did you not know that before? I didn't know that. No. Okay.
00:40:43
Speaker
Oh yeah. The, the, the Douglas family, uh, family of actors. I don't know if there's any others besides those two, but there's a guy in this, uh, whose name is Leonard eagles, which is what a, what a hard boiled name that is.
00:40:57
Speaker
Yeah. Spelled like the animal. Yeah, like never trust a guy whose name is Eels. He's slippery. Why didn't they ever say that Eels slipped through his finger? That that Eels fell as real slippery because even even for this movie, that would be too much.
00:41:14
Speaker
um yeah this movie definitely has the kind of like very noir thing of like women who are up to no good and who are like gonna betray the men that care about them and who are out in like out for themselves which i always feel like is like it it in some mood in some noir movies it kind of smacks of like misogyny whereas in others i think it it's like oh no like a female villain that is like smart, manipulative is a good villain.
00:41:44
Speaker
Right. I think, I think this movie errors more to on the side of it being well-written there. There's a part, maybe in comparison to next one we're talking about, it doesn't fare as well.
00:41:56
Speaker
There's a part in the beginning where ah the not the main guy, but like I guess his partner, ah his PI partner says, a dame with a rod is like a man with a knitting needle.
00:42:08
Speaker
And I'm like, ah like what is I'm not 100% sure what he means by that. That's when there's hard-boiled dialogue things where you're like, what? What?
00:42:19
Speaker
Is it just like, I guess maybe he just means that like women shouldn't have guns. I don't know. Right. And men should have knitting needles, I guess. Yeah, there there is some definitely some good kind of hard world dialogue that stood out to me. Like he describes his old partner as a stupid oily gent.
00:42:36
Speaker
Great. There's a bit where ah Kathy, the femme fatale, says, you ought to ah you ought to have killed me. And he goes, there's still time.
00:42:47
Speaker
I think that's a great kind of hard-boiled exchange. i'm I'm not usually a fan of captions on movies, but I think that for noir movies, i lately i have been turning them on because...
00:43:02
Speaker
they're so dense that I think like reading, reading it kind of helps parse everything better, but also it helps me catch all of the great dialogue better too.
00:43:14
Speaker
Hmm. Yes. We have good dialogue. This, uh, uncredited James M. Cain was one of the writers on this movie. He, he, and he wrote the book, Dublin Demnity and Mildred Pierce.
00:43:28
Speaker
Hmm. It's like a very, very well established, like hard boiled, crime author um up there with Deshel Hammett and those guys. So yeah, it feels very apiece with other kind of 40s hard-boiled detective pictures.
00:43:46
Speaker
Certainly. and I don't feel like I have a whole lot else to say, but it's like... it It isn't nearly as like it is convoluted, but it isn't nearly as convoluted as like The Big Sleep, which is no, as we said on that episode is like self parody.
00:44:02
Speaker
I could follow this movie. Right. Yeah. I can't. I can't follow The Big Sleep. Yeah, it's it's a good one. Yeah. Another 1947 classic noir movie that we watched. Yeah.
00:44:14
Speaker
Is Nightmare Alley. Yes. This movie was really interesting. i think it's got a lot going on in it. Yeah, for sure. I had never seen this, but I had seen the Guillermo del Toro remake that came out couple years ago. Yeah, I didn't see that. Which very, very similar.
00:44:31
Speaker
I mean, they're both based on the same book. The del Toro movie a lot longer, and so has, like, more stuff happens, and you kind of feel like you get to know the characters bit better. Hmm.
00:44:42
Speaker
it's It's not a Hays Code movie, so it's a lot darker. like It you know doesn't have kind of like the edges sanded off quite as much as this one does. But like even so, I think Naimorelli is i like a very dark movie for the time. It really is.
00:44:57
Speaker
um And like not just because like there's like death or whatever. It just it feels... There's like... There's like a nastiness to it. There's like a genuine, just like dark kind of psychological. There's something just kind of intangible under the surface of this movie that feels dangerous and kind of do doom filled.
00:45:18
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, any movie that has a tarot card scene where they're like, oh, no, what's going to happen now? Which, honestly, is one of my only kind of gripes with this movie is is that stuff. but I think that's even that's just because, like, that has become such a cliche. i think those scenes are typically.
00:45:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think those scenes are typically kind of annoying, but it really works here. I think it works well to... It works because of the setting and because of the setup. Yeah, it's like because it's amongst carnival people, it feels a bit more like earned, I think.
00:45:51
Speaker
Yeah. ah But yeah, no, i totally were know I totally know what you mean. Like it is... I was kind of shocked, honestly. Like I was like... When I was watching this movie, I was thinking like maybe... you this is the marker of the Hays Code really starting to lose some of its power because this movie is just grim, just grim, grim stuff with bad people. And it's not like there isn't like a sense of like justice or goodness in the movie, really. Yeah, I mean, i i'm wondering now if it like if it does follow a the kind of like crime Hays Code stuff, because I'm pretty sure that
00:46:29
Speaker
Spoilers, I'm pretty sure Lilith does get away with crime in this movie. Yeah. I mean, you could argue that Stan doesn't really because he is sort of has this sort of karmic justice done to him.
00:46:44
Speaker
But um I would definitely say this is a noir movie, mostly due to its sort of it. Yeah, it's a crime movie and it has this like really doom filled tone. But unlike out of the past, which is like very classical, like detective character,
00:46:58
Speaker
solving crimes set up. This is like, this is about just like a, a desperate opportunistic man. Who's like trying to get ahead in life by, by,
00:47:10
Speaker
through lying and deceit. He's yeah, he's he's scheming through the whole movie and and and basically just like hustling the entire time.
00:47:21
Speaker
but Right. he's He's a he's a con artist. Yeah. You want to you want to give this the give this a a quick synopsy? ah Sure. So ah Stan Carlisle is a carny as in part of this like mentalism gig um helping out Zina.
00:47:38
Speaker
who is the head of the show, who he's also somewhat kind of romantically involved with, and Zena's husband, Pete, who is a deeply alcoholic.
00:47:53
Speaker
The other carnies like, oh man, like Pete and Zena, they used to be big time. like They used to like have like a fancy show where they had ah this secret code where they pretend that Zena was reading people's minds.
00:48:06
Speaker
And so Stan being a Opportunist wants to know what the code is, but ah Pete won't give it up. He says, over my dead body.
00:48:17
Speaker
Right. which And then Chekhov's line of dialogue. He accidentally gives Pete a bottle of ah wood alcohol, which naturally ah Pete, being an alcoholic, drinks and then dies from drinking.
00:48:33
Speaker
Yeah. Stan sort of takes over the show. He learns the secret code and then ah takes takes that show on the road with ah Molly, who's another carnival worker.
00:48:45
Speaker
um That he also has a sort of like romantic involvement with. That's the PC term, right? cart Carnival worker. As opposed to what, carny? ah Yeah. Is that a not allowed?
00:48:59
Speaker
No, I don't know. I assume, I think they don't like it. All right, I won't say it. He goes on the road with with Molly, who is also at the carnival and who has a sort of electric chair act.
00:49:11
Speaker
A carnival individual. One of those classic electric chair acts that people do. Yeah, with like ah like think a a special effect. Like the one kind of special effect in this movie. So then he's working this sort of fancy magician circuit.
00:49:25
Speaker
At one of them, he meets Lilith, who's a psychiatrist. And with her, starts to cook up this this scheme to con, kind sort of a more of a long con against this woman.
00:49:38
Speaker
wealthy man as it was. What's his name? Ezra Grindle, which is a great name. It's a it's almost a Harry Potter name. I feel like pretty much. Yeah.
00:49:50
Speaker
In order to convince him that he's a medium, which Stan refers to as ah the spook racket, Which is my now my favorite way to refer to and medium.
00:50:02
Speaker
I'm going really piss off whatever mediums I meet now. Because I'll be like, oh, you're medium. ah You're in the spook record, are you? I'm a large.
00:50:12
Speaker
Of course, na he ropes in Molly to that too. And of course that goes... horribly awry. ah Lilith takes all the money that he's made that he's like entrusted her with and then tries to gaslight him into thinking that he's gone crazy.
00:50:29
Speaker
Yeah, because she's a she's a therapist. She's a psychiatrist. yeah psychologist and so like yeah he he part of what's going on here is that she's recording all secretly recording all of her therapy sessions onto uh onto records and she's got him too and she's got all the dirt or or he he kind of spills his guts and now she's got all this like uh dirt on him to both hang it over him and manipulate him with Yeah, but then he's like, oh, no, like you were in on this the whole time, too. Like, i' I'll bring you down with me. And she's like, I this delusion of yours is really quite upsetting. Like you've formed this fixation on me. And it's like, oh, yeah, that um her kind of like very calmly turning the tables on him is it's a great moment.
00:51:17
Speaker
um So he has to go on the run. sends Molly away and then sort of falls back back into alcoholism slowly. He's on the run. He's like, you know, hopping boxcars and stuff.
00:51:31
Speaker
It's the depression. and until he finds himself back at a ah carnival again. and he's like, hey, i can I got this mentalist act. I can do this. And they're like, we don't need mentalist acts. We got it. But we do have this one job.
00:51:46
Speaker
And, you know, it's only temporary until we get ah a real geek. Which also, right, we've set up the geek at the beginning. Which is, in in circus ah terminology, is just like a crazy guy who eats chickens. And it's like, you know, more more beast than man. And it's actually just like a drunk guy that they keep in a cage. Which is a real thing that circuses used to do.
00:52:11
Speaker
and And so then... Stan becomes the geek at the circus, but then Molly sees is at the same circus and sees him. And they have like this brief moment of of reconnection right before the end of the movie, which um turns out was made specifically for this movie. It is not in the book, nor is it. yeah um Both of those end with Stan accepting the job as the circus geek, sort of wi by saying that he was he was made for it, which is a recurring line throughout the film.
00:52:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. The movie opens with ah ah like... looking over a crowd, um, of being kind of horrified at the geek at the circus that he starts at. Right. They never really show you the act that you kind of see, you kind of see the geek from afar at other points, but they never really show you what the actual, what the audience is seeing.
00:53:11
Speaker
ah And they they kind of allude to also in this movie that it is considered to be like, don't know, there's like the circuses that have geeks and there are circuses that don't.
00:53:22
Speaker
And like people kind of like amongst the the the community, they're like, ah you're kind of like you're in the like a low class circus. Right. They have a geek. If you if you had i guess what have just a drunk guy that you keep chained up. Yes, that is considered.
00:53:38
Speaker
Of lower quality. It's like, oh, yeah maybe, yeah, you're not quite in the up and up if you have a geek in your show. But apparently it was it was a thing that um that they would like kind of they were they were like alcoholics or or drug addicts and they would bribe them or pay them with the, you know, the the substance of their choice.
00:54:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Which, yeah, dark. I mean, that's the thing. It's like, this movie is really dark. I think the moment that really made me start thinking about the Hays Code was... And just the darkness of this movie was the part where the main character accidentally kills somebody, you know?
00:54:23
Speaker
And he, like, he feels bad about it, but there's no, like... And in a way, it kind of catches up to him, but there's a lot of, yeah, kind of poetic turnarounds in this movie. He becomes a drunk because he like killed the drunk other guy.
00:54:39
Speaker
but like the the movie just lets you sit with that, that like he accidentally swapped the bottles and he, it was intentional. He was originally trying to have like a kind of tender, nice moment with this guy.
00:54:53
Speaker
And it turned into something horrible because he gave him poison accidentally. And then he just kind of slips out and he's just like, I'm going to do my best to not deal with this. Yeah. Yeah. Right there. I mean, I think there's, there's a lot in this movie about addiction.
00:55:11
Speaker
i mean, specifically alcoholism, but like, I think even Stan is sort of also kind of addicted to the act that he's doing of sort of like the, the power that he sort of has, and they i think that he can read minds.
00:55:25
Speaker
He's shown throughout the movie to be kind of like, not like unnaturally good at it, but he, it's just like his, he's got the gift of gab, right? It's like, he he's, he's very charming and he's very, he's very good at just like talking people into stuff. And so naturally once he's given a little bit of training, he can, he can really convince people that he knows what they're thinking.
00:55:51
Speaker
um Yeah, you mentioned also the code that they come up with. And there there are all these scenes of people delivering the code, but like doing it in like the code has to do with you're indicating letters of a word based on the words that you say and like what stress you put on what syllables. Yeah, it's like the number of words that you say is a number and the number corresponds to object. I think it's like they they start to explain how it works, but not fully.
00:56:20
Speaker
It's cool. I like it, though, because like you can kind of feel like, oh, like I can hear the code being said. Right. Even though there's like probably no actual, you know, logic. It does make me wonder if that is based on a real a real code for this type of of act.
00:56:37
Speaker
It could be. I mean, cold reading is a thing. Like, I think this movie is very kind of like demystifying towards like mentalism acts and psychics and that sort of thing where it is like. Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:50
Speaker
While also still being like, but but the tarot is true. Like, that that's legit. I mean, I think the tarot card tarot cards being true is just a thing that you're going to have in any screenplay that has tarot cards in it. Right, of course. Because it's way more interesting to have them be true.
00:57:07
Speaker
Yeah. Always. Yeah. it's like I mean, it's like the curse of like things being, this is some, this is kind of a gripe that I have. If like, anytime you see a psychic in a movie or tarot cards in a movie, like it's always going to be true because, and it's always going to confirm this thing that, um I don't know, in my opinion is not very real, you know, because like, ah why would you have it in the movie if it didn't do something for the movie?
00:57:36
Speaker
So, then I mean, i because i i do I think the way that the tarot is framed in this movie is maybe not – is I think how most people think of the tarot, which I don't know if it's 100% accurate.
00:57:49
Speaker
My kind of – and I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding of how tarot readings work is it's it's less about predicting the future and more about like giving you stuff to think about and look right look within yourself. Right.
00:58:02
Speaker
That's reasonable. That's reasonable. And I think like that the, it does kind of play that role in like, it does sort of predict narrative stuff that happens in the movie. But I, I also think it's, it's main thing is that it's like Stan is very doubtful of it, but then he starts to get really like freaked out by it because it, it does start to line up with things that are actually happening.
00:58:23
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I mean, I think there are some moments in this movie where, like, this you talk about demystifying, right? And, like, this movie has a kind of... fairly like a skeptic's viewpoint or like the main character is just like, come on, fancy, like, you know, uh, uh, paranormal stuff, whatever. But then I think it's interesting that it's like, there are a couple moments where the movie almost like threatens to break reality a little bit and like become like somebody can really read minds and then it pulls back again. Right. But i think it, it, it makes it almost believable that it's like gonna do that. And then it, and then it pulls back, which I think kind of cool.
00:59:03
Speaker
But yeah, like you mentioned cold reading and hot reading, like they they they name drop cold reading, yeah which I think is like, ah it's kind of interesting. It's like, you know, we're familiar with this term now. I don't.
00:59:15
Speaker
ah It's interesting to know that it was like there then. It feels very in the know. And then I have that this whole hot reading scheme as well. i Because I don't really know if – I do feel like a lot of that stuff is kind of a little bit more common knowledge now.
00:59:30
Speaker
I don't know how much it was in 1947 how much like the book this is based on or this movie was really kind of like blowing the lid off of like mesmerism and mentalist acts. And, you know, if that was like – I wonder if this was like pissing people off. They're like, don't tell them.
00:59:46
Speaker
This is like the uranium in Notorious, right? It's like, do you know? Yeah, yeah. um So, yeah I don't really know anything about the book this is based on. I'm very curious, though, if it was like written from a place of of knowledge of like, I have to imagine it was of like actual circus acts and that sort of thing, because it does feel very specific and very, from what I know, you know, accurate to sort of what 1930s kind of circus acts were like.
01:00:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, this this this feels like ah like freaks adjacent in that it feels very kind of in the know about like the the the world of you know circus performers. and And it not being...
01:00:29
Speaker
really that judgmental against like it is definitely the movie is definitely presenting like geeks are fucked up and like that's not a thing that people should do that it is a form of like indentured servitude the movie is also a little bit kind of like it understands the kind of romanticism of like circus and carnival life i mean stan has kind of like a short little monologue where he's like ah you're always on the move and you never know who gonna meet and you you always feel like you know something that no one else knows and it makes you feel all superior yeah
01:00:59
Speaker
And you're like, oh so I get it. That's that's what Stan likes. But so, yeah, and it doesn't, it's like, I feel like the a lot of the other characters aren't, you know, they're they're not all presented as like scheming con artists the way that Stan is.
01:01:14
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, honestly, like this and freaks, they're both movies that I think being a circus, working in the circus, being carny is cool. But then sometimes there are these like, you know, opportunistic, uh, don't know, cynical people who love power and who love being a dick for no reason.
01:01:37
Speaker
And, uh, and they ruin the fun for everybody. Uh, that we we thought they were one of us, but they're not one of us. Yeah, ah I guess we should mention the main character, Stan, is played by Tyrone Power, an incredible name, um who ah I don't think... Yeah, we haven't watched any of Tyrone Power movies, but he was a real kind of like, you know, classic leading man actor. He was the... He looks the part.
01:02:06
Speaker
After... um Douglas Fairbanks, he was sort of the main Zorro actor for a long Like, throughout all, like, the 40s, he was in a bunch of Zorro movies. And so that's, like, kind of what he's mostly known for, I'd say, is his, like, swashbuckling roles.
01:02:22
Speaker
um And this was apparently, like, him really trying to take a big swing. and Like, I think he was the one that pitched it to the studio. Like, I want to make a weird carnival noir movie, which is cool to see.
01:02:34
Speaker
um And he's very good in it. Yeah. Like it's like, cause he, he does all the, the, you know, he's got all of this sort of like, I'm good looking, I'm charming. Everyone likes me. And then he's, i feel like also gets the, both the kind of like being high in his, not in his own supply, but like, right. He's sort of getting a big head about it.
01:02:54
Speaker
And then also his, like his insecurity, whenever he's actually presented with a real problem. I think the ending does feel a little bit, a little bit too nice. Yeah.
01:03:05
Speaker
For the rest of the story. Yeah, I mean, i i did you have not seen the Del Toro movie, you said, right? No, I missed it, yeah. Okay. I mean, I really liked it. I know that not everyone did, but um I was big fan.
01:03:18
Speaker
There are a couple of things that I think are like... It's like the Delta or movie starts earlier than this one does. Like we see more of, we see Stan like arriving at the circus and like getting his job there.
01:03:29
Speaker
Molly is, uh, I don't know how different she is in the book, but I feel like in this, she can, she never really stops doubting Stan at any point. Whereas I think in the, in the Delta or movie, she definitely does. She's like, you're, you're doing messed up stuff. I'm out.
01:03:47
Speaker
And then, yeah, like the ending, it it ends at like when he meets the guy and he offers him the liquor. And he's like, all right, I guess I guess I'm a geek now, which i does feel like it's the most kind of poetic end point yeah to this story. yeah So it makes sense that that's where it originally ended and kind of where it is supposed to.
01:04:07
Speaker
I mean, in a way, like, you know, he's kind of a scoundrel through this whole movie, but like it is also, um you know, through the protagonist's frame of view, right?
01:04:17
Speaker
Like the geek is this otherized person. It's like somebody who you think of as, mean, they even kind of talk about like, ah like oh, it's even human or this kind of thing, you know? And it's like, ah do they talk about that? I don't know.
01:04:30
Speaker
I um think that the, like the Barker does, but I don't know if. Right. Yeah. ah But like, and then it almost, you know, humanizes that, right? It's like, here's a person who is so sunk into alcoholism that he ah is willing to do this degrading act in front of people.
01:04:51
Speaker
And like... everybody has a journey there, you know? Yeah. Like we can, we can have empathy even, even though this guy, you know, is a scoundrel.
01:05:02
Speaker
Like we still have some empathy for him and we can kind of see like, yeah, like he is a person, and this guy who we think of as like, who, who is kind of being presented as this subhuman thing, like is a person who has feelings and was put in this position, yeah which is interesting. I think it's like,
01:05:23
Speaker
At the beginning of the movie, Stan himself was like, how could a person get to this point? Like he's he can't understand like how a person would do this. And so then to see over the course of the entire movie with him ending up in the exact same spot is.
01:05:37
Speaker
Yeah, it is a very i do like that kind of the full circle in this of it. It feels very, very clean, very poetic. Good stuff. Yeah, that's real quick. I'll just say that this is also directed by Edmund Golding, who we haven't seen his movies yet, but I saw a Dark Victory, which he did, and I really liked that.
01:05:58
Speaker
And he also did um Grand Hotel, right? ah Yes, Grand Hotel. The Oscar-winning picture? Yes, yeah. so Also, ah ah Joan Blondel is in this movie, who was in a bunch of the like early 30s comedies that we watched, and has now sort of graduated to a bit more of a character-actory role.
01:06:20
Speaker
What was... She was in like Gold gold Diggers of 1933 and oh wow a couple other stuff. Yeah. Look at that. Huh. I didn't recognize her. ah Cool movie.
01:06:32
Speaker
Yeah. I like I like carnival movies. Who doesn't like a carnival movie? I don't know. I certainly do. Another movie, I guess, kind of features a carnival.
01:06:45
Speaker
yeah A little bit. A little bit.
Orson Welles' Direction in 'The Lady from Shanghai'
01:06:48
Speaker
They both have end scenes in a carnival. It's just that this one, it's just that the Nightmare Alley, the rest of it's also in a carnival. Well, most, I mean, there's a big chunk of it that's just sort of in high society clubs and stuff, too.
01:07:02
Speaker
But yes, the the The Lady from Shanghai. Directed by Orson Welles. By Orson Welles. That old guy. Yeah. Director of Magnificent Ambersons himself.
01:07:17
Speaker
Director of the world of the world though the World of the Wars radio broadcast. And ah that actually, that's not going along with your joke. ah Voice of, what, Cybertron himself? Oh, yeah, there you go.
01:07:32
Speaker
And the Shadow. um Yeah, Orson Welles, another noir picture. Yes, triple noir. It's triple noir week. I mean, they're all they're all pretty like classic noir movies, so it's you know why why skip them?
01:07:46
Speaker
And this is ah Orson Welles also playing the main guy, and it's got Rita Hayworth in it as well. Rita Hayworth. Who his wife at the time. At the time, but I think they divorced like almost immediately after this movie, like very, very quickly thereafter.
01:08:00
Speaker
Yeah, Rita Hayworth apparently was, ah she has short blonde hair in this movie as opposed to longer red hair, which was, you know, a big, a big controversy where like the studio was like, what?
01:08:13
Speaker
You can't have different hair. You're famous for having this kind of hair. She is famous for having that kind of hair. I will grant that. True. Very true.
01:08:24
Speaker
um But Orson Welles was like, no, you have to have different hair. um ah That was a bit more Alan Rickman than Orson Welles. Sorry, but... ah Anyway, he doesn't look like a talk like a that in this movie anyway. He talks with an Irish accent for some reason.
01:08:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's a choice. Yeah, it is It is a choice. Maybe not one that he should have made, but... Yeah, I mean, I'll defer to an Irish person, but something something felt like it wasn't super consistent in this movie. I don't know. It just... I don't know what...
01:08:56
Speaker
him having an Irish accent really adds ah to the the character. But yeah, I think this is my least favorite of the three noir movies that we watched. I had also seen seen this one before, but like longer ago.
01:09:09
Speaker
And i I fully only remembered the last five minutes. Like I did. I had zero memory of anything else that happens in this movie. I mean, that's kind of fair because ah the last five minutes are cool as hell. Yeah.
01:09:23
Speaker
and And the rest of it's like, yeah, it's fine. Yeah. The rest of it's like, oh, yeah, stuff's happening. Okay. Yeah. Which apparently, apparently Orson Welles, like many Orson Welles movies, this was sort of like the edit was taken out of his hands and it was recut without his approval.
01:09:40
Speaker
ah that The cool end scene was supposed to be four times longer. Yeah, it was supposed to be like 20 minutes. And I'm like, oh, 20 minutes of like funhouse nightmare shit.
01:09:51
Speaker
Yes. But I mean, five yeah, considering I mean, this this is a movie that has a climactic scene and like a kind of shootout, basically. i don't know shootouts the word, yeah but I'd say shootout.
01:10:04
Speaker
Inside of a mirror maze. yeah I guess the first time that that was done, and it's not only done like to emphasize the kind of confusion of the mirror maze, but there's all sorts of just like wacky, form-breaking stuff that's happening all around it and within it.
01:10:22
Speaker
it It looks incredible. It's not just like resting on its laurels of, like, let's shoot this scene inside of a mirror maze. It's like... going total wacko yeah yeah and i feel like that whole the whole sort of like circus funhouse ending feels like it's from a different movie it's like so much more expressive and like and expressive is the word yeah yeah like um i mean it feels very kind of expressionist also like um and it it it's it's fun in ah in a way that i feel like the rest of the movie kind of isn't
01:10:59
Speaker
Yeah, it does kind of feel like that's maybe more what Orson Welles was kind of trying to put into the movie. And I think the rest of it doesn't. I don't know.
01:11:10
Speaker
The rest of it, I don't I don't love really. Yeah. So this this movie, um it's ah it's another femme fatale. It's another kind of mix up with ah who the guy hiring me is here to do something else. A frame kind of thing. Yeah. um Although in this one, it's like, it is so obviously him getting framed. Right. I mean, he says right at the beginning the movie, right? That's like, ah from the first time I saw the girl, I didn't use me head much except to think of her.
01:11:42
Speaker
And I'm like, you can tell because he is he is a very dumb protagonist in this movie where you're just like, dude. they're You're clearly being set up for something. and he's like, oh, I'll be fine.
01:11:53
Speaker
He's like, yeah, he's like, I mean, I think he's a dumb protagonist, but I think it works in a way because you can tell that like, I think you can see it happen in the movie that like he's so swept up in his feelings that he is just making stupid decisions. Yeah.
01:12:09
Speaker
But I don't know. it's it goes It goes on a little, it goes a little far into that where I'm just like, dude, this guy's, this guy's real dumb. Yeah, the the main kind of like kind of plot angle that happens.
01:12:25
Speaker
There's a whole lot of just like at the beginning, it it really feels like a whole lot of like we wanted this studio to pay for our tropical vacation. We're just going to like shoot scenes in these beautiful locations. Orison and Rita were both just like, we want to go to an island. And so what if we made movie? We want to to many islands. Yeah. yeah So it's a lot of like, i don't know, tension building on boats and people kind of being mad at each other next to like within luau's or whatever. But um once it kind of gets going, it's all about this, um this kind of scheme that one of the two like rich guys in the movie kind of plans, which is I want to disappear.
01:13:13
Speaker
so And you kind of have a record. So let me like, like I'll pay you $5,000 to kind of like take the blame for killing me so that I can get up, get away with people having assumed that I'm dead and go live in Mexico Or and because there's no body and I'm a lawyer, so I know this is how it works because there's no body and you're signing a confession to a murder, but it's to a missing person, then you'll be completely fine.
01:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that's how it works. This is I don't know. This is some real Barry Zucker corn level lawyering going on. He's very good.
01:14:01
Speaker
He wasn't.
01:14:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, when he's saying that in the movie, I'm like, you know, there's a possibility that this is true, but it doesn't feel like.
01:14:19
Speaker
Yeah. See, it's like the most so suspicious man in the world. gives him, you know, offers him this, this scheme that he's cooked up. And he's like, you'll be completely blameless.
01:14:31
Speaker
Just, you know, just take this confession and say that you murdered me. What could possibly go wrong? And then of course everything goes wrong. It goes worse than even that. Right, right. Because, of course, the guy that hires him ends up being murdered anyway. And there is a body. But then also that guy killed someone else that he's also on the hook for Orson Welles is.
01:14:55
Speaker
And so he ends up basically being, you know, accused of killing two people. And then Rita Hayworth's rich lawyer husband is like, aha, I know that you're trying to sneak away with my wife.
01:15:07
Speaker
I'm going to make sure that you go to jail for these crimes you didn't commit. By representing you in the trial. Yeah, by doing my job badly. um So we get a little bit of a kind of courtroom drama.
01:15:19
Speaker
But we also get a little courtroom farce, too. Right. Really more courtroom farce than drama. It's true. Right. Because Mr. Bannister, who's the the the the wicked scheming lawyer, ah decides to call upon himself as a witness.
01:15:35
Speaker
And so he is cross-examining himself. Right. What would you say to that, Mr. Bannister? I say this. And it's like, i don't very well i don't know if courts allow this a amount of like silliness.
01:15:48
Speaker
and Well, it's okay the judge says, this is highly unusual. Then it's fine. Then it's allowed. ah But right. So then he's got to escape the courtroom. He's got ah fight a very long fight scene inside the judge's office where he smashes every piece of furniture.
01:16:06
Speaker
Orson Welles loves to smash every piece of furniture in a row. Does he ever? it's Yeah. But then he escapes and tries to get away with Rita Hayworth as Mrs. Bannister.
01:16:17
Speaker
And it turns out that Rita Hayworth was actually kind of behind the whole thing. and And in in classic Femme Fatale fashion, is has all these schemes of her own.
01:16:30
Speaker
And so then... She's got sort of like a so ah secret hideout in the car in the circus, the abandoned circus in San Francisco, where someone gets drugged and taken to.
01:16:43
Speaker
And then, right, get the big, him sort of like trying to escape the funhouse and then meets up with both the banisters in the Hall of Mirrors. Both the banisters shoot each other.
01:16:55
Speaker
And he just kind of walks out into the early morning, ah ah Seemingly a free man, but without without anything to show for it.
01:17:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Also, ah she's not from Shanghai. No, she lived there once. And that's where the title comes from, which is a bit of a stretch.
01:17:21
Speaker
I was like the lady from Shanghai. And it's like it's Rita Hayworth. And it's like, yeah, I lived there for like a month. Yeah, this is called The Lady from Shanghai, right? And then the movie starts and they're like, we're going hire you to go on a boat. Let's go on a boat somewhere. was like, oh, cool. They're going to sail to Shanghai. They're going to like have some kind of so kind of fun on the Shanghai harbor. like That's going to be a cool setting for a movie. And it's just like, no, it's like kind of vague like Caribbean, Polynesia, whatever. you know Yeah.
01:17:52
Speaker
I mean, there there is part, like, right after your skip after he escapes the courthouse, he runs through Chinatown. That's right, yeah. And so there's, like, a little bit of at least sort of, like, tangential Chinese culture represented there.
01:18:07
Speaker
But that's about it. And even then, I think it's, like... ah I thought that I was hearing some other languages poking poking in.
01:18:18
Speaker
don't know if you... Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I'm a little too rusty to be able to pick that up exactly. But i a month ago, i was walking through the San Francisco Chinatown. i was like i was like scoping out really hard, trying to see if I could recognize any streets.
01:18:34
Speaker
but Oh, cool. No dice. I've been noticing that a lot of... these movies kind of start off with a really like pow, like in your face, like, ah or dramatic opening shot.
01:18:49
Speaker
A lot of these 40s movies, I feel like try really try and make a statement with their first shot. I was noticing that with a lot of these, like the lady from Shanghai, it's not, it's like a really high contrast, like boat in front of bridge thing. That's like a very beautiful opening shot.
01:19:07
Speaker
It's like the bridge, right? Isn't it supposed to be in? Oh, yeah, maybe it open right opens in New York City. And then they take the yacht down ah way down South America way.
01:19:20
Speaker
And then that's what our fourth Arrested Development reference in this episode. and then you write then they go back up to California. So I guess they crossed ah ah canal at some point there.
01:19:34
Speaker
Or they they went around been around the Horn. Yeah. Let's see. There's... a little bit of narration in this. You got to say you are, you got to have narration.
01:19:46
Speaker
A kind of interesting thing is that the narration does a kind of like drunk history thing where like, there's a point where he's describing what he's saying and then his mouth is going along with what the narration is saying.
01:20:02
Speaker
He's saying, on You know what i mean with the drunk history thing? Yeah. So I thought that was like a kind of interesting kind of way of being in ah informal dialogue with the diegesis. Oh, fancy.
01:20:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's like it's it's still Norse and Wells movie. So it's got some it's got some real kind of flourishes here and there. There's also certainly there's the scene in the aquarium, which I really like. We're like, yeah, with these blown out fish. Yeah. Him and Rita Hayworth are like meeting at an aquarium.
01:20:32
Speaker
like secretly, and then like a bunch of school kids see them making out, they're like, hee hee hee hee, and they're like, oh shit, we've been discovered. But like all, yeah, all of the aquarium windows, instead of actual like aquarium windows, I think are like rear projection screens.
01:20:48
Speaker
And so they've got these like giant blown up, the size of the window is way too big for whatever the animal in the window is. So there's a like eight foot turtle, and a like giant clownfish, and a like, you know,
01:21:02
Speaker
10 foot octopus it's like it's really wacky looking but it's kind of awesome yeah yeah it's it's it's as if the windows to an aquarium were all made out of fresnel lenses right yeah maybe that's what they're going for yeah which which honestly like that would be kind of fun for them to do an aquarium yeah Right. it It feels like there's there's, like, there is a lot of location shooting in this, both in San Francisco and, i think, Acapulco.
01:21:30
Speaker
And it's, like, you know, it it you can tell that, like, this movie is actually, it's like, went to places, which is cool. Yeah. think it's got some some nice kind of music in it.
01:21:41
Speaker
The Hall of Mirrors thing, I do think, is very significant in that, like... Yeah. Whether or not this is the first maybe to have a Hall Mirrors in it, which I don't really... It probably isn't. But it certainly is a like landmark Hall of Mirrors film.
01:21:54
Speaker
And I do think it is kind of the thing that everything everything else is pulling from a bit. Yeah. I mean, i kind of assumed that everything was pulling from the the Bruce Lee movie.
01:22:05
Speaker
But I guess the Bruce Lee movie was pulling from this. i I don't know if that's ever been confirmed, but I get the sense that, yeah, Enter the Dragon is Maybe riffing on this movie.
01:22:16
Speaker
it's It's certainly, I mean, like having a climactic fight scene in a Hall of Mirrors, I think is close enough where it's like, it checks out. yeah um And then yeah I do think the End of the Dragon one is probably, is more famous overall. And it's like more people know that one.
01:22:33
Speaker
The start of, ah you know, a long line of great, ah you know, Hall of Mirrors fight scenes, including... ah
Debate on 'Miracle on 34th Street'
01:22:40
Speaker
The movie The Shadow, which Orson Welles also played The Shadow when on the radio.
01:22:44
Speaker
So there you go. Another movie that has ah bunch of um silly stuff happening in a courtroom is a Miracle on 34th Street.
01:22:58
Speaker
A Christmas classic. Probably the most famous movie from this year. Although I wouldn't really consider it the Big Daddy because it's kind of mid- You think so? Yeah.
01:23:09
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. I guess you like this movie. I thought it was like kind of lame. but Oh, man. I like this movie a lot. This is our second like classic Christmas movie that we're watching in like the the that the heat of summer.
01:23:24
Speaker
Yeah. ah Maybe I wasn't in the right Christmas spirit when I was watching it. Right. So when you have air conditioning going and you're like, oh, God, it's so hot outside. it yeah it does. It may be this movie doesn't hit quite as hard.
01:23:36
Speaker
Hopefully by the time the white Christmas rolls around, we'll be closer. to This movie so much better than a White Christmas. It's like not even been close. Oh, i haven't seen i haven't seen i hadn't seen either of these before. okay There's a lot of classic Christmas movies I haven't seen because I just ah i guess I just watch Tokyo Godfathers and Die Hard, baby. Oh, I just have all of my, you know, my ah what is it? Contrarian Christmas movies to watch.
01:24:02
Speaker
Yeah, and i this is definitely a movie I watched as a kid around Christmas time. hadn't in a really long time. And think I think last year was maybe the first time I'd seen it in a good a good long time.
01:24:15
Speaker
And it's just it's it's so charming. I it's great. There. Okay. There are parts of this movie that are charming and nice. And I like them. I think the Santa is very good in this movie. I think as a film, i don't think it works that well. I think it's a little boring.
01:24:30
Speaker
i think that like the acting is bad. i think the product placement is like, well, really weird. Like, I don't know if we've seen, like, conspicuous product placement in one of our movies before, but, like, this just everybody talking about, like, oh we love Macy's. We love Macy's department store.
01:24:50
Speaker
it it It feels weird. feels weird. It feels very weird. Although it is, like, they're... As far as I can tell, there's no like direct product placement in this movie. It is just sort of like... Right, it's co-branding, I guess. Right.
01:25:02
Speaker
Which I also... I did wonder about, like... Was this movie like like written by Macy's or something? What was Macy's... I know. yeah me too. I couldn't find that. Because it is so incredibly Macy's-centric.
01:25:15
Speaker
But then... and Right, because there's like there's a character who is Mr. Macy. And I don't know if that is... i certainly don't think it's the actual guy... That owned Macy's.
01:25:27
Speaker
But then it's sort of like it's a character based on him. i don't know how any of that stuff works. I agree that it is weird. Yeah. ah There is like it kind of. I mean almost in a way of of sort of like whatever the word is. Like like boosting up Macy's even more. They do kind of name drop another department store.
01:25:46
Speaker
Which I'd. which was another big department store that I had never heard of before because ah it went out of business like five years before I was born. and ah What was that department store? It was... ah and Was it Gelson's? Something like that? Gimbal's. gimb Gimbal's.
01:26:03
Speaker
Gimbal's was a department store. They also had a Thanksgiving Day parade. They had one before Macy's. Oh, interesting. Interesting. But yeah, this is like, you know, I don't know. This is like a movie that's just like...
01:26:18
Speaker
We love Walmart. Like, doesn't but isn't it great to work at Walmart? Hopefully Mr. Walton will approve of this. Wow. We're really loving ah how generous Walmart is. And look, they're even getting along with Mr. Target.
01:26:35
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. I'll stop complaining soon. No, because like that is... I think on one hand, this movie does feel like weirdly kind of corporate because of all that stuff.
01:26:46
Speaker
it It has an incredibly corporate vision of Christmas. Yeah, but at the same time, it is so much about how like Christmas shouldn't be materialistic. And it's philosophically...
01:26:59
Speaker
it's like philosophically kind of trying to to say like Christmas is about all this other stuff. And yet it does feel like it is kind of seated in this like, hooray for Macy's. Isn't Macy's wonderful?
01:27:14
Speaker
Yeah, there's a quote from the movie. Someone says, a lot of bad isms in this world, but one of the worst ones is commercialism. I think Santa says that, which is pretty rich for Santa to say.
01:27:27
Speaker
Well, that's us one thing i I like about the characterization of Santa in this is that he is sort of, he is like the idealist. Yes. Idealist Santa, where it's like, this is how we we want Santa to be, who is like smarter than everyone else.
01:27:43
Speaker
And who is like genuinely just believes in like doing good for its own sake. Yes. This movie is about, I mean, like a Capper movie. It's a movie about a dude who's too good and earnest to live in New York City. Right. now But like and in this, he is also like he is a a magical creature, basically.
01:28:04
Speaker
Right. Like he is a supernatural being. I feel like the movie is is vague enough about it where yeah there's definitely a ah ah read of this movie where Chris Kringle is just a delusional man who's really nice.
01:28:19
Speaker
But I think the movie does put enough emphasis on the fact that there are too many weird coincidences and that he is like, no one could possibly be this good unless he's actually the real Santa Claus.
01:28:34
Speaker
Unless your delusion really did compel you to like keep abreast of toys. What toys are in stock in which ah toy stores all across New York City.
01:28:47
Speaker
Also, yeah it also is like a Frank Capra movie in that it has all of that great like wholesomeness. And it also is like very pro. Sometimes you just got to smack somebody upside the head to teach them a lesson.
01:28:59
Speaker
Yeah. Even if you're Santa. yeah Like Santa is like right the sweetest, most like generous person. He's like super humanly sweet. And then he meets this crummy psychiatrist who is like super insecure and is just doling out.
01:29:17
Speaker
doling out what like um just like problems to people like oh you have this complex you have this complex and he's like you need to shut up and he smacks him with his cane and the movie is like very treats that as like ah he is doing good like this is santa's been pushed too far and he's he's not gonna go full uh it's not good behavior yeah but doesn't He doesn't go full the chapter of Crash more on him. but um I see we were both referencing the same I think you should leave sketch from different angles at the same time. Of course. I think this movie does get so much out of just facial expressions.
01:30:02
Speaker
Faces in this movie feel like special effects at times. where i'm just like There's so much. That's nice. There's so much that happens in this movie that is just people's reactions or like facial expressions. Yeah.
01:30:15
Speaker
I mean, particularly Edmund gwyn Gwen as Kris Kringle. Yeah. Great. the The best casting. He's great. He's incredible in it. Yeah, I think he's great. And then I also think... I think Maureen O'Hara kind of sucks in this movie.
01:30:29
Speaker
I wouldn't say that, but it's definitely not the the main draw. I think Natalie Wood is very good in this movie, much like Santa Claus is like... that Just through facial expressions alone does so much. She has the most perfect like skeptical child face.
01:30:48
Speaker
Yeah. Where so often in this movie, someone's like, oh, you know, Santa's got to go to the North Pole. but And we're like, ah they're saying, oh, jacke Jack and the Beanstalk. They were giants. And she just looks at them like, how stupid do you think I am? Like, she's just so... And it's also funny. Like, I've seen that look on on children. Yeah.
01:31:06
Speaker
Like I've met a lot of children that have, have given that look. And it's like, it's so genuine in this movie of like, that is exactly how a child looks where you're like, you think I'm dumb. Don't you?
01:31:18
Speaker
Yeah. Children should be more respected. they They should be treated more seriously. And that is ah evidence for that is when kids give you that look. It's like, oh, you're talking down to this person. Yeah, yeah.
01:31:32
Speaker
But yeah, i i I like this movie's just kind of overall philosophy of sort of like, just like believe in and stuff. Come on, it's fun. Like, it it doesn't feel, it doesn't really, there is talk of, like, faith in this movie, but it doesn't, not it never feels explicitly Christian, even though it is a Christmas movie. At least my takeaway from it, maybe this is, you know, somewhat just my own personality projecting onto it. It's like, this is a movie about, like, believing in the power of imagination, which I think is really, is something that I i think very highly of.
01:32:06
Speaker
So. Yeah. I mean, you know, i don' I don't know if we need to get into this whole conversation, but like, I do think that like, it's sometimes hard to escape the lens that I established for myself as an edgy asshole, 14 year old atheist. Right. ah Like I've learned to be more chill about stuff. Yeah. But like, but like, you know, there isn't an angle toward basically every Christmas movie of like their, ain't their, their thing. It's just like, you gotta to believe it's all about believing.
01:32:42
Speaker
Like you gotta believe in things that even if you don't know they're there, that's what faith is, you know? And it's like, okay, I could see the, I could see the relationship, right? It's like, you believe in Santa, right?
01:32:54
Speaker
Like, believing in Santa and having your innocence and believing in Santa is a metaphor for believing in God, which you're allowed to do. But, like, um but like I think that, like, it's not a very flattering comparison, i think, you know, because everyone knows that Santa's not real.
01:33:14
Speaker
Right. And this movie also gets into the the kind of weird... and It never directly contradicts it, I guess, that it... it I feel like this movie overall is positing that Santa is real and that Kris Kringle is the real Santa Claus. Yeah.
01:33:28
Speaker
I like that it operates in that kind of middle. It never outright confirms or denies that. And I do like how it it does kind of keep the audience in that same sort of thing of like, you can believe it if you want to.
01:33:39
Speaker
Right. It's like either so the the Santa Claus retired to Long Island or... or he is her or Or he is a ah very, very, very nice, crazy guy.
01:33:53
Speaker
Yeah. Which, that's great. I would love that. I'd love that too, you know? they're They're both fun fun options. The movie is also kind of coming out of a place of like, if he is, if this guy believes himself to be Santa Claus,
01:34:06
Speaker
And is doing all of the things that Santa Claus does, which is to say, like, talking to children and, like, bringing them hope and giving giving gifts. Then, like, who's to say that he that isn't real?
01:34:18
Speaker
Like the U.S. Postal Service agrees. Right? Yeah. I also just kind of love how for like, don't half an hour for like a third of this movie, it's it's a courtroom drama about proving the existence of Santa Claus, which is just a fun premise, I think.
01:34:34
Speaker
it is It is a fun, it's it's it's a silly premise. I think it, I mean, i think it wears out its welcome a little bit, but like, it's fun that they chose to do that and to go all the way with that.
01:34:46
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, like dumping the letters to Santa on the desk of the judge is an iconic scene for sure. Yeah. This movie does feel very, it's a very uncynical movie.
01:35:01
Speaker
But I do think, right, for coming at it as an edgelord or whatever. Sorry, I don't mean to ah be as rude as I am. But it's it is like i I thought about that while watching it.
01:35:15
Speaker
It is like because there's parts of this movie where like this come like would never happen, obviously. Like the the the world is way too cynical for like anything in this movie to actually occur.
01:35:26
Speaker
But I kind of like how the movie is just like just just fucking go with it, man. Like just let something be nice for once. And like that, that's kind of the messaging of it too, is just sort of like, just like, just try to like hold your cynicism back a little bit.
01:35:42
Speaker
And I really support that. Yeah. I mean, it, you know, it feels like it's sentimental in almost along the same avenues as a Capra movie. It does feel very Capra-esque. Yeah.
01:35:55
Speaker
It's, it's interesting. Like, you know, putting this in dialogue with the Capra movie, we the Capra Christmas movie that we watched right last year. Right.
01:36:07
Speaker
ah One of the more surprising things about it's, it's a wonderful life is the darkness in it. It's yeah like, honestly, darker than like, you know, Mr. Deeds or or Mr. Smith. Oh yeah. i'll so For sure.
01:36:20
Speaker
And it's like Capra's take on Christmas. like, is different from this movie. They're both sentimental, but, like, it has it has this, like, darkness that this movie... mean, this movie is probably more for kids than yeah than anything else. but But, yeah, I mean, I think so much of that that you're talking about really rests on on Santa's shoulders.
01:36:41
Speaker
Because he is... Because because that actor is... He sells it so, so well. Yeah. And you can tell that he's really Santa because his beard is real.
01:36:53
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's the only way you can tell. You were mentioning how like, you don't think Maureen O'Hara is that great in this movie. I think that might somewhat have to do with the way that her character is written, which is very, like, career a single mom who works too much. Like...
01:37:09
Speaker
It feels like a kind of a stock character, I guess. Maybe wasn't as much in 1947. It's like a life lifetime lifetime movie character. Yeah, a little bit. I think this movie does sort of like, it has lifetime movie vibes occasionally.
01:37:24
Speaker
Like there's a lot of her dialogue, especially in conversation with ah Mr. Gailey, who's the the lawyer ah defending Santa Claus. is like, she's sort of like, you have to be realistic. like this she She says, ah she at one point, accuses him of going on an idealistic binge, which is a great phrase. His sort of retort to that is like,
01:37:47
Speaker
She's saying like, oh, you can't just be focusing on all these intangible things. You need to be realistic. You have to be like, you know, and he's like, ah intangible stuff matters too. And I, that's ah another thing that I think just resonates with me in particular. i think that like, it gets at something that I think is like, worth saying, I guess.
01:38:05
Speaker
And then the end this is so nice. I like that. yeah Way in the beginning, this movie starts at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And they shot this actually during the parade. They only like could do like so like one take of each thing because they were like, okay, like we got to do this right now.
01:38:24
Speaker
And so that's kind of interesting. i I was recently unrelated to this movie. I've recently been kind of looking through... I've recently been looking through the Macy's parade wiki.
01:38:38
Speaker
As you do. And as, as, as people like me do, they filmed this during the 1946 Macy's parade. ah There were some balloons in the Macy's parade, a pilgrim, a panda, an ice cream cone, a baseball player, and a candy cane.
01:38:54
Speaker
And there was a ah Popeye and olive oil float, as well as a Donald duck one there. This, this, did anyone get sewn into the pants?
01:39:05
Speaker
Reference number two. ah this ah This is a very um exhaustive wiki which about a very specific thing, which I really enjoy. But the reason... i don't even remember how I found myself onto this on this wiki.
01:39:19
Speaker
But when I did, i was looking through like a list of all balloons... at the Macy's parade. And, you know, now it's stuff like Goku or whatever. But like some of the one of the earliest ones was another comic book character, ah which I had never heard of called Boob McNutt.
01:39:39
Speaker
Oh, dear. What a name. And Boob McNutt is a character from a Rube Goldberg comic strip, like a comic strip by Rube Goldberg.
01:39:51
Speaker
And yeah ah so so there was a a balloon featuring Boob McNutt, which is an incredible name, I got to say. He was in the 1930 Macy's parade.
01:40:06
Speaker
Wow. boom I just felt like I needed to to throw that in there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, hey, i
Impact of 'Black Narcissus'
01:40:12
Speaker
I did not know about Boob McNutt before today, and now I do, so... We've got to educate ourselves. We've got to do a one week, one year for old timey comic strips. Like we've got, uh, we've got Foxy grandpa.
01:40:25
Speaker
We've got a little Nemo. We got to get boob McNutt in there. that does. That also does remind me like, ah that like Rube Goldberg was a guy. that yeah know Yeah. You know, cause I think of like the machine, which also like is in, um, tweet tweet. post Yeah.
01:40:41
Speaker
What is it called? What was the cartoon? Yeah, Tweetypuss. um Right, there was a Rube Goldberg machine in that short. Yeah, yeah.
01:40:52
Speaker
I don't know if that name had been attached to that concept at that point, but... What a Rube. What a maroon. maroon cartoon. Yeah, American on 34th Street. I like it.
01:41:02
Speaker
I think it is sweet and fun. And everybody get mad at me in the comments for being annoying and not liking it. highlight like You're allowed not to like it. did.
01:41:15
Speaker
I liked it well enough. I think it's something to throw on TV during Christmas and Santa's really great in it it is it is a it it. It is a great movie just to have you know on in the background during a Christmas gathering, I will say.
01:41:29
Speaker
I will say from experience. Our last film? Yeah, yeah. Perhaps not the knowledge, popular knowledge Big Daddy, but definitely the kind of critical Big Daddy, I think. Sure, yeah, yeah. Is Powell and Pressburger's Black Narcissus.
01:41:46
Speaker
ah another Another Christian-y sort of situation. Sure, we're going to Santa Claus to nuns. that's that that That checks out. Sure. Yeah, I think Mrs. Claus might technically be a nun. I don't i don't know.
01:41:59
Speaker
Right. No mention of Mrs. Claus in Marcona 34th Street. Is there a Mrs. Claus? That's what that's what Maureen O'Hara should have said. Is there a Mrs. Kringle?
01:42:10
Speaker
That's right. yeah But ah san Santa Claus does not appear in Black Narcissus. It's a very different type of film. This one is not for children. This one is Palin Pressburger doing wild Technicolor stuff.
01:42:23
Speaker
Oh, it's so beautiful. Just doing doing weird, horny drama. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. um Yes. that A bunch of repressed nuns.
01:42:36
Speaker
It's about ah some nuns who are kind of sent off to the highest up in the in the world ah convent ah where they can kind of... they're in the Himalayas.
01:42:49
Speaker
In the Himalayas. And they're sort of getting to know the local culture, kind of working out their kind of internal struggles within themselves and amongst themselves.
01:43:01
Speaker
And... interfacing with the local population as well as a kind of, uh, kind of another British expat who lives there, who is too hunky for his own good.
01:43:17
Speaker
Yeah. What, what, what a picture this one is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the only, right. The only technicolor movie that were, that were, we watched for this year, but like, this is kind of one of the,
01:43:31
Speaker
One of like the quintessential Technicolor movies, I would say. Oh, yeah. And like every, every, every two scenes, like there was a new thing to knock my socks off with how beautiful it looked.
01:43:42
Speaker
Yeah. And all that. And this movie was shot entirely in England. It takes place almost entirely in India, but they shot it mostly on the back lot. look at these beautiful paintings.
01:43:54
Speaker
Yeah. But like truly look at these beautiful paintings. There are yeah a lot of matte paintings in this movie and there's some of the best looking matte paintings I have ever seen. They're matte paintings that are integrated really well with the physical sets.
01:44:08
Speaker
And also they're matte paintings that are not just like sitting in the background. The most famous shot from this movie is this shot that is like, there there is a bell that the nuns ring that is right at the edge of this horrifying cliff. Yeah. And like it is, it's not like a, you know, it's not a matte painting that's just like, oh, like some mountains in the background. It's like, we are just taking this cliff and making it look insane. Like yeah in this, yeah in this like right up in your face.
01:44:39
Speaker
And i got to say, i didn't really realize this until the end of the movie, but Chekhov's cliff is what I. Oh yeah. I wrote that in my notes. Chekhov's And another thing that I do love about just the the the general kind of aesthetic of this movie and the matte paintings in particular is that like they don't necessarily look real.
01:44:58
Speaker
You're not like, oh, that's a real landscape. You're like, that's a gorgeous landscape that is clearly a painting. But it it sort of is like it's creating this reality in which like when you look off at the mountains, you're seeing like this gorgeous painting of mountains. Yeah.
01:45:14
Speaker
That is like, I don't know, there's there's something to that where it's like, we know that this isn't real, right? And we know that this isn't how, like, a light acts. But it's like, it's it's, everything is imbued with a lot more feeling through that.
01:45:28
Speaker
Yeah. I think this is a very painterly movie. Yeah. Yeah, because there's lot of the paintings in it. But it's like i I really like that level of a slight amount of unreality, right? This movie isn't pretending to be supernaturalistic, which which I like.
01:45:46
Speaker
it's Yeah, it's expressionistic in terms, especially like toward the end where there's like this beautiful, like like there's like a sunset that is just like poking through the like all of the seat all of the indoor places have holes in them.
01:46:04
Speaker
So there's wind blowing through all the time. So like even when they're just having like dialogue sitting at a desk. There's like this dramatic wind. There's always wind. yeah But like it also during some kind of climactic scenes, there is just this gorgeous orange light that's pouring through the entire scene.
01:46:24
Speaker
ah And yeah, yeah. yes um like I like to think of this early Technicolor as it's like hyper real. It's, it's, it's, um, yeah, it doesn't feel fake.
01:46:36
Speaker
It feels more real than real. ah But I think that is also kind of what, uh, Palo and Pressburger are like doing with it too. Like, I think they're yeah pushing Cause I think that I get that feeling a lot more from this movie than like curl blimp, which I think is yeah also but kind of hyper real, but I think is going more for naturalism than this movie is.
01:46:57
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, I just mean like like, yes, it is. But also like, I think there's just something about this early Technicolor that like, especially like you look at like some of the really early three strip Technicolor like Robin Hood, right? Where like those colors are mega saturated. And and to like, that's also the case in this movie. i think, you know, if you look at like later Technicolor movies from the 60s or 70s, like they look more ah they they look more real, even though there were parts of this movie that reminded me of the final three strip technicolor movie, Suspiria.
01:47:36
Speaker
Like, like there is some kind of like, you know, bright lighting that is, uh, uh, like so almost surreal lighting that is suggesting mood like Suspiria does. Wow. I had never... I guess I didn't realize Suspiria, that's the last three-step detective killer movie? I believe so. Let me fact check myself. But also, like, see a lot of parallels between this movie and Suspiria.
01:48:00
Speaker
they're They're both movie about, like... women in like a place, but it's about women in a place, but like there's right. There's this like undercurrent of madness in both.
01:48:12
Speaker
And it's kind yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that like when the nun goes mad, it is definitely like, it definitely has Suspiria vibes. Yeah.
01:48:23
Speaker
Yeah. And I, I'm curious now if like Dario Argento was specifically influenced by this movie. Cause I could see it. i'm trying to I'm trying to fact check myself. So I open up the Wikipedia page for Suspiria, but I'm also trying to participate in a podcast.
01:48:38
Speaker
So I pressed the find, I did the find shortcut, right? To try and search for the word Technicolor. But what instead I did was go on the Wikipedia page for Suspiria and then find the word Suspiria. Yeah.
01:48:52
Speaker
Classic. It is one of the final feature films to be processed in Technicolor. I guess it's not the last, but it's one of the last. and But it was not shot on three-strip Technicolor.
01:49:05
Speaker
it was It was Technicolor dye transferred. I was reading about imbibition Technicolor ah recently, and it's still like a little of a mystery to me. I've got to like dig deeper into my Technicolor book.
01:49:18
Speaker
but But yes, both gorgeous movies. Both movies about... ah Horny women in in remote locations. Yeah. Yeah. um Although, like, I think a thing about why a lot of these early Technicolor movies look so vivid is is because of, like, they were designed around that. Like, the costumes were brighter. The sets were, like, painted brighter colors. Like, part of that is just they were – it is costumes and sets, too.
01:49:46
Speaker
lot of shots of like flowers and stuff, you know, like really soaking in it. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of this movie is a about sort of like natural beauty and kind of like nature kind of encroaching into this convent.
01:49:59
Speaker
I watched a little bit of, um there it was like a 20 minute documentary about Jack Cardiff, who was the director of photography on this movie and the red shoes, which will...
01:50:11
Speaker
talk about at a later episode this movie was kind of designed around the technicolor process and then also how kind of one of things i talk about is how strict the technicolor like lab people were because you had to you had to get the cameras from them you had to get the film stocks from them they had to do all the processing and they had like really strict rules about like we know what works and you have to like follow our rules otherwise your film's not going to look good And Jack Cardiff was like breaking a lot of the rules because he was like, well, no, I want to like, there's a ah bit where right during that towards the end where the sunset is poking through the windows.
01:50:49
Speaker
And there's a bit where it's, it's ah reflecting off of a ah floor and it's really bright. It's kind of overexposed. And the people at Technicolor Lab said like, oh, hey, sorry, your film was ruined. Like, you can't use this.
01:51:03
Speaker
And they were like, what? Oh, no. And so they got it back. And it was like, no, that's exactly what we wanted. We wanted the floor to get bright because that's what it looked like. And like Jack Cardiff was trying all this stuff in in the, you know, while he was shooting it. And Technicolor kept being like, your film was ruined. you Like, it's broken. And they're like, no, that's what we wanted to do. It's not supposed to be like perfectly sharp or perfectly, you know.
01:51:26
Speaker
So it was the case that with a lot of early Technicolor stuff, they had their representatives on set and yeah people got kind of frustrated at Technicolor kind of backseat directing a lot of the time. Yeah.
01:51:39
Speaker
But so like all of the nuns are in these like white flowing robes. I think we're all had to be like gray or something because like on that classic thing of like, well, on film, it's going to show up as this. So it has to be a different color. Wow. On the set.
01:51:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think like actually using white robes would be too bright. It just they would be overexposed the whole time. But it all it all worked out because this movie looks insanely gorgeous. Yes. Yeah. ah Yeah. This movie does have substance, too. We're talking about like the visuals a whole lot. But like. But it's like a lot of that is.
01:52:08
Speaker
is through the visual. Like, I think the visuals are supporting all of the themes that this movie is getting at. And it's like, I think it's doing a lot of its storytelling through all of its sort of like wacky matte painting visuals and colors. And you can't really separate the two, I don't think.
01:52:22
Speaker
it really It really uses it. I'm so excited to watch ah the Red Shoes again. i got UHD from Criterion. Ooh, fancy. Yeah, it's like not super plotty. It's kind of like just tensions building, I guess. Right. In this thing. Particularly...
01:52:42
Speaker
between this kind of incorrigible dick, uh, who, uh, is Mr. Dean, Mr. Dean, uh, who's just kind of, they're one sort of Western point of contact in this area.
01:52:58
Speaker
And he's kind of floating in and out, uh, of the, of the, ah the convent and um sister Clodagh, who is ah ah in charge of it is kind of, she's kind of into him, but she recognizes that he's kind of, you know, ruining their whole vibe and everything and, and isn't very nice. well Her whole thing is like, she's like, get away, get away. Like, i don't want to talk to you. I'm angry at you, but she's always just like, Oh, but he's really hot though.
01:53:29
Speaker
Shit. Yeah. like You can tell it's just like it's bubbling under the surface with her. But she's able to control herself more than this other nun who loves him so much.
01:53:40
Speaker
She loves him so much that she goes crazy over it, basically. I mean, I think Sister Ruth has other stuff going on. I don't blame mr Dean entirely for her sort of psychotic episode.
01:53:53
Speaker
now I think Sister Ruth had some had some problems already, I'm i'm guessing. and they They mentioned that she had some problems already, yeah. Yeah. But also, just what a those three leads, I think, are all great and really well cast.
01:54:08
Speaker
Yeah? Like, I think ah David Farrar, who plays Mr. Dean, is like, has insane bone structure. Where, it like, looked... Similar, I guess, to the way that... um ah what's his What's his name from out of the past? Looks like a cartoon of, like, a film noir guy.
01:54:25
Speaker
He just looks like a cartoon of just, like, handsome man. Yeah, exactly. And he shows up with, like, his, like, sleeves cut off, riding a tiny horse. And you're like... All right, I get it.
01:54:36
Speaker
he He looks like a swashbuckler. Yeah. And then Debra Kerr is sister Clodagh. Clodagh? I think it's just, it's Clodagh. Clodagh. Clodagh. Well, I don't know. She's not she's not doing an Irish accent. So who knows if she's saying her own name right?
01:54:54
Speaker
And then what's her name? Kathleen Byron is Sister Ruth. And also funny thing I found out is that Michael Powell, one of the two directors of this movie, had dated Deborah Kerr before they made this movie and was dating Kathleen Byron while they were shooting it.
01:55:13
Speaker
And so when those two have to have a fight scene, apparently there was some some they didn't have they didn't have to dig that deep to to find stuff to fight about. Wow.
01:55:26
Speaker
But I think like Kathleen Byron, especially like really sticks out of just like her her her crazy eye eyeball acting in this is so. yeah. Oh, yeah. And there's a lot of it. There's a lot of crazy eyeball acting from her. And it is it is chef's kiss.
01:55:42
Speaker
There's a part in this movie where you know she she's kind of bursting at the seams for most of the movie. And then there's a part where she just snaps and she bursts and she is... You are just getting full mania like coming out of her.
01:56:03
Speaker
And her eyes get like these... super dramatic, like makeup on them of just like, like sunken, like tired. Like i am crazy and my eyes have turned like red, purple, whatever. Like, cause then also she, she, uh,
01:56:20
Speaker
changes out of her her nun habit into like a regular 1940s dress and like does her hair up it feels so shocking it does it's just a like normal looking 1940s woman but in this in the context of the movie it's like whoa where did she come from like this is so weird yeah you're so used to seeing them in the like the sealed up nun habits Yeah. Yeah.
01:56:44
Speaker
Like it it works really well just to like a simple costume change. And also, I mean, like it's like dramatic lighting and all this other stuff on top of that, too. But the nuns have have gone to sort of take over this building that I think he used to be like a harem many years ago.
01:57:02
Speaker
and they're like, no, this is going to be a school and it's going to be a hospital and we're going to run it. It's going to be great. It's also going to be a dispensary. Right. Yeah. Dispensary, which I'm like, it's a dispensary. um it's It was hard to not giggle every time that they said that the nuns are running a dispensary.
01:57:19
Speaker
and And there is this kind of thing where it's like it's like the the place itself is so sort of foreign to them. Like it's it's right. The elevation is really high. So like the air is thin.
01:57:32
Speaker
They're not used to like seeing as far into the distance. And at like yeah it's like they're all like getting really in their head and like sort of having almost... a sort of like, not necessarily crisis of faith, but they're all kind of like starting to question things, just see the world in a different way.
01:57:50
Speaker
There's a lot of an alienation in this movie. I mean, I like, you know, i just, it almost has like a lost in translation kind of vibe, right? Of like, I am in a place where,
01:58:02
Speaker
I have no association. Like I, I have this kind of weird, like solitude and I can only connect with people. I can only really connect with people like who are from the same country as me, but also like, ah it's still kind of driving me a little, ah a little, it's, it's making me feel weird.
01:58:22
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Cause there is like, there's definitely stuff where, Sister Clota is sort of is right. She meets the kind of local ah holy man, the spiritual leader who like never talks to anyone and just sort of overlooking the building that they're in.
01:58:41
Speaker
And she like doesn't understand that. But it's like everyone else here like respects this guy and like feels this like strong spiritual attachment to him. But like, I don't, I don't, you get the sense she's just kind of confused by it. And it's like, wait, like, I don't understand how this works.
01:58:58
Speaker
Like she doesn't understand Eastern religion, but it isn't presented in a way of like good or bad. It's just sort of that like sister Culloden just doesn't like, can't process it almost.
01:59:09
Speaker
Yeah, I thought that was so fascinating, honestly, like that scene where she's having she is like a super dedicated like monk of a Western religion.
01:59:22
Speaker
And she is having to encounter ah a super dedicated monk from an Eastern religion. Yeah, there's this kind of does not compute court sort of thing going on. Yeah.
01:59:33
Speaker
And I think, honestly, the movie the movie never shows any kind of... and Anything but respect for this silent monk who just sits in the same place and never and and and the whole town respects him.
01:59:48
Speaker
And I think, honestly, like there is this kind of... like I don't know, proto Like, you know, in the 1950s, all the beatniks like like loved like Eastern spirituality and everything. And I feel like this this feels like it presages that a little bit. You know, like, we oh, we we actually respect this guy a lot. and Maybe he's he's almost like, there's whatever he's doing, it's you know it feels legit and in a way that like breaks the brain of a Western person.
02:00:22
Speaker
Yeah, and it's like, right, one of the other nuns um who's supposed to be in charge of the garden talks about how, like, you can see too far. Like, she's, like, looking out at the mountains, and it's like, people aren't supposed to, like, see this far.
02:00:35
Speaker
This is, like, unnatural. And then she's supposed to be planting, like, potatoes and carrots and root vegetables, and instead plants all flowers in the garden and can't really explain why.
02:00:48
Speaker
Like there's yeah there is this thing of where there's like Eastern religion and nature and there's all this kind of stuff surrounding them that they don't really understand. And it's like disturbing them.
02:01:00
Speaker
And they they like don't know how to process it. That I think is just, it was not a thing that I expected out of this movie that I think is really interesting. Because it isn't, right, it isn't really putting a judgment on any like of the belief systems of any of the characters. It's just sort of saying how these like There's like a culture clash and there's like ah a, there's something about the place that they're in that to the nuns feels like not necessarily unnatural because it is it's very natural. It's very like of nature.
02:01:31
Speaker
But it's like this thing where they're like, this place doesn't want us here, I think is really the main thing. And they they literally don't, right? Like this movie was made right as England. This is a British movie. Which I didn't realize watching it until after was like, oh, this is like right as England is like ending its colonial presence in India.
02:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, and it's like, you know, I think that this movie, you know, I don't... ah yeah I think you're right that it might not be making a particular, like, yeah go putting itself on a side, quote-unquote, of, like, the Eastern-Western religion kind of thing.
02:02:08
Speaker
But I think that, like, it it is... In that scene where Clodagh is encountering the monk, like it is not reflecting very well on her.
02:02:23
Speaker
And I think that what the movie is basically saying is it's like, we should have some humility. like We aren't supposed to be here. This is somewhat this belongs to someone else.
02:02:34
Speaker
It's not... it Like, of course, it makes sense that people who are engaging in like cultural colonialism to try and like convert people on the other side of the world.
02:02:46
Speaker
is' there's there's a disrespect that they're going to show for the local cultures and like maybe. Yeah, maybe have some humility. I think it's like the something that the movie is sort of vaguely saying.
02:02:59
Speaker
And I mean, also the i mean the title is referring to a perfume, which is a real perfume that I think you can still buy, made from a flower, like Narcissus, that I think within, at least within the context of the movie, it is kind of it's brought up as this sort of like an indulgent thing, this sort of thing that's like, it has it has, it's perfume, it's smell, and it's like, it's like finery and it's, it's like sensual. And that's another thing that is like, the the nuns are like, whoa, whoa, like we're not ready for this.
02:03:34
Speaker
We can't, we can't deal with this much sensuality right now. I think the sensual is definitely the the thing there. Yeah. Like, Yeah, like know so much of like the bright colors in this movie, because like the nuns are all in like monochromatic robes and they're surrounded by all of this color.
02:03:52
Speaker
And like everyone that surrounds them is Indian and they're all dressed in bright colors. And like all the flowers around them are bright colors. And like there's like the jungle next to them and like the Himalayas on the other side. And it's like.
02:04:07
Speaker
They're surrounded by all of this, yeah, just, yeah, colors and weather and rain. And they're just like, I'm used to like being in like a ah colorless room. I don't know how to deal with this.
02:04:22
Speaker
Yeah, you know, that's interesting. I didn't really think about that. But like yeah normally, like white is going to represent purity, right? it's and And especially if you like think of it in this kind of like racist term, like you could imagine it being like, oh, the white is purity and all of...
02:04:41
Speaker
the people who are other colors are impure, especially in like a kind of nuns context. But like, I think that like the white here is repression, right? Yeah. Like everything around them is so colorful and they are devoid of color.
02:04:57
Speaker
Yeah. ah So yeah, I think that's, that's an interesting point. Yeah. Lot of, a lot of repression going on in this movie. That's definitely another big thematic thing. Yeah.
02:05:08
Speaker
famous catholic Famous Catholic activity. i guess yeah yeah like another like big part of this movie that everyone talked about is all the flashbacks. Because Sister Clota starts to have remember her life before being a nun. Mm-hmm.
02:05:23
Speaker
In Ireland, presumably. Got lots of landscapes and we see her life sort of as like a very pleasant looking time, right? She has like ah nice and and a nice man that that is giving her stuff.
02:05:40
Speaker
She's like going outside. She's going to dances or whatever. And i don't think the movie ever really... It never really connects that. like it feel like there's I don't think there's ever a scene in those flashbacks where you see her like make the decision to like become a nun.
02:05:58
Speaker
It's more just her sort of like... Her life kind of falls apart. Well, it's like ah also like the all of the kind of weirdness in the monastery or convent, or whatever it is, I think are like triggering her all these memories that she hasn't thought of in a long time.
02:06:13
Speaker
That is. And we're kind we're kind of getting the sense that that that's happening to all the nuns. But that's since Sister Clota is the only real kind of point of view character. It's digging stuff up in all of them, you know?
02:06:25
Speaker
who And like you're saying about the like the use of color that right in the like the opening scene, as we're like being introduced to all the kind of like lead nun characters, there's one of them in like the, you know, the the dining hall, which is the like very monochromatic room and there's a big bowl of red tomatoes on the table.
02:06:43
Speaker
And she picks one up and just kind of like admires it and puts it back. It's like, no, no, no. That's like, can't be like, don't eat that. That's too colorful. Wow. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into that.
02:06:54
Speaker
But um I feel like when there's that like distinct use use of color in this, it feels purposeful. I guess one other thing to talk about is ah the kind of climactic scene where Sister Ruth,
02:07:10
Speaker
ah ah Sister Ruth fully has murderous intent. Goes off the deep end. And the the scene kind of begins with Sister Clota going like, oh, it's time to it's time to ring the bell.
02:07:25
Speaker
Kind of ring big bell. and We always ring the bell that is perched inches away from 5 million foot tall cliff. not As soon as she, like, I don't know why I didn't put it together until this point, but when, when I knew that, I knew that the, the, the, the movie was about to get, something was going to happen. Something ominous, like this ominous feeling is building. Yeah.
02:07:48
Speaker
And then like, as soon as it's time to ring the bell, I'm like, Oh no, check off cliff. And, Yeah. So it draws that out. It draws out the tension as she's walking up and you kind of, I think you even see sister Ruth, like kind of like perching in the background almost like, well, there's that shot where she like comes at the door and her like hair is all wet. She looks super pale.
02:08:12
Speaker
she She's like a creature at that point. Yeah. that This movie does, this is the first instance that I can recall seeing ah in one of our movies, of ah the the shot, the very common shot that I like to call stalker vision in in ah in a movie ah where like you can kind of see... ah It's like a point of view shot of some of a character and there's like stuff like out of focus, like really close to the frame. like like The camera's like a hiding behind something.
02:08:47
Speaker
a And, know, I see, yeah i just kind of, it's whenever someone's being watched in a movie, you're always getting this like point of view shot of a watcher. i' mean And I see that, we saw that in this movie. Michael Powell gonna go on to do a lot more of that and some later movies.
02:09:05
Speaker
Spoilers for later episodes. The fight scene is cool. It's cool to see people fighting to a big cliff. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. Yes. She she tries to push Clota off the cliff.
02:09:18
Speaker
Yeah. And there's, you know, like hanging off of the bell and... Ah! Yeah. Good times. The end of the movie, I think, really kind of hits home the sort of... The idea that it is a a kind of metaphor for like...
02:09:30
Speaker
England kind of removing themselves from India. And if they like, as the nuns decide to leave because they're like, we're not doing any good here. And we're all getting like,
02:09:44
Speaker
having mental breakdowns. So they decide to leave and they are traveling sort of along the the road away. And Sister Clota looks back up at the the building atop the cliff as it gets engulfed and in mists.
02:10:02
Speaker
And then it starts raining and the movie ends on just the rain falling on on them leaving. Apparently there was a whole nother scene that they shot. But then during that scene, when it started raining, Powell and Pressburg were like, well, that we're not going to top that. Like, that's the end of the movie right there.
02:10:20
Speaker
I haven't seen the other scene, so who knows? But probably good call. we're We're kind of only scratching the surface of this movie in terms of like, there's there's a lot there's a lot going on in this movie. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, we've kind of brushed ah it brushed into it. But like the sexuality element is something. Yeah. I think an interesting counterpoint to this movie is one from less than 30 years later, Ken Russell's The Devils.
02:10:47
Speaker
Hmm. Also a nun movie, right? Which is also, it's a horny nun movie with the horniness dialed up way higher. Right. Yeah.
02:10:58
Speaker
It's a, and for being from the early seventies, it's able to do that. Well, sure. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's another movie that I feel like is tackling a lot of like similar ideas. ah The nun, the, the, the devils is also based on like a kind of actual historical account of kind of nunnery that went fiendish.
02:11:18
Speaker
And, and, but this was in like 1500 or something like witch times, you know, and they, so they blamed it all on evil spirits and, But yeah, I mean, you know, like definitely like the repression of religion, the repression of sexuality.
02:11:32
Speaker
There's some stuff going on there, I guess. Yeah. um I think, yeah I mean, I do think this movie is really, is doing a lot with its use of color.
02:11:43
Speaker
And I think there are a lot of, you know, like color motifs throughout the whole thing, which... um I haven't, I would need to rewatch the movie and like read more upon to like, I think have a, more meaningful discussion about, but, um,
02:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's it's like this is, ah I think this is a really great example of like good filmmaking. It's just, it's it's it feels like it's using all of the the tools, you know?
02:12:12
Speaker
Yeah, true. And it's just, it's really impressive, I think, too, that like there's all of these like, you know, exterior shots on the side of a mountain and it's all just like in a parking lot somewhere. Like god there's behind the scenes photos of a ah giant fan to to make the wind.
02:12:30
Speaker
Hey, I'm a giant fan. Hey, yeah, I'm a giant fan of this movie. Yeah. ah Speaking of movies that we're fans of, what was your favorite film of 1947?
02:12:43
Speaker
You know, we've gotten such a good discussion out of Black Narcissus, but I want to say that, ah and so that's definitely up there, but um it might be Nightmare Alley for me.
02:12:54
Speaker
I think i think mean so Nightmare Alley, i think, also had like a lot of really interesting ideas that it was bouncing off of. um And I think it's the one that made me feel the most.
02:13:09
Speaker
yeah How about you? and I think it's got to be Black Narcissus for me. like I mean, it's as much as I do, I love Out of the Past. And the Out of the Past is a very me-coded movie.
02:13:22
Speaker
It's just like lots of 40s noir bullshit. But I think especially like upon re-watching, it like it didn't hit quite as hard the second time. I think Black Narcissus, it's got got so much.
02:13:36
Speaker
Yeah. um And it is soaking with. Yeah. And it's so much of like what I want to see more of out of like as movies can, you know, as like the movies as a medium, like progress.
02:13:50
Speaker
That is true. That's a good point. Yeah. I think that it is doing stuff that, that feels like it, it belongs in in the future, in development ah of of the form.
02:14:02
Speaker
Yeah. them Those Powell and Pressburger boys, they're they're really... and you haven't seen Red Shoes, right? I have seen Red Shoes. Oh, you have seen it Okay. um yeah But I wrote re re-watch it for, what, next episode?
02:14:17
Speaker
Next episode, baby. All right. Cool. Come on back for 1948, which is full of some all time bangers. We're going to have rope.
02:14:27
Speaker
We're going to have red shoes. We're going to have bicycle thieves. Some other stuff, too. Come on. Come on back. 1948 is New York's hottest new club. It's got everything.
02:14:38
Speaker
Bicycle thieves, red shoes, rope.
02:14:43
Speaker
All of these things ah sound like... a clue clues from the game Clue. you know no it was a bicycle thief with the rope.
02:14:54
Speaker
He was wearing red shoes. Well, that means when we talk about the board game Clue, that means that it's time to end the podcast. Thank you for listening.
02:15:05
Speaker
ah Thank you for ah following us on social media if you don't if you do. um And if you don't, ah no thanks that thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Yeah. yeah Yes.
02:15:18
Speaker
um All right. It's podcast time. Glenn, I think it's the end of podcast time. yeah ah Glenn, I think that'll do it.
02:15:29
Speaker
And I'll see you next year. See you next year.