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1944 - Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss (with Sarah Pepe)
99 Plays10 months ago
Big year for hard-boiled noir! Murder! Betrayal! Halloween! This episode we get into gaslamps as symbols of both love and lies, sinister insurance schemes, lonely detectives, boat escapades and serial killer old ladies!
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 1944 Films Discussed playlist right here!
See you next year!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Clang, clang, clang went the trolley. Ding, ding, ding went the bell. Hello and welcome to One Week, One Year, a podcast where we watch and discuss every year of film history in order, starting in 1895, the dawn of cinema.
00:00:14
Speaker
This episode is 1944.
Meet the Hosts and Guest
00:00:18
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts, Chris Ellie. I'm a film projectionist, and joining me as always is... I'm Glenn Covell. I'm a filmmaker.
00:00:26
Speaker
And joining us for the first time...
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm Sarah Pepe. I am Chris's partner, and I'm also a therapist. Yes. You're here to talk about um some some some kind of, ah but I guess we could say mentally mental health-infused titles.
00:00:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah's Film Journey
00:00:48
Speaker
But also, you have a master's degree in media studies, so I guess that makes... I have a master's um but master's degree in English literature. I thought you kind of had a media... Well...
00:00:59
Speaker
No, literally don't. But that's the same thing, though, isn't it? In a way. i wrote my ah my master's thesis about television shows.
00:01:09
Speaker
Yeah, okay. Man, I probably shouldn't be getting um confused about something so elemental about the person I've been with for five years. It's not that important. It literally is not that important. Also, the English literature, i feel like, relevant to this year of movies.
00:01:28
Speaker
True. ah Is one of them a book? I think several were books, but... Oh, I mean, that just shows that I don't know anything.
00:01:39
Speaker
Putting your master's degree to shame. Speaking of you not knowing anything, ah tell us a little bit about your history with old movies. Well, ah my father... um My father is a big film guy. And when I was growing up, he often forced me to watch old movies.
00:01:58
Speaker
And I think I was forced to watch Citizen Kane when I was 12. And you can imagine how well that went. Swimmingly, favorite movie. right Every 12 year old loves Deep Focus.
00:02:12
Speaker
Oh yeah, oh yeah. He also tried to show me 2001 A Space Odyssey around that time, and I was like, what are these monkeys? Like, why are we doing this? But I've come around on that one. But um this not Citizen Kane, you're still averse.
00:02:27
Speaker
Well, Chris and I watched it recently when you guys discussed it, and I i didn't think it was, I wasn't that into it, but I can i can see why it's a good movie. And have you heard the show before?
00:02:41
Speaker
but Uh, piecemeal, I have. You've heard the show coming from another room, just yes emanating. Sorry, i just knew I just knew that I was going to choose this segment to to rip on you a little bit.
00:02:55
Speaker
Great. you've You've heard the show in the context of of Chris poking his head out of a door and going, please be quiet. Yes. I have to record a podcast. Yes.
00:03:06
Speaker
Which is what i used to have to do, but now I don't. Nice. Congrats. Now the only thing making noise around me is my refrigerator. Great. Well, how's everybody doing? what's ah ah we we We got a little bit of the banter segment over, but what's what's going on in your lives, everybody?
00:03:25
Speaker
Nothing.
00:03:27
Speaker
I just got tattooed and I'm tired from being tattooed.
00:03:33
Speaker
Tired, tattooed, and ah top top top of the morning to you. well Sure. We'll re revisit that. We'll come back. We'll edit in a good third. A better joke.
00:03:46
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, i don't know. i guess I'm... as the the the The banter segment is over. ah We like to... ah
00:03:58
Speaker
it's It's astounding that we've done so many of these, and it feels like we're making it up as we go along every time. that's That's the beauty of it. It's off the cuff, you know? Yeah. Well, anyway, ah we like to ah give ourselves a little bit of context for what's going on in the year of which we are speaking ah with a little bit of a little bit of news.
Historical Context of 1944
00:04:20
Speaker
So, Glenn, why don't you take it away? The news of the year, 1944.
00:04:25
Speaker
Franklin Delano Roosevelt says the U.S. Constitution is inadequate. His solution? A second will of rights, guaranteeing employment, a living wage, antitrust enforcement, housing, medical care, education, and social security.
00:04:38
Speaker
Rudolf Fulber and Alfred Wetzler escape from Auschwitz. They create a report showing the world never before seen internal details of the horrors within. Sartre's No Exit premieres in Nazi-occupied France.
00:04:51
Speaker
D-Day! British and American troops sweep the Normandy coast. Over 150,000 soldiers invade occupied France and begin to turn the tide in the European theater. The Allies claim victory in Operation Overlord as they take Paris back from the Nazis.
00:05:07
Speaker
Noted terrible soprano Florence Foster Jenkins performs a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall, singing through the jeers. The longest entertainment industry strike in history comes to an end after over two years, winning musicians' royalties for their recorded works.
00:05:25
Speaker
The inaugural Golden Globe Awards are held at the 20th Century Fox Studios. And that is some of the news of
Exploring Maya Deren's Film Shorts
00:05:35
Speaker
1944. To give a little ah context, little, you know, what's what's going on in the world?
00:05:41
Speaker
I, like, pulled out almost every non-horrific thing that I could find. I mean, there were a lot of those, as as we have often, just the nineteen forty s just rife with horrors. so Yeah.
00:05:55
Speaker
Well, ah we're going to get into shorts, but I guess we'll say... So we're going to hop to One Week, One Reel, and we'll just do that, the two of us, and then Sarah will join us back again for our first two films.
00:06:10
Speaker
So catch you later. So we watched ah we watched a couple of Maya Darin shorts. hu I don't know if it makes sense to talk about these together or one at a time.
00:06:21
Speaker
I guess sort of together, i i kind of want to start with Witch's Cradle, because that is not really a film, in my opinion.
00:06:33
Speaker
Oh, oh, hot take. yeah i it it It feels very unfinished, which from the little amount of reading I've done about it, it is. But it like it really feels unfinished, especially compared to...
00:06:47
Speaker
The other Maya Daron movie we watched and the previous one that we watched last episode. Like it, it, it feels like just the, the mostly just like the raw footage that someone found, like the real, who because I think that's kind of what it is. Like it was a project that was never really finished and they found the footage of And they're like, yeah, sure. Let's show this to people.
00:07:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, i wasn't really drawing a parallel between the thing that's saying this somewhat unfinished, but then also that, like, you can kind of see jumpy splices and you can see, like, the leader of the film in between certain shots.
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of stuff is repeated because it's just... I don't think it's like intentionally like repetitive stuff. I think it's, well, it says doing the end is the beginning and the beginning is the end. Well, I know, but when it's like someone looking like turning and looking four times in a row, I think that was, that's just four takes of the same thing.
00:07:52
Speaker
I don't think that that is a ah you know an avant-garde editing thing. I think that it's just it's just multiple takes. Hey, when it's avant-garde, who knows? True, so but like all all of the all the flashing, it's like that's just what happens when you like stop a film camera and start it again, because it's like...
00:08:09
Speaker
the light hitting the the frame. i don't know. I mean, well, I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just, it's like not, yeah it's, it's cool to see. And I'm glad that it's available for people to see.
00:08:21
Speaker
Well, so which is cradle is, uh, I would say that it is more straightforwardly depicting something than either of her other two movies that we've watched which in that, like, it is a witch doing witchy stuff.
00:08:36
Speaker
Right? Like, doing some kind of incantation. It's represented by string in some way. and like um String on a string. yeah the The other ones are just kind of a like dream logic, a bunch of stuff happening, kind of linking together themes. But but that's like, you know...
00:08:57
Speaker
it it it's not like ah like an event that is happening. yeah Yeah. like I guess. well again so what are you exciting but I'm sounding very negative on this one. i think it's mostly just because i was like, oh, this isn't really ah film. This is like the footage someone shot of a film.
00:09:18
Speaker
I guess. I don't know. I mean, maybe maybe i'm giving I'm not giving avant-garde, ah non-literal art enough credit, but it all kind of feels like it could a film, you know? it felt It felt very distinctly different from the other two that we watched, because I feel like there's... As as much as they are dealing in like dream logic and kind of surreal imagery and things like that, there is a real kind of...
00:09:44
Speaker
intention behind it that i i get from it anyway that i don't see and in in witch's cradle not in the sense that like there is an intention behind how things are being framed or shot or but it's like the editing is just feels so much so completely different from from either two that i'm like oh this is this is just unedited this is just the the real of the film And yeah, so I do think it it feels very distinctly different from the YouTube for that reason.
00:10:15
Speaker
And that it's like the rhythms of it. the And yeah who knows? maybe maybe Maybe that was all intended to be like how the finished thing was going to look. I don't know. But um I definitely not got that sense from watching it.
00:10:29
Speaker
If anything, it's it's a real ah proof or an example anyway of like how important editing is. Because like I feel like you watch at land, the other one that we watched for 1944.
00:10:42
Speaker
and it it does feel very deliberate. It has a ah flow to it. And it's like, it feels like a finished product. And i feel like we just created a list just kind of like a lot of stuff.
00:10:55
Speaker
Yeah, ah we could trend transition over to At Land. ah One thing that is going on both of these movies is that she's she's got some kind of art world collaborators with big names on each.
Art World Influence on Deren's Films
00:11:10
Speaker
Witch's Cradle being Marcel Duchamp and At Land having some involvement with John Cage. Yeah. john cage I definitely know the name John Cage. I did not do enough reading, clearly.
00:11:22
Speaker
John Cage, I mean, he is a classical composer, but he does some kind of like avant-garde kind of stuff. Most famously, 433, which is...
00:11:35
Speaker
oh Yeah. That thing. Which is somebody going up to a piano and sitting there not playing it for four minutes and 33 seconds. Yeah. ah which I think is is based. I love it.
00:11:49
Speaker
Yeah? You're a big fan of 433? I am. I've never seen it performed, so I i don't... Who's you know what I really think of it? Here's the thing. I've never seen it performed either, and but and I really feel like I should, you know?
00:12:03
Speaker
Because, yeah you know, the whole thing with it is, like, all of the ambient noise of the room becomes the performance, right? Yeah. Marcel Duchamp is also a composer. Yeah.
00:12:15
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, ah you made art in galleries and stuff. Marcel Duchamp did the the the urinal that like, it's like he put the urinal down and flipped it sideways and called it art. And then people were like, oh, oh no How could you? Which I think is based.
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah. which also i which which i also think is based yeah um But yeah, a complete side note, but like 433, right? John Cage is 433.
00:12:47
Speaker
I was so, I thought I was so slick because I ah set to on, on, on, ah on Tinder. You can set like an anthem for yourself. It's just like another thing that you can put on your profile.
00:13:02
Speaker
A lot of people. made yours 433. I made mine 433. Yeah. um made mine four thirty three You could pick one song that kind of shows up on your profile and it's a conversation starter.
00:13:13
Speaker
And that's a conversation starter if ever there was one. i i it it was It took a lot of doing to make it work. Like I had to search in some weird ways to make it to be able to find it.
00:13:24
Speaker
i i I love the degree to which you are like shitposting Tinder. Yeah. Oh, you simply must. You simply must. Atland is ah her other ah more finished work from 44.
00:13:40
Speaker
um Definitely going along with the dream, dreamy kind of stuff as established in Meshes of the Afternoon. This feels like it's kind of going with some different, this is going for some different motifs. I feel like it feels a little less scary, a little less aggressive. Yeah, less threatening.
00:13:59
Speaker
um There's some threatening stuff in it little bit, but um yeah, overall it is a it's a a nicer feeling movie. Yeah, not that it's like specifically nice, but it's like... and Yeah, but I mean, there's no like mirror-faced...
00:14:15
Speaker
you know, presence that's like following you around in this. Yeah. Yeah. This one I think is doing some kind of interesting stuff with like melding space together. Like there's like a point where she's, it starts off with her on a beach and like, she is kind of climbing on top of this piece of wood. And as she climbs onto this piece of wood, she's like entering a different place.
00:14:38
Speaker
different reality like with matched movements uh where she's like pulling herself up onto ah table of a bunch of business guys uh that that happens a couple times in this one and it that to me feels like a very like distinctly dreamlike thing of like moving between different kind of spaces without there being a real transition point like not entering through a door or it's just like this thing of like Yeah, I was on a beach and then I like climbed the tree and then like from the tree I somehow ah climbed onto a business meeting table. like But there wasn't the tree wasn't connected anything else. It was just like it just kind of happened.
00:15:17
Speaker
That yeah it feels very dreamlike to me. I know that the m MO of a lot of like classic surrealists is to kind of unlock this dreamy, unconscious kind of thing.
00:15:28
Speaker
I don't know if she was really going for a specific, like, I'm going to make a movie that feels like dreams, but definitely there's a lot of the specificity of the way that dreams work that is captured in her movies.
00:15:44
Speaker
In the same way that, like, I felt disappointed when I saw Inception, because I'm like, this isn't how dreams work. Speaking of Inception, the opening shots of this movie, of At-Land, are almost identical to the opening shots of Inception.
00:15:57
Speaker
Oh, wow. like So he has seen movies that depict yeah dreams better. ah Both start with ah like slow motion waves crashing and then someone waking up on the beach.
00:16:10
Speaker
And it's even like I got to go back to Inception and maybe check the framing. But it seemed like even the framing was like fairly similar. I have no idea if this movie was a direct influence on Inception or not. It very well could have been.
00:16:23
Speaker
But ah yeah, that immediately stuck out to me. I mean, good good taste, Chris Nolan. This definitely, I feel like the biggest motif in this is chess. Yeah, a lot of chess stuff.
00:16:34
Speaker
There's like ah like different chess games and they're being played in different contexts. And I think that like gives them... a different feeling. Like, um, there is the first chess game that you see is at that, like the table full of these business men or something. And yeah and they're all, they're all like, so there's like smoke hanging in the air from all of their cigarettes. And it's like that, that scene looks really cool. I think it's like, it's like dark office room,
00:17:03
Speaker
It's kind of, you can't really ty tell like what kind of room you're in, but there's like really high ceiling and like the smoke wafting up. And they're all kind of, all these people are just like along the two sides of the table as Maya Deren is like crawling along the table.
00:17:19
Speaker
um Yeah, that that scene was just very striking to me. Yeah. um And it feels like it it feels like a you know there's there's some there's been some kind of... ah I don't know if I like always 100% fully read like a specific feminist angle to the stuff, but like there is some kind of juxtaposition between the chessboard with the men and there's a later chessboard with women. Yeah.
00:17:53
Speaker
And, like, it it the the scene has a very different vibe to it. It starts off with, like, almost, you know... This movie isn't so threatening like Meshes of the Afternoon, but it is... um you know, it's eerie at times. Yeah. ah And that, that chess thing almost feels like a, feels like a break ah with when you see the women playing the chess on the beach.
00:18:19
Speaker
And then it feels like, oh, it's chill for a second. And then they start getting like happier and happier and happier. And it's like, they're, they're playing chess in this state of extreme ecstasy. And you're, they you're like, okay, this is scary again. It's getting threatening again. Yeah.
00:18:36
Speaker
Yeah, I i also definitely picked up on this movie playing with a little bit more ideas of, like, what does gender even mean, man? Like, a little... i ah That maybe is reductive way of putting it, but, like...
00:18:50
Speaker
I do feel like there was more of a sense of, like, how, like, male characters and female characters are are being framed and kind of portrayed in this one. As opposed to, well, mean, as opposed to Men's End of the Afternoon, which only has, what, three characters, a man, a woman, and a ghost. So it's like, there's not a whole lot to, like, play around with.
00:19:11
Speaker
It's a classic story, a man a man, a woman, and a ghost. Yeah. The Holy Trinity, yeah. on So, yeah, i I do feel like, I feel like, much like Masters the Afternoon, I'm not even really going to attempt to try to, like, unpack what this movie is trying to say. Because, like, one, I don't necessarily know if that is 100% the intent of it. I don't, I think there are meanings behind all of the imagery in this, much like in Masters of the Afternoon. But I don't think it matters if...
00:19:40
Speaker
whatever my impression of that is, if that's the same as what my Darren's like intent was, like, I think it's much more of a, like, here's the thing I made, like make of it like, like any work of sort of like impressionistic art.
00:19:55
Speaker
I think it's, it's less about like having a like very specific meaning. Um, and maybe that's just me being lazy and not wanting to analyze it further, but, um, you know, you decide.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah. There was a um I thought that like maybe the most striking image in this to me was um the white king chess piece floating down the river.
00:20:20
Speaker
ah Something about that felt like really kind of interesting as far as just this like machined or like carved object that is so unnatural, like moving through, like, like,
00:20:35
Speaker
kind of chaotically moving through like a like a babbling brook or like a like a you know somewhat chaotic waterfall or something. ah i don't know what it means, but it was kind of cool. I will say, when that happened, when the chest piece like falls into the water, I was like, oh I felt so bad. i felt so like such a sense of like, no, it fell!
00:20:58
Speaker
Which this, again, like Mission of the Afternoon, is not intended to have a soundtrack over it, or at least didn't initially. um So it's like, it's just silent imagery coming at me. And I still felt this sense of like, no the chess piece, don't let it load away. There's kind there's there's kind of a um I don't know. just ah There's something primal to that a little bit, I think.
00:21:26
Speaker
We watched the final... short from
Nostalgia for 'Our Gang' Shorts
00:21:31
Speaker
our gang, Little Rascals. i They have been around since the silent era and they've been kind of I guess, sort of petering out a bit.
00:21:40
Speaker
And 1944 was the last year that they existed. And so we watched one, which seems like, you know, it's not a big finisher. It's just seems like a pretty typical. It's not, it's not the series finale. It's just kind of, an right. It's just kind of a short. just heres Here's one.
00:21:56
Speaker
um And yeah you know, ah some of these series is good to kind of periodically check back. ah And um yeah, so we got some flavors of different eras of of our gang.
00:22:11
Speaker
It's cute kids doing cute kids stuff. yeah i mean the the the last one stuck out to me i guess in that um like kind of the the main pov character in this one because it usually changes they have kind of rotating stock of of of kids um and the kind of main kid in in this one is um is froggy froggy is isn't they all they all have nicknames they all have you know kind of like silly kid nickname names and i guess froggy is so named because he has a voice that sounds like a frog and it's just the kid is just doing a crazy voice the whole time and i love it
00:22:54
Speaker
yeah he's ah He's talking like this whole time. But he's he's like a seven-year-old. He's just like, hey, what's going on? well it's not he doesn't have an accent. he's He kind of does. I'm i'm exaggerating it.
00:23:08
Speaker
but um He's got this kind of really kind of like deep like guttural craggly voice. that is just a thing that That's just a voice that that kid could do.
00:23:19
Speaker
And they're like, we're going to build your whole character out of this. Hey, the girl will take me dancing. I like to dance. I'm going to learn to dance.
00:23:29
Speaker
Probably the biggest laugh in the whole thing for me is when he's like, I'm to do something crazy. And other kids are like, you're to kill yourself. And he goes, no, I'm going to learn to dance. scaper your thing and and yeah he does a whole there's a whole sort of right he he he likes this girl who is always she's only about dancing yeah she has her dance partner her fancy kid dance partner who wears like a tuxedo all the time the the heel of this of this short i do love the world that these shorts exist in where there's just like a kid who wears a tuxedo
00:24:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. That's just... Oh, he's the fancy one. And they've got, like, an invitation to a dance recital, and it's got, like, that, like, childly, like, misspellings. All the words are misspelled. Yeah. it's ah it's It's very classic, you know, cute kid stuff.
00:24:20
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. and ah And so during the the dance recital, he he's he gets put on a wire hidden behind the curtain so that he's, like, doing all these, like...
00:24:31
Speaker
you know, kind of spins and dance things like leaping up in the air and doing stuff. And the everyone's like, Oh, amazing. How could this be possible? Yeah. And then the, the heel kid goes backstage. It's like, aha, a trick.
00:24:47
Speaker
But, but, um, he reveals it. And the, the kid falls from a great height when the wire gets cut. But the I know I fake dancing, but I did it so that I could get closer to you.
00:25:01
Speaker
And then it works. And then the girl is like, oh, that's so sweet. And we we end on that. And then nice theory series wrap on our gang. Yeah. Series wrap on our gang. ah Great. Ten minutes in and out.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i feel like this movie kind of, i guess, retroactively kind of has a bit of melancholy to it. Because it's like oh this is the last one. They, like, didn't make any more after this. That's kind of a bummer.
00:25:25
Speaker
But also get the sense that, like, don't know, they had a good run, right? This was, like, multi-decade series. yeah i mean, like, right, kids, like, aged out of it and left. And then they brought new kids in and things. Yeah.
00:25:38
Speaker
This one, I guess, also notable for one of the kids is Robert Blake, who was a noted child actor and later murderer.
00:25:48
Speaker
Did not know about Robert Blake? No. He was one of the R gang kids. And then later in life, he ah murdered somebody and was also in um Lost Highway, the David Lynch movie.
00:26:01
Speaker
Was that before or after killing somebody? i believe that was after the murder, but before he was kind of ah properly like accused of it.
00:26:13
Speaker
Huh. and Something. I'm not sure. It might have been before the murder. I don't know if David Lynch would have cast It was before. something it was before. Okay. um I get the sense David Lynch probably cast him because he was in Our Gang.
00:26:29
Speaker
Because David Lynch loves a like legacy actor. I love old warmer stuff. Yes. I mean, very true. That was kind of one of his big things. The Little Rascals is the greatest television series ever made.
00:26:45
Speaker
Have we mentioned the how like... Our gang got, like, rebranded to Little Rascals when it was on TV. It was some kind of... That's how was familiar with it yeah yeah i thought it was called little rascals i had like a dvd i think a lot of this stuff is like public domain now or it's cheap or something like that i definitely had a vhs with a couple shorts on lot of like dvds and videotapes just spring sprang up everywhere of just like watch this it's classic yeah and well then yeah in the 90s they made a movie called little rascals called little rascals yes
00:27:17
Speaker
But as you were alluding to, the machinations of the name change kind of have to do with who owns the rights to the name. If it's MGM or whoever else.
00:27:28
Speaker
god i I hate that stuff so much. um I hate things being intellectual property. This is why i I am constantly calling for an end to all intellectual property.
00:27:42
Speaker
I mean, there's there's good ah very good arguments for it. Especially once the creators of it have have passed on. Like, ah that's really the only reason it exists, is to, like, protect people's... Like, if you make something, you should get a cut of it.
00:28:00
Speaker
But, you know, it is sort of like, what are we... Fritz Lang movies should just... Everyone should just... you get Get free Blu-rays. Like, just print them.
00:28:10
Speaker
ah All right. this is Give them to me. So the last last short that we watched ah was the Academy Award winning ah Tom and Jerry short, Mouse Trouble.
Analyzing 'Mouse Trouble'
00:28:25
Speaker
And on what a short it is. Which is just classic Tom and Jerry stuff. ah Right. Because i feel like last time we watched Tom and Jerry was this like... Not quite proto-Tom and Jerry, but it was their early ones, right? And it's like, yeah we could tell, like, they hadn't quite ironed it out fully yet. They weren't even called Tom and Jerry yet.
00:28:44
Speaker
Right, exactly. Tom is what, Jasper in the first one? This, Mass Trouble is, like, the ultimate Tom and Jerry. It's like, Mass Trouble is like, to know what Tom and Jerry is? It's this.
00:28:56
Speaker
Like, this has this has everything that Tom and Jerry is about in yeah in its runtime. Yeah. It's got some really great gags in it. ah A lot of the stuff with like text in it is funny. like I really got a laugh out of Tom reading... He's reading this How to Catch Mice book, and it's just published by Random Mouse.
00:29:16
Speaker
I know. That's such a good joke. And it's like it goes by like that. It's so quick. But there's yeah there's the bit where Jerry holds up ah ah a note that says... What does it say? It says like...
00:29:30
Speaker
Somebody call a doctor or something. Yeah, as he has done some more extreme than usual violence to to to Tom. Right, which then, like, they don't, it's like he peeks into this box that he's, like, sawed in half and stuck pins through, and then it's like, oh, dear. It's like, oh, no, I've gone too far. And then it just cuts the next scene, and and Tom is, like, has bandages all over, including around his waist, implying that he was cut in half and somehow healed.
00:29:59
Speaker
Right. Very itchy and scratchy. i And, you know, one of also other text joke is Tom is trying to.
00:30:13
Speaker
but so the setup is that Tom's trying to catch Jerry. He gets a book. He tries the strategies in the book. They fail. uh and they fail in in very tom and jerry slash like roadrunner-esque yeah matt way right he puts the cheese on the mousetrap and then he eats cheese off the mousetrap and he goes check the trap and it snaps on his finger yeah right classic mice are suckers for dames the book says something something we're all aware of right yeah we all know mice are suckers for dames right it's So he makes a robotic mouse to ah to lure Jerry into his mouth. Of course.
00:30:54
Speaker
the the The simplest solution, a robot mouse. Or he sets up like a little fake hotel facade for yeah Jerry to take the the dame into. And his mouth is on the other side, but he crunches down too quick and he chomps on a piece of metal.
00:31:11
Speaker
Breaks all his teeth and then ah keeps hiccuping. And all of his hiccups have the ah repeated line that the robot mouse says. Which is, I just watched this like minutes ago and I already forgot what the line was. but I couldn't quite make it out.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yeah, the the robot mouse keeps saying, come up and see me sometime. I think. It's like very quick and it's very high pitched. But so then whenever, after he eats it, whenever Tom hiccups, he keeps saying, come up and see me sometime.
00:31:41
Speaker
Come and see me sometime. um which, ah yeah, would be would would be rough to for that to happen if you ate a robot mouse. Another, like, audit audio joke that I had to look up because I did not understand what it meant.
00:31:59
Speaker
Oh, I'm glad you looked this up because I was trying to... I was like, is that a reference? It's got to be a reference, right? It is a reference. So there's a bit, right, where um one of the things in the book that Tom reads is, like, ah a cornered mouse will never fight.
00:32:13
Speaker
and so he's like, all right, here we go. Time to start a fight that I can win. And then off screen, you know, we see a bunch of you know smoke and stuff flying off. And then Tom walks back into frame and he's all beat up.
00:32:25
Speaker
And he looks directly at the camera and says in like a spooky ghost voice, don't you believe it? Which I was like, weird choice, but okay.
00:32:35
Speaker
Yeah. But I was like, i feel like I've heard that somewhere else. Or like, is that you right? Is that a reference to something? It is a reference to in the 1930s and 40s. There was a radio show called Don't You Believe It?
00:32:47
Speaker
That was sort of a sort of a like beyond belief or like Ripley's Believered or Not type of thing. Like, is this story true or not? And in the opening, like in the like the opening of it, there was a spooky voice that said, don't you believe it? That was the like start the show.
00:33:05
Speaker
So that was a a sort of timely pop culture reference that they threw in there that right now watching Tom and Jerry cartoons. We're like, what does this mean? Why does he have a ghost voice?
00:33:18
Speaker
ah But yeah, good animation. Really good gags. Yeah. Real smooth. Real slick. um There's the bit where it where he he tries to... He gets fed up with the book. He rips the book up. And so he's going to blow up Jerry. He just puts a bunch of, you know, dynamite barrels that say TNT on them. And then also just like a World War II bomb that think says Blockbuster on it. He just sticks all that in front of the...
00:33:44
Speaker
You know, the hole in the wall. um And of course, it blows up the entire house except for where Jerry is. Like just the little section. The little tiny section of wall with the hole in it is the only thing that's left.
00:33:56
Speaker
And then we see Tom floating up as an angel to heaven, but he's still hiccuping the robot mouse ah voice. um And we got our nice little, ah you know, big the end title card.
00:34:11
Speaker
And it's again, like it gets in, it gets out. it's It's just a bunch of good cartoon gags. Well-timed, well-executed. i feel like there's not a lot else to say about it. It's just like, yeah, good Tom Jerry cartoon.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yeah. If you like Tom and Jerry cartoons, watch Tom and Jerry cartoons. Yeah. If you've never seen a Tom and Jerry cartoon, this is this is the one to watch. yeah yeah I guess we're ready for feature presentation.
Introduction to 'Gaslight'
00:34:40
Speaker
And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation.
00:34:46
Speaker
Well, our guest, do you want do you want to pick which of the two you'd like to talk about first? Might as well start with Gaslight. Gaslight. See, see the part of the tricky thing about, uh, about the, what the, about having a guest is that the guest, uh, usually talks about the big daddy of the year.
00:35:06
Speaker
And, and we usually save the big daddies for the last step but for the, for the last piece. We sometimes, we just jump right in though. And I feel like this is, yeah I feel like this year has like a lot of bangers. So indeed we can kind of just get right into it.
00:35:20
Speaker
So gaslight, uh, Shall we um summarize? um Gaslight is about a woman whose mother is murdered horrifically.
00:35:33
Speaker
And so she she moves away from her London apartment. And ah while studying abroad and elsewhere in Europe, she falls in love with this ah very charming piano player.
00:35:45
Speaker
and they get married. And the piano player is like, I would love to live in an apartment overlooking a town square. And she's like, funny you should say that. I happen to own an apartment overlooking town square in London.
00:35:56
Speaker
But like FYI, I hate it there because of murders. But they go back there, they move back in and immediately, the woman, what's her name? See, this is why we should write down plot synopses. It's because I forget character names. Ingrid Bergman.
00:36:11
Speaker
Ingrid Bergman starts to, you know, it's like, ah it seems like she's getting forgetful. She's like, there's like weird sounds around the house that no one else seems to be able to hear.
00:36:23
Speaker
But, spoilers, It's all been suggested into her head because of her sinister new husband, who is actually both a murderer and a jewel thief? question mark He did all of this to steal some jewels.
00:36:44
Speaker
Right. um but So all ah all this you know all of Act 2 is skin this big sort of ah her sort of descent into madness. But then the descent into madness is very quickly revealed to be ah entirely this guy is sort of like, you know, she's not getting forgetful. He's stealing stuff from her and being like, oh, you forgot this.
00:37:06
Speaker
You forgot where you put it. Oh, man. I guess you better stay home. And, ah you know, he's doing a lot of psychological manipulation, so much so. And in and it's such a, ah that this movie is such a textbook example that it has now become the verb for, uh,
00:37:26
Speaker
a specific type of manipulation, which is pretty crazy. You all know what gaslighting is. I mean, do should we... Do we not have to explain what gaslighting is, right? I mean, if if not... if If anyone doesn't know what gaslighting is, I feel like... Listen to the rest of the conversation about the movie and that'll give you a clue. I think that one of the interesting things, actually, is, like, the way that the term gaslighting as it exists today has somewhat diverged from the kind of specific way that it is implemented
The Concept of Gaslighting
00:37:57
Speaker
in this movie. Right. I guess it is...
00:37:59
Speaker
The way in which the movie uses it or the character in the movie uses it and then also the way in which I guess the verb was attached to that is, is I think, a lot more specific right than it is used now. It's become a bit more of an umbrella term.
00:38:14
Speaker
Or ah it's at least it's its definition has widened, think. I guess, yeah, the umbrella term being kind of like a type of psychological manipulation that is, you know, sometimes almost passive, sometimes not even on purpose of somebody kind of doubting sowing seeds of doubt in another person's mind. My understanding, honestly, would be that most of the time that gaslighting happens, like gaslighting in this movie is this calculated Machiavellian thing in order to steal jewels.
00:38:49
Speaker
and And in reality, my understanding is that it's probably a bit more of like a natural outgrowth of certain manipulative people's like way of interacting with the world.
00:39:05
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I don't know. I'm i'm probably not the one to like speak on that as much as as you, Sarah, as as the the yeah the the the brain expert um of the show. um I do think of gaslighting as a pretty like specific or not as a pretty like intent intentional thing.
00:39:28
Speaker
Yeah. I think it would be hard to like accidentally gaslight someone at least to the degree to which don't know i i definitely think of gaslighting more in the sense of how it is in the movie than maybe like i do think gaslighting has maybe become a little bit overused where people do attribute it to things that aren't gaslighting but yeah um yeah i think like in the the popular use it's kind of like any time someone is not on the same page with someone else about what happened.
00:39:58
Speaker
Like it's kind of used freely in that way. But I do think like true gaslighting would be like, it's done very intentionally. Like it's seen in the movie. Yeah. I guess the, the like kind of core way I would define it is,
00:40:14
Speaker
like convincing someone to mistrust their own, uh, senses and yeah like perception, memory and reason. Yeah. Perception. There you go.
00:40:25
Speaker
Did, did you see any kind of, ah echoes of reality in this movie?
Gaslight's Psychological Manipulation
00:40:33
Speaker
Yeah. Um, I think what's shown in the movie is pretty extreme. Like it's extremely calculated.
00:40:41
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it's definitely, like, a common abuse tactic to, like, just deny that something happened. And, like, in particular, I think it's something that is often employed by, like, people with pretty significant psychological issues, like people with personality disorders and whatnot.
00:41:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's like ah like a classic in the narcissist playbook, not to throw around another overused therapy word. Yeah, i think I think it's interesting, like, how... I mean because maybe speaking to more of that like subtle difference, that this movie... maybe Maybe what I was trying to get at is like gaslighting as it is applied now is sort of um trying to...
00:41:30
Speaker
it feels a little bit more specific, right? There is an instance that you want to be able to like, that you as like a gaslighter want to be able to rewrite the narrative on.
00:41:41
Speaker
And so you gaslight in order to rewrite that narrative where in this movie, It is ah not the gaslighting is not about any so specific thing that he is gaslighting about.
00:41:56
Speaker
It is about just making her lose touch with reality ah so much that she just kind of crumbles and he can do whatever he wants, like steel jewels.
00:42:09
Speaker
There is some amount of, right, because I mean, the the title comes from the her noticing that the the gas lamps in the apartment are dimming. Which the way that gas lamps work in the olden times is if you turned on lights in a different part of the house, the lights in the room you're in would dim because like the gas has to flow to a different part of the house.
00:42:34
Speaker
And so because the husband is upstairs in the attic looking for jewels, he's turning on the lamp up there and it's dimming the lights in in Ingrid Bergman's room. And she's like, I see the lights dimming.
00:42:48
Speaker
And both he and then also the the maid that he hires are being like, no, I don't see any lights dimming. And so it is like somewhat to like cover up his his illicit activities and to make her, I guess, a kind of a less credible witness.
00:43:05
Speaker
But yeah, it's like part of an ah overall pattern to just sort of like isolate her and to make her ah doubt her own sanity. Yeah. I keep returning to the the jewel thing because like you see it feels like such a, like like, this is such a Machiavellian, like, giant scheme. And then it's just like, I'm doing i'm doing it to steal jewels. Also, like, to to get into, like, the ending and, like, you know, all of the plot details of the movie, right? He seduces her in, like, his, like, music school, like, when she's in music school because he knows that she lives in this apartment that has jewels in it.
00:43:45
Speaker
So then they move into the apartment, but then he doesn't even go into the attic through the apartment. He has to leave the apartment and climb up... like over a roof through a different building, get into the attic anyway. so I'm like, why couldn't he have just gone to London, break into the attic and find the jewels? Why this entire scheme? Oh my God. That is a great question. That is a very good question. oh no. Did you, did you just cinema sin destroy this movie?
00:44:12
Speaker
I may have. Um, but I mean the answer is because then the movie wouldn't happen. Um, But ah yeah, it does seem like maybe a little bit too much of an elaborate plot for him to steal jewels.
00:44:23
Speaker
I also think the other thing that I think is kind of funny about that is going into the movie. And I think the way that I usually think of like gaslighting and sort of other types of psychological psychological manipulation are about like control, like controlling someone and sort of, that's not really what this movie is about.
00:44:41
Speaker
Like it's kind of incidental. Like it's funny that, Like gaslighting happens, especially like in like romantic pairings. it's It's very bad. Don't do it.
00:44:52
Speaker
But I think it's funny that it's like the end goal of this guy is to steal jewels and not just he's not just like a creep who like wants to control his wife, which is how I feel like most people would use gaslighting.
Angela Lansbury's Role in Gaslight
00:45:07
Speaker
He's doing it because he wants to steal jewels, which is such a 1940s movie reason to gaslight someone.
00:45:17
Speaker
you know it's like there's all these really intense horrific stories of of like this actually being done to people for like much pettier kind of uh like narcissistic reasons than jewel theft um so and and just the the the fact that that's where this movie goes it ends in this place like all of this was just because he he wants money Yeah, I mean, I guess we have kind of found out in the way that the the discourse has evolved in years past this movie and kind of used it as a reference point that a lot of people who participate in gaslighting almost do it for its own sake.
00:46:00
Speaker
Right, exactly. ah Yeah, maybe the version today would be, you know, a kind of character drama, but and it wouldn't need the jewel thieving. It would just be about, like, this person is manipulating someone else. Let's explore that.
00:46:16
Speaker
But, i mean, fun that it turns into a, like, jewel theft movie also. I think it's fun, too. I thought one of, like, the most sinister things about it was that he...
00:46:28
Speaker
um kind of like recruited the maid as like a co-manipulator. Like he, I think there was even a scene in the beginning where like, he like tried to turn her against the main character. Like he said something about her and then it like impacted the way that she treated her for the rest of the movie.
00:46:46
Speaker
um And like having that other person there to also doubt the reality, like that to me was just incredibly sinister.
00:46:58
Speaker
um The maid played by Angela Lansbury. Yeah. ET dubs. Baby face Angela Lansbury. i'm It's look weird to see Angela Lansbury not old. they were Or young, I guess, as most people would say.
00:47:11
Speaker
sorry Yeah. ah She, she turned 18 while filming this and they, they paused for a while and gave her a birthday celebration on set. That's wild.
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah. I'm i like, I'm, I think I have only ever seen Angela Lansbury in her like fifties or later. I've only seen her as a teapot.
00:47:38
Speaker
Notable that she's in this movie. Um, Yeah, playing a a pretty like sinister character. yeah Yeah, she doesn't necessarily even have like um any theres yeah any particular reason to do it.
00:47:52
Speaker
I mean, it feels like that he starts kind of trying to get her on his side by yeah like adding this kind of like like ah sexual tension energy um that...
00:48:04
Speaker
you know, maybe she's, maybe, you know, she is in the story, like, young, young and impressionable and maybe also, like, somewhat ah inclined toward viciousness.
00:48:15
Speaker
and I get this, like, think it's kind of implied that he specifically sought out a, like, A like young horny woman that he could manipulate.
00:48:26
Speaker
Yeah. sneak Seeking young horny mean maid. Yeah. No, because it it does seem like that. Like he, he like chose her very specifically as one, like kind of as an accomplice, but also like someone that he could turn against.
00:48:43
Speaker
Um, Ingrid Bergman, Paula is the character's name. And because then it's also like Angela Lansbury is like hitting on all the cops that are like on the beat on the um on the square, which then later on in the movie when Joseph Cotton's detective character is like on the case, he like recruits one of the one of the like beat cops.
00:49:07
Speaker
To be like, hey, are you married? No? Great. Come with me. Like, you this is your new beat. Is this square? um And so he he gets sort of one of the one of the constables to be sort of a honeypot to, like, distract ah the maid away.
00:49:25
Speaker
And you you say Joseph Cotton. is we're We're continuing in our streak of Joseph Cotton movies. 100% Cotton. going to keep making that Scream 3 joke as much as humanly possible.
00:49:40
Speaker
He was the bad guy at last year, and he's the good guy this year. Yeah, real whiplash. He's gone from ah best friend to a murderer to a detective in this.
00:49:51
Speaker
ah Yeah, actually, Sarah, you have watched, you have participated in the cotton, in the 100% cotton marathon because you watched Citizen Kane and ah ah Anatomy of a Fall. What is it called? Anatomy of a Fall. The the Hitchcock one.
00:50:08
Speaker
ah Shadow of a Doubt. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't know who that is, but sure. He was he was he was the guy the the murderer in Shadow of the the evil uncle Gotcha. Yeah.
00:50:21
Speaker
I mean, like he's been great in all of these playing very different characters each time. So if if I didn't think so already, I feel like this, this run of like Joseph Cotton movies has definitely been like, Oh yeah, he's very good.
00:50:35
Speaker
Yeah. One of the things I thought was interesting as he sort of begins working on her, um you know, the the movie, it's it's kind of interesting the way that the movie like depicts his strategy toward um kind of breaking her down, right? Because like it begins with him just doing this like really subtle stuff,
00:50:57
Speaker
to like make these scenarios where she's supposed to feel a little guilty. Uh, and like, it's not even necessarily him doing the gaslighting quite yet.
00:51:09
Speaker
He is just like trying to get her in a state where he can more easily manipulate her by giving her like, ah like a bunch of little things to make her feel like she owes him or, or, or like is, is indebted somehow.
00:51:24
Speaker
Right. There's one thing that it was just like really like skin crawling in this movie is the amount of times that he like gets her to apologize to him. Which is just like, oh, so it's so gross and awful where it's like he's like doing all this shitty stuff and then he's like getting her to apologize to him for like calling him out on it.
00:51:49
Speaker
Yeah. Something that's sticking out in my mind. i don't know if this is what you were thinking about, Chris, but um I think it was towards the beginning. Like he gives her the brooch and then like he puts it in her bag and they go out and then he like takes the brooch out and she thinks she lost it.
00:52:06
Speaker
And it's like this sentimental item. Like I think it was supposed to have belonged to someone in his family or something. And then when she realizes she lost it, she feels so terrible and she's trying to hide it from him.
00:52:17
Speaker
And then eventually she tells him, she's like, oh, I lost this thing. And I feel like what's so sinister is that he's like, oh, it's okay. Like, yeah he doesn't get mad at her. Yeah. He does get mad then. I feel like as the movie goes on, he starts to fly off the handle so easily.
00:52:32
Speaker
Yeah. I guess it's another sort of like weird psychopath, like narcissist, you know, abusive behavior thing is just like the switch from being like really nice and calm and comforting to like furious and like really dangerous seeming is like, that was kind of a thing in Shadow of a Doubt also, right? It's like, oh, he's like charming one minute and then like at the drop of a hat will get like really intense. Yeah.
00:52:58
Speaker
Yeah. But yeah, I agree. Like, the I think like the the the subtle ways that he starts off, like, I think is really is really interesting. Like, I was i was also pretty shocked in that moment where like, he says, Oh, you know, it's okay. And it's like, Oh, oh, no. you know ah Yeah. He's like, Oh, you shouldn't be so forgetful. Like you you seem to be forgetting things more and more.
00:53:20
Speaker
there There's like another point where he kind of like deliberately in front of her is talking to, I forget who he's talking to, but then he's like, Oh, your skin is so nice. You should give my wife some tips on, on how to have nice skin.
00:53:33
Speaker
Right. And it's like, it's like all of this stuff to just like wear her down. and And like, it's really well written. I think honestly of like, Like these yeah subtle things where it's like she isn't really able to say anything in response to it, but it just feels like subtly shitty in in like a way that like it puts her in this extremely like uncomfortable, awkward position.
00:53:59
Speaker
You mentioned the writing. This is the the, I guess, the second movie of Gaslight. It started as a play. And then there was a a British film that we didn't watch for the show because it's sort of the lesser known.
00:54:14
Speaker
And I guess less well-liked. I'm curious kind of now to like watch that one and see how different it is. I would like to, too. Yeah. um Because like Maltese Falcon also, like that was the third movie of that story but it's like the other two are like who cares about those like this is the like in in terms of its like place in the culture this is like the the the pinnacle of what gaslight has like has has been as a story i guess um at least in terms of popularity. I can't speak to the quality of the play or the the the subtle kind of character writing in this i think is really, really good.
00:54:50
Speaker
And that's like, I feel like a thing that we started to see a little bit more of going into like the 40s is like the character writing and in stuff has just been dialed in. don't know, I feel like Shadow of a Doubt and this both feel like they have a really strong understanding of like very subtle human behaviors and like Right, they're both about these kind of like narcissistic characters.
00:55:13
Speaker
And, don't know, it's interesting to see... like the the writing getting pushed forward as much as like the technical other stuff. That's interesting. Yeah. I mean, I guess like maybe you could say that characters were a bit more arch before. Yeah.
00:55:27
Speaker
yeah No, not always, but like, i I do feel like I'm, I'm noticing a trend more towards like this style of i performance in the style of writing.
00:55:38
Speaker
Whereas, yeah, I think in like in the twenties, it was like Caligari stuff. I mean, Caligari is big example because that's like no movie is like that. But unfortunately, i know.
00:55:50
Speaker
um But yeah, because I feel like i I have similar thoughts to say about some of their movies that we watched for 1944 also. So know, that feels like it's worth pointing out.
00:56:04
Speaker
Another thing I thought of while watching this is, are there any other movies that have like, Become a verb in the popular culture. There definitely aren't to the degree that this one has. Like, I think... I'm willing to guess that a lot of people that use the term gaslighting don't know that it... Either haven't seen this movie and or also probably don't even know that it came from a movie.
00:56:34
Speaker
Slash play. Yeah. But, like, I think that's... i don't know. That seems very notable to me that this has, like... had such had such an effect or like the the specificity of like the manipulation in this movie is just like, oh no, we, let's just call it the thing from the movie. Let's just refer to it as gaslighting.
00:56:55
Speaker
i think the only other thing I can think of is, is gone girling, which I feel like is still kind of more of like an internet, like jokey kind of shit. Wait, what is gone girling?
00:57:07
Speaker
Gone girling is is ah faking your own disappearance and then blaming it on your ah we're romantic partner.
00:57:17
Speaker
Yeah, that's a little less um well less every day than gaslighting, I guess. Sure, yeah. It's true, less people are gone girling every every day than are gaslighting, guess.
00:57:28
Speaker
All the girls are still here. That is like the only other time I can think of like a movie title becoming a verb in the same way. And it's, yeah, it's like not, no one really says that outside of like jokey, like film nerd people.
00:57:45
Speaker
the The one, the one movie title ah that has a much, like a very outsized cultural influence compared to the movie ah is the but bucket list.
00:57:57
Speaker
ah Which was actually, yeah, that's a term. It's not a verb, but it's like it's a term that was invented for a largely forgotten ah mid 2000s Rob Reiner movie.
00:58:09
Speaker
yeah And ah then it just became a thing that everyone says. Right. I think similarly, like I think most people that say bucket list at this point aren't aren't saying it as like a reference to the film bucket list. It's just like a word that they know.
00:58:24
Speaker
I had no idea that was a thing. I didn't know that that film existed. yeah It's called The Bucket List. And Morgan Freeman, right? Yeah. I mean, I haven't seen the movie. We're going to go skydiving because we're old.
00:58:38
Speaker
Yeah. That's where the term came from, though? Yes. Yes. yeah Wow. what That's so confusing to me. It's it's a movie from, like, 2007. And, like, honestly, I don't think that many people saw it. It's just that they explain enough of the the the concept in the trailer, which is how I got got the meaning.
00:58:56
Speaker
but yeah It's just like, oh. Yeah. What's on your bucket list? it's just It's the premise of the movie is that they make a list. Wow. Yeah. One in the great pantheon of list movies. Let's not bring up list movies again. Again?
00:59:15
Speaker
Towards the end of the movie when Joseph Cotton is like in the apartment and the lights dim and...
Resolution of Gaslight
00:59:24
Speaker
Ingrid Bergman is like, oh the lights. And then Jessica Cotton is like, hey, what's up with the lights that are dimming? And she's like, oh, you saw it too. And it's like, it's such a, like a huge relief, even though like, you know, at this point in the movie that it's like, what's going on.
00:59:38
Speaker
It's still just for her to have that realization. It was like, oh my God, it wasn't just me. And then she like goes, and like finds all the stuff that he had like stolen and hidden away and said that like, there's the letter that he like,
00:59:50
Speaker
locked away and was like, oh, you never found a letter. And she finds the letter and she's like, oh it's real. it's like yeah It's like such a triumphant moment. Yeah, it's it's really intense and you get to like feel her emotions with her while you're watching it. Yeah.
01:00:04
Speaker
Ingrid Bergman, good at her job, turns out. Yeah. And then when at the end, when um when he's like tied up in the attic and he's like, oh, cut me free. And she's like, i don't know, this knife might not exist.
01:00:16
Speaker
I'm crazy, right? So I might be imagining this. Like, yeah, I legitimately kind of wanted her to like stab him to death in that. Yeah. But I got why.
01:00:27
Speaker
I think that was against the Hays Code. so Yes, it was. right yeah i am I guess one last thing about this movie is that it was a kind of puzzle piece in me finally realizing that ah when...
01:00:45
Speaker
There are a lot of situations where I've heard British people say the word ma'am, and I thought they were saying the word mom. they're saying They're saying ma'am like marm. like mum.
01:00:59
Speaker
We're really going to anglicize. Mum? Mum? Hello, mum. And like, I legitimately like thought that James Bond was calling M mom. And I was like, that's really weird. But I guess that's what they do. But that's also like, that kind of is the subtext in some of those movies. also You know, it's like, it's not that far off. So and like it was only pretty recently that like like, it was like within the last month or two where I was like, oh, oh they are saying ma'am.
01:01:32
Speaker
yeah ah and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was kind of slowly coming to that realization. I think this movie kind of unlocked it a little bit for me. Yeah. Very British, this movie, despite not being a British production.
01:01:46
Speaker
It's so weird that it was like a British movie. And then they're like, let's make an American remake of it. And it's just like... okay it's also in England yeah exactly right I do kind of get the sense like that does still happen but I think that happens a lot less now because it is like internet movies just play internationally now like without much I mean, there's nothing stopping a British Gaslight movie from playing in America.
01:02:12
Speaker
This movie played in England, and they had to retitle it in order to not confuse it with the other Gaslight movie. that I mean, that is very weird. But i I do think this is a good example of, like, the possibly ill-conceived American remake, like, unnecessary American remake.
01:02:29
Speaker
Even though I think this is considered the better of the two, having not seen the British one. Um... Yeah, it is kind of like, we already have one of these. like we Do it again? And the other Gaslight is from 1935. It wasn't even that when this came It might have been 38. the play came out in 38.
01:02:47
Speaker
wasn't even that old when this came um might been thirty eight no The the play came out in thirty eight the previous movie is nineteen forty wow yeah so just four years and they're like we can do it we can do it better.
01:03:01
Speaker
we got Some of the multi-Solken movies were closer. so Yeah, I think that's true. but I think there was like a 34 and a 37 or something like that. Whatever.
01:03:13
Speaker
um Yeah, Gaslight. pretty ah Pretty good movie, I thought. real Real moody, real spooky. um Not surprisingly, but I think it it stands out for its sort of like I guess, like psychological intensity.
01:03:31
Speaker
Yeah. um I haven't been watching as many old movies as you guys, but I feel like the psychological angle is something that I haven't seen much until now.
01:03:44
Speaker
When you say it's like like the like the kind of like the ho tri The whole driving force of the movie, it's a psychological drama. like That is what is at the center of it. And I don't haven't seen any other old movies like that. This is the first one.
01:03:59
Speaker
Yeah. i get that yeah I feel like there there are movies that have kind of maybe similar levels of... interiority, but maybe like less similar of an amount of focus on interiority. Yeah. Like, yeah.
01:04:15
Speaker
Like one of the notable things about Citizen Kane, I think is like how much it is about like what is going on in the interiority of the characters. um But it's definitely not like a psycho drama like this.
01:04:28
Speaker
No. Yeah. I also feel like a lot of, lot of psychodramas in like early film tend to be a little bit more kind of cranked up or kind of wackier. don't know. Like I'm thinking about, you know, like I do think,
01:04:44
Speaker
ka garri is is a like psychodrama but it's just a like nightmare psychodrama that is you know like about some nebulism and like and weird angles and stuff um like and i I kind of think of cat people as a kind of a psychological drama also but then it's like what if she also turned into a panther and eat people I mean Doesn't that just make every movie better have creatures in it? If you ask me, yes. i All movies should have creatures in them. um
01:05:18
Speaker
But yeah, it's like a very straightforward like psychological drama um or thriller. This is sort of like, it's leaning into, I think, what a a a more modern understanding what that genre is than, yeah, I think a lot of other stuff that at least we've watched for the show.
01:05:35
Speaker
Uh, well, and speaking of other things that we've watched for the show, uh, uh, there's another movie involving when we kind of made the decision, you know, I was like, Oh, you should be on this episode because gaslight, because, uh, you ah went to school for therapy.
Plot of 'Arsenic and Old Lace'
01:05:54
Speaker
Uh, I, and then we decided that you'd watch another movie. I completely forgot about the kind of, mental health insanity ah kind of angle on this movie as well, which is Arsenic and Old Lace.
01:06:09
Speaker
ah And it is a movie that was filmed in 1941 and then shelved for three years. But it's ah this is a movie about a a guy who is, i don't know, anti... Good luck with the the plot synopsis on this one is going to be wild.
01:06:27
Speaker
ah It's about a guy who is ah notable, a theater ah play a theater critic who is notable for ah being ah very anti, ah being tied down by women and marriage and all that. Like marriage specifically. He's like, man should never get married. It's it's ah it's a grift.
01:06:46
Speaker
the and And he ends up getting ah getting married to this lady. They he fall in love and he's like, I'm going to change everything. I'm going to change all of my ideas. Then they ah are about to kind of go on their honeymoon to Niagara Falls, which is where all old timey honeymoons go for some reason. And... ah this is like the, i don't know, third or fourth time this has come up.
01:07:10
Speaker
ah But um ah he goes to tell his aunts, who he's very close with, who like live together in this big mansion, these nice old ladies. And while they're all packing and she's in her house across the street, or I should say across the graveyard, ah ah this movie is very spooky Halloween kind of backgrounds set around Halloween. Yeah. Very Halloween themed. He discovers that his aunts have been ah taking it upon themselves ah to mercy kill lonely old men. and
01:07:47
Speaker
ah ah And they are are basically cheerful, ah cheerful waspy serial killers that And this is Cary Grant playing the main character, whose name Mort Mortimer, ah which is definitely a very Halloween-y name.
01:08:03
Speaker
And then it is a bunch of Cary Grant being flustered, trying to deal with his aunts, who do not ah understand why what they're doing is wrong.
01:08:14
Speaker
and ah And then his bad seed older brother appears, ah who looks like... um Who... look who looks like Boris Karloff, who looks like Boris Karloff and appears with his buddy, a plastic surgeon played by Peter Lorre.
01:08:36
Speaker
ah They also have another brother who is, ah who thinks that he's Teddy Roosevelt and everyone plays along. Mental illness kind of runs in the family and a bunch of a bunch of things, a bunch of chaos unfolds. Hijinks ensue. Hijinks then ensue.
01:08:55
Speaker
So many hijinks. Arsenic and old lace. How did everybody like this one? I thought it was delightful. I loved it. ah I think it might be one of my favorite old movies that I've watched.
01:09:08
Speaker
Nice. I mean, I've seen a lot of old movies. It is also one of my favorite. It's just one of my favorite movies, I think. just So good. come I had seen it multiple times before this. And yeah, it is just, it's like, as as per the Halloween theme, it's just candy.
01:09:25
Speaker
It's just like, m just it's so it's so just like fun and and goopy and like, yeah it's so It's ridiculous. It's so like,
01:09:37
Speaker
when When I was first watching it, like he discovers the body in the window seat. And like of course, like your mind is like, okay, there's like a visibly crazy person living in this house.
01:09:49
Speaker
like Maybe it was him. and then like he goes to his aunts about it and they're like, oh no, that was us. It's fine. and you're just like, like how how are they speaking so casually about this? like Throughout the whole movie, they just...
01:10:03
Speaker
They're just like, oh, we can't lie. We're Christians. Like, yes, we we killed that man. It's fine. yeah that There is, like, so much comedy that comes out of like, how sweet and adorable so the the two
Comedic Elements and Chaotic Dynamics
01:10:15
Speaker
aunts are. Like, they're so they're so genuinely sweet and caring.
01:10:19
Speaker
And they they just do not see what's wrong with, they're like, oh, no, they're all lonely and sad. Like, come on. Like, they're at peace now. Like, we buried them down the cellar. Like, it's fine. We sent them to Panama. Yeah.
01:10:33
Speaker
yeah Right, because Teddy, her brother, thinks that the basement is Panama, and so he's digging locks for the canal whenever he's digging grave. Right, and and then they've tricked... they've tricked they they i think one of the interesting things about this movie is how nicely everyone treats...
01:10:50
Speaker
ah the brother who who just fully believes that he's Teddy Roosevelt. they They talk to him. They say, they they call him Teddy. People aren't like typically like kind of making fun of him. They just kind of accept it.
01:11:04
Speaker
ah But like part of that acceptance is sort of using him in order to say, like, someone died of yellow fever. like, and he's like oh, no, not another one.
01:11:15
Speaker
We've never had yellow fever in the window seat before.
01:11:21
Speaker
That was a good line.
01:11:24
Speaker
But it's also like he believes he's Teddy Roosevelt, but in a way that is like, like he talks about how it's like, oh, I like i haven't met you yet. Like it's not, it's not time in like Teddy Roosevelt's life for this to happen. Like he knows all the facts about Teddy Roosevelt's life.
01:11:40
Speaker
Yeah. But then also still believes himself to be Teddy Roosevelt. It's great. It's great like comedy writing. a ah You were talking about like how well the, the old ladies, ah you know, play the characters and, you know, there were a lot of aspects of the kind of production of this movie that were influenced by the existence of the play that it was based
Stage to Film Transition of 'Arsenic and Old Lace'
01:12:02
Speaker
on. Yeah.
01:12:04
Speaker
what I mentioned earlier that it was filmed in 1941 and they didn't release it until 1944 because they had in their contract that it couldn't be released until the play was done on Broadway.
01:12:16
Speaker
ah And so they just filmed it and then just sat on it for a couple years. Interesting. Insane. And ah the old ladies, so the the two old ladies and Teddy ah were the original, were part of the original cast of the play.
01:12:32
Speaker
ah But they didn't want to take all of the original actors out of the play. ah And so they left Boris Karloff in the play.
01:12:42
Speaker
So Boris Karloff like stayed on Broadway while they were filming this. But that role that was like, you look like Boris Karloff. It was originally actually Boris Karloff on yeah stage. yeah Which is like, wow when i when I learned that, I was like that like, that would be so much funnier. If it was like, everyone's like, this guy looks like Boris Karloff. And it just is Boris Karloff. There's a lot of really meta stuff in this in this too. Do you think it still kind of works that they got a different actor?
01:13:09
Speaker
um What's his name? um ah Raymond Massey. And kind of give him prosthetics to make him look more like Boris Karloff. And it's like the whole backstory is that he's supposed to have had plastic surgery.
01:13:22
Speaker
Like bad plastic surgery. by Dr. Einstein, Peter Lorre's character, and Peter Lorre had watched ah Frankenstein and gotten drunk and then sort of created a Frankenstein monster face for this guy.
01:13:40
Speaker
um And he's got like, you know, big scars, like the the kind of classic like kids makeup, like the line with like the little like thread ah lines through it. So like, i I think it still works that he looks like he's a guy that kind of looks like Boris Karloff, but isn't actually him.
01:13:57
Speaker
Like it is, it loses the kind of meta quality, I guess, that the play had. But, um, but then there's like the whole thing of, you know, the main character being a theater critic and like them talking about like, oh, this is the moment in the play where this would happen, you know? Right. Which I do think still works.
01:14:13
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I guess it's, it's right. It's not quite as meta. Yeah. it Yeah, it would have been incredibly meta comedy on the stage. I kind of wonder, like, maybe maybe they could have, like, changed certain details to make it. He was a a film critic. Like, yeah, he's a movie critic or something like that. Right. that the the The cop wants to be a screenwriter and not playwright.
01:14:33
Speaker
um It's true. Yeah, they probably could have changed that. But I guess they were like, the play works. Let's not change anything. It's my understanding that they changed very little from the play. um I mean, like this this almost the whole movie takes place in a single set also. But there's enough there's enough like camera stuff, there's enough like lighting changes and things that it doesn't doesn't feel that claustrophobic or contained. like it feels Even though the whole movie takes place in like a living room, it's like it feels like it has lots of energy and there's like different places to go and it's just...
01:15:05
Speaker
yeah I mean, energy is the word. This movie is like at 100 the entire time. ah This is like... You said Cary Grant is like making a lot of... it's you Doing a lot of flabbergasted or like flustered Cary Grant stuff.
Cary Grant's Performance in 'Arsenic and Old Lace'
01:15:20
Speaker
This is like peak carrie flustered Cary Grant, I feel like. To the point where he is like... is like actively going insane on camera.
01:15:31
Speaker
Like justhar his his eyeballs look like they're about to. Yeah, this exactly. Yeah. it Yeah, it's kind of like a, it feels like a continuation of the bringing up baby version of him. Yeah.
01:15:43
Speaker
It's interesting. It's like, this movie is chaos at a lot of points, but like, I didn't, when I finished bringing up baby, I felt exhausted. But like with this one, this one, I think it like, it rides a really good line where, yeah where there's all, you're watching all of this chaos happening, but it's, it's just shy of overwhelming. Yeah.
01:16:04
Speaker
it's It's very controlled. like there's it's Even though there's a lot happening, usually, at the same time, especially like towards the end, um it does feel like it's it's able to really cleanly kind of focus in on individual things. like There's like a huge but there's like the bit where like the cops come in and they're fighting with Jonathan, the older brother, but that's like mostly off-screen and the camera's staying on on Kira Grant as Mortimer, like on the phone and things like that. And he's like looking over his shoulder and like saying stuff and then like a chair will fly into frame and smash against the the wall.
01:16:40
Speaker
Like it's, it's, I think it it is able to kind of, um, yeah, kind of find these, these like little points of view amid the chaos that keeps it from feeling too overwhelming.
01:16:53
Speaker
Um, and Anyway, there's just like a lot of like one character will exit and like more characters will immediately enter. in And it's like in always in funny ways. This is definitely a movie that I feel like it's tight. Never. It's really tight.
01:17:07
Speaker
It never like misses a chance to make a joke. Like, if there's a funny way for a character to enter a scene, it's going to be funny. If there's a funny way for, like... If there's a funny way for a character... there's funny way for a character... If there's a... If Teddy ever exits a scene, he's screaming.
01:17:25
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Exactly. um And it's just... it's Yeah. It's very... Like... I really appreciate a comedy that is like, no, we're going to...
01:17:37
Speaker
You're going to layer so many jokes in that, like, you you'll miss stuff. Like, you'll be laughing over jokes. but There's nothing... i feel like there's very little that I think is, like, worse in a movie.
01:17:51
Speaker
And I have seen this happen more recently where, like, they will put in pauses, like, in the dialogue for laughs. And if that doesn't happen, it is the most awkward, oh no horrible, like, horrible decision.
01:18:04
Speaker
It's, like... That happens in like some some more recent Marvel movies. They'll be like, oh, here's here's Matt Murdock, whatever. he Like, let's take a moment, take a beat for everyone to cheer.
01:18:15
Speaker
but if no one cheers, it's just this weird, awkward pause where everyone's staring at each other in a room, not talking. And it's... Whoever's editing those movies needs to cut that shit out. but um it's like those It's like those edits that people do of sitcoms where they take the laugh track out.
01:18:33
Speaker
ah And you realize how much people are just staring at each other waiting for the laughs to end. No one's waiting in this movie. Everyone's moving. There's lot lot of A lot of energy, which is great.
Peter Lorre's Unique Role
01:18:49
Speaker
I mean, Peter Lorre is my favorite character in this movie. This is my favorite. know if this might be my favorite movie that Peter Lorre is in. It might not be because I think i think M is incredible. I think Maltese Falcon is incredible.
01:19:02
Speaker
This is definitely, without question, my favorite Peter Lorre performance. he's He's really... he's he's He's having a good time. He's never been more Peter Lorre than he is in this movie. Like, he's simultaneously, like, creepy and off-putting and also so funny and so silly and, like, kind of sympathetic and it kind of, like, adorable. It's like he's... yeah yeah he He can't, you know, he's a bad person, but he's not as bad as a guy as the the guy who is dragging him around, who is trying to be the worst guy. It's his goal to become the worst he's like but I feel like they a lot of like animated movies, like Disney movies, have like taken this archetype of like he's like the put-upon villain sidekick who's like, no, come on, like let's just let's just go home.
01:19:51
Speaker
Like, no, Johnny, we don't need to... you No, Johnny, we don't need to kill him. We just need to get the body down to Panama. Which, ah another thing I love, everyone calls the basement Panama.
01:20:02
Speaker
Like, not just Teddy. Like, once everyone learns that that's their, like, rule of, like, oh, no, we we we call the basement Panama because Teddy... Everyone, including dr Einstein, he's like, oh, no, Johnny, first you get the body, then we bring him down to Panama. And it's like, Teddy's not in the room.
01:20:20
Speaker
He's like, in up in a separate floor. Just like that detail is so funny. Like every time he says it, it's funny just because it's like, he doesn't need to do that. But ah yeah, so so many good, like, i feel like everything Peter Lorre says in this movie is just gold.
01:20:38
Speaker
um I could talk about, like, Dr. Einstein for hours, probably. But all i'll I'll restrain myself. He has a really great exit from the movie. like Because Johnny's kind of like right the main villain. He has to get his comeuppance.
01:20:55
Speaker
Somehow they made it through the Hays Code by having Dr. Einstein technically be a villain, but... He like gets away at the end. And it's he has this like look. He has he just makes a sound like an like an exasperated, like relieved sound. He goes and like runs out of the room.
01:21:15
Speaker
<unk>s So good.
01:21:19
Speaker
I feel like I've been talking a lot. Does anyone else have thoughts?
01:21:24
Speaker
Well, I was going to say, i just loved when a second body became involved. Like, I was not expecting that at all. And then like, oh, now there's two bodies. And like, the one that people expect to be there is not there anymore. and Now it's another body. And it was just like, it like amped up the zaniness to a whole other level. Right.
01:21:43
Speaker
let's It lets Cary Grant like mug some more when like they they were right look in the um like window seat he expects it to be like the same body he's used to. And then there's another one.
01:21:54
Speaker
Yeah. Right. It's like, so good it I think, I think escalates yeah so well. He like looks at the camera and says, gods, there's another
01:22:06
Speaker
And somehow this movie gets away with things like that, where it's like, right basically, like, I think he does look directly at the camera in that scene, right? Yeah. That might not even be the only time that happens in this movie, and yet I'm like, I'm fine with it.
01:22:20
Speaker
This is
Dark Humor in 'Arsenic and Old Lace'
01:22:21
Speaker
like, um also, it feels so ah out of left field for Frank Capra. Like, I am so used to the standard Frank Capra movie.
01:22:32
Speaker
It's doing its thing. it's it's ah It's American. It's preachy. It's, ah ah you know, it's about simple guys in their small town values.
01:22:44
Speaker
ah And... This movie is like darker and more anarchic and more comedy forward than anything. that we like it He established such vibe for himself it's this that it feels kind of shocking that this is a movie of his.
01:23:01
Speaker
And then, you know, pretty soon after this, he does It's a Wonderful Life and... you know, kind of back to standard Capra, right? the The ultimate Capra movie. Yeah. I mean, that probably comes a lot from the writing, right? The writing is, is I think, a lot darker and a lot more kind of zany, I guess, than his other stuff.
01:23:18
Speaker
I, it does, like, Frank Capra, as we know, he loves an eccentric household. Yes. He loves to show us a living room full of like people playing instruments and like everyone's quirky.
01:23:29
Speaker
Yeah. um And this this movie... The aforementioned quirky. All of that, very much. You can't take it with you. kind of feels like the ultimate maybe quirky household movie. Whereas this is comes pretty close.
01:23:42
Speaker
And I think another thing is like I do like how the movie doesn't feel... like judgmental, I guess, towards like Teddy or the, the ants so much. Like you don't feel like they're bad people or that like the movie never feels like, Oh, Teddy is like, has a problem. It's kind of like, no, Teddy is like happy.
01:24:03
Speaker
believing that he's Teddy Roosevelt. And everyone else is also fine. Like, yeah, he blows his bugle at, like, the middle of the night, and he has to yell charge every time he goes up the stairs. But, like, otherwise, he's, like, a pretty well-adjusted dude. Yeah, and, like, it's almost, you know, there's a moment where... So, the the the whole...
01:24:19
Speaker
movie is basically, ah you know, Mortimer trying to get ah handle on the situation and stop his aunts from killing people and to stop to like not get them caught by the police. Right.
01:24:33
Speaker
And he kind of realizes that it is sort of expedient to ah blame his obviously insane brother on the killings.
01:24:44
Speaker
Oh, it's it was Teddy Roosevelt who did it. you know And then everyone would believe him because this guy thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt. But it it
Brewster Family's Mental Illness Portrayal
01:24:53
Speaker
feels in the movie like this kind of moral transgression from the main... I mean, it is a moral transgression from the main character. But it's like, it's this moment where he's delving into something that is like pretty obviously wrong, right?
01:25:07
Speaker
Where it almost feels like the movie judges him more harshly than the ants... uh for killing people uh it's it's he he doesn't part like because he is looking at the system of insanity from the outside and judging it rather than just participating in his own personal insanity uh the the movie also kind of lets him get away. Like the, one of the kind of final moments of the movie is them kind of realizing that like, you know, severe mental illness runs in the family where like the brother wants to be the most evil man alive. The other brother wants like, thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt and the two aunts are, are serial killers. Right.
01:25:54
Speaker
And then he finds out that the reason why he's not like that is that he's adopted. Yeah. and I'm not a Brewster. I'm the son of a sea cook. he's He's so happy that he's the son of a sea cook.
01:26:06
Speaker
ah there's There's the bit, I think we might have mentioned this earlier, where um Mortimer is like talking to Dr. Einstein. He's like, I saw a play where this guy he knows he's in the house with murderers, but de he's does he go?
01:26:18
Speaker
No, he stays. He just sits down and waits to get tied up. And there's a guy sneaking up behind him, but does he look behind him? No, he doesn't. And then it's like, Jonathan is actually sneaking up behind him. Great bit.
01:26:30
Speaker
I'm sure that killed on stage. It still kills in the movie. it It reminded me a lot of there's a bit in the first second scream reference of this episode in the first scream movie where Jamie Kennedy is like watching ah the first Halloween movie and he's going Jamie behind you Jamie look out behind you.
01:26:47
Speaker
And there's like ghost faces sneaking up behind him. And it's just like, it's a great meta doofy joke. I mean, Scream is like all about meta jokes. That one was like, ah, I see.
01:26:58
Speaker
I see you. Not this thing that like they took it from this movie, but like, it's a very similar kind of gag, I guess. This is the the Scream of
'Arsenic and Old Lace' Elevator Pitch
01:27:07
Speaker
hiding a dead body movies.
01:27:10
Speaker
Sure, yeah. this This was my elevator pitch for the movie. is that it's ah It's a comedy about hiding a dead body. And ah that's going to sell anybody on it, I think. Yeah, yeah. um But then even, like, yeah, like it is very wacky and zany, but like when when Jonathan does tie him up and is like about to like kill him in some horrific way, it's like genuinely very threatening. And and like there's there's a real sense of like stakes and that, like,
01:27:40
Speaker
Something awful is going to happen. Like it, it, I feel like the, the movie rides that like dark, but silly tone. um Yeah. Really, really well. Yeah.
01:27:51
Speaker
Yeah. A few people almost drink poison too. Yeah. Oh yeah. No, just the poison joke. I mean, that's like, that's evergreen. I feel like any movie that has like, poison is in this cup. And then you see people continually almost drink from the cup. Yeah.
01:28:09
Speaker
Yeah. that that Sometimes that is like, please don't drink from the cup. And sometimes that scene is please drink from the cup and you're not, you know either way it's tense and funny. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
01:28:20
Speaker
and Sarah, do you have any you know psychological insights in this movie? do you feel like Do you feel like its betrayal of dissociative identity is is is accurate or inaccurate?
01:28:33
Speaker
I have a sense it's probably inaccurate. I mean, it seems to me like probably if I were to diagnose Teddy, he probably has schizophrenia. Like it's a delusion that he's operating under.
01:28:44
Speaker
um And ah it makes it makes schizophrenia look very fun. but So not accurate. I don't really see much clinical distress in him. but um Yeah,
01:28:58
Speaker
I don't know. um I think it's it's a fun approach to mental illness. You know, like it it makes it comical. um Like the fact that the ants are just like, yeah, this is normal. We just kill people and it's fine.
01:29:13
Speaker
um ah That's probably all I have for psychological insights, but I will say like the one complaint that I have about this movie is I wish that the wife was in it more, because I thought she was so adorable, and like I loved her like Brooklyn accent.
01:29:29
Speaker
I thought she was like she had such a good presence, and I was disappointed that she wasn't in the movie much. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, ah it's, um, there's like a bunch of characters that are sort of in the sidelines. And part of the joke, I guess, is that they are not in the main area like her.
01:29:48
Speaker
She kind of becomes that way where he doesn't want her to find out about everything going on. And so he keeps like, you know, there's this comedy of, of they're, they're this new couple in love.
01:30:01
Speaker
And he's just like, get the hell out of here. ah yeah but then like yeah there's also this like recurring bit of the taxi driver who is trying to take them they're trying to take
Brooklyn's Portrayal in the Film
01:30:11
Speaker
a taxi all the way from brooklyn to niagara falls uh that that's uh that's gonna that's gonna be pretty rough but there's this taxi driver the the uh the meter is running the whole time and you keep like checking in on him throughout the movie uh Another great joke that I feel like has been repeated in other things is right that it keeps coming back to the taxi driver being like, the meter is still running.
01:30:36
Speaker
um like ah That's a joke in Airplane, right? Where there's a taxi. I think with a taxi, that is the joke in Airplane. yeah ah But yeah, you were talking about like her Brooklyn accent. like I think that the New Yorkiness of this movie is kind of fun. I love that, yeah.
01:30:54
Speaker
I was trying to figure out where the house is supposed to be, because you can see the Brooklyn Bridge. like I think it's supposed to be like on like Vinegar Hill-ish area, maybe.
01:31:05
Speaker
i don't think it's like a i mean, it's clearly a set, but I was i was trying to kind of like to locate where it would be in in real geography. Yeah, as as the Brooklyn hipster, give us the local angle.
01:31:19
Speaker
Yeah. Local Angle, I think it's supposed to be in Vinegar Hill, but I also think it's just like, they put up a backdrop of the Brooklyn Bridge to be like, eh, Brooklyn, you get it. Yeah. Yeah. regardless of whether or not that makes any sense the the movie also like i feel like ah a quite delightful thing that this movie starts out with is just this like i don't know indictment of like brooklyn yeah it's like it's like this uncivilized land across the bridge where people are meeting all the time meanwhile in brooklyn hell yeah
01:31:54
Speaker
I mean, you mentioned Brooklyn accents. There are some primo Brooklyn accents in this movie. Like there's like the the police lieutenant who shows up towards the end has like such a, he's like, it's just like the most 1940s that it could could exist, you know?
01:32:10
Speaker
There's a lot of, we're we're facing a lot of competition in this podcast for most 1940s I know. Yeah, there's there's ah there's quite a few of them, aren't there? i I do want to quick shout out to, uh,
01:32:24
Speaker
recurring great character actor Edward Edward Horton yeah always i think this is probably the first thing I saw him in like looking back our our favorite fuddy-duddy has become like one of my favorite actors who is that he so he he he doesn't get to chew up the scenery in this as much as he does in other stuff but he is ah he is the guy who runs the asylum in this movie But you ah you have seen him in Design for a Living.
01:32:54
Speaker
ah He was the like the dud other guy who she was like going who she married for a little while. And everyone was like, we all agree that this guy sucks. like Gotcha.
01:33:07
Speaker
He's so good at playing that. i mean He's not he's not like annoying in in this movie. um But he is like so good at playing that like yeah like stuffy rich guy that everyone else is like, shut up, get out here.
01:33:20
Speaker
I think I was I was probably one of the only people ah in in decades to be excited to see his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. When I was there several weeks ago, i was like, oh, my God, Edward Everett Horton.
01:33:34
Speaker
I got to take a picture.
01:33:38
Speaker
that I think I was, man, don't remember if I told this story, ah on the podcast already, I might have, but the last time that me and Sarah went to uh, we went on the Warner brothers studio tour and, ah I chose, they have a couple of different tours that you can do.
01:33:57
Speaker
And I chose the one, ah for like the classic films, right? There's the, they have the classic films tour. ah And they have the kind of, they've got like one that's like oriented toward like DC superheroes and, and the show friends, which is what all the normal people want to go.
01:34:15
Speaker
And ah literally, annoying me literally seven times, like they were like, are you sure that you want to be on the old tour for old people? Yeah.
01:34:29
Speaker
like And people said, we're not. like we were it was when we were in that room where we were all sitting down like, this is the classics tour. Are you sure you want to be here? And like five people got up.
01:34:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. They're like, if you go the other room if you want the tour that's not for nerds. If you want to see friends. If you want the friends tour, there. They showed us friends anyway. but ah All that, and you can't even get away from it. No, it was it was kind of it was kind of incredible and also vaguely insulting as a newly minted old movie guy that like they're just like, nobody wants to see this stuff. I don't know why you're on this tour.
01:35:08
Speaker
Yeah. um That's wild. i it It seems weird that they would ah actively discourage people from taking that tour, but whatever. i would That's also the tour I would want to go on. like Yeah.
01:35:20
Speaker
When I went on the Paramount tour ah last year, i was like, no, show me all the old stuff. I love old stuff. I old stuff. Yeah, exactly.
01:35:33
Speaker
Fun time. This was one of my first old movies, honestly. like but Speaking of old stuff, like when you and me watched this when were 16 or something like that. Yeah, it's like you watched this at my house, right? Yeah, yeah. that like and Back in the day. And like this was probably ah one of the oldest movies that I had seen. would i would maybe i would probably say this is the first like black and white movie that I loved.
01:36:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it i ah King Kong is probably that for me, but like this is up there. This might be like the second black and white movie. I love i don't know. like i I have i've thoroughly loved this movie since I saw it yeah when I was and what in my early teens.
01:36:16
Speaker
yeah And if anything, I've only grown to appreciate it more. it really It really holds up. I think this is a very good movie if you want to like... If you like old movies and you want to introduce people...
01:36:28
Speaker
To how good old movies can be. And people are like. Black and white. It's not going to be good. If people are being shitty about it Show them this movie. and like If they don't like this movie. don't know what to show them.
01:36:42
Speaker
like you know yeah i feel like i I feel like. This is like a pretty. i like Accessible. Delightful movie. Definitely.
01:36:54
Speaker
ah Sarah, do you have any um any closing thoughts? any Anything else to say about these two movies? um I feel like I should, but I kind of don't. That's okay, too.
01:37:05
Speaker
Okay. Well, thanks for thanks for joining. ah Thanks for coming on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Thanks for, uh, thanks for be being, uh, for keeping your voice down when I'm recording podcasts in the other room.
01:37:26
Speaker
Sure.
01:37:29
Speaker
And for removing the cat collar. So there isn't constant jingling in the background. Oh, you know what? As, as someone who has edited a lot of these, thank you. That is a lifesaver.
01:37:43
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Do you want to, do you want to leave us with any, anything, ah any right plugs feels like a leading question no i i just play the binding of isaac and smoke weed i don't have anything great i mean two things that i think could use an endorsement you know i endorse weed and i endorse the binding of isaac
01:38:07
Speaker
and um i also have a currently defunct youtube channel called culture kaleidoscope so if you want to watch like six videos about various things, you can look up my YouTube channel. There's some good videos, including some about media.
01:38:24
Speaker
I'll start it back up eventually, but ah right now it's... We'll put a link in the description. Yeah, thank you. We'll give you that but give you that that one week, one year bump.
01:38:35
Speaker
That's right. Our 30 listeners can migrate over. Well, thank you. Thanks for joining. and Another movie involving ah mysteries and murder and i ah psychology and such.
01:38:52
Speaker
Let's talk about Laura, directed by Otto Preminger. Who killed Laura? Right. Which I thought of every single time they say that in this movie, which is very frequently. It's like this synopsis is going to have full spoilers, by the way.
01:39:09
Speaker
And there is there is good there's there's good things that develop in this movie. Yeah. So we don't normally do any spoiler warnings, but I think this movie warrants one just because it.
01:39:21
Speaker
It is such a twisty-turny movie, and because it's really well-written, and it's really great to like experience this movie blind.
01:39:31
Speaker
So, skip to the next chapter, if you don't want to hear about it. It's a really cool movie. this So, this movie is about... ah It begins with ah with a death, or it doesn't even show it.
01:39:44
Speaker
It's Someone has just been killed. Someone named Laura has just been killed. And we're following on we're following the detective as he tries to ah interview all of the people who knew her and suss out what happened, who the killer might be.
01:40:00
Speaker
And he kind of interviews all of these strange characters and they end up kind of following him ah like like ducklings ah from place to place. And it allows their kind of strange personalities to bounce off of each other and for more tensions to erupt.
01:40:18
Speaker
ah He's investigating the case. Suddenly, while while he's in her apartment, ah staring at a photo of her, waiting for ah waiting for an answer in the case to come to him, Laura herself walks through the door.
01:40:35
Speaker
no. And he's like, what the, what the heck? He says, what the heck is that? What the hell?
01:40:46
Speaker
then basically what happens is he says, well, if you're here, then who's the dead body? And, uh, and then, and still who murdered the other person. Exactly. And so now Laura herself becomes a suspect in her own murder.
01:41:03
Speaker
In the middle of this, ah the speaking of fuddy-duddies, the kind of older gentleman who has a and so ah an obsession with her implies that as the cop has been investigating this case, that he's falling in love with with the memory of Laura, that he loves corpse,
01:41:24
Speaker
is ah that that he loves a corpse and And ah eventually, you know, he has to navigate the fact that he has feelings for her and that he is investigating her and trying to figure out whether she did it, who did what.
01:41:42
Speaker
There's a lot of kind of complicated back and forth. ah And it eventually ends with a showdown ah with a yeah a hidden shotgun inside of inside of a piece of furniture.
01:41:58
Speaker
there's my There's my synopsis. That's the plot. Pretty good movie, I think. um Yeah. it's It's not... I think maybe compared to probably the next movie we're going to talk about, it's maybe not the most film noir movie that like has ever been made.
01:42:18
Speaker
But it it's got a lot of really great film noir staples and sort of like imagery. and But it also, I think, is it kind of stands apart from a lot of other noir movies. for it's i don't know it's kind of It's lighter, I think.
01:42:34
Speaker
it's It's lighter, but there's i don't know there's there's kind of just this like romantic mystery tone to this movie that I that i really enjoy. Yeah, it's got a bit of um maybe Rebecca in it.
01:42:48
Speaker
Yeah, I like this more than Rebecca. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Also, the first time I saw this, which was a couple years ago, I did not know the twist that Laura is not, in fact, dead. And so when she walks back in, I was genuinely, like, shocked.
01:43:02
Speaker
I was like, holy shit. What, what is this movie even about now? It's an incredible moment, honestly. Like when she walks through the door. Was this first time you had seen it?
01:43:13
Speaker
I have seen it before. I saw it maybe, uh, seven, eight years ago, but I have a really terrible memory for movie plots. And so I kind of thought that that might be the case, but I didn't remember it. So it was almost as much of a shock to me, uh, when I watched it again this time.
01:43:30
Speaker
Uh, And yeah, it's ah it's an incredible moment. ah Sorry I just spoiled it, but you know, I don't know. We're talking about the movies here. and it's This is maybe that one of the only times I've been like, ah people should really like be able to experience that twist. you know That moment is incredible.
01:43:47
Speaker
it's it's like such a It's so striking, right? Of like, he's staring at her at her ah painting on the wall. And then like the spitting image walks through the door. Which...
01:44:01
Speaker
Very noir kind of moment. I think yeah, and it even almost like i remember I think the first time I saw it I was like is this like a dream sequence because he's like alone in the apartment by himself He's like drinking yeah and then all of a sudden she walks in it's like whoa is this like is this really happening?
01:44:17
Speaker
um But then like very quickly, it's like, no, like this, this is for real. Like it it doesn't really ever play with that. But I, you know, one of the atypical things I was saying about this movie is that it is pretty light. Like there, there are parts, the parts of it that are quite light. Like they're, um, now i'm not remembering the name of the guy, the fuddy duddy in this movie. Uh, Waldo Leidecker.
01:44:39
Speaker
Waldo Leidecker, which is a great. Played by Clifton Webb. So well the names in this movie are great. They're great. Like noir names. Waldo Lidecker, Shelby Cartander, Detective Mark McPherson.
01:44:53
Speaker
ah They're they're they're good ones. So like he is this kind of older society man who you know has a ah a well-regarded you know ah column and and radio show.
01:45:07
Speaker
And ah he kind of ends up taking a shining to Laura, which ends up having this... possessive energy ah that eventually, you you know, you kind of realize that he's like the weird one, like from the get go. And so this movie does sort of end with like, yep, it's the weird guy that did it. you know Right.
01:45:32
Speaker
And it's almost like the movie so quickly establishes that he's like, kind of the weird guy at the beginning. In a way, we were like, well, it be it'd be really obvious if he's the murderer.
01:45:44
Speaker
don't know. There's multiple characters in this that are sort of like, well, obviously, he's the murderer. Right, right. Yeah, like, like I mean, if you have Vincent Price in a movie, he's going to have a threatening energy. yeah Yeah. We had babyface Angela Lansbury, and now we got babyface Vincent Price in this movie.
01:46:00
Speaker
Yeah. You know, this movie is almost kind of in two halves where it kind of becomes like once Laura comes back, I think it becomes a more earnest, hard-boiled noir drama.
01:46:12
Speaker
But then I really, there's a lot of comedy in the beginning, in the first part of the movie. And a lot of the comedy comes from Waldo being this just, strange bitchy guy like who like he he cannot he cannot resist like putting down everyone around him in quite inventive ways like it is funny i wonder how much of that is like us looking back on it of just like this 40s movie with the guy just being so incredibly bitchy to everyone like it doesn't feel jokey i guess but it is very funny
01:46:49
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like it doesn't it doesn't feel like wink-wink jokey, but it's like it's like the audacity of this man, you know, as you as as you watch it. and Well, it's like, you know, Detective McPherson walks into the apartment and he looks at the portrait and he's like, ah, good-looking dame.
01:47:06
Speaker
as noir detectives you tend to do. And he's like, well, she's not a dame. She's ah ah a lovely young woman, or was. um and And he's like, is that how you refer to all women as dames? How dare you, sir? He's like so offended that he would call her a dame.
01:47:23
Speaker
And then that comes back up where it's like, He's accusing him of like <unk> like, oh, was that one of your dames that you associate with? He's like, yeah, I guess so. Well, I mean, and it it speaks to where his character goes in the movie, right? Where like that is some kind of...
01:47:41
Speaker
you know, he's this older person. She's really young. He kind of sees himself as a mentor, but also there is like a, there's like a protectiveness, but then there's also like a kind of sexuality and jealousy to his actions and a possessiveness.
01:47:57
Speaker
Right. Yeah. It's more, think it's more possessive than it is like romantic. I don't really get the sense that he is like romantically, Like, obsessed with Laura, but more so in terms of, like, right like possessing her and controlling her kind of Yeah, I mean, you know, so, you know, we we say that he is weird and bitchy, and, like, there is, like, a lot of there's, a like, a lot of gay coding in him. um Yeah. Yeah.
01:48:22
Speaker
but Like from the beginning. From the very beginning. And like I think that you know this movie sidesteps that a little bit because I think there is an aspect of his possessiveness.
01:48:34
Speaker
but they' I think that you're right that the predominant aspect is possessiveness, right? But because... that because it is like suitors who he is trying to destroy.
01:48:49
Speaker
Right. that There is, there is this kind of like, well, you should be with me kind of thing. And then he feels this inferiority because like, it's, you know, he's so much older than her that like, it does not feel like it makes sense for her to be with him.
01:49:04
Speaker
Yeah, there there is like this kind of villain gay coding stuff going on, which is complex, certainly. But like it does. it's ah It happens a lot in noir and a lot of like hardboiled detective stuff.
01:49:17
Speaker
That's definitely a thing that like the the writers were' were going through back then. But like, also just like, you know, yes, there there are problems with all of that stuff, but the, the, the stuff that he says is so funny that like, I kind of just have to forgive it, you know, because like, or, you know, there, there is a moment.
01:49:38
Speaker
And this is why I say that there's like a comedic edge to this movie. Uh, It wouldn't be if not for the whip pan at the very beginning of his introduction, where like, you know the detective walks in he's meeting up, he's meeting up with Waldo in his apartment.
01:49:55
Speaker
And the detective walks into the room. And then the camera whip pans over to Waldo in a marble bathtub, like sitting in a marble bathtub, flailing. facing the door looking at him and then he has like a typewriter above the bathtub and it is such a ridiculous insane image it is real it's like a real uh real dalton trumbo type it's it's a it's a it's a uh i don't i don't fully know that reference but it is uh uh it's a screenwriter that wrote in his bathtub i didn't know that he wrote in his bathtub uh
01:50:31
Speaker
I just know that he's ah that he's Cranston. but tom yeah ah But it's like it's like a it's like a joke. It is a it is a punchline that the camera just like like, look at this ridiculousness on the other side of the frame.
01:50:46
Speaker
This movie has a lot of whip pans. Or not a lot, but it it has a couple whip pans in it, which don't feel they don't feel like that common for cinematography, guess. semontography i guess Yeah. um Yeah. Maybe just haven't seen enough.
01:51:00
Speaker
But like it stood out to me for sure. And then, yeah, like he gets out of the tub like off screen. He's like, hey, hand me that robe. The tech is like, aren fine, here's a robe. Like it's there's a weird bit of kind of like don't think he's trying to seduce the detective necessarily, but it is like there's there's that right at the beginning. It's like, OK, well, Waldo's, you know, maybe not the most heterosexual man who's ever lived.
01:51:24
Speaker
Yeah. Although they it later, you know, in the scene where they're putting, where he's putting his robe on, it's implied that he is naked. ah But then like, while he's in the bathtub, you can see just like the corner of a bathing suit that he has on.
01:51:41
Speaker
so don't really know. Which I think is, but might have made prior it's like I think that's more, I think key in the diegesis of the movie, he's supposed to be naked in the tub, but it's like, they didn't shoot it that way.
01:51:51
Speaker
ah We'll put that on the goof section on IMDB.
01:51:57
Speaker
I'm sure it's already there. So many good lines from him. the The detective kind of has, I'm not really sure what's... put-downs. He's like, he's so just mean to everybody. Yeah. ah There's a, like, and he's very pompous. There's, this is, like, not a direct quote, but he's...
01:52:15
Speaker
ah Laura accuses him of being self-absorbed. And he's like, in my case, self-absorption is easily justified because the best place to focus my attention is myself. It's like, I'm, I'm so obviously better than everyone else.
01:52:27
Speaker
Uh, you know, and, and there's a part where he is, you know clinging on to Laura and, uh, you know, she, they're at a party and this is like a flashback and, um,
01:52:40
Speaker
Laura's talking to Vincent Price's character and like, he's trying to get her away from every, every possible suitor. And yeah he walks up to her and he goes, I cannot stand these morons any longer. If you don't come with me this instant, I shall run amok.
01:52:58
Speaker
That's the thing that I would like to... Just the end of that. Of like, man, if I don't if i don have my coffee in the morning, I'm going to run amok. And there's this recurring bit of the detective like having one of those little like marble games. like i don't know... little like...
01:53:13
Speaker
Yeah, where you have to, like, get it in the hole, you have to, like, kind of slide it around. Yeah, it's hard to describe little ball bearings inside of, like, a plastic thing, and you've got to, like, make them all get into the holes.
01:53:26
Speaker
You know what this is. But yeah ah I don't i really understand why that thing is in the movie. Like, why is this recurring object? Because it seems like it puts so much focus on it. But he tell he says, is that something you confiscated in a raid on a kindergarten? No.
01:53:42
Speaker
It's very funny. I think it's there. think it's there mostly that it's like McPherson has this like little quirk where he plays with this like little ball bearings game and it like calms him down and like helps him think.
01:53:53
Speaker
And it it, for whatever reason, just drives Lidecker crazy. He's like, it's so dumb. are you playing with kids game? Idiot. Like it's a tactic. Right. It's like, I think it's kind of yeah, it's like it it exposes how kind of pompous Lideker is. And it also, is kind of... McPherson is and a very sort of hard-boiled type detective that he's always very kind of sedate and kind of um in a very Humphrey Bogart-esque way. he He feels just sort of a little bit a little bit tired and a little bit over it of just sort of like, just tell me what's...
01:54:28
Speaker
Just tell me, like, what's going on? Like, we I haven't got all day. he's kind He's constantly talking, like, through his cigarette and drinking. um He's so sedate that I i really didn't buy the romance until we were pretty far into the romance.
01:54:46
Speaker
Like, when Leidecker suggests that he's falling in love with her, I'm like, on what basis? I haven't noticed this at all. I do think ah if if, yeah, if I have any, many criticism of the movie, it's like, I kind of wish that that it had hit that stuff a little bit more.
01:55:03
Speaker
That was, I think when I first found out about this movie, that was like the plot synopsis was like a detective falls in love with a dead woman. And I was like, that sounds cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's not, that's not that big of a, like, I wish there was a little bit more lead up, especially like before Laura shows back up where it's like, you really do feel like he is falling in love with this character.
01:55:22
Speaker
person who has died. I think she shows up. Yeah, that would be so interesting. no but Like they, they could have gotten a lot out of that, that they did not. Yeah. I watched one of the, one of like the DVD extras points out. There's like a little moment where, um, McPherson is talking to Laura and asking her if she's going to go through with her engagement to Vincent Price.
01:55:45
Speaker
um And he goes, no, I don't think I am. And there's like the tiniest hint of a smile on his face. And he's like, okay, I'll see you. I'll see you later. And it's like, you can tell he's like, he's like yes. Oh, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. um and like later in the movie, it plays ah bigger role. And I do like that stuff. Like when they're, they're in the interrogation room and it's like, he can't like hold it together.
01:56:09
Speaker
I think that stuff's really cool. Yeah. Because, like, you can see, hes like, him realizing that Lattica is right and that he's also, like, I'm very compromised in my investigation now. Like, I'm not clear-headed about this in the way that I used to be.
01:56:26
Speaker
and um Which is an interesting place for that character to be. Yeah. And luckily, Laura didn't do it. So, ah so all all good there. Yeah. the the The one who did do it is the weird guy, is Leidecker. And there's this kind of detail of... you know it' We're talking about Gaslight with this sort of controlling aspect, right? And like in this movie...
01:56:52
Speaker
um you know, he uses, there's a lot of like power dynamic stuff going on between them. And one way that manifests is ah in the, the gifts, the kind of lavish gifts that he gets her, including these ah ah bespoke ah two of a kind grandfather clocks that, that they're mirroring copies of in, in Lidecker's house and Laura's house.
01:57:20
Speaker
And ah that, uh, ah becomes the hiding place for the the murder weapon.
01:57:29
Speaker
And then it is... The last shot of the movie is the the the clock that has been destroyed by... Lydiker is, you know, killed in a big shootout, and his shotgun goes off and destroys the clock in Laura's house.
01:57:42
Speaker
And of ah like the last image of the movie is like the destroyed clock, because it it is like... That's like the kind of the connection between him him him and Laura, right? It's like also a symbol of his kind of control over her.
01:57:56
Speaker
And it's also then it's like it's destroyed at the end, but it's like Leidecker destroyed it himself. yes Very thematically ah whatever on point.
01:58:09
Speaker
ah We should mention also that this is our first Otto Preminger movie. Yeah, yeah. Notable. Notable director and... um Still the only one of his movies that I've seen.
01:58:21
Speaker
Same. Yeah, but we we certainly will be covering some of his later movies. Also notable, this is, I think, a rare New York City set noir. I think noirs tend to usually be set in LA.
01:58:34
Speaker
at least that's the cliche. Or sort of like more like West Coast, you know, like LA, San Francisco... There are there is a a few New York ones, but I feel like it's there. There are more few and far between.
01:58:49
Speaker
That's weird. I wonder why that is. I mean, I feel like New York can supply plenty of noir vibes. It's true. It's a very it's it's often a very noir place. um Speaking from experience, especially when I'm walking around in a fedora and an overcoat.
01:59:05
Speaker
I will say also in i said in this movie, Laura and and some of these other ones, there is a lot of smoking. and Like, yeah, there's there's the fedoras, there's the coats, and there's the trench coats and there's the cigarettes.
01:59:20
Speaker
And this has maybe the best like movie trench coat I have ever seen. Like the detective's trench coat in this is like the most perfect like 40s detective trench coat. It's good. I have ever seen on film.
01:59:32
Speaker
It's yeah, I'm like, I want it so much. most of my other notes are just good lines of dialogue and i feel like we don't need to repeat those i ain't afraid of cops i was brought up to spit whenever i saw one right bessie the the uh what not landlady um the maid yeah who is just yeah hates cops and i'm like yeah i'm I'm with you there, Bessie.
02:00:01
Speaker
there's There's something to this movie, a sort of like view of like high society, where besides McPherson, like all the characters, I think that's Laura also. Laura sort of starts off working way up the ladder, and then through her friendship with Lideker, gets wildly more successful, in and he like introduces her to all these high society people.
02:00:22
Speaker
But i feel like all of these high society people are like, wealthy and like glamorous and they all seem so miserable like including Lydicare like they all seem like they have just like this like rot in them kind of Yeah, and there's like there's Vincent Price's character who ah is kind of in in an interesting position with all of this high society stuff. and that like He is from this you know classically aristocratic family and has never had to work a day in his life, but their family fortune is falling apart.
02:00:59
Speaker
ah motive stuff, I guess. you know Their family fortunes falling apart and he has to get a job for the first time in his life. ah And then somewhat the the person who he asked for a job,
02:01:14
Speaker
ah assumes that he's joking because it's so such a ridiculous idea that this this ah pampered rich boy would need a job. i don't I don't know exactly what it's saying. It's saying it's saying that the the aristocrats are our weird.
02:01:31
Speaker
I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there's maybe a a more you know nuanced take that this movie has. Yeah, my my brain just died for a second there. Yeah, i i I like the...
02:01:44
Speaker
portrayal, I guess, of high society as, like, both glamorous and also this kind of pit of despair, guess. Yeah, something that I was thinking about recently, just to to touch on this, I don't think this movie is really specifically about this, but um I was seeing this thing recently about the kind of shift in acting that happened, you know, in maybe the 60s or something like that, which was toward um a Russian...
02:02:14
Speaker
like the The inventors of method acting were Russian, and there's this Russian realism movement ah in acting that was sort of like proposing that like the way that someone should act in a movie is to ah capture reality, which they were saying was not always the way the the kind of predominant thought on this.
02:02:42
Speaker
where ah previously movies had been kind of trying to capture a heightened, like, fanciful reality. You go to the movies to escape the world and see something more, see something just more than real life, not be, like, dragged back down into real life.
02:03:01
Speaker
And so, you know, they they were talking about how... pretty much all the acting that you see these days is acting that is, if it's not method, it is um influenced by these same kind of Russian realist ah philosophies of acting.
02:03:17
Speaker
There is a part of it, right? There's the Russian at the time meant like the USSR. And there's this kind of like, maybe like proletarian sort of bent to depicting reality where I think that there is, is just something I was kind of thinking about recently is that, uh,
02:03:37
Speaker
A lot of these older movies feature wealthy families or wealthy people. ah ah People who have maids and that you think nothing of it.
02:03:48
Speaker
Right. And it's sort of a thing that is it reminds me of like anvils and sausage links of like a thing that only exists in old movies. It's like, does everyone have a maid in old movies? Right. But then it seems like a much more common thing.
02:04:00
Speaker
But it's because all the characters are like ah insanely wealthy. Right. Right. And, you you know, I think that a situation like that in a movie these days, you would consider it alienating, right? It's harder to get involved and emotionally invested in the dramas of rich people than is...
02:04:19
Speaker
you know, the common person. And so when you are acting in a heightened way, when you're, when people go to the movies to see a kind of fanciful idea of what, you know, what the world could be are or, or,
02:04:35
Speaker
you know, something beyond their, their lives. um It, it doesn't seem necessarily off-putting to say like, this is a movie about, about ah what is going on for royalty or what is, what's going on for a high society.
02:04:51
Speaker
It's, it's aspirational. Right. um And, and so the acting was not gesturing at reality where this more kind of, you know, ah focus on the everyday person that we have.
02:05:07
Speaker
The everyday person and everyday real emotions instead of heightened iconic emotions ah that we have today. um Yeah, I don't know. Just thought it was ah an interesting kind of paradigm situation. Yeah.
02:05:22
Speaker
I had never... I guess I didn't realize that like the origins of method acting and the I guess the kind of like... um almost like the the way in which like that comes out of but a worldview, almost, of like like acting shouldn't be this fanciful thing. It should be should be real. It should be about the common people. you know ah Yeah, you know honestly, like part ah maybe I should check my sources a little bit on this Russian stuff. That connection is sort of something that I made myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if that... you know It was Russians in the 60s.
02:05:53
Speaker
Whether or not that's like directly what led to like the shift in acting styles and like what... what the acting came out of like i still think that's an interesting idea that it could be from that perspective um and because i'd never considered it before so one other thing about this movie laura that i think warrants uh deep discussion is the music uh this movie is uh monothematic in that it has one piece of music that is the whole soundtrack including like diegetic music like
02:06:25
Speaker
If there's like an orchestra playing, it's playing the the theme. If there's a record playing, it's playing the theme. If there's like background music, it's playing the theme. But it's all different versions of it.
02:06:36
Speaker
I think the only other movie that I can think of that has done this is also a noir movie, um The Long Goodbye. um has a a piece by John Williams ah that is like every... It's like you hear like if there's elevator music, it's like a version of that theme. If there's like you know people playing guitar, it's a version of that theme. It's like every... All the music in the movie is like one single theme that's like being played in different ways.
02:07:02
Speaker
That I think is... don't know, it's a cool idea. It makes it feel like... Especially if... the music is kind of associated with with Laura, the character, it's like her kind of presence is just kind of permeating. Even when she isn't there, it's like it's kind of hanging hanging in the air almost.
02:07:21
Speaker
That's cool. um And the the theme got so... was so well ah received that like it was people wrote lyrics to it. Like there was...
02:07:32
Speaker
um Johnny Mercer ah wrote lyrics for it and then it it became kind of like a ah like a ah standard. like People re-recorded it for years and years and years. There was a Nat King Cole one. There's a Frank Sinatra one. so like ah This movie's theme became like a big deal.
02:07:51
Speaker
ah big deal um And I used it in the film noir movie that I directed that you were in. um Because I used all just old like clips from old movie soundtracks for that. Had you seen Laura before you did that? I had had not at that point. No.
02:08:07
Speaker
um I was just like, oh, a film noir theme. This is like a cool like, you know, jazz, you know, slightly moody jazz piece. Great. um So it's in there.
02:08:18
Speaker
ah Well, let me ask you a question that may also serve as a as a transition here. ah When you had made that noir movie, ah what noir movies had you seen already? Very few. That had ah given you an idea of of what to what to do?
02:08:37
Speaker
i I had definitely seen the Maltese Falcon. um I think I'd also seen Out of the Past at that point. um And then honestly, one of the biggest ones is the the movie Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.
02:08:49
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Steve Martin, where he is edited into a bunch of old noir movies. That was kind of ah one of the big, because that like synthesized so many noir scenes and cliches and things like that. Right. I was able to kind of use that as a little bit of a jumping off point of like,
02:09:07
Speaker
if that Watching that movie feels like watching 10 noir movies. you know Because it literally has scenes from 10 different noir movies in it. So I think I might have watched maybe one or two. I think I might have seen like This Gun for Hire. had definitely seen This Gun for Hire.
02:09:23
Speaker
i think because um ah the the sort of like ah assassin guy in The Package from Marrakesh is slightly inspired by...
02:09:34
Speaker
That character, but it's also slightly inspired by Elisha Cook's character in the Maltese Falcon. So it's sort of I was just i was just mashing together a bunch of stuff.
02:09:46
Speaker
So what you're saying is that you hadn't seen Double Indemnity. I had definitely not seen Dublin Demity, our next film of the year, um despite Dublin Demity being one of the most famous and most well-regarded film noirs, and also just one of the most, like, noir-y, noir movies that exist. I can definitely say that this is the noir-iest movie I've ever seen.
02:10:11
Speaker
I think I like out of the past is probably the only other one that like gives it a run for its money that I've seen. Dumb and Demity is just like soaked in like noir shit.
02:10:22
Speaker
Yeah. um And it's great. ah you You want to give us a synopsis? ah Sure. um So as per, ah you know, common noir thing, we we start at the end of the story and our main character, played by Fred McMurray, shows up at an office building and he's been shot.
02:10:42
Speaker
We don't know by who. And he he goes to an office and he starts talking to a dictaphone, which I didn't know what a dictaphone was before I saw this movie. A dictaphone is a thing you can talk into and records your voice on a wax cylinder.
02:10:54
Speaker
And so then he starts... Being like, ah i'm I'm going to tell you the whole story of how I got here. And then we flashback and we have his narration over the whole movie. Already like super, you know, super film noir cliche stuff.
02:11:09
Speaker
Narration over the whole movie is a noir thing for sure. Right. But notably, right, like this movie and Out of the Past, which it will probably ah watch in a couple episodes, um they don't just have narration for narration's sake, like it's motivated. Like, no, he's sitting in an office and he's dictating this onto a wax cylinder. That's why there's narration.
02:11:30
Speaker
It's not just there. Diegetic. Yeah. Right. So this guy, ah Walter Neff is the character's name. He's an insurance salesman, and he goes to this house in Los Feliz um and the to sell insurance, and the guy isn't there, but his sexy wife, ah Phyllis, played by Barbara Stanwyck, is there, um and they flirt.
02:11:56
Speaker
And he's like, hey, you want to buy some insurance? She is like, I don't want insurance for me, but I do want life insurance for my husband. I want the most expensive. I want the biggest payout possible. I also don't want to tell my husband that I'm getting life insurance for him.
02:12:12
Speaker
And he's like, that is very suspicious. But you're sexy as hell. Exactly. So he's like, you know what? I think maybe we can work something out here. And so they start plotting to murder Phyllis's husband, like trick him into like signing the papers to give himself life insurance and then murder him in a really like unlikely way so that the payout will be double, which is where the title comes from.
02:12:40
Speaker
Double indemnity is a ah clause in life insurance that if they died in in a really unlikely manner, Then you get paid double. And so they're like, all right, so we're going to throw him off the back of a train, I guess is their, that's their plan.
02:12:58
Speaker
Then that's complicated because like he breaks his leg so he can't take the train and this and this. they So they they murder him. They throw him off the back of a train. Walter Neff pretends to be him on the train so people see him.
02:13:12
Speaker
And they're like, they you know they cook up this whole scheme. they're like, we got it. This is airtight. i He's like, Walter Neff's like, I've investigated so many insurance frauds. I know where all the holes are. Like, I know what all the you know ah pitfalls are. I can i can work way around all of them.
02:13:26
Speaker
But what he doesn't count on is the fact that his boss, played by Edward G. Robinson, is just, like, so incredibly good at, ah ah like, insurance investigation that it's, like, this this foolproof plan he's come up with. First of all, not foolproof. No murder plan ever is.
02:13:45
Speaker
And so then, right, the back half the movie is them, like, they've done this murder. They think they've gotten away with it. But then the the pieces start to start to crumble. and And then they start to mistrust each other also because they're like, you know, they've they've gotten this plot together and now they're and and inexorably tied to this murder. And they they so they're sort of like trusting each other starts to wear thin also.
02:14:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And so this is... notable, I think, ah for being a movie that is about villainous characters, right?
02:14:23
Speaker
Like these... Right. this isn't This isn't about the detective trying to solve a crime. This is about two people trying to murder someone and get away with it. And, you know, i don't know. like like The movie does a decent job of You know, the the movie does a decent job of making them not like outwardly despicable in a way that it would be hard for you to kind of get on board with your plan, with their plan. Yeah. But like as a viewer, you know, you have a bit of a bias toward the protagonist, but also you're just like, ah, this guy kind of sucks. Like, yeah, kill him, you know?
02:14:57
Speaker
Right. Yeah. The guy that murder sucks. That definitely helps a lot. I also, I think there is just this kind of morbid curiosity this movie too of just like, what what would I do in this situation? Like, if i honestly wanted to try to murder someone, like, how would I try to do it in like,
02:15:14
Speaker
You know, how would I try to cover it up? How would I, like, what what are all the little details that I would need to do? Because it it really follows through with the sort of, like, what do you do immediately after murdering someone? Like, you just go home? Yeah, yeah. You know? Like, I like how much the movie focuses on that stuff also.
02:15:30
Speaker
And then I think i think some some of the... Because I think both Walter Neff and Phyllis are both, like, pretty bad people. Like, they're not... And the movie doesn't really try to hide that.
02:15:41
Speaker
Yeah. um But I think it helps that they are both... They're charming. They're both playboy actors who, up until this point, were mostly known for, like, comedies. Like, this is really against type for both of them at this point.
02:15:54
Speaker
I think after this, both Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray kind of... did more like dramas and more crime movies. But like, know, like Barbara Stamick was in all about Eve. And it's like, I guess she's also a criminal in that movie, but it's like a very different type of character. yeah like And that she's like wacky and, and, and goofy. And in this, she is like a She gets scary this movie. Stone cold a murderer in this. Yeah, she is like a psychopath.
02:16:23
Speaker
It's revealed later on that it's like, this is not her first murder plot either. Yeah, like, like but you know, the movie chiefly follows um the the insurance guy. Yeah.
02:16:36
Speaker
the Walter Neff. Walter Neff. So the movie chiefly follows Walter Neff. And so you're kind of discovering things about the kind of background details of of of of this woman as he is.
02:16:51
Speaker
And so he kind of feels like, oh, they fell in love so quick. And, uh, and yeah, let's like, let's, we can be together and get a whole bunch of dough.
02:17:02
Speaker
If, uh, if we bump off your, your husband. Um, and so you're discovering along with him that like, she has been playing him this entire time. Femme fatale. Classic noir.
02:17:17
Speaker
ah speak Again, like, the most femme fatale anyone has ever been is, like, this movie, where, like, immediately she, she like, walks into frame, and you're just like, yep, femme fatale. There it is. Right. Like, and, you know, like the Maltese Falcon, like, she is tricking the main character, or at least attempting to trick the main character, by acting more innocent than she is.
02:17:38
Speaker
And the it kind of unfolds how, how fatal this femme is. And yeah. And so like you say, stone cold killer, like you would think as they do the murder that they are, there's, there's a moment where he's narrating about how he was a little surprised at how not shaken she was after killing her husband.
02:18:00
Speaker
Well, also like the actual moment of the murder, right? It's like the husband and sitting in the, the, the passengers front passenger seat of the car Walter is in the backseat hiding while Phyllis drives to the train station.
02:18:14
Speaker
Walter, you know, strangles him from the backseat while Phyllis drives. But the way that we see it in the film is just, we see Walter pop up and then it cuts to a closeup of Phyllis's face as he's driving. And we just hear the murder happening yeah off screen as she stares directly ahead.
02:18:31
Speaker
Like her eyes do not move at all. Like she is just staring ahead. And there's like ah the faintest hint of a smile, As, like, you hear it her husband being strangled right next to her. It's, like, it's it's very chilling.
02:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's a great moment. This movie and Arsenic and Old Lace, I think they... This must have been, like, a Hays Code thing. Or at least something to, like, help it. I know this movie had a lot of trouble getting through the Hays Code. like This movie had a lot of trouble with the Hays Code, yeah. ah But, like, this movie... Unsurprisingly. Like, this and Arsenic and Old Lace both are...
02:19:08
Speaker
you don't you don't get a very good view of a dead body but the entire time. like For Arsenic and Old Lace being a movie about dead bodies, you don't really ever like never see one. You never see them.
02:19:22
Speaker
um Yeah. yeah It's in the dark or they're like obscured behind somebody. It's like trying to take a bit of the grimness out of it. um and yeah In this movie... i think that I think that somewhat comes from the stage play. I'm guessing also of just like...
02:19:37
Speaker
You just have people looking in a window seat, and like, there's a dead body in there. Like, it's a very... That feels like a very kind of stage play. don't know. Well, when they were moving the dead body from the window seat to the basement and the lights were off, that something that i was thinking was kind of notable. It's like, oh, you can't you can't see the body right now.
02:19:54
Speaker
And, yeah, in this, you can't see the killing. Maybe that is, like, a kind of censorship, you know, pro pre-censorship sort of thing. Maybe it's also that, like... you would have, you would turn on the characters too quickly if you were to watch them, if you were to watch them kill someone.
02:20:11
Speaker
Yeah. I do think it is like just purely for like, if if I was making this movie now, I still think that's the best way to cover that scene is to just show Phyllis's face. Yeah, that's a good move. like and and Completely unfazed.
02:20:25
Speaker
um Yeah, like it's ah it's a really great moment of performance also. But um there's also in this sort of, especially in the back half of the movie, there is um the murdered husband's ah daughter from another marriage that is kind of the first one to to really kind of put additional suspicion on Phyllis to Walter.
02:20:49
Speaker
because she's like, oh yeah, Phyllis almost definitely murdered my ah my mom.
02:20:57
Speaker
There's a reason why I don't like this lady. Yeah, it turns out Phyllis was ah the nurse to the the first wife. And then the first wife died mysteriously. And then Phyllis married the husband like a month later or something like that. And so it's like, yeah, i check. That's pretty suspicious.
02:21:16
Speaker
Yeah. And, um, and so the, yeah, that there, and then there's like, ah the daughter's, I guess, sort of like on again, off again, boyfriend that they're like kind of trying to pin the murder on who's named Nino.
02:21:34
Speaker
That is, i feel like there's a little bit of maybe a negative Italian stereotyping going on with that character. I'm like, ooh, he's from the streets. He's Italian. We don't like him. He has maybe my favorite line of dialogue in the whole movie, though. Nino does where Walter comes up to him. He's like, here, here's a nickel. Like, go, you know, go, go call somebody. And he goes, keep your nickel and buy yourself an ice cream cone.
02:21:57
Speaker
ah Yeah, more another spotlight on the noiriness of this movie is, you know, you're hearing this guy but talk into this recorder the whole time and just saying the most hard-boiled stuff.
02:22:09
Speaker
ah everything Everything that he describes is the most, like, lyrical, noir-y way that he possibly could. I mean, this is based on a ah like hard-boiled crime book. And it's also... The screenplay is co-written by Raymond Chandler of, of you know, ah Big Sleep fame amongst many others.
02:22:31
Speaker
So, it yeah, it has, like... The hard-boiled dialogue is, like... it's it's so It's so crunchy and juicy and other adjectives that words are usually not used to describe. don't yeah Don't say those words. I'm hungry.
02:22:46
Speaker
Speaking of the talent behind the camera, too, this is our first Billy Wilder movie. We had ah our first Otto Preminger and first Billy Wilder now. Billy Wilder, amazing director. I haven't seen that many but Billy Wilder movies, but like they're all great that I've seen. Yeah, I've only seen some like it hot, and I like that movie.
02:23:05
Speaker
Oddly enough, one of the few that I haven't seen, or one of the many that haven't seen. Not to just like repeat lots lots of dialogue, but like there's a repeated line of dialogue in this that I think... kind of sums up a lot of at least the back half the movie it's also just so hard-boiled where walter says uh when you murder someone you get on a you get on i'm paraphrasing but he says something along the lines of like you get on a trolley car and you're on that car to the end of the line and the last stops the cemetery ah
02:23:37
Speaker
And yeah, they kind of keep referr like returning to that metaphor through the whole movie. Yeah. I do feel like metaphor is a big thing in like 40s, like hard-boiled dialogue.
02:23:48
Speaker
um And that's just such a such a great one. i mean, we mentioned Andrew D. Robinson. Yeah. He's so good in this movie. He is good. Yeah. As good as everyone is in this movie, I think he is my favorite performance overall.
02:24:01
Speaker
He's like, ah he's like a little, I mean, I think his existence is a little cartoony, but, ah but. Yes, he is a cartoon man. He's resting cartoon fan.
02:24:14
Speaker
ah Maybe a lot of cartoons have just put his face in that cartoon. but I think that is also true. yeah This is definitely a much a much more real world version of him than we saw in Little Caesar.
02:24:27
Speaker
yeah There's a lightness to his approach. like He is this person who... there There's a great scene where he is... At first, he doesn't think that this crime is... There's anything...
02:24:39
Speaker
ah there's anything hinky going on. Like he, he, ah the the, the head of the insurance company gets involved with this because this double indemnity payout is going to be so expensive for them. And so but I think, I feel like there is some real like commentary about like the insurance industry too, that they're doing everything that they can to not pay this money.
02:25:02
Speaker
Yeah. you know That would be a a much harsher indictment if they shouldn't if it wasn't the case that they actually shouldn't have paid out the money. But the head of the insurance company is wanting to suggest that it was a suicide, which is convenient for him because then he wouldn't have to pay out the money.
02:25:19
Speaker
But then Edward G. Robbins' character is basically like, there is no way... look, i know like I've been in this business for a long time. I've read the actuarial tables.
02:25:30
Speaker
I know everything about suicide. I know all the stats about suicide. And then he lists off- I love how it's it's through stats. That's how he figures it out. He's like, no, like statistically, that doesn't make any sense.
02:25:41
Speaker
and And there's this incredible part where he's just listing off dozens and dozens of ways that you can kill yourself and like yeah talking about like the probability of of of these things relative to each other. And he's he's like listening to on his fingers while holding a cigar. He's like, no, you got this. You got this. You got this. no, no,
02:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, I love how he's like constantly has a cigar. i mean, he's he's great in this anyway, but I think also in comparison to Little Caesar, which is like his, you know, one of his other really big roles.
02:26:12
Speaker
it's It's cool to see him play such different characters, I guess. Because, like, Little Caesar is, right, like, the the cartoon version of a gangster. He invented the cartoon version of a gangster in that movie. And in this, he's playing, like, just ah a wholly different type of person.
02:26:26
Speaker
Yeah. While still having a lot of the same kind of mannerisms. Anytime he's on screen in this, I'm just, like... overjoyed. He's also like one of the more like honest, virtuous people in the movie.
02:26:39
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like him, him and Walter are like good friends. Like then feels like they are genuinely good friends. Yeah, they say i they they they kind of say I love you to each other, which is kind of it was interesting for a movie. i would actually i would argue that the the love story between ah Keys and Walter Neff is is ah stronger and more heartwarming.
02:27:02
Speaker
yeah Certainly more heartwarming yeah than the love story between Phyllis and Walter, because that's not really a love story. That's more of a tale of seduction and betrayal and murder. But... Yeah, I mean, I think that the moment that you really kind of feel their relationship with each other is in the end where, you know, this is another case like Laura where it is somebody, you know, Keyes is on the trail ah of of a killer.
02:27:30
Speaker
There is a bit of a compromise in a way because he doesn't want to accept that the killer could be the person that that he wishes it wasn't. yeah And so, you know, as it becomes clear that it that, you know, Walter is the killer, you know, they they are confronted. we We arrive at the point where the narration is happening ah and then continue on from there.
02:27:58
Speaker
So they're meeting in Keys' office and Walter is a is slumping away, trying to get trying to get to Mexico and yeah yeah there's You can see their dynamic where he's like, I know that I should, you know, I can't let you go, but it hurts me to watch you suffering in front of me.
02:28:22
Speaker
Yeah. And the, I mean, the movie ends with, um, right. There's the whole thing throughout the whole, there's a thing throughout the whole movie, right. Where, uh, keys, um, energy Robinson's character keeps trying to light his cigar with, uh, with a match and he can't do it.
02:28:39
Speaker
And then Walter comes up and like really easily lights the match and lights his cigar for him with his thumb. Because in the 40s, you could do that. And then the last shot of the movie is right. Walter is like bleeding out on the floor. He's like tries to get away and he can't. He just can't walk anymore.
02:28:55
Speaker
um And he so he is like up against the wall and he tries to light a cigarette. He can't light it. And Keys does the thumb trick and lights the cigarette for him. And it's like, yeah. ah It all comes back together. Yeah, what a great moment that is.
02:29:10
Speaker
I guess you completely flew over the the confrontation between Phyllis and Walter where like, right, Walter shows up to Phyllis's house and is like, hey, I know you're aiming to betray me on this.
02:29:23
Speaker
And Phyllis shoots him. And then they have sort of like a we we could have beent We could have been something real. And then Walter shoots her and she dies. Originally, i guess in the book, which I haven't read, it was more of either like joint suicide or like murder-suicide situation.
02:29:41
Speaker
And the Hays Code wouldn't wasn't cool with that. So they were like, all right, he like goes back to an office and other stuff happens. After that, there was a deleted ending,
02:29:53
Speaker
that I don't know if the footage exists anymore. There's definitely stills that I've seen of it where like the last scene of the movie was going to be Walter going to the gas chamber to be executed. Whoa. try And I think that was also kind of a Hays Code thing that like they put that on because like there was one of the Hays Code things is like you can't get away with murder.
02:30:12
Speaker
Like that's like a rule. Don't really know how Arsenal Lace got away with that because like the old ladies do not. they They do fully get away with lots of murder in that movie.
02:30:24
Speaker
I guess I guess Breen wasn't watching that one too closely. But so there's right. There was that ending that they shot, I guess, and then decided like this is not ah like a good thing to go out on.
02:30:36
Speaker
It's much better to end in this moment with him and him keys, which I agree with. I think that is like the perfect and ending to the ending is really great. Yeah. Two other things I feel worth mentioning are the the lighting in this movie.
02:30:47
Speaker
and Another like super film noir thing. So many Venetian blinds. Just constant Venetian blinds. um It looks great. just lots of Lots of great like graphic shapes on walls and like shadows. This movie looks gorgeous.
02:31:03
Speaker
Although I think Laura won the ah the Oscar for cinematography ah for 1944. Also looks great. Also very shadowy. And then the other thing that I think is kind of funny is that Barbara Stanwyck has a really bad fake looking wig in this movie.
02:31:23
Speaker
She normally has like dark brown hair, I guess. In black and white. um But in this, she has like this like platinum blonde short hair that's like looks like a very obvious wig that apparently they initially Billy Wilder was like, oh, no, that's that's great. It's like it shows that she's like insincere and that she's it's, you know, it's this like constructed person that she's made for herself.
02:31:47
Speaker
But I think the wig was so bad that they like halfway through shooting, they were like, this week sucks. Like, can we not have it? But they're like, we've already shot like half the movie. We can't like, we can't change it now. Like she has, she's already had this wig the whole time.
02:32:00
Speaker
And then apparently after that, like Barbara Stanwyck was like, so became so much more famous after this movie. I think she was already like one of the highest paid people in Hollywood. That kind of became like her look was like the weird blonde wig, which is funny. She will wear wigs.
02:32:17
Speaker
Yes. Now. um So, yeah. yeah i don't know I don't know if I have any other like big takes on this. It's just really good. It's a really solid movie. It's a very, very yeah well put together movie. We were talking about the tightness of the script in Arsenic and Lace as far as like a comedy script, but this is really tight.
02:32:43
Speaker
Like... the twists and turns in this movie feel so natural. So there's a lot of really good tension in this movie. Yeah. Yeah.
02:32:54
Speaker
Like, Oh, I, I just like nail biting scenes. Like, like it really, yeah it really gets you going. Another another fun fun fact about this movie. There's a bit right after they have committed the murder and like thrown the dead body on the train tracks to like fake it.
02:33:09
Speaker
And Walter has done his whole sort of like impersonation on the train. They're like, all right, we've done all the things. Now we need to drive away. And they go to the car and the car won't start. trying to start the car. And eventually it starts and they they they drive away.
02:33:23
Speaker
And that was unscripted. Like, they went to shoot that scene. Or I don't know if it was unscripted when they shot it, but it was a thing where... That wasn't initially the idea. But then I think while they were shooting.
02:33:35
Speaker
not necessarily while they were shooting that scene. But I think like they tried to start a car. Someone tried to start a car and it wouldn't start. And Billy Wilder was like. Oh! Lightbulb! That's great. like they should They should try to start the car and it doesn't start. That's that's so great.
02:33:49
Speaker
um And so that is. yeah A fun moment of tension. That was sort of added last minute. Yeah. Just so many great. just like Things that I feel like just make.
02:34:01
Speaker
are like great like movie moments where you're just like, Oh, Oh, like either yeah of surprise or of just like tension where you're, you kind of want to see Walter get away with it. Yeah. You're like, you're with him for most of the movie. Be like, Oh, how's he going to get out of this one?
02:34:18
Speaker
And they are, they are resourceful at times. It's just, uh, yeah. Uh, they're, they're not sloppy, but, uh, like you were saying, there's no such thing as the perfect murder.
02:34:30
Speaker
Yeah. Especially not when when Keys is around and all his stats. Another movie that has some kind of tense tense scenes between a a kind of bombshell blonde and the and and the the mean the main character is To Have and Have Not.
02:34:50
Speaker
ah which is based on, ah which is it was originally just directly based on, but then became looser and looserly based on a and Ernest Hemingway ah ah short story.
02:35:05
Speaker
And this is Howard Hawks, and Howard Hawks and Ernest Hemingway were friends, and they were on a fishing trip together, which is very ah very Hemingway coded. yeah ah and He was, uh, and I assume they might possibly have been partaking in some alcoholic beverages, but, you know, that might be, that might be assuming too much. Uh, Howard Hawks is like, I could make a movie out of your worst story, which is to have and have not.
02:35:33
Speaker
Uh. And what what ah what a pitch. ah So ah this movie, yeah Harry and Steve are fishermen living in a hotel in Martinique who take on various boat-related odd jobs.
02:35:47
Speaker
On an eventful day, Lauren Bacall's Slim enters his life and the hotel owner, who is supportive of the French Resistance, asks for Harry's help with a secret mission.
Harry's Political Neutrality
02:35:58
Speaker
Harry really only wants to do anything for pay. He doesn't want to get involved. ah in in political stuff. Sound a little familiar. Harry, by the way, is played by is played by ah ah Humphrey Bogart. Sound little familiar.
02:36:12
Speaker
Harry decides that he is
Joining the Resistance
02:36:14
Speaker
too high in the region to ah to be participating in the anti-Gestapo activities. ah But as... ah kind of things unfold and the the tension gets higher ah more related to what's going on in the hotel.
02:36:30
Speaker
ah Slim and Harry also get closer and they get more involved in the resistance and he eventually agrees to carry out the mission ah which is to pick up two operatives off an island and to deliver ah somewhere and deliver them to eventually deliver them to Devil's Island so they can start a prison break and and get the kind of ah resistance, the French resistance fighters up and up and going to defeat the... Devil's Island, where Dreyfus was held during the Dreyfus Affair. That is taking it way back to some early one-week, one-year episodes where we saw Devil's Island. I believe we saw Devil's Island ah in in the Melies version. We saw and a painted backdrop that Melies painted of Devil's Island. Right, of course.
02:37:19
Speaker
Yeah.
Comparison to Casablanca
02:37:20
Speaker
This movie is very similar to Casablanca. I mean, yeah, it it has real sort of like off-brand Casablanca vibes.
02:37:35
Speaker
um I think my letterboxd review of this movie is we have Casablanca at home. Yeah. it's Which I think is maybe a little unfair to the movie because it is, on one hand, i do think the movie is trying to be that a little bit. I think it is very much a sort of like Casablanca worked. Let's just do that again in a different locale with like slightly different cast and like setup.
02:37:58
Speaker
Although I do think so much of what works about Casablanca, because it's so similar, because it doesn't work as well in this movie, it makes this movie feel worse. Yeah. Yeah, you know, so here's the thing.
02:38:11
Speaker
When I saw Casablanca, on Letterboxd, I gave it four out of five stars. And then when I saw this movie, I gave it four out of five stars.
02:38:21
Speaker
And I was like, you know what? That's not right. like i went back and bumped up Casablanca a little bit because I did have fun with this movie. like i yeah I think that... i It's a Howard Hawks movie. It's fun. This... this um this is definitely a smaller in scope and like kind of less emotionally charged.
02:38:42
Speaker
It's a, got a bit of a lighter touch than Casablanca. um But like, and and it, you know, if it weren't tackling like all the same themes with some of the same actors, ah it would not be a problem.
02:38:59
Speaker
ah But yeah But if you take this movie on its own, it's a fun time. it's a it's a it's it It suggests slightly some of the things that Casablanca feels vigorously about.
02:39:14
Speaker
ah But also, it's like... hey, there's a guy that's drunk all the time. We get some fun bits out of that. like there's like It focuses a lot more on like the banter between people and like the the interplay with with the characters.
02:39:31
Speaker
um I think it's a it's like the it's like the light and fun version of Casablanca. Yeah, it definitely feels less like a ah sort of like arch drama.
02:39:43
Speaker
Like, Casablanca feels almost like this epic, even though it takes place in a bar, like, 90% of the time. And then this also takes place, like, in a hotel 90% of the time. And it feels like it would be set in a hotel. Yeah, and there's also a guy playing piano the entire time in the middle of it, too. Yeah.
02:40:01
Speaker
That, I think, especially feels like a thing that they added to make it seem more Casablanca-esque. ah The guy on the piano in this one is... ah ah Played by Hoagie Carmichael, who was a big musician at the time.
02:40:16
Speaker
And I am familiar with Hoagie Carmichael primarily because that is who, in the book Casino Royale, that is how James Bond is ah is described, as he looks like Hoagie Carmichael.
02:40:28
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah, he's pretty good in this as a sort of a piano player. I mean, he's basically Sam from Casablanca. Like, he's not that different of a character.
02:40:40
Speaker
Yeah. But he gets to sing some songs, you know, he's there. I'm sure he had a fun time on set. This is how i this how I feel about this movie is that I'm i'm not like, it seemed like it was fun to make, you know.
Bogart and Bacall's Chemistry
02:40:52
Speaker
Well, it was very fun for Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall because yeah yeah this is the movie, you know, ah we've we've heard of Bogart and Bacall and that's where this began.
02:41:03
Speaker
Yeah, Bacall's first movie. Humphrey Bogart was in a pretty unhappy marriage ah while he was making this movie. And apparently um he was...
02:41:14
Speaker
He was pretty traditional in Hollywood, especially in that he was like, I can't, I can't see other ladies. I'm married. ah He, he was born in 1899 and he called himself a man of the last century.
02:41:29
Speaker
But, uh, this movie, uh, or the, in the process of making this movie, he and Lauren Bacall, uh, fell in love very quickly and very, uh, uh, very forcefully, i guess.
02:41:43
Speaker
Uh, I don't know. Is that the word? Enthusiastically. Enthusiastically. Yeah. um You could see it kind of reflected in their performances. Yeah. They're, they're steaming up the screen anytime they're like, i I like, there are a lot of movies, especially of this era that people are just like making a lot of eyes and it's, you know, they're, they're trying to like make it feel as kind of sexually charged as possible without actually, you know, going against the Hays code.
02:42:12
Speaker
feel like this movie in particular is like one of the most famous for that. um And I think it helps that the two characters are actively, the two actors are actively being like, oh my God, look at this person.
02:42:25
Speaker
ah Like you could you, I do feel like that, that the, the actual sexual tension is palpable on screen. Yeah. Especially in one of its most famous lines, which wrote this down. I did not know that it was like a famous line from this movie, but I was like, I knew that it was famous. I was like, a holy shit. like things Did they just say this?
02:42:45
Speaker
Where ah she's like, oh you can you could just whistle for me if you need me. And then she's like, you know how to whistle? Don't you? She calls him Steve. She's like, you know how to whistle? Don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.
02:42:59
Speaker
And it's like, oh my god. i feel like that's kind that's one of the main examples people use of like how how movies got around the Hays Code. It's like, look at Lauren Bacall talking about blowing whistles in ah in having To Have and Have Not.
02:43:18
Speaker
So yeah, that that definitely... And it's funny because it's like, the movie puts such an emphasis on it too. Like, she takes a long pause. It does this like dolly in on her face. um And then it cuts to Humvee Bargaret being like, okay. And then he does and then he does a wolf whistle.
02:43:35
Speaker
Newly minted... Named Wolf Whistle after the wolf in Red Hat Riding Hood. I do feel like that, I mean, that scene in particular, but like throughout, they're just like looking at each other from across the room and you're just like, damn movie. Okay. I see i i see it.
02:43:51
Speaker
That's probably the best thing about this movie is just watching them to like... be horny at each other. Yeah, and, you know, it's not only horniness, too. I think they have, you know, a good dynamic. They have a good back and forth yeah in this movie.
02:44:04
Speaker
they had They have ah a lot of very good banter and a lot of, like, each of them kind of getting, like, the upper hand a little bit and each of them kind of... Yeah. Right, because they're both characters that are sort of now kind of transient, like running away from stuff. Yeah. um And they kind of see that in each other.
02:44:22
Speaker
But they're both regarded at the beginning. Hello, Casablanca. I do feel like the one thing this has over Casablanca is that it does feel like Lauren Bacall is a much more similar character to the Humphrey Bogart type, I guess, than Ingrid Bergman is. I think any movie... It feels like there's a bit more of a kind of tรชte-ร -tรชte of like them being like equally kind of guarded and equally kind of... like um It feels like they're a little bit more kind of like an equal footing with each other. they're in this There's like a classic thing in movies where somebody tries to pickpocket someone and then there's the mark right and then there's the two character the two main characters.
02:45:04
Speaker
And one of the main characters notices the other one pickpocketing someone and then... like confronts them about being pickpocketed with respect at their pickpocketing skills.
02:45:16
Speaker
I don't know why that is like a, it's like a thing that happens in a lot of movies, but it's always great. It's like, Oh, we were, how, how Matt Damon's characters introduced in oceans. of week Like we respect each other as pickpockets.
02:45:28
Speaker
Like, game recognizes game, but also, I gotcha.
Lauren Bacall's Strong Debut
02:45:32
Speaker
You know, it's like, it's this this nice dynamic of, like, you thought you were slick, but I'm slick too. And I got the upper hand just a little bit, but also I'm welcoming you into my world of pickpocketing.
02:45:44
Speaker
um Yeah, Lauren Bacall, very good in this movie, and yeah unsurprisingly. I've seen her in other things. um Other things with Humphrey Bogart also. Yeah, like, for ah the first time she's ever been in a movie, I think it's pretty, like...
02:45:57
Speaker
Respect. Like, that does a very good job. And, like, holds her own against, you know, a much kind of more experienced, well-established actor also. um Gets to sing. That's always fun.
02:46:10
Speaker
Yeah. Bogie not doing a lot of singing in these movies, sadly. Although maybe it's a good thing. maybe we don't want Maybe we don't want to hear his singing voice. I don't know. He's got a weird he's got a ah weird voice. We'll say that.
02:46:23
Speaker
Yeah. The thing that sticks out about this that makes it feel like such a kind of downgrade from Casablanca is that Humble Brokert's character in that is like so... You feel like he has this like idealistic...
02:46:35
Speaker
heart at his core. Yeah. But it's so... is he has so much like scar tissue over that that he's just like, no, I'm i'm only in it for the money now. Yeah. And we see that kind of getting peeled away over the course of the movie.
02:46:46
Speaker
This is kind of a guy that is just a mercenary at his heart and is just kind of annoyed into helping people because he's like, I got nothing else to do. like Right. It doesn't feel like... He does have this turn towards the end of the movie where it's like fine, I'll help the French Resistance. But it's like... don't That character feels a lot less complex and a lot less...
02:47:04
Speaker
ah the that The turn towards actually helping people feels less earned and less like a victory. i guess Yeah, I think so much of what Casablanca is about is Humphrey Bogart getting over his jadedness in order to believe in something again.
02:47:22
Speaker
And this, it's like a bit simpler. It's it's a Han Solo kind of thing, right? You know, he is a good guy, ah but he mainly wants money.
02:47:33
Speaker
And then he kind of is put in a situation where he has to do the right thing. And then he's just like, yeah, you know, I'll do the right thing. Yeah. I mean, I don' i don't know if we need to, like, rag on this movie because it's, like, it's weird. It's, like, there's nothing. Yeah, it's not bad. There's nothing bad about it. It's fun. It's good. It's just, like, when there's something so similar that has so much more spirit. Right.
02:47:56
Speaker
It does. It almost feels kind of like a sequel in that way where it's, like, we just did this and it was so much better the
Harry's Character Complexity
02:48:03
Speaker
last time that, like, this isn't bad, but it's just, like, it suffers so much in comparison. Yeah.
02:48:09
Speaker
Yeah. Like there's even there's kind of like off brand Peter Lorre in this movie. There's like off brand Sidney Greenstreet. There's like so many of kind of similar similar types of characters that are just less interesting and less fun than in Casablanca. So I'm just like, all right.
02:48:24
Speaker
But this does have a fun, the addition of a fun gimmicky ah boo boozer, wino, what do they call him? ah Rummy. Yes, Rummy. There you go. There's the Rummy character who brings a lot of fun to all of his scenes.
02:48:42
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, I'm sure um um'm sure Hemingway had a lot of ah personal ah experiences he could draw on. I have no idea that character's even from his story. It probably isn't. Like, Hemingway, as we were talking about, a lot of Hemingway vibes in this, ah that you know, being fishing, ah but also, like, you...
02:49:00
Speaker
you the The first shot that you see inside of um yeah Inside of... ah oh God, what's his name? Inside of Harry's ah room, there's a bunch of pictures of, like, muscly boxing men on the walls.
02:49:16
Speaker
It's like... Very Hemingway. Very masculine stuff going on. yeah It is also weird. the So, Heverberg's character's name is Harry, but people call him Steve as a nickname.
02:49:29
Speaker
Why that is... I don't know. I mean, I know kind of kind of behind the scenes reasons why, but and within the world of the film, I don't know why. ah Right. Yeah. I think it's probably just because she is trying to mess with him because she told him not to call her Slim and then he did. And so she's just calling him something else. Also, one kind of side behind the scenes thing is that like the rights to the original story were sold for some reason to Hughes Tool Company. Drill bits.
02:49:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So a drill like a tool company owned the rights to the book. Then hawks Howard Hawks bought the rights from them and then sold them to Warner Brothers.
02:50:10
Speaker
So because Howard Hawks made a whole bunch more money selling the film rights to Warner Brothers than Hemingway made sellingling selling the book rights to the tool company, that Hemingway was was mad and ah didn't speak to Hawks for for three months.
02:50:30
Speaker
Oh, wow. I mean, i I have to assume that it was bought by Hughes Tools basically because Howard Hughes wanted the rights to it, maybe to make a movie. I don't know.
02:50:41
Speaker
Oh, like, oh, wait. Hughes Tool Company is Howard Hughes Tool Company. I'm assuming so. That's why I made my ah very astute drill bits joke.
02:50:51
Speaker
An American manufacturer of drill bits, Howard Hughes. Drill bits. Okay. All right. Well, that makes some more sense. I'm going to buy this story. I'm going to make a film out of it and not make more drill bits.
02:51:05
Speaker
but Show me all the blueprints. Show me all blueprints. Show me the blueprints. Wow. We watched this movie just recently. And and yet, I can't remember. Well, there is a bar they go into called Bar Du Zombie, which is very cool. Great.
02:51:21
Speaker
i want there i want to go there I want there to be like ah like a Haitian voodoo bar called Bar du Zombie. It would be incredible. There's a tiki bar in Brooklyn that I've gone to multiple multiple times called the Zombie Hut, which is great.
02:51:35
Speaker
It's like absurdly affordable. the drinks are big and very good. Absurdly affordable is big for... That's like a big deal for a tiki bar. Those are typically not affordable. I don't associate them together. and this is like You can get like a big drink full of rum for like not that much money.
02:51:52
Speaker
Brooklyn, It's like It's like only $18 for a cocktail. What? it's like only eighteen dollars for a cocktail No, I'm saying it's like $8 for a cocktail, which is wow like crazy. Yeah, that's crazy anywhere these days.
Tiki Bar Anecdote
02:52:05
Speaker
Yeah. unless it's Unless it's a really divey place and it's like a like you know, and coke at the it's like a you know rum and coke at the well Yeah, and I mean, not to this whole conversation about the zombie hut, but it's like it's it's got good atmosphere. They have a huge backyard. It's it's really a good spot.
02:52:23
Speaker
The first one week, one year fan meetup at the zombie hut. You know what? Yeah, get in the comments. We'll make it happen. I love the zombie hut. Shout out to the zombie hut.
02:52:34
Speaker
I'm just trying to like think of some other kind of random stuff going on. This has like a like a vaguely, you know, anti-fascist kind of thing going on. Like Casablanca.
02:52:45
Speaker
I think that the guy that they rescue, who's the part of the French resistance, um, they're, you know, he's talking about doing his duty, doing his, doing his mission.
02:52:58
Speaker
And like, what if he dies? And then he says, that is the mistake Germans always make with the people they try to destroy. There will always be someone else. And that's, that's inspiring.
02:53:10
Speaker
That's good. Yeah. Yeah. Much like Watson and Casablanca. I was, I was very into this movie's overall anti-fascist, kind of messaging probably always up for some of that and yeah that i think that that moment where he says that is like one of the one of the few that like really kind of rang true for me where i was like oh this like this is a good moment yeah also on the boat um there's a big kind of fishing chair rig that is just like the one in jaws so that was fun yeah yeah
02:53:44
Speaker
there There are definitely like highlights in this movie. And I think this movie is is worth watching and is a lot of fun. But yeah, it definitely... I know. I wasn't that crazy about it.
02:53:55
Speaker
Casablanca is a movie you sit down and watch. And this is a movie that you throw on. And it's a good time. And I think like i i didn't think a lot of that breeziness maybe can be attributed to Howard Hawks. I also feel like this is...
02:54:08
Speaker
less fun than I kind of expect from a Howard Hawks movie also. Like, feel sit down and watch a Howard Hawks movie I'm like, give me some, I want that like banter coming, coming at me.
02:54:19
Speaker
Yeah. And there's some good banter in this, but it's like, you know, I want, I want the, I want His Girl Friday level banter, which I realize like no other movie in existence can match that movie. You can't, you can't, you can't go that hard every time.
02:54:32
Speaker
Yeah. The, the speed in which the dialogue is delivered in that is like superhuman. So this this movie doesn't have that going on, but it is fun. Unless you have anything else. ah That leaves us with our final movie.
02:54:45
Speaker
Meet me in St. Louis. St. Louis or St. Louis? Well, meet me in St. Louis. Meet me in St. Louis. So everybody's singing. When they sing it, they do say Louis.
02:54:57
Speaker
But then the the little the little evil child ah tells someone, ah no it's it's St. Louis. Well, tell that to the songwriter. So this is a Vincent Minnelli kind of Technicolor musical.
02:55:15
Speaker
it It has very much... This is the first time that I've seen something that has the vibe of those like 1950s musicals. Hmm. The kind of sprawling, kind of cheery, simplistic musicals of the 50s, I guess.
02:55:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. um This movie has got some melancholy to it, but it it is overall very ah bright and cheery, i would say. it is a movie that I feel like ultimately is about, ah hey, St. Louis is a cool town because it's where I live, is what the main character says.
02:55:51
Speaker
And that's that's kind of, the movie is mostly just like, hey, St. Louis, pretty cool town, huh? Yeah, we were having a World's Fair. Right? There's a bunch of people that live here, and you know they have lives that... you know the yeah They got ups and downs, but at the end of the day, everything everything everything's dandy.
02:56:10
Speaker
Yeah. you know I was was looking at some of the letterboxd reviews of this movie. Someone was saying that this is the only movie where you know the inspiring thing is that you stay in your Midwest town. But then...
02:56:22
Speaker
but like ah you you find but then um The one that I really liked from from Haley was, this would be my ladybird if I were a Midwestern nineteen forty s teen.
02:56:34
Speaker
which I mean, i i that's probably very true. that I'm sure it was for a lot of yeah Midwestern nineteen forty s teens, you know? i mean, it's really kind of made, that's the debt that's the target audience for this movie, I feel like.
02:56:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So this, you know, they we were doing synopses for the other movies, but this movie is kind of just... This movie maybe doesn't really have a plot. It's kind of just like a bunch of stuff happens, and then it's done.
02:57:01
Speaker
And yeah, it's kind of episodic, I guess. And so it was based on some sort of serialized short stories that... And I think that kind of shows in this.
02:57:13
Speaker
It's about a year in the life of, once again, like we were talking about this, ah people are posing as if they're not aristocratic, but they've they they have a maid, right?
02:57:25
Speaker
and they live in a massive mansion. Yeah. And they're like, oh, we'd have to live in a tenement home we went to New York. Oh, So yeah, it's basically like the kind of main thrust of the movie is that the dad gets a job in New York.
02:57:43
Speaker
And so they have, he ends up saying that we have to move. And so they have this kind of, um, their last, you know, six months or, or something in St. Louis.
02:57:55
Speaker
And they, um, you know, they they are reckoning with, with having to leave. some Some of the daughters are trying to court boys, and that's part of the plot.
02:58:06
Speaker
And then some of the daughters are trying to ah kill a trolley full of people. and that's that's another And that's another plot. You say that as a joke. That's just a thing that happens in the movie.
02:58:20
Speaker
There is a ah cute little kid called Tootie that really is a bit of a demon. that really comes out in the section of the movie that's Halloween.
02:58:33
Speaker
and Another movie set during Halloween, much like Arsenal Blaze. Yeah. Also a movie that has plot points about ah gas lamps being turned off. yeah Yes. yeah because i i I watched this first and then I watched Gaslight and it was very funny. I think I watched them back to back and I was like, man, 1944 has a weird thing with gas lamps.
02:58:54
Speaker
One is a symbol of love and the other one... Right, exactly. And the other is a symbol of like control and and nightmares. yeah It reminded me a lot of Little Women, the ah Greta Gerwig movie.
02:59:07
Speaker
um I haven't seen the other ones or read the book. butddy read and it It's about this... ah this family that with, with a bunch of daughters and all the daughters have, you know, they don't get along always, but they have the, you know, their different lives that they're all trying to figure out.
02:59:22
Speaker
And then, and then the dad comes home and in little woman, when the dad comes home, it's like, Oh dad, the dad is just the warmest, kindest, most wonderful person. And he owns every kind of classic car.
02:59:34
Speaker
Exactly. Exactly. He even has doubles and triples of some of the cars. But in this, the dad ah sucks and just wants to uproot his family because he got a slightly higher paying job.
02:59:46
Speaker
Despite the fact that he clearly makes enough to live in this mansion. In St. Louis. I gotta look out for you guys. I gotta to take any job that my boss tells me to take. And then his entire family is like, no, we hate this. We don't want to move. Why would you even suggest that? And he's like, my I'm the dad. You have to do what I say. And it's, he eventually does like go back on it, but it's for like a big chunk of the movie. He's just a stubborn dick to his whole family. And so it's, it's like a little woman if the dad was a dick instead of a nice person.
03:00:17
Speaker
I also was kind of reminded of Gone with the Wind just in the sense that if this movie has this sort of very kind of nostalgic-y, romantic idea of like, ah, the South a little bit.
03:00:28
Speaker
It's not nearly as toxic as it is in Gone with the Wind. um I don't think it's... I wouldn't even say that this movie is... problematic or toxic about it much at all. I mean, it's set post-Civil War.
03:00:40
Speaker
yeah they don't but They don't bring up a lot of like race stuff, but I think it's just forty years in this case it's okay. Yeah, it's sort of like, yeah, there probably would have been more of that in the 1900s in St. Louis, but like I think it's fine that this nice, colorful movie is like, we're not going to worry about that.
03:00:58
Speaker
I mean, this is a movie that is, this is equivalent to a movie being set in the 80s right now. Which I thought about that it's like not because I think both this and Magnus and Ambersons, right, are like set around, you know, kind turn of the century times.
03:01:12
Speaker
And well whatever reason, as like a person in the 21st century watching it, I'm like, why are we setting movies in the 1900s? What a terrible time. to To be nostalgic about.
03:01:24
Speaker
But I get it. It's like the 30 year cycle or whatever. but right It makes sense why people in the 40s would be like. Ah the early 1900s. Those were the days. right And watching it now. I'm just like. oh this like it's not And third movie.
03:01:40
Speaker
What's it called? ah How Green Was My Belly. That I feel like is set in a similar time period. And has this yeah very romantic. Nostalgic. viewpoint and i i just i don't it's not that day i don't get it because obviously i'm i live in a much different time than they did but it for whatever reason i'm like i don't i don't see the appeal and i guess it's hard for me to 1900s it's hard for me to say anything as the guy that is constantly wearing early ninety s late eighty s shirts I mean, you're talking to the who's constantly wearing clothes.
03:02:12
Speaker
ah clothes The worst time in, like, all of human history. So you're saying that you endorse everything that happened in the 1940s? Correct, yeah. Everything that happened in the decade the 1940s, I fully endorse.
03:02:26
Speaker
ah I was my my fingers were crossed that whole time. wo So, yeah, it's Technicolor. It's a very pretty movie visually. yeah It's like you're just soaking in those nostalgic vibes with these hyper saturated colors.
03:02:40
Speaker
Somebody please make a LUT in order for everyone everything to look like this. They've tried. They've tried people keep trying to make Technicolor again. They can't do it.
03:02:50
Speaker
It's tragic. It's really tragic. And yeah, and this movie also has a bunch of really iconic songs in it. Yeah. The trolley song. We got a ring, ring, ring goes the trolley. Ding, ding, ding goes the bell.
03:03:04
Speaker
That's the big one, I feel like. Well, no, the big one is have yourself a merry little Christmas. That doesn't come from this movie, does Yes, it does. Holy shit. Yes, it does. In that case, in that case, yeah, that's that wins. Yeah.
03:03:20
Speaker
I didn't even realize that. Yeah. A song that Judy Garland's character is singing to her sad ah little sister to kind of cheer her up. But it's almost like a melancholic Christmas because, you know, they're going to be moving away from St. Louis in a couple of days.
03:03:38
Speaker
And yeah, that is the origin of this song. Wow. i I can't believe one that I didn't realize that. But also just like, yeah, that's that's huge. That's a huge. ah legacy for this movie to have.
03:03:49
Speaker
and Almost as big as I think this movie's biggest contribution to culture, that Liza Minnelli is a person because of this movie. Because Vincent Minnelli met Judy Garland while making this movie.
03:04:04
Speaker
And without Liza Minnelli, we would not have... Say it with me. Arrested development. I was going to say Lucille too, but yeah, same yeah same answer. Lucille too.
03:04:14
Speaker
So got gotta to hand it to this movie for that alone. I mean, the Halloween section, I think we gotta talk about that. We mentioned it. but Yeah, yeah. Like, it's kind of you know Yes, this movie kind of like dips in on every season over the course of ah over the course of the year, but it kind of sits in those Halloween vibes for a while. And I think probably what you're about to say is that it gives us some insight into some very weird turn-of-the-century Halloween traditions. Yeah.
03:04:43
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's it's really going hard on the idea of Halloween being like Devil's Night, where all the children go out and they cause mischief and they do a lot of pranks. And their pranks usually involve just like kind of attacking people or like messing up their house.
03:05:00
Speaker
Or in this case, what, throwing flour on people. and And if you make the flour a little wet, it sticks a little better. Right. Which is, right, Trick or Treat originally, right, Trick or Treat was like...
03:05:12
Speaker
you either give out a treat or you get tricked. Yeah. It's sort of like, give me candy or I'll, yeah, give me candy or I'll throw wet flour in your face. They should bring that back, honestly. i think I think that's great. I agree. I agree. I think people still like TP houses, right? But that's about it.
03:05:29
Speaker
I've never... It's gone um by the wayside. I don't think I've ever genuinely seen that happen. But with the TPing houses, right, that's like ah that's like an implicit threat. Like, if you are walking up and going, i have flour in my hand, I will throw it at you if you don't give me candy right now.
03:05:48
Speaker
Like that's, that's a power move. Tootie doesn't even ask for a candy. She just rings the doorbell and throws flour at a guy. And she says, I hate you too. Which is the other, the the other Halloween tradition that we've lost is instead of saying trick or treat saying, I hate you.
03:06:01
Speaker
I hate you. Get floured. Get tricked. Tootie being like the youngest sister, she really wants to partake in all the Halloween mischief, but everyone's like, no, you're too young. You're too young. So she volunteers to go to the scariest house in the neighborhood.
03:06:16
Speaker
where the scary people live. And there's a big dog that's there. ah But she does it. She goes up and throws flour at a guy and says, I hate you and runs away. And um then everyone ah likes and respects her in her community.
03:06:30
Speaker
See, that this was the moment where I was like, what is this movie doing? Because you would think that, you know, a child, like, would learn a lesson and it would tie into the themes of the movie or something. like i don't really increase it It increases her ah penchant for mischief.
03:06:50
Speaker
it just It further reinforces that this is what she should be doing with her life. But yeah, it's it's just like, it's just like, it's a thing that happens, right? It's a thing that happens in her life.
03:07:01
Speaker
And it doesn't like this moment of her kind of earning the respect of the other children or this moment of her being like randomly cruel to this guy Like it doesn't really tie into anything else in the movie. The people in the house, I think it's really scary. The guy is just kind of like perplexed by having a flower thrown at him. He's just like, Hey, that was mean.
03:07:23
Speaker
Well, it's it's like one of those classic situations where, ah like, kids are like, like you're saying, like, that's the scary house, right? We don't go up to there. We're scared of them. And then in every movie, they're like, oh, they're actually nice, you know?
03:07:36
Speaker
Yeah. this This movie didn't even go that far. it was just like, they got flowered, and then we move on. And then, right, there's the whole trolley thing where, like, what do they do? They, like, throw a fake dead body in front of a trolley?
03:07:49
Speaker
Yeah. and hoping Hoping that it will get derailed? Yeah. Yeah. You horrible seven-year-old, you could have killed dozens of people. And I'm like, correct, yes. That is like, that that's not like childhood mischief. That's just a crime.
03:08:04
Speaker
She's just like, I can't be charged as an ah as an adult, so. Right, yeah. That's the only reason she did it. She knew that she could could get away with it. we got a big, uh, Christmas Eve, uh, ball, right? And there's a whole thing where like Esther doesn't have a dress to go to the ball and the, who's going to be at the ball. And I don't want to go to the ball by myself. And, the and,
03:08:26
Speaker
I don't know. i'm I'm a little, maybe it's just fact that I didn't grow up in an affluent. I never went to balls as ah as a child. i I don't know. i it's I find that stuff hard to relate to.
03:08:38
Speaker
I mean, also, because we were homeschooled, we didn't go to dances. And I feel like that's like the, yeah that's like probably the analog. Yeah. Yeah, i think I think we're probably both somewhat too young. I mean, dance cards, I think, were already kind of out of fashion by by the 90s anyway.
03:08:58
Speaker
Yeah, don't know. I just, I find that stuff, ah it's it's nice to look at in a Technicolor movie, but i I find it hard to get emotionally invested in it, I guess. Yeah, I think this movie's fine.
03:09:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think this, similarly to the last one, is a movie is a great movie to throw on. Especially like maybe maybe around Christmas. it is I think it is sort of ah a standby Christmas movie for a lot of people.
03:09:24
Speaker
I think it like the kind of the pointlessness of it rose me the wrong way a little bit. And so I feel like this is a movie to throw on in the background, where To Have and To Have Not is a movie to actually watch, but in a chill way with commercials in between.
03:09:40
Speaker
Okay, okay. Well, no, not we don't want commercials. and I'm just saying like if it's on TV or something like that. Sure, sure. I'd watch it on TV. There was ah a big to-do about a phone call in this movie.
03:09:52
Speaker
And various sort of phone call dramas. And I think it is notable and kind of funny how little phone communication has changed in the last 120 years.
03:10:05
Speaker
That it's like all of the like phone drama like would translate 100% now. I mean, the like miscommunication stuff, like misunderstanding aspects of it, the like, I guess there is a bit of sort of like a phone call is going to happen at 630. Exactly. And like, we need to like clear the room.
03:10:21
Speaker
Yeah. And also like, it's a long distance call. Can you believe that he's calling all the way from New York? It just feels contemporary in the sense that like, yeah, people talking on the phone ah hasn't changed really.
03:10:33
Speaker
and there' there There is some really good performances, I think, in this movie. I think there is some real moments of pathos, some very funny bits. I think the the kid who plays Tootie is very good at feeling like a just genuine kid. Like it doesn't feel like she's performing really. Mm-hmm.
03:10:50
Speaker
I forgot if it's hard like Judy Garland or what it be. I just remember there was a scene in this where someone was crying and I was like, this feels like real crying. Like this doesn't feel like movie crying where you're like, h kind of trying to look glamorous about it. It's like this just belligerent crying. ah Well, I guess that wraps it up. Yeah. Did you have a favorite film of 1944?
03:11:10
Speaker
ah For me, it's kind of a toss-up between Double Indemnity and Gaslight. Maybe, let's say Gaslight. I think Gaslight's my favorite. I thought that the psychodrama was incredible, to be honest. Very, very good.
03:11:23
Speaker
I'm kind of torn between two also, one of them also being Double Indemnity. But I do think I have to give it to our single-led Lace. Just because like it, that movie is so fun and so just joyous and silly and absurd.
03:11:39
Speaker
I really love Dublin Dempity. Like it's a really great hard boiled noir movie. It's like, it has everything you want, I guess, other than like a detective character, the way that Laura does.
03:11:51
Speaker
I feel like Arsenal of Lace has like, it's got, it's it's got all. Yeah. and that's a fun And by it all, I mean, Peter Lurie wearing a goofy pith helmet, talking about Panama and murder.
03:12:02
Speaker
um And it's, it's great. Well, that about does it for this episode. and ah Thank you all for listening. ah Thanks to Sarah for joining and Glenn. yeah I'll see you next year.
03:12:17
Speaker
See you next year.