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The Rocketeer (1991)
340 Plays2 years ago
Author Ed Erdelac joins Perry this week to discuss the best of the 90s-era pulp hero adaptations—The Rocketeer! We discuss the origins, how well this film stands the test of time, its legacy, and posit some theories as to why it wasn't more popular when it came out.
Visit Ed's Linktree for all his links
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Transcript
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Rocket Pack Demand & Crime
00:01:59
Speaker
Where's my rocket pack, Seacourt? You're gonna let me use it one more time. I'm tired of squatting with you, kid. I could slap you with grand theft, treason, espionage, and that's just my shortlist. Willie, give me the cuffs. No, look, they got my girl. Oh, God, Cliff, no. Yeah, they set up a rendezvous. They want to swap Jenny for the rocket. Look, kid, I understand how you feel, but you've got to let us handle this. I got to go alone, or they're gonna kill her.
00:02:23
Speaker
I'll give you a rocket back. Tomorrow, I swear. Hey, this ain't negotiation. Those guys are playing for keeps. I can handle Valentine. The Valentine gang has only hired muscle. They're working for a Nazi agent. Someone we think is highly placed in Hollywood society. Someone our intrepid G-men have been unable to identify. It's an opposite, Larry. What?
00:02:44
Speaker
It's Nevelson Clare. Come on. Yeah, sure. It makes perfect sense. That's why it was Bossinetti's men around at the Sauces Club. That's why he has Jenny. Nice try, kid. We're taking him downtown and we're locking him up. We'll take it from here, Mr. Hughes. Let's go, kid. Hey!
00:03:21
Speaker
The son of a bitch will fly.
Introducing Guest Ed Erdelach
00:03:23
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and welcoming a new guest. And that is fellow author Ed Erdelach. Ed, how are you doing today? Hey, Perry, thanks for having me. I'm doing well. How are you doing? I'm doing good. Thanks for coming on. So what I'd like to do with new guests is to give them a chance to introduce themselves to the audience. Tell them a little bit about yourself and what you do. Yeah. Okay. So as Perry said, my name is Ed Erdelach.
Ed Erdelach's Writing Career
00:03:47
Speaker
I am an author of 15 novels.
00:03:50
Speaker
I'm most known for a Macabre Rider series. It was a weird Western. I did four books about a Hasidic gunslinger traveling through the Old West, kind of fighting demons and tracking the renegade master who betrayed his mystic order of astral travelers to the great old ones of the Cthulhu Mythos. So I was born in Indiana, educated in Chicago. I came out here to Los Angeles in about 2000, 1999, trying to do screenwriting. Didn't have a lot of luck at it.
00:04:19
Speaker
kind of switched in a roundabout way to novels. And as I said, I've published a 15 so far. Dozens of short stories placed here and there. I did a independent movie all Western back in 2009 called Meaner Than Hell. You can check that on Amazon streaming. And that's what brings me here today.
00:04:43
Speaker
Okay, very cool. So before we jump too much into current stuff, why don't you tell people a little bit about how you got into superheroes, comic books, anything like that?
Ed's Early Comic Book Experiences
00:04:56
Speaker
The first comic books I probably read, I couldn't even read, I was just looking at the pictures, you know, I think I had one of those giant sized Treasury Edition werewolf by knights is one of the first things I remember reading and it had like Spider-Man and I think I begged for it because Spider-Man was on it and they had that
00:05:11
Speaker
you know, that TV show in the seventies or early eighties. I can't remember the guy's name, but it was a Spider-Man show and everything. And so I was having the Spider-Man and I would make up the stories as I went along. So then I got that werewolf by night became the first title I kind of collected because sort of like Mr. Glass in Unbreakable, my mom would kind of coax me to get my grades better every week by like she got, she got a big old stack of werewolf by nights from some fleet
00:05:40
Speaker
flea market or something. And she would like, give me an issue a week if I, you know, did I write in school that week and everything. So that was the first, uh, series I had a full run of and everything. And, uh, superheroes, uh, I can remember watching the Shazam show, like where the one where he was, uh, you know, traveling around in the Winnebago and stuff in the seventies. And, uh, of course, Superman, you know, um, uh, Batman from the TV show and, uh, Christopher Reed, Superman and, uh, from, you know,
00:06:08
Speaker
just kind of branched out from there. I started collecting G.I. Joe comics. It was one of the first big ones I was into. Sergio Aragones grew The Wanderer was a big one. I think it was Doug Murray did the NAM. I got real into that Vietnam comic that Marvel put up for like it was like an eight year limited series. Got into that and just spread out from there. I kind of I got to be a comics fan in the 90s right in that age where like
00:06:34
Speaker
It was just a great time to be a comics fan. All those reimagining of superheroes were coming out, like Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's where my comic book stuff came from. I was a big Captain America fan. Yeah, that's where all that came from. And movies,
00:06:59
Speaker
I was always a movie watcher. I think I watched a lot of genre stuff from Son of Svenguli in Chicago. They had, you know, or stuff every Saturdays or Sundays or something, all the Godzilla movies, all the Hammer movies, Universal Horror. Yeah, so it just kind of all stemmed from childhood, kept on going. I got arrested, I guess. Yeah, I grew up in the Northwest suburbs. So I definitely remember Svenguli growing up as well. Okay, yeah, I was in Cal City, South suburbs over there.
00:07:29
Speaker
Okay, yeah, I was up in Northwest Burbs, Displains, Arlington Heights, Park Ridge. You said you went to school in Chicago. Where'd you go to school in, by the way? I went to Columbia College on Michigan over there. I went for film and stuff. I know a lot of people who went there. I, unfortunately, could not convince my parents to help me pay for Columbia, though. They're like, you got to go to a real school.
00:07:57
Speaker
That's what they told me. You probably got more out of school than I did, honestly, at a real school. Like I did not use the film degrees to give me anything except like temp jobs and stuff. Yeah, yeah, unfortunately, that's that's how it goes. But anyway, so we're going to talk about today's
Current Viewing Interests
00:08:13
Speaker
pick is The Rocketeer. But before we talk about that, what are you into these days? Is there anything you're you're watching, you're reading that that's kind of grabbing your attention right now?
00:08:26
Speaker
Um, I don't know about genre wise, like, uh, I got heavy. The latest thing I've been watching crazy enough is, uh, Wu-Tang Clan American Saga on Hulu. It's, uh, kind of this, uh, uh, stylized, um, imagining of the, the, the getting together of the rap group Wu-Tang and everything, you know, in, um, in New York and, uh, but they do these really, uh, interesting, uh, takes on, uh, on
00:08:52
Speaker
on the ways the albums are assembled and stuff. They do riffs on, like they did, for Old Dirty Bastard had a 70s era kind of black exploitation episode where he was like this kind of black exploitation hero that was out to kill like a, he was hired to assassinate like an Android version of Android double of the guy that ran Soul Train. It's pretty crazy. It's really out there. They have like, they have Kung Fu centric episodes. They did one that was like the killing.
00:09:22
Speaker
Uh, there's the killer John Woo with the pigeons flying around and everything. And it's very fun. Yeah, it's not what you think like from the, from the ads and stuff. That's very fun. Um, it's fun for like a movie watcher and stuff to kind of go and get all the references. There's like a new Jack city episode, you know, from, from the nineties, they got one set in the, uh, in the eighties and stuff. And, uh, it's very interesting. It's very interesting. Cause it kind of shows how they pull their influences from like, uh, Chang Che 70s, like kung fu movies and, and from, uh,
00:09:52
Speaker
uh, Shogun Assassin and stuff and how they pull all their elements together, you know, creating their music and everything. That's pretty fun. Um, watching a lot of, I've watched a lot of horror and stuff, um, mainly with my daughter and my daughter's big horror hound. Uh, we go to Monster Palooza every year and all that. Um, trying to think of the last thing I saw though, I think it was probably, uh, I watched that show, um, Swarm, uh, which was about an obsessed kind of Beyonce fan or something that was going around slaughtering people that didn't like her.
00:10:22
Speaker
Oh, really? It's really crazy. Really crazy. Dominique Fishback, I think is the is the actress. Oh, she was in. What was it? Project Power, right? Yes, I think so. Yeah. OK, yeah. Yeah. We covered that a while back. One of the one of the last films Derek and I talked about on from the show, actually. Oh, Derek. OK, yeah. Yeah, he was the original co-host of this before he passed for the first 60 episodes or so. He's a good guy. He's a great guy.
00:10:51
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I still go back and listen to those old episodes when he was on. So it's a nice way to keep him alive in memory and all that. But anyway, today we are talking about The Rocketeer, 1991 movie directed by Joe Johnston, adapted from the comic book by Dave Stevens.
Discovery of Rocketeer Comics
00:11:12
Speaker
What's your history with this character? Have you ever read the Dave Stevens comics?
00:11:17
Speaker
I sought out the Dave Stevens comic because of this movie. Cause I was such a fan of this movie. Like I loved this movie from the get go. And I went out and found the comics. They were kind of hard to get ahold of at one point and everything. And, uh, I gotta admit, maybe it's dependent on like what you come to first and everything kind of like, uh, you know, Robert E. Howard Conan, your, your, your, your estimation of the Schwarzenegger movie kind of rises and falls according to if you saw it first, or if you read his stuff first, or if you read the Roy Thomas comics first or something.
00:11:44
Speaker
And in this case, I prefer the movie to the books, to the comic. The comic is beautifully illustrated, but it's got this kind of, like, I know Jenny is pretty much Betty Page in the comic and everything. It's got a little bit of a cheesecake feel to it and everything. And it's not quite as wholesome as the movie is and everything. It's good. It's very good. But yeah, I really prefer the movie, honestly. But again, I came to it first.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah, I never read the comics, but I was just doing some research on it last night. And yeah, they are now all available. I think it's IDW has a collection like the Rocketeer Adventures or something like that.
00:12:22
Speaker
But if you search on Amazon, it's like all in one volume because he didn't do a lot of it. It was just like a very, you know, these little short stories here and there because he was primarily working in like film and animation and comics was just kind of like this hobby for him. And like you said, it's beautifully illustrated. He spent a lot of time on detail. So it took him a while to get these stories out there.
00:12:46
Speaker
There's, you're not talking about a whole wealth of backlog material if you're interested in finding the Dave Stevens stuff. In fact, I think that there's probably more stuff done by other creators who are not Dave Stevens based on the Rocketeer as opposed to stuff that he did. Um, but I had a difference. Oh, I was trying to say the major difference between it for me. I said like, uh, the Betty Page character is actually obviously based on the real pinup, you know, model, Betty Page and everything.
00:13:11
Speaker
And he kind of depicts her, he uses a lot of excuses to depict her imperiled and everything, you know, like tied up in some kind of bondage thing and everything. And so it's a little bit seedy to me and everything, but it's, it's still a beautiful comic and it looks really cool. The other, the other big difference was, uh, in the movie, um, the, the inventor of the rocket is, uh, what Howard Hughes put in, uh, the comic he used, uh, like a, I think a thinly disguised, uh, uh, doc, uh, Oh my God, I'm blanking on his name. Doc Savage, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
00:13:42
Speaker
Yeah, I've read about that too, that they, you know, it was obviously supposed to be Doc Savage. They never mentioned him directly, and they never show him completely, but they kind of, they hint at it. They've got like his team there with it. So yeah, yeah. So it's pretty heavily indicated that it is Doc Savage, which the movie obviously had to change to Howard Hughes. And we'll talk about Howard Hughes and Terrio Quinn's performance in this, because I really enjoyed that aspect of it. Yeah, he's great.
00:14:13
Speaker
But yeah, most of what I had read about the comic books, because I'd never read them myself, very similar in line with what you're saying. A lot of people saying like, yeah, the movie kind of streamlines and improves a lot of it. And the Betty Page stuff is interesting because he writes her name in the comic as Betty with a Y, whereas, you know, Betty Page fell with IE. And
00:14:34
Speaker
There's an interesting idea that because he sent these likenesses he did of Betty Page to the real Betty Page and ended up becoming friends with her. But she didn't approve it, yeah. Not for this movie, not for this movie, but she did like it in the comic book and he had like sent her a check or something to pay for his use of her likeness when he found out that she was still alive.
00:14:57
Speaker
And then they had struck up a friendship and he had said in an interview that it was kind of weird that he grew up like idolizing her and now he's driving her around to pick up her social security checks and that kind of stuff. That's really cool. But yeah, when the movie came out, they did ask Betty Page about using her name and she would not allow it to be used for the movies. Then they changed it. I wonder if she asked for it.
00:15:21
Speaker
Did she ask for a bigger check from the studios or something and didn't get it or something? That would make sense because it was Disney. It just says in the trivia that she would not allow her name to be used in the film. I'm not sure exactly what the negotiations were, what the story was behind it.
00:15:40
Speaker
I think maybe she was more okay with it being in a comic book because it's got a much lower audience. She had never even known about the comic book at all. She had never known that her likeness was in this comic book. Whereas movies are a much bigger thing. And by that point, she's what, in her 70s at the time this movie came out? I think she's probably kind of done with, doesn't really care much about her likeness being used or is not really interested in.
00:16:07
Speaker
in that being what she's remembered for anymore. It could be any number of reasons, but yeah.
00:16:13
Speaker
Now me, I saw this movie in the theater. I remember seeing it in 1991 when I was like, what, eight years old or something, seven or eight years old in the theater, and just loving it when I saw it the first time. And years later, just rediscovering it on DVD. And it's one of those things where you see a movie like this when you're a kid, it grabs your attention. And then when you're an adult and you try and go back and watch it again, there's usually one of two reactions you have.
00:16:42
Speaker
Oh my God, this is so bad. What was I thinking? Yeah. And the other one's like, wow, this actually still holds together pretty
Rocketeer Film Praise
00:16:52
Speaker
damn well. This really holds up, yeah. And this was the latter one. Yeah. Same here. Same here. Yeah. I mean, this movie holds together very well. I mean, I got some minor quibbles with it. Mainly, I do wish that we had seen more rocketeer, actually. It's probably the biggest complaint I have about this movie. But otherwise, it still holds together really well. It's a lot of fun.
00:17:11
Speaker
He spends a lot of time on the ground, yeah, for being the rocketeer and everything. Right. Yeah. Sometimes the rocket is just shooting him across the, the South Seas club, you know, on a, on a tray and everything, but, uh, on a dolly, but, um, yeah, uh, it's, it really does hold up. I didn't see it in the theater. I, I remember the commercials and I think I, I started working in a video store in the, uh,
00:17:31
Speaker
mid nineties or something. And I think that's where I first watched it. Like I just took it home and was like, Oh, this is one of those things, you know, you, all of a sudden I was everything that I had always wanted to see and didn't get a chance to what was available to me for free. So I was taking home tapes all the time. And yeah, I definitely saw this on video first and I loved it. Yeah. It was, it was really good. Um, uh, I don't know what it is about this movie. There's something, um, I don't know how you can be nostalgic for things you never knew, you know, but people like,
00:17:59
Speaker
I guess that's where like Indiana Jones, you know, comes in. It's got, it's definitely got that Indiana Jones like color palette and feel in the mid eighties or late eighties. They were doing a lot of like a Tucker man and his dream and, and, and, you know, I guess before that they did Chinatown, you know, a lot of those kind of a seventies, eighties, nineties Hollywood looks back at the thirties and, uh, uh, it got me into it. It was not an era that I was familiar with except, you know, through my dad, my dad was a big real war two buff, but, uh,
00:18:29
Speaker
Um, there's something really, uh, like I said, nostalgic about it, which is hard, weird to say because, you know, I said, I'm not, I'm not familiar with any of that stuff, like personally, but, uh, it's, it's really American. It's very, uh, I wonder how it plays with like Europeans, you know, or, or like just somebody from not America. Like I've never really, uh.
00:18:48
Speaker
spoken to anybody else about that and asked how I actually do have some, some input on that stuff because I first off I get what you're saying about the, the nostalgic for things that you were never really there to experience the first time because I had, I had that too and I think probably
00:19:06
Speaker
You know, my dad's probably very similar. I was born later in my dad's life, so my dad and yours are probably around the same generation. But like, you know, I got into a lot of this stuff like Indiana Jones, you know.
00:19:21
Speaker
The Rocketeer, this movie, James Bond, a lot of that came from my dad's influence because that was the stuff he experienced growing up and that kind of stuff. So yeah, I think there's definitely something to that, like, you know, getting nostalgic for things that you inherit, inheriting nostalgia from your parents, I guess, in a way.
00:19:39
Speaker
But I will say that this movie, it didn't do well when it came out in the theaters. It was kind of a financial flop, but it became very popular afterwards. I think it earned more on home video just in rentals than it did in the actual theater. Or no, no, about half as much. But it was a commercial disappointment.
00:20:03
Speaker
it had developed a really big cult following over the years, because even though it wasn't financially successful, it became very popular in America. And surprisingly, also in Japan, it became very popular in Japan, apparently, which I would just funny because I was watching this kind of night. Yeah, I mean, this movie actually came out before my wife was born. So when I was watching it last night, I told her what I was like, I don't think that's ever come out in Japan. I've never heard of it before. But I looked it up later. It turns out that, yeah, it actually had a big following here in Japan as well.
00:20:32
Speaker
He has kind of a Japanese look, I guess, with the helmet and everything. He looks like Ultraman or something. Yeah, you're right. I am seeing that now. It does have that kind of thing. And I think that might have played something into it, especially if you're looking at the... My favorite version of the poster is the Art Deco poster, which it... I mean, you could very easily... Yeah, but he's got his arms at his sides, and he's kind of streaking, and yeah, he's like... Yeah, and Brollvout's really cool.
00:20:57
Speaker
You're right, it's got a very Tokusatsu feel to it. Yeah, absolutely.
00:21:03
Speaker
And you know, there's, and we've talked about this before in this show, but the nineties were an interesting time for superhero movies because it's this post Batman 89 era. Hollywood still doesn't quite know what to make of superhero movies where it's like, you know, well, obviously there's an audience for this, but we don't really take it seriously. Plus you don't really have the budget to do it in live action. So there was kind of this weird period where instead of going after the
00:21:30
Speaker
lot of the big superhero properties, they were instead going after these more pulpish properties. So you have like the shadow, you know, the rocketeer, the phantom, and that was kind of like the big trilogy of these, the big trinity of these characters that came out in the 90s. And I always say it's kind of funny looking back at it, because then we had covered the shadow and the phantom on previous episodes. And
00:21:52
Speaker
of those three, like I think I've always said that the Rocketeer is like far and away the best one of those three. I'm surprised that yeah, this wasn't covered and those were. That's kind of funny. I saw that this was open. I was like, oh, I love this movie. Let's talk about it. It's very interesting. Yeah, the types of movies that people suggest on here because there's there are some big holes that haven't been filled in here. Like, for example, I always say that
00:22:17
Speaker
Nobody's asked to come on to talk about The Dark Knight, for example, which- Yeah, that's crazy. Wow, that's huge. Maybe it's just because those are such well-worn territory. People have talked endlessly about those online, just on Facebook and stuff. They just feel like they don't have anything to say or something. And who knows, maybe I don't have anything to say about The Rocketeer, but I just love Gushin about this movie. It's literally my favorite.
00:22:39
Speaker
My favorite superhero movie. I think another part of it is just people probably just assume, well, obviously you've talked about that. It's one of the biggest ones. So sometimes they'll just go for the more obscure stuff just out of, just out of, you know, reflex. Right. Yeah. And yeah. So like this is far and away the best of those
00:23:00
Speaker
that trinity of 90s cult movies. This is far and away the best. The Phantom, it's got some charms. It's got some very good things in it. You know, Catherine Zeta Jones is great in it. Billy Zane is great in it. The story's mostly good, but then you've got like Treat Williams and Christy Swanson, who are awful. And so it's a bit of a mixed bag. The Shadow is just very, it's very rough. It's rough to watch that one. It's Russell Mulcahy, right? The Shadow, it's got some cool stuff in it. I think so, yeah.
00:23:29
Speaker
That invisible building, I love the invisible skyscraper on the show. That's really cool. But yeah, I don't know. It just doesn't, it doesn't land like this does. No, it doesn't. Yeah. It's got a lot of bad landings in it, but it's itself, it lands pretty well.
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think a big part of that is Joe Johnston and also Billy Campbell. I think it's his name. He plays Cliff. Yeah, they're both fans of the original. I mean, Joe Johnston is such a fan of pulp stuff. You can see that in this movie. You can see, I mean, he worked on Indiana Jones.
00:24:05
Speaker
Dave Stevens, I believe, also worked on some of the Indiana Jones movies as well. So I'm not sure if there were, I didn't see anything in the trivia, but I do wonder if they had had some connection on those films, if they had had some interaction of, I'd imagine, you know, they both have this kind of, these interests. It's more likely than not that they would have, you know, geeked out about this stuff on the set of Indiana Jones.
00:24:26
Speaker
the seeds of it were planted like, you know, over the, the catering table at rec raid is a lost or something. Right? Yeah, yeah. And, and, you know, Joe jobson, he then went on to do, you know, Captain America, the first Avenger, which is like very much a pulp superhero film. So it's very, I mean, they picked the perfect director to do that kind of movie set in World War Two.
Joe Johnston & Rocketeer Screening
00:24:49
Speaker
Yeah, I actually saw this recently, again, on screen, buddy, and I went to the Egyptian down in
00:24:56
Speaker
down in Hollywood because Johnson was there. Kevin Smith presented it and like they had a Q&A of him there. I think it was right before the Blu-ray came out and they did the rockets here. It was right before First Avenger was coming out and everything. Oh, nice. It was really cool, really cool to see. Yeah, and let's think into the movie a little bit. What are some things that really kind of stand out to you rewatching this all these years later?
00:25:22
Speaker
Uh, the score was the first thing I was thinking about as soon as the, as soon as the end credit, the end credits, obviously the beginning credits, soon as the beginning credits come up, it sounds like, uh, it's James Horner. I love James Horner. I love glory. That's one of my favorite scores of all time. Um, he does this. It sounds like, uh, it sounds like you're in these, you're in all black and the titles are coming up and you're in this, uh, you see the hangar doors kind of open up to the planes and everything. And you, it sounds like the music you would listen to.
00:25:50
Speaker
you went to the Smithsonian to the Aeronautics Museum or something and you're in one of the like you're in one of the amphitheaters kind of listening to kind of watching like a thing on the history of flight or something it's very sweeping and kind of nostalgic and it makes you think of like propellers and antique planes biplanes and p38s and stuff and everything it actually reminds me of uh
00:26:13
Speaker
Uh, later when I saw winter soldier, um, when he goes into the Smithsonian, you know, cap and he's got that, uh, you know, the captain America exhibit and they're playing like music and the guy is like narrating his life and everything. And the kid sees him and all that. And you know, he told him to shush and all this. And, uh, it reminds me of that. It's very like, uh, kind of low, low key in the beginning. And then it gets, uh, in the action sequences, it has very distinctive. They speed it up and, uh, it's very rousing and it's a really cool score. I love the score for this.
00:26:43
Speaker
I mentioned the Indiana Jones color palette too. Yeah. That's, that's something that stands out to me to all the beige and you know, oiled leather and stuff and you know, wood and everything.
00:26:55
Speaker
I could smell this movie almost, you know what I mean? You know, that is something funny. I realized watching this last night. I'm like, I don't think Cliff ever wears anything different than just this aviator's outfit throughout the entire movie. He's got that awesome coat. Yeah. He's got the coat. It is a cool coat. Yeah. But I'm just like wondering, I'm like, man, I wonder if he's even washed those pants for that shirt at all. Yeah. And the one crash he has in the beginning, like when the oil is spraying from the instrument panel and his face and everything, he's like a total mess, but he's always got that jacket on. Yeah.
00:27:26
Speaker
Yeah, with the score, something that surprised me when I watched this film each time is that the score and the color palette and the design, it all makes it feel like this is supposed to be a much more larger scale story than it actually is. Because when you think about it, the story is actually pretty small scale in comparison to all that other stuff. Yeah, the airfield, the club, and at the end, the big set pieces in Griffith Observatory and everything.
00:27:53
Speaker
Yeah, it goes pretty fast. Like I was kind of surprised when I was rewatching again last night. Cause I'm just like, Oh wow. It's like, you know, we're at the, we're already at the end. We're almost at the end. It's like, Oh, there's that, that scene at the club. And you know, he tells her she's, she's the rocketeer. And I remember as a kid thinking like, how did you miss this? The whole thing that watching now, I'm like, no, it actually makes sense because he's only appeared like one time and that, and it was like that day. And she's been on a date the whole day was like, no, it was like, I don't know what you're talking about. I love that bit though, when he kind of like,
00:28:23
Speaker
He kind of grins a little bit right before he says it, like, oh, this is, this is going to be cool. I'm actually like going to tell her I'm this, like, this famous persona. And she has no idea. She's like, what are you talking? The rock a who? That's great.
00:28:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I love that part. I really love the performances in this too. One of my favorite moments in this is Eddie Valentine, who's played by Paul Servino. He's awesome. He's got all the best lines. He's so great. One of my favorite moments is when he finds out Sinclair is a Nazi and, you know, he delivers that right line.
Eddie Valentine's Standout Moment
00:28:56
Speaker
Swelling up, you know, starting to like it. I love it. I know. He's like, I mean, I may not make an honest buck, but I'm but I'm 100% American. And, you know, I don't work for no two bit Nazis. And they all turn on the Nazis. It's so great.
00:29:09
Speaker
Such a great line, yeah. And that was actually based, reflected in real life. That was a nod to how real life American gangsters had acted because Mussolini had persecuted Sicilian families and then obviously Jewish mobsters would have been against Hitler. And they were organized crime with some of the biggest allies against the American government when it came out to any Nazi spies.
00:29:32
Speaker
Yeah. They supported the, they totally supported the war effort and everything. Well, like in Godfather, I mean, you know, how proud they are of Michael because he's a warrior and all this stuff and everything. Um, as Sorvino was so awesome in this movie, like, uh, I love the bit where, um, they, they, they, they turn on the Nazis and then the G-men roll up and they're kind of like at one point, uh, Sorvino and the G-men are like shooting their Tommy gun side by side. And he kind of, they look at each other like this is unique, unique situation. He kind of grins and then they go back to shooting and everything. So, so cool. Yeah.
00:30:02
Speaker
Um, man, I love Jennifer Connolly in this too. Like she is, I mean, first off, they made her, they made her out looked very, very much like Betty Page in this. Yeah. And, um, But somehow better for me, like there's a wholesome element to her in this. It's a very movie star quality. There's this, uh, scene, like, uh, speaking of how great she looks in this and everything, uh, right before, right. If he's taken hostage on the, on the Zeppelin, right. If her Sinclair says, we got the girl, the rocket's going to come to us. There's this shot of her being held by, I think Lothar, the big guy.
00:30:32
Speaker
And it's just in the dark, it's kind of in the dark, but the floodlights of Griffith Park kind of pass over her face. And she's just blazing soft white lighting and her eyes are glistening and she's just, she's breathtaking in that shot. It's like really beautiful. Oh, she's, she's one of my favorite actresses. Like she's just, she's, she's so talented and, you know, she's so beautiful too.
00:30:54
Speaker
And yeah, she's, she's also got this she's perfectly she's got the perfect look for a movie like this like her. Yeah, she looks like a 1930s movie star. She looks like nose art.
00:31:09
Speaker
You know, Timothy Dalton as Nevelson Clare, which I love, too, that the fact they have because I don't think this was in the comic book, if I'm not mistaken. But, you know, they they had he's basically kind of a nod to he's basically supposed to be Earl Flynn because there were these rumors that Earl Flynn was a fascist sympathizer. Yeah, sympathies and stuff. Yeah, which is really cool. I mean, they even have them in the
00:31:33
Speaker
If there's a Robin Hood, like it looks exactly like the set when he's fighting up the stairs, the one guy and everything in that one scene, they shoot and everything. He's got the same, you know, clothes on the same, you know, color as Robin Hood from 39 and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. He's really, he's really great in it too. Yeah. He's got, he's, he's very like mustache twiddly at points and everything. I love the bit where he's trying to seduce her and he's just using lines from his movies and she's such a movie fan that she's like picking them all out and stuff. Oh, you said that in.
00:32:03
Speaker
to like Carol Lombard or something on top of the Empire State Building in such and such a movie. And it's pretty funny. Yeah. Well, yeah, apparently Earl Flynn had said that,
00:32:14
Speaker
Hermann Erben was the greatest influence on his life. And Erben was a notorious, was a dangerous Nazi operatives during World War II. And he was a Nazi spy, even though he was half Jewish. And so there's, there've been these rumors persistent, even to this day, that Flynn was a Nazi sympathizer.
00:32:39
Speaker
you know, he had been, he had had expressions of anti-Semitism. And there's like, there's a lot of differing accounts of this about whether or not he was a Nazi sympathizer. And there was a lot of that happening in America at the time. Oh, yeah, a lot of guys were, you know, Disney and, you know, it was just funny, because it was, it's kind of funny that they use Errol Flannan and kind of paint him as a Nazi sympathizer when Disney was kind of like a known kind of
00:33:14
Speaker
That's too bad. I love Errol Flynn so much, but go ahead, go ahead. There was a, I'm not sure if you ever saw Family Guy, but I remember there was this one bit, and it's mixed, but I remember there's one bit when there's like this scene where they, there's, I can't remember if like, it's a, they wake up Walt Disney from Cryo Sleep. And they're like, welcome back, Mr. Disney. He's like, are the Jews gone yet? And they're like, no. And he's like, put me back to sleep or something like that. Terrible, fucking terrible. That was, that's true to life. That's who Walt Disney was. He was in a tour.
00:33:36
Speaker
friend to that Henry Ford, I mean.
00:33:43
Speaker
You know, he was, you know, fucking terrible for the house on un-American activities. He's a total bastard. So it's kind of funny that Disney is the one who ends up making this movie. Yeah, that put this out, right? The little cameos by, you know, people impersonating old stars are pretty cool. The guy that plays W.C. Fields is great. Clark Gable kind of shoulders past at one point and stuff.
00:34:13
Speaker
Uh, there's, there's neat cameos by like, uh, just like Clint Howard, I noticed showed up as a Mater D just blinking. You'll miss him real quick and stuff at the club and everything. And, uh, I love the guy that plays the big, uh, you know, Lothar, the big henchmen. He's kind of based on what he's based on a guy that was, uh, kind of the face of, uh, universal horror movies for a while in the thirties, uh, played the creeper guy named Rondo. Uh, what's his name? Rondo Hatton. He sounds like I don't care. But he had that, uh,
00:34:42
Speaker
He had this kind of gigantism and stuff. And so his face actually looked like that and everything. And he actually appears in the movie at the point where Cliff loses control right after he saves the clown, the wing walking scene. And he's kind of blazing through that cornfield. And the one guy goes, big gopher. Some of the two farmers are standing there. He's the guy on the right. He's the guy that they actually modeled the face of Lothar after and stuff. Oh, really? I didn't know that.
00:35:08
Speaker
He was like a journalist and he did a lot of movies and stuff. He had the same kind of gigantism thing that Richard Kiel and Ted Cassidy and Peter Mayhew had and stuff. So yeah, they modeled the face of Lothar after him. That was kind of cool because he's the actual guy. Dave Stevens is actually in this too, which I didn't know. I learned this yesterday, that the sequence when Howard Hughes is showing them, he's about to show them that awesome animated, you know,
00:35:38
Speaker
propaganda for that measure looking thing. They show the Nazi jetpack kind of being tested and Dave Stevens is the test pilot. Oh, that's nice. The guy that blows up. Yeah, that was a well, that was a, again, one of the things that disappoints Nick.
00:35:56
Speaker
Not disappointing, I guess more disappointing that we never got any sequels is that I feel like there's such a bigger story here behind this story that I wish we could have seen more of. Yeah, I would have loved to see him battling like Nazi jump troopers and stuff.
00:36:13
Speaker
I mean, like, from what I understand, like the, you know, him using the Mauser gun and all that, like, because there's that great shot of when he takes the Mauser gun, right from the counter, where he's up against the American flag. And it's like, that's like the only time we see the fucking gun that's gone. Go get him, kid. He doesn't even use it. Does he ever use it? I don't think so. I don't think so. That's what I was thinking about. The glass out. I think he shoots and misses the glass busts out. And that's like the most.
00:36:37
Speaker
like badly placed glass on any kind of conveyance ever. Everybody's going out that window constantly and stuff. But yeah, Timothy Dalton though, he's so, he's so, he loves being, you can tell he loves playing a villain in this. Like he's just having a ball. I love the, there's a lot of little jokes in this that are little clever visual jokes and stuff.
00:37:06
Speaker
At the club, when Jenny's checking her coat to leave and everything, cause Cliff told her, you know, run out and get a cab, get out of here and stuff. And Lothar comes storming in and he takes his hat off and he hangs it on this, like, he props it on this statue next to her, like a seahorse or something, a sculpture. And later on, when she beans him, she beans him with the seahorse sculpture. Exactly. It's kind of like, you know, foreboding or whatever forewarning that he's going to get beamed with this freaking statue.
00:37:35
Speaker
Sinclair at the end when he's leaving, he's like, oh, goodbye, you know, Miss Hollywood eclipses, I don't think so. And like, it takes the gum off, you know, the thing, so he blows up. But he doesn't miss Hollywood, he hits the Hollywood sign, like straight on. That was kind of funny and everything. It blows up the land part of it and stuff.
00:37:52
Speaker
But that was a kind of such a funny thing too, like that had just become such a recurring element throughout this movie. You know, so many movies, they figure out what happened to the land part, you know, and everything. The Valentine's, Eddie Valentine's, the guy and like kind of as a as a one off at the end, he says, Happy Valentine's Day, Eddie, or something like that, when he's going to have the paratroopers like shoot them and all this. Like a Valentine's Day Massacre kind of riff.
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's clever. It's a funny little movie. The script is so lean.
Beeman's Gum Symbolism
00:38:20
Speaker
It's like Back to the Future lean. Everything just leads to the next thing. All these little motifs pay off in spades all the time. The gum is like a big recurring thing. And Lady Luck, and the chewing gum being lucky. Actually, I read up on Beeman's, the gum that they use and everything, and it's like in the 40s, Beeman's gum was traditionally lucky for pilots, apparently.
00:38:43
Speaker
Uh, because they would get their ears to pop in the changing, like when they're up in the altitude, they chew the gums, but their ears to pop and everything. And it was advertised as having pepsin as a main ingredient. It was supposed to be, uh, it was kind of sold as, which was not true. Uh, this pepsin was actually bad for your throat. Apparently I was reading, but it was sold as a motion sickness cure for like, uh, sailors and pilots and stuff. So they always chewed Beeman's gum. So Beeman's gum was literally like lucky and Howard gives him like a pack of Beeman's gum at the end. Yeah.
00:39:10
Speaker
Uh, you know, whenever, whenever the gun, whenever the gun is not present, bad things happen. Like on the, on the, the GB that he's flying in the beginning, uh, he sticks a piece of gum on the tail on the tail of the thing. And, um, PB is like, Oh, we just painted this thing. He picks the gum off. And of course the plane gets shot and crashes and screws up and everything. And then, uh, later on, um, you know, that goon is shooting and it's, I didn't, I was trying to remember where the hole in the rocket pack came from that he puts the gum on.
00:39:35
Speaker
And it's in the scene when they, when they, they fight the, they, they kind of rest the guns away from the mob guns in the bar. And the bullet goes through the ceiling and the jet is up there and the pack gets the bullet up there and everything. And so he gets the gum and sticks it on there again. The gum is good luck always. And when you take the gum away from Sinclair, you take his luck away, he blows up at the end. That's great. Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:57
Speaker
I wanna talk a little bit about Terry O'Quinn too, is Howard Hughes. One of the things people maybe know or don't know is that Tony Stark was heavily inspired by Howard Hughes back when Stanley and I think it was Jack Kirby who had done Iron Man with him. And they'd based Tony Stark heavily on Howard Hughes. And I was watching this and I'm thinking, man, back in the day, Terry O'Quinn could have made a pretty convincing Tony Stark as well.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. That's, that's an interesting idea. Yeah. He's really good. I liked, I always knew him from young guns, you know, he was, uh, he was the lawyer, you know, uh, uh, McSween, yeah. The lawyer that kind of like took them all in and everything. He's got such a great, uh, kind of paternal feel to him and stuff, even in this, you know, like in young guns, he's like the paternal, the paternal figured all of them. And once they lose them, they all go crazy, you know, and start blowing her, blowing her pretty way and stuff. And in this, it's kind of like, uh,
00:40:53
Speaker
When Peavey meets him, they're kind of, it's kind of like your uncle and your dad getting together talking avionics and stuff. And then Cliff walks in and he's kind of like, you know, you gotta let me use the rocket one more time. It's like talking to your dad and all this stuff. Terry O'Quinn's great. He's really good in this. That paternal aspect is a good point too, because he also had kind of like that in Lost as well, right? He was kind of like, it was like part paternal, but part sinister as well. Okay. I had never seen an episode of Lost, I guess. Oh, okay. It was,
00:41:23
Speaker
It was a show. I heard the ending was not so great. Yeah, it had its ups and downs. It's one of those things that when you watch it, you get, it flows better if you're watching it, if you're like binging it, I think, when you're- Yeah, you're not waiting every week. Right. I think when you're waiting, then the payoff at the end is just very disappointing after all those years. But when you're binging it one after the other, it's pretty entertaining. Although, yeah, the ending is not that great.
00:41:52
Speaker
Most things don't stick to the ending that last so many years and everything. But he did have that kind of paternal quality. He had that also in
00:42:03
Speaker
And then also with that sinister aspect too. And there's this TV show short-lived, only one season, it's called 666 Park Avenue. I'm not sure if you ever- I remember that. I watched that. I liked it a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It was an underrated gem. In fact, I got to see if I could track that down now that I think about it. Yeah. Now that I think about it, I was like, did I watch all those? Because I did enjoy it when I was watching it.
00:42:25
Speaker
But yeah, he's great in this. Alan Arkin too. Like I always forget it's Alan Arkin until I hear his voice because he looks so different from how I usually associate his look now. He looks older than he does in later movies in this movie. Yeah. They did him up really well and stuff. And I always remember him from Gattaca as the cop and stuff. And of course, you know, Catch-22 and everything, which I guess is another big airplane movie come to think of it. But yeah, he's good. I set up all the,
00:42:54
Speaker
Everybody does a great job. The guy from Blade Runner who was the, you know, the designer that they, they tracked on at the end to get them to, to get them to Tyrell. He's in there in a little bit part. What's his name? Max Grodenchick from Deep Space Nine that played a cork is one of the FBI agents in the background and stuff. Yeah. I mentioned Clint Howard.
00:43:17
Speaker
Another Blade Runner connection that is Neville Sinclair's apartment is Deckard's from Blade Runner. It's a Frank Lloyd Wright house. I noticed the tiles when I was watching it last time and I was like, oh, those tiles all look really familiar. And it's Deckard's kitchen and everything. Yeah.
00:43:32
Speaker
It's a Frank Lloyd Wright house called the Ennis House in Los Feliz and it's just south of Griffith Park, interesting enough. So he actually could do a job and go get over to Griffith Park in time to meet the Nazis. Well, you also got William Sanderson. He plays one of the aviation guys in a small part, which I did not even recognize him. Eddie Jones, who had played, you know, Pa Kent in Lois and Clark. John Polito, the late great John Polito in a great role as Bigelow.
00:44:01
Speaker
Bigelow's great. Yeah, he's so like, he was in the Crow, right? He was the pawn shop owner, wasn't he, I think? In fact, in the original comic book, James O'Barr had based that character on John Palito's likeness. And when they did the movie, and they asked him, and they're asking him for like casting twist, like, I know you're not going to get him, but you should you should try and see if John Palito can play the pawn shop guy. And they're able to get him to do it. But yeah, if you go back and you read,
00:44:24
Speaker
If you go back and you read the original comic book, it's very clearly modeled after John Polito. Oh, I got to check that out again. I got that sitting on the shelf, Joe. That's funny. One thing I was going to say, maybe that contributes to this, to the wholesomeness feel of this movie, old fashioned kind of wholesomeness feel.
Film's Wholesome Feel
00:44:42
Speaker
It feels like a code movie, even though it's not a code movie. But like, I don't think you ever see any good people die. Like I was watching this.
00:44:52
Speaker
And I watched it, and then I thought about it towards the end, and I was like, well, I'm not gonna rewind it, look again, but Bigelow is halfway good. Do you see him get killed? I mean, I know he dies, they say he dies, but I think they kind of advance on him. You see his body, but we don't actually see him actually getting murdered. The advance on him, and then we see him dead in the next scene. You see gangsters get killed, you see Nazis get killed, you never see anybody good die. Even Bigelow is kind of like,
00:45:19
Speaker
Um, you know, he, he kind of, he's kind of the, uh, the mayor in, in jaws at one point, you know, it's about to be a major catastrophe with like planes coming down and he tells everybody to stay in their seats and everything. Cause he doesn't want to lose. What's he trying to lose there? They've already paid admission. Let him go. I don't know. Maybe he's just worried about reputation or something. I don't know. It's weird, but, um, but yeah, it's.
00:45:44
Speaker
You're right. It is this movie. It's very much. It's very much geared for a younger audience, which which also makes it kind of surprising that it's like when I think about it and how little action there actually is in this movie, it actually surprised me that it captured my attention as much as I did when I was eight years old. I guess it's the ambiance. It's the feel of the movie itself. Not so much the the action and everything. It really captures the place and time.
00:46:10
Speaker
Um, I love the big, uh, hug bar. That bar is actually over by, they kept, I don't know if it's the exact one, maybe it's a replica, but there's, there's a bar over by me. I can't remember the name of it, but you go in the beer garden in the back and that pug is back there. That huge kind of pug thing. You can take pictures in front of it and stuff. Um, yeah, it's very old Hollywood, very old, uh, uh, old California, the orange groves, he goes flying through at one point. I think she, she says her father is an orange grove farmer or something.
00:46:41
Speaker
It's just very, again, it's nostalgic, but yeah, maybe gearing it towards younger kids that are even too young to be nostalgic for, that's being used to asking somebody to be nostalgic for their grandfather's stuff, maybe or something, I don't know. I don't know, but it's still, it's a good family movie in that, in the real sense of family, you know, like a kid can kind of get stuff from it and, you know, there's stuff for the adults to enjoy too, so I really enjoy it.
00:47:10
Speaker
There's some great stunts. I don't know about the, some of the flight sequences are kind of wonky looking, I guess, you know, the kind of, you know, you get that kind of blur around him when he's in the sky and everything, but the actual physical stunts, like when the plane crashes in the beginning, like I was trying to figure, was that some kind of mock-up or what? Because they really crash a couple of planes otherwise. Like it flies low in the car, clips the landing gear off and it smashes into the ground and everything. It's really cool.
00:47:38
Speaker
Airfield gas trucks parked on the airfield do not fare well in this movie. They always get crashed into, he's got to have a shortage of fuel or something. Cause like cars are blowing them up and like biplanes are coming down on them. And that whole wing walking sequences is really cool when he's like, he's up on the, he's, they had to shoot a guy, I guess with a mock-up parachute, probably walking on the wing and dropping off and stuff. But there's the one where he slides down the whole length of the tail of the plane and kind of goes twisting off and
00:48:08
Speaker
It's a great scene. He falls into a cloud, and then the cloud kind of looks like there's lightning, but it's the engine kicking on, and then he comes flying out on the other end. Obviously, it's the effects double coming flying out of the cloud, but it's a cool, it's a neat sequence.
00:48:24
Speaker
Yeah, there was some interesting choices too for the part of Cliff too, because they had a bunch of trouble finding someone who they felt was right for it. Apparently, and there were a lot of big names that were up for this. Kevin Costner and Matthew Modine were the first actors, but they were both unavailable. Dennis Quaid, Kurt Russell, Bill Paxton, Emilio Estevez, all of them auditioned. Johnny Depp was Disney's favorite choice. And Paxton said he came very, very close.
00:48:55
Speaker
Danafrio was off. Oh really? I didn't see Tom Hanks, but yeah, Danafrio was off for the part and he turned it down.
00:49:02
Speaker
And- That's crazy. He's great as Robert E. Howard in, well, he's one of my favorite actors. I love him. Yeah, he's amazing. And then finally they chose Billy Campbell. Joe Johnston and Dave Stevens, they both felt Campbell was perfect, but Disney wanted an A-list actor. And Johnston eventually was able to convince Disney and Campbell had, he wasn't a fan of the comics before, but when he'd started reading them, he fell in love with them. He styled his hair to be just like Cliff in the comic books too.
00:49:31
Speaker
Yeah, it reminded me of, it reminded me of George Lazenby kind of coming in as James Bond for the things we could get the, you get the part and everything and he got his hairstyle like cliff in the comic that's cool. Yeah, yeah. He had, he'd also, you know,
00:49:45
Speaker
prepared for it, like listening only to 1940s music. And he also had a fear of flying, but he was able to overcome it with the help of the film's aerial coordinator. And him and Jennifer Connelly, they actually began a romantic relationship on the set. And Johnson said that actually helped really a lot for their performances. And you can see that a lot. And speaking of those, some of the differences from the comic, what I read too about, and you could,
00:50:14
Speaker
tell me how accurate this is. But in the comic, Cliff is, you know, a little bit more of a is kind of a little bit more dickish in a way in his relationship. And you can Yeah, I'm not as sorry, I'm not as enamored with him. I'm not just I'm not as enamored with him as a hero in the comic as I am in this movie and stuff. He's more of a, like, aw shucks kind of Boy Scout kind of guy, not really a Boy Scout, but I mean,
00:50:36
Speaker
Yeah, he's he's a traditional I gotta save my girl kind of guy in this and everything. And yeah, he's a little bit like our letter, you know, she got herself into this kind of thing. And then the other in the comic and stuff. Yeah, yeah. So that's what I'd read about it. And yeah, he they find a nice balance of it where he's, he's got a little bit of that, like, you know,
00:50:54
Speaker
He does get annoyed with her. Yeah, like he gets annoyed with her. Right. And, you know, he's always taking her to the same place all the time. And there's that great scene when what's your name? Irma at the at the at the pub cafe after he offends her and she runs out and she's like, go on, go after her. Go get her, you big dope. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good report.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah, they do a good job of kind of softening those edges from the comic, at least from what I've read about the comic. And maybe it's because this movie wasn't very successful, but it does surprise me that Billy Campbell, despite there's so much talent in this film, so many well-known actors, and Billy Campbell is kind of the one who's had the least impressive career out of everybody. Doesn't go on too much after that. I'm happy to see him as a,
00:51:46
Speaker
He was in Dracula, you know, he was, he was Quincy Morris, I think in Dracula. Wasn't he? Am I getting that right or am I thinking of somebody else? No, you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:55
Speaker
Yeah, I feel it's one of those things like, oh man, I really wish that guy would have made it. He made it, obviously. I'm sure he's doing fine. He's doing better than me. But yeah, I really wish. I liked him so much in this. You really want him to do well and go on to bigger things and stuff. No, absolutely. He's done mostly TV since then.
00:52:17
Speaker
Um, in fact, he's even played, um, he does the voice on, uh, I'm not sure if it's still running on a Disney's rocketeer. Um, Oh, the one girl, the new one. Yeah. Yes. I haven't watched either. Um, but it's aimed for kids about two to five.
00:52:34
Speaker
It only has one secret, but my daughter's two years old now, so I think I'm gonna try and see if I can get her into it. But yeah, Billy Campbell plays, so the main character in that is Kit Secord, a seven-year-old girl who receives the family jet pack, and she's next in line to become the Rocketeer. She's Cliff Secord's great-granddaughter,
00:52:57
Speaker
And her father, Dave Seacourt, is a stunt pilot, and he is voiced by Billy Campbell. That's cool. I didn't know that. All right. That makes me more kind of interested in it, actually. That's a neat little connection to the original in school. It's not a remake that entirely. It's so I get it.
00:53:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of like a continuation in a way, which, which also there's been talks for years about doing a kind of continuation with, with this movie. You know, because
00:53:31
Speaker
Stevens and the screenwriters, they actually envisioned this as the first movie in a trilogy.
Unrealized Rocketeer Trilogy
00:53:38
Speaker
And Disney also hoped it would be very similar to the Indiana Jones franchise. Campbell and Connolly were contracted for sequels. But then those plans pretty much, you know, ended after the film's disappointing performance at the box office. That's right. And then with the Master and Commander and
00:53:58
Speaker
Remo Williams, then for sequels you wish. Right, yeah. But in 2012, Disney was starting to work on development on a remake or a sequel and James Wan was involved at one point as a director, which he'd be amazing to direct that. Yeah, he's great. But they were talking about, there are a few different ones, like a reboot sequel that takes place six years after the original with a black female pilot as the lead.
00:54:25
Speaker
After so like the original plot was like cliff see cord would have gone missing while fighting the Nazis and then this black female pilot would have taken on the mantle.
00:54:36
Speaker
kind of like a Bessie Smith or something. That's really cool. Something like that, yeah. There was also in 2020, it was announced that Ozzie Esquire had written a new draft of the film and it was announced the return of the Rocketeer. David Oyelowo and his wife were serving as producers. Oh wow, from Get Out, right? Yeah, yeah, I believe so.
00:55:03
Speaker
And then the plot would center on a former Tuskegee airman who inherits the rocket pack and the uniform. That's a great idea. That's an amazing idea. But then, so who was it? J.D. Dillard was set to direct, but just last year in November, he said he's no longer attached to the project because he wanted to take a breather from period aviation after he made Devotion.
00:55:26
Speaker
So yeah, I'm not sure what the status is with now. That's like the latest I found about it now. But if they get that- That African-American angle is awesome. That was another question I had about this that I didn't voice, not just like non-Americans, but I wondered what African-Americans thought of this, if it hit with them too, because like, it's a pretty white movie. I guess it's all white guys and stuff. It's very kind of a,
00:55:54
Speaker
like a white bread movie, I guess, but that's cool to hear that like, you know, African-American artists were like keen on it and stuff. That's cool. And that's what the iteration of the cartoon, it must've evolved into the cartoon, right? Because the cartoon was a young African-American girl and everything, right? So. I believe so. I can't remember exactly, but yeah, I think so. Or mixed race or something like that. I don't remember. I have to look it up, but yeah, I think so. I remember from seeing some images here and there. That's great.
00:56:24
Speaker
I'm glad because I love this movie so much. I just I like tell everybody to watch this. It's it's literally my I said before it's my favorite superhero movie. Even though like it's it's a superhero that only had what like four issues or something maybe. Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:40
Speaker
I mean, it's a great movie. It holds up very well. I mean, again, like my biggest thing is just, I wish there was more of it. I wish we got to see more action. And I think part of it is just the time it was made in. Because it's a time period when Hollywood's not really sure about superhero movies. So we don't want to use too much of him in the
00:57:02
Speaker
in the helmet where skull punisher couldn't wear skull and right right all the all the iterations on tv like uh daredevil wasn't all black and thor was he just looked like i don't know like he was in man o'war or something right yeah yeah yeah very very kind of self-conscious about the the the the long underwear and all that i guess very much yeah yeah i mean i it wasn't really until
00:57:30
Speaker
spider-man that we finally that we went back to superheroes wearing their costumes in live action because and and which which makes sense for the time and you know but like that's where we got like the x-men and black leather and all that batman was all in black rubber and all that kind of stuff um and yeah i think this was one of those cases where
00:57:51
Speaker
They just, they didn't really know what they had, I think. And obviously- I don't think audiences knew. I don't think most audiences even knew what they had. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, I think that's why the film was a disappointment at the box office. And it's only later that it developed this cult following. And I think if this movie was released now, like first off, it would probably had a much bigger budget, probably have a much larger scale story, a lot more action in it. But then I think it would have gone on to have a much
00:58:21
Speaker
must be much more well received. Do you think part of it was because it was a Disney movie too? It had the Disney label on it and Disney was kind of still in that era where people were like, you know, they thought of live action Disney movies as like, you know, the cat from outer space and, you know, stuff that they were more into the, it was more known for animation and they're kind of like, hey, Disney, stop making, you know, stop trying to make live action movies and stuff. Maybe, I don't know. No, that's a very good point. I think that probably also had an influence on public's perception of it because
00:58:50
Speaker
you know, especially if you look at some of the posters of it, it's very much kind of like that Walt Disney type of live action movie, which is like almost direct to video type of thing that you saw a lot of in the nineties. Yeah. Their live action offerings were not very impressive back in those days. And this was really an outlier. So I think there's stuff like that. Right. Yeah. I think there's definitely something to that.
00:59:13
Speaker
Yeah. That's a shame because it's, it's, it really slaps. It's a great movie. I know. And everybody, I love meeting people that love it too, you know, because it's like, you're sharing this thing that, uh, it's kind of like a club, you know, like a secret club or something, a little orphan Annie's or something. I have no idea.
00:59:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's very, it's very fun to find and just to just find people to talk about and gush over this movie with because it's wonderful. Yeah, I mean, there's this one poster and going out because I think this is a definite, I'll show you the screenshot here. And I think this is definitely indicative of what people probably thought of it. Because if you look at this poster, and I remember seeing this poster in the theater, it's not at all impressive. It looks terrible.
00:59:56
Speaker
And I think this is still like very cobbled together and it does have, with the big Disney logo on it so prominently, it does feel, it doesn't look impressive based on this. Whereas, you know, the Art Deco poster, which we talked about is amazing. It looks so good. It's a great image, yeah, it's really cool.
01:00:17
Speaker
And I think that's kind of like, it's like chopped faces and even Jennifer Connolly's expression. She's kind of, she looks very, it looks like a kid's movie. It looks like this is only for kids and nobody's gonna enjoy this. That's too bad. But yeah, any final things you wanted to mention about this movie? Just that like,
01:00:38
Speaker
what's fantastic about this movie is, so movies, the best movies, I think are called movies because they move you in some way and everything. I get so many like chills watching this movie and stuff sometimes like that line you mentioned, where Paul Servino turns on a nonsense is so great and like,
01:00:55
Speaker
that, yeah, when he's in front of the flag at the end and everything, and for them to be able to pull all those moments off, or Johnson to be able to pull all those moments off to get these big emotional moments, emotional reactions on me, in something that, at the time, I was not invested in. It was a totally new thing. It was not like I came to this with nostalgia already for the character or something, like, oh, I'm gonna see the Rocketeer, and he's gonna do this. This is something, this is a new animal.
01:01:24
Speaker
It's, and when I saw it in the theater too, like all these big reactions, the Paul Stervino line got such a huge, you know, like practically a standing ovation, you know, it's stuff. And for him to pull that off for something that's a completely, to me, like a completely original creation with no, you know, this wasn't Star Wars coming back. This wasn't like, you know, your favorite characters from like, you know, some IP that you already knew and stuff to pull that off of the characters, a real accomplishment and stuff.
01:01:52
Speaker
The only time I've ever even seen this come close is like, and this is gonna be crazy, but like a buddy of mine went blind to go see Real Steel in the movie with the boxing robots. And we were like, this is gonna be crap. But like the relationship and everything was played off so well and everything that at the end when Hugh Jackman is throwing the punches and the kid is like looking at him with these loving eyes and stuff, the whole audience was like cheering. It's such a great theatrical experience and stuff.
01:02:20
Speaker
That's the only thing I can attribute it to out of all the movies I've seen, you know? Because, you know, you go into a Star Wars movie, you're gonna expect a lot of Star Wars fans to overreact to stuff and everything. And Marvel fans, oh, on your left, everybody's gonna blow up, you know? Avengers Assemble, you're waiting for things to happen. With this, there's nothing to wait for, but you still get those moments. It's really cool.
01:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I think if they find a way to bring this back, I mean, I think it's also so much more relevant now than it was even in 1991.
Rocketeer & Today's Themes
01:02:53
Speaker
We're seeing this resurgence of fascist idealization and all that kind of stuff. And
01:02:59
Speaker
especially when you compare it to what was happening in America back then, because again, like I mentioned at the top of this, people forget that there was a lot of Nazi sympathizers in America. One of my favorite Jack Kirby stories is, you know, he was right in Captain America before the US went into the war, before, back at a time when being anti-Nazi was kind of controversial. And you had these American-
01:03:26
Speaker
Right. And there were American Nazis who called up Marvel's offices and they're like, we want to see this Jack Kirby guy who's, you know, this Jewish guy who's writing these Captain America comic books. And like, we're downstairs right now. Jack Kirby's like, okay, fine. He rolls up his sleeves and he goes down the stairs and then they run away.
01:03:49
Speaker
Yeah, he he did the I think didn't he do the the punch out Hitler cover before we were at war with Hitler and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's a little bit of that in in in the scene when Cliff goes to the movies with with Jenny and they go to that there's that movie tone thing happening. And they're showing like, Hitler assures you know, the world that he's not amassing troops on the check border and all this. And you know, he Cliff is under his breath like, Yeah, right. No, that's like,
01:04:17
Speaker
So it's kind of like he was still, yeah, Hitler was still kind of like an up and on top of the table kind of guy. You know, people didn't really like, they were, they were like, some people were nervous of him and the people who were paying the most attention were obviously speaking out against him, but a lot of people were not. Yeah. A lot of people were just like, Oh yeah, look at that Hitler guys. You know, he's got those cool Hugo boss outfits. I don't know.
01:04:38
Speaker
It never struck me until watching this last night, that theater scene, when I realized, I'm like, everybody's like shushing him. And you'd think it's because, oh, well, he's talking to the movie. Of course they're gonna shush him. But now I realized like, oh wait, no, that was actually a controversial thing to say back then at that time. It was probably Disney shushing him. It was probably Walt Disney in the back.
01:04:59
Speaker
There's a great documentary that Ken Burns did fairly recently called the US and the Holocaust. I'm not sure if you saw it. It was airing. I have that in my queue. I want to watch that. Yeah, it's so good. It's so good. And it talks about a lot of this stuff and a lot of the the Nazi sympathies going on during World War Two. There was also Rachel Maddow also did a podcast fairly recently. I can't remember what it's called, but it was all about like the the fascist sympathizers in America leading up to World War Two.
01:05:26
Speaker
And then there's also Hitler's American Friends was a book that had come out recently. So this is a good time to re-explore some of this stuff. And I think it would be a really good thing to go back and bring this character back and to examine that period of life back then. Yeah, for real. Yeah. You see it in a new light with the current events going on and everything for sure. Like when he gives the line about when Sinclair is like,
01:05:53
Speaker
Oh, she's like, Oh my god, nevelson claire is he's like, what, spies have a tour, a fascist know this kind of everything, you know, he just kind of rebels in it and stuff.
Societal Parallels & Hidden Fascism
01:06:02
Speaker
And, you know, there are guys that are out there in our society today that are we got a lot of nevelson claire is running around. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you know, um,
01:06:14
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, great movie. If you're, for some reason you haven't seen this movie, if it never landed on your radar, then best thing I could say is just, you know, go watch it. I'm very certain it's on Disney Plus. I mean, I've got the DVD for you. Yeah, that's where I watched it. Okay, so yeah. Yeah, I mean. High as possible recommendation. Yes, very good movie. It's very fun. And again, like the biggest downside I can say is just that there's not more of it than I wanted there to be more.
01:06:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff.
Ed's Online Presence & Blog
01:06:47
Speaker
Uh, okay. Ed, I think that's all we have to say about the rocketeer. So why don't you tell people where they can find you and yourself? Uh, well, I'm all over Amazon. I'm all over. I'm on Facebook much more than I should be. Um, I got a blog delirium tremens is where you can find the excerpts from my work and links to everything and, uh, news. You can get autographed books and stuff. Uh, that's, um, e-murdalac e-m-e-r-d-e-l-a-c at wordpress.com. You can find me there.
01:07:13
Speaker
and not Twitter in usual places, you know. Okay, great. So we'll have those links in the show notes. Make sure to check those out.
Podcast's Online Platforms
01:07:21
Speaker
Our website is superheroesinafiles.com. SuperCinemapod is the Twitter and Instagram handles. And if you sign up for our Patreon site, you get access to these episodes a week in advance with no ads. And also you get access to the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club.
Book Club Episode Recording
01:07:38
Speaker
If you're part of the book club, then you may have already heard
01:07:41
Speaker
We're recording, the movie episodes are far in advance, but actually very soon, I think maybe tomorrow or the day after, Ed and I are gonna be recording an episode for the book club where we're gonna be talking about Unknown Soldier. By the time you listen to that, that will probably already be on the book club feed, but if you're not a member, you can go sign up for as little as a dollar a month, get access to that and all the other episodes where we talk about comics and graphic novels. Thanks so much for listening, and we will talk to you next time.
Patreon Book Club Offerings
01:08:10
Speaker
If you enjoy the Superhero Cinephiles, then you'll also love my companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. All my Patreon subscribers get access to this exclusive podcast where I review superhero comics and graphic novels. Not sure what comics you want to read next or what you should dive into? I've got you covered on that. I'll be doing reviews, recommendations, and also talking to you about useful entry points
01:08:30
Speaker
If you're interested in reading some comments and don't know where you should start, plus you'll get access to all episodes of the main show a week before everyone else. On all of this for as little as just a dollar a month, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash supercinemapod and you can sign up at any subscription amount to get started.
Closing & Listener Engagement
01:08:47
Speaker
Thanks so much for your support and please don't forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:09:13
Speaker
Thank you for listening, and as always, good night, good evening, God bless.