Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 112: Watch Out, We're Mad! featuring Larry Brown
68 Plays2 days ago
Larry Brown is back and they’ve brought a European romp: Watch Out, We’re Mad (1974). This action comedy stars the classic duo of Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer who must find a way to figure out which of the two gets to keep a dune buggy they’ve won in a race. What ensues is full of madcap action scenes, demure reactions, comedy routines and lots of wild stunts. It’s even got Donald Pleasence as an evil psychologist or doctor of some nature who goads man-baby villain John Sharp into the real estate game. It’s either playing it cool or swinging for the fences and succeeding at both. There’s also one song that will play over and over and over, and we’ve all got thoughts on that. We’ve got thoughts about the whole crazy ride, honestly, so tune in!
Recommended
Transcript
Emphasizing the phrase 'It's bad to be bad'
00:00:15
Speaker
It's bad to be bad. It's bad to be bad.
00:00:27
Speaker
that you would, if you could. And you know that you should. Yes, you know that you should.
Podcast Introduction with Hosts Chris and Greg
00:00:40
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to your favorite bad movie podcast. It's the only podcast that's brave enough to ask the question, if this movie's so bad, why do you like it so much?
00:00:52
Speaker
We're your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson. And with me, as always, I have the dune buggy to my the kid. It's Mr. Greg Boss.
00:01:04
Speaker
Hello. Hello, the kid. How are you? Vroom, vroom. Good. How are you, my beautiful dune buggy? I'm doing well. I'm doing well tonight. It's good to see you. I've got my yellow top, etc.
Technical Reassurance
00:01:14
Speaker
Yes, yes. Listeners, you might feel like we're going back over some previous paces. My computer crashed. The good news is if you're hearing this now, that means this recording went fine.
00:01:26
Speaker
There you go Congratulations to us. You're in the right universe. Yes. I think. We're where we're meant to be. That's right. Unfortunately, we do not have the Ben to my the kid, my lovely wife, Anna.
Guest Introduction: Larry Brown
00:01:42
Speaker
But we have a very special guest. You might remember him from our episode about popcorn, but he's back again, again. It's Mr. Larry Brown. How are you, Larry? Hello. Hello. I am fine. Thank you, Chris. Hi, Greg.
00:01:57
Speaker
Hi. Thank you for your patience with us, Larry. And thank you for bringing such a fantastic movie. I'm very glad you liked it.
Introducing 'Watch Out, We're Mad'
00:02:05
Speaker
You chose our movie this week and you chose Watch Out, We're Mad.
00:02:11
Speaker
Listeners, if you haven't seen Watch Out, we're mad. You should. But here's just a little summary to hold in your mind. If you don't want to stop the episode, watch it
Movie Summary: Racers and Mobsters
00:02:21
Speaker
and then come back. This way you can stick around and still know what we're talking about
00:02:32
Speaker
Rival rally racers, Ben and the Kid, win a dune buggy as tied first prize in a race. But when local mobsters destroy it and refuse to give them a replacement, they get mad.
00:02:50
Speaker
I sure do. I mean, wouldn't you? i would. Those were cherry dune buggies. Yeah, they had to splat it. I'd like to say bitchin'. ah yeah Absolutely. i Those were
Unexpected Charles Manson Reference
00:03:03
Speaker
bitchin' buggies.
00:03:04
Speaker
yeah They were really nice rides. It really makes you understand why Charles Manson liked dune buggies so much I'm sorry? Oh, he loved them. I was unaware of that.
00:03:14
Speaker
ah The next hour is going to be Manson Family Trivia. Thanks for joining us. Woo-wee! We're pivoting, Greg. ah It's true crime now. All right.
00:03:25
Speaker
I love that. We're going to tie every movie into Charles Manson. It's going to be Six Degrees of Manson. Wow. Wow. This time they tie into the dune buggy. was Okay. First day the rest of my life.
Larry's Journey to Fandom
00:03:37
Speaker
So, Larry, you came to us with Watch Out, We're Mad. What do you love about Watch Out, They're Mad? And do you remember when you first saw Watch Out, We're Mad?
00:03:49
Speaker
Well, i I saw it probably about 18 months ago. um Okay. like there's Yeah, sort of the my path to Bud and Terrence fandom. i i was probably I'm sure I would have seen some of their spaghetti westerns when I was a kid because they were you know spaghetti westerns were always on TV where I grew up.
Spencer and Hill's Video Game
00:04:08
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:10
Speaker
I remember like them being kind of thrust into my consciousness back in the, probably what, 10 years ago, a double dragon style fighting game, like brawler game called...
00:04:26
Speaker
ah but Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill slaps and beans where ok wow their characters would travel through what turned out to be all the locations of their movies, slapping henchmen and ah eating lots of beans to restore their health, which is a sort of motif in a lot of their spaghetti Westerns is exactly how much beans they put away.
Bud Spencer Museum in Berlin
00:04:49
Speaker
So that was always in the back of my mind. Okay.
00:04:53
Speaker
The first, we travel quite a bit, and the first time I was going to Berlin, I was looking at, oh, well you know, what's what's in Berlin? And discovered that the Bud Spencer Museum at that time is in Berlin, because it turns out... interesting interesting the Probably the biggest consumers, the biggest fans of the Spencer Hill movies were the Germans.
00:05:14
Speaker
Germans loved their stuff. okay To the point where the German dubs... put extra jokes into the soundtrack whenever the characters backs are turned. So, okay. See like a shot of the back of Terrence Hills head and they'll just put another little, a little pun in there.
Memorable Museum Visit
00:05:35
Speaker
All right. They, they love them. So basically both of the guys left their archives to German museum operators. Okay.
00:05:44
Speaker
Anyway, when ah when I finally got to Berlin, um, I, I went with, uh, with our aunt Helen, um, who knew nothing about it too. What by then was the Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill museum, um, right in like the primo location. It is absolutely central in Berlin. Uh, just so. Okay. Good to know Berlin listeners. I think we might have yeah to check it out.
00:06:08
Speaker
Check it out. It is a riot. And, uh, Honestly, when we walked through the door, the the first clip they show is the hot dog and beer contest. Okay. My my aunt Helen, who who is in her early nineties was just killing herself laughing. So when we came back, I found what's out. We're mad. Watch out. We're mad. And we watched it and had a ridiculously good time with it. So, and there are a lot of prompts from watch out. We're mad, including a doom buggy. and oh Oh, wow. The nice roller coaster carnival game.
00:06:43
Speaker
but Okay, yeah. well yeah that I remember that. with The feet of strength. Yeah. All other stuff. If you happen to be in Berlin, check out the Bud Spencer and Terrence Hill Museum. It is a wild time.
00:06:55
Speaker
That sounds incredible. Now, ah Greg... Had you any background that was relevant
Greg's Encounter with Spencer and Hill
00:07:01
Speaker
to this? I hadn't seen it. Had you seen it? no Frame of reference. So I feel like when I looked them up as I was doing my brief amount of research before, I try to go in relatively clean, but I like to get some amount of research in.
00:07:16
Speaker
I saw these two guys and I was like, they look familiar. i was looking through what they had done. And I think that in captioning, I had seen something that they did, probably a Western.
00:07:27
Speaker
I think the Trinity things sounded familiar. i don't know, but I know that I've seen them before, but was unaware that they were a ah classic duo. So this was interesting. And what was interesting to me is just like the first moment you see them, they just look at each other with this really knowing glance. And I was just like, obviously they've got a history.
00:07:49
Speaker
Like we, we as an audience are supposed to know what that history is and I don't. So I'm like, what is actually happening here?
00:07:58
Speaker
Yeah, but I think you can get up to speed
Chris's College Discoveries
00:08:01
Speaker
pretty quick. Oh, yeah. No, it settles in. It settles in, definitely. I feel like this is a very good entry point. I had never seen a ah Terrence Hill, Bud Spencer film before, but I know i had heard of them in um a class that I took in college, a spaghetti westerns, an Italian horror class. It sounds like a great class.
00:08:23
Speaker
It was a really fun class. Yeah. We did. I think we watched too many Leonis, but I mean, obviously, how could you pick and choose? Which one would you cut? You know?
00:08:34
Speaker
Uh, so, but part of it was that, uh, he talked a little bit about, uh, Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer, then the Trinity trilogy of films being parodies
Eager to Explore Movie Production
00:08:46
Speaker
and that showing that we'd reached the sort of grand guignol finale of the genre and how Italian genres always sort of ebb and flow in this way. And parodies always start to come up at the height of their popularity and signal that it's about to to go on. Yeah.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But I would never checked any of those out because I always thought that I would need more spaghetti Western knowledge to really appreciate it. So it was nice to have this as an entry point. And I thought it was a really fun movie. And I've got a bunch of context research.
00:09:17
Speaker
And now we're on to the part of the show we haven't talked about before. So I'm really excited. You guys excited? Yes, I'm thrilled. All right. Yes. Listeners, we're catching up. Let's talk about how this film got made.
00:09:43
Speaker
I wish I had some context about the background of the film. Script director actors on set. What was going on on screen?
00:09:53
Speaker
I wanna hear some details. Gossips can do all that shit. Can't imagine all the time.
00:10:11
Speaker
So Watch Out, We're Mad, also known as Otherwise We'll Get Mad. The version that I watched had the title Otherwise We'll Get Mad. It was released March 29th, 1974.
00:10:25
Speaker
Directed by Marcello Fandato. And I've got one, two, three, four taglines here. Ooh, very excited. Tagline number one.
00:10:35
Speaker
The boys are back and they've traded in their horses for dune buggies and choppers. It works. It works, but it's, it doesn't have that. it It's got the steak, but not the sizzle. It's wordy.
00:10:52
Speaker
Maybe it sounds better in Italian. and Actually, hold on. they yeah They're not choppers. No, they also don't have choppers. So there's some motorcycle play eventually. But I wouldn't call those choppers. No, but. They're not choppers.
00:11:06
Speaker
right, well, let's let's see where we Maybe it was more colloquial at the time. Tagline number two. It's up and at
00:11:17
Speaker
them. anyone Which one of them is Fallout Boy? Yeah. It's tough to say. I mean, obviously it would be Terrence. It's Terrence, of course. It's Terrence. Tagline number three.
00:11:29
Speaker
You gonna get mad? yeah Okay. Okay. Yeah. I feel like it doesn't harry add much. No, you know no, it doesn't have the oomph that I'm looking for.
00:11:45
Speaker
Number four, when the bad guys get mad, the good guys get mad and everything gets madder and madder and madder.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah. I think I'm definitely, that's my, the one I'm taking. Yeah. Yeah. that's the climb I'm with you on that one. That's. Yeah. Yeah. And it it does sort of tie it into the madcap. It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world type of vibe. which Yeah. yes Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.
00:12:18
Speaker
So Marcello Fondato worked mostly as a screenwriter. The only films in his filmography that I recognized as far as screenplays were two Mario Bava movies.
00:12:30
Speaker
He wrote one of the segments of Black Sabbath, the anthology film, and he wrote Blood and Black Lace, which is very good. Yeah.
00:12:41
Speaker
He worked in a wide variety of genres, like almost every Italian director we've ever covered. He got his first writing gig in 1956 with a movie called Wife and Oxen.
00:12:55
Speaker
But ah he didn't get a shot at directing until 1968 with a crime picture called the Protagonists. I like that title.
00:13:07
Speaker
Il Protagonisti. That could worked as, you know, as one of those, like the, yeah the professionals or like those early seventies crime fight and the protagonists. Exactly.
00:13:20
Speaker
The protagonists did end up getting accepted to the Cannes Film Festival that year. So it actually seemed to at least not be total garbage, you know? ah But unfortunately the festival was canceled due to the widespread political protests in France that year.
00:13:36
Speaker
Of course. yep So poor Marcello Fondato, you know, this is his chance at the international stage and he lost. a Unfortunately for the rest of his career, most of his films did not find an audience outside of his native Italy.
00:13:52
Speaker
In 1974, he directed his fifth film, watch out. We're mad, which he also wrote. Okay. Now watch out. We're mad was the first time he worked with Bud Spencer.
00:14:06
Speaker
But Spencer is largely known, as we mentioned, for working with Terrence Hill, first in Westerns and later in buddy comedies like this one. Fundata must have hit it off with Spencer specifically, though, because he would continue to work with him throughout his career on some of his solo films.
00:14:23
Speaker
He would direct the movie Charleston with Spencer playing con man. And he would write movies like The Sheriff and the Satellite Kid about a small town cop that befriends an alien that looks like a little boy with Bud Spencer as the cop.
00:14:38
Speaker
Come on. Yeah. Spencer and Hill were at this point a very well established on screen duo. They were both in the movie Hannibal in 1959, but they didn't actually meet during filming.
00:14:53
Speaker
They were just, by an odd coincidence, both playing small roles or extras or something. They did actually start collaborating in 1967 with the Spaghetti Western, God Forgives, Doubt.
00:15:05
Speaker
Great title. Really good title. They ended up making 18 films together in total. Their first few pictures were straight up Westerns, but then they transitioned to Western comedies or parodies in 1970 with They Call Me Trinity. And then again with its sequel, Trinity is Still My Name.
00:15:29
Speaker
To this day, Trinity is Still My Name is the ninth highest grossing film of all time at the Italian box office in terms of number of tickets sold. Wow. Beating Italian classics like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, as well as heavy hitter imports like James Cameron's Titanic.
00:15:46
Speaker
Good Lord. People loved these guys. Yes. So what why are we left here? and what what What can we piece together as a gestalt from this bits of information that I can find on IMDb, more or less?
00:16:03
Speaker
It was a buddy picture directed by a guy that never really broke through to the next level, starring two guys that previously had ah some success ah ah dramatically, but were really able to connect with audiences as a comedic duo.
00:16:19
Speaker
To me, this feels like this is the Italian white men can't jump. Yeah.
00:16:28
Speaker
Other action comedies of 1974.
00:16:33
Speaker
Obviously, doing ah the parody game, but here in America, you got Blazing Saddles. Classic. Yep. Okay. You got Freebie and the Bean with James Caan and Alan Arkin.
00:16:50
Speaker
Never heard of that. Classic duo. It is a classic duo, but not not a film that would get screened very much. It's it's ah very, very problematic.
00:17:01
Speaker
Okay. You got Thunderbolt and Lightfoot with Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges. Yep.
00:17:10
Speaker
And you got Uptown Saturday Night with Bill Cosby, Harry Belafonte, and Sidney Poitier. so So various things that wouldn't be shown much these days. Sure. Yeah.
00:17:22
Speaker
For various reasons. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Out of the picks, I'm going to say Watch Out We're Mad is going to be amongst your least problematic. ah yeah very much so it's quite gentle in its humor like yeah yeah it's very family friendly yeah and i'm i'm sure that contributed to its financial success that you this is something that is you know got a four corners audience as they say oh absolutely yeah everyone from little giacomo all the way up to nonna are going to enjoy absolutely yeah you can take everybody out to the theater
00:17:55
Speaker
Well, you guys want to talk about the plot of Watch Out, We're Mad? Yeah, I do. For sure. Me too.
00:18:20
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:18:32
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper.
00:18:46
Speaker
So we open on an RV driving along the highway. I believe it's supposed to be in Spain. It is in Spain, and I think it's supposed to be. And it's being driven by the kid played by Terrence Hill, a handsome, blonde, blue eyed guy, chiseled jaw, big smile. that And he's kind of i want to say he's got a little bit of a Steve Martin vibe to him, sort of a charming goof.
00:19:12
Speaker
Sure. You know, that is sort of can be very physical in his comedy. He's got a little bit of like clowning to him. I say he cuts more of a hunk vibe than Steve Martin does. Yeah, yeah, a hunky Steve Martin. Yeah.
00:19:28
Speaker
Also, can we talk about the song? Absolutely. The song yeah is called Dune Buggy, and it's being performed by the band Oliver Onions. so It sounds like this.
00:19:41
Speaker
Come with me for fun in my baggie. So ah the first time I wrote, I was like, great song. Yeah. And then halfway down the page, I wrote, I hate this song.
00:19:55
Speaker
ah ah Because they're going to play this song, I don't even know how many times, like nine times. I would say at least six. And at the start of it, I'm a dad with my baggy.
00:20:08
Speaker
Come with me for fun in my baggy. It was just like, every time I'd be like, fuck. ah but at first You know, not at first. It's funny. I had the exact opposite reaction. When I first heard it, I was like, this song is kind of weird. What's going on? It's like distracting. It's all over the place. But they kept on playing it any time that the fellows were doing something kick ass. So by like the fourth time around, I was like having this Pavlovian response right here like...
00:20:37
Speaker
Come with me for funding my bargain. Yes, yes, let's go. i think i think it's supposed to have that effect. I think that might be the intent. I think it's also normal for more European cinema to reuse a song over and over again. I think that's pretty standard.
00:20:55
Speaker
um But it was just like, after a while, I was like, I just don't ah just don't want to hear that clip again. Which could make today's episode interesting.
00:21:06
Speaker
Well, we'll see. don't Don't worry too much. Larry, how did you feel about all the bits? I don't ever worry. i yeah i probably i started off happy, and then, yeah, about about halfway through it. Okay, yeah, it's the buggy. But by the end of it, you're back. yeah It's kind of like one of those you know comedy, you know, Tim and Eric bits that just goes on so long, and it becomes funny again. yeah And i don I don't hate the song, but it just every time, that that little bit would begin, like, oh, yeah, right. Yeah.
00:21:37
Speaker
here we go again Come with me for fun in my bargain. ah So speaking of fun in the buggy, there is a dune buggy in town.
00:21:51
Speaker
And ah Ben is admiring it. Ben played by Bud Spencer, who looks kind of like Bluto or a Captain Haddock. He's just a big barrel chested bearded Italian man.
00:22:06
Speaker
You know, that's a little bit like gruff, but he's got a kind of a big handsome smile, you know. he's He's a big teddy bear of a man. And ah he's admiring this dune buggy with the yellow top.
00:22:21
Speaker
And it turns out that this buggy is the prize for a rally cross race. And Ben and the kid are both rival rally cross racers. And the next thing you know, they're racing.
00:22:32
Speaker
Quick question. Have we established in prior films that they're rally cross racers? Is this like a thing for them? Nope. Not that I'm aware of. Do they typically just like specifically, do they find their like way into various, like, is that kind of the thing? it's like, Oh, this time they're police officers. Now this time they're working in a baseball stadium.
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's same actors, but I believe it's, it's other than the Trinity movies and Miami super cops. I think it's, it's pretty much a different, different duo each time.
00:23:05
Speaker
Okay. Okay. ah Well, I think this is certainly a very fun milieu to put the two in. yeah. And do they always have this kind of antagonistic?
00:23:17
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay, okay. Just checking in. It's the Laurel and Hardy, you know, the big irascible guy and the dopey but well-meaning guy. Yeah. And ah so they're off to this rally car race to try and win this Dune Buggy, and we get a great...
00:23:37
Speaker
stunt sequence with lots of really fun car stunts. It really took me back to watching stunt rock and how that like recontextualize this sort of 70s stunt work for me and be like in this like five minute sequence.
00:23:53
Speaker
You probably see like three cars get rolled. You see one car fly off a jump and land on top of another car, two cars flying off a bridge. It's like ah amazing stunt work. That's all just jammed in there for laughs. It's legit stunt stuff. Like this isn't, you know, a little goofy comedy bit. Like that would have taken a lot of planning.
00:24:16
Speaker
Yeah. Or a lot of injured Italian men, you know, But it's definitely, i think, a very fun sequence. And it ends with the two of them ah crossing the finish line at the same time. And then they both leap out of their cars and they race over to the dune buggy and they touch the dune buggy at the same time. It's just an absolute 100% tie.
00:24:39
Speaker
They're going to have to share the dune buggy.
00:24:44
Speaker
They can't. They can't, though. They can't. No, how could they? how could They're oil and water. These two will never get along. o ah So they decide what they're going to do is they're going to have a hot dog eating and beer drinking contest at the amusement park next door to Ben's auto body shop.
00:25:02
Speaker
Seems like an inconsequential amusement park at first. You're just like, yeah, it's, they're just going. Yeah. there's it's just whether Is it temporary or permanent? It doesn't matter. Yeah, I know. Yeah. It's it's it's an odd liminal space carnival. Yeah.
00:25:17
Speaker
So the kid gets briefly distracted by a sexy amusement park, babe, and she'll pop up every now and then as a love interest. But that's like at best a D plot. It's really there's I don't even think she has a name.
00:25:33
Speaker
But before he's in fact, Liza. Yeah. Okay. But i I don't even know if that's mentioned outside of the credits. was going say, I know that because I wrote down her name because when I looked at the credits ahead of time, she was the only woman.
00:25:47
Speaker
And I figured she probably would be the love interest. I could not swear that they actually say her name. Yeah, I don't think that they do. But she was easy enough on the eyes.
00:25:58
Speaker
Sure. Oh, yeah. near eight The great, great Patty Shepard. yeah She crushed it. she knew She understood the assignment. Show and be pretty and smile at Terrence Hill. Nailed it.
00:26:11
Speaker
Yeah. the they they't He doesn't have time for love. No time for love, Dr. Jones. He needs to go to a hot dog eating contest and resolve this buggy situation.
00:26:23
Speaker
Soon the contest begins. The kid, you'll if you'll notice, competitive eating fans, he's using the rabbit method. Which is... Where you nibble on it, you take small bites from the end, like you're eating a carrot.
00:26:39
Speaker
As opposed to, say, the Solomon method. or There are no buns, so this is obviously not going to be like a sanctioned competition. There also seems to be no time limit. This is more of an endurance match. It's obviously not a sanctioned hot dog eating contest. I don't think that even came up.
00:26:57
Speaker
it Don't worry, don't be used. It may be the reason they established sanctions for hot dog eating. con Now that could be true. Yeah. Yes. This is so chaotic that. Yeah.
00:27:10
Speaker
We need standards. We can't have this take all day.
00:27:15
Speaker
But yeah, obviously the people at Nathan's famous and the international eating competition body, they would not approve. of They wouldn't recognize this particular. No, no. This record is no record at all.
00:27:28
Speaker
They'll be kicked out like Kobayashi.
00:27:32
Speaker
Free Kobe. So, ah unfortunately, their ah hot dog eating contest is interrupted by a mob of mobsters.
00:27:44
Speaker
oh They've shown up to bust up the amusement park. It's so strange. It's just cars of men showing up and destroying property without any context while two men are in a hot dog eating competition and they don't they almost refuse to recognize that any of it is occurring.
00:28:10
Speaker
it's such It was such a weird scene for me in It's beautiful. i've I really had me it was good. It was good. right It was just i just the whole I was as a person who is very out of context. So the movie, the whole movie is interesting in that it's from another time in another country.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah. So everything you're looking at, you're like, is that is that what they did at the time? Is that what they do in the place over there? Or is this a joke? Like, I don't know half the time. and So coming in context of this, like, I was like, oh, they're going to know they're not going to react anything. Okay.
00:28:46
Speaker
Oh, they're just not. Okay. So they're to play completely cool. I didn't really. And, you know, so it was, it was an interesting experience. yeah Yeah, and then on top of that, you have ah the the voiceover acting, which can be yeah you know hit and miss, or at least harder to parse. I love dubbed. Any movie that's completely yeah dubbed, I love it. I'm all for it.
00:29:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah. But in terms of like trying to get context clues as to how you're yeah supposed to emotionally read something, it does add an extra layer. Definitely. i One thing I liked in terms of context cues, these are the most mobster-coded mobsters. Oh, yeah. Outside of like and a Jimmy Cagney movie. like Fedoras, pinstripes, in all sorts of wonderful earth tones. Yeah. Yes. There was no mistaking for the the second they arrived. Okay. We've got actual gangsters here. Also, if anyone at home who's not seen this is picturing them with guns, stop it because they don't have any. They have no guns whatsoever, which was interesting thing. do have some axes. Yes. They are smashing up the beer hall.
00:29:53
Speaker
They've got some long poles. Yeah. There's a lot of long poles in this film. Definitely. But it was just very funny to see a movie that's an action movie where there's literally never a gun.
00:30:05
Speaker
and Yeah, it was a different... I mean, well, okay, there is one gun, but yeah, that's a different... Yeah. Yeah. There is a i would ah top of the movie credited master at arms, like and i which has to be a mistranslation of something. Kind of like how the movie was ideated by somebody yeah in the version I saw. But yeah, master at arms. It might be stunt coordinator or fight choreographer. Maybe. Something like that.
00:30:34
Speaker
the person who handled all the sharpened sticks. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you got to check them out with your license. That way he knows you're not going to leave.
00:30:45
Speaker
That's right. ah So, yeah, the the whole part gets busted up. And eventually the fellas realize that they can't. They physically are no longer able to continue their hot dog eating contest.
00:30:56
Speaker
And so they try to relocate. But on their way out, they get stopped by some mobsters and the mobsters end up wrecking their dune buggy. They're going to splat it. They're obviously very upset. I love that they keep saying splat. like I'm going to splat it. going splat your car.
00:31:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's a good threat. I don't want that to happen. No. And it's very effective, the splatting. Yeah, yeah. It really communicates something.
00:31:24
Speaker
So we cut back to the back room of a restaurant nightclub situation where the man behind ah the violence at the park, a British mob boss simply referred to as the boss is there.
00:31:40
Speaker
We also meet the guy behind him, a German psychiatrist named the doctor played by Donald Pleasance. Sopranos who? am I right? What do you guys think of the boss and the doc?
00:31:55
Speaker
and In his introduction, well, in a couple of scenes, I was quite taken with the boss's fuzzy bunny pajamas that he was wearing. Like, he's he's coded as this big infant, and and that sort of plays out in the dynamic with him and and ah and ah fake Dr. Loomis.
00:32:13
Speaker
um But yeah, it's it's a beautiful portrayal of an adult baby. Yeah. It was certainly like a riot of visual information to take in. Like, when at first I was like, okay, wait, we got a lot to parse here. Hold on one second.
00:32:31
Speaker
But it was fun to see them interact, and Donald Pleasance is really chewing the scenery quite a bit. Yes, he's having some fun. He's having a good time, so I always enjoy that. and And he's eating his... heat Because he seems to subsist on a diet of carrots and milk. And is is eating them Bugs Bunny style? Like, he is...
00:32:49
Speaker
I read that as him being a psychiatrist and he brings up Freud a couple times and he noticed that he keeps on eating phallic foods and drinking milk. drinking milk. So for a Freudian analyst, I thought that was a very funny gag.
00:33:03
Speaker
um And yeah, I think the... the Having the boss be this sort of ineffectual man baby does keep him from being frightening and threatening. And it keeps the movie very light. them just be like Oh, doctor, I don't know that i knew i knew i could i knew I could do the boss. I knew had the boss. nailed it.
00:33:28
Speaker
Yeah, he sounds like that. It's great. He is a little bit hard to parse sometimes. his thing is a little He's laying it on thick. Very thick. and and And a guy whose whose career mostly was playing legit heavies. Okay. like yeah you You go back and watch him in old British Noirs. He's the, oh, do you, mate, kind of guy. all right. Not.
00:33:51
Speaker
Eating birthday cake. Oh, hello. oh why What should I do? I want to eat a muffin. We should give them the buggy.
00:34:05
Speaker
We should have just given them the stupid buggy. So that night, the kid and Ben, they go dancing. And one of the boss's men recognizes them from the amusement park. But the boys are able to give him the slip through a lot of great, oh, can I cut in gags? You love an oh, can I cut in gag? Yeah, it's really good.
00:34:25
Speaker
The next day, they go to visit the boss to explain that he owes them a brand new dune buggy, and if he doesn't give it to them, they'll get mad. Then they leave, and the boss is half considering just giving them what they want.
00:34:41
Speaker
But the doc says that a great crime boss wouldn't back down. So the boss takes his advice and sends out his best henchman, Attila, to go find him.
00:34:53
Speaker
Attila was great. he had a big droopy mustache, slicked back hair. and great Great-looking killer. As the boys leave to go back to Ben's garage, Attila sprays their car with gasoline and sets it on fire.
00:35:08
Speaker
yeah They extinguish the fire in a nearby car wash. It's a great gag to see this flaming car driving through these tight city streets and just straight into a car wash. And they discuss how they're going to step up their game if they want to get this replacement buggy.
00:35:26
Speaker
Luckily for them, Attila is taking not one, but two beautiful gals on a date to the amusement park later that night, I think. It must be because it's still within this 24 hour period. Yeah. and this does offer the kid and Ben a couple of prime opportunities to embarrass, bully and belittle him.
00:35:46
Speaker
It's another great fun sequence full of fun visual gags. Attila ditches the gals and flees to a nearby bodybuilding gym. where all the gym rats are in league with Attila.
00:35:59
Speaker
And the kid and Ben spend a good long time beating the shit out of all of them in a comedic action sequence before reminding Attila that the boss has until noon tomorrow to get them their dang replacement buggy.
00:36:11
Speaker
Red with the yellow top. Specifically. I mean, if they have one of those like electric blue with a white top, that also sounds pretty sick in my I need it red with a yellow top. Yeah.
00:36:24
Speaker
yeah All right. All right. and The bad news is the next day at noon, instead of a new red dune buggy with a yellow top, the boss has sent a biker gang to beat up our heroes. They look great.
00:36:40
Speaker
Yeah. They got like cool lightning belts, or lightning bolts on their belt buckles. and Yeah. They're wearing like all black jumpsuits. It's great stuff. ah The good news is ah this offers another opportunity for an extended comedic action sequence.
00:37:00
Speaker
This time on motorcycle. The kid and Ben and knock around a bunch of henchmen while the boss listens in over ah a two-way radio being like confused. be Oh, are we went in.
00:37:13
Speaker
Nope. ah There's a myopic duck hunter who was hilarious. Yes. And there's some motorcycle jousting. All great stuff. Ben is driving in this like big boy motorcycle with extra beefy wheels. He looks sick as hell.
00:37:30
Speaker
He looks like if Mario and Wario had a third guy, would be Ben. I also appreciated that when the scene started, I'm thinking in my head, like, what are they going to do? Like, how are they going to joust on the motorcycles? And they surprised me every time yeah by doing it ways that would have never predicted. And also they did the classic, like rule of three with each of them, but it progresses in a different way that was unexpected every time. And it kind of maintained like one time the kid is, uh,
00:38:03
Speaker
Like making the other guy's stick smaller and eventually then making his stick smaller as well. And it's just like, I didn't expect any of that. It was just like, this was a really fun little moment.
00:38:14
Speaker
And anteing up was really done really nicely. It was really great. Yeah. Anytime you have one of these these extended comedic action sequences, I feel like this movie really delivers on those. Oh, definitely. Like in the way that,
00:38:28
Speaker
When we watched Megaforce, like, I think this stands very much in conversation with, like, Hal Needham films. And, like, I was hoping that the action sequences in Megaforce would have more of this energy. I could see Not necessarily comedic, but competent. And Megaforce just had dog shit.
00:38:45
Speaker
This is all very good, you know, action comedy. i I think it's, I don't know if there is a direct line, but it feels like a precursor to like early 80s Jackie Chan.
00:38:59
Speaker
Oh, for sure. Oh, yeah. It does not have Sammo Hung choreographing, doing Fright choreography. So it's not quite that great, but absolutely the same energy, you know, prop heavy, you know, slapstick violence. It's, yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
Yeah, one little sequence of moves that ends in a gag cut to the next little sequence of moves that ends in a gag. It's great. yeah ah that dot that dot There we go. now Now the boss is desperate for a solution to this, the kid and Ben problem.
00:39:32
Speaker
Luckily, the doc has an idea. He calls in a hitman that works for the Chicago mob called Paganini. Paganini is great when he shows up. He flies in on a prop plane. He's got a big guitar case. likeacchi So weird during Like it's ominous and strange and kind of fun. He looked like a ghoul to me.
00:39:57
Speaker
Yes. Very pale with like very light blue eyes. He also reminded me a lot of character that Noel Fielding might play on the Mighty Boosh. If either of you have seen that, like I just expected, like I could see Noel Fielding dressing up like a mobster, getting very pale, like I'm a dead gangster or something like, or give him the boss's voice. Just dub the boss over Paganini. There you go. It's fantastic.
00:40:27
Speaker
So Paganini, yeah, he shows up and they send him off to go kill the boys. The boys are hanging out over in Ben's shop where the kid admits that he is now officially mad. The kid has gotten mad.
00:40:40
Speaker
Ben said he's not mad yet. And that's when Paganini shows up at the shop and he says, he lets the kid go deal with Paganini. He's like, I really don't want to keep doing this anymore. And the two of them have like,
00:40:53
Speaker
I want to say main character energy. They they feel very much like Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Like they know they're going to come out of this fight. They're at no point where they're like, oh we're in over our head. They're just like, ah, I can't believe we need to do more plot. Why can't we just get what we want?
00:41:09
Speaker
ah I do have a question. They, all their other films, cause this scene in particular, like when Paganini setting up, there's this very much, maybe I asked this already, but like,
00:41:22
Speaker
they They're like, there's a guy over there. response is like, yep. He's like, might be a killer. Yep. Could be. Like, is that kind of the energy they're bringing all the time to everything that they do? Or is that just for this particular film?
00:41:37
Speaker
i think that i've seen that in the spaghetti westerns you know the the uh it's much it feels so to scene isn't it it's the man in black has arrived but and they're just sort of oh him you know yeah as opposed to we're gonna come up with a plan who so yeah they they sort of have that sartana whatever i'll deal with this kind of letp energy okay Yeah. Then it comes off very cool, you know, but it's obviously here played to, you know, the millionth degree for comedy.
00:42:10
Speaker
Uh, so the kid is going to go mess around with, uh, Paganini. Ben he has more important things to do. He has to go to choir practice.
00:42:21
Speaker
the best part of the movie absolutely i'm spoiled for choice it is so good it's so great and and you guys have to see the the trailer that i made for this i watched i watched it before i watched it beforehand it's excellent you did a great very good job but uh for this particular scene i just wrote i'm blown away on caps oh hey just everything about it works so well I mean, as as soon as we open up and we see this choir conductor character, i knew this scene was, I was in good hands. Like, okay, wherever this is going to I want to see this guy. I want to see how he interacts with whatever's going on. Here we are. The choir character is perfect.
00:43:03
Speaker
um Then he starts conducting them and the choir starts singing this very bizarre song. pop choral song with no words. I'll just la la la la la la la la la la la. And it's going to be our outro today. ball ball ball ball ball ball ball And it's so good.
00:43:25
Speaker
And it is just sort of the perfect accompaniment to this scene where Paganini is trying to assassinate the heroes. And the kid is trying to like get Ben out of there. And Ben is trying to like pretend that none of this is happening. And the choir director is getting upset that the song is getting messed up.
00:43:44
Speaker
And it's just this great sort of push and pull between these four characters. Yeah. and And a great little bit in there is the the choir master snaps the baton and reaches down to his supply of several other batons. Because this is obviously, it's known. He's going to go through batons. He's he's a temperamental artiste.
00:44:07
Speaker
Yeah, he gets them in bulk. Yeah. Yeah. There's also like a woman who thinks ah the kid is looking at her. So she's like yeah really excited about things. And then I love that woman, obviously. No, she was fantastic. She was utterly, she was utterly fantastic.
00:44:25
Speaker
She was captivating. She's a marvel. She was. Yes. Yes. There's a bit, there's also two, my favorite, one of my favorite gags where Paganini's trying to assassinate him. So it's like this, this picture and he like pushes it out. So it's like kind of slightly tilted, but there's a woman cleaning. So she pushes it back and then he like pushes it out again so he can see out and then the cleaning woman and they do that.
00:44:48
Speaker
A number of times and just every time i was just like, this is really good. Cause every time Paganini is just like, I'm just going to take it real slow. They'll never see me. And then someone keeps pushing it back.
00:44:59
Speaker
It's really great stuff. It's an incredible scene. And it ends up with the kid swapping out ah Paganini's gun for a violin. He gets the drop on him. He has him at gunpoint. The kid has won.
00:45:15
Speaker
The kid then forces Paganini at gunpoint to play the violin at the boss's restaurant, embarrassing Paganini, the boss, and the doc. All these guys very embarrassed.
00:45:28
Speaker
The boss is now on the verge of backing down at this point. But the doc says he's got a new plan. He theorizes that the old man that the old man that works at Ben's garage, Jeremiah, is actually the mastermind behind all of their opposition. And if they can take him out, Ben and the kid will crumble.
00:45:52
Speaker
Not cool. Back at the garage, we you learn that Ben got kicked out of the chorus. And he's been practicing. We saw him practicing before. and it was really good to see what he was practicing pay off when you got to the chorus. oh yeah That yeah was such a good payoff. Yes. But it also makes it does kind of sad. Like, this is clearly something that he works very hard on. So it's a shame that he got kicked out for all this trouble.
00:46:17
Speaker
ah But he tells the kid to go hit the road. He's out of the dune buggy revenge business. But then he goes inside and he finds out that the boss's goons have beat up Jeremiah.
00:46:29
Speaker
So now Ben is also mad.
00:46:33
Speaker
So Ben and the kid, they show up at the boss's restaurant, but they had turned away because there's some sort of private function going on. Undeterred, they hop in Ben's car and crash it through the front door.
00:46:46
Speaker
And we get another hijinks film comedy action sequence of the car driving through the restaurant.
00:46:57
Speaker
And yeah, there are balloons and henchmen flying everywhere. And then they get out of the car and they're throwing haymakers. And it's great stuff. It's another. This is like the sixth super fun action sequence. And the balloon business was a really good business. Like it was a really fun idea. I'm frankly shocked I haven't seen other movies doing something similar. just the the popping every time some henchman goes flying. It's great stuff.
00:47:26
Speaker
Yeah, it really plays. And, you know, just like one of the things that we loved so much about Primitive War was like every eight minutes you'd have an extended dinosaur fight sequence. It feels like this movie hits you up with a comedic action sequence with alarming regularity. It just is knows that that is how it's going to keep you locked in, that that's what people want to see. And it knows that it has to deliver on it. And it does. It's really admirable.
00:47:56
Speaker
But yeah, the fellas beat the shit out of everybody. The next day, the boss and all his beat up goons show up the at the garage. He has replacement buggies for both of them.
00:48:10
Speaker
And he's also no longer going to try and shut down the amusement park and build a skyscraper there, which was something that he was trying to do. He has a weird plan. It's a weird plan by the doctor to be like, we're going to we're going to scare that fair out of there and put up a skyscraper of evil.
00:48:27
Speaker
that could be used as an airplane hanger somehow yeah yeah but you know property developers as villains sure I buy it gotta have a plan
00:48:42
Speaker
But anyway, they gave that up and they're going to pack up their bags and leave town. The fellows, they start sipping around in their new dune buggies. They're so happy. They're just doing like figure eights around each other.
00:48:55
Speaker
But unfortunately, in all the fun and the shenanigans, the kid bumps into Dune's buggy, into Ben's dune buggy, causing it to roll and catch fire. Well, actually, he gets distracted by the female in the film. Exactly. It's true. He does he sees a pretty lady.
00:49:12
Speaker
The lady that he's talked to every, I want to 20 minutes. Yep. ye
00:49:20
Speaker
But yeah, that does cause Ben's buggy to roll and catch fire. Now there's only one buggy left between them. So there's only one thing to do. It's time for a beer and hot dog eating contest. Roll credits.
00:49:35
Speaker
Come with me for finding my buggy. So what do you guys think of and Watch Out, We're Mad? Final thoughts, five-star ratings, watchability and weirdness. Greg, hit us up.
00:49:49
Speaker
Okay. So I'm going to start with my rating this time because it's got a bit of an asterisk on it. So three and a half for watchability with an asterisk. Okay. So for me, like once, so you said like every eight minutes there's action and they're going and it's great. And all those action sequences are incredible, but it does take about 30 minutes for that to start.
00:50:08
Speaker
And what I found is that when they were in motion, if they were literally moving, I was having a blast. um But if they were sitting, i was just like, what they're doing is just not reacting to everything that's happening to them, which is a choice and it is a comedic thing.
00:50:27
Speaker
And I think if i was aware that that's what their attitude was going to be beforehand, that would have helped me out a little bit or if this was like not the first of their movies because I just wasn't familiar with their rhythms and their timing and that stuff. So and also, like I said before, you're dealing with the fact that it it's from another time, it's from another country. It's a comedy. So I'm trying to take all this information in and be like, what is something I have to pay attention to?
00:50:58
Speaker
What is a joke? What is just a choice that was made in 1974 someone one might make that isn't a joke, but I might be interpreting as such. Like when they went into the gym, they just stop and they look at everybody. And I realize now that probably what they were surprised by was the fact that they didn't see him.
00:51:19
Speaker
They didn't know where the guy that they were following went. But I was just like, are these outfits or jokes? Are these guys in joke outfits? Is that, am I supposed to laugh at that? there was a lot of that for me.
00:51:31
Speaker
And so I think, The next time I were to watch this film, I'd probably give it a watchability of four. I think it's very watchable. There was just so much coming at me all at once that I was like, I'm having trouble keeping track of it all.
00:51:46
Speaker
And every time I looked at them, I like what are they doing? They'd be like, they're just sitting there. ah And so, but like I said, I think if I'd been aware of that ahead of time, would have i would have realized that that's the idea.
00:51:58
Speaker
That's what they're supposed to be doing. yeah um But all the action sequences are incredible. i think the movie is kind of weird. ah you Like the stories, of but I think it's a comedy. So I think it's a little heightened. It's supposed to be, but like for the previous thing I was saying, where you're like trying to parse everything out and trying to figure out what's a joke, what's not. I'm going to give it a weirdness of three, but I really enjoyed myself. Glad to have seen this one. So thanks for bringing it on.
00:52:26
Speaker
Fair enough. I gave it a watchability of four. thought there were lots of laughs. There were great stunts, great chemistry between our leads, just sort of a goofy good time. And I think it is ah not a five star just because so many American audiences, even people who are into foreign films, rarely look for like foreign low comedies. Like we're very rarely looking outside of America for this sort of content. The only...
00:52:54
Speaker
thing that I've seen that's even comparable in terms of foreign comedies is, uh, Takeshi Kitano's getting any, which is like this weird, Japanese sex comedy. That's very funny. And like, sort of having watched that before i was able to at least understand that I don't like get out of my head about some of that stuff that I think that was interrupting your thought process. Right.
00:53:22
Speaker
Um, But yeah, I think this is a very approachable film. For Weirdness, I only gave it one star. I think it's it's a pretty straightforward buddy comedy. But ADR dialogue does always have sort of a surreal air that I think, you know, that can give it one star of Weirdness in my book.
00:53:40
Speaker
What about you, Larry? Watchability and Weirdness out of five stars. ah I kind of upped my letterboxd rating on the rewatch. So yeah, four four and a half on Watchability. I think it...
00:53:53
Speaker
it's kind of universal it there's a lot of stuff in there that is gonna remind you of like laurel and hardy and aot and costello like it it's a pretty classic comedy duo dynamic um the there's nothing to uh I guess, well, there's like literally nothing adult or yeah um complex about the themes. I mean, the closest we get to any kind of adult relationship is that the kid thinks that Liza is pretty.
00:54:27
Speaker
Yeah. You have 10 year old boys starting to discover girls dynamic. um So and and yeah, I just thought it, I think because i I, was more used to the kind of, yeah, we're just going to watch this play out and then step in and make it awesome vibe of, you know, they they are pretty laconic heroes. That that didn't bother me.
00:54:54
Speaker
um and i guess having seen more of their stuff but yeah i i get their comic persona uh or more used to it um weirdness yeah i'm probably gonna come in around a three there it is pretty surreal um you know the choice the choice to make the the boss into this sort of overgrown infant um And Donald Pleasance having the time of his life.
00:55:20
Speaker
ah Yeah. you Chewing up the carrots and the scenery. um and And that, yeah, like doesn't seem to be really set in anything resembling the real world.
00:55:31
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. That's about where I land. Well, that's fair. I think we're all in the same ballpark. We're all we're all watching the same movie here. Mm-hmm.
00:55:43
Speaker
Well, I think that means it's time for us to move on to Ag 3 of the show. And this week, for our segment, we're doing a little bit of a mini film school. Ooh.
00:56:04
Speaker
Mini Film School. It's gonna be great.
00:56:11
Speaker
It's Mini Film School. We're going to teach you a lesson in our Mini Film School now. And class is in session.
00:56:32
Speaker
All right, c class, this week in Mini Film School, we're talking about MacGuffins. Ooh. Okay. So in Watch Out We're Mad, the dune buggy, or a replacement for a destroyed dune buggy, serves as MacGuffin, I would say.
00:56:48
Speaker
So what is a MacGuffin? A MacGuffin is a plot device used to motivate the main characters that normally takes the form of an object that they want to possess.
00:57:01
Speaker
But the nature of the object is essentially arbitrary in that while the characters believe that the object is important and specific, for the audience, it could be really anything. You could make this movie where the first prize was, you know, ah ah cotton candy machine. You know, it doesn't really matter that much. I love that it's a dune buggy too. I feel like a dune buggy, like one of my favorite jokes on the Simpsons is just like, they get a lot of money and someone's like, what should we do This is like, we're rich. Let's get dune buggies.
00:57:31
Speaker
And there's something about like that concept of just like a dune buggy does feel like a, like an everyday luxury item. It feels frivolous. It's something that yeah don't need and you spent money on for pleasure. It would be pretty cool and probably pretty attainable.
00:57:50
Speaker
Yeah, like not a million dollars on. This is something that you could probably get for like 10K, I want to say. But still, people would think people would drive home the night that they met you and saw your dune buggy and think, maybe I should get a dune buggy. That's right. Yeah. I think they used to have them as prizes on the prices right back in the 70s and 80s. Oh, I'm Brand new dune buggy. That level of, you know, whoa. Yeah. I wouldn't buy one, but what the heck. Yeah.
00:58:18
Speaker
Yeah, like ah like a jet ski sort of situation. was just go to say i'm just gonna say it's much better than a jet ski, but I don't like water, so. Yeah, it's ah it's a land jet ski or like a safer ATV maybe.
00:58:31
Speaker
Sure. ra kate But anyway, they they've burst into flames at this. Yeah, so i will say I will say that when the fact that he doesn't have the dune buggy, where like I mean, they keep bursting into flames, so in some ways this is maybe better for you in the end.
00:58:47
Speaker
It's true. Both of them, they barely had them for less than a week before they burst into flames. They had them for less than a day, I feel like. You're probably right. Now, let's see. Ta-da. Ta-da-ta-ta-ta-ta.
00:59:02
Speaker
Now, another classic example of a MacGuffin is, say, the golden fleece that Jason the Argonauts were questing for in Greek myth. Instead of a golden fleece, it could have been a giant ruby or an ancient book of knowledge or some old socks. Doesn't really matter.
00:59:16
Speaker
ah Just long as we in the audience believe that it's something worthy of Jason the Argonauts' adventures. So we have to believe that, at the very least, this was a nice dune buggy that these guys liked. It looked like a nice dune buggy.
00:59:28
Speaker
It did. You gotta figure of all the Argonauts, Hercules would be most into dune buggy ownership. think so. I figure her could really dig on one.
00:59:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, he needs to cut loose a little bit. Yeah. So other classic MacGuffins include the Holy Grail from Arthurian legend. Pretty much everything that Indiana Jones ever looked for.
00:59:53
Speaker
Yep. The Maltese Falcon from the Maltese Falcon is a classic MacGuffin. The suitcase full of light in Pulp Fiction. Yep. And pretty much any spy movie where the spies are going after a disc or some sort of list or a code. Those are all going to be MacGuffins.
01:00:10
Speaker
I would also say even a large sum of cash, for the most part, almost always serves as MacGuffin. Yeah. You guys got any favorite MacGuffins that I'm omitting from my list?
01:00:24
Speaker
I was trying to think of that. i was like, ooh, do I have a favorite one? oh I got another one I just thought of. ah P.B. Herman's bike. Oh, that's a classic. That's a classic.
01:00:37
Speaker
I would say the Chevy Malibu in Repo Man. Okay. Yep. Yep. Absolutely. I'm blanking for some reason. ah I'm going to say the truck full of DVD players in Fast and the Furious, maybe.
01:00:53
Speaker
can't say I remember that. Yeah, that was what they were after in the first movie. That was the big prize. That's a truck full of DVD players. it was a different time. Yeah, was. Now, ah the term MacGuffin, for those that are curious, was coined by an English screenwriter named Angus MacPhail, who wrote, among many other films,
01:01:16
Speaker
he wrote up he wrote a lot of Hitchcock movies. ah He started with The Lodger in 1927, did The Wrong Man in did Spellbound,
01:01:29
Speaker
But it was Hitchcock who ended up popularizing the term with his 1935 film, The 39 Steps, where the MacGuffin was plans for a spy plane. In 1939 lecture at Columbia University, Hitch explained the arbitrary of nature of MacGuffin like this.
01:01:48
Speaker
It might be a Scottish name. I'm going to try it. Yeah, I see that. i mean I see and hear that. Yeah, okay. It might be a Scottish name taken from a story about two men on a train.
01:02:05
Speaker
One man says, what's that package up there in the baggage rack? And the other answers, oh, that's a MacGuffin. The first one asks...
01:02:18
Speaker
What's a MacGuffin? Well, the other man says, It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands. And the first man says, But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands.
01:02:35
Speaker
But the other one answers, Well then, that's no MacGuffin. So you see that a MacGuffin is actually nothing at all.
01:02:48
Speaker
I might cut that. That might have been incomprehensible. That was an interesting quote. Not what I expected. And an excellent Robert Morley impersonation.
01:02:59
Speaker
Well, yeah. I'm just going to move on with my life. It's time for a little game. We're going to play a little This Guy Played That Guy. School's out.
01:03:14
Speaker
This guy played that guy. Yeah! This guy played that guy! This guy played that guy! In a film!
01:03:35
Speaker
So we're doing a little bit of This Guy Played That Guy with the films of Donald Pleasance. The man has over 245 IMDB credits from 1952 to 1999. He's also the latest addition to the Two Timers Club, having been on here in Terror in the Isles. Check out our episode of Terror in the Isles with David Winter.
01:03:58
Speaker
His terror films.
01:04:02
Speaker
Well, some of these may indeed be terror films, but probably not. But this is a buzz in game. What I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a title and a plot description and three character names. I want you to tell me which character was played by Donald Pleasence.
01:04:17
Speaker
You'll buzz in by saying your own name. If you get it wrong, your opponent will have the chance to steal. Is everybody ready? Okay. Yeah. All right. Question number one. Where is Parsifal?
01:04:31
Speaker
An eccentric inventor invites a colorful assortment of businessmen to his remote castle, hoping to sell them his new laser. Did Donald Pleasance play Macintosh, Montague Chippendale, or Klingzor?
01:04:49
Speaker
Craig. Larry? Montague Chippendale.
01:04:56
Speaker
Okay. no I'm sorry. He wasn't Montague Chippendale. Greg, can you steal? Can you give me the two options again? McIntosh or Kling-sore. So it doesn't make any sense to me, and that's why i'm going to pick it. I'm going to say Kling-sore.
01:05:12
Speaker
I think Kling-sore was played by Orson Welles. Wow. Good for Welles. Question number two. No points on that one. He was McIntosh.
01:05:22
Speaker
But question number two. Phantom of Death.
01:05:29
Speaker
A pianist suffering from progeria goes on a killing spree.
01:05:35
Speaker
Did Donald Pleasance play Robert Domenici, Inspector Dati, or Dr. Vani? Greg. Greg? Inspector Dati.
01:05:49
Speaker
Come with me for fun in my baggie. You've got it. Yeah. You're on the point. Question number three. American rickshaw. lot of these movies sound really good.
01:06:02
Speaker
American rickshaw. A Miami rickshaw driver finds himself entangled in the murder of a man he just met. Becomes part of a good versus evil battle between an ancient Chinese witch and an evangelist who is actually the devil.
01:06:19
Speaker
Wow. Did. Did. Donald Pleasance play Reverend Morton, Professor Clint, or Sergeant Preston?
01:06:30
Speaker
Larry. Larry? The Reverend.
01:06:37
Speaker
You got it? You're on the board?
01:06:41
Speaker
Question number four. Computer side. so God, that's a real movie. Okay. The year is 1996. And Michael Stringer is the only private eye left on Earth.
01:07:01
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. yeah So he's cornered in the market. He's hired to investigate Eden Isle, a techno-utopian community founded by a wealthy industrialist, only to get caught in a web of intrigue.
01:07:16
Speaker
Did Donald Pleasance play Chief Sorensen, Emery Quarter, and Emery Quarter's clone, or George Dettler?
01:07:28
Speaker
Okay, Greg. Greg? I just want to say Emery Quarter and Emery Quarter's clone. No, I'm sorry. That one was the Greg date. Yeah, and I took it and I loved it. It was delicious.
01:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, good for you. I will go with George Detler.
01:07:52
Speaker
Larry, you've taken the lead. Question number six. The Puma Man.
01:08:02
Speaker
Thousands of years ago, aliens visited Earth and fathered Puma Man, a man god given supernatural powers by a gold mask and the ability to control people's minds.
01:08:15
Speaker
Did Donald Pleasance play Museum Curator, Rankin, or Cobras? Like Cobras, but with a K. Cobras. That's how I'm pronouncing Larry.
01:08:30
Speaker
Larry? Museum Curator. I'm sorry he wasn't the Museum Curator. Greg, can you steal? Can you get the options again, please? Rankin or Cobras?
01:08:45
Speaker
So I regret not taking Cobras, but it's going to be Rankin.
01:08:50
Speaker
Oh, no. I'm going to regret it. Yeah. It's the right playing game left to play. thought it was the Greg bait. I thought it more Greg bait, which is delicious. No, no, this time. You eat it twice, and it's trouble. Yeah, you don't want to get a stummy.
01:09:04
Speaker
Question number seven. Jaguar lives. The world's newest karate hero is out to stop drug dealers, gangs, and help save the world from an evil con man.
01:09:21
Speaker
Did Donald Pleasant's play Sensei, General Villanova, or Koblenz?
01:09:32
Speaker
Larry. Greg? Koblenz. No, sorry. He didn't play Koblenz. Spelled C-O-B-L-I-N-T-Z.
01:09:43
Speaker
Wow. i mean I'm going to go against my instincts and say, did he play the sensei? No, he unfortunately. would have been a great sensei. He was General Villanova. okay It seemed too easy.
01:10:00
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Sometimes they are, though. Yeah. Sometimes you can overthink it. so It's a guessing game. Question number eight. Honor thy father.
01:10:12
Speaker
A man travels to Siena, Italy, looking for his long lost father, a jockey that he's never met. When he gets there, he learns that his father is dead. But that's just the beginning.
01:10:25
Speaker
Wow. Did Donald Pleasance play the Bishop of Siena, Turtle Captain, Or Aldo Rossi?
01:10:37
Speaker
Too many good choices. Yeah, this is a toughie. Greg. Larry. Greg? The turtle captain. No. He wasn't the turtle captain. Larry, still- will go with the Bishop of Siena.
01:10:53
Speaker
No. Oh, man. He played Adolfo Rossi? He played Aldo Rossi. Aldo Rossi. All right. Last question. the score is two to one.
01:11:04
Speaker
It's all come down to this. Question number nine. Django strikes again. a monk returns to his former life as a gunfighter when his estranged daughter is kidnapped by a Hungarian slaver.
01:11:21
Speaker
Woof. Did Donald Pleasant's play Ben Gunn El Diablo Orlowski Or Brother Ignatius.
01:11:36
Speaker
Larry. Larry? El Diablo. No, sorry. He wasn't El Diablo Orlowski. What are my two options again? All I can think of is El Diablo.
01:11:50
Speaker
Ben Gunn. Or Brother Ignatius. Ben Gunn. You've tied it up, Greg. Uh-oh. you've tied it up gregg uo Congratulations.
01:12:07
Speaker
Oh, geez. Okay. That means I'm gonna have to come over with the tiebreaker on the fly. I mean, or we're going to call this one a tie. Congratulations to both of you. Well, thank you. Yeah.
01:12:19
Speaker
Just like, In the movie. Now you guys are going to have to have a hot dog you had the hot contest. I just ate, but sure, let's do it. All right. Listeners, check out the Instagram for feed of the hot dog Uh-oh, it's the Batty Awards.
01:12:43
Speaker
Now you're messing with us. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:12:53
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards.
01:12:59
Speaker
Congratulations all the nominees.
01:13:06
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. It's the Batty Awards. The awards that we give out to those little moments and people and details that make a bad movie so good.
01:13:19
Speaker
Greg, do you have a Batty Award? I sure do. It's that this movie... Sometimes you watch a movie and you have a realization about yourself, and I definitely did while watching ah Watch Out, We're Mad. And it's this.
01:13:32
Speaker
If someone said... do you want to take a ride on a Ferris s wheel with me? There's no driver. My response would be a hard pass. I'd be like, no, I'm not going to get in that Ferris wheel with you. There's a scene where he's dating Liza or whatever. They're like going to shut down the fairgrounds. They sit in there and she's like, you can't start it up. They'll come. He's like, I'm just going to play the music or whatever. And then they both sit down and he like kicks the switch and it starts. And inside I was screaming. I just like, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. And I was it was just like, okay, so I've learned something about myself. Obviously, this terrifies me, this concept of being on a Ferris wheel. I'm being trapped in Ferris all night.
01:14:11
Speaker
if it Just going around and around and around and never stopping. And it was just, yeah, took me to a place. So thank you. Watch out. We're mad.
01:14:22
Speaker
Well, congratulations being trapped on a Ferris wheel. don't You win a baddie.
01:14:32
Speaker
I'm going to give my baddie award. i was going to give it to ah the one of the gals that Attila goes on a date with is wearing this mustard mini dress with a floral pattern around the waist that just looks so good. It's such a great piece of costumery.
01:14:52
Speaker
But I have to give it to the baddie in the chorus, the gal with the glasses and the part right down the center. yeah She's great. Obviously, I'm going to be over the moon for that gal. I have to give her a baddie award. She's a baddie. She is. She's an official baddie.
01:15:11
Speaker
Larry, do you have a baddie award? I think my Batty Award is more the concept of having an an unerring sense of aim. um Both Ben and the kid several times demonstrate that they are, in fact, the daredevil nemesis bullseye um and are able to like hit things with the most... like At one point, they they kind of...
01:15:39
Speaker
bullet This gang of kids are playing this bizarre stickball type game in front of the garage. and yeah And the kid borrows a stick. And they're basically the ah idea is to flip a stone into the air and then hit it at a target. And he manages to knock one of the letters off of Ben's sign. So it's just hanging there.
01:16:01
Speaker
Ben comes up looking quite annoyed and and hits a stone that reattaches the letter. And there's there's several examples of just this unerring mutant ability to like throw or hit things within a like one centimeter square target. And it was very pretty impressive. No special effects involved, I believe. so no yeah yeah yeah Just a couple takes, but they got them. Exactly.
01:16:31
Speaker
Well, Larry, I got to say you hit the mark perfectly with your selection. This movie this week. Thank you so much for coming and hanging out with us again. you have anything going on that you want to plug? Oh, no, I'm well, I'm unless my balcony garden is something to plug. I'm growing some vegetables on my balcony. So nice. Look for more details of that on my blue sky account. If you happen to follow me.
01:16:54
Speaker
All right. Well, listeners. come back next week. We're going to be joined by Jesse black from Savant guard. We're going to be talking about 13 ghosts. I'm very excited. The newer 13 ghosts, not the William castle, 13 ghosts.
01:17:12
Speaker
And, we will also, ah Hey, I'm just going to ask you, give us that five stars. If you haven't given us that five stars, your phone's in your hand. Give us that five stars. Leave a follow, leave a comment, subscribe. Find us on ah Instagram. Find us on blue sky.
01:17:30
Speaker
It's all in the link tree in the show description. And yeah, until next week, be good. And I am going to pull some music from the movie this week. I couldn't resist. I stopped doing that, but I had to go back for one last dip so that you can hear some of this choral music.
01:17:46
Speaker
So enjoy that. Until next week, be good and goodbye. Goodbye. One, two, three, four. La, la, la, la, la.
01:18:09
Speaker
Bye. Bye. Bye.
01:18:28
Speaker
bearra but the gura but but butra but but but