Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
1941 - He Was In The Amazon With His Bodyguard When He Was Researching Snakes Right Before He Fell In Love
57 Plays1 year ago
The Big Daddy of movies, Citizen Kane! We get into the most celebrated film of all time, as well as peeping werewolves, proto-Brooks/Zucker Bros comedy, formative film noir, Hays Code horniness, nostalgic coal mines, and jewel stealing robots!
You can watch along with our video version of the episode here on YouTube!
You can check out our Instagram, Twitter, and other social media crap here: http://linktr.ee/1w1y
And you can watch and form your own opinions from our 1941 Films Discussed playlist right here!
See you next year!
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
rose by
00:00:07
Speaker
Hello and welcome to One Week One Year, podcast where we watch and discuss every year of film history in order starting in 1895, the dawn of cinema. And this episode is 1941. I'm one of your hosts, Chris Ellie. I'm a film projectionist and joining me as always is...
00:00:26
Speaker
I'm Glenn Correll and I'm a filmmaker. Oh, got some stank on it that time. I like it. Why I oughta, why I oughta make a film. I've been watching 40s movies. It's on the mind. Why have you been watching 40s movies? Because that's what we do on this thing. 1940s. We watch old stuff.
00:00:52
Speaker
Did you just ah hesitate to call it a podcast? I think subconsciously, yes. On this ah thing. ah What's up, Glenn? What's going on? It's been ah but a minute since we recorded, but it's all good because we're here again now.
00:01:09
Speaker
I've done yet another move across the country that be delayed us for a while. Yeah. You know, no biggie. I don't know. Yeah. Work is wrapping up for the, for the year, for the season. I got a nice shiny new laptop to play with. And so things are going just swell. Just swell.
Chris's New Job as Film Projectionist
00:01:30
Speaker
I, uh,
00:01:32
Speaker
Got a new job doing film projection at the National Gallery of Art. So now I live in Washington, DC. Back on the same time zone, so that's convenient. Hey, yeah, that is. Makes recording, I guess, somewhat more convenient. I'm going to be ah projecting The Adventures of Prince Ahmed on 35 millimeter on January 5th. Oh, dang.
Historical Context of 1941
00:01:58
Speaker
Come on down, if you like. You can have a lot to say about it, too, now.
00:02:03
Speaker
um you can answer You can answer any questions people have. I've seen this movie before. Yeah. ah Well, hey yeah you can tell one this is actually the first animated feature not snow point Well, it's the earliest surviving animated feature but to future well ah We're not a podcast where we talk about what our jobs related to movies are We're a podcast where we talk about movies, but we're also not a podcast where we just talk about movies We're a podcast that talks about movies in the context in which they were released so
00:02:41
Speaker
Let's revisit that lovely year, 1941. And let's do our stupid gimmick news segment. Ready? The news of the year, 1941. Franklin Darno Roosevelt is sworn in for an unprecedented third term as President of the United States. Liberty amongst horrors. The United Service Organization is formed to entertain the troops.
00:03:09
Speaker
The chemical element plutonium is discovered at the University of California. The The Allies capture an Enigma coating machine aboard a German U-boat. A new breakfast cereal, Cheery Oats, is first sold. Gotta do something about that name. The Viet Minh is formed in Vietnam to overthrow French rule. Disney animators go on strike over unequal pay and privileges.
00:03:38
Speaker
Nazi Germany invades and declares war on the teenager is first recorded in print. Wonder Woman is introduced in All Star Comics number eight. A day which will give an infamy. Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, catapulting the United States into World War II.
00:04:04
Speaker
And that is the, name there was also, it's worth mentioning, there was also a bunch of Holocaust stuff that is a huge bummer, but we need to acknowledge it. But like, do feel it didn't feel right doing it in a goofy old timey news voice. Cause it was like actual horrors and crimes against humanity. Yeah. That also happened, but like, I i don't like doing it in a goofy voice.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yes. ah Feels weird to not acknowledge the horrors that are happening. Feels weird to acknowledge the horrors in the established style that we acknowledged things. I think when we started this podcast, we were like, eh, a goofy news segment. do Read the news. And the whole time we voiced. And now we're like, this news sucks. And I don't want to read it anymore. Yeah. The news is generally unpleasant.
00:04:59
Speaker
Yeah. ah Well, you know, something that
Exploring 1940s Superman Cartoons
00:05:04
Speaker
is pretty pleasant. What's that out of the way? but it's Something that is pretty pleasant is truth, justice, and the American way. ah so ah I mean, truth and justice, maybe. I'm a little shakier on the American way, honestly. Yeah, yeah. ah ah But let's let's go with it. it's ah It's time for One Week One Real at Superman.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah, Superman. You got Superman cartoons. Fleischer Brothers Superman. Yeah, hell yeah. Back to some public domain stuff, exactly. Oof. Mwah, mwah. We love the public domain. Wait, how are these public domain? Because it's like...
00:05:43
Speaker
Um, it had something to do with like, you know, i was like the how, like who, what company owned it and like who renewed copyright when and all that kind of thing. It's like Superman, the character is not popular to me, but I guess just these, these shorts are correct on their own. Yeah. Spoilers. They rule. They're super cool and fun.
00:06:04
Speaker
should have called it super cool and fun, but they they call it Superman versus the robot. It's the mechanical monsters. please Let's get get the name right. ah Yes, the first two released were 41. And one is is called Superman. And one is called the mechanical monsters. I definitely see mechanical monsters before. I think I had seen just the, you know,
00:06:28
Speaker
self-titled Superman one also. I'm pretty much in exactly the same situation. Like I've definitely seen the second one. I probably have seen the first one. Yeah, this is the the iconic rotoscoped Superman, which, you know, Fleischer brothers were all ah the the pioneers of rotoscoping. But like this one feels very rotoscopy. But I think that here it's like such a thing. It feels I haven't really counted it or looked it up, but it's like it feels like it's animated on like twos or like
00:07:04
Speaker
Very, very fluid, very like a lot of frames in this animation. And so there's like there's like a ah smoothness to it that I think is it good stylistically and not just like a kind of weird thing like you're looking at a high frame rate television, you know.
00:07:23
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yes, the animation is super gorgeous and like lavish. I feel like it gets a lot of like painted backdrops and like they're super colorful and also just full of cool, wacky like having 40s comic book shit to like robots and decades. Yeah, yeah. ah Before the comic books got woke.
00:07:52
Speaker
Back when it was about death rays. I'm joking, I'm joking. Honestly, I think that the painted backdrops are like the best thing about this. They all look incredible. The animation is cool and iconic, but like the the the world, the kind of extremely art deco world that Superman lives inside of in these like really painterly deco backdrops is incredible. It's so cool.
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah. You can really see, I think, like how influential these have been. you know I mean, the probably the most obvious influences I've had as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is like,
00:08:32
Speaker
has like frames taken directly from mechanical monsters in it. Mechanical monsters is a big one. Honestly, like I was looking at the the Wikipedia page for that short, and it was talking about all of these things that referenced that ah the mechanical monster short. A lot of Miyazaki stuff, too.
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, well, speaking of anime, there was like, uh, there's there is of of a battle, a fight in the Endovivigalian movie that I was like, I was watching that short and I was like, Oh, they're kind of like doing almost the same thing here. Like oh shit there' ah there's a point where someone's getting attacked by a whole bunch of like similar robots and like is doing a lot of the same moves to them. Oh, cool.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know like how intentional it was, but like it felt like, oh, oh this is like the same the same fight. Does does Andy B. Vangelian also have a scene where robots steal a bunch of jewels and also a lady? It does. actually i do love just the It feels like such a kind of like old-timey, like, childhood, like, vision. I'm like, what would a robot, what would you do with a robot? It's like, I don't know, skilled jewels and, like, put a lady in there. I mean, like, there's, there's that bit where right Superman's chasing after the robot's flying away and uses x-ray vision to look inside the robot. What's inside the robot? A pile of jewels and Lois Lane.
00:09:58
Speaker
Well she jumps into the robot because she's like, yeah there's a scoop anywhere inside of this robot. it's in sort It's inside of this robot that has a scoop for a chest. Yeah, she's there to get the woman's angle is I think what but the, I guess Perry White tells her to do. um Classic 1940s newspaper lingo.
00:10:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think in the first episode, there's a part where Clark Kent is saying, isn't this job a little much for a woman or something like that? And in some versions, in most versions that have been released in the last 20 years of that, it kind of cuts it off. And he's like, don't you think that job's a little too difficult for? It takes it out. Oh, really?
00:10:53
Speaker
yeah Yeah, yeah, I don't remember now which version of it that I watched if you if you had a moment where you said yikes Superman then ah probably it was not that but the sha did at some point in both of them it was I also like how in both of these I feel like Clark Kent is like they really need to like him being a coward.
00:11:14
Speaker
yeah In in sort of ah contrast to his Superman persona. I feel like also there's so much more modern Superman stuff. There's so many superhero things these days where it's like, I see um i see an opportunity to be a superhero. it's taught like I have no choice. It's time for me to be Spider-Man. Especially in the second one, he spends a lot of time just being like,
00:11:42
Speaker
This has nothing to do with me. Like, I don't really care about these robots until they steal my girlfriends, you know? Check out a robot stealing jewels. Who cares? I got a job to do. Yeah. Yeah. Right now, I'm in Clark Kent mode. Like and it it doesn't it isn't a job that calls for Superman to stop jewel robots. And now I'm just imagining a ah vaping robot.
00:12:08
Speaker
o tool roadmad I guess one other thing that I want to shout out about these ah shorts is that they have an orchestral score that is like super timed to the action on screen.
00:12:24
Speaker
allah a a ludetunes cartoon. It almost makes it feel like they're, um that's just like the way the cartoons are done, is that like the score and the visuals are like deeply tied together. um It felt very kind of fantasia-y at times. One is because of power. yeah Nice the animation looks but also I mean like this it like when Superman is like punching death ray beams
Impact of the Hays Code on 'The Lady Eve'
00:12:51
Speaker
Yeah, which I also just like that. It's like soon over the death ray. How does he find the death ray? He punches the the the ray part like books to be he was like pointch it back It almost seems like the the the death ray coalesces into chunks that like that like hit Superman Periodically and he kind of has like, ah you know, like yeah
00:13:12
Speaker
yeah
00:13:16
Speaker
but Like as if he's in that some kind of like a rhythms rhythm video game or or something He has to like he initially gets hit by the hit by the death ray chunks And then he's like aha. I know the rhythm and then boom boom boom and then the music kind of Spikes with every punch that he does which it works really well I mean, you know, I think there's a lot of scores these days that are not as deeply tied to the moment-to-moment action
00:13:46
Speaker
And I found it rather pleasing. Yeah, rather pleasing. It's a good review. The first of these two shorts was Oscar animated, which is pretty cool. Well deserved, I think. And then the second one, mechanical monsters, is apparently the first instance of Superman changing into his costume in a phone booth.
00:14:12
Speaker
Which like I think of as like that's like so essentially part of like Superman iconography. And so it's kind of cool that that like that started here. Well, and also the thing that started here was that ah Superman flying, which there were like kind of sort of other instances that were kind of mainly mistakes, where this one was like, OK, now that we're animating Superman, like this is like the first animated Superman. Now that we're animating Superman, him being a tall jumper looks kind of silly.
00:14:41
Speaker
So let's let can can we just make him fly is what they asked. ah Was it DC at that time or was it a different name? ah um I don't think it was called BC at the time. No, but I'm not sure when that when that changed. I think it was in the 50s, but I could be I could be wrong. I'm not talking.
00:15:01
Speaker
DC Comics history. Flying Superman. And then we have the first Flying Superman, the first, what was the one you said? The telephone booth quick change. The first telephone booth. And then the first punchable death ray. Mm hmm. Wait, whether or not we watch more for the show, I want to watch more of these too because I think they're fun.
00:15:26
Speaker
yeah shall we move on to our it's a it's a a banner year for cinema certainly indeed it is the most celebrated movie of all time, I would imagine, is this year. And that's that we will get to last because it is our big daddy for this episode. Okay, okay we're gonna do that last, okay.
00:15:58
Speaker
I feel like we have to, right? Sorry. Like, you have to listen to the rest of the podcast if you want to hear about Citizen Kane. Okay, okay, okay. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Should we hop to another thing that involves cartoons? Yes. The Lady Eve. Right, because it has animated opening titles. The animated opening titles in this movie are great. it It kind of made me think that it was a different sort of movie than it is. like Well, like, what?
00:16:26
Speaker
I don't know, a bit more cartoony and silly and like, like it is a comedy, but it doesn't have like. um It's not cartoony or silly like one of the other comedies that we watched. Right. Yeah. Yeah. yeah It's a it's a beautiful, smoothly animated cartoon snake with big eyes doing a whole Adam Neve kind of riff for the yeah for the imagery in the cartoon intro.
00:16:53
Speaker
just the opening title cards but uh yeah but yeah i i do like a lot of movies that around they came out around this time tend to have like maybe some some art in their opening title cards but they're stationary they're like hey here's like a time attack here's like a painting right i like how this is animated and it is actually like It's a movie. Have something moving. Yeah. It gives a lot of life to what are just credits otherwise. Yeah. but Like lack of opening credits is a big gripe that I have with like all movies and TV now. And like opening credits are great and I love them. And seven so many things with like amazing opening opening credits. And now it's just like, oh, skip, skip, skip. It sucks. True. Don't skip intro on the Eve.
00:17:42
Speaker
Thankfully, it's unfair to your channel, which does not have a skipping tour button. I hope they're not doing that on movies now. Well, so this is about a guy who really loves snakes. It's really most of what he thinks about. He's sort of the Indiana Jones.
00:18:03
Speaker
He's the guy that goes to the jungle in the 1940s, but specifically looking for snakes right he's all about snakes he's like show me where the snakes are if he went to the well of souls he'd be he'd be in heaven it's kind of funny that like this guy you gotta you gotta wonder if there is some kind of light coding that like there there's a lot of this movie that he spends resisting female attention uh in snakes
00:18:34
Speaker
yeah Maybe, you know? Yeah, I mean, I feel like if if that was like a coding thing, this would be the era for it, right? It would be like a Haze Code thing. I will say the good transition into I think this is a a Haze Code movie and it's a romantic comedy. I think this is a very good example of like Haze Code kind of making a movie Not necessarily cornier, but like kind of making the movie hotter than it would be otherwise. Like there's so much kind of like suggestion, suggestion, a lot of making and eyes. Yeah, it's just like, it's like going right up to the line that they were allowed to do. But that kind of like that restraint, I think gives it a lot of life, a lot of like the like the way that they sort of circumvent the rules end up kind of working in the movie's favor in this instance.
00:19:26
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, you speak about like, you know, the um the effective sensuality of this movie. And I think compared to a lot of other sort of similar screwball comedy, romantic comedy type deals, like this one is it. There's definitely a lot of good jokes, but it's not like joke a minute, joke a minute. You know, it is it is kind of trying to learn more the like the the romanticism of it yes it is that a less kind of madcap than something like bringing a baby is a good example is like yeah or uh his girl friday those movies that are like you like misjoked because of how fast they're talking
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, whereas this is ah this is more paced like humans speak, you know, it's not as insanely just like throwing stuff at you. Like as much as I love those other kind of like Howard Hawks who write the comedies. This is Preston Sergis, another big 40s comedy guy. I appreciate how much this one feels like it is kind of doing its own thing also.
00:20:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think, I think, uh, the, both the leads, Barbara Stanwyck and, um, Henry Fonda are both very good in it. Henry Fonda is, I don't think it was like a comedic actor really. Um, but I, I almost feel like the way that he, he's very dry in this movie. He's kind of like the hapless put upon character. He isn't the one, he's like making a lot of goofy jokes. It's more things happening to him.
00:20:58
Speaker
yeah but i think he plays that very well where he's just sort of like oh again okay he feels very like he's just kind of being pulled through the movie almost against his will a lot of the time That's true. Yeah, it is like, yeah, him kind of having stronger forces than him, than himself kind of dictating his existence. And there's like, what is it? Ah, it's got a hard and hard time remembering. He just wants to research snakes. That's all he's in it for at the beginning.
00:21:34
Speaker
But yeah, so there's like some back and forth about like um ah whether Barbara Sandvik's character, he's he's rich, which is the opposite of his role in our last episode. Sure, yeah. He's really sensitive to mirrors here.
00:21:49
Speaker
there is There's a lot of back and forth about whether Barbara Stanwyck's character is trying to ah trying to just get him for his money. I think part of the reason why he feels really yeah ah jaded and uninterested by all of the women around him is because so many of them are just kind of transparently after his wealth. yeah And so he can't even like you know, he can't even pay attention to any of them. yeah And so like, the one who gets through to him is the one that sort of negs him. But it's it is like, it's kind of a classic, i buy I don't know if it was a classic thing at this point, but like the con artist story where like, oh, we got to, I got to seduce this guy for his money. And then she ends up kind of actually falling for him. And that's like,
00:22:39
Speaker
You have a fall in love with your mark, you know, and then. It's the same sort of thing as in like Mr. Deeds or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington where there's like the ideal, the simple man. who is at first manipulated by a woman and then she falls for him. And then there's this tension of like, how do I reconcile that you were trying to trick me before, but we really do love each other. Yeah, I think that that element is like cranked way up in this as opposed, I feel like the Frank Capra movies are a little bit more, feel a little bit more innocent, whereas this is very much she is like, oh no, she is a criminal.
00:23:24
Speaker
she is calling him to get his money there's a little bit more kind of uh i don't know not animosity but it's just it's a little pricklier than than those Well, and they also spend a lot of time in this movie, ah like really being upset at each other, and not wanting to have anything to do with each other once that happens. there' is There is this kind of back and forth of like of like, can I trust this person? Like, has this person broken my heart? And so you spend a lot of time in this movie of them really wanting to be back together, like internally wanting to be back together, but then um on the surface being,
00:24:06
Speaker
Upset with each other. Mm-hmm, which I think it it is like it's a pretty It's kind of there's like the two big set pieces There's like the stuff on the boat like first half of the movie and like the stuff in the mansion second And it's like the all the like mistake I don't fully remember all the mistaken identity twists and turns because there's a lot of them but at least it's a lot of good like physical comedy in this too like all the I liked the joke of his tuxedo getting ruined like three times. He has to keep putting on new tuxedos because he's like spilling food on them. There was also a lot of, I was kind of, not surprised, but I guess took note of how many like direct references to World War II are in this movie. I was about to say, yeah, yeah. Someone makes a like very thinly veiled Hitler joke. They, they mention,
00:25:04
Speaker
someone traveling by battleship sort of as a joke. Yeah. And also talking about what, like a transatlantic a kind of pleasure cruise. And someone was saying, like, I didn't know the boats were still running like in between between, ah you know, the East Coast of America and then Europe. I don't think that they were, is the thing. And I think that that's the movie's way of addressing. But like, I know this movie is being released in 1941 when, like, we can't use boats anymore because there are submarines everywhere.
00:25:32
Speaker
But who's going to kind of try to gloss over it? The show must go on, I guess. Yeah. There's a couple of lines in this that really stick out to me of like great 40s dialogue stuff, just like the the language of it. One of them is when, um what's her name? Not Eve. Eve is her fake name.
00:25:57
Speaker
Hm-hmm. Gene. McGene first sees ah Henry Faunus' character. She says he's dripping with dough, which is a great way of saying he' french that That fellow's dripping with dough. And then later when she's pissed at somebody, she says, go peel and eel. I want to i definitely want to steal that, start saying that when I'm annoyed at something. Ah, go peel and eel.
00:26:23
Speaker
There are so many 30s and 40s turns of phrase that I really just keep wanting to integrate into my life, but you need like, you need to, I don't know. I like, I wonder if it's just that like, because these characters are written on a page, that they're able to speak like this, because it's like, I can never remember to say go peel an eel.
00:26:46
Speaker
simpler things are easier my like why I order and make it snap, yeah that kind of thing. But yeah, go peel a needle is just a great use of language. But it fun movie. I don't know if I have a whole lot else to say about it. I also watched it like four months ago. Yeah, which I think you did.
00:27:04
Speaker
Uh, pretty close to it. Yeah, I i watched it before I moved, certainly.
Review of 'Hell's a Poppin'
00:27:09
Speaker
Uh, shall we do another comedy? Yeah. Well, it's time for Hell's a Poppin'. Yeah, da-da-da-da-da, Hell's a Poppin'. A musical comedy. Yes. And this one is very cartoony.
00:27:22
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. This one, i we probably would have recognized that we need to watch this one while doing our preliminary research, but like I saw a...
00:27:36
Speaker
I was at an Alamo watching and I had in in the pre-show, they had a clip from this movie ah with a bunch of devils all it said in the corner. Hell's a pop in 1941. So I was like, oh, this is something coming up. And then ah it's just a bunch of devils in hell. And they like squish people down into into like a can and then into shove them into like an oil drum and then put a thing on it that says canned guy. And I'm like, watch this movie right now. Yeah, incredible. That like opening.
00:28:14
Speaker
scene is yeah maybe my favorite part of the movie it's it's has so many like really goofy cartoony jokes in it yeah it's almost it's almost a disappointment when this becomes like a real movie because like the the the like wildness of the first like 15 minutes or so uh is really is honestly ahead of its time like this is this is a movie that the the The beginning of this movie feels like stuff that it's going over stuff that would not be explored comedically until the 70s with like airplane or blazing saddles or something. Yeah, it does. It does have a very similar. Yeah, I definitely was reminded a bit of of, yeah, like Mel Brooks and her brothers a bit. Also, Beetlejuice with the sort of like vision of hell kind of and it being a lot of the guys in costumes like poking people.
00:29:10
Speaker
Yeah, i one of one of the things that I love are are the ways that filmmakers choose to depict hell in movies. I'm always fascinated by that. Which also is a thing that, as we've seen, started very early, like almost right away. like We can make movies, we're making movies, but hell.
00:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I like Melies would have loved this movie. He would have. Yeah, have gone nuts for it. Also, a lot of a lot of meta jokes, a lot of like rewinding the movie going up to the projectionist.
00:29:42
Speaker
yeah like This is this isa the Deadpool of 1941, for sure. ah the dead or you know Let's not sell it by calling it the Deadpool of 1941. Let's call it the Mel Brooks of 1941. That is a much nicer comparison to make, I think.
00:30:01
Speaker
Like this is this has got the, you know, spaceballs were playing the copy of the movie that you're seeing right now kind of thing in it. It's got, you know, the ah the blazing saddles like bursting out onto the studio lot kind of energy. It's it's the meta humor in this feels incredibly relevant, incredibly, you know, ah you mentioned Deadpool, it's like, we're still entertained by this same type of thing, right? yeah And this is from, what, 80 years ago.
00:30:41
Speaker
him ah They have meta scenes where they talk to the projectionist. There are scenes with Shempowered as the projectionist that were added in later because they the original kind of joke was that the person was just talking to the literal projectionist. in the actual theater and then like you're just assuming what's going on up there uh as they're like calling up behind you in the theater uh but i think they found that might be a little too confusing and so they added in scenes with the actual projectionist that feels very like vaudevillian to me of like trying to actually like people in the movie are talking to the projection like the actual projections in the theater
00:31:26
Speaker
Yeah, and it's breaking the fourth wall in a lot of kind of yeah, a lot of kind of significant ways. But it's also interesting how much I feel like there's a lot of like vaudeville crossover in like the Marx Brothers movies. and And in my opinion, especially the early ones, a lot of it doesn't really work as a movie, like as a movie joke. It's like, Dan, this probably would have killed on stage. There's a movie, it's kind of falls flat. Whereas it that is an interesting thing that it's like started as more of a directly addressing, like, directly breaking the fourth wall. And then, like, well, we have to actually film scenes of the projections for this joke to land. Yeah, but I mean, if you were to compare it, like the ah the meta kind of stuff using it uses the film language a lot more here. There's little literal, like, mystery, so like, proto-mystery science theater in this. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:20
Speaker
it's Yeah, I think that like, this is another case like the Marx Brothers, where it was something that was on stage and being adapted to the screen. And because they're extremely meta, they're like, this is worked on stage, how's it gonna work in the movies, you know? They're hanging a lampshade on the entire existence of this movie. Yeah, there's a lot of like, there's like, a hate there's a Hays Code joke, there's like ah another sort of like any similarity text at the beginning that's like done in a funny way that we've seen it in like a couple other things. Not the same yeah joke, but like, I feel like people are like immediately once that text started to go up on things before, like doing riffs on it is kind of funny.
00:33:05
Speaker
ah stepping on a rake joke in this movie, and that made me think, I'm sure Simpson's writers love this movie so much. And then the other thing it didn't remind me of is like Simpson's humor, I think there's, I can see the sort of lineage of in this. Yeah. Whoa. Sarah. There's an ocean liner outside my window.
00:33:31
Speaker
oh
00:33:35
Speaker
The good stuff. I one of the kind of this is amongst so much like madcap stuff, um but there is like a part where ah a taxi cab arrives in hell ah and like assumedly like they all crashed and died at the same time. And so the cab went into hell with them. And there's like a pretty good like subtle joke where the guy goes like the taxi driver went straight to where I told him to.
00:34:05
Speaker
Uh, there's also like, you know, they mentioned the haze coat. They mentioned like they, they mentioned the haze office specifically in this community. Yeah. There's a part in the beginning where like somebody gets like sucked into ah a hell hole and then like a fountain of blood like spurts out of the ground, which I thought was like supposed to be oil, I think, but because it's black liquid.
00:34:29
Speaker
it looks like a lot and it it is a kind of thing where like damn damn movie gonna have a spray of blood now but i think it they probably got away with it by people it's oil don't worry about it oh also like you mentioned the simpsons like there is a part that i'm realizing now must be like a specific direct reference in the simpsons where they go like that's good that's bad that's good
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah, it is for a movie that I like, I knew existed, but I really knew almost nothing about before I watched it. I'm really surprised at how seemingly like, even in just like vibes, how influential it seems like it has been. I don't know how much it has directly influenced Mel Brooks or like Sucker Brothers or Simpsons or any of that. But it's like, there's it feels like such a like proto version of all of those things.
00:35:21
Speaker
This movie, yeah, I mean, honestly, this movie makes them, the Zucker brothers and Mel Brooks feel less creative than I think people could give it credit for. H.C. Potter was doing it all first. ah That being said, like, this does, there's so much good stuff in this movie, good, like, madcap meta humor in this movie in the first 15 minutes, and then it It slows a lot down. This can't be the whole movie, I guess. We don't have the energy to make it the whole movie. and right Yeah, but most of the few minutes are like incredibly packed with jokes, like very airplane style, just like there's so many jokes happening, like overlapping with each other. And then it does kind of slow down and become ah a bit more of a
00:36:06
Speaker
fairly sort of Marx Brothers-esque sort of like. Yeah. A bunch of guys. We've got to go to a fancy, like, like not nightclub, but like a a of resort, I guess. I think it's um like a mansion that has its own stage theater. Yeah. But yeah, and cause some chaos.
00:36:28
Speaker
is basically what they're doing, a la Marx Brothers. Yeah, there's also like a classic, I feel like another kind of classic comedy bit, like, we're putting on a show. And then yeah they try to sap out a show. It's certainly a classic musical bit. They try to sap out a show and make it all go bad for goofy stuff to happen. And then like, oh, we're going to, like the producers are here, they're going to see it. And the producers love it because it's so funny. Everything's getting messed up and nothing's going to or plan.
00:36:58
Speaker
Good, good bit. Good joke, good joke. I thought you'd start by talking about the dancing in this movie, which is the only part of it that I'd seen. ah You'd seen that before? I think I'd seen at least like, I don't think I've seen the whole scene, but I'd seen at least like a clip or something. Because that was like my only, the only thing I knew about this movie is that it had dancing in it. What do you have to say about the dancing? I can't really think of what to say.
00:37:25
Speaker
I mean, I think it is it's a great like showcase for really talented dancers. It is the only place in the movie where black people exist. And it's just kind of... oh we're go We're gonna cut away to this like crazy dance number now and then cut back. And it's like, it'd be nice if they were actual characters in the movie too.
00:37:46
Speaker
But yeah yeah, I forgot about that. That's that dance scene was so good. Yeah, I did completely forget about that. Yeah, they. ah Yeah, I mean, at least the characters are kind of looking on approvingly from the side. right It feels like it. I don't know if it's really progressive for 1941, but at least is like they're like getting black performers in in a movie that isn't completely segregated. Like you get your own movie over here like.
00:38:14
Speaker
But it is it is it definitely stuck out to me. They're not characters in the movie. They like show up for one scene, do a cool dance, and then are never seen again. Right. Yeah. the But the dance, oh my god. it's yeah it's so It's got so much energy. It is a really incredible kind of, I don't know, how would you characterize it? It was like a swing dance. Yeah. It's swing dancing before white people ruined it.
00:38:40
Speaker
It's for white people to throw to it. Yeah, but it it is right. It's like that is like but how swing dancing started. And so this is like real proper swing dancing, which is like actually swinging people around and like throwing them up in the air, which, you know, so I think if you go to like places that actually have like swing dancing competitions and stuff, they still they still go pretty hard. They still do the throwing people around stuff.
00:39:09
Speaker
Yeah. the the It's hard to say anything about the plot of this movie because it's just like it barely has one. There's like. Yeah. Yeah. I also watched this one a while ago, too. So it's it's even harder to remember the plot. But it is the plot really does feel like an excuse for jokes to happen. Yeah. And it's it's so through there. So like 1940s comedy set up of like some some mismatch people show up in a place.
00:39:38
Speaker
What's going to happen? Yeah, I will say also that like there's a lot about this movie that must have been quite edgy for the time. I think so. Yeah. Like not just like all of the hell stuff and maybe a blood fountain, maybe not. But like there's like a whole.
00:39:56
Speaker
Like ah the plot centers around this kind of mistake or a lot of the plot centers around this mistake that people, the misunderstanding about like, oh, he was in like, she was up in his room until four in the morning. And they keep like talking about that. And they were like, who was in whose room? Who was it? And like.
00:40:19
Speaker
You know, they are ah more or less just saying it, you know, they're they're more or less just alluding to a hookup situation. But they ah it's it's one of the more direct.
00:40:34
Speaker
references to sex honestly that like I've seen and they seem to get away with it okay just because they were like yeah they were in the room together until four in the morning. It's kind of an example also of like His Code is dumb like you can talk around that stuff so easily and it's like it doesn't you're not making the movie any really less explicit like Other than just saying, right, there's a bunch of pre-code movies where they just say sex in like in the dialogue, which they probably can't do now. yeah Otherwise, it's like not not a lot has really changed, I guess. Another example, I guess, right of this pre-code and haze-code thing being a lot blurrier than I expected it to be.
00:41:17
Speaker
There are a couple other things that I feel like I need to mention about this movie. what One is there's a part where someone says he's very rich and then someone says wait till he pays his income tax. And that just seems like a it seems like a joke, like it just kind of general joke about like ah taxes. Am I right? But I actually learned only a couple of weeks ago listening to a podcast that income tax was like new then.
00:41:45
Speaker
It was it was a topical joke about the recent introduction of a ah kind of income tax. Let me get this right. It was income tax had kind of existed for the wealthy, but most people like did not pay it. Like almost nobody paid income tax because ah they were in a low enough bracket that didn't exist. And that year, that was the opposite. I wish people don't pay income tax, but poor people do.
00:42:15
Speaker
correct but like that year as part of like funding the war effort and all all that kind of stuff like there was ah There was the introduction of an income tax that it expanded to a whole bunch of other people who no longer paid it. And so it was like, look at this thing that the government is doing now, it's making you pay income tax. FDR with his crazy leftist policy is making us pay taxes. The other incredibly topical and almost beyond Zucker Brothers, almost getting toward like the Zucker the zucker Brothers imitators of like Meet the Spartans and like them or whatever, is ah is that in the beginning of the movie, they are walking through a bunch of film sets and then they bump into a sled that says Rosebud, and then they go, hill
00:43:13
Speaker
And then they go, I thought they burnt that. In case you were wondering, at what point in 1941 this movie came out, definitely after Citizen Kane. Yeah. But that's that's wild. what but They are spoiling the big twist of a movie that came out that year, like a few months before. you know ah But like it was such a big thing. Everybody saw Citizen Kane. Everybody knew it. They could just go like, hey, remember the sled burning at the end of Citizen Kane?
00:43:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That was that was wild. yeah Yeah. That is right. Because it's like even right a lot of these other kind of really wacky comedies don't and have a lot of like direct parodies of other movies and like things like that. So. Or at least like stuff that we have recognized. Maybe maybe like. Maybe they do. and we're just They're all going over our heads. Yeah.
00:44:07
Speaker
Well, where do we go from here?
Analysis of 'The Maltese Falcon'
00:44:10
Speaker
Do we go to Citizen Kane? We can also talk about, if we were trying to say that to the end, for another movie that is, I think, another kind of good example of a Hays Code movie that is sort of trying to trying of sneak around the rules a little bit, which is The Maltese Falcon.
00:44:30
Speaker
oh the The movie that that created Glenn. I mean, kind of in some ways. The move that I basically remade when we were like 16. Yeah, I think a little bit over in that, but yeah.
00:44:49
Speaker
Watching this, it made me realize how much of, ah I'd seen this before, but I was just like, oh, that's in, but that's in the package from Barakesh and that's in the package from Barakesh. Honestly, me too. I was like, I i didn't realize realize how much I just stole directly from this movie. Like this straight up, like lifting stuff.
00:45:10
Speaker
When we were making, ah for the uninitiated, ah me and Glenn and a few other friends, we all worked on a movie that Glenn wrote and directed called The Package from Marrakech that was a noir movie starring teenagers that I am still very proud of. I think it's i think that movie that but that movie slaps. I tried to sound pretty recently and I was like, this is not bad.
00:45:38
Speaker
Uh, and yeah, like I had not seen the Maltese Falcon before we, but before we made the movie, but I feel like even I recognize some of my own line readings from the Maltese Falcon. I think it's just, it was just in the air, you know, we were just, we were just yeah no right in, right in the wave.
00:46:00
Speaker
But yeah, we're gonna move in. Go on, go on about the Maltese Falcon. I'm gonna move this one to you. Well, on a Maltese Falcon, I think is usually cited as kind of the first like canonical, in quotes, film the war. Like it's kind of the movie that is usually pointed at like this, there are movies that definitely have film the war elements to them, but this is kind of the one where it's like, it all really kind of coalesces into like, this is like undeniably a film noir movie. It has like all of the staples you could ask for. yeah yeah private It definitely feels me too more like a film noir. A sinister seductive lady who gets into trouble and there's it has a ridiculously convoluted plot that makes no sense.
00:46:45
Speaker
but doesn't make It makes sense, but it's like its so it's so layered with like double crosses and like different people's like shifting loyalties and things. thats it is Having you seen this movie ah probably about five times in my life, I'm still just like, wait, what? like It's still kind of hard to follow. You kind of have to just ignore the moment-to-moment stuff and just kind of go with it.
00:47:13
Speaker
How would you say that this ah ah is different from other Dashiel Hammett adaptations? Like, like what what do you think makes this noir and not the the Thin Man? um I definitely tone is a big one because the the Thin Man is like very light and very fun and funny is there comedy and comedy. I think even the book, The Thin Man, is like unusually lighthearted for a Dashiel Hammett story.
00:47:42
Speaker
um Whereas the multi-stalk, and I think this, specifically because this is the third adaptation of the multi-stalk on film. I think this is kind of like the the definitive like Daschle Hammett film adaptation of like any any of his works. This is like the, this is the the made for TV, the shining for Daschle Hammett. I mean, sure. In the sense that it's like, it's very close to the book.
00:48:12
Speaker
But also, I'm like, is there a like a definitive like Stephen King movie? It's probably not The Shining, it's probably like Carrie or something else, but... It's probably the one with the goblin truck. Oh yeah, Max and the Overdrive.
00:48:27
Speaker
um But, ah yeah, it's like, of of all the Daxial Hymnet stories that have been adapted into movies, this is kind of like the famous one, the one that everyone is most aware of. This is, you know, the big daddy of Daxial Hymnet movies, I guess. For sure. And I mean, this is like a stone cold classic. Like, yeah Citizen Kaneen is definitely more well known, more widely, you know,
00:48:52
Speaker
Everyone says it's the greatest movie ever made, and ah but like, did you say overrated? I said celebrated, but yeah. Okay. um Yeah, it's no Sean Dealman. ah ah But the the the Maltese Falcon is like so famous. It's so iconic. yeah ah the Humphrey Bogart is never more Bogarty. No, although I haven't seen I haven't seen Casablanca and I will so I will very soon. Also, the big sleep, which is a another film, the more detective movie with Humphrey Bogart, but based on a
00:49:33
Speaker
not National Hamlet, the other guy. Michael Crichton. No, Raymond Chandler. The Big Sleep is also very good. And like, also the sort of thing where it is like, in on the Mount Rushmore of film noir movies, kind of. It's like- I'm looking forward to that. Mount Rushnoir.
00:49:57
Speaker
Yeah. You say that this is like, I mean, it is definitely not light in any way like ah it's pretty nasty. It's pretty meaty movie. There are some parts where I really I laughed a lot. It's also very funny, but it's like a thin man is like a drunk married couple saw Ming a crime with their dog.
00:50:21
Speaker
And it's like the crime almost starts to just proceed into the background and becomes more about just them sort of like partying. This I think that the crime me is still is the sort of thing where it's like it is so there's somebody moving parts to it that you kind of have like trying to follow the mystery really closely is difficult. But definitely the the tone of this is much more a classic film noir like the world is ah The world is a like dark and mean place and like everyone will betray you like a drop of a hat. yeah so it's it's yeah you know like Love is a lie, like you can't trust everyone.
00:51:03
Speaker
the the The parts that are ah that are funny in this movie are mainly like moments of extreme cruelty. right like the funnyest Most of the jokes in this movie are very mean jokes. like Jokes at someone's expense where like somebody's getting like punched in the face. Whenever Sam Spade is punching Peter or Laurie in the face, of which he does several times in the movie, it's always kind of great as a joke.
00:51:31
Speaker
Specifically, like there is there's a part where ah there there's like the other henchmen of ah the fat man who is like this kind of ah like sadistic, inexperienced, like very henchman type. And Sam Spade really has no patience for this guy and doesn't like him. There's a point where he's where he slaps him and the guy kind of box. And then he goes, like when you're slapped, you'll take it and you'll like it. Yeah.
00:52:00
Speaker
and I died I died yeah there's a lot of the dialogue in this movie is taken directly from the book which I haven't read but I know that that like this the script is like very very close to the book in particular the dialogue and it does have a lot of really great film noir lingo in it Um, like saying, when we started the cops, I'm a little squawk. I feel like there, there are other, other movies that are more drenched in lingo. Like I'm thinking of like the, uh, the early gangster movies where it's just like all, all old timey lingo. Yeah. Little Caesar goes really hard on the lingo.
00:52:39
Speaker
yeah And just like, also just like, just well written dialogue, like not even that necessarily like the lingo is that heavy, but like, where there's a bit where the femme fatale of this movie, Brigitte O'Shaughnessy, is sort of like the first time she's kind of admitting that she's been lying up until this point in the movie. Because it's true, I've always been a liar. And Sam's made this like, well don't brag about it.
00:53:05
Speaker
He's also, Sam Spade is a ah funny character that he always he always seems like he's a little bit ahead of everyone else and he is very amused about. like yes He's usually kind of the smartest guy in the room and he's, if anything, bragging about it half the movie. He's just like, I know what everyone's deal is.
00:53:24
Speaker
and i'm Yeah, like he he has this like he he has he has this vibe about him that is um like he it's like he's shooting from the hip. like It feels like he is, but like he always gets it right every time. ah He always does. It effectively is one one move ahead of everyone, even though no one can understand what's going on in this movie.
00:53:50
Speaker
ah yeah but like he he has this kind of like a loose approach to everything everything in front of him and he's like so cynical through yeah he kind of responds to everything which is kind of like resigned annoyance a lot of the time like even when there's a gun on him he's like uh fine he's like again pulling a gun at like whatever like he nothing phases him really in this and And like nothing sounds boring, but it's like he plays it like so well. Robert is so good at playing this character that it's like the fact that he is kind of so like, yeah, like loose and unphased by things is I don't know if endearing is the right word, but it at least it is entertaining to watch for sure. Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah. ah But like this movie is
00:54:44
Speaker
I feel like that this movie has a very cynical perspective and Sam Spade has a very cynical perspective. He is so unbothered by so many things, like so many things that should bother him. And so like the kind of, you know, I don't know how much we should spoil it exactly, but it's like the the ending. It's very summed up by the ending. Yeah.
00:55:07
Speaker
Yeah, the the ending moments of the movie are it's like ah asking the question, like, can you be as cold as as you possibly can be? he's like Yeah.
00:55:20
Speaker
but yeah Well, it's also this it's kind of a weird thing, right, where he's Like he finds out that, ah should it spoilers for the end of the multi stock in a very old movie, um that Bridget is the person who shot his partner Myles being in the movie.
00:55:41
Speaker
And it's like, he didn't even like Miles. He was like sleeping with his wife and thought he was like a dumb asshole. He didn't like, didn't want anything to do with him really. But it's like, he's, he says it's like, well, someone like murders your partner. You have to like make sure that they don't get away with it. That's just like the rule, the detective, the unspoken detective rule.
00:56:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's weird that like there are some ways that he clings so much to principles and like foods, where like, through a lot of the movie, he is doing things that you might consider to be pushing the limits of ethical behavior, yeah you know, yeah but then there are like certain things that there are certain things that the where he draws a line. But then there are also places where toward the end of the movie, he goes, he says something to the effect of like, you know, I'm i'm not as unethical of a person as you think I might be, you know, like he he does live by some codes ah in the big picture. In a moment, he is definitely willing to do bad things. Yeah, yeah.
00:56:58
Speaker
Um, but I mean, that's what makes them like a film, the war character, right? Like that's like the whole thing is that he's like, he's not a very good person. He's like kind of a piece of shit. And that's a big reason of, I think what makes him kind of compelling, but that, that ending scene of him and Bridget in in the apartment, like after all of the sort of like.
00:57:21
Speaker
but There's the whole MacGuffin with the x the titular Maltese Falcon, which is very much i may put in the sense where it's like, everyone wants it, but it's like very unclear almost like even what it is until pretty late in the movie. um is It's a falcon statue that turns out to maybe just be a fake, probably. Even that is like kind of ambiguous, as is I think a lot of Brigid's headspace and like motivation, because it's like,
00:57:50
Speaker
She starts the movie playing, very much like playing a sort of like, like ah a very sort of innocent wide eyed woman who just wants to find her sister and then admits she never had a sister. She's just doing this to get Sam Spade that to help find Falcon and to like get him out of the way and all this stuff. And I like how much the movie never like really explicitly lays out how much she's ever sort of like putting on an act. Like even at the end when she's like, are you really going to like send me to jail? Even though you didn't even like this guy that I shot. And it's like, like, we got away with it. Like it's, it's fun. Like the cops have their fall guy, like everything is settled. And now it's just up to you if you want to just like throw it all away. Um, and it's like, on one hand, that might be
00:58:42
Speaker
her genuinely having having like caught feelings for Sam Spade. And that's a very believable reading of the movie is that they they actually do feel some genuine romantic attachment to each other. But then it's also kind of, it's it's kind of up in the air, like she might still be conning him. And it's like, the fact that it's very like, ah I like how ambiguous it leaves it, I guess. Because it makes that scene feel like it has a lot of layers.
00:59:13
Speaker
yeah right like is it that ah Is it that she's still conning him and he's still one move ahead and so he knows that he has to send her up the river? Or is it that he is so bound to his principles that he is willing to let genuine love go away? He has through the whole movie, not shown much respect for feelings, for yeah love in particular, but feelings in general. He's been outright dismissive of feelings. He's been like, feelings are dumb, and I don't like them. Yeah, yeah. Like, like he is he is cruel to people whose husband just died. He's cruel to people who, ah you know. Which people's husband just died that he was also of having a fair amount. Yeah.
01:00:07
Speaker
ah Yeah, it's it's interesting. it's It's an interesting dynamic for sure. um And it also comes as a bit of a surprise at that point in the movie, because, like, yeah, you've watched him do all this unethical stuff and then he kind of like winds the script back a little bit. And he's like, my two things that I will not budge on are no stealing and you got to avenge your partner. You know, like that's those are the only things that he really cares about. Yeah, and it's even after like even when he says that he's he feels sort of like annoyed about it still he was like You murdered my partner like that's the one thing I can't budge on even though I thought my partner was an idiot and I was sleeping with his wife like That's just that's his rule. He said a rule for himself and he has to stick to it. I guess
01:00:51
Speaker
ah Speaking of ah the partner of being an idiot, I think there's like a really ah a really great moment of kind of film language irony ah right at the beginning of the movie where ah yeah his partner goes out ah to investigate the this this whole thing at the very beginning. And ah the scene in the P.I. office ends with him going like, you got brains, like you got brains, you're real smart. And and it just cuts right to him getting snuck up on and shot, you know. Right. Yeah. You got brain miles and cut cut two miles, like having a cool shot in the chest. Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was really good.
01:01:39
Speaker
One other kind of note with this movie, there is the extremely iconic line from this movie. Someone asks about the Maltese Falcon and he says, it's the stuff that dreams are made of. The line that I undercut in The Package from Marrakesh by having someone start to say it and get cut off. That's good, that's good.
01:02:04
Speaker
I wonder if it's like a bit too cute to be in this movie, you know? It feels like a, I think it's very iconic, but I wonder if it's like a bit of a weird note to end on because it's like, why why would you say that? It is a little bit, it feels like a line of dialogue more than something someone would actually say maybe. Yeah. um But I do like the,
01:02:33
Speaker
the ambiguity of it and the the way that he says it too, where it's it seems like he knows something and you're like, what does he mean by that? I think that the clearest freedom of it is just that it's like it's the thing that everyone wants. And so like it's it it has meaning because people ascribe meaning to it, even if it is like a fake hunk of lead. Or maybe he's like, oh, you know I did a switcheroo and I have the real thing had the real real thing this whole time.
01:03:02
Speaker
Who knows, you know? right A couple of things I want to bring up about it about this movie. um One, that that last scene, the confrontation between Spade and and Bridget, i for my directing class at Brooklyn College, I need to pick a scene to like re reinterpret or whatever. I'd like to pick ah a scene from a movie to film with actors and like shoot it myself.
01:03:28
Speaker
And that was like, what's a, what's a good scene of just dialogue? I was like, what's, that's what I'm going to, you did have like a scene just to keep talking on something with really juicy dialogue. So I picked that scene from this movie. Um, and so that I've, I've, I've, I've directed that scene with, with, with actors. Um, and it was very fun and cool to do. I didn't, I didn't really, I mean, it's definitely different than how it is in this one, but um I didn't have any like big paint.
01:03:57
Speaker
I guess. The other thing I feel like we gotta talk about is the villains in this movie are just such like feel like very classic like movie villains. Gotta hand it to them. Like Sydney Green Street. Great. This is his his voice is like such a clap feels like a very like classic movie villain voice.
01:04:17
Speaker
his little chuckle. I mean, speaking of classic movie villain voices, i was like Peter Lorraine. Most classic movie villain voice of of them all, maybe? One of the first things I ever saw Peter Lorraine was this movie, um which he's very good at and very funny. He's definitely playing a like ah kind of a more of a caricature in this than in a lot of other things.
01:04:43
Speaker
I think actually, if anything, rewatching it this time, I'm like, oh, this character is like pretty, doesn't have a lot of depth to it. It's like a pretty, pretty broad kind of like stereotype character, if anything. But I think Peter Laurie gets a lot of, gets a lot out of, because he's Peter Laurie, because he gets to say things like, you eat me sir, you idiot. And it's ah so good. But yeah, he just gets beat up a lot.
01:05:09
Speaker
Do you think to a British person, the name Peter Lorre sounds like Mike Truck? Maybe, yeah, Peter Lorre, Mike Truck, I guess, possibly. It's also funny to see Peter, like, I don't know if we've watched another Peter Lorre between this and him for the show, but like in him, he's like... The man who knew too much.
01:05:30
Speaker
Oh yeah, which he's kind of playing like a dude's bottom line, I guess. But at the end, he's like it's such a dramatic, like intense role. And in this, he's like a goofy stereotype character, which is kind of, it's just funny to see like the progression of that. He does both very well, he's a good actor.
01:05:51
Speaker
I mean, like, are these characters kind of new types of characters in this movie, maybe? Like, are they arch in their own way? Like, yes, you know, Sam Spade is arch as well. Sure, yeah. And that's kind of, that is part of the fun of this movie too, of like, the fanfait towel is like the most fanfait towel character that like you could put in a movie.
01:06:16
Speaker
Um, it's like, I feel like a lot of noir cliches are very kind of rooted in, in this and several other, there's a couple others that are like really, uh, double identity is not a really pretty big one out of the past. is Another a really big one. We should probably watch those for the show also. But, um, yeah, I mean, I stole a bunch from this movie because it's good and it just has so much like great, like hard world detective shit in it of like switching cars, losing tails and.
01:06:45
Speaker
get slipped to Mickey at one point. which any Any good detective story, someone's got to get slipped to Mickey, right? um Just like the package for Marrakesh, right? Yeah, exactly. I also like how, at at the end of the movie, they're sort of like, they're they're waiting for the package to show up that's supposed to have the Muffin's Falcon in it. And it it kind of, it's like, all right, they're like, set up the whole plan, and then it like, cuts like, later in the night, and everyone's like, sleeping, or like, reading books on the couch, and it's just like a big sleepover with all these like, no more characters, like, reading books silently.
01:07:20
Speaker
That, I don't know, it just stuck out to me. It's very funny. And then it ends with Bridget going in the elevator, getting taken away by the cops. And then it's got the old timey elevator door that closes shut and it's like a jail cell. Get it? Get it? It's like she's going to jail. And the elevator level closes.
01:07:40
Speaker
I guess I needed that to be spelled out. flow i guess i I was like, wow, symbolism, movie, subtle much. um no I mean, i guess I guess what I was saying is that like um it's like, yeah, we know she's going to jail. Right, yeah. The symbolism of her going to be taking away the jail is that she's going to jail. let's say It's like that sort of thing where if this was set in contemporary times, it wouldn't work. because like Elevator doors don't have the accordion thing. I think there are some still some elevators like that kicking around somewhere. There are a few. They're pretty rare. yeah ah Yeah, I don't know. well ah There's a lot of talk of Istanbul, which always makes me laugh because I think of ah dangerous from Homestar Runner. Of course.
01:08:35
Speaker
Yeah, cool cool and good movie that, yeah, I agree is, is has just kind of, I feel like kind of become part of my identity at this point of like, I like old time detective stuff. And this is like one of the most old time detective movies that exists. Yep. And it was the first one that I saw, like I saw this before I saw really, I think any other of the classic air on the water movies. So it made the impact on me for sure.
01:09:04
Speaker
There's a movie that a lot of people say is core to my identity, and that is that is The Wolfman. ah
01:09:14
Speaker
That's because in three separate workplaces, I have earned the name Wolfman just because of my general look. I look like Lon Chaney Jr. in a jumpsuit ah yeah as a furry man. He's in a jumpsuit. He just has his pants tucked in, I thought. It looks like he's got like a whole The whole thing going on. I don't know. It doesn't make sense. The whole thing going on. It's got a whole thing going on. It is true. He does have a whole thing going on in this movie that he is a werewolf. The thing is lycanthropy. Yeah. It's like, oh, Larry Tableau, what's his deal? He's got a whole thing going on. I mean, you got bit by a wolf. Don't ask. I was going to say, this is a pretty classic Universal Studios monster, maybe. It's up there with the Frankenstein and the Dracula's.
01:10:05
Speaker
It is a classic universal monster movie. I think personally, not nearly as good as the other ones. I agree. I actually was like kind of surprised at how much like this doesn't hold up. Yeah. Yeah. I like and it's not even just like the kind of, you know, the weird gender politics going. That's not even just weird gender politics stuff, more like weird, like borderline misogynist stuff in it than I think Frankenstein and Dracula do.
01:10:35
Speaker
Yeah, but it's not even that, too. It's like, it's like, yeah, like this is like classic situation of you watch an old movie and the main character is just like a total creep, literally like looking in a woman's window with a telescope. the ten telescope Like, doing a rear window, but unlike rear window, not, like, not, like, problematizing that at all. Right, but then also, like, mentioning stuff that she was doing, like, in the attic to her later. She's like, how do you know about that? It was so weird. It was our mother tale. He's so creepy about it. I'm just psychic. I'm just psychic. He's horrible.
01:11:15
Speaker
this is yeah yeah this wolf man ill be sorry newsre This is before a curse turns him evil. He just ah he just decides to spy on people. My first note in my notes is Larry B. Peepin, which I think should be the tagline for this movie. That's a good name, Larry B. Peepin.
01:11:39
Speaker
This movie opens with ah describing like a little text crawl that describes werewolves. I think before this movie, werewolves weren't a like classic movie monster. This isn't the first werewolf movie, by by any means. Not even the first universal werewolf movie. But I did notice that how it's like, we have to like onboard people to werewolves.
01:12:04
Speaker
you know Yeah, and like, you know, it's kind of I don't know, like, like it makes me want to kind of look more into the history of ah werewolf lore, I guess, because this movie shares ah some kind of weird similarities with American werewolf in London, which is probably not fully unintentional, but it's like it is an American who is in England And like in a small town in England, and that is where he becomes a werewolf. And, you know, he deals with it in similar ways, similar shots, even of the transformation. And like, I don't know, is there something about like small town England that is associated with werewolves? I thought it was just kind of a thing, but maybe it's specifically a European thing. Like that's really where most werewolf kind of mythology comes from.
01:13:00
Speaker
This is also notable that like, unlike a lot of the other kind of like really kind of canonical classical universal monster movies, it's not based on. It's not like there's no Wolfman novel. And unlike other classical monster universal monster movies, it's not based.
01:13:18
Speaker
I don't agree with the Wolfman, that's what you're saying. don't you I don't agree with the Wolfman. I'll put that on my business card. You were shaking your head the whole time to let people know that you disapproved of the Wolfman. Don't do that. I mean, honestly, I put less blame on the Wolfman and more blame on Larry himself. Like, he is he's clearly the worst person in this movie. When it's a like, well, it's a werewolf. He's got no choice. When he's being a creep, it's like, come on, Larry.
01:13:50
Speaker
Come on, Larry. yeah well this is that I was mentioning the opening crawl of this movie because this is like, the the the opening crawl, it says it says that like a paraphrasing, it's saying like, lycanthropy is a disease of the mind where humans imagine their wolf men. Which is, there is a clinical version of lycanthropy that is, yeah, the like ah belief that you turn into an animal.
01:14:19
Speaker
I will say this, nothing against furries. Every furry that I've known has been a great person, but it is very funny to describe that as a disease of the mind where humans imagine their last man.
01:14:34
Speaker
That is, yeah, it is true. In in in that, in your real studio's monster movie language, it is very funny. There's all there is a funny bit where, yeah,
01:14:46
Speaker
um Who plays the dad? It's the Invisible Man. It's Claude Rains. Claude Rains is the best part in this movie. He absolutely, Claude Rains rules. He plays Sir Talbot.
01:15:00
Speaker
um And there's a bit where he's like describing like cancer pee. He's like, ah, there's this thing like cancer for you. And later it's like, oh, it's all Greek to me. it's like It is Greek, actually. It's a Greek word.
01:15:12
Speaker
good let's go to greekly um which is very funny which is a search engine is it It's a search engine from the 90s, but it's ah it's equated the antiquated, antiquated dial-up stuff.
01:15:26
Speaker
Yeah, I, yeah, I think a lot. I was kind of, I'd seen this before a long time ago. So I like kind of remembered it, but I was, I was pretty let down by it. And then I think it does a lot of things that I think Dracula did some of this also where it will, it like cuts away whenever the good stuff's about to happen. Right. We're like towards the end, he's like, all right, I gotta time myself. Someone's got time in the chair. I don't think we're going to do a wolf man.
01:15:53
Speaker
And then it's like, we don't even get to see him like escape, turn to a wolf and break out of the chair, just like cut back later and he's gone. There's one transformation scene in this movie and it's it's not, its it's not particularly very good or interesting. It's like all locked off shots, no camera movement and just like slow fades to more fur being on him.
01:16:13
Speaker
Yeah, there's a transformation. There's a transformation back. But but yeah, yeah like I was saying I was the 40s like they had limited technology. I guess this is I do not.
01:16:25
Speaker
i would I would not give it that leeway. I mean, look at invisible. Well, this is the point I want to make. I i went hard on this episode, and I watched a movie for a purely backstory. So yeah the back so this is not the first Universal werewolf movie. This 1935, I think, movie werewolf in London, who Sarah was perfect, yada, yada, yada.
01:16:55
Speaker
Um, great song. Um, but, uh, and that had the same makeup designer, uh, Jack Pierce, who also did, uh, credit sign. Um, and he initially wanted to do the makeup that Lon Chaney Jr has in this movie for like full fur face, classic Wolfman look.
01:17:16
Speaker
But there's a plot point in the earlier, in World From London, where it's like, he has to be recognizable as the same person. I have people that know him when he's the wolf. So they're like, well, that's not going to work. So that's why in, in that movie he has much more on a minimalist. He has like his hair's a little different. He's got sharp teeth and like, you know, a funky nose and that important ears. World From London is a much goofier movie, but I liked it a lot more kind of for that reason.
01:17:42
Speaker
And then it's a lot kind of pulpier. I think the wolf man takes itself fairly seriously and is the sort of the stuff that works about it is what it's trying to get across is the the horror and pathos of like.
01:17:59
Speaker
you have this uncontrollable thing that's going to happen to you. You're going to turn to a monster. You have no control over it. And that's a scary. but Except you do. You have a special necklace and you take it off immediately. Right. So it's like Larry is enough of like a dipshit that it's like it makes it hard to get on board with the movie as an actual dramatic piece of horror. And then it's like, I don't like Larry Talbot. I think he's an asshole. And so like, I don't know what happens to him.
01:18:25
Speaker
Whereas the world in London is like not, the main character in that is not a particularly likable person either. But at least as like, that is like a goofy, wacky, like sci-fi movie. Where like, there's like giant carnivorous plants in that movie. There's like, ah it's just, it's it's much wackier.
01:18:46
Speaker
And also the world transformation that is so much better. It is like, it's instead of fades, it's like moving camera as he's like walking past, like pillars. And it's like, each time this past he's like a little bit more wolf style. But it's like it's a really cool shot. And I'm like, they couldn't have put that shit in the Wolfman.
01:19:07
Speaker
This movie feels so cheap. This movie's so boring. This movie is misogynistic. It's like there's no thrills, there's no chills. What is this? It has good iconography, I do think.
01:19:23
Speaker
Um, and that like the image of launching a junior in the full makeup, walking through the like foggy woods. The fog on the ground is good. and And that's also comes very late in the movie and does, there's not a lot of the movie that's that right. That's a pretty brief section of it. Also, this movie is like 70 minutes. So it's like, it at least is short. Like it's got brevity.
01:19:45
Speaker
But so, yeah, I think if you're looking to watch an old-timey werewolf movie, I would definitely recommend Royal for London over The Wolfman, even though it's far less well-known, far less of like a considered a classic. But yeah, I'm i'm kind of like Wolfman, not ah great. Yeah. You mentioned how this is there's a lot of American Ralph on London that sort of like takes from this.
01:20:11
Speaker
And i I have a ah distinction of like werewolf movies, that there were werewolf movies, which is the the the macro group. But then within that, there are wolfman movies, which are movies from the werewolf's perspective. So American Wolfman is a wolfman movie. But then like that happening is not a wolfman. It's just a werewolf. OK, yeah. I can appreciate like this sort of ah is, you know, the potential of a Wolfman movie in this sort of the fly style. ah What is happening to my body? ah I'm out of control of myself kind of thing. It's a lot of other world movies do better doesn than this one. Yeah. Also, so there's 2010 remake of this movie gets a lot of shit and I think it's pretty cool and good.
01:21:03
Speaker
I got two little notes about this. One is that ah they just credit him as Lon Chaney in the credits, which I feel like is really like really obviously like trying to trick you. You're just thinking it's like any senior, the good one? the Yeah, it's it's trying to like, it's trying to like, I mean, Lon isn't even his name, you know, it it like, he is, he's not Lon Chaney Jr. He has a different name, like, it's very transparently just trying to like, profit off of the recognition of his dad, you know.
01:21:40
Speaker
ah Uh, which I don't know. I don't know how much of a part he had in. I feel like, um, you know, if you start acting under your real name and then you decide to take on your more famous dad's name, uh, that's a, it's a tricky choice to make, you know, starting on my Nick Coppola now.
01:22:02
Speaker
So let's go. And also, ah there's there's a moment where I think his second second werewolf victim is a gravedigger. And so he just very conveniently kills someone right next to an open grave. Which worked out just fine. If you're gonna kill someone, might as well do it right next to the grave, you know? Yeah. Less work for everybody. I guess Jason did that too. Yeah.
01:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I got to say. In the movie Van Helsing, he kills a gravedigger who then falls into the grave, like into a coffin. Nice. I haven't seen that movie in 21 years, so i don't I don't remember that specifically. It's not great. The first 20 minutes i think pretty are pretty cool. That's what I'll say about it.
01:22:56
Speaker
All right. Uh, we have what two movies talk about two more movies. The Wolfman takes place in England, right? European historical shit. I agree with my Valley it takes place in Wales. Similar ah adjacent place. The United Kingdom. They are both yeah the United Kingdom.
Nostalgia in John Ford's Film
01:23:18
Speaker
Uh, I agree with my Valley directed by John Ford, our old pal John Ford. Yeah.
01:23:24
Speaker
making a ah family drama of coming of age story growing up in a little town in Wales where people work at the coal mine and and how how lovely it was in the olden times before all the bad stuff happened.
01:23:41
Speaker
and i'm like That was like a week of your life when it was good, seemingly. It's like, um no I I didn't love this. And i I kind of wish that I liked it more, but... um Yeah, same. I think it's all right.
01:23:59
Speaker
I think this suffers from a kind of bookiness ah potentially of being like this kind of meandering like kind of unfocused like it's got this kind of epic feel but it is um it's like okay what are you doing you know I also feel like this movie is very very nostalgia driven and it's nostalgic for like A time that is, I think it's like so far removed from how we live now that it's a little bit, it's a little bit harder to kind of, uh, hold on to. Like, I think when this movie came out of the picture, I think in 1941, this was like, ah, yes. But like the older generation, they, they, you know, they, they lived a simpler life where like, you know, things weren't as complicated, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or whatever. And.
01:24:54
Speaker
I'm sort of like, yeah, I'm like 18, 80, whatever, like, not that I'm like, oh, who cares? But it's like, it's, it feels like it is like so far removed just from kind of like, I can see this playing a lot better in 1941 than it does now, I guess, for that reason, the fact that it sucks so kind of romanticizing a time and a place. yeah I think that like a point of comparison with this movie is a Christmas story, ah which is another movie. I actually haven't seen it either. but
01:25:30
Speaker
but it's But it's another movie that has like this kind of nostalgia. It it is the an adult narrator of the child protagonist reminiscing on the kind of on his past. Right. And it's this nostalgic kind of look at the 1950s, I believe, for that movie, ah which may be, you know, a bit more alien to us about like fifties nostalgia than than you know, ah in the same way that like, yeah, I don't know. I can say i feel like I watched like ah American Graffiti. And I'm like, I get it. Like I wasn't allowed in the 50s. But like, sure, George Lucas, like I can see why you were like, I remember in the 50s, when we were just driving cars around the streets and like no one cared about anything. I was like, yeah, I get it.
01:26:22
Speaker
Whereas this is like, I remember when everyone worked with the coal mine and then like everyone died in an accident. I'm like, no, dude, this sounds terrible. Yeah. I mean, this is a movie that um I didn't dislike this movie. I just thought it was. I didn't dislike it either. I think it is a is ah is a ah a very, I don't know, it's not backhanded. I think it's a very well-directed movie. But I think I just, I found it hard to get emotionally Invest in it. It's a visually beautiful movie. like Like I thought, especially in the beginning where it's trying to establish the kind of beauty of this valley of life in this valley, there are some gorgeous shots, gorgeous compositions painterly of ah of that that life. green
01:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, as far yeah, yeah. and There's a lot of comments on Letterboxd about it's like about it being a black and white movie. color in the title But, you know, this is a movie that doesn't spend a lot like this. um The premise of this movie is things were better. Let's watch them all go to shit, you know, and like,
01:27:37
Speaker
uh a la fellowship of the ring uh but this like doesn't spend a lot of time in the shire you know uh this doesn't do you do you see my comparison i feel like the the comparisons i'm making with this movie you don't buy any of them um but like like this is this is a movie that several times where this movie though so maybe not this movie is wishing for a better time. And it it kind of ends the the very beginning of it, I believe is like the main character leaving the valley, right as an adult. ah And then right and yeah like, he's like,
01:28:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's horrible here now. I'm gonna leave. Remember when it was good? And then it kind of goes back to, you know, yeah, family life, and then the the various dramas that happened to these people throughout their lives. Some good, many bad. Yeah, I guess my kind of like gripe with it is it's like, I remember when the times were good, I'm like, yeah, when you were like a little kid, you had no responsibilities. Of course, I thought everything was good.
01:28:48
Speaker
like I don't know. um I think a lot of the like, I get what this movie is trying to do, but it just didn't work on me. Well, I don't think it's like specifically him talking about like his own life being better when he was a kid. I mean, like there it was materially better, right? like His conditions changed because yeah like his his sister was married off to someone she didn't love and taken away from the person that she did. His brother died in the coal mines. like There was a ah strike that like
01:29:22
Speaker
put like and made everybody starve and like in the before times like people were treated with respect quote unquote and like striking wasn't necessary and now we live in this like grimmer reality where ah people are getting exploited and we have to reckon reckon with that you know maybe it's just like that i've been feeling very kind of cynical lately but i'm just like the coal mine was always a coal mine it was always run by like a greedy like profiteer Like, just because you remember a time that none of that was relevant. I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's just him. But his dad, you know, his dad is someone who at one point like he doesn't support the strike initially because he's still understanding things under the old paradigm before the owner of the mine, either, you know, depending on how you see it, either like
01:30:20
Speaker
decided or ended up kind of becoming more cruel and capitalistic or had just not realized yet that he could. right Either way, his dad didn't support the strike because he was like, we shouldn't be doing this because things are good and because like why would why would our you know benefactors, the mine owners, like treat us poorly?
01:30:46
Speaker
right and i think There is um there is something to, you know, it's not just like a child like naivete. It is. It is. It's kind of positioning his dad as someone who is from, you know, another and older, more civilized age. You know, I guess it's also my just like general worldview is like that. There was no more civilized age like this, like that didn't exist.
01:31:14
Speaker
Like, I think that the wistful looking back on like, oh, simpler time, things were never simple. Like, if anything, I've learned a lot of that from doing this show, like looking at the history segments, you know, dark periods of history. It's like it was never good. There was no I don't know if there was a single year we looked at that didn't have some horrific like massacre happen. We're like some just like really awful thing to look back and i be like, man Dan, the the past was sure was awful, huh?
01:31:44
Speaker
i mean I think that your cynicism is not uncalled for, especially if we look at it in comparison with you know our last John Ford movie, The Grapes of Wrath. like That's a movie that is very directly and angrily grappling with like real suffering. you know it's like jack he has a
01:32:09
Speaker
like the grace of wrath has like a real perspective it has like a real political agenda uh and this movie i think like Yeah, it's it's watered down. It feels watered down. It feels um it feels like it it it doesn't feel as vital as grapes. of yeah Yeah. I mean, I do. I like i like a lot of the the the themes that is kind of grappling with of kind of like decency versus like like trying to hold on to these like ideals and and things like that. Like the dad is very much like.
01:32:42
Speaker
no we shouldn't go on strike because like the people who own the mine are are humans like we are and all of a sudden they're like uh no he's a rich human we are not the same like he has all he has all of the power we have none of it like what are you talking about you know and then he's like oh you know this is like bad manners to talk like this and he's like and i say if manners prevent us from speaking the truth then we will be without manners and i was like yeah fuck a nine man great great line great line And, you know, there's a lot, there's like the whole thing of, there's like the Weasley guy at the church who's like, they're right. There's like a hot priest who's sort of all about like not being like oppressively religious about just like, no, this is a community thing where I'll come here to be together. Like prayer is about just like speaking your mind and like putting your thoughts into words. And he's very, he's very just sort of like trying to get everyone on board to try to get the whole town together. And like, you know, if you let, when, um,
01:33:41
Speaker
ah God, what's the daughter's name? She has a crazy Welsh name. Not crazy. She has a Welsh name. in And Herod, almost like like like in Fury Road. I also thought of Fury Road, so thank you for not making me feel like a weirdo for thinking that. um But they have a whole Fleabag-esque romance thing. And he he lets her down, I think, in a very mature way, where he's like,
01:34:07
Speaker
Well, some of which are because he's like, oh, no, like, I don't want to put this on you. Like, you deserve better. I'm like, if she wants to get married, dude, and you're into it, I don't know. I don't know what I know what you're complaining about. But, um, right. So there's this sort of like forbidden romance thing going on there.
01:34:24
Speaker
Well, I don't know the particulars of the religion that they're doing. It might be like, ah you know, you can't get married, you have to do celibacy kind of thing. like That's what I thought at first, but then his excuse wasn't that. It was that like, oh, you you'll be like penniless and miserable if you if you're married. Because he's like so committed to to the church. um And then there's the there's like the Louisa guy, he was like the deacon at the church, who's like like publicly shaming people left and right.
01:34:55
Speaker
like There's a lot of, I feel like the movie is like showing you kind of two sides of like religious like oppression and also this guy who like actually is like kindhearted and just wants to have people. There's the people who are like, no, work is good, it keeps us busy, it pays for our food, and then the other people are like, no, like we we deserve more than this, like we're being taken advantage of. That isn't decent either.
01:35:19
Speaker
And so I like that the movie is trying, I like the ideas of this movie I think is kind of trying to grapple with a bit. But i yeah, I found a lot of it to be a little, maybe a little overly simplistic, a little bit, just kind of, the the idealism didn't, a lot of the idealism of this movie didn't really land with me.
01:35:38
Speaker
yeah There's like, they they like send the narrative character to to school, but then the school teacher is like the meanest man who ever lived. it's yeah It really reminded me of joke rule he really remind to me up the wall, like ah like the the kind of cruel school teachers in Pink Floyd's The Wall. Maybe Pink Floyd, big John Ford fans, we don't know.
01:36:02
Speaker
I mean, but also maybe that's just like yeah that's then this movie is the only place with mean school teachers. Yeah. Well, in The Wall, right, it is talking about this kind of like institutionalized cruelty within the British school system.
01:36:18
Speaker
and how it perpetuates like a cycle of like cruelty and violence and all of that. And like and and so it's you know speaking from the experience of a British person who went through probably a pretty similar school experience. So it did it did kind of ring true in a way.
01:36:39
Speaker
um But then it's like they're like, oh, you're gonna be the first member of famines that gonna go to school like get a college education Then like the school is so incredibly cruel to him that he's like, never mind. I'd rather work in the coal mine yeah And and then yeah, he's like a child laborer and a bunch of coal mining like his brother gets killed in the coal mine his dad gets killed in the coal mine and And right, we're seeing like slowly like the this like pastoral, lovely, beautiful fairytale town is being like chipped away at over the course of the home movie until it's just this like, nearly unrecognizable husk of its former self. um And it's like, ah, remember when the valley was green?
01:37:19
Speaker
There was a point where I was really reminded of the the the limits of screenplay storyte of storytelling where toward the beginning of the movie, like the the main character kind of catches feelings for the person who ends up marrying his older brother. right There's this whole scene of him just like,
01:37:40
Speaker
oh wow she's the lady for me like like whoa and then you know she's not available anymore because her because she marries his brother and that moment i was like so his brother's gonna die right but you know he does and he moves in with with his widow yeah yeah like it's it's it's it's just i don't know i feel like i shouldn't have known in advance that is brother his brother was gonna die but it's But it's like, oh, okay, well, yeah, like, you you know, if if the main character is is ah crushing on your brother's fiance, like, where in a screenplay is that ever going to end except for the brother dying? and I mean, it does, it seemingly does not go anywhere in the movie, but- Not really. um I do like in the narration in that moment where he's like, oh, some people would say that, like,
01:38:33
Speaker
like falling in love as a child is foolish. whatever here like But I'm sorry, like I'm narrating the story. Like were you there? No. I didn't say that, but that's like the the vibe is he's sort of like, hang on, like I'm remembering my own childhood right now. Like you, like don't don't come at me. Very defensive narration.
01:38:54
Speaker
I do think like this movie gets that there's some sort of like childhood sort of things I think this is able to kind of capture well like I i think just even like there's the whole thing where the the family hosts lots of they're like have the whole town over the house and like put food for everyone. Everyone has beer.
01:39:13
Speaker
And there's like a bit of, he like he's coming down the stairs and has like pajamas like'm looking through the see that the staircase, banisters. And then like that, I feel it feels like a like a classic childhood memory of the kind of like getting put to bed, but then there's a like a grownup party happening and you like sneak out a little bit looking at like, ooh, there's like grownup party happening. What are they what are they up to?
01:39:38
Speaker
um I really like ah when um after he gets beaten up by the Draco Malfoy kid at school. but he gets He gets beat up by the teacher and also gets beaten up by a bully that he then has to learn how to box from the local box boxing lads down at the pub. They're like, oh, beer, have like a glass of milk or whatever. And they're like, no, no, no, he's going to learn how to box. He's got to drink beer. It's the And then when his brothers, when it comes home from school, after boxing, bully gets beaten by the teacher.
01:40:18
Speaker
yeah all those adult brothers are like, what happened? Like, oh, they're clearly like the teacher beat him with a stick. And the all those brothers are like, we'll go kill that guy for you if you want. And he's like, no, no, please don't do that. Don't do that.
01:40:33
Speaker
But then the boxers, the family friends go to the school and beat up the teacher anyway, which might have been my favorite scene in the movie. The movie has this perspective of like, that it's the kind of part of the essential male experience to fight. To fight, yeah. The other thing that I kind of like was a little bit resistant to,
01:41:02
Speaker
that, you know, I feel like, you know, times when you can just fight people in the street. I'm like, no, it's not the good old times. You know, there there is like some small part of it that like, you know, I know I know fighting and violence is bad and you know, toxic masculinity and all that. I understand that. But there is a part of it that of that movie that made me go like maybe maybe like there are some things that like make sense that or not make sense. But it's like maybe there there is something to be said for the catharsis of fisticuffs, you know. It's the, well, that's the thing is he makes friends with the bully. The bully then is like to kind of defense him against the teacher when like he's like breaking up the fights, no fighting a allowed. And the teacher is like, like bend over so I can like hit, hit my stick on on this kid. And he's like, no, I won't do it. Like he, through boxing his, his, the other kid who's bullying him, they like form a respect for each other. Yeah. And I, having not gotten into a lot of fights,
01:42:06
Speaker
like I've not had this experience, but i've I've heard from people that have had this experience where like you get into an actual fight with someone and it like there is this like unspoken like bond that is formed sometimes where it's like you you gain a lot of respect for someone having fought.
01:42:22
Speaker
but there There was a part of this movie that was making me go like, are our ah is our modern day society and laws about assault like stop stopping this ah this some some types of beautiful catharsis among among boys and boxing heads as well? But I think it is sort of like, go to boxing class. Don't just like, I agree, don't just like, beat up on people because that is also yeah Yeah, but I also it's funny how much that comes up in I think a lot of movies from like this era like I think of like all the Frank Epper movies where it's like yeah at some point the like, you know, the sort of like idealistic, you know, wonderfield guy just gets mad for hitting people and it's it's framed as like, oh, yeah, you should be doing
01:43:10
Speaker
He can. And also, yeah, Miracle on 34th Street, a lovely, wonderful movie where Santa Claus hits a guy in the head with a big stick and then has to go to court for assault. Well, we'll get to it. We'll get to it. Yeah. That movie is like fully on board with Santa Claus. Santa Claus actually says, and that he's like, sometimes he's got to bonk someone on the head. Like, that's the only thing they'll listen to.
01:43:34
Speaker
yeah Like, Santa Claus said it, so you can't be wrong. He is a saint. Yeah. This movie, Habbard with My Valley, won the Academy Award for Best Picture, running in 1941. That's right. I'm surfing what is often cited as not just the best film in 1941, but one of the best films, if not the best film ever made. It is the most commonly agreed upon best film ever made.
01:44:04
Speaker
which is a little wild fred for literally any movie. That is a consensus, but we we made it here. This was like at the start of our show, we were like, hey, Citizen Kane, we are to watch in a modern context. Maybe if we watched every movie, maybe if we watched a bunch of movies from every year from the beginning of cinema as a thing that existed, maybe we'll land a little different.
01:44:32
Speaker
yeah yeah so this is I say to you this, what do you think it landed any differently for you? Re-watching it after being like, nothing. I did think I liked it. I liked it more watching it this most recent time than I have before.
01:44:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I am. Yes, I mean, this is this is a big moment in a lot of ways because like this is like the whole like premise. This is like the whole premise of all of this, you know, like, like it it was hearing the way that people talk about this and came that made me want to do this in the first place yeah
Innovations and Themes in 'Citizen Kane'
01:45:12
Speaker
because.
01:45:12
Speaker
uh you know this whole argument of like it was ahead of its time it was it was or not ahead of its time but it was like leaps and bounds ahead of everything else it was it felt like the the beginning of a new era uh and you know not exactly like i'm not saying that there isn't like some really really good stuff in this movie this is a good this is a really good movie you know but like Do I like, ah do I like the thief of Baghdad more? Like probably, you know? Right. And that's the thing I think, especially watching in the context of like, you know, we didn't watch every movie ever made up until this point, but like, you know, the broad strokes of like the history of filmmaking up until Citizen Kane. It's not that it's that innovative. I don't think it's just the fact that it's very good.
01:46:06
Speaker
Like it's it's using a lot of different techniques and it is doing some things that are fairly, if not groundbreaking, that are are new, that are like uncommon, that aren't really tools that are being used a whole lot. yeah But it's less about how much it's doing that's new and how much it if it's just like using all the tools to the maximum effect. And it's just like gathering all this stuff together and just making a really robust, really well-made move.
01:46:35
Speaker
Robust is the word for sure. And also the fact that it's like a 25-year-old dude who'd never made a movie before, who also produced and stars in it. It's just like, come on, man. Come on. Maybe something for the rest of us.
01:46:49
Speaker
Yeah, i think I think that a lot of what people ascribe to this movie as far as its advances, they are technical. they are Yes, there are a lot of typography stuff. There's a lot of screenwriting also, I think. There's a lot of structural stuff.
01:47:08
Speaker
That's part of why, um you know, part of why ah in, you know, kind of imagining this, I thought that like this this whole podcast, I was like, I feel like I want your insights specifically as someone who, you know, knows more about film form from that perspective. Because I look at Citizen, what, before I did this, I looked at Citizen came and I was like, okay, like there are some fancy shots, but like what,
01:47:38
Speaker
What formally is this doing that's so wild? Like, I don't understand it, no? Well, I think also, yeah, I think compared to a lot of late period silent movies, there's a lot of really great, really cool use of forum stuff in this movie. But like, compared to like, Sunrise, or like,
01:48:02
Speaker
I think there were earlier movies that kind of stand out more. It's like, damn, i I can't believe that they were doing this at this period of time, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that like maybe what this does is draws into relief the kind of formal backslide that happened when they went to sound film.
01:48:25
Speaker
Mm hmm. This movie starts off with that like shot of the snow globe and like you can see the hand in the snow globe and you can see like the person entering through the door through the snow globe. yeah And it's like it's like a wild shot. Like a lot of the there are individual shots in this movie that feel pretty like avant garde, pretty like pretty like German expressionist. But honestly, just really showy German silent film, you know.
01:48:53
Speaker
And a lot of like the kind of technical stuff they did in this movie to allow for that was like, how can we do a lot of this wacky camera stuff that used to be possible in a sound movie? For example, part part of why I wanted to do all of this, again, backing up to the premise of this podcast, is it's like,
01:49:14
Speaker
would I recognize the things that are different in this movie, right? The things that everyone says are big, different things that this movie does. And some I did, but some I didn't. i Last night, I listened to ah the commentary on the movie by Roger Ebert. And he was pointing out that you could see the ceilings of rooms in this movie. ah And like that that was like a crazy thing. and tape You can see the ceiling in my rooms, my valley.
01:49:44
Speaker
right Yeah, it's like they were like, that was that's such a crazy thing. like They did all of this stuff. like the the the the The ceilings were not made out of plaster. They took fabric and spread it across the top so that they could hide lights and microphones in the ceiling or right above people and make it look like it was a ceiling, but it was made out of fabric. And it's like that was so that they could have all of these low angles and that you could see the ceilings and how crazy it is that you could see the ceiling. and I was like, I didn't notice that you know, like I noticed like the the I noticed there's a lot of like really dramatic like, ah like shots like from low down. But like, did I think about the ceilings like no, you know, right? Yeah, that's great. Because that's the thing that it's like, ideally, you're not supposed to be thinking about the ceilings of this is not a movie about ceilings. So it's like,
01:50:38
Speaker
you're not supposed to notice any of that stuff. And I think that the stuff that about this movie that I think is, again, not necessarily that innovative, but it's just done really well is the kind of like the the structure of it, I think is is pretty like adventurous for the time in the 70s. You know, it is the story of someone's life told, not entirely out of order, but somewhat out of order. And and sort of we're seeing different people who knew him's perspective ah on him. So it's like kind of, it's not doing a Rashomon thing that they they like contradict each other, but it's like, right? So the reporter is like interviewing all the different people who knew this guy after the device. And each of these people is kind of giving us insight into like a different part of who he was as a person. Then I think is there ah that's a very
01:51:31
Speaker
cool and and interesting way to structure a movie like this. Also the fact that it's like kind of a biopic of a fictional, a fictionalized person. um yeah I think think the the writing of it is maybe the thing that feels the most genuinely like adventurous or innovative. Even if it's, I don't think any individual thing it's doing is necessarily hasn't been done before. It's just sort of like, oh, this is a cool tape that feels fresh.
01:52:01
Speaker
Yeah, one of the other kind of things that is often cited that it does that was ahead of its time or different for the time was like the that there's a lot of shots with really deep focus. And yeah, like, I don't know, maybe.
01:52:18
Speaker
It's supposed to notice. Right, right. It's like I didn't immediately notice that. It just kind of feels like part of the stylistic texture of the movie. But if you asked me if it could have been part of the stylistic texture of a movie from the 20s or a movie from five years earlier, I was I could have been like, yeah, I guess so. Yeah, why not? You know, it doesn't it doesn't necessarily stick out as much as.
01:52:44
Speaker
it as, yeah, I guess I thought might. I think also because like movies before this didn't have incredibly shallow focus either. Like, yeah, like shots with like pretty deep focus already. So the fact that there's like, there's a couple shots in citizen came that are like, really crazy, where there's like someone in focus in the like the deep background, and there's like a close up of someone like right next to the camera, and they're both in focus.
01:53:09
Speaker
Although the most famous shot where that happens, ah it is not actually deep focus. It was two planes that they filmed separately. ah Oh, no um are that's that's definitely one. I was thinking there's one where Keen is writing the negative review for Susan Alexander's opera. And then um his friend is like far back in the background. Part of what they had to do to make those deep focus scenes work was dump a whole lot of light into the background area. Yeah. get Because i have focus this you have to stop the aperture all the way down. The more light you let into a lens, the shallower the focus is going to be.
01:53:50
Speaker
So especially for like a dark scene like that, you have to keep the actor all the way close. There's not a lot of light is coming in. And then just like blast lights on the actors so you can see them. Right, huh? Yeah, I mean, and the like in this movie that stuff is like really masterful, right? Like they have know I think that like one of the strongest parts of this movie are like the kind of visual compositions and blocking and all of that. like The scene transitions in this movie are so good.
01:54:24
Speaker
That's the thing that probably stuck out to me the most on this most recent watch was like so many great scene transitions, even if it's like a simple thing of just like, I don't know, like match cuts, a lot of like part of the scene fades before another part of the scene and then that kind of is like sort of yeah lined up with part of the set or something like that. It's just like the scene transitions are so well thought out and are always like, damn, that was a really good transition.
01:54:48
Speaker
Right in the beginning of the movie, there is a part where it, ah you know, it's slowly getting closer and closer and closer to the window where Kane is dying. And it it zooms to the outside of Xanadu of his castle, and then it gets to...
01:55:05
Speaker
a closer shot of his of the outside of his window then the background fades out then the foreground like dissolves into how does it work that it's It's a really wild shot. It's turning the perspective 180 degrees where it's going from one side of the window to the other side and it makes it so seamless through its kind of use of of light and that you can't even recognize that you're moving from one shot to the other. It's kind of incredible.
01:55:48
Speaker
Like like you you phase from one side of the window and the bed to the other side of the window and of and the bed. And ah and it doesn't just through like you drop the light out of the background, you fade from the foreground from one foreground to the other. And then you kind of like like disguise that by fading back by like bringing the light back up on like the new foreground. So you're kind of like transitioning the foreground and background at different times and leading the focus on the thing, keeping the focus on the thing that isn't changing so that the change in the shot is completely imperceptible to you. It's and and like that kind of thing along with like what you're talking about where they are like really carefully
01:56:40
Speaker
um crafting the light situation across a really deep shot with like a lot of different things in the frame. It's all of this like really masterful stuff.
01:56:54
Speaker
ah technically, that is being, you know, it's not trying to make a big deal out of itself necessarily. It is just, it's trying to make itself invisible. It's trying to, like they wanted to make their cuts invisible as often as possible, which was what I think Ebert was saying that um Toland, the the cinematographer, like yeah his aim was to make as many of the edits as imp impossible as it invisible as possible.
01:57:22
Speaker
And that is, like, that's good editing also. Like, the editing in this movie I think is really, really, yeah, really phenomenal. Rick Collin, too, also shot Greg's Breath, which also looks great. But, yeah, it's like, I was thinking, when we were watching this movie, like, why do they show these movies to, like, high school film students? Or to, like... Like, I don't think it's a good movie to, like, get you excited about, like, the possibility of cinema, even though it is, like, an incredibly well-made movie.
01:57:49
Speaker
because it's just about like a newspaper media magnate who like loses his soul. and then yeah yeah it's like it's um it's I don't think it's a movie that a lot of like ah very young people can relate to or really find a lot of excitement in. I think watching the movie now, as someone in my 30s, I'm like,
01:58:13
Speaker
Yeah, like i I get it. This movie has like a lot to say and it's like really has some stuff on its mind, you know? But I'm like, I didn't care about any of that stuff when I was 20, you know? Yeah, it's got a nuanced political message or if not new, it's it's an it's a movie that has a political message and it's got like a nuanced kind of take about like the the the humanity or lack thereof of like the rich people who is skewering, I suppose. It is also, I think something that is maybe, again, is more of like a narrative thing that's more innovative or sort of fresh, at least.
01:58:51
Speaker
is it sort of like it's it's focused on like media and like the way that media yeah controls the narrative and sort of controls the way that people people's perspectives are. um And how like Jane is actively saying like, people think what I tell them to think. Which is like, I don't know how much that was, I feel like that's like,
01:59:13
Speaker
just assumed now, like I think in 41 that was a bit more about like, oh damn, that is so like a strong take to have. it's so It's media theory, basically. It's the kind of stuff that people write in in college books about like about like like that manufacturing consent, you know? and That's the stuff that I think is like really, is like the more groundbreaking stuff about this movie and like the way that it's produced, the way that it's like, it feels like this massive The scope of this movie feels so big and and huge, and I don't think it was that expensive. I could be wrong on that, but it's like it uses a lot of stock footage.
01:59:51
Speaker
and in pretty seamless ways, especially you'm like the the whole like newsreel thing. You're like, damn, like did they shoot all of it? It's like, no, they shoot any of this. It was all stock footage. Almost entirely. for whites Yeah. one One tidbit that I got from the Ebert commentary, which was really great, was that the RKO had their own newsreel team. And so he handed over the editing of that part to the newsreel team. so that they could make it like really like it was a real newsreel, which I thought was great. I think the like the authenticity of that newsreel at the beginning also feels somewhat... The fact that it's like using a newsreel for exposition feels... I think that kind of thing has been done before, but it's like it still feels like kind of a fresh idea in this movie. The way that it integrates Orson Welles as Kane into existing footage, I think, is pretty notable. There's the shot of him next to Hitler that is like...
02:00:44
Speaker
I'm not sure how they did that. I guess they just cut them out and stuck them in there. but I wasn't sure if like they did that with a Hitler actor or not. Maybe they did that. right Maybe they just got a guy to dress up as if they had plenty of those running around Hollywood in 41. Sure. i feel Are you talking about Charlie Chaplin? ah Anyone. and All the many Hitler parodies that people who were thrown at.
02:01:08
Speaker
I guess I guess there's a possibility that it was doing a yeah a forest gump. <unk>s The idea of like integrating like historical or like sort of present because they weren't historical in 41 but like integrating a fictional character into like these real things also feels like the kind of thing like oh that's like Again, I feel like calling this movie be innovative is like the wrong perspective. it's It's more that it's just doing things in really smart, fresh ways. Yeah, yeah. It's using- Again, it's not as new, it's just doing stuff really well. I think, yeah, to is sort of in in the way that you said before, it's like um it's using the tools that it has available to it very extensively and very masterfully.
02:01:55
Speaker
Which feels very, that feels like a thing that just works and wells through his his entire career. Just he loves to play with like the form and he loves like, like he started like giving theater. It was like doing, it's like great, crushed it as as a theme. And he's like, I'm gonna do radio. I'm gonna like play the shadow. And then he's like, I'm gonna like do this crazy radio thing where he always got scared when, you know, do a fake like news broadcast about Martians.
02:02:21
Speaker
And then he's like, all right, movies, like I gotta make a movie. I'm gonna like really try to use all the tools. Like it's a movie. I'm not doing a stage point or a radio show. Like what can I do as a movie that I can't do it in those things? And so it's like nonlinear narrative stuff, like integrating news reels and things into it. Like all of these cool ideas.
02:02:41
Speaker
that I'm sure he was super excited about. He was like pushing people further than they might have otherwise. He's like, no, let's really do something special with this. And even later in life, he's like he tried he tried to have a talk show that didn't go anywhere. But it's like there's one episode that exists of the Orson Welles show that is like a crazy talk show that Orson Welles did for one episode where he like does magic tricks and stuff.
02:03:09
Speaker
And I'm like, damn, he was he was still trying to like break apart the form of these different things. I think this whole his whole life. and yeah there's a There's a perspective kind of floating around that like people give Wells a bit too much credit for this movie. ah the The boy genius who ah just instantly was good at everything that he did, where or at least like in doing that, their intention is to spotlight um the the other people, the other kind of notable people ah were had larger hands in the kind of
02:03:47
Speaker
revolutionary nature of this movie, ah in particular um Herman J. Mankiewicz and Greg Toland. Where like Greg Toland um had been doing cinematography for a long time, he specifically wanted to work on this movie and he specifically often liked working with first-time directors because he it gave him He said that it gave him like a ah way to play an experiment ah with somebody who didn't have this kind of established idea from experience of how movies should be made. Right. Right. And so like.
02:04:25
Speaker
like Orson Welles was accommodating all of these people who were allowed to really stretch themselves narratively and and formally. Well, I mean, her Herman Mankiewicz was the guy that had like a real personal stake in this in this story that he was like, he he he knew um ah Hearst and like used to go to Hearst Castle all the time and get drunk and like go to parties and like he He was the one who had this sort of like insider perspective on um William Randolph Hearst as a person. And I think kind of wanted to actually like tell a story about a sort of very likely fictionalized version of him. um I think Orson Welles was also like, hey, that's like, that sounds cool. Like, yeah, write that up, Mank, get on it. I'm gonna stick you to bed for six months while you write it. Citizen Kane was also one of the only movies that Mankiewicz like fought for credit on.
02:05:24
Speaker
Like he was usually like he uncredited writer and all these other things. And that was like the one thing is like, no, that I feel really strongly about this. I want my name on it. I want credit. ah One thing about Mankiewicz.
02:05:39
Speaker
One thing about Manko is getting drunk that you mentioned is that that part of I'm forgetting the name of Kane's friend who ah like is the one who but yeah just a gotten character. Yeah. Yeah. There's a part where like, you know, he is faced with having to write a negative review of Kane's second wife's opera and he gets he gets too drunk. Like he's writing the review and you know, he's kind of or he's he's tortured about it. I'm betraying my friend in a way, but also I feel like he's betrayed himself and like I'm going to lose my job over this. So he gets he gets so drunk and he falls asleep at his keyboard. What else finishes it?
02:06:26
Speaker
Yeah and then Orson Welles or then Kane finishes it. right But ah that is something that. yeah there's There's definitely a bit of a mirroring there. Yeah. Well no there's there so there is a time when Mankiewicz was doing a review at at the New York Times of a of a play, and he got too drunk to, I don't think it was for all of these reasons, but that like literally happened to him. He got too drunk to finish the review, and then he got, um he had this embarrassing thing happen where the New York Times, like they didn't have the story, and so they were like, sorry, like we have to run the review 24 hours later, ah because our ah writer got too drunk to to write the review of the play. A quick shout out that I mentioned the ending. I don't know if anyone knew this. This movie was edited by Robert Wise, a great, well-respected director in his own right, who did a bunch of bunch of good stuff. Dave Leersted still heard of it. A bunch of other stuff, too. But anyway. What is there to say about Citizen Kane?
02:07:37
Speaker
and I mean, one thing that I mean, if we're going to get a little more into the narrative, um one thing that I something that you said kind of made me think of, you know, um we're talking about like the the unconventional structure of the story ah where, you know, I think people will say like nonlinear narrative and sort of leave it at that. But this this is the same way with a lot of its innovations and kind of impressive things that it does is that this nonlinear narrative is not just to show off or not just to do something different. Like it is ah it is being used intentionally in order to
02:08:19
Speaker
view the story in a certain way. And I think that a lot of nonlinear narratives, it is to add this kind of tension and mystery. But here, what it's to me, what it's being used for is to ah get across this idea of someone's life as a, like, how how your own life can be reflected by the ways that you have affected other people, right? Yeah, yeah. So the the only, because we don't ever get any kind of firsthand experience of Cain, because
02:09:01
Speaker
All of these scenes are coming from interviews with people who he touched in some way through his life, right? And I think it's really notable that, like, can we see other people's memories of him.
02:09:17
Speaker
We're only seeing other people's memories of them. There is there isn't necessarily a suggestion that they're like unreliable narrators. yeah Like what it is saying is that like this is an aspect of him as seen by.
02:09:32
Speaker
another person, how like basically it's saying that you as a person can be represented, that that a meaningful part of who you are can be represented by the opinions and perspectives of the people in your life. And that if you do that enough times, this movie has this, like rather than just being like a Pulp Fiction style thing, it's it's like this this, I kind of think of it as like a folding narrative. It's like folding over itself over and over again. Because it's going from young to old, young to old, young to old, Cain. And it's it's telling the same story, but from different people. And so it's kind of creating a larger picture that you kind of figure is relatively full by the end, just because they've interviewed enough people to get a sense of who he is. Right. Yeah. Except, of course, like the ending. Like there's there's like the the core of him the the private part, the part that he didn't
02:10:32
Speaker
Talk to anyone about yeah, the thing you they're all looking for they're all trying to find out what Rosebud means the last his last words Yeah, and of course no one knows because he never talked about it because it's just is it's his childhood and it's the thing that seemingly meant something to him, but It it if it it affected no one else. It's like but that is like it is this that is the part of himself that is my part of my reading of it is like that is the part of himself that was completely internal, and so therefore it is unknowable, like no one, no one finds out what Runescape means. Right. Except we as the audience.
02:11:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's like almost the only part of the movie that is like an objective perspective. it's the It's the only one where like no one, because no one has an insight on it, we only have the kind of objective perspective of the camera to show us the sled that and and that it's meaningful. It is also like in hindsight, you can find like immediately after he gets like taken away to live with like Wall Street banker guy,
02:11:40
Speaker
that he gets given like this enormous, ostentatious looking sled for Christmas. And little kid Kane looks so unimpressed with slip. He's like, what is this what is this bullshit? He's like, no, he wants rosebud. That's his good slip. Yeah. like you know it's It feels a little weird to analyze Kane because like everybody's done it. But I mean, I guess, I don't know. I don't get any new to add to the pile. Yeah. There's like whole books written about this movie.
02:12:09
Speaker
But um to me, right like I feel like the kind of like a first blush reading of the Rosebud is like lost childhood innocence, right? But like if we break that apart, like what what is it? like Maybe- He's thinking about how great his value was. yeah like I guess to me, right?
02:12:38
Speaker
the The whole story is about Cain being an egotist. It's not like even when You know, you can kind of see it as like a young and idealistic person who believes in things like becoming corrupted and then like becoming a rich asshole. Right. But like he's always young. Exactly. That's the thing. It's like he is an egotist and then you watch it change who he is depending on what circumstance he's in.
02:13:14
Speaker
Right. Like the the consistent thing is that he's an egotist that and if he's an egotist in like a situation where he's got like a scrappy newspaper, he's trying to get like attention. Like, sure, he's going to fight for the little guy, you know. ah yeah But then when he's an egotist, when he has he he manifests it through his ah his wife, who he considers a project, he's like, I'm going to make myself important by making this person important.
02:13:44
Speaker
or just all of the, you know, all the just rich guy stuff that does toward the end of the movie. Yeah. um And so, you know, and we don't really see much of Cain before he's rich. But like, I wonder if like Rosebud is basically like.
02:14:00
Speaker
you know, it is drawing a comparison between like, not just like a sort of generic childhood innocence, but specifically like, and and not like a generic money, money corrupts, you know, but it's like, it's like, would he be an egotist like this? If would his like defining characteristic exist if he wasn't rich, you know, and what he has that line,
02:14:24
Speaker
were towards the beginning of the movie, but towards the end of Kane's life where he says, uh, if I, if I hadn't been rich, I might've been a great man or something like that. And he's, so there is a ah bit of sort of like self reflection going on seemingly, or maybe he's just trying to stick it to his adoptive father one more time. You know, it's like, you can't really know, but, um,
02:14:51
Speaker
I do feel like that the egotism feels like an intrinsic part of who Charles Foster Kane is. The fact that he was rich let him sort of like put that egotism out of the world a lot more, but that feels like just sort of a core part of him as a person too much.
02:15:12
Speaker
I think that stuck out to me more this time than I remember it singing out to me before is the first time he meets his second wife and he gets like splashed, splashed mud on him and she invites him up to her apartment is like that's You can definitely see where that relationship went badly and how it was sort of always probably not a good idea, but it's like you can see in Kane where he starts to kind of like possibly fall in love with her where it's like she doesn't know who he is. He's become like this super famous figure who's like running for mayor and all this stuff at that point.
02:15:54
Speaker
And here comes along this woman who has no idea who he is, but it's still treating him with like a lot of respect and and kindness. And he's like, damn, this this like it feels good to like be around a person who like has no baggage about me whatsoever. She's treating him with kindness.
02:16:13
Speaker
She's treating him with a kindness that could only come from somebody who doesn't know who he is. Right. Yeah. But it's like the anonymity there. And he like doesn't try to like deny. He's not like, oh, me, I'm nobody. He's like, I'm i famous, you know? He's like, i I don't know who you are. And you can see how that he's like, oh, this is like kind of nice. It's kind of nice not to have any of this other stuff. And he kind of wants to keep that. You can see why he wants to continue that relationship and also keep it a secret and like kind of keep it compartmentalized away.
02:16:43
Speaker
And then, of course, that is a workout. um And that leads to goes very badly. But I don't know, there's a bit of like sweetness to that scene that I think really kind of sticks out. It's one of the few moments where I think you can kind of see Cain without a lot of without a lot of.
02:17:03
Speaker
external like behavioral stuff going on. like He's not putting on a show for anyone as much. It's it's much more of a like one-on-one. he's just It's like two people in a room having a conversation without any other stuff attached to it.
02:17:17
Speaker
ah what One of the things that Roger Ebert mentioned in the commentary is that like when he got splashed and had to go up to her apartment, he was on his way on like a solo trip to the warehouse where Rosebud is. right yeah If it hadn't been for that, he would have like gotten Rosebud back or whatever.
02:17:38
Speaker
yeah yeah But it's ah it it adds like, ah you know, he was kind of seeking something at that time. And like even though he found this kind of like innocent, but quote unquote innocent, and it's almost like there was a manipulative thing going on from the beginning, you know, but like he found this like innocent ish like thing. There's also this like darkness to it in terms of his larger story, because like he was he had like this moment where he was reaching out for something.
02:18:11
Speaker
And if he found Rosebud, would he have found the right thing? But instead, like when he what he grabbed was something that just- A sexy lady with a toothache. It's something that fed his worst impulses again. Right, yeah. um Yeah, dang. That is, um because I did definitely pick up on the thing that he was on his way to the warehouse where Rosebud was.
02:18:38
Speaker
um But yeah, I really liked that kind of perspective on it. where it's yeah he was Whatever headspace he was in in that moment, he was like probably looking for something. And yeah, I like how unknowable Kane seems any at the same time. but it's Like any sort of like famous public figure, it's very easy to kind of armchair, psychoanalyze them. That's what this whole movie is, our armchair psychoanalyzing a public figure.
02:19:07
Speaker
I like how there are no scenes that are like actually purely from King's perspective. That it's like we're only ever seeing him through someone else's eyes. I think it's a really cool way of just making a movie like this. Oh, one thing that I forgot to mention about that too, is that like you know we're seeing all of these stories about the people who were in his life and we're getting a sense of who he is through these people in his life. Every one of those stories ends with someone leaving him.
02:19:37
Speaker
someone being burned by him and yeah telling him to go take a hike. you know like like He is in this way like sort of defined by the connections that he made, but like the enemies that he made. you know like like Every one of them is just like, he was good until he wasn't.
02:19:58
Speaker
Right. Yeah. At times it feels kind of heartbreaking because it's like you, especially early on, it's like he is very charming and kind of charismatic. And you're like, damn, I can see why people would like follow this guy. Like, Hey, he's taking over of the newspaper. He's, he's sticking up with a little guy. And then it's like the, the, the, the kind of curdling of, of how he like treats people around him in each of the different relationships is always really kind of like,
02:20:29
Speaker
Yes, ah can be not hard to watch, but at least sort of like, oh damn, that that didn't go well, did it? um yeah I did feel like this movie was relevant or like prescient to today in terms of like public figures and like media people and like politicians, but also like so wildly disconnected from like the current culture right now.
02:20:58
Speaker
where it's like, oh, Kane's like running for mayor, it's this big thing. And then like, ooh, he secretly had a love nest with a singer. And it's like, that ruins his whole thing. I'm like, that wouldn't happen now. If you yeah if he was actually a ahead in the polls, no one would care. Like that wouldn't eat that would be in the news for a day. If you if you were a Democrat, they'd care.
02:21:21
Speaker
Right, but it it is, he probably wasn't running as a Democrat for mayor of ah Chicago, wherever it was. Right, things like that where it's like, it does feel like a lot of the the sort of ideas that this movie has about like America yeah still feel pretty relevant now, even if it's like,
02:21:42
Speaker
The America this movie is about is is pretty different from what it is today. American problems or American problems, I guess. yeah yeah ah worth Worth just mentioning really quick that the original title of this movie was The American. Really? I think I heard that, but um yeah, damn. I mean, it also would have been a good title, I'm sure.
02:22:09
Speaker
um I mean, that's a very good answer. Go ahead. Oh, I mean, it kind of it kind of indicates like where its head is at, you know, where like the teen is not about. ah It's not about Hearst specifically. It's about like the kind of like uniquely American sickness that Hearst represents that is like a kind of a kind of, you know, synecdoche for her.
02:22:37
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah, no that's I think exactly what this movie is trying to kind of put out into the world. um And he does a pretty, pretty bad job. Citizen Kane, pretty good movie turns out. Yeah. So ah where does Citizen Kane rank as best journalistists kind of I don't think it is the best movie ever made. I don't think you can really put that on any movie. Right. Like I think I think part of what is special about filmmaking to me is how is how diverse it is, right? Like how movies can be so many different things. And I think trying to put it all on one thing as like, this is the the the pinnacle of film as an art form. It's like, no, then I feel like that's almost antithetical to what
02:23:20
Speaker
film is as an art form. You know, it's like, does anyone say, I guess some people say Mona Lisa's the best painting, but like, it's like, there's no best painting. Like, painting's gonna be so many different things. You can't just be like, this one's the best one. We found it, it's the best one. It's the lady. You know, it's like, that feels silly to say. And so that's how I feel about calling Citizen Kane, or any movie, the best movie. I think it's very good.
02:23:51
Speaker
I will say on that note, so I watched this like two days ago. It was playing on 35 millimeter at the Angelica. So it was a perfect opportunity. I was going to watch it this week. Anyway, cool to see it printed out on film. By happenstance, I had to take it to see Batman Returns like half an hour after it ended. So I had to run to the train to a different theater in Brooklyn.
02:24:15
Speaker
run to the theater and then I watched Batman Returns. And after the end of Batman Returns, I was like, I like Batman Returns more. and least If you look at my letterbox, it's reflected there. I gave Citizen of the King four and a half, like very good movie. I gave Batman Returns five stars and a heart because I love Batman Returns.
02:24:34
Speaker
wow Yeah, I mean, you know, I'm, I, you know, some of the arguments, like, is that where it turns a better movie? Who, who, whatever, who cares? That night when I watched them both back to back, I was like, I, I, my preference was Batman Returns, because that's just like the, my vibe, I guess.
02:24:53
Speaker
You know, the idea of something being the best, it is always coming from some kind of squishy human perspective anyway. Personally, I don't see any- As opposed to what, a robot perspective? Yeah, like, I mean, some people might try and like- We're squishy humans. No, what I'm saying is that like some people might try and like quantify what is the best movie by like taking average scores, put together all the time. It sounds like a robot perspective. And like, I think this is the best movie because data point data point data point. That's what I'm saying is that what I'm saying is that like, you know, if we're to pull how many points this ranks by whoever decides to score movies based on points, maybe it's the best movie ever made. But like, if we are to grapple with the fact that any human who is saying, I think this is the best movie ever made, they are saying, I think, and that means that like,
02:25:49
Speaker
To me, to me, there is no difference really between this is the best movie and this is my favorite movie. Like, the like, you know, they can kind of have different vibes to them. But like anything like that, it's always subjective, obviously. And so it's like,
02:26:08
Speaker
you know i I enjoy making big, bold, declarative statements that like are just for fun. because like i I would be more inclined to say that School of Rock is the best movie ever made than Citizen Kane. I love School of Rock and there's nothing wrong with it, and I have a great time watching it every time. That would be a throw on a lot.
02:26:31
Speaker
you know you know, it's very dense. It's very rich. It's very smart. It's very well made. But it's like, does it have that judge, you know, does it have that that little special? sub judge But yeah, I mean, I, it's also just like, it's, kind it's kind of a bummer a little bit too. ah um And I think I felt that, yeah, I don't know. I mean, because I, I do think this is very good. And yeah, it's not a movie that I i necessarily and like excited to to watch very often. And it's you know it's not humorless, it's got plenty of little funny bits. There's a lot of really funny like little performance things, especially like Joseph Cotton, when he's old and he's in like the wheelchair and he's got a mustache and he's like, oh, will you get me one of those cigars? there's ah There's a doctor who has a funny idea that I'm gonna live or something likes like
02:27:28
Speaker
Side note, the makeup in this movie is so, so good. The old age makeup is shockingly good in this movie, where I'm like, how did like what happened between this and like later movies? what happening i hate shot spar again last year I actually saw like a sort of small presentation from a makeup designer who worked on some groenenberg movies and stuff and he was saying that like old age makeup is like the hardest makeup to do and it's like it's so easy to make it for it to because it's the human face it's not fantastical it is like
02:28:02
Speaker
It's something that is so so subtle and takes so much skill in order to make old makeup look convincing. yeah like but it's It's pretty minimalist in this movie and I think that's what makes it work is it's it's mostly just like wigs and like a little bit of wrinkly stuff and and also performance. I think all the performance like Orson Welles plays came from like 20 something to like kind of 60 older like it so it's a pretty and it's like there's a very clear change in how he holds himself, how his face looks. it's like yeah It's like he does a really good job of actually playing the progression of the age. The performances sell it really well. As everyone know like everyone that you see at different ages think does a really good job.
02:28:47
Speaker
Is there anything else we have to say about Citizen Kane? Really, really good lighting. There's a lot of I mean, it's like a little blunt, but there are just like so many scenes where people are like saying things and they're like shrouded in shadow. and Or it's like it's the same scene and somebody like steps forward. And then like when, you know, Kane makes a dark pact with the with Satan that like he metaphorically like he's just completely in shadow and everyone else in the scene is in light. There's a lot of like, there's just like so much, I think that's like another thing about all the technical stuff and in this movie is that it's like using it all for meaning, right? Like, yeah I think that like there are movies that are more, part of the reason why it's not so obvious with all of its like technical advances and mastery and everything is because it's not like trying to be show offy at every moment. Like it is using all of this stuff, like all the stuff that it does, it is using it to amplify meaning.
02:29:47
Speaker
Orson Welles, good director, turns out. Cybertron himself. is I thought he was a different character. Cybertron is a planet they're from. But isn't he a planet? I think he is a planet. I don't know. I haven't seen that movie. so Whatever. Shall we get into our favorites of 1941?
02:30:10
Speaker
i First, I want to say that there is a man named Paul Masson who is not from France, but or he is French, but the wine he makes is not French, but it's inspired by real French champagne. Yes. the Deep cut reference. i hope I hope anyone listening gets it. and Like the best French champagne, it's vintage dated and fermented in the bottle.
02:30:41
Speaker
Yeah, okay. Dumb references aside. Ah, the French. Ah, the French. Definitely not the first time that we've referenced Orson Welles' wine commercial. And it will be the last. It definitely will not be the last. You know what? My favorite is Citizen Kane. It's a good one. Wow. It is good. My favorite is Multistock.
02:31:06
Speaker
like The Multispulker is a movie that I do own on DVD and that I do feel like I will throw on just like as for funsies because I like just kind of luxuriating in that movie's whole deal. Yeah. So, but yeah, Citizen Kane. like I do think at earlier points in life, I've been more of a contrarian. Like, Citizen Kane's not very that good. And now I'm like, no, it's very good.
02:31:35
Speaker
but yeah It's very good, but it's good in a way that can easily make someone say, I like Maltese Falcon better. Right, or Batman Returns. Yeah. So what we're what we're seeing here is that like if we were to make a ranking, top 10 movies of all time, or whatever, like Citizen Kane would be below Batman Returns and the Maltese Falcon for you. I don't know. okay Best films of all, because I do think you have to take When you're doing that, you have to take into account like cultural impact and that kind of thing also, I think. No, you don't. All right. Then, then yeah, I wouldn't be on my top 10 list. It was purely of just movies that I think are just like the pinnacle of the art form. Yeah. I don't know if I would. Yeah. I also, I, I'm of also perspective that I like
02:32:27
Speaker
own reality in my movies. I like fantasy, I like sci-fi, I like things that are abstracted from reality, which I think Citizen Kane is doing a lot of really cool sort of like things with film language that are somewhat abstracted, but it's like like you were saying, oh, he's making a pack of the devil. I want a movie where he actually makes a pack of the devil.
02:32:48
Speaker
Right, right. That to me is that that's what I love about storytelling. them I love like mythology and things that are very taking the inner fossil feelings of people and kind of laying them out on like a a very big stage of sure metaphorical garbage.
02:33:07
Speaker
I mean, that's the classic thing with this movie, right? Is that like, you know, I think it's very good, but it's a little boring. Like, especially like when you are a teen watching this movie and you're like- There's some cock chases in here. You're like, you're like, you're like, you're like, old movie snooze, black and white snooze, newspapers snooze, politics snooze, you know, it's like- Meanwhile, that next three road, super dense,
02:33:36
Speaker
with meaning and thematic things it's trying to say and you know what it has to say about humanity and the the nature of like demagoguery and and you know the commodification of of of women and ah you know wealth inequality and ah the the the you know that the slow death of the earth due to man-made intervention. Also, a quick question.
02:34:01
Speaker
Yeah, I mean... I mean, like, Mandax Fury Road is mythology, right? It's like, it's very abstracted from reality, and that's what I like about it. I mean, i guess there I guess there is something to so to be said, though, because it's like, I totally i agree with what you're saying, but also, like, Citizen Kane is saying deeper and more nuanced things than Fury Road, and that's maybe... I don't actually even know if it is!
02:34:29
Speaker
I think it is I think that like I like you know I think that like fantasy can be used to comment on reality very effectively, but I think that like because of that abstraction from reality, it might be possible that like The thing that it's saying is what it is, right? It's like the Morton Joe takes women as objects. Women are commodified. But like what else is it saying about the commodification of women besides the fact that it happens? You know, like where I think that like Citizen Kane, it allows itself to be a bit less arch, a bit more complex just because like
02:35:11
Speaker
it it is making more direct connections with reality, possibly. I'm not saying this is always the case, but I don't think that like... This is why comparing the two is silly. They're both good movies. Yeah, yeah. Who cares, you know? Yeah.
02:35:26
Speaker
ah Okay, so ah yeah, ah but if we're comparing these six movies, Citizen Kane is my favorite. we'll see We'll see how much it shows up on our top 10 of the 40s. Ooh, I mean, I don't know. Ew, I think we'll probably, well, we'll see, we'll see. I'm i' curious, like at the end of the decade, if it'll be on the list. I imagine it will be, but you'll be wrong. Okay, well, yes, we've picked our favorites.
02:35:56
Speaker
We've talked about all the movies. Sounds like this podcast is about over. I think so. But you know, I think we we have reached a a large milestone. Maybe like in some ways ah the most, but one of the most critical and important for me, ah for me at least, Citizen Kane itself. How does it feel on the other end of that?
02:36:22
Speaker
ah It's good. I'm glad to have done it. Good. ah Yeah, that that that that was our kind of take at the beginning of this discussion, right? It's like Citizen Kane. It's good. It's a good movie. Thank you for thank you for ah joining me on this, Glenn.
02:36:45
Speaker
Thank you for course youre going on. This isn't our last episode, is it? but it's yeah i but but like I have thought like if there's a place to end it it like if that isn't catching all the way up to now, it could be after Citizen Kane. But i don't intend you know I have no intention of that. i I'm ready to keep going.
02:37:07
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you for listening, subscribing, and all that. And time to see y'all in 1942. Glenn, I'm going to see you next year, buddy. Yeah, next year. I'll probably literally see you next year since it we're recording this in December. No, I think we can get 1942 in before the end of the year. That's mine. Yeah. ah But see you next year. Bye.