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1943 - Yeeting Momma (with Ambriehl Turrentine)
70 Plays11 months ago
The world may be at war but the movies bravely carry on! This week we're joined by film programmer Ambriehl Turrentine to discuss the Citizen Kane of the cartoon canon, Alfred Hitchcock's favorite of his own films, and a groundbreaking musical comedy! Plus, we get into some WW2 propaganda cartoons, avant-garde mirror faces, extreme Britishness, Judo throws, and the original Dark Universe!
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 1943 Films Discussed playlist right here!
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome to One Week One Year, a podcast where we watch and discuss every year of film history and order starting in 1895, the dawn of cinema, and this episode is 1943.
Meet the Hosts and Guest
00:00:22
Speaker
I'm one of your hosts, Chris Ellie. I'm a film projectionist. And joining me, as always, is... I'm Glenn Covell. I'm a filmmaker. And joining us for the first time, we've got... I am Ambrielle Turrentine. I'm a film programmer, which means I just get paid to watch movies. um So yeah, huge movie fan.
00:00:39
Speaker
Good gig. Very good gig, yeah. I'm glad to have you on, Ambriel. I've been wanting to for a while, so I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for inviting me. um Hopefully things go well and I can make a return. But if not, thanks for having me this one time. I appreciate it.
00:00:54
Speaker
I'm sure they will. And so we had we had you on in order. ah There was a specific movie that you had been wanting to talk about. And yeah so we we brought you on for this one. I've had you on the list for a long time. So you're welcome to pick another one coming up soon. I have some ideas. I'll send those later. Nice. um All right. Well, um yeah. ah How's everybody doing?
Personal Updates and Experiences
00:01:20
Speaker
What's what's going on and in your lives? We'll catch up.
00:01:24
Speaker
I mean, not not a lot. I i am going to hopefully be ah visiting ah Los Angeles next week to work on a a Friends movie. So that's that's fun. ah friend A Friends movie. I mean, can can we say former former guests? Oh, true yes. yeah Once a future guest of the show now fly is directing a thing. um yeah So i'm I'm getting flown out there to help out, which is which is exciting. Sweet.
00:01:54
Speaker
Wow. is that we we um we We operate like in three completely different realms of of film, I'm realizing. It's kind of neat. um Yeah. Ambrielle, how are things with you?
00:02:05
Speaker
Life is good. I mean, average, um, my cat is getting over a UTI. So, um, I just like gave her her medicine. So I think she'll be quiet during this podcast. But if you hear meowing, that's her. Um, but yeah, other than that, um, virtual Sundance just ended. So I watched a whole bunch of Sundance films and they were pretty solid this year, actually. Um, yeah, this was a good year. And other than that, just, you know,
00:02:33
Speaker
living my life, watching movies, and doing the best I can. Nice. Any um any standouts? Anything we should keep our our eyes peeled for? Oh, our new segment, Ambrielle's Sundance Selects. Okay, so I saw Upward of 20 films, I lost track after 20. But I know, so Train Dreams is a big one. Netflix bought it. um I don't know when it'll be out, but that's a really good one. It's a narrative ah starring Joel Edgerton and Felicity Jones. Another narrative I liked was Sorry, Baby. um It's A24, produced by Barry Jenkins. My friend also had an executive producer credit, so that was cool to see on my screen. Shout out to Catalina if you ever hear this. Love you, girl.
00:03:19
Speaker
Um, so that was yeah, that was a great one that got picked up by a 24 if I didn't say that. Um, I'm a huge documentary person. So there was a great documentary about the show to catch a predator. Um, and like kind of analyzing, wow yeah, analyzing the ethics of it all. Um, and how it's influenced like modern day, um, gotcha television in a way. Um,
00:03:44
Speaker
There was a documentary called The Perfect Neighbor, which very sad. um So I'll let people like Google what that's about. But it's a documentary that's created 100% from um police body camera and like investigation videos and stuff. And it really flows seamlessly. It's really remarkably edited. um But yeah, those are the ones that I'm thinking about. I probably have more favorites that I you know could keep going on and on. But ah those are a few. so Nice. I look forward to seeing those when they come out in a year, probably. Yes, exactly. We've got the inside scoop. And i'm just ah i don't know I'm just doing my thing in DC, settling in, all that kind of deal. ah ah yeah The thing that i'm I'm excited about lately is just yesterday.
00:04:32
Speaker
um So at the National Gallery, we have a media lab, which is kind of just like a ah really elaborate ah digitization room. And so they've got like these rack-mounted tape players of every various type of professional and and ah ah consumer ah tape devices. and ah light and all of this other kind of stuff to like run kind analog film and get it digitized and all that, ah analog things in various ways. The one I'm most excited about, though, is that they have this ah ah Blackmagic Cintel film scanner. It's like a $30,000, like 35 millimeter and 16 millimeter film scanner.
00:05:20
Speaker
ah ah shoots it in like, shoots every frame in HDR 4K. And then, ah yeah, it's incredible. I'm so excited to start playing around with it. And if you're my if you're my friend and you have film that you want scanned, I will scan it for scan it for you.
00:05:36
Speaker
Does it I mean I have I do have a reversal film that I do want to get rescanned 16 millimeter I also have 16 millimeter color negative like I have negatives that I would at some point maybe you like to rescan I don't I'm actually less sure about those because that's like I It's got a setting for negatives. So you're set. But the the the black and white reversal stuff I do and like genuinely very much want to rescan at some point. So maybe I'll make it make it make a trip down there. Nice. ah
Historical Context of 1943
00:06:07
Speaker
All right. Well, good talk to you all. Happy to have you here, Ambrielle. Before we get started with ah our our goings on in the film world of 1943, first, we like to give ourselves a little context for
00:06:21
Speaker
what is going on in the world as if nobody as if people don't know what's going on in the world in 1943. So Glenn why don't you take it away with the news. The news of the year 1943.
00:06:34
Speaker
Casablanca. Allied forces clandestinely meet at the Anfer Hotel to plan the next stages of the European theater. The Warsaw ghetto uprising strikes back against the Nazis, the largest effort of Jewish resistance of the war. As the Axis powers begin to lose ground, Joseph Goebbels declares total war on the Allies, letting down their smokescreen of power.
00:06:56
Speaker
Chemist Albert Hoffman first ingests his synthesized drug LSD. As he rises bicycle home from work, things get pretty crazy, man. We can do it! Women of the U.S. workforce in the U.S. supporting the war effort receive a mascot in Rosie the Riveter. Il Duce is ousted. The Grand Council of Fascism replaces Mussolini as the Italian Prime Minister. The Allies invade and take Italy. The new Italian government joins the fight against the Nazis.
00:07:25
Speaker
Chiang Kai-shek becomes the leader of Taiwan. He meets Roosevelt in Cairo to strategize the Pacific Theater. Olivia de Havilland and the Screen Actors Guild sue Warner Brothers to end the practice of indefinitely extending performers' contracts, granting actors much more freedom from the studios. And that is, I guess, some of the some of the better news of the year?
00:07:47
Speaker
Yeah, you know, real whiplash compared to 1942 news. I mean, I there was a lot of ah horrible stuff that I did not put in this. yeah I tried to focus on the the nicer, the nicer things that were happening. Good, good. Honestly, I tried with the 1942 news and there was like, there's nothing, nothing good happened in that year.
00:08:08
Speaker
All right, well, let's get started. We have a few shorts. Ambriel will join us for one of them. Well, I guess we'll probably put that last. ah And ah let's get started with One Week Unreal. We have a couple of World War II things.
Discussion on 'Private Snafu' Cartoons
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like I feel like we should start with ah private snafu.
00:08:28
Speaker
Yes, for situation normal, all, say it with me, fouled up. Well, see, I like how- See, you didn't say it with me. I didn't say it with you because I take Umbridge. I don't like censorship. Even in the first short though, it does, it takes like a long pause at the F acronym part and it's like situation normal.
00:08:56
Speaker
fouled up it like yeah, it really Emphasizes that which I thought was very funny Yeah, I mean, ah these are um these are cartoons that are made by the Looney Tunes crew, more or less, but also made under ah like kind of highly secretive conditions. ah ah They were not intended for ah to be seen outside of the military. And right some of the people working on them like had very restricted information about them. ah There's anything really to um
00:09:31
Speaker
ah sensitive in these, it's just that um they are, because they're not for a wide distribution and they're for a military audience, they are a little more risque, shall we say. I think they're a little saucier, yeah. A little saucier. Than maybe they would be otherwise. but i mean you They make flagrant use of the word damn. Sure. But I mean, I do think, like, right, I think animation can kind of get away with a little bit more in the early 40s than live action.
00:10:01
Speaker
But yeah, i I do want I hadn't actually thought about that if like because these were not not for public consumption They were only to be used like for the military if they were like allowed to be pushed a little bit further They were seemingly not subject to the production code Hmm interesting. Yeah, the very like propaganda. They're not really training films. They feel much more like Propaganda films than like they're not I mean, they're kind of training films ostensibly. They're like, hey don't You know, loose lips, sink ships. That's yeah. Well, we did all of the 1943 private snafus. It's his debut year. ah They're each four minutes long, but like there's two of them that really the main deal of them is loose, link loose lips, sink ships. That's a hard phrase to say. Stop running your mouth private s.
00:10:58
Speaker
Yeah. So like they were, I guess, intended for ah like kind of entertainment for troops and also in particular, like kind of light, maybe not like training training, but sort of like a moral training yeah for quit ah quit quit your belly aching. Stop complaining. Yeah. Don't complain about ah your pay or your bad conditions or wish that you were in a different branch of the military. Everything sucks. Deal with it.
00:11:29
Speaker
That's the the main thing. like I feel like this is like a pretty kind of standard thing. It's like, oh, they made cartoons to like entertain the troops and also like kind of teach them lessons, I guess. yeah But i it I think what makes these stand out is, one, just kind of how silly they are, but also like the the talent behind them is kind of mind-blowing.
00:11:50
Speaker
Cause it likely, like you said, it's like the loon to the loon tunes people is like my Blanc and, uh, who else? Chuck Jones, but bunch of those dudes. And then it also for its reeling. And then also some of them are written by Dr. Seuss.
00:12:08
Speaker
And then they were, I guess, initially created by Frank Capra. Frank Capra, yeah, thank you. So it's like the the talent behind the pan on these is very strong. Yeah, and they're they're fun. they're They're not incredible, but they're a fun time. the The one that I had seen before, which I think might kind of be the most famous one, is Spies.
00:12:33
Speaker
which I don't know if they still do, but I saw it sort of playing on a loop at the spy museum in DC. So that that one I'd seen before. um I think I stole my favorite one. It's got a lot of panache. It's um that there's.
00:12:49
Speaker
apart with a Nazi lady spy who has ah swastika broadcasters inside of her boobs.
00:13:00
Speaker
ah As in, say goodbye to your Nazi boobs. Like radio, like microphones. Yes. and And every thing has to have a swastika on it to show you. the Yeah. notts Also, all all ah all of the U-boats, when they come out of the water, come out of the water in a swastika formation. And then the periscopes all hyal salute. Yeah. Yeah. they They're really having a lot of a lot of fun with the iconography in these in these shorts. There's there's two um ah moose head.
00:13:34
Speaker
like mounted moose heads that talk to each other that and then they' their antlers cross and form a swastika? Yeah. um There's also a lot of really horrific ah racial stereotypes in this, particularly of ah the Japanese, which is has not aged well. It wasn't good then. It's not good now. Pretty par for the course for um for World War II era media. But of course, depictions like that did not ah did not help in terms of ah changing people's thoughts.
00:14:12
Speaker
when they were okay with things like the Japanese internment camps, for example. yeah yeah so Yeah, it's definitely a sign of that. like the I think there there was definitely in more of a racial bias towards the Japanese versus Europeans, which is unfortunate, but very American.
00:14:35
Speaker
Other than that part, which is like definitely sticks out in a few of them, um I think they're they're mostly just kind of silly goof-em-ups.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah Private Snafu is um the whole kind of premise of it is that he is bad at what he does and he's lazy and what do they call him, a gold brick or something? so ah That's not that's not it. But it's a it's a kind of don't do what Donnie don't does situation. Right. He's sort of a sort of a um sort of a goofus figure. Right.
00:15:17
Speaker
like so that everyone watching him
Analysis of Disney's 'Der Führer's Face'
00:15:19
Speaker
can feel like a gallant. Yeah, correct. You get all the, all the, all the GIs walk out of these going, boy, oh boy, I'm a real gallant. Not like that snafu fella. I wonder if people, ah people really, I mean, apparently this was quite popular. um And ah ah ah yeah, prop maybe they really took it to heart and they said, hey, you private snafu, get your act in gear, whatever people say. and i Yeah, i it wouldn't surprise me.
00:15:49
Speaker
There's also a lot of ah the aforementioned sort of ah Nazi radio boobs. There's a lot of there's a lot of like pinup ladies in the in these. There's one of them starts with his nephew snoring and his snores are like causing a skirt to fly up in the air.
00:16:05
Speaker
Yeah, in in like a in like a picture on the wall. Yeah. Yeah. All those servicemen, they're right there in you know and there' their ah boot camps on on boats. They're all very horny. We need to give them something.
00:16:20
Speaker
And speaking of, I mean, we're about to cover this later, but there's almost like a reference to Red Hot Riding Hood in one of these. There is like, there is a guy, ah when he's imagining his, Snafu's imagining his girlfriend back home, there is a guy who temporarily transforms into a wolf to hit on to hit on his girlfriend. Oh, I missed, maybe I didn't watch all of them that I should have. ah I don't remember that one. The big bad wolf he he transforms into, specifically. I think I might have skipped that one. Whoops.
00:16:50
Speaker
It's okay. They're four minutes long. You can watch it if you want But yeah, you know, it's uh, it's got some Mel Blanc stuff. He is basically doing the Bugs Bunny voice ah Yeah, it's like very clearly even if I didn't like know who that was. It's like, oh, yeah, there's Bugs Bunny Yeah, as soon as you hear him scream too, like that's just the the classic Mel Blanc scream Yeah, and it it is I feel like they these feel very They feel very of their time, both in in funny ways and in also like uncomfortable ways, but they they are like some of the most 1940s like pieces of culture that I have seen almost, you know? Like they they feel so incredibly like
00:17:36
Speaker
of exactly of their time. Like they they probably were sort of dated like months after they were shown. ah Except for one of these, which has and shows a newspaper that says Adolf Hitler commits suicide 18 months before he committed suicide. Hey, so that one they they really called it. Yeah. How did they know what did they know that we didn't?
00:18:02
Speaker
We live in the 21st century. Yeah. We also, we know that Adolf Hitler committed suicide. So they didn't, they didn't know, they did not. We know, whatever. Uh, still that is pretty wild that they like, they, they called it. They got it right. Yeah. And the official one week, one year stance. We're glad he did.
00:18:24
Speaker
Correct, yeah. Well, there's another cartoon ah that we watched where a bunch of stuff turns into swastikas. And that is ah the Academy Award winning Der Führer's Face. A nice Donald Duck cartoon. It's a Donald Duck cartoon. I feel like this was a pretty deep cut until it's I feel like it's become more well known lately.
00:18:53
Speaker
But like it does feel like um this kind of forbidden short in a way like you're you're not allowed to see a Disney mascot like do a Hitler salute and right scream. Although, you know, was was this one of the ones that was like banned for a long time? I don't know if it was like banned per se. I think it was more ah like they didn't really continue to distribute it. ah they They didn't want. They're like it's not a Disney plus.
00:19:23
Speaker
ah It is not on Disney Plus, I believe, yeah. They don't want little children stumbling upon it and and then finding out that... It's okay. Donald Duck did it. Yeah. That was actually that was actually Elon Musk's excuses. He was like, he saw Donald Duck do it. So he thought it was okay. That's why he also leaps into his piles of money.
00:19:49
Speaker
basing most of his behavior off car cartoon ducks and it's not working out well for him. so Soon he'll ah he'll do the... the the and ah and just run away. Won't that be... what that ah If only. Yeah, so this is a movie of the short about ah from Disney and Technicolor. So it's got like some kind of similar theming to Snafu as far as just being this anti-Hitlerian propaganda. But um it's you can tell that it's got sort of higher production values. Yeah. they the the The lush Disney animation is on display in this one.
00:20:32
Speaker
ah even even while a lovingly animated Sig Heiling Donald. ah that I wouldn't say the animation in the Snafu shorts is bad, but it is definitely a little bit simpler, a little bit cheaper looking. It's black and white. It's it's more bare bones.
00:20:52
Speaker
Yeah, it is pretty wild that this won the Academy Award for best animated short when it's like it's so it's just Donald Duck like doing a bunch of like Nazi stuff and getting yelled at.
00:21:07
Speaker
um and then waking up and being like, oh, thank God I'm not a Nazi. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, if I had a dream like that, i'd i I would feel happy to not be a Nazi also. yeah But I also then probably would not like hug an American flag like Donald Duck does because I don't think that would make me feel any better.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, so so this movie is a whole big dream sequence where Donald's imagining he's a Nazi, and then he wakes up, and as he wakes up, he said Heil Hitler so many times in this short, and then as he wakes up, he sees a shadow on the wall that kind of looks like a heiling silhouette, and he almost, he says, Heil Hitler!
00:21:46
Speaker
Oh, it's the Statue of Liberty. I'm so glad to be a about him. we we really I can't do it yeah very well. I definitely didn't do it well. wait wi me we were kill But you actually got to say words, though. That's see, that's that's the hurdle I've yet to to get over.
00:22:08
Speaker
And yeah, a lot of it's just kind of critiquing the experience of living in Nazi Germany, I guess, saying like everything's, you know, we should be glad to be Americans because they are i having to struggle off of stale bread that you have to saw like a piece of wood or ah and they're being overworked to make shells, ah have knives pointed at them.
00:22:35
Speaker
um And it's basically like a modern times riff ah when ah Donald Duck is making it. Yeah, that's true. It is just modern times. It is just modern, including like the joke of like the thing stops on the assembly line and he keeps doing the repetitive motion in the air. Wow, Disney. Just lifting jokes from Chaplin movies now. I see. um That makes me a little bit more annoyed that it won the Oscar.
00:23:04
Speaker
how unoriginal of them? flagrant copying you copied i mean it's it's a good joke so i guess it's okay yeah um the real evolution of that joke isn't until i love lucy probably it did is there a riff on on the assembly line in that too You don't know, you don't know this. I don't, I'm not savvy on my I Love Lucy stuff. It is like the most legendarily classic I Love Lucy clip that it's kind of hard for me to believe that you haven't seen, which is everywhere. I probably have is the thing, I just don't remember. Where like she and her friend are on this assembly line, I don't know, they're doing something related to, there's like candy on the assembly line, chocolate, I think. And like they're trying to,
00:23:51
Speaker
I forget what the action they're trying to do is, but the chocolate's coming along the assembly line and they're trying to like i't know wrap it up in a wrapper or something, but it's coming too fast. ah And so they start stuffing it into their mouths to get rid of it. I think I have seen this, yeah. I'm just like describing a famous scene from I Love Lucy now. is This is great podcasting. but I mean, oh isn't our most of our show just describing famous scenes?
00:24:21
Speaker
But yeah, Der Führer's face is... I someone appreciate how like mean it is of just like, ah, those those rascally Nazis, we don't like them. And I'm like, yes, I agree. Yeah, yeah. And it comes with a novelty song, too, ah which was kind of ah became somewhat popular after this ah this thing ah is. ah Yeah, right in Der Führer's face, they say.
00:24:48
Speaker
Yeah, I did not much care for the song. It was kind of stuck in my head for a little while. I think the messaging on the song is a little, a little muddy considering that it's saying like we hile, we hile. Right. ah You don't want to be doing that. No, we do not under any circumstances want to do that. Well, ah that was their furious face. And it was indeed.
00:25:13
Speaker
I do wonder if we should have put the um ah put the cartoons all together, but ah we're going to take a cartoon break and ah we're talking about meshes of the afternoon.
Exploring 'Meshes of the Afternoon'
00:25:24
Speaker
Ah, indeed. Yeah. Not a cartoon, but also, like, I guess, ah ah surreal. I would actually say that this is probably more surreal than the cartoons are. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is not depicting ah It's not depicting any kind of reality that I'm familiar with.
00:25:47
Speaker
Hmm. Hmm. So this is kind of, yeah, surreal is the word. I'd say it kind of fits pretty squarely in that surrealist zone, a la Uchen Andalou and Laage d'Or. Yeah, it definitely if not directly inspired by that film or like other Louis Vignell or Salvador Dali stuff, it it it feels sort of a piece with that. I think it's it's um It feels like it's kind of using film to make a similar kind of art as as those guys were doing. Yeah, I don't know what um what the situation with this movie is. I had never really heard of it before, but it is kind of weirdly.
00:26:34
Speaker
broadly known, I think. It's on Letterboxd. It has over 100,000 watches, which is pretty rare for stuff this old. Yeah. It's the most popular film on Letterboxd for 1943, which is surprising. I mean, on one hand, it's also like 43 doesn't really have a lot of huge kind of seminal foundation movies. But keep listening, folks.
00:27:00
Speaker
I mean, I'm not saying that the movies are bad. I'm just saying that I feel like none of them are like this like tower. You know, none of them are like Casablanca or, you know, whatever. No other examples that I can think of. Yeah, this one. um Yeah, this one. i Something about it. I kind of wonder if like maybe it's like a film school staple or something. And that's why it probably is, which is kind of weird because I.
00:27:27
Speaker
went through four years of film school, never saw it. neighborhood You went to hell of film in the school. Yeah, so much film school. um I did watch Angie and Angelou in film school more than once, but yeah, never this one. But yeah, this movie is direct. Oh, my gosh. It's directed by a ah ah do a sort of a married couple, ah Maya Darin and Alexander Hockenschmid.
00:27:56
Speaker
if i met If I completely butchered that name, I apologize to anyone with a similar sounding name. I did not. I clearly did not look this up ahead of time. Although like later in his life, he went by Alexander Hamid. So that might be a little little easier. All right.
00:28:11
Speaker
We'll use the Anglicized name going forward then. But yeah, this is a movie that is, it's got like, it's a bunch of imagery. It is originally intended to be 100% silent. No accompaniment, I believe, was designed to go with this movie. Which is how I watched it. Me too. And I was like, whoa, blast from the past here. I'm having to like really concentrate.
00:28:36
Speaker
Yeah, which I kind of like about that, that it it does at least in the context of how we watched it. It like really locks you in. Yeah, I watched a bit. I watched a bit of it again later and I watched a version that had a score and I almost found the score a little bit too didactic, a little bit too much like it was imposing a certain meaning on it. ah Right. And yeah, I think this is like a mysterious enough that it kind of does work really well without a score. Yeah, there is nothing something to just presenting the imagery without any sort of sound or music to really kind of give you. ah Let it land, however, it's kind going to land with you, which I think is really the intention of this movie. I think it's not it is narrative vaguely, but I think it's much more about sort of like, you're telling me what happened then.
00:29:35
Speaker
and there is ah i don' know There's there's ah a person with a mirror for a face, which I thought would make a great slasher villain. Yeah. like There was a slasher movie about mirror face. I think it'd be pretty good. um And if you defeat that that villain, then you get seven years of bad luck. True. So it's it's hard to get away from mirror face, because if you kill mirror face,
00:30:01
Speaker
you get 70 years bad luck. But yes, as far as I know, the the small amount of reading I did on it, I think this was just like shot in Los Angeles, like at their house. It's only only Maya and Alexander appear in the movie. Presumably one of them is playing mirror face also. It's got a real kind of like, I don't know, like cyclical, like repetition thing where like, yeah something will happen to,
00:30:29
Speaker
I guess the the the lead character played by Maya Darren and then she will sort of observe that happening from afar also. So it's, you know, it's got this sort of like to put it in like on a sci-fi terms, it's got kind of a i know time loop sort of thing going on.
00:30:48
Speaker
Yeah, although I don't think it's like that specific. Yeah, right. Yeah. It reminded me a lot of I mean, just David Lynch in general. But yeah, Mulholland Drive in particular, one because of the like Los Angelesness of it and also the the repeated use of like keys, like keys are a big thing in Mulholland Drive also. um And just the general sort of like spooky vibes, I guess.
00:31:14
Speaker
Yeah, it's spooky vibes. It is like, you know, the the one that I heard with the score, it wasn't like a score that was like, this is scary and disturbing. And it's like I feel like um the imagery does well enough of a job of giving you this kind of on edge feeling. It feels like a nightmare, basically. um Yeah, I think like it it it's there are ways that you could see this as like you know, following in the footsteps of an Unshan Andalu, but I feel like this
00:31:48
Speaker
almost is like the mold that people have shot dreams in since. Right. Like it's it's doing its own thing, but it like it feels like a dream sequence in a movie. But it's but it's like a long thing that is a bit disturbing and has a bunch of like really kind of like loaded imagery in it um yeah that that you I think you can take other meanings out of ah versus like, you know,
00:32:17
Speaker
ah a dream in a movie where someone's dreaming about the specific thing that they are thinking about in order to, and you show the dream in order to show their inner turmoil about that thing, you know?
00:32:30
Speaker
um Yeah, but I mean, much like, how dreams often are. It's sort of like all this stuff and you're kind of left at the end of it being like, what? I'm not sure if I understood all of that, but it it it it got yeah got me like it was cool. Like I could definitely see someone describing that this to me as a dream and being like, yeah, that's that sounds like a dream.
00:32:53
Speaker
I walked into my house, and my shadow picked up the key, and I found a knife, but then the key came out of my mouth, and then there was- The key was also the knife, kind of? And then there was a nun with a mirror face, but I was kind of her, and then there was another of me too, and I was sort of falling sideways through the stairs.
00:33:16
Speaker
There's also a lot of ah a lot of slow motion in this, a lot of over cranked camera, which I still like from kind of the beginning of filmmaking has been a thing. But I still feel like especially in this kind of context, I haven't seen used quite as much. There's actually another movie we'll talk about in in a minute. One of the features that also uses ah slow motion in a way that ah I kind of think of as a more modern, not invention, but just like
00:33:47
Speaker
the The use of slow motion in this ah felt distinct for the time in which it was made. I guess it's selling it as a sort of internal experiential effect. Like how do you how does watching the slow motion footage make you feel it's not depicting. I don't know. It's not depicting like like sometimes slow motion is like representing your experience of time slowing down when you experience something. But I think this is even something else. It's just like um it's just doing it to give you a feeling. and you you You mentioned Lynch, and since he died, so many people have been talking about like the things that he does and about how you know
00:34:33
Speaker
his movies maybe aren't supposed to be like understood or gotten. They're supposed to be like felt, basically. And I think I think that is that is what's going on here. Yeah, I i definitely think so. I'm curious like what I don't feel like I have like a strong like take on what what this film's imagery is supposed to represent necessarily. I mean, some of it is kind of I guess a little obvious of like knives. Our knives are scary. Yeah, the the flower is one certainly. Yeah, that one's sort of obvious also. Hat tip to Georgia O'Keeffe. Yeah.
00:35:14
Speaker
um But like, I don't know, cool, cool movie. i I dug it. It's a vibe. I think it goes on the list of silent movies to go to put on in the background of a party. Yes. Oh, yes. It should definitely get added to that list. ah The other thing it it did kind of run me off is one thing I did in film school is like I they might not even do this anymore, but like one of the early things like they just give you a 16 millimeter camera and a roll of film and like go shoot something. And I feel like a lot of people you who are presented with that often make something like this. They're just like a bunch of surreal imagery. It's shot on black and white film. It's short. It's like it's kind of just like, I don't know, we're playing around. that Everyone shoots something in slow motion just to see how it looks, because it's like, hey, you can you can do that with this. Great. Let's try it. That being said, if I if I saw this as a student film, I would be like this, this person gets a good grade. Like I'd be very impressed.
00:36:13
Speaker
um But it it does have a little bit of that kind of rougher on the edges like yeah it's two people making a movie in their house It's my understanding that there were parts of this that were sort of made up on the fly, too Yeah, but I I also find that kind of charming about it that it's like clearly made by just two people and there's like not a lot of You know greater, I don't know like production to it. Yeah, I Indie film didn't start in the 70s. It feels very handmade, if that makes any sense. Because I feel like when talking about filmmaking, handmade is like, well, ah how's like you're still just using a camera. But now I'm trying to think of like what handmade film would be. I really like stuff you develop in your own bathtub. I don't know.
00:37:07
Speaker
or Or rather than shooting it with a camera, you just kind of smear your hands on the emulsion of the film. And then that's what it is. but there's there was like There was that animation that we watched that was all like charcoal, like shifting like charcoal drawings and stuff. I guess that's kind of handmade wall so animation.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah, there you go. ah Yeah, it's cool movie. um It's hard to say much about it like you were saying, but it is. ah ah You feel it, you know, oh, yeah, scary mirror person. I think it it is. Yeah, it is a movie that I think seaweed should should be approached first on vibes more than anything else. And I think it it succeeds at creating interesting, cool, spooky vibes very well.
00:37:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's probably a way that you could read stuff. but I mean, there's definitely a way you could like read stuff into the symbols and everything in it. But yeah I'm not smart enough for that. It also it's funny, like how how much it all feels immediately like symbolic, right? It's like the key is clearly a symbol. The flower is clearly a symbol. The knife is clearly a symbol. yeah Like the mirror face is clearly a symbol. You know, yeah there's a lot of all of the doorways, all of the staircases.
00:38:26
Speaker
Um, can you hear the massive, uh, sort of traffic yeah outside? Okay. Traffic horns. Yeah. I mean, you know, like you're, you're talking about, yeah, the symbols are clear because they are, they hit them hard. They repeat them over and over and over again, which is part of, I think like what makes them feel potent for sure. Um, I guess like.
00:38:50
Speaker
one one is like this kind of seeing and being seen right like she is like perceiving her she is doing things and then perceiving herself and then perceiving herself perceiving herself and then there's also like somebody with a mirror for a face uh like looking back like she's looking back at herself kind of thing i don't know exactly what it's doing with it but it you know it's some yeah consistency i suppose yeah that's definitely i think at at the core of I don't know what my what I assume is kind of the intent behind it. It helps give it this kind of like paranoid feeling to write a lot of looking over shoulders and i'll yeah right just like seeing yourself like disembodied is a kind of a spooky idea. Right. Like it's something that I guess outside of a mirror we never experience or watching a movie.
00:39:47
Speaker
I guess that's the other like only other time we perceive ourselves in the third person. So maybe there's something there, too. Are movies just a ghost with a mirror for a face? Ghost face? Is this the first ghost face? Mirror face is the original ghost face.
00:40:06
Speaker
that one week, one year ah ah merch coming soon. We have a t-shirt that says mirror faces the original ghost face. All right, we're we're getting we're getting too far into this. Let's bring Ambrielle back in for Red Hot Riding Hood.
Praise for Tex Avery's 'Red Hot Riding Hood'
00:40:22
Speaker
How did everybody like this one? Loved it.
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the best. I don't know if I'd ever seen it all the way through. I definitely seen clips of it for sure. But I i might have watched it at some point. I can't really remember. But either way, it had been a long time, if so. And I don't know, it's just it's so like it feels like a totemic cartoon almost. It's like so much cartoon stuff is like not just in this, but it feels like it like came from this because I think a lot of it did as far as I can tell.
00:40:57
Speaker
Yeah, there's so many great gags in this that feel like Alzheimer's. um It's like too many too many to even say, but some classic cartoony ones. I did write down some some of the real doozies. but
00:41:14
Speaker
Some of the classic ones, I think, being like walking out of a door at the top of a building and falling at that just opens to nowhere and falling out or walking, ah ah opening a door and then ah and then hitting a brick wall and with a sign that says, imagine that no door. That that might have been the biggest laugh for me just because i I did not see it coming. And it's such a like dumb cartoon like Looney Tunes joke.
00:41:44
Speaker
Um, it's just great. Yeah. Honestly, I, I don't think I've ever laughed harder at like a single cartoon. And I also love the beginning of it, how it starts off with the traditional story and these characters like break the fourth wall. And they're like, dude, we've done this a thousand times before. Like, please come up with something else. It's so cute.
00:42:05
Speaker
yeah I like how then it it then it that leads into it to be like the most kind of like absurdly 1940s version of this. All right, there's a wolf. ah yeah Get this, there's a wolf, see? And he likes to whistle, which I looked it up. The term wolf whistle does come from this cartoon. Oh, wow. Okay. I think that the the whistle itself, though was a thing that was already sort of like a thing that people did. That's got to be a thing that people have just always done I think. Which I according to Wikipedia anyway came from sailors and it's it's like mimicking a boat whistle that's like all hands on deck and so that was sort of like get a load of this boy it's all hands on deck there's a pretty lady um but then yeah the the name for it stuck from this cartoon which is
00:42:55
Speaker
Um, definitely. I don't know if that's necessarily something to be proud of that this cartoon in like popularized wolf whistling, but, um, it's funny. Yeah. Yeah. This thing is only like seven minutes long and it's so full of stuff. It's, it's kind of, it's kind of nuts. Uh, very joke dense for sure.
00:43:18
Speaker
ah well And gorge gorgeously animated too. This is really well but put together. Yeah, this is Tex Avery who was working on at Warner Brothers ah doing some Looney Tunes and Mary Melody stuff until I think leaving for creative differences and now ah at MGM doing some Tom and Jerry and then also some of his original stuff like this one.
00:43:42
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. it's It's hard to know exactly what to say about this just because it's so simple, but it's kind of kind of incredible. Yeah, I mean, yeah I don't know. It's it's it is very funny, right? It's like it's it's almost hard to talk about because it's like so I feel like even if a lot of people haven't seen it, like it's been so influential just on like on other cartoons and like cartoon language almost that it's just like, oh, yeah, like, of course.
00:44:12
Speaker
Of course, there's a wolf with big eyeballs. It's like a boing, boing. Right. yeah That one clip is what I've seen just over and over. And then when I finally watched this short, I was like, oh, so that's where that i like that's where that comes from. Because I've used that GIF with like so many friends just thinking, like oh, right this is funny. Google the eyes. But in context, it's even 10 times more funnier. This is just an excellent short.
00:44:39
Speaker
Because then there's some like variations of it, too. um yeah Like the wolf howl, the eyeballs, the like pounding on the table. The pounding on the table is so good. And then he gets a machine that pounds on the table for him and whistles and claps at the same time. And has like a big a big like whistle that toots. i ah I first saw this in an animation class that I took in college. and um and they reveal that they were like, you know, the eyes bugging out of his head is a metaphor for something. Do you get it? And I was like, oh my God. Wow. This is my introduction to the idea of of this metaphor. sure Yeah, this film is absolutely, um I mean, probably the
00:45:28
Speaker
And this is why it's so funny, but it's probably the most aggressive, yet still like comfortable um representation of horniness that I've seen on film. so It is one of like the horniest things I've maybe ever seen. it's just Yeah, and that's that's what's mind-blowing about it. is like It just keeps keeps going. like You have the wolf, but then you have the horny grandma, and you're like, wait, why is this happening, too?
00:45:55
Speaker
right You get this kind of like extreme male horniness of the wolf, and then like it is kind of one-upped by this it's like manic ah female horniness of the grandma. um When I was looking at the Wikipedia article for this movie, it said, ah Red's grandma is an oversexed man chaser. And then it had a blue- You know, one of those man chasers. It was a blue link on on oversexed man chaser and it linked to the article for Cougar.
00:46:31
Speaker
I mean, yeah, accurate. Also, I think, like, Alzheimer kind of deconstructionist gag in this is ah when he says, hey, follow that cab. And then the cab that he tells to just goes off and follows it without him. Incredible. Which then he runs the wolf runs so fast that he turns into a car. So much like great cartoon logic in this. Yeah. um and i like One thing that definitely stuck out to me is, like,
00:46:55
Speaker
some of the very like direct influences that have like Roger Rabbit takes like fully lifts like jokes from this I mean like Red Riding Hood's kind of torch singer outfit is definitely I think a big influence on Jessica Rabbit's character design and then the the horny grandma is like a lot of those gags are like if not verbatim in Roger Rabbit they're like very similar when there's the like Jessica Rabbit look-alike And then the I think The Mask has like multiple like direct references to this also. Like he he turns into a wolf and whistles in that movie. So it's like, I don't know if you can get more of like a direct reference than that. I have a quick question. um This is just for my own knowledge. So I saw that this came to theaters May 8th, 1943, which May 8th is my birthday. So just
00:47:44
Speaker
I don't know, I feel extra connected to this film, but um obviously like whenever we go to the theater today, we see trailers and ads before. um Are y'all more familiar with like the structure of cinema going and like when shorts were played, were they played before features like just in this forties in its time period?
00:48:07
Speaker
This is something that I'm always trying to get more information about it because I'm kind of fascinated by it, like the way that movies were programmed at the time. um And there's...
00:48:19
Speaker
I'm sure that there are some more definitive sources than the ones that I have found. ah But like I haven't found a lot of super concrete stuff. That being said, my understanding is that it was typically um the movie preceded by a short, either animated or live action, and a newsreel. I think that was like the most typical way that it was, was like short and newsreel, then movie,
00:48:49
Speaker
then probably trailers ah being the the namesake of the word trailer that it trailer trails behind the movie. And then it loops. I mean, that's, that's another part that i'm I've been a little unclear on is there's part of the sort of um legend of the movie psycho that ah It was sort of normal for people to walk in in the middle of a movie and then watch the second half and then just wait and watch the first half later. And Hitchcock mandated that they didn't do that for but they didn't allow people to do that for psycho, um which is kind of mind blowing to me that that would have been a normal thing before. So right. I guess the idea was that, yeah, they were looping movies before and people would just walk in whenever.
00:49:35
Speaker
That's how it works at you at like museums, right? there's like they got They got the gorilla movie playing and you just kind of walk in and like watch it and then it loops. I think a lot of that stuff is ticketed these days, but i yeah, I know what you're talking about.
00:49:51
Speaker
Like i mean gallery yeah yeah like at the at the Academy Museum they have this like whole sound design thing about like the opening of Raiders and with like Ben Burt talking about it and that just loops and it's like I don't know like 15-20 minutes probably closer to 15 and both times I went there I was like walked in during it I was like wait I'm gonna watch this whole thing Have you been to the Academy Museum, Ambrielle? Yeah. So when I interned for the Academy in 2019, it was still under construction. So I actually got to see it like before it was all built up, which was super cool. um But yeah, I went back in either 2022 or 23. It was when they had... What did they have? I know they had like an Almodovar
00:50:34
Speaker
walk-in thing. It wasn't like a full exhibit. Yeah, I'm i'm blanking on what else they had at the time. um I know like a bunch of stuff from Citizen Kane, which might be part of the permanent exhibition. um But yeah, no, I loved it. I really loved it. And um I'm glad that it finally came to fruition because there was just so many issues plaguing it before it actually opened. Oh, really?
00:50:59
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, you can find like articles about it from maybe 2019, 2018, but there was a lot of drama behind the scenes. Interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah. I want to look it up now. Get some, get some, some good gossip on the academy music. So obviously like this was 1943. Um, and I was reading, cause you know, it's a very sexual cartoon. So I decided to look up, um, just like if there were, you know,
00:51:26
Speaker
any opponents to this film when it came out, um things like that. And apparently it actually, so the original ending, um which was censored for reasons I'll get to, but apparently the original ending had the wolf and the grandma getting married and then having half wolf, half human children.
00:51:48
Speaker
Yes. However, it was deleted because obviously that implies bestiality and it also kind of like, you know, doesn't take the institution of marriage seriously. So I thought that was a little fun fact um because I was like, there's no way that they just like, you know, made this film and everybody was fine with it. So there's that.
00:52:07
Speaker
The ending of the movie that exists though is like still pretty intense. And also just a great final laugh. of yeah though The wolf is like, I'll kill myself before I ever go after another dame. He sees Red Hot Riding Hood and then shoots himself with two guns at the same time.
00:52:26
Speaker
that
00:52:29
Speaker
That's a good like microcosm of just like the cartooniness of this. like He doesn't just shoot himself. He shoots himself with two guns simultaneously. Yeah. It's funny because I hadn't really thought about it that much. It does feel like it is like pushing against the the limits of the Haze Code, for sure. And I also wonder if there were like if they were more lenient on cartoons. Have you tried to do any of these jokes like in live action if that was even possible to do?
00:52:56
Speaker
i I doubt that it would be as accepted. Yeah, yeah it's it does seem like way edgier than you might see in any American movie at this time. Well, ah if we're done with this movie, why don't we move on to our feature presentation? And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation.
00:53:21
Speaker
So yeah, Shadow of a Doubt, Hitchcock's movie, the entry for 1943, and a movie that he has on a number of occasions called his favorite of all the ones he's ever made. Right. Which I don't know if I'd ever heard that before, and I'm a little, I'm a little surprised that he picked that one. I was very surprised to hear that. Yeah.
00:53:43
Speaker
it's Yeah, what what are your old feelings on Shadow of a Doubt? Pretty good. Not my favorite construct movie. There's i think there's there's a lot to like about it. There's think there's a lot of things that are... um There's there's like some kind of innovative stuff about it, but I think it it does feel like pretty like classical Hitchcock-like.
00:54:03
Speaker
Tension like the the bubbling like insidiousness of like people that's like just under the surface um And it also has like definitely some kind of Hitchcock perviness to it also um It's got a bunch of train stuff. Hitchcock loves trains you know lots of talk of murder and like kind of like pitch black humor, but yeah, I don't know like I'm surprised that he was like, this is my favorite one, not like Psycho or Northburn Northwest or like, I don't know. I feel like those movies, I think are much better. but Yeah, it's got a weird amount of jolliness in it ah for a Hitchcock movie. Like ah until until it really like sinks in ah that that that we're dealing with a ah murderer, an undercover murderer, there's just a lot of like nice times and joviality for like 40 minutes of this movie.
00:54:58
Speaker
Yeah, I don't, like, i think I think some parts of this movie work really well and I think other parts... really kind of didn't work for me very much but I also I i might have been like trying to get ahead of the movie a little too much because it's it's a pretty straightforward setup I think
Analysis of 'Shadow of a Doubt'
00:55:15
Speaker
it was kind of expecting sort of like a double twist or like more of like a twist ending situation or like there to be more like of a reveal to it um and I think it's like yeah the the movie as it is presented like pretty much from the get-go is is what you get I think I was sort of like
00:55:33
Speaker
maybe after watching The Lodger too, because I feel like the the like the first act of both this and The Lodger I think are very similar. um And I think I was sort of almost expecting, I was like, is this going to be like a The Lodger situation? And then it, I mean, it very much isn't. And I think I was sort of maybe expecting him to try to do more of a like a take on that movie or like a twist on that movie's premise. And I don't really think that's what like this movie's about, this is a lot well less like of of a twist movie than I think I went into it expecting it to be. So that may be, that's on me. No, I was the same exact way because immediately after finishing the movie, because this was my first time watching it. And I had seen some like earlier Hitchcock, but most of the stuff I've seen is, you know, later in his career. um But I was, I mean, some of my favorite Hitchcock movies, obviously Psycho, which, you know, you have this crazy twist. so
00:56:24
Speaker
I love Dial In for Murder. um It's so fast paced and I feel like you know every second is a twist. um North by Northwest, i mean you just have this, it has that thriller vibe. you know You have the iconic scene of like the plane trying to go after Cary Grant's character. um So I was expecting just those big moments.
00:56:44
Speaker
And whenever I watched it, because you know from the very beginning, you know that this guy is up to no good. You know that something is off. And ah we know that young Charlie essentially knows his secret, or it's going to you know get very close to it very soon. um So I was expecting, yeah, just more twists and thrills. And this one, like you said, is very straightforward.
00:57:07
Speaker
um So immediately after, I was kind of like, oh, that's disappointing. But I went back and did some reading about it. And I think the reading that I did made me appreciate the film more. And I know, Chris, you mentioned how there's like a level of joviality to this film. um And based on what I was kind of gathering from different sources I read and just like my own experience from the film, I wonder if that was intentional um considering that
00:57:39
Speaker
You know, one of the major themes of this film is the ordinary. It's something that's talked about a lot. um So I kind of wonder if it has that vibe because it's trying to feel, you know, inviting um like, you know, the girl next door, this is the film next door or whatever. um And the point is like we're uncovering something sinister. So I think that joviality really plays into it, especially how um the film kind of traces like young Charlie's loss um And I think as you watch the film, you can see that occurring. um But yeah, the joviality I think is probably intentional. it and It just makes it feel more, you know, like suburban America, this is where happy things happen and happy people live. um But actually, there's a murderer in town.
00:58:29
Speaker
it the The way that you talk about it kind of makes me think of Blue Velvet in a way, like the the premise of ah the white picket fence being being a cover for the kind of ah horrific goings on beneath the surface.
00:58:46
Speaker
Well, I actually think ah Lynch was, which since this is fairly recent, rest in peace, David Lynch. But I think Blue Velvet actually was kind of like directly inspired um by Shadow of It Out. so oh um Yeah, I found that. And I actually saw, um I think it was in Vanity Fair, they had an article that basically just summed up, you know, a lot of David Lynch's work that I thought summed up this film very well. And I wrote down the quote, it says,
00:59:17
Speaker
uh lynch saw the nightmare below the american dream um and i think that's exactly what this film was going for especially um like i'm a huge history nerd so i love to you know talk about the historical context but uh obviously it's wartime and this isn't when suburbia is like really blowing up but it's at the early stages um and of course you know um at this time, well in a little bit later like 50s, 60s white flight and everything, but I think there's the idea that this smaller town or like the suburban area is safe and calm and peaceful and ordinary, but you know there's actually this very sinister underbelly right there, which like David Lynch you know that's a lot of his work honestly.
01:00:07
Speaker
Yeah, I did think of, I was reminded of Blue Velvet watching this. um I think, yeah, that that like yeah sort of very kind of classical like Americana imagery that is sort of papering over this like, yeah, sinister darkness. We we always forget to kind of do like a quick plot summary and I realized that we did again, but- Let's do that now. This movie is about ah ah Uncle Charlie, who is actually a serial killer, ah who is fleeing from the law on the east coast, goes to the west coast to ah hang out with his ah relatives, and and his that's particularly his niece, who is ah named after him, ah young Charlie.
01:00:58
Speaker
and ah some some kind of detectives have followed him from the with the east coast and are investigating him while he's trying to kind of blend in and appear normal ah in front of his relatives and in front of the town. But he keeps doing ah suspicious things like having a ring with ah with the engraved name of someone else on it or having a lot of money that he's ah ah that he's trying to ah deposit into the bank. And ah eventually, he starts trying to ah kill his niece when she finds out what's going on.
01:01:39
Speaker
I think there's a lot of this movie is characters behaving in insanely like suspicious ways. Not just Uncle Charlie. it's like I feel like every character in this is like very bad at hiding anything. like Uncle Charlie is like pretty much is like very suspicious from kind of the get-go. Not necessarily as soon as he arrives at a family's house.
01:02:05
Speaker
um But then like the detectives are also super suspicious and bad at their jobs and like they're trying to kind of like have this cover of um like government kind of like census people who want to come into the house and take pictures and interview everyone and they're doing it in the most suspicious way possible and they're so bad at hiding it and I think that was kind of one of the things I think that the two detective characters I i think are like Maybe SH got trying to like make them buffoonish, but I feel like those characters like did not work for me. I did not find a sort of like romantic subplot with the one detective. I didn't think that worked at all. like i had thought It felt like it sort of ah arose out of seemingly nowhere and just felt very forced and kind of tacked on. But Joseph Patton, I think, is very good at playing sort of a sort of
01:03:00
Speaker
a very charming creep, I guess. yeah and so But like he plays it in a very good way. like He is genuinely very charming. And yet then when he like does something that's suspicious, you're like, oh no, but I liked him though. Also, by the way, like ah our third Joseph Cotton year in a row. he's ah Yeah, he's scratching it. He's just in all the big movies in the 40s, I guess.
01:03:27
Speaker
And isn't he in the 1944 Gaslight? Hi, Lucy. The very next year. Yeah, I think it's... I guess we'll find out. There were two versions of Gaslight. um I think we we skipped to the earlier one and then... Yeah, the first one was the British one from 1940 that we skipped. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, the 1944 one, I think he was in that one too.
01:03:47
Speaker
see See, this is good that, yeah, this is good that you're saying that because people are always like talking to us about classic movies and it's just like, I haven't got there yet. Like, I don't know. I haven't seen Gaslight. We're very well versed in everything up until the year that we're doing. Yeah. And then it's like. Okay, wow. Our Joseph Cotton ah quadruple feature ah continues. Yeah, 100% Cotton.
01:04:16
Speaker
Something else I'll add about this film though is, so the first time I watched it, obviously I'm just, you know, watching it as a vibe, whatever. The second time I tried to pay more attention and I noticed um in the scene where he's arriving into town on the train, I love that because ah you see this like, you know, plume of black smoke filling the air from the train and Behind that, it's the most beautiful, clear sky. So I feel like that right there is telling you like, hey, evil's coming to town. There's something sinister about to happen. And then also, whenever he gets off the train and he's kind of like faking, you know, being injured or whatever, I thought of Willy Wonka, whenever he comes out to meet his, and then he's like, you know, faking like he's limping and stuff, and then does a whole somersault. And obviously, just thinking of Willy Wonka, you know how like sinister,
01:05:06
Speaker
that ends up being, so it made me think of the same thing. um So yeah, on my second watch, I was like, oh, okay, so this film is telling us, like, evil's coming to town, something strange is about to go down. I love that image with the ah with the black smoke. That's ah that's so really it's really cool. I didn't notice that. Yeah, it's a really beautiful image when you, um you know, take a look at it, because there's just, like, it's literally just polluting the air as if his arrival is tainting this town.
01:05:36
Speaker
So I think I did think about while watching this movie was I thought there might be a twist where he isn't actually their uncle Charlie and he's someone who is sort of like taking his place because there's a whole thing like they haven't seen him in a long time and then there are no photographs of him because he refuses to be photographed and And like, I thought that like there was going to be a twist of like, no, this is like a guy who looks similarly to their uncle. I'm wearing the fix of your uncle. Yeah, or just like he's like a guy that knew his uncle that like killed him and took his identity or something. um I mean, that doesn't really make sense because once he shows up, it's like, well, they all know with their uncle. Like they've met him before. Like that wouldn't work. I thought that that might be where the movie was going. It doesn't at all. But, um,
01:06:23
Speaker
And then also there is like um a lot of just weird tension between the two Charlies that feels like it's like the Hitchcock burginess rearing its its head a little bit. Like I don't really know what to make of it, but it's like there's there's some weird shit going on there is all. I feel like they feel like that's all I really have to say about it.
01:06:45
Speaker
Something I'll add to that is also on my second watch, I noticed whenever we meet Uncle Charlie and young Charlie, like the scene is almost parallel to each other, where we find um Uncle Charlie laying in bed in his like dark suit, and then we see the detectives outside. And then whenever we meet young Charlie, She's also in the bed, and it's almost like the same exact angle. um So I don't know you know what to make of those parallels, because there's I'm sure there's more throughout the film that I didn't catch. But um yeah, I was definitely thinking a lot about their potentially incestuous, weird relationship. Also, yeah, I didn't know what to make of it, but I felt it for sure. I mean, it does feel like sort of a ah
01:07:29
Speaker
ah like a reflection of this sort of corruption of ah like familiarity and and normal interactions. ah Like if there is something sexual, it is a it's like a similar it's a similar situation of like a relationship that that would be pure, like a town that would be pure, that is being tainted by the presence of this evil person. Yeah, it definitely feels like the movie is like trying to imply more to that maybe and that was a thing that i'm sure was like not breathe in the haze code we're not happy about um i don't know if this movie ever got pushed back on on any anything but um also that the shots of them
01:08:16
Speaker
i like in in their respective beds in different cities, I think are are mirrored also. like They're both kind of facing, like if you were put them side by side, I think they're like facing each other, which I yeah hadn't picked up on that, but that is like a mixed sense. as kind of they're They're drawing a lot of parallels between those two characters before they ever actually share the frame.
01:08:37
Speaker
a couple other things that I want to mention. um There was like a really, I really like shots like this where there was um like when young Charlie is starting to sort of doubt the the goodness of her uncle that she has all this respect for and everything. ah It shows there's a there's a particular shot where she kind of starts feeling this tension and doubt and it doesn't show her face it shows her hands it shows her hands just kind of being like like expressing her nervousness uh and in and i found it very effective uh like a more a more subtle way of expressing that thing
01:09:19
Speaker
ah And then the other thing that I wanted to mention is there's this kind of like side thing going on in this whole movie of ah Her dad and his best friend being big like true crime junkies basically Yeah, they're they're obsessed with murder and like hypothetically discussing how they would murder each other and in a very like cheery, conversational way. um That is like is a very funny gag. I feel like i was there wasn't anything where i was like I was expecting that to maybe like kind of play into the plot a little bit more, which I guess it kind of does, but that is like a ah ah funny like recurring thing. I also wanted to bring up the um the younger sister in the family who is constantly reading books.
01:10:07
Speaker
ah
01:10:10
Speaker
The little nerd girl. The little nerd girl who reads like eight books a day. Just really funny scenes. There's a bit where she's... I forgot what the the sister says, but then someone's like, don't be literary. Get out of here. Stop being a nerd.
01:10:28
Speaker
This movie does, I think, a a common Hitchcock thing. The supporting cast is really good. like The characters feel really distinctive. like all All the family members, all the people in the town, even if they have one scene, there's like the one of young Charlie's former school classmates works at like the bar. and it's it's like That's just like a bartender character that like doesn't really play into anything. It's just kind of there. but it's like feels like such a distinctive character, even though she's in one scene. I agree. I picked up on the same thing. And kind of going back to what Chris said about, you mentioned something about young Charlie's hands whenever she officially found out. Can you repeat that part? Do you remember what I'm talking about?
01:11:18
Speaker
Man, I'm trying to remember the exact scene but like it was it was when she was kind of getting information I believe that was like seeming to incriminate her uncle that she loved so much and so she was kind of like wringing her hands and expressing her anxiety through her hands.
01:11:36
Speaker
Yeah, so the scene where they're like on the way to the bar first, I thought it was just a funny scene when she like starts across the street and the crossing guard yells at her and is like, hey, you can't do that in this town. um I just thought it was like a cute little highlight of, you know, wow, cross walking or jaywalking, whatever.
01:11:54
Speaker
um is one of like the worst things you can do in the town at this moment. and she was She seemed like very surprised by the crossing guards reaction, so I thought that was funny. um But when they're actually like walking into the bar, um or maybe it's when they're already inside, I noticed that Yeah, it's when they're inside. And Charlotte's like sitting down. She's kind of like, she has both of her hands on her elbows kind of like, you know, touching the other arm's elbow, looking very nervous. And then um there's another part like shortly after that, where I think he touches her
01:12:30
Speaker
And she says, don't touch me. um So the physicality I thought was very interesting, but also like with that bartender, um she briefly tells you know her life story about how she, I think she says she's been at like, she's worked at every restaurant in town or something like that. um And I don't know if that was supposed to be meaningful, but I did think it was interesting um because it just seemed like she was very beaten down by this town and maybe like another example of ah something that is, you know, average, but average in a negative way. Or maybe like a like also emphasizing the ah the the kind of not hol like not holistic window that this kind of
01:13:19
Speaker
typical American family, quote unquote, has even on the town that they're in. Right. Yeah. They have this they have this like American dream vision of their own reality that it's not just problematized by their serial killer cousin or uncle. It's problematized by like maybe these ways that like there there is some more complexity in this town that they just are not party to.
01:13:46
Speaker
Yeah, very well said. Yeah. I think that I guess I didn't really realize about this movie until I watched. There's a really good video essay on YouTube about how this movie uses location shooting, um because I guess during normal World War II, there were a lot of restrictions on how much money Hollywood studios could spend. um And so they end up reusing a lot of sets and back lot things. And this movie is basically all sort of like town exterior and interiors.
01:14:15
Speaker
that typically I guess they would have had to build. um But since there were all these limits on like how much film stock they could use and how much money they had to spend on sets um i ended up just shooting it at the town Santa Rosa where it's also set. um And that it does kind of give the movie a bit more of a kind of a grounded like realism to it I guess then because it's not shot in the backlot or on sets as much it it does feel a little bit more, the the town has a bit more kind of specificity and character to it also, I think. It's just a real town. And yeah, cause it's like, I feel like there was a lot of location shooting in silent movies. Like a lot of times they would just, yeah, just go outside and you know film someone like driving a car around. Whereas I think once once they made the switch to sound, it was like, because the microphones were so terrible, they were forced to shoot everything on a back lot.
01:15:15
Speaker
um And I guess this was kind of one of an early example ish of like a Hollywood sound movie that shot almost entirely on location, which is pretty cool. It's kind of weird that like location shooting was cheaper in this case, I guess, because they didn't need to construct the plot thing. But usually that's the opposite is the is the case. Yeah, I think it's like a weird curve, because like I think Anything that I ever made is like super, super low budget. And it's like, it's usually cheaper. Like it's it's sometimes very expensive, like, you know, rent out locations or something like that. But it is usually cheaper just to find a place to go to rather than build something. um But I think once you have like a little bit more money to spend, then it ends up being cheaper to build it. So it is like, yeah, I think it's one of those weird sort of curves of once you have a little bit more money, it's somehow cheaper.
01:16:10
Speaker
when i When I went to the ah ah when i went to l LA for the first time, I did the the Paramount Studios tour, and I went to the backlot. They have these backlot sets that they reuse in many cases, but they'll do like kind of alterations to fit the movie itself. and so While we were going through all the backlots,
01:16:30
Speaker
I saw like a bunch of people working on kind of remaking one of the sets in order to just look the certain way that it needed to be for whatever they were about to shoot there. And I was like, ah that that seems like a dream job to me. Like, I love like work. I'm not like a I'm not like a super, you know, able person when it comes to construction type stuff. ah My dad shames me about it all the time, but ah But like, I do like working with my hands and I like being involved in like, creative stuff. And I'm like, Oh, great, like that, that would be the job for me to be like, the person like, painting the bricks on on the fake bricks on the studio set. So yeah, yeah love that kind of stuff.
01:17:17
Speaker
I did have a friend of mine shot her thesis film at Brooklyn College and built a set for it that I helped build that was, you know I think the only time I've ever really like been part of a production that like was fully Shot on a on a set that was built specifically for for the project It was very cool. Like it was cool to build it. It was cool to see it like Dressed with it was also doing about hoarder So there was like it was dressed with just like so much stuff everywhere and it was all just like real stuff people brought in and just like piled piled up and then it was like
01:17:57
Speaker
there for you know a week or whatever and then like a day after it was finished it was like completely gone which is just uh bananas. I do okay I want to mention so as I was watching it um the first time I only wrote down like five bullet points throughout the whole film but one of them was the quote faded fat greedy women And I just want to address it's the scene where um they're talking about widowers and obviously like the people, you know, his victims were widowers. And first of all, it's wonderful acting, but like Charlie's monologue um where he's talking about he's basically saying yeah like you can feel his hatred for widowers specifically. And he starts off by saying, you know, women in the cities are different.
01:18:48
Speaker
um then you know the people in these smaller towns like Santa Rosa I guess at the time um but he straight up starts just kind of unleashing and he basically says like you know these widowers they take their husband's money after they die, and they just don't know what to do them with themselves. They spend it, they're silly, blah, blah, blah. And I wrote down um that he called them horrible, useless, and then faded, fat, greedy women. And then someone in the scene says, you know, they're alive, they're human beings. And he says, are they? So I thought that was an interesting just like insight into
01:19:30
Speaker
since, mind you, you know, he's a serial killer into like the dehumanization of his victims. And it kind of made me analyze his interactions with, um you know, young Charlie even more. And it kind of like highlights that just sinister nature nature that he has.
01:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think that scenic figure really kind of like shows his like his like misanthropic nature, but I think it is kind of more, um, what's what's the other one? What's the female centric Yeah, like it I was like, oh, he's a misogynist. That's that's his deal. And yeah, because I mean, it's it's one of the I think kind of the few times where it's like, it does feel like a kind of a more of a clear window into what his like thought process is. one? I think a lot of the rest of these has like this
01:20:24
Speaker
veil of of you know charm or decency um that then you know get gets pulled back very very quickly and suddenly. in like I think that too, seeing him go from being like a very like charming, seemingly nice person to like on a dime would be like really scary.
01:20:41
Speaker
is I thankfully haven't met that many people like that, but it's something I've heard a lot about like psychopaths and just like, you know, messed up abusive people is that like that that thing, like they go from being very charming to being really scary, like in an instant. I think Joseph Cotton does that really, really effectively.
01:21:05
Speaker
Yeah, it speaks to like the the compartmentalization, I think, that that yeah allows him to to do this. ah That he he sorts people into a worthy of death or not worthy of death ah when it's convenient for him. Bad man, Uncle Charlie. Not a fan.
01:21:29
Speaker
was little moments where, cause like most of the film he's charming, but those little moments that let you more into his psyche are really so terrifying. Cause you know, we have the one where he's talking about the widowers, um but then I think it's later in the film he's talking about, again, going back to like the conversation of what's ordinary and he's talking to young Charlie and it's like this long monologue and he just sounds so threatening in it. um And Yeah, I mean, I guess in the context of like viewing this as someone who is abusive,
01:22:07
Speaker
um i i' I guess I'm curious like what conversations at the time looked like, because obviously conversations in 2025 about abuse don't look the same as they did back in 1943. But I'm just curious how audiences kind of reacted to that character, who actually, um he's based on a real person. um i That's true. i Yeah, I look that up. Yeah, you want to tell that story?
01:22:34
Speaker
I don't remember all the details, but like they did take a lot of, there was a serial killer of ah like older widows um who was also like had a head injury as a child because they rode his bike into like a street car or something like that. And that too is like a weird thing where it's like, it is definitely kind of implied in the movie that it's like this childhood head injury is kind of what possibly is responsible for his like psychopathic tendencies, his murderous urges, which I i know there is like precedent for. I mean like with the the railroad spike guy, Vinnius Gage, right, but became a different person. And yeah, I think there were other details that this movie kind of took directly from the real murderer. I don't know gabriel if you remember more about it than I do.
01:23:24
Speaker
Yeah, just a few things. um i know So I think his real name was Earl Nelson, ah but his nickname was Gorilla Man for some reason. I didn't feel like diving far enough into like why he's called Gorilla Man. I think just because strang strangling people. Oh, OK. Yeah. People thought that that's like, gorillas don't strangle as a thing. But I guess in in the 19, I think it was in the 1920s that he was. Yeah.
01:23:52
Speaker
He was murdering. um That is also like the most 1920s name for a serial killer. Asa, the Gorilla Man. Oh, Quite literally. um Yeah, the press, I don't know. They hadn't really ah come up with those bangers yet, I guess.
Discussion on 'Gorilla Man' and Real Gorillas
01:24:06
Speaker
yeah But um yeah, no, he actually murdered like middle-aged land ladies and he would like rent from them temporarily in order to get close to them. And then, um yeah, like serial rapist, serial murderer, all that. um So bad guy, yeah, just like Charlie. The Gorilla Man, not a fan. Nah. Gorillas though, actual actual Gorillas, big fan. One time I ah was in in the Bronx Zoo and I put my hand up to the glass and and touched touched my hand to the Gorilla.
01:24:43
Speaker
Yeah, cats yeah and gorillas are my favorite things on this planet. Like, I i follow so many gorilla accounts on Instagram. It's really amazing. But so much of my feed is just gorillas. And honestly, I appreciate it. Like, I need a break from everything else going on in the world. For sure. What what are some, just for my own, my own sake, what are some good gorilla accounts? Um, like I want to follow some. The big one that I follow I think it's a place in Japan and the at name is gorilla underscore Euro I R O underscore no N O. So yeah, that's a very big one. And they post constant gorilla clips. And the other ones are just random. And I think my algorithm also just knows what I like. So they write we all like like that are you watch one gorilla video, suddenly it's like all gorilla videos. Yeah. Literally. And I'm not complaining, honestly. Like, I'm not complaining, a so I will take it. Y'all mentioned ah the ah that this was based on a real person, which I kind of didn't make this connection before, but, like, you know, Psycho was also based on Ed Gein. I mean, vaguely. I actually feel like the Ed Gein thing is like a bit more tenuous in Psycho than in this case.
01:26:03
Speaker
Seems like this shares a lot more details with an actual person, but. I guess it kind of made me realize that like this, ah I didn't even think of this, that like the murder obsessed ah older men in this movie are just like so like Hitchcock insert characters. Oh, yeah, yeah for sure. Wait, did y'all catch um Hitchcock's cameo in this film? No.
01:26:31
Speaker
Because i the first time I watched it, I did not. um But I was like, I need to find this. And it's, I think, like 15, 16 minutes into the movie. And you only see the back of his head. so But like obviously, you know it's Hitchcock. um It's on the train. And I think it's when like Uncle Charlie is boarding. um And he runs into this older couple. And they're playing Bridge. And the guy they're sitting across from is Hitchcock. so I was like, I need to know where that little cameo is. um Yeah, I forgot to even look for it. so Yeah, I don't know. it's like Anytime I watch a Hitchcock, I'm like, where are you, dude? like It's not a Hitchcock if you're not in it. Right. You know he's in there somewhere. Exactly. Yeah. I guess the only other thing I had to say about this film is um kind of going back to like the concept of abuse. I thought it was interesting. and
01:27:20
Speaker
One critique I have of the film is I feel like the end just moves so fast and you're just like, what? Yeah, it's very abrupt. Um, cause you see them, you know, on the train, he's about to kill her and then he's the one that dies. And then it very quickly shows, um, us at a church, you know, outside of his funeral and you hear the pastor or whoever saying, you know, this guy was a hero, blah, blah, blah. So I think it's interesting. Um,
01:27:49
Speaker
how, you know, in modern conversations of abuse, we talk about like the culture of silence and how this film is showing that exact same thing with, you know, he essentially died with that secret and um left Charlotte, you know, young Charlie um with all of that pain, I guess. Right. because He's like a hero to the community, right? He's like giving speeches and like everyone, everyone seems to love him.
01:28:16
Speaker
I actually hadn't really thought of that yet, because it ends in a place where i a write I guess only... I mean, the rest of her family, I think, would also know. But yeah, that is... you hadn't really thought of it, and that that kind of makes the ending better.
Discussion on 'Cabin in the Sky'
01:28:31
Speaker
I mean, I think that was all more or less that we had on Shadow of Death, right? Yeah, I think so.
01:28:37
Speaker
Cool. So, yeah. ah Cabin in the Sky, which was ah which was your pick from from, I don't know, probably a year ago you told me that you wanted to talk about this movie. Yeah. I have always loved the film. And it's funny because, you know, I'll tell other people to watch it and they're like, okay, you know.
01:28:56
Speaker
That was a film, whatever. um But what really amazes me is just like the level of performances because this really was just like a showcase of the top black talent of the day um from like Lena Horne and Eddie Rochester Anderson, Ethel Waters to you know, you have Duke Ellington and like Louis Armstrong.
01:29:15
Speaker
um So I love it for that reason. And there's another film, Stormy Weather, also starring Lena Horne, that I think came out in the same year, 43. That film, so that's the one, if you've seen, are you familiar with the Nicholas Brothers? I am not, no.
01:29:34
Speaker
Okay, well, they were like two, you know, their brothers, famous dancers. And there's an incredible scene of them. And this is in the film, Stormy Weather of them. I can't even describe it honestly, but they're like doing splits over each other while going down the stairs. And it's just, I'll send it to y'all later. um But I like that film because it's kind of the same thing, you know, another big studio effort um of like black performers.
01:30:02
Speaker
But stormy weather is more so like literally just that there's not a whole lot of plot. Whereas cabin in the sky at least has a little bit of plot. So yeah, that's the reason I like it. um Yeah, what did y'all think? It's a lot of fun. Yeah, fun movie.
01:30:18
Speaker
It definitely, I think, stands out from a lot of other musicals, I mean, primarily just because it has an all-black cast, which is unfortunately very unusual for the early 40s. But then it, yeah, it has it, like, I like it on its kind of magical realism, too, the whole sort of like... not really the Angel and Devil but like ah General and ah Lucifer Jr. as like they're just like a presence of like trying to kind of subtly influence different things or also just like them reacting to different stuff is is really fun.
01:30:55
Speaker
um And then, yeah, just like the and the music and the dancing is incredible. Yeah, the songs in this movie are great. Definitely like stand out for me. like I think that a lot of the jokes related to the devil characters are are really good. and But yeah, the music like the songs are great, especially I think Ethel Waters. um like o of her All of her just belting is incredible.
01:31:21
Speaker
Yeah, I, um ooh, I'm trying to think like where to even start with this film. I mean, just cause we just talked about like the incredible dancing. um I don't know if y'all caught this, but this film is credited for having like the first onscreen moonwalk. It is in the scene where this like, it's the tap dancer um in, he's like in the kitchen or somewhere in the house doing a whole tap dance. And yeah, he does the moonwalk for like two seconds. um So I don't know if that was like, you you know, even significant back then. But in hindsight, people were like, Oh, first one. ah So that was really interesting. But I guess I something that fascinates me about this film is so we have, you know, the angel and devilish characters. And obviously, it's wartime. um And you have like the good guy being the general. I thought that was interesting. And
01:32:14
Speaker
This film itself is not super high on the you know military propaganda. Stormy weather, I would say, is definitely more um explicit in that. But um I have some notes about this film. so Obviously, there were not a whole bunch of like all-Black cast, especially made by major studios. um So just like this kind of timeline I want to lay down is this is a time where they're really encouraging Black people to join the military. So the year before, 1942, there was a booklet called Negroes and the War that was distributed. And it basically just you know ah celebrated
01:32:55
Speaker
various black people in their military accomplishments and of course tried to get more people to join um and then you have this film which again not super strong on the military propaganda but like it's a little bit there um but in the next year 1944 you have the documentary um ah the Negro soldier, which is like a very direct attempt at trying to get black people to join the military. um So I always find that really interesting. And actually, so the Bureau of um motion pictures, which is was part of the Office of War information, of course, you know, had a lot of their hands in Hollywood. um And I thought it was interesting because I found this
01:33:40
Speaker
quote, it's from the Bureau of Motion Pictures script review, they called this film, they said it depicts African Americans as quote, simple, ignorant, superstitious folk incapable of anything but the most menial labor. um So I thought that was an interesting take. But on the other hand, you had the NAACP praising the film saying that ah the treatment of this black fable, which avoided cliche and racial stereotypes, um you know, was something to be celebrating. So just some of the reactions to the film um were really interesting. And if you're ever, you know, that interested, um you can go online. The Margaret Herrick Library, which is, you know, part of the Academy, um they have a lot of their digital collections available online. So I actually went and found
01:34:26
Speaker
ah the actual script notes. And a lot of it is just like, you can't say the word hell here. You can't say the word hell there. You say the word hell twice in this scene and then freaking out. But there are some interesting notes about just like how it could potentially be received. God damn. You were just showing us up by one, watching a movie twice and two, going to the archives and ah and looking at script notes. ah Incredible.
01:34:54
Speaker
I will say I've literally done a presentation on this film before, like several years ago. So I just pulled up my notes from then. But go ahead, Glenn. I think if we watched like one or two movies for every episode, we probably would go that deep on each one. But I think the fact that we watch like five to seven kind of makes it a little bit harder to do. Should we? I mean, we should do a a plot synopsis, right?
01:35:14
Speaker
Oh yeah. Little Joe tries to be good but his pious wife ah ah to his pious wife Petunia, but he has a gambling problem. Eventually he runs afoul of Domino Johnson and is shot while at the club. As he's dying at home, he sees visions of Lucifer Jr. and demons ready to take him to hell.
01:35:33
Speaker
Petunia prays for him and the strength of her prayer summons the general and his angels. The two parties strike a deal. They'll wipe Joe's memory and give him six months to redeem his ways. The devils and angels spend that six months trying to influence him toward heaven or hell, and the demons get a big win by sending seductress Georgia Brown and by giving him a wi a winning lottery ticket.
01:35:55
Speaker
He tries to stay on the right path, but a critical moment of misunderstanding between him and Petunia sends him down the wrong one. At the end of his six months, Petunia arrives at the nightclub, and after some back and forth at a scuffle, Petunia prays to God to smite the entire sinful place. God sends a tornado, and they're both killed. At the pearly gates, Joe regains his memory and realizes that he messed up his chance. Petunia is about to be sent to heaven, and Lucifer Jr. is about to take him to hell, when at the last minute it's revealed that the tragedy at the nightclub has convinced Georgia Brown to donate all the money Little Joe had given her to the church, pushing him right over the edge into heaven eligibility. As they head together into heaven, Little Joe wakes up and realizes that this had all been a dream since he was initially shot in the club, and Little Joe learns his lesson and becomes a pious good man. Wow, what a wholesome story. That is, for sure, the most concise, best plot synopsis we have done because you wrote it down ahead of time. like It's usually us being like, what happened?
01:36:56
Speaker
So thank you for that. Yeah, that was great. You know, we were talking about Looney Tunes earlier with Red Hot Riding Hood. And I feel like this kind of devil and angel on your shoulder stuff is like so baked into me from Looney Tunes specifically. I don't know like where that idea comes from. ah There probably is like a some source or whatever of the of the idea of a devil and angel ah working their angles on. is it Is it the Bible? I'm not sure.
01:37:24
Speaker
should be the bible That was really intense. No, it's vaudeville. But yeah, no, I thought that was like a really fun element. ah or you were emrie You were talking about war also, and like one of the great parts in this movie is when ah the devils are brainstorming ideas on how to you know make make things difficult for little Joe to the ah to go on the right path.
01:37:52
Speaker
and uh you know the lucifer juniors rejecting all these ideas and you're like oh you're all my my b idea guys all the a guys are over there in europe i also read that down i was like that's a good joke very very topical I also love that scene because in that I think like one of the plots was to, I don't know, give him a bunch of money and watch him self destruct with all the new money and new wealth that he has. And I thought that was interesting because like it's this paternalistic idea that like
01:38:25
Speaker
it's better for him to not have money, because if he does have money, then he's just gonna go off the wagon and go crazy and you know ruin his life. and I thought about that idea in relation to just like, I mean, obviously this applies to so many, so much of world history, um but like theter the paternalistic ideas of, essentially like oppressors saying, hey, we're actually gonna limit your freedom and it's gonna be better for you because if we give you this freedom or if we give you this money, you're gonna go crazy and you don't know what's best for you. um So I honestly, I don't know if anyone at the time was kind of thinking the same thing, but in my 2025 reign, that was one of the first thoughts I had in that scene.
01:39:16
Speaker
It feels like it sidesteps it a little bit because of the all black cast, because like it is, um you know, I think they they're the kind of I don't know, like circa, you know, 1860 pro slavery argument ah that you that you mentioned, it would be more obvious if there if there were kind of white oppressors or white like kind of ah puppet masters in in this movie.
01:39:43
Speaker
um but like it does seem like it is engaging with that idea maybe without like um engaging with the it's it maybe be engaging with the idea but maybe without like some of the more horrific implications of if like they they weren't black themselves right yeah but regardless like they were you know the demonic characters coming up with those ideas um so that was interesting um with like the the the the devil characters do also say like we've gotten so many people with this but like just by giving them money h which i mean like there is i think like a carnal of truth to that too just like ah i do think wealth can be uh you know corrupting force on people um it yeah it makes me wonder like right what like how how that was intended
01:40:35
Speaker
Um, I don't know. I know this is based on a ah play. I don't know who wrote the play or if that, I don't know if it plays into it or not. Do you know, Ambrielle, if, um, if it was like black, um, like talent, like working on the original script of the play? I believe so. I know it played on Broadway. Um, let me search right now. Um,
01:41:02
Speaker
So yeah, open it opened on Broadway in 1940. um Yes, there were all black casts. um Yeah, so it was actually described as, quote, a parable of Southern Negro life with era echoes of Frank Molnar's Lillum.
01:41:20
Speaker
and Mark Connolly's The Green Pastures. I'm not familiar with Lilliam, whatever that is. um But yeah, i it it is interesting just watching it and seeing how this is like probably one of the films that laid the template for what kind of like got Tyler Perry famous was like these morality plays um where you have like very religious people and it's also encouraging, you know, a specific way of life with through the use of comedy. um But I don't know, it just gave like very Tyler Perry, who I could talk about him for hours, because I have plenty of things to say about that man. and um But yeah, I don't know. I was like, wow, this is i like, I wonder if this is the blueprint for that. That's interesting. Yeah, I like
01:42:10
Speaker
I, and I think maybe Glenn, you too, like grew up ah pretty non-religiously. And so it's hard to like think about this like from this sort of like within religious perspective. like like how like This movie is about like going to heaven and hell and being like a being like a ah pious person and someone who loves God and acts in the right way.
01:42:35
Speaker
um But it, I guess it doesn't, it's weird. It feels, the experience of watching the movie doesn't feel preachy in the kind of off-putting way that that I think a lot of, a lot of religious-y kind of stuff ends up feeling for me at least. I think it's kind of the fact that this movie is,
01:42:56
Speaker
It feels more like a fairy tale than a sort of morality tale necessarily. Like, yeah, there are morals and it is like it is very much like, yes, going to church means you are good and gambling means you are bad. like it's very It's very kind of, I don't know.
01:43:15
Speaker
i it's it's It's sort of simplifying ideas down to to fairy tale language, I guess. And I do think that that right as as a ah i not particularly church-going person myself, um it didn't feel like it was necessarily right i wasn't like oh here we go talking about how great going to church is it's just like yeah it makes sense like that's that's yeah i think within the context of the story it it it just feels like a kind of natural progression
01:43:50
Speaker
And yeah, i think I think the kind of comedy of it and the, uh, the Kirsten iconography that it's using is so just like kind of baked into a lot of American storytelling anyway. Ambrielle, you were saying that you could talk about Tyler Perry for a long time, but I'm kind of curious about your your thoughts on the, you know, you made that comparison, uh, but like some more detail on your thoughts about that, because I, uh, ashamedly have never seen any Tyler Perry movie beyond a Gone Girl.
01:44:22
Speaker
I don't think you need to be ashamed, first of all. um yeah Whenever people ask me how I feel about him, it's very complex. um But I guess like he's significant in my life simply because like I did grow up in a very religious household.
01:44:40
Speaker
and um he started like as a playwright and he would film these um productions on stage and then you know release them on DVD and that's kind of how I think he got his name more and more out there. A lot of his earlier stuff was like very religious um very much like this you know a lot of comedy and he's kind of shifted away from that but there's still a lot of those undertones in his work which Um, like it definitely appeals to a certain type of audience and that audience not is definitely not me. I grew out of that a while ago. Um, but it's interesting to see how he's become so successful. Like, I mean, a whole billionaire or whatever, which that's another topic. Um, but how he's become so successful off of this kind of like template of storytelling, um, because it does appeal very well to, um,
01:45:36
Speaker
I would say like a lot of older black people who are very religious and you know grew up with that, i grew up in the church and stuff like that. That's so interesting. i had you know From the trailers, I had just kind of assumed it was all zany times with Medea and and not I didn't know about the religious angle at all.
01:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, that is I mean, yeah, I'd say honestly, I stopped watching his films several years ago. um But yeah, early on, very, very all religious. And more recently, the most recent one I've seen probably came out like four, five years ago.
01:46:13
Speaker
um Yeah. They're still like those mentions of, um, and I don't know, maybe it's just something that you can't really escape from when like you grew up, especially in the black church, like I did. Cause, um, another reason, like when I started this film, um, and they have the scene of them all singing in the church. Um, I, one thing it's interesting just because I think that was probably like a necessary thing at the time.
01:46:41
Speaker
to portray black people in church. um I think it, because obviously this film was playing, you know, all over the nation, um except in places where it was banned, like Memphis, I think. um But I think having these characters be very pious, one is like true to a lot of like the black experience, especially in the South. But I also think for broader audiences or for like white audiences,
01:47:10
Speaker
it probably made them more comfortable watching a film, um you know, where maybe they can relate to that. And they can't so much relate to more of the other issues presented in the film. um But I think, you know, that makes it very broadly relatable. Wow. Yeah, that's ah Yeah, it's interesting. I am curious about like how this movie was released. I couldn't find a lot of information about it, of like whether or not it was only shown in segregated theaters or not, or if it was sort of like marketed to what to a a larger audience. um I did read a Wikipedia that like a lot of a lot of theaters in the South refused to show it, just on account of them there being black actors in it, which is crazy. And that the cops showed up at one of them and like shut the movie down.
01:48:03
Speaker
which is like, I tried, you know, I don't know why I'm like surprised by like racism and stuff anymore, but even it's just like, come on, like what? How are you so threatened by this? Like, I mean, this was, I mean, this was the environment that, you know, created the ah civil rights era. Right. Yeah. And that's like, that's, you know, nothing compared to a lot of other awful things that happened ah in this time period. But like, um,
01:48:34
Speaker
I'm, i I'm, I'm not, and then research into like what the release of it was like, or sort of like how it was, how, ah how it was distributed or how it was received. As soon as we heard that you did a whole presentation on this, we're like, what is it? Tell us, tell us.
01:48:52
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So um I don't really know much about the actual like distribution. I don't even know. I mean, again, I know it's just it's MGM. It was one of the first all black cast by a major studio. I don't really know how exactly it was marketed um or what the responses were beyond, um you know, some of the ones that I read to y'all earlier.
01:49:14
Speaker
um yeah like you said it was controversial just on account of it being black and you laugh which i have i don't know sometimes i feel like i laugh at the worst moments but racism is funny sometimes because it's just so absurd and it just doesn't make sense like why are you calling the cops to shut down this movie like it's literally a movie of people singing and dancing about god i get the sense like they didn't object to like it's subject matter or like what was happening in the film like anything else about it just the fact that it was a film starring black people yeah that's it no can't have this yeah shut this down call now
01:49:50
Speaker
and that's Isn't that just kind of often the case for like, you know, morality boycotts of of movies? Well, morality is usually code. I was ah listening to this podcast um called If Books Could Kill with ah ah and Michael Hobbs is a ah gay journalist was talking. Oh, yeah, yeah, he's he's great. I listen to ah maintenance phase sometimes and I ah started listening to him on You're Wrong About.
01:50:16
Speaker
Oh, yeah, if books could kill is really good. I highly recommend that podcast. But um he was in ah in a recent episode, he was they were talking about the I don't know the the the moral majority or something like that from like, you know, the neoconservatives from 20 years ago. And ah he he was saying ah that, like, you know, moral just means that you hate gay people and you don't want to say it, you know. Yeah.
01:50:40
Speaker
And, you know, same same kind of deal here, right? Is probably some kind of, you know, thin justification or or papering over of kind of ah biased feelings.
01:50:53
Speaker
ah Yeah. Ambrielle, what's your history with this movie? I know, like, you know, you've been you're saying you've been a fan of it for a while, right? Yeah, I honestly don't remember the first time I watched it, um but I just know over the years it's kind of stuck with me because, I mean, I am just a huge like jazz music fan and um I you know love history and especially black history and I love Hollywood history. So this brings them literally all together. um So that's why the film has stuck with me. um I'm also a huge Lena Horne fan. um We haven't mentioned her yet.
01:51:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Selena Horne plays the seductress in this film. And she has a very fascinating career um that I won't you know tell you all about right now. But ah she made this film when I think she was like 26.
01:51:46
Speaker
And something that's interesting is the onscreen kind of beef between Ethel Waters and Lena Horne. There was also beef off screen. And there's actually like this funny story where apparently like Lena Horne was in a dance number or something, but she injured her ankle. And according to sources on set, Ethel Waters said, God works in mysterious ways.
01:52:12
Speaker
ah Yeah, so like there was like some crew beef there, um but I actually found this 1981 interview that she did with Dick Cavett, and of course this is 1981, so almost 40 years later. um But she talks about her relationship with Ethel Waters, and it's really interesting because she has a very empathetic view of her. um you know She basically says, like yeah, to Ethel Waters, someone who has been in the game since like the early 1900s, she started on vaudeville, worked her way all the way up. She probably thought, I came in and you know was just sleeping around, which is not true. But there was kind of that bitterness of like,
01:52:55
Speaker
the new girl in town, the young girl in town, obviously Lena is lighter skinned, she's thin, Ethel Waters was not, so like there was just that kind of um baked in ah tension between them and it also You can see it in the film, which, you know, it kind of plays into a bunch of different, like, stereotypical or archetypical, whatever the word is, characters. But, you know, some people say that Ethel Waters's character, Petunia, in this film is kind of like the mammy. um I don't know if I fully agree with that.
01:53:29
Speaker
Um, or at least it's not the best representation of what I view as a mammy. Um, but it is interesting how Lena Horan kind of fits into like the tragic mulatto character, the seductress who, um, like Lena Horan's character is very sexual in the film. Whereas Petunia is all about God and all about doing what's right and blah, blah, blah. um And actually, so Ethel Waters, she was one of the first people to sing the song Stormy Weather, which is, again, that musical that came out the same year as this, um starring Lena Horne.
01:54:03
Speaker
It was called Stormy Weather. um But she's the one who kind of like popularized the song. And then Lena Horne kind of took it and made it her own, stars in a film called Stormy Weather singing this song. And um in the it like early 2000s, I want to say at some point, her version of the song was actually like inducted into the um like Grammy Hall of Fame or whatever. So it is just, I don't know, watching that Dick Cavett interview with her,
01:54:31
Speaker
really made me think just about like the dynamic at that time and what it felt like to be Ethel Waters, you know an older black woman who's been working for 30 plus years at this point and is kind of just now being like getting this true moment versus Lena Horne, who's the new girl in town, who's singing my songs. you know I just think that's like an interesting dynamic.
01:54:58
Speaker
It is, it is like, you know, I thought maybe it's kind of a weakness of this movie, the simplicity that it paints ah ah Lena Horne's character with. um Like, you know, the movie is dealing in these kind of like,
01:55:14
Speaker
iconic you know ah archetypes. It's like yeah people are people are are acting out archetypes, but it does you know it does feel you know reductive and misogynistic to have one of them just be like the the sexy lady who ruins the time of everyone else. She's kind of a femme fatale. That's how I looked at it anyway. um I do think this movie is does it's I think it's going for archetypes and does probably fall into stereotype also, but certainly, I mean, for like, this, I always have, I'm probably like, fool for the time, but like, comparing this movie to like Gone With The Wind is like oh yeah such a huge difference. It's like completely, I feel like Gone With The Wind um has almost just like,
01:56:07
Speaker
it It feels very much like it's like looking down on the black characters almost, even though it's like kind of in the context of the story is trying to be like, oh no, like they're they're they're people. And it's like, no movie. I can see like you' you're showing your hand a little too much here. Whereas this movie feels like it's just a movie about people that is in this kind of fairy tale style but I think this movie while maybe not being necessarily like from a minor perspective as progressive as it could have been I still think is like feels like a much more Honest movie that is a lot less concerned with I get mostly I guess I'm comparing it to don't win which is not a good person to make because that's like the worst possible example of Yeah, you you were saying you were saying like many characters and I was like, oh well, there's definitely some worse examples from right around then. But I think even like the Lee Ski movie that we watched I think is like the earliest known movie with an all-black cast, that movie was like so much more stereotypical and it's like like was progressive for the time but in like such a kind of like incremental way.
01:57:15
Speaker
And that movie was, I mean, that movie was called A Fool and His Money. it was It was kind of a similar right premise, I guess, in a way. I guess I should, you know you mentioned Gone with the Wind, and we have two actors here who are in Gone with the Wind. I know Butterfly McQueen. Who's the other one? I think ah Rochester was in it, too. Oh, was he really? Yeah.
01:57:38
Speaker
Huh, okay. I did not realize that. I think it's like a smaller role. Yeah, Butterfly McQueen. Once Butterfly McQueen shows up, I'm like, oh, she plays like a person in this. Yeah.
01:57:50
Speaker
i is I mean, you know not to be mean or whatever, but as soon as Butterfly McQueen showed up, I was like, oh God, I recognize that voice. Yeah, it really hurts. It really hurts. you know I'm sure she was a lovely woman in real life, but I just don't know if I would have been able to have a conversation with her. I mean, I don't know if I have like big like big thoughts about this movie. There are certain things I feel like I just wrote down that I wanna like spotlight. yeah One is just like the the production of this movie I was really impressed by, like the the club like getting destroyed at the end is.
01:58:24
Speaker
pretty crazy. like i don't it's There's all these pieces of the set that are just falling, yeah like the roof caving in i'm like and even like the design of it once it's been destroyed with like the the steps going up to heaven. as like i don't know if it was I don't even think it was a matte painting, it was just a painting, like a backdrop. Looks really cool.
01:58:43
Speaker
Yeah, this kind of striking jagged staircase. You were mentioning the um the the club getting destroyed too, which featured ah a tornado, ah which was more tornado, which was, you know, tornado imagery that was shot for fellow MGM movie, Wizard of Oz. And so it got to reap that, like those like incredible special effects rewards from that movie.
01:59:07
Speaker
Also, something that shares with Wizard of Oz is that you're waking up at the end and it was all a dream. Yeah, yeah. In general, I don't like as a storytelling device. I think in both this and Wizard of Oz, they kind of get away with it. um But that it's all a dream. I'm just like, then what did I just watch? Come on. But at least in this, it like it has it has a point and it does kind of play into the fairy tale-ness of it.
01:59:34
Speaker
I guess we we talked about the like but the dance scenes, the whole kind of like third act in in the club. I think it's just like really well staged. Yeah. yeah so many so many cool i mean like They kind of take that opportunity to just like have a bunch of great songs. right like yeah The movie, does sort of like the plot sort of takes a backseat for a while where they're just like everybody's going to sing now. It does become like a Duke Ellington concert film for like a good 10 minutes, which like I'm fine with. Also, um there are a couple a couple more lines that really stuck out to me. was There's a bit where Petunia says,
02:00:11
Speaker
Sometimes when you fight the devil, you gotta jab him with his own pitchfork. Which, I like that line. And then, at the end, when, uh, F.O.S. does that with the club,
02:00:23
Speaker
where Joe and Georgia Brown are or hanging out. Joe is sort of like trying to appeal to her because they're they're still married at that point. And he's like, no, like, come on, like, you know, ah this is all frivolous. um And she says, save that sugar-coated talk for your girlfriend. It's like, oh, damn, OK. And then there's there's the the One more thing to mention is that the ah one of those ah songs, ah sequences in the club was directed by Busby Berkeley. And I knew that before going into the movie. And I was like, where is it? Where is it? And then I see the ah the really dramatic shadows on the wall. I was like, found it. Yeah. So movie does have a lot of really good ah like shadow work. like When Lucifer Jr. first shows up, he appears as a shadow on the wall.
02:01:15
Speaker
i think i they but kind of There are a couple other times where that is kind of used of like you see a shadow before you see a person, yeah which I just always like to see.
02:01:26
Speaker
I like that both of you mentioned um The Wizard of Oz, because another connection. um So it was directed by Vincent Minnelli, and this was actually his like first feature film. um I have never really been able to find much on like you know his process during the film, but I've heard that he was um you know he worked with like a lot of Black organizations to make sure this was like an authentic portrayal, blah, blah, blah. um But yeah, he obviously ended up with Judy Garland, and they gave us the wonderful Liza Minnelli. But and he had directed Judy Garland in like musical scenes before, but I think this was his first, ah you know, full feature. um And then, I guess actually, yeah, another connection to 1944. He turned around and did Meet Me in St. Louis with
02:02:15
Speaker
um judy garland in 1944 which is another one of my favorite movies so which we'll we'll probably cover on the show i'm assuming I think that's a pretty big pretty big movie for 44. Yeah. Yeah. There's quite a few. um I guess like the last little things I want to point out, um Eddie Rochester, Anderson's performance, um I love like just his comedic performance. His comedic abilities are great. ah There's one part that always makes me laugh out loud. um it's
02:02:47
Speaker
where Ethel is like touching his dead kind of body. And then you see ah little Joe's actual like spirit, but you know his body, you know watching all of this occur. And Petunia like grabs his body's hands and She says your hands are cold and he's like, of course they is I'm dead and I just love that line Like it's so the way he delivers it is so absolutely perfect um And then the last little thing I want to say about his character is I have been I'm always like super interested in how people view his character because there's always a lot of talk at least in like the things I've read about how
02:03:29
Speaker
In this film, he is almost kind of like a child. like His name is Little Joe. um Just physically, he's smaller than Petunia. There are scenes where you know he's in bed and she has to take care of him like he's a child. And he just has this very like goofy, childlike way about him. um And it's led to some interesting conversations that I've been a part of on whether or not this was like emasculating to him or like in infantil infantilizing um his character. I e just think that's always an interesting conversation, um especially like when I did this presentation um about this film several years ago, there were a lot of like black people in the audience and they had thoughts on whether this was, you know, kind of like
02:04:16
Speaker
um offensive to black men. um So that was just an interesting conversation that I always like to bring up. I don't necessarily have anything else to add. um But if y'all do, I know Glenn, you said something that you want to follow up with.
02:04:31
Speaker
I don't know if I necessarily have that much to add to that. I mean, there there is this when like initially part of the like the the prayer that Ethel makes that that gets forces of the afterlife to kind of make this deal. She starts it by basically praying to God and saying, like, I know that Joe is dumb, but like I love him and he means well. And it's like, but she has to like put a disclaimer on it. Like, look, I get it. Like, Joe, not not the brightest bulb.
02:05:00
Speaker
But like come on like look at look at this guy. He's what's he gonna do. He's such a little cutie Right. Yeah, it's like he's a little kid Which yeah, I mean I could have a see the argument that it is infantilizing towards that character I mean even just calling him little Joe throughout the movie is Like, yeah, he's short, but like I don't know if that's the nicest nickname to give him. I didn't really think that, but i yeah i'm i'm I'm now curious to read that perspective on it. I think that like um you know it kind of it kind of works in a way because he is, it through the movie, it's a lot of him not really being capable of making his own decisions. like He is being,
02:05:43
Speaker
brought back and forth by ah people who kind of have more power in his life than him, either his wife or you know the angels and devils on his shoulder. it's like like you know you you It puts you in a situation where you can feel worse about the eight the peril of him going to hell, right? he It makes him feel more innocent ah because like he is not like an unrepentant gambler. He just like can't control himself because he acts like a child. and when Also, his friends that are gamblers like physically drag him there. He tries to get away and they pull him away. so
02:06:27
Speaker
Yeah. but like and And then like you know in the movie, he is kind of like a vessel for the influence of you know these like what you were calling like these sort of parental style figures of the the angels and devils. So I don't know. like yeah I guess there are ways that like it may be kind of insulting to him, but I also think maybe it kind of makes the movie work a little better because you can kind of get on board with his situation more. You don't have like any kind of um You don't have any kind of like, it doesn't have to grapple with him being a truly bad person because he's innocent enough the whole time because he's a cutie that like he, yeah that that he never is actually like bad, bad in the movie. Yeah, he's no Uncle Charlie. Yeah, do that again.
02:07:17
Speaker
Hey, nice way to wrap it up. I tried. Yeah, I'm trying to think if I have anything else to mention. I probably do, but I feel like we've we've covered a lot of ground in this film. so yeah Thanks, Ambrielle, for joining. She'll be back on to for the send off at the end. ah What's a good movie to come off of Cabin in the Sky? That is a good question. I guess we did watch another movie that could be considered a comedy, which is the life and death of Colonel Blimp. Yes, the most British movie that we've ever seen. The most British thing that I think exists, which is also, I mean, somewhat intentional. like This movie is about like Britain and like the the British
02:08:08
Speaker
the heart of perditionists. It's kind of simultaneously mourning the the end of the kind of classic genteel Britishness and also ah saying, we're fighting the Nazis now, we need to ah we need to ah get gritty.
02:08:28
Speaker
Yeah, get over it. Yeah, a little bit. So this is a ah directed by Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressburger. Our first. Collectively known as the Archers.
02:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, our first on the show and also the first one that I have seen ever just in life. I've never seen any better other movies. Oh, I can't wait till you see Red Shoes. Oh, same. um I'm I'm I'm very excited to like get more into their catalog. It's not their first movie. i think This is like their fourth or fifth movie, but the first one that we're covering on the show and um Yeah, I think from what you know my my sort of cultural osmosis knowledge of pal breastburger movies are like, this ah fits fits the bill. It's a like very ah colorful, color sort of, I don't know if I necessarily call it an epic, but it's like it's a it's a big movie. It looks like you you feel it.
02:09:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think that like, you know, the but Technicolor I think is a good place to start with this because, um you know, not a lot of movies have that kind of lush three strip Technicolor thing going on, right? And like it's an it's an extra expense to the production. I think it's kind of interesting, like what movies they feel like are appropriate to do in three strip Technicolor and also like what Having technicolor does for a movie and you know this movie starts off in like straight up current day like there are people riding motorcycles and it was kind of shocking to see because I'm so used to the technicolor movies that we've seen so far being like this like
02:10:10
Speaker
fantasy or like it's like a painterly vision of like a rosy past uh and it was just so weird watching like motorcycles in technicolor it kind of looked it made it look like a 60s movie like like the very beginning of it had that feeling you know almost the entire movie actually i i felt like if you told me this movie was released in like 1961 I might have believed to you because yeah it it feels much more. It feels much newer than I think most. I mean, the just being in color at all adds a lot to that. But I think also just like the kind of scope of it um and it's like the specific type of technicolor to.
02:10:50
Speaker
Like, right, there is this kind of ephemeral thing to three separate kind of color that's like people have tried to kind of recapture and it's very difficult. Like no one actually knows the actual like the chemical mix that they used. And so even if you were to shoot on like the same kind of film stock, which also doesn't exist anymore, like, you know, people keep trying to like recreate, in particular, Powell Pressberger movies, Technicolor. Wow. And they they can't do it. They don't know what they did to the film. Oh, man. To make them look like this.
02:11:21
Speaker
Yeah that's that's crazy I really but if I ever make a movie which probably won't happen I would want to make it in like a look the kind of radiant three-strip technicolor look yeah but you know I was thinking like you know While I was in that modern day sequence, and I was thinking about like the the kind of jarring aspect of seeing a Technicolor movie this way, like I was like, this is the only like not-fantasy, contemporary 3-strip we've seen.
02:11:52
Speaker
but like um and Like what's what's it like another? And is is it is it the case that there's almost something kind of romantic about three strip technicolor, right? It's like fantasy. It's like it's um it's the Wizard of Oz. It's gone with the wind. And I was thinking, like, you know, gone with the wind is not fantasy, but it uses these like hyper real colors and it's like romantic it kind of is, though. Yeah. But it's like it's like romanticizing this time, right? It is using the three strip to like feed into the romance of of longing for this era that is lost. And that's the same thing that's going on in this movie. It is kind of a British gone with the wind.
02:12:34
Speaker
ah It's got like a similar kind of many years long scope. It's about a similar kind of idea of like here's the Honorable way that we used to be that that doesn't exist anymore. You know, it it's um yeah Yeah, and so in that way like even though, you know gone with the wind did not go up to current day it it's um it stayed completely in the past this one has like a framing device of being contemporary but most of the movie is set in older better times a a more civilized age i i do think this movie is at least slightly more kind of critical of the past and of like old ways of thinking than going with the windows but uh yeah it does it it's true it does have
02:13:26
Speaker
really right all of the kind of big technical movies that we watched have are are very romantic in the kind of like poetic sense, right? Where they're like, yeah yeah they're about these sort of like idealistic characters or times or or stories. And yeah, I think this movie is almost kind of trying to and deconstruct is maybe taking it a bit too far, but it at least is trying to I guess yeah somewhat kind of deconstruct the a lot of sort of things that are ingrained into British culture in the 1940s or like in the early 20th century. Yeah it is it is it simultaneously does feel kind of celebratory and self-critical.
02:14:09
Speaker
yeah it definitely Yeah, it definitely does both of those things. I should i remembered to make a so a synopsis for the other ones, and I forgot to for this. No, I forgot to for this one. ah But I guess we should... This one's an easy synopsis, I guess. Yeah, the ah there is a man named Clive Wynkandy. Oh, yeah. There is no character named Colonel Blimp in this film. There is no character named Colonel Blimp. He kind of represents the Ur Blimp, the platonic blimp.
02:14:44
Speaker
ah But there's a guy named Candy. He starts off as kind of like a headstrong, younger person in the military in during the Boer War. He has ideals and he believes in them and he'll... but ah break with his superiors in order to ah in order to follow those ideals ah and that kind of gets him in trouble. He ends up ah having to do a duel because he insults a German officer, I think.
02:15:18
Speaker
ah and somebody else from the German military is ah kind of randomly assigned to fight him. It's a duel with sabers and they injure each other, but then while they're healing they become friends. Candy ah is in Germany with this lady and the German falls in love with the lady and the the German, he's a main character so I should say what his name is,
02:15:45
Speaker
Well, he's got ah a heck of a name. Yes, ah they mentioned that. And it's like we've only ever met. You only ever meet one guy named Theo Kretschmar Schuldorf. And the lady is Edith. the The two of them fall in love.
02:16:00
Speaker
you kind of expect Candy and the lady to fall in love, but he's like, no, great, go go ahead. I'm going to go back to England now. And then as soon as he goes back to England, he realizes that he was in love with the lady and then vertigo style attempts to like attempts to like recreate her in every relationship that he has. And she's played by the same person in in the the next couple of people that he he is involved with.
02:16:26
Speaker
But then the movie kind of keeps moving through forward various points in time to him during the First World War, ah and he's a brigadier general. And then the Second World War, ah where he has kind of becoming outmoded. The framing device is a bunch of them doing a a mock kind of military exercise. He's kind of getting ambushed and and overwhelmed by the new people's ways.
02:16:54
Speaker
And the movie concludes with them sort of realizing that this sort of genteel older way that Blimp believes in doing things is outmoded in the face of the horrific Nazis.
02:17:06
Speaker
Yeah, Candy is definitely presented as a guy who like really strongly believes in the idea of like honorable warfare and sort of like the the the the the gentleman's agreement almost of like, because it's like at the end of the movie, right? He's like doing duels and stuff. All these, they're all these rules. And by the end of the movie, they're like, no, like it's war. Like who gives a shit about any of this?
02:17:30
Speaker
Um, like the enemy certainly doesn't. So like what we're getting our asses handed to us. If they're willing to break the rules, then the the rules don't mean anything anymore. Right. I've never heard fought in a war, but I I my general thought is like there's no such thing as honorable warfare. Like when you're killing people, it's not like honor doesn't really factor into it. I think that there are ah it's nice to have, ah you know, ideals and like war crimes are bad and people shouldn't do them. But I think especially like candies
02:18:08
Speaker
particular sort of like idealistic view of of war is is very much based on this like 19th century kind of mindset um that I think World War I kind of shattered for a lot of a lot of people and a lot of a lot of the world ah this that like a a war could be as horrific as that. um and And so we we kind of start to see his ah disillusionment because he really tries to stick to his guns and it's pretty much everyone else who's like candy like you have to like things aren't like they used to be you gotta you know you gotta get out of this mindset this movie is like politics I guess I think are maybe a little bit a little bit off
02:18:55
Speaker
I mean, right, because it it's the earliest section of the movie when he's like at his youngest is he is a soldier in the second Boer war in South Africa, which was horrible. Yeah, that's the British army. It's so many war crimes and the work, the term concentration camp was invented to refer to the camps that the British set up.
02:19:15
Speaker
in the Boer War. yeah and you know Which like is not mentioned in this movie but not not like too different from Gone with the Wind in that this movie like is sort of denying the the war crimes that the British did. like That's what he gets into the fight over, is that he was great that that is that the British were criticized for the way that they handled the Boer War and he was like, no, you can't do that. sir yeah um And it's like, well, I mean, I think even it like in the 1940s, people knew that like they were there was a lot of war crimes happening in the verbal war. I do think this movie at least is very vague about it. At best. um Right. At worst, it is sort of like denying that it happened. But so that I think that almost immediately kind of like put a bad taste in my mouth, too, because that's like the beginning of the movie. Yeah, there were actually there were a number of things kind of
02:20:08
Speaker
me a bad taste in this movie but there's also a lot of things that I really like about it so kind of overall I'm pretty positive on it but um um but I at least like that it is is grappling with like big ideas that feel very also feel very sort of like kind of much like Casablanca sort of feel very not riffing the headlines but very timely for when this movie was was coming out like yeah um it's very much about like the the current moment in in britain and like how people are kind of responding to it right yeah i wonder if there was you know maybe a sizable contingent of people in england who like this movie is basically
02:20:52
Speaker
saying like the way that we used to do things was nice but there are Nazis now like we need to change our ways and it's making like a kind of you know it's not even like using like a metaphor to say that like i think a movie nowadays might like having characters say that it yeah it is just like You know, it's not like it's not like cabaret or sound of music or something like that or another musical where where like things are happy and then Nazis happen, right? Like this this and it's all in the past and it's a and it's like a ah kind of parable about what could happen in the future. This is like, no, this is happening right now. Like this is like like like we have gone from the late 1800s to right now and we are in a different time.
02:21:43
Speaker
the Nazis are at our doors currently, we need to destroy them, basically. And ah like kind of the the character that this viewpoint is like given to, the sort of mouthpiece for, it is ah Schuldorf, the German character. Yeah. Who is like, they they fought in the duel and they became friends and then after World War I, they meet up again in a ah British prison of war camp and Schuldorf is like,
02:22:11
Speaker
Snubbing him basically like it won't look at him won't talk to him Yeah, there's a lot of emphasis on just like the the great shame that he feels as like Germany as a defeated nation It's definitely like the narrative of, you know, post World War One Germany of like, you know, you're not treating us right. And because you're not treating us right now, we're going to do another one, basically. But right. And it's like Schuldorf really kind of comes around on that. It's like, this is like, who cares? Like there's when initially after World War One, right, he has this thing of like,
02:22:45
Speaker
I can I could never feel feel proud again because like I was I was a ah soldier in an army that was defeated. And that is like the greatest shame possible. Hmm. And then I feel like after a number of years, Schuldorf was like, no, this is like the people in my life are the most important thing. I'm pushing them away. And I think Schuldorf really has I think after the the Nazis takeover has like it's kind of off screen.
02:23:14
Speaker
But through his dialogue, you really kind of see that he has put a lot of his previous ideas of kind of military rules and honor and things like that behind him. And he's like, no, this is this is horrific. Yeah, I think I i think what this movie is doing like in him is basically making a case for like doing the right thing, the thing that is like morally right, matters more, is not related to the thing that is called for by honor and manners and that kind of thing. And like it is more important to do the thing that is morally right.
02:23:53
Speaker
And, you know, like you're saying, like there's a part where Schuldorf is basically where Schuldorf is kind of heartbreaking. he He says like his sons have become Nazis and like he can't he he he couldn't get through to them. And the only thing that he can do is fight against the Nazis. And you could see like the heartbreak in him when he yeah has to leave Germany and his children because they have become lost.
02:24:23
Speaker
Yeah, Anton Walbrooke is the actor who plays ah Schuldorf and he's he's so good. And there's the scene right where he's like applying to immigrate to England and they're like, you're German, we're real suspicious about you. And he gives us like long monologue pretty much of just sort of like.
02:24:40
Speaker
he his like failure as a as a father to his sons who have become Nazis and how he's just like there's nothing left for him in his in his country that he's like dedicated so much of his life to like protecting and now he's just like no it's all it's all ruined which ah is a very uncomfortable thing to feel as an American right now um A lot of a lot of parallels there, but like i it's like the the back half of the movie, I think, really turned me around on it when it like really kind of gets into these bigger ideas a lot more. And it's a bit less of a like it's a bit less of a sort of like romp about rap yeah about soldiers.
02:25:20
Speaker
And it becomes a bit more ah a bit more movie about like big ideas. Yeah. There's not say there isn't fun stuff during the romp section of the romp section is fun. It's a there's a lot of that's the most British part. That's it's the part where they're really just getting to go. I sailed girl. And well, that's like that's a big part of the Britishness is just like. Candy is just is like Britain personified into a person right on purpose like I think that's the intent But it's like he's got his big mustache to hide his dueling scar There's also a lot of talk about how like German soldiers like love dueling scars And they like show them off whenever possible and they're like you're not a part You're not a real soldier unless you have a dueling scar and he's like no I have a doing scar in my face I'm growing a mustache to cover it up
02:26:06
Speaker
Which, ah you know, he's, ah i don't I don't think this is actually intentional, but like, he's ah he's got, to maybe his upper lip is not so stiff anymore. Oh!
02:26:19
Speaker
Um, but yeah, just like the the dialogue, like the the the accents, it's there's there's so much sort of like very, very heavy British speech yeah in this, too. they They do the in my eyes cardinal sin of movies set in an earlier time, which is they they go Conan Doyle never heard of him.
02:26:42
Speaker
ah
02:26:46
Speaker
i Although at that point, like he was very famous, so it's it's more just like that character doesn't know who he is. Yeah, right he's he would he's a the the character knows all about Sherlock Holmes. like Again, the super you know patriotism, nationalism, whatever you call it, it's just like we're the ones who have Sherlock Holmes. you know ah he The guy who hasn't heard of him The guy who hasn't heard of Arthur Conan Doyle has read every Sherlock Holmes story. And then they just... have like He would have looked at the would have looked at the byline at some point, but whatever. I don't know. People, ah if you you walk out for the credits, you know i don't know? I don't know who the key grip was. What else is there to talk about? ah There is a a um ah big sort of like taxidermy montage, which is another thing that I found ah distasteful about this movie.
02:27:39
Speaker
I thought it was like a pretty slick like editing thing that they did. because Sure. But then it's also there's like rhinos and elephants in there. It's like we have like there are like four rhinos left. And I'm just like, I hate this so much. It's like it's because of people like candy that there are four rhinos left, you know.
02:27:55
Speaker
But it is it is to show the passage of time like in one of the time skips in the movie. And so it's showing his kind of the results of his various hunting trips. And it has like a little date on on a little plate under the under the head. And so you see them like pop into existence on his wall to show like 20 years passing by or something. I thought is pretty is a pretty neat ah thing to do. is good good ending trick, but I also just like, ugh, gross. i I do like, um or I don't know, maybe I like the wrong one, but he gets this fancy apartment in London with his wife, who is, yeah, ah played by Debra Kerr, who also plays Edith, and also plays later his ah driver. And they're like, oh man, what a nice apartment we have. like
02:28:43
Speaker
we're gonna, we're gonna, this, this, this apartment's gonna last forever. And I was like, that apartment is gonna get blown up in the blitz for sure. And I was right. Yeah, speaking also of like his wife, I wasn't really sure what to make of what they were doing with that. Like it it doesn't seem kind of related to the main idea of the movie, but there is this whole thing of it's like, we had his love that he lost.
02:29:11
Speaker
And he is desperately trying to replace her. I mean, it it is kind of like him desperately trying to cling on to the way that things were. Right. But like his his stubbornness and his sort of like single minded. He's like, no, I found one woman who I found attractive and I will only ever I will only ever pursue women who look exactly like her. Yeah. And are the same age as her too. I it's like ah it's it's a like, yeah, gender politics wise, it's a little it's it's weird. And I feel like it is like, you know,
02:29:41
Speaker
It really does remind me of vertigo, right? But vertigo is like critical of what is happening. Yeah, but it goes like this pretty creepy, huh? and and Yeah, there's there's a part. i I don't know if this was intentional maybe but it's like there's a part where I think he's showing we're showing ah his German friend Theo ah he's showing him ah like a ah Painting of his wife and he has it on the wall next to all of his animal head trophies like he is like here's another trophy you know it's uh uh it's it's yeah it's weird and it's like i yeah it's like as he gets older he's still dating women the same age because when he's in his 70s he's still like
02:30:26
Speaker
Hey, you remember that one girl that I. The the third woman played by Debra Kerr. I don't think there is at least any intentional kind of like romantic connection between those two. It's more that he just likes keeping her around because she looks like his dead wife and woman that he was in love with when he was younger. But that's the thing. It's like he I don't know. It's still weird and creepy, but like I don't get the sense that he is sort of like.
02:30:52
Speaker
romantically pursuing her anyway it does it doesn't really even feel like he loved his dead wife though you know like he just he right he want he just wanted to replace the woman that he lost including the day that he gets home he dates her sister and then he's just like it's not the same ah yeah I mean, it's sort of like the the few scenes we see of their marriage does seem to be relative, seems pretty happy. Like I feel like there there aren't really any scenes of them fighting or like not getting along or ah yeah it being uncomfortable or weird. It seems like the movie is is telling us as an audience, like, no, they had a like traditional happy marriage. Right. But it is like this thing that, yeah, he just like can't.
02:31:36
Speaker
can't let go of, um much like his, I guess, his his sense of duty and of of honor and such, which I think is what what led to him telling Schuldorf to go for it also is because he he felt a sort of, I don't know, obligation or sort of, he was honor bound, like not to get in the way of their romance. ah Speaking of ah honor,
02:32:05
Speaker
o Yeah, good honor and also interesting scenes of time passing. And also, wait, there aren't swords in this movie. Is there a sword in this movie? Or am I just thinking of their Kurosawa movie? There might be a sword in the background. Yeah, I think you are, yeah. This is a really sword-free film. I rate it zero swords out of five.
02:32:31
Speaker
yeah This is Senshiro Sugata, aka Judo Saga, I guess, is an an alternate title, but it is about a guy named Senshiro Sugata who um goes to this, he wants to learn, it's about like the the the kind of conflict between Judo and jujitsu, I guess. I don't really know about the history of jujitsu, maybe it's like some kind of like offshoot of Judo, but anyway.
02:33:01
Speaker
i I believe Jujitsu came first. Judo, I realized, after watching this movie, was only invented in the 1800s. I thought it was a much older martial art than that. I guess i' am um I'm getting that backwards. I mean, the the most notable thing about this movie is that it is Akira Kurosawa, and it's his is his first film as director. Right. i was trying to I was trying to do a do a synopsis, but I i stopped like half a sentence in.
02:33:27
Speaker
Akira Kurosawa, who for my money, probably one of the best directors ever, just of of any of them. Yeah. And ah this movie, you know, not not up up to the level of his later work, but still.
02:33:44
Speaker
Pretty good. This feels like a Kurosawa movie, even if it is maybe the stakes are a little bit lower. I mean, are they even lower? There's still life and death in this movie, but it is. It's still it's about ah like a judo tournament or judo versus jujitsu, which I also think like this is kind of a martial arts movie.
02:34:02
Speaker
But it's kind of funny that it's a martial arts movie about judo, which is like the kind of the most like defensive martial art. Right. It's all like blocks and th throws and trips and stuff. Right. Except that the throws get real violent in this movie. Very true. Yeah, it is. Rose go hard.
02:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, like said so Senshiro wants to become like you know a good fighter. He is too headstrong and ah it kind of acts all cocky and starts beating people up when he's drunk in the street, and then his master is like, don't do that you are you're very good at what you do but you don't have the right discipline to do it right and uh uh you better watch yourself kid and then he tries to show his resolve by uh sitting he's like i'm gonna kill myself i'll i'll show you how serious i am about what i'm doing and then he jumps into a lake
02:34:57
Speaker
is the the master goes like, fine, do it. And then he jumps into a lake. say all go ahead He hangs on to a stick, like almost at the precipice of it. But then he just like hangs there for an entire day, and then sort of like looks at a lotus flower in the lake and has like a sort of mental breakthrough. And then he becomes the proper judo or jujitsu guy, and um and then he kind of just fights did some fights. And and that is that's the story of this. There's the whole there's the whole tournament thing. There's the all the drama with the the the woman and her dad, and he like doesn't want to fight because he's like, no. like that she's She's so like invested in her dad winning this thing. like I can't take that away from them.
02:35:45
Speaker
And then there's like the the the fancy soup wearing jujitsu guy who's real upset that he's so good at judo. That guy is a vibe. Challenges him to a fight to the death. um And we get our big sort of like Kurosawa final fight in the in the the windswept fields. Yeah. um Which is great.
02:36:09
Speaker
Yeah, once again, Kurosawa is immediately making a Kurosawa movie. like this is not like And and you know I think there are parts of this that, like you're saying, are not quite as refined as something like Seven Samurai, but like it's pretty well refined for a Kurosawa movie. Yeah, I was surprised at how many of the kind of what I consider to be Kurosawa staples are in this movie. like it's got It's like it's high stakes, right? It's like by the end of the movie, it's like one of these guys is going to die. It's about like fighting, right? Like a lot of curious movies have, you know, fights or sort of, you know, the war movies, the crime movies, their action movies. And also just like it's the like the filmmaking of it is like it uses a lot of it's like the editing is really good. the ah The like use of weather is a thing that I associate a lot with curious movies of like
02:37:06
Speaker
how much like weather plays into different scenes. Hmm. We yeah we need 40 X, the seventh samurai. Yes, it's ah it's um how much kind of like stillness there is in this movie and how it is is portrayed. I think honestly, that is like one of the things that like works so well right out of the box with this movie is like the way that he is able to just build tension in these moments of stillness that just explode into motion. Yeah, and then slow motion. Also, I think that I associate with a lot of later Kurosawa stuff is also used in this in kind of similar effect. There's ah so right we were saying how the the in Colonel Blimp, they use the sort of like hunting trophies as like a a way to show the passage of time. There's a great scene in this that shows the passage of time just by showing a lost sandal.
02:38:00
Speaker
uh getting sort of like kicked around and sort of like going through different you know weather and like in different places like it's stuck up on a fence and then it's floating down a river and then it's like in the mud and then it's and that's just there to show like time passing and it's so It's just such a great, simple, effective, creative use of like filmmaking, just to be like, here's time passing, but it's interesting. It's like you're watching this the journey of the sandal. Yeah, yeah, it's unique, certainly. Yeah. As opposed to just having you know a title card that comes up that says you know six months later. Boring. Something else about this movie is that it is partially lost. There's like two or three scenes that
02:38:44
Speaker
um were lost at some point between 1943 and the 1952 rerelease, which is sort of the version of it that still exists. Yeah, I mean, well, that this is a movie being made in wartime Japan. And so like this stuff was was censored, I believe, like they they the things that were taken out might have had to do with um stuff that the, you know, the emperor and his crew did not like.
02:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, I did think about that while watching this movie too because I mean even like I think some of the the other early Japanese movies that we watched were still being made while Japan was like at war in China and things like that. So it's like people making movies at Japan. It is weird just to see how like.
02:39:30
Speaker
Sort of calm a lot of those like 30s Japanese movies are. And then this too is like they're in the middle of ah of a war and it's like Kurosawa is just like I was gonna make him a juda nice nice little judo movie. Which I guess there was like oversight in terms of like what kind of stories I guess they were allowed to make movies of.
02:39:50
Speaker
Right. I mean, I think that like, you know, if you want to make movies, they've got to be kind of apolitical. I mean, this is kind of touching on my senior thesis a little bit. But, you know, it's kind of like ah with Zhang Yimou in China, where like he used to make these really political movies and they got banned the second they were released. And he's like, you know what, I'm sick of this. I'm going to make Kung Fu movies now. And And yeah, I mean, you know, ku for the ko what is the Kung Fu movie, if not the the Chinese Samurai movie? Kind of. Also, this appeared piece is a set in the 1800s that I think also that contributed to like, you know, the the Japanese government at the time being like, no, it's OK. It's like it's it's olden times. We're fine with stories about a little olden times. That's the same thing that happened to that last Japanese movie we watched, right? Yeah. What was that one? I remember that one was the the story of the last Chrysanthemum. That's right. Yeah. So it's like period pieces. They were they were cool with like that. Which which ah era of Japan is that called? Was it Meiji, I think? Late 1800s. I don't remember. Yell at us in the comments. But um yeah, it is it is kind of just
02:41:07
Speaker
little wild just to think about this being made. When it was being made, I guess. It doesn't really seem like it. I mean, who knows what? Maybe the scenes that are missing were maybe a little bit more topical or hot button. Who knows? It doesn't feel like Imperial Japan is really playing any part in like the storytelling of this movie. It doesn't seem like there this movie has anything to say about like the the national, you know, character or, you know, the the way in which like Colonel Blimp is so much about like Britain dur during wartime. And this movie is like completely disconnected from that. Yeah, probably by necessity. But this like this movie is kind of about as far as like what it is kind of telling you about like morals and like the person you ought to be. It's kind of
02:42:06
Speaker
pretty It feels like pretty typical Japanese stuff of or at least like historical Japanese stuff of of like like, these are the ways that you be a good person. These these are the ways that you act.
02:42:22
Speaker
rightly, such as um you know don't get too cocky and listen to what you're ah your judo master tells you to do. yeah This movie has ah has a couple of really fun people in it. ah One of them is ah Takashi Shimamura, who yeah is my favorite guy.
02:42:43
Speaker
ah like I mean, I mean, he's pretty great. He's pretty great. He's like he's the the sort of main samurai and seven samurai and just this cuddly old man who will also cut you in half. um And he's he's the the lead in Akira, right, which I haven't seen. And he's also in Godzilla.
02:43:04
Speaker
Yeah, um so he is sort of like or you know twenty early 20th century Japan. he is like He's in all the all of the like the the big stuff. I just love his vibe too. um Yeah, he's great. I mean, it's like i I look forward to seeing many more movies ah starring this guy.
02:43:24
Speaker
because um Yeah, always always a delight. But soon we'll be getting to probably number one Japanese star of all time, Toshiro Mufune. Got to love him. Star of 1941. What? The Spielberg movie. Star of the the worst Spielberg movie, 1941. Oh, is he in that?
02:43:46
Speaker
He is in that, ah for some reason. Playka Spielberg was like, I love to share a movie and I want to put him in a movie. And then it's like, here, you can be in my worst movie. Is it worse than BFT? I think so, yeah. Wow. And I haven't seen Always, so, you know, to restill out on that one, I guess. That one I know is also not considered one of his best, but I haven't seen it. There's also a character called Mama. I mean, I think it's, it you know, I think his name is like Mo-ma or something, but in the subtitles, it's... In the English subtitles, it is just Mama.
02:44:22
Speaker
Did confuse me for a second. Senshiro gets it in in his first tournament fight. He fights Mama and then just yeets him straight into the wall so hard that he dies. which And then like yeah everybody screams. it's it's kind of ah It's kind of hardcore.
02:44:43
Speaker
Yeah. i Right. I like I don't think of judo as a like lethal form of fighting because I guess right. you You throw someone hard enough into into the wall. They they die. And my only other note from this movie. Well, too, there's a point where someone's ashing a cigarette into a flower, which is a very cool image. Yes. Well, with it's a great villain move. Yes. Yeah. The big because it's like bad villain does that.
02:45:09
Speaker
Yeah, which is like I almost kind of feel like I want to steal that because that's such a like villain move to be like, not only are you smoking and asking your cigarette, you're doing it into a flower. It's like it's so it's so loaded, you know. Yeah, especially because like a flower is sort of in this movie, the thing that like, you know, takes the kind of rougher rougher around the edges, not good. Senshiro and turns him into the the proper person.
02:45:37
Speaker
And then also there's a point where someone is in pain and they go, here, have some opium to take the edge off. I think I missed that part. Unless he was just smoking something. It looked like an opium. didnt he but It probably was. um um There is also right before the the sort of duel to the death at the end, there's other guy who's sort of, I don't know, not officiating. I don't know what that's called. But he's like, I just want to say like for the record,
02:46:07
Speaker
Dying is bad. You guys don't have to fight to the death. Like, just throw that out there. Which I feel like is, yeah, worth worth pointing out. Well, on to our final movie. And but and what ah what a film this one is. It's the first entry into Universal's dark universe. It's Frankenstein meets the Wolfman. What? Frankenstein and the Wolfman in one movie? What is this, some kind of dark universe? What is this, a crossover episode?
02:46:36
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i I think for regardless of this movie's quality, which I guess we'll get into, I do think this movie is significant and that it is taking characters from separate movies and having them cross over, which, right, Universal did a bunch of times. This is the first one of their what are they called? Like Monster Mash movies, Monster, Monster Fest movies. I forget what they call them at the time. But it is like that has that thing is like so ubiquitous now.
02:47:04
Speaker
Right. I mean, Marvel really kind of broke the seal on it and they're just like, OK, now every movie has to be like eight movies and all all of the characters crossover. Right. Which then Universal tried to do again following that lead. And with people were immediately like, no, this sucks. You're talking about circa 2015, right?
02:47:24
Speaker
Yeah, well, 2017 with the the Tom Cruise Mummy movie, which is ah pretty terrible. And it's it's it. I mean, that movie feels like ah the whole movie is like a trailer, like it's it only exists to like crossover with other things. And it's just boring and not good. This movie feels like it's kind of just like, why not? Yeah, you get all these monsters.
02:47:48
Speaker
Why not? and it And there is ah even though i I don't think it really quite makes good on the premise of Frankenstein meeting the Wolfman. It's also funny that's not like versus the Wolfman. It's just they meet, which again is kind of the movie. It's a kid.
Confusion Over Wolfman Sequels
02:48:02
Speaker
Technically, they meet. They become fast friends to like the first. I would say almost like half of this movie is just the Wolfman, too. It's just a pretty much straightforward sequel to the Wolfman. I mean, there was a Wolfman movie in between the Wolfman and this, but wait, what? Yes.
02:48:18
Speaker
Which one was that? I think so it was like, um let me double check on that. I was trying to figure out like the timeline because we did skip some Universal Monster movies and there were two Frankenstein movies between Bride and this. Oh, you know what? i'm that's That's right. Sorry. I'm thinking about the inter intermediate Frankenstein movies. Yes. There were like multiple Frankenstein movies ahead. But then, right, this sort of starts as just a sequel to The Wolfman. He dies at the end of The Wolfman. But then in this, it's sort of like, well, if the moon hits him when he's dead, he comes back alive. Well, they there's some grave robbers come and they take they take the wolfsbane out of his grave, out of his casket. And that is what wakes him back up again. Or its it stops him from it's it's ah the force field that stops him from from coming back alive again.
02:49:09
Speaker
And so he wakes back up and then he continues to be a werewolf. And then he goes, oh, no, not this again. And like, I guess I can't die. And so this movie is just like the main plot of this movie is the wolf man going like, I need to figure out how to die. Like I'm going to go on a quest to kill myself, which is a wild hook for a movie.
02:49:35
Speaker
It really is. But then like halfway through, there is a level of kind of like gut excitement I get when it's just like it's been this Wolfman movie. And then he's like, right. He he meets up with this this ah this Roma woman who I think might have been in in the first Wolfman movie. She's the same person. It's the first one. Right. It's it's the the mother of Bella Lugosi's character, Bella Lugosi playing in that movie, the role of who bites Larry Talbot.
02:50:03
Speaker
Velogos, he's also in this movie playing the Frankenstein monster, which I think Lonnie Jr. played the Frankenstein monster in the previous one to this, but then yeah they were like, well, you you can't be both.
02:50:15
Speaker
And Dracula is not in this one. So Bela Lugosi was was free to play a different character, I guess. Yeah. And um and Frankenstein originally talked in this one like he does in Bride of Frankenstein. But people in test screenings, people laughed at Bela Lugosi's voice. Right. And so they cut it out. So now it right it's like the monster is back to just grunting.
02:50:36
Speaker
Yeah, um I will say, like, as I think Belagossi is very good in the 1931 Dracula movie, which I don't think is very I don't think that movie is very good. But I think Belagossi is very good in it. He's very bad as Frankenstein monster in this. Yeah. Very, very bad at it. I don't think they should have cast him.
02:50:55
Speaker
i This is interesting too in a way because I guess we haven't seen a Lon Chaney Frankenstein, but it it is it's interesting how they have so like boiled down the essence visually of what Frankenstein's monster in parentheses, what what the monster is that it's just like you can slap that costume on anybody. It can kind of be anybody, right? right Like you you put a square head and ah and like a dark suit on them and like the bolts and everything. And it's like, good done. No, no more work needed. Yeah. And so it's like Frankenstein has has stopped being just
02:51:33
Speaker
the original guy boris carloff boris karloff right like it was like so associated with him but they've like taken these they they've turned him into like the iconic like aspect at but which i think is kind of interesting like like you know only this many years later it's like He's so recognizable in like those little traits that you can. But yeah, but also like Bellagosi's head is such a different shape from Boris Karloff's head that I think it kind of like really ruins it. Yeah, no, he's just kind of stumbling around. He's got his arms out. He's kind of it feels like he's doing an impression of exactly of Frankenstein. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Impression is the word. I think that's sort of what I meant. It's like Bellagosi in a like Halloween costume.
02:52:19
Speaker
yeah going er r And I'm like, no, no, sir. I don't buy any of this. There's a part where Blanchaney, as the Wolfman, is asking where if Frankenstein's records are kept. And and like and then the the monster goes without speaking, but he's like, grr, this where records kept.
02:52:41
Speaker
um Yeah, i don't I don't think this movie is very good, but I did i did in i enjoyed myself as as as best I could, I think. Yeah, this movie is camp, and it's not like i the dialogue yeah but it's not like it's not like good camp like Bride of Frankenstein is.
02:53:00
Speaker
and i It's not intentional camp like bride of Frankenstein. I think that's the difference. I think that this I don't think this is a good movie, but I think that it is a Great watch as a B movie like this is a really like solid B movie where like the acting is really bad The script is really bad like like dumb stuff is happening, but you're just like I'm having fun like you know I and i don't know i The though I think the bar was set so high with like brighter Frankenstein as for like these universal monster movies that like that one's super fun also, but it's also just a genuinely good movie. And so now when I'm watching the other ones, I'm just kind of like, oh, well, they these really have kind of lost a lot of their luster to me. I mean, this movie is just very it feels it's so sweaty. It's so just like Wolfman, what he died. What are we going to bring him back out of the second?
02:54:00
Speaker
Moonlight hits him and he wakes up again. It's like it feels like it was written the day before yeah they started filming. That's why it feels like a like a ah ah B movie. It feels like I'm right. like And it's like I think once you get into that rhythm watching it, it's it's a lot more enjoyable because it's there's also things right. Like the movie starts in in um and Cardiff in Wales is where Larry Talbot wakes up like at the hospital.
02:54:26
Speaker
and then he proceeds to get on like a horse-drawn cart and travel to Germany? question mark Like the Bavarian Alps? right but Like did he take that across the English Channel? What happened there? My personal headcanon is that there is actually a weird Bavarian enclave in Wales somewhere. and that is where That's where old laboratory is. Also, having skipped to the Frankenstein movies that are also, I think, pretty sweaty and like ridiculous, it's funny that there is right there is um
02:55:05
Speaker
but I think the original Dr. Frankenstein's granddaughter in this movie, which really starts to question how much time has passed between that movie and this one. Because I think, right, there's like Son of Frankenstein is one of the movies does not appear in this one. Then there's Ghost of Frankenstein. That's the one with lunch and he playing the monster.
02:55:27
Speaker
I don't know if there's a lot of like crossover characters between these, but it's like the Frankenstein family tree at this point is just like whatever actor we have. like It's like Frankenstein's third cousin's nephew is like, you're the new Dr. Frankenstein. Get over here.
02:55:43
Speaker
You're the Frankenstein for this movie. There's the like kindly doctor who's like at first is, you know, trying to, you know, he's like shooing the cops out of Larry Talbot's room was like, give him space. You know, I need to help this man. And then halfway through Larry Talbot is like, no, I just I like I need to kill myself. i'm I'm a monster. And he's like, well, I can help you with that.
02:56:03
Speaker
But also, like and then there's a later point where because he's a doctor. Goes mad with power immediately. it's it's like As soon as he like touches a Tesla coil, he's like, ah, the power in my hands. Yeah, it it it seems like this movie is saying that there is because, OK, this is like kind of the like the dumbest weakest part of this plot is that ah The reason why Wolfman thinks that Dr. Frankenstein's notes will be the way to learn how to kill himself is because Frankenstein learned the secret of life and death.
02:56:43
Speaker
And, like, which is such a- Right, which is resurrecting dead people, right it not how to kill a wolf man. It's such a vague thing, but it's just like, okay, like, he tapped into some kind of, like, ah secret knowledge or whatever. And then this movie is saying, like, once you tap into that knowledge, you basically just become Frankenstein. Like, you act like him because the the medical doctor did, ah once is once he he saw the secret of life and death, quote unquote. Then the knowledge is simply too powerful. Right. And then there's like the weird thing where he's trying to like suck the life energy out of the wolf man and put it into the Frankenstein monster or something. Maybe it's just so much bullshit. Like that's that's why it's a bunch of ah science gobbledygook bullshit. It's not even science. It's just like made up monster movie science. Right. It's just like there's a single Tesla coil and like a control panel and they're just like science stuff.
02:57:40
Speaker
And then both the monsters break out of their you know like slabs that they're on, and they have a little fight. And then a dam explodes, and then the movie ends. They get flooded, and then there's immediately an end title card over like the flood destroying the castle they're in.
02:57:57
Speaker
yeah Which I thought was very funny, but it ends so abruptly. That's that's the thing. like like i It's just like perfect mystery science theater fodder, this movie. like ah yeah i really i I had a lot of fun with it on that basis. The line readings are so hammy. Dr. Frankenstein.
02:58:14
Speaker
dead. it's and but lino and and this like So much of like what's going on in this movie doesn't make sense, like the plot doesn't make sense, the the the mechanisms of things don't make sense, but you're just along for the ride. but I think that like It also is like such a 180 from the original Frankenstein movie, which and bride, which is basically like critiquing mob justice. Right. It's like the the the monster was not so much of a monster. He didn't know what he was doing. And he's actually like a little cutie pie in in the second one. But like it is mobs who just want to smoke a cigar. it's It's mobs who kill him. It's it's it's it's ah you know panicky people who don't understand things that aren't them that want to kill him. and
02:59:10
Speaker
and don't yeah and like So he finds like solace with the blind guy and their marginalization. In this movie, there's a whole big like We don't trust what they're doing up in that Frankenstein's manner. Let's get a mob together over it, right? And so that's why the dam explodes is because there is a guy who can't be talked down from his from his want to destroy anything that's different from him. So he blows up the dam.
02:59:40
Speaker
But he but the the movie basically treats it as a triumph. It's like he did the right thing. like this movie This movie is saying that mob justice is good, actually. it's It doesn't make any sense. this movie is also right like the The main plot of this movie is like a man trying to like perform an assisted suicide. So it's like it's it. I do feel like it's thematically. This movie is a mess. um I also like the anger mob things did suicide by way of energy transfer. ah Yes. mean know How else are you going to do it? You need to transfer out my life force a so that I could die. Yeah. um Which is also funny, like that is not what Frankenstein's experiments are about in the other movies either. so like
03:00:29
Speaker
I don't know where he got those notes from. I like how oh it feels like almost as soon as Laertel arrives in the village where it is. There is a like preformed angry mob like already there with torches pretty much like they've been sitting around like waiting for more monsters to show up.
03:00:51
Speaker
there's like a whole like musical interlude also that was weird that feels kind of strange that feels like someone at Universal was just like hey this guy can sing put him in a movie it's like I put him in that ah Frankenstein picture oh who cares this the movie feels like it was made at Universal kind of as an afterthought almost of just like these movies make money. We're going to just churn out at more monster movies. Yeah. How can we do something differently? I put ah put a wolf man in it. Sure. He's available. Turns out the first multiverse movie was a lazy cash-in. Who knew that the Dark Universe was actually always a bad idea?
03:01:27
Speaker
I will say like um this unrelated, but like like with Lon Chaney Jr. in this, ah you know he's so hateable in the first Wolfman movie. I i write despise him in in that. I think in this, he maybe because there's no women around. like he's he's is ah He's a lot more sympathetic in this movie. It's true. yeah he does like Something I was noticing is that like he plays haunted very well. like he he He is really bummed out to be alive and and he really just wishes to not exist anymore. And and so he just has this like defeat to him that it does feel, he sells it really well.
03:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's a little bit of that in the first Wolfman and that's sort of like his entire performance in this one is like haunted and sort of just like I have no place in the world. I'm the only thing I'm ever going to do is hurt people, which is like when the movie gets close to actually sort of like being about that. It's kind of interesting. I mean, my favorite parts of the movie are kind of towards the beginning when it is just kind of a straightforward like sequel to the Wolfman.
03:02:41
Speaker
I think there are some good ah like there's a bit when he's in the hospital bed and he sees the moonlight like creeping towards him like as the moon comes out from behind the clouds that I think is really cool and well done. I'm like would have been nice to have something that cool in the first Wolfman movie. But then right he wolfs out and it's just sort of like him like jumping around like on boxes on like a backlot street. And it's like yeah no attempt is made at like tension or scares ever in this movie.
03:03:09
Speaker
Like the Wolfman costume and the transformation look better in this movie than they did in the second movie, but all are they look a bit better in this movie than they did in the first movie, but they're still not that good. I don't think the Wolfman looks interesting. Like Frankenstein looks interesting. Dracula looks interesting. The Mummy look interesting looks interesting.
03:03:30
Speaker
wolf invisible man looks interesting wolf man looks he it's his design is so boring to me i think i think he looks better in the in the first one because i think he's lit better in the first one i think in the first one they do a lot of like dramatic lighting on him and he's he's kind of hidden in fog and shadows a bit more yeah and in this one it's more just like eh here he is wolf man and it i think it it really it emphasizes sort of The the weaknesses in the design more, I think, in this one, even if like the makeup itself is maybe a little bit more polished in this one. I don't know. I think like the Mystery Science Theater thing is like that is the right approach to have with this one. Like it's this movie is very, very dumb. And if you are on board with that, then it's fun. I was surprisingly on board for it. Yeah, I think i I'm still just sort of like, ah like these movies can be good.
03:04:24
Speaker
You know, like when James Whale is making them, these movies are really good. And so for there to be like so many of them, they feel like they're just kind of slapped together. But the sets in this I think are very cool. There's like the big cemetery set in the beginning that looks great. There's a lot of cool, like very dramatic lighting in this. It's not really ever scary, but it has a lot of kind of gothic atmosphere that is fun, I guess.
03:04:55
Speaker
Oh, one one more thing on the um ah messy theming of this movie. I guess they're like updating the Germany to be like, you know, modern day or whatever. And so one like the the cop in Germany looks like a Nazi. And so there's a scene where like a guy that looks like a Nazi. That's why I don't think it's supposed to be Germany.
03:05:17
Speaker
Maybe not, yeah. But, like, like he's there's a scene where he's, like, roughing up the Romani woman, and it's like, oh, they they might not even be known, like, that there was, like, you know, like, the extent of, like, how real that was, you know? But it was... it's it's ah it's It feels pretty tasteless.
03:05:39
Speaker
Yeah, and that is also like a weird thing, right? Because the first Frankenstein movie, like the first couple, I think are supposed to be set in the variant Alps, either in Germany or Switzerland. I know the book is set in Switzerland. I don't really think the movie is also like every character in this. Like all the villagers have English accents, even though they're wearing like Lederhosen. So it's like it's and then it's like they get there by cart. So it's like it's very vague.
03:06:07
Speaker
In my mind, I'm like, I really have no idea where this is supposed to take place. But it's also clearly supposed to be contemporary. It's like it's supposed to be the 1940s. But then it's like if they're in Europe, like mainland Europe, especially like near Germany, how would that work?
03:06:24
Speaker
And the movie just ignores all of it entirely, which is why I think it's it's still set in Wales. I think there's just this weird Bavarian like town that that ah but it takes place in. That's the only way it makes any sense.
03:06:37
Speaker
This movie is just this its whole M.O. is just like, I don't think about it. Yes, very much. Reverse the polarity. I wrote that down. Reverse the polarity in my notes, because there's a thing where it's like we need to connect like the positive life energy to the negative life energy. And then it's like, oh, we got to switch it. And I'm like, yeah, reverse the polarity that that'll work. That makes sense. Movies are coming at the same time. They're like jacked in your Val Luton movies.
03:07:07
Speaker
They are so the arcade horror movies in 1943 are so much better than the universal ones. It's like it's mind boggling. It's funny, like the arcade ones are like very cheap and like genuinely very spooky and have like really good scares in them. And the universal ones are like super expensive. They're just like monsters like throwing foam bricks
Comparison of Universal and RKO Horror Films
03:07:29
Speaker
around. And it's like, you know, they they have their own charm, I suppose.
03:07:33
Speaker
i want I don't want to feel like I'm being too harsh. i Yeah, I'm way more comfortable being harsh on the first Wolfman movie. ah This one, I have a lot of good times watching crappy 50s B movies, and this feels like one of those. Much like the Whirlpool London movie, the 1930s Whirlpool movie, it's like by being dumber, it ends up kind of being better because you're you're not like The stuff, though the writing and it that doesn't work as well doesn't stick out as much because you're like, and you know, it's silly. There's like a there's like a Tesla coin in the background. It's fine. ah Well, ah that about does it for this episode. But we didn't ah we didn't talk about favorites. Yeah. ah Glenn, what's your favorite of the features? I have trouble deciding because I feel like all of them were like fine to good.
03:08:29
Speaker
yeah in ways where I'm like, yeah, this is this is good. I feel like none of them were really a big standout. I think my favorite feature was probably ah Shadow of a Doubt. um Although if if we're going over the the whole episode, everything we talked about, my favorite movie was for sure Red Hot Riding Hood.
03:08:47
Speaker
Like, by a lot. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We've done shorts for favorites before, I think. All right, great. Then then that's my fate that's my pick for 43. Red Hot Riding Hood kind of has to win, I don't know. like not It's not even a question. I don't know if you can get as much distilled white distilled excellence in in anywhere else in this episode. It's funny. I was saying earlier how 43 doesn't feel like it has this sort of like you know marquee movie, the way that like the last couple of years have had it. like Citizen Kane, like this incredible you know big influential thing. Red Hot Riding Hood is kind of that for 43, I think.
03:09:31
Speaker
Definitely like it's like this. It is so ingrained into like the culture, I guess. Right. Where it's just like it's become this thing. I mean, what it is, what what Red Hot Riding Hood is, is the citizen cane of the cartoon cannon.
Conclusion and Farewell
03:09:47
Speaker
It's a foundational text in in cartoons. it It absolutely is. Yeah. So, yeah. Easy pick. Red Hat Riding Hood. Best movie of 1943. Yeah, I'd have to agree. I'd have to agree.
03:10:01
Speaker
Thanks again to Ambrielle for joining. ah And ah thanks for recommending Cabin in the Sky. it didn't It didn't win out over Red Hot Riding Hood, but I still i still had a good time with it. Well, I could. Yeah, thanks for having me and um good conversation. It's always nice to have someone that has done actual research on something.
03:10:24
Speaker
um'm I'm not always like this, I promise. It was easy for like two films and a short, so. Either way, either way, I appreciate having you on. I appreciate your perspective. And so you don't have to research so much for the next one because God god knows we don't. Honestly, it just like naturally comes to me. I'm always like, wait, how did that happen? What was that like? Blah, blah, blah. Because again, just a huge history nerd. Yeah. OK, well, thanks so much for having me. This was wonderful. um Yeah, y'all are doing great work. Keep it up and i looking forward to future episodes. Thanks. do you Did you have anything that you wanted to talk about that's going on? Any plugs?
03:11:06
Speaker
Not really. I mean, if anybody wants to send me money, I'll always take that, but I don't have anything else. Yeah. my life is ab real money yes that That is the takeaway. Yeah. Happy black history a month, actually. Oh yeah. Yeah. That right. Yeah. Captain in the sky black history month. Woo. Um, so yeah, that's all I have, but, uh, thanks again. And I appreciate your time.
03:11:31
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Yeah. And let us know when you want to come back. Appreciate it. sure yeah Yeah, definitely. And yeah, ah that's about it. um You know, follow us on the socials and all that and subscribe and all that. And that'll do it. On to 1944. Glenn, I'll see you next year. See you next year.