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Can movies be cursed? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello Seattle, Hello Portland. We're coming out to see you
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: this January. Love. That's right. One are the dates, my friend. January.
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• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry. Like tongue is
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: super big today for some reason for us, and this
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: is stuff you should know. I know, it's like it
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: sounds like Peter overbeef for God's sake, who's that? You know?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: That guy's voice anywhere? He's like an MPR reporter and
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: like he he has me even beat for large tongues,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: candy sucking sound. Do you remember when we first came
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: out and people would write it and be like till
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Josh stop sucking on candy while these podcasting And I'd
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: just be like, that's my that's my normal voice. Man.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: At Yeah, I appreciate that. But now now that we're
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: high rollers, they provided me with a private nurse to
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: um suction out the saliva every thirty seconds. Oh my god,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and then Jerry has to edit it out. So gross.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Gross but true, right, like a cursed movie story. True. Yeah.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Do you know what? I hated the dentists besides everything, Man,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: that was a pretty good segue. I hated the dentist.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Now you know, you don't have to spit anymore because
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: they do have those suction things, but it's still like
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I still do the fake swallow, you know how it
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: feels like it builds up in the back of your
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: so like they'll be in your mouth and you'll just
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: go like that. I hate that. It's funny. Do you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: do that? Does everyone do that? A gag reflex thing? Well,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: it's not even a gag reflex, is just the hard
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: swallow that it's almost swallow. Yeah, the sort of swallow reflex.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: If that's such a thing, you feel like you're gonna
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: break your vocal cords or your throat muscles. Hate that,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: I know what you mean. I don't hate it, though,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I think it's kind of yeah, not enjoyable, but I
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: don't know, and I don't know. When they talk to
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: you and talk about they can talk, but yeah, it
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: can't be any questions involved. Maybe rhetorical questions that you
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: can shrug at. My last hygienist I really didn't care for,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: like that was a personality thing. And they have TVs
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: at my dentists that they'll put down in front of you,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and which is fine, I don't really care. But she
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: would stop and like look and make comments about the
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: news and stuff. Yeah, why don't they just why don't
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: they just let him do his job? I didn't like it.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: It was it was really annoying. And then I came
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: back in not too long ago and there was a
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: new hygenis for me and she was awesome, and on
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: the way out, I was like, by the way, I
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: was like, um, I won't say your name. I was like,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: but this new hygenas I really like a lot um.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: She was like what about before? I was like, I
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: wasn't crazy about her, and she went, no one was,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: and you guys need to tell us that. And we
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: let her go because we got all these complaints started
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: flooding in. I was like, well, I feel bad, like
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get anyone fired, but I didn't
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: there was she wasn't good. Huh So, anyway, was this
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: in brooke Haven? Uh? Yeah? Is it brook Haven? How
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: do you know where my dentist is. Well, I just
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: had an experience in Brookhven, and I'm like, this town
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: is just small enough for that to be possible. Well,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and shout out my dentist, the great
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Doctor Darryl Kimchi. She's wonderful kimchi. That's one of my
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: favorite foods. But is that your dentist? Uh No, okay,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: but it's possible that we're talking about like a hygienius
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that gets fired pretty far. Maybe you know she's making
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the rounds and buckhead Brookhaven, right, yeah, Dr Darryl Kimchi
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: of Atlanta Cosmetic Sports Dentistry. Wow, that is quite a
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: shout out. I think Dr Kimchi owes us some free
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: kimchi maybe as a thank you. She's sort of a
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: celebrity then she does a lot of the uh sports
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: people in Atlanta and the Real Housewives. Maybe. But I
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: went in and they have memorabilia up everywhere and when
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the TV show was out of giving them a poster
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and they never put it up. No way. That's hilarious. Yeah, wow,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: that's great. That reminds me of The Friends when Joey
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: tried to get his head shot up at the I
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: think it's like the dry cleaner or something. Right, and
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: do it? Man, that is so stuff you should know.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: All right, Well this has got a nice loose start. Indeed, chuck,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: but this is a this is this is a fun one. Um.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: But let's begin, shall we. Well, yeah, this was written
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: by the Grabster. The article is ten movies that were
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: supposedly cursed, and Ed goes to great as to point
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: out how there's no way that anything can ever be
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: really cursed. Right. I think probably his couple of lines
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: where he's like, just so stupid it was edited out,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I get the only you got to sign
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: this was like, God, are you kidding me? I want
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: to write about real stuff, like a satanic panic. But
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: he does love writing about movies. He's definitely a movie guy,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: especially horror movies, and it seems like more than any
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: other movie, horror movies they're the variety that that tend
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: to be associated with curses more than other types, right,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: or at least the marketing department cooks that up. So yeah,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: that's definitely part for the course these days. But there
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: was a more innocent, gentler time when when rumors of
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Satan influencing the production of a movie was a legitimate rumor.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't a pr stunt, right. So, like
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you said, Ed goes to some trouble to point out
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: what's actually behind the idea of a movie. Curse that
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: some things are bound to happen on just about any
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: movie trip, especially when you stop and consider, especially in
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the early days, the kind of stuff they were doing
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: with the technology they were working with at the time.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: Of course, bad things happened on movies. That's of course
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: people died. Like for example, I looked this up right, Um,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: there was a movie called Noah's Ark and they used
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: six hundred thousand gallons of water to create the flood
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: scene one take. They did one take and three extras drowned.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: One guy who did survive had to have a leg amputated.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: It was broken so badly because this is this is
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the flood scene, and you needed to to basically get
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: it as real as possible. Isn't that crazy. That is
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, especially back in those days. But they didn't
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: care back then, right, they were just like O, they're
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: just extras who cares? Although John Wayne, it turns out,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: was an extra in that movie. But he's really obviously yeah,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: and actors into another curse he does. He also worked
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: in this special effects department on that movie. Or prop
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: prop sorry, prop like special effects was what he did
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: early c g I. He would he would clap the
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: coconuts together for all the horse scenes. Um. But but hold,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I have another one. Okay, so this is another movie
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: years later they died with their boots on. I think
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: it's about the charge of the Life Brigade maybe Okay.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: It was movie starring Errol Flynn and during this cavalry
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: charge that they recreated. Three extras in that movie died
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: just in that one shot. That one scene. One of
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: the guys was thrown from his horse and he threw
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: his sword like away from him. Unfortunately threw it ahead
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: of himself and the sword stuck into the ground, handle first,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and he was impaled on the sword. This is this
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: happened on a movie set, and it's not just like
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: back in the day either. The Twilight Zone movie. Very fair.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: Abviously there was a disaster, right, Yeah, that was It's
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: very sad. That's when Vick Morrow and two children, uh,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: we're chopped up by helicopter blade very infamously. It was terrible,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: terrible tragedy. Yeah, Shinty Chan and micah Din Lee were
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: the two child actors who were killed. So things do
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: happen on movie sets. And again, when you stop and
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: think about what they're doing, it's often very dangerous. So
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: what Ed is saying is, when you start to put
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: these things together and then you get rid of all
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: of the things that don't support your point, you got
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a curse on your hands. Should we start with Poltergeist? Yes,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: polter Geist. That's one where people always list this as
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: a cursed movie because quite a few of the actors
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: died sort of unexpectedly after the movie. Um, and then
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Ed goes on to say, very astutelee. But it's also
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a textbook example of why the idea, of course this
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: is silly. If I mentioned that curses are silly, so
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: over and over so three of the those first three
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Poulter guys eighty eight, I didn't see the remake, did you.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't even know there was one. Yeah, of course
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: there was. They remade it a few years ago. No,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't see it. No, I don't think
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: it was very popular. But Um, Dominic done, nique dominique,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: excuse me? Her father was Dominic done? Correct? And her
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: brother was Griffin done? Is Griffin done? Yeah? She was well,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: she was murdered. Um, she was murdered by her boyfriend
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: John Sweeney. Yeah, and that was a very disturbing case.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Have you ever poked around that case? Like the signs
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: were all there. It was one of those things that
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: could have been prevented, and he got away with it.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: For part he did like three years in prison and
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Dominic done her father. He was there every day for
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: the trial of the man who was just just crushed
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: by the injustice of the sentence that the guy received
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: his life. He became a crusader, it did. Yeah. He
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: You can read some of the best um coverage of
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: high profile murder cases um in the pages of Vanity
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Fair that he covered for years and years and years
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: as a direct result of him basically covering his own
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: daughter's murders trial. Yeah, o j very famously he covered that, Yes,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: he did, Um, and he Uh. Apparently the Dunes spent
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: a great deal of time basically keeping tabs on John
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: Sweeney for years, and he was a chef for a while.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: He was uh, And I even started tracking him down this.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: I just went down the rabbit hole like six or
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: eight months ago on this for some reason. Yeah. This
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: is one of those you know things where see something
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: on Facebook and then all of a sudden he goes,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, and then you go down the rabbit hole.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And I was I was trying to find this guy,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: was like, where is where is he? And the last
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I saw he was some chefs somewhere. Um, I think
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: he had changed his name even of course you had,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: did John Mora, I mean you are, Yeah, we'll keep
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: changing that name, buddy, because it's it's gonna follow you around. Yeah.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: And I mean like there was no question whether he
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: did it or not. He admitted to to it. Like
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: he told this guy who had who had been in
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the house at the time in um Dominique Dunn's house
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: rehearsing lines to call the police, that he just killed
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend. Um. But yeah, he he was hounded for
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: many years, and I guess towards the end of his
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: life Dominic Dunn said, you know what, I gonna waste
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: my life like keeping tabs on this guy anymore. Um,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: just just dropped it. But yeah, there's a lot of
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: people out there who don't like that, dude. Yeah, I
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: would imagine so so. Um, so she died by murder.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Um then the the Young Girl, And this is like
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: a couple of months after Poulter Guys came out, right,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: so it was very close to the production. Yeah, yeah,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: she wasn't not in the sequels obviously. Um, Heather O'Rourke
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: was the Little Girl and poulter Geist, and she passed
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: away after after poulter Geist Too was wrapped and she
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: initially was diagnosed with the flu. We talked about this
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: in her flu episode a little bit, but what she
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: really had was an intestinal blockage and at the tender
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: age of twelve, she had a heart attack and sepsis
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: and passed away. Super tragic. Yeah, and um, so those
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: two dying so close to the production of the actual
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: movie she died. It was Poultry Guys three. I believe
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: that Heather rourke died after filming that We're basically done. Um,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: get it wrong, I got it wrong, man. Uh. And
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: then Dominique and died just a couple of months after
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the first Poultry Guys came out. So that's like one
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: big hallmark of a of a movie being cursed story
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: is the deaths that happened typically need to happen either
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: during production or right around production. Okay, so those two
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: are the big ones. But then people say, ohh still
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: not convinced. Well, listen to this uh and pulls your
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: guys too. There was an actor named will Sampson who
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: played h Taylor, the medicine man who helps the family,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and he is better known for playing Chief in One
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, one of the great characters
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: of all time. Um he died, Uh, I guess after
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: filming a few years after filming the year after filming. Um,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: he died following a heart and lung transplant. Yeah, and
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: he had a he had a history of health issues.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: He was a giant man. And um, so that was,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: you know, again tied to the curse. But what can
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: you say about someone who just died sort of a
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: natural causes after a heart and long transplant. I think
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: there's pretty good odds, um. And then there's um. Julian
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Beck who played the scary, scary scary Preacher Kane and
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: also in Poultry Guys Too, and he was creepy. He
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: died I guess before Poultry Guys Too actually came out,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: so that would have been close to um the production
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: as well, so it checks those boxes. But he died
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: of stomach cancer and he apparently had a long standing
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: issue with battling it as well. UM, so you can
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: make the case it doesn't really count. But are you
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: really trying to make a case about curses. Yeah, well,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: let's just talk about him instead about that. Agreed? Okay,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: what's next? The Wizard of Oz is next. That's right.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Nine great great movie, but a great movie that was
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: marred by for such a happy movie, it had some
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: some rough stuff going on because it was in the
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: early days of making movies, and like you said earlier,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: back then it was they didn't know or care as
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: much about safety. Like for instance, the tin Man Buddy Epson.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: They said, all right, we need to make you look silver,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: and so we'll just coat you with aluminum powder, and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: that stuff was really dangerous. He went to the hospital.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: That irritated his lungs uh, and he could not even
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: continue in the role. Now, luckily he survived to go
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: on to play Jed the Dad in Beverly Hillbillies, thank god,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: but he was out of the Wizard of Oz. He
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: was so Buddy Epson was replaced by Jack Hayley, and
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: they said, well, we probably shouldn't use that same aluminum powder,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: so they used an aluminum paste which didn't get into
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: his lungs, but to give him a really bad iron infection. Man, right,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: So the illuminium just the tin man role itself had
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: a bunch of problems, but that was just one of many.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: Margaret Hamilton's The Wicked Witch of the West, she was
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: burned pretty badly with some of the pirate technics from
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the movie, and um, I think she she was only
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: she was hospitalized, but she came back and you know,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: completed work on the movie. Yeah, but she said she
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: wasn't gonna do any more firework. Apparently the trapdoor that
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: she was standing on, the timing of it wasn't wasn't right,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: so it didn't open up and drop her right before
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the fireworks went off, but did it simultaneous to the
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: fireworks going off, which is not what you want. I
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: thought it right, So they were like whatever, what are
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: you gonna do? Uh. There's the very famous urban legend
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: which is not true, but it bears mentioning that one
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: of the munchkins hanged himself in the background of a scene.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: And if you just google image that junk hanged Munchkin
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz, it will it will have a screen
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: cap with a little circle around. I mean, he doesn't
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: even look It just looks like something that is not
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: a tree. In other words, it's not attached to the ground.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily look like a hanging munchkin. But apparently
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: there was a bird. Yeah, it doesn't look like a
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: bird to me either, though, like supposedly it's a silhouette
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: of a bird. And if you watch the like a
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: close up of the video of it, it does sway
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: back and forth above the ground. So I mean you
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: can see where where people came up with that for sure. Yeah,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: but that that is not the case. There was no
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: munchkin that uh, that just couldn't take it anymore. There's
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: actually there's a really great horror fiction story by I
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: think a guy named Stevenage called The Hanged Man of Oz.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Looking up and reading. It's pretty good, but it's about
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: this dude kind of becoming obsessed with that that um
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: rumor and seeing it on video and not being able
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: to unsee it and all the stuff that happens after.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's Steve Nagg. It's definitely called the Hanged
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Man of Oz. Right, we'll check that out. Um, other
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: tragedies and Wizard of Oz anti m Miss Clara Blandic
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: she killed herself, um A one. Yeah, and she left
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: in her suicide note that um that she was going
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: on her greatest adventure. Well that's kind of nice, I guess.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: So it's about as pleasant as it can get with
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the suicide note. I think the Wizard himself, Frank Morgan,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: he was injured in a car wreck just a few
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: months after they released the movie. And then, of course
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Judy Garland had one of the more tragic lives in
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Hollywood history. Yes, they're making a movie about her soon,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: I think she I can't believe they haven't already. I
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: think they've done it on TV, but not a big
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: movie thing. I don't think she was basically owned by MGM,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: like almost almost the definition of being owned. Right. Um,
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: she was, uh, like we discovered at age thirteen. I
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: think in Kansas actually at a state fair and they said, um, well,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: we're just gonna buy you from your parents, basically, and
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: they took her and they said, you can't get fat,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: so smoke eighty cigarettes a day. They basically prescribed her
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: that they got her on ampheta means to keep her going.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: They let they let her have one square meal a day. Terrible. Yeah,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: really so um she and she yeah, if there it
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: makes a really good point. If there was any real
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: tragedy that came out of the Wizard of Oz, it
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: was Judy Garland's life. Yeah. Absolutely, so. She eventually would
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: die by suicide herself on an overdose barbiturates. And um,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: I think it's she had the equivalent of ten seeking
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: all capsules And lord wow, man, let's say it. I
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: want to see that movie. Do you know who's going
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: to play her? Oh? Man, I just saw this the
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: other day. I can't remember who, but I remember thinking, yeah,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: good casting, Like it wasn't Owen Wilson, it would be
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: pretty come on, get happy. So right. She was forty
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: seven years young, by the way, which is far, far
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: too young to have lost Judy Garland. Uh, you want
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: to take a break, Yeah, And that downer. Yes, all right,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk about the Man of Steel
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: right after this. Alright, chuck um. So there's actually a
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: role Superman that's considered a cursed role. Did you know that?
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I did know that because I remember as a kid,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: even though I'm not, you know, sixty five years old,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I'd like to watch reruns of stuff like Gilgan's Island
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: and Green Acres and Petticoat Junction. Oh really, pet it good? Yeah,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: I mean you know, it was one of those old shows.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: They're all great, that true, probably one of my favorite stuff. True,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: I'll watch all that stuff. Uh. Superman. Uh. The name
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: of the show that I watched was called Adventures of Superman,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and that was straight up from the nineteen fifties and
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: stolen reruns in the mid seventies at least, because that's
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: where I watched it. And that was the one starring
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: George Reeves um as the not even very muscular and
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: slightly tubby Superman. Yeah, like that kind of like fifties fit,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: which chested, chunky and just weird like weirdly shaped. Yeah,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Like what were they what kind of exercise were they
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: doing back then? Well? I don't think they did exercise
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: back then. Wasn't that the deal? Oh? Is that what
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: it was? Yeah? They were just like, you know, you're
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: gonna play Superman, So eat a bunch of steak, right, like,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: buff up a little bit, do some push ups maybe
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: so he George Reeve Reeves, He's George Reeves. Christopher Reeve
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: is not plurals singular version, right, um. George Reeves became
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: synonymous with Superman. Like everybody thought of him as Superman.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: He liked like they he wouldn't be cast in anything else, right, um,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: And he had some He had to put up with
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: quite a bit being known as Superman who recognized his Superman.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Apparently kids would come up and like punch him in
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the stomach to see if he was made of steal there.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I looked into it. I learned this years ago from
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the Uncle John's bathroom reader. And I looked into and
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I think it actually may be correct. But at one
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: like public appearance, he um had to talk a kid
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: out of shooting him, like this kid had brought his
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: father's loaded thirty eight caliber pistol to shoot Superman to
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: see if the bullets really bounced off of him. And
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: George Reeve got the kid to put to hand the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: gun over to like a cop or something, because he
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: told them that sure, of course the bullet would bounce
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: off of him, but it could ricochet and hurt somebody
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: else who was standing nearby. Yeah, that was in the
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: in the ben Affleck movie Hollywood Land, Is that right?
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: Is about George Reeves, And that scene was in the movie.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: He does, yeah, it's it's okay, it's not great, but
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: you you lost me at ben Affter. It's not bad.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he talks a kid out of it in
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the in the movie, and um, and as I said,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: exactly what he said, like of course blah blah blah,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: and then he takes it. Then you can see him.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: He's just like God Jesus, like I almost got shot right. Yeah,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah that was. I can't imagine the relief that would
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: wash over you after that. Yeah. So George Reeves, Reeves, Reeves. Yeah,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: he's the plural. It's tough to keep up with it,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: is he. He had a very sort of sad life,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: which is in that Hollywood Land movie. He like you said,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: he couldn't get other work and he was only known
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: as Superman, so I think he turned to the booze,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: and um, it was not a happy guy. And eventually
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: in June of ninety nine, Um, that was he was
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: having a party at his own house as fiance was
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: going a party and he said, I'm gonna go upstairs
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and shoot myself in the head. Yeah, and Ed, it
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: makes it sound like he was upset about the noise
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: or something like that from the party. I mean that
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: may have been the straw, but he was upset about life.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I got you, and I got the sense like legitimately depressed,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you know, like clinically depressed. Right, Yeah, I mean like
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: it's it's as we get to know more and more
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: about like depression. Um, it's so much easier to look
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: back at, like, you know, people who were depressed before.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: But that you just never really kind of pegged him
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: like that because people didn't know about that kind of thing.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Then it's just sad to see, like how many people
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: suffered like that because no one knew what was going on.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: They just thought it was the blues or you should
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: just snap out of it. Yeah. Yeah, we we've never
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: done one on depression. I think we should have. We
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: not I don't believe we have. Man, Uh, well, then
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: we should definitely do that. We have the one on cats. Uh.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: And then Christopher Reeve played Superman and that is why
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: some say it as a cursed role because he was
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: very sadly injured in a in a horse riding accident
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: in the mid nineties which lets him paralyze from the
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: neck down. And he became very much an inspiration to
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: people because he became an advocate for research into spinal
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: cord injuries and he went on to direct and even
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: acts them as well after that. And it also points
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: out that after Christopher Reeve died, his wife Dana, who
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: saw him through this whole thing, Um, she died of
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: cancer like two years afterward. Yeah. I've just man, I
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: felt so awful for that family and this kid. Yeah,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: I mean just to get like that random, to be
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: thrown from a horse and then just be paralyzed from
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the neck down. Yeah. So you put those two together
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: and everyone says, well, Superman is a cursed role. What
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: would what would the Grabsters say? There such thing as curses?
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: So stupid? The Conqueror is a movie that, like we said,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: John Wayne factored in and this one was definitely I
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: don't know about cursed, but um, well, here's the story.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: It is very unlikely that John Wayne would play Mongolian
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Genghis Khan. He did, though, but it was Hollywood back
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: in the day where they just would cast white people
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: to play whoever, right, um, And he played Genghis Khan.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: And they shot the Conqueror in Utah, less than a
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty miles from the Nevada Test Site, sorry
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Nevada test site where our own US government set off
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: eleven nuclear detonations above ground the year before, just in
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the year before. Yeah, and that area was crawling with uh,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: with bad stuff lingering um fallout in the dirt and
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: in the the rocks and like everything. It was in
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the soil. And they were just running around in their
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: filming movies. Yeah. I read this really interesting article in
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the Guardian called Hollywood and the down Winders about the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: people who lived in that area who suffered tremendously for
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: health problems from the fallout and the government went to
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: great links to cover it up and just assured everybody
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: that there was no danger whatsoever to them, even though
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: they were there. Their houses and schoolyards were covered in
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: radioactive ash um and so from filming there when this
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: production came to town and they filmed there. Yeah, they
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: were exposed to this the same radioactive debris, um and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: dust and dirt that these people who lived in the
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: area were as well. And as a result, supposedly something
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: like nine one out of two hundred and twenty cast
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: and crew members who worked on location for the movie
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: The Conqueror came down with cancer later on in life,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: which is highly unusual statistically speaking. Yeah, that's like forty
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: something percent of the crew and um. Years later, and
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: People magazine in ninety actually did a special report on
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: that movie in the cancer connection, like John Wayne, Agnes moorehead,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Jean Jean Gerson, Susan Hayward, the director, Dick Powell, they
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: all died of cancer. And in that People magazine, Uh,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Dr Robert C. Pendleton, he was director of radiological health
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: at the University of Utah, said that, like this would
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: hold up in a court of law. That's such an
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: outstanding number of people. Yeah, and apparently not even um,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: just the people who worked on the production. It came
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to be known The Conqueror came to be known by
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the way, it's considered one of the best bad movies
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of the Golden Age. Of Hollywood. Um, but people who
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: visited the set battle cancer later in life. To both
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: of John Wayne's sons who came to visit him. There's
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: a famous picture of him with two of his sons
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: and a guy using a Geiger counter on set. Um.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Both of his son's head cancer later in life too.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: But supposedly the family uh and Dick Powell's son Norman,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: who's interviewed in that article I read, they discount the
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: idea that it was that that people got cancer from
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: that test site. They say, maybe it was a contributing factor,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: but these people all smoked heavily ate steaks like eight
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: times a day, um, and that they had a lot
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: of other risk factors that probably led to it. But
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: it's also entirely possible that they may not have died
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: of cancer as early had they not filmed at that site.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Well that Dr Robert Pendleton's said essentially, this is about
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: three times the rate of cancer that you would expect,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: So right, I think that it definitely contributed. It's pretty curious.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I want to see it. Have you ever seen The Conqueror?
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: I gotta see this. I've seen pictures of John Wayne
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: is as uh Genghis Khan. Yeah, it's pretty pretty cringe. Yeah,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: super racist, but apparently, like even if you take all
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: that away, just like the dialogue is awful. Like the
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: whole premise of it is he kidnaps a woman and
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: forces her to marry him, and of course romance blossoms
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: as a result. You know, it's just the usual stuff
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: from the fifties. The Omen. Yes, this is a good
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: one because, um, this is one of those where it's
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: a movie about the devil, and so all these stories
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: are going to be heightened, right because it's um kind
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: of like poulter Geist. Like it wouldn't if this was
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: when Harry met Sally and then some of the stuff
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: happened that when Harry met Sally was cursed with great laughs,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: it was I love that movie. One of the few
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: romantic comedies that were legit good movies. Yeah, you know,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: so let's let's go back to the beginning of this one. Obviously,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: the omen everyone knows was the great movie from about
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: the Antichrist taking um, well not I guess possession you
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: could call it. But it's not like an exorcist thing. Basically,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the Antichrist is this little boy he drmes back as
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: a little boy. Yeah yeah, and uh a bad, bad,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: naughty little boy Damien who dresses like Angus Young. Ah yeah, sure, okay.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: So Um Damien is adopted by Gregory Peck in the
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: movie UM, and in real life, Gregory Peck's son Um
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: killed himself. He died by suicide, apparently out of the blue,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: no suicide note or anything like that. And this was
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: before production had started, but after Peck had agreed to
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: do the movie, and he still went ahead and did
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: the movie. Um. He left the US and went to London,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: and even even on the way to London, before he
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: even got to London to start shooting, something happened to him. Right, yeah,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: he said, I'm gonna get on a plane and fly
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: to London. His plane was struck by lightning, right, and
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: the producer's plane was struck by lightning separately. This are
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: two different, two different planes struck by lightning on the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: way to start shooting in London. So this curse things
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: being on legit this time. This is the one that
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: even Ed got a little shaky on. If you asked me,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: how about this The hotel where they stayed at least
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: where the producer and some other folks stayed was bombed
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: by the Irish Republican Army. Yeah, Hilton, the London Hilton.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know about a curse in that case, because
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: the mid seventies there's a lot of that going on. Yeah,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the Iria was bombing all sorts of stuff back then.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: So it was like a restaurant where the crew and
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the cats went to eat one night. Yeah, they were
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: about to go eat there. So there's actually like all
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: these close calls actually make it seem like this this
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: movie production wasn't cursed, but instead was actually being looked
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: out for on high by the dark Lord. Right. So
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: like the the crew that we was going to go
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: to dinner, um didn't go to dinner. They didn't make
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: it there in time for the bombing. The people who
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: were staying in the hotel when it was bombed weren't
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: there yet. Um. There are a lot of close calls,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: but there was one close call that really is is
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: just mind numbing. I would have freaked out had I
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: been one of the people involved. The private jet. Yeah,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: so they chartered a private jet to um fly them
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: around London to get some good aerial footage of London,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: and at the last minute, the charter service switched planes
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: who accommodate a group of Japanese businessmen. Well, the plane
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: that that the Japanese businessman took that the crew was
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: supposed to be on crashed on takeoff, actually crashed into
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: a car and killed everybody on board the plane and
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: everybody in the car crashed into How about that? And
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: this is like a last minute switched to supposedly. Yeah,
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: those make you think, yeah that I mean cursor, No,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: just knowing that you were that close, So just that
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: get you. How about this? A worker there was an
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: animal animal sanctuary where they filmed, and a worker there
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: was killed by a tiger. That one, uh I think
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I think that was the actual animal wrangler for the
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: movie was killed. Yeah, which makes it even closer. This
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: is the one, though, Chuck, you gotta take this one home.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: This is the one that really gets everybody, even though
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I think it's like a lot of it's made up. Yeah,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: there was a car crash with John Richardson, who was
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: a special effects worker. He designed the effects for the omen,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: including a very famous decapitation scene towards the end. Yes,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: very famous, And uh I thought that was at the beginning,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: was at the beginning, I think so. I think it's
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: how open if I remember, but it's been a while
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: either way. Um, he was in Holland after working on
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: a movie called A Bridge Too Far, and he was
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: involved in a head on collision in his car and
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: was injured. But his assistant Liz Moore was decapitated and
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: killed in that car wreck. And he claims, and I
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: don't know if this is lore or not, it sounds laurish.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: It does sound laurish, but he claims that he awoke
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: from that crash and looked up and there was a
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: street sign where they crashed, that's at the distance to
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: the next town, and it was the town of omen
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: O m N e N at a distance of six
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: six point six kilometers. Bam. Now is that true. There's
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: no way it's true, because I looked up on the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: internet that sign trying to find any picture of that sign.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: If that sign existed, there would be so many pictures
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: from tourists taking taking photos of it on the internet.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: There's not a single one. Do you think from back
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: then those pictures will still be around? Uh, the sign
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: would probably be still be around. Well. See, I think
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: that's the presumption that may not be true, like they
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: may have taken the sign down for that reason. Maybe
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: I guess that's possible, but no picture of it whatsoever
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: that no AP photographer went, I gotta get a picture
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: of that sign. Nobody did that. There's no existing photo
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: of Yeah, that's the one that makes me think like that.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: Although there is a town called Omen in the Netherlands,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: so it's entirely possible that crash took place by there,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: so that checks out. That definitely checks out. So we're
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: gonna take a break, everybody, we just decided, but we're
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: gonna be right back, so don't worry because we're gonna
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: talk some more about Chris movies. All right, We're back
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: as I promised, and we're on the Brainstorm, which I
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: think Ed was just kind of showing off with this
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: one because he even says, like, you're not going to
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: find this on many lists of curse movies. Yeah, I'm
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: not sure I get the curse in this one, but
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about it. Brainstorm was the Night three sci
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: fi movie um most famously known as being the Great
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Natalie Wood's final film, right because she died in real
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: life after the movie obviously, uh when she drowned after
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: being out on a boat one night partying with her
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: husband Robert Wagner in her co star Christopher walkin right
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: under some say, many say mysterious circumstances. Yeah. I was
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: reading up about that ace and they apparently have been
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: drinking since at least four in the afternoon, and they
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: made it back to the boat pretty late, and they've
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: been drinking um through dinner. They were all just pretty
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: pretty crocked, right. Um. And supposedly Natalie Wood was either
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: afraid of water and or couldn't swim um, And for
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: some reason she had had tried to get into a
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: dinghy that was attached to the boat that they were
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: staying on, and uh probably hit her head and drowned. Um.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: That's the story. That's the official story, right. But apparently
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve it was reopened um or her
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: cause of death was was changed from accident to um undetermined. Yeah.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I mean there were stories that she and Robert Wagner
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: had been fighting, that the captain, even many years later,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: said that he actually killed her. No charges were ever
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: brought um. Christopher Walking for his I think he's never
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: talked about it publicly. If I'm not mistaken. Know. He
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: finally did years and years later in a Playboy interview,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: and he basically said it was it must have been
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: an accident that no one knows, but it was she
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: surely it was aid. That was what he said, And
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: that's probably the only thing he said, because I didn't
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: think he ever said anything. Yeah. Uh, he said it's
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: an accident. Clearly that it was great. Um that because
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: that was that was Christopher Walkin with just a hint
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: of John Travolta. Yes, what's a little Trivolta esk um?
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean that's tied to Brainstorm as being
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: a curse, I guess because they were both in the movie. Um,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: even though the grabster points out that some people tied
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: this back to a Rubble without a Cause curse, because
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: that makes way more sense to me. Yeah, because James
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Dean and salmenio Um and Natalie Wood then all died
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: from that movie relatively young. She she made it the longest.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: She was in her early forties, I think when she died.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: But James Dean died very young in a car crash
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: right after Rebel without a Cause was released. I think yeah,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: And I think wouldn't Samnio murder. He was murdered in
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, um at a pretty young age. Still um.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: He was stabbed to death in the heart and an
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: ali behind his house. Yes, I have pizza man to me.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Oh really yeah, huh, it's so weird. Well it is,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: but I mean we're talking about curses so well. I
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: mean usually the pizza man gets stabbed, you know what
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. I think this guy was actually a serial
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: killing pizza man. Yeah, I just saw recently. Is is
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: there a serial killer in like central Florida? I don't know.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I hadn't heard anything. But aren't there like at least
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: fifty serial killers operating in any given point in time.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I do. I do know that
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: I saw something that I heard that like three murders
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: in the Tampa area were just linked. Oh man, I think,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: And that made me think. It's been a while. Yeah,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: you don't hear about him very often, But as I
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: grow older and wiser, I'm starting to think, like there's
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: a lot more serial killers out there than you would imagine. That,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: like human life has very little value to more people
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: than you would hope. You know that the darkest thing
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: you can think of. It's pretty dark. The last high
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: profile when I remember is b t K. But surely
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: there's been one since then, right, Yeah, because he was
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: like early two thousand's right, I know, but I can't
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: think of one. I can't either, man, But it's been
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: a long time since. You know, we've heard of like
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Jeffrey Dahmer's and man that was sad Bundyes and stuff
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, thankfully, sure, the Son of Sam's and
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: the Zodiacs. It seems like the seventies and eighties were
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: sort of the time where that was happening more. Yeah,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know why. Maybe it was harder to get
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: away with it or easier to get away with it,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: or I'm listening to that Heaven's Gate podcast. Have you
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: heard I haven't heard that. No, it's good. It's from
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: our buddy Chris Bannon over at mid Roll put it
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: out and um is he hosting it? No? No, no,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Glenn Washington narrates it. But having through three episodes now,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: it's really good. But it's kind of funny, man, that
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: that's time of the sixties and seventies. It was just
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: and we talked about it some in our Cults episode.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: It was people just believed more in trying stuff out
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: like that and UFOs and it was all just kind
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: of in the in the mainstream and it just all
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: seems so unbelievable now, but back then it wasn't. It
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: was kind of believable that someone might join up with
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: the cult. Well, a lot of people were on Grass
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: back then. On the Grass. That's crazy. I gotta hear that.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: It's good podcast, man, that's that's just a fascinating story.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: But now that means we can't do Heaven's Kate because
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Bannon did it. Yeah, and then they did. You know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: you can't cover in forty five minutes what they cover
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: in whatever ten episodes? Sounds about right. I'm not sure
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I haven't done. I don't think released all at once,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: but it feels like a ten let's say seven to ten.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: So anyway, can we close on brainstorm or are we
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: still did we miss something? Yeah? I think yeah. I
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: mean Natalie Wood's murders or death death sorry is unsolved,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: still in its mystery may always be. I had no
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: idea about that about Robert Wagner. I just knew Natalie
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Wood drowned. I'd never heard anything about it being mysterious. Yeah,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: it's it's long been mysterious, and well here's how we'll
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: finish it. Then she wasn't even able to finish filming
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: on that movie. And they did use a body double
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: to complete some of those scenes. It was a big flop. Yeah, yes,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: it was okay, Chuck. So for the last one, then
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: we're gonna combine two together. Strangely, they are almost the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: same story, but with two different films, and both of
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: them were films that were never made or have yet
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: to be made, I guess is a better way to
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: put it. The first one is a confederacy of Dunce's
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: the film adaptation of John kennedy Tools book. Um, I
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: guess novel. Yeah, I've never read it. I really want
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: to have, just never read it for some reason. Yeah,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: it's a classic, classic book and very sadly Tool killed
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: himself in nineteen sixty nine and the book was not
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: out yet. And part of the reason he killed himself
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: is because he he could not achieve success as a writer.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: His mother gets it published, it wins a Pulitzer Prize
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: in one and uh, posthumously he became a famous author. Yeah.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: So people when it first was published in the early eighties.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: People were like, oh, we've got to turn this into
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: a movie. This is a great idea, A great book
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: will be a great movie. And they said, who could
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: who can possibly play the main character? Belushi? He'd be perfect.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Belushi dies, Well, who's next. Let's let's wait a few
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: years and let's see who else could play this main character?
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: John Candy, John Carry, John Candy died. Okay, all right,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: everybody else, just take a breather. We'll wait a year
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: or two. Who's the next guy who's gonna play this?
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: I got it? This young up and comer named Chris Farley.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Chris Farley die. So a confederacy of Dunce has just
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: kept getting put off and off and off right, and
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: then finally Will Farrell steps in, and it looks like
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen because Will Farrell is obviously indestructible,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: right yeah, And if you if you haven't gathered by
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: hearing the people cast uh as ignacious, Riley he was.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: He was a heavy man in the book. So obviously Belushi, Candy,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: and Farley were all big dudes. And they all die.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: So finally to go to Farrell and they're like, well,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: he's in shape, and we can bulk him up. Maybe
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: you some special effects. I have no idea, but at
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: least he's he's probably not gonna drop dead of a
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: heart attack or something, right, He was a safe bet. Yeah,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: but that didn't happen either. Um. I think it was
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: sort of in turnaround forever. It took a long time
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: in development, and eventually Um the head of the Louisiana
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: State Film Commission. It set in New Orleans, so they
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: would have shot there. He was murdered, and Hurricane Katrina
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: came along to wipe out a lot of where the
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: film would be shot, and so I think that kind
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: of just helped to put it on indefinite hold at
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: the very least. But they are I just saw I
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: was looking this up see if it was back on track,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: and I saw there's a movie called The Butterfly and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: the Typewriter about John Kennedy Tool. So they're doing a
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: biopic on him with um Thomas Mann. Now, uh, Thomas
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: Man playing Tool? Who's he? He's an actor, right, obviously,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: but what has he been? The thing that I saw
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: him in was a movie out a couple of years
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: ago called Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. It's good,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: good little indie films. He's he's good, so he's playing tool.
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: And then I think Susan Surandon places his mom um
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: and Diane Krueger's in it as well. So a and
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Susan Sarandon's gonna totally try to date him to I'll
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: bet why would you say that? Oh she likes younger dudes.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, maybe I have a shot. She likes young
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: hipster dudes, no way younger than you, my friend. Good
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: for her. I love Susan Srandon, so oh yeah, more
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: power true. I think she's great. Um, but she is
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: totally going to try to date Thomas Man. Well, good
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: for him too. Then, um, I'm not being judge, no,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: I know. Okay, So then that's um a confederacy of dunces. Right, yes,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: there's another script out there called A Took that has
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: virtually the same story to it, right um, but the
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: the story is totally different, But the cursed story is
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: is virtually the same with a Took. It's like a
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: fish out of Water movie about an Inuit man who
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: um comes to New York and has to make his
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: way in the big city. Right yes, Um, that script
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: was early on, it was optioned um and John Belushi
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: was scheduled to play the main character. Right, Well, what
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: happened to John Belushi? He died? So who was up next?
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Chuck John Candy? Isn't that crazy? Okay? Well, John Candy passed.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: God God dressed his soul. Who was after John Kennedy
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Chris Farley? That's right, Chris Farley. And so the narrative
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: to this curse story takes a huge sudden turn when
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the next person up after Chris Farley is Sam Kennison. Yes,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and Sam Kennison they were actually I mean they're actually
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: gonna make the movie. It was happening, and Sam Kennison
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: kind of destroyed that because he wanted to He want
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: to be really heavily involved in the script re rights,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: on the direction of the film. He wanted creative control.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: He battled with the studio. I think there may have
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: even been lawsuits going on, and he eventually got to
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: the point where he was like, you know what if
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna if you're not gonna give me creative control,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I'll be in your movie and I'll I'll suck on purpose,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: on purpose. And they said, oh yeah, we're gonna sue you,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: and he said, oh, yeah, right, and then he died
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: in a car wreck before anything could happen as a result.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: So I took for the moment died with him again.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: In't that bizarre? It is the idea that those two
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: things crossed over like that that one. Obviously it's not
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: a curse, but I think that it's pretty interesting at
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: the very least. Well, if you guys want to know
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: more about movie curses, just go start watching movies and
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: ask people or is this one cursed? And then if
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: they say no, go watch another one and ask about that,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: and then eventually someone will say yes, this one's cursed,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: and then ask them the story behind. And in the meantime, Uh,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: Since I said all that, it's time for a listener. Now,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this just a very kind email from
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: a kind I'll see nice. Hey, guys, discovered your show
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, and I reckon I have
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: listened to two or three podcasts a day since then.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I absolutely love you guys, and to say that your
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: show is addictive would be an understatement. Until very recently,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: I was a news junkie. I live in Melbourne, Australia
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: and would listen to Radio National at every opportunity, but
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: since Brexit in the recent US election, listening to the
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: news and current affairs has become a health hazard for me.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I also have two youngest children, eleven and nine, and
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: having grown up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud myself,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I don't want to subject my kids to the same fear.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: So finding your podcast has been a true joy. I
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: love how enthusiastic and optimistic you both are about everything,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: and your curiosity is truly infectious, isn't it. You were
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: so gloriously accepting of different ideas and cultures. And I've
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: even adopted Chuck's I don't want to yunck someone else's yum, which,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: by the way, bridget I did not to make that up.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Now that was another listener who's from but we love
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: to say it, uh, And I'm glad you've adopted that.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: But I love the podcast so much. I've got my
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: husband and kids into it as well. And my husband
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: is a radio ham listen to your episode on Ham
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Radio together. He was impressed with your efforts. Keep it up, guys,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: and thank you for all the joint information you brought
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: to my life. Cheers as from Bridget Foster and Melbourne
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: cheers with some Fosters. And I'll tell you what, Bridget,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: We're coming to Melbourne in September of next year for shows. Yep.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: And you right in with a friendly reminder and you
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: and your family can get on the old guest list.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: How about that awesome man, Chuck, you're the guy. You're
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: the guy. They're your passes too, all right? Cool? Well,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: thank you the out, thanks Allot, Bridget. It was Bridget
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: and family, right yeah, Bridget with a D. Bridget. Thank
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: you for writing in. And if you want to get
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: in touch with us, like Bridget did, you can tweet
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: to us. I'm an s Y s K podcast and
• 51:47
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• 51:51
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• 51:54
  Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us an email. The
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has
• 51:59
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• 52:01
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• 52:08
  Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how Stuff Works dot com. H