Latest / Ridiculous History / Tossed Popcorn, Part 1: The Wizard of Oz and the Titanic

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Tossed Popcorn, Part 1: The Wizard of Oz and the Titanic · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. That's our one and only
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Speaker 1: super producer, the Man, the myth Legend, Mr Max Williams.
0:37
Speaker 1: Give it up for him. I'm Ben Noel. This is uh.
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Speaker 1: This is a two parter that we are doing on purpose.
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Speaker 1: Look at us, man, oh man, We're like, we're like
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Speaker 1: real podcast adults. Today. I put on a suit jacket today.
0:51
Speaker 1: I'm dressing up a little bit because although I still
0:54
Speaker 1: have a hoodie on under this, because we are diving
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Speaker 1: into some very bizarre stories and we're not doing it alone.
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Speaker 1: We have guests, don't we, Boy? Do we? Ever? Today
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Speaker 1: we are joined by both hosts of the incredible I
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Speaker 1: Heart podcast, Tossed Popcorn Um Leanna Holston and Sienna Jacole,
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Speaker 1: who are both dear, old, close, funny but in a
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Speaker 1: hot way, friends who have neither seen nor enjoyed that
1:22
Speaker 1: many films, particularly the classics. I am pulling this directly
1:26
Speaker 1: from your Apple podcast description because I love it. It's
1:31
Speaker 1: leading with self deprecation. Is away into my heart. Thank
1:35
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us today. Thank you for
1:37
Speaker 1: having us. We're so happy to be here now. Behind
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Speaker 1: the scenes of our behind the scenes show, you'll get
1:44
Speaker 1: why that's an okay joke at the end. Behind the
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Speaker 1: scenes here, we have been working together off air to
1:50
Speaker 1: get our schedules to align because both Nolan I and
1:55
Speaker 1: Max as well are huge film buffs and we love
1:59
Speaker 1: we love listening to tossed popcorn, and we wanted to
2:02
Speaker 1: have you all on the show with us today so
2:05
Speaker 1: that we can share some tales, true life tales of
2:09
Speaker 1: the bizarre, at times disturbing things that happened behind the
2:13
Speaker 1: camera during the creation of some of some of the
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Speaker 1: best films in the world of film. And when we
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Speaker 1: talked about this, we didn't want to spoil too much
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Speaker 1: for each other, but I I was hoping against hope
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Speaker 1: that one of us would talk about, uh, one of
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Speaker 1: my favorite urban legends and disaster stories in the world
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Speaker 1: of film. And that's your idea, Leanna, the Wizard of Oz.
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Speaker 1: Oh my god, what a what a cursed, cursed film.
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Speaker 1: You wouldn't think it because it's such a delightful film.
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Speaker 1: It's definitely a troubled production, one that it was pure
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Speaker 1: chaos behind the scenes. I love it. Why don't we
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Speaker 1: lead with that one then, I mean, it seems we're
3:00
Speaker 1: all raring to go and hear about some munchkin disasters
3:04
Speaker 1: and what is it like aluminum paint poisonings. Again, I
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Speaker 1: know a little bit about it. Um, I don't know
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Speaker 1: which parts of it are true and which parts have
3:12
Speaker 1: been kind of trumped up and exaggerated over time, but
3:15
Speaker 1: hopefully we'll figure that out right now. Oh yeah, um,
3:18
Speaker 1: I don't mean to start this with two massive of
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Speaker 1: a brag, but I found a book and I read. Yeah,
3:26
Speaker 1: I don't know I do those. But there's a book
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Speaker 1: downloaded from the l a public library on my laptop
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Speaker 1: currently about this movie, which is it's a book called
3:34
Speaker 1: The Making of the Wizard of Oz by this name.
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Speaker 1: There's no way I'm gonna nail this. But al Geane
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Speaker 1: Harmet's I think, is the name of the woman who
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Speaker 1: wrote it, and she wrote this, thank you so much,
3:45
Speaker 1: thank you, I appreciate it. She wrote it in the
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Speaker 1: seventies and actually interviewed all the surviving cast and crew
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Speaker 1: of the film who she could find to ask about
3:54
Speaker 1: all of these tall tales. Because the set and the
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Speaker 1: movie is mired in rumors and sort of lore about
4:01
Speaker 1: what actually happened. There was a big rumor that somebody
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Speaker 1: died in the making of it, and this book has
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Speaker 1: clarified a lot of those and unfortunately for my sort
4:09
Speaker 1: of dark interest in morbid history, nobody did die. But
4:12
Speaker 1: fortunately for them, nobody did die. So that is good. Okay,
4:18
Speaker 1: We're gonna start at the top, even from the beginning
4:22
Speaker 1: of this film, before they even had the final script,
4:24
Speaker 1: before they were on set. The movie itself had ten
4:27
Speaker 1: screenwriters over the course of the writing of it. Herman
4:31
Speaker 1: Manko Wicks, who we we know perhaps from the film
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Speaker 1: manc was the first of ten screenwriters. Two of the
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Speaker 1: ten were alcoholics, and one of the ten had a
4:41
Speaker 1: failing marriage and then turned to drink to sort of
4:44
Speaker 1: cope with that while writing the This it's just so
4:48
Speaker 1: so funny to have such a wholesome and delightful film
4:51
Speaker 1: be written by people whose lives were fully falling apart
4:54
Speaker 1: over the course of it. What I did learn is
4:57
Speaker 1: that it was pretty common at the time, this was
4:59
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight. I believe that they were writing it
5:02
Speaker 1: for three to five writers to be assigned to a
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Speaker 1: film at the same time, and then kind of the
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Speaker 1: person who wrote the best treatment or the best overall
5:10
Speaker 1: script one and was chosen to continue on with the
5:14
Speaker 1: project was uncredited ultimately, Like I think so. I believe
5:21
Speaker 1: they ultimately credited three writers and one person as the
5:24
Speaker 1: adapter from the L. Frank Baum novel. Uh. And yeah,
5:28
Speaker 1: I think you're right. He was not listed at all
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Speaker 1: in that. Was it a thing where they were just
5:33
Speaker 1: not turning out the kind of script the studio wanted,
5:37
Speaker 1: or were they doing okay and then had these terrible
5:40
Speaker 1: personal demons and struggles that had to be replaced. I
5:44
Speaker 1: think it was more the former. I think it was
5:46
Speaker 1: more the studio just wanted to go in a different direction. Uh.
5:49
Speaker 1: Is my loose understanding from this book that I did
5:51
Speaker 1: read it eleven pm yesterday. Um. For like for Manco Wakes,
5:58
Speaker 1: I think they just went with somebody else's treatment eventually
6:02
Speaker 1: and just changed tacked tack a little bit for our
6:06
Speaker 1: sailing audience, but of a sailing term there You're welcome,
6:08
Speaker 1: And I don't think anybody was officially fired from the
6:14
Speaker 1: writing of it. The directors, on the other hand, is
6:17
Speaker 1: a whole other story. There were four directors for the film,
6:20
Speaker 1: and they ultimately had or at one point had Victor
6:24
Speaker 1: Fleming directing the movie, who is sort of the root
6:27
Speaker 1: of a lot of the chaos on set that we
6:28
Speaker 1: will get to, but he eventually left to go direct
6:32
Speaker 1: gone with the Wind because that film was also struggling
6:37
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. And also, you know, if you watch
6:39
Speaker 1: it today, it has not aged well. So Lena, you're
6:43
Speaker 1: saying that sort of the ruby slippers of leadership were
6:46
Speaker 1: sort of switching from person to person. Thank you, so gorgeous,
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Speaker 1: Thank you. Yes, absolutely, there's one takeaway. I want people
6:55
Speaker 1: to know that from feet to feet went the ruby slippers.
6:58
Speaker 1: During the making of the Wizard of I gotta say,
7:01
Speaker 1: like one of the most arresting images for me from
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Speaker 1: The Wizard of Oz are the feet of the Which
7:06
Speaker 1: of the East kind of curling up those like kind
7:10
Speaker 1: of Tim burtony black and white socks, you know, And
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Speaker 1: I always found that super disturbing when I was a kid.
7:18
Speaker 1: Everything in that It's also weird that everything in that
7:21
Speaker 1: film basically is somehow made of asbestos. I don't know,
7:27
Speaker 1: like the snow the scarecrow costumes so wild. But I
7:31
Speaker 1: I propose a I propose a theory that I'm making
7:36
Speaker 1: up just now, and I'm just gonna make this my reality.
7:39
Speaker 1: You guys don't have to come along with me, but
7:41
Speaker 1: I am going to decide that the reason it went
7:44
Speaker 1: through ten screenwriters and then numerous directors is due to
7:49
Speaker 1: the studio saying, look, there's gonna be a band named
7:52
Speaker 1: Pink Floyd, and everything in this film has to match
7:55
Speaker 1: what happens in that album that will come out decades
7:58
Speaker 1: and decades from now. There was a big ask it
8:01
Speaker 1: was some very like forward thinking filmmaking, because everyone knows
8:04
Speaker 1: that that is the only reason the Wizard of Oz
8:06
Speaker 1: truly exists is for like Stoner, you know, um college
8:10
Speaker 1: kids to to put it on mutant and listen to
8:12
Speaker 1: the Dark Side of the Moon beautifully, which I swear
8:16
Speaker 1: to God it does, you guys, it really does. It's
8:18
Speaker 1: weird when the color the Munchkins are marching right along
8:23
Speaker 1: with money. I mean, it's it's it's uncanny. I mean
8:26
Speaker 1: Al frank Baum, you know, he sat down and he said,
8:29
Speaker 1: you know what, eighty years from now, this is really
8:32
Speaker 1: gonna slap Al frank Baum noted racist. He was not
8:36
Speaker 1: a good guy. You should say, which kind of you know,
8:38
Speaker 1: if you google anybody's name from the past and then
8:40
Speaker 1: type scandal after it, you're not going to find exciting
8:43
Speaker 1: fun results. Um. Okay, let's move on to the first
8:47
Speaker 1: casualty on set. This was Buddy Ebsen, who was the
8:51
Speaker 1: original tin Man. He was hospitalized in an oxygen tent
8:57
Speaker 1: nine days after filming started. This is because you mentioned
9:01
Speaker 1: aluminum in related accidents. The makeup artist powdered Buddy Ebsom's
9:07
Speaker 1: face with aluminum dust to complete his sort of tin visage,
9:12
Speaker 1: if you will, and that in turn, he inhaled that
9:15
Speaker 1: dust and it coated his lungs. So he woke up
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Speaker 1: one night and couldn't feel I think like the left
9:20
Speaker 1: side of his body, and he couldn't really breathe very well.
9:23
Speaker 1: And they took him straight to the hospital and he
9:25
Speaker 1: was there for a long time. Right there, that little
9:32
Speaker 1: sprinkle of fairy dust is actually aluminum that's coding your lungs.
9:36
Speaker 1: It was pretty brutal. I love it. It's just all
9:38
Speaker 1: of this is so grim um. They do think though,
9:42
Speaker 1: that this was either an allergic reaction to the aluminum
9:45
Speaker 1: or it was a chemical effect of the fumes from
9:48
Speaker 1: a substance that was mixed with the aluminum. Because the
9:50
Speaker 1: makeup artist kept saying I used pure aluminum dust like
9:53
Speaker 1: this shouldn't have happened, and so it seems like it was.
9:57
Speaker 1: It had been used elsewhere and not coded people's lungs
9:59
Speaker 1: and sent them to an oxygen tent in the hospital.
10:01
Speaker 1: But for poor you gotta remember too, I mean, you know,
10:06
Speaker 1: I mean, we're obviously dealing with some stuff right now
10:09
Speaker 1: in Hollywood related to lack of safety on set, you know,
10:12
Speaker 1: with this whole Alec Baldwin debacles. So it's certainly uh
10:16
Speaker 1: interesting thing to talk about. But back then they had
10:18
Speaker 1: very little safety oversights. It was just all for the pictures,
10:22
Speaker 1: you know, like it didn't really they didn't really think
10:24
Speaker 1: of the welfare of actors the way we very least
10:27
Speaker 1: tried to and have supposedly a lot of fail safe
10:30
Speaker 1: kind of mechanisms in place to make sure nobody gets
10:33
Speaker 1: hurt or nothing happens like that totally. And MGM in
10:37
Speaker 1: that year, which is the studio that produced this film,
10:40
Speaker 1: they were supposed to make fifty two movies a year
10:43
Speaker 1: every year, so everybody was focused on just churning out
10:46
Speaker 1: stuff instead of doing things in the most safe way.
10:50
Speaker 1: But so he was replaced, was it was he replaced
10:52
Speaker 1: he just didn't want to go on because he was like, Nope,
10:55
Speaker 1: not worth it. Well again, they got that fifty two
10:57
Speaker 1: film a year schedule, so they how long and they
11:00
Speaker 1: wait for this guy to Yeah, and while he was
11:03
Speaker 1: in the hospital, MGM called and was like, do you
11:05
Speaker 1: know when he's gonna be back on set or like not,
11:09
Speaker 1: he's not well, why would you ask that? Um. He
11:12
Speaker 1: did recover after I think six weeks, but then was
11:14
Speaker 1: prone to bronchitis for the rest of his life, which
11:16
Speaker 1: is and he was I know. He was replaced by
11:21
Speaker 1: Jack Haley, who actually didn't know about the aluminum reaction
11:25
Speaker 1: or the hospitalization, nor did the rest of the cast
11:27
Speaker 1: because apparently Buddy like just didn't show up to set
11:30
Speaker 1: one day and it was considered polite to not ask
11:32
Speaker 1: questions at the time, so nobody was really that aware
11:36
Speaker 1: of what had happened. Yeah, by the way, we can't
11:39
Speaker 1: get away with that in the podcasting stuff, you know
11:42
Speaker 1: what I mean. I feel like I feel like there's
11:44
Speaker 1: something in our contracts that says we have to tell
11:46
Speaker 1: each other if we have aluminum poisoning. Was very clear
11:51
Speaker 1: about that when we started. Is that if you ever
11:54
Speaker 1: get aluminum poisoning legally, you have to tell us it's
11:57
Speaker 1: the famous aluminum clause. It's a boiler is you know,
12:00
Speaker 1: directly because of this old debacle. Yeah, and we are
12:03
Speaker 1: grateful every day being protected. So this is so, this
12:09
Speaker 1: is albready. Um, this already sounds like stuff that would
12:13
Speaker 1: make major headlines if it happened today. I think this
12:17
Speaker 1: also gives us an illuminating look into just how how
12:21
Speaker 1: powerful studios were while also being somewhat ruthless when it
12:27
Speaker 1: comes to their treatment of their cast, their crew, even
12:31
Speaker 1: their stars. Right, Judy Garland playing the protagonist Dorothy, what
12:36
Speaker 1: she wasn't exactly having a walk in the park either.
12:39
Speaker 1: Is that correct? No, that is absolutely correct, and thank you.
12:42
Speaker 1: They chose Judy to be the lead of this film.
12:45
Speaker 1: She was fifteen, I think when they decided to cast her,
12:47
Speaker 1: and she was sixteen when they were filming it, and
12:51
Speaker 1: she had just signed a contract with MGM two and
12:53
Speaker 1: a half years before then and had had smaller parts.
12:56
Speaker 1: But you could tell, given how they were casting her
12:59
Speaker 1: leading to the Wizard of Oz, that they were intentionally
13:01
Speaker 1: giving her larger and larger roles to make her a star,
13:04
Speaker 1: so that by the time Wizard of Oz came out,
13:06
Speaker 1: she was a bit more known. Also, it's so sad.
13:09
Speaker 1: I mean, her story is so so sad, but MGM. Fully,
13:13
Speaker 1: they wanted her for her singing voice. They loved her
13:15
Speaker 1: singing voice so much, but they didn't like how she looked,
13:19
Speaker 1: and so they put her on very strict diets. They
13:21
Speaker 1: put her in very specifically, they had her nose redone.
13:25
Speaker 1: They literally shaped her into what they wanted her to
13:27
Speaker 1: look like to match her voice, which is what they
13:29
Speaker 1: really loved about her. Plastic surgery. Plastic surgery, I believe so.
13:35
Speaker 1: And then they also later on, I don't think they
13:37
Speaker 1: did this for the Wizard of Oz, but for her
13:39
Speaker 1: later project, they would put her on like I can't
13:43
Speaker 1: remember which drug it was, but they literally gave her
13:45
Speaker 1: what she would call happy pills that kept her awake
13:47
Speaker 1: for seventy two hours so that they could film yeah,
13:51
Speaker 1: pop and Benny's cigarette and then yeah, yeah, it's I mean,
13:57
Speaker 1: it was just so out essentially like she her regiment
14:02
Speaker 1: from the studio. It's probably what kicked off her lifelong
14:07
Speaker 1: pill and alcohol addiction. I would say that's a fair yes,
14:11
Speaker 1: especially if they started her so young, you know, yeah,
14:15
Speaker 1: because I think She started with MGM at which is
14:19
Speaker 1: you just are going to get it was all of
14:21
Speaker 1: the drugs and alcohol on top of just like being
14:23
Speaker 1: a child actor is going to mess you up psychologically anyway.
14:28
Speaker 1: This is this is the thing that gets me too,
14:30
Speaker 1: because I I think it's fair to say that many
14:33
Speaker 1: people grew up with grew up thinking of this version
14:37
Speaker 1: of Wizard of Oz along with The Whiz as sort
14:40
Speaker 1: of canonical childhood films. You know, I loved it, like
14:45
Speaker 1: in these are of course the days before Facebook, not
14:48
Speaker 1: to date myself, and I would spend time thinking like,
14:51
Speaker 1: I don't know who would I be in this Who
14:55
Speaker 1: would I be in this story? You know, can't be
14:57
Speaker 1: the star as Dorothy. I don't have the range. I
14:59
Speaker 1: knew that even at my young age. But the more
15:03
Speaker 1: we learn about what these folks went through, the less
15:06
Speaker 1: and less you you envy them. You know what, Like
15:10
Speaker 1: what if you had the chance to be in one
15:12
Speaker 1: of in one of the most popular, most well known
15:15
Speaker 1: films of all time, but you had you knew that
15:20
Speaker 1: you would be going through hellish things for that that
15:23
Speaker 1: shotted immortality. It's it's a tough question to answer, especially
15:28
Speaker 1: the more we learn about the costumes, right, because the
15:31
Speaker 1: tin Man is only one example, right, Like, weren't there
15:36
Speaker 1: other problems with costumes in general? Oh yeah, there, sure,
15:47
Speaker 1: we're we did. You mentioned that the Scarecroast costume was
15:49
Speaker 1: made of asbestos, which is such a fun fact itself.
15:53
Speaker 1: It's so stupid and dumb. Uh. And and the snow
15:56
Speaker 1: that that falls on the poppy field also famously asbestos.
16:00
Speaker 1: And it's funny that they had these very fire proof
16:03
Speaker 1: costumes given how many people literally caught on fire during
16:06
Speaker 1: the making of this film one of them. Yeah, sure, sure, yeah,
16:11
Speaker 1: great question. So Margaret Hamilton's the Wicked Witch of the
16:15
Speaker 1: West icon legend queen. We love her. She Oh, I'm sorry,
16:24
Speaker 1: that's just oh I can't from that. Um but cyclist extraordinaire.
16:30
Speaker 1: Where how would she fare in the Tour de France.
16:32
Speaker 1: Probably well, we have to assume in in the scene
16:38
Speaker 1: where the Wicked Witch shows up after the house has
16:40
Speaker 1: fallen on soon to be shriveled foot, Wicked Witch of
16:43
Speaker 1: the East, uh, And she leaves after the end of
16:46
Speaker 1: that scene. She leaves in like a proof of smoke
16:49
Speaker 1: and flame, and it's very exciting. But when they were
16:53
Speaker 1: filming that as she was exiting. She was supposed to
16:56
Speaker 1: go down through sort of a trap door into a pit,
16:58
Speaker 1: and then the smoke and the flames would play over her,
17:01
Speaker 1: so it looked like she had disappeared, but the flames
17:05
Speaker 1: started too early, so she was still in them rather
17:08
Speaker 1: than below ground in a pit where she should have been.
17:12
Speaker 1: I know. It's also this is very sad. The reason
17:15
Speaker 1: that this happened is because it's sort of the fault
17:18
Speaker 1: of Victor Fleming, the director, where they had two shots.
17:22
Speaker 1: They had two good takes of that scene before lunch,
17:25
Speaker 1: and then everybody left for lunch, and when they came back,
17:27
Speaker 1: Victor Fleming was like, let's just get a couple more
17:30
Speaker 1: for insurance purposes, just so that we know we haven't
17:33
Speaker 1: And it was for insurance purposes. It was in the
17:40
Speaker 1: last take obviously didn't do one after, but in the
17:42
Speaker 1: last take after lunch that this happened, which is that
17:46
Speaker 1: because she didn't go down soon enough, her hat and
17:49
Speaker 1: broom caught fire, which ended up scalding her face. It
17:54
Speaker 1: burned off her right eyelashes and eyebrow and and this
17:57
Speaker 1: is gnarly so sorry. In advance, all of the skin
18:01
Speaker 1: on her right hand, which was the phrasing of it
18:06
Speaker 1: in the book, and again I do apologize, but if
18:09
Speaker 1: I had to read it, you have to hear it
18:10
Speaker 1: was it was as if someone had peeled the skin
18:13
Speaker 1: like an orange off of her right hand. That's another trip.
18:19
Speaker 1: It's so interesting like these types of effects in this
18:22
Speaker 1: era of Hollywood. It's such a neat kind of like
18:25
Speaker 1: um transition from theater type effects, you know, to films.
18:29
Speaker 1: So you've got like things like a pit that you
18:30
Speaker 1: go into. It's all very kind of like low fi
18:33
Speaker 1: um and and kind of theatrical. So it makes sense,
18:36
Speaker 1: you know, the timing and all of that would be
18:38
Speaker 1: so important. This kind of makes me think of also
18:41
Speaker 1: like it's almost like the proto like Michael Jackson Pepsi
18:44
Speaker 1: commercial kind of you know, um debacle where he you know,
18:48
Speaker 1: was I think a pillar of flame like scalded his
18:50
Speaker 1: face and it was all about timing. But that's a
18:51
Speaker 1: live event, you know, so this is very similar in
18:54
Speaker 1: terms of like the timing and firing and all of
18:56
Speaker 1: the things having to communicate correctly. And that clearly did
18:59
Speaker 1: not happen here. Yeah. Yeah, and it got worse, which
19:02
Speaker 1: is that the green paint, the green makeup that she
19:04
Speaker 1: was wearing was toxic because there was copper in it,
19:08
Speaker 1: so after she'd been so severely burned, they had to
19:11
Speaker 1: treat it like they had to pour alcohol on those
19:13
Speaker 1: wounds to make sure that she didn't also become like yeah,
19:18
Speaker 1: what is that medicalth thank you? Yes, um, and a
19:23
Speaker 1: friend had to come pick her up from the lot.
19:25
Speaker 1: MGM did not offer to send her home in a car. Wow,
19:31
Speaker 1: Like most of my hand came off like can you
19:36
Speaker 1: come get me? It's not in the budget, so we
19:40
Speaker 1: have you know, uh uh, in a few decades there
19:43
Speaker 1: will be something called uber. You could wait for that,
19:46
Speaker 1: or you can call a friend. Yeah, I'll frank. I'm
19:48
Speaker 1: also famously sensed that in a hundred years there's gonna
19:50
Speaker 1: be a car service. That was yeah, you know, I
19:55
Speaker 1: want to stand one thing here, Leana, because you mentioned
20:00
Speaker 1: I think it's very diplomatic to say that this, this situation,
20:04
Speaker 1: this uh tragic accident is is the fault of the director,
20:10
Speaker 1: Victor Fleming. So one of the things that gets me
20:14
Speaker 1: he is the director of the film, but the more
20:17
Speaker 1: you learn about him, the less cool he seems like.
20:22
Speaker 1: He seems like a real pill. Was this behavior with
20:26
Speaker 1: the was this behavior with the Wicked which scene. Was
20:29
Speaker 1: it an exception to a rule or is this just
20:33
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff this guy did to people? It
20:36
Speaker 1: was pretty constant. And here's a very perfect example of that,
20:39
Speaker 1: I think myself is the which was out for about
20:42
Speaker 1: six weeks to heal and didn't come back to set
20:44
Speaker 1: until about February of the next year. She quote didn't
20:48
Speaker 1: sue for the very simple reason that I wanted to
20:50
Speaker 1: work again, which is leading it back to your point
20:53
Speaker 1: about how studios were so powerful at the time that
20:56
Speaker 1: even when you were severely injured in a set accident,
21:00
Speaker 1: you didn't want to be labeled, especially as a woman,
21:01
Speaker 1: as like difficult or anything like that. Um. But the
21:05
Speaker 1: day that she returned to set, Victor Fleming tried to
21:08
Speaker 1: get her to do another fire stunt and she was like, no,
21:13
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead. And yeah, and this is the
21:16
Speaker 1: scene in the movie where she's skywriting a threat to
21:19
Speaker 1: it says like surrender Dorothy, and the iconic skywriting threat scene. Um.
21:26
Speaker 1: And so she was on a broom. The broom was
21:28
Speaker 1: elevated and there was a pipe under it that was
21:30
Speaker 1: blowing like fire and smoke out behind the broom, and
21:33
Speaker 1: she heard about it, and she kept asking people like,
21:37
Speaker 1: why do you keep saying this is safe but also
21:39
Speaker 1: giving me a fireproof costume. I don't understand. If it's
21:41
Speaker 1: so safe, why also I need to be in like
21:43
Speaker 1: an asbestos suit basically, And so she refused to do
21:47
Speaker 1: the stunt, so in her place, her stunt double, Betty Danko,
21:50
Speaker 1: did the stunt for her, and Margaret Hamiltons had told Betty.
21:53
Speaker 1: She was like, hey, you don't have to do this.
21:55
Speaker 1: It's pretty dangerous. It seems pretty risky. I literally just
21:57
Speaker 1: got my hand back, like I really would not recommend
21:59
Speaker 1: that you do this, and Betty said, no, no, they're
22:01
Speaker 1: gonna pay me thirty five dollars for today if I
22:04
Speaker 1: do this stunt, which is more than they paid her normally.
22:07
Speaker 1: So let inflation calculating that real quickly. Sorry, it's a
22:11
Speaker 1: thing we do. Sure, we just go poopoo. Of course
22:17
Speaker 1: we must use our inflation calculator. It's a sunk cost anyway,
22:22
Speaker 1: Sienna Leana. So we have to, like you know, for
22:25
Speaker 1: the guys in accounting, we have to use this every
22:27
Speaker 1: so often. So thirty five dollars in nineteen here we go. Uh,
22:34
Speaker 1: that is going to if we get a drum roll
22:40
Speaker 1: that is about that is six dollars and six cents. Okay, yeah,
22:47
Speaker 1: you would get on a flaming room for that as well,
22:49
Speaker 1: absolutely right now, Yeah, I don't know, I don't know.
22:53
Speaker 1: I mean that's like a day rate for like a
22:56
Speaker 1: non you know, speaking extra. Maybe are we low or than?
23:00
Speaker 1: I mean, that seems really low ball for us featured
23:03
Speaker 1: stunt performance by today's standard. You guys work in Hollywood,
23:06
Speaker 1: wouldn't you say? No? I mean, it's so much more
23:08
Speaker 1: than I make in a day. I would absolutely do it.
23:10
Speaker 1: If it's just stunt double was in her early twenties,
23:12
Speaker 1: then I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, We've all been
23:16
Speaker 1: a woman in our early twenties being offered six hundred
23:19
Speaker 1: dollars to dangle from a dangerous place and said, you
23:21
Speaker 1: know what, Yeah, I'm gonna do it. I trust the
23:24
Speaker 1: fortitude of my of my joints. I think I can
23:26
Speaker 1: handle it. But but Betty gets up on this room.
23:29
Speaker 1: They lifted like ten to fourteen feet in the air,
23:32
Speaker 1: and the pipe that's under the broom blowing out smoke
23:35
Speaker 1: and flame exploded and the exploded so hard that it
23:39
Speaker 1: blew her off the room, and she fortunately caught herself
23:43
Speaker 1: with her hands and she got like one leg around
23:46
Speaker 1: the stick of the broom and just was dangling there
23:48
Speaker 1: until they could lower her down to the ground. Her
23:51
Speaker 1: left leg was bruised from her thigh to her knee,
23:54
Speaker 1: and and this is another gnarly injury thing, there was
23:57
Speaker 1: a two inch deep wound that circled her leg almost entirely,
24:02
Speaker 1: and like contained bits of her costumes in God, yeah,
24:07
Speaker 1: I mean back to the theater thing. I mean, you know,
24:11
Speaker 1: they didn't have green screen back then. This would have
24:13
Speaker 1: been like someone had had to have been hoisted up
24:15
Speaker 1: on rigging at a not insignificant height, uh, and then
24:20
Speaker 1: kind of flailed around with a flaming pipe shooting out
24:23
Speaker 1: from behind the broom. Is that about some up the scene.
24:26
Speaker 1: I think that's right. It really does feel like the
24:28
Speaker 1: actors were just sort of another prop for directors at
24:31
Speaker 1: this time, the theatrical thing very much so. They just
24:35
Speaker 1: are another thing too to make the spectacle happen. But yeah,
24:40
Speaker 1: I think really didn't think about their actors at the time,
24:44
Speaker 1: Oh not at all. The other thing is Margaret Hamilton's
24:46
Speaker 1: while she was refusing to do that stunt that blew
24:48
Speaker 1: Betty off the broom. Victor Fleming came in to Margaret
24:52
Speaker 1: Hamilton's dressing room and it was like, come on, like
24:55
Speaker 1: play along, you're you're being silly, like let's do Who
25:02
Speaker 1: gets persuaded by that, Arguments like I've got one word
25:06
Speaker 1: for you, and then they go, you know, I never
25:10
Speaker 1: thought of it that way, Vic, Okay, you know, if
25:14
Speaker 1: I'm going to jump in here real quick, I kind
25:16
Speaker 1: of imagine that whole thing going on, like he's in
25:19
Speaker 1: her room to come on, you should do this, and
25:20
Speaker 1: then it all of a sudden, there's a lot of
25:21
Speaker 1: explosion in the back right. He's like, come on, it
25:25
Speaker 1: would be totally fine. You know you hear look was
25:29
Speaker 1: screaming like us. She's holding under the broom and he's
25:31
Speaker 1: still trying to convince her. It's like, no, this is
25:33
Speaker 1: such a terrible idea. Attention to the screams behind the
25:37
Speaker 1: curtain very good, very good classic reference. Uh yeah, and
25:43
Speaker 1: it's it's honestly, it's pretty remarkable reading in the book.
25:46
Speaker 1: Because Margaret Hamilton's was interviewed for the book. She was
25:48
Speaker 1: still alive when they were when the author was writing it,
25:50
Speaker 1: and it is pretty incredible the way that she just
25:53
Speaker 1: flat out refused to do it, because if you think
25:55
Speaker 1: about actors at all at that time, standing up to
25:58
Speaker 1: a studio and saying like, you know what, no, I'm
26:00
Speaker 1: not going to do this, and especially women who could
26:02
Speaker 1: so easily be labeled as like challenging to work with
26:05
Speaker 1: or you know, you could be eliminated from the production
26:08
Speaker 1: so quickly. It is pretty heroic that she stood fast
26:11
Speaker 1: and refused to do it. I mean, it sucks for Betty,
26:14
Speaker 1: but good remarked. And this is just it's interesting because
26:19
Speaker 1: this this story takes us to some really dark places,
26:24
Speaker 1: and we've already encountered some things that are gonna gonna
26:30
Speaker 1: stay with people the next time they watched The Wizard
26:32
Speaker 1: of Oz. But this is nowhere near all the terrible
26:37
Speaker 1: stuff that happened backstage. I mean, now that I'm thinking
26:41
Speaker 1: about it, we could probably end up doing like a
26:44
Speaker 1: limited series show, just six episodes on all the terrible
26:49
Speaker 1: stuff that went down. Uh. And you know it's because
26:53
Speaker 1: of these stories, Leona. I have never tried to find
26:57
Speaker 1: out what happened behind the scenes of Returned was Returned
27:01
Speaker 1: to Oz that sequel that came out way later, because
27:04
Speaker 1: that thing terrified me as a child. Total nightmare fuel.
27:08
Speaker 1: She's like in a she's in a sanitarium at the
27:10
Speaker 1: beginning and getting like electroshock therapy and basically like, oh
27:15
Speaker 1: you have seen it. It's it's absolute, absolute nightmare fuel.
27:19
Speaker 1: And then there's like the Wheelers or these guys, yeah
27:23
Speaker 1: rollerblade people know. Yeah. And then the this is from
27:27
Speaker 1: the early nineties. It's got for us a ball can
27:29
Speaker 1: and it's like a little young uh huh sar back
27:35
Speaker 1: then you have a date in his nine with the facts. Okay,
27:40
Speaker 1: so co produced by Cocaine. I guess probably yeah, well great,
27:47
Speaker 1: I love I love you. This is enabling before we
27:51
Speaker 1: before we moved to yet another story of bizarre, disturbing,
27:56
Speaker 1: behind the scenes things and people's favorite films. What was
28:02
Speaker 1: like as a takeaway, what was the thing that surprised
28:05
Speaker 1: you the most overall when you we started learning how
28:10
Speaker 1: the you started learning how the Wizard of Oz sausage
28:13
Speaker 1: got made. You know, I'm afraid to ask about the
28:16
Speaker 1: flying monkeys. Frankly, when Betty Danko got hospitalized for getting
28:21
Speaker 1: exploded off a broom, the doctor who treated her was like,
28:23
Speaker 1: oh my god, two flying monkeys were just in here.
28:25
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago because they fell down. But
28:28
Speaker 1: it's fine, it's fine. The vibes were bad. It's not
28:34
Speaker 1: a good time. I wonder what surprised me the most.
28:38
Speaker 1: I think it was okay, this is a little bit sad,
28:41
Speaker 1: but just know that everybody was fine by the end
28:43
Speaker 1: of it, which is that Total who was played by
28:46
Speaker 1: Terry the Karen Terrier, got a little bit stepped on
28:48
Speaker 1: during the filming of one scene, and that for some reason,
28:51
Speaker 1: I was like, I get that humans didn't have rights
28:53
Speaker 1: in the past. That to me is fine. I don't really,
28:55
Speaker 1: that doesn't bother me. But to know that a dog
28:57
Speaker 1: was at risk of injury, it's bothers him. Unfortunately, Terry recovered.
29:03
Speaker 1: She was totally okay by the end of it, but
29:05
Speaker 1: her trainer did pass out out of anxiety when she
29:07
Speaker 1: returns to set, so that I think that to me
29:12
Speaker 1: was like, oh, whoa, this production really was bad. Well,
29:16
Speaker 1: I think Ben spot On and saying that we could
29:19
Speaker 1: at the very least devote a whole episode to this
29:21
Speaker 1: um but I think it probably deserves surprise. It hasn't
29:23
Speaker 1: already happened a limited series to go because just yeah,
29:26
Speaker 1: it's a whole book. I mean, we we we could
29:28
Speaker 1: be here, uh talking about the woeful occurrences on the
29:32
Speaker 1: set of The Wizard of Oz all day. Did you
29:34
Speaker 1: have any kind of a biggie to to leave us
29:36
Speaker 1: with before we go to a break and then come
29:38
Speaker 1: back with another story. I mean, this is this is
29:41
Speaker 1: not a non to accident. This is a little preview
29:43
Speaker 1: for our to plug our own Wizard of Oz episode,
29:45
Speaker 1: which is that the book itself is considered to be
29:47
Speaker 1: a metaphor for the populist movement in America at the time.
29:50
Speaker 1: And uh oh, I love it. Such a fun reading
29:55
Speaker 1: of the thing. And I'll just give you a little clue,
29:57
Speaker 1: which is that the ruby slippers in the book were
29:59
Speaker 1: originally the silver slippers to talk about the free silver
30:02
Speaker 1: movement that was going on at the time in America. Yeah,
30:05
Speaker 1: that stuff would have translated perfectly over time. I'm sure
30:08
Speaker 1: gold standard yellow brick road the pieces all tied together,
30:12
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. This also is it weird that this
30:16
Speaker 1: makes me want to rewatch I don't want to say
30:21
Speaker 1: hate watch, but rewatch the Wizard of Oz. There I'm
30:26
Speaker 1: gonna be thinking about this, you know what I mean?
30:28
Speaker 1: How many takes was this? How many people uh ended
30:31
Speaker 1: up catching on fire in this scene. You know what,
30:34
Speaker 1: we haven't even talked about how sleazy the Munchkins were.
30:37
Speaker 1: That is just full prejudice. Like the book has a
30:41
Speaker 1: whole chapter about the actors who played the Munchkins and
30:44
Speaker 1: about how much rumors spread around them because it was
30:47
Speaker 1: just Hollywood being like, we don't like these people. Oh really,
30:51
Speaker 1: then I if, if so, I apologize to the estate
30:54
Speaker 1: and the relatives of the Munchkins. I have a lot
30:56
Speaker 1: more to learn about this. Uh what if the story
31:00
Speaker 1: is that I always heard that really kind of smacked
31:02
Speaker 1: of like a spooky urban legend. Was that in a
31:04
Speaker 1: scene you could see in the background like a munchkin,
31:09
Speaker 1: lifeless munchkin corpse hanging from a tree. And I think
31:13
Speaker 1: that's not true, but it's the kind of stuff that
31:16
Speaker 1: sure makes for a good story. I have not heard that.
31:20
Speaker 1: I love that as so spooky. Oh I believe it's
31:23
Speaker 1: at the very beginning. Um, So, everybody, go ahead, get
31:29
Speaker 1: the two, the streaming platform or VHS machine of your choice,
31:34
Speaker 1: and check out check out The Wizard of Oz and
31:37
Speaker 1: let us know, uh, let let us know what other
31:40
Speaker 1: weird facts you have learned about this this amazing film
31:44
Speaker 1: behind the scenes and all the terrible things that happened.
31:47
Speaker 1: And and uh, Leanna Siena is the toss popcorn Wizard
31:51
Speaker 1: of Oz episode out yet very much to a get
31:58
Speaker 1: you to a podcast streaming platform of choice and check
32:01
Speaker 1: that one out too. All right, well, I guess I
32:10
Speaker 1: will go next and turn back the clock a good
32:13
Speaker 1: little bit back to nineteen twelve, UM, just a month
32:18
Speaker 1: or so after the sinking of the Titanic. Uh, you know,
32:23
Speaker 1: big ship, famously impenetrable, you know, all of the technology
32:27
Speaker 1: and the you know, different compartments and all that the
32:30
Speaker 1: the unsinkable ship that very very much sank. And this
32:34
Speaker 1: is a story about one of the survivors of the
32:39
Speaker 1: HMS Titanic, a very um up and coming, you know,
32:43
Speaker 1: kind of bright shining star in Hollywood. UM, by the
32:46
Speaker 1: name of miss Dorothy Gibson. UM. Dorothy had kind of
32:50
Speaker 1: started making a name for herself in silent films. She
32:54
Speaker 1: was known for, you know, having a really good kind
32:57
Speaker 1: of presence and comedic timing. UM. And she you know,
33:02
Speaker 1: had a bright future in Hollywood. UM. She already had
33:05
Speaker 1: kind of a career between nineteen o six and nineteen
33:08
Speaker 1: eleven UM, when she was seventeen as a stage performer
33:13
Speaker 1: and a dancer in vaudeville, And around nineteen o nine
33:16
Speaker 1: she started modeling UM for a famous commercial artist, So
33:20
Speaker 1: she would have been in kind of some of those
33:21
Speaker 1: like Madmen style kind of artists renderings that you would
33:24
Speaker 1: have seen, you know, in an advertisement. Back in those days.
33:27
Speaker 1: She was a cover girl. She was on the cover
33:29
Speaker 1: of things like Cosmopolitan, UM. And she also you know,
33:34
Speaker 1: was starting to do film. She signed a contract with
33:40
Speaker 1: Eclaire Studios, which I had never heard of, Claire Studios
33:44
Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven. Um, there's a reason we haven't really
33:48
Speaker 1: heard much about a Claire Studios. The whole studio burned
33:51
Speaker 1: to the ground and almost all of their prints were
33:55
Speaker 1: lost in the five It feels like how so many
33:58
Speaker 1: businesses ended in the past. It's just all of it
34:01
Speaker 1: burned down, all of it. It's just gone. So on
34:05
Speaker 1: March seventeenth of nineteen twelve, after she had already you know,
34:10
Speaker 1: started kind of really getting into the pictures, UM, Dorothy
34:14
Speaker 1: and her mom went to Europe on vacation, but she
34:17
Speaker 1: was called back to Hollywood UM to start working on
34:20
Speaker 1: a new series of film, like you know, very similar
34:23
Speaker 1: to what's up with the Wizard of Oz. It was
34:24
Speaker 1: kind of a churn and burn kind of machine back then.
34:27
Speaker 1: And this was in the days like before feature films
34:30
Speaker 1: were the thing. It was more about making these they
34:32
Speaker 1: call them one reel film, so they would be what
34:34
Speaker 1: we would think of as like shorts, but a program
34:36
Speaker 1: wouldn't be a feature film. It would be like a
34:38
Speaker 1: series of these shorts are like you know, early animations
34:42
Speaker 1: and like newsreels and all of that, and then of
34:44
Speaker 1: course like these kind of silent dramatizations. Um. So she
34:47
Speaker 1: had to come back, so they decided to book two
34:50
Speaker 1: tickets she and her mother on the maiden voyage of
34:52
Speaker 1: the RMS Titanic. Excuse me, I think I mistakenly referred
34:55
Speaker 1: to as the HMS Titanic. Sorry, my nautical knowledge is
34:59
Speaker 1: not early as good as y'alls. Um. And they boarded,
35:02
Speaker 1: they were in Paris. They boarded at Sherbourg on the
35:05
Speaker 1: tenth of April, and of course we know what happened.
35:10
Speaker 1: What happened there She was playing bridge, apparently with some
35:15
Speaker 1: very friendly New York bankers, was how she described it,
35:19
Speaker 1: um to the New York Dramatic Mirror, which I love.
35:23
Speaker 1: It's it's not like the Daily Mirror. It's the dramatic Mirror.
35:26
Speaker 1: Imbued all their writing with a sense of gravitas. That
35:29
Speaker 1: was sort of their Thingum so the newspaper invented by
35:33
Speaker 1: like theater kids. Yeah, I think you know. Uh so
35:39
Speaker 1: the Mirror, this is the dramatic Mirror. Okay, we we
35:43
Speaker 1: only run melodramatic stories. The advertisements all have to be
35:48
Speaker 1: full of turgent pros. Yeah, like exactly so, No, this
35:52
Speaker 1: is this is something that you would introduced me to
35:56
Speaker 1: off air. And what's what's fascinating is that it the
36:01
Speaker 1: her life. Gibson's life was going pretty well up to this,
36:07
Speaker 1: up to this post. And uh I have to ask,
36:11
Speaker 1: do any of us know how to play bridge? I
36:13
Speaker 1: just want to get us only you have to be
36:16
Speaker 1: an old lady to play bridge. Naturally, my whole family
36:21
Speaker 1: except for me, knows how to play bridge, and it
36:23
Speaker 1: is upsetting. At every holiday they're like, should we all
36:26
Speaker 1: play bridge? And I say, I can't know. I don't
36:29
Speaker 1: want that. Why you like Trump's Trump's is a thing
36:34
Speaker 1: in bridge right coming up? Trump's is good. I know
36:40
Speaker 1: you can gamble at bridge. At the fact, I think
36:44
Speaker 1: you know. In a recent season of um the Fargo
36:48
Speaker 1: television series, which is great. Um, you and McGregor his
36:52
Speaker 1: character and his love interest in the in the show, Um,
36:55
Speaker 1: who is played by don you remember her name? She
36:57
Speaker 1: was also in Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. Totally blanking
37:00
Speaker 1: on on the actor's name. But they are professional bridge players. Um.
37:03
Speaker 1: That was the first I've heard of there being a
37:05
Speaker 1: professional bridge circuit. But back in these days it was
37:07
Speaker 1: definitely a very very popular game, kind of had a
37:10
Speaker 1: bit of a high society vibe to it. You know,
37:11
Speaker 1: you only played it with like bankers essentially. Um. But
37:15
Speaker 1: you know, in the midst of this bridge game, she
37:17
Speaker 1: heard what she described as a long drawn, sickening crunch
37:25
Speaker 1: not not not good. Uh, and she she she was alarmed. UM. Actually,
37:30
Speaker 1: I just want to credit the article that I'm pulling from.
37:32
Speaker 1: There is a really good blog post on the History
37:35
Speaker 1: Press called Dorothy Gibson, the Woman who Survived the Sinking
37:38
Speaker 1: of the Titanic and the Nazi Prison. We're not gonna
37:41
Speaker 1: get to the Nazi prison partly. That's sort of like
37:43
Speaker 1: its own part part of the story. But uh, definitely
37:46
Speaker 1: check that out on on the history press dot com.
37:49
Speaker 1: It's really great history blog so she hears the sickening crunch,
37:52
Speaker 1: the lawn drawn out stickening crunch, and she decides to
37:55
Speaker 1: go investigate and notices that the deck is now lopsided.
37:59
Speaker 1: They were. That means it's not a good thing to observed,
38:03
Speaker 1: you know, when you're out to see uh. So she
38:05
Speaker 1: rushes back to her and her mother's quarters and gets
38:08
Speaker 1: her mom Um. They go back out to the deck
38:11
Speaker 1: where they are very lucky to be on one of
38:14
Speaker 1: the very first lifeboats that were launched. And as we know,
38:18
Speaker 1: you know from the James gammeron film, they were largely
38:21
Speaker 1: reserved for people like her and these bankers she was
38:23
Speaker 1: playing bridge with, you know, the high society folks kind
38:26
Speaker 1: of got um. The early um uh lifeboat positions so
38:31
Speaker 1: kind of problematic and weird. I have to say good
38:35
Speaker 1: on her for hearing a sound and doing something about it, because,
38:38
Speaker 1: as someone who lives alone, when there is a weird
38:41
Speaker 1: noise or like anything that sort of seems like maybe
38:43
Speaker 1: it's an earthquake. Because I live in Los Angeles, all
38:46
Speaker 1: I do is sit where I already was and say, well,
38:48
Speaker 1: I hope everything's fine, right. If anything goes wrong, surely
38:52
Speaker 1: someone will alert me. I would absolutely have died on
38:55
Speaker 1: the Titanic. I also have a question. It would be
39:00
Speaker 1: statistically it's it's a tall milkshake. But Dr Mario, I
39:05
Speaker 1: don't know finished it out. No. I I assumed though,
39:10
Speaker 1: that one of the primary reasons Dorothy Gibson was able
39:14
Speaker 1: to escape at all was because she was in first class.
39:17
Speaker 1: Is that correct? That's what I mean? Yeah, exactly, it was.
39:20
Speaker 1: Those early lifeboats were reserved for you know, Billy Zane
39:24
Speaker 1: in his you know so um. But they did get
39:28
Speaker 1: on it. It was lifeboat number seven. They didn't realize though,
39:31
Speaker 1: until they were out to see, you know, in those
39:33
Speaker 1: icy waters that there was a hole there. There there
39:36
Speaker 1: had been a hole that was I don't know if
39:38
Speaker 1: it was as a result of the crash. It may
39:40
Speaker 1: have just been a faulty lifeboat. But a hole in
39:42
Speaker 1: the bottom of the lifeboat caused water to you know,
39:45
Speaker 1: this ice cold water to start rushing in and flooding
39:47
Speaker 1: the boat. But um, Dorothy explained in that same article
39:50
Speaker 1: for the New York Traumatic Mirror. Yeah, they this is
39:53
Speaker 1: her quote. This was remedied by volunteer contributions from the
39:57
Speaker 1: lingerie of the women and the garments men and everyone
40:01
Speaker 1: laughed at my spanks. My uh served a very very
40:07
Speaker 1: important purpose. So they did. They did survive. Um, they
40:10
Speaker 1: were able to to get to safety thanks to uh.
40:14
Speaker 1: You know, these these neglijays and I'm assuming like vests
40:17
Speaker 1: or something like that. The you know, the that's you know,
40:19
Speaker 1: the the the accessories, you know, things that you could
40:21
Speaker 1: kind of part with. UM. So the studio head hearing
40:27
Speaker 1: the news along with the rest of the world that
40:29
Speaker 1: the Titanic had sunk and knowing that Dorothy you know,
40:32
Speaker 1: had been on it. He does with studio heads and
40:35
Speaker 1: executive producers and the like. Often do you think about
40:39
Speaker 1: how they how can I exploit this? You know, how
40:41
Speaker 1: can I exploit this and make some money? You have
40:43
Speaker 1: to be the first to the table. Anytimes something big
40:46
Speaker 1: happens in the news. You can just almost hear the
40:49
Speaker 1: sound of Hollywood executives like you know, light bulbs coming
40:53
Speaker 1: on and like greedy, you know, kind of Mr. Burns type,
40:56
Speaker 1: fingers rubbing together, like how can I make how can
40:59
Speaker 1: I can vert this tragedy into grosses. I think it
41:04
Speaker 1: might be something to where it's like, you don't it's
41:07
Speaker 1: a matter of respect. And the real tragedy here is
41:10
Speaker 1: is if we don't get anything good out of this.
41:14
Speaker 1: This is for the people, This is for this is
41:17
Speaker 1: for Gibson, This is for the bottom line anyway past
41:21
Speaker 1: the cigars around. Well, that's a good point. Well, you know,
41:24
Speaker 1: it's obviously we know what the real motivations are, and
41:26
Speaker 1: then we also know how someone in that position would
41:30
Speaker 1: communicate that to the person involved and trying to make
41:33
Speaker 1: it more noble than it actually is. Like, oh no,
41:36
Speaker 1: there's an opportunity to honor the memory of those brave
41:39
Speaker 1: men women, you know, who lost their lives with the Titanic.
41:42
Speaker 1: This is an opportunity for you to tell your story, Dorothy.
41:45
Speaker 1: And this guy's got the most evil Hollywood movie tycoon
41:49
Speaker 1: kind of name to his name is Jules Brulettore. Jules Brulettour.
41:58
Speaker 1: He's the beauty of him. He he's the reason. Yeah,
42:00
Speaker 1: he's total, total dickensiean villain type guy. And here's the
42:04
Speaker 1: the irony. Maybe it's iron I always forget a lot
42:06
Speaker 1: of some more set kind of confused me about what
42:09
Speaker 1: means um, but he is the reason that she left
42:12
Speaker 1: Europe in the first place. So he's the reason she
42:15
Speaker 1: was on the Titanic in the first, m Jules b Yeah, exactly,
42:22
Speaker 1: a real monster. So she gets back and he immediately
42:25
Speaker 1: it's already the gears are are turning, like I said,
42:28
Speaker 1: the wheels are in motion to make a dramatization of
42:32
Speaker 1: the sinking of the Titanic, and he wants Dorothy to
42:35
Speaker 1: be a part of it. He thinks she is uniquely
42:37
Speaker 1: positioned to tell this story, to tell her story, right, Um.
42:41
Speaker 1: So he ropes her in um under the guys of
42:45
Speaker 1: kind of being a producer of the thing, and also
42:47
Speaker 1: he wants her to star in it. And he's able
42:49
Speaker 1: to make the case in pure you know, uh Dickensian
42:53
Speaker 1: villain kind of fashion um to to to be okay
42:57
Speaker 1: with this and to be on board. Um. So they
42:59
Speaker 1: start production I believe literally a week a week after
43:05
Speaker 1: she gets back, and they combined like stock footage, like newsreel,
43:10
Speaker 1: not stock footage news real footage rather of the the
43:12
Speaker 1: icebergs and all of that stuff. Um, And they film
43:16
Speaker 1: some stuff you know, on a set and against just
43:18
Speaker 1: a one reel film. It was finalized in nineteen fifteen.
43:23
Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, according to this blog post
43:26
Speaker 1: um and other sources in order, this is this is
43:28
Speaker 1: their take on it in order to preserve his reputation.
43:32
Speaker 1: Us or married Dorothy No snidely whiplash kind of guy.
43:39
Speaker 1: That's right. They had been having an affair. He was
43:42
Speaker 1: twisting the screws in so many ways, right, I mean
43:46
Speaker 1: emotionally twisting the screws, like acting as though he had
43:49
Speaker 1: her best interest at heart. He's now her husband. I mean,
43:53
Speaker 1: this guy is a real piece of work. The number
43:56
Speaker 1: of times I've been like, we do historical context on
43:58
Speaker 1: our podcast. In the number of times I've been reading
44:00
Speaker 1: about some producer director who gave a woman a hard
44:03
Speaker 1: time and then the article is like, and then he
44:05
Speaker 1: married her. Bananas, so it's all fine. Yeah, this guy
44:10
Speaker 1: is also nineteen years older than her. Find what works
44:17
Speaker 1: for you. But it feels like a messed up dynamic
44:19
Speaker 1: the whole thing. I mean, it's it's a it's a
44:21
Speaker 1: power dynamic, right. I mean, she's like, you know, super
44:23
Speaker 1: young and hungry and to your point, you know, in
44:25
Speaker 1: the Wizard of Us segments very very beholden to the studio.
44:28
Speaker 1: You have a contract. You're kind of like their property.
44:31
Speaker 1: Not to mention being a woman. You don't want to
44:33
Speaker 1: rock the boat. Oh no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I
44:37
Speaker 1: just the pun was intended. After the fact, is that
44:39
Speaker 1: a people, a lot of people died. So the film
44:44
Speaker 1: comes out it's a big hit. Actually, it's a big hit.
44:48
Speaker 1: It received mixed reviews. Let's say um. The Moving Picture
44:53
Speaker 1: World issue on May eleventh, nineteen twelve described her performance
44:58
Speaker 1: gives us performance as a unique piece of acting in
45:00
Speaker 1: the sensational new film play of h. Claire Company, creating
45:04
Speaker 1: a great activity in the market for the universal interest
45:07
Speaker 1: in the catastrophe has made a national demand, and the
45:10
Speaker 1: review goes on. Ms Gibson had hardly recovered from her
45:13
Speaker 1: terrible strain in the wreck when she was called upon
45:15
Speaker 1: to take part in this new piece, which she constructed
45:18
Speaker 1: as well constructed, I guess she refers to her creative
45:21
Speaker 1: hand and kind of shaping the thing. Um, it was
45:24
Speaker 1: a nerve racking task, but like actresses before the footlights,
45:27
Speaker 1: this beautiful young cinematic star valiantly conquered her own feelings
45:31
Speaker 1: and went through the work. Bravo, Dorothy, Bravo. Um, a
45:35
Speaker 1: surprising and artistically perfect real has resulted. And then we've
45:39
Speaker 1: got the New York dramatic mirror again. Um. Really like
45:44
Speaker 1: skewering the whole thing seems super drama. The bare idea
45:50
Speaker 1: of undertaking to reproduce in a studio, no matter how
45:54
Speaker 1: well equipped or by re enacted scenes see scenes. An
45:58
Speaker 1: event of the appalling actor of the Titanic disaster with
46:01
Speaker 1: its victims is revolting, especially at this time when the
46:05
Speaker 1: horrors of this event are so fresh in mind. And
46:08
Speaker 1: that's a young woman who came so lately with her
46:10
Speaker 1: good mother. Her good mother safely through the distressing scenes,
46:14
Speaker 1: can now bring herself to commercialize her good fortune by
46:18
Speaker 1: the grace of God, is past understanding. Shame on you?
46:25
Speaker 1: Five stars? Yeah yeah, follow it up with yeah B minus. Uh.
46:33
Speaker 1: So I heard and noill correct me on this. Uh,
46:37
Speaker 1: because you've been reading were reading more about this. I
46:40
Speaker 1: heard that the film she was actually in ended up
46:45
Speaker 1: like you can't see a copy of it today. Right?
46:48
Speaker 1: Does the whole thing still exists? I'll remember I talked
46:51
Speaker 1: about earlier. The reason we haven't really heard much about
46:54
Speaker 1: the Claire Film Studio is because there was a fire.
46:58
Speaker 1: It is considered a lost film. Only a handful of
47:02
Speaker 1: black and white production stills. Uh still exists to this day. Um,
47:07
Speaker 1: because you know all of the original prints were lost.
47:09
Speaker 1: So this is considered a lost film. Um, And honestly
47:13
Speaker 1: that's really yeah. But it was the ghost of the
47:15
Speaker 1: Titanic getting its revenge. I mean it was. It's you know,
47:20
Speaker 1: how long did it take for them to make a
47:21
Speaker 1: nine eleven movie? I mean it was it was many,
47:23
Speaker 1: many years, you know. I mean, I think as as
47:27
Speaker 1: as rough and kind of manipulative and gross as Hollywood
47:31
Speaker 1: can be, no one's making that movie a week later.
47:34
Speaker 1: You know, it's not happening. Um. So there was a
47:37
Speaker 1: whole another layer of grossness and opportunism that existed in
47:41
Speaker 1: Hollywood back in these days. And you know, as as
47:44
Speaker 1: you could probably gather, uh from that that scathing review,
47:48
Speaker 1: it was a very difficult thing for Dorothy to do.
47:52
Speaker 1: That she was described by you know, people who were
47:54
Speaker 1: around as look having the look of someone who had
47:57
Speaker 1: had a nerve shattering event take place. Um, and that
48:01
Speaker 1: she would burst into tears periodically. You know. So again,
48:05
Speaker 1: when you think about the you know, influence that this
48:08
Speaker 1: gross film producer is kind of wielding over her, she
48:11
Speaker 1: obviously did this absolutely under duress. Um. Thinking about all
48:15
Speaker 1: of those factors that we talked about in Wizard of
48:16
Speaker 1: Oz that, well, I better do it or else I
48:19
Speaker 1: might not have a job. Um. And it turns out
48:23
Speaker 1: she it was so distressed by the whole thing. You
48:26
Speaker 1: can't necessarily blame this entirely on the film. I mean,
48:29
Speaker 1: it could have been a lot of factors. But she
48:31
Speaker 1: stopped acting after this. Um. This was this was the
48:34
Speaker 1: last thing that she acted in, I believe, um. And
48:37
Speaker 1: it was, you know, largely because she was described as
48:40
Speaker 1: kind of having a nervous breakdown and the sort of
48:43
Speaker 1: a loaded term. But she was not well and this
48:47
Speaker 1: probably exacerbated it. I mean, I'm sure you know PTSD.
48:50
Speaker 1: I don't think it was a thing at the time,
48:51
Speaker 1: but you know, that's definitely what she had and this
48:54
Speaker 1: could not have been good for that. On on a
48:58
Speaker 1: positive note, though, if you do want to see her
49:01
Speaker 1: on the silver screen, I believe there is one film
49:05
Speaker 1: that's still there's one extant film that stars Dorothy Gibson.
49:09
Speaker 1: It's called A Lucky Hold Up. It's very different from
49:13
Speaker 1: The Titanic. From what I understand. It is an adventure comedy.
49:16
Speaker 1: So there's that trying to look for some positivity, you know,
49:20
Speaker 1: that's fun. Yeah, A lucky what's it called again, A
49:24
Speaker 1: lucky Oh wait, trans Atlantic alock, you hold up a
49:28
Speaker 1: lucky That sounds so okay, well let's check that out
49:31
Speaker 1: to soften the blow of this pretty tragic story, but
49:34
Speaker 1: super interesting and very much in line with what we
49:36
Speaker 1: talked about, you know, with the production of Wizard of Oz,
49:39
Speaker 1: or at least more like the politics behind the way
49:41
Speaker 1: actors were treated. Um and this is this really laid
49:45
Speaker 1: the groundwork, you know, for for what happened in The
49:47
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz in terms of like actors just being
49:48
Speaker 1: kind of pawns for the money making schemes of these um,
49:53
Speaker 1: these awful film producers and directors. So that's that's that story.
49:58
Speaker 1: I feel like actors on contracts with these old studios
50:03
Speaker 1: felt the same way that I did when I had
50:05
Speaker 1: to buy a mattress for the first time as an adult,
50:08
Speaker 1: which is like they told me the price and I
50:10
Speaker 1: was like, I guess, I guess I have to do
50:14
Speaker 1: this now, where they had to stick with the film
50:16
Speaker 1: and I had to give someone seven hundred dollars for
50:19
Speaker 1: a mattress. Hey, stick was a podcast game and they'll
50:22
Speaker 1: send you They'll send you a Casper or purple. I
50:28
Speaker 1: mainly started a podcast to get a mattress that's that's
50:31
Speaker 1: literally why people white people do it these days. That's
50:34
Speaker 1: how I red glasgot started. Yeah, one one uh one
50:39
Speaker 1: note I wanted to add, I thought no, this would
50:42
Speaker 1: interest you. It's very tangentially related. But we all know
50:45
Speaker 1: the later Titanic film James Cameron like the biggest plot
50:50
Speaker 1: hole there spoiler alert is that there's clearly enough route
50:54
Speaker 1: on on the debris for everyone's take on this, everyone's
50:58
Speaker 1: take on this, because I've heard people make the argument
51:01
Speaker 1: that you know, yeah, there was enough room physically, but
51:04
Speaker 1: maybe you know, Leonardo DiCaprio's slight frame may have been
51:07
Speaker 1: just the thing that like, you know, tipped it over
51:09
Speaker 1: the edge into speaking territory. What do you what do
51:12
Speaker 1: you guys think? Is this an unfair criticism or do
51:15
Speaker 1: you think that that rose was kind of hogging the door? Leona?
51:20
Speaker 1: Have you seen the Titanic or thank you, yes, the
51:23
Speaker 1: boat itself? Sure, I have. You know, I might look
51:28
Speaker 1: like it if you do my hair right, I do
51:30
Speaker 1: look like I'm from the year nineteen twelve. But I
51:33
Speaker 1: think it is. Yeah, it's very true. Um my stance
51:37
Speaker 1: is a poor choice of a of a prop item,
51:41
Speaker 1: but the social commentary itself is apt of. You know,
51:44
Speaker 1: the woman who's in first class, comes from money, was
51:47
Speaker 1: guaranteed to have a good life, would be the one
51:49
Speaker 1: who survives. And the guy who got on because he
51:51
Speaker 1: was I don't know, maybe playing bridge and one tickets
51:54
Speaker 1: in a bridge duel. Maybe maybe a dice game me.
52:00
Speaker 1: You know, but that's that's my tape. Okay, what about you, Sieta, Well,
52:07
Speaker 1: I have not seen the film, but I have seen
52:09
Speaker 1: many a meme about that particular part, so I know
52:12
Speaker 1: about that, and based on those memes I saw, I mean,
52:15
Speaker 1: they made some good arguments. It seems like there was
52:16
Speaker 1: a lot of space. I could see a lot of
52:19
Speaker 1: positions he could have taken to fit onto that great
52:25
Speaker 1: not the largest guy. Yeah, that's fine, that's like Tom
52:28
Speaker 1: Cruise style this. I'm bringing this up though, because I
52:31
Speaker 1: wanted to see if you guys have heard of this.
52:34
Speaker 1: I heard a rubor about the New Titanic that I
52:37
Speaker 1: finally confirmed. Uh, almost all the cast and crew, or
52:42
Speaker 1: a sizeable amount thereof, actually got incredibly sick when filming
52:47
Speaker 1: this because somebody laced the seafood chowder with PCP, which
52:53
Speaker 1: I did not. I'm so true that everybody's nodding like, oh, yeah,
52:57
Speaker 1: that was a big I have to I heard it
53:00
Speaker 1: was l s D, but not quite maybe maybe I'm
53:03
Speaker 1: maybe I'm mistaken. It was definitely a three lettered uh
53:06
Speaker 1: psychotropic substance, and it was all um as a kind
53:10
Speaker 1: of you know, middle finger to James Cameron, which sort
53:13
Speaker 1: of his confused He's you know, he's a notoriously difficult
53:16
Speaker 1: man to work for and and and you know, puts
53:18
Speaker 1: people in really uncomfortable situations. I mean not Comizard of
53:22
Speaker 1: Oz level. Yeah, he's apparently an awful guy and wants
53:25
Speaker 1: what he wants and does whatever it takes to get
53:27
Speaker 1: the shot. Yeah, Hollywood into I mean, again, no one's
53:29
Speaker 1: inhaling toxic dust or anything, but they definitely are hanging
53:32
Speaker 1: out in ice cold water for for long periods of time.
53:35
Speaker 1: But it does seem a little off to me that
53:37
Speaker 1: they would like dose the crafty, you know, with with
53:40
Speaker 1: with drugs instead of just you know, James Cameron's personal
53:44
Speaker 1: lobster play. Maybe like a misplaced act, is all I'm saying,
53:50
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, Also, wasn't it the present day cast?
53:52
Speaker 1: Like wasn't it the woman who was like a hundred
53:54
Speaker 1: and four during the filming. Yes, yeah, it was a
53:58
Speaker 1: d people got hit with the PCP uh, one of
54:02
Speaker 1: them being Bill Paxton and James Cameron. Uh that that's correct,
54:06
Speaker 1: So didn't actually get Winslit or DiCaprio. But I can
54:11
Speaker 1: see how someone would react adversely to Cameron's exacting style.
54:15
Speaker 1: I had heard that his he was mainly doing the
54:19
Speaker 1: Titanic so that he could get the funding to do
54:22
Speaker 1: deep sea submersible exploration. Like I'm not I was joking
54:26
Speaker 1: about the Pink Floyd stuff at the beginning of the show,
54:28
Speaker 1: but I seriously heard that James Cameron had Titanic is
54:34
Speaker 1: sort of an excuse to have his Jacques Cousto moment. Yeah.
54:38
Speaker 1: We we did an episode recently on this super interesting
54:41
Speaker 1: Danish guy who was an Arctic explorer and made like
54:45
Speaker 1: a tool out of his own frozen feces to dig
54:48
Speaker 1: himself out of like an avalanche collapse. Um, and he
54:52
Speaker 1: founded what's the guy's name, Ben? Do you remember? Sorry, Peter,
54:55
Speaker 1: that job was his last name? Fan, Yeah, so Peters,
55:02
Speaker 1: indeed it was. It was. It was just so he
55:05
Speaker 1: fashioned himself a a cudgel if you will, or some
55:08
Speaker 1: sort of chisel kind of out of his frozen and
55:11
Speaker 1: then he du himself out and then he went on
55:13
Speaker 1: to found, uh, the the Adventurers Club or the Explorers Club,
55:16
Speaker 1: I forget which one it is, um, And James Cameron
55:19
Speaker 1: is a member of that club, so full start call there. Also,
55:22
Speaker 1: we handled that whole entire poop chisel thing very maturely,
55:26
Speaker 1: like thank you not we're podcast adults, like I said
55:36
Speaker 1: at the top of the show. Um, but I think
55:38
Speaker 1: that's that. Let let's let's let's up put a pin
55:40
Speaker 1: in this story. I obviously much more to discuss, um
55:43
Speaker 1: as far as Dorothy is concerned. Um, not the Wizard
55:46
Speaker 1: of Us Dorothy, this is Dorothy Gibson. Are our heroine
55:48
Speaker 1: in today's story. UM. Sad that she, you know, was
55:51
Speaker 1: taking advantage of in this way. And obviously we promising
55:55
Speaker 1: career in Hollywood kind of came to an end because
55:57
Speaker 1: of the way she was treated, but kind of for
56:00
Speaker 1: the course in these old Hollywood stories. So and hey,
56:03
Speaker 1: we promised a an intentional two partter, didn't we been?
56:06
Speaker 1: So I guess this is where we leave you today.
56:09
Speaker 1: We did, we did, and shout out of course to
56:13
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz and to all the blood, sweat, tears
56:17
Speaker 1: and burns those people went through to make such an
56:20
Speaker 1: amazing field, Leanna, Sienna, it has been a pleasure. We're
56:24
Speaker 1: so glad that you're with us for this two part
56:27
Speaker 1: sneak peek for part two, we're gonna learn about some
56:31
Speaker 1: We're gonna learn about one of the most iconic actors
56:33
Speaker 1: in American history and one of the weirdest, and their
56:37
Speaker 1: lives intersect and interesting ways. But before we get to
56:40
Speaker 1: that episode, why not give toss Popcorn a listen? Sienna, Leona,
56:46
Speaker 1: Where can people find the show and learn more about
56:49
Speaker 1: your work? You can find us wherever find podcasts are
56:51
Speaker 1: downloaded on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the I Heart podcast app,
56:58
Speaker 1: and anywhere else that you want to listen to podcas us.
57:00
Speaker 1: We're everywhere. We're also all over social media at Tossed Popcorn.
57:04
Speaker 1: We got Instagram, Twitter, TikTok clash if you can believe
57:11
Speaker 1: ahead of the social media curve. UM oh ma, well,
57:14
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for joining us. You can
57:15
Speaker 1: also find Ridiculous History on the internet. UM. We have
57:19
Speaker 1: a group called the Ridiculous Historians on Facebook that you
57:21
Speaker 1: can join and um share memes hopefully with Rose and
57:25
Speaker 1: Jack not sharing that door and whatever other historical tidbits
57:29
Speaker 1: you guys want to discuss. Check that out on Facebook.
57:31
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Instagram at Ridiculous History.
57:34
Speaker 1: You can find us as individual human people on Instagram
57:37
Speaker 1: or other social media platforms. I am exclusively on Instagram
57:40
Speaker 1: at how Now Noel Brown? How about You've done? The
57:42
Speaker 1: rumors are true? You can get a look at the
57:45
Speaker 1: misadventures some of the behind the scenes research I'm doing
57:48
Speaker 1: for this show and for many other shows, including stuff
57:51
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, by heading over to
57:53
Speaker 1: Instagram where I'm at ben Bowland bow l I n uh.
57:56
Speaker 1: You can also check out some spoilers for upcoming episodes
58:00
Speaker 1: at Ben Bolan hs W. And the reason I can
58:03
Speaker 1: say spoilers is because I did a poll and it
58:05
Speaker 1: was it was close, but it was like, people are
58:08
Speaker 1: okay with spoilers. We want to yeah, we want to
58:11
Speaker 1: thank We want to thank you guys so much for
58:14
Speaker 1: hanging out with us and staying for the conclusion of
58:18
Speaker 1: this two part series. Thanks as always to the one
58:22
Speaker 1: and only Mr Max Williams. Thanks to Casey Pegram, Thanks
58:25
Speaker 1: to Alex Williams who composed this slap in Bob and Oh.
58:29
Speaker 1: Also Noel, we made that executive decision not to have
58:34
Speaker 1: the quiz to appear at the end today, right, God, Okay, God,
58:38
Speaker 1: Now we didn't want, we don't want to subject these
58:40
Speaker 1: fine people to him. Now, well, well we'll keep him
58:43
Speaker 1: at bay for just a little bit longer. We'll see
58:45
Speaker 1: you next time, folks. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
58:55
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
58:58
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.