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Required Viewing 07: The Maltese Falcon · The Kulturecast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: We're in Wayne Media.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: We're in Wayne.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Required Viewing, a sub-feed podcast
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: on the CultureCast feed. I am your host, Chris Stash,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: of the CultureCast, and I'm joined by my two good
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: friends all the way from, well, one of them is
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: always here if it's a Required Viewing episode. He's the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: co-host of this show. He's a professor over at Texas Tech,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: your friend and mine, Dr. David D. Perlmutter. Howdy, Chris
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: and Mike. I noticed that if we had put a
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: different letter in the center, I would be having to
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: talk to the man who wrote 17 books as opposed
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: to you, the man who's been on The Daily Show.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: So the letter does matter, as you've pointed out. Also
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: joining us for the first time on this sub feed show,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: but Mike and I have worked together. countless times. I
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: should go in and have my AI assistant tell me
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: how many hours you and I have recorded together. It
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: would probably be a lot. He's the host of the
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Projection Booth, a movie podcast that if you're not listening
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: to it already, you should be. Mike White.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: On this episode of Required Viewing, we are going to
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: be talking about a film from 1941. that is so
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: important it's been put in the National Film Registry, which
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: means it's a good film. Whether or not we resonate
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: with it is almost unimportant at this point because it's
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: been deemed a film so important it deserves to be
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  Speaker 1: maintained in a registry of films in the Library of Congress,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: which does a very good job at preserving the films
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: that they've deemed important. But that film is 1941's The
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Maltese Falcon. So the film is directed by John Huston
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: on a screenplay by John Huston, and it is based
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: on The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. Its reputation precedes it, obviously,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: given who stars in the film. Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Peter Lorre, Gladys George, Barton MacLean, Lee Patrick, and Sidney Greenstreet.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: It does adapt the book of the same name, which
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: is about... Detective Sam Spade, who takes a case from
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: a mysterious woman, loses his partner to a gunman the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: same night, and is pulled into a deadly competition among
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: three criminals hunting a jewel-encrusted MacGuffin. I mean, statuette. I
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: am going to kick it to you, Mike, first, because
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: this was an invitation out of the blue, as I
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: like to do. But I knew that an opportunity to
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: talk about a film like this one would not be
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: passed up by such a film scholar as yourself. So
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about your thoughts on the
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Maltese Falcon.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Oh, gosh, I love the Maltese Falcon. I saw it
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: the first time when I was in college. I went
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: to one of the film society screenings that they had
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: on campus every weekend and saw this for the first time.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: A lot of it I was already familiar with just
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: because it was so much part of the culture. This
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: would have been early 90s. But by that time, Ren
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: and Stimpy was a real big thing. So when Peter
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: Lorre starts slapping Sidney Greenstreet or yelling at Sidney Greenstreet
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: that he's a bloated idiot, I was just like, okay,
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: now I know where Ren got all this from. And again,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: I don't think that was the first time I saw
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: Peter Lorre, but it just resonated with me so much.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: I really love him. I love Greenstreet. I love Elijah
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: Cook Jr. Just all of these performances and I was
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: just so thrilled when you invited me to be on
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: here because I just needed another excuse to see this movie.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: And I watched it over the weekend. I had some friends.
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: We were all together and I was just like, OK,
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: we're going to watch Maltese Falcon. I know that they
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: hadn't seen it. And it was great hearing the laughs,
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: the feeling, the tension, because this movie really, you know,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: it's a great detective story, but it's also very, very funny.
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  Speaker 3: And it is so well done, so well shot. There
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: are a couple moments of the film that are little mistakes.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: And I would almost like to write a paper or
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: something to talk about those mistakes in the film. There's
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: a couple of rough edits and there's one ADR later
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: on in the film that drives me nuts. But otherwise,
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  Speaker 3: I think this is as close to a perfect detective
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  Speaker 3: story as you could possibly get.
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  Speaker 1: Professor, same question to you.
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  Speaker 2: Well, Chris, we've talked sometimes about how the reputation of
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: a film or a television show or a painting or
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: a video game, whatever, a novel, can get in the
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: way of appreciating it. And I remember encountering this film
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: in high school where our teacher was in English class,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: but he really loved to show us movies that were
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: adaptations of novels and then obviously have us read the novel.
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: So we were reading the novel and he showed us
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: the movie. And I felt at the time with my very,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: very early sense of how you approach a class and
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: introduce something, he was saying, you are about to see
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: The greatest detective movie ever made. You're going to see
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  Speaker 2: the greatest film noir ever made. You're going to see
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: one of the amazing classics of the cinema. Now, you
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: might imagine I was going to an all boys school,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: by the way. So you might imagine like 12 year
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: old boys. Our instinct was to hate it whenever it's
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: sold that heavily. They're like, you're going to love this. Hey, kids,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: this is going to be amazing. You're going to have
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: the greatest experience of your life against all odds and
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: against our. 12 year old boy instincts. We love this movie.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, we, we, we appreciate it. We, we saw
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: it like, yeah, it was black and white, but in
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: the seventies, we were only like maybe a decade away
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: from television being all black and white. You know, is
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: this the twilight zone in the early sixties? There people,
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: people I knew still had black and white TVs. Uh,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: most movies were color. So it wasn't as mad massive
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: a transition today for, uh, 12-year-old boys who grew up
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: on Minecraft watching this movie. So there's some issues there
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about. But I just remember 12-year-old me and
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: my 12-year-old friends going like, wow, what clever dialogue. I mean,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: I don't think we used that phrase exactly, but that
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: was snappy. And we repeated, including the phrase that you
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: just used. Now, remember, Now, in other words, let me
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: go even further, talk about cinematic influence. This film caused
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: violence on the playground. For at least a month afterwards,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: several of us would slap each other out of nowhere.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: And we were friends, right? This wasn't in 1977. This
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: didn't count as bullying, 78. We'd slap each other and go,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: you'll take it and you'll... So that's the power of cinema.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: But my point was.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: That, yeah, this is a film.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: that I.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Think that multiple audiences, no matter what the cultural gap is,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: the generational gap, the actual modality gap of black and
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: white people, this entire movie is people having meetings in rooms, right?
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: There is no 25-minute car chase. Sam Spade never jumps
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: on top of a train. and fights Nazis. There's nothing
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  Speaker 2: that would be within the instinct to add into the
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: detective thriller on a bigger budget today. But it's always
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: entertaining because you've got this amazing dialogue, these characters that
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: are on the list of best character actors in the
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: history of television, movies, and beyond. Sidney Greenstreet, in his
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: film debut... And you're going, this is a 61-year-old man.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: He was so iconic. He was in so many movies,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Casablanca coming up, right, playing Sidney Greenstreet. He was one
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: of those character actors that he played himself. But, man,
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: we love to see himself. The film, the work there,
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: and John Huston has credited– Other people like this was
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: his debut as well. And he has said this was
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: not like some great auteur thing. Like I really was
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: heavily influenced by some great Arthur Edison. A.D. said A.D.
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  Speaker 2: son was a very great classical Hollywood cinematographer. And Alfred
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Adolf Deutsch did the score. So this was like a
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: really good team. It was like a lightning bolt struck.
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  Speaker 2: And you had just all of these. Faceted diamond elements,
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  Speaker 2: and it just came together into these royal jewels of filmmaking.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: That said, I have shown this film. I've filmed parts
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: of this film to students, and I've talked about it.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: I think that they do appreciate it in 2026. as much.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: I just wouldn't have the buildup of, like, you're about
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: to watch the greatest movie ever made.
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  Speaker 3: Can we say that this is a remake or another
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: adaptation that they had just done, Satan Met a Lady,
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: in 1936, which was based on the same book from 1929? Yeah.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: people would be losing their minds if it was, oh,
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: we put out this movie five years later, we're doing
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: another version of it. It's like, you know, the internet
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: would go crazy. Like, oh, what are they doing? It
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: was just five years ago that they did this.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: They're casting Ben Affleck as Batman. I mean, that's the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: modern day equivalent now, right?
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's a black Johnny Storm.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: You know, just outrage, fan outrage. Outrage. And there was
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: another one too, right? Like the Maltese Falcon came out
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: in 1931. So there was a, it was like, that
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: was a very odd. And there's a story about that,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: but we won't get to now, but I'm glad they
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: did it.
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  Speaker 1: Oh God.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: When people rail against remakes, I always have to say
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: the Maltese Falcon was remake, you know, like get, get
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  Speaker 3: over yourself. Like, yeah, there are a lot of bad
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: remakes out there, but there's some also very good ones.
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  Speaker 3: And this is like the example for me.
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  Speaker 1: Well, and I also think it speaks to, because, and
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: this is kind of, you know, the thing that I
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: was finding in my research about the film is John Huston, obviously, like,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: not every director who directs their first film does what
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: he did, where he's storyboarding every scene and shot-by-shot instructions
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: are in the script for the film. Like, that, you know,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I like to drag on Ridley Scott, because I think
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Ridley Scott is one of those directors who's kind of just.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Not past his usefulness, but it's like every time he
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: says something, it's seemingly there's a more than 50% chance
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: that he's going to put his foot in his mouth
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: at this point. And also the movies that he makes,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: it feels like a better than 75% chance that his
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: film's not even going to be good. And then he'll
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: disavow it after the fact and blame the actors, which
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: is just wild. But the thing I've always appreciated about
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Ridley Scott is when you hear him talk about what
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: he does, he storyboards everything, which is just mental. I mean,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: genuinely mental. Because Houston doing this for this film, that's
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: a big deal given that it's, you know, it's his
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: debut film. And, you know, we already mentioned that. But
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: the fact that he did that for his first film
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: is wild. Because again, and I think you've both already
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: mentioned this, the snappiness and kind of the quick pace
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: of the film and the back and forth of the film,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: it would not have worked without it being so methodically
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: planned out. Because this has to work together in a
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: way that is seamless in terms of the way the
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: cogs fit together and interplay. Because like you both have
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: already mentioned, It's a film that is remade two times now, right? Twice,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: we're saying this is the third remake. And the reason
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: this one works is seemingly because they left a lot
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: of the dialogue from Dashiell Hammett in the movie. The
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: other two aren't doing that, and that seems to be
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: a problem because– and I would go as far as
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: to say this, and this might seem hyperbolic– but when
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: you have something like this that has the snappy dialogue
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and the kind of specific dialogue of Dashiell Hammett– It's
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: like someone taking Shakespeare and trying to adapt a soliloquy
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: in Hamlet. It's like, what are you doing? It's perfect
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the way it's written. Don't try to do anything else,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: regardless of when you're setting it. I mean, I think
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: of that Ethan Hawke Hamlet film where he's even doing
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: that soliloquy as it's written in that movie. They're not
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: trying to update it for the most part. And it's like,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: you know what? Sometimes the way things are written is
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: the best way and you don't actually have to do much.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: And I think John Huston understood that and realized that,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: which is very important for a director because not all
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: directors are like that, especially a director who's writing and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: directing his first film.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: And the story used to be that Houston would tell
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: apocryphal because he loved apocryphal stories. But, oh, I just
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: took the book and had my secretary just transcribe it.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: And that's how we wrote the script, you know, like
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: basically reinterpret the paperback version of it into a screenplay.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Definitely not true. I mean, there are a lot of
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: missing parts to the Maltese Falcon. There's this great scene.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: section in there called the flintcraft story that i really
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: like a lot but i mean it is very faithful
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: to the book for the most part if not in
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: the exact words the spirit and yeah that dialogue the
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: dialogue is just amazing i mean yes so many quotable
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: lines i i was thinking about the one where uh
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Humphrey Bogart says, do you want me to learn how
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: to stutter? I mean, there's just so much just like, yeah,
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: like just throws him off. And you want to be
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Humphrey Bogart as you're watching this movie. You're just like,
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: this is the coolest guy I have ever seen. And
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: even when he loses his cool at one point, you
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: see him walk out of this room where he is
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: just like thrown a fit. And then you see the
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: smile on his face. You realize like, oh, he's just acting.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: And for me, and I don't want to jump too
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: far ahead, but for me, that's what this movie is
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: all about. You know, you've got these, let's call them
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: four main actors in this film. And really, I would
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: say that so much of it is about three actors.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: It's about Green Street, Laurie and Astor. And them giving
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: these performances to each other, but also to Sam Spade.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: There is a moment where literally Humphrey Bogart sits down
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: and you see him from behind. And he's watching, I think,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Green Street give this performance. I can't remember if it's
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Green Street or not. But basically, it might have even
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: been when all three of them were in his apartment. Basically,
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: he is the audience. And he's just watching these three
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: play things out, trying to figure out what's true, what's not.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: But he is so much our surrogate for us being there.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: And he even does this whole stage setting thing where
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: he goes around, he'll turn on all the lights in
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: the apartment. It's like he's getting the stage ready for
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: these three to come in and give this performance. And
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: then he's almost like the theater critic, just judging the performance.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: I mean, he does that quite a few times where like,
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: you know, Mary Astor will start to break down. He's
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: just like, you're good.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: Just like just telling her, like, I know what you're
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: up to. You can't fool me, but you are a
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: really good actress.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: The essay that. my middle school teacher assigned for us
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: to read is the same one that I assigned to read.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: And today, of course, a lot of people know that
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: the other one of the two twin towers of Los
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Angeles detective writing was Raymond Chandler and his character, Philip Marlowe.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: And Chandler wrote a famous essay called The Simple Art
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: of Murder, which is like the required reading if you're
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: trying to appreciate murder. Detective fiction from the very beginning,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: but certainly the film noir, the one set in the 30s, 40s, 50s,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: whether it's on screen or written. And he actually credits
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: as St. Dashiell Hammett is number one. He's much better
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: than me. He talks about Sam Spade, but he specifically
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: talks about dialogue. And it's funny because we are connecting
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: to the question of adaptation. I've mentioned before on this show, Mike,
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: I am not a Brandon Sanderson fan in the sense
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: that I've read a couple of his books and they
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: just weren't for me. But he seems like a pretty
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: thoughtful guy. He's created his own billion-dollar book company. And
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: he seems pretty intelligent about his own craft. And he
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: was giving an interview once where he was talking about
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: talking to a room full of writers in Hollywood who
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: were adapting another work. And they were saying, like, yeah,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: we want to we want to put our own imprint
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: on this. And he asked a very good question. He said.
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: You're adapting a work that sold 50 million copies. Maybe
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: you should look at that one first before you put
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: your own imprint. Maybe the dialogue from there is useful.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe the sequence of plot is useful. So I understand
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: because I've been watching it all this time. Adaptation is change.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: But I think what you're saying, both of you, is
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: this one lesson that required viewing we can take away
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: is that when the original has material that still works,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: that's beautiful, that's gem perfect. Don't suppress it just because
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: you want to put your name on it or necessarily
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: even adapt it for modernity, because some of these things
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: still work, especially if it's set in a certain time.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, OK, if we were to do somebody tomorrow, greenlit,
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Mel Gibson in the Maltese Falcon 2026. Yeah,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: they're going to have to change something, some things and dialogue,
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: some dialogue and some scenes. But this captured the moment
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: and there was no reason to change. Yes, I agree
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: that there was a reason There was a daughter of,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: I believe, Cindy Greenstreet's character that was dropped from from
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: the book. There's this list of things. But they were
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: they were really inconsequential to telling a fast paced plot
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: in a movie theater. Also a plot, as I mentioned earlier,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: a plot that doesn't really have that much action that
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: could have been a stage play with just a few
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: more changes of backdrop, but still just hurdles along because
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: of the acting and the dialogue, the setting, things like that.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: So I just– I think a takeaway is– Look at
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: the source material and make a real thoughtful decision about
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: whether you're going to lose or gain something by losing
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: or gaining something.
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thinking about it, there are so few exterior shots.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: This is very much like you're saying, a film about
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: people having conversations in rooms and who gets what information when,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: who knows what, when. But you get very few shots
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: like Sam's partner being shot or when he's Sam's voiding
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: his tail, when you've got Wilmer following. And it took
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: me a long time to realize that his name is
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Wilmer rather than Wilma, just because of the way that
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Sydney Green Street says his name. I think that's. Pretty intentional,
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: especially when Humphrey Bogart keeps calling him a Gunzel, which
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: was basically another name for a sissy, a homosexual, just
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: a way of calling out people. So I think that relationship, too,
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: between Wilmer and Sidney Greenstreet, as well as Maybe Green
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: Street and Laurie. I mean, Laurie is definitely coded to
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: be gay, especially with the whole smell of gardenias on
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: his card. That great little musical flourish when Sam Spade
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: smells the card and his eyebrows go up and you
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: have that little sting of the violins. So well done.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: And yeah, I'd like that. You know, it's there, but
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: it's not like it is so in our face. It's
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: more like, OK, if you notice this, you notice this.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: And that's the code of it all. I mean, that is.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: And what's so interesting about that, and I think that that's,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: you know, an interesting kind of moment to take in
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: this conversation is when restriction produces subtext, which I think
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: is kind of what has happened here, right? Because like
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, Mike, I, you know, I did not know
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: what that term meant. So I looked it up. And
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: after I looked it up, I was like, oh, okay.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I was picking up on it. Because again, Houston does
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: a good job at kind of saying without telling too much.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: But when you know that that's the case, it's like, okay,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: so the code didn't allow something like this to be
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: the case. We know this because we've talked about this before.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: You and I, Mike, was it a couple years ago?
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Was it last year, two years ago, three years ago?
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: When was that that we did all those pre-code films?
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was probably like three years ago.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: It was definitely after we did all those horribly depressing
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: movies that we were talking about during the pandemic. I
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: think we wanted to do- All.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: The European sci-fi films. Yeah, that was uplifting times for
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Mike White March. God, I remember that.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: I think the pre-code films we did were a lot lighter.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and that's the thing. I mean, you mentioned
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: it already, like this film is for all, and here's
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the thing I had never, you know, I've never said
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: on a podcast before, so I'll mention it here. I
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: had never seen this film before. You know, Richard Haddam
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: has turned this off somewhere and he's screaming out into
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the heavens. And it's, I, I, it's not that I
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: hadn't seen film noir and really I came to LA confidential.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I think I've only seen LA confidential in the last
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: five years, which ain't great either in terms of seeing
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: something like that. Cause that's another great film. I mean,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: some of the cast members kind of, you know, have,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: other issues now, but for the most part, that's kind
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: of an unimpeachable film. And this is one of those
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: unimpeachable films as well. I would, I would say like
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: the moment I put this on, like my girlfriend and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I were watching it and I was just like, oh, okay,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: this is the movie where all the other movies came from,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: from this genre. It's every single thing that's said, seen
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: that we have framed interaction between characters is the best
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: version of it in terms of Yes, this is this
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: maybe isn't, quote, the first. I mean, High Sierra and
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Stranger on the third floor, maybe. But this, I think,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: is more I don't know, like so much of this,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I think, has become for maybe some people, maybe not
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: so much anymore. And I think that this shows my
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: age as much as anyone on this podcast episodes age.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many people know who Humphrey Bogart
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: is now that are younger than me. because I know
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: why people who are my age to y'all's age know
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: who Humphrey Bogart is. And people my age know Humphrey
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Bogart and Peter Lorre and Orson Welles, because there's a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: cartoon that so many people my age saw that literally
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: use their voices for characters. I mean, Mike already mentioned it,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: but Orson Welles is just brain from pinky in the brain.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I'm literally that, that that's the voice that he's doing.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: And then Peter Lorre, there's a, Peter Lorre is in
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Animaniacs as well. And just as recently as Acme versus Coyote,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: there's a character called Dr. Lorre in that film who
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: looks like Peter Lorre, an animated version of him. And
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that's still a– when my girlfriend
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and I were watching that, I was like, who's going
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: to know who that is? I don't know, right?
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a whole book out there that I've started
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: reading that's all about animated versions of Peter Lorre, because
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: I love those old Warner Brothers cartoons. And of course,
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: he was parodied openly in those, as well as Like
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: you're saying, being the voice, you know, it's like the
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: Peter Lorre voice of the professor who's going, you know,
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: come here, Mr. Bunny Rabbit, like those kind of things.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes. It's like the mad scientist assistant thing. Yes, yes.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: That's what I think of when I think of Peter Lorre,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and I've never even seen a movie with him. This
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: is the first time I've seen him. Oh, wow.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: You are welcome to a much larger world, man. He
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: is fantastic. He's one of my favorites.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: We overuse, I think, since I've written two books with
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: this word in the title, maybe I overuse the word
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: icon and iconic. But that's when you know you've become iconic,
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: when you are referenced, but people may not know the reference,
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: but the original was so powerful that it resonates through,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: echoes through eternity, to quote Gladiator. And I've brought up
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: before a couple of times talking about this. There's a
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: great quote from Sir Terry Patchett, this fantasy novelist who
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: wrote this Discworld series, and he was talking about Tolkien
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: and saying Tolkien is what Fuji Mountain was to Japanese art,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: that it became so common to paint Fuji Mountain that
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: either you were painting Mount Fuji or you were not
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: painting Mount Fuji. Those were the choices, right? And I think, yeah,
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: so many of the beats, the plot elements, just the dialogue,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: the aspirational dialogue. Today, I could imagine some young film
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: student is going, OK, for my proof of concept YouTube
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: movie to get me a movie deal, I'm going to
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: do a short detective movie. But they're trying to have
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: snappy dialogue. They're trying to have distinctive characters that really
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: pop out. They may not know the original text, but
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: they're using motifs, tropes, just every single element because it's
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: seeped through our culture that you can't escape it. It's
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: always going to be there. I hope it will be
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: there 200 years from now. And that's that's probably the
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: greatest testament to the cultural impact. Besides, you know, violence
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: in my schoolyard to to a film, to any object
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: of art is that it's referred to even when the
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: people don't know that they're referring to it.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: Are you talking about Ryan Murphy's brick?
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: That's one.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Or Brian Murphy? I always screw up this guy's name.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: No, Ryan Johnson.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Ryan Johnson.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Katrina Longwell's husband, Mike. How could you forget?
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, okay. Longworth.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Longworth. Oh, I forgot. Sorry. In another sphere somewhere, she
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: is upset. Did you guys realize that Boo Berry is
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Peter Lorre?
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: That, that is Peter Lorre.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Cause it's funny. You know, we haven't seen a commercial
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: with him in years, but like when he was on commercials,
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: he definitely had that Lorre voice.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Well, he has the eyes too. I mean, he has
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: the Peter Lorre eyes and that's the, you know, that's
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the thing for me, obviously that I more so than
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: even the voice is just the look and his eyes.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: And he's so striking in this movie. And that's, You know,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: like I've already kind of let the cat out of
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: the bag a little bit with not having seen this before,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: as the professor leaves. No, it's one of these things
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: where I had never seen this before and I don't
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: know why. And I've also not seen a lot of
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: film noir films either. And I feel like if I
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: had worked backwards from... LA Confidential to something in the
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: 80s to something in the 60s, this would have been
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: something I would have watched. And the thing that I
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: feel even more kind of put out by is as
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: an adult, this is the first time I've seen a
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: film with Humphrey Bogart in it, which as someone who
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: has now seen it and seen a film with him
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: in it, I think it's okay to say like, as
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: someone who watches a lot of film, I haven't seen
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: some of the most important movies because it's also, by
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the way, I think it's also, and this is me
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: just kind of not like cancel, cancel, like the term,
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: but more like it's somewhat culturally insensitive to say that
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the only movies that matter are the ones that were
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: made in the West. And then it's like, well, you
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: haven't seen the Maltese Falcon, one of the most important
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: films of all time to English speakers.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: But I mean, it is obviously transcended boundaries, but at
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the same time, like, cause, and I know this because
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: of having been on Mike's show, the projection booth so
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: many times, all these other cultures around the world have
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: just as much claim over film as we do, if
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: not more. And it's been much more important in some
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: countries than even our own in terms of moving the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: needle on things, especially like, I would say like radical
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: discourse around social topics that are being poo-pooed at the time.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: You know, Mike, there's a lot of stuff I've watched
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: for your show that I'm just like, I would never
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: have watched this, but it speaks to something that's really
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: important for that culture, less specifically ours. And that's the
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: thing about Maltese Falcon. It is an important film for
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: film noir, which is or is not an American creation.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: I think it is somewhat, right? I mean, Mike, you
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: can correct me on this, but film noir has its
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: traditions elsewhere, but it is somewhat of an American creation, right?
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: At least the big characters in the genre.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Well, it's funny you're using the term film noir, and
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: obviously you hear the French in there, but Yeah, it
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: was coined by the French, but yes, very much speaking
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: to the American, I can't even say film movement. It
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: was just the way that, especially... For me, my my
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: feelings on film noir is that so much of it
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: comes from the influx of Eastern European immigrants, especially the
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: Germans coming in here. And I mean, you mentioned Stranger
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: on the third floor. I'm trying to remember who the
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: director was of that. But like, you know, you can
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: you could possibly say, oh, yeah, well, you know, Capo.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a film noir.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: You know, it's not.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: It's an expressionist film, but it's like those expressionist elements,
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: you know, in Stranger on the Third Floor, even in
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: things like I always consider Citizen Kane to be a
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: film noir because it's this investigation of the reporter. So
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: much of it is told in flashback. You know, you
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: have this whole idea of you know, investigating this person's life.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: But for me, film noir is, you know, it's really
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: the best films noir for me are the ones that
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: have this desperation to the character where a character is
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: doomed at the beginning and they're even more doomed. They're
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: in a worse place at the end. Sam Spade isn't doomed.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: I tend to not think of this as like a
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: film noir in that way. You know, it's just a very,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: very strong detective story, but It does use those trappings,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: the shadows. I love the Spade and Archer on the
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: floor at the beginning, and then the way that that
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: changes to Samuel Spade later on, which is kind of
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: a nice... When they decide to repaint the windows, they
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: do it very quickly. They sure do.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Don't they?
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: It's obviously a conversation we should always have about... Culture
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: and you want there should be sensitivity about whether something
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: began and should be credited as starting in a particular culture.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: And it could be food or it could be a
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: novel or it could be a movie. But I like
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: to think maybe I'm being very old fashioned saying that
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: that great art is. embodies culture, but also transcends culture
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: and belongs to everyone. Right. So Akira Kurosawa makes Seven Samurai,
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: which is very much embedded in Japanese culture. But that
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: doesn't stop Hollywood from making a perfectly good movie called
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Magnificent Seven. and taking elements of samurai culture, noticing that, hey,
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: there's a one-to-one match here between cowboy culture, because we're
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: all human, and confrontations between good and evil, between bandits
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: and people who support order and conflicts within groups. In
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: my field of communications, there's a bunch of people who've
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: done studies over the years of TV programs especially that
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: became internationally famous, and let's talk Texas, Dallas. Maybe you
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: two are too young to remember, but there was a
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: television program called Dallas, which was a mega, mega, mega
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: hit in the United States. It was a mega hit
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: all over the world, to the point where the Dallas crew,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: Larry Hagman and all, would go on a tour of Jakarta,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: And they'd show up and 30,000 people would be there screaming,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: we love you, JR, right? And there are all sorts
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: of stories like that. Now, yeah, we live in a
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: multipolar world now for culture. In fact, I teach a
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: whole class on global communication that I have modules on,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: like how Bollywood, how the Korean film industry, and Chris
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: and I have done a couple of Korean movies where
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: we're talking about how Korea, this tiny country in terms
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: of population, has become a mega dominant cultural power, especially
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: as you skew into the younger demographics. I mean, You
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: guys are mentioning some cartoons and things, but my students
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: are able to rattle off K-pop, K-drama, K-anime, and then
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: some of the anime and things from other countries around there.
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: But Korea is a very especially interesting case because they
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: are just so small, and there's so few Korean speakers
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: compared to almost any other language. And does BTS, this
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: amazingly popular group, does that belong only to Korea? So
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: I like to think the film noir, which was sort
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: of a joint project of Hollywood and Western European individuals,
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: but also the Western European film industry, is now a
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: global cultural phenomenon. And You could make a detective movie,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: all Indonesians in Indonesia, and you'd still be able to
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: sort of reinvent the echoes of this. And I think
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: that's what's wonderful about culture. It shouldn't be something that
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: separates us. It should be something that brings us together.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, some of the best detective novels that were
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: being written, say, 20 years ago were all coming out
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: of Scandinavia. I mean, it's so nice that there's this
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: exchange of ideas and things. It's like, yeah, they were
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: just killing it. Like you said, South Korea, the cinema
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: there is wild and has been great for so many years. Yes,
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: small market, but just what a a way to kind
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: of dominate world cinema. And yeah, same thing. Like these books,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: like Hammett's books were published all over the place. And,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: you know, like you get to hear those echoes from
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: other corners of the world all over, you know, and,
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: and just, I am going to look up to see
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: just how many other adaptations of his stuff was out there.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: Cause I know that, Yeah, even one of the very
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: first things that comes up is Monsieur Spade. So it's like, yeah,
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: his stuff definitely has gone around the globe.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I'd like to mention two things. One, to speak to
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: something the professor just mentioned and something that you just mentioned, Mike.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: South Korea, for me, has now, for me, known as a...
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: purveyor of really well done true crime and dark true
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: crime films that are darker than even American true crime
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: films will get. Like I saw the devil. If you
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: have not seen that movie, good Lord, that movie. I mean,
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: that movie is just, I mean, not like the worst,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: not in terms of like, it's a bad movie, but
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: it's like, it's a rough watch. I mean, I, we,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: we can't even mention most of the things that happened
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: in the movie. A cause I don't want to spoil it,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: but B because it's like, it's rough. Um, And there
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: are I mean, old boy, there are the chaser like
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: there are so many of these South Korean like crime
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: films that are so well done. It's kind of become
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: a a niche market into itself. But then you mentioned, Mike,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the Nordic noir like Yo Nezbo. I mean, what a
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: what a great writer.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: You know, something, Mike, you and I have covered a
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago. It was like last year or
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: the year before. Would you consider Stieg Larsson to be noir?
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, you know, journalistic investigative. I mean,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: they're journalists instead of detectives. So I guess it's trafficking
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: in that. It feels like noir adjacent, I guess.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, not every noir has to have an investigation.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: A lot of them do, whether it's an external or
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: an internal investigation. But where there are investigations, that's where
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: I always enjoy seeing the different investigators. You know, it
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: doesn't have to be the private detective. It can be,
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: you know, last night I talked about Phantom Lady, the
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Robert Shadmack film. it's the you know, the secretary of
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: the guy who's accused of murder is the one that
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: goes out and actually solves the crime. The police, like
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: Thomas Gomez, the police detective in that is just like, yeah,
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: I didn't do that great of a job. You know,
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: it seemed like such a crazy story. But, you know, like,
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: I'll be here if you need me, little lady, for
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: you to go investigate the crime. It's great when we
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: have not just detectives investigating stuff. And that's so much
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: of what these films are.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: And also the aspect of that the detective is not
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: just this shiny silver steel perfect. Oh, yeah. Upholder of
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: truth and justice that they have. Let's talk about this
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: film in particular. We have our protagonist, Sam Spade. Immediately,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: we find out he's having an.
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: Affair with his partner's wife.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So his partner's wife.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: And the ultimate betrayal. Right. Within within any culture, it's
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: hard to think of a culture where that would not
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: be a betrayal of somebody that you're in business with,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: that you're having an affair. The partner is killed. And
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: this is where I want to bring up. And this
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: is this is a question for you two young guys there, because.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: One of my instincts, which sometimes I think is helpful
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: and sometimes I think gets in the way of my
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: own appreciation of a film or or maybe I'm trying
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: to impose something on something that's not there is this
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: film was made when the world was on fire outside
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: those offices.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Eastern Asia was on fire. Japan, China had been fighting.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: A lot of people say World War II actually began
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: two or three years earlier with Japan's invasion of mainland China. Horrible,
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: millions dying. Germany was conquering all of Europe, was driving
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: into the Soviet Union and All the smart money was saying, yeah,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: the Soviet Union is going to collapse and Germany is
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: going to rule the world. Britain was standing alone, pretty much.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: France had fallen. Battles in Africa, just like the entire
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: world was on fire, except for. the American continent, and
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: we were undecided. President Roosevelt was extremely cautious. He ran
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: in 1940, just a few years before, on a ticket of,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: I will keep us out of war. We're not going
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: to get involved in the European war. I promise you.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: And of course, Japan broke that promise. But the point
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: was that just outside the windows there of those offices,
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: and those Peter Lorre was in Hollywood, not just because
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: he wanted to make it big in Hollywood, but because
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: he was kicked out of Germany. He was escaping from Germany.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: And in fact, a lot of the talent of Hollywood
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: in the late 30s and 40s, just like the talent
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: in physics, came from refugees, from Nazism. And when I
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: see a film like Casablanca, I can say, yeah, you know,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: this is explicitly saying, hey, America, you're not in the war,
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: but the war is knocking at our door and we
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: can't ignore that. We can't ignore our responsibilities to the
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: rest of the world. This film. Am I over? You
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: tell me that I'm being too professorish. I see something
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: here in Sam Spade's sense of honor and duty that
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: he's got this personal responsibility. challenge. Actually, things sort of
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: worked out. He's in love with this woman and somebody,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: not him, killed the husband and now the business is his.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Now his lady is his. But he makes it really explicit.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: My personal life, my personal feelings have to be put
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: on hold. I must do my duty. I'm not going
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: to let... the death of my partner, go unpunished, unavenged, unsolved.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: And that's his driving force, is that everybody else is
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: in it for the money, for other reasons, but he
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: wants to do his duty. And I thought that was
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: a little World War II adjacent summer of 1941 there.
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: What did you guys think?
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean, this is not as... obvious as Rick
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: Blaine I stick my neck out for no one you
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: know representing America and Casablanca and then finally realizes towards
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: the end he has to choose a side as well
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: as Frenchie has to choose a side you know the
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: Claude Rains character but yeah I don't know how much
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: the death of Miles Archer is motivating Sam Spade I
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: mean obviously he's not even interested in is it Effie,
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: the wife, he basically puts her off continuously. And at
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: first it's, you know, you're going to make the cops
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: think that I killed Miles. But I think after a while,
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: it's I'm not interested in you anymore. I don't think
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: there's any feeling that he's going to go back to her.
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: I think it was just a small fling and he's
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: kind of done with her. I think that whole thing
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: of him at the end saying, like, when a man's
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: partner is killed, you have to do something like, yeah,
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: that's great. But I think it's kind of an afterthought,
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: because for me, you mentioned Seven Samurai earlier, and I
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: was thinking of another Kurosawa film while I was watching this,
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: which is Yojimbo, and how Yojimbo will constantly be fleecing
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: either side of the battle that's going on in the
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: city that he's in, the town that he's in, where
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: he's just like, well, I'm going to need this many
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: yen to go over to do this, and I'm going
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: to need this much from you guys to do this.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: He's constantly getting money out of these people. It's like, okay, well,
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: takes $ 100 from Miss Wonderly at the beginning. And then
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: you've got like, you know, he comes in later. He's like,
• 45:53
  Speaker 3: how much money do you have? And she's like, oh,
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: I just have a few hundred dollars. And he's like, okay,
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: I'll take that. And then she holds back a hundred bucks.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: But he's like, no, no. You know, go sell your furs.
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: I need that 100 bucks. You know, and he just
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: keeps taking money from people constantly. He takes money from Gutman.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: He takes money from Joel Cairo, you know, like just
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: always getting money. So it feels to me like that's
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: his primary motivator. I really think that, yes, I know
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: that our detectors are supposed to be these kind of
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: knight errant, you know, like they have this quest. They
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: have to have this code, you know, Chandler always talks
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: about the code of the detective. I see it being
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: almost an afterthought, but I could easily be swayed out
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: of that. I just don't see Sam Spade as being like,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: you know, loyalty, honor first, money second. It feels much
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: more the other way.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: You know, I, again, as this having been only, you know,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: I watched it several times for this episode, but effectively
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: the first time I've ever talked about this film, to
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: put it in the context of World War II.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: It's almost, it's almost tailor-made to have that like kind of,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: Because because like not half of the characters, not half
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: of the characters are foreigners, but one of the I
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: guess two of the three characters are othered or others,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: which I mean, you know, World War Two, obviously, the
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: fear of the other has been trafficked in so much
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: sense that, you know, for a time there, it was
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Indiana Jones fights the Nazis and then Indiana Jones fights
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: the Russians because, you know, the fear of the foreigner,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: of the unknown or the other I think is so motivating,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: especially in the media of the times, you know, to
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: speak to Peter Lorre, obviously he's, he's Hungarian, but you know,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: he could play the sinister foreigner, I think is what
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: Wikipedia calls it. The, he was typecast as the sinister foreigner. Like, yeah,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: I bet he was. Because again, I think we were
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: talking about this recently, like there are actors that just like,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: we need someone to play a cop. And this guy
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: has been playing a cop his entire career. Like, okay,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: Peter Lorre, that was part of what he did and
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: he did so well. And so, and then, you know,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: to speak to the Elijah Cook Jr. of it all, again,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: the othering of his character being referred to as Gunsel
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: over and over again. And Gutman, I mean, again, Gutman
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: is maybe the one that I.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: That's the one where I can't say it's like a
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: one to one, but I would say if you're looking
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: at it from a Sam Spade is a character that
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: has to hold himself to a higher honor. Because of
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: the people that have been attacked in his life, his partner,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: he's going to do something to avenge his partner. I
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: could see that as a kind of the American ideals
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and morals are being held high by Humphrey Bogart, who
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: at the time is a, you know, I mean, he
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: is a I wouldn't say he's like quintessential American actor.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: I would say he's a quintessential American actor now, but. But,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: you know, Humphrey Bogart's not an actor who was immediately
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: famous the moment he became an actor. You know, he
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: was 40 without a leading role. Like, you know, it
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: was 42 by the time he's a star. And that's anyone?
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: He played the sort of young playboy early on in
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: his career. That's what we see as Humphrey Bogart. It
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: took him decades to establish what Humphrey Bogart was on
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: the screen.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, I we talked about him in Black Legion
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: where he's xenophobic and thinks that foreigners are taking his job.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: That's like 1931, I want to say, or he was
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: in what was that Dr. X movie that he was
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: like a mad scientist. He's doing all these things before
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: he starts to really I think when he starts working
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: with like Cagney and Raft and these guys, it's like, OK,
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: he's starting to get that feel. But I know he credited, oh,
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: what is that actor's name? Leslie. Oh, because he was in,
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: I want to say, was it the Petrified Forest? He
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: basically got Leslie Howard. He got a break from Leslie Howard,
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: or at least that's how Bogart perceived it. And I
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: think he even named his son Leslie in honor of
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: him because he's just so grateful for that role. I mean,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: sounds like, yeah, he put in a lot of hours
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: before he became the person that we now know as
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: Humphrey Bogart. And then when he came into it, he
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: was pretty prepped for it. You know, it's that whole like,
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: you know, luck is where opportunity meets.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Preparedness.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: He was prepared for this. And he's got that great
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: thing that he does with his teeth, you know, where
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: people say he's pulling up his dentures kind of thing.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: I love when he does that in this movie and
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: he knows exactly when to do that little tick thing.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: And that's the thing about Humphrey Bogart for me that, again,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: to speak back to having not seen him in anything,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: he does kind of exemplify American idealism of like we're
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: always going to do the right thing and we're going
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: to hold ourselves to a higher standard and we're going
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: to do– What's right, even if it's hard, even if
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: it's the hard thing to do, because, again, by the
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: end of the movie, you know, Sam Spade, I think,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: makes I don't think it's a difficult decision given the
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: way he's been treated in the film by all of
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: these people. But I do think, you know, it's one
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: of those like other people would not have taken that
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: decision and done it. And other less less. less moralistic
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: people you know less moralistically high ground and that's the
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: thing about sam spade that uh i could see where
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: you're coming from professor in terms of that being a
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: comparative and again you know it is one of those
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: things where there are enough others or other ish characters
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: in a lot of the proceedings you know two-thirds of
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: the characters in the film that uh I could see that.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: I will say, though, and again, as someone who's not
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: seen a lot of Humphrey Bogart things, I think I've
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: seen this and then Treasure of the Sierra Madre when
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: I was a child. Humphrey Bogart. Such a good film.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Humphrey Bogart's just so, you can't take your eyes off
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: of him, but man, it feels like he was made
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: for this genre of film. specifically. When I'm watching this film,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying he wasn't a talented actor, but how
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: was this not the thing that he was just doing
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: all the time? It feels like he's just tailor-made for that, like,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk through my teeth and I'm going
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: to hold my jaw a certain way. There were other
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: actors who could have done this role. I know that
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: what Humphrey Bogart had been offered the role from three
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: different productions, this being the third one that another actor
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: had turned down. George Raft had turned down three separate
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: roles that all went to Humphrey Bogart, and this was
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: the third one. And I don't know what he would
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: have provided to this role that Humphrey Bogart obviously embodied.
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: But Humphrey Bogart just, even though it's nothing like the
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: character in the book, like at all, he looks nothing
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: like him at all. It's just... Humphrey Bogart, when you
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: you just can't take your eyes off of him. Like,
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: you just can't take your eyes off him at all.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: I just he's he's mesmerizing because, again, like he's so
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: quintessential in what he is and iconoclastic and what he
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: is specifically that same with Peter Lorre, like. he's, he is,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: was showing up in Animaniacs cartoons. Like he was showing up,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: he shows up in things. Wasn't there like a Zales
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: commercial with Humphrey Bogart in at one point, like long
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: after he's dead, there's a Zales commercial with like CGI
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: Humphrey Bogart. And that was like one of the first
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: examples of that ever even happening. Like he's iconic in
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: the same way that Peter Lorre is. And I think
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: that a lot of that comes from this movie and
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: Casablanca I'm assuming, but yeah, I don't know if Casablanca
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: exists without the success of him in this movie.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: No, and Casablanca is such a great reunion of Laurie,
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: Green Street, and Bogart all back together again. And those
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: guys would come back together a few times. And then
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: after a while, Green Street and Laurie made, I want
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: to say, at least three or four films together after
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: this one. So it's like they became... they're a great coupling,
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: but I just wanted to say like, as you see
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: those guys leave Sam Spade's apartment at the end where
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: they're just like, okay, you know, we got fooled this time,
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: but the bird is still out there. Let's go after it.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: I'm sure somebody has already done this, but I'm just like,
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: I would love to know the continuing adventures of Casper
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: Gutman and Joel Cairo. Like once they leave, it's like,
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: I want to follow them out of this apartment and
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: just go on that next adventure with them because those
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: two guys together, the chemistry, but also just that Mutt
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: and Jeff size difference. I mean, Gutman is not that
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: huge when you actually look at him, but they portray
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: him as being huge, especially when you see him talking
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: for the first time and they've got that great low
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: angle on him.
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: And he's just like. yes sir i like a man
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: who likes to talk like this whole thing that he's
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: doing it's like he looks huge he's dominating the entire
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: screen with that shot and it's such a brilliant thing
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: that houston is doing with that and i love that.
• 55:12
  Speaker 4: His character's name a couple of times they they love
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: to low angle oh yeah uh Sydney Greenstreet and high-angle
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: Peter Lorre.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: And you're absolutely right. And it's a reminder, and this
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: is where I get to be, I guess, a cranky
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: old man here sometimes, is that I feel, and again,
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: I want to hear your guys' opinion, that the idea
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: of the distinctive... amazing character actor who always plays the
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: same character coming on the screen and the audience just
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: lighting up, oh, there's Peter Lorre. Oh, man, this is
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: going to be so good. Sidney Greenstein, Claude Rains, Jack Cassidy,
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: George Sanders. There were these actors who had these such
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: gem-perfect personalities. I remember an old Hollywood story that some
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: agent in Hollywood's after Claude Rains died, somebody said, well,
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: we're never going to be able to cast the Claude
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: Rains role anymore. We'll have to get a team. And
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: I don't think they used that phrase then, but we'll
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: have to get a team who Claude Rains to, you know,
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: to be the, the charming rogue rascal, you know, authority
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: figure who's slightly evil, but you know, redeems himself or
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: something like that. And I, I, we certainly have very
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: good character actors today and, But it doesn't seem as
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: much– it seems to be more one-off. Like I was
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: talking with somebody about the career of Rainn Wilson as
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: Dwight Schrute in The Office. And like he was very
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: good as this odd character, interesting, funny, crazy character in
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: The Office. And then he– his whatever career reminders tried
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: to do it again. like in the detective series. And I,
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: he had, I think two or three series that just
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: didn't go anywhere. Um, And I wonder whether it was
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: the fact that you probably wouldn't want to follow these
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: quirky odd characters for an entire series where they're on
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: the screen by themselves as a lead character, or whether
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: it's just that some quirky odd characters just don't translate
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: into other properties. You tell me, is this something we're
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: missing in Hollywood or there's just hundreds of them and
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: I'm not watching it?
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: No, I think we're definitely missing the faces. I was
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: just talking with, not to name drop, but I was
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: having a conversation with Alicia Malone from TCM recently, and
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: we were just talking about the lack of great faces.
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: You know, you've got your, you know, like John Goodman, Totoro,
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: I guess it's all people that the Coen brothers have
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: to work with.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Are you just mentioning the cast of The Big Lebowski now?
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: Exactly. And of course, Steve Buscemi. Like Steve Buscemi is
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: probably as close to Peter Lorre as we get these days.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: You know, Isn't he going to play in the Peter
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: Lorre story?
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: If not, he should. Right. I mean, if he could
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: do the voice and that's that's the last bit of it,
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: because he could do the rest of it. But I mean,
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Peter Lorre in this movie for me is actually very,
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: very handsome. I think this is one of the best
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: looking Peter Lorre's other than he directed a film called
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: The Lost One. And he looks really good in that.
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: That's a few years after this one. Great kind of
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: post-Nazi film. Uh, but yeah, I, I, I think that
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: we are missing the character actors that we used to
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: have in the past, not to sound like, you know,
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: old man, uh, yells a cloud kind of thing, but
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: it's just like, you know, you don't have like a,
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: even that when it comes to your leading men, it's like,
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: you don't have a John Garfield. You don't have these
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: guys who look like they've lived a life. Like you
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: occasionally might get like, um, A Russell Crowe where it's like, OK,
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: he looks pretty rough around the edges, but I think
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: that's all of his own doing, whereas somebody like a
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: Garfield or some of these. other early actors, a Paul Mooney,
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: they looked like they had life on their face. I
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: love George Clooney, but it's like, hey, He's kind of
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: a pretty boy. He doesn't ever look like he's had
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: a rough day in his life. Maybe he can try
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: to do that on screen, but it looks like he's
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: lived a pampered life and it feels like these old,
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: you know, what Alicia said, we used to have faces,
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: you know, like these are faces. These are faces that
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: I love to see faces that I love to see
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: 40 feet high on screen, because you can see just
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: the life that they have lived on those faces.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the sunset Boulevard, you know, we used to
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: have faces and that is something. And now, and this
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: is the question here, because when we usually, and when
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: in sunset Boulevard, what she was talking about, when she said,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: you know, we used to have faces is, The stars,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: like the radiant, the Mary Pickford's, you know, and my
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: old Barrymore's and like the you wanted. And we Chris
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: and I just did the Eiger sanction with and we
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: talked a lot about this with Clint Eastwood. It's like
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: Clint Eastwood, 50 feet by 50 feet face face. That
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: was good. That worked. You wanted to see that. He
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: was a star. You wanted to see him grimace and
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: wink and grind his teeth and say something witty. And
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: you could cut from the Eiger Mountain to his mountain,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: his face. And we would even accept someone like Charles Bronson,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: you know, who famously had a face like an eroded
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: cliff and himself. And that was OK, 50 feet tall.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: But we're saying that what added to the making of
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: a great movie was we had these character actors to
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: just and again, somebody just has to go back and
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: look at Casablanca and look at all the pairings of
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: Green Street and Laurie and see. I don't have like
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: research evidence for this, but I I bet. And I
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: actually I you know, you could just talk to your
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: if anybody's got living grandparents. But I remember talking to
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: my parents that, oh, yeah, Peter Lorre, you know, like
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: the same joy upon seeing the star you'd have over
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: somebody who had maybe 10 lines in the whole movie.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: And I think that's just this missing building block of
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: great movies and TV series today.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. I just saw Black Angel last two weekends ago,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: and he's only in that movie for a very brief
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: amount of time. And surprisingly, he's not a villain. Spoilers.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: But even though he's just there for two, maybe three scenes,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: it's like, yes, bring it on. He makes me miss
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: him when he's not on screen.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, you're both I would say
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: you're both right. And I guess, you know, I always
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: I guess the thing I always think of is Harry
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Dean Stanton was like in his 50s when they filmed Alien.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: And he looks like he's in his 70s when they're
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: filming that movie. And you guys have already both mentioned
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: these like great character actors who looked like they had
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: lived a life or didn't even look like they should
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: be actors. I think that's the thing that's maybe interesting.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: harder now to describe and i think it's it's a
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: weirder way of saying it and i don't want to
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: sound dismissive but it's like everybody now that's an actor
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: is expected to look like an actor and at one
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: point you anybody could be an actor because harry dean
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: stanton was an actor because dan hidea was an actor
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: because and i mean we could go back i mean
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: there are so many people that when you think of
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: what they look like there's no universe where they like
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: you said mike should be in a quote, profession that
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: cares about what you look like, unquote, when someone like
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: George Clooney and someone like John Carroll Lynch are working
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: at the same time. It's so weird because now I
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: think there is that kind of weird expectation of if
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: you're going to be a big star in a big movie,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: you have to look the part. What that means now
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: is so different than what it used to mean. It's
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: so unfortunate because If you look at this movie, you're
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: like Humphrey Bogart leading man. Like, yes, as we've already
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: all talked about, he looks the part for this kind
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: of movie, but there is kind of a thing where
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: it's like, he's not the leading man for like a
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: lot of other kinds of things though. If you would
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: think about it, obviously he was, but that's because of
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: the success that he was able to have as an actor,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: because he had gotten to that point in his career
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: without being that guy for a reason, because they, people
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: didn't think he looked the part clearly, even though he
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: had the ability to act like, amongst the best of them,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, he doesn't have the chiseled jawline and
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: the look of a typical kind of leading man. And
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, okay, but what does that even mean?
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: And now it's, I wouldn't say it's clearly defined now,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: but I think now there is kind of this weird
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: lean of like everybody, the lack of like faces is
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: unfortunate because I just, wait, only good looking people want
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: to be actors anymore. Come on.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: Well, I think that we really gained something when, what
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: is that group? The Steppenwolf theater. Like when some of
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: those guys left the theater and came to Hollywood. So like,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: I think the closest we're getting to a really great
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: face is John Malkovich, you know, like he's got a
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: great face. He is a leading man, even though he
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: doesn't necessarily lead like, you know, the big action adventure
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: kind of things that is still more of a George
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: Clooney or, you know, I guess like Clive Owen has
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: a very interesting face as well. I was just about
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: to say Daniel Craig, you know, very, very pretty. But
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: there were pretty actors that were happening in the 40s
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: and 50s as well. I mean, in the same time
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: that Humphrey Bogart is working, also Burt Lancaster is working,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: probably one of the more handsome men at the time. So, yeah,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: we had our share. I don't know if it's just
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: like you know, like I said, old man yells at
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: cloud kind of thing where it's like, okay, yeah, no,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: we don't have that anymore. Like maybe in 30 years,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: somebody is going to be recording whatever the next version
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: of a podcast is going.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 3: Back in the early two thousands, they had great faces.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: They had great actors. What's going on now in 2040.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: Everything sucks.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Then it'll be me as old man yelling at cloud.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: Right. I will be here, but I don't think, I
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: don't think so. I was, I was watching, um, The
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: other day, a modern television series that cost $ 200 million.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: It's on one of the big streaming networks. And I
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 2: DNF'd it, as my students would put it, because it
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: was just bad. It was really just bad. Even I
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: couldn't bring myself to learn something from it. And I
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: was trying to articulate to myself why it was bad, besides,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know, bad writing, bad characterization, bad everything. The
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: sets were bad. You know, when the sets are bad,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: like the stuff that you can just pay somebody to
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: do well, you know, like when the costuming is bad,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: you know you've got bad. But part of what was
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: bad was that there were, this was a big cast,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: and there were four or five young person roles. And
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: maybe it's early onset something, but I had trouble telling
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: them apart. They all were physically the same. You know,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: they were all young men or young women who had
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: about the same build and like the same look and
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: the same Southern California accent. I mean, just you said it, Mike,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: about Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet worked together. for among
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: the same reasons that we got Laurel and Hardy, right? And,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: and the famous comedy duos and, and, you know, Dean Lewis,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: Martin and Lewis is that you gotta have physical differences.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: You gotta be able to on the screen to see
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: that people have to physically be their character, not just
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: be mouth speaking lines. And I, I feel that there,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: this is something, I mean, we, we don't want to
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: go to the past in order to dump on the present,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: but like, I think there was a reason that in
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: Homer's Iliad and Homer's Odyssey, he spends considerable time, whoever
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: wrote it, you know, committee or individual or spoke it,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: sang it first or whatever, spends considerable time distinguishing between
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: the heroes. And in fact, as a memory age, you know,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: you'll hear like, you know, Hector, this, like Hector is
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: different than Hector. Ajax is different than Agamemnon. And it
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: seems like a really early poetic storytelling instinct is that
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: you have to have characters that are distinguishable from each
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: other in a memorable way. And I don't think that
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: lesson should be forgotten.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: I totally agree.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's just– I think it's a sign of
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: kind of the changing expectations of the industry. But at
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: the same time, I think it's also a– important reason to,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: and this sort of speaks to the reason I mentioned
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: it at the top here, that it's so important to
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: preserve film because without film preservation, without the need and
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: want of people involved in the creation of film and
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: the preservation of film, there would be, you know, films
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: don't preserve themselves. That's, you know, that's not how this works.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: You know, if not for the fact that the film
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: had been preserved so well and that the Library of
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: Congress has decided, you know, since it was 89, it
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: was one of the first 25 films in the National
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: Film Registry. If not for that, there is a chance
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: that this film could have been lost, like so many
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: other things were, and all anyone would remember is how
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: expensive the prop from this movie ended up selling for,
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: which is about as insane of a fact, given that
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: the entire plot of the movie hinges around the fact that, oops, oops,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: all fake Maltese Falcons, no real ones. I mean, that's,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: you know, it ends up being the whole story. I mean,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: I would I don't this is not where the term
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: MacGuffin comes from, but this film has a pretty famous MacGuffin, obviously. And,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: you know, as someone who had heard that term so
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: much growing up and then as someone who transitioned into
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: being a film critic and talking about film professionally. like
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: that term gets used a lot, but in this movie,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: it's like, it is the ultimate MacGuffin in a lot
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: of ways, because it does, it drives the plot along
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: and then it stops mattering, you know, very, very much,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: very quickly. And then other things matter. And then we
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: get kind of this other list of things and things
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: that happen, but it's so important to keep preserving films
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: like this one and not just, you know, again, just not,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: it just living on as kind of this weird, you know,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: apocryphal stories or the prop getting sold. Because like we've
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: all talked about now, these kinds of actors just don't
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: exist anymore. They're not in plentiful supply like they used
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: to be. Even now, the kinds of character actors that
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: one would hope for, it's just not a thing. It's
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: just they're not existing the way that they used to.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: And it's unfortunate. And preserving these films and preserving a
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: film like this one is so important because I think
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: this is at least from what I've seen and what
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: my assumptions are, this is a lot of these actors
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: operating at their absolute highest, absolute best, which, you know, Professor,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: you and I have talked about competency, and this is
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: like the highest level of competency at every turn. I mean,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: all of the actors, all the crew, John Houston, you know,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: most specifically, but there are so many reasons to preserve
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: this film, obviously, but the character actors alone is one
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: of them, but there's the competency on screen is another
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: because it is a almost perfect film. But Mike, I'm
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: so very curious. What is that ADR line that bugs
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: you so much?
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: It's a phony that at the end when it's, uh,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: there's a really rough cut of green street You know,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: with that knife and trying to scrape off the enamel
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 3: and that ADR of him saying it's a phony. It's
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: like that is not his voice. Somebody else was doing
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: a Sydney Green Street impersonation at that point.
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I I was so shocked to learn that the
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: Maltese Falcon was in fact a fake in the film.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: I'm just I'm obviously kidding. I did. I would say
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: for me, that was one of my favorite scenes in
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: the film is the kind of the payoff of, well,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: this the Maltese Falcon was never actually like, you know,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: what they've been striving for is actually hollow, which I
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: think for me really speaks to the film noir of
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: it all.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: Like they've all gone out of their way for all
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: of this. this one thing. And then in the end,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, they just have a whole, it's just
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: a pile of sand. It's a whole lot of nothing.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of, I'm trying to remember was, did
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: you and I do it together? Mike, the killing, the
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: Stanley Kubrick film. Did we do that one together?
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: I don't think we did, but yeah, I love the
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: end of that with all the money just blowing away.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: It's the same thing, right?
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: Sterling Hayden being like, what's the use, you know? But,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: but that for me, that's much more of a film
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: noir because it's Sterling Hayden. Who's right there, you know,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: like through the entire thing, setting all this stuff up, seeing, oh,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: all of these plans just fall apart. You know, it's
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: that desperate man doing desperate things. And then at the end,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: just everything turning to just, you know, sand in his hands.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: And I, and you know, like you mentioned, I think
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: that that really does speak to film noir. And I think,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: you know, that the killing obviously much more than the
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: Maltese fall. Cause I think that's, that's the thing I
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: was surprised by, by the end of the film is
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: Sam Spade is, Is not in a worse. I mean,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: he's in a somewhat worse position by the end of
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: the movie just because his partner is no longer with him.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: But he is like moralistically righteous right now as a character.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: He's like he's done the right thing on every account. Like,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: would he have kept the Falcon if it was fake?
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: Or real, I mean, or if it had been real,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: not fake, who, who knows that you can't speak to that,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: but you can only speak to what the film presents you.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: And it's just like, that's the one thing about the
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: film that I was not expecting was the ending to
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: be just so atypical of what my expectations were for
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: a film noir film. That is again, such a like
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: trend setter or trope creator of the genre as a whole.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: Are you now excited to see more Bogart, Laurie Greenstreet films?
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: I am. I mean, again, like Humphrey Bogart is just
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: one of those actors that I just had never really
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: engaged with in a meaningful way. And then, you know,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: Peter Lorre really just, again, was comedic voices in Animaniacs
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: cartoons in the nineties, which again, doesn't really speak to
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: either of their abilities as actors, but it does speak to,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: like we've already talked about the cultural impact of them
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: as pop culture icons, I guess, or kind of, again, it's,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: I don't, you know, when we do these episodes of
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: required viewing, it's always kind of so interesting to take
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: a step back and look at everything as a, you know,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: one big picture holistically. And this is one of those
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: films where every single thing that you come at it
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: from is a really good example of that thing or
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: the best example of that thing. Like all of the
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: writing with this film is so good. And John Houston
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: is so kind of, intentional with what he's doing. Humphrey
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: Bogart is so good. Like I, I know that there
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: may not be as good of a film with these
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: actors in it again that I watch, but at least
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: this one exists. And it is, I mean, such a
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: high watermark for all of them clearly. And for, again,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: for me as someone who had really not seen a
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: film noir film before from this time or this specific,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of one, like this is, I don't know,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: like I understand, sometimes I watch a movie that's in
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: the film registry and I'm like, why is this in
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: the film registry? And this one, I'm like, no, I
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: get it. And I understand why it's in the first
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: 25 films in the film registry. That makes perfect sense.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I would definitely recommend checking out Casablanca because
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: you do get the three of them together. I won't
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: necessarily recommend the other Green Street Laurie films, but there
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: are some definitely great Laurie films. I mentioned The Lost One.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: It's also known as The Lost Man from 1950. It
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 3: was the only film that he directed there. I don't
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 3: know if you've seen M, the Fritz Lang film yet,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: but fantastic. Actually, Chris, we watched Crime and Punishment together.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: That's true. Okay, so that's like the other thing. Yeah,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: I guess we did cover that for our Columbo show many,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: many moons ago. That was what we did in the
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: lead up to talking about Columbo, right? Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would- Probably stay away from all of his Mr.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: Moto films. Seeing him play a Japanese man is probably
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: not without cringe these days. But yeah, he was in
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: a lot of great things. Arsenic and Old Lace is
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: probably one of my favorites. And that's where he really
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: gets to show the comedic side. And then The Chase
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: from 46. Absolutely wonderful. And when it comes to Bogart...
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: there's so many things to choose from, but I would
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: say the big sleep where you get to see, you know,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: another great detective story. And you're just like, why didn't
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: he do this his entire life? But then you look
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: at things like you mentioned treasure Sierra Madre, which you've
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: already seen the African queen, which is another Houston film
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: with him in it. And then things like, um, Oh,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: I'm blanking on the name. Oh, the Kane Mutiny. He's
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 3: wonderful in the Kane Mutiny. But yeah, he was in
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: a lot of great things, too.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: And also, with the African Queen and the Kane Mutiny,
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: you're seeing the range that was possible. And we talked
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 2: about how early in his career you wouldn't have been
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: predicting he's going to be the tough detective and he
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: would become an icon of that. Well, He could have
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: kept playing those roles, right? And we've known a lot
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: of actors who feel comfortable or Hollywood only feels comfortable
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: with them being in a certain role over and over again.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: But African Queen, he plays, you know, a scoundrel, somebody
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: with the morals of, you know, I actually think snakes
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: are very moralistic creatures. So, I mean, just this, he...
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: just gives up on everything that a movie audience in
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: the 40s would have said. Especially the later, the denouement
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: in Casablanca. And then just he was willing to play
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 2: these roles. Talk about like an actor where you see,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: you think like this person's lived a life. He was
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 2: willing to play roles where The makeup was gone. You know,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 2: like he was he was broken in some way, old
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 2: and tired. And but he was willing to act. And
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 2: I think that's a really to me was always interesting
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: is when somebody becomes a leading man or a leading woman,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 2: do they care? to be an actor? Right. And obviously
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 2: there are many actors. leading men, leading women, leading actors
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 2: who continue to put energy into their craft. There are
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 2: other ones where honestly, I think once they've, they've just
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: checked off that role that they love to play, they
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: show up, get their check.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: And go home.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 2: And that's the way it looks on the screen. But
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: his whole career, which was cut short early, we have
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: to say he, he died young. I mean, relatively died
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: younger than I am. He, he, he tried, like he
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: cared about his craft. And for an actor or a
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: movie maker or professor or plumber or whatever, saying that
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: someone cared about their craft, I think is probably one
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: of the few universal compliments you can give to anybody.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: I think it speaks volumes to Bogart as an actor
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: that you know, I mentioned the National Film Registry. In 1989,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: they inducted 25 films, and that was the year it was,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of created out of nothing. And I
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: think that was really important, obviously, then, you know, 1989,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: they had already, things had already been lost by then,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: but at least, you know, 1989 is not 1999 or 2009. So,
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: 25 films get inducted. Maltese Falcon and Casablanca Casablanca is
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: the only film from 1942 that's inducted, and Maltese Falcon
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: is one of two films from 1941 that's inducted. The
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: other one's Citizen Kane. I think it speaks volumes to
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: Bogart as an actor, that he's in two films that
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: are forever enshrined and will be taken care of forever,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: because that, I think, speaks to, again... How important it
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: is just for film in general, not just, you know,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: the film noir genre or Humphrey Bogart's career, but the
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: whole of the conversation about American filmmaking does go through
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: Citizen Kane and the Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. And those
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: are films that, you know, two of those three films
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: are Humphrey Bogart films. And that's so important. You know,
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: it's funny, I'm looking at this list here, and in
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: the last couple months, I have talked about more of
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: these films than I would have ever thought I would,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: because not only have I talked about Maltese Falcon with
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: you guys now, I think it was Richard and the
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: professor and I talked about the best years of our
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: lives earlier this year. And then Mike, you and I,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: and Richard talked about star Wars earlier this year, which
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: was the old, or I guess the newest film that
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: was inducted in 89. Cause that was what 77. So
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: it was like 12 years. They were like, this film's important.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: It's like, wow.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: To be inducted with all those other films is pretty important,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: but Humphrey Bogart, I think just like you guys have
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: mentioned his range and, Clearly, just by what you guys
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: have talked about, sounds impressive, but just his ability to
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: kind of personify what when someone might think of a
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: film noir detective, there's a 50% chance or better that
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: it's going to be Humphrey Bogart, I think speaks volumes
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: to just the cultural significance of him playing this role
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: in this film for a lot of generations, myself included,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: of people who, when they think of a detective in
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: a film... They think of Humphrey Bogart, even if they've
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: never seen a Humphrey Bogart movie. That's who they're thinking of.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: And even the cadence of the way he talks is
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: what you think of when you think of a film
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: noir detective. It comes from Humphrey Bogart. That speaks volumes
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: to him as an actor, to this film as just
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: kind of a– a seminal piece of kind of filmmaking,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: but also the long legs and kind of long tail,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: as it were, that this film has had on, I think,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: the film industry as a whole.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: There were a lot of films, because I covered this
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 3: on The Projection with a few years ago, and there
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: were a lot of films I watched because of this film.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: So the two previous versions of this, but then also
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: in the 1970s, it felt like there was this odd
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: resurgence of bogart and bogart related things like there was
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: a there was a guy who looked a lot like
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 3: bogart i'm trying to remember if he was an italian
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: actor but he he.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: Was an italian actor and he was in an episode
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: of tales from the crypt where they superimposed bogart's face.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: On his right and he was in a movie called
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 3: the man who had with the man with bogart's face
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 3: man with bogart's face yeah there was also played against Sam,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 3: the play that, uh, with Woody Allen that became a movie.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 3: And then there was also a sequel quote unquote to, uh,
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: the Maltese Falcon, like, cause there have been sequels and
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 3: prequels written, uh, for the book and everything, but this
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: was a sequel to the movie and it was called
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: the black bird. And I think it was George Siegel, uh,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: running around, um, trying to escape characters that were very
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: modeled on the characters from this movie. Not very good.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 3: Imagine that like a wacky seventies comedy detective story. We've
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: seen a few of those that aren't that good. But yeah,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: it was, it's interesting how that came up and, you know,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 3: you're talking about the impact on the culture and everything.
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: There's a reason why there's that, you know, mock of
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: Nighthawks at the diner or Nighthawks where it's like, James Dean,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 3: Marilyn Monroe, maybe John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart all hanging
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: out together. It's like, these are like movies, Mount Everest of,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: you know, very iconic, sorry to steal your term professor,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: but very iconic faces and presence in movies that these
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: are the ones that are hanging out in this afterlife diner.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say even one step further,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: isn't Elvis in that sometimes as well?
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 3: He could be. It's been a minute since I've been
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: to Hot Topic and looked at the posters, but that's
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: where it would have been back in the early 90s.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: Robert Saki, by the way. or Saatchi is probably how
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: you pronounce it, but that's the actor you're talking about
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: from the man with Bogart's face. And also from that
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: episode of tales from the crypt where they just CGI
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: superimposed his face on the actor, which I believe that
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: episode may have been directed by Robert Zemeckis, which Robert Zemeckis,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, would go on to, you know, I think that's,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: I think it was like a pre forest gump thing
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: that they were doing there. Uh, it's, And, you know,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: to go back to that, this was the Zales commercial
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: that I was talking about. Like his his face and
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: visage is so iconic that you could put it in
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: a commercial for something as kind of trivial as diamonds.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: And people be like, oh, Humphrey Bogart's back from the
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: dead selling diamonds.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 3: Who was a Gene Kelly dancing with a vacuum? Or
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: there was that Audrey Hepburn spot a few years ago
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: where she was. Gosh, I can't even remember what she
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: was trying to sell. That's how effective the commercial was.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: But it's like, yeah, there are very few actors that
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: have been resurrected in that same way. That Bogart was
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 3: one of the first ones. That's really saying something.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: And I think, you know, for me, this film sits
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: in a weird spot because... I've talked about a lot
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: of movies this year that I was not expecting to
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: ever cover primarily because it's not that I don't feel
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: like I have anything to say about it, but it's
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: one of those things where it's uphill already. When we
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: did Star Wars a couple weeks ago, it's like, what
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: can we add to the conversation about this little film
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: from 1977 called Star Wars? I kind of felt the
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: same way going into this episode. It's like, well, what
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: can I say about a film that's been out since 1941?
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: It's been addressed and readdressed and relitigated over and over
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: and over again. And like you said, John Houston telling
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: so many apocryphal stories about everything and, you know, the
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: Humphrey Bogart of it all and the Peter Lorre of
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: it all. But I think for me as someone who
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: had not seen it before, but had seen all the
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: other things that it's been influenced by in terms of
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: like random pop culture stuff, I had seen that instead. It's,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: it's nice to know that when you watch something like this,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: it does hold up to all of the things one
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: expects from, um, a film like this, it lived up
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: to the expectation of, I wanted to watch a film
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: to understand why this film and what this film creates
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: and evokes is so important for so many other things
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: for the next 50, 60, 70, 80, because we're recording
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: this one day before the film's 85th anniversary. That was
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: October 3rd, 1941. And it's still pertinent today in terms
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: of the filmmaking and the filmmaking qualities and the qualities
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: of the actors. And plenty of films came out in
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: 1941 that that wasn't the case. That's the other thing.
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: Thousands of films come out every year that nobody watches
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: or talks about. And I'm not saying that's a good
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: or bad thing. It's just that's the way the industry is.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: So for a film to be this important for this long,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: for me to feel like it's an uphill, vertical, Eiger
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: cliff face of a film to talk about because it
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: is such an important film. But yet my takeaway from
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: this entire episode sitting here and talking about it with
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: both of y'all is.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: It is obvious when you watch the film why this
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: film is so important and why this film stands the
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: test of time. and was put into the film registry
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: in 1989, the moment they created it, because I think
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: it does, there's so much to be gleaned from the
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: filmmaking and the filmmakers and the actors and just everything.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: And it's just, I, I dare to say a perfect movie,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: but other than the one ADR line, which now that
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: you mentioned it, Mike, I can totally hear it in
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: my head, him saying that just in kind of like
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: a really weird way. It is a perfect movie. It
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: really is.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 2: Well, the quote from Seven Samurai, every perfect fortress should
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 2: have one flaw so that we know what Mike White
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: would critique. I think that's the exact line from the
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: movie Seven Samurai.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 3: There's that thing, I've talked about this before, about you know,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: there are these people that will make these beautiful, beautiful
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 3: rugs and they always make sure to leave one flaw
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 3: in the rug because they say, you know, the only
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: thing that can be perfect is God. So this is
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: our tribute. Like we can never be perfect. That for
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: me is that little error in the rug. So it's
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: okay to have a mistake just to prove that you're
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: not as good as God. So sorry, John Houston, you
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: may have voiced God. You may have voiced Gandalf, but you, don't, yeah,
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 3: you had to have that one little thing in there
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: just to prove that you're not perfect.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: Sorry, John, that's Chinatown.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. But, and I'll add, cause you've already referred to it.
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: John Houston was also a character that you don't see
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: that much anymore. He was full out rock on tour, like,
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: like any, you know, anytime he'd appear for an interview
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: or give an interview, uh, you never knew what he
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 2: was going to say or the wild ride you were
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: going to go on. He would be perfectly happy giving
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 2: a completely different version of a story that he told
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: a year before because he just felt it was more
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 2: entertaining to add some detail. So I have to think
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: somewhere out there, there's an interview. He said, yeah, I
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 2: purposely had my secretary do the voice of Sidney Greenstreet
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 2: because I just wanted to screw around a little bit
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: with the audience. And See if they noticed.
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 3: I mean, who knows, right? And he would say it
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: in that incredible voice that was just like melted butter
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 3: over hot lobster. He just, oh, I love that voice, man.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 3: And I loved, yeah, listening to him talk and tell
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: stories and just. His laugh was incredible. He was just
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: such a joy to listen to, to hear him talk.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: I hear he was a real SOB in real life
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 3: a lot of times, but for me, man, yeah, to
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 3: hear his persona of John Huston is as important as
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 3: John Huston, the filmmaker, John Huston, the actor, is John Huston,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 3: the persona. I've never seen White Hunter Blackheart, which I
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 3: think where Clint Eastwood is basically channeling John Houston, trying
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 3: to be John Houston. One of these days, maybe I'll
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 3: finally get down to it. There's like a handful of
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 3: Eastwood films I haven't seen, but yeah, just Houston. Like,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 3: I don't know if there's a great documentary about him
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 3: or not, but there should be. And just to hear
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 3: more of him, just like, I don't even want to
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 3: hear any other voices. Like, I'm sorry, Angelica. I'm sorry,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 3: everybody else, but just have John Houston married his own
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 3: story because that voice, man. Oh, it is so wonderful.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, I can hear him saying Mr. Gitz in
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: my head right now.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 3: It's so nice that Walter Houston shows up here for
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 3: a hot second as the boat captain who dies and,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 3: you know, hands over the actual dingus. That's such a
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 3: nice little nod. And yeah, Houston, John Houston is, you know,
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 3: a legacy with Walter and then Angelica, you know, just
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 3: really Walter, Walter, Him directing his father, John directing Walter
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 3: in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I mean, that is
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 3: I think Houston, Walter Houston won an Oscar for that,
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 3: which is a pretty good testament to just what a
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 3: great role that is.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a Nepo baby. It's interesting to think
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: about that. Like, you know, today people look, it's part
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 2: of the cultural discussion. There are some, I know I
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: read years ago a book about him, Courage in Art.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: I wasn't reading the author, but like there's some good biographies.
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 2: And he was just, this is again, this question about
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 2: whether you're casting an actor who to play a role
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 2: or you're casting an actor because the actor himself, herself
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 2: adds to the role. Right. Not like we want someone
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 2: to play a little orphan nanny. No, we want somebody
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: who's going to play a little orphan nanny and add
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 2: dimensionality because of the force of their personality, the force
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: of their voice and whatever. And I think that that's
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: something that, again, I'm talking to students who will work
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 2: in media. Now, some of them do go on to
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 2: work in Hollywood. Some of them go on to work
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: for the public relations department at major corporations and so on. But.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: All of them have a yearning to create, to, to,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 2: to make something that wasn't, didn't, didn't exist before. And
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: it could be again, an advertising video and it could
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 2: be a two hour movie. And I feel like my
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 2: job is to sort of raise issues and make suggestions,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 2: not to tell them, like, this is the only way,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 2: because to some extent, them inventing their own way is
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 2: part of the process. But in terms of required viewing,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: and I guess this is my final statement for the
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: Maltese Falcon for now, unless we want to do a
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: part two, which we could, but is that You watch
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: a film like this, not because we're saying, hey, this
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 2: is the greatest film in the genre ever made. You
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 2: want to be good kid, go out and copy that.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: But take a look at the choices they make. And
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 2: think about the choices you want to make and what
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 2: can you learn from their process and their outcome of
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 2: making choices. We're not saying you have to make the
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 2: same choices, but look at the impact of this film,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: the Academy Awards, and then the wave function. I always
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: tell my students that when you're hit by a tsunami wave,
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: that's not the same molecules of water that as we're
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 2: right next to the volcano when it went off, right?
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 2: It's a wave function, it's energy that's hitting you. And
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 2: that's really what we're saying is this film was made
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 2: so many years ago, so many decades ago, older than us,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: believe it or not older than me, but the wave
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 2: function is still hitting us. And man, that's aspirational for
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 2: great art. Yeah.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: And, you know, like, like we've all already kind of
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: alluded to, you know, it's, It's rare to be as
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: talented as a John Huston, who as an actor had
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: an impact, as a director had an impact, as a
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: screenwriter he had an impact. But for him to have
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: made the impact that he made with this film, along
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: with everybody else, like you said, Professor, it speaks volumes
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: to the ability of good, great, amazing, transcendent art. It
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: speaks to, like we've all said, what really great art
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: can do and what it can offer and what it
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: can inspire. And there are a lot of things that
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: aren't able to do that, but art is one of
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: those things that consistently I feel like is able to
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: resonate in a way that most things don't. And that's,
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: that's why, I mean, that's why we do what we do.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: That's why we talk about film because film is such
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: an engaging art form that, uh, you know, it, it
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: lives forever as long as you take care of it.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: Otherwise it could, it could turn into a, what happens with, uh, with,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: with nitrate film, it becomes like a bomb essentially. At
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: least that's what the film Zodiac led me to believe.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: Don't store nitrate film canisters in your basement in Southern
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: California that does it or Northern California that doesn't have
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: any basements. Uh, cause those could explode. So it's, uh, yeah,
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: films don't preserve themselves, but man, this, uh, this film's legacy,
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: I think it's, it's important and you can watch it
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: right now on HBO max, uh, which is, which is
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: wild to me that it's just sitting on HBO max
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: to watch as well, because I don't think anyone, when
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: this film was being made with thought, Oh, it'll be
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: streaming streaming. What does that even mean? We can't even
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: fathom that. So, um, Um, so until the next time
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: you hear Dr. Perlmutter and I talking about required viewing films,
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: and as always, you can find myself and Mike and, uh,
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: the professor over at weirdingwaymedia.com where this show, the required viewing, uh,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: the culture cast, Mike show, the projection booth, midnight viewing
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: for mentories, our latest, uh, addition to the network movie meltdown.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: All of those film podcasts can be found along with
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: some TV show podcasts like 80s TV ladies, uh, The
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: Feminine Critique. Mike and I do a Columbo show. We
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: do all kinds of things, and all those things can
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: be found at weirdingwaymedia.com, patreon.com slash culturecast, or patreon.com slash
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: projectionbooth is where you can go to kick a couple
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: dollars our way to financially support our shows. But if
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: you don't want to, just like, rate, and review it
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: wherever you get it on iTunes or Spotify. Those are
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: the two places that kind of matter. Everywhere else is
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: less important. So if you want to help us out,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: go on over to iTunes or Spotify. Mike, thank you
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: so much for joining us. This was a lot of fun.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 3: Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate this.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 3: I feel honored to be invited along on this one.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 3: So thank you so much.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: And as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: Thank you.