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Behind The Film: Charles Grodin: Rebel With a Cause with James L. Freedman · Indie Film Weekly

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Indie Film Weekly Behind the Film.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Glenn Reynolds.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Jason Connell.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're going behind Charles Groden, Rebel with the Cause, a documentary about the actor and comedian known for the Heartbreak Kid, Midnight Run, and unforgettable late-night television appearances.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the film also reveals his decades of work fighting injustice and helping people in prison.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Our guest is director Jim Friedman.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I really love this film.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds us how original Charles Groden was as a performer, and then it reveals a side of him that many people never knew.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: What stayed with me is that the same guy who could make an audience laugh just by refusing to answer a question spent years refusing to let politicians ignore people in prison.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's really affecting.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let's meet Jim Friedman and go behind Charles Groden Rebel with a Cause.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Jim, welcome.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: So every film starts somewhere.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Where did Charles Groden Rebel with a Cause start for you?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I tend to try and find subjects that were very successful in their careers and then had this other aspect to them where whether you want to call it social justice or you want to call it a super menschie quality to them.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: So my first film was Glickman, which Martin Scorsese, the exec producer, HVO.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: And my second film was Carl Lemmley, which was funded by Steven Spielberg's foundation.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: And that was about the guy who founded Universal Studios and then rescued all these Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: So when I was looking for a new subject, I'd always been a fan of Charles Groden.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I was researching him and I found out that he got all these wrongly or unjustly convicted women out of prison, most of whom were mothers of color with young children, I said, this is great.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: And also I was a comedy writer for many years in Hollywood.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: So it gave me a chance to really get back into comedy with this.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: And going through Charles Groden's comedic resume was a treat, let me tell you.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the guy's just so great.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I I reached out to his uh wife, and she wanted to see both my films before she granted me the rights.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: Alyssa Groden, and we've since become really good friends.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And a week later, seven boxes of his archives showed up photos and videos and newspaper articles.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason I chose Charles Groden is because I'd always been a fan.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: I had seen him as a kid on Broadway in the same time next year with Ellen Burston, one of the greatest nights I still have ever had in the theater.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I read his books and I had seen The Heartbreak Kid when it came out.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I just loved the guy, you know, but I didn't know anything about him personally.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: And when I learned all this stuff, I said, this is absolutely, I want to share this man's story.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm such a huge fan, too.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And having made a lot of documentaries, and the last doc I made was about Dabney Coleman before he passed away.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I had the good fortune of getting to know him.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So unfortunately, you were making a movie about someone, a hero of yours, but you didn't get to work with them.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But you really padded this movie with so many stars and celebrities.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Was that always the idea?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I gotta get to Nero.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And did like what was your scope of the film when you first delved into it?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: I have to stop first and respond to Dabney Coleman.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd always been a huge Dabney Coleman fan, and he was pretty ill when I started making this film.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I spoke to him and he got me the rights to some footage because he loved Chuck.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: Dabney Coleman was one of those guys that I really wanted him to see the film, and he his eyesight was going, so he was going to come to my place, and I have this, you know, like 80-foot screen.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: He was going to watch a rough cut of the film.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I went away to New York to do some you know business on the film.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: When I came back, he had passed away, and I was so sad because I really wanted him to see this film.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he became a dear friend, so I'm sorry to hear that.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you guys had an exchange.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm happy that he helped you with the film.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's incredible.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he's thanked in the credits.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, as far as like getting this cast in the film, what was that process like?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And did you always see that?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I'm gonna need to get these people in here to boost up the star power.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: Not just getting stars for stars' sake, but what can they bring to the film?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: So, for instance, in Midnight Run, I have Robert De Niro and I have the director Martin Brest.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you don't really need anybody else to cover Midnight Run if you have those two guys.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: And for the Heartbreak Kid and whether it was Ishtar or anything else, it took a year, and I was already editing, and I got Elaine May, who is notorious for not doing these things.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, she was just wonderful in the film.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: And when I get back to New York, I try and see her now and we'll, you know, try and have lunch with her.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: She's just a delight.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Some people said Groden was able to get me.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: And some people, like I cold called Martin short, and he loved Chuck from Clifford and uh couldn't wait to do it.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: Ellen Burston was very similar to that.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: There were people, they're not coming on this film because of me, they're coming on because of Charles Groden, and that's how it should be.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to ask you about the childhood material, which is very revealing, especially his battles with his father and his instinct to stand up for others or outsiders.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Did that change how you understood the adult Charles?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: And people ask me what's one of the things you were surprised by when you're, you know, I do all my own research.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's where I find the film.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I did not know that for viewers, uh, his he and his father, he when he was a teenager, his father wanted him to work in his store after school for several hours and on weekends.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: And Chuck, like most boys, wanted to play sports.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: And his father, it got so contentious that he wouldn't work in the store that his father didn't want to talk to him and just they they passed notes to each other.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he died when Chuck was uh in high school, and he never, I don't think, resolved those issues.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I, in fact, he was a workaholic.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, and Alyssa Groden confirmed this on her opinion as well, that one of the reasons he was a workaholic and wanted to do such good things was almost to show his father I wasn't a lazy bum, I just didn't want to work in your store.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to play ball.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: And the other thing is when you do films like I do, where you're uh showing all of the fun Charles Groden comedic material and stuff on Johnny Carson and David Letterman, all his wonderful movies.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: You can't just then at the end of the film, the last act of the film, show him saving all these people from prison.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_02: You have to see that through the film.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And this guy in high school, you know, he was in Pittsburgh in the early 50s.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: This is before Brown versus the Board of Education, and he was elected class president every year and was helping the black students in his school and really cared about that.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: And then later you see he was chosen, he was friends with Art Garfunkel and later Paul Simon, and they chose him to direct their first television special for CBS in 1969.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: And Steve Martin talks about that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: He said, What happened was you couldn't do like a normal dancing and singing show in 1969 with Vietnam Raging and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy following JFK five years earlier, and uh the farm workers and everything else.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: And Charles Grove convinced Simon Garfunkel to put all of that material into the documentary film, which the sponsor was appalled when that showed up.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: They just wanted, it's the first time, by the way, Bridge Over Troubled Water was ever heard, was on that special.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: And ATT dropped the sponsor dropped out, and they had to scramble for a sponsor, and uh they got one just before they were to go on air.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: So he was always involved in things like this.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: He wanted to be a journalism major, and then he saw Place in the Sun, where Montgomery Cliff falls in love with Elizabeth Taylor, and he said, I want to now I want to be in the movies.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be kissed by Elizabeth Taylor.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: And that is, by the way, the same movie that got George Stevens, the great director, and Warren Beatty to both want to be in the movies.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: So Place in the Sun, I highly recommend it for anyone uh who hasn't seen it.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, making this film about a legend, and it's easy to make so many different movies.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: You could make the acting career movie, the advocacy movie.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: How did you find that balance in telling both and revealing more of the man?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of what I do and what I look for.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I go in with that.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I want to talk about, setting up, seeding through the theme.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: Once you find the theme of your story, and the theme of this story was if you asked Charles Gordon at the end of his life what he wanted to be known for, it would never be Midnight Run or the Heartbreak Kid or Having to Wait.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: It would be his social justice work.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_02: And when you think about it, you know, getting these women out of prison, and then once they got out, really helping them in their lives to get back on their feet.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um as much as movies touch people, that's so much more of an influence because it's a human being's life.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what he cared about.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I was asked, I show a rough cut to my films to write or director friends, because I've been in Hollywood for many, many years as a writer.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_02: And the first instinct everyone's saying is, well, if you want to sell this, you really want to cut down the amount of time you're spending on a social justice stuff and maybe have it be five minutes, mention it.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized it wouldn't be doing justice to what this man's life was.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: He spent the last 20 years of his life basically doing this.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: He was going up to Bedford Hills Prison to visit these women every single weekend.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: Think about that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: This is not a celebrity putting his name on you know, uh a cause or picketing for the TV cameras, you know.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: As he said, you don't want me to picket the governor's office, you want me to be in the governor's office.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I knew I had to do that justice.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_02: And by the way, we had screenings at various festivals, and in Washington, D.C.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: in LA and New York, the women who we got out of prison came to these screenings, and it was such an emotional evening.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm so and they're in the film, and I'm so glad I made that decision to spend significant time on a social justice work.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_02: But for your viewers, by the way, it's a very funny film, too.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's an enormous amount of humor in the film, and to watch that with an audience and watch them really laugh.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, laugh hard, you know, especially when you get to the talk show appearances where he's putting on the hosts, it's just great.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Him and Letterman, so good.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, and Carson.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: But Letterman, that was just yeah, I grew up to that, and I thought he was just a genius.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I love the Rosemary's baby story where he pushes back on Polanski over one pause.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Would you say that's a defining example of how Grud worked?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: He he basically said the way he acted was he just listened and reacted.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: He said it took about 10 years to get the nervousness out, you know, because it's an unnatural state.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: You have a crew around you, you have lights, you have cameras, you have a director, you have extras, and you have to act as if none of that's there except what should be in the movie.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: And he said once about 10 years it took to not be nervous, he said he just then he listened, and that's why he was such a brilliant react actor.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: So having made docs and having faced this very thing in the editing band, I know you did as well, I'm sure.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: What were some scenes, if you want to share any, that you couldn't put in the film ultimately because the film is very cohesive and there's I'm sure there were some gems.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Any funny stories you want to share or clips that didn't make it?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when you're doing a doc, as you know, you have to set something up sometimes, and the setup takes too long.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: You you look at time completely differently when you're doing your documentary.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like 15 seconds is a chunk unto itself.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, if you have four 15-second chunks in a minute, and you have a 90-minute film, that's 360 chunks of material.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: So you say, Well, I don't want to spend one of those 360 chunks setting up something.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: So there were a lot of talk show appearances I could not do because it took like 30 seconds to a minute just to set it up.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_02: But here's what here's a couple of stories.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Alan Burston told me this story.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: Charles Gordon was not cast in the movie version of Same Time Next Year.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: And he knew this.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he was going on, Johnny Carson and David Steinberg was the guest host that night.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: And in the pre-interview, he told the tonight show, Have David asked me about not being cast in the movie of same time next year after Groden had been so successful on Broadway in that play opposite Ellen Burston.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: So David Sternberg innocently asked Chuck, how do you feel about not being chosen to be in the movie of same time next year?
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: And Groden plays it completely straight as if this is the first time he's ever heard this question.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: What do you mean I wasn't chosen?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: I was great on Broadway.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Who'd they choose?
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: And Ellen Burston said she was on her couch watching this, laughing so hard because she knew exactly what he was doing.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: And he also, you know, he was so dry and deadpan.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: Alan Arkin told me this story.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes his friends didn't know when he was kidding.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: So he and Arkin lived about 45 minutes away from each other in Connecticut at one point.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he calls up Alan Arkin and he says, Alan, I have to come see you.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's very important.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_02: And Alan Arkin says, sure.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: So Chuck drives the 45 minutes up.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_02: Chuck doesn't say a word for two hours.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: He's playing with Arkin's kids, he's hanging out with them.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: And finally, Alan Arkin says, Well, what did you come up here?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: What is so important?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: You had to see me.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: And Chuck said, Let's take a walk.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: And they take a walk and he stops and he says to Alan Arkin, he says, Listen, I need to borrow$20.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: And Alan Arkin is like, doesn't even know how to respond.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And Charles Gordon starts cracking up and he says, if you could have just seen your face when I asked to borrow$20.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: The guy broke is my friend, and you know, what's going on?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: And Alan Arkin said, You drove up 45 minutes here, hung with my kids for two hours, just to see the look on my face when I when you said that.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: And he goes, Absolutely.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: And that's who he was.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you another quick funny one with him.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: A friend of uh his daughter, Marion, came up at a New York screening and he said, I was at a Halloween party that Marion threw, that Chuck was at, and I thought it was a costume party, and I was the only one dressed in a costume.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: It was not a costume party.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I was incredibly embarrassed the whole night.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I dressed as a doctor, and he said, to make him feel better, every 20 minutes, Charles Grodin came up to him at the party and he said, Listen, doctor, I have this pain in my elbow.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think uh you could look at it?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and then he wouldn't even and he'd walk away.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then he, you know, the guy said, Well, that was that.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then 20 minutes later, he'd come over.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: Listen, my knee, I think I have bursitis or something.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Could you just check out my knee for five minutes?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: And the guy said he never forgot it.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_02: It made his night, and it made him feel not embarrassed at all that he was the only one in a Halloween costume.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: That's who the guy was.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Great stories.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, story that is in this in there is the story of losing the graduate over what he saw as unfair pay.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost a pain, it's a very painful story in a way.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: How did you weigh his own account against other versions of what happened there?
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Glenn, that's a great question.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: When I originally did it, I just told Charles Groden's version of the story.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: And then a friend of mine said, I wonder if he's a faulty narrator here.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I had Steve Martin saying, I know that's what Chuck said, but Mike Nichols, the director of the film, told me, and he did a great audition, uh, and he later used them in Catch 22 based on that audition, but he just didn't quite look young enough.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: And he uh and he was upset about the money, he was uh supposedly being paid$500 a week or something, and his agent was just saying, you just have to do this, it doesn't matter, it's unfair.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: And Groden was someone where fairness was a very important thing to that he just wouldn't feel right, and he chose not to do it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And Steve Martin says, and also Julian Slosberg, a producer, said, you know, they don't know the story of it, but they felt that Mike Nichols ultimately wanted Dustin Hoffman.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you can look at that story, and then I put that in the film.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: I put the other side of it, and it it played better because you see both sides of it, and it's very possible he would have gotten the role if he had not complained about the$500 a week or Dustin Hoffman hadn't ever auditioned.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: You don't you don't know, but that's where uh friends can watch your film.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because when you make these films, as you know, you lose all perspective, especially if you see something that's really funny.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you're gonna see that thing a thousand times before it's released.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not joking.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, literally, you see some things a thousand times, and you have no perspective on anything.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so I tend to write down when I first see something and I put it in a folder, I go, This is really funny, you know, and then I just leave it and I know an audience.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: Remind yourself.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, that's hilarious.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's just gonna wear out over time, yes.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, or this is really poignant, you know, and then you lose the perspective on that as well.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_02: So that was a graduate story.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned you've taken the film to film festivals, and you had some of the people that he helped, and that's amazing at the screenings.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: But what have you seen from like younger audiences who may not remember Charles Grodna?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first time they're seeing how his brilliance as an actor and as a man.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what has that reaction been like?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's very interesting because I clearly have an older audience, but when you go to these things, people bring their children who may be in their 20s or teenagers or whatever, and they were just blown away by this guy.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like, people would know Charles Gordon from Beethoven if they're like around 40, anything under that.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: They might not know him at all.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of these people didn't know him at all.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: And they but that was one of the things, by the way, Jason, that shocked me was like they didn't know who Nichols and May were.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't know Alan Arkin.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I knew the people from the 50s and 40s when I was growing up.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's the phones and everything's you know, you only know something from 30 seconds ago.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: But I just feel that it was wonderful to see a new audience.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, listen, go on YouTube and Google some Nichols and May clips.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_02: These things are brilliant, they're hysterically funny.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Or look at some of Charles Gordon's older films.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: So I guess unless you're the Beatles and live forever, perhaps.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: Very few celebrities, as big as they are, they really do have their time.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: And some of them last a long time, but most of them end up getting forgotten.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_02: And it pleased me to no end.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: These were people I have incredible admiration or respect for, you know, whether it's Mark Short or Steve Martin.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_02: People know them because they're in a current TV series.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: But to introduce people to Midnight Run, which is one of the great buddy or anti-buddy comedies of all time, I showed my boys who are in their 20s that about six months ago, and they just loved it.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: That made me feel good that you sort of give a little more life to some of these people's work that would go by, they wouldn't be seen.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_02: And that made me feel very good because I hold them in such high regard.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of these people, I was a comedy writer in Hollywood for over 25 years, so to be able to tell people uh, you know, watch Martin Short and this, watch Alan Arkin and that, watch Steve Martin and that, you know, what a joy.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: The Simon and Garfunkel special, it feels like an early clue to who he really was.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: What did that experience reveal about his willingness to risk his career for something he believed in?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's who he was.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: He had a CNBC show when they were first starting out.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's and uh it was it started as just a comedy show.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: And the more he did it, the OJ trial happened, and he started covering that like everyone else.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_02: And then that's all they wanted was OJ stuff, and he just was getting sick and tired of it.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: And he started to do social justice issues, prison reform, and things such as that out.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: And they came back to him and said, You're doing too much of.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: That.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: We want more comedy.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: And he just said to himself, I have one shot at getting a show like this.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to do it the way I want to do it.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: If they cancel me, they cancel me.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: And they eventually did cancel him.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: And he didn't have any regrets about it at all because he did exactly what he wanted to do.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think he was someone who saw injustice and was so deeply hurt by it, beyond what most of us are, that he felt he had to do something about it.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: And if he had this forum and this TV show to bring attention to issues that were not being shown or seen on television, it was worth him not having the job for 10 years instead of four years.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't care.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Have you seen anything or any opportunities come from after his passing and this movie coming out that kind of spot uh shine a spotlight on the causes he was championing?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Has someone else picked up that baton from him and carried on?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, a couple of things.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: He was working with Innocence Project.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_02: They've been around and they used him a lot when he was alive.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: And his son has recently gone into some charitable work in that venue, not prison reform, but other things.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it lives on.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: And the main thing that it shows people who see the film is how much one person can do to affect change.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: I know today, you know, is election day, and a lot of people are thinking, well, my vote doesn't matter, or this or that, but it's not true.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: One person really can make a difference.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: And Charles Gordon proved that.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: And Carl Lemmley in my other film, second film, you know, proved that.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, one person really can make a difference if you devote yourself to something.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: And to not be discouraged by what's happening.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: Charles Gron, by the way, just didn't do that with social reform.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was his kid who was in a uh Little Lee and he saw a coach berating a player.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_02: He would go over to the coach and let him have it.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: Or there was a traffic, there was a very bad intersection, the town where he lived, and a kid died on his bicycle there.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: And he went to, you know, City Hall and said, We've got to fix this.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: This is terrible.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_02: No one should be dying when we can do something about this.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: And he did something about it.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it just really shows what one person can do.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: He alluded to this maybe a little bit earlier, but has the film prompted any new conversations with the families or the people that he helped?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: In what sense?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, just in, you know, I think you were showing the film to, you know, the people who are incarcerated, right?
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Has anything come of that in terms of anybody leading the charge or any new developments with regard to their situations or anything like that?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: Some of those women have done work in that area to help other people in similar circumstances.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: For people to get a greater understanding of what Charles Gordon did, there was a thing called the Rockefeller Drug Laws.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: And they were these draconian laws that Nelson Rockefeller put in to stop the use of drugs.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it backfired because what happened was when it first came out, anyone who had two ounces of heroin, cocaine, or marijuana was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison or to 20 years, whatever it was.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: And the judges had absolutely no leeway.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_02: And most of the women who were incarcerated who were in my film, they were all police things.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was a woman who had no money who was offered$2,500 to take a two-ounce packet of cocaine from LeBronx to Brooklyn.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: And she did that, and it was a police thing, and she was locked up for 15 years.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it was so unjust.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: And he actually got the Rockefeller drug laws changed, not completely the way he would have wanted it, but now at least judges had the ability to lessen the sentence.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: So these women's lives or anyone's lives weren't completely ruined by one small mistake.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I know you've mentioned the film festival circuit.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you finish the movie, it's exciting.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: You get to everything you envision, you get to share it with an audience and you get to relive these things.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: But what's that experience been like?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the jokes get funnier again after the editing bay, but the screenings maybe speak to and also going into distribution of the movie to bring it to a wider audience.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it ended up kicking off Turner Classic Movies, started a films-on-film series that Steven Spielberg had asked them to do.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: And they chose my Charles Gordon film as the first film to kick off the series.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then later after the documentary, they show Midnight Run and they show uh scenes like Old Times with Chevy Chase and Goldie Hahn or and other Groden movies.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: That was a big kick for me.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's now streaming on Amazon and Google Play and Fandango and Apple TV, so people can see it if they miss the TCM screening.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh my second film, Carl Lenley, also played in that film series just last week.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: So wow.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's just uh, you know, it's it's a default channel when I turn on my TV.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's what comes on.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I just it's a wonderful channel.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna turn now to another section of our podcast where we ask you a series of questions.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Quick Cuts.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh not about your film particularly, it's really about you and your relationship to going to theaters, the theatrical experience.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's just some 10 rapid fire questions.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Don't overthink them, get your quick takes for fun.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: First off, popcorn or candy?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Both.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: I put the raisinettes in the popcorn.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: Nice.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: But I I drink I drink water, not soda, as if that's gonna wash everything down.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be healthy.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: It balances it out.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's so do you put butter on top of the popcorn in the no, no, no, okay.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be too much with the raisinettes in there.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like to have one artery still working at the end of the movie.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: You want to leave the theater.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'd like to walk as I came in.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: So aisle seat or center seat.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, aisle seat.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: Always have to be an aisle seat.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm kind of tall and I I need my leg to stretch out.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: I totally hear you.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: How many trailers is too many?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, you go to the movies now, it's awful.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: I I mean, well, mostly because so many of them I have no interest in you sitting through.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, to me, I wish they'd show like three really good trailers and they used to show like eight or nine.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's too many.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they repeat them sometimes, but it feels like they do.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but that's true.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, matinee or late-night screening.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: Years ago, it always used to be late-night screenings, and you know, I'd go at 10 on a weeknight to see movies, and now it's much more matinee.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Favorite movie theater either now or when you're growing up?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: They're no longer there, but I liked the landmark theaters in West Los Angeles was great.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: They had great buttered popcorn then, and they showed really wonderful films.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: There was a theater, the Crest Theater in Westwood, which was a wonderful theater.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Larry Davis shot there, I think, a few times for curb your enthusiasm.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was a really good theater.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: But obviously, nothing compares to when you're a kid and you go to Radio City Music Hall in New York.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's just incredible.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I used to have all these books on the golden age of cinema and all these theaters and the Art Deco theaters, some of them are so magnificent, and they were palaces.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: And people don't remember that.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when the movies started, the main thing that made the movies work, especially in the summer, was air conditioning.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because it was people couldn't afford their own air conditioner, so that's when they went to cool off.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_02: And they also theater might be for well-to-do people.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_02: Movies were for the entire public.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was, you didn't need, you know, Nickelodeon started, you needed a nickel, and you could see something.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: It really was America's pastime before television came around.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: It was wonderful.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: For people who don't know this, before TV, you'd go to a movie, this is a little before my time, but they would show a double feature, they would have cartoons for the kids, they would have newsreels for the adults.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was like you were there for five hours.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how they made a living.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: It was incredible.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, what was the first movie you remember seeing in a theater?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: Tom Thumb.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: I was really little.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: I just love the idea of this little guy, and it was Tom Thumb.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know why I remember that, but I remember that.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_02: How about the movie you've seen most in a theater?
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: In a theater.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great question.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great question.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: It probably would be something either like a Preston Sturges film that I would see in the museums, you know, or it would be a Marx Brothers movie that I would see many times in theaters, or it would be something like The Godfather, or maybe Annie Hall, or something like that, which I saw multiple times in theaters.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_02: But now you have large screens, and when you rewatch movies, you do it at home.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: You tend to do it at home.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: But it's very different.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like I went to see Double Indemnity at a uh museum, and I have seen that movie so many times.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: When you go with an audience and you see something like that, or you see a comedy and everyone's laughing, it's a completely different experience.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that it's come back a little bit recently, but it's going away in our country, is the experience of movie going.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's so important.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's a communal dream when you're in a movie theater.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so important to see films, not on a little phone with a two-inch screen, even though that's how most people will see films today, but to go and experience something and have a commonality with your fellow man.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'll tell you a quick story about you.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the you're preaching to the choir.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: That this is the the you know, the what's behind the ethos of this show is about going to the movie theater.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: So you have a captive audience here.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: When I would go to the screenings and do the QA's, thank the people for coming out because it's very important people continue.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: And COVID really wrecked the moviegoing experience, and many theaters just couldn't recover from it.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_02: We're still barely recovered from it, to be honest.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, a lot of people of my generation don't go anymore, but I'm still an avid moviegoer.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: I just want to tell a story about the power of film.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: And my first film, Glickman, was about the sportscaster, and among many things, Marty Glickman coined the basketball phrase swish.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: So a friend of mine calls me up and he said, You will never believe what happened to me today.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: And he was at a health expo in Los Angeles, and he sees two men, middle-aged men, arguing about who coined the term switch.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: And one guy's saying it was the old Lakers announcer Chick Hearn.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: The other guy says, No, it was the old NBC announcer Dick Enberg.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: And then my friend watched astonished as this tall, thin man from the Sudan, the Sudan comes over to these two guys and he says, You're both wrong, it was Marty Glickman.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: And my friend who had seen my movie couldn't help himself.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: And he went, he was astonished.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_02: He went over to the man and he said, Excuse me, but how could you possibly know this?
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_02: And the man said, When I left the Sudan and came to America, we settled in New Jersey, and the woman who taught me and my friends English to teach us kept showing us this Glickman documentary over and over and over again.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that's how we learned the language.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that is the power of film.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great story.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, Jim, what was the last movie you saw in a theater?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so bad at remembering this stuff.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: I just went with my family.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, uh, you can see everything.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: Is that the name of it?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: The Nathan Fielder movie?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can see everything.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and we're going to see the only uh living pickpocket in New York next week.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: There are a couple of movies I want to see.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's a Julianne Moore film with the debut, I think, that uh Jesse Eisenberg did.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: I want to see that.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_02: I like to go to the movies.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_02: I just have always liked to go to the movies.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Jim, we end every behind-the-film episode with one final question, and it's the final cut.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And Glenn, take it away.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: After everything you've learned about Charles Grodin, what do you think would be the thing that he would most want to be remembered for?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, his social justice worked and helping those less fortunate than himself, and that anyone can do it.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: Anyone can do it.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know we mentioned this earlier, Jim, but let's go ahead and remind the audience where can people see Charles Groden Rebel with a cause?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: They can see it on Amazon Prime, they can see it on Fandango at Home, Google Play, and Apple TV.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: It'll be back on TCM next year, and that's where you can see Charles Gordon Rebel with a cause.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to learn more information about him, you can go on the website charlesgrodenfilm.com.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_02: It has clips from the movie.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: It has many things if you're a Charles Groden fan that I think you'll enjoy.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: And uh also the X account is at Chuck Groden Film.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Jim, thank you so much for joining us.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: We came in thinking about Charles Groden, how much he makes us laugh on Letterman and all his movies, and we're leaving thinking about the women he helped get home to their families.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's a wonderful story, such a good movie, and thanks for sharing it with us.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's my pleasure.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: The poster says, Oh, make you laugh and touch your heart.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's exactly what movie audiences have experienced because it's like I said before, it's very funny.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_02: He has some wonderful comedic moments in this film of the clips I chose because there was so much to choose from.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: And that was a real joy sifting through that and picking out his best material that I like.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: I really appreciate it, guys.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: You asked a lot of really good questions.