Latest / The Director's Chair Network / Nat Segaloff Interview
Transcript
- 0:00 some little typewriter right i'm going 0:01 to write my name all over this town with 0:03 big letters hey stop him somebody get 0:05 out of my way Johnny i'm going to spit 0:09 welcome back to the Goat Abrian de 0:11 Palama fan podcast and I am very very 0:13 excited today to be joined by author Nat 0:17 Sealof nat welcome hello Craig thanks 0:21 very much the the laughing and the uh 0:23 audio listeners won't have any way of 0:25 knowing this i have an Italian greyhound 0:27 named Louie who insists on joining the 0:29 podcast so if you hear any barking it is 0:32 him and not I yeah it's funny there are 0:35 so many podcasts out there that have 0:37 furry friend guest stars that we 0:39 sometimes see and hear thankfully mine 0:42 are downstairs and behaving today well 0:44 listen if if it wasn't for Louis during 0:46 the uh pandemic I probably would have 0:48 French kissed a light socket 0:50 so Nat uh I introduced you as author Nat 0:53 Seagalof and uh we we are primarily here 0:55 today to talk about a depo related book 0:58 you wrote but before we get into that 1:00 one of the more interesting aspects of 1:02 the book that I found was learning about 1:05 your history in film and your journey 1:09 from uh what film publicity and 1:11 journalism all the way to becoming uh 1:14 the author that you are today do you 1:15 want to sort of give us the little 1:17 cliffnotes version of uh of how you got Nat’s Film Publicity Journey 1:20 where you are today well I graduated a 1:22 long time ago and I went right into 1:24 movie publicity because I'd been running 1:26 the campus film program and I got to 1:28 know all the publicists in my town which 1:30 was Boston because I wanted to tie in 1:33 with them and so I entered film 1:34 publicity when a job opened and after 1:36 about five years between Boston and New 1:38 York and a little stint somewhere else I 1:40 guess I got black balled by my newspaper 1:43 so I had to find something else to do so 1:45 I became a producer and uh and a critic 1:49 uh in in Boston and then I moved out to 1:51 California so I've been doing that ever 1:53 since and when the industry stopped here 1:55 because I made the mistake of turning 1:57 over 40 uh I started writing books yeah 2:01 excellent and the one we're going to be 2:02 talking about today is Say Hello to My 2:05 Little Friend A Century of Scarface 2:07 before we get into that I wanted to ask 2:11 you a little bit about your career as a 2:15 critic and I and I believe you reference 2:17 this in the book a little bit but 2:22 Depa has always been a a bit of a sort 2:25 of critical 2:28 uh target pin cushion pin cushion yeah 2:30 pin cushion that's exactly right so do 2:32 you have any sort of recollections of 2:37 your time as a critic 2:39 and particular movies or um events i 2:43 know Scarface is one that was critically 2:45 sort of attacked and really took a while 2:48 to to find you know find its audience 2:51 but I was just curious as a critic and 2:53 it seems like you were one of the 2:56 DealMama defenders out there if you had 2:57 any just overall general thoughts about 3:01 your time as a critic as it relates to De Palma’s Early Career & Sisters 3:03 covering the films of Brian Deama my 3:06 main criticisms of the record were 3:07 written for the Boston Herald which was 3:09 a tabloid and would like to call it 3:10 Boston's alternative newspaper because 3:12 they were conservative i was the second 3:15 string critic and therefore I was never 3:17 given the big pictures to do so when I 3:18 saw Scarface it was just somebody who 3:21 watched Scarface not as the critic who'd 3:23 have the ability to review it i later 3:25 did other films for CBS radio and and uh 3:28 local television but as far as deama's 3:32 works I I got to know him through 3:33 greetings and hi mom and get to know 3:35 your rabbit in the early days before he 3:38 was really you know quote Brian Dealama 3:40 and then I fortunately had him as one of 3:43 my clients when he was doing the press 3:45 appearances for 3:47 sisters that back in the early early 70s 3:50 so I was kind of doing independent work 3:51 for American International Pictures and 3:53 and having a great time i knew who he 3:55 was but the older Boston press and we're 3:58 talking their traditional people really 3:59 had no sense of it so I knew first of 4:02 all that he was a great director of 4:04 comedies and very political neither of 4:06 which his later films so overtly reveal 4:10 so I kind of got in in a side door they 4:13 sent him up from New York and I was in 4:14 Boston and he arrived i think he was 4:16 wearing a safari jacket in those days 4:18 but I really don't remember my mistake 4:21 was that I was wearing a tie and the 4:23 first thing Brian told me was "Get rid 4:24 of that awful tie." So we started doing 4:27 our press appearances and he was funny 4:29 he was charming he was intensely 4:31 interested in film and he hadn't been 4:33 bruised by the press yet unfortunately 4:36 it probably started with with Sisters 4:39 one of the most interesting aspects of 4:41 working with Brian and he god he was so 4:44 smart he brought with him his production 4:46 designs for his next film which was the 4:49 Phantom of the Fillmore filillmore i 4:52 guess rights were involved with Bill 4:53 Graham and he couldn't use that name and 4:55 they changed it to Paradise and he had 4:57 this big thick book of of his his story 4:59 boards not a single critic was 5:01 interested in seeing it he whipped it up 5:03 during a press launch and he showed it 5:04 to people yes yes yes brian tell us all 5:06 about working with Margot KD in Sisters 5:09 okay well there was a retired critic 5:12 named Marjorie Adams who for 52 years 5:14 had been the doian of the Boston Press 5:16 Corps she was the first journalism 5:19 school graduate of the Boston Globe 5:21 everybody loved her in Hollywood but she 5:23 would put you through hell in interviews 5:25 but then the interviews came out and you 5:27 were God i loved Marjorie i was really 5:30 into the older film critics and I would 5:33 go to her apartment occasionally and we 5:35 talked she had hurt her knee she 5:36 couldn't leave the apartment so I 5:37 brought Brian around to her apartment 5:39 which was on Beacon Hill where all the 5:40 Adams lived she wasn't N adams but she 5:44 acted like she was and Marjorie sitting 5:47 on the couch i'm sitting on one Ottoman 5:49 stool brian is sitting on the other one 5:52 and I like to think that I 5:53 helped introduce Brian to the vagaries 5:56 and the uh the tactics of critics 5:59 because she who hadn't seen the film 6:02 because she couldn't get out of the 6:03 house is his sisters kept on peppering 6:05 him with the questions that she had 6:06 given in the past to John Wayne and 6:08 George Cucor and people like that and 6:09 Brian held up 6:11 brilliantly well one of the odd parts of 6:13 it was Marjorie having hurt her knee had 6:15 her her legs propped up marjorie liked 6:18 to wear short 6:19 skirts and when she moved her legs in a 6:22 particular angle well they grow a lot of 6:25 coffee in 6:27 Brazil brian kept his a plum but 6:29 afterwards he kind of looked at me 6:31 sideways uh what was that all about well 6:34 the next person I brought up there to 6:35 meet Margaret was Ernest Morganite whom 6:37 she knew so it was a a ritual a stop and 6:41 it was one of those adventures brian is 6:44 was remarkably open to the press uh he 6:48 would I mean nobody would let Julie 6:50 Solomon I'm sure do a book about them 6:52 the previous person who allowed it was 6:54 John Houston with Lilian Ross doing 6:56 Picture which was based on the Red Badge 6:57 of Courage brian has been was insanely 7:01 open to the press and at the same time 7:03 uh insanely vulnerable yeah i I just 7:06 have so much regard for him and that's 7:08 most of my Brian Dama story but the rest 7:10 of it is lost in the midst of time yeah 7:14 thank you for that and uh yeah not to 7:16 not to sidetrack ourselves too quick but 7:18 that book on the making of the bonfire 7:20 of the vanities is really amazing and 7:23 and u I'm glad you you sort of said that 7:27 you know Deama gave her cart blanch 7:29 basically to write the book that she 7:30 wanted to write and it's it's since been 7:33 sort of retold in a podcast that she 7:35 hosted that was really good 7:38 and it helped me if nothing else 7:41 appreciate that movie i'm I'm not a fan 7:42 of it but it helped me appreciate things 7:45 and uh one thing I've always said about 7:46 DAMA is I respect the fact that he takes 7:49 big swings and sometimes when you take 7:51 big swings you're going to miss yeah the 7:53 Bonfire of the Vanities did not work and 7:55 it wasn't to Palma's fault the fault was 7:57 the film itself and my explanation for 8:00 that is the book was written by Thomas 8:02 Wolf who has a distinctive writing style 8:05 but that's pros and they did not find an 8:07 adequate transition or translation if 8:09 you will to the screen dupalama took it 8:13 in an elegant visual manner but it 8:15 wasn't a visual manner that worked with 8:17 the elegance of Wol's style phil Kaufman 8:20 had the same problem with the right 8:21 stuff so he just really abandoned the 8:23 tone of Wol's book and made his own 8:26 movie with several screenwriters 8:28 contributing to it of course but the 8:30 Palama took the big risks and and still 8:31 does and he just has so much grace and a 8:34 plum that it's hard to really find 8:37 another director who has his combination 8:40 of gifts yeah so so one thing you hit on 8:43 was sort of being on the ground floor 8:45 for Deama's early films those those 8:48 comedies you know prior to Sisters and 8:50 Phantom of the Paradise and I'd like to 8:53 see if if you had any thoughts about 8:56 from a critical perspective and also as 8:58 a viewer 8:59 if those early comedies informed how you Comedy in De Palma’s Films 9:03 viewed his films knowing that he had 9:05 that sort of level of comedy in him you 9:09 know I always talk about filmmakers that 9:11 aren't sort of viewed as overtly comedic 9:13 you know Deal is definitely one of them 9:15 and I'd rank him in with Cubri who I 9:17 also think you know his films have a a 9:20 comedy streak that sometimes isn't 9:21 caught by audiences i was just curious 9:23 if that was something you were aware of 9:25 as his more challenging films were 9:28 coming out well I think the Palma when 9:31 you start in comedies and you have 9:33 someone like Robert Dairo who one 9:35 doesn't suspect would be funny i'll add 9:37 to that in a moment it's kind of 9:40 unexpected you know it's more of an 9:42 attitude than punchlines when you look 9:44 at for example his film within a film Be 9:48 Black Baby which is a 9:51 dreadfully terrorizing moment and yet 9:54 it's funny especially if you know what 9:56 The Living Theater had done with Judith 9:58 Bassina and Julian Beck and and their 10:00 film of the Brig and you see here's a 10:02 counterpart to that which is audience 10:04 participation there's no way I can 10:06 explain it it it shows that Deama is 10:09 really riding a very thin line between 10:11 comedy and tragedy and that's what art 10:13 is all about he manages to do it what 10:15 what was interesting and I'm thinking 10:17 about about Dairo in those two movies 10:20 people forget that Robert Dairo worked 10:21 with Brian Dema early on and the thing 10:24 of it was he was rippingly funny in a 10:26 very very strange way and so in 1975 I 10:30 think it was when Diro starring in the 10:33 Neil Simon film Bogart slept here that 10:35 Mike Nichols was directing nichols shut 10:37 it down after a few days because he 10:39 thought that Dairo wasn't funny this was 10:41 the actor who' started comedies and 10:44 Nicholls didn't work head-to-head with 10:46 Dairo so what what Dealama got out of 10:49 Dairo was something that even Mike 10:50 Nichols couldn't dealama just has a 10:54 really really great 10:56 reach i'm going on and on here i 10:58 couldn't pretend to describe what his 10:59 style is i mean look at look at get to 11:00 know your rabbit where he is totally 11:02 screwed out of it and yet when it works 11:05 it works 11:06 they couldn't destroy it yeah well 11:08 that's why I wanted to do this podcast 11:10 Nat because I really believe in my heart 11:12 of hearts and I wouldn't do a podcast 11:14 and devote time to a podcast if I didn't 11:16 believe in it that there is no other 11:18 filmmaker like Brian Dealama and you 11:22 know a filmmaker that is able to pivot 11:25 as much as he's pivoted but also who's 11:27 been able to make legitimate 11:29 masterpieces in multiple genres which 11:32 you know there's directors that dabble 11:33 in different genres but you know they 11:36 either get stuck in that genre or they 11:38 make a a serviceable movie you know that 11:41 did the job that they were paid for uh 11:44 but isn't considered a classic to this 11:46 day i mean it's amazing to me that we 11:48 have a movie like Carrie but at the same 11:51 time you know 20 some odd years later 11:53 he's making one of the best movies in 11:55 the of the '90s in Caro's way and 11:57 there's not a lot of filmmakers you can 11:59 draw that line from 12:01 he's given the chance to do a lot of 12:04 films and he's strong enough that he can 12:06 do them the way he 12:08 wants at the same time he's always had 12:10 trouble with the sensors because they 12:12 think he takes it too far i saw Dress to 12:14 Kill in a an exhibitor screening before 12:16 it was cut 12:17 and to me it was a perfectly integrated 12:20 film i Yeah it was violent but I didn't 12:21 think it was too violent then they made 12:23 him cut it and of course the story story 12:25 of the censorship of Scarfaces well not 12:27 only is it in the book it's also one of 12:29 those things where he finally told Marty 12:31 Regman "Well Helen are going to give us 12:33 an X might as well just go for it." Yeah 12:35 which but you think of it just go for it 12:38 is really what Dealama does in his other 12:39 work too yeah and and the funny thing 12:42 about censorship and I think you know 12:44 Paul Verhovven sort of had this 12:46 philosophy on Robocop where they kept 12:50 giving him a hard time so the the 12:52 violence just got more and more 12:54 overblown and it almost became 12:55 cartoonish and I think the the 12:57 opposite's true as well sometimes if you 13:00 start cutting things too much uh like 13:02 that elevator scene in Dress to Kill it 13:06 could become more terrifying and more 13:09 horrific than if you just showed what 13:12 Deama wanted to show you're right and I 13:15 think there's something Hitchcocking 13:16 about that too but you don't show the 13:19 audience is able to imagine in their 13:21 minds but if you had it as graphic as 13:23 Dama had the elevator scene and dressed 13:25 to kill you see exactly what you get and 13:28 no more he's controlling it and it's 13:31 important for us to have that 13:32 information if you make it more obscure 13:34 then the audience gets carried away 13:36 emotionally and you lose your 13:38 rationality for what's supposed to 13:39 happen in the context of the story yeah 13:42 um while we're talking about Hitchcock I 13:44 did want to ask you because one of the 13:46 more interesting things about Dama in my 13:48 opinion is a lot of people say he might 13:50 have rifted on on Hitchcock a little too 13:53 much i think a lot of criticism around 13:57 Obsession you know just sort of 14:00 being a re a remake of Vertigo vertigo 14:04 is one of my favorite films i'm not a 14:05 huge fan of Obsession but my point is I 14:08 think that and I don't know if there's 14:10 any contemporary opinions from Hitchcock 14:12 when he while he was still alive when 14:14 Dama was operating but in my opinion it 14:17 seems like dama is a natural extension 14:21 of what Hitchcock was doing you know so 14:24 less of just a Hitchcock riff and more 14:26 of taking the sort of playbook that 14:29 Hitchcock created and doing things that 14:32 Hitchcock surely would have wanted to do 14:34 had he lived long enough to make those 14:36 kinds of films well two points one when 14:38 Obsession was made Vertigo had been out 14:41 of release for several years and so the 14:43 audience wasn't compelled to make a 14:45 comparison between them i happened to 14:47 like the film but that's because I was 14:48 friends with Cliff Robertson and I like 14:50 anything Cliff was in including 14:51 Spider-Man as far as this whole 14:53 Hitchcock business and I I 14:55 raise I hate to use the word defense 14:58 because I don't think DA Palama needs 14:59 defense but I raised a point in my book 15:02 that Hitchcock developed a vocabulary of 15:05 cinema and deama used that vocabulary as 15:08 other directors have used criticizing 15:10 him for looking in a few shots like 15:13 Hitchcock is like criticizing Hemingway 15:15 because he used the same English 15:16 language that Faulner used the 15:18 vocabulary is there hitchcock perfected 15:21 it wouldn't it be awful if Deama didn't 15:24 use the appropriate shots i mean 15:26 Scorsesa uses it too everybody does paul 15:28 Thomas Anderson is also brilliant at 15:30 that uh but Brian was the first one out 15:33 of the gate and I guess he's the one who 15:35 gets uh as many arrows as St sebastian 15:38 for it yeah so before we pivot to 15:41 talking about the book I did want to get 15:42 your opinion on and and Scarface is not 15:46 a movie that was written by Deama but do 15:49 you have an opinion on the strength or 15:51 weakness of a film based on the fact on 15:54 if it's a story and a screenplay that 15:57 DeAma has developed as opposed to coming 15:59 on as sort of just director 16:03 you know you write so much stuff that 16:04 never gets produced i wouldn't want to 16:05 venture a a foray into that area i I 16:08 know that Blowout is one of my favorite 16:10 diploma films uh at the time please note 16:14 and he wrote that and and you would know 16:16 this more than I I seem to 16:19 recall that in in film comment or 16:22 another aurist type magazine didn't tell 16:26 the story of the film before he wrote it 16:30 i I don't know why this is in my mind or 16:33 maybe it was Home Movies i don't know 16:35 what it was yeah you're ringing a bell 16:37 there and if and if I can find the uh I 16:39 could not find it the history behind 16:40 that I'll include that in the in the 16:41 show notes but yeah but but uh I I don't 16:44 know if he's any more wedded to his own 16:46 stuff he certainly gets more money for 16:47 it the reason Scarface was written by 16:49 Oliver Stone was that Oliver Stone had 16:51 been contracted by Martin Bregman and 16:53 everybody else and it's a long story 16:55 fortunately I I wrote about it but he he 16:59 wanted to write a film that he wanted to 17:00 get into directing and the only job he 17:02 could get was writing it and I'm sure 17:04 Dama made many changes along the way if 17:06 you look at the comparisons of the 17:08 scripts as I did uh you know by the time 17:11 a a script gets to the production floor 17:13 people kind of forget how many hands 17:15 were in it yeah it it's just in in my in 17:18 in sort of my fandom Nat I tend to weigh 17:23 the Deama films that he wrote uh 17:26 differently than the ones that he sort 17:28 of didn't write and like I said I'm a 17:29 huge fan of Carito's Way i really think 17:31 it's one of the best films of the '90s 17:33 and of course he didn't write that so I 17:36 think there's merit in in both um I did 17:38 want to we mentioned Oliver Stone and 17:40 and I do and I've said on this show 17:41 before that I'm a a huge Oliver Stone 17:43 fan i think he's a filmmaker 17:46 that there's a point where I think he'll 17:49 be he'll get a genuine reassessment and 17:52 I think his impact on film making 17:54 especially in the early 90s I think will 17:56 be re-recognized i I I truly feel that 18:00 the run of films probably starting with 18:02 Platoon and it ended with 18:05 um uh let's say Any Given Sunday I don't 18:10 think there were other filmmakers that 18:12 would have been as gutsy as Oliver Stone 18:14 in the fact that he was 18:15 using different media different film 18:18 formats uh he was really I think Oliver 18:21 Stone doesn't get the credit but he was 18:23 really the first like sort of MTV 18:25 filmmaker and uh I I I I truly feel that 18:29 I I there'll be a reassessment of him at 18:31 some point and um I I can say I was 18:34 there um but we're getting ahead of 18:36 ourselves no I I fully agree with you in 18:38 fact I'd even go back as far as Salvador 18:40 and I I think JFK is one of the miracle 18:42 films ever made it's absolutely it's if 18:45 it's a three-hour film you've got 2 18:47 hours and 45 minutes of exposition and 18:49 you don't get bored for one second 18:51 that's brilliant film making and 18:52 Naturalborn Killer is the same way yeah 18:54 but anyway yeah no and and I truly think 18:57 that he he had a a direct influence on a 19:00 lot of a way uh that a lot of films 19:03 looked uh after after uh Naturalborn 19:06 Killers and uh and JFK and even The 19:09 Doors um so getting into the book um Say Scarface Book Discussion 19:13 Hello to My Little Friend a A Century of 19:16 Scarface I really really enjoyed reading 19:20 the book and uh the main reason was I 19:24 loved the history 19:27 behind really getting into that original 19:32 Howard Hawks Scarface uh the history 19:35 behind it the real life parallels the 19:38 development from the 19:40 novel when that project was sort 19:43 of on the table for you was the diploma 19:48 aspect of it part of the 19:51 appeal actually not it was the entirety 19:55 of the both films that that appealed to 19:59 me i I love the Howard Hawk Scarface and 20:02 that was the 1932 version it's a bit 20:04 pretentious for Hawk's work uh but I 20:07 don't care because MUN is so much fun in 20:09 it and also the script is terrific i 20:11 have an emotional bond with it because 20:13 at the time I showed it when I was 20:14 teaching in Boston 20:16 University you couldn't get copies it 20:18 was completely out of release howard 20:19 Hughes owned it and I'm proud to say 20:21 that one evening I walked in a 16mimeter 20:25 perloin print of Scarface ran it for 20:27 everybody I could find and then two 20:29 hours later it left the building forever 20:32 so there was a a kind of a almost 20:35 sensual feeling about Scarface that I 20:38 carried for many years publishers seem 20:40 to have a great affinity for movies that 20:42 have a round number as an anniversary 50 20:45 being preferred 40 for Scarface being 20:48 secondary in their minds and that is 20:50 what helped trigger the book with 20:51 Kensington Cital Publishers but I always 20:54 had like Scarface and it was an 20:56 opportunity to talk not only about both 20:58 films but about violence in cinema and 21:01 about gangsters and about diploma so 21:03 they all kind of came together in one 21:05 cauldron and the publisher said yes and 21:08 I'm very happy they did yeah uh and and 21:11 again I I think if you're a fan of film 21:14 in general or either one of the 21:16 Scarfaces it's it's worth reading 21:18 because it's really a logical sort of 21:21 journey through the history of of 21:23 Scarface in cinema one thing I did want 21:26 to ask you about Nat is you know there's 21:30 an interesting credit in the um DAPA 21:33 Scarface where they sort of acknowledge 21:35 the work of of Howard Hughes do you 21:38 think in 2024 if they're making Scarface 21:41 if the the writing credits for that 21:43 movie would have been handled 21:45 differently 21:47 i don't know whether the writer guild 21:49 was involved or whether licensing with 21:50 the Sumer Corporation and Universal had 21:52 anything to do with it they should have 21:56 credit Howard Hawks it should have 21:57 credited Ben Heck they should have 21:59 credited a lot of people but I don't 22:00 know if they were compelled to do it in 22:02 some cases since the 1983 Scarface is a 22:05 remake of the 1932 Scarface it certainly 22:08 uses the same structure but it also 22:10 refers to the Armatage Trail novel and 22:13 then adds information from Sydney Lum uh 22:17 Marty Bregman and of course Oliver Stone 22:19 and his escapades so it's a kind of a 22:22 hodgepodge that Depal and his editor 22:24 straightened out i don't know what the 22:27 rules are about crediting people i would 22:29 like to have think that they would have 22:30 credited everybody yeah but they didn't 22:33 yeah i almost wonder Nat if it's more 22:35 like I've always thought of Scarface as 22:39 you know sort of like you mentioned the 22:41 book whereas you look at like the thing 22:43 from another world and John Carpenters 22:44 the thing they're both sort of a a a 22:46 different take on the same source 22:48 material and and I guess you know 22:50 Scarface could be looked at that way but 22:53 one of the more interesting things in 22:55 your book is you you pointed out some of 22:57 the direct similarities 23:00 that both filmmakers made uh from the 23:03 source material again I I think it's an 23:06 excellent book i enjoyed the heck out of 23:07 reading it and I did want to sort of 23:09 give a little bit of time to talk about 23:12 some of your other books because I 23:13 believe uh this year you had released uh 23:16 a book uh devoted to the making of the 23:20 exorcist i have had so many books lately 23:22 co kept me at the typewriter and it it 23:26 worked last year I'm trying to remember 23:29 now you know when you write a book and 23:30 then it goes through the production 23:31 process you forget when you wrote it i 23:34 wrote a book called The Exorcist Legacy 23:37 50 years of fear which was all about the 23:40 various exorci and it mentioned the new 23:43 one the paperback version is coming out 23:45 next year because it'll have an 23:47 additional chapter about exorcist 23:49 believer about which I'll write in the 23:51 book it was that was an exorcism for me 23:55 because I was not only one of the 23:56 publicists on the original exorcist in 23:59 1973 but I am also William Fritken's 24:02 biographer with Billy's permission and 24:04 and a 50-year friendship with him so the 24:07 book was very much a personal effort for 24:09 me as well as a chance to set all the 24:12 record straight about The Exorcist the 24:14 new one by the way includes some 24:15 information from Michael Blatty who was 24:17 the older son of William Peter Blatty oh 24:18 wow oh so I I think the cred their 24:20 credentials are pretty much in line on 24:22 that one i also have coming out this 24:24 coming year he says in a shameless plug 24:27 for his work a book called The Rambo 24:30 Report yes which is of course all about 24:31 the Rambo films and novels and even the 24:34 cartoon series and it is written with 24:36 the close cooperation and blessing of 24:38 David Morurell who wrote the original 24:40 1972 novel First Blood which gave birth 24:43 of course to Rambo so that's at 24:45 Kensington uh Citadel again and I just 24:48 sent them the uh the approved galleys a 24:50 couple of days ago so the ball's in 24:52 their court now oh that's excellent and 24:54 uh for those who don't know prior to 24:56 this podcast I worked on a Sylvester 24:59 Stallone themed podcast called SlyCast 25:02 we did many episodes uh devoted to uh 25:04 the Rambo series and for an anniversary 25:08 of Rambo 2 uh I had the pleasure and 25:12 honor of of sitting down and chatting 25:14 with um with Mr morell um who is an 25:19 amazing podcast guest oh yeah and uh 25:22 after we got off the call he sent me uh 25:26 just a a treasure trove of uh photos and 25:30 articles related to First Blood Part Two 25:33 and uh I really 25:36 enjoy I really enjoy talking with him 25:38 and I also really enjoy uh his novels uh 25:42 I think he's a a great writer and I'm 25:45 really looking forward to that uh that 25:47 Rambo uh book and and one thing I got to 25:50 say is that's quite an undertaking 25:52 there's a lot more films than than uh 25:55 than you know the two Scarfaces uh 25:57 Scarlet films so uh I I'm I'm curious to 26:01 see how you tackle it well there's stuff 26:03 in there that even David didn't know 26:04 about and of course most of the people 26:06 involved with the films are gone now uh 26:09 so I had to do an awful lot of research 26:11 and it it was fun to write because the 26:14 politics of it are what people talk 26:16 about for Rambo and the violence but in 26:18 fact it's really about a man who has 26:20 PTSD yes when I think about all the tens 26:23 of thousands of American service workers 26:25 service men and women who have come back 26:28 with that horrible silent psychological 26:31 problem and how Rambo addresses it in 26:33 strange ways i I was trying to be 26:35 respectful of all of them in writing it 26:37 and I perhaps it'll help people i don't 26:38 know i wouldn't be that presumptuous but 26:40 it's really about adjusting from war and 26:42 about maybe not fighting any oh yeah no 26:45 absolutely so uh I will include uh 26:48 relevant links to to all the the books 26:50 we talked about and there's a lot more 26:52 that we didn't talk about but again the 26:55 deama related book is uh say hello to my 26:57 little friend a century of scarface and 27:00 u if you're a fan of this this show if 27:02 you're a fan of Scarface if you're a fan 27:04 of film it's definitely work worth 27:07 checking out natt I know it took us a 27:08 while to uh to connect and and uh uh 27:12 schedule this this sit down but I'm so 27:14 glad we did and uh hopefully we'll have 27:16 an opportunity to chat again in the 27:18 future i'm here same time same number 27:20 craig thank you so much and thank you if 27:22 Ryan Depal is listening thank you very 27:24 much for the work you've done and 27:26 certainly for all of the fans who 27:27 support you and support him i'm very 27:29 proud to be here thank you oh thank you 27:32 okay and take care