Latest / The Kulturecast / Required Viewing 08: All About Eve

Transcript

Required Viewing 08: All About Eve · 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 on
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the CultureCast feed. I am one of your hosts, Chris
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Stashew of the CultureCast, and I'm joined by my good
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: friend all the way from West Texas, where he is
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: a professor of media and communications at Texas Tech, your
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: friend and mine, Dr.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: David D. Perlmutter.
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: Howdy, Chris and Susan.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: And also joining us all the way from her show
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: on weirdingwaymedia.com, where it has won several awards. If you're
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: not listening to it, you should be. She is a
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: hell of a podcaster. I'll give her that, among being
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of other things, but she's a hell of
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: a podcaster. Susan Lambert-Hattem.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Aw, thanks so much. I'm so excited to be here.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: And Susan knows how to pick movies because on this
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: episode of Required Viewing, which, like I mentioned, is a
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: sub-feed on my feed, we're going to be talking about
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: 1950s Joseph Mankiewicz's, I guess, All About Eve. And I mentioned, Susan,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you're a hell of a podcaster, but you also like
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: to pick good movies because you have, on several occasions,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: picked films for the CultureCast series. that have been fantastic films.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: And then you're now here picking this film for us
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  Speaker 1: to talk about. And I don't want to bury the
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: lead or anything, but I think that this is once again,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: a great pick in a long laundry list of great picks.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: But I just wanted to say thank you ahead of
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: time before we have this conversation, because there's no universe
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: where I would have watched this movie before this, not
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: because I wouldn't have, but just because I feel woefully
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: underrepresented when it comes to films of this time and place.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe a lot of people my age, probably.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, you have to seek out, I think,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: anything before 1970 in terms of films. You have to
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: be looking for that kind of film. And so I
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: was very glad to be able to suggest this and
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: pick this because it is one of my favorite films.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: I've seen it many, many times. And yet going back
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: and revisiting it is always such a treat as this was.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, on this episode of Required Viewing, we're
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: going to be talking about all about Eve. So the
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: film is written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, produced
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: by Daryl F.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Zanuck.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: I'm mentioning these names because they're very important. It's based
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: on The Wisdom of Eve by Mary Orr, though it's uncredited.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: She's uncredited on screen.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: It stars Betty Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: George Merrill, Hugh Marlowe. Thelma Ritter, Gregory Radoff, Marilyn Monroe,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: whatever happened to her, and Barbara Bates. But most importantly,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Anne Baxter plays the titular Eve Harrington. a devoted fan who, well,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: she starts out as a fan and ends up as, well,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the biggest star, I guess, in the world of this film.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And yeah, she supplants the character Betty Davis plays Margot Channing,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: who is the star at the beginning of the film.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It's one of those kinds of films, which is to
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: say there's a lot going on. There's a lot to unpack.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: There's a whole lot of Important meaning and reasons why
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: we're talking about this film that we'll talk about as
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: we talk about the film. But Susan, I want to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: give you the first opportunity here, since you are our guest. Why,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: oh why, did you pick, of all things, All About Eve?
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Well, as I said, it is one of my favorite films.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: One of my favorite classic and sort of awarded films.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I think it deserves all its awards. And I just...
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: I always love revisiting it. So, and I always love
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: introducing it to people as well.
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Dr.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Perlmutter, um, before we kind of talk about the film specifically,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: had you seen this before? I mean, I know we
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: had kind of, you had kind of talked about some
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: options cause we had kind of given Susan some, like,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: it was like four options. Uh, and this is the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: one Susan picked, but why, why were the options, the
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: ones that we gave, I guess is the better question
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: because you kind of delineated the options and then Susan
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: picked the final one. So what was it about, uh,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: all about Eve that got you so excited to bring
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: this one up, possibly, Dr.
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: Perlmutter? Well, you know, we talk about films having many lives,
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: the life of their incarnation when they come out, and
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: we can discuss the context, the history of the time,
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: maybe the production details, the reception of a film. why
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: it was probably made, what the target audience was. But
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: when you deal with a film like this one, you're
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: also dealing with sort of an icon, right? And I
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: was introduced to this film probably maybe 40 years ago.
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: I had not seen it, but somebody had in a
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: class I was taking at on classical Hollywood film had
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: put it as number one on the list of women's
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: films or films that gave front place to women actresses
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: and stories of women. And I thought that was very interesting. Circa,
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: you know, 1980 or so, 85, what was considered to
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: be a woman's movie. And I interpreted– and I think
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: the people in the class and the people who put
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: the list together, who I don't even remember where they were.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: It was just some list that was going around on–
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: this is before the internet, right? So there wasn't a
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: billion over-analyses of anything like there is today. But that
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: was an interesting question, and I'll lead into some answers
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: that came across some other discussions then. But also– I
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: have talked about on Required Viewing the role of the screenplay.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: And I think, Chris, you and I came at it
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: from different directions. And Susan, I got the sense the
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: last time we talked, too, that we all agree Hollywood
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: can throw a lot of money and get pretty good
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: carpentry and good sets and catering and just everything that's
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: part of a movie. But it seems to be inescapably
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: hard to get or guarantee a movie, whether it has
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: a $ 200 million budget or a $ 1 million budget, to
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: have a fantastic screenplay. And This movie was also introduced
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: to me as in the short list of the top
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: 30 Hollywood screenplays. Like you could read– and I did.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: I did read the screenplay. I read the original story.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: I also read the screenplay for the radio program that
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: was made about this. There's a whole history there we'll
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: talk about. But they just– its entry into the film
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: pantheon was assured– Aside from the fact that it's a
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: really interesting movie to watch, and I think even today's
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: audiences can enjoy it.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: And, you know, it'll come as no surprise to anyone
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: that this was the first time I'd seen this film,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: because a lot of the films, Susan, that you kind
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: of have brought to my show or now to this
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: show are things that are films that have resonated with you,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: but I have not seen, not for any reason, but
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: just because, again, I.
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Think it's just a... primarily an age thing, I would
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: say more than.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Likely, I think just like, just based on some of
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: the things that we've talked about and some of the
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: things that we've seen and that you've brought to the show.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: And so it's interesting because this, this movie in a
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: lot of ways, I feel like, and you guys might
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: laugh or maybe I'm off base here, but With a
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: different musical score and maybe a little bit more of
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: a foreboding tone, this is just a horror movie in
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of ways.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, it really is.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Because again, there are so many notes of this movie
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: that they underplay it. intentionally because it's, there's such a
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: long payoff to the movie and it takes, it really
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: takes its time in a great way of like really
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: establishing who this character is. And then kind of the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: facade starts slipping. But all of what I've described is
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: like a horror movie. Like the character of Eve is
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: so like, it's, it's not a horror movie because again,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: it's so much more than that. But so much of
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: what's going on is really like single white female characters.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: You know, again, like a lot of again, like the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: tropes that you would see later on in these kind
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: of like female stalking, female horror movies or these jealous obsession.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Like these horror movies that are driven by greed and envy,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: but of.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: A certain kind, it's like.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: These, these themes are here in this movie and they're
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: obviously very human themes, but that's the thing for me
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: that I was like, when I was watching this movie,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, it starts off very, light and airy.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: And by the end of it, it's like, this movie
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: has become kind of like a nightmare, like a real
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: genuine nightmare. And I mean, especially to go all the,
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: not to jump to the ending, but by the way,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the film ends, you're just like, oh, right.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: So I, now I understand what the, I mean, the
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: movie kind of waits as long as it can to
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: play its hand. And when it truly and fully finally
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: plays its hand, I think that this movie also at
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: its core is very cynical as well, which I appreciate.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I appreciate the cynicism of the film because, like we've
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: already kind of alluded to, this film coming out when
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: it did, this kind of film is an outlier in
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: terms of the amount of cynicism on screen and this
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: kind of question that it's having about the human... condition
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: and then the nature of human beings. And it was like,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: this movie in a lot of ways is like condemning
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: a certain kind of thing, but also just bemused by
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: the triviality of like, well, it's.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Just going to keep happening over and over again. And
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: there's nothing you can do to stop it. It's like, ah, right. Okay.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Also that.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: So.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I really enjoyed this movie, but this movie was a
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: bit of a downer. It's a bit of a bummer
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: of a movie. It's not like the most uplifting thing
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I've seen, but I really enjoyed it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: And I'm really excited to.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Hear y'all's perspective on things, because again, there's a lot
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: to unpack here.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: There's a lot going on.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: And Not every movie from this time and place is
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: like this.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's I know this assumption.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Where it's like an older movie and it's serious and
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: heady and has a lot of important themes. Like, no,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: there were movies from this time that were just existing
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: to be entertaining. This is entertaining, but it also has
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: something more to say than just, you know, being entertaining
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: for entertaining sake.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, Chris, you've given me so much to talk about
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: and think about. One, since Dr. Perlmutter has invited me
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: into these conversations, I now have to think about the
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: historical context of all of these films. And I will
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: say that, Chris... I'm not old enough to have been around.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: You're making it sound like I was around in 1950.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: No, I'm talking more to like the influences of what
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: we were watching growing up more like, because, you know,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: the tale of the stuff that I was seeing only
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: went about 10 years.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So, yeah.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: 70s.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not even really, barely even the 70s.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: I will say, What's interesting is the context when you
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: talk about these films. There's a number of films from
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: the late 40s, early 50s that are absolutely fantastic. They
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: are beautifully written. They are beautifully created. They are brilliant
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: to watch and super fun and also very dark. We
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: are talking about the aftermath of World War II, right?
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: We are talking about a worldwide and American culture that
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: was both lifting itself up and crashing itself down. So
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: it's very interesting that you see it as a horror film.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: I do too in some ways, but it is so
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: much fun to watch. And for someone that is in
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: theater and in movies and in entertainment and knows a
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: lot of actresses and a lot of critics and a
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: lot of writers, it's so... much fun to watch. The
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: language is so beautiful. The design of this film is
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: so incredible. It really is just every aspect of this
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: film is so well crafted that it's a pleasure to watch.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Even as it is, I guess, pretty darn dark, but
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't call it a horror film.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, again, it's not I wouldn't say it's not
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: a horror film because it's not angled that way. But again,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: it has so much of those like notes of a film,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: like you said, where there's an obsession angle or a
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: character that's trying to, you know, underhandedly. I mean, she's
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: trying to replace her idol. I mean, that's, you know,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: you can tell that story a number of different ways.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I'm just so used to it being.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: Kind of a more. horror or thriller angle.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: And this is, I wouldn't say this like wholesomely done,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: but it's done with such a smile.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: On its face. It's very disarming, which is much appreciated.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Cause again, you know, there's, there is, like you said,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: there are other films like this coming out at the time,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: but this one is, is always, you know, I've heard
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: about this film for a.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: So much.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: And there are so many names in this movie that
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I've heard before that I had not seen in other things.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: And yeah, it's, it's kind of reputation precedes it and
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: it's all well deserved. I mean, I had such a,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I had such a good time watching this movie, just
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the watching part of it, because again, it does kind
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: of takes you on a full journey with the characters.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: They are nowhere, they are nowhere, you understand them way better.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: You're nowhere near where you were with them at the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: beginning of the film, where you are at the end.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: But yet I love that the film comes back to
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: where we are at the beginning of the film. And
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: it's like, Oh man, like I've gone on a complete
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: journey with everyone now in this film. Uh, and now
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: I understand the sentiment aired out towards this person who
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: seems so nice on the face of it. But it's like,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: by the end, I completely understand now this, yeah, this
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: is a film that I'm, I'm really glad that we're,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: we're sitting here and talking about it. Cause it, It
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: feels important, and I want the audience to understand more
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: why it's so important in the history of cinema.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: I want to bring in what you guys have raised
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: about its place in cinema, but also why... The plot,
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: even if you've never seen it before, and I'm guessing
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: a lot of people who are listening to this have
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: not seen this film or maybe they may have just
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: seen one or two scenes from this film or. In
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: this film, on IMDb, I think there's like 150 famous
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: quotes from this screenplay. The fasten your seatbelt is going
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: to be a bumpy night is probably the one that
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: gets more repeated more often that people know but don't
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: even sort of remember the context of it. But the
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: reason that this film feels familiar is that it is–
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: A tale as old as time. It's within mythology. The
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: original story, The Wisdom of Eve, maybe foregrounded that a
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: little bit. Like Eve not just like happened to be
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: named Eve, like Eve as in the biblical character. And that,
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: you know, her wisdom, which in the story is not
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: maybe played up as much. But when I was watching
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: this the latest time, I think I've watched this about
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: five times now. The latest time I was going, you know,
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: this is Game of Thrones. This is Mad Men. This
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: is Succession. This is Nashville. This is The Wire. And
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: this is Chaucer, right? You go back to Chaucer, the
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: smiler with the knife under the cloak, right? Right. So
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: so I think human beings from I don't know, I'm
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: guessing back in hunter gatherer times, there was an Anne Baxter,
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: you know, who who showed up with a sad story, but,
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: you know, tried to infiltrate and take over and displace somebody.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: There was politics. Have we ever seen? in our career
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: lives ever talked to anybody from any industry. It doesn't
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: matter whether it's the oil industry or politics, politics or
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: television or whatever, who hasn't said, well, you know, the
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: stuff that goes on behind the scenes would turn your
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: hair white. And this is like the prototypical movie about
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: these people who, of course, their whole job is to
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: get in front of an audience and pretend to be something.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: and to entertain and people to think of them as
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: a person, Margot Channing, for example, this glamorous person who's
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: the queen of Broadway and achieves all of these things.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: And then there's this other world, the private world of
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: ferocious knife wielding politics that is behind the curtain. And
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: That has been done so many times because it's endlessly
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: interesting when it's done well. And in these other shows
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: that I mentioned and movies, it was also done well.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: But it's a primordial theme. You can go back to
• 19:05
  Speaker 4: the most ancient of tales and– There's the elements of it.
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: And I think that's what appeals to us. And it
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: doesn't age. Like, obviously, we can watch movies from the
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: 1940s where and this movie, too, where we feel some anachronisms.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: We feel like, OK, you know, people wouldn't be doing
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: that and saying that today. But so much of this film.
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: could be remade. It shouldn't be. Nobody should remake this movie.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: But they are remaking this movie. If you saw, again,
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: the Nashville TV series or Game of Thrones, Succession, I
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: think they were essentially situational remakes of All About Eve.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: I know they've remade A Star is Born a handful
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: of times, but it's one of those same things where
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: it's like they've remade A Star is Born a handful
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: of times under that name, but they've also remade it
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: a bunch of times under every other name of a
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: similar kind of influence story. And that's that is the
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: thing about this movie where it's like, I do think that,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: and you know, similar professor to when we talked about
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: the Maltese Falcon recently, it's like, this is where a
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: lot of that comes from. Like this is the proto spot,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the progenitor spot, like the, the version of it that's
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: done so well, that's why everyone else is doing it
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: is because this is the one that puts it in
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: such a way that it gets ahead of all the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: other ones. It does it in a way where it's
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: early cinema. It does it in a way where it
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: covers like kind of all the bases. And it does
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: it in a way where I feel like, and as someone, again,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: who's kind of watching this in 2026 for the first time,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: the time and place when this is released lends to
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the timeless nature of the film for me. And I
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: think that that's what so many of these films from
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: this time and place do for someone like myself now
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: is it's like, okay, this, I'm watching this as the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: starting point, the historical starting point for cinema of a
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: certain kind of cinema, of a certain kind of place.
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: And this film is right in there.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: And again, to the other point that you made, Susan,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: the theater and Broadway of it all, I think is
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: also like, So important because it's speaking to a time
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: and a place in this country when this was like
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing. I mean, cinema was massive as well,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: but Broadway was, you know, just as massive as cinema.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that that's not the case now,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: but it's not the way it is that way somewhat
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: now around certain things, but not just cinema.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: Period.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Like at this time in American culture, it is period,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: a massive thing across the country. Like not, you know,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: now it takes something like a Hamilton coming out for
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: everyone to take notice, but there are plenty of massive
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: musicals that come out every year that are not Hamilton
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: level that make a huge splash on Broadway that aren't
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: making waves in, you know, middle America or elsewhere. But
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: at this time, when this movie is existing, Broadway is like,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: everybody knows what Broadway is across the country.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a very important point, Chris, that
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: at this point, Broadway is the biggest American entertainment industry
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: that's happening. It's bigger and more prestigious than movies. And
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: they make a lot of digs in the movie about that,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: where everyone's talking about they're diminishing themselves to go do Hollywood,
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: to go do a movie, the director. And she's sort
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: of how could you possibly go to Hollywood and do that?
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, by the end, that's her next
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: step because that's the next step of stardom. And so
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: it's such a nod to both the incoming power of
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: what Hollywood would become, but also this kind of dismissing
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: of it. I also, I just want to point out
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: that when the director... at the beginning is like, I'm
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: going to go, you know, why would I go to Hollywood,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: you know, and make more money? They'll just take 80%
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: of it. He's making a point that it doesn't make
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: any sense for him to make any more money because
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: he would be taxed at an 80% tax rate back then. Anyway,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: moving on. And so there's just so many, every line,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: has a reason to be there. And that's what makes
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: an incredibly great screenplay. There's no line that's just trying
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: to get from point A to point B. Every line
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: is so incredibly important in this movie. It really is
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: a screenplay and a movie to watch. And I want
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: to shout out Joseph Mankiewicz. You've The year before, he
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: made Letter to Three Wives and talked about another women's
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: film you have to see. You have to see that.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: It's beautiful. And then a few years before that, it
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: was Ghost and Mrs.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Muir.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: He's just an incredible filmmaker, an incredible catalog. The fact
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: that he wrote and directed is, again, it's pretty amazing work.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: his talent and craft. And this is, I would say
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: this is the best of them in my opinion, but
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen all of them.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: So. Susan, can I ask you a question about that?
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: Because this is, these are all footnotes that I'm about
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: to say, but they're footnotes that would be more important
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: as the culture changed in the sixties and beyond. Again,
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: this was represented to me on a list of women's
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: films and not being like films only women could watch,
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: but like films which foregrounded powerful women. I want to
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: talk about that word powerful, that term in a minute.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: But just objectively, this Mary Orr, who I'd not heard of.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: I mean, I just the first three times I watched it,
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: I did not know. that this was based on somebody's story.
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: And she is this Mary or wrote wisdom of Eve
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: published in cosmopolitan magazine just a few years earlier. She
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: has some contract that apparently, I mean, what, all I
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: could find was that her agent like forgot or just
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: nobody thought it would be adapted to a movie. So
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: like it wasn't written like screen credit and she was
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: given no screen credit. Her name doesn't appear. And I
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: thought that was today that would be like a billion
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: posts on that. And the studio would back down and
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: be really embarrassed. And, you know, they would be scrambling
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: to cover oneself. That's number one. And then number two,
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: this is an amazing woman's film. No women won any
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: awards to do to do with this film, except Edith
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: Head co-costume designing. Eden Head, who I think every I
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: hope most people know is the character that is picked
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: up in The Incredibles as the costume designer there. But
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: I just. Were there different standards of what a woman's
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: film was in 1950? What's your reading on this poor
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: Mary or being sort of. shunted out of a woman's
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: film and the women not winning any awards.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: Well, I will say that four of them, right. We're nominated.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: So they were all the women in the film were
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: nominated for either best supporting actors or best actress. And,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: and I think they, they kind of canceled each other
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: out a little bit, you know, that, that I, I,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: I can't tell you the politics of the Academy Awards
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: from 1950. It can be very political. It can be,
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: you know, oh, we just gave that person something. And
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: it was a much smaller academy. It was a very
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: smaller town. When you hear about the 50s and 60s Hollywood,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: everyone knew everybody. And everybody was, when they weren't making
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: a movie, they were out at the nightclub or the,
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: or the, you know, Musso and Franks or wherever. And
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: they knew there was just a lot more collision of
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: people kind of in that town. So it, I, you know,
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: another woman one for those that haven't looked it up, but, um,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: but I will say that the overlooking of women writers
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: is definitely something that has happened throughout history. I think
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: it is, you know, 1940s, 50s, probably even, and certainly
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: before that, Hollywood, very much copyright was, you know, not
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: as powerful as it is now. You could not get
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: away with, like, loosely basing something on somebody's story and
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: not crediting them with it. I think it was more
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: casual in that place, in that space and time. But
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: it's weird. I have no idea if she got any
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: money from it. I assume if she didn't get credit,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: she didn't get money from it. But, you know, and
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: then it was also adapted into a musical applause in
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: the 70s, I think. And All About Eve was. And
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure she's credited on that, even though in
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: her obituary she's credited with it. So I didn't know
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: that either. until like I was reminded, I had sort of,
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: I had learned it again, probably like the fourth or
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: fifth watching. And I had forgotten that point until I
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: was watching it this time and watched a little behind
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: the scenes documentary. And I was like, oh my God,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: I forgot about that. Because it's easy to forget about women.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So I think what your question was, was what makes
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: a woman's film in the fifties? And what I will
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: say is it was writing great, female parts. So that's
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: what the power of Mankiewicz was in Hollywood at the time.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: He was known for creating great parts for women to play.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Actresses wanted to be in his films because they got
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: to do something other than being And it's so funny
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: because Letter to Three Wives, you think, is going to
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: be a different kind of movie than it is. And
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: it's a really, again, kind of crafted jewel of writing
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: and directing and an incredible women performances. So I think
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: that's why it's considered, you know, in the 50s, a
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: woman's film was would have been about women, but it
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: mostly was creating powerful roles for women to play and
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: to be the lead in the movie and not the
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: sidekick or the supportive or not supportive partner.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: And I think as someone who hasn't seen enough of
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: these movies as kind of, again, the newcomer to this
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: era of cinema. Because, you know, Susan, you've introduced me
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: to a fair amount. And, you know, again, having seen
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: The Maltese Falcon last.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Week when we did our episode on.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: It, it's interesting because I do think that there is
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: a perception amongst people. And I'm not talking about myself,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: but I think there is this perception amongst people that
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: when you watch a film from this day and age,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: there's going to be like, we've kind of already alluded
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: to these like level of anachronisms to things that will
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: kind of be off-putting or again, like they kind of
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: don't feel the anachronisms get in the way of a
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: story that feels still humanistic enough to resonate with us,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you know, all these years later. And yeah, This is
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: one of those movies where, again, you're just watching it
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: and everything that's going on, it's just like, okay, so
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: nothing here feels... There are some things that feel like, oh,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: of the time and place, sure. But I think the
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: genuine human core of this movie is... undeniably kind of
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: evergreen in terms of like what it's talking about. And that,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I think you just, you, you, like you just said, Susan,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: like Mankiewicz is able to really with the female characters.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying not the male characters, but again,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: like great male roles were not, not a dime a dozen,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: but that was a thing you could get at the time,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: but really great.
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: Well done.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Like lead female characters. Like, This film has that all
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: over the place. And he, I don't know, he speaks
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: to something that, again, is universal. It's not something that's
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: just like, oh, this is a 1950s thing. It's like, no,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: this is a constant human experience thing. And I really
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: appreciate that about this movie because, again, I think it
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: makes the film a lot more approachable for someone who...
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: might have a hard time being convinced to watch a
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: film from 1950. I don't have to, but I understand
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: why some people do, because some people are stubborn and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: that's fine. But I think something like this that speaks
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to still a kind of universal human experience is easier
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: to sell to someone than something that's, you know, speaking
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: maybe more about a specific thing going on in response
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: to something else that's of the time. I think this
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: would be an easier film to get someone to watch
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: in a contemporary setting than some of the films Professor
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Yu and I did with Susan's husband, Richard, those.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: World War II films.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Those might be a little harder for someone in a
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: more contemporary setting to understand than this film. This film,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I think is a little bit more universally humanistic, which is,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: which I appreciate. Like, I really love that about this movie.
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: You could show this movie to pretty much anybody. And
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I think anybody would get it. And there that's, that's
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: hard in this day and age because there's so much
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: stuff coming out.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: But even then that wasn't necessarily the case.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: And that's, I really appreciate that about this movie from
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: like a emotional core of the movie.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: I'd also like to talk about and get your reaction to,
• 33:55
  Speaker 4: Because this movie just has so many different layers of
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: ideas and sort of philosophies and actions and things going on.
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: And one of the marks to me of great writing
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: is that, as Susan, you said, like, not only is
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: there great plot, like, oh, I'm very interested in what's
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: going to happen next, but the The lines of dialogue,
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: the expressions, maybe even even the pauses that people have.
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: And obviously, that's the addition of act great acting to
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: great writing. Those add to the storytelling and to the narrative.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: And I want to talk a little bit about a
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: minor character who just impressed me so much as. in
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: the writing, but also in sort of like the storytelling.
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: And that's one of my favorite Hollywood supporting actresses, Thelma Ritter.
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: Thelma Ritter, everybody should just go look on IMDb right now.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: She's got this immensely long screen list of things that
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: she was in. She plays Birdie here. Margot Channing's, you know,
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: I guess May, you know, a costumer assistant, you know,
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: general like Gal Friday, I guess, was an old term there,
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: but just like her supporting servant. But Thelma Ritter, we
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: talk about Claude Rains, George Sanders and other actors who
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: sort of patented a type so that you got a
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: sense in Hollywood that they'd say, oh, we really need
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: Claude Rains for this role. Let's get Claude Rains for
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: the Claude Rains role. Thelma Ritter was the Thelma Ritter
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: role of the maid. who was sassy and smart and
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: observant and like knew what was going on more than
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: the powerful people are around her. And I just thought
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: her role, I mean, I don't think it takes up
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: an immense amount of screen time and you've got these
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: big personalities and big stars, you know, coming in and
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: off the screen surrounding her. But I thought her presence was,
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: especially since she's, you could argue, the smartest person in
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: the movie. I think so. I want to hear what
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: you have to think on this. But I appreciated taking
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: this minor role and making it so important and going
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: back to mythology and sort of Shakespeare and Chaucer and whatever.
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: I thought she played a little bit like the, the
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: sort of stereotype of the medieval court jester, a sort
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: of funny character. She has a funny voice. She has
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: such a distinctive voice. Like anytime you see her in
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: a movie, you hear her, you can hear, I can
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: still hear her voice now, but she was always the
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: one who would point out things that maybe the King
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: and the queen and like the Dukes weren't getting earlier.
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: And I just appreciated that as part of a terrific movie.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: I totally agree. You know, I'm actually at the moment
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: teaching a playwriting class and we were just talking about
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: distinctive voices and creating characters with distinctive voices and how
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: do you do that? And so one of the things
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: I was writing down when I was sort of getting
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: ready was all those actors that you know have a
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: distinctive voice already. So you could, you know, you could
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: write for them. You could go, oh, I'm going to
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: do the Christopher Walken role here. And you know exactly
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: how to write that character. You may or may not
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: get Christopher Walken, but, you know, that there's such a
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: character in their voices, in the way they act. James
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Earl Jones, you know, But Thelma Ritter was definitely one
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: of those. When you say someone with a distinctive voice
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: and presence, she had that. And she played that role
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: in a lot of places. And what's great is each
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: time you're delighted to watch her do it. It's not
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: like she's playing the same person every time. It's just
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: that she is one of those people who's often in
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: a second or third role and yet is the smartest
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: person in the room. and is wry and can say
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: so much with a look as much as with a
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: line of dialogue that it's great. She is a perfect
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: foil for Margot, played by Bette Davis. You put Bette
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Davis in, you have to fill, everybody has to rise
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: to that level of presence. And they needed that presence
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: for this role. And then you need people around her
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: who can compete. And like you said, she doesn't have
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: a ton of screen time. She doesn't have a lot
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: of lines, but it is a memorable role and an
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: important one in this piece because she is basically helping
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: the queen see what's really happening in her court. And anyway,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: so we haven't really said what the film is about
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: or like who's in it, I realize. as I'm saying this,
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: you know, Betty Davis, Ann Baxter, George Sanders, Celeste Holm,
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: you know, Thelma Ritter, And when you started talking about
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: a small part, the very first thought I had was
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: the Marilyn Monroe part as well, which is a little
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: bit smaller, but is an early Marilyn Monroe. And it's
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: so lovely. It's just, again, another lovely look at actors
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: and actresses in the entertainment industry and what their roles
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: were given to them. You see, you know, why Marilyn
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: Monroe became Marilyn Monroe, because that was the role she
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: sort of had to play to move forward in Hollywood.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Well, and she definitely commands the screen when she's on it,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: which is very funny. Cause you know, you, you, you understand,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, look, obviously it's like, well, in retrospect now
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: it's like.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, she's in this movie and she's in this movie.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Like halfway through it for maybe five minutes, 10 minutes,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: if that, like it's a handful of scenes. And then,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: you know, when you get to the movie, you're like,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Oh right. Marilyn Monroe was in this movie, but she is, I.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: Don't know.
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: I have not seen a whole lot of things with
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: her in it either. And yeah, it's weird because she
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: does stand out, obviously, not just because of her looks,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: but also just because of the presence.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: And that's what's funny.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: When I talk about Indian cinema, you always talk about
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: the presence of the actors on screen. And we've kind
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: of lost that in American cinema a little bit, not
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: in a bad way, but now anybody could be an actor,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: which is a good thing. I mean, that is a
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: good thing, a good and bad thing in a lot
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: of ways. But when you talk about having that presence,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: that like screen presence. Yeah, Marilyn Monroe has a lot
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: of great screen presence. I did wanna mention something, and again,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: not to go like too, too far into it, but
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: there have been contemporary readings of the Eve character as being,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: I guess, queer coded, which I find very odd because,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: you know, again, you've got to, you've got to wonder with, again,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: the kind of re-approximation of things as things go on,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: you know, there is a character in this who I
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: think is obviously meant to be that character. And even
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: he's not played as a stereotype and no one has
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: played as a stereotype in this movie other than.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: The ones that have to be.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: And I think that, again, like that allows this film
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: to exist with such a longer tail, because if you
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: were trying to really dig into something to make a
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: specific point with this film, I don't think it would
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: have that kind of. long-term quality of feeling important now
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: for humans, but also the industry that it's talking about,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: because it's, again, it's talking about, well, not one person specifically,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: but a group of people broadly that all kind of
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: have these kinds of traits, because there are people in
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: the industry that are shades of Eve. They're not all, like,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: not everyone who's trying to get ahead is willing to
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: do as much as she is, But there are people
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: that are shades of that. And the shades of thing is, again,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: in a more complex movie, you'd have more complex characters.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: And I'm not saying they're not complex.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: In this movie, but they have to be big in
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: this movie because they're all big simultaneously. and in them
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: all having to be big simultaneously. It's not that there's
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: not a lot of room for nuance, but I think
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: it allows a modern day reading into this movie to
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: kind of go a bunch of different directions, which I
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: think helps a movie like this have a long lifetime.
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: Because if you make a movie about 9-11, it can
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: only be about 9-11. If you make a movie like
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: this that has a little bit of kind of again,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: not ambiguity, but it's painting with a rather broad brush.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: That broad brush can then be by other people looked
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: at as like, well, I'm going to take a deeper
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: look at it and see maybe what the finer strokes
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: were about. And that's, you know, reading about this movie
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: and doing the research about this movie, there are a
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: lot of different interesting directions you can go down with
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: this movie that aren't maybe readily apparent watching it the
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: first time. But watching it, I think, three times for
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: this episode, it's like there are so many different directions
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: you can take with the modern day reading of this film,
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: let alone what the original reading of the film was,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: let alone if you were watching this film during the
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Cold War, you could make certain kinds of statements about
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: maybe the expectations of gender or, you know, expectations of
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: people in the industry or whatnot. And I love that
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: this movie, again, it exists in such a way that
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: it can be re kind of re litigated by people
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: in the future. And it's still feel like, well, I'm
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: not saying that wasn't the direction the director was going,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: but he left enough room around the margins for the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: audience to kind of look at it from any angled.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: along the timeline of, you know, kind of pop culture.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: And it still really works. Cause like I said, I think,
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I think you could show this to a classroom of
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: kids now that are in their early twenties. And I
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: think that this would still play. Like, I think this
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: would be something where it's like, the characters are understandable
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: enough that the motivations are human and universal enough that
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: everything in this movie works. And then you can bring
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: to it what you want. And I think there is
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: still some room for that as well.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I was going to say, I mean, because it's
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: about it's about ambition and desire and how far you'll go.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: It's about basically becoming, you know, a helper parasite to
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: someone and then trying to take over their lives, their life.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: So it's it is very recognizable. But these are the
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: same things that sort of happen. theater is the perfect
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: setting for that kind of thing because then there's also
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: the aging out of actresses. And I think that was
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: one of the motivations I heard in one of the
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: behind-the-scenes stuff I read, that he wanted to write about
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: the fact that once a woman hit 40, she knew
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: her career was on its way out.
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: And so....
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: And it's a lot about, you know, youth wanting what
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: the star has and the star wanting the youth. And it's,
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: I don't know, there's just richness in it. But it
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: is very human because it's these bigger characters playing out
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: ambition and desire and fear. And, you know, and so
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: an adoration and what that means to us as a culture.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: So to me, again, it was a thrill to to
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: play with it again. Yeah.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: And you've just said key words which are timeless and immortal.
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: If the human race continues, you know, there's going to be. desire, greed, ambition, envy, backstabbing,
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: you know, just make the long list there in our
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: Alpha Centauri, you know, colony of 500 years. I mean,
• 47:00
  Speaker 4: these are things that we, in our earliest texts, you know,
• 47:03
  Speaker 4: you go back to the biblical scriptures from the Abrahamic
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: tradition and, you know, the Epic of Gilgamesh and Homer
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: and the Iliad and the Odyssey. You've just described the
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: top human attributes, feelings, attempts at interpersonal relations from there.
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: And that's really what gets me going back to, you know,
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: let's talk about the film. The central conceit here is
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: we have this Margot Channing, who is at the top
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: of her career, but she's at the top. But but
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: there's there's this sense of like she's not going up
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: any further, like the decline, at least within the system,
• 47:54
  Speaker 4: has already slightly begun. And she's starting to scrabble and
• 47:58
  Speaker 4: feel nervous about her place and and her position. And
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: of course, a young ingenue, a word we don't use very,
• 48:06
  Speaker 4: very often, shows up with a sad story, a very
• 48:10
  Speaker 4: World War Two adjacent story. Sad story, right? I mean,
• 48:14
  Speaker 4: a story that probably hundreds of thousands of young women
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: had to tell in 1950 because of all the deaths
• 48:27
  Speaker 4: in the war. And so that's interesting. You're sitting there
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: in the audience. And you're reading like, OK, Margot Channing,
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: Betty Davis is this superstar of, yeah, the legitimate theater. Susan,
• 48:42
  Speaker 4: are you old enough to remember that phrase, the legitimate theater?
• 48:46
  Speaker 4: I am. You have to explain it. Because there was
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: this idea that like, yes, you can play in your
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: experimental workshop in Schenectady, but I am in the legitimate theater. And,
• 48:59
  Speaker 4: you know, with a British accent, of course, you do.
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: The closer you can get to London and, you know,
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: playing Shakespeare in the park and the old Vic or something,
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: the more prestigious you were. And there was this hierarchy.
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: It's funny. This is the... 1949, something called television starts
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: making its appearance. And of course, it's dismissed pretty quickly.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: But within a few years, Hollywood is nervous. Because people
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: are staying home to watch TV, and they're not going
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: to movies as much. In fact, it changed movies. We
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: saw more big-budget spectacle movies to try to compete. Anne
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: Baxter ends up being the mother of Moses.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Later.
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: So there is this idea here of you can't have
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: more than one or two people at the top. Like
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: you can't– in this industry, in this moment here on Broadway,
• 50:04
  Speaker 4: you'd think like, well, can't there be like 12 stars?
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: I mean why do they have to be– but again,
• 50:11
  Speaker 4: another movie that I think was based on all about Eve, Highlander. Yeah.
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: There can be only one.
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: There can be only one. Right. So it is interesting
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: how these are large industries. They're very, you know, they're gigantic. Today,
• 50:26
  Speaker 4: a Broadway, a successful Broadway play comes and I mean,
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: they make their money on Broadway, but they make their
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: real money playing in Lubbock. Right. And you keep playing
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: all over the country over and over again, you know,
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: throughout the planet Earth. Right. So this idea of who
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: that I can't succeed. unless you fail is so insidious,
• 50:51
  Speaker 4: but it's so, it's so familiar to all of us. Right.
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: And it works, it works again and again. And that's
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: why there's so many Hollywood. I mean, I named Nashville
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: and like 20 other television shows where that's basically it.
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: Somebody has to fail in order for me to succeed.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Well, and I do want to point out though, that
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: there is, um, that, While that is universal and for everyone,
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: in this particular case, it's also, and it's very interesting
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: because I just thought of it as you were talking,
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: that the reason that Margot feels in so much trouble
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: and feels so insecure about her age is because the
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: roles that are being written are being written for 20-somethings.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: And she's now 40-something. So she's a 40-something playing a 20-something.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: So it's not just that there's, you know, there's only
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: one room for one star. It's that there's only room
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: for one ingenue, right? And the ingenue gets all the
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: parts if you're going to have, you know, in the day.
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: So It's very interesting because Mankiewicz is writing these great
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: parts for older women, and older being 40 at the time,
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: talking about their fears of losing out to younger women,
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: particularly in roles in which it's all younger women. And
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: that is a story still going on today that has
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: been satirized and talked about, you know, the Saturday Night Live, like,
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: what was that birthday skit? where somebody turned 40 and
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: then they had to go into the You'll Never Work
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Again crowd or something, and they were all having a
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: picnic or something. I can't remember what it was, but
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: it's still happening, right? It's happening on stage. It's happening
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: on screen. There's ageism in Hollywood. It's particularly harsh for women.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: It always has been. I think it's been worse, but
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: it's still going on today. And it's very interesting that
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: while the movie is about that, there was also, you know,
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: Bette Davis was a replacement, right? She was kind of
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: a last minute replacement, but she has credited this movie
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: with basically resurrecting her career, which was cut on death's door.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: She was not getting the parts. She was too old
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: for Hollywood. And this role and this movie put her
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: back on the map and gave her career the rest
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: of her.
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: Career which is wild because again like you know.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: It's acting is not one of those things you lose
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: it's not like athletics where it's like well my my
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: my body has gotten old now and i can't perform
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: the way that i used to says michael jordan you
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: know but that's also not the case anymore because i
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: watched ichiro i you know, hit, hit baseballs during a
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: home run Derby in the last year.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: Like it's nobody's business.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Like it's, it's such a, it's such an assumption and
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: you know, the industry is still fighting it. You know,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: there's a film that neither one of you mentioned, I
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: don't know if either of you have seen it, uh,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: that came out, was that last year, the year before
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: with Demi Moore called the substance. That's literally just this movie,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: but instead of Instead of it being an external version
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: of Eve, it's Eve that's birthed from inside of herself.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: So I mean, again, like I mean, and then it's
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: literally this movie with a lot of like the same
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: themes and a lot of the same kind of ideas
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: of like, you know, fear of being replaced and growing
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: old in the industry. And does the industry have a
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: place for someone that grows old or is no longer, quote,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: pretty anymore? And what's funny is we're still seeing films
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: like that now with like a modern contemporary spin. And again,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: but it's a different genre. That's why I say like,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: that's the horror movie. That's the actual horror movie version
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: of this.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: That is the horror movie version of this. It is exactly.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: That's all I was thinking when you started down. This
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: is that's, that's your horror all about Eve. Yeah. And
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: also the classic woman against herself.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 55:15
  Speaker 4: I think a cynic might say that when this started
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: happening to men, special effects and AI entered, and then
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: we had Dial of Destiny and the Irishman, where 70-year-old,
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: 75-year-old men, I don't think actually did it. I mean,
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: I thought the Irishman was embarrassed. That was just a
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: big mistake to have him play that. half his age,
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: they should have just cast it. But I just find
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: it very interesting that suddenly it's okay to cast 70-year-olds
• 55:47
  Speaker 4: playing 35-year-olds and pretend there's no problem. But it wouldn't
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: have happened in 1940, maybe 1950.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Well, it is very interesting because we were talking about
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: that when Dial of Destiny came out. Ultimately, one of
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: the challenges for women getting older and retaining their star status,
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: retaining their careers and not having the like, oh my God,
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: she's gotten old. That doesn't happen as often with men
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: is because we've watched men get old on screen. Harrison Ford,
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: we saw him every year or two in a movie.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: So we saw him age in front of our eyes.
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: So when he shows up at 70 in a movie,
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: we're like, yeah, he's old now. It's not as shocking.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: But a lot of women don't work after 40. And
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: so you don't see them between on screen every year
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: between 40 and 60 or 70. And then when they
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: show up, everyone's like, oh, my gosh, she looks old.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: What happened to her? It's not.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: Are you referencing Joan Cusack directly, Susan?
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: Because that was the one that happened earlier this year.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: They were like, have you seen Joan Cusack in a
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: million years? It's like, yeah, because she's not getting cast
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: in anything anymore.
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: She's not.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: And she probably was just like, well, I'm done. I'm
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: just going to go and sit away and enjoy that sweet,
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: sweet Toy Story money. but they got her to come
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: back for toy story five. And it's like the first
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: time anyone, like you said, had seen her in a
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: while and people were overreacting to the fact that she had,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: you know, shockingly time progressed for Joan Cusack as well
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: as it progressed for the rest of us.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: I don't understand.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: But we've watched John Cusack age in front of us.
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: So when he does something, we're like, Oh yeah, of
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: course he looks old and he's a 24 hour smoker.
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: It's fine, but it's going to take a toll. Um,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: But yes, you're right. Women disappear. And then when they reappear,
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: so many on 80s TV ladies, not to tout our podcast,
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: but many women that we speak to either don't want
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: to go on camera to do a Zoom interview or
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: have to take time to put on their face.
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Because the expectation for them is they're not allowed to
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: look like they've aged. You know, Stephanie Zimbalist said it
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: Before our interview, she's like, people expect me to look
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: like Laura Holt. And when I don't look like the
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: actress I was in 1985, they don't forgive me.
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: Which is wild to me.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: It's, you know, it's not like when I went and
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: met Cassandra Peterson. And she wasn't dressed up like Elvira
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: because my ex-wife and I, we met her and she
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: was just, you know, redhead, long hair, Cassandra Peterson. It's
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: not like that where it's like, oh, I should have
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: booked the day where she was dressed up as Elvira.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, I don't understand why we can't just
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: understand people age, everybody ages.
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: And it is weird.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: There is this, I mean, there's always been a double standard,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: but now that there's the de-aging double standard, It's like, yeah,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: you can be Harrison Ford and be de-aged, and you know,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: now you're supposed to be in your fifties, which is
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: barely even believable. I will say as someone who works
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: in the medium of audio, they really just, they can't
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: get it right because they didn't de-age his voice.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: He sounds like.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: Like, he's been gargling on rocks the last 30 years,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: which he has. Like, his voice is very distinctly different now.
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: And so, like, to the professor's point, like, it's embarrassing.
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: So it's almost the reverse now.
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: Like, now the men aren't able to give it up
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: and can't just– well, again, you can't be an old
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: man in an action movie because there's limitations there.
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: Which is fine. Like that was the other thing about,
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: you know, getting, I don't know.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: Those, those action movie guys are getting older and older
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: and we still believe it because it's all stuntmen doing it.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: Wait a minute.
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: Stop. Stop. Everybody stop here. I'm going to bring in
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: Steven Seagal. So you're telling me my good friend, Steven
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: Seagal sitting in a chair, engaging in a cat paw fight.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: In an action movie, after he's just befriended a 20-year-old
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: girl who instantly falls in love with him and defeating
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: a room full of ninjas while still sitting in a chair,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: you're saying that's implausible? Susan, I don't know. What world
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: do you live in?
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: Call me crazy.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: I do love, and I'm just going to move right
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: off of Steven Seagal right now, and say that I
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: do love that Harrison Ford is playing his age in
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: Shrinking and seemingly having a blast doing it. I don't
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: really love Shrinking, but my friend Sharon said, oh, well,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: you know what I do is I just fast forward
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: through everything but the Harrison Ford scenes. And so I've
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: started doing it and it's great.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: And it is... Go ahead, Professor.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: Go for it. I think the film does– back to
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: our film. All About Eve can be criticized, and I
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: want to bring my students in here because I– When
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: you're I've told this story before, maybe I think like
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: the first time I was on your podcast, Chris, about
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: how being a university professor is like the reverse of
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: the Oscar Wilde story, the picture of Dorian Gray. And
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: as you know, in the story, this guy stays young
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: and handsome and everything. And this picture in his wall
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: ages and becomes decrepit. When you're a professor, you age
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 4: and become decrepit and whatever. And everybody else stays 18.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: Because I've now been teaching, I think, almost 38 years
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: of 18-year-olds. They're still 18. They'll change. The amazing magic
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: of Hollywood, I guess. But the film really, I think,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: we used to use the word adult for movies, of course,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 4: has had variable application, right? Like, unfortunately, adult movie for
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: a while was like, a porn movie, but I'm going
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: to do a movie that has like adult themes, like
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 4: treats issues, ideas in the adult sensible way. And I
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: wanted to give out a plug to my students because
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 4: part of getting older is the natural inclination of every
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: generation that gets older is to say these kids today,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 4: you know, in my day, you know, we had to,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: you know, Crawl across spoken glass of 10, 10 hours
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: to go to school or whatever, whatever we want to say.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 4: But one thing I've noticed in my Generation Z and
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: coming up at Generation Alpha students is that they really
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: try hard. to be kind and nonjudgmental about the things
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: that we talk about as being natural, you know, the
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: sort of that they they do not like it when
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: somebody says what you what you were just I know
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: you weren't saying it because you're saying it. But like
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: when somebody would say like, wow, she's really gotten old.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: My students would be very unhappy with anybody saying that
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 4: or saying anything about somebody's physical appearance. Or mental state
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: or something like that. The kind of things which were
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: just in part of our culture growing up where you would, yeah,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: behind somebody's back say, boy, he's really gotten older. She's
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: acting crazy. There's something wrong with her.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: You're being hysterical. That's the other one.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: A lot of those things, they have– paid attention to
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: and processed as being not acceptable anymore. And I think
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 4: that that's very interesting. And this is why this film,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: which I have not shown to a class in probably
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: or assigned to a class in probably 30 years. But
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: I sort of wonder how they would read it. We
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 4: do have the issue now where. You know, Hollywood, Hollywood
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 4: is no longer necessarily seen as. the place for the
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: beauty standard because of CGI, AI, and Ozempic and other things.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: Like it's, it's almost like Hollywood is, people are distancing
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: themselves from Hollywood, which is, which is amazing to me, right?
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 4: Because I grew up like, Oh, Elizabeth Taylor. And you're like, sure. The, the,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 4: the stars who are all these, you know, radiantly beautiful.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: And now, uh, It's almost the opposite of the Internet
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: where like stars are not considered to be the standard
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 4: of what's attractive. And I find that just fascinating that
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: those sort of reversals.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting. And just to say, I was not
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: saying that about the actresses. I think all actresses are beautiful.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: I was but I was quoting a lot of what
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: the discourse was. for when these actresses show up in movies.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: It is the discourse that is invariably happening online and
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: in reviews and stuff like that. But I also agree
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: with you that the next generation that's coming up, this
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: new generation that's coming up, is very kind. They have
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: watched and absorbed the lessons of kindness, even in a
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: cruel world, which is really encouraging. And it's interesting because
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: they do not understand sometimes, they're very sincere. And so
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: I would be curious what they think of this movie.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: I think it still works because I think those themes
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: of jealousy, those are still human themes. But Broadway doesn't
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: mean what it used to mean. Movies don't mean what
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: they used to mean.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, none of the industries that
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: this film would even be about or are sideways about
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: are like this anymore. No one in the cooking industry
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: finds it acceptable to treat someone like garbage, like writ large.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: Make your bones. I'm going to treat you like garbage.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: That's not really a thing anymore.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: To be fair. that's actually happening. It's still happening.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: Of course it's still happening.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: There might be a generation of kids that are like,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: I don't want to speak that way and I don't
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: want to do that. But yet there's clearly a culture
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: of all of that that is happening. And in fact,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: it's turning into this, like there's also the reality world culture,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: which is about backstabbing. Like what is survivor? What is the,
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: traitor or whatever the one is that's now where it's
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: everyone's trying to murder each other. I don't even know
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: what it is, but that's what I'm saying. We're still
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: elevating these kinds of stories.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: And I think we're doing it in like a safe way. I,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: that's the way, I mean, the way I try to
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: put it in Susan, I know. Cause I spent, I
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: spent some time with you and your lovely family over
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: the holidays a year ago over Easter. And we, I
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: spent a long, a lot of that time talking about
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: board games with one of your sons. Uh, I feel
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: like board games and or reality TV shows are a
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: safe space to do these kinds of things in. Cause
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: that's the intention. And yes, it's like, we can all
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: revel in it and how terrible that person is. But
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: at the same time, it's like, I don't know if
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: when you play chess, do you not take the other
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: person's pieces? Like it's doing it in that safe space
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: is like, for me in my brain, it's the connection
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: I make of watching a horror movie. Like to get
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: into a car and drive down the road is a
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: lot more horrifying than anything Clive Barker could show you
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: on screen, regardless of how gory and grotesque it gets,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: because that can't actually harm you going 40 miles an
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: hour slamming into your driver's side door, like the car
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: accident I was in a month and a half ago.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: It's just, I don't know, life puts things in perspective,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: and I always feel like when I think about cinema
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: and the way things have to be and the things
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: need to be for a lot of what's going on now,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: it's like, yes, things don't have to be this way anymore.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: But like you said, Susan, it's not holding itself to
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: the same standard it's talking about, which is hard.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: Which is hard with any system, obviously. But this film
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: is talking.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: this film talks about something that isn't supposed to be
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: happening anymore but is still going on. But at the
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: same time, the people that are involved in the system,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: I think, like we've already alluded to, would hope that
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: this isn't going on anymore, would like to preach that
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: it's not going on anymore. But– It can't go away.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: And in its entirety, human beings are involved, so it
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: can't go away.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 4: I think this movie also pioneered– and again, this movie
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: came out just as the medium of television was arriving,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: like the earliest days. And of course, nobody knew what
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 4: was going to happen. I think there were predictions like,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: why would anybody give up their radio and going up
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 4: to movies– For this this new thing that comes along
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: and it's a tiny little box. It's only a few
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 4: inches across and it's black and white. And why would
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: anybody not want to go see a big screen movie
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: instead of this? But. I wonder whether this movie also
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: from the I maybe I thought about it when I
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 4: was watching it in the 2000s was that it was
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 4: introducing the idea of there being. And look, every Shakespeare
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: play and every ancient Greek tragedy introduced the idea of
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 4: there being multiple layers of what's going on. There's what's
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: going on in front and there's like something going on
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 4: in the backstage and over in the room over there,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 4: there's another secret conversation at the court of Henry IV
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 4: or whatever. But it does feel modern in the sense
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 4: that like what we've talked about, I see such kindness
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 4: in my students and And yet I turn on to Reddit,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: which skews very young whenever you do like surveys of
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 4: like who is on Instagram, who's on TikTok, who's on
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: on Reddit. It skews younger and I see immense cruelty.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: and just despicable stabbing, you know, like just people being
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: mean for the sake of being mean. And this is
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 4: a discussion that I have with my students is how
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: do I balance those things? And of course, what we
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: know from research is it's actually a relatively small number
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: of people who are taking up the mean space, right?
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: In no way is Instagram a statistically accurate representation of America.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: And how somebody feels you're the loudest, the angriest, the
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 4: most insecure, the most, you know, people who want to
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: get somebody or maybe they're angry about their personal life.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 4: So they just feel like attacking strangers. And and we've
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: been doing research for, I guess, 60 years now on
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: parasocial interaction and how. Maybe you and I are a
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 4: little bit old enough to remember this, Susan, about how
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: the Susan Lucci, the soap opera star, you know, she
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: couldn't go to the supermarket because she'd be attacked because
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 4: she broke up a marriage, you know, on a TV show.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 4: So there's always been that. And I think that this
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 4: movie really with everything that's going on with Margot and
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: we haven't talked about George Sanders as this. I believe
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 4: really despicable, controlling, you know, trying to suck the life
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 4: out of everybody around him. Mephistocles, you know, villain here
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: who's trying to manipulate people to make himself look good
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: and to have power within his world. Yeah, these themes
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 4: repeat because they don't go away. There's always going to
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 4: be a subset of the human race and now who
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 4: are just mean. And now they have unlimited freedom because
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: they just adopt a pseudonym. And they go on and say,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: you know, yeah, that latest episode of 80s ladies. I
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 4: can't believe that that Lambert, you know, I'm not actually
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 4: saying I don't think anybody attacked you on Instagram lately,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 4: but I'm just saying that that's That seems to the
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 4: two trends happen at the same time, increased meanness and
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: increased kindness.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 2: That is such an interesting increased meanness and increased kindness.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: I think you're I think you're right. Like it is
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: it's trying to stamp out the other because, yeah, I
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: don't know. But I also want to talk about when
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: you talk about the other cast members, George Sanders, Edison
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: DeWitt is the critic. And it is so great that
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: the villain of the piece that like there's lots of
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: villains in the piece, but he is, like you said,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 2: this fair, he is, you kind of get the sense.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: I'm going to argue that Anne Baxter might be a
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: little bit mentally unwell. As Eve Harrington, like that Anne
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: Baxter's character, Eve, is mentally unwell. But you get the
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: sense that Addison DeWitt is mentally manipulating people on purpose
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: and with great thought and is evil like i don't
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: get the sense that eve is evil i get the
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: sense that she is obsessed she's obsessed but she's and
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: she's also she's lying she's manipulative but she's clearly like
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 2: you know doing everything to get what she wants. Whereas
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: Addison DeWitt is just manipulating people and he doesn't even
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: want anything. He doesn't seem to want anything except to
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: mess with people in this movie. He wants her. He
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: wants her to do his bidding.
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 4: He was born for TikTok. Yeah.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: He was born for TikTok. But I love that he's
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: the critic and that, you know, he's a theater critic.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: So he's the worst guy.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: He reminds me a lot of Hannibal from the TV
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: show Hannibal, where his his reasoning for doing things is
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: you just like to wind up the toys and see
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: what they do.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 3: You just like to like just stir the pot. You're
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: an agitator.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: And it's like that it that that for me, because again,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: like an agitator is also on the other side of
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: the coin, a a charismatic person. And that's the thing.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: He's also deeply charismatic. So he's using that charisma for evil.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: There are plenty of charismatic people who use it for
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: good that could be using it just as easily for evil.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: And it's like, why are you... It's such a bummer
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: you're using it for evil.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: Why are you using it for evil? That's what I
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: always think about with people. I'm like, you could be
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: using your charisma for good, not evil. And you see
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: that all the time in fiction. Because it's just as
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: easy to be evil as it is good, especially when
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: you have again, the manipulative power of either the press or,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, in Anne Baxter's case, she is being manipulative,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: but I also think she's also, the problem is you
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: would say she's delusional, but she's not delusional. That's the problem.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: You're like, she's immensely talented. So she's not delusional. It's
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: just maybe she's deluded, I think is a better way
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: of putting it. Like, I don't know. Like you said, Susan,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: she's one of the villains of the piece, but I
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: do think George Sanders is the villain villain of the piece.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: He's definitely the constant agitator in a world that doesn't
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: really need any more agitation, given that there's a hierarchical
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: structure baked into everything.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: Well, and in theory, he has no other role to play.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: You argue, like, he has no talent, right? Like, that's
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 2: the joke of critics, which is, again, not true. I
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: know a lot of critics, theater critics, that are beautiful
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: writers and are like historians for theater and But in
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: in it is a it's a good foil to have.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: It's it's like using a critic as your villain is
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: like using a Nazi as your villain. Like it's just
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: everybody sort of understands.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: Right. Where that war. We've got the Russians. Got it.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: The other.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: What I do love about this.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: How many movies? I was thinking of a couple or
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: two or three M. Night Shyamalan movies where he purposely
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: makes like a movie critic character.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say Roland Emmerich in that
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: 1999 Godzilla movie makes the mayor, Mayor Siskel or no
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: Mayor Ebert. And then his like other guy, his the
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: like the the character that's played. I forget who plays
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: him in that second Ghostbusters movie, but that like kind of.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: mayor mayoral like helper character is named Siskel then. And
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: they are cast to look like them. And it's they're
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: super inept, too, because I guess they didn't like Independence Day.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: So Roland Emmerich's like, put him in my movie and
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: let's be really catty about it.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: Like a question for you, Susan, on George Sanders.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 4: He is a drama critic who loves to create drama,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: but he can't create drama. Right.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: I mean, yes, the reading was that there are people
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 4: who are creatives and Margot Channing has proven her worth.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, at the end of the day, Margot Channing
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: has entertained and given their money's worth to tens of
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 4: thousands of people who sat there in a theater in
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: the dark and been enchanted. And just to make a
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: reference to another film about this is the other great
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 4: comic screenwriter of the time, Preston Sturgis. And in one
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 4: of his films, Sullivan's Travels, that's sort of the takeaway
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 4: is that giving people two hours of enjoyment. forgetting their
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: lives in a theater, whether it's in a Broadway theater
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: or Schenectady theater or Lubbock theater or a movie theater,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 4: that's a wonderful thing. And like, you know, we have
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 4: to remember that like at the end of the day,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: that is a public service, right? For me to watch,
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 4: you know, when I did, I remember sitting there watching
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: Toy Story 1, and I was going like, wow, that
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: is the most fun hour and 47 minutes or whatever
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 4: I've had with non-humans, you know. It was wonderful. And
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 4: Isn't that a little theme there about like some people
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 4: have the power to create something which gives that level
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: of entertainment? And there's an envy.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 4: And Baxter's character, Eve, envies the position of Marco Chan.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: And she wants to be Marco Chan, maybe a different
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: kind of Marco Channing. George Sanders, he envies that position. creativity,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: because no matter how great a film critic you are,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 4: you're not going to walk into a room and everybody
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 4: stand up for, for an ovation. And you're not going
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 4: to get seven curtain curtain calls as a theater critic.
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: Correct.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 2: So I think that is always the joke is that,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like, you know, teachers, you know, who can't,
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: if you can't do, you teach. And if you can't
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: teach you critic, you write criticism.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 4: Um, If you can't critic, you're in the comment section,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: you know, being me, right?
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 2: But I do want to point out, because before we
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: move on, is that everyone in this movie is deeply
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 2: flawed because they're in an industry that is all about
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: adoration and how popular you are. And when you stop
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: being popular, you then lose. So they all have this deep,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: insecurity and make huge mistakes. Like Betty Davis is clearly a,
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: like she has worked hard to, she's worked hard for
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: 20 years to be a star. There's not a lot
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: of sign that she's done manipulative things at the level
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 2: that Eve has, but she, she is insecure about her age,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: her looks and, She throws tantrums and she is late
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: and she's a diva. And she's all those things that
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: are sort of the bad side of being a great
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 2: Broadway star. And she's dismissive. She's dismissive of people until
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: she lets them be seen by her or really sees Eve.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: She's dismissive of her.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: So....
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 2: It's very interesting. I'm curious what your kids would think
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: about that character because she throws a lot of tantrums
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 2: and needs a lot of reassurance. It's not far off
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 2: from a lot of actors or actresses. And then, of course,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 2: Eve Harrington is somewhere between deluded and psychopath, but clearly
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: is so... desperate to be a star, to be adored,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 2: she will do anything. She will, you know, she will
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: lose her morals in order to be a star.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 4: That's sort of my wrap up for this film. And,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: you know, honestly, there's a billion themes here. And if
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 4: we want to make this part one, I would love
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 4: to do that. But this is a film also about,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 4: as you're saying, Susan, this is a film about self-destruction.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 4: And desperation, which, again, are, you know, themes that I'm
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 4: sure are Neanderthal cousins felt at some point. It isn't
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 4: some like, oh, it's only in Hollywood or it's only
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 4: on Broadway that people feel that people who get more
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 4: and more insecure about their situation, people who from a
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 4: distance feel. seem like they're on top of the world,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 4: but they're scrambling. They're on the mountain, but the mountain
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 4: is giving away in pebbles and they're starting to roll
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: down the mountain. And so they make it worse.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 4: We've all known people like that who who face a
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 4: difficulty but keep making it worse by their behavior because
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 4: of their desperation to keep something or to attain something.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 4: And what what an amazing lesson that watching this film
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 4: is in business school, I think, among other places, political
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 4: science class.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: Susan, I'm going to let you have the last word
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 3: on this film. Oh, agreed.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: I completely agree with everything you're saying. And I want
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 2: to just finish that Karen Richards, the character played by
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 2: Celeste Holm.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: Also is flawed.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 2: She does a terrible thing to her best friend, and
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: it's terrible. And anybody in theater is like, how dare
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 2: you do that? Like, it is across the board what
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: she does. Anyway, this has been so delightful to revisit
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: this film. Thank you, David, for bringing such insight into
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 2: it and Chris for bringing such new eyes to it
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: and insight. And it's, it's been just delightful. I'll do
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: all Mankiewicz films. There's so many, there really are.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 3: We didn't have a whole lot of notes. Susan.
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: So when you're not here joining the professor and I
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: to talk about Mankiewicz films, possibly where can people find
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: you and the things that you work on?
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: They can find me at 80s TV ladies, eight zero S. T-V-L-A-D-I-E-S.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: And as for me, you can find me at weirdingwaymedia.com
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: where this show and all the other shows I work.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 3: On can be found, including, yeah, this one and.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: Shabby Detective, Kolchak Tapes.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: There's a whole lot of other things I work on,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: but for the most part, it's more about the things
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: I don't work on. Like Susan mentioned, 80s TV ladies,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: the projection booth, film entries, midnight viewing. A lot of
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: stuff is over there at weirdingwaymedia.com. So go there, like, rate,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: and review this show on iTunes, then Spotify. In that order, patreon.com
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: slash culturecast is where you can go to Hear Susan
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: and Richard and Mike and I talk about Force 10
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: from Navarone with no ads, if that's a thing you
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: want to hear. And if it isn't, OK, but that's
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: where you can hear Never Tell Me the Odds, our
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: Harrison Ford podcast without ads. So, yeah, Susan, thank you
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: so much for joining us and for picking a good film.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: This is a great film.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just you always tend to hit the
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: high notes, Susan. So keep hitting them. Yeah, I will try.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: I'm sure I'll hit one that you won't like.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: But you haven't yet. So, uh, you know, you know,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: maybe you just keep flipping the coin.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 4: Um, Sunset Boulevard.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 3: Have you seen it, Chris?
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well then, yeah, of course you have a whole
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: catalog to complete Chris.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: Well, there you go, folks. You heard it here first and, uh, yeah, we'll, uh,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: we'll catch you on the next episode.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: Thank you.