Latest / Left of the Projector / They Live By Night (1948) with Jason Christian

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They Live By Night (1948) with Jason Christian · Left of the Projector

• 0:16
  Track 1: Hello, and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Evan,
• 0:20
  Track 1: back again with another film discussion from the left.
• 0:22
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• 0:36
  Track 1: you've got the best taste around.
• 0:37
  Track 1: Wherever you're listening, give us a rating and subscribe so you'll be notified
• 0:41
  Track 1: of our weekly episodes that drop every Tuesday.
• 0:43
  Track 1: And now on to the show this week on left
• 0:45
  Track 1: of the projector we dial it back to the era of hard-boiled detectives
• 0:49
  Track 1: brunette dames and dark corners of any town usa
• 0:52
  Track 1: we'll be discussing the 1948 noir they
• 0:55
  Track 1: live by night directed by nicholas ray starring farley granger and kathy o'donnell
• 0:59
  Track 1: somehow this was also ray's first feature film and we have some uh be talking
• 1:05
  Track 1: about that our guest this week you may know from our conversation on red dawn
• 1:09
  Track 1: is jason christian jason is the co-host of the podcast,
• 1:12
  Track 1: Cold War Cinema. Thank you for being back on the show.
• 1:15
  Track 3: Oh, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
• 1:18
  Track 1: And of course, I'm also joined by my regular co-hosts, Bill and Ward. How are you guys doing?
• 1:24
  Track 2: Doing good.
• 1:25
  Track 4: Hello, everybody.
• 1:26
  Track 1: This may be the first time that I think that Ward and Bill and I have done any noirs.
• 1:31
  Track 1: I have done a couple before they had joined as hosts of the show.
• 1:35
  Track 1: So I'm curious, everyone, or maybe for everyone, Sort of their history with, you know,
• 1:43
  Track 1: noirs and, you know, if it's something you've come across recently,
• 1:46
  Track 1: you know, they're not really, you know, however you want to want to share.
• 1:52
  Track 2: No, I don't. I don't have. I don't have a history with noirs.
• 1:57
  Track 4: Ward doesn't want to share.
• 1:59
  Track 1: That's okay.
• 2:00
  Track 2: No, I just don't have a history of noirs.
• 2:03
  Track 4: Yeah, I don't. I mean, I don't.
• 2:06
  Track 4: I don't think I do either. I really don't think I've ever really watched anything
• 2:10
  Track 4: that could be, that I could think of that was like, that would qualify as a noir film.
• 2:15
  Track 1: Yeah, so this is the first one.
• 2:16
  Track 4: I think. I mean. Oh, wow.
• 2:18
  Track 1: I'm not, like, there's no judgment here. I'm just, I'd.
• 2:21
  Track 4: Like what qualifies?
• 2:23
  Track 3: Well, I mean, Double Indemnity, Casablanca. These are some of the famous ones.
• 2:32
  Track 4: Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen. I think I saw Casablanca like a long time
• 2:36
  Track 4: ago. Like when I was a kid.
• 2:38
  Track 3: It's great. Third Man Bill.
• 2:41
  Track 2: Like I think I might have watched it as a kid, but that doesn't like actually count.
• 2:45
  Track 4: Yeah.
• 2:45
  Track 3: I thought you guys were movie fans. Well, I'm just kidding.
• 2:50
  Track 2: Oh, I am. There's just gaps.
• 2:54
  Track 1: Well, what about you, Jason? I know that you, you know, you talked about those
• 2:58
  Track 1: kind of films on your podcast.
• 2:59
  Track 1: So obviously you've, you know, your history of them. But are these like things
• 3:02
  Track 1: that you liked when you were younger or...
• 3:05
  Track 3: Um, yeah, sorry, guys, I was just being a jerk.
• 3:09
  Track 3: But I, I watched some classic Hollywood growing up, not a ton of it.
• 3:17
  Track 3: I saw Third Man at some point and was blown away by it. That's kind of one of
• 3:21
  Track 3: the most famous film noir films.
• 3:26
  Track 3: Vertigo, I saw at some point was head over heels. for it. Yeah.
• 3:32
  Track 3: Yeah. It's, it's, these are, you know, the definition is loose,
• 3:36
  Track 3: you know, it's, there's going to be debate about what even qualifies as a film
• 3:39
  Track 3: noir, but, but once I got a little older, I got really into it.
• 3:44
  Track 3: So I've seen a lot of these movies and when we covered our whole first season
• 3:49
  Track 3: of our podcast, most of the movies we covered would be classified as film noir.
• 3:54
  Track 3: I would say not all of them, but most.
• 3:56
  Track 1: Yeah. And I'm, I'm similar when When I was younger, I don't know,
• 4:00
  Track 1: 10, 15, like in high school, middle school, my parents really liked watching
• 4:05
  Track 1: those kind of old movies, Hitchcock films.
• 4:07
  Track 1: So I watched a lot of them sort of by, not by choice, like being like,
• 4:12
  Track 1: you should watch this movie because it's a classic and here's Casablanca, those kinds of things.
• 4:16
  Track 1: And I feel like I didn't enjoy it because I felt like it was a chore to be forced to watch them.
• 4:22
  Track 1: And then when I sort of came back to them, I don't know,
• 4:25
  Track 1: maybe 10 years ago and even
• 4:28
  Track 1: probably more in the last say five years watching all
• 4:31
  Track 1: the classic Hitchcock's third man Orson Wells you
• 4:34
  Track 1: know Laura some of these movies are just they're just uh it's like a lost era
• 4:41
  Track 1: and a lost art of these kind of you know these films and I I don't know in some
• 4:46
  Track 1: ways I like loosely don't know if this qualifies fully I mean whatever I maybe
• 4:50
  Track 1: Jason has a different opinion on whether,
• 4:53
  Track 1: the film we're talking about today is a noir I just see it as having a lot of some different,
• 4:58
  Track 1: pieces of it but again it's loose.
• 5:01
  Track 4: Based on like the definition like i didn't really like,
• 5:07
  Track 4: it this doesn't i mean like i wouldn't be like oh yeah this is a noir film like
• 5:11
  Track 4: based on the definition but i also
• 5:13
  Track 4: would like i have watched a bunch of hitchcock so there if if hitchcock,
• 5:17
  Track 4: and including vertigo i've seen vertigo multiple times so there i have seen
• 5:21
  Track 4: noir films i just didn't know that it wasn't a war.
• 5:23
  Track 3: Yeah maybe i can maybe i
• 5:26
  Track 3: can just define what it is in case people don't know no
• 5:29
  Track 3: please yeah yeah so okay so you
• 5:32
  Track 3: know there's some debate about this but generally speaking what
• 5:36
  Track 3: film noir film noir means black film in
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  Track 3: french and it was identified as a genre after the fact by french critics in
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  Track 3: the 50s looking back uh or 60s and essentially what it is is hollywood films
• 5:53
  Track 3: and there's some japanese and some other noirs from around the world but,
• 5:58
  Track 3: Primarily Hollywood Crime films During World War II and right after World War
• 6:05
  Track 3: II They're grappling with really dark Themes of,
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  Track 3: Crime You know Bleak pessimism Crisis of masculinity You know there's a lot
• 6:19
  Track 3: of People dying in the war And people are grappling with that fact Through art, through cinema
• 6:25
  Track 3: and then of course a lot of them are filmed at night and they have like you know,
• 6:30
  Track 3: hard shadows uh that's one of
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  Track 3: the defining kind of characteristics is these scenes at night where there's
• 6:37
  Track 3: a silhouette of somebody or a long shadow and that sort of thing so those are
• 6:43
  Track 3: some of the um some of them are focused on detectives some are focused on the
• 6:48
  Track 3: criminal um but that's sort of a broad definition and.
• 6:52
  Track 1: It just so happens that this film has the word night in it so of course that means that it's a noir no.
• 6:57
  Track 3: Yeah and a lot of it is filmed at night too yeah it.
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  Track 4: Passes all the vibe checks like it passes the vibe checks for noir 100 like
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  Track 4: you know the you know like the dark you know uh topic and you know and all like
• 7:11
  Track 4: the living on the edge and all that but like,
• 7:15
  Track 4: aesthetically it didn't feel like it didn't aesthetically didn't flip those
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  Track 4: like switches that i i associate with noir you know like,
• 7:24
  Track 4: back alleys and like you know gritty cities like this felt so much more like
• 7:29
  Track 4: it was like there's this patina of almost like domesticity and then underneath.
• 7:35
  Track 3: That.
• 7:35
  Track 4: Is that it really dark stuff.
• 7:37
  Track 3: I agree and there are some noirs
• 7:41
  Track 3: that aren't set in cities but that is one of the features of
• 7:44
  Track 3: most noirs they're usually set in urban
• 7:47
  Track 3: spaces there are some rural noirs um
• 7:51
  Track 3: one of the most famous is it'll come
• 7:54
  Track 3: to me in a minute but um it's actually probably one of
• 7:57
  Track 3: the top five for me too but it's set in the countryside um
• 8:01
  Track 3: but generally speaking yeah they're typically um in the city this one isn't
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  Track 3: this one's on the run yeah um but but can i can i explain why what what makes
• 8:14
  Track 3: this different maybe i should just explain how this categorized different than
• 8:19
  Track 3: nor please maybe yeah Yeah.
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  Track 1: You could also say maybe as part of that, like why, you know,
• 8:23
  Track 1: what made you choose it as part of that kind of sort of.
• 8:27
  Track 3: Why I chose it is because, OK, this film critic named Tom Anderson,
• 8:34
  Track 3: and he's also a filmmaker, he made Los Angeles Plays Itself and he made an essay
• 8:39
  Track 3: film called Red Hollywood about communists.
• 8:43
  Track 3: Personnel in Hollywood, like actors and directors, screenwriters.
• 8:46
  Track 3: He came up with a list of what he called film gray films.
• 8:55
  Track 3: And this is on that list. He identified 13 films from 1947 to 1951. So it's only 13 films.
• 9:05
  Track 3: And we covered about half of them on the first season of
• 9:08
  Track 3: our podcast and essentially what these are
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  Track 3: are film noir films that are less pessimistic
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  Track 3: less hard-boiled and very socially conscious
• 9:19
  Track 3: so they're influenced by like basically they're influenced by italian neoliberal
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  Track 3: uh neoliberalism sorry neorealism so they're they're essentially communist filmmakers
• 9:31
  Track 3: making socially conscious films influenced by italian neorealists who are also communist, uh,
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  Track 3: filmmakers trying to shine a light on social issues.
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  Track 3: So they're, they're not as hard boiled and pessimistic as they have.
• 9:47
  Track 3: They sort of have this hopeful message.
• 9:49
  Track 3: Uh, and, and there's certain, like I said, there's 13 of these.
• 9:53
  Track 3: We covered about half on our podcast and this is one we didn't cover on our podcast.
• 9:57
  Track 3: And it's, I mean, I'm a fan, I'm a big fan of the movie.
• 10:01
  Track 1: Now that you sort of put it that in perspective, it definitely, um,
• 10:06
  Track 1: It changes some of my thoughts on some of the themes underlying there.
• 10:12
  Track 1: I think you mentioned Bill.
• 10:14
  Track 1: I think you said, or maybe you didn't say it. Well, I'll get to that part maybe later.
• 10:19
  Track 1: But I'm curious what everyone else thought, Bill and Ward primarily.
• 10:24
  Track 1: I know you both had seen it for the first time. I also saw it for the first time.
• 10:27
  Track 1: But I can maybe go last and then we can talk more about some of the themes in it.
• 10:34
  Track 2: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. um yeah first
• 10:37
  Track 2: time watching a noir film first time in a long time watching a film this old
• 10:41
  Track 2: too but no i'd rather enjoyed it yeah no i kind of want to like hear more about
• 10:46
  Track 2: what you guys like actually have as like experts in this in this noir field
• 10:51
  Track 2: but uh yeah no i i did a little bit of research so i got some facts that i'll
• 10:55
  Track 2: throw in every once in a while yeah.
• 10:57
  Track 4: I really enjoyed it it was definitely you know definitely different than you
• 11:02
  Track 4: know you know i think we've you know I personally, or we covered recently,
• 11:06
  Track 4: you know, and it really took me back to like, you know,
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  Track 4: Steinbeck and, you know, grapes of wrath and all that.
• 11:13
  Track 4: And, you know, it really made me think of all that stuff, but also,
• 11:15
  Track 4: you know, just, you know, like this time period. And it just,
• 11:20
  Track 4: it's, it just makes me always think of like, you know, how I say,
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  Track 4: you know, like the more things don't change, the more they stay the same.
• 11:26
  Track 4: And it's like, here we are, you know, it's like, it just,
• 11:29
  Track 4: we think of the depression as like this like time so far removed from like us
• 11:35
  Track 4: and as if it's almost like a a fantasy time like a some like mythical era but
• 11:41
  Track 4: it's like you know watching this and like seeing how these people are approaching
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  Track 4: things and it's just like oh you know like,
• 11:48
  Track 4: And for so many people in so many ways and really broadly, like almost nothing has changed.
• 11:54
  Track 3: Indeed. I agree. The movie, let me just say the movie I was trying to think
• 11:58
  Track 3: of a minute ago is The Night of the Hunter, which is another noir set in the
• 12:02
  Track 3: country, like in the south.
• 12:05
  Track 3: It's a fantastic movie, but it's a little bit later, 55. But anyway, sorry. Yeah.
• 12:10
  Track 1: One of the, one of like the, well, maybe I'll like sort of briefly lay out the
• 12:14
  Track 1: kind of the, the plot or at least kind of the opening to give people context
• 12:19
  Track 1: who may haven't seen this before.
• 12:20
  Track 1: And I definitely, I think we all would, would say you should take it, check it out.
• 12:24
  Track 1: But the, the film centers around.
• 12:30
  Track 1: Arthur Bowie Bowers, played by Fairleigh Greenger, the sort of the male lead.
• 12:34
  Track 1: And he and his two jailmates, T-Dub and One-Eye, or Chickama, all escape from prison.
• 12:43
  Track 1: And they're on the run, and they initially go to Chickama's,
• 12:47
  Track 1: you know, his brother's house,
• 12:50
  Track 1: and his niece is there, and there's sort of this decisions as to,
• 12:54
  Track 1: they run a service station, And they're trying to decide at this point sort
• 12:58
  Track 1: of what their next move is, whether they're going to potentially rob additional
• 13:02
  Track 1: banks, which is kind of what they're what they're planning to do.
• 13:05
  Track 1: And we also are introduced this time to the niece, which is who's played by
• 13:10
  Track 1: Kathy O'Donnell, who is Keechee or Catherine.
• 13:14
  Track 1: And we sort of slowly see the relationship between Bowie and Keechee develop
• 13:21
  Track 1: as the film goes forward.
• 13:23
  Track 1: And part of, I think what's maybe interesting that I think it's worth talking
• 13:26
  Track 1: about is we see early on, one of the first things we learn is that Bowie wants
• 13:31
  Track 1: to get a lawyer so that he can prove that he was wrongfully convicted.
• 13:35
  Track 1: And he even mentions, you know, the Supreme Court decision.
• 13:40
  Track 1: And again, as what you just said, Bill, things, you know, as you said,
• 13:43
  Track 1: things don't, things stay the same.
• 13:47
  Track 1: And I couldn't help but sort of think about that in the context of people being
• 13:51
  Track 1: wrongfully accused throughout time.
• 13:54
  Track 1: Though typically it's, you know, people of color that tends to happen to more
• 13:58
  Track 1: than the white persuasion.
• 14:00
  Track 1: But that's sort of the opening.
• 14:03
  Track 1: And then the rest of the film sort of...
• 14:06
  Track 1: Acts a bit like sort of the man and the woman, Bonnie and Clyde kind of couple
• 14:10
  Track 1: on the run genre. I feel like this might have been the, maybe the first ever
• 14:14
  Track 1: film that sort of had that theme, that thematic aspect to it.
• 14:18
  Track 1: But it was well before Bonnie and Clyde comes out 20 years after this.
• 14:22
  Track 1: And then I think maybe there's a few other films later.
• 14:25
  Track 1: Robert Altman, I think, also made a version of this film in the 70s.
• 14:29
  Track 1: It's all based on a book. So that's kind of the general layout.
• 14:34
  Track 1: But one of the things that I was thinking about with the two of them is that,
• 14:39
  Track 1: both Keechee and Bowie are young, they're in their early 20s,
• 14:42
  Track 1: and they're forced into this life of crime, but primarily not by choice. They're sort of,
• 14:50
  Track 1: Maybe they, you know, they're crime adjacent.
• 14:55
  Track 1: He's in prison. They break out. He breaks out. And he's sort of thrown into
• 14:59
  Track 1: this world, which is maybe why
• 15:03
  Track 1: kind of slips into that noir style where you're kind of against the man.
• 15:07
  Track 1: The cops are after you the whole time. so i don't know if you uh what do you
• 15:12
  Track 1: think jason as far as the if you had any more thoughts on sort of history there
• 15:16
  Track 1: and how it might play into the the two of them in this sort of on the run narrative
• 15:22
  Track 1: i know there's a lot more to it than that.
• 15:24
  Track 3: Yeah um you know all that's
• 15:27
  Track 3: stuff i wanted to get into myself and i
• 15:30
  Track 3: agree so it's it was adapted from a novel called
• 15:33
  Track 3: thieves like us from 1937 and
• 15:37
  Track 3: actually it was adapted earlier by fritz lang oh
• 15:39
  Track 3: you're right but that but that movie is not
• 15:42
  Track 3: as well known it's not as good it's not as
• 15:45
  Track 3: it hasn't been history hasn't looked
• 15:48
  Track 3: on that as so basically it is considered like
• 15:51
  Track 3: the sort of prototype for these couple on
• 15:54
  Track 3: the run films and there's been a bunch of them badlands you
• 15:57
  Track 3: know natural born killers these sort of things but unlike
• 16:00
  Track 3: all of those movies what's interesting about
• 16:04
  Track 3: this one as you said is they're not
• 16:07
  Track 3: quote-unquote bad people they're actually very sweet very gentle throughout
• 16:14
  Track 3: the film it's it's they're very and and they're not trying to cause harm but
• 16:20
  Track 3: they just fell into this really bad situation and and that's what makes it radical,
• 16:27
  Track 3: honestly. That's what makes it very different.
• 16:30
  Track 3: Because, you know, listeners may or may not know about this,
• 16:33
  Track 3: but at the time, there was a thing called the Hayes Code of Production, H-A-Y-S.
• 16:39
  Track 3: And you could not make a film...
• 16:43
  Track 3: Basically, until about 1960, you couldn't make a film that portrayed the criminals as the good guys.
• 16:49
  Track 3: And this film basically does that. It really pushes hard against the code of production.
• 16:57
  Track 3: You know, they censored American movies all the time. We think that that's something
• 17:00
  Track 3: that just happens overseas or something. They censored American movies all the time.
• 17:05
  Track 3: Somehow, this one wasn't censored. But you're rooting for this young couple.
• 17:10
  Track 3: There's no way to not root for them because they're so
• 17:13
  Track 3: gentle and so it invites the viewer to
• 17:16
  Track 3: think oh capitalism forces us
• 17:19
  Track 3: into desperate situations and sometimes people
• 17:22
  Track 3: commit quote-unquote property crimes who just almost don't have any other option
• 17:29
  Track 3: you know and that's a bold thing to do in 1948 it was really until the bonnie
• 17:35
  Track 3: and clyde came out in the late 60s so Because that became common to do after
• 17:39
  Track 3: Bonnie and Clyde, but not back then.
• 17:41
  Track 3: It was like literally the first movie that pushed that hard against that taboo.
• 17:46
  Track 2: Yeah, the only thing the Hays Code touched on this movie was the corrupt Justice
• 17:53
  Track 2: of Peace that was doing the weddings at night. It was originally supposed to be a judge.
• 18:01
  Track 2: So the fact that that's all that they touched was like, oh, tone it down on
• 18:05
  Track 2: the judge. But yeah, you can keep the criminals being good guys.
• 18:09
  Track 2: It was actually really surprising for the time.
• 18:11
  Track 3: Interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah.
• 18:13
  Track 4: To even call them criminals seems a stretch.
• 18:18
  Track 4: Like it really makes you question Hays Code notwithstanding,
• 18:24
  Track 4: you know, if even if we, you know,
• 18:25
  Track 4: but just the very nature of the characters, the way they're presented,
• 18:30
  Track 4: it makes you automatically question not just whether they're criminals,
• 18:35
  Track 4: but the, the, the application of that word to certain individuals.
• 18:39
  Track 4: It's like, what, first of all, what makes Kichi a criminal, right?
• 18:43
  Track 4: Like she, what does she do?
• 18:45
  Track 4: Like she doesn't do anything, you know, like she literally does not participate
• 18:49
  Track 4: in any crime other than aiding and abetting.
• 18:52
  Track 4: Yeah. Like that's, that's the, that's the best you can get. And really like
• 18:56
  Track 4: aiding and abetting, like she's
• 18:58
  Track 4: like, it's not even like, I guess in the beginning, which is like helping.
• 19:02
  Track 2: She's actively rehabilitating a criminal that the society could not productively rehabilitate.
• 19:09
  Track 4: Yeah yeah she's literally doing a better job like like what how is she a criminal
• 19:15
  Track 4: and like and buoy like it is so
• 19:18
  Track 4: clear that like he is a victim of the circumstances and continually like,
• 19:25
  Track 4: like pushes back like early on he's like you know if you need a third man i'm
• 19:30
  Track 4: there and then like the moment he has the opportunity he's like you know i'm
• 19:34
  Track 4: out like just no no i'm good like the moment, like all that, like you could,
• 19:40
  Track 4: whether it was youthful bravado or not, I think is debatable, but,
• 19:46
  Track 4: In the end, that's the way it comes off, and it's clear that he is not in this
• 19:54
  Track 4: for a life of crime. He's not interested in a life of crime.
• 19:57
  Track 4: T-Dub and Chickamaw, they're down for it.
• 20:03
  Track 4: That's their life, 100%.
• 20:05
  Track 3: Yeah, those guys are clearly the bad guys, right? We're not rooting for them.
• 20:11
  Track 3: They have no moral code, and he does. You could imagine him in another setting.
• 20:17
  Track 3: Well, basically what we know is he grew, he got,
• 20:22
  Track 3: He was a carnival worker as a child. He was a child worker in the carnival and
• 20:27
  Track 3: got swept up, again, a victim of circumstances, when a murder happened and took the fall, basically.
• 20:34
  Track 3: So, like, he's had a tough life from the moment he was born, basically.
• 20:38
  Track 3: We find out that his mother ran off with a man who murdered his own father, that sort of thing.
• 20:47
  Track 3: So he's had this terrible life and his, you know, his life was never going to
• 20:53
  Track 3: be anything else unless some miracle happened.
• 20:55
  Track 3: And that's, again, one of these socially conscious message pictures,
• 20:59
  Track 3: which is what they used to call them.
• 21:01
  Track 3: In the 30s, there were a lot of these message pictures. And by the 40s,
• 21:05
  Track 3: they kind of died away. And this group of film gris films is kind of the exception to the rule.
• 21:11
  Track 1: We also learned that Keechee's mother also had run away.
• 21:14
  Track 1: One of the notes that I put down was sort of just the relationship or the concept
• 21:19
  Track 1: of the nuclear family I thought was very fascinating because you have,
• 21:24
  Track 1: as you said, Jason, the Bui's family sort of, you know, he's brought into this carnival work.
• 21:31
  Track 1: His mother runs away with his father who's murdered.
• 21:34
  Track 1: Kichi's mother has sort of gone away and they have this odd relationship with
• 21:38
  Track 1: one of the brothers is still in prison and one of them is, you know,
• 21:41
  Track 1: home and has this daughter Kichi.
• 21:43
  Track 1: And it's all like they don't seem to understand the idea of where they're trying
• 21:50
  Track 1: to understand the idea of some kind of, I don't know, patriarchal family where the, you know,
• 21:55
  Track 1: where the Kishima and the other guy are sort of in T-dub or, you know,
• 22:01
  Track 1: trying to provide in quotes for them in the only way they know how, which is to rob banks.
• 22:06
  Track 1: And Bowie just is along for the ride, unfortunately.
• 22:09
  Track 4: I genuinely would actually push back on like the fact that like T-Dub and or one of the,
• 22:19
  Track 4: chicken it's chickama or one eye and t-dub i
• 22:22
  Track 4: was they had basically there's three names for
• 22:25
  Track 4: two guys it's like it's a lot yeah
• 22:28
  Track 4: we have an extra name but like one
• 22:31
  Track 4: eye and t-dub like i would push back
• 22:34
  Track 4: on the idea that they're like really the bad
• 22:37
  Track 4: guys like you know
• 22:41
  Track 4: it's like i it's not
• 22:44
  Track 4: that clear-cut and like i think one
• 22:47
  Track 4: eye if we were gonna if we're gonna point to somebody who's like
• 22:50
  Track 4: like 100 like not
• 22:54
  Track 4: like not for one eye
• 22:57
  Track 4: is clearly in it for the game like he
• 23:00
  Track 4: is not he's the closest thing to like a bad person i would say and like it felt
• 23:06
  Track 4: to me like t-dub really did feel like kind of like a man out of time who was
• 23:13
  Track 4: incapable of living in this new environment and providing for the people that he cared about.
• 23:20
  Track 4: And he did what he could and what he knew how to do. And it just so happens that, you know.
• 23:30
  Track 4: If he, if he was alive, you know, like 200 years earlier, he would probably
• 23:35
  Track 4: would have been like, you know, a respected, you know, like warrior raiding
• 23:40
  Track 4: village, you know, like it's almost like it's a, it's a completely different like mentality.
• 23:44
  Track 4: And like, he still wants to, but there's this circumstances that they don't
• 23:48
  Track 4: provide, you know, provide for that.
• 23:51
  Track 4: Whereas what I does seem like more of just a general piece of shit in a low
• 23:56
  Track 4: life who does not respect anybody.
• 23:58
  Track 3: Can i can i agree with you i guess what motivated me to put that in to say i
• 24:04
  Track 3: i think it's more nuanced than i had put it i think what i they have a code of,
• 24:10
  Track 3: a criminal code of honor so they
• 24:13
  Track 3: have each other's back but but also like what
• 24:16
  Track 3: made me think that is like like the the
• 24:19
  Track 3: real moral center of the film is this young
• 24:22
  Track 3: couple and and because um bowie
• 24:26
  Track 3: wants to get out he's like i'm not doing another job for you guys and he and
• 24:32
  Track 3: t-bub just starts or t-dub starts slapping him in the face he's like you don't
• 24:36
  Track 3: have a choice and so like and so like but this is like street life right this
• 24:41
  Track 3: is this street code and sort of thing this is a criminal code,
• 24:45
  Track 3: where once you're in, you don't really get to get out.
• 24:48
  Track 3: And so you can't really...
• 24:53
  Track 3: I don't know, a bourgeois moral code against that. But nevertheless.
• 24:57
  Track 1: We don't know how long they're in prison. Did they say how long they've been
• 25:00
  Track 1: there? I know that Bowie had been for seven years.
• 25:03
  Track 1: Yeah, I don't know if they said the other ones. But presumably they've been
• 25:06
  Track 1: in there for some time if they become friendly enough with him.
• 25:09
  Track 1: And clearly it seems like they picked him as the person they would break out
• 25:13
  Track 1: with because he could be assistance or help them.
• 25:17
  Track 1: And they're a bit older and he can maybe be the driveway car,
• 25:21
  Track 1: which he ends up being later on or is more savvy as a kid.
• 25:27
  Track 1: One of the funny things that happens throughout it is that they get so mad,
• 25:33
  Track 1: both Chickama and T-Dub, that,
• 25:38
  Track 1: Bowie is getting all the quote-unquote like credit in the
• 25:41
  Track 1: newspaper you know they call him you know the kid and it I just found that it's
• 25:45
  Track 1: extremely funny because the guy who's trying to get out and be you know anonymous
• 25:50
  Track 1: and just sort of blend in and just have a you know have a happily ever after
• 25:53
  Track 1: is the one that's getting all the face time in the paper and it's just you know God sucks.
• 25:59
  Track 4: Yeah, it really did suck. I felt bad for him.
• 26:01
  Track 3: Well, that's another thing that makes this movie kind of radical or like critical
• 26:07
  Track 3: of the status quo is it has a strong condemnation of yellow journalism.
• 26:12
  Track 3: And that's another feature of a lot of these film grief films where they're
• 26:17
  Track 3: showing how the newspapers will kind of make things up and sensationalize crime
• 26:22
  Track 3: to sell papers because these newspapers are businesses. So they have to sell papers.
• 26:27
  Track 3: So they have this code of if it bleeds, it leads. And they, you know,
• 26:32
  Track 3: they exaggerate things because it'll sell papers.
• 26:37
  Track 3: And that's very clearly identified in a few places in this film.
• 26:41
  Track 1: Yeah, they do several times talk about that. The way that, yeah, it's interesting.
• 26:48
  Track 1: The ultimate extreme of that is the one movie you mentioned,
• 26:51
  Track 1: which is Natural Born Killers, which is the people on the run with the absolute
• 26:55
  Track 1: extreme sensationalization of it.
• 27:01
  Track 1: Sensationalism sensationalism yes thank you bill uh of of
• 27:04
  Track 1: uh of the media and the way that they cover it and it's interesting
• 27:07
  Track 1: that this comes at you know
• 27:10
  Track 1: again in 1948 and they're doing these kinds of
• 27:12
  Track 1: things it's you can see where nicholas
• 27:15
  Track 1: ray the director is making doing things that
• 27:19
  Track 1: you know maybe he just was doing as much
• 27:22
  Track 1: as he could get away with and you know and if he got away with it
• 27:24
  Track 1: he would and if he didn't he wouldn't and you know
• 27:27
  Track 1: as you said word the only thing they change was you know the the
• 27:30
  Track 1: person who does the marriage and uh you're left with everything else and the
• 27:36
  Track 1: uh the like the relationship too between kichi and buoy like they after the
• 27:41
  Track 1: last robbery they you know they they're on the run now and he has a whole sack
• 27:46
  Track 1: of money and he feel like they can just sort of be together and what,
• 27:50
  Track 1: was also they they refer i think well kichi
• 27:54
  Track 1: refers to buoy as a jailbait and i think later one of them might refer
• 27:57
  Track 1: to buoy as the same thing but they're like these young kids
• 28:00
  Track 1: who don't even really understand i think the
• 28:02
  Track 1: idea of love it's almost like they've never experienced love in
• 28:06
  Track 1: their life and they almost don't know what to do
• 28:09
  Track 1: in terms of how to be together and
• 28:12
  Track 1: it seems like the money was the what they're trying at least what buoy is trying
• 28:15
  Track 1: to use as i have all this money you know what can i buy you and there's always
• 28:20
  Track 1: these kind of exchanges where like oh like do you want me do you want to buy
• 28:23
  Track 1: this for me or do you want to be with me and it's just this uh was almost both
• 28:27
  Track 1: sad and heartwarming at the same time yeah.
• 28:29
  Track 4: Sad is the term i.
• 28:31
  Track 1: Was yeah.
• 28:32
  Track 3: Yeah i mean it's it's innocent.
• 28:36
  Track 1: Yeah innocence a great one yeah and.
• 28:39
  Track 3: I mean it's shakespearean in its tragedy dimension i mean it's like romeo and
• 28:44
  Track 3: juliet kind of thing like where these two innocents are love and they it's them
• 28:49
  Track 3: versus the world kind of thing uh yeah.
• 28:53
  Track 1: Yeah you really yeah i mean you do feel feel sorry for
• 28:56
  Track 1: them but you do at the same time you see
• 28:59
  Track 1: their i mean again you mentioned
• 29:02
  Track 1: at the beginning just like a lot of these noirs are filmed at night this film
• 29:05
  Track 1: is literally called they live by night because primarily all the
• 29:08
  Track 1: traveling they're doing is at night to you know stay away from the cops and
• 29:13
  Track 1: everything and they don't even really go out very much they you know stick to
• 29:17
  Track 1: little motels and little i don't know what you would call those kind of places
• 29:21
  Track 1: uh like motorhome cabins yeah like in the you know in the sticks and um,
• 29:28
  Track 1: I don't know where I was going with that, but yeah, and we should be also,
• 29:33
  Track 1: they end up getting married at this, as you alluded to, is this place that's a $20 wedding.
• 29:41
  Track 1: Was it in, which state was it? Was it in Mississippi? No, it was before they were in Mississippi.
• 29:44
  Track 3: It's in Texas, I think.
• 29:45
  Track 1: Okay, because they start in Texas, right? Yeah, and they get married at this
• 29:48
  Track 1: $20 place, and I found the- It's funny, that part.
• 29:53
  Track 1: Very funny. It's hilarious. and also just the guy who does the ceremony and
• 29:57
  Track 1: then is you know then sells them this car in cash and he's like oh yeah should
• 30:01
  Track 1: i call him call the guy who has the car and it's it seemed to me that this guy
• 30:05
  Track 1: was doing things under the table more regularly i don't know if that was the implication.
• 30:10
  Track 2: Oh yeah definitely you can get he can give you a 20 wedding and call up a stolen
• 30:16
  Track 2: car to get delivered for you.
• 30:17
  Track 1: That night and.
• 30:19
  Track 4: He knew people in and he pegged them immediately on the run he's like, you want to go to Mexico?
• 30:25
  Track 4: I got friends in Mexico. I can get you to Mexico.
• 30:29
  Track 4: Immediately was like, you guys want to jump the border, right?
• 30:31
  Track 4: You want to, you want to go to Mexico?
• 30:34
  Track 2: I can make that happen.
• 30:36
  Track 4: Yeah.
• 30:36
  Track 2: I do it like all the time.
• 30:39
  Track 4: He like literally pulls out like a brochure of people that get people across the border.
• 30:43
  Track 4: He's like, listen, I got, I got a book of people to get you across there.
• 30:46
  Track 4: Okay. And then he sells in the car.
• 30:49
  Track 2: Yeah.
• 30:51
  Track 3: And he just at the last second tax on $500 more.
• 30:54
  Track 4: Yeah.
• 30:55
  Track 3: And that's the finder's fee and they go for it. That's how naive they are.
• 30:59
  Track 4: Which, okay. Did anybody else look up what that money, what the cost was?
• 31:06
  Track 3: Okay.
• 31:08
  Track 4: Today. Okay. I thought he said $3,700 for the car.
• 31:14
  Track 1: I think it was less.
• 31:15
  Track 3: I think he said $2,700.
• 31:16
  Track 4: My wife, Jackie, said I misheard it. It was $2,700.
• 31:20
  Track 4: Okay. regardless okay so if it's 2700 that is 36 631 dollars today that is mind-blowing
• 31:34
  Track 4: like first of all especially.
• 31:37
  Track 2: From bowie who like earlier when they needed to buy a used car for 1500.
• 31:42
  Track 4: Was like what the fuck why are.
• 31:44
  Track 2: We paying that much for a car.
• 31:46
  Track 4: This is the depression how much money like despite so that tells you two things
• 31:52
  Track 4: first of all how bad things were how but also how much money they had stolen
• 31:59
  Track 4: because now all of a sudden he's like,
• 32:02
  Track 4: the equivalent of 36 grand for what we can suspect is not a great car.
• 32:09
  Track 4: Like they're not like, you know, it's not, he didn't roll up on like,
• 32:12
  Track 4: you know, the, you know, the Chrysler dealership was like, Hey,
• 32:16
  Track 4: you want this brand new Mercedes, you know, brand new car, you know, brand new car.
• 32:20
  Track 4: No, no. He's like, I got this, uh, this, this, uh.
• 32:22
  Track 1: It's a Nissan Altima.
• 32:23
  Track 4: Yeah. I got this, uh, convertible, uh, you know, just, we, we happened to come
• 32:28
  Track 4: buy it. Uh, it's out back.
• 32:31
  Track 4: Yeah. The mechanic down the road's got it. You want it? $3,600, $2,700.
• 32:36
  Track 4: And he's just like, okay. And like you said, an extra $100, $500?
• 32:41
  Track 4: No problem. That's wild.
• 32:44
  Track 3: Yeah, I think it points to how naive he is.
• 32:48
  Track 3: He doesn't even know the value of a dollar, how desperate they are.
• 32:51
  Track 3: He's willing to do anything.
• 32:54
  Track 3: And like you said, I mean, they stole a lot of money.
• 32:57
  Track 3: It was a big heist. One of the funny parts of that scene So it's $30 For a wedding
• 33:03
  Track 3: where they tape it They actually have a,
• 33:06
  Track 3: 8mm or whatever camera And they'll sing a song And play piano and so forth,
• 33:12
  Track 3: And it's the guy Who runs the place, his sister And her husband,
• 33:17
  Track 3: his brother-in-law They come out and he's about to start Rolling the camera and he waves him off,
• 33:22
  Track 3: And then he picks up His microphone and he waves him off again And then the wife sits down,
• 33:28
  Track 3: hits one note and then that guy waves off his wife.
• 33:32
  Track 3: No, they got the $20 package, not the $30 package. It's just the comic timing is hilarious.
• 33:38
  Track 4: It is really funny. And it's like, what is even better?
• 33:42
  Track 4: At the end, when the brother-in-law goes to kiss her and he goes,
• 33:47
  Track 4: you have a cold, remember?
• 33:49
  Track 4: And he goes, oh yeah.
• 33:52
  Track 2: Yeah. After making sure that he's like, you got to tip the witnesses.
• 33:56
  Track 4: Yeah. like he's like tip them not even like a suggestion like tip them ten dollars
• 34:02
  Track 4: we just like like tip them ten dollars now.
• 34:05
  Track 1: I think he clocked them when they are asked to sign the registry with their
• 34:10
  Track 1: names and they're very apprehensive and he's like oh these guys aren't writing
• 34:15
  Track 1: real names in this in this book here you know i can maybe sell them i think
• 34:19
  Track 1: it's then he's like okay well,
• 34:21
  Track 1: once they get married you know they might need some of
• 34:24
  Track 1: my quote-unquote services here that i can provide them
• 34:27
  Track 1: on the side and let me also add how many cars did they go through in this movie
• 34:32
  Track 1: like 15 or five i know 15 is too many but like there's a lot of cars they burn
• 34:37
  Track 1: one one he crashes the one they get away with the i think like maybe five or
• 34:44
  Track 1: six but it's a lot of cars and this time one.
• 34:46
  Track 3: Little fact is this was the first film that used a helicopter to film aerial
• 34:52
  Track 3: shots in hollywood by a major studio so there were a lot of interesting shots from above,
• 34:58
  Track 3: and we take that for granted now but this was 1948 and those are really cool shots i.
• 35:04
  Track 4: Remember seeing that i was like huh this seems like really kind of like crazy
• 35:11
  Track 4: for this time period i was like when.
• 35:12
  Track 3: They showed.
• 35:13
  Track 4: That first like oh.
• 35:14
  Track 2: Yeah and it's like nicholas ray's first uh attempt as like a film director and
• 35:20
  Track 2: that was his first shot like the opening helicopter that's wild scene that was like his first shot.
• 35:26
  Track 1: So there were actually five cars and there's actually a website that lists specifically
• 35:31
  Track 1: the models of each of them, which is pretty crazy.
• 35:34
  Track 1: In addition to all the side cars that are just shown sort of in the,
• 35:38
  Track 1: in the background of the film.
• 35:40
  Track 1: So the Buick Roadmaster, a Cadillac series 60, Cadillac series 62 convertible.
• 35:47
  Track 1: And then later they have a Plymouth special deluxe and what's the last one?
• 35:51
  Track 1: A Ford model a most of the cars were from the late thirties, early forties.
• 35:56
  Track 3: Yeah, I guess it was set in the time that it was written, so about 10 years earlier.
• 36:00
  Track 1: Right, I forgot that the, I think you said, Ward, that the film was made and
• 36:05
  Track 1: not released for a couple years. Howard Hughes, like, wouldn't release it?
• 36:08
  Track 2: Yeah, because Howard Hughes bought the parent company, the RKO Productions,
• 36:15
  Track 2: and then shelved it, fired a bunch of communists, and then watched the film
• 36:19
  Track 2: and was like, I don't see anything in it, and then shelved it for two years.
• 36:23
  Track 2: And then he finally rushed it out to theaters. like it got released internationally
• 36:27
  Track 2: under a different title twisted road um,
• 36:32
  Track 2: and um but then it got really rushed out by howard hughes when mgm was gonna
• 36:39
  Track 2: release a noir film starring um farley granger and kathy o'donnell um side street.
• 36:47
  Track 3: I haven't seen that one it's.
• 36:48
  Track 1: Kind of crazy.
• 36:49
  Track 3: So howard hughes uh is
• 36:53
  Track 3: a real piece of work i mean so so howard hughes you guys might know this but
• 37:00
  Track 3: listeners might not he had this script that he would use to test whether people
• 37:05
  Track 3: were communist it was a litmus test and if people would want to make the movie then,
• 37:12
  Track 3: then they were not a communist and if they didn't want to make it then they
• 37:16
  Track 3: were and the movie was called i married a communist and we actually covered it on our podcast uh the.
• 37:24
  Track 1: Like that whole story of him maybe not necessarily the communist part but the
• 37:28
  Track 1: you know the head of a studio who is,
• 37:32
  Track 1: shelving films and then rushing them out and not promoting them and then them
• 37:36
  Track 1: doing bad and then saying oh that's see no one liked that movie is like literally
• 37:40
  Track 1: something that would happen in 2026 and does still happen.
• 37:44
  Track 3: Not just.
• 37:45
  Track 1: Could it does still happen.
• 37:46
  Track 3: And he was he was personally like tampering with
• 37:49
  Track 3: the movies and editing them and producing them and
• 37:52
  Track 3: probably reworking scripts and i mean
• 37:55
  Track 3: he was involved all in every aspect of some of these movies uh but one of the
• 38:02
  Track 3: one of the people who got ran off from that studio was joseph losi and just
• 38:07
  Track 3: a fun fact is nicholas ray and losi grew up together in the same town, La Crosse, Wisconsin.
• 38:15
  Track 3: Both ended up directors, both ended up.
• 38:18
  Track 3: Communist Party. I don't know if they were fellow travelers or members of the
• 38:23
  Track 3: Communist Party, but sympathetic, part of that circle.
• 38:25
  Track 3: And then, you know, HUAC comes around, the House of American Activities Committee
• 38:30
  Track 3: in the late 40s, around this time, and starts harassing everybody in Hollywood
• 38:36
  Track 3: and making people testify.
• 38:39
  Track 3: And many several of those people
• 38:42
  Track 3: worked for rko and some of them went to prison the hollywood 10
• 38:45
  Track 3: dalton trumbo and several others
• 38:49
  Track 3: demit um what's his
• 38:51
  Track 3: name demitrick um anyway um
• 38:55
  Track 3: several of those people had worked or um edward
• 38:58
  Track 3: demitrick anyway they worked for um rko refused to testify and went to prison
• 39:05
  Track 3: um for a year and dalton trumbo by the way wrote another movie in this in this
• 39:12
  Track 3: genre called gun crazy he wrote it under a fake name,
• 39:17
  Track 3: while he was blacklisted and it's fascinating movie it's actually really fun
• 39:21
  Track 3: and it's a couple in the run kind of movie um.
• 39:24
  Track 1: But anyway the only other the only movie i think on this podcast that from a
• 39:30
  Track 1: while back that was from rko we did cover citizens cane or citizen cane and
• 39:35
  Track 1: we talked a lot about the sort of history more on the sort of like the history
• 39:40
  Track 1: of orson wells but so i won't And that's kind of unrelated to this,
• 39:44
  Track 1: but just it reminded me because of the RKO aspect.
• 39:47
  Track 1: And a lot of the history with him was them meeting at these different,
• 39:51
  Track 1: you know, theaters and groups that were communist or communist adjacent.
• 39:55
  Track 1: So it wouldn't surprise me if those two knew each other from that sort of context.
• 40:01
  Track 1: I mean, it seems likely and maybe it's not publicized.
• 40:05
  Track 3: Sure. Yeah. It was a small scene, actually.
• 40:08
  Track 3: It was, I mean, I think all these people knew each other, you know,
• 40:13
  Track 3: and that little milieu, you know, like Jules Dassen was one of the more famous ones.
• 40:20
  Track 3: And his movie Night in the City, which is one of my favorite noirs,
• 40:26
  Track 3: it's also on that film Gris list.
• 40:29
  Track 3: He some interviewer asked him hey so was it a hotbed of communists back then
• 40:35
  Track 3: he's like no i would say it was a very lukewarm uh or like a cold bed he's like
• 40:41
  Track 3: there weren't that many of us actually uh so they all knew each other yeah.
• 40:46
  Track 4: The would have been better if it was a hotbed right i know.
• 40:49
  Track 3: Yeah i mean there were a lot in in the city but in hollywood proper among those
• 40:55
  Track 3: like well-known there are a lot of screenwriters for some reason there weren't
• 40:59
  Track 3: that many directors like maybe 10 or something yeah.
• 41:03
  Track 4: The screenwriters are poorer.
• 41:05
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 41:07
  Track 1: Yeah.
• 41:07
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 41:08
  Track 1: Some of the other like scenes that are one of the other scenes that I thought
• 41:11
  Track 1: it wasn't necessarily funny, but one that stuck out to me.
• 41:14
  Track 1: Well, there's well, maybe there's a couple when they're once they're Keechee
• 41:17
  Track 1: and Bowie are sort of on the run.
• 41:19
  Track 1: They go to several cabins, as you said, and there's lots of really funny interactions
• 41:25
  Track 1: and not just in this movie.
• 41:27
  Track 1: Maybe it just was more of a thing in films in this period of time in the 40s
• 41:31
  Track 1: where these kind of places seemed more common to be shown.
• 41:35
  Track 1: And the interactions with the people who sort of run
• 41:38
  Track 1: the ran the the place like
• 41:40
  Track 1: with the little kid and the the father and and they
• 41:43
  Track 1: juxtapose this too with the cops you know
• 41:46
  Track 1: saying you know eventually they're gonna be caught because every
• 41:49
  Track 1: time they hear a knock at the door you know they're gonna jump and you
• 41:52
  Track 1: and then they go back and the you know the door knocks and the little kids bringing
• 41:56
  Track 1: in their sheets or something i just like those little little bits in there that
• 42:01
  Track 1: sort of add to the the feeling and i think it happened one night which i just
• 42:04
  Track 1: watched recently also has a bunch of scenes in one of those kind of cabins what.
• 42:10
  Track 4: Stood out to me like for that like around
• 42:13
  Track 4: that time is and this goes back to like the whole like you know presentation
• 42:18
  Track 4: of like these people and like how we are consistently in the real world you
• 42:27
  Track 4: know bombarded with you know propaganda that is, you know,
• 42:33
  Track 4: meant to dehumanize anybody that commits a crime and to make it out as if because
• 42:39
  Track 4: someone commits a crime, you know,
• 42:41
  Track 4: they are inherently an evil person.
• 42:44
  Track 4: And when you watch this and, and because it is a movie and it's even more so
• 42:51
  Track 4: nowadays, we have a lot more media where people.
• 42:55
  Track 4: You know, the people, um, maybe, you know, quote unquote criminals and they
• 43:00
  Track 4: are presented as like, you know, good people, you know, or people trying to live their lives.
• 43:04
  Track 4: But this, especially for the time, but just even not for the time, it makes it so clear.
• 43:10
  Track 4: It's like, they just want a roof over their head, a bed to lay in,
• 43:17
  Track 4: you know, they just want shelter and food and like peace.
• 43:22
  Track 4: That's it. That's all they want. And like, you know, they want to go out and
• 43:28
  Track 4: have a nice time together and like live life. That's all they want.
• 43:34
  Track 4: And it's like, it very much is, it's like, these people are victims of the material conditions.
• 43:43
  Track 4: And in reality, the only, the only thing, even when they have gotten,
• 43:49
  Track 4: you know, they've committed a crime to get the material, you know,
• 43:53
  Track 4: goods to do this, they just want to rent a place and live. That's it.
• 43:58
  Track 4: That's what they want to do.
• 43:59
  Track 3: That's all. Agreed. That's what makes this socially conscious because it's,
• 44:04
  Track 3: it's basically saying that they can't do that without committing crime.
• 44:09
  Track 3: And that's a condemnation of capitalism, essentially.
• 44:13
  Track 3: Um, and, you know, it's, there's another movie in this vein from this era called Try and Get Me.
• 44:20
  Track 3: Uh, it's also titled The Sound of Fury has two titles.
• 44:24
  Track 3: And it's very much the same kind of story. This guy is really just wants to
• 44:28
  Track 3: live like a comfortable life.
• 44:30
  Track 3: Middle-class-ish life and he's forced into crime and it's almost like shocking
• 44:35
  Track 3: that it happens and these kind of that's they were very much trying to do that
• 44:40
  Track 3: they would say yeah we're trying to do this yeah.
• 44:44
  Track 1: They like set up the christmas tree getting gifts they just want to live sort
• 44:47
  Track 1: of this quote-unquote domestic life and they you know what is it uh not t-dub
• 44:54
  Track 1: uh chickamaul like Like, you know,
• 44:56
  Track 1: while Keechee's away, he shows up at this cabin where they're staying and it
• 45:01
  Track 1: says, like, you need to come back and do another job.
• 45:03
  Track 1: He's like, you know, he keeps trying to get out of this life.
• 45:07
  Track 1: He's trying to live his life. He's Zidbill and he just he can't be left alone
• 45:11
  Track 1: by the system that's bringing him back in to commit crime because these other
• 45:16
  Track 1: people also want that for themselves. And they're not even close to getting it either.
• 45:20
  Track 2: That scene was so great when Chickama comes in. and
• 45:23
  Track 2: like he doesn't even need to get violent with bowie bowie he just like starts
• 45:29
  Track 2: breaking the fucking christmas ornaments and like oh it's just so great it's
• 45:33
  Track 2: just like oh what hope you had that you're just gonna live a normal life yeah
• 45:37
  Track 2: no i'm gonna come i'm coming here to fuck that up get in the fucking car we're doing this job i.
• 45:41
  Track 1: Do want how did they and i think at some point they mentioned that the two of
• 45:44
  Track 1: them had sort of blown through all of the money because they all presumably
• 45:48
  Track 1: had like an equal share of the money or maybe even they might have even got
• 45:51
  Track 1: less than buoy and buoy's He's got car money. He's got all this money to spend.
• 45:56
  Track 2: Now, if anything, they probably took more than him.
• 45:59
  Track 1: Right. So what did they do with all that money?
• 46:01
  Track 2: He just didn't spend it on anything.
• 46:02
  Track 3: Well, one of them. Yeah, he said he blew it on. He implied that he lost at gambling.
• 46:06
  Track 1: Okay, I missed that.
• 46:07
  Track 3: And the other guy bought a couple of hotels.
• 46:10
  Track 1: Right.
• 46:11
  Track 3: Or one hotel. Yeah, which we see at the end. And that's where they end up.
• 46:15
  Track 3: Yeah, at the end, that's where. T-Dub bought a hotel for $1.
• 46:19
  Track 3: That woman who is, is that his sister or just his sister-in-law, right, right.
• 46:24
  Track 4: Yeah, the sister-in-law, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:26
  Track 3: Yeah, because the brother is in jail.
• 46:28
  Track 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:28
  Track 3: Right, yeah. So he buys a hotel, spends all his money, and the other guy blows it gambling.
• 46:33
  Track 3: And of course, he would be the one that blows it gambling because he's a guy who's full of vice.
• 46:39
  Track 3: That's what we're trying to, that's what's being presented is this guy has vice
• 46:45
  Track 3: running through his veins.
• 46:46
  Track 1: And each is a little drunk. Yeah.
• 46:48
  Track 3: Right, yeah.
• 46:49
  Track 1: And they each die because, I mean, not just because they're,
• 46:52
  Track 1: you know, of what they're doing. I think that Chickama is killed in a liquor
• 46:56
  Track 1: store robbery and T-Dub, I'm trying to remember how he dies.
• 47:01
  Track 3: During another heist.
• 47:02
  Track 1: Another heist, yeah.
• 47:03
  Track 2: Yeah.
• 47:04
  Track 1: So they both die. And, and part of it too, which is even more again,
• 47:09
  Track 1: like against their ability to try and live their lives is at some point they
• 47:13
  Track 1: each, they buy the car, Bowie buys that car and he's getting, you know,
• 47:17
  Track 1: tailgated by a Chickama and he ends up crashing the car and Chickama shoots the cop.
• 47:23
  Track 1: The gun is left on the scene and it has Bowie's fingerprints on it.
• 47:26
  Track 1: So he's not even the perpetrator of anything. He just crashed his car.
• 47:30
  Track 1: I mean, you know, he did grab a bank but in that moment he hadn't done anything
• 47:34
  Track 1: and he he gets the fingerprints and just nothing nothing going right yeah.
• 47:40
  Track 4: Nothing goes right for that kid.
• 47:42
  Track 3: The only thing he had the only crime he commits and this is a crime of course
• 47:46
  Track 3: but the the worst crime that he could commits is being getaway driver for those guys he's accessory.
• 47:53
  Track 1: To robbery he wouldn't he wasn't even.
• 47:54
  Track 3: Yeah the.
• 47:55
  Track 1: Robbery you know.
• 47:56
  Track 3: But he broke out of prison which is a crime but he was probably innocent,
• 48:00
  Track 3: so he's trying to save his own skin from the outside.
• 48:03
  Track 3: Of course, that idea goes out the window, as you said earlier.
• 48:07
  Track 1: Maybe this is a stupid question, but at the beginning, when he's talking with
• 48:11
  Track 1: Kichi about where I mentioned there's another person that was able to get off
• 48:16
  Track 1: from their murder, is it just assumed that they just,
• 48:20
  Track 1: the wrong person in this situation and that person ended up getting off the
• 48:24
  Track 1: actual murder and he just gets stuck in prison is that the insinuation i figure i think so.
• 48:30
  Track 4: See i read it as if and like i felt like he implied that he did kill that person
• 48:37
  Track 4: and it's not that it's not that he was innocent it's so much as that like just
• 48:45
  Track 4: like do justice was like justice was not served,
• 48:49
  Track 4: that his case was railroaded, that it's not that he didn't do it,
• 48:54
  Track 4: but that the proper, like the proper course was not followed, that he,
• 49:01
  Track 4: that it was railroaded through the system and he was not given,
• 49:05
  Track 4: you know, basically like, you know, uh,
• 49:08
  Track 4: access to like, you know, defense, like legal rights.
• 49:11
  Track 4: So basically all his legal rights were denied. even if
• 49:15
  Track 4: he did do it he still has the
• 49:17
  Track 4: right to those things even if he and
• 49:20
  Track 4: he acknowledged I felt like he acknowledged it's
• 49:24
  Track 4: like I did do it but or that he was possibly like an accessory but that like
• 49:30
  Track 4: basically that like he was not given proper access to like his rights and that
• 49:37
  Track 4: was the issue which is in and of itself I think actually a more like.
• 49:43
  Track 4: That is a stronger argument that, that if you're making this,
• 49:52
  Track 4: this claim within this film that you are not even saying that, like, you know,
• 49:58
  Track 4: it's, it's the claim that even that everybody, even a murderer is.
• 50:06
  Track 4: Deserves proper, like, you know, due justice, that it doesn't matter.
• 50:13
  Track 4: You, we have committed to serve, you know, we have stated that we've committed
• 50:18
  Track 4: that this people have rights and it doesn't matter what they did.
• 50:21
  Track 4: They deserve those rights. And that's the point.
• 50:23
  Track 4: And like, to me, that's like an even stronger statement.
• 50:26
  Track 1: I was just looking in 1940. So this movie came out in 48, but it was written
• 50:30
  Track 1: earlier and he had been in prison for about seven years.
• 50:34
  Track 1: In 1940, there is the Chambers versus Florida, which said that convictions of
• 50:39
  Track 1: murder obtained in the state by use of course can coerced confessions are void
• 50:45
  Track 1: under the 14th amendment.
• 50:46
  Track 1: So perhaps he was coerced into admitting something that maybe he did,
• 50:51
  Track 1: but they forced him to admit to it.
• 50:53
  Track 1: And then he gets, you know, pushed through the system and maybe,
• 50:55
  Track 1: maybe that was the thing he was referring to. I don't know.
• 50:58
  Track 3: Yeah. And it's, it's not exactly, I'd have to go back and see the scene. I, you may be right.
• 51:03
  Track 3: Um, Bill, I don't know. Um, but the bottom line is he was a child.
• 51:09
  Track 4: Yeah. So there is that. Yeah. He was a child.
• 51:13
  Track 1: 16 years old.
• 51:14
  Track 3: So he may have been coerced into it. He may have been taking the fall or he
• 51:18
  Track 3: may have just done it, but he was a child and he served seven years in a pretty serious maximum.
• 51:24
  Track 3: Well, they said he had life. They're described as three lifers.
• 51:27
  Track 3: So he got life in prison as a child. And that happens. That happens in Angola
• 51:33
  Track 3: and Louisiana. I'm pretty sure there's some lifers in there that have been there
• 51:36
  Track 3: 40 or 50 years who were children when they committed this crime and they're never getting out.
• 51:42
  Track 3: But it's it's an indictment of the justice system, the prison system to these harsh sentences.
• 51:49
  Track 4: Absolutely. Yeah, that is. Yeah, that that is, you know, I did not.
• 51:53
  Track 4: But yeah, you're totally right. Like that is the one thing. It's like,
• 51:56
  Track 4: yeah, he was a kid, like 100 percent. Like he was a child.
• 52:00
  Track 4: If we ignore everything else, he was a child.
• 52:03
  Track 3: And he was very sweet,
• 52:06
  Track 3: young adult so so he
• 52:09
  Track 3: had if he had been this hardened teenager which it doesn't seem like he was
• 52:14
  Track 3: he was clearly rehabilitated he was naive i mean he was he was easy to coerce
• 52:21
  Track 3: that's what's shown throughout he's naive and and people walk all over him for that reason somehow.
• 52:27
  Track 4: I doubt that And he somehow I doubt he was a hardened criminal at 16.
• 52:34
  Track 1: Probably not.
• 52:35
  Track 3: No, I think if anything, he was coerced if he even did it at all.
• 52:40
  Track 1: Yeah. And then the like this, what it gets even sort of, I guess, sadder for them.
• 52:44
  Track 1: Well, another another scene that I was going to mention before,
• 52:47
  Track 1: and then we sort of went on that one was when they finally do go out.
• 52:50
  Track 1: And I think it's when they're in Mississippi and they go to sort of the jazz
• 52:53
  Track 1: or the club and they're sort of having a great time.
• 52:57
  Track 1: And you know they end up you know leaving
• 53:00
  Track 1: under the you know the they get into there's like a
• 53:03
  Track 1: fight and they end up leaving and then the person who owns the
• 53:06
  Track 1: club presumably or i think it would be assuming it
• 53:09
  Track 1: was the owner confronts him in the bathroom recognizes him
• 53:12
  Track 1: and just sort of tells him to leave town and you know and it's in that moment
• 53:18
  Track 1: too where they i think he says you know they say you know you always carry this
• 53:21
  Track 1: gun on you and he says you know the the news says a lot of things kind of again
• 53:26
  Track 1: pointing to those you know sensationalized stories that are turning him into this you know,
• 53:32
  Track 1: he's like the this grand thief that's I think they also say that other,
• 53:38
  Track 1: crimes in other cities are being attributed to him and they make a joke like
• 53:42
  Track 1: the only way he could commit those
• 53:43
  Track 1: is if he had wings or something another good line but yeah I like that,
• 53:49
  Track 1: that scene just again they're just trying to have a nice time,
• 53:53
  Track 1: go have a couple of drinks, night in the town.
• 53:56
  Track 3: I mean, the, the, the guy at the club that takes his little pea shooter,
• 54:01
  Track 3: his 38 special or whatever, that guy's probably a much harder criminal.
• 54:06
  Track 1: Probably.
• 54:07
  Track 3: Then, then he's probably involved.
• 54:10
  Track 4: Clearly a gangster. He was literally like, he's like, there's not enough.
• 54:16
  Track 4: There's not enough space in town for the two of us. This is what he said.
• 54:20
  Track 4: Like, he's like, basically like, I don't want the competition.
• 54:24
  Track 1: I don't want.
• 54:25
  Track 3: The extra.
• 54:25
  Track 1: Heat on me here if they come.
• 54:27
  Track 3: Looking for you and everybody sees him as a kid even though he's 23 they think
• 54:33
  Track 3: of him as a kid you know, out of his element I mean.
• 54:39
  Track 2: He kind of is though incarcerated at 16 for 7 years this is him now just trying
• 54:44
  Track 2: to figure himself out and he's doing nothing but being on the lam like, he's a kid then.
• 54:50
  Track 1: Sort of near the end when they're sort of uh they're now
• 54:53
  Track 1: holed up at the motel that was owned by t-dub
• 54:56
  Track 1: sister-in-law buoy goes back to
• 55:00
  Track 1: the wedding chapel i don't
• 55:02
  Track 1: know i don't call it a chapel the the wedding house to
• 55:06
  Track 1: try and to try and get that deal to go to
• 55:08
  Track 1: mexico and now all of a sudden this guy's got a
• 55:11
  Track 1: conscious and he's not going to let them go to mexico not going to help them
• 55:14
  Track 1: go to mexico and it also in that scene
• 55:16
  Track 1: it also had like one of i thought was like
• 55:19
  Track 1: my favorite line from the whole movie and it says i won't sell you hope when
• 55:24
  Track 1: there ain't any and it's just this in some ways like that makes it more of a
• 55:29
  Track 1: no are like hard this is just this this sad guy he's just trying to to make
• 55:35
  Track 1: it as like there is just no hope it's hopeless yeah.
• 55:38
  Track 3: That ending is really tragic truly yeah.
• 55:42
  Track 4: It really it reminds me of like how you know watching films like this and You know,
• 55:48
  Track 4: it makes me think about the films that we watch that are contemporary and how vital it is to,
• 55:59
  Track 4: or how important it is and how insightful it is to look at the tone of films
• 56:05
  Track 4: that are produced during a time and what you can gather from about the people of that time.
• 56:11
  Track 4: And you imagine that like, you know, film noir exploded at this time.
• 56:16
  Track 4: Like this is when, you know, like, you know, and what that said about,
• 56:21
  Track 4: the people at the time and how desperate and how hopeless everything must have felt.
• 56:32
  Track 4: How how hopeless it must have felt but at the same time the fact that there
• 56:38
  Track 4: were people making films like this or like what you said but you know like film
• 56:42
  Track 4: what uh films of conscious i'm i forget exactly how you phrased it yeah socially
• 56:47
  Track 4: conscious socially conscious socially conscious movies,
• 56:50
  Track 4: how those people, even despite that, and despite the fact that those films,
• 56:55
  Track 4: these films really put forward such a, a,
• 57:02
  Track 4: a message of, or like a feeling of like how hopeless things were.
• 57:06
  Track 4: But these people at the same time were still making movies that even with that
• 57:12
  Track 4: said, these are, these are, these are human beings and they deserve rights and they deserve things.
• 57:19
  Track 4: And we should be we should be looking at things and people differently that
• 57:24
  Track 4: even at these times as that pervades the sensations of these things there are
• 57:29
  Track 4: still people who say like,
• 57:31
  Track 4: these are people and we things can and should be better like we should hope
• 57:37
  Track 4: for that we should want that and that really you know i feel like it's really
• 57:41
  Track 4: it really is something yeah.
• 57:43
  Track 3: You know A lot of crime movies emphasize that crime is committed because of
• 57:51
  Track 3: the failures of capitalism.
• 57:52
  Track 3: That's an inherent component of many crime movies.
• 57:56
  Track 3: People get swept up into crime. But I feel like contemporary movies, more often than not...
• 58:04
  Track 3: Emphasize someone's psychology and
• 58:07
  Track 3: there's something fundamentally wrong with their
• 58:10
  Track 3: psychology and so they have this psychological um
• 58:14
  Track 3: motivation for getting into crime whereas um like you said in these film noir
• 58:21
  Track 3: movies we don't see that kind of reading on their psychology at least the heroes
• 58:26
  Track 3: of these movies the protagonists many of those are actually good people.
• 58:31
  Track 3: They're portrayed as good people swept up. So they are responding to their conditions.
• 58:35
  Track 3: So it's very much a systemic sociological explanation versus a psychological explanation.
• 58:44
  Track 3: And I think post Hayes Code, post like this era when movies got really gritty
• 58:49
  Track 3: in the 70s, like these serial killer movies and all that, people are seduced
• 58:54
  Track 3: by this evil diabolical psychology.
• 58:57
  Track 3: And honestly, I don't know.
• 59:00
  Track 3: That bothers me. Like, I hate that because it makes it seem like crimes are
• 59:07
  Track 3: just something that are committed by people with defects or something like that.
• 59:11
  Track 3: And so it de-emphasizes the sociological, the political economy, basically.
• 59:16
  Track 4: So you're some kind of Marxist, is what you're saying? Some kind of materialist?
• 59:19
  Track 3: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
• 59:20
  Track 4: Okay.
• 59:21
  Track 3: All right.
• 59:21
  Track 4: All right. I can see what kind of person we got on here. All right. All right.
• 59:24
  Track 3: All right.
• 59:24
  Track 4: So you're not big on the postmodernism? Not a huge fan?
• 59:28
  Track 3: Not a huge fan.
• 59:31
  Track 1: Again that like and you mentioned at the beginning jason the
• 59:35
  Track 1: uh the natural born killers and like that again i hate to print to it again
• 59:38
  Track 1: is that is like the quintessential crime movie about the psychology of people
• 59:45
  Track 1: and and as a side note as a side note i don't really like that movie at all
• 59:49
  Track 1: in fact i've like grown to hate that movie especially since after you.
• 59:53
  Track 4: Just told me to watch it.
• 59:54
  Track 1: Which one natural born killers yes wait no i didn't like.
• 59:59
  Track 4: Two days ago war.
• 1:00:01
  Track 1: Really did.
• 1:00:02
  Track 4: He not thank you okay i'm not.
• 1:00:04
  Track 1: Crazy really i mean look there's lots of bad movies i've seen that i would still recommend i.
• 1:00:13
  Track 2: Think part of it is like there's a time where
• 1:00:16
  Track 2: like the fbi just started putting out their fucking copaganda on
• 1:00:19
  Track 2: behavioral analysis even though it's like never actually done anything and so
• 1:00:23
  Track 2: that's why a lot of media has shifted right the narrative where it's like oh
• 1:00:29
  Track 2: people do crime because they're fucked up in the head and it's like no that's
• 1:00:32
  Track 2: not the fucking case that's a small sliver majority right of crime right no.
• 1:00:38
  Track 3: That's a good point it's the propaganda thing um,
• 1:00:42
  Track 3: You know, there's a movie called Dust Be My Destiny, which came out in 39.
• 1:00:50
  Track 3: So it's one of these socially conscious movies starring John Garfield,
• 1:00:58
  Track 3: who was a comrade who was blacklisted, who died too young.
• 1:01:01
  Track 3: But he's also in a couple of movies in this list of film gris.
• 1:01:05
  Track 3: He ran all the way. And it's also one of these movies where they're on the run.
• 1:01:10
  Track 3: They're hitchhiking. they're riding freight trains they're trying to just get
• 1:01:16
  Track 3: anywhere and survive but it's like there is this whole small genre of these
• 1:01:22
  Track 3: kind of movies but they're not,
• 1:01:24
  Track 3: appreciated enough today or known enough today.
• 1:01:27
  Track 1: Yeah you end up with those ones where they the as you said you know there's
• 1:01:32
  Track 1: something wrong with these people and none of them i mean i think what's so
• 1:01:36
  Track 1: important as at the beginning of the fact that nicholas ray as a you know
• 1:01:41
  Track 1: either self-described communist or you know that's what he was branded as actually putting,
• 1:01:48
  Track 1: important context in these films that i
• 1:01:52
  Track 1: do wonder i don't know maybe maybe you know this or not like when this came
• 1:01:55
  Track 1: out and people then people who did like this or they did see it did people view
• 1:02:00
  Track 1: it you think as this sort of communist film was it branded as such like were
• 1:02:04
  Track 1: this was that what's happening to films at the time or is it more of a like
• 1:02:09
  Track 1: a in retrospect kind of thing i don't know if you know the answer.
• 1:02:11
  Track 3: Um i this particular movie.
• 1:02:14
  Track 1: No i mean just sort of like the genre i guess like these kind of yeah.
• 1:02:17
  Track 3: Yeah uh yeah i mean because quite a few of the
• 1:02:19
  Track 3: most famous directors of these types of films were hauled into the huac hearings
• 1:02:25
  Track 3: dalton trumbo himself you know big he was a screenwriter but he actually was
• 1:02:30
  Track 3: wealthy he was the most he won oscars and all that sort of thing uh they were
• 1:02:36
  Track 3: hauled in and they were accused of.
• 1:02:39
  Track 3: They were injecting communist sort of themes into the films,
• 1:02:46
  Track 3: and they were accused of being in cahoots with Moscow, literally.
• 1:02:50
  Track 3: Like, they were literally doing the bidding of Moscow, but they were injecting communist themes.
• 1:02:55
  Track 3: And you know there was they were like they they just refused to talk most of
• 1:03:00
  Track 3: them some of them confessed and named names like elia kazan and some others
• 1:03:04
  Track 3: but but later on when they wrote,
• 1:03:07
  Track 3: memoirs and talked about this they would say yeah
• 1:03:11
  Track 3: we tried to push the envelope a little bit but there was just no
• 1:03:14
  Track 3: way to make an explicitly communist theme i
• 1:03:16
  Track 3: mean the one film that really is explicitly communist
• 1:03:20
  Track 3: theme from this time was completely independently made
• 1:03:23
  Track 3: which was salt of the earth and every member everybody who
• 1:03:26
  Track 3: worked on that was blacklisted and they had no choice so they self-financed
• 1:03:29
  Track 3: it but that came out a little bit later in 54 that's a mass awesome film if
• 1:03:34
  Track 3: people haven't seen it but um anyway yeah they they were accused of injecting
• 1:03:39
  Track 3: communist themes uh in the movies,
• 1:03:45
  Track 3: And many of them weren't, actually. Many of them weren't even doing that at all.
• 1:03:48
  Track 3: Some of them were trying to get away with it, but they weren't getting away
• 1:03:51
  Track 3: with much. This is about as far as they could go.
• 1:03:53
  Track 1: Yeah, I mean, that's maybe sort of the point I'm getting to is they were being accused of doing that.
• 1:04:00
  Track 1: And the actual, what they actually did put into the film would just be mildly
• 1:04:06
  Track 1: socially conscious ideas. And like, that is, you know, too far.
• 1:04:11
  Track 1: And it's no different than now where, you know, people who are barely left are
• 1:04:14
  Track 1: being, you know, referred to as communists or whatever.
• 1:04:17
  Track 3: And it just.
• 1:04:18
  Track 1: You know shifts the the idea of any of these concepts so it is at the overton
• 1:04:22
  Track 1: window further and i don't know.
• 1:04:25
  Track 3: Let me say one more thing yeah you're right and so
• 1:04:28
  Track 3: one thing to take note of is actually many of the people who are accused of
• 1:04:32
  Track 3: being communists were new deal liberals they were fdr new deal liberals and
• 1:04:36
  Track 3: they were getting accused of being communists and the communists were getting
• 1:04:39
  Track 3: accused but like nobody could tell the difference and the work they did wasn't any different, really.
• 1:04:47
  Track 3: So, yeah, that's a good point.
• 1:04:49
  Track 4: It's like how James Gunn gets accused of being woke.
• 1:04:55
  Track 1: Oh, from Superman, the most recent one, yeah.
• 1:04:57
  Track 4: Yeah.
• 1:04:58
  Track 3: I still haven't seen it.
• 1:05:00
  Track 3: Actually it's.
• 1:05:01
  Track 1: It's worse yeah.
• 1:05:03
  Track 3: I don't watch enough i don't watch new movies very much actually by new i mean
• 1:05:08
  Track 3: after the 70s i don't watch a lot of recent movies that much once in a while.
• 1:05:14
  Track 2: How's it didn't they have like a couple actors fall out a window and then like
• 1:05:18
  Track 2: the whole stat like they all just walked off set and then like the film the
• 1:05:23
  Track 2: executives were like we won't negotiate with communists oh.
• 1:05:26
  Track 3: On which movie.
• 1:05:27
  Track 2: Oh it was a some tv show i i want to say oh recently yeah very recently what
• 1:05:35
  Track 2: and like the executives were like yeah we're not going to negotiate with communists
• 1:05:39
  Track 2: yeah give me a second wasn't.
• 1:05:41
  Track 1: That the wasn't that the the like the the studio owned by the daily caller or something like the.
• 1:05:46
  Track 2: The daily wire daily wire.
• 1:05:48
  Track 1: Yeah the newest something like.
• 1:05:50
  Track 2: They're recycling.
• 1:05:51
  Track 3: All of this Red Scare rhetoric, man. And it is landing with a few people,
• 1:05:57
  Track 3: but a lot of people are like, what are you talking about?
• 1:06:00
  Track 2: Jonathan Majors and another actor should have fell out of a fucking window on set.
• 1:06:05
  Track 1: Oh, and they blamed Jonathan Majors.
• 1:06:07
  Track 4: The man who assaulted a woman, which is why they hired him.
• 1:06:12
  Track 4: They hired him because he beat a woman. And then they were like.
• 1:06:19
  Track 3: That's their brand.
• 1:06:20
  Track 2: He's a communist.
• 1:06:21
  Track 3: The Epstein class has to keep consistent, man.
• 1:06:26
  Track 2: Don't you love being here?
• 1:06:29
  Track 1: Oh, man.
• 1:06:30
  Track 2: Isn't it awesome here?
• 1:06:33
  Track 4: That is fucking wild.
• 1:06:35
  Track 1: I know that you've been on the podcast before, Jason, but do you want to tell everyone about...
• 1:06:41
  Track 1: I know you've referenced your podcast and some of the films you've done on there,
• 1:06:43
  Track 1: but you want to tell everyone about it, maybe what you have coming there?
• 1:06:49
  Track 3: Yeah, sure. You know, the podcast has kind of evolved a little bit over the,
• 1:06:56
  Track 3: we've been doing it now about two and a half years.
• 1:06:59
  Track 3: And season one, we looked at every single film.
• 1:07:04
  Track 3: So it's one film per episode like this and
• 1:07:07
  Track 3: every film we covered um was
• 1:07:11
  Track 3: either directed by a blacklisted director or
• 1:07:14
  Track 3: most of them were directed by blacklist there are a few
• 1:07:17
  Track 3: where everybody involved like many
• 1:07:20
  Track 3: of the people involved the main actors the screenwriters all the
• 1:07:23
  Track 3: personnel were blacklisted and by blacklist i mean like
• 1:07:26
  Track 3: they were accused of being communist and the industry just made a
• 1:07:29
  Track 3: list of people they're not working here for about 12
• 1:07:32
  Track 3: years or so until about 1960 they deny
• 1:07:35
  Track 3: it to this day even though it's clearly been
• 1:07:38
  Track 3: shown to be true but season one was that and
• 1:07:42
  Track 3: season two we're doing this interesting dialectical structure
• 1:07:45
  Track 3: where we're looking at hollywood film that somehow engages in cold war themes
• 1:07:50
  Track 3: directly and then a soviet film that does that back and forth actually the next
• 1:07:57
  Track 3: film we're going to cover is ivan's childhood the tarkovsky film And we're doing that this month,
• 1:08:05
  Track 3: We've been We've been working chronologically So the Cold War officially Starts
• 1:08:10
  Track 3: in 47 We're just now in the 60s We haven't gotten past the 60s yet We're going chronologically But.
• 1:08:19
  Track 3: We have about five episodes left of the season, and then we're going to branch
• 1:08:25
  Track 3: out, and I'm calling it the five-year plan.
• 1:08:27
  Track 3: I've mapped out five years of episodes, because I'm insane.
• 1:08:33
  Track 3: And basically we're going to look at socialist cinema
• 1:08:36
  Track 3: from around the world on on four or
• 1:08:39
  Track 3: five continents basically from from chile
• 1:08:42
  Track 3: to cross africa to cross eastern europe to to all over asia so that's the tentative
• 1:08:49
  Track 3: plan but that's awesome and we have some bonus episodes we've been doing in
• 1:08:54
  Track 3: it we're going to do some interviews with authors who written books about cinema and things like that.
• 1:09:01
  Track 1: Well, that's awesome.
• 1:09:03
  Track 3: Yeah, we like it. Thank you.
• 1:09:06
  Track 1: Did any of you have any last thoughts on They Live By Night?
• 1:09:12
  Track 1: I know we kind of jumped into your podcast, but any final thoughts from anyone?
• 1:09:17
  Track 3: Can I just...
• 1:09:18
  Track 2: Let me see what else I got for facts.
• 1:09:20
  Track 3: I want to hear his facts.
• 1:09:21
  Track 2: Oh, no, you go ahead. Let me pull up my facts.
• 1:09:23
  Track 3: Well, I wanted to plug one more film by Nicholas Ray that is really cool and really interesting.
• 1:09:32
  Track 3: Johnny Guitar from 1954 and
• 1:09:36
  Track 3: it's just this bizarre western there's nothing
• 1:09:40
  Track 3: really like it it's really highly stylized but
• 1:09:43
  Track 3: it's read as an allegory of this red scare where they're hauling people in to
• 1:09:50
  Track 3: testify and name names and rat out their friends but it's also just really interesting
• 1:09:55
  Track 3: the way it's made and that was made sort of in the really in the,
• 1:10:02
  Track 3: peak of this red scare huac era um so that's something i would like to plug and recommend to people.
• 1:10:10
  Track 1: Yeah i think i think you mentioned a bunch of the
• 1:10:13
  Track 1: films in here i don't know if you have any place with
• 1:10:16
  Track 1: like a like lists you've created as far as movies i
• 1:10:19
  Track 1: mean obviously movies that you've done on your podcast but those are
• 1:10:22
  Track 1: all you know good one maybe we'll maybe i'll make a list uh like a letterbox
• 1:10:25
  Track 1: uh i was like adding some of the ones you mentioned that i hadn't seen into
• 1:10:29
  Track 1: my like a my wish list or watch list so maybe i'll make a list that i can put
• 1:10:33
  Track 1: in the notes that has some of these films that people can quickly access and
• 1:10:37
  Track 1: uh check them out themselves cold.
• 1:10:39
  Track 3: War type films.
• 1:10:40
  Track 1: Yeah or i mean just some of the ones you were mentioning i think before like
• 1:10:44
  Track 1: um just some of the ones i think you said dust be my destiny and a couple of
• 1:10:48
  Track 1: those other ones just all the ones that you kind of mentioned that sure noting
• 1:10:50
  Track 1: down to maybe we'll put in the in the notes for everyone oh.
• 1:10:53
  Track 4: I did have sure,
• 1:10:55
  Track 4: So everybody, um, so as Ward mentioned, this film has gone under different, different titles.
• 1:11:02
  Track 4: What was the title? Did everybody's title card, what was your title card?
• 1:11:07
  Track 3: What does that mean? What do you mean?
• 1:11:09
  Track 4: Like what? Because so like the different titles, there's different title cards
• 1:11:12
  Track 4: for like what the movie was called.
• 1:11:14
  Track 3: Yeah.
• 1:11:14
  Track 4: So my title card is not thieves by night or they live by night.
• 1:11:18
  Track 4: My title card was for your red wagon which is the song sung by the woman in
• 1:11:25
  Track 4: the club that my copy of the film went under the title your red your red wagon.
• 1:11:32
  Track 3: Interesting yeah.
• 1:11:33
  Track 2: That's what i had as well.
• 1:11:34
  Track 1: Mine was the the they live by night.
• 1:11:37
  Track 3: Mine was too i didn't even know.
• 1:11:39
  Track 4: It had that alternative title yeah it's like
• 1:11:41
  Track 4: i think it's one of the rarer ones because even when
• 1:11:45
  Track 4: i was like looking it up like searching to like so i was like oh what you know
• 1:11:49
  Track 4: and i was like that was like one of the like one of the one of the ones but
• 1:11:52
  Track 4: it was like buried like when i was like looking for info i was like oh okay
• 1:11:55
  Track 4: and that song was beautiful that whole scene was a beautiful great song yeah
• 1:12:00
  Track 4: that was a beautiful scene the club scene yeah.
• 1:12:02
  Track 2: I'd say my last fact that's actually worth worth talking about is uh pete seager
• 1:12:09
  Track 2: auditioned and was considered for a role until uh nicholas ray decided he wanted
• 1:12:14
  Track 2: to go with somebody less noticeable.
• 1:12:16
  Track 3: What do you mean less noticeable?
• 1:12:18
  Track 2: He wanted he didn't want it to be like a super sleek like every like extremely
• 1:12:23
  Track 2: well known actors and faces in the film.
• 1:12:26
  Track 2: Oh I see. Yeah. He wanted to feel more down to earth.
• 1:12:29
  Track 3: Now that you mentioned Pete Seeger I have a fun fact about,
• 1:12:33
  Track 3: Nicholas Ray so Nicholas Ray I said grew
• 1:12:36
  Track 3: up in La Crosse Wisconsin and winds
• 1:12:40
  Track 3: up living in New York City in the
• 1:12:43
  Track 3: 40 well in the 30s and and
• 1:12:46
  Track 3: then goes bounces around and ends up back there and he's
• 1:12:49
  Track 3: like it living in the same building as Pete Seeger and he's like hanging
• 1:12:52
  Track 3: out with this whole Greenwich Village bohemian communist
• 1:12:56
  Track 3: milieu um at that time and his
• 1:12:59
  Track 3: wife was a comrade and I
• 1:13:02
  Track 3: think she was more active in like politics and i think he kept having affairs
• 1:13:07
  Track 3: and so he had a bunch of he had a really tumultuous life where he was like drunk
• 1:13:12
  Track 3: and on drugs and having affairs and cycling through relationships and that sort
• 1:13:17
  Track 3: of thing um typical hollywood story um yeah well.
• 1:13:21
  Track 1: Jason thank you for uh coming back on left of the projector this is uh at least
• 1:13:26
  Track 1: maybe for perhaps For two-thirds of us, you know, a kind of film we don't usually
• 1:13:30
  Track 1: cover, so it was nice to branch out.
• 1:13:33
  Track 3: Thanks for inviting me. I had a good time. You know, you said...
• 1:13:39
  Track 3: Here's a list but also film noir and i thought well let's let's do a film noir why not.
• 1:13:44
  Track 1: Yeah no i mean i did i did have a couple on our sort of like the the running
• 1:13:49
  Track 1: movie list but they're they're i think the ones i have on there are uh like
• 1:13:53
  Track 1: basically like five of my favorite ones,
• 1:13:56
  Track 1: laura shadow the doubt sunset boulevard big sleep and the killers like those are my in my top top those.
• 1:14:02
  Track 3: Are all great films.
• 1:14:03
  Track 1: Yeah yeah.
• 1:14:04
  Track 3: Well thanks a lot guys um if you ever need me back on i'm happy to come back
• 1:14:08
  Track 3: on and i won't i won't say rude things up.
• 1:14:14
  Track 1: No i'll survive.
• 1:14:16
  Track 4: Ward and i will survive anyway that's.
• 1:14:19
  Track 3: How thick your skin is.
• 1:14:20
  Track 4: We've all now watched film noir so we're fine yeah.
• 1:14:24
  Track 1: Yeah you don't you don't fall into that uh category anymore bill or more yeah
• 1:14:28
  Track 1: we're good yeah well maybe we'll have to cover another one maybe for no maybe
• 1:14:32
  Track 1: we know our November we'll do four in a row.
• 1:14:35
  Track 4: Ooh.
• 1:14:36
  Track 3: So are you guys doing this weekly?
• 1:14:38
  Track 1: We do.
• 1:14:39
  Track 4: We've always done.
• 1:14:39
  Track 3: That's a lot. That's a lot of, that's a lot of podcasting.
• 1:14:44
  Track 1: It is. It's, I mean, the, it's, well, for now, when we have this as the three
• 1:14:49
  Track 1: of us as guests, or my guests as hosts, it does make it a little easier if we
• 1:14:53
  Track 1: can just, we can, we don't need to have someone and,
• 1:14:56
  Track 1: you know, figure all that stuff out and just record ourselves. Yeah.
• 1:15:00
  Track 4: Yeah. Sometimes we could just, you know, schedule another person. Yeah.
• 1:15:07
  Track 1: Go, I'll go watch a movie and then, you know, tomorrow we'll talk about it or something.
• 1:15:11
  Track 4: Yeah.
• 1:15:12
  Track 3: Nice.
• 1:15:13
  Track 1: Awesome. Well, uh, everyone should go listen to your podcast and you can listen
• 1:15:17
  Track 1: to this podcast wherever, you know, uh, fine podcasts are available and we'll catch you next time.