Latest / Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities / Devil in the Details

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Devil in the Details · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Most of us have heard the term devil's advocate used
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  Speaker 1: to describe someone who takes the wrong side of an argument,
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  Speaker 1: knowingly essentially picking the side the devil would take. Longtime
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  Speaker 1: listeners of the show would know that this term originates
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  Speaker 1: in the legal code of the Catholic Church as a reminder.
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  Speaker 1: In order for a saint to be canonized, an expert
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  Speaker 1: needed to take the stand to give their best arguments
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  Speaker 1: for why the person shouldn't become a saint, and the
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  Speaker 1: Latin title for that role was advocatus diabali, the Devil's advocate.
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  Speaker 1: The connection between the devil and legal minutia goes even
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  Speaker 1: deeper than that, though. In fact, the first appearance of
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  Speaker 1: the term satan in the Bible is referring not to
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  Speaker 1: a proper name, but a role being performed by another
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  Speaker 1: heavenly deity. The term satan means accuser or adversary. In
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  Speaker 1: the Book of Job, for example, it is one of
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  Speaker 1: these satans who encourages God to punish the devout Job
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  Speaker 1: to test his faith. According to some scholars, the role
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  Speaker 1: of this satan is not as the cause of all evil,
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  Speaker 1: but as someone who provokes the advocates of good to
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  Speaker 1: prove themselves. And this connection between the concept of the
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  Speaker 1: biblical devil and legal procedure often gets overlooked, likely because
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  Speaker 1: legal scholars and biblical scholars work in quite distinct fields.
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  Speaker 1: Then again, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone
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  Speaker 1: that Satan has appeared in legal court documents in the
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  Speaker 1: United States, not as a religious reference, but as a defendant.
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  Speaker 1: In NI teen seventy one, for example, a prisoner in
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  Speaker 1: Pittsburgh's Western Penitentiary decided that the only way out of
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  Speaker 1: this maximum security facility was to take his grievances to
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  Speaker 1: the top. The twenty two year old man filed a
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  Speaker 1: lawsuit not against the state of Pennsylvania or the judges
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  Speaker 1: who had put him in prison, but against the devil himself.
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  Speaker 1: The resulting court case was labeled Gerald Mayo Versus Satan.
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  Speaker 1: And his staff. Mayo alleged that the Devil and his
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  Speaker 1: agents had placed roadblocks in his way that guaranteed that
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  Speaker 1: he would live a miserable life. His life, he claimed,
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  Speaker 1: was a series of misfortunes that could only mean that
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  Speaker 1: he was being set up to fail. Ultimately, the judge
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  Speaker 1: decided to throw the case out, although not for the
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  Speaker 1: reason that you might expect. Instead of flatly labeling the
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  Speaker 1: case ludicrous and not worth hearing at all, the judge
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  Speaker 1: bothered to write up a procedural reason for dismissing the case.
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  Speaker 1: In his ruling, he determined that Gerald Mayo had filed
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  Speaker 1: a lawsuit that would be impossible to execute. How had
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  Speaker 1: he expected the court of legal notice to the devil himself. Moreover,
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  Speaker 1: the judge wrote, Mayo would have to prove that similar
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  Speaker 1: cases like his were universal, that others who had been
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  Speaker 1: targeted by the Devil wound up with a similar fate.
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  Speaker 1: Without such examples, he could not prove to the judges
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  Speaker 1: that he was not responsible for the actions and decisions
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  Speaker 1: that had landed him in prison in the first place.
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  Speaker 1: So there you go, with the case dismissed, Mayo returned
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  Speaker 1: to prison. Now his goal for this case would never
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  Speaker 1: be fully clear to us for over fifty years. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: he intended to get media attention that would help him
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  Speaker 1: get a more lenient sentence. Perhaps he wanted to serve
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  Speaker 1: a case so ludicrous that the court would have to
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  Speaker 1: hear him out. Or maybe he was just so desperate
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  Speaker 1: that even this action was better than none at all,
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  Speaker 1: and wasting the court's time was a fair way to
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  Speaker 1: spend his days behind bars. As any other idle hands
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  Speaker 1: are the devil's workshop, as they say, Well, whatever the
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  Speaker 1: real reason, this lawsuit would have a unique legacy, you
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  Speaker 1: see to this day it's used by law professors to
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  Speaker 1: tea which the necessary elements of building a case. Even
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  Speaker 1: in a society where lawsuits are an easy way to
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  Speaker 1: address your problems, suing someone isn't just about the grievance.
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  Speaker 1: It also requires a target who is subject to the
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  Speaker 1: same laws you're using to sue Satan, it would seem
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  Speaker 1: is literally above the law. So I guess it turns
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  Speaker 1: out that he won't be needing that Devil's advocate. Albert
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  Speaker 1: didn't start out making movies. In fact, had everything gone differently,
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  Speaker 1: he might have spent his life in the family business.
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  Speaker 1: In long Island, But in the nineteen thirties, with his
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  Speaker 1: head full of dreams and his feet itching for adventure,
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  Speaker 1: he struck out west to make a family business of
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  Speaker 1: his own. Albert had tried his hand at farming like
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  Speaker 1: his father. He even worked for a time in the
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  Speaker 1: family coffin business, but when he went to visit a
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  Speaker 1: cousin who'd become a talent agent, he fell in love
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  Speaker 1: with Hollywood. It didn't hurt that his cousin introduced him
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  Speaker 1: to the superstar Carry Grant, so in nineteen thirty three,
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  Speaker 1: Albert packed up his hoe and his handsaw and headed
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  Speaker 1: to Los Angeles. Now Albert tooled around Hollywood for the
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  Speaker 1: next fifteen years, making friends and making strides. He worked
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  Speaker 1: in the mail room at twentieth Century Fox. He befriended
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  Speaker 1: director Howard Hughes, who made him an assistant director on
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  Speaker 1: the nineteen forty three film The Outlaw, but he quickly
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  Speaker 1: found being assistant director mostly meant driving star Jane Russell
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  Speaker 1: to set. When World War Two started, he recruited stars
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  Speaker 1: to perform for the troops with the USO, and after
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  Speaker 1: the war he worked as a talent agent. But Albert's
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  Speaker 1: big break came in the nineteen fifties, when he realized
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  Speaker 1: there was real money to be made as a producer.
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  Speaker 1: At the time, the British government announced that it would
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  Speaker 1: give money to films that hired eighty percent of their
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  Speaker 1: crew from England. Alberts and his producing partner were the
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  Speaker 1: first to set up shop there, making Anglo American co
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  Speaker 1: productions that netted them an extra few million dollars. After
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  Speaker 1: a few modest successes with high flying action films, Albert
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  Speaker 1: was looking for his next project when fates intervened in
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  Speaker 1: the form of a paperback. Albert quickly became a fan
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  Speaker 1: of books by a former British intelligence agent named Ian Fleming.
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  Speaker 1: In them, a spy named James Bond number double seven
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  Speaker 1: with a license to kill, charmed his way past deadly
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  Speaker 1: traps and over the top villains. It was the perfect
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  Speaker 1: character to bring to the big screen. However, Hollywood didn't
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  Speaker 1: quite see it that way. In meeting after meeting, Albert
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  Speaker 1: kept getting turned down. James Bond was too suave, too sexual,
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  Speaker 1: and let's face it, to British they didn't think American
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  Speaker 1: audiences would buy tickets. Finally, a friend at United Artists
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  Speaker 1: set up Albert with a meeting. He came in ready
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  Speaker 1: to be rejected once again. To his surprise, forty five
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  Speaker 1: minutes later, he had a six picture deal in place.
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  Speaker 1: They had one million dollars to make the first film,
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  Speaker 1: Doctor No. Now all they needed was their bond. While
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  Speaker 1: one million dollars was a lot in those days, it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't enough to get big stars. Albert's first choice, Carrie Grant,
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  Speaker 1: was off the table, so they needed an unknown to
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  Speaker 1: bring Bond to the big screen. After spending days sorting
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  Speaker 1: through head shots and movie reels, it was Albert's wife,
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  Speaker 1: Dana who actually made the choice. When a young Scottish
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  Speaker 1: actor named Sean Connery appeared on screen, she shouted cast
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  Speaker 1: that one he's gorgeous, and so movie history was made,
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  Speaker 1: and the chances are good that you're probably familiar with
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  Speaker 1: what came next. James Bond has been the subject of
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  Speaker 1: dozens of movies and has now been played by six
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  Speaker 1: actors Sean Connery, George Lazenbye, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce
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  Speaker 1: Brosnan and Daniel Craig. The impact that Albert's Bond movies
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  Speaker 1: have had on her collective pop culture consciousness is immense.
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  Speaker 1: Think of James Bond, and the same things come to mind,
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  Speaker 1: death defying stunts, ingenius gadgets, beautiful Bond girls, and Martini's
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  Speaker 1: shaken not stirred. In bringing James Bond to life, Albert
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  Speaker 1: created a new family business. In recent years, his daughter
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  Speaker 1: Barbara and son Michael have co produced every Bond film
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  Speaker 1: from Albert's death in nineteen ninety six until they sold
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  Speaker 1: the rights to Amazon in twenty twenty five. Albert carved
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  Speaker 1: out a pretty good legacy for himself and his family,
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  Speaker 1: But you might be surprised that bringing James Bond to
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  Speaker 1: the big screen isn't his only claim to fame. For that,
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  Speaker 1: we have to rewind a bit to whin. Albert's family
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  Speaker 1: lived in Carrera, Calabria. According to his wife Dana's research,
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  Speaker 1: Albert's ancestors claimed to be the first people to cross
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  Speaker 1: two vegetables, cauliflower and rob This created a dark green,
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  Speaker 1: treelike vegetable with thick stalks. Albert's father and his uncle
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  Speaker 1: brought those seeds of this crossbreed from Calabria to Long
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  Speaker 1: Island on the same farm where Albert worked as a child.
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  Speaker 1: His family introduced America to their very own family heirloom,
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  Speaker 1: and the name of that vegetable, well, they gave it
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  Speaker 1: the family name. Let me tell you OL's full name
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  Speaker 1: and I'll let you figure out the rest. The James
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  Speaker 1: Bond movie Pioneer is Albert Broccoli. I hope you've enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
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  Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
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  Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. This show was created
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  Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.