S3E43: Movies We LOVE

[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is a collaboration between costart and Touchstone Productions and the dads from the Crypt podcast. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. [00:00:21] Speaker B: That is the atomic and subatomic and. [00:00:27] Speaker A: Galactic structure of things today. [00:00:33] Speaker B: And you have meddled with the primal. [00:00:36] Speaker A: Forces of nature, and you will atone. Am I getting through to you, Mister Beale? Hello, and welcome to another episode of the how not to make a movie podcast. I'm Alan Katz. Gil will join us momentarily. I grew up a movie lover. Movies, and the people who make them and appear in them, they've shaped my life and the directions it's taken. One of the greatest joys of working on tales from the crypt was getting to work with some of the very people whose movies I adored. I really do love movies. There are some. If I haven't seen them literally hundreds of times, it's only because I haven't had time yet. And I will likely watch those movies hundreds more times because they speak to me. They're not just good stories well told. They're talismans, greater truths, signs of intelligent life in the universe. And they're all being told via what might be the most potent human invention ever. The moving picture. Movies are the printing press on steroids. Or put still another way, if pictures are worth a thousand words, what are moving pictures worth? At the very beginning of this season, season three, Gil and I did a list show. Five movies we loved and two songs, all presented in the style of the great BBC radio show desert island disks. The premise was, you're about to embark on a very long space mission. The good news is the spacecraft is state of the art in every single way except one. They screwed up the entertainment system. There's only enough memory to store five movies and two songs. So those movies better be the kind you can watch endlessly, because you just might have to. And those songs better be the kind you never tire of, ever. Because if you do, hearing those two songs is going to become an especially cruel kind of torture. But, hey, at least you get to choose. Just choose carefully. With that firmly in mind, we present our five by two episode, five movies Gil and I each love, and two songs thrown in for good measure. Today we're doing our own little version of Desert island disks. You know what Desert Island Discs is, right? [00:03:10] Speaker B: Oh, sure. [00:03:12] Speaker A: Now, it's funny, because when I mentioned that to you in the pre show, as we were just talking about what we're going to do today, you said you'd never heard of Desert, Desert Island Discs, and that shocked me because it's a, it's a show on, on the beeb radio. [00:03:32] Speaker B: My castaway this week is Stephen Fry. It's tempting to unabashedly embrace the cliche. He needs no introduction. [00:03:38] Speaker A: The concept is very simple. The, the guest is invited on. You are on a desert island for a long period of time. I think it was five pieces of music and one or two books. Can't be Shakespeare or the Bible. [00:03:52] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:03:53] Speaker A: And so that was the, that was the, the nub of the interview. And so the interview would, and all kinds of famous people and others would sit in and, you know, it's, it's very telling about who you are by, you know, those choices. Mm hmm. Yeah. So we're, so today we're going to do five, five movies we like and two songs. Five. Five and two five. And it's not quite the five and dime five and two or five by two five, but hey, five by two, it's our own little festival. I love that. That's great. Brilliant. Five by two. [00:04:27] Speaker B: In all fairness, I just stole that. That was a candor and ebb musical in the seventies, a review that a very close friend of mine produced. [00:04:38] Speaker A: Who produced it? [00:04:39] Speaker B: A guy named John Vaccaro. And it was a good show. [00:04:45] Speaker A: I bet. So what is your first movie? That, again, simply, these are movies that we love, that we've loved from the moment we saw them. Even if we saw them recently, we're going to love them for the rest of our lives. We think about them all, all the time. That's it. That's the whole criteria. [00:05:07] Speaker B: I suppose if I have to admit to one movie and perhaps one song at the same time, it would be the very serious production of Spielberg's an american tale. [00:05:23] Speaker A: Really? [00:05:24] Speaker B: No, the animation. [00:05:26] Speaker A: Yeah. No, let me. I should have prefaced the whole thing with this, the fact that we're having this conversation, because right off the bat, I'm surprised already. I am just shocked already. Gil and I were partners, creative partners, for ten years, as you know, we produced tales from the crypt, a couple feature films together, and we lived in each other's pockets. We were best of friends, too. And now we're back together. Just been going on, heading into our third year of renewed friendship and creative partnership. If you had asked me back then, hey, your best friend, what are his favorite movies? I couldn't have told you. I could not, could not have told you. And the fact that we started out and the first movie at the top of your list? I would never, never go on there. Okay. Okay. This is already worthwhile. [00:06:27] Speaker B: Well, there's good. There's good reason. Would you like to hear the reason? [00:06:29] Speaker A: Please, please, please. Well, yes. [00:06:32] Speaker B: Well, when I first met my now wife of 30 something years. [00:06:36] Speaker A: Wow. [00:06:37] Speaker B: She was living in Vancouver. I was living in Los Angeles. She would come to visit me. I would come to visit her. But the song from american tale somewhere out there, which was sung in the animation version, but was also sung as a single, and it was a very successful single, was really what we were saying to each other, which was, I'm in Los Angeles looking at the stars and at the moon, and she's in Vancouver looking at the same stars in the moon. And our thoughts would go to each other through that image of seeing the stars and the moon. So it's kind of a romantic thing. And then the movie comes out, and the song comes out, and I'm sitting there listening to the song going, wait a minute. This is like a rip off of what we were just doing. Not really a rip off. Will find one another in that big somewhere out there. And to this day, that that's played at our anniversary and stuff like that. Or we'll, you know, we'll hear it once in a while on the radio, and we'll go, wow, I had no idea. [00:07:51] Speaker A: Good guy. [00:07:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:53] Speaker A: First movie on my list isn't anywhere near as romantic. It's just a movie I love. I've always loved bridge on the River Kwai. [00:08:00] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, I just saw that about two weeks ago on Turner classics. [00:08:07] Speaker A: It's a great construct, that triangle, those three men at loggerheads. It is one of the best things that Alec Guinness ever did. What a wonderful character. [00:08:17] Speaker B: Well, almost anything Alec Guinness did was fantastic. [00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. As with all great film actors, it's what they do when they're not speaking that makes them great film actors. They never stop being Alec Guinness, never stops being Colonel Nickerson. And Colonel Nickerson is a great film, flawed character. With the bombs going off all around him, all the dots finally connect. [00:08:44] Speaker B: What have I done? [00:08:47] Speaker A: Colonel Nickerson knows the mission, and yet when a mortar blast knocks him down and he struggles back to his feet, the mission yet unaccomplished. First he picks up his hat and wipes it off. Cause he's an officer. That's a great character detail. At last, as he drops dead, Colonel Nickerson does the right thing and dies, blowing up the bridge. There are railroad bridges blowing up, and then there's the bridge on the river Kwai. Blowing up. It makes the doctor's last line so perfect. Madness. Madness. [00:09:42] Speaker B: It's probably one of the. One of the earlier versions. Now that I think about, of a relatively long movie. I think that's a. I don't know how long it running time is, but I remember it's like 3 hours. Yeah, it's long. It's very long. Now from that movie. Do you remember any song the way I remember? [00:10:01] Speaker A: Somewhere out there, well, Colonel Bogey's march, was it? Colonel? I might be getting the name wrong. It's the. Yeah, yeah. The very famous. [00:10:12] Speaker B: Ah, if only you could whistle tune. [00:10:16] Speaker A: It whistled as they. As they whistled while they worked. [00:10:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Can you be a favorite? Don't. Don't try to whistle again, will you? [00:10:24] Speaker A: It is not. Not one of my skill sets. [00:10:28] Speaker B: No. I enjoyed that movie, too. I really did enjoy that movie when I saw it originally, and even more so when I saw it recently. But I do remember in both instances thinking that was a very long movie. Which brings us to my number two movie, which is also a very long movie, which is much more contemporary. Killers of the flower moon. [00:10:52] Speaker A: Can you find the wolves in this picture? I have not seen that. Did you see it in the theater? [00:11:02] Speaker B: I saw it in the theaters, and I have a screener from the academy, and I'm going to watch it again. I thought I would go and I thought I would be. Oh, my God, it's three and a half hours long. I'll never make it. I mean, I better order dinner and bring. And bring breakfast. It went by like that. It didn't bother me at all. My bladder paid attention. No problem going to the bathroom. It was fantastic. I just thought the movie was so well done. [00:11:31] Speaker A: Not so much. [00:11:33] Speaker B: Everything about it was fantastic. Everything about it, from the music to the opening credits to all the performances, it just. It was just riveting. [00:11:46] Speaker A: He is an amazing filmmaker. That ain't a revelation. His movies you could pick up, if they're on Turner classics, you could really step in at any moment and just get sucked right into the flow. And especially his mob movies, Goodfellas. Wow. Goodfellas. I. I adore. I adore it. Wow. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Did you ever see mean streets? [00:12:12] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah, back in the day. Yeah. Yeah. [00:12:15] Speaker B: Fantastic little movie. [00:12:17] Speaker A: Yeah. He captured something so atmospheric, he, you know, even taxi driver is. I just watched it again recently, and that's, you know, that's got all kinds of bits and pieces off to the side of. It's not nearly as compact. And even his longer later movies that sprawled, there's a certain compactness to their storytelling. They've just got this magnificent energy to them. They always seem intensely focused. And taxi driver doesn't have that focus. It meanders a bit. It kind of captures Travis Bickle's personality. [00:12:59] Speaker B: I think, in all of these movies, for me, as I get older, I realize what attracts me to these movies has nothing to do with anything except character and relationship. It doesn't matter what time it is, what period it is. It really has to do with character and relationship. And so those are the movies that I'm most attracted to and jealous of and feeling like, God, why didn't I get my hands on that script to try to make it? [00:13:29] Speaker A: That's a perfect reflection of my second movie, one of my absolute favorites, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It's funny, I don't think I saw it until after I'd read the screenplay, because I was so not into westerns. And I don't know it was a western, but of course, it's not a western. It's an anti western. [00:13:55] Speaker B: No, no, not yet. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Not until me and Harvey get the rules straightened out. Rules in a knife fight? No rules. What? Well, there ain't gonna be any rules. Let's get the fight started. Someone count one, two, three, go. One, two, three, go. I was really rooting for you, Butch. [00:14:15] Speaker B: Well, thank you, flatnose. [00:14:18] Speaker A: That's what sustained me in my time of trouble. When I first got to this town, one of the first things I did was I got a copy of William Goldman's book, adventures in the screen trade. And inside is the entire screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And I read the screenplay before I saw the movie. And the screenplay is beautiful. It is. That's. Yeah, it's dangerous because it can get into any writer's head that if William Goldman could write like that. I can write like that. Well, no, actually, William Goldman can write like that, but you probably can't. So if you try to write like William Goldman, it's just going to suck. [00:14:58] Speaker B: So after reading the book and seeing the movie, did you feel that the movie did it justice? Did it take it further? [00:15:04] Speaker A: Oh, God. Oh, yeah. George Roy Hill did a great job taking that. A wonderful, literate script about two interesting characters, and his whole take on them as guys who are. They've outlived their time. You know, there's a moment when, and really almost the entire movie is a chase scene. It's a slow chase scene, because once they rob that first train and the guys on the horseback come out of the train, that's following. It doesn't stop being a chase until the very last, really. And that is one of the wonderful things about it. It doesn't have the usual structure. It does what it wants to do. The first scene is so great. Butch Cassidy watches them closing up a bank for the day, but closing it up, the bars on the windows, it's, wow. A lot of metal has gone into protecting this bank just overnight. And he approaches the guard, he says, this was such a beautiful bank. Why'd they do this? Guards. People kept robbing it. And Bush says, small price to pay for beauty. [00:16:25] Speaker B: And also it was a western with a, with a song in the middle. A bird rack Hal David bestselling song. [00:16:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is, it's funny. It's the one thing about the movie which I think is, which is jarring is the music because that's so contemporary. And the movie has a temporary feel. But there's a, there's a patch in the middle. There's a couple places where he's crunching a lot of information and, you know, so there's just a flood of images. And the music, I think he used, I think they were called the swingle Singers and they're doing scat, you know, basically just scatting. [00:17:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:08] Speaker A: And it's, I didn't see it when it was first released and perhaps. Well, I know the song won an Academy Award. Did the score win? [00:17:22] Speaker B: I don't, I don't recall. [00:17:23] Speaker A: I don't recall if it did because the score does not hold up. The song's okay, it's a song. He's there. That's the bicycle scene where it's just a fun little vignette scene that doesn't, it's nothing to do with the story whatsoever. But yeah, the music is the one, is the one thing that really feels stuck in its, stuck in the seventies. A great piece of writing. [00:17:47] Speaker B: A great piece of filmmaking, too. [00:17:49] Speaker A: And a wonderful ending. [00:17:51] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I can't deny you that. I really enjoyed that movie, too. And I love that song. And I love William Goldman. I've always loved William Goldman. [00:18:01] Speaker A: Have you ever met him? [00:18:02] Speaker B: I've never met him. I've read all his books, every one of them, because when I first started out in theater, he had written a book about theater and I devoured that from end to end about five times. I could probably recite to you two or three chapters. I mean, just nuts. But he was so good at what he did. Going back to Alec Guinness for a second on the bridge around the river kwai yeah, yeah. Almost anything that Alec Guinness has done would be on my list. But especially Doctor Chavago. [00:18:42] Speaker A: Lord, this is an awful time to be alive. No, no. What are we going to do? I don't know. Wouldn't it have been lovely if we'd met before? [00:18:59] Speaker B: I think we may go mad if we think about all that. [00:19:04] Speaker A: I shall always think about it. [00:19:07] Speaker B: I just fell in love with Doctor Zhivago. Now. It's a huge. [00:19:11] Speaker A: Another big one. Big. [00:19:13] Speaker B: Another big one. A big canvas. But it was all about romance and it was all about relationship and it was all about, in a way, justice. And so that I saw very early on when it first opened and I was working at, I think it's MGM. I was working at MGM when it opened. I went to a screening of it and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And then I went to see it in the theaters when it opened. And I just. Anytime it's on television, I record it and I watch it again. It's one of my favorite movies. [00:19:50] Speaker A: It's such a sad story. [00:19:52] Speaker B: It is a sad story. It's a very sad story. [00:19:55] Speaker A: It's so russian. It's so russian. [00:19:57] Speaker B: But. But Alec Guinness is just so good. You know, when we did tell some, the crip, you know, we decided to emulate one of his shows, kind hearts and Coronet's, because we said, gee, tells him the crypt never did a show where one character played more than one part. [00:20:13] Speaker A: So. [00:20:15] Speaker B: So with the one that we did with Tim Curry was one of the ones that we sort of nodded to. Alleghenies and kind hearts and coronets. [00:20:25] Speaker A: One of the cool things about doing tales from the crypt was that we were always able to indulge our fan. Just being movie fans, we got to do that all the time. Well, some of the actors we got to work with. Some of the actors we got to work with, like Kirk Douglas, Donald O'Connor, you know, sitting on. Sitting on our set with Donald O'Connor, listening to him tell stories about making. Singing in the rain. Yeah, fucking pinch me, right? You know, we've talked about. [00:20:57] Speaker B: Were you on the set the day we talked about the making of make them laugh with the couch? [00:21:03] Speaker A: I was not there for that. You were. [00:21:06] Speaker B: It was unbelievable. [00:21:07] Speaker A: I missed that. [00:21:07] Speaker B: I sat there with my mouth ajar. My mouth was, like hanging as he was telling me how many times they did it and how difficult it was and how tired he was. And yet he had to do it again because he had to get it exactly right. [00:21:23] Speaker A: Do you remember how many takes he had to do? [00:21:25] Speaker B: Oh, it was a lot. I don't remember the number, but I know when he told me, I was like, how could you have done that that many times? When you jump over the thing and go through the wall? And leading up to that, how many. [00:21:37] Speaker A: How many backup roles did they have? It's just paper, but okay. Still. [00:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it was unbelievable. I mean, listening to him talk about making that movie was just such a. Such a special moment for me, sitting on the set with him while we were doing tales in the crypt. [00:21:54] Speaker A: I've always been very, very fond of Doctor Zhivago, too, and the bigness is really very appealing. David Lean was great with big movies. Lawrence of Arabia, great with big movies. My next movie is another big movie. A huge fan of virtually everything that Kubrick did. And, of course, we've had the absolute pleasure of working with a couple of stars from one of Kubrick's most famous movies, Clockwork Orange. We've worked with, of course, Aubrey Morris and with Malcolm McDowell. But that's not my favorite Kubrick film. My favorite Kubrick film is Barry Lyndon. [00:22:40] Speaker B: Oh, wow. I didn't know that. [00:22:43] Speaker A: I love that movie. It's so. It's like canvases. It's like the paintings. [00:22:50] Speaker B: I was gonna say, it's a big. It's a big period movie. [00:22:54] Speaker A: Paintings come to life. And Ryan O'Neill just passed, just died, was a very pretty actor. I don't know that he had a ton of acting range, but that was okay for. To play a cad, a wannabe, a guy who was going to live far beyond his station and then crash and burn. Perfectly cast. Perfectly cast. The music. Again, there's no original score. It was all period music, but it was all perfect. Perfect. The. The battle scenes are just wonderful. And they. [00:23:40] Speaker B: His. [00:23:40] Speaker A: His director of his cinematographer, Jeffrey Unsworth, had to create. They had to create new lenses in order to shoot, because part of what Kubrick wanted to do was to not use any artificial light, was to shoot a. In candlelight. In scenes that. That occurred in candlelight. He wanted to shoot in candlelight. And none of the existing lenses were fast enough to deliver crisp, clear images that were going to need to blow up onto the big screen. So they had to create all kinds of new lenses in order just to shoot that movie. And what a wonderful, cynical ending. Wonderful, cynical ending. I love that movie. [00:24:22] Speaker B: I don't want you to think I'm a depressed guy, although I have my moments. But one of my favorite movies that I find very, very haunting is a beautiful life again, characters, relationship, the whole fantasy that he tries to create for the young boy. [00:24:44] Speaker A: Life is beautiful. [00:24:47] Speaker B: It gets to me every time I see it. It doesn't. So it, so it's so well done and so simple and so, so accessible and just rips at your heart. So I've always loved that movie. [00:25:03] Speaker A: It's another one of those movies that it just, yeah, it absolutely rips your heart out. [00:25:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So I've always, that's always stayed with me, that movie. You know, I've always, at moments I think about that, especially when I was making Valkyrie, I thought about that. [00:25:19] Speaker A: Why did Valkyrie make you think of a beautiful life? [00:25:24] Speaker B: Valkyrie. Making Valkyrie was a real torture, a very difficult movie to make for a lot of reasons. And subject matter. Subject matter, people involved, country involved, and on and on and on. But, you know, I wanted it to be as good as that movie that I love so much by Benigni. I wanted it to invoke that kind of an emotion. And I think ultimately it does. I mean, I'm very proud of Valkyrie. And I think about making that movie quite often. [00:25:55] Speaker A: It's a very good movie. [00:25:56] Speaker B: What we went through, what the journey was for me going through that. So I kind of think about Benigni and that movie. You know, often. [00:26:12] Speaker A: The next movie on my list is one that we tried, we tried to emulate. One of the things that I love about this next movie that I love don't look now, is that it rips your heart out. In don't look now. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie are a married couple with two kids. They have a country estate in England. He's an art restorer about to start a big cathedral project in Venice when their daughter, wearing a red Mac, drowns in the pond on their property. Right off the bat, this movie rips your heart out. The movie's motifs are water and the colors red and blue. And it's about the psychic connections we don't even know we have with each other. It's a masterpiece that will haunt you in the best ways possible, top to bottom. It's great movie making. Don't look now. Nick Rogue directed. There's also something in the movie that's quite, there's a sex scene. It's got one of the best sex scenes ever made in a mainstream movie with, with big name actors. What Nick Rogue does very cleverly. It's also cut beautifully. They're getting ready to go out to dinner, I guess it says they're just hanging out in their hotel room and then they're getting ready to go out to dinner and they begin to have sex and he cuts, intercuts them. And you get the feeling this is the first time they've had sex since their daughter died of. And he intercuts them having sex with them, getting ready to go out to dinner. And you just feel the really, there's a genuine feeling of love and the ordinariness of this relationship. It makes the sex scene really quite surprising in its emotionality. The most shocking thing about that sex scene, it's the only really intense sex scene. It's really the only sex scene I can think of in a, in a mainstream movie between a married couple. That's probably the oddest thing about it. They're a married couple having sex. It's really, it's the exception and never, and not anywhere near the rule, because who wants to watch a married couple have sex? And yet that's one of the most striking things about it. [00:28:43] Speaker B: Well, talking about married couples having sex, there, you, I'm glad I can spur you. Segues right into my next election, which was almost anything Groucho Marx did. Oh, wow. [00:28:58] Speaker A: Yes. [00:28:58] Speaker B: Well, hey, and any of his movies, I mean, I was such a big fan of Groucho Marx that he could do no wrong. So any of his movies, what was. [00:29:09] Speaker A: The first one you saw? [00:29:11] Speaker B: I have no idea. I've seen them all so many times. [00:29:13] Speaker A: You don't remember the first time that you saw Groucho and you went, oh my God, I get this, man. [00:29:20] Speaker B: I don't think I do. [00:29:21] Speaker A: I can remember mine growing up in Baltimore, as I did on WJZ. Channel 13 is back in the sixties and early seventies, before the local news started at six. From about 430 to six, they would run movies in a movie block, and they played old comedies, they played WC fields, they played Joey Brown movies, and they played Marks brother movies. And my cousin Stephen was, he knew Groucho before I did. He said, you got to watch this movie. And he called me, said, horse feathers on. You got to turn, you got to turn it on. It just begins. And my first experience with the Marx brothers is horse feathers. Groucho as Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff singing whatever it is, I'm against it. You had me, the man had me. And of course, that, the monologue that starts that movie is just one of the best. [00:30:25] Speaker B: Well, when I was talking about sex between a married couple, and that's how I segued into the Marx brothers, it really had to do with Raucho and his relationship with Margaret Dumont. Oh, sure. In every episode that she was in and every movie, and he just became such a hero of mine, he could do no wrong. And then when they did a Broadway musical and I found out that he's from New York and lived on East 95th street and grew up on the streets, that made it even better. And then when I came out to California, I guess in those days you would have called me a stalker because I found out his address where he lived, and I drove my car and I parked the car across the street, and I waited to see him drive Linda to school, and I could see him get into the car, drive down the driveway onto the street, drive right by me. And I knew he was behind the wheel. And I sat there trembling as he drove by. That's how nutty I was for Groucho. [00:31:32] Speaker A: But there was nobody like him. His ability to dismantle authority was fantastic. Wow. It was amazing. Nobody could do what Groucho did. Duck soup, that's one of my, that is, it didn't make my list, but if I had some honorable mentions, duck soup is there for sure. That's wonderful. Great, man. [00:32:00] Speaker B: Yeah, he and his brothers, I mean, they were also very talented. He gets a lot of the credit, but they were all extremely talented. Actors, musicians, performers. It's amazing that that family, that they're all in the same family. They all come from the same background. I did finally get to meet him. [00:32:19] Speaker A: You did? Yeah, yeah. [00:32:20] Speaker B: So that was also very special for. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Me, and we've, we've talked about that recently. Yeah. You, you, when he came to see a production of your el grande de. [00:32:31] Speaker B: Coca Cola in Los Angeles. Yeah, yeah. [00:32:33] Speaker A: And you, you did everything you possibly could to get him in the house. And damn if he didn't show up. And that must, that must have been wonderful because you made that happen yourself. [00:32:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess. Although I needed, I had a lot of help from the press people and all that. [00:32:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you don't. But if you don't. But if you're not pushing and punching and doing everything you can to make this happen, it's not going to happen. [00:32:57] Speaker B: But, you know, the funniest part of that whole thing was that after he was in the auditorium, he had the beret on. I could see the smoke because I was looking from the balcony down, I could see the smoke billowing up from his cigar, knowing that he was in the theater. The lights go down, the show comes on, and I sit there and I go, oh, shit. What happens if he doesn't like the show? What happens if he says to me, he doesn't like the show. He doesn't think it's funny. So I start squirming in the chair and I'm thinking, oh, my God, what do I do? I'll be destroyed if he says that to me. And so we finished the show and I go downstairs and he looks at me and he says, so you're the producer of this? I said, yeah, yeah. And he said, aha. And you think this is funny? And I thought, oh, my God, he's going to stick the knife right in my chest. I just. Ready? And I said, well, you know, I thought it was kind of funny. I mean, it's in five languages, none of which are English, but totally understandable to an english speaking audience. And he stopped me and he said, I must tell you, except for my brothers, this has got to be one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. Now can I ask you to do me a favor? And I said, yeah, a favor for you. Sure. What would you like? He said, how about taking me backstage so I can meet the girls? This was when it was like two years before he died. [00:34:19] Speaker A: He wasn't dead yet. [00:34:21] Speaker B: Wasn't dead yet by a long shot. [00:34:23] Speaker A: So, no, he was not. [00:34:24] Speaker B: Roucho was a special, special character in my life. [00:34:28] Speaker A: I envy you. Getting to meet him. [00:34:30] Speaker B: That was great. [00:34:31] Speaker A: It is one of the great things about this particular gig that we've taken on that we've gotten to meet some of our heroes. [00:34:38] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:39] Speaker A: I've talked about the fact that of all the actors that we got to meet with, actually the actor who appeared on tales from the crypt, who I was most excited to meet, is not famous for being an actor. He's famous for being a writer. Buck Henry. [00:34:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:53] Speaker A: I mean, getting to meet Buck Henry, the guy who wrote the graduate edge 22, get smart and gosh, what a wow. That was incredibly exciting. Another writer who we never got a chance to work as. One of the greats I've got. I wish we had Paddy Chayefsky. And Paddy Chayefsky wrote one of the best movies ever. Net one. I see. [00:35:21] Speaker B: Howard Beale as a latter day prophet. [00:35:24] Speaker A: Yesterday I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide. Well, I'll tell you what happened. I just ran out of. Bullshit. I just ran out of it. You see, one show like that could pull this whole network right out of the whole. We're talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on national television. Hell, you're not serious, are you? No, I'm serious. This is not a psychotic episode. This is a cleansing moment of clarity. I am not putting Howard back on the air. It's not your show anymore, Max. It's mine. Starring the mad prophet on the airways. Why me? Because you're on television, dummy. He saw Fox News coming. It is the most remarkable thing. When you watch network, you think, God damn it. He saw Rupert Murdoch from 1000 miles off and he nailed what was going to happen to us. Totally. It's there in that movie. Yeah, it's another great performance by William Holden. He's been in some of my very Stalog 17. I love him. It's dialogue 17. [00:36:27] Speaker B: He's me too. [00:36:28] Speaker A: Because he was one of those guys. He was anti hero, you know, he was always the cynical guy who comes around. Hey, Sunset Boulevard. Sunset Boulevard. And. And in network. Oh, he's so good. Faye Dunaway. And I really like Faye Dunaway. God, when I think of all the movies that a lot of the movies I love, Faye Dunaway's in theme. This little big man. [00:36:57] Speaker B: How about they Dunaway in Chinatown? [00:37:00] Speaker A: Oh, of course, Chinatown. Well, yes, Chinatown. It's Chinatown. Jake, how can every time I drive through Chinatown that pops into my Chinatown. Jake, you can't. You have to. And it's. What a wonderful. What a wonderful performance that she does. And that's a great movie, too. Again, it's a, one of my honorable mentions for sure. [00:37:22] Speaker B: For me, at its core, it has to do with relationship. [00:37:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:26] Speaker B: It has to do with emotion and it has to do. It's crime. But I mean, those things that we all can relate to. I don't know anything about water. I don't know anything about politics, but I do know about relationships. And, you know, that's what made that movie so great for me. [00:37:44] Speaker A: The. And it's got a great relationship hinged scene where the truth about. Yeah, my. My daughter, my. My sister. My daughter, my sister, my daughter. Oh, my God. [00:37:58] Speaker B: Slap. Slap, slap, slap. [00:38:00] Speaker A: What a perverse scene. One of the most perverse scenes ever, ever imagined. Fantastic. Fantastic. [00:38:09] Speaker B: That was a great movie. I love Forrest Gump. [00:38:12] Speaker A: Sure, sure. [00:38:13] Speaker B: But I'm biased because of our relationship with Bob. And I remember when we were doing tells from the crib, Bob was cutting and we were chatting and he said to me, you got a few minutes? And I said, yeah, what's up? I said, come into the editing room with me. And I said, okay. And I said, what's up? And I thought he wanted to talk to me about something about our show. And he said, I want to show you something. Tell me what you think. And he showed me the beginning scene of Gump, just a short portion of it, with him running with the things on his legs. And then he cut to. And they showed me a scene where Sally Fields is telling him she's dying. And then he stopped, and he said, so, what do you think? And I was like, whoa, I think I was just thrown off the. Off the bus. I mean, I just. Holy shit. I said, I want to see the rest of the movie. He said, do you really? I said, yeah, I really want to see the rest of the movie. And then we chatted a little bit, and I said, you know, Bob, if the rest of the movie is as good as what you just showed me, this is going to win the Academy Award. And he said, no, no, really? I said, no, no, no. I'm not bullshitting you. I'm telling you, those two scenes that you just showed me really, really got to me. And if the rest of the movie is that good, it's just going to win an Academy Award. [00:39:38] Speaker A: Again. One of the luxuries. We got to work with a guy who thought so completely outside the box. [00:39:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:44] Speaker A: You know, as we've described, part of the. One of the pleasures of working with Bob is that every project had at least one or two moments where Bob was going to pose you with a. Something that he wanted to accomplish. There's a scene. I want to see this. And he would tell you what it is he wanted to see. And, Bob, that's impossible to get. There's no way to get that. It's impossible. And he then turned to all of you, and you go, okay, guys, how are we going to do that? And damn if we didn't find a way. [00:40:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And we always did. [00:40:19] Speaker A: And Forrest Gumpf was filled with that. Look at Lieutenant Dan's legs. [00:40:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:24] Speaker A: I mean, making. I think that was the first movie where, for an extended period of a character's performance, they made his body, a big piece of his body, disappear using green, using computer effect. You know, Bob was one of the first guys to play in that field. [00:40:42] Speaker B: Yep. [00:40:42] Speaker A: And to experiment it and to, you know, in the same way that that DW Griffith invented the language of cinema, Bob has always been. Yeah. Reinventing language and creating new words and new ways of seeing things. You know, when he first started, when he did polar express, you know, again, he was the first person to take that dare and. And, yeah, it's. It. You know, at that point, computers couldn't do faces the way they can do now. The way that artificial intelligence can make a face so fucking real you don't even know of if it's artificial. But Bob's always played in those places. Songs, songs, songs. Let's switch over and finish this with a couple of. A little bit of music to soothe our way out. [00:41:36] Speaker B: The sucker punch for me was the way we were from that movie. That was a great movie and a great song. [00:41:44] Speaker A: Marvin Hamlish. [00:41:47] Speaker B: Yes. [00:41:48] Speaker A: Did you ever get a chance to meet Marvin? [00:41:51] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I knew Marvin very well when he was making a chorus line with Ed Kleebann and with Michael Bennett. I hung out with them quite a lot. And, yeah, I knew Marvin pretty well. [00:42:04] Speaker A: What was he like? [00:42:07] Speaker B: You know, so very. He didn't really know his own talent. I don't think he just, you know, he approached the material as the material. I think at some points he was very full of himself, but on other points he was very doubting. But, you know, I was closer with Ed Kleeband than I was with Marvin, and I was closer with Michael, I think. But seeing that process evolve was just staggering. Left a staggering impression on my brain as to how creatively you could be to get to where you wanted to be from where you were. And I saw a bunch of those workshops that they did for Joe, and eventually, when they played it at the public theater and they moved it into Broadway, I mean, that whole experience was, was very special for me. But going back, that's a whole other topic and a whole other conversation. But the movie, the way we were, was. Really worked for the movie, you know, and it really brought out the emotionality of those relationships so. Well, in the same token, you know, I guess it's not a movie, but it is a movie. On is Hamilton. [00:43:23] Speaker A: Sure. [00:43:23] Speaker B: Oh, sure. Let's go for Hamilton, which I've seen the play and I've seen the movie or the Disney project of it. You know, the music from that is just phenomenal. And the story of that is so phenomenal, and it's so relevant today, especially this year. [00:43:44] Speaker A: And even the story of how that project got made. [00:43:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:43:48] Speaker A: Is a remarkable. [00:43:50] Speaker B: Wow. [00:43:50] Speaker A: Wow. So, yeah, agree. [00:43:53] Speaker B: We should go on vacation someplace with a book that we want to do, and by the time we finish the vacation, say, okay, we'll do it. [00:44:01] Speaker A: There you go. Things to do this year. [00:44:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:06] Speaker A: I think my favorite song ever is Leonard Cohen's hallelujah. And I came to that fairly late again when it finally hit my radar. I don't think anyone's ever captured how hard love can be like that song captures it. The absolute ache. The ache on a biblical level. [00:44:36] Speaker B: Your faith was strong but you needed proof. [00:44:40] Speaker A: You saw her bathing on the roof through ya. [00:44:51] Speaker B: She tied you to a. [00:44:54] Speaker A: Kitchen chair she broke your throne, she cut your hair and from your lips she dream hallelujah, hallelujah. [00:45:13] Speaker B: Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah well, it's one of those songs that just grabs you. I mean, it just really, whatever you're doing, whatever you're thinking about, it stops you in your tracks and demands that you listen to it. And they're not many songs like that. It just goes, you know, almost, in winding artists up a little bit, it almost goes to what we've been talking about through all of these specific examples. It always comes back to that emotion. It always comes back to the feeling. Music, movies, television, it always comes back to making us feel. [00:46:13] Speaker A: Although my last song doesn't actually make you feel anything, it makes you laugh, which is. And it makes you laugh at something that. That actually comes right back to. Are you afraid? The show that we're, we're doing, because that. It's a show about cannibalism. And one of my very favorite songs is a little priest from Sweeney Todd. [00:46:36] Speaker B: These are desperate times. [00:46:37] Speaker A: Misses oven. [00:46:39] Speaker B: Desperate measures are called for. Here we are, out of the oven. [00:46:47] Speaker A: What is that? It's priest. [00:46:50] Speaker B: Have a little priest. [00:46:51] Speaker A: Is it really good? Sir, it's too good, at least I love that. [00:46:57] Speaker B: I was going to ask you if you were. Before you said the name of the song. I was going to say, oh, the theme from the pink Panther. [00:47:05] Speaker A: It's all the different people you could eat and what they would taste like. I mean, that would. What a. It's just a. Well, it's Sondheim. And the word play is exquisite. Oh, my God. [00:47:18] Speaker B: Can't argue with that. One. Can't argue with that. [00:47:20] Speaker A: As we, as we take our show, are you afraid? Out into the marketplace. It is one of the descriptors that we use of. It's a show about flesh eating ghouls. What we say about it is that it's. It's, um. It's walking dead meets, um, Buffy the vampire slayer meets sweeney Todd without the music. Flash eating ghouls. For a long time, we humans have been deeply afraid of vampires and zombies, sin war, paramedics. Fair enough. Vampires and zombies are scary, but neither vampires nor zombies are real. Flesh eating ghouls, on the other hand, are real. They've been living in our shadow for thousands of years, hunting us, feasting on us, treating us like food. But some ghouls are tired of living in the shadow of their food. Those ghouls have decided it's time to leave. Leave the shadow and put us in our place where we belong. On the men. It's an eat or be eaten world, flavored by fear, filled with the monster we should have been afraid of all along. Flesh eating. Cool. Are you afraid? Better be coming soon. Are you afraid? Is about. Really. It's. It's about cannibalism. It's about eating people. And I. I don't know. To me, there's nothing funnier than cannibalism. I think one of our best episodes of tales from the Crypt is the one that we wrote that you directed, what's cooking? Which is about cannibalism. You know, I think of the line we wrote. It's a dog eat dog world, and we're all just different flavors of Alpo. [00:49:07] Speaker B: You think that show us about cannibalism and funny, I thought it was about squidgesthe. [00:49:13] Speaker A: Squid, cannibalism. Call it what you will. Are there any other songs you love, Gil? [00:49:20] Speaker B: I'm sure there are many, but those are the ones that come to mind. [00:49:23] Speaker A: Cool, cool, cool. Then we've come, we've seen, we've conquered. [00:49:30] Speaker B: Let's hope we conquered. I think our audience, if they hit the like button, we'll know we conquered. [00:49:35] Speaker A: Like I said, almost the start. I had no idea what you would have named. I'm shocked by probably everyone in this movie. Not shocked, but delightfully surprised. [00:49:47] Speaker B: See, I knew about you and Kubrick. I knew one of those were going to come up. I wasn't going to say. I wouldn't have said Barry London, but when you said Barry London, I got it. I totally said, oh, yeah, right. Of course. [00:50:00] Speaker A: It's just great filmmaking. [00:50:02] Speaker B: Do yourself a favor, and everyone out there, go see Marty Scorsese's movie Flower Moon. [00:50:06] Speaker A: Yeah, killer of the Flower Moon. Yeah, that's. That's on my list. I have not seen that yet. [00:50:12] Speaker B: I saw past lives, which is really quite good. A korean movie. One of the better movies that I've seen. [00:50:18] Speaker A: That's our next conversation. [00:50:20] Speaker B: We'll. Movies we don't like. [00:50:22] Speaker A: Movies we. [00:50:23] Speaker B: Movies that disappoint us and songs that got us nauseous. [00:50:30] Speaker A: There you go. That's our next list. We'll see you next time, everybody. [00:50:34] Speaker B: Thanks for joining us. [00:50:37] Speaker A: The how not to make a movie podcast is executive produced by me, Alan Katz, by Gil Adler, and by Jason Stein. Our artwork was done by the amazing Jody Webster and Jason Jody, along with Mando, are all the hosts of the fun and informative dads from the Crip podcast. Follow them for what my old pal the cryptkeeper would have called terrible crypt.