1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,400
Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of My Heart Radio.

2
00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:12,280
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

3
00:00:12,320 --> 00:00:15,480
Speaker 1: that brings you the secret histories and let alone fascinating

4
00:00:15,560 --> 00:00:19,240
Speaker 1: facts and figures behind your favorite movies, music, TV shows

5
00:00:19,280 --> 00:00:21,880
Speaker 1: and more. We hear your two Wolves with its paw

6
00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:25,280
Speaker 1: stuck in a trap of weird facts. That wasn't granatic.

7
00:00:25,400 --> 00:00:28,360
Speaker 1: I don't think that one that was great. I'm Alex

8
00:00:28,360 --> 00:00:32,640
Speaker 1: Tigel and I'm Jordan, and Jordan's today we're talking about

9
00:00:32,680 --> 00:00:35,000
Speaker 1: one of the most beloved films the last thirty five years,

10
00:00:35,479 --> 00:00:38,040
Speaker 1: a modern Italian classic that for once doesn't turn my

11
00:00:38,080 --> 00:00:43,400
Speaker 1: people into too much of a punch line. Many punch lines,

12
00:00:43,520 --> 00:00:47,920
Speaker 1: but they're they're affectionate ones whatever, much like cool Hand Luke.

13
00:00:48,520 --> 00:00:51,599
Speaker 1: Is there anyone who doesn't love Moonstruck? I don't want

14
00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:53,400
Speaker 1: to know, no one in this house. Keep them away

15
00:00:53,440 --> 00:00:55,040
Speaker 1: from me. No, I don't. I don't want them around

16
00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:59,120
Speaker 1: me because if you don't, what that hell's wrong with you? Um?

17
00:00:59,120 --> 00:01:01,040
Speaker 1: This is one of my family, these big comfort watches

18
00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:03,160
Speaker 1: like growing up. But I don't think I watched it

19
00:01:03,240 --> 00:01:05,160
Speaker 1: until like I was an adult, because I was always like,

20
00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:07,960
Speaker 1: they're watching the share rom com again. It is not

21
00:01:08,040 --> 00:01:12,399
Speaker 1: a romantic comedy. It is obsessed with death, very much

22
00:01:13,080 --> 00:01:16,800
Speaker 1: fixated upon death and the terrible, weird things that people

23
00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:20,080
Speaker 1: do because they're afraid to die. Pauline Kale summed up

24
00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:23,880
Speaker 1: perfectly as she always did. She described Moonstruck as rose tinted,

25
00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:26,880
Speaker 1: black comedy that's a giddy homage to our desire for

26
00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:31,960
Speaker 1: grand passion. Yeah, and I was busy watching Rumble in

27
00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:35,440
Speaker 1: the Bronx in the basement. Um, but man, it is

28
00:01:35,480 --> 00:01:38,800
Speaker 1: just it's sweet, it's sappy, it's funny, it's a little

29
00:01:38,840 --> 00:01:43,120
Speaker 1: bit sad. It's got shared Nicholas Cage, Danny Aello Jordan's

30
00:01:43,600 --> 00:01:46,360
Speaker 1: your thoughts on Moonstruck? Oh yeah, this movie is great. Um,

31
00:01:46,520 --> 00:01:49,000
Speaker 1: it's weird. I was always aware of it, but for

32
00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:51,480
Speaker 1: some reason, like you, I never actually sat down to

33
00:01:51,560 --> 00:01:56,240
Speaker 1: watch it until the pandemic. I think pandemic Freshman year. Oh,

34
00:01:56,360 --> 00:01:59,880
Speaker 1: the great coronavirus rediscovery of moons. Yeah, I had no

35
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:02,160
Speaker 1: idea that was a thing until researching this episode. But

36
00:02:02,160 --> 00:02:05,440
Speaker 1: apparently I was very much not alone in watching Moonstruck

37
00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:09,160
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. Ultra called it quote the morbid spaghetti

38
00:02:09,280 --> 00:02:12,079
Speaker 1: rom calm we all need right now, and New York

39
00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:15,680
Speaker 1: Times editors even echoed the sentiment, saying that under lockdown,

40
00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:18,680
Speaker 1: the film became a solve too many. I guess it's

41
00:02:18,680 --> 00:02:22,000
Speaker 1: a good comfort watch. Uh yeah, this was a big

42
00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:24,440
Speaker 1: one for my mother, who was Sicilian and grew up

43
00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:27,280
Speaker 1: in a very loud Sicilian household. But the type of

44
00:02:27,320 --> 00:02:30,200
Speaker 1: loud Sicilian household where the women didn't really yell back

45
00:02:30,680 --> 00:02:33,280
Speaker 1: my memory, so I think there was something cathartic for

46
00:02:33,360 --> 00:02:36,639
Speaker 1: her about seeing Share talking back to all these loud,

47
00:02:36,680 --> 00:02:40,679
Speaker 1: loudish men. And yeah, Share was always revered in my household.

48
00:02:40,880 --> 00:02:42,679
Speaker 1: I know my mom was in high school when the

49
00:02:42,720 --> 00:02:44,919
Speaker 1: Sunny and Share comedy Hour was on, and I always

50
00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:47,160
Speaker 1: got the sense that she like looked up to her

51
00:02:47,240 --> 00:02:49,080
Speaker 1: like a cool big sister. So she got a big

52
00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:52,440
Speaker 1: kick out of Moonstruck. I can't tell you the number

53
00:02:52,480 --> 00:02:54,880
Speaker 1: of times she did the snap out of it bit

54
00:02:55,040 --> 00:02:57,239
Speaker 1: if I was bummed or something as a kid. I

55
00:02:57,280 --> 00:02:59,120
Speaker 1: don't think I realized until later that it was a

56
00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:02,480
Speaker 1: reference to Nicholas Cage confessing his love for Share. Um.

57
00:03:02,520 --> 00:03:04,400
Speaker 1: I just thought it was snap out of being bummed

58
00:03:04,440 --> 00:03:08,160
Speaker 1: out until I was in my thirties. Moonstruck for those

59
00:03:08,200 --> 00:03:12,400
Speaker 1: who need a quick refresher course, of these sometimes convoluted,

60
00:03:12,440 --> 00:03:17,600
Speaker 1: farcical plot follows the trials and tribulations of Loretta Castarini

61
00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:20,480
Speaker 1: played by Share, a thirty something widow who agrees to

62
00:03:20,520 --> 00:03:24,720
Speaker 1: marry Johnny Camerary mostly out of common sense more than

63
00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:27,800
Speaker 1: anything else. And then she meets his brother, Ronnie, who's

64
00:03:27,840 --> 00:03:31,240
Speaker 1: a brutish but passionate baker who lost his hands played

65
00:03:31,240 --> 00:03:35,080
Speaker 1: by Nicolas Cage, and he sets her soul aflame. And

66
00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:38,680
Speaker 1: then there's Loretta's philandering father, her long suffering mother played

67
00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:42,000
Speaker 1: by Olympie Dicaucus, her grandfather who's a little too obsessed

68
00:03:42,040 --> 00:03:45,040
Speaker 1: with dogs, and a socially hopeless n y U professor

69
00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:48,200
Speaker 1: played by the dad from Fraser. I summed up, okay,

70
00:03:48,200 --> 00:03:53,360
Speaker 1: am I missing anybody? Big? Yeah you did? Yeah? I man, Chrissie,

71
00:03:53,360 --> 00:03:56,320
Speaker 1: bring me the big night. That's my favorite line from

72
00:03:56,320 --> 00:04:02,480
Speaker 1: this is it is an endlessly quotable movie. That yeah well,

73
00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:06,000
Speaker 1: from the rough and tumble Bronx playwright who penned the script,

74
00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:09,040
Speaker 1: to the iconic New York shooting locations, to the near

75
00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:11,960
Speaker 1: fist fights that erupted on set, to the one the

76
00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:24,560
Speaker 1: only Share. Here's everything you didn't know about Moonstruck Moonstruck

77
00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:27,560
Speaker 1: screenwriter John Patrick Shanley was born into an Irish American

78
00:04:27,560 --> 00:04:30,680
Speaker 1: family in the Bronx. His mother worked as a telephone operator,

79
00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:32,880
Speaker 1: and his father, who was an immigrant, was a meat packer.

80
00:04:33,320 --> 00:04:35,480
Speaker 1: The neighborhood, he told The New York Times magazine in

81
00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:39,680
Speaker 1: two thousand four, was extremely anti intellectual and extremely racist,

82
00:04:39,760 --> 00:04:42,840
Speaker 1: and none of this fit me. I was in constant

83
00:04:42,839 --> 00:04:45,280
Speaker 1: fist fights from the time I was six. I did

84
00:04:45,279 --> 00:04:51,200
Speaker 1: not particularly want to be one two cents. People would

85
00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:53,359
Speaker 1: look at me and become enraged at the sight of me.

86
00:04:55,040 --> 00:04:57,560
Speaker 1: I believe that the reason was that they could see

87
00:04:57,600 --> 00:05:00,520
Speaker 1: that I saw them, and they didn't like that. This

88
00:05:00,560 --> 00:05:03,280
Speaker 1: guy is a quote machine, as we will discover. I

89
00:05:03,320 --> 00:05:05,760
Speaker 1: also didn't realize until I was researching this, he wrote,

90
00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:10,240
Speaker 1: doubt what one of the most like crippling like Irish

91
00:05:10,279 --> 00:05:15,280
Speaker 1: Catholic oscar bait Philips. Yeah, I didn't realize that either,

92
00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:20,159
Speaker 1: Yeah uh he And this is an interview gave to Vulture.

93
00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:23,400
Speaker 1: He said, I was like, I want to be a poet.

94
00:05:23,800 --> 00:05:26,200
Speaker 1: That was about the most unrealistic thing a kid whose

95
00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:27,760
Speaker 1: father was a meat packer and whose mother is a

96
00:05:27,800 --> 00:05:30,799
Speaker 1: telephone operator could come up with. What's more, I didn't

97
00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:32,880
Speaker 1: want to just be any poet. I wanted to be

98
00:05:32,960 --> 00:05:36,359
Speaker 1: Cyrano diversierac. And his youth is filled with these like

99
00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:40,279
Speaker 1: really dickenzie and is a word that keeps coming up

100
00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:45,400
Speaker 1: the too much information archives, but that's the word for it.

101
00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:48,680
Speaker 1: He went to a Cardinal Spellman High School, which is

102
00:05:48,760 --> 00:05:52,400
Speaker 1: run by Irish Christian brothers, who he said, they beat

103
00:05:52,480 --> 00:05:56,360
Speaker 1: children with their fists. I saw two pound brother put

104
00:05:56,360 --> 00:05:59,359
Speaker 1: a boy, a little gangly boy, against a wall and

105
00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:01,320
Speaker 1: hit him in the stomach as hard as he could.

106
00:06:01,800 --> 00:06:04,159
Speaker 1: But he told Vulture. By going out in the world,

107
00:06:04,240 --> 00:06:05,920
Speaker 1: I found many of the things that I saw it.

108
00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:08,440
Speaker 1: When I wrote Moonstruck, I was in an Irish and

109
00:06:08,440 --> 00:06:11,520
Speaker 1: Italian neighborhood. I would go to the Italian American households,

110
00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:13,560
Speaker 1: and the woman serving me dinner had three buttons on

111
00:06:13,600 --> 00:06:18,120
Speaker 1: her blouse undone and was handing me a bowl of pasta,

112
00:06:19,080 --> 00:06:23,200
Speaker 1: again playfully stereotypical. Here it's all in good fun. I

113
00:06:23,279 --> 00:06:25,080
Speaker 1: was like, this is a lot better than what's going

114
00:06:25,120 --> 00:06:27,800
Speaker 1: on in my house. So I took everything from my household,

115
00:06:27,839 --> 00:06:30,440
Speaker 1: which was very good talk and intellectual rigor of a kind,

116
00:06:30,680 --> 00:06:33,919
Speaker 1: and everything from the Italian American household to build something new.

117
00:06:34,680 --> 00:06:37,839
Speaker 1: Shandley had written a number of plays performed off Broadway

118
00:06:37,880 --> 00:06:40,680
Speaker 1: and in London before Moonstruck, which he wrote on spec

119
00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:44,479
Speaker 1: and sent to the film's director Norman Jewison. I was,

120
00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:47,080
Speaker 1: in a way trying to get what I wanted, Schandley

121
00:06:47,120 --> 00:06:49,880
Speaker 1: continued to Vulture. First of all, I wanted to describe

122
00:06:49,880 --> 00:06:52,039
Speaker 1: a family that worked. He has a he had a

123
00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:55,800
Speaker 1: bad relationship with his parents. He talks about a lot

124
00:06:55,839 --> 00:06:58,640
Speaker 1: in those interviews. When I thought, what would that family

125
00:06:58,680 --> 00:07:00,520
Speaker 1: look like? It would look like the family that I

126
00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:03,200
Speaker 1: wrote in Moonstruck. Then I wanted to be like, what

127
00:07:03,279 --> 00:07:06,159
Speaker 1: would a relationship look like? That I find exciting. It

128
00:07:06,240 --> 00:07:09,159
Speaker 1: involved very big feelings that I had, which were described

129
00:07:09,200 --> 00:07:12,840
Speaker 1: by many as more operatic than realistic. The language in

130
00:07:12,880 --> 00:07:17,280
Speaker 1: Moonstruck was very stylized. Shanley told Bomb magazine. I remember

131
00:07:17,320 --> 00:07:20,240
Speaker 1: somebody saying people don't talk that way, but if he

132
00:07:20,320 --> 00:07:22,840
Speaker 1: talks that way in a movie, you buy it. There's

133
00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:25,640
Speaker 1: truth and not truth in that. I said, well, it's

134
00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:27,360
Speaker 1: not the way all people talk. But I was on

135
00:07:27,400 --> 00:07:29,600
Speaker 1: the train and I heard two women talking and they

136
00:07:29,640 --> 00:07:34,160
Speaker 1: were talking in the exact style of Moonstruck. Jewison got

137
00:07:34,160 --> 00:07:37,360
Speaker 1: the script with this original title The Bride and the

138
00:07:37,360 --> 00:07:42,200
Speaker 1: Wolf terrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Jewison said, I said

139
00:07:42,280 --> 00:07:44,640
Speaker 1: the Bride and the Wolf. It sounds like a horror film.

140
00:07:44,680 --> 00:07:46,800
Speaker 1: This is him talking to the directors Good of America

141
00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:49,560
Speaker 1: in an interview. So we had a big battle about that,

142
00:07:49,640 --> 00:07:52,280
Speaker 1: and it ended up being called Moonstruck because I convinced

143
00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:55,080
Speaker 1: Shanley it's about the moon. Everybody's talking about the moon.

144
00:07:55,120 --> 00:07:57,160
Speaker 1: The father is talking about the moon, the full moon.

145
00:07:57,400 --> 00:07:59,840
Speaker 1: They keep shooting the moon. It should be called something.

146
00:08:00,240 --> 00:08:02,960
Speaker 1: What is it? She's moonstruck. That's a good title. So

147
00:08:03,040 --> 00:08:06,160
Speaker 1: we called the Moonstruck. And in his memoir, Juison calls

148
00:08:06,200 --> 00:08:08,920
Speaker 1: the original title quote one of the worst I've ever seen.

149
00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:13,000
Speaker 1: And he asked Shanley's agent, Janine Edmonds, who else had

150
00:08:13,040 --> 00:08:15,440
Speaker 1: had a chance at the dog eared, copy stained, well

151
00:08:15,520 --> 00:08:19,960
Speaker 1: thumb script. Everybody? She told him she was his producing partner.

152
00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:23,520
Speaker 1: Patrick Palmer hated the script so much that he called

153
00:08:23,680 --> 00:08:25,760
Speaker 1: Edmonds to yell at her for sending him such a

154
00:08:25,760 --> 00:08:30,240
Speaker 1: bad script. That is incredible. Hollywood was a mean place,

155
00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:33,719
Speaker 1: calling an agent to tell him, you hate to de

156
00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:39,679
Speaker 1: berate her for sending that caliber of script to you. Shanley,

157
00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:42,880
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, is a quote machine from a Vulture interview,

158
00:08:42,880 --> 00:08:45,520
Speaker 1: he said, I had a nameless ache in my heart

159
00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:47,360
Speaker 1: every time I looked at the moon when I was

160
00:08:47,400 --> 00:08:50,440
Speaker 1: growing up. I couldn't believe it existed. I wanted to

161
00:08:50,480 --> 00:08:53,360
Speaker 1: go there. I was floored by the specificity of it,

162
00:08:53,440 --> 00:08:56,079
Speaker 1: the craters, the rough edges of it, and the light

163
00:08:56,160 --> 00:08:58,760
Speaker 1: that had shone on me and everything around me. That changed.

164
00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:01,920
Speaker 1: Light changes every thing. There's a daytime world in a

165
00:09:02,040 --> 00:09:04,800
Speaker 1: nighttime world. When I was a boy, I remember telling

166
00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:07,679
Speaker 1: my brother Jim that I could run significantly faster at

167
00:09:07,800 --> 00:09:10,480
Speaker 1: night than I could in the daytime. What I didn't

168
00:09:10,480 --> 00:09:12,280
Speaker 1: tell him was that I also thought I was a horse.

169
00:09:14,800 --> 00:09:18,160
Speaker 1: I kind of don't like this guy. I don't know

170
00:09:18,200 --> 00:09:23,360
Speaker 1: how you made that through this. It's just funny. If

171
00:09:23,360 --> 00:09:25,560
Speaker 1: you imagine him reading, if you imagine like reading it

172
00:09:25,640 --> 00:09:29,040
Speaker 1: in the like it basically Nick Cage's voice, like like

173
00:09:29,200 --> 00:09:34,440
Speaker 1: then it's suddenly this thrown into clear relief. Funnily enough.

174
00:09:34,600 --> 00:09:38,520
Speaker 1: Speaking of hoofed mammals, she was an actually raised cattle

175
00:09:38,640 --> 00:09:41,480
Speaker 1: on his own farm outside of Toronto. He told the

176
00:09:41,600 --> 00:09:44,800
Speaker 1: l a times, I'm a farmer, so I know the

177
00:09:44,840 --> 00:09:48,000
Speaker 1: moon affects animals, and I think the moon affects humans

178
00:09:48,040 --> 00:09:50,800
Speaker 1: to a greater extent than most of us recognize. By

179
00:09:50,800 --> 00:09:55,480
Speaker 1: way of an example, he named Steve McQueen, he directed

180
00:09:55,480 --> 00:09:58,400
Speaker 1: in Cincinnati Kid and the Thomas Crown Affair, and who,

181
00:09:58,440 --> 00:10:01,480
Speaker 1: he said quote was really affected by the full moon.

182
00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:05,839
Speaker 1: He did become very strange irrational behavior, like calling it

183
00:10:05,960 --> 00:10:08,600
Speaker 1: three in the morning and saying I feel threatened and

184
00:10:08,679 --> 00:10:12,160
Speaker 1: running away, usually to an open place, usually out in

185
00:10:12,160 --> 00:10:18,560
Speaker 1: the desert somewhere. Just Steve mccleen becoming spooked by the

186
00:10:18,559 --> 00:10:22,840
Speaker 1: full moon directed to say he feels threatened and running

187
00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:26,839
Speaker 1: into the desert. I feel threatens up there with I'm

188
00:10:26,880 --> 00:10:32,760
Speaker 1: taking steps. I'm taking steps. Wow uh. Jewison liked the

189
00:10:32,800 --> 00:10:35,800
Speaker 1: snappy dialogue. He said the language certainly attracted me to

190
00:10:35,840 --> 00:10:38,800
Speaker 1: the project. I like to call Shanley the Bard of

191
00:10:38,840 --> 00:10:41,800
Speaker 1: the bronx Ah. He also like the characters, some of

192
00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:44,680
Speaker 1: which were drawn from real life. Shanley told Vulture, I

193
00:10:44,679 --> 00:10:46,800
Speaker 1: was writing about versions of real people I have known,

194
00:10:46,880 --> 00:10:49,240
Speaker 1: and versions of myself. I mean, I grew up with

195
00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:51,040
Speaker 1: two guys. One of them lost his hand in a

196
00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:54,240
Speaker 1: bread slicing machine and another lost his foot pushing his

197
00:10:54,360 --> 00:10:56,840
Speaker 1: car off the inner State. I still know the guy

198
00:10:56,880 --> 00:10:59,480
Speaker 1: who lost his foot. The guy who lost his hand died.

199
00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:03,079
Speaker 1: His son contacted me and said, was my father and

200
00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:08,760
Speaker 1: inspiration for Moonstruck. I said absolutely. Um, actually maybe it's walking.

201
00:11:09,040 --> 00:11:10,880
Speaker 1: Maybe that's that you got to read everything in the

202
00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:18,160
Speaker 1: walking said so, Shanley continued to Vulture. I flew to

203
00:11:18,160 --> 00:11:21,200
Speaker 1: Toronto and Jewis and I acted out all the parts

204
00:11:21,240 --> 00:11:23,920
Speaker 1: across the desk from each other. He got it. We

205
00:11:24,040 --> 00:11:26,840
Speaker 1: had a very similar sense of humor. He didn't attempt

206
00:11:26,920 --> 00:11:28,400
Speaker 1: to mess with it. Yeah, it's funny. In one of

207
00:11:28,440 --> 00:11:30,760
Speaker 1: the documentaries, juwis And is like, uh, yeah, I got

208
00:11:30,760 --> 00:11:33,320
Speaker 1: this script and you know, la la la, And my

209
00:11:33,360 --> 00:11:35,280
Speaker 1: agent said, okay, the writer wants to come up in

210
00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:38,360
Speaker 1: audition with you. And he's like he's he's the writer

211
00:11:38,440 --> 00:11:40,080
Speaker 1: and he wants to audition. And she was like, I

212
00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:43,120
Speaker 1: think he wants to read it to you, which is

213
00:11:43,400 --> 00:11:46,760
Speaker 1: not really something you do, especially this was his second

214
00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:49,440
Speaker 1: script that he'd written. He was not like a known quantity.

215
00:11:49,880 --> 00:11:52,000
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's this guy's he's got hut spy.

216
00:11:52,040 --> 00:11:54,959
Speaker 1: I like him. According to The Hollywood Reporter, jewish And

217
00:11:55,040 --> 00:11:59,480
Speaker 1: first brought Shanley script. MGM Chief executive Officer Alan Ladd Jr.

218
00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:02,959
Speaker 1: At the Night five Toronto Film Festival. Although Jewison is

219
00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:05,600
Speaker 1: in the midst of signing a contract with Columbia Pictures

220
00:12:05,640 --> 00:12:07,720
Speaker 1: at the time and was therefore required to give the

221
00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:11,640
Speaker 1: studio a first look option, Columbia had David Putnam permitted

222
00:12:11,679 --> 00:12:14,640
Speaker 1: Jewison to show the property to other studios and MGM

223
00:12:14,679 --> 00:12:17,760
Speaker 1: requested a deal within twenty four hours. Shanley said that

224
00:12:17,800 --> 00:12:20,040
Speaker 1: he did not have anyone in mind for the characters,

225
00:12:20,080 --> 00:12:22,760
Speaker 1: but Jewison did and that was the one, the only

226
00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:27,240
Speaker 1: the mother, truck and chair. According to Ira Well's book

227
00:12:27,280 --> 00:12:29,839
Speaker 1: on Jewison from just last year, called A Director's Life,

228
00:12:30,160 --> 00:12:32,720
Speaker 1: MGM had lots of actresses in mind for the starring role.

229
00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:36,360
Speaker 1: Demmy Moore, which would made sense coming off all the

230
00:12:36,360 --> 00:12:39,600
Speaker 1: brad Pack stuff. Pretty young though for being like like

231
00:12:39,600 --> 00:12:42,559
Speaker 1: like a mid thirties Yeah, that's true. Well, the other

232
00:12:42,600 --> 00:12:47,080
Speaker 1: ones then make more sense. Barbra streisand Liza Minnelli, which

233
00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:50,720
Speaker 1: would have been very different film. And Rosetta ar Quent,

234
00:12:51,240 --> 00:12:55,760
Speaker 1: who have been interesting. Um shares role in Robert Altman's

235
00:12:55,920 --> 00:12:58,600
Speaker 1: come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean,

236
00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:02,199
Speaker 1: which is a long and awkward movie title. Uh is

237
00:13:02,240 --> 00:13:05,360
Speaker 1: that one of your favorite altman's No, no, not at all.

238
00:13:07,320 --> 00:13:10,600
Speaker 1: I'm a man parish parish. The thought, yeah, I mean

239
00:13:10,800 --> 00:13:13,920
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone really liked that. If I remember, well,

240
00:13:14,080 --> 00:13:18,040
Speaker 1: the Golden Globes did because Share was nominated for that

241
00:13:18,080 --> 00:13:20,320
Speaker 1: and God started getting work as an actress again for that.

242
00:13:20,559 --> 00:13:24,679
Speaker 1: But apparently again in researching this, I just was always like, oh, yeah, boody,

243
00:13:24,679 --> 00:13:26,760
Speaker 1: start people love Share because this was where I went.

244
00:13:26,920 --> 00:13:30,559
Speaker 1: This was turn back Time, was her big mid eighties hit.

245
00:13:30,880 --> 00:13:35,080
Speaker 1: Yea was that I think? Yeah, so this would have

246
00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:37,640
Speaker 1: been Yeah, she would have been hot then, but apparently not.

247
00:13:38,040 --> 00:13:40,839
Speaker 1: In that Wells book, he founds the surveys conducted by

248
00:13:40,920 --> 00:13:45,439
Speaker 1: the private firm Marketing Evaluations, who are famous for this

249
00:13:45,559 --> 00:13:48,880
Speaker 1: thing called a Q score, which is there supposedly objective

250
00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:52,680
Speaker 1: measure of brand appeal. That's their invention, right, because it's

251
00:13:52,679 --> 00:13:55,160
Speaker 1: always excited. It's always in like place that people's like

252
00:13:55,200 --> 00:14:01,319
Speaker 1: Wikipedia pages like yeah exactly. Stephen Levitt, who is the

253
00:14:01,360 --> 00:14:04,000
Speaker 1: company's president, said she's never been as popular as she

254
00:14:04,120 --> 00:14:07,920
Speaker 1: was when she was on television in nineteen four. My prediction,

255
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:10,040
Speaker 1: based on the data we have is that people are

256
00:14:10,080 --> 00:14:11,760
Speaker 1: not going to go out of their way to see

257
00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:14,240
Speaker 1: a movie she's in, even sardon nev I hopes for

258
00:14:14,240 --> 00:14:17,240
Speaker 1: this she just finished, which is in Eastwick, and she said,

259
00:14:17,280 --> 00:14:19,360
Speaker 1: as much as I liked Moonstruck, as we're talking to

260
00:14:19,400 --> 00:14:21,840
Speaker 1: the l a times, it wasn't like Mask, which I

261
00:14:21,880 --> 00:14:23,720
Speaker 1: felt like I just had to do. I was a

262
00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:25,880
Speaker 1: little frightened because there seemed to be all kinds of

263
00:14:25,920 --> 00:14:29,000
Speaker 1: possibilities and all kinds of risks here. I wondered if

264
00:14:29,040 --> 00:14:30,840
Speaker 1: at this point in my career, when there might be

265
00:14:30,920 --> 00:14:33,480
Speaker 1: some people out there interested in seeing my movies, that

266
00:14:33,560 --> 00:14:36,640
Speaker 1: they might accept me in this role. Shared worked on

267
00:14:36,680 --> 00:14:40,120
Speaker 1: a Brooklyn accent with Julie Bavasso, who played John Travolta's

268
00:14:40,160 --> 00:14:45,160
Speaker 1: mother and Saturday Night Fever. Bovaso literally recorded all of

269
00:14:45,200 --> 00:14:47,760
Speaker 1: SHARE's lines in the film on the a tape recorder,

270
00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:50,840
Speaker 1: which Jewison made her listen to over and over and

271
00:14:50,920 --> 00:14:53,800
Speaker 1: over again. I mean, for a musician and a singer,

272
00:14:53,880 --> 00:14:56,560
Speaker 1: that's kind of a good way to get people in. Yeah,

273
00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:59,000
Speaker 1: that makes a lot of sense. Sharon said she much

274
00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:03,280
Speaker 1: preferred playing the pre makeover Loretta, saying the freedom is

275
00:15:03,320 --> 00:15:06,320
Speaker 1: not interesting to me because that's something I know. Usually

276
00:15:07,320 --> 00:15:09,280
Speaker 1: it's so funny that they were like. They were like, oh,

277
00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:11,600
Speaker 1: she's like dowdy and giving up on life, and it's

278
00:15:11,680 --> 00:15:15,120
Speaker 1: just shared with like a few gray hairs. She's still

279
00:15:15,160 --> 00:15:19,600
Speaker 1: like an objectively beautiful woman. It was like rail thin

280
00:15:19,840 --> 00:15:23,320
Speaker 1: and striking in every way. And they're like, just may

281
00:15:23,400 --> 00:15:25,080
Speaker 1: put her hair in her butt and give her like

282
00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:30,040
Speaker 1: one or two grays. Let's give a sweater. Yeah, yeah,

283
00:15:30,240 --> 00:15:32,440
Speaker 1: she said. My father's our Median and my mother is

284
00:15:32,520 --> 00:15:35,520
Speaker 1: French and Cherokee Indian. And the truth is that characters

285
00:15:35,560 --> 00:15:38,000
Speaker 1: in the film aren't like my family at all. This

286
00:15:38,080 --> 00:15:40,280
Speaker 1: is her talking in the film's promotional packet when it

287
00:15:40,360 --> 00:15:43,160
Speaker 1: was released, but The Times quoted her as saying it

288
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:46,560
Speaker 1: kind of reminded me of Sonny's family. Sonny Bono's family.

289
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:49,560
Speaker 1: Everybody eating and talking and shouting, but you have such

290
00:15:49,600 --> 00:15:53,720
Speaker 1: good times. Sonny Bono was born in Detroit to Zenna

291
00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:58,000
Speaker 1: de Mercurio and Santo Bono. So yeah, it sounds about right.

292
00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:00,240
Speaker 1: She was mother just died the other day. Well, let's

293
00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:02,640
Speaker 1: do this episode as a tribute to Share his mom. Share.

294
00:16:02,680 --> 00:16:05,480
Speaker 1: His mother was still alive. Holy, she was like ninety

295
00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:10,800
Speaker 1: two or ninety six. I forget wow. Um Share was

296
00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:12,440
Speaker 1: not convinced that the movie was going to be a

297
00:16:12,480 --> 00:16:15,400
Speaker 1: hit or even good, which was apparently the mood on

298
00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:17,560
Speaker 1: the side. Learning about the making of this movie, I

299
00:16:17,600 --> 00:16:22,360
Speaker 1: have to say it was depressing because it was apparently, yeah,

300
00:16:22,360 --> 00:16:25,280
Speaker 1: we'll get into it. Olympia Dukakis, who plays her mother

301
00:16:25,320 --> 00:16:28,320
Speaker 1: in the film, famously one a an oscar for it,

302
00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:31,920
Speaker 1: which also like completely changed the trajectory of her career,

303
00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:34,560
Speaker 1: told the t V Club as a matter of fact,

304
00:16:34,680 --> 00:16:37,280
Speaker 1: one day we were sitting around talking and somebody asked

305
00:16:37,320 --> 00:16:40,120
Speaker 1: Share what she thought was going to happen with the movie,

306
00:16:40,360 --> 00:16:43,640
Speaker 1: and she gave it the thumbs down. Nobody really expected

307
00:16:43,640 --> 00:16:45,720
Speaker 1: too much out of it, and then look what happened,

308
00:16:45,880 --> 00:16:48,640
Speaker 1: and that's because we were all stupid and didn't understand

309
00:16:48,640 --> 00:16:52,720
Speaker 1: what Norman jewis and was really doing. It's widely known

310
00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:54,840
Speaker 1: that Ducacus was only fifteen years older than Share in

311
00:16:54,880 --> 00:16:58,480
Speaker 1: the film, but supposedly her repeated groan in the film

312
00:16:58,560 --> 00:17:01,520
Speaker 1: is a nod to Dustin Offman's characters tick in The

313
00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:04,320
Speaker 1: Graduate that he does just funny because in the Graduate

314
00:17:04,400 --> 00:17:07,840
Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffman is only five years younger than Mrs Robinson's

315
00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:12,360
Speaker 1: and Bancroft, who I believe was considered for the Olympia

316
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:17,560
Speaker 1: Ducocus role in Oh Yeah Woundstruck, as was Marine Stapleton,

317
00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:21,600
Speaker 1: who I guess was too expensive, and Danny Ielo, for

318
00:17:21,640 --> 00:17:25,520
Speaker 1: what It's worth, is thirty one years older than the Cage,

319
00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:30,280
Speaker 1: who is supposed to his younger brother oh Um. In

320
00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:33,199
Speaker 1: the documentary about the film, h Shanley says that when

321
00:17:33,280 --> 00:17:36,480
Speaker 1: Jewison originally approached Chair, she straight up told him I

322
00:17:36,520 --> 00:17:39,160
Speaker 1: think you should know I'm very difficult to get along with,

323
00:17:39,840 --> 00:17:45,359
Speaker 1: which kudos to her. I love her like insecure confidence

324
00:17:45,600 --> 00:17:47,439
Speaker 1: is the only way I can think of to put it.

325
00:17:47,640 --> 00:17:50,800
Speaker 1: Like she seems to be so neurotic but also so

326
00:17:50,880 --> 00:17:54,879
Speaker 1: confident and also completely like okay with her neuroses. Like

327
00:17:54,920 --> 00:17:56,840
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole of Sunny and Share being a

328
00:17:56,920 --> 00:18:00,119
Speaker 1: duo was he wanted to make her a sing here

329
00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:02,879
Speaker 1: because he worked under Phil Specter and she was nervous

330
00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:05,040
Speaker 1: to sing along. He would just stand in the studio

331
00:18:05,119 --> 00:18:07,359
Speaker 1: with her and stand next to her on the mic

332
00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:10,199
Speaker 1: and sing with her to basically calm her down. And

333
00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:13,760
Speaker 1: that's how that all started. Yeah, and she's, uh, you know,

334
00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:16,720
Speaker 1: she just she really did know what she wanted though,

335
00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:21,920
Speaker 1: I mean the famously when when she recorded Believe they

336
00:18:21,960 --> 00:18:25,520
Speaker 1: went to one of the label heads, was like, what

337
00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:28,679
Speaker 1: is that stuff on your voice, like your Share, We

338
00:18:28,720 --> 00:18:31,200
Speaker 1: don't need that like effect on that on the voice,

339
00:18:31,200 --> 00:18:33,960
Speaker 1: and she was like it stays or the song doesn't

340
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:40,120
Speaker 1: come out, and she launched auto tune as a specific effect. Yeah,

341
00:18:40,200 --> 00:18:42,840
Speaker 1: and uh so there. But there were reports at the

342
00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:45,840
Speaker 1: time that she just did not take direction well, which

343
00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:50,199
Speaker 1: has been basically verified um and that she clashed with

344
00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:54,800
Speaker 1: Jewison Olympiad Caucus even thought apparently that people close to

345
00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:58,119
Speaker 1: Share had told her not to do the film. Julie

346
00:18:58,160 --> 00:19:00,720
Speaker 1: Bavasso said that there were certain things Norman had a

347
00:19:00,720 --> 00:19:04,000
Speaker 1: lot of trouble getting from Share, but Dacacus went to

348
00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:06,879
Speaker 1: bad for her. She said that ultimately she just thought

349
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:09,359
Speaker 1: it was that Share had been through the music industry

350
00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:13,080
Speaker 1: ringer and at forty was just like, I'm not taking

351
00:19:13,280 --> 00:19:17,280
Speaker 1: from you from any man, she said. I think she's

352
00:19:17,280 --> 00:19:19,280
Speaker 1: been through so much and she's been very aware of

353
00:19:19,280 --> 00:19:25,120
Speaker 1: people controlling her, so that she's really on guard. We're

354
00:19:25,119 --> 00:19:27,200
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break, but we'll be right

355
00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:29,879
Speaker 1: back with more too much information and just a moment.

356
00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:49,080
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise, Bill Murray, and Ray Liotta were all considered

357
00:19:49,119 --> 00:19:51,439
Speaker 1: for the part of Ronnie that ultimately went to Nick Cage.

358
00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:57,800
Speaker 1: Those are bad. Those are really bad. I mean, also, though,

359
00:19:58,800 --> 00:20:01,640
Speaker 1: how earlier, how much early, elier than this was Peggy's

360
00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:03,960
Speaker 1: Got Married, Like, if you look at the Peggy Got

361
00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:06,879
Speaker 1: Married was eighty six, raising Arizona. I was thinking of

362
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:09,399
Speaker 1: where he's that that makes more sense, But I was

363
00:20:09,440 --> 00:20:12,399
Speaker 1: gonna say, like, I don't think I would have immediately

364
00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:19,359
Speaker 1: thought of Nicholas Cage for this. He's ugly cut not ugly,

365
00:20:19,480 --> 00:20:22,920
Speaker 1: but no, but he's like he's weird looking. He has

366
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:26,000
Speaker 1: that like hangdog kind of quality, and like he cleans

367
00:20:26,040 --> 00:20:28,080
Speaker 1: up really well. He's so cute in his little tucks

368
00:20:28,080 --> 00:20:30,840
Speaker 1: with the opera scarf and everything. But yeah, I mean

369
00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:35,719
Speaker 1: he's not he's not classically leading mannish and uh just

370
00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:39,959
Speaker 1: a weird dude. It's really weird, dude. The funniest thing

371
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:44,640
Speaker 1: was that Jewison wrote needs style and too young next

372
00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:49,560
Speaker 1: to ray Leona's name, and he was ten years older

373
00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:53,040
Speaker 1: than Nicolas Cage. Yeah. I kept writing reading this, I

374
00:20:53,119 --> 00:20:56,119
Speaker 1: wasn't able to pin it down. But um, apparently MGM

375
00:20:56,160 --> 00:21:03,280
Speaker 1: wanted Peter Gallagher famously the eyebrows behind uh uh Cohen's

376
00:21:03,359 --> 00:21:06,560
Speaker 1: dad in the O C. Yeah, and they went as

377
00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:10,720
Speaker 1: far as to screen test him, but share much like

378
00:21:10,800 --> 00:21:13,320
Speaker 1: with Believe in the auto tune, she was like it's

379
00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:17,639
Speaker 1: Nick Cage or I Walk God Lover. Her page was

380
00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:19,480
Speaker 1: just twenty three years old of the time, was coming

381
00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:21,800
Speaker 1: off raising Arizona and Peggy Sue got married, and he

382
00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:25,879
Speaker 1: was missing two front teeth, which he had removed for

383
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:30,840
Speaker 1: his role in nine Birdie. He had them removed. I'm

384
00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:33,080
Speaker 1: reading that it says that he had them pulled out

385
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:39,240
Speaker 1: without anesthesia to better understand his character. You can't get

386
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 1: those back. I think actors are less precious about their

387
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:48,879
Speaker 1: teeth than they're just like, just take them out putting

388
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:52,960
Speaker 1: the porcelain. They last longer. Uh, because Shyla Buff did

389
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:55,840
Speaker 1: that for one of his for one of his dumb movies.

390
00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:59,240
Speaker 1: He like yanked, yanked a tooth out and like self

391
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:01,199
Speaker 1: more like on his face like it was for the

392
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:03,880
Speaker 1: Tank movie. It's so funny to me that Chila Buff

393
00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,520
Speaker 1: is like all method and weird for all this stuff,

394
00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:09,000
Speaker 1: and and like none of those movies make any money.

395
00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:12,400
Speaker 1: All of his big box office movies of the Transformers

396
00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:20,359
Speaker 1: films and Holes done lately. Um, we'll get sued or

397
00:22:20,480 --> 00:22:23,920
Speaker 1: getting me too. Um Cage did not want to make

398
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:27,399
Speaker 1: this movie. Funnily enough, I told the Baltimore Son I

399
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:30,040
Speaker 1: read the screenplayed the Moonstruck and thought I would never

400
00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 1: pay money to see this film, but my agent insisted

401
00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:36,160
Speaker 1: I do it, practically forced me to do it. When

402
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 1: I saw the finished film, I didn't know what in

403
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:40,240
Speaker 1: the world to make of it. That was my eraor

404
00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:43,639
Speaker 1: of wanting to make new wave alternative films, And apparently

405
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:47,120
Speaker 1: we have Moonstruck to thank for. For cages next film,

406
00:22:47,240 --> 00:22:51,240
Speaker 1: Vampires Kiss, the absolute peak cage movie. That's where you

407
00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:55,800
Speaker 1: get the popular as era, back when we had those

408
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:59,240
Speaker 1: things called rage comics. That you don't say Nick Cage meme.

409
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:02,520
Speaker 1: That's for um Vampires Kiss from the scene which he

410
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 1: famously recites the entire alphabet ah. He also eats a

411
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 1: live cockroach in that movie on camera. He told USA

412
00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:13,119
Speaker 1: today one I made moon Struck on a deal with

413
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:16,679
Speaker 1: my then agent, Edlamtto. I was desperately trying to get

414
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:20,040
Speaker 1: him to say yes to me doing Vampires Kiss. He said, no,

415
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,119
Speaker 1: you're not going to wear those stupid plastic things. I

416
00:23:23,160 --> 00:23:26,280
Speaker 1: want you to look handsome do Moonstruck. And I said,

417
00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 1: I don't want to do Moonstruck like a surly teen

418
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:32,080
Speaker 1: I wanted to be punk rock. I didn't want to

419
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:34,880
Speaker 1: do a schmaltzy movie about opera. But I said, if

420
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,399
Speaker 1: I do Moonstruck, will you let me do vampires Kiss?

421
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:40,840
Speaker 1: And he said, Okay, I don't think agents had that

422
00:23:40,920 --> 00:23:44,160
Speaker 1: kind of creative sway, like you know who says they

423
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:47,840
Speaker 1: let an actor do anything like I mean, he was

424
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 1: twenty three, like I don't know he was had the

425
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:53,439
Speaker 1: juice to be fighting over stuff like this. He just

426
00:23:53,480 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: really wanted to play a vampire struck from Moonstruck. Okay.

427
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:04,960
Speaker 1: Age did what Cage does best, supposedly quote almost entirely

428
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 1: nocturnal during shooting. According to Jewison, he uh patterned his

429
00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:15,479
Speaker 1: character's gestures on classic German expressionist cinema, like the Cabinet

430
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:20,520
Speaker 1: of Dr Calagwerry and Fritz Lang's seven classic Metropolis. There's

431
00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:23,320
Speaker 1: I we watched um the unbearable weight of massive talent

432
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 1: and a cage like meta comedy. It's good. It's better

433
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:28,399
Speaker 1: than I gave it any credit for being. But the

434
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:31,240
Speaker 1: Cabinet of Dr Caligary is a prominent plot point because

435
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 1: he keeps trying to like dragoon his teen daughter into

436
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:36,720
Speaker 1: watching it, So his obsession with that movie he's real

437
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,280
Speaker 1: and has been fomenting for a very long time. My

438
00:24:39,320 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 1: favorite Nicholas Cage fact is the fact that no one,

439
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:46,040
Speaker 1: ever since Elvis Presley died, has been allowed upstairs at Graceland.

440
00:24:46,080 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 1: It was basically sealed or supposedly left exactly the way

441
00:24:49,119 --> 00:24:51,199
Speaker 1: it was the day all of us died, to the

442
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: point where like styrofoam cups that were just on encounters

443
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 1: and stuff were left, you know, almost like some kind

444
00:24:57,640 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: of weird roaches, right. But ever since grace Land was

445
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:05,880
Speaker 1: turned into a tourist attraction, Japanese prime ministers and all

446
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 1: these high ranking people have come to visit, and they

447
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 1: all want to see Elvis's private quarters at Graceland's the

448
00:25:12,760 --> 00:25:15,200
Speaker 1: place where he went to seek refuge from fame, and

449
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:17,679
Speaker 1: that was the place where he died. Nobody is allowed

450
00:25:17,720 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: up nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody except Nicholas Cage because

451
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:25,920
Speaker 1: he was married to Lisa Marie. He apparently, when he's

452
00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:30,200
Speaker 1: like one of the only people outside the head curator

453
00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: at Graceland, Lisa Marie and Priscilla who went up into

454
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:39,119
Speaker 1: Elvis's bedroom at Graceland, Apparently, I ready, like tried on

455
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:42,879
Speaker 1: when I always his leather jackets, like sat on the

456
00:25:42,920 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 1: bed or something. I read some story about like what

457
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: he did up there. I think I read. I think

458
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 1: I read that he like got into like the fetal

459
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: position at the place where he died. That scans I

460
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:04,480
Speaker 1: saw his um, his grave he supposedly bought in New Orleans. Yeah,

461
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: his prepaid mausoleum. And I was gonna say, does he

462
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: still because I thought he was broke and needed to

463
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:13,200
Speaker 1: resell stuff. I don't know if he's sold that. Let's

464
00:26:13,240 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 1: find out its cage New Orleans. Have you ever seen

465
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:22,840
Speaker 1: the picture of him in in the Superman costume from

466
00:26:22,880 --> 00:26:25,679
Speaker 1: the Tim Burton movie? Noh you, This is like the

467
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 1: third time that has come up on the shop. It's

468
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:31,080
Speaker 1: just a very funny. Well, oh yeah, he still owns it.

469
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: He did not sell it. I was right. The secret

470
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:36,640
Speaker 1: visit to upstairs at Graceland took place during the week

471
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:39,960
Speaker 1: of the anniversary of Elvis's death, at which time it

472
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 1: is said that Nicholas Cage sat on the king's throne,

473
00:26:43,359 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 1: the toilet where he died, assumed the prone position in

474
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:48,919
Speaker 1: which Elvis died, and laid on the Singer's bed and

475
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:55,920
Speaker 1: tried on a leather jacket. Weird he oh he built it. Mausoleum, Yeah,

476
00:26:55,960 --> 00:27:01,040
Speaker 1: it's a pyramid that apparently cemetery history ends in New Orleans.

477
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: People have derided as like tacky and not in keeping

478
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: with the rest of them, with the rest of the mausoleum,

479
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 1: like the style of the graves and Mausoleum's most too clean.

480
00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 1: It looks like the back of the dollar bill. It

481
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: looks just it isn't inscribed with the Latin phrase omnia

482
00:27:16,359 --> 00:27:23,920
Speaker 1: ab uno, a motto popularized by the Rosicrucians um everything

483
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: from one mm hmm um, Jesus, where was I? Uh

484
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:35,120
Speaker 1: Nicholas did have a darker interpretation of Ronnie than I did.

485
00:27:35,240 --> 00:27:38,679
Speaker 1: Jewish and total reporter in that we both agreed that

486
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:42,960
Speaker 1: a poetic quality was central to the character. He also

487
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 1: called Cage the most tormented guy I could find, And

488
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: I just have to add this anecdote from the Wells

489
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:52,240
Speaker 1: piece he's de sited earlier, the Wells book that you

490
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:57,080
Speaker 1: sided earlier. Cage also owned two sharks, an exotic insect collection,

491
00:27:57,160 --> 00:28:00,679
Speaker 1: and a jewel encrusted tortoise. I've always been fascinated by

492
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: marine biology. Cage told play a girl. I don't know why.

493
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:06,679
Speaker 1: It's sort of like my bible. I have a picture

494
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:08,479
Speaker 1: of a fish in my wallet that was just going

495
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: to knock your socks off. That's so cute. Part of

496
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: that interpretation of the character, Cage told the interview site

497
00:28:16,720 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 1: The Talks, was that I wanted to talk like Jean

498
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: Murray in Beauty and the Beast. He had that accent

499
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: and his voice was very gravelly, and I thought of

500
00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: my character and Moonstruck like a wolf who spoke with

501
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: a growl. And so I was talking like that in

502
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 1: the movie. And I got a call from the director,

503
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: Norman Jewison, and he said, Nicholas, the dailies aren't working.

504
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:38,200
Speaker 1: And then I started hearing names of other actors, and

505
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:40,640
Speaker 1: I thought I was going to get fired. I had

506
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: to quickly drop the Jean Murray. When does the think

507
00:28:44,160 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 1: those Cajun voices? Didn't he do his character and Peggy's

508
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:50,920
Speaker 1: You Got Married? He based the voice on Pokey from

509
00:28:50,960 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 1: the Gumby cartoons, which royally piste off the movie's directors

510
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: uncle Francis Ford Coppola, to such degree that his own

511
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 1: uncle basically vowed and never were with him again. You know,

512
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:05,240
Speaker 1: what do you do to the bid? He commits a bit,

513
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: you don't. I think it's I forget who's I don't

514
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: want to say his coster man. But somebody was talking

515
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: about I think Bowie and Iggy Pop and the difference

516
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:18,360
Speaker 1: between them and lou Reid, and they were like Bowie

517
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:23,959
Speaker 1: and Iggy never blinked like, you know, whatever ridiculous stuff

518
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: that they were doing. They were just like, nope, this

519
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:29,280
Speaker 1: is it, one hondo. Not a single part of me

520
00:29:29,840 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 1: is kept it in like an arch winking removed to this.

521
00:29:34,560 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 1: I'm on this train. It's going a hundred ten miles

522
00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 1: an hour. You do not have the option to derail

523
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: it or reroute it. Whereas lou Reid was a little

524
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:43,840
Speaker 1: bit more like this'n like, I'm kind of like a

525
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 1: little that was like part of his bit. And and

526
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: Nick Cages does not blink man. He makes choices. He

527
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:53,320
Speaker 1: commits to the bid, despite the chemistry that he had

528
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:57,200
Speaker 1: with Share on screen, though they I don't really think

529
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: they liked each other. Share told news Week in ninet seven,

530
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 1: I don't know if Nikki will ever be a huge

531
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: mainstream actor. He takes unbelievable chances and personally I think

532
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: he's crazy. Sometimes he's a blast on set. Other days

533
00:30:12,160 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: I'd get real peeved at him and Cage despite admitting

534
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: to having loved chair when he was ten, I mean

535
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 1: who among us? Told Newsweek in that exact same interview.

536
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:26,040
Speaker 1: I do think Share needs a good director, otherwise she's

537
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 1: trouble folks, your romantic leads. Um, there's a guy. The

538
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 1: guy who plays the grandfather who's just like yelling in

539
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:37,120
Speaker 1: his holley and all the time and walking around with

540
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:42,959
Speaker 1: his dogs is a guy named Fyodor Chaliapin Jr. Uh

541
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: ad libbed everything he says to the dogs in the movie.

542
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:49,400
Speaker 1: And Uh, there's a great bit. There's if you ever

543
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 1: wanted to see an old Jewish man impersonate Sean Connery,

544
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: it's in the documentary about this movie. Before he cast

545
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:58,040
Speaker 1: this guy, Jewison called Sean Connery, who had worked with

546
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 1: this actor in the Aim of the Rose. And Sean

547
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: Connery told Jewison he cannot she he cannot hear, and

548
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: he'll steal every bloody sheen in the film. Uh. And

549
00:31:12,320 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 1: this guy was deaf, he was losing his hearing, couldn't

550
00:31:15,440 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: hear what the other actors were saying in the film.

551
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: And would just get his jewis and said he just

552
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 1: timed everything in his cues by watching the other actor's lips,

553
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: and when when they stopped talking, he would just jump in. Incredible.

554
00:31:30,560 --> 00:31:32,720
Speaker 1: I just want to add something just to you before

555
00:31:32,760 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 1: we continue. Kathleen Turner and her memoir speaks of Nicholas Cage.

556
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:39,720
Speaker 1: He caused so many problems. He was arrested twice for

557
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,400
Speaker 1: drunk driving, and I think once for stealing a dog.

558
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,280
Speaker 1: He come across the Chihuahua he liked and stuck it

559
00:31:45,320 --> 00:31:47,640
Speaker 1: in his jacket. On the last night of filming, he

560
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 1: came into my trailer and he'd clearly been drinking heavily.

561
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 1: He fell to his knees and asked if I could

562
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 1: ever forgive him. I said, not right now, I have

563
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:56,800
Speaker 1: a scene to shoot, excuse me, and just walked out.

564
00:31:57,280 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 1: Nicholas didn't manage to kill the film, but he didn't

565
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:01,720
Speaker 1: add a lot to it either. For years, whenever I

566
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 1: saw him, he'd apologized for his behavior. I'd say, look,

567
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: I'm way over it, but I haven't pursued the idea

568
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: of working with him again. Wow, I don't think I

569
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:16,680
Speaker 1: realized he was arrested, apparently twice at a career retrospective

570
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: in New York. In Jewison explained that the film's climactic

571
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: scene was going very poorly on the set. Nicholas Cage

572
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 1: apparently through a chair and another actor who you say

573
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 1: is Danny Io. Yeah. Apparently one point during the filming

574
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 1: of this scene, Danny A Yello clutched his testicles and

575
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: screamed at Nick Cage, you gotta give it to me

576
00:32:37,720 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: from here, which is a very Italian, the Italian man

577
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:47,240
Speaker 1: thing to do. Yes. Meanwhile, Share was threatening report Norman

578
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 1: Jewis into the screen actors Guild because he kept them

579
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 1: working through lunch. He later said, I told her something authoritative, like, well,

580
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 1: break when we get it right. Well, a lot of

581
00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: bad man is UM's being thrown around the set on

582
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 1: this day. And then Theodore, the guy playing the grandfather,

583
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: achieved piece by saying, Calma, Colma, Colma. This is a

584
00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 1: fiote farce. And in the Fiorda farce we pull everything

585
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: together in the last scene. And Jewis and said, we

586
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:23,520
Speaker 1: did it again and everything fell into place. And as

587
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:26,479
Speaker 1: you mentioned, that would be the nineteenth century French play, right,

588
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: George fied George, do I have no idea what that is?

589
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: I just I just love the idea that this dude,

590
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:37,600
Speaker 1: this dude just calmed the entire room of actors by

591
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: addressing a nineteenth century French play. Right Olimpaducaccus told the

592
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 1: A V Club, Well, you know, we were in the

593
00:33:44,600 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: car jewis in and I and he had asked me

594
00:33:46,880 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 1: to come to do a benefit for him in Canada.

595
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 1: He was gonna show a moonstruck and he wanted me

596
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: to come. And I was so grateful to him for

597
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: that experience and so admiring of him that I went.

598
00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:57,960
Speaker 1: And he said, you know, you're going to get an

599
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:00,440
Speaker 1: Academy Award for this, and I looked to him like

600
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:04,240
Speaker 1: he was stark raving mad. Ducacus tells the story about

601
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: how Julie Bovasso blew up at Cage at one point

602
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 1: when they were refusing direction, and he told her to

603
00:34:11,719 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: go herself, to which Bovaso retorted, well, I haven't had

604
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: to do that in a long time, uh, And then

605
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 1: Cage threw a cup of coffee on the table, which

606
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: splashed on Olympia Ducacus, and Bovaso told her that that

607
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: was God's punishment for not speaking up and backing up

608
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:36,760
Speaker 1: Jewison against Cage. And chair Italians man uh Norman Jewison

609
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: calls Olympia Ducacus Limpi, which is really really adourable and

610
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 1: kind of a weird nickname, and said that she was

611
00:34:44,640 --> 00:34:46,719
Speaker 1: the person who ended up backing him. She would go

612
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:49,000
Speaker 1: to bat for him whenever he was dealing with cage

613
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: and share. My girlfriend took a few acting classes with

614
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:55,720
Speaker 1: Olympia Ducacus a few years ago. Her really good friend

615
00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:59,600
Speaker 1: and our NYU classmate was Olympia's protege actually, and she's

616
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 1: now there talented acting teacher who runs her own school

617
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 1: where Olympia was doing some classes just before her death.

618
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: And not to speak out of turn, but my main

619
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 1: thing I remember hearing was that Olympia was one tough lady.

620
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 1: That's the main thing I remember from UH tales. You

621
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:22,000
Speaker 1: gotta give it to me from here pretty much. Yeah. Anyway,

622
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 1: who who among us? Danny Aella, who was just two

623
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 1: years away from his starring Rolling Spike Lease do the

624
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:31,400
Speaker 1: Right Thing, said on the Diane Rem radio show. And

625
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 1: Reem Dane Reem said on the Dane Ream Radio Show

626
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:37,480
Speaker 1: that he couldn't stand the character I played, which is

627
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 1: funny because he is such a like beta loser. Uh.

628
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:44,240
Speaker 1: He continued Norman. When I told him that I couldn't

629
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 1: stand the character, he said to me, are you crazy?

630
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:49,400
Speaker 1: You're wonderful, but my neighborhood, you can't play a whimp

631
00:35:49,480 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: on the screen. You know, people didn't even know me

632
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:53,719
Speaker 1: as an actor, but to see me as they didn't

633
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 1: know me was troubling in the area where I live.

634
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:59,440
Speaker 1: So it did adversely affect me at first. All I

635
00:35:59,520 --> 00:36:02,359
Speaker 1: know is I was stupid looking on the screen. Well,

636
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:05,319
Speaker 1: he kind of seems like a dick. He oh yeah,

637
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:08,000
Speaker 1: he very much does. His His friendship with Spike Lee

638
00:36:08,120 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 1: is so like adorable, Like there's a really funny video

639
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 1: of him and Spike hang out. Spike Lee just loves

640
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: him as this like ridiculous Italian dude. But they you know,

641
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:21,839
Speaker 1: they're telling all these stories and Danny Aello like, we'll

642
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: kind of walk back. He's like Italian American racism at

643
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:27,960
Speaker 1: the time, and then Spike Lee is like, no, you

644
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:29,920
Speaker 1: got to tell him what you really called me the

645
00:36:29,960 --> 00:36:37,720
Speaker 1: first time we met. He died three years ago exactly today. Alright,

646
00:36:37,800 --> 00:36:42,520
Speaker 1: p you we'll see see this episode goes. Danny Iel

647
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: also felt that Share should have picked him over Nicholas Cage.

648
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 1: Of course, even if even even if it's fake, you

649
00:36:48,480 --> 00:36:53,080
Speaker 1: can't let this fake defeat enter in your consciousness. He said.

650
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: I said, do you think Nicholas Cage is going to

651
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 1: get a woman that I have? I said, that's not

652
00:36:57,239 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 1: gonna happen. I said, Share will be with me from

653
00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: the beginning. God. Despite not liking the role, he said

654
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,040
Speaker 1: that it earned him more money and a quote elevated

655
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 1: a lot of other parts from me in comedic situations

656
00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 1: and so forth. Yeah, he's talked about being he's by

657
00:37:12,040 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: his own admission, being very combative on set, and so

658
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:18,360
Speaker 1: it's just so imagine him Nicholas Cage coming to blows

659
00:37:19,719 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 1: in a tiny Brooklyn kitchen is so funny to me

660
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: in front of Share, not in front of Share. Uh.

661
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:35,879
Speaker 1: John Mahoney, who was famously Frasier's dad, Uh, just steals them.

662
00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:38,520
Speaker 1: I love that scene with him in Olympic, that little

663
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 1: walk that they do and he's like a skirt chaser.

664
00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: So he's like, you want to let me into your

665
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:48,319
Speaker 1: house and she's like, shuts him down. They have such beauty,

666
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 1: wonderful chemistry. That's such a just such a well written movie.

667
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 1: They end up I forget I'm forgetting how that that

668
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:56,799
Speaker 1: she just like sends him away? No, but I mean

669
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:58,360
Speaker 1: this is that? How is is that? They're all we

670
00:37:58,440 --> 00:38:00,400
Speaker 1: hear from his character. I'm trying to remember, Like he

671
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:02,600
Speaker 1: doesn't come back, he doesn't come back, and it's just

672
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 1: it's just this little because they you know, you see

673
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:07,279
Speaker 1: him in the restaurant twice and he just ends up

674
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: like he just walks her home. Yeah, it's so great. Uh.

675
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: You know he was born in mad Chester. He was old.

676
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 1: He lived there for a while, right, but completely lost

677
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:22,759
Speaker 1: the accent. Yeah. Yeah. He was an English teacher and

678
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: edited a medical journal until he was thirty seven. And

679
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:29,440
Speaker 1: his students were like, yeah, you should go pursue this

680
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 1: acting bug that you have, and uh yeah, I mean

681
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: until Moonstruck he wanted Tony, which is wild to me,

682
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 1: but he was basically a character actor. He'd only done

683
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: three movies. He did Ten Men with Richard Dreyfus and

684
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,880
Speaker 1: Danny DeVito, Manhattan Project with John Lithgow, and then Suspect

685
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: with Share and then Moonstruck and he said this, you know,

686
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:51,520
Speaker 1: blew the doors open for him. And then soon after

687
00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:53,360
Speaker 1: I think in eight nine he was the dad and

688
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:57,399
Speaker 1: Cameron Crows say anything. Oh, that's right, he is. Yeah,

689
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,040
Speaker 1: he's so good at just like the like gruff. You're

690
00:39:01,120 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: instantly just like yes, dad, he told the u P.

691
00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: I Moonstruck was my breakthrough in pictures. The restaurant scene

692
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 1: was an actives dream and completely changed my career. For

693
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:15,480
Speaker 1: the first time, audiences were able to see me as

694
00:39:15,560 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 1: I really look. I never envisioned in a million years

695
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:20,879
Speaker 1: the movie would be so great, or that my role

696
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 1: would have so much impact. I thought it was a

697
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:27,440
Speaker 1: nice little cameo role. Fortunately, I auditioned with Olympia Lorman

698
00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 1: knew he wanted her for the film immediately prior to Fraser.

699
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:32,320
Speaker 1: He said that that was the role that he's the

700
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 1: most approached about, which makes sense. I would love to

701
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 1: talk with him about being Frasier's dad. Despite its status,

702
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: is one of the all time great New York movies.

703
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 1: More than that, just a second production shot most of

704
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:48,480
Speaker 1: Moonstruck's interiors in Toronto. They constructed sound stage replicas of

705
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:52,320
Speaker 1: the castor in a family brownstone, the Grand Ticino restaurant,

706
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:55,799
Speaker 1: Ronnie's apartment above the bakery, and the scene in which

707
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,399
Speaker 1: Cage and Share are actually watching Labo m was shot

708
00:39:59,520 --> 00:40:02,320
Speaker 1: on Terry that's not actually the map. Parts of it

709
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 1: are shot at the map, but the interior. The one

710
00:40:05,120 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: interior scene in there is at the Markham Theater in Ontario. Apparently,

711
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,399
Speaker 1: of the movie originally opened with a song from Lobo Him,

712
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,839
Speaker 1: but it performed badly and test screenings because the crowd

713
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 1: heard it and thought they'd been duped into attending an

714
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:20,919
Speaker 1: art film, So that replaced it with Dino doing that's

715
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:25,239
Speaker 1: Sam Because what's the most stereotypical song we got? It's

716
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 1: about to say, what's the most borderline offensive thing we

717
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:34,479
Speaker 1: could throw in here? Uh? What? What would what would

718
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: the other one be? I tried, so I was trying

719
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:40,000
Speaker 1: to think, I mean val are as like the other one, yeah, yeah,

720
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 1: or like the Tarantella Yeah. I would say something like

721
00:40:43,040 --> 00:40:49,680
Speaker 1: Colley Frances. As you meditate on that, we'll be right

722
00:40:49,719 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: back with more too much information after these messages. The

723
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: film's climactic scene, in which Ronnie gives an impassioned post

724
00:41:07,560 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 1: opera speech to Share and convinces her to come back

725
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 1: to his apartment with him, was the last one that

726
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,799
Speaker 1: they shot in Brooklyn, and Cage said, the only thing

727
00:41:14,840 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: I remember on that movie was Sharon I freezing in

728
00:41:17,040 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 1: Brooklyn in the winter at night. It was that whole

729
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: big diet tribe about the snowflakes are perfect, the stars

730
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: are perfect, not us. We are here to ruin ourselves.

731
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 1: That was my favorite bit of writing by John Patrick Shanley,

732
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:30,720
Speaker 1: this powerful soliloquy. That being said, our mouths were frozen

733
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: and it was so hard to move. It's very hard

734
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: to act when you're freezing. Talking to the cut in,

735
00:41:37,560 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: Share expanded on that scene. She said, I was really

736
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:42,400
Speaker 1: crying because it was so cold that our lips were

737
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 1: turning blue. In a doorway, they kept a space heater

738
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:46,680
Speaker 1: from me, and I got too close to it and

739
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: set the back of my coat on fire. I still

740
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:52,719
Speaker 1: have that code. It's singed. The moment people smelled something

741
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,080
Speaker 1: coming from where I was, they stepped in. They were like,

742
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: she can't go up in flames until we finished the film.

743
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 1: Share also still has the jeweled red heels that she

744
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 1: wore on the film. She told The New York Times

745
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:05,719
Speaker 1: in that she went to see the film in a

746
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 1: theater and when her character puts her foot out of

747
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 1: the cab at Lincoln Center and she said, this man

748
00:42:10,000 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 1: in front of me went, God, she's got a long

749
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: skinny foot, and I went, oh, my god, I do

750
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: how neat of him to say that when I'm sitting

751
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:20,440
Speaker 1: right behind him, even though he doesn't know it. Someone

752
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 1: made that. Speaking of that soliloquy, here's Shandley giving a

753
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:30,040
Speaker 1: typically winding anecdote about the creation of the Snap Out

754
00:42:30,080 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 1: of its slapping scene the Vulture. I took this anecdote

755
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 1: and not my mom. I was up in a tenement

756
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 1: living on a hundred and seventy seven street in Fort Washington.

757
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,200
Speaker 1: I had an apartment with chunks of flaster falling out

758
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 1: of the walls and a couple of windows that were cracked,

759
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:47,240
Speaker 1: and became very friendly with the super, a guy named Ralph. Really,

760
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:49,520
Speaker 1: I just kind of adored him. He was very short,

761
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:52,320
Speaker 1: and he looked like he was from Castilian Spain. He

762
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:54,080
Speaker 1: looked like he was running in front of a bunch

763
00:42:54,120 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: of bulls. He came up and would say, let me

764
00:42:56,600 --> 00:42:58,520
Speaker 1: fix that hole in your wall, and I would say,

765
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: I love that hole, dude, not touch that. He'd say,

766
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:02,800
Speaker 1: let me fix that window, and I'd be like, that

767
00:43:02,920 --> 00:43:04,960
Speaker 1: crack in the window is a once in a lifetime

768
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:07,399
Speaker 1: I don't want it touched. I was very in love

769
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:10,040
Speaker 1: with the way the things are and the imperfectness, the

770
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 1: imperfectness which Nick Cage talks about in the snow scene

771
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: when he talks her into going upstairs. I wrote the

772
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:18,520
Speaker 1: stage directions, I just acted it, pictured it in my head.

773
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 1: So I slapped him and I looked at him and

774
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: it didn't work. So I slapped him again and said,

775
00:43:23,160 --> 00:43:26,839
Speaker 1: snap out of it. And then the interviewer says, when

776
00:43:26,880 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 1: you say you slapped him, you were talking about an

777
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:33,279
Speaker 1: imaginary person. I'm talking about me. I do the one part,

778
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,600
Speaker 1: then I turn around, I do the other. You slap yourself. Yeah,

779
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 1: I do that a lot. This guy, this guy seems

780
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: a little too, a little too into the process for

781
00:43:43,840 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: my liking words. You just can trying to think what

782
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: else he's written other than there's a lot like the

783
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: two Oscar nominated movies. Yeah, I was gonna say what

784
00:43:58,960 --> 00:44:02,320
Speaker 1: Oh en a pull it, sir and a Tony Alright, fine.

785
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:07,360
Speaker 1: This picture on his Wikipedia page is so funny because

786
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:10,440
Speaker 1: it's like it's like he heard you talking about him.

787
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:16,799
Speaker 1: Now click on it and look at his expression. That's

788
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: the face of a Pulitzer winner. Just New York City

789
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:26,840
Speaker 1: filming locations included the Casa Italian Bakery on Ninth Avenue,

790
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:29,320
Speaker 1: the Grand Tuchino Restaurant in the West Village, the t

791
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:32,280
Speaker 1: w A Turmmel at Kennedy Airport, and the Metropolitan Opera

792
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: House in Lincoln Center. Those scenes were filmed with over

793
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:39,120
Speaker 1: three hundred background actors, while hundreds of real life Lincoln

794
00:44:39,160 --> 00:44:41,840
Speaker 1: Center audience members filed out of the theater after an

795
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 1: actual performance. Sadly, the Grand Duchino restaurant lost its lease

796
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 1: in August of two thousand one was forced to close

797
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:51,760
Speaker 1: after eighty two years. It is now called Cafe Clooney

798
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:55,240
Speaker 1: on West twelve and was used more recently the Jennifer

799
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: Aniston starring movie Switch. I'm pretty sure I've been in

800
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:01,960
Speaker 1: Cafe Clooney. I found it unremarkable. I probably would have

801
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 1: liked it a lot more, but I know it was

802
00:45:03,520 --> 00:45:07,280
Speaker 1: the Grant gino Um, the real life bakery and Carol

803
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: Garden's Brookley that stood in for the camerary shop was

804
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 1: hilariously not owned by the actual cameraries, but by Gilberto Goodoy,

805
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:18,960
Speaker 1: who is a Argentinian immigrant to whom the family sold

806
00:45:19,000 --> 00:45:21,680
Speaker 1: their bakery in. Well, I didn't know that was a

807
00:45:21,880 --> 00:45:26,440
Speaker 1: famous like It's the equivalent of Landmark. Yeah, I had

808
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: never heard of that until he's gone by the time

809
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: we were there, Like everything Jewish until the New York Times.

810
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 1: Whenever I can. I like to cast people who do

811
00:45:37,120 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: the same job in real life. And he picked that

812
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:41,319
Speaker 1: particular bakery because it has one of the few coal

813
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 1: fired ovens left in the city. Heat and humidity are

814
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:47,560
Speaker 1: always there, and bread is always rising and there's an

815
00:45:47,600 --> 00:45:49,960
Speaker 1: incredible smell. It helps the actors to be in a

816
00:45:50,040 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 1: real environment. So good door is in the film. He

817
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:56,440
Speaker 1: used to sign his autograph on bread bags um and

818
00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:59,360
Speaker 1: he refused to close the bakery during filming because he

819
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:02,120
Speaker 1: had a quota five thousand loaves a day to maintain.

820
00:46:02,719 --> 00:46:05,400
Speaker 1: So for three days he just kept the bakery operating

821
00:46:05,480 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: around the casting crew. It was hysterical Jewis and said,

822
00:46:09,560 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: we had lights, trucks, cameras, share and the poor guy

823
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:16,560
Speaker 1: was still baking while they were filming. Our customer barged

824
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 1: into the shot demanding a loaf of bread, and she

825
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:22,400
Speaker 1: was in just motion to share, to take the guy's

826
00:46:22,520 --> 00:46:27,280
Speaker 1: money and give him a loaf of bread. Don't Scorsese's

827
00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:30,920
Speaker 1: parents have bit roles as customers in the bakery. I

828
00:46:30,960 --> 00:46:32,840
Speaker 1: don't think I knew that. I guess if there's anything

829
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:35,400
Speaker 1: Italian related going on in New York and cinema, the

830
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 1: scorsesees are legally had to be evolved. I think so. Yeah,

831
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:45,560
Speaker 1: she has a very specific look. It's hard to miss,

832
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 1: hard to miss those hard to miss momasse Yeah, yeah,

833
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:52,680
Speaker 1: I found the exact still of them. Holy crap. He

834
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:57,520
Speaker 1: really aged exactly into his dad. Goodoy had a tremendous

835
00:46:57,560 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: line to The New York Times from that article the

836
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:02,799
Speaker 1: movie stars made more mistakes than me. People rave about

837
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 1: share listen. She ran up and down the stairs for

838
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 1: three days. She never did it right with my part,

839
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: we did it in one to three. Moonstruck made that

840
00:47:11,760 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 1: bakery more famous and caused tourists to flock to the place,

841
00:47:15,400 --> 00:47:19,319
Speaker 1: But Goodoy had a spring steenie and run of bad luck.

842
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:21,879
Speaker 1: In the nineties. He and his wife Nalita, who worked

843
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:24,600
Speaker 1: behind the counter, divorced. He told The New York Times

844
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:27,920
Speaker 1: ninety seven that I was lost and emotionally and financially

845
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 1: drained by the split. And then in six one of

846
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 1: the baker's to brick ovens caught fire was destroyed. They

847
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:38,720
Speaker 1: closed merged with a different Italian bakery, Monteleone and Carol Gardens,

848
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 1: and then they opened up a bakery and cafe and Hoboken,

849
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:45,120
Speaker 1: which lasted just over a year, and then they filed

850
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:48,440
Speaker 1: for Chapter eleven bankruptcy. According to Crane's they owed debts

851
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:52,320
Speaker 1: to no fewer than fifty creditors. Uh, there's a camera.

852
00:47:52,520 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 1: He's famous in Howell, New Jersey currently, but I could

853
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:59,320
Speaker 1: not find anything about its connection to this guy, because

854
00:47:59,360 --> 00:48:02,480
Speaker 1: there's a zillion volleyball player by the same name who

855
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:05,480
Speaker 1: excused the Google results. But he is a very handsome man,

856
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:09,320
Speaker 1: so that's that was a nice consolation price. Apparently the

857
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 1: original bakery equipment is still downstairs at the old bakery

858
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:18,560
Speaker 1: because it is too heavy to get rid of. The

859
00:48:18,680 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 1: moon Struck House, meanwhile, has become one of the most

860
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: famous in New York cinema. The four story Federal style

861
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 1: brownstone at Cranberry and Willow Streets in Brooklyn Heights was

862
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: built in eighteen twenty nine and was owned for nearly

863
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: fifty years by Edwards Ruhleman, who was instrumental in persuading

864
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:37,280
Speaker 1: the city to declare Brooklyn Heights the first historic district

865
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: in New York in nineteen sixty five. Rolling and his wife,

866
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:44,320
Speaker 1: appropriately a former opera singer, about the house in nineteen

867
00:48:44,400 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 1: sixty one, and sold it for nearly four million in

868
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:51,480
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, subsequently moving to Cape Cod, but he

869
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:54,080
Speaker 1: put the work in before that. In nineteen sixty five,

870
00:48:54,160 --> 00:48:56,640
Speaker 1: he quit his job at a Manhattan architectural firm to

871
00:48:56,719 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: open a small shop devoted the restoration in Brooklyn Heights.

872
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:03,479
Speaker 1: Uch the restoring more than fifty local buildings, including Saint

873
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:06,280
Speaker 1: Anne's School, and the house was put up for sale

874
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: again in one for twelve point eight five million dollars

875
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:15,040
Speaker 1: per the New York Post, and it was I guess

876
00:49:15,040 --> 00:49:19,279
Speaker 1: subsequently lowered to eleven million, and Amy Schumer, of all people,

877
00:49:19,360 --> 00:49:22,320
Speaker 1: wound up buying it in July of this year for

878
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:26,439
Speaker 1: twelve point five million, which is a true New York

879
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:29,320
Speaker 1: City real estate story. I love it. That guy was

880
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:33,480
Speaker 1: a restoration nut, you know. That really warms warms the

881
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:36,400
Speaker 1: cockles of my heart. And then of course it inflated

882
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:39,240
Speaker 1: my value a hundred thousand times. And a famous comedian

883
00:49:39,280 --> 00:49:43,440
Speaker 1: who's the cousin of a state senator, uh bought it.

884
00:49:44,120 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 1: That's Chuck Schumers. I didn't realize they related. They are

885
00:49:46,840 --> 00:49:51,480
Speaker 1: the same Schumers yep, really just a true New York

886
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:54,680
Speaker 1: City story. The film's giant prop Moon was a modified

887
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 1: version of a lighting grid created by British director of

888
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: photography David Watkin, guy also shot Out of Africa and

889
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: Chariots of Fire. It is a large array. He created

890
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:08,840
Speaker 1: this thing a large array of one ninety six tightly

891
00:50:08,960 --> 00:50:13,400
Speaker 1: spaced fade lights in a fourteen by fourteen square elevated

892
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:15,640
Speaker 1: up to a hundred and fifty feet on a cherry

893
00:50:15,680 --> 00:50:20,120
Speaker 1: picker or crane. It was supposedly nicknamed the Wendy Light

894
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:26,240
Speaker 1: because Watkins was openly gay and Wendy was apparently semi

895
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: affectionate nickname for him on film sets. Because Hollywood is obsessible.

896
00:50:31,160 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 1: He created this thing um while filming Hanover Street in

897
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 1: nine at Shepperton Studios in England, because he was trying

898
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 1: to solve the problem of night lighting on sets and

899
00:50:41,440 --> 00:50:43,359
Speaker 1: designed this thing so that it was easy to move,

900
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:45,959
Speaker 1: you know, raise it on a crane or cherry picker.

901
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:49,240
Speaker 1: It only cast one shadow and it created such intense

902
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: light that whatever it was mounted on was unable to

903
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:55,440
Speaker 1: be seen. And they put it like they would put

904
00:50:55,480 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 1: it up to like a quarter mile away in exteriors

905
00:50:58,560 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 1: for shooting night scenes. Picture of it, I can't well,

906
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,360
Speaker 1: you can find it. It's it's just a massive grid.

907
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:07,920
Speaker 1: What they did for Moonstruck was they put it behind

908
00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:13,040
Speaker 1: a big fake moon um and uh he which just

909
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 1: you know, raised it above everything. Uh he said. There

910
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:18,759
Speaker 1: was an interview he gave where he said the first

911
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:20,600
Speaker 1: time he ever used it, there was like a local

912
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:24,759
Speaker 1: like English boy who thought it was a UFO, which

913
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:29,640
Speaker 1: is adorable. We talked a little bit about how they've

914
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:33,319
Speaker 1: recut the opening scene to this um. There's a book

915
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:37,040
Speaker 1: that came out called Audience Oology, How movie Goers Shape

916
00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:40,360
Speaker 1: the Films we Love. That's all about test screenings for

917
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:44,080
Speaker 1: different famous movies. This author, Kevin Gets quotes MGM. S.

918
00:51:44,080 --> 00:51:48,560
Speaker 1: Greg Foster, who recalled it early test audiences for Moonstruck

919
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 1: were perplexed by the film's tone. They didn't laugh, Like

920
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:54,839
Speaker 1: heightened dialogue kind of put them off. He described an

921
00:51:54,960 --> 00:52:00,359
Speaker 1: undercurrent of tension from the common cards. What became very

922
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:03,080
Speaker 1: apparent was that the movie goers hadn't gotten the humor.

923
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 1: Foster said, they don't know why it's funny. Film editor

924
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:09,120
Speaker 1: lou Lombardo surmised from reading the cards, they've got to

925
00:52:09,160 --> 00:52:11,960
Speaker 1: show them it's okay to laugh. And originally, as we

926
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 1: said earlier, the film's opening montage was set to Puccini,

927
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:18,520
Speaker 1: which Lombardo said was setting the wrong tone from the outset,

928
00:52:18,960 --> 00:52:23,080
Speaker 1: so he swapped in Dean Martin's That's Mr which, as

929
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:28,320
Speaker 1: you said, tell o higel I just I'm trying to

930
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 1: think of again, what could be the only more like

931
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:35,399
Speaker 1: stereotypically offensive choice. Definitely just I. Presumably they weren't able

932
00:52:35,480 --> 00:52:39,320
Speaker 1: to film insert shots of like little nonies like stomping

933
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: wine in a big vat while playing the mandolin, or

934
00:52:43,239 --> 00:52:46,360
Speaker 1: like Mario like Super Mario Brothers. They were gonna they

935
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:50,080
Speaker 1: were gonna use the music from Super Mario Brothers. That

936
00:52:50,480 --> 00:52:57,560
Speaker 1: that that that that did I send you that clip

937
00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:59,560
Speaker 1: of the You sent me the clip of the guy

938
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:04,440
Speaker 1: who did the Mario voice. Right, oh yeah, we like

939
00:53:05,360 --> 00:53:09,120
Speaker 1: running out of tape. They're like, yeah, we have like

940
00:53:09,239 --> 00:53:11,600
Speaker 1: a thirty seconds to tape left. Give us an Italian

941
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:13,920
Speaker 1: voice and he was like, it's a meat body, I'm

942
00:53:13,920 --> 00:53:20,359
Speaker 1: making a pizza and they're like, good rap. Probably right

943
00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:22,440
Speaker 1: around the same time as this, when did Mario come

944
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:26,520
Speaker 1: out late eighties or that? Oh man, is there a

945
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:31,719
Speaker 1: book about the massive American experience, the Italian American Yeah,

946
00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:34,560
Speaker 1: around this time, because it's it is funny you think

947
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:38,800
Speaker 1: about there was like this, my cousin Vinny Goodfellas, super

948
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:42,759
Speaker 1: Mario Brothers, such an important piece of representation, and then

949
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:45,799
Speaker 1: Godfather three belatedly swoops in. I was going to say

950
00:53:45,840 --> 00:53:52,200
Speaker 1: it that it just all went away. Donnie Brasco. H Uh.

951
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:55,600
Speaker 1: Moon Struck open and limited release in December and went

952
00:53:55,640 --> 00:53:58,840
Speaker 1: wide in January. It is pretty much a unanimous hit. Actually,

953
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 1: Jeane Siskel and Jeered Ebert both loved it. It currently

954
00:54:01,719 --> 00:54:06,279
Speaker 1: has a rotten tomatoes. Janet Maslin we were talking about

955
00:54:06,280 --> 00:54:09,560
Speaker 1: her review of The New York Times earlier, comically wrote

956
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:13,560
Speaker 1: that Moonstruck clearly means to celebrate all things Italian, but

957
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:17,400
Speaker 1: quote creates the false but persistent impression that most of

958
00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 1: the people who made it have never been closer to

959
00:54:19,719 --> 00:54:24,560
Speaker 1: Italy than perhaps Iowa, which is just it's very funny

960
00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:28,080
Speaker 1: to me because well, she's not wrong. It's obviously like

961
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:32,279
Speaker 1: extremely stereotypical, extremely like this is how people think in

962
00:54:32,320 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 1: New York. Italians behave like slapping and screaming, but they

963
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:40,200
Speaker 1: kind of do a and be John Patrick Shanley grew

964
00:54:40,280 --> 00:54:41,840
Speaker 1: up in the broad around a bunch of Irish and

965
00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:45,680
Speaker 1: Italian people like I do trust him. Um. The film

966
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 1: went on to gross over a hundred twenty two million

967
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 1: worldwide on what was the reported budget of eleven to

968
00:54:51,239 --> 00:54:54,439
Speaker 1: fifteen mill and it cleaned up at the Oscars Share

969
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:57,799
Speaker 1: one Best Actress the Year, she wore one of her

970
00:54:58,040 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 1: many amazing Bob Backy dresses uh Lympidococcus. One Best Supporting

971
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: Actress Shanley one Best Screenplay. Jewison was sadly shut out

972
00:55:05,920 --> 00:55:08,880
Speaker 1: of Best Director. Limp Deccas were one of her fantastic

973
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:14,600
Speaker 1: Bob Mackie dresses. John Patrick shadow Sham were one of

974
00:55:14,719 --> 00:55:19,919
Speaker 1: his many iconic Bob Mackey dresses. Norman Jewison was shut

975
00:55:20,000 --> 00:55:24,120
Speaker 1: out despite having turned out one of his many iconic,

976
00:55:24,480 --> 00:55:27,800
Speaker 1: fabulous Bob Mackey dresses. It is sad that all the

977
00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:30,440
Speaker 1: all the actress actors who were interviewed for this there,

978
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:32,440
Speaker 1: you know, when they talk about all the success for it,

979
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:34,879
Speaker 1: and then they're just like and Norman just sat there

980
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 1: all right. The film is on seven different American Film

981
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,239
Speaker 1: Institute Best of lists, which might be some kind of

982
00:55:42,280 --> 00:55:46,400
Speaker 1: a record. UM and Hebert officially entered it into his

983
00:55:46,520 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 1: Great Movies Collection in June two thousand and three, and

984
00:55:49,320 --> 00:55:51,440
Speaker 1: as of this writing, I have a petition to the

985
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 1: Library of Congress to enter it into the National Film Archive.

986
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:58,000
Speaker 1: I don't actually, but that's I'm putting that on my

987
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:01,160
Speaker 1: to do list for tomorrow. That's it's gonna be for me.

988
00:56:02,840 --> 00:56:05,000
Speaker 1: Olivia the Caucus has a cute line about this movie.

989
00:56:05,040 --> 00:56:07,279
Speaker 1: She said, it changed my whole life while daughter was

990
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:09,720
Speaker 1: going to college on credit cards when I did that movie.

991
00:56:10,280 --> 00:56:12,239
Speaker 1: After that, we were able to send our children through

992
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:15,000
Speaker 1: college with no problems. Imagine the time when you could

993
00:56:15,040 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 1: pay first semestor college on a single credit card. Alright, um,

994
00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:22,520
Speaker 1: probably my favorite line, and I read a lot of

995
00:56:22,560 --> 00:56:27,840
Speaker 1: think pieces about this from the Great Coronavirus Lockdown rewatch era. B. D.

996
00:56:28,000 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 1: McClay wrote it. The New Yorker gave my favorite final

997
00:56:31,080 --> 00:56:36,600
Speaker 1: thought final thoughts. Moonstruck is a comedy, but it's deeply

998
00:56:36,640 --> 00:56:39,080
Speaker 1: obsessed with death, to the point that it opens in

999
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:42,520
Speaker 1: a funeral parlor. It's a romance, but instead of trying

1000
00:56:42,560 --> 00:56:45,120
Speaker 1: to build up its central couple, it takes their sudden

1001
00:56:45,200 --> 00:56:47,879
Speaker 1: and total attraction to one another as an act of God.

1002
00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 1: Nobody in the movie acts reasonably or even normally, and

1003
00:56:51,960 --> 00:56:54,120
Speaker 1: yet it feels completely true to people as they are

1004
00:56:54,719 --> 00:56:58,440
Speaker 1: ridiculous and passionate in search of answers and solutions and

1005
00:56:58,560 --> 00:57:01,319
Speaker 1: taking what they can get, which is usually better than

1006
00:57:01,360 --> 00:57:04,520
Speaker 1: what they thought they wanted. As the film knows, most

1007
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:07,320
Speaker 1: of the things in life that matter aren't chosen, but

1008
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:10,080
Speaker 1: sometimes we at least get to love the wrong people

1009
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 1: who might just be the right people. After all, it's

1010
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:15,839
Speaker 1: great writing. There, I have nothing else to add. Uh,

1011
00:57:16,000 --> 00:57:19,720
Speaker 1: go watch mooden Struck. Go go to shares Twitter. She's

1012
00:57:19,760 --> 00:57:27,360
Speaker 1: hilarious for I was born November. I was born December

1013
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:30,320
Speaker 1: eighty seven. I think wait, I want to see what

1014
00:57:30,400 --> 00:57:37,000
Speaker 1: day it was released? December before your birthday? There you having, folks,

1015
00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 1: rewatch Moonstruck and wish Jordan a happy birthday, all in

1016
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:43,040
Speaker 1: the same weekend. Uh, this has been too much information.

1017
00:57:43,200 --> 00:57:46,080
Speaker 1: I'm Alex Hegel and I'm Jordan run Talk. We'll catch

1018
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:53,520
Speaker 1: you next time. Too Much Information was a production of

1019
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:56,800
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown

1020
00:57:56,920 --> 00:57:59,880
Speaker 1: and Jordan run Talk. The show's supervising producer is Mike

1021
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:03,440
Speaker 1: Alder June. The show was researched, written and hosted by

1022
00:58:03,480 --> 00:58:06,640
Speaker 1: Jordan Runtog and Alex Hegel with original music by Seth

1023
00:58:06,680 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what

1024
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For

1025
00:58:11,800 --> 00:58:14,240
Speaker 1: more podcasts and I heart Radio, visit the I Heart

1026
00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:17,160
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your

1027
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 1: favorite shows.