1
00:00:02,200 --> 00:00:06,000
Speaker 1: Christmas is one week away, and how am I celebrating

2
00:00:06,840 --> 00:00:11,080
Speaker 1: with restraint and circumspection. In the glabew family, we do

3
00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:15,960
Speaker 1: a mid century modern Christmas. Spare elegant, minimalist, lots of

4
00:00:15,960 --> 00:00:19,880
Speaker 1: the baby Jesus in a tasteful Scandinavian leather and rosewood manger.

5
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:24,959
Speaker 1: No Santa, no reindeer, no elves. Not so for my

6
00:00:25,079 --> 00:00:29,200
Speaker 1: colleague Ben adaf Halfrey. The Globows impose a dollar limit

7
00:00:29,240 --> 00:00:32,720
Speaker 1: on gifts, like price controls in some socialist state that

8
00:00:32,880 --> 00:00:36,240
Speaker 1: at half Halfreys spend months thinking of what to get

9
00:00:36,240 --> 00:00:39,520
Speaker 1: one another. The globows by a tree at the last moment,

10
00:00:39,720 --> 00:00:41,519
Speaker 1: and would be happier if we could just move the

11
00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:45,120
Speaker 1: whole operation outside around the Douglas Pine. In the backyard.

12
00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:49,680
Speaker 1: Ben's family has a tree, a little model village covered

13
00:00:49,680 --> 00:00:53,320
Speaker 1: in snow, and his father's vintage electric train set, plus

14
00:00:53,320 --> 00:00:56,960
Speaker 1: a little metal tree with ornaments that's up year round.

15
00:00:58,240 --> 00:01:00,480
Speaker 1: So when I told Ben that I had never watched

16
00:01:00,800 --> 00:01:04,559
Speaker 1: It's a Wonderful Life, he was stunned. Then he reached

17
00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:06,760
Speaker 1: out to me as the good smartan did to the

18
00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:09,319
Speaker 1: traveler lying beref by the side of the road. How

19
00:01:09,319 --> 00:01:12,600
Speaker 1: could this be? He asked me gently, because, as you

20
00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:15,520
Speaker 1: can imagine, within the daf Haffreys, It's a wonderful life

21
00:01:15,640 --> 00:01:20,520
Speaker 1: is a sacred text. Then Ben told me another story

22
00:01:20,840 --> 00:01:24,000
Speaker 1: about what, in his mind is an even more important

23
00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:28,640
Speaker 1: Christmas tale, a story that he regards as the apotheosis

24
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:33,640
Speaker 1: of all Christmas movies, a story not in a film,

25
00:01:34,160 --> 00:01:41,280
Speaker 1: but of the making of a film. Welcome to revisionist history.

26
00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:43,880
Speaker 1: I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Today in our show, Ben the n

27
00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:47,720
Speaker 1: alf Halfrey relays for the very first time in history,

28
00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:52,160
Speaker 1: the truly screwy story of the making of the oddest

29
00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:54,920
Speaker 1: Christmas film of all time. Trust me, you have never

30
00:01:54,960 --> 00:01:58,320
Speaker 1: heard this story before ever, nor have you ever seen

31
00:01:58,360 --> 00:02:00,680
Speaker 1: the movie in question. Unless you do. You remember the

32
00:02:00,720 --> 00:02:04,800
Speaker 1: extended dedf Halfway Clan or were recently incarcerated in a

33
00:02:04,840 --> 00:02:08,600
Speaker 1: state that limits prisoner's streaming access to obscure television movies

34
00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:12,160
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties. But when you listen to what follows,

35
00:02:12,919 --> 00:02:15,119
Speaker 1: you're going to ask yourself the same question I ask

36
00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:18,400
Speaker 1: myself when Ben first told me this story.

37
00:02:18,560 --> 00:02:19,400
Speaker 2: How do I miss this?

38
00:02:27,440 --> 00:02:30,120
Speaker 3: Unlike Malcolm, I am a great lover of Christmas movies.

39
00:02:30,560 --> 00:02:33,079
Speaker 3: Every year, as soon as Thanksgiving is over, I'm firing

40
00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:35,639
Speaker 3: up the Bishop's Wife, Miracle on thirty fourth Street, or

41
00:02:35,720 --> 00:02:39,680
Speaker 3: It's a Wonderful Life. And then there's my favorite Christmas movie,

42
00:02:39,960 --> 00:02:44,440
Speaker 3: a little less famous, the nineteen forty five romantic comedy

43
00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:48,560
Speaker 3: Christmas in Connecticut. I've watched it pretty much every year

44
00:02:48,560 --> 00:02:52,040
Speaker 3: since I was little. Barbara Stanwick plays a magazine columnist

45
00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:55,600
Speaker 3: who's famous for entertaining on her grand Connecticut farm. She's

46
00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:58,080
Speaker 3: known as a great cook. It's the end of World

47
00:02:58,120 --> 00:03:01,040
Speaker 3: War Two and her magazine's public sure has an idea

48
00:03:01,160 --> 00:03:04,520
Speaker 3: for a great feature. Jill hosts a returning war hero

49
00:03:04,639 --> 00:03:08,840
Speaker 3: for Christmas on her farm. There's just one problem. It's

50
00:03:08,880 --> 00:03:12,640
Speaker 3: all a lie. She doesn't live in Connecticut. She lives

51
00:03:12,639 --> 00:03:15,000
Speaker 3: in a tiny apartment in New York. And she has

52
00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:16,679
Speaker 3: no clue how to cook.

53
00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:20,799
Speaker 2: My fun? Oh yes, my fun?

54
00:03:22,120 --> 00:03:23,960
Speaker 4: Oh my fine? And you want to see you right

55
00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:24,760
Speaker 4: away to arrange it.

56
00:03:24,960 --> 00:03:26,079
Speaker 5: Arrange it? Are you crazy?

57
00:03:26,120 --> 00:03:27,399
Speaker 4: Where am I going to get a farm? I haven't

58
00:03:27,400 --> 00:03:28,079
Speaker 4: even got a window.

59
00:03:28,120 --> 00:03:29,120
Speaker 5: Boss, That's just it.

60
00:03:29,280 --> 00:03:30,639
Speaker 4: We'll have to star him off, you know what, to

61
00:03:30,680 --> 00:03:31,760
Speaker 4: stick to the truth.

62
00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:34,360
Speaker 6: If he ever finds out we've been making all this up,

63
00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:35,960
Speaker 6: you'll fire the both of us.

64
00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:40,920
Speaker 3: Chaos ensues. It's a classic screwball comedy and a total delight.

65
00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:43,320
Speaker 3: But the thing I really want to tell you about

66
00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:46,160
Speaker 3: in this episode is what happened after I discovered, quite

67
00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:49,320
Speaker 3: by accident, that there was a remake of this favorite

68
00:03:49,400 --> 00:03:54,280
Speaker 3: Christmas movie of mine, an action packed, star studed, joke filled,

69
00:03:54,520 --> 00:03:58,320
Speaker 3: really very different version of the original, made for TV

70
00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:05,800
Speaker 3: and directed by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. A kind

71
00:04:05,800 --> 00:04:08,400
Speaker 3: of shocking twist if you ask me, I mean, why

72
00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:12,200
Speaker 3: would the Terminator take on Christmas in Connecticut? So I

73
00:04:12,240 --> 00:04:15,200
Speaker 3: did what any good Christmas fiend would do. I talked

74
00:04:15,240 --> 00:04:17,960
Speaker 3: to a dozen people about something that happened thirty years

75
00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:21,279
Speaker 3: ago for way too many hours to get the real story,

76
00:04:21,960 --> 00:04:24,240
Speaker 3: and I discovered in the process. But I have come

77
00:04:24,279 --> 00:04:27,960
Speaker 3: to regard as the greatest Christmas tale of all time.

78
00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:31,760
Speaker 2: I've told this story many times, I've never told it

79
00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:34,920
Speaker 2: all the record. It's a big story, So if you've

80
00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:36,719
Speaker 2: got the time, I will tell it to you.

81
00:04:37,279 --> 00:04:40,560
Speaker 3: That's Stan Brooks in the early nineteen nineties. He was

82
00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:42,920
Speaker 3: an independent made for TV movie producer.

83
00:04:43,880 --> 00:04:46,599
Speaker 2: So I'm developing movies and a friend of mine goes

84
00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:49,279
Speaker 2: and gets the job at TNC, and I make the

85
00:04:49,400 --> 00:04:50,559
Speaker 2: very first movie for him.

86
00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:54,159
Speaker 3: TNT launched in nineteen eighty eight, at the start of

87
00:04:54,160 --> 00:04:58,200
Speaker 3: the cable television revolution. Then, as now, cable was expensive,

88
00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:01,040
Speaker 3: but it was growing. The whole game was trying to

89
00:05:01,120 --> 00:05:03,960
Speaker 3: raise awareness to get people to sign up, and with

90
00:05:04,080 --> 00:05:06,400
Speaker 3: channels running twenty four to seven, there was a lot

91
00:05:06,400 --> 00:05:09,200
Speaker 3: of space to fill, which led to a boom and

92
00:05:09,240 --> 00:05:12,919
Speaker 3: made for TV movies. Stan's first film on TNT was

93
00:05:12,920 --> 00:05:15,479
Speaker 3: a big success. So he got another bite at the

94
00:05:15,480 --> 00:05:17,200
Speaker 3: apple and he calls.

95
00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:18,320
Speaker 2: Me, He goes, what do you want to do next?

96
00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:20,160
Speaker 2: So they said, Nami years, would you ever let me

97
00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:22,080
Speaker 2: do a remake from the MGM library because that's what

98
00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:25,520
Speaker 2: Ted owned, And he said, yes, just pick one.

99
00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:29,760
Speaker 3: Christmas movies always do well, and there is one. Stan

100
00:05:29,880 --> 00:05:33,200
Speaker 3: loved Christmas in Connecticut, and I.

101
00:05:33,240 --> 00:05:35,840
Speaker 2: Know the Barber Stanlet movie, and so I said, well,

102
00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:37,600
Speaker 2: this could be a good one. It was right as

103
00:05:37,720 --> 00:05:40,400
Speaker 2: Martha Stewart was exploding. I thought, well, what if this

104
00:05:40,440 --> 00:05:42,760
Speaker 2: is Martha Stewart. What if she's on TV and has

105
00:05:42,800 --> 00:05:46,240
Speaker 2: an empire and it's all fake? And so they loved

106
00:05:46,279 --> 00:05:49,520
Speaker 2: that take, and so off we went to the races.

107
00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:53,440
Speaker 7: He got a writer to work up the script in television.

108
00:05:53,600 --> 00:05:55,120
Speaker 7: It was It was great because you can get your

109
00:05:55,160 --> 00:05:55,840
Speaker 7: stuff made.

110
00:05:56,440 --> 00:05:59,000
Speaker 3: This is Janet Brownew, one of the all time great

111
00:05:59,040 --> 00:06:02,200
Speaker 3: Bards of TV movie writer on Eloise at the Plaza,

112
00:06:02,279 --> 00:06:04,960
Speaker 3: Twelve Dates of Christmas, Days of Our Lives and the

113
00:06:05,040 --> 00:06:08,840
Speaker 3: uncredited rewrite of Tim Allens the Santa Claus all Brown.

114
00:06:08,880 --> 00:06:12,039
Speaker 3: Now she loved the original Christmas in Connecticut.

115
00:06:12,440 --> 00:06:16,839
Speaker 8: I mean it's a charming and in fairst to me,

116
00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:18,880
Speaker 8: the original draft was very close.

117
00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:22,200
Speaker 3: Janet wrote the draft of the script for Stan's remake.

118
00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:24,760
Speaker 2: And we turn it in and they go, this is

119
00:06:25,200 --> 00:06:26,960
Speaker 2: this is do me in a Christmas movie. So now

120
00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:31,040
Speaker 2: I have and I have a nice little Christmas programmer

121
00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:32,080
Speaker 2: and nothing more.

122
00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:36,720
Speaker 3: It's the middle of nineteen ninety one in Hollywood. Janet

123
00:06:36,720 --> 00:06:39,680
Speaker 3: and Stan's low budget television movie remake isn't really the

124
00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:42,760
Speaker 3: sort of thing to get people talking, but they're making progress.

125
00:06:43,320 --> 00:06:45,840
Speaker 3: He's got the old school movie star Diane Cannon cast

126
00:06:45,880 --> 00:06:48,280
Speaker 3: in the lead as the Martha Stewart character, and an

127
00:06:48,279 --> 00:06:51,599
Speaker 3: offer out to a director. And then one day his

128
00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:55,599
Speaker 3: phone rings. His assistant says, it's a big Hollywood agent

129
00:06:56,360 --> 00:06:57,200
Speaker 3: named Lou Pitt.

130
00:07:00,440 --> 00:07:02,960
Speaker 2: Now I understand I'm in the television movie business. These

131
00:07:02,960 --> 00:07:05,839
Speaker 2: guys are never calling me, so if they do call me,

132
00:07:06,360 --> 00:07:11,920
Speaker 2: it's never good. And and he he gets on the

133
00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:16,160
Speaker 2: phone and he says, the other director for your Christmas

134
00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:21,280
Speaker 2: in Connecticut movie. And I said, uh, well almost yeah,

135
00:07:21,320 --> 00:07:23,320
Speaker 2: we may have an offer out And he said, okay,

136
00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:27,000
Speaker 2: Well if he doesn't say yes, I want you to consider

137
00:07:27,040 --> 00:07:30,040
Speaker 2: my client. And I go, okay, wait to hear the name,

138
00:07:30,120 --> 00:07:33,080
Speaker 2: and I go who He goes Arl Schwarzenegger, and I

139
00:07:33,160 --> 00:07:34,080
Speaker 2: burst out laughly.

140
00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:36,520
Speaker 9: Oh he was. He was totally shocked.

141
00:07:37,280 --> 00:07:40,000
Speaker 3: Lou Pitt, legendary agent Arnold Schwarzenegger.

142
00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:43,680
Speaker 2: That's hilarious. No, seriously, is this a joke?

143
00:07:44,320 --> 00:07:45,040
Speaker 9: Is this a joke?

144
00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:50,000
Speaker 2: He goes, no, seriously, and he goes, I'm Schwartzaker's not

145
00:07:50,040 --> 00:07:51,880
Speaker 2: going a Christmas movie for tn T.

146
00:07:52,840 --> 00:07:56,120
Speaker 3: To be clear, Arnold had just finished shooting James Cameron's

147
00:07:56,160 --> 00:08:01,720
Speaker 3: epic Terminator too Asta La Vista Baby. Terminator two is

148
00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:04,720
Speaker 3: the one where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a killer cyborg sent

149
00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:07,360
Speaker 3: from the future to protect young John Connor from a

150
00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:11,120
Speaker 3: different killer cyborg also sent from the future to kill him.

151
00:08:11,280 --> 00:08:14,200
Speaker 3: As you can imagine, such a plot necessitates a lot

152
00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:17,400
Speaker 3: of elaborate production work. He was movie making on a

153
00:08:17,400 --> 00:08:21,360
Speaker 3: scale that was practically unheard of, especially in Los Angeles.

154
00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:24,920
Speaker 10: The production actually changed the course of a river to

155
00:08:24,960 --> 00:08:28,480
Speaker 10: shoot high speed chases in the extensive clood control channels

156
00:08:28,480 --> 00:08:29,400
Speaker 10: of Los Angeles.

157
00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:33,439
Speaker 3: Anyways, back to Stan and Lou the Agent.

158
00:08:34,120 --> 00:08:38,320
Speaker 2: I go, Lou, why on earth were Arnold Swartz? He says, well,

159
00:08:38,360 --> 00:08:39,040
Speaker 2: here's why.

160
00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:43,800
Speaker 3: Arnold Schwarzenegger was forty four years old, he had two kids.

161
00:08:44,320 --> 00:08:47,520
Speaker 3: Nobody is an action hero forever. Maybe it was time

162
00:08:47,520 --> 00:08:48,800
Speaker 3: to explore some alternatives.

163
00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:53,360
Speaker 2: And so he was kind of tired after T two

164
00:08:53,360 --> 00:08:56,080
Speaker 2: when he said to Blue, I would like to direct

165
00:08:56,640 --> 00:08:57,240
Speaker 2: a movie.

166
00:08:57,720 --> 00:08:59,960
Speaker 9: The directing thing was kind of out of the box,

167
00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:01,640
Speaker 9: out a left field, and they.

168
00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:03,600
Speaker 2: Said, well, can we'll put together a big feat direct

169
00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:07,040
Speaker 2: He goes, no, no, no, I want low risk. If I

170
00:09:07,080 --> 00:09:10,040
Speaker 2: do a terrible job, I don't want anyone to be upset.

171
00:09:10,080 --> 00:09:12,240
Speaker 2: I don't want a big budget, and I want it

172
00:09:12,280 --> 00:09:14,920
Speaker 2: to be family friendly because I don't want anything to

173
00:09:14,960 --> 00:09:18,280
Speaker 2: be controversial nothing. I just want something very simple. And

174
00:09:18,320 --> 00:09:21,840
Speaker 2: the only one that fit the bill was Christmas, Connecticut.

175
00:09:21,840 --> 00:09:26,080
Speaker 2: So I said, okay, I'll I'll call you if this

176
00:09:26,120 --> 00:09:27,880
Speaker 2: guy passes and I ham the phone off force my

177
00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:29,520
Speaker 2: hearts jumping out him like I go.

178
00:09:29,600 --> 00:09:33,400
Speaker 9: What and and I said, yeah, I'm serious. I read it.

179
00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:36,200
Speaker 9: I think he'd like it, So get me an offer.

180
00:09:36,920 --> 00:09:39,320
Speaker 3: Stan gets the green light from the executives at TNT.

181
00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:43,320
Speaker 3: There's some negotiating and they offer Schwartzenegger one hundred thousand bucks,

182
00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:46,319
Speaker 3: and then one night stands phone rings.

183
00:09:47,760 --> 00:09:50,880
Speaker 2: I pick it up and I hear Sam Brooks, yes

184
00:09:50,960 --> 00:09:53,560
Speaker 2: please hold for homes forts Snagger and now I'm serious.

185
00:09:53,600 --> 00:09:56,760
Speaker 2: I can see my heart beating, and he goes hello.

186
00:09:57,559 --> 00:10:02,200
Speaker 2: I go, uh, Arnold, you're the guy with this Christmas script?

187
00:10:02,280 --> 00:10:07,160
Speaker 2: I said yes. He says it's fantastic. I'd love to direct.

188
00:10:07,800 --> 00:10:08,560
Speaker 9: I go okay.

189
00:10:08,600 --> 00:10:10,319
Speaker 2: He goes, but I have to shoot in Los Angeles,

190
00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:12,839
Speaker 2: knight to do it in these days. And he goes

191
00:10:12,840 --> 00:10:14,840
Speaker 2: a nice some notes of the script. I go, okay,

192
00:10:14,960 --> 00:10:16,040
Speaker 2: can you be here in an hour?

193
00:10:17,040 --> 00:10:18,679
Speaker 3: And I go, uh no.

194
00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:21,959
Speaker 2: He goes, can you be on Wednesday? I go, yes,

195
00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:23,359
Speaker 2: I could be there on Wednesday.

196
00:10:23,840 --> 00:10:26,160
Speaker 3: He goes over for a meeting at Arnold's offices in

197
00:10:26,200 --> 00:10:27,000
Speaker 3: Santa Monica.

198
00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:30,760
Speaker 2: So now going to see me on Wednesday? And you

199
00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:34,480
Speaker 2: walk in and there's this giant lobby and and the

200
00:10:34,679 --> 00:10:38,880
Speaker 2: first thing you see is the exoskeleton, the metal thing

201
00:10:38,920 --> 00:10:43,480
Speaker 2: with the red eyes from Terminator. So there's no doubt.

202
00:10:43,520 --> 00:10:44,880
Speaker 2: I mean, the posters are up on the wall, but

203
00:10:45,000 --> 00:10:47,080
Speaker 2: there's no doubt. When you walk in and you see

204
00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:51,160
Speaker 2: this seven foot thing, you go, oh, crap, I know

205
00:10:51,160 --> 00:10:53,160
Speaker 2: where I am. My heart's beating and I go in

206
00:10:53,200 --> 00:10:56,600
Speaker 2: and he's in his office, which is massive. It's like

207
00:10:56,840 --> 00:11:00,400
Speaker 2: you know, signs of a football field, and he's on one.

208
00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:02,520
Speaker 2: You walk in on this end and he's on the

209
00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:05,000
Speaker 2: other ends. You go walk past all the you know,

210
00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:07,800
Speaker 2: the props and stuff, and then he's at a big,

211
00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:12,240
Speaker 2: huge desk with a big giant chair, and behind him

212
00:11:12,520 --> 00:11:18,440
Speaker 2: is a bookshelf but with all of the Mister Universe awards,

213
00:11:18,480 --> 00:11:22,160
Speaker 2: not film stuff, it's all his bodybuilding awards. And I

214
00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:24,280
Speaker 2: remember we were going through the script and I said, hey,

215
00:11:24,320 --> 00:11:28,600
Speaker 2: I want to use the restroom and he pointed to

216
00:11:28,640 --> 00:11:32,040
Speaker 2: me by putting up this bicep and pointing it like this,

217
00:11:32,080 --> 00:11:34,280
Speaker 2: and his bicep comes cleaning. He goes this doc wo

218
00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:37,520
Speaker 2: and I go, is that just to show me your

219
00:11:37,520 --> 00:11:39,840
Speaker 2: boy step? And he goes, I have to show you know,

220
00:11:40,080 --> 00:11:43,160
Speaker 2: the guns whenever I can, and I realized, okay, so

221
00:11:43,280 --> 00:11:46,040
Speaker 2: this guy definitely has a sense of humort by himself.

222
00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:50,640
Speaker 3: They sit down, Arnold has notes on the script he

223
00:11:50,679 --> 00:11:51,800
Speaker 3: will he wanted.

224
00:11:51,480 --> 00:11:55,840
Speaker 2: A more humor and a little more jeopardy, and so

225
00:11:55,880 --> 00:11:58,360
Speaker 2: we added in like this like sort of big action

226
00:11:58,440 --> 00:11:59,440
Speaker 2: sequence at the beginning.

227
00:11:59,240 --> 00:12:02,840
Speaker 3: Where he rescues the and all of a sudden, Janet Brownell,

228
00:12:02,960 --> 00:12:05,720
Speaker 3: who wrote the original script for the remake, is looking

229
00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:07,160
Speaker 3: at a very different movie.

230
00:12:09,240 --> 00:12:13,840
Speaker 7: The whole thing took this like one hundred and eighty

231
00:12:13,840 --> 00:12:17,280
Speaker 7: degree turn. At that point, it was just like what

232
00:12:17,480 --> 00:12:19,720
Speaker 7: is And Stan just did not want to lose him,

233
00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:22,080
Speaker 7: And I'm like, Okay.

234
00:12:21,920 --> 00:12:24,160
Speaker 8: I truly don't see this.

235
00:12:24,400 --> 00:12:26,920
Speaker 2: But if it gets a film green light, I don't

236
00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:27,400
Speaker 2: give a shit.

237
00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:30,200
Speaker 3: Arnold wants them to get someone else to come in

238
00:12:30,240 --> 00:12:31,200
Speaker 3: and punch up the script.

239
00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:34,640
Speaker 2: He wanted more humor, and as it happened, my best

240
00:12:34,640 --> 00:12:36,480
Speaker 2: friend in the world had written.

241
00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:41,280
Speaker 3: Commando Commando, the nineteen eighty five action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger,

242
00:12:41,520 --> 00:12:43,679
Speaker 3: which the critic from the La Times referred to as

243
00:12:43,679 --> 00:12:48,760
Speaker 3: a quote gory crowd pleaser and a glorified fireworks display.

244
00:12:50,080 --> 00:12:52,120
Speaker 2: And Arnold loved them and said, if you think you

245
00:12:52,400 --> 00:12:54,640
Speaker 2: get him to do a comedy past.

246
00:12:55,240 --> 00:12:57,800
Speaker 3: Jeff Low, the friend who wrote Commando, gets hired to

247
00:12:57,840 --> 00:13:00,240
Speaker 3: do the rewrite with his writing partner.

248
00:13:00,400 --> 00:13:01,080
Speaker 9: We walk in.

249
00:13:01,400 --> 00:13:07,120
Speaker 6: He's sitting on a white couch, maybe it's literally the

250
00:13:07,240 --> 00:13:09,640
Speaker 6: length of the biggest limousine you've ever seen in your life,

251
00:13:10,320 --> 00:13:14,080
Speaker 6: and he has his feed up on this white porcelain

252
00:13:14,360 --> 00:13:17,319
Speaker 6: marble table. He's got a big cigar in his mouth

253
00:13:17,400 --> 00:13:22,240
Speaker 6: and scrips all around him, and he doesn't say hello,

254
00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:25,199
Speaker 6: He doesn't introduce himself, he doesn't do anything.

255
00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:29,080
Speaker 5: He just the first thing out of his mouth is, so,

256
00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:34,040
Speaker 5: what of you guys been doing since Commando? Clearly not

257
00:13:34,200 --> 00:13:35,600
Speaker 5: going to the gym.

258
00:13:36,160 --> 00:13:38,280
Speaker 3: I just have to say, everyone in this episode is

259
00:13:38,320 --> 00:13:40,920
Speaker 3: going to do their own Schwartzenegger impression, which is good

260
00:13:40,960 --> 00:13:43,240
Speaker 3: because even though we couldn't land an interview with him,

261
00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:46,160
Speaker 3: I feel like he's here with us in spirit anyway.

262
00:13:46,520 --> 00:13:49,520
Speaker 3: They settle in and start rewriting the film Commando style.

263
00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:52,920
Speaker 8: So that's where things kind of went off the rails

264
00:13:52,920 --> 00:13:56,200
Speaker 8: for me personally, because it's like, Okay, this is becoming

265
00:13:56,240 --> 00:14:00,760
Speaker 8: a completely different thing. It just Schwartzenegger eye into like

266
00:14:01,160 --> 00:14:03,160
Speaker 8: this thing that was bigger than life.

267
00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:06,640
Speaker 4: I mean, she just did an amazing job. We didn't

268
00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:12,320
Speaker 4: make any real big structural changes. That's all hers, but

269
00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:17,480
Speaker 4: a dialogue pass and goes through it and try to

270
00:14:17,520 --> 00:14:20,120
Speaker 4: find more Bold's vision.

271
00:14:21,160 --> 00:14:23,880
Speaker 3: They start burning through the script. A big job for

272
00:14:23,920 --> 00:14:27,720
Speaker 3: any director is giving notes on the rewrites. Schwarzenegger was

273
00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:31,360
Speaker 3: calling in help from his director friends, including legendary comedy

274
00:14:31,360 --> 00:14:35,880
Speaker 3: director Ivan Reitman, the guy who did Ghostbusters. Everyone was

275
00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:38,080
Speaker 3: working to realize Arnold's vision.

276
00:14:38,880 --> 00:14:42,960
Speaker 5: Now you have to understand that on Commando he would

277
00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:43,800
Speaker 5: do this all the time.

278
00:14:43,920 --> 00:14:46,360
Speaker 4: He would go, I have a great idea this and

279
00:14:46,440 --> 00:14:47,320
Speaker 4: this is what I want to do.

280
00:14:47,560 --> 00:14:49,840
Speaker 6: When the guy comes at me, I want to throw.

281
00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:52,480
Speaker 11: A buzzsaw at him and it chops off his arm,

282
00:14:52,560 --> 00:14:54,280
Speaker 11: and then I'm going to pick up his arm and

283
00:14:54,440 --> 00:14:58,880
Speaker 11: punch me in his face with his old arm. And

284
00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:01,560
Speaker 11: we would go, well, we like the bus off part.

285
00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:04,960
Speaker 11: Can we just do the bus off art? So like,

286
00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:07,920
Speaker 11: our job is not to go I think that's not

287
00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:10,040
Speaker 11: gonna work. Our job is to make it work. And

288
00:15:10,080 --> 00:15:14,480
Speaker 11: it doesn't help that the next day he would say.

289
00:15:15,280 --> 00:15:18,000
Speaker 4: Okay, we're doing really well, We're really getting there.

290
00:15:18,160 --> 00:15:20,440
Speaker 2: It's really coming to where I wanted to be, so

291
00:15:20,480 --> 00:15:21,480
Speaker 2: I gave it to Steve It.

292
00:15:21,560 --> 00:15:24,000
Speaker 6: And Stephen talked to me last night and he said,

293
00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:26,160
Speaker 6: I have to really be careful that and this is

294
00:15:26,200 --> 00:15:29,920
Speaker 6: what I want you to do. And again I'm like,

295
00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:33,240
Speaker 6: is Stephen the guy at the jim is Stephen?

296
00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:34,680
Speaker 4: Who is Steve It?

297
00:15:35,080 --> 00:15:37,680
Speaker 6: And then suddenly as you go, you know, as he

298
00:15:37,800 --> 00:15:40,480
Speaker 6: starts to sort of talk more, you go, he's talking

299
00:15:40,520 --> 00:15:41,760
Speaker 6: about Steven Spielberg.

300
00:15:42,760 --> 00:15:45,040
Speaker 3: This is beginning to look like a train nobody would

301
00:15:45,040 --> 00:15:48,320
Speaker 3: step in front of. Back at TNT, the executives had

302
00:15:48,320 --> 00:15:49,760
Speaker 3: a dim sense of what was going on.

303
00:15:50,680 --> 00:15:53,000
Speaker 10: It's not it's not has done now.

304
00:15:53,840 --> 00:15:57,640
Speaker 3: Lorie Postman Tier one of the TNT executives.

305
00:15:57,240 --> 00:16:00,160
Speaker 10: Whether you're famous or not, as a director agent, that

306
00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:03,200
Speaker 10: doesn't happen. To let somebody go and change things as

307
00:16:03,280 --> 00:16:04,280
Speaker 10: much as we're change.

308
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:08,160
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, they've cast the rest of the film. Joining Diane

309
00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:11,760
Speaker 3: Cannon would be Hollywood screwball legend Tony Curtis, probably best

310
00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:14,680
Speaker 3: known for playing opposite Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot.

311
00:16:14,880 --> 00:16:18,440
Speaker 3: Along with him would be ex country music star Chris Kristofferson.

312
00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:21,960
Speaker 3: Here's TNT's senior vice president of production at the time,

313
00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:23,040
Speaker 3: Nick Lombardo.

314
00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:25,560
Speaker 12: Even when they cast it, I thought, well, that is

315
00:16:25,600 --> 00:16:27,960
Speaker 12: the weirdest cast I ever heard of. I mean, the

316
00:16:28,040 --> 00:16:31,000
Speaker 12: idea that these people fit together made no sense at all.

317
00:16:31,040 --> 00:16:34,000
Speaker 12: I mean, Diane Cannon and Chriskus Dobinson in the same frame.

318
00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:37,120
Speaker 12: It makes a star is born when he's holding Barbara

319
00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:38,560
Speaker 12: Streisad look organic.

320
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:42,480
Speaker 3: So armed with one of the all time weirdest, most

321
00:16:42,520 --> 00:16:45,920
Speaker 3: stacked casts in the history of film, a comparatively small

322
00:16:45,920 --> 00:16:48,960
Speaker 3: budget of three million dollars, a slot on an upstart

323
00:16:48,960 --> 00:16:51,640
Speaker 3: cable network, and a script based on a nineteen forty

324
00:16:51,680 --> 00:16:53,840
Speaker 3: screwball comedy that's been punched up by two of the

325
00:16:53,840 --> 00:16:58,080
Speaker 3: writers behind a big eighties blockbuster. An Austrian former bodybuilder,

326
00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:01,440
Speaker 3: fresh off his repeat performance as a time traveling cyborg,

327
00:17:01,840 --> 00:17:04,600
Speaker 3: prepared to direct his first Christmas film.

328
00:17:04,920 --> 00:17:07,640
Speaker 2: You don't, as a TV movie producer ever get near

329
00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:11,000
Speaker 2: anything this hot. You just don't.

330
00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:13,840
Speaker 10: I mean, we're we're all a little nervous about the

331
00:17:13,840 --> 00:17:16,720
Speaker 10: whole thing, you know, because it's like you're playing with

332
00:17:16,800 --> 00:17:20,440
Speaker 10: matches and you know, oh, yeah, that's that Arnold directed this.

333
00:17:20,840 --> 00:17:21,080
Speaker 9: You know.

334
00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:24,600
Speaker 10: It's like, for us three million dollars was a lot

335
00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:25,159
Speaker 10: of money.

336
00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:27,560
Speaker 8: I don't know, I don't know whatever.

337
00:17:27,600 --> 00:17:30,199
Speaker 10: It was like, Oh yeah, he wanted to prove that

338
00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:31,800
Speaker 10: he could be a director.

339
00:17:32,640 --> 00:17:35,320
Speaker 3: And everyone was about to find out whether or not

340
00:17:35,440 --> 00:17:47,720
Speaker 3: he could. Christmas and Connecticut, the remake began filming about

341
00:17:47,720 --> 00:17:52,040
Speaker 3: two months before Christmas in Los Angeles. Because Arnold Schwartzenegger

342
00:17:52,119 --> 00:17:54,520
Speaker 3: had never before directed a future film, though what the

343
00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:57,000
Speaker 3: record show he had directed an episode of the TV

344
00:17:57,040 --> 00:18:00,359
Speaker 3: show Tales from the Crypt, the production arranged for to

345
00:18:00,359 --> 00:18:02,199
Speaker 3: film more or less in the order they happen in

346
00:18:02,240 --> 00:18:04,239
Speaker 3: the film. There's a lot less to keep track of

347
00:18:04,280 --> 00:18:08,000
Speaker 3: continuity wise that way, but this also posed a problem.

348
00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:10,720
Speaker 3: One of the anxieties of adapting a great work of

349
00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:12,720
Speaker 3: art is figuring out how to make it your own.

350
00:18:13,400 --> 00:18:16,080
Speaker 3: The nineteen ninety two made for TV remake of Christmas

351
00:18:16,119 --> 00:18:19,560
Speaker 3: in Connecticut does this immediately by introducing its male lead,

352
00:18:19,760 --> 00:18:23,320
Speaker 3: a park ranger named Jefferson Jones, mid workout routine in

353
00:18:23,359 --> 00:18:26,679
Speaker 3: his mountain cabin. If you're looking for signs that this

354
00:18:26,800 --> 00:18:29,600
Speaker 3: is not your grandmother's Christmas in Connecticut, the site of

355
00:18:29,680 --> 00:18:33,000
Speaker 3: Chris Christofferson as Jefferson Jones, sweating after busting out some

356
00:18:33,080 --> 00:18:35,479
Speaker 3: chin ups on a beam in his cabin is your

357
00:18:35,520 --> 00:18:39,200
Speaker 3: first morning, a man on the television offers some brisk

358
00:18:39,320 --> 00:18:43,720
Speaker 3: exposition while he cools down. In the last hour, experts

359
00:18:43,760 --> 00:18:45,800
Speaker 3: predict this shouldn't be the biggest storm to hit the

360
00:18:45,840 --> 00:18:47,360
Speaker 3: Rockies in the last decade.

361
00:18:47,680 --> 00:18:50,200
Speaker 13: More than four feet of snow is anticipated to blanket

362
00:18:50,200 --> 00:18:51,720
Speaker 13: the area in the next forty eight hours.

363
00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:55,520
Speaker 3: The phone rings. Another ranger is calling to tell Jones

364
00:18:55,520 --> 00:18:58,240
Speaker 3: a kid has gotten lost in the blizzard. He has

365
00:18:58,280 --> 00:19:01,080
Speaker 3: to go out and find him. This is the fabled

366
00:19:01,119 --> 00:19:04,840
Speaker 3: action sequence Schwarzenegger had requested. They shot the blizzard on

367
00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:08,120
Speaker 3: a sound stage. It's the moment Jefferson Jones becomes a hero,

368
00:19:08,520 --> 00:19:10,280
Speaker 3: which is why he gets invited to be a guest

369
00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:13,440
Speaker 3: of Elizabeth Blaine's for a Christmas special in Connecticut. It's

370
00:19:13,480 --> 00:19:15,720
Speaker 3: got to look epic. It's got to have that Arnold

371
00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:21,760
Speaker 3: Schwarzenegger feeling. Unfortunately terminator, this is not. Here's Jim Wilberger,

372
00:19:21,960 --> 00:19:22,920
Speaker 3: director of production.

373
00:19:23,560 --> 00:19:27,360
Speaker 10: You know there's a scene where Christofferson, you know, suddenly

374
00:19:27,359 --> 00:19:29,480
Speaker 10: has rescued the kid and you see him rolled down

375
00:19:29,520 --> 00:19:34,720
Speaker 10: this little hill of snow which was shot on stage

376
00:19:35,359 --> 00:19:39,640
Speaker 10: and trying to make more of more of it because

377
00:19:39,640 --> 00:19:42,760
Speaker 10: there wasn't that much set for that little hill, and

378
00:19:42,880 --> 00:19:45,280
Speaker 10: you know, and then suddenly you see all the people

379
00:19:45,359 --> 00:19:48,720
Speaker 10: rush in to rescue you know. I mean, this was

380
00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:54,879
Speaker 10: just not good blocking, and that's just an experience.

381
00:19:56,119 --> 00:19:59,119
Speaker 3: Schwarzenegger wanted Jeopardy, but this kind of looks like a

382
00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:03,160
Speaker 3: snowball fight gone. Jones stumbles over a very small hill

383
00:20:03,200 --> 00:20:05,680
Speaker 3: holding a child that looks like it might be a mannequin.

384
00:20:06,160 --> 00:20:09,520
Speaker 3: He's groaning and yelling, but his lips aren't moving, so

385
00:20:10,119 --> 00:20:13,080
Speaker 3: tough start. Luckily, though, a lot of the film is

386
00:20:13,119 --> 00:20:16,879
Speaker 3: set inside Elizabeth Blaine's fake Connecticut house where she's shooting

387
00:20:16,880 --> 00:20:20,560
Speaker 3: a Christmas special in celebration of Jones. The bulk production

388
00:20:20,720 --> 00:20:23,080
Speaker 3: happened there, so the whole crew set up at a

389
00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:26,800
Speaker 3: house in South Pasadena for the real work. This introduced

390
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:30,480
Speaker 3: Arnold to the second problem of directing actor ego management,

391
00:20:31,040 --> 00:20:32,240
Speaker 3: and the issue of his trailer.

392
00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:36,800
Speaker 14: Arnold's trailer was like a house on wheels.

393
00:20:36,840 --> 00:20:38,359
Speaker 15: It was literally like you'd look at it from the

394
00:20:38,359 --> 00:20:40,879
Speaker 15: outside and you'd say, wow, that's got all kinds of

395
00:20:40,880 --> 00:20:42,880
Speaker 15: popouts and the roof went off and everything.

396
00:20:42,960 --> 00:20:44,760
Speaker 2: But when you got inside, it was literally like you

397
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:48,520
Speaker 2: had just walked into like the Greystone Mansion, you.

398
00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:52,359
Speaker 10: Know, it's probably almost three times as wide as a

399
00:20:52,440 --> 00:20:55,480
Speaker 10: normal trailer, and that it was the length that became

400
00:20:55,560 --> 00:21:02,080
Speaker 10: the issue. Diane comes in and she says, why is

401
00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:05,080
Speaker 10: Arnold's trailer bigger than my trailer? Nobody's supposed to have

402
00:21:05,119 --> 00:21:06,159
Speaker 10: a bigger trailer than me.

403
00:21:07,240 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 3: Diane Cannon was the star of the film, but she

404
00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:14,720
Speaker 3: was maybe realizing that this production was all about the director. Schwarzenegger, though,

405
00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:18,600
Speaker 3: was dealing with other problems. Namely, he had chosen one

406
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:21,040
Speaker 3: of the hardest genres for his first major directing for

407
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,879
Speaker 3: a screwball comedy is like dancing on the head of

408
00:21:23,880 --> 00:21:26,840
Speaker 3: a pin. It thrives on chaos, but it has to

409
00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:30,320
Speaker 3: be a kind of controlled chaos. With his big personality cast,

410
00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:34,880
Speaker 3: low budget, short timeline, and hastily rewritten script, Schwarzenegger had

411
00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:38,240
Speaker 3: an excess of chaos and a minimum of control. I mean,

412
00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:41,879
Speaker 3: you have one somewhat disgruntled actress portraying fake Martha Stewart,

413
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,199
Speaker 3: and another who's a macho park ranger, but who, for

414
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:48,840
Speaker 3: no apparent reason, relays this backstory part way through the movie.

415
00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:53,440
Speaker 16: Actually, before I moved to Colorado, I lived in Chicago.

416
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:58,560
Speaker 16: I grew up there, taught comparative Literature at the University

417
00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:02,120
Speaker 16: of Container really offered tenure and head of the department,

418
00:22:02,280 --> 00:22:06,199
Speaker 16: and it's what I thought I wanted. That's being caged

419
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 16: in by concrete and crowds for the rest of my life.

420
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:12,439
Speaker 3: This is I'm pretty sure the only time in the

421
00:22:12,600 --> 00:22:15,359
Speaker 3: entire film Jefferson jones Is past as chair of the

422
00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:19,439
Speaker 3: University of Chicago's Comparative Literature department is mentioned. And I

423
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:22,720
Speaker 3: love Chris Kristofferson, but most of the rest of his

424
00:22:22,800 --> 00:22:26,959
Speaker 3: performance veers between stiff and oddly sexually charged.

425
00:22:27,520 --> 00:22:30,960
Speaker 10: When he starts smearing the pine staff on her neck.

426
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:36,679
Speaker 3: Yeah that it's it's it's just kind of transcendently weird.

427
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:40,159
Speaker 10: Yeah, well, not to mention his two times he's like

428
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:41,280
Speaker 10: staring at her butt.

429
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:44,600
Speaker 3: You know, there's an extensive shot of that.

430
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:47,720
Speaker 9: But you can't buy that at Limingdal.

431
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:53,119
Speaker 3: So you've got two characters who really just barely hang together,

432
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:56,280
Speaker 3: and then you have to direct them in tightly choreographed

433
00:22:56,400 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 3: zany sequences that have got to feel plausible yet also hilarious.

434
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:04,560
Speaker 3: Us for instance, the scene with the baby. Remember in

435
00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:07,879
Speaker 3: Christmas in Connecticut, Elizabeth is a total fraud. She doesn't

436
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:10,280
Speaker 3: know how to cook. It's not even her house in Connecticut,

437
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 3: and she's got this fake, staged family with her, including

438
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:16,320
Speaker 3: a fake baby. She had to keep up appearances for

439
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 3: the sake of her column. In the original film, there's

440
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:22,119
Speaker 3: a lovely scene where she and Jefferson Jones give her

441
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:25,879
Speaker 3: fake baby a bath. She a supposed domestic goddess, is

442
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:29,000
Speaker 3: meant to bathe her child, which she suspiciously has no

443
00:23:29,080 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 3: clue how to do. He steps in and does it

444
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:34,720
Speaker 3: for her like a total pro. It's part of why

445
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 3: she falls in love with him, and because it's so

446
00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:40,520
Speaker 3: well executed in the original film, we believe they're following

447
00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:42,919
Speaker 3: in love in this totally implausible moment.

448
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:50,000
Speaker 2: So so oh refer tho she's eating the soul? Would

449
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 2: I do what they are doing?

450
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:52,920
Speaker 15: Oh?

451
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 17: Really, you'd make a wonderful father.

452
00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:02,200
Speaker 16: Mister jere You're not married off by any chance, are you?

453
00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:04,119
Speaker 9: No cards are stacked against me.

454
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 16: I guess every time I meet a girl I like,

455
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:07,439
Speaker 16: it turns out she's already married.

456
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 6: Oh that's too bad now.

457
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 3: This also happens in the Arnold Schwarzenegger version.

458
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,159
Speaker 10: Maybe we should finish up for finish up?

459
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 18: What you know what?

460
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,160
Speaker 1: I just had the most wonderful idea.

461
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 3: How would you like to bathe me?

462
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:25,480
Speaker 17: Sure, I think it'd be fun for you.

463
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:29,239
Speaker 3: Here what happens next is the greatest travesty in the

464
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,880
Speaker 3: history of bath time. It's as if you gave two

465
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:34,240
Speaker 3: aliens a baby and said, give this a bath, not

466
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:37,200
Speaker 3: realizing that on the planet therefrom not only are there

467
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 3: no babies or baths, but actually there's not even water.

468
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 3: What do you remember about.

469
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,000
Speaker 10: That, Well, some of that was improvised.

470
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:49,359
Speaker 3: What happens is they just drenched the baby in shampoo

471
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:51,879
Speaker 3: and then they barely wash any of it out. On

472
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 3: the bath scale, it's two rubber duckies out of ten.

473
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 3: But the premise of the scene is that Jefferson Jones

474
00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:58,040
Speaker 3: is crushing it.

475
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:02,240
Speaker 10: It was pretty hilarious, I thought, and also very clumsy,

476
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 10: and they really grouped up with the kid's hair.

477
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:10,360
Speaker 2: My god, I don't know, my chapoo, here's.

478
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:14,120
Speaker 17: Some soap, sweetie.

479
00:25:14,560 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 2: That's the director thing.

480
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 8: I mean, that is a flat out director fail.

481
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:21,680
Speaker 3: I mean that right, like, retake the scene and there

482
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 3: probably were.

483
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 8: Three or four versions of that. That's the one he chose,

484
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:27,119
Speaker 8: you know, It's not like that was the only one.

485
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:30,119
Speaker 10: That you're off the shit with that for a bachelor,

486
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 10: you know, you're sure you don't have a whole stel

487
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 10: of kids hidden somewhere nursed.

488
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:36,040
Speaker 16: A couple of bear clubs to their mother.

489
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:36,880
Speaker 4: Came back.

490
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 15: Beauty.

491
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 3: It's like on SNL when the actors break and laugh

492
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:45,040
Speaker 3: when Elizabeth's like, I'm not sure if we got all

493
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 3: the soap out and Jefferson's like, well we didn't. That's

494
00:25:48,560 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 3: the true reaction and it must be improvised. But then

495
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:53,280
Speaker 3: they go back to the scripted version where Jones is

496
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:55,920
Speaker 3: doing a great job. Most of the people on set

497
00:25:56,040 --> 00:25:57,480
Speaker 3: have some kind of moment like.

498
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:01,200
Speaker 10: This, you know, the forest with the snow and a

499
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 10: sleigh that comes along, and there's even one shot I

500
00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:08,359
Speaker 10: noticed where you can see the wheels under the sleigh.

501
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:11,560
Speaker 18: I remember the day I was there, they were filming

502
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 18: that scene where chaos RUPs, you know, and the tree

503
00:26:14,840 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 18: falls down and all that. We had to do that

504
00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:20,920
Speaker 18: scene quite a number of times. It was as chaotic

505
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 18: as the scene is, but behind the scenes it was

506
00:26:24,200 --> 00:26:25,080
Speaker 18: even more so.

507
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 12: It's a little like opening a belode factory for cultural

508
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:32,840
Speaker 12: you know, it's sort of like, what's going on in there?

509
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 2: Nothing good?

510
00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:39,639
Speaker 3: Nothing good, don't ask anything so it was kind of

511
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:42,760
Speaker 3: hectic on set, and yet I think you can hear

512
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:45,719
Speaker 3: in people's voices how much they love telling this story.

513
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 3: Pretty much across the board. This was a happy memory

514
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 3: for the people I spoke to, not least of all

515
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 3: because they never lost sight of just how improbable it

516
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 3: all was.

517
00:26:56,160 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 6: And then in the middle of all this is all

518
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 6: running round going, you know, move the top or overhead,

519
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 6: I do this over here, let's go do this. No,

520
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:06,640
Speaker 6: I think it could be ten times funny. I'll come on.

521
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:13,439
Speaker 6: So there's Arnold's voice, you know, just bellowing out. And

522
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 6: that was the other thing that I really remember was

523
00:27:16,880 --> 00:27:22,159
Speaker 6: that while this is happening, while we're making this little,

524
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 6: tiny movie, he is in theaters with Terminator too, and

525
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 6: it's doing numbers that no one has ever seen before.

526
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 6: And we were on set when it crossed five hundred

527
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 6: million dollars. But when you're standing next to the guy

528
00:27:43,920 --> 00:27:48,440
Speaker 6: who's the star of that movie, and his major concern

529
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 6: is whether or not is it didn't focus forehead.

530
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:56,639
Speaker 3: Let's go the forehead thing. You're not the first person

531
00:27:56,680 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 3: to bring that up. Several people mentioned to me that

532
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:04,120
Speaker 3: Arnold Schwartzenegger's favorite put down was to call someone a forehead.

533
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 3: This actually made it into the movie. When Elizabeth Blaine

534
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 3: and Jefferson Jones get pulled over by the cops mid

535
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,240
Speaker 3: sleigh ride, the one where you can see the wheels,

536
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 3: this happens.

537
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 4: What's your hands?

538
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 9: Where I can say them?

539
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:16,399
Speaker 4: You're both under arrest?

540
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 14: Oh, come on, come on, you foreheads, get him up?

541
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 6: You what?

542
00:28:21,760 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 3: This is actually a big part of why I love

543
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 3: this movie. It has a kind of free jazz improvisitory

544
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 3: quality to it. It's oddly self referential and also very sweet.

545
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:33,479
Speaker 3: It's like how you can hear in someone's voice when

546
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 3: they're smiling. That's how this movie feels. Because, even at

547
00:28:37,760 --> 00:28:40,400
Speaker 3: the risk of himself being labeled a forehead who couldn't

548
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 3: direct the movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger was showing up every day

549
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:46,880
Speaker 3: and putting in his all for the film, Buffs and

550
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 3: the crew. It was a dream come true just to

551
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 3: work with him or with a legend like Tony Curtis.

552
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 2: You know, it was a trip to oz that I

553
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 2: knew it was short lived, but it was something I

554
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:01,600
Speaker 2: was going to know, take in and enjoy them as

555
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 2: much as possible.

556
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,800
Speaker 3: After twenty days of shooting the film, wrapped. They had

557
00:29:06,800 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 3: a party at Arnold Schwartzeninger's restaurant. It was around Christmas time,

558
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 3: and they all got sweatshirts with the name of the

559
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 3: film on the front.

560
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 10: And on the back was a picture of Arnold with

561
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 10: a Santa hat on, wearing sunglasses and saying something about

562
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 10: I can't remember the full thingybody used for you forehead.

563
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 3: Later, Jim was kind enough to send me a photo

564
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 3: of the sweatshirt. It said on the back more snow

565
00:29:38,960 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 3: u forehead. There's my Schwartzeninger impression. With the film in

566
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 3: the can. Post production and premierees loomed. That's after the break.

567
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 3: Before we get to the premiere of Arnold Schwarzenegger's nineteen

568
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:05,200
Speaker 3: ninety two Christmas in Connecticut remake, I want to tell

569
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 3: you about something that happened earlier this year.

570
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:11,200
Speaker 1: Thank you all for coming, Thank you Mitch for coming

571
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:13,720
Speaker 1: down from Try Yeah, thanks for having me here.

572
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 3: Malcolm interviewed Mitch Album live on stage at the ninety

573
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 3: second Street y Album is the best selling author of

574
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 3: some ungodly number of books, but he's probably most famous

575
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:27,680
Speaker 3: for Tuesdays with Maury. He and Malcolm were there to

576
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 3: talk about his new novel about the Holocaust, The Little Liar.

577
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:34,440
Speaker 3: They were warming up with some Mitch backstory about his

578
00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 3: time as a musician in New York.

579
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 17: I tried the whole starving musician thing, and I played

580
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 17: in all the clubs around here on Monday nights.

581
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 3: I was backstage at this event peering out. I hadn't

582
00:30:46,200 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 3: read Mitch's book. I was up to something else.

583
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:52,520
Speaker 1: Wait, we should probably do this, befrobab. We get too

584
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: far afield on the music thing. If you've been talking

585
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: so much, you will note that behind you. Yeah, there

586
00:30:59,200 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: is a corg.

587
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 3: At this point, the audience of people who had come

588
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 3: that night to hear the author of Tuesdays with Maury

589
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 3: discussed the Holocaust noticed the electric piano behind him.

590
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 1: And we have a request that you play one of

591
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:20,840
Speaker 1: your most famous compositions, which you know what I'm talking about.

592
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Cooking for Two from the legendary Arnold

593
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:29,959
Speaker 1: Schwarzenegger nineteen ninety two, made for TV movie Christmas in Connecticut.

594
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 17: Yeah, can you see the recognition?

595
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 3: Yes it was my keyboard, and yes I had planted

596
00:31:36,720 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 3: it there.

597
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: Mitch, No, no, this. For some reason, I have no idea.

598
00:31:40,880 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: My colleague Ben is obsessed with this and really wanted

599
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 1: us to do this, And I thought, how great would

600
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:47,720
Speaker 1: it be for you to sing one of our songs,

601
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 1: just like, just give us a little taste.

602
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:51,720
Speaker 17: Well, I have to tell you the story.

603
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 3: Tell us tell a story. Okay.

604
00:31:54,040 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 17: So after I got out of the music business, I

605
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 17: had a college roommate who went into the movie business.

606
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:04,560
Speaker 3: That would be Stanley m Brooks, executive producer of Christmas

607
00:32:04,600 --> 00:32:08,240
Speaker 3: in Connecticut. Stan and Mitch were roommates at Brandeis.

608
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 17: And he knew that I was a musician, and he

609
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 17: was making a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger as a producer,

610
00:32:14,600 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 17: and Schwartzenegger was the director of Christmas in Connecticut. The remake.

611
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 3: Sounds about as.

612
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 17: Good as it was, I think, And they needed as

613
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 17: a song because she played Diane Cannon played the lead

614
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,880
Speaker 17: and she was a cook on TV or whatever, so

615
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,680
Speaker 17: the song had to be about food. And they wanted

616
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 17: to use Harry Connick's Recipe for Love or something like that,

617
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 17: but they couldn't afford it. Yeah, so stan calls me

618
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,640
Speaker 17: and says, we need a song that's kind of upbeat

619
00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 17: about food for Arnold Schwartzenegger's movie.

620
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 3: Can you do it? You know.

621
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 17: I said, well, what do you need it by Thursday?

622
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 17: You know, it was Tuesday, you know. So I just

623
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 17: went and wrote a little song. And my wife as

624
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 17: a singer, a fantastic singer, and I said, honey, can

625
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 17: you sing this song because we don't have time to

626
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 17: go find anybody else. And he listened to it and

627
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 17: he said, I liked a one but the girl. And

628
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,320
Speaker 17: that's how the song was chosen. Yeah, yeah, I want

629
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:19,000
Speaker 17: you to play it. I really think you should.

630
00:33:20,480 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 18: So it went.

631
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 17: Now, remember it had to be about food. Food, So went,

632
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 17: let's go to the kitchen. I got something fixing, almantizing,

633
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 17: and do here's a flue. We're cooking for two. They're

634
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 17: inside the oven, something warm and loving. Friends would laugh

635
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 17: and they knew that it's true. We're cooking for two.

636
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 17: Here's the corner on the bridge. I was a soup

637
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 17: for one girl nombers every night all but once I

638
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:08,880
Speaker 17: tasted your kisses. I was dining my candlelight. Here's a

639
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:10,959
Speaker 17: recipe for all the world to see.

640
00:34:10,960 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 2: We take some me and some you.

641
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 16: The it's.

642
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:38,120
Speaker 17: We're cooking for two. We're cooking for two. That definitely

643
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 17: ranks amongst one of the most embarrassing things.

644
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:44,279
Speaker 3: I've ever done. They planned to play it over the

645
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:48,160
Speaker 3: credits with a Mitch Album closing track in hand. Christmas

646
00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 3: in Connecticut was almost ready to debut. Most made for

647
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 3: TV movies you just put out on television, but not

648
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:55,240
Speaker 3: this one.

649
00:34:55,920 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 2: First of all, TV movies don't have screens. If we

650
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:01,880
Speaker 2: have a screening, it's like ten people and you know,

651
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 2: you were in a screening room somewhere like this was

652
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,440
Speaker 2: the big theater at the DGA, which holds I don't know,

653
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 2: a thousand people, massive screen and there's a huge red

654
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 2: carpet and a press line.

655
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:19,160
Speaker 18: We had two theaters going and there were phil When

656
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 18: I tell you.

657
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:22,400
Speaker 13: That there's never been a television movie before since, they

658
00:35:22,440 --> 00:35:25,240
Speaker 13: had a press line. And he's walking down working the press,

659
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 13: and like, you know and I know that this person,

660
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 13: this is Ambrose executive.

661
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 2: Producer h Arnold.

662
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:35,439
Speaker 3: According to san Ivan, Wrightman and James Cameron were there,

663
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 3: along with the whole slew of Hollywood Royalty. The screening

664
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 3: was in LA. It was a media sensation.

665
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:44,480
Speaker 8: Watch out Hollywood. There's a new director in town and

666
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:46,280
Speaker 8: he's used to making a big impact.

667
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:48,239
Speaker 2: That is in front of the camera.

668
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 13: When you act and you see such talent the directors

669
00:35:53,640 --> 00:35:55,719
Speaker 13: as I've worked with, it inspires you.

670
00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:00,399
Speaker 3: Janet Brown, now the screenwriter, was not having such a night.

671
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:04,360
Speaker 7: I remember sitting at the screening with my agent and

672
00:36:04,400 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 7: I was like crying.

673
00:36:05,880 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 3: I mean, I was like, oh my god, why were

674
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:09,080
Speaker 3: you crying?

675
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:10,959
Speaker 8: Is I get so bad?

676
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 9: And my name is on this.

677
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:14,960
Speaker 8: My agent was very fast to get me a drink

678
00:36:15,000 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 8: at that point. I just remember outside there was kind

679
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:19,719
Speaker 8: of a Christmas theme sort of party, and just like,

680
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 8: I need to get out of.

681
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 3: Here, but there was no putting the genie back in

682
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 3: the bottle. TNT was running promo's NonStop.

683
00:36:30,960 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 16: I love romantic comedies, so I made one myself, Christmas

684
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 16: in Connecticut.

685
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:38,160
Speaker 4: It's a romantic comedy with.

686
00:36:38,440 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 3: All the trimmings.

687
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:41,960
Speaker 6: What in the world could comfortably go wrong?

688
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 3: Christmas in Connecticut? Directed by Arnold Schwarzening, you have a

689
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:47,080
Speaker 3: problem with that.

690
00:36:47,960 --> 00:36:50,760
Speaker 4: TNT exclusive premiere Monday, April thirteen.

691
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 3: I don't know if you caught that, but the film

692
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 3: came out in April, one week before Easter. As one

693
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:00,880
Speaker 3: review put it, quote, don't ask me why a Christmas

694
00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:03,760
Speaker 3: movie is premiering in April. As his then wife Maria

695
00:37:03,800 --> 00:37:07,319
Speaker 3: Shreiver reflected, he just does. He's a big one on.

696
00:37:07,600 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 3: Don't think about it or talk about it, do it.

697
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 2: And then he goes, I think we want to scud

698
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 2: into it again. That was too much fun. I go, okay,

699
00:37:16,880 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 2: I go see if I can organ. I go no,

700
00:37:18,840 --> 00:37:21,239
Speaker 2: I want to sco in Washington with my friend Jack Lent.

701
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 2: So now we all fight Washington and uh.

702
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:26,319
Speaker 3: And it was.

703
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:29,799
Speaker 2: It was a who's who of Washington, and it was

704
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 2: senators and members of tabinet.

705
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:34,120
Speaker 9: It was a seated dinner.

706
00:37:34,400 --> 00:37:36,919
Speaker 2: And I remember my wife and I sit down. We've

707
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,240
Speaker 2: been working the room, so we sit last at our table,

708
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 2: and the guy next to me has got like a

709
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 2: dress came of form on and I say, hey, Sam Brooks,

710
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 2: I'm the producer, and he goes, hey, Oliver North.

711
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 3: Oliver North of Iran contra fame. The film was a

712
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 3: big hit in the Beltway. So if I sit to

713
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 3: say this made for television Christmas movie had an unusually

714
00:37:56,040 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 3: big reception, but it also didn't really do much to

715
00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 3: establish Schwartzenegger as a director. The reviews were mixed.

716
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:07,320
Speaker 10: Well, I'm looking at IMDb right now, it's like the

717
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 10: rating is four point eight out of ten, and they're

718
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 10: not far off.

719
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 2: We nobody had any Oh my god, we're making it's

720
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:15,479
Speaker 2: a wonderful life.

721
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 3: I realize I've had a lot of fun with this

722
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 3: movie and gun to my head. Do I think it's good? No?

723
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 3: But do I love it? Obviously yes, because it's so

724
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 3: totally weird and overcommitted to its bit that it has

725
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:31,960
Speaker 3: a kind of joyfulness to it that honestly gets me

726
00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:34,920
Speaker 3: in the Christmas spirit and at its core, like the

727
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 3: best Christmas films, the story behind the movie is a

728
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 3: story of love and friendship between Arnold Schwartzenegger and San Brooks,

729
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:47,240
Speaker 3: two men brought together by a love of making movies.

730
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:51,879
Speaker 3: After the film, Stan and Arnold stayed in touch. Stan

731
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 3: even moved into Arnold Schwartzenegger's office building. Their kids played

732
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:59,720
Speaker 3: football together, and even though they never made another movie together,

733
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 3: their collaboration had one more act. Almost ten years to

734
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:08,880
Speaker 3: the day from when Christmas in Connecticut began shooting, Arnold

735
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 3: Schwarzenegger became the governor of California. At the time, there

736
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 3: was a lot of hand ringing over an issue called

737
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 3: runaway production. Lots of states had started offering tax breaks

738
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 3: to lure films into shooting somewhere other than California. It

739
00:39:22,560 --> 00:39:25,160
Speaker 3: had become a real problem for Hollywood as an industry town,

740
00:39:25,719 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 3: and this was one of the crises Schwarzenegger would have

741
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:31,480
Speaker 3: to face in his new role as governor. Now, the

742
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 3: way people talked about his becoming governor was the same

743
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 3: way they talked about his becoming a director, So it

744
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 3: only makes sense that he wanted Stanbrooks in his administration.

745
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 15: So when he became governor, he was in about a

746
00:39:45,400 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 15: year and he called me and he said, how would

747
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 15: you like to be on the film Commission? And I said, well,

748
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:53,680
Speaker 15: that's a dumb idea. He goes why.

749
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:56,160
Speaker 14: I said, well, because I don't shoot movies in California.

750
00:39:56,320 --> 00:39:58,399
Speaker 15: I said, I'm like the worst person you could put

751
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 15: on the film commission because I take movies out of state.

752
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:03,760
Speaker 14: And he goes, oh, that's why we want to because

753
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 14: we want to try and.

754
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 3: Pass the taxpayer stan joined the California Film Commission, and

755
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,040
Speaker 3: over the next few years he was a key part

756
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 3: of the lobbying efforts to pass the tax credits that

757
00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 3: would make it easier to film in California.

758
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 14: It was a hard fight, and so I ended up

759
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 14: making a short film a short documentary film where we

760
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 14: interviewed some of the families that left on why and

761
00:40:25,760 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 14: that ended up being more powerful than any speech we

762
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 14: could make in their office.

763
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 3: The first tax credits passed in two thousand and nine.

764
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:37,880
Speaker 3: They've been renewed ever since. So back to our original question,

765
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:41,480
Speaker 3: why did Arnold Schwarzenegger direct to this bizarre one off

766
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 3: Christmas film? I found my answer in the story Stan

767
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 3: told me.

768
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:47,959
Speaker 2: He said to me one night we finished around seven

769
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 2: or eight, and he goes, well you're doing And I said,

770
00:40:50,200 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 2: I'm going home, and goes he goes, Maria's making dinner.

771
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:57,240
Speaker 2: You want to come to the house. So oh, yeah, yeah,

772
00:40:57,440 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 2: So we both jump in our cars and we drive

773
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:03,640
Speaker 2: to visit Kyle's eight. And at that dinner, I remember

774
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:05,480
Speaker 2: Arnold turn to me. He says, you have a great town.

775
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:07,520
Speaker 2: I own the stat Why you don't de big feetes?

776
00:41:08,080 --> 00:41:10,279
Speaker 2: And I say, to be honest, I didn't get in

777
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 2: the business to make big, famous movies. I got in

778
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:15,239
Speaker 2: the business to make movies. And I get to make

779
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 2: two or three a year. If I'm the future visits,

780
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 2: I'm lucky. If I make one every other year every

781
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 2: three years, I go, I'm happy with my life. He goes, well,

782
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:25,240
Speaker 2: that's why I'm dastic.

783
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:30,879
Speaker 3: The story really had honed for me, because I get

784
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 3: what that's like to just love making something, even a

785
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 3: kind of improbably dense story about the making of the

786
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 3: remake of a Christmas movie. It's like Stan said, if

787
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:43,879
Speaker 3: you love making movies or anything, it's just a gift

788
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:46,719
Speaker 3: to get to make more, even if they're maybe not

789
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:50,000
Speaker 3: the best, especially if it's clear how much fun you

790
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 3: had making whatever it is you're making. So to close,

791
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 3: let me just share one quote from the very last

792
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 3: page of Charles Dickens as a Christmas Carol, a passage

793
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 3: about Scrooge after he's seen the light.

794
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:05,240
Speaker 14: Quote.

795
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:09,360
Speaker 3: Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but

796
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 3: he let them laugh, and little heeded them, for he

797
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 3: was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on

798
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 3: this globe for good, at which some people did not

799
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 3: have their fill of laughter. In the outset, his own

800
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 3: heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him. Maybe

801
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,279
Speaker 3: Stan and Arnold didn't make It's a Wonderful Life, but

802
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:31,280
Speaker 3: it seems to me like their own hearts were laughing.

803
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 3: So from all of us here at Revision's History, happy holidays,

804
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:46,840
Speaker 3: your foreheads see you in the New Year. Revisionist History

805
00:42:47,040 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 3: is produced by me Ben Nattiaffrey and Lucy Sullivan with

806
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:55,239
Speaker 3: Nina Bird Lawrence. Our editor is Karen Schakerji. Fact checking

807
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:58,640
Speaker 3: on this episode by Sam Russick, a resident Schwarzenegger fan.

808
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 3: Original touring by Luis Gara, mastering by Jake Gorsky. Our

809
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 3: executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Sarah Nis,

810
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 3: David Arnott, Linda Berman, Iris Grossman, and Scott Sassa. I'm

811
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 3: Ben Mattahaffery.

812
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:43,759
Speaker 1: Three two one.

813
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:45,919
Speaker 2: We wish.

814
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 3: Marry Christmas.

815
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:51,399
Speaker 1: We wish you are Mary Chris.

816
00:43:52,360 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 3: We wish you are Mary Chris M. Yeah, that's what

817
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 3: we do, guys.

818
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 1: I