WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Frogs 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:08.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.680 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:19.439 And I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to wander 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.200 into the swamp and get a little bit muddy. Rob. 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.040 The movie that we're doing today you picked out because 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:27.720 of some recent Florida brain inspiration. 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.319 That's right. I was in Florida over spring break and 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:35.000 it just got me inspired. I just really wanted to 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.520 do a Florida movie. Maybe it was driving through Tates 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:41.160 Hell or Driving out through tates Hell, I'm not sure 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:45.560 which of the two. But I started brainstorming. I was thinking, Okay, 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.680 what are the Florida movies, and we may come back 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:51.440 to some of the other ones that were knocking around 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.360 in my head. But then I started thinking about and 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:59.560 reading about a particular nineteen seventy two film titled Frogs. 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.400 When I looked into it, I realized, this is a 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.720 movie that is set in Florida, It was filmed in 0:01:05.760 --> 0:01:09.600 Florida in its entirety. This is the film we have 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:14.639 to do. So this is our first Nature strikes back film, 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.080 but it's also our first Florida film. I think it's 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:18.760 our first Nature strikes back film. 0:01:18.959 --> 0:01:20.679 I guess I can't think of another one. But I 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:22.600 find it hard to believe we've made it this far 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.880 on weird house cinema without doing a Nature strikes back movie. 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:31.240 The classic Nature strikes Back movie has one sort of 0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:36.240 giant animal that represents nature's revenge against humanity for I 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.800 don't know, for having cities or for polluting nature or 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:42.280 something like that, for doing something that is violating the 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:46.319 sanctity of the natural world, and then we're punished by monsters. 0:01:46.400 --> 0:01:50.360 This movie has more of a distributed strike back policy. 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.200 Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I would say Nature strikes Back 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:57.200 films tend to go either a swarm route or a 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.720 war by champion route. This was a huge deal, especially 0:02:01.840 --> 0:02:04.680 in the seventies. This was a decade that gave us 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:12.000 Kiranha Prophecy. That's a mutant bear film, Alligator, Grizzly, Empire 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:16.040 of the Ants, the Swarm, Killer Bees, Willard, that's a 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:21.200 rat movie, ben Orca. That's a killer whale movie. Squirm 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.200 that's an earthworm movie. That's excellent. That's a Georgia movie, 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:26.480 though maybe we'll come back to that eventually. And of 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:29.000 course we also got Jaws out of this, so out 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.880 of nature strikes back, the summer blockbuster itself was born. 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:36.720 Okay, yeah, well, so I would say with Jaws, I 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:43.320 don't particularly see the element of like humanity provoking the thing, 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:45.720 like you know you're seeing. The Jaws would be a 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.320 very different movie if it started by showing like radioactive 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:52.280 barrels in the surf and then everything else was the same. 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.880 So I think in Jaws, Jaws weirdly is like the 0:02:55.919 --> 0:02:58.480 best movie of the bunch, but it's also like the 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:02.200 least defensible from a moral point of view, because it's 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:04.920 just like, well, this shark's just it's just an animal, 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:06.040 but it's huge and bad. 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:08.600 Yeah, yeah, but yeah, there are. 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:10.800 So many movies like this, And I was actually just 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.520 thinking while you were listing those movies there, have you 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.800 ever seen the William Shatner tarantula attack movie Kingdom of 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:18.639 the Spiders. 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.000 I don't think I've seen it in its entirety, but 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.600 I'm sure I caught part of it on TNT back 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:24.440 in the day or something. 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:26.720 I was trying to remember if that one has any 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:29.799 element of like nature being if the spiders are provoked 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:31.919 by humanity in any way, or if they just start, 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:33.520 you know, multiplying out of nowhere. 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.080 Yeah, I guess in general you might think of Nature 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.440 Strike's Back films, it's been sort of being the cinematic 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.640 outpouring of the public awakening to the damage that we 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:49.160 are doing to the planet and its natural environments and 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:52.480 the creatures and the various species that make it up. 0:03:52.800 --> 0:03:55.600 Though given that we're dealing with genre films and often 0:03:55.640 --> 0:03:59.360 be pictures, it's it's sort of a I don't know, 0:03:59.440 --> 0:04:01.880 you often get the impression it's kind of a sense 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.839 of like, oh, well, let's explore this in B movies 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:06.560 so we don't have to think about it anymore, you know, 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.200 Or here's the imagine revenge. Okay, now we're good. Now 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:11.840 it can go back to the polluting ways. 0:04:12.200 --> 0:04:14.600 Yeah, I would say that it actually comes in a 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.039 couple of waves. So you see something that is like 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:22.000 a precursor to Nature Strikes Back films in the nineteen fifties. 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:25.600 But there it's all atomic panic, like it's the the 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:30.960 contaminating human behavior that precipitates the giant animal attack. Is 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:35.920 some kind of nuclear testing. It's nuclear research, nuclear waste dumping, 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:40.400 nuclear weapons testing, and you know, for quite understandable reasons. 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.400 That was on people's mind in the nineteen fifties. But 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.080 I think there was a shift in the nineteen sixties 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:51.320 away from the contamination being nuclear and nature to being 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.760 primarily chemical in nature. And I think this probably had 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:56.760 something to do with you know, Silent Spring came out 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:58.960 in the sixties and that sort of alerted people to 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:04.040 ideas about pesticides and other chemical contamination of nature. So 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:07.120 the strain of nature strikes Back movies you start seeing 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.480 in the sixties and seventies, I think is more like 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.279 that there's like a pollution of various kinds. There's smog, 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:16.640 there's like something gross running out of a pipe, and 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:19.640 then you get giant alligators that eat people or something. 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.280 Yeah, And I would say that ultimately the film we're 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:26.560 going to discuss today, Frogs is it's probably one of 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.520 the more intelligent versions of this in that it is 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:33.760 not a single incident causing a single incident of nature 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.320 strikes back. It is, as we grow to learn throughout 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.839 the film, seems to be a global reaction to not 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.320 a specific event or even a specific specific technology, but 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:48.240 to our way of life, And in that it ultimately 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:53.200 is is perhaps a more nuanced commentary on our relationship 0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:54.080 with the natural world. 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:56.719 Yeah, ye, I like it. It's the way I was 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.640 thinking of it. Was its bio maximum overdrive. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.400 Yeah, oh yeah, I read somewhere it wasn't in reference 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.120 to maximum overdrive. But I know Stephen King saw frogs, 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:07.760 and I believe he was a fan of it. I 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.720 think now I remember what it was. It was something 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.679 about when he was riding the Shining, he was trying 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.240 to decide between doing topiery animals and a hedge maze, 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.520 and frogs was what convinced him that it needed to 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.400 be topiery animals chasing people. Something about, like you look 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:25.880 around in their animals everywhere. 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.599 I guess, wait, wait, what was the other option? You said, 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:30.600 topiery animals and a hedge maze, But the book has 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.800 a hedge maze, because doesn't the book have both? I 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.120 mainly remember the topiery animals from okay, from the book. 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:40.320 I don't remember there been It's been a long time. 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:42.080 I was basically a kid when I read The Shining, 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:42.760 But yeah, me too. 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:47.360 I believe it was lacking a maze, or at least 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:51.160 the maze was not the sexual threat. And then Kubrick 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:54.000 and his adaptation decided to go full maze. 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:58.359 That makes sense. Okay, yeah, but the topiery animals, they're 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.920 like bushes that are shaped like lions and stuff that 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.160 literally like they come after Danny in the book to 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:03.839 attack him. 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.400 And somehow the frogs helped inspire King to go in 0:07:07.480 --> 0:07:09.720 the animal bush direction. 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.000 Very good, very good choice, Stephen. Okay, so I guess 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.280 we've done enough setup to hit the trailer audio. Florida's 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:21.240 Natural Wildlife Rebels against Humanity in its early seventies environmental 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.240 horror film. Let's hear that audio. 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:29.280 Suppose nature gave a war and everybody came, the snakes, 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:35.800 the birds, the lizards, and frogs, and suppose that the polluters, 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:39.880 the species on earth called man, were the enemy in 0:07:39.960 --> 0:07:40.400 that war. 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.040 I still believe man is master. 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:46.240 Of the wood. 0:07:46.640 --> 0:08:06.000 And then suppose that the human race lost. 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.120 Oh yeah, that's that's so good. I'm gonna grab my 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:20.960 thermis here of Florida tapwater that I brought back from 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:26.480 the beach. Delicious. All right, Well, let's talk about some 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:30.440 of the people involved in this film. Let's start where 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:32.800 we tend to start. Let's start talking about the director, 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.000 and it is a Canadian director. This time, which on 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:39.079 one hand you might say, well, why not a Floridian, 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.600 Why is a Florida Floridian not directing this thing? But 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:43.320 then on the other hand, I feel like it makes 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:48.199 sense that a Canadian would come to Florida and perhaps 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:51.679 that would that would enable this like leaning into the 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.360 ravenous nature of the Floridian wildlife. You know, not that 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.679 you don't have some pretty rough and buggy environments in Canada, 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.080 certainly do, but I don't know. In my back of 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.760 my mind, I'm thinking, like, here's this uh, this Canadian 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.320 director George Mcowan showing up and he's just like, oh 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.640 my god, this this place is hellish. This is the 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.640 perfect setting. It seems like the Wow, the wilderness is 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.000 just trying to consume me at all times. 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.240 Right, Mosquitos, the size of hummingbirds, just like gaiters at 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.440 every turn. You can imagine the the like sort of 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:27.320 the anthropologists level of distance and removed from the from 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.680 looking at Florida like that, but also with it with 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:34.240 an added sense of horror in this lush, wet, humid 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:36.240 environment that's full of beasts. 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:41.160 Yeah, because I love Florida and Florida has a tremendous wildlife. 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.520 But I've I've gone on nature walks in the heat 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:50.240 of the summer in Florida before, and it is. It is. 0:09:50.320 --> 0:09:54.960 It is kind of frightening at times. Oppressive might be 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:55.840 a better word. 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.439 You know. Sometimes this movie has a ridiculous amount of 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:05.120 large you know, tetrapod animals in various scenes, like you know, 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.920 a number of frogs that I'm sorry is implausible, but 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.520 that's okay. But but the other end of it is 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:13.960 that it doesn't have enough insects. They are like scenes 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.640 where people are eating outdoors and it's July and Florida 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:20.400 and they're not being swarmed by insects. You don't see anything. 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:24.040 Yeah, Yeah, I couldn't find anything about when they exactly 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.040 filmed this in Florida. It is set on the July fourth, 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.240 the weekend or something, But there's no way this is 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:34.360 this is July in Florida. Like there's again, like you said, 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.720 these scenes with people outside, there would just be bugs everywhere, 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:39.240 Like you wouldn't be able to film it. They must have. 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.120 They must have filmed this in one of the cooler 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:42.880 months for sure. 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:44.079 Yeah. 0:10:44.120 --> 0:10:47.160 Also, there's not a steady It's like sheen of sweat 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:48.720 on all the actors at all times. 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:50.920 Oh yeah, that's funny too. Yeah, they're all they're all 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.800 relatively dry, except when they're supposed to be wet from 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:58.160 having fallen in the disgusting lake water. Yes, but okay, 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.080 So who's this guy? George McCowan director all right. 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.000 He lived nineteen twenty seven through nineteen ninety five. He 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:06.000 did a lot of TV work. He also directed the 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.880 nineteen seventy nine sci fi film The Shape of Things 0:11:08.880 --> 0:11:12.600 to Come, starring Jack Palance. I think I watched a 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:16.640 riff track version of this, or maybe it was something else, 0:11:17.040 --> 0:11:18.880 but I've seen this when one form or another. 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.160 It just makes me think of the line in the 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:25.120 Mortal Kombat movie The Paul W. S Anderson one from 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.720 the nineties where Sheng Song says no for a taste 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:32.640 of things to come. Do you remember that scene the 0:11:32.720 --> 0:11:34.560 drums going and the guy with the sock on his 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:35.600 head gets shattered. 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:40.679 It's a great sample too. So now here's the main 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:45.360 thing I knew mcgallan from. He directed a lot of, 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:49.600 if not all, the episodes of the Canadian broadcasting series 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.079 Seeing Things, which ran on CBC from nineteen eighty one 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.360 through nineteen eighty seven, and as a kid in Canada, 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.400 I remember watching this show with my family. He was 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:03.360 basically a murder mystery of the week show with a 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.200 psychic reporter doing all of the crime solving. 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.560 And funny, I clicked through to this on IMDb. I've 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.480 never seen this, but immediately it just showed me a 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.000 gigantic picture of the guy from Scanners. 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:19.120 Yep, Louis del Grande, a Canadian actor best known as 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:22.480 that bald, mustachioed guy whose head gets blown up in 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:25.960 that one scene blown up by John not John Saxon, 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:27.640 Michael Ironside. 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:28.360 Michael Ironside. 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.760 Yeah, yeah, both very strong names, you know, but yeah, 0:12:32.840 --> 0:12:35.560 he was also he was also in this show and 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:38.600 was one of the creators of this series Seeing Things. 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:41.840 It had a really snazzy theme song. That's the main 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.720 thing I remember from when I was a kid and 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.360 I was trying to figure this out. Scanners and Seeing 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:51.760 Things both debuted in nineteen eighty one, both about psychics, 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:55.000 both with this same actor. But I don't know how 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:57.480 the connective tissue between the two shows worked. I always 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:00.640 kind of assumed that this dude's had blew up in 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:02.840 Scanners and He's like, I can turn this into a 0:13:02.920 --> 0:13:07.200 six season series on CPC, and pitched it as such. 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:09.480 I suspect that might be how it went, but I 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:11.400 don't know. The timing is very close. 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.080 Wait, there's no heads blowing up in the show. Is 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.760 just that he would be playing a psychic of some kind. 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.520 You mean, yeah, he would like try and solve a mystery, 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:21.640 and then he'd get like a premonition, he'd get like 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.440 a vision, and then he'd keep solving the mystery, and 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.000 then there'd be another vision that seemed to be how 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.200 things worked. And I remember digging it for some reason 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.320 as a child, but I was like in kindergarten. 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.280 Wait, if he's a psychic reporter, how does that work 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:38.600 at the newspaper? Like can he just get a vision 0:13:38.640 --> 0:13:40.760 and then report that in his column or does he 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:42.160 have to source it somehow? 0:13:42.400 --> 0:13:44.400 You got to get a second source on that. I 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:49.640 think that's the standard AP route to take. All Right, 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.480 writers on this piece, getting back to gooting back to 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:58.160 Frogs here, Robert Hutchison and Robert Bleese. Not much really 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:00.280 to report here, but Bleeze wrote a bit for TV 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.280 Project UFO and he wrote Doctor FIBs Rises again so 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:05.680 that's worth noting. 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.920 I think several listeners have asked us to feature doctor 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:10.920 Fibes on Weird House at some point. 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:12.640 So yeah, maybe we'll have to come back back to that, 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:14.880 all right, But let's get to the let's get to 0:14:14.920 --> 0:14:17.880 the main beefcake in this particular movie. 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:21.160 Well, it's our hero. The character's name is Pickett Smith, 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:24.280 and he is played by the one, the only, the stranger, 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:25.280 Sam Elliott. 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.960 That is right. Yeah, so Sam Elliott born in nineteen 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:32.920 forty one, very much still active and you know, getting 0:14:33.120 --> 0:14:37.200 Oscar nominations and the like in recent years. But at 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:40.040 this picture, he was only thirty one years old. He 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:44.840 was just full of handsome and swagger, occasionally shirtless and 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.640 with no mustache whatsoever. So you're if you're afraid of 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.960 seeing Sam Elliott without a mustache, I don't know. I 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:53.560 guess you might want to steer clear of this picture. 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:56.280 But there's nothing to be afraid of. He's still the 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.600 Sam Elliott you know and love. He's still got that charm, 0:14:58.600 --> 0:15:02.880 he's got that swagger. He was previously in a string 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:04.880 before this. He was in a string of TV movies 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:07.840 and TV series. He had a bit role in nineteen 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.360 sixty nine's Butch Casting and the Sundance Kid as his 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:15.600 card player number two. But this was one of his 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:17.160 early starring roles. 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.600 He's so handsome in this movie. It's hilarious. 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:24.320 Yeah, I mean, he's just really cool in the film, 0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:27.800 like he's There are a lot of other performances in 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:29.520 the film that are maybe a little bit more mixed. 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:33.400 Either they're too hammy or they're too dry, you know, 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:37.000 they're a little bit too non actory. But Elliott just 0:15:37.240 --> 0:15:41.000 strives with confidence through this picture and you buy everything 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:44.000 he's saying. Every scene he's in. He helps hold the 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:44.600 film together. 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:49.320 There really are no characters with any complexity in this movie, 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.600 but I would say that the characterizations in a very 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:56.080 shallow horror movie way, are very fun. They're like good 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:59.600 in that two dimensional sense or one dimensional what's the 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.480 term there a one dimensional sense? Like it doesn't have 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:06.960 character complexity, but it has very well drawn shallow horror characters. 0:16:07.440 --> 0:16:11.440 Yeah. Sam Elliott is not a cowboy in this nor 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.960 is he a philosophic bouncer like we would see in 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:18.240 nineteen eighty nine Roadhouse. But he is a freelance photographer, 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.040 nature photographer, and that is it's kind of like being 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.200 a cowboy. So he still has that kind of free 0:16:25.280 --> 0:16:27.120 range and vibe when it works. 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.920 Yeah. Yeah, he's a loner. He doesn't need anybody's help. 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:33.600 He's the strong, silent type. I mean, most of his 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.880 lines in this movie barely register on if you were 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:38.920 to look at an audiogram of them. You know, the 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.320 character says something to Sam Elliott and he's. 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:47.360 Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, a bit monotone, I guess, 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:49.760 But yet there's still a lot of personality there. I 0:16:49.760 --> 0:16:52.000 don't know he's able to pull it off of where's 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:54.560 I mean, that's probably the key here. That's why he 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:56.560 went on to become such a cinematic icon. 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.160 Oh yeah, I mean he's just got like pyramids of charisma. 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.560 Yeah. So we should note that he's really busting out 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:07.800 all the nineteen seventy two fashions in this one. He 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:09.960 spends a lot of the time in the film strolling 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:14.600 around in an all denim wardrobe, so denim long sleeved shirt, 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.720 denim pants, no belt, and the pants are just are 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.919 so tight that he's essentially naked. Like if he had 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.280 a set of car keys or a set of house 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:28.720 keys in his pocket, you could have taken a still 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.640 from this picture to your local Low's or home depot 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:34.920 and they could have reproduced the key for you. 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.240 Yes, yeah, you're wondering, like, are those jeans or is 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:39.240 that just body paint? 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.040 Yeah? Exactly. All right. We'll have more to say on 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.080 Sam Elliott throughout this episode, but let's get on to 0:17:46.359 --> 0:17:50.080 the villain of the piece. Not the frogs, but Ray Milan. 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:53.760 He's perfect. He's just this grumpy, nasty, hateful old creep. 0:17:54.200 --> 0:17:59.960 Yeah yeah, wealthy patriarch of this Floridian family hates Nate 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.480 unless it's looks good on a wall in his trophy room, 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.399 that sort of thing. Very much thinks that nature should 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:12.680 be crushed under the heel of human progress and wealthy excess. 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.640 So it's again a very cardboard role, but he does 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:20.360 it well. Milan another screen legend. He's in a ton 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.080 of pictures and TV shows over the years. His biggest 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:26.360 roles were probably nineteen forty five is The Lost Weekend, 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:30.000 nineteen fifty four's Dial In for Murder, nineteen forty fours, 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.600 The Uninvited, but he also did some really choice genre 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.879 picture work as well. He was in seventy threes Terror 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.320 in the Wax Museum, and he was in Roger Corman's 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.399 nineteen sixty three film X The Man with the X 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:43.080 Ray Eyes. 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.760 I've watched this movie on mute before. I've been thinking 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:48.600 we should maybe come back to it and watch it 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.520 with the sound. It's pretty fun, or at least looks fun. 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:52.560 I don't know what they say. 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:57.280 Yeah, I did read that apparently Raymonlan did not enjoy 0:18:57.320 --> 0:19:02.240 making this picture. Yeah, he wore a hairpiece for it 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.640 and was like sweating constantly, and I think actually left 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.919 the production early. So there's a pivotal scene at the 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:10.679 very end, which I think they had to depend on 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:12.440 a lot of body doubles for. 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.760 Oh, it's like the Marlborough Man, Not of this Earth, right, 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.920 he got mad at his prosthetics and the shooting conditions 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:21.080 and just left. But they're like, yeah, we'll work around it. 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:23.439 But maybe that's I mean, he's so good in this 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.520 Perhaps part of it is he was using his actual 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:31.679 irritation and rage at being stuck in Florida doing this picture. 0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:32.040 I don't know. 0:19:32.200 --> 0:19:35.120 Yeah, So he plays this guy named Jason Crockett, who 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:40.040 is the grandpa of this giant family who provide most 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.480 of the characters in the film, who live in a 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.199 mansion at the side of a I don't know if 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:47.320 it's a lake or a river. It's in the swamp 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:51.520 in Florida. And I don't know why exactly you would 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.080 decide to live at a lakeside mansion in a swamp 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.040 in Florida if your main character traits well, I mean, 0:19:58.080 --> 0:19:59.840 I guess his main character trait is just that he's 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:03.280 rumpy and he hates everything and everyone. But on top 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:05.760 of that, his next major character trait is that he 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:09.840 hates nature. Yeah, well, what are you doing out there? 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:12.840 Yeah? I mean, I think you'll find examples of this 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.560 everywhere though, Right, you know, somebody builds a mansion in 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:19.840 a swamp or and then expects that nature is just 0:20:19.880 --> 0:20:23.879 going to cooperate with your presence and the degree to 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:28.120 which you've unbalanced the immediate surroundings. Yeah, all right. Next 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.359 actor of note, Joan van Ark is in this playing 0:20:31.440 --> 0:20:35.199 Karen Crockett, one of the Crockett children in this family. 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:38.119 She was a Knatz Landing actor who is also in 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:40.280 nineteen seventy seven's The Last Dinosaur. 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:42.919 Yeah, I guess here we're getting into the segment of 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.000 the cast where there are a lot of cousins. I mean, 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.000 as the tarantulas and gaiters and frogs swarm in this movie, 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:53.440 so does the movie swarm with cousins. There are too 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:55.679 many cousins and you lose track of the cousins. But 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:56.880 Karen is one of them. 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:59.960 Yeah, yeah, you get him confused. I couldn't keep all 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:00.800 everybody straight. 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.120 But she's part of the Crockett brood here. She's one 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.360 of the many cousins. And this actress, Joan van Ark 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:07.800 I was looking her up. She did a lot of 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.199 TV work. She did like soap operas and some mainstream 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.440 TV stuff like that. The same year she was in Frogs, though, 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:17.280 I found that she was also in an episode of 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:21.080 The Night Gallery. It was an episode called The Ring 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:23.040 with the Red Velvet Ropes. 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.360 You know this one, Rob, I don't know this one. 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.040 You mentioned. This one's a boxing one. 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:33.600 Yeah, so the premise is there. Oh, I've forgotten the 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.280 main actor's name. There's a guy who plays a boxer 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:38.560 in it, who is either right before or right after 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:40.520