Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hello, hello Malcolm Glabo Here. Last week my colleague Bendadafh
Speaker 2: Haffrey brought you the story of the contested authorship of
Speaker 2: a Visit from Saint Nicholas, otherwise known as the Twas
Speaker 2: the Night Before Christmas poem. Christmas episodes have become a
Speaker 2: bit of a tradition around here, so I thought i'd
Speaker 2: bring you an additional piece of good cheer this morning,
Speaker 2: our epic episode from last year about Arnold Schwarzenegger directing
Speaker 2: a made for TV Christmas movie that goes wildly.
Speaker 1: Off the rails.
Speaker 2: And if you're thinking to yourself, what this is what
Speaker 2: you brought me for Christmas? A rerun?
Speaker 1: Yes I did.
Speaker 2: And if you keep listening, you'll find that my antipathy
Speaker 2: to Christmas runs very deep. What am I doing right
Speaker 2: now probably sunning myself in Boca and informing my children
Speaker 2: the twelve Days of Christmas is eleven days too many?
Speaker 2: What's Ben doing right now? Asked Norman Rockwell. But first
Speaker 2: listen to this. Christmas is one week away, and how
Speaker 2: am I celebrating with restraint and circumspection. In the Glabew family,
Speaker 2: we do a mid century modern Christmas spare elegant, minimalist
Speaker 2: lots of the baby Jesus in a tasteful Scandinavian leather
Speaker 2: and rosewood manger. No Santa, no reindeer, no elves. Not
Speaker 2: so for my colleague Ben adapfh Halfrey. The Globews impose
Speaker 2: a dollar limit on gifts, like price controls in some
Speaker 2: socialist state that ad half Halfreys spend months thinking of
Speaker 2: what to get one another. The Globows buy a tree
Speaker 2: at the last moment, and would be happier if we
Speaker 2: could just move the whole operation outside around the Douglas Pine.
Speaker 2: In the backyard, Ben's family has a tree, a little
Speaker 2: model village covered in snow, and his father's vintage electric
Speaker 2: train set, plus a little metal tree with ornaments that's
Speaker 2: up year round. So when I told Ben that I
Speaker 2: had never watched It's a Wonderful Life, he was stunned.
Speaker 2: Then he reached out to me as the good smartan
Speaker 2: did to the traveler lying beref by the side of
Speaker 2: the road. How could this be, he asked me gently, because,
Speaker 2: as you can imagine, within the daph Haffreys, It's a
Speaker 2: Wonderful Life is a sacred text. Then Ben told me
Speaker 2: another story about what, in his mind is an even
Speaker 2: more important Christmas tale, a story that he regards as
Speaker 2: the apotheosis of all Christmas movies, a story not in
Speaker 2: a film, but of the making of a film. Welcome
Speaker 2: to revisionist history. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. Today in our show,
Speaker 2: Ben the alf Halfrey relays for the very first time
Speaker 2: in history, the truly screwy story of the of the
Speaker 2: oddest Christmas film of all time. Trust me, you have
Speaker 2: never heard this story before ever, nor have you ever
Speaker 2: seen the movie in question, unless you're a member of
Speaker 2: the extended dedaf Hafrey Clan or were recently incarcerated in
Speaker 2: a state that limits prisoner's streaming access to obscure television
Speaker 2: movies in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 3: But when you.
Speaker 2: Listen to what follows, you're going to ask yourself the
Speaker 2: same question I ask myself when Ben first told me
Speaker 2: this story?
Speaker 1: How do I miss this? Unlike Malcolm, I am a
Speaker 1: great lover of Christmas movies. Every year, as soon as
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving is over, I'm firing up The Bishop's Wife, Miracle
Speaker 1: on thirty fourth Street, or It's a Wonderful Life. And
Speaker 1: then there's my favorite Christmas movie, A little Less Famous
Speaker 1: the nineteen forty five romantic comedy Christmas in Connecticut. I've
Speaker 1: watched it pretty much every year since I was little.
Speaker 1: Barbara Stan plays a magazine columnist who's famous for entertaining
Speaker 1: on her grand Connecticut farm. She's known as a great cook.
Speaker 1: It's the end of World War Two and her magazine's
Speaker 1: publisher has an idea for a great feature. Jill hosts
Speaker 1: a returning war hero for Christmas on her farm. There's
Speaker 1: just one problem. It's all a lie. She doesn't live
Speaker 1: in Connecticut. She lives in a tiny apartment in New York.
Speaker 1: And she has no clue how to cook.
Speaker 2: My fun?
Speaker 4: Oh yes, my fun?
Speaker 5: Oh my fine?
Speaker 6: And you want to see you right away to arrange it?
Speaker 3: Arrange it?
Speaker 6: Are you crazy? Where am I going to get a farm?
Speaker 7: I haven't even got a window box.
Speaker 6: That's just it. We'll have starl him off, you know what,
Speaker 6: to stick your ears with the truth. If he ever
Speaker 6: finds out we've been making all this up, you'll fire
Speaker 6: the both of us.
Speaker 1: Chaos ensues. It's a classic screwball comedy and a total delight.
Speaker 1: But the thing I really want to tell you about
Speaker 1: in this episode is what happened after I discovered quite
Speaker 1: by accident, that there was a remake of this favorite
Speaker 1: Christmas movie of mine, an action packed, star studed, joke filled,
Speaker 1: really very different version of the original, made for TV
Speaker 1: and directed by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. A kind
Speaker 1: of shocking twist if you ask me, I mean, why
Speaker 1: would the Terminator take on Christmas in Connecticut? So I
Speaker 1: did what any good Christmas fiend would do. I talked
Speaker 1: to a dozen people about something that happened thirty years ago,
Speaker 1: for way too many hours to get the real story,
Speaker 1: and I discovered in the process what I have come
Speaker 1: to regard as the greatest Christmas tale of all time.
Speaker 3: I've told the story many times, I've never told it
Speaker 3: all the record. It's a big story, So if you've
Speaker 3: got the time, I will tell it to you.
Speaker 1: That's Stan Brooks in the early nineteen nineties. He was
Speaker 1: an independent made for TV movie producer.
Speaker 3: So I'm developing movies and a friend of mine goes
Speaker 3: and gets the job at TNC, and I make the
Speaker 3: very first movie for him.
Speaker 1: TNT launched in nineteen eighty eight, at the start of
Speaker 1: the cable television revolution. Then as now cable was expensive,
Speaker 1: but it was growing. The whole game was trying to
Speaker 1: raise awareness to get people to sign up, and with
Speaker 1: channels running twenty four to seven, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of space to fill, which led to a boom and
Speaker 1: made for TV movies. Stan's first film on TNT was
Speaker 1: a big success. So he got another bite at the Apple.
Speaker 3: And he calls me, He goes, what do you want
Speaker 3: to do next? So they said, like namiears, would you
Speaker 3: ever let me do a remake from the MGM library
Speaker 3: because that's what Ted owned, And he said, yes, just
Speaker 3: pick one.
Speaker 1: Christmas movies always do well, and there was one. Stan
Speaker 1: loved Christmas in Connecticut, and I.
Speaker 3: Know the Barber Stanlet movie, and so I said, well,
Speaker 3: this could be a good one. It was right as
Speaker 3: Martha Stewart was exploding. I thought, well, what if this
Speaker 3: is Martha Stewart. What if she's on TV and it
Speaker 3: has an empire and it's all fake? And so they
Speaker 3: loved that take, and so off we went into the races.
Speaker 1: He got a right to work up the script in television.
Speaker 8: It was It was great because you can get your
Speaker 8: stuff made.
Speaker 1: This is Janet Brownew one of the all time great
Speaker 1: bards of TV movies writer on Eloise at the Plaza,
Speaker 1: Twelve Dates of Christmas, Days of Our Lives, and the
Speaker 1: uncredited rewrite of Tim Allens the Santa Claus all brownew
Speaker 1: She loved the original Christmas in Connecticut. I mean it is.
Speaker 8: It's a charming and in fairest to me, the original
Speaker 8: draft was very close.
Speaker 1: Janet wrote the draft of the script for Stan's remake.
Speaker 3: And we turn it in and they go, this is good.
Speaker 3: This is stupid in a Christmas movie. So now I
Speaker 3: have and I'm I have a nice little Christmas programmer
Speaker 3: and nothing more.
Speaker 1: It's the middle of nineteen ninety one in Hollywood. Janet
Speaker 1: and Stan's low budget television movie remake isn't really the
Speaker 1: sort of thing to get people talking, but they're making progress.
Speaker 1: He's got the old school movie star Diane Cannon cast
Speaker 1: in the lead as the Martha Stewart character, and an
Speaker 1: offer out to a director. And then one day his
Speaker 1: phone rings. His assistant says, it's a big Hollywood agent
Speaker 1: named Lou Pitt.
Speaker 3: Now I understand, I'm in the television movie business. These
Speaker 3: guys are never calling me, so if they do call me,
Speaker 3: it's never good. And and he he gets on the
Speaker 3: phone and he says, you're a director for your Christmas
Speaker 3: in Connecticut movie. And I said, uh, well almost yeah,
Speaker 3: we may have an offer out and he said, okay,
Speaker 3: Well if he doesn't say yes, I want you to
Speaker 3: consider my client. And I go okay and wait to
Speaker 3: hear the name, and I go who, and he goes
Speaker 3: Arnld Schwarzenegger and I burst out laughly.
Speaker 7: Oh he was.
Speaker 3: He was totally shocked.
Speaker 1: Lou Pitt, legendary agent Arnald Schwarzenegger.
Speaker 3: That's hilarious. No, seriously, is this a joke?
Speaker 1: Is this a joke?
Speaker 3: He goes, no, seriously, and I goes, I'm Schwartzeker's not
Speaker 3: doing a this movie for T and T.
Speaker 1: To be clear, Arnold had just finished shooting James Cameron's
Speaker 1: epic Terminator two Asta La Vista Baby. Terminator two is
Speaker 1: the one where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a killer cyborg sent
Speaker 1: from the future to protect young John Conner from a
Speaker 1: different killer cyborg also sent from the future to kill him.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine, such a plot necessitates a lot
Speaker 1: of elaborate production work. He was movie making on a
Speaker 1: scale that was practically unheard of, especially in Los Angeles.
Speaker 7: The production actually changed the course of a river to
Speaker 7: shoot high speed chases in the extensive plood control channels
Speaker 7: of Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Anyways, back to Stan and Lou the agent.
Speaker 3: I go, Lou, why on earth were Arnold Schwartz He says, well,
Speaker 3: here's why.
Speaker 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger was forty four years old, he had two kids.
Speaker 1: Nobody is an action hero forever. Maybe it was time
Speaker 1: to explore some alternatives.
Speaker 3: And so he it was kind of tired after tea
Speaker 3: two and he said to Blue I would like to
Speaker 3: direct a movie. The directing thing was kind of out
Speaker 3: of the box, at a left field, and they said, well,
Speaker 3: can we'll put together a big feat direct He goes, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: I want low risk. If I do a terrible job,
Speaker 3: I don't want anyone to be upset. I don't want
Speaker 3: a big budget, and I want it to be family
Speaker 3: friendly because I don't want anything to be controversial nothing.
Speaker 3: I just want something very simple. And the only one
Speaker 3: that fit the bill was Christmas, Connecticut. So I said, okay,
Speaker 3: I'll I'll call you if this guy passes and I
Speaker 3: have the phone. Of course, my parts jumping out of mine.
Speaker 3: I go what and and I said, yeah, I'm serious.
Speaker 1: I read it.
Speaker 3: I think he'd like it, so get me an offer.
Speaker 1: Stan gets the green light from the executives at TNT.
Speaker 1: There's some negotiating and they offer Schwartzenegger one hundred thousand bucks,
Speaker 1: and then one night stands phone rings.
Speaker 3: I pick it up and I hear Sam brooks, yes,
Speaker 3: please hold for orongs Forcenaker and now serious. I can
Speaker 3: see my heart beating, and he goes, hello. I go, Arnold,
Speaker 3: you're the guy with this Christmas script. I said yes.
Speaker 3: He says it's fantastic. I'd love to direct. I go okay.
Speaker 3: He goes, but I have to shoot in Los Angeles
Speaker 3: night to do it in these days. And he goes
Speaker 3: a nice some notes of the script. I go, okay,
Speaker 3: can you be here in an how And I go
Speaker 3: uh no. He goes, can you be on Wednesday? I go, yes,
Speaker 3: I could be there on Wednesday. He goes over for
Speaker 3: a meeting at Arnold's offices in Santa Monica. So now
Speaker 3: I'm going to see me on Wednesday. And you walk
Speaker 3: in and there's this giant lobby and and the first
Speaker 3: thing you see is the exoskeleton, the metal thing with
Speaker 3: the red eyes from terminator. So there's no doubt. I mean,
Speaker 3: the posters are up on the wall, but there's no
Speaker 3: doubt when you walk in and you see this seven
Speaker 3: foot thing, you go, oh, craft, I know where I am.
Speaker 3: My heart's beating and I go in and he's in
Speaker 3: his office, which is massive. It's like you know, signs
Speaker 3: of a football field, and he's on one. You walk
Speaker 3: in on this end and he's on the other ends.
Speaker 3: You walk past all the you know, the props and stuff,
Speaker 3: and then he's at a big, huge desk with a
Speaker 3: big giant chair, and behind him is a bookshelf but
Speaker 3: with all of the Mister Universe awards, not film stuff,
Speaker 3: it's all his bodybuilding awards. And I remember we were
Speaker 3: going through the script and I said, hey, I want
Speaker 3: to use the restroom and he pointed to me by
Speaker 3: putting up this bicep and pointing it like this and
Speaker 3: his biceps cleaning. He goes, this, doc what And I go,
Speaker 3: do was that just to show me your by step?
Speaker 3: And he goes, I have to show them, you know,
Speaker 3: the guns whenever I can. And I realized, okay, so
Speaker 3: this guy definitely has a sense of heurot.
Speaker 1: By himself they sit down. Arnold has notes on the script.
Speaker 3: He wanted more humor and a little more jeopardy, and
Speaker 3: so we added in like this like sort of big
Speaker 3: action sequence at the beginning where he rescues the kid.
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, Janet Brownell, who wrote the
Speaker 1: original script for the remake, is looking at a very
Speaker 1: different movie.
Speaker 8: The whole thing took this like one hundred and eighty
Speaker 8: degree turn.
Speaker 9: At that point, it was just like what is And
Speaker 9: Stan just did not want to lose him, And I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 9: I truly don't see this, but if it gets a.
Speaker 8: Film green light, I don't give a shit.
Speaker 1: Arnold wants them to get someone else to come in
Speaker 1: and punch up the script.
Speaker 3: He wanted more humor, and as it happened, my best
Speaker 3: friend in the world had written Commando.
Speaker 1: Commando, the nineteen eighty five action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Speaker 1: which is the critic from the La Times referred to
Speaker 1: as a quote gory crowd pleaser and a glorified fireworks display.
Speaker 3: And Arnold loved them and said, do you think you
Speaker 3: can get him to do a comedy past.
Speaker 1: Jeff Low, the friend who wrote Commando, gets hired to
Speaker 1: do the rewrite with his writing partner.
Speaker 3: We walk in.
Speaker 10: He's sitting on a white couch maybe it's literally the
Speaker 10: length of the biggest limousine you've ever seen in your life,
Speaker 10: and he has his feed up on this white porcelain
Speaker 10: marble table. He's gott a big cigar in his mouth
Speaker 10: and scripts all around him, and he doesn't say hello,
Speaker 10: He doesn't introduce himself, he doesn't do anything.
Speaker 11: He just the first thing out of his mouth is, so,
Speaker 11: what of you guys been doing since Commando?
Speaker 3: Clearly not going to the gym.
Speaker 1: I just have to say, everyone in this episode is
Speaker 1: going to do their own Schwarzenegger impression, which is good
Speaker 1: because even though we couldn't land an interview with him,
Speaker 1: I feel like he's here with us in spirit. Anyway.
Speaker 1: They settle in and start rewriting the film Commando style.
Speaker 12: So that's where things kind of went off the rails
Speaker 12: for me personally, because it's like, okay, this is becoming
Speaker 12: a completely different thing.
Speaker 8: It just Schwarzenegger eyed into like this thing that was
Speaker 8: bigger than life.
Speaker 6: I mean, she just did an amazing job. We didn't
Speaker 6: make any real big structural changes, that's all perms, but
Speaker 6: a dialogue pass and go through it and try to
Speaker 6: find more Bold's vision.
Speaker 1: They start burning through the script. A big job for
Speaker 1: any director is giving notes on the rewrites. Schwarzenegger was
Speaker 1: calling in help from his director friends, including legendary comedy
Speaker 1: director Ivan Reitman, the guy who did Ghostbusters. Everyone was
Speaker 1: working to realize Arnold's vision.
Speaker 11: Now you have to understand that on Commando he would
Speaker 11: do this all the time.
Speaker 3: He would go, I have a great idea.
Speaker 7: Listen, this is what I want to do.
Speaker 3: When the guy comes at me.
Speaker 10: I want to throw a buzzsaw at him and it
Speaker 10: chops off his arm, and then I'm going to pick
Speaker 10: up his arm and punch me in his face with
Speaker 10: his old arm.
Speaker 13: And we would go, well, we like the bus off art?
Speaker 13: Can we just do the bus off art? So like,
Speaker 13: our job is not to go I think that's not
Speaker 13: gonna work.
Speaker 6: Our job is to make it work.
Speaker 10: And it doesn't help that the next day he would say, Okay,
Speaker 10: we're doing really well.
Speaker 6: We're really getting there.
Speaker 3: It's really coming to where I wanted to be.
Speaker 6: So I gave it to Steve it and Stephen talked
Speaker 6: to me last night and.
Speaker 7: He says, I have to really be careful that and
Speaker 7: this is what I want you to do.
Speaker 6: And again I'm like, is Steven the guy at the
Speaker 6: Jim is Stephen? Who is Steve It?
Speaker 11: And then suddenly as you go, you know, as he
Speaker 11: starts to sort of talk more, you go, he's talking
Speaker 11: about Steven Spielberg.
Speaker 1: This is beginning to look like a train nobody would
Speaker 1: step in front of. Back at T and T, the
Speaker 1: executives had a dim sense of what was going on.
Speaker 5: It's not has done now.
Speaker 1: Lori Posmantier, one of the TNT executives.
Speaker 8: Whether you're famous or not, as a director, that doesn't happen.
Speaker 8: To let somebody go and change things as much as
Speaker 8: we're change.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, they've cast the rest of the film. Joining Diane
Speaker 1: Cannon would be Hollywood screwball legend Tony Curtis, probably best
Speaker 1: known for playing opposite Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot.
Speaker 1: Along with him would be ex country music star Chris Christofferson.
Speaker 1: Here's TNT's senior vice president of production at the time,
Speaker 1: Nick Lombardo.
Speaker 14: Even when they cast it, I thought, well, that is
Speaker 14: the weirdest cast I ever heard of. I mean, the
Speaker 14: idea that these people fit together made no sense at all.
Speaker 14: I mean, Diane Cannon and Chriskustbinson in the same frame.
Speaker 14: It makes the star is born when he's holding Barbara
Speaker 14: Streissad look organic.
Speaker 1: So armed with one of the all time weirdest, most
Speaker 1: stacked casts in the history of film, a comparatively small
Speaker 1: budget of three million dollars, a slot on an upstart
Speaker 1: cable network, and a script based on a nineteen forty
Speaker 1: screwball comedy that's been punched up by two of the
Speaker 1: writers behind a big eighties blockbuster. An Austrian former bodybuilder,
Speaker 1: fresh off his repeat performance as a time traveling cyborg,
Speaker 1: prepared to direct his first Christmas film.
Speaker 3: You don't as a TV movie producer ever get near
Speaker 3: anything this hot. You just don't.
Speaker 15: I mean, we're we're all a little nervous about the
Speaker 15: whole thing, you know, because it's like you're playing with
Speaker 15: matches and you know, oh yeah, that's that Arnold direct this.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 15: It's like, for us three million dollars was a lot
Speaker 15: of money.
Speaker 8: I don't know, I don't know. Whatever it was like,
Speaker 8: Oh yeah.
Speaker 15: He wanted to prove that he could be a director.
Speaker 1: And everyone was about to find out whether or not
Speaker 1: he could Christmas and Connecticut. The remake began filming about
Speaker 1: two months before Christmas in Los Angeles. Because Arnold Schwartzenegger
Speaker 1: had never before directed a future film, though what the
Speaker 1: record show he had directed an episode of the TV
Speaker 1: show Tales from the Crypt, the production arranged for things
Speaker 1: to film more or less in the order they happen
Speaker 1: in the film. There's a lot less to keep track
Speaker 1: of continuity wise that way, but this also posed a problem.
Speaker 1: One of the anxieties of adapting a great work of
Speaker 1: art is figuring out how to make it your own.
Speaker 1: The nineteen ninety two made for TV remake of Christmas
Speaker 1: in Connecticut does this immediately by introducing its male lead,
Speaker 1: a park ranger named Jefferson Jones, mid workout routine in
Speaker 1: his mountain cabin. If you're looking for signs that this
Speaker 1: is not your grandmother's Christmas in Connecticut, the site of
Speaker 1: Chris Christofferson as Jefferson Jones sweating after busting out some
Speaker 1: chin ups on a beam in his cabin is your
Speaker 1: first warning. A man on the television offers some brisk
Speaker 1: exposition while he cools down.
Speaker 5: In the last hour, experts predict this should have been
Speaker 5: the biggest storm to hit the Rockies in the last decade.
Speaker 6: More than four feet of snow has anticipated to blanket
Speaker 6: the area the next forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: The phone rings. Another ranger is calling to tell Jones
Speaker 1: a kid has gotten lost in the blizzard. He has
Speaker 1: to go out and find him. This is the fabled
Speaker 1: action sequence Schwarzenegger had requested. They shot the blizzard on
Speaker 1: a sound stage. It's the moment Jefferson Jones becomes a hero,
Speaker 1: which is why he gets invited to be a guest
Speaker 1: of Elizabeth Blainez for a Christmas special in Connecticut. It's
Speaker 1: got to look epic. It's got to have that Arnold
Speaker 1: Schwarzenegger feeling. Unfortunately terminator, this is not Here's Jim Wilberger,
Speaker 1: director of production.
Speaker 15: Yeah, there's a scene where Christofferson, you know, suddenly has
Speaker 15: rescued the kid and you see him roll down this
Speaker 15: little hill of snow which was shot on stage and
Speaker 15: trying to make more of more of it because there
Speaker 15: wasn't that much set for that little hill, and you know,
Speaker 15: and then suddenly you see all the people rush in
Speaker 15: to rescue you know, I mean, this was just not
Speaker 15: good blocking, and that's just an experience.
Speaker 1: Schwarzenegger wanted Jeopardy, but this kind of looks like a
Speaker 1: snowball fight gone awry. Jones stumbles over a very small
Speaker 1: hill holding a child that looks like it might be
Speaker 1: a mannequin. He's groaning and yelling, but his lips aren't moving,
Speaker 1: so tough start. Luckily, though, a lot of the film
Speaker 1: is set inside Elizabeth Blaine's fake Connecticut house where she's
Speaker 1: shooting a Christmas special in celebration of Jones. The bulk
Speaker 1: production happened there, so the whole crew set up at
Speaker 1: a house in South Pasadena for the real work. This
Speaker 1: introduced Arnold to the second problem of directing actor ego
Speaker 1: management in the issue of his trailer.
Speaker 3: Arnold's trailer was like a house on wheels.
Speaker 4: It was literally like you'd look at it from the
Speaker 4: outside and you'd say, wow, that's got all kinds of
Speaker 4: popouts and the roof went off and everything. But when
Speaker 4: you got inside, it was literally like you had just
Speaker 4: walked into like the Greystone Mansion.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 15: It's probably almost three times as wide as a normal trailer,
Speaker 15: and that was the length that became the issue. Diane
Speaker 15: comes in and she says, why is Arnold's trailer bigger
Speaker 15: than my trailer? Nobody's supposed to have a bigger trailer
Speaker 15: than me.
Speaker 1: Diane Cannon was the star of the film, but she
Speaker 1: was maybe realizing that this production was all about the director. Schwarzenegger, though,
Speaker 1: was dealing with other problems. Namely, he had chosen one
Speaker 1: of the hardest genres for his first major directing for
Speaker 1: a screwball comedy is like dancing on the head of
Speaker 1: a pin. It thrives on chaos, but it has to
Speaker 1: be a kind of controlled chaos. With his big personality cast,
Speaker 1: low budget, short timeline, and hastily rewritten script, Schwarzenegger had
Speaker 1: an excess of chaos and a minimum of control. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have one somewhat disgruntled actress portraying fake Martha Stewart,
Speaker 1: and another who's a macho park ranger, but who for
Speaker 1: no apparent reason, relays this backstory part way through the movie.
Speaker 5: Actually, before I moved to Colorado, I lived in Chicago.
Speaker 5: I grew up there, taught comparative literature at the University
Speaker 5: of Container. Really, I got offered tenure and head of
Speaker 5: the department, and it's what I thought I wanted that's
Speaker 5: being caged in by concrete and crowds for the rest
Speaker 5: of my life.
Speaker 1: This is I'm pretty sure the only time in the
Speaker 1: entire film Jefferson jones Is past as chair of the
Speaker 1: University of Chicago's Comparative Literature Department is mentioned. And I
Speaker 1: love Chris Kristofferson, but most of the rest of his
Speaker 1: performance veers between stiff and oddly sexually charged.
Speaker 15: When he starts smearing the pine staff on her neck.
Speaker 1: Yeah that it's it's it's just kind of transcendently weird.
Speaker 15: Yeah, well, not to mention his two times he's like
Speaker 15: staring at her butt.
Speaker 1: You know, there's an extensive shot of that.
Speaker 6: But you can't buy that at Blmingdon.
Speaker 1: You're right, You've got two characters who really just barely
Speaker 1: hang together, and then you have to direct them in
Speaker 1: tightly choreographed zany sequences that have got to feel plausible
Speaker 1: yet also hilarious. For instance, the scene with the baby.
Speaker 1: Remember in Christmas in Connecticut, Elizabeth is a total fraud.
Speaker 1: She doesn't know how to cook. It's not even her
Speaker 1: house in Connecticut, and she's got this fake, staged family
Speaker 1: with her, including a fake baby. She had to keep
Speaker 1: up appearances for the sake of her column. In the
Speaker 1: original film, there's a lovely scene where she and Jefferson
Speaker 1: Jones give her fake baby a bath. She a supposed
Speaker 1: domestic goddess, is meant to bathe her child, which she
Speaker 1: suspiciously has no clue how to do. He steps in
Speaker 1: and does it for her like a total pro. It's
Speaker 1: part of why she falls in love with him, and
Speaker 1: because it's so well executed in the original film, we
Speaker 1: believe they're following in love in this totally implausible moment.
Speaker 6: So there, I'll refer.
Speaker 8: Though she's eating the sil would like do now what her?
Speaker 5: They all do it?
Speaker 16: Oh?
Speaker 5: Really, you'd make a wonderful father.
Speaker 7: Mister Jehan, You're you're not married yourself by any chance,
Speaker 7: are you?
Speaker 6: No cards are stacked against me.
Speaker 2: I guess every time I meet a girl I like,
Speaker 2: it turns out she's already married.
Speaker 5: Oh that's too bad.
Speaker 1: Now. This also happens in the Arnold Schwarzenegger version.
Speaker 3: Maybe we should finish up for finish up.
Speaker 17: You know what, I just had the most wonderful idea,
Speaker 17: How would you like to bathere?
Speaker 7: Me?
Speaker 6: Sure?
Speaker 1: I think it'd be fun for you here What happens
Speaker 1: next is the greatest travesty in the history of bath time.
Speaker 1: It's as if you gave two aliens a baby and said,
Speaker 1: give this a bath, not realizing that on the planet
Speaker 1: therefrom not only are there no babies or baths, but
Speaker 1: actually there's not even water. What do you remember about that, Well,
Speaker 1: some of that was improvised. What happens is they just
Speaker 1: drenched the baby in shampoo and then they barely any
Speaker 1: of it out. On the bad scale, it's two rubber
Speaker 1: duckies out of ten. But the premise of the scene
Speaker 1: is that Jefferson Jones is crushing it.
Speaker 15: It was pretty hilarious, I thought, and also very clumsy,
Speaker 15: and they really grouped up with the kid's hair.
Speaker 3: My god, I don't know a shift.
Speaker 18: Here's some soap, sweetie.
Speaker 8: That's a director thing. I mean, that is a flat
Speaker 8: out director fail.
Speaker 6: I mean that right.
Speaker 1: But retake the scene and there probably were three or
Speaker 1: four versions of that.
Speaker 8: That's the one he chose, you know, it's not like
Speaker 8: that was the only one.
Speaker 19: That you're off with.
Speaker 18: Shit that for a bachelor.
Speaker 7: You know, you're sure you don't have a wholestel of
Speaker 7: kids hidden.
Speaker 5: Somewhere I nursed a couple of bear clubs to their muddy.
Speaker 1: It's like on SNL when the actors break and laugh
Speaker 1: when Elizabeth's like, I'm not sure if we got all
Speaker 1: the soap out, and Jefferson's like, well we didn't. That's
Speaker 1: the true reaction and it must be improvised. But then
Speaker 1: they go back to the scripted version where Jones is
Speaker 1: doing a great job. Most of the people on set
Speaker 1: have some kind of moment.
Speaker 15: Like this, you know, the forest with the snow and
Speaker 15: the sleigh that comes along, and there's even one shot
Speaker 15: I noticed where you can see the wheels under the sleigh.
Speaker 12: I remember the day I was there, they were filming
Speaker 12: that scene where chaos RUPs, you know, and the tree
Speaker 12: falls down and all that.
Speaker 8: We had to do that scene quite a number of time.
Speaker 8: It was as chaotic as the scene is, but behind
Speaker 8: the scenes it was even more so.
Speaker 14: It's a little like like opening a bolode factory for
Speaker 14: cultural you know, it's sort of like, what's going on
Speaker 14: in there? Nothing good, nothing good, don't ask anything.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of hectic on set, and yet
Speaker 1: I think you can hear in people's voices how much
Speaker 1: they love telling this story. Pretty much across the board.
Speaker 1: This was a happy memory for the people I spoke to,
Speaker 1: not least of all, because they never lost sight of
Speaker 1: just how improbable it all was.
Speaker 7: And then in the middle of all this is Arnold
Speaker 7: running around going, you know, move the top or overhead.
Speaker 1: I do this over here, let's go do this.
Speaker 3: No, I think it could be ten times funny.
Speaker 1: I'll come on.
Speaker 7: So there's Arnold's voice, you know, just bellowing out. And
Speaker 7: that was the other thing that I really remember was that.
Speaker 11: While this is happening, while we're making this little trainy movie,
Speaker 11: he is in theaters with Terminator two and it's doing
Speaker 11: numbers that no one has ever seen before.
Speaker 7: And we were on set when it.
Speaker 6: Crossed five hundred million dollars. But when you're standing next
Speaker 6: to the guy who's the star of that movie, and
Speaker 6: his major concern is whether or not.
Speaker 3: Is they did focus forehead.
Speaker 1: Let's go the forehead thing. You're not the first person
Speaker 1: to bring that up. Several people mentioned to me that
Speaker 1: Arnold Schwartzenegger's favorite put down was to call someone a forehead.
Speaker 1: This actually made it into the movie. When Elizabeth Blaine
Speaker 1: and Jefferson Jones get pulled over by the cops mid
Speaker 1: sleigh ride, the one where you can see the wheels
Speaker 1: this happens.
Speaker 6: What's your hands? Where I can say, I'm you're both
Speaker 6: under arrest.
Speaker 3: Oh, come on, come on, you foreheads, get him up?
Speaker 7: You what?
Speaker 1: This is actually a big part of why I love
Speaker 1: this movie. It has a kind of free jazz improvisitory
Speaker 1: quality to it. It's oddly self referential and also very sweet.
Speaker 1: It's like how you can hear in someone's voice when
Speaker 1: they're smiling. That's how this movie feels. Because, even at
Speaker 1: the risk of himself being labeled a forehead who couldn't
Speaker 1: direct the movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger was showing up every day
Speaker 1: and putting in his all for the film. Buffs and
Speaker 1: the crew. It was a dream come true just to
Speaker 1: work with him or with a legend like Tony Curtis.
Speaker 3: You know, it was a trip to oz that I
Speaker 3: knew it was short lived, but it was something I
Speaker 3: was going to take in and enjoy them as much
Speaker 3: as possible.
Speaker 1: After twenty days of shooting the film wrapped, they had
Speaker 1: a party at Arnold Swartzeninger's restaurant. It was around Christmas
Speaker 1: time and they all got sweatshirts with the name of
Speaker 1: the film on the front.
Speaker 15: And on the back was a picture of Arnold with
Speaker 15: a Santa hat on, wearing sunglasses and saying something about
Speaker 15: I can't remember the full of anybody used for you forehead.
Speaker 1: Later, Jim was kind enough to send me a photo
Speaker 1: of the sweatshirt. It said on the back more snow
Speaker 1: u forehead. There's my Schwartzenegger impression with the film in
Speaker 1: the can post production and premieres loomed. That's after the break,
Speaker 1: before we get to the premiere of Arnold Schwarzenegger's nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two Christmas and Connecticut remake, I want to tell
Speaker 1: you about something that happened earlier this year.
Speaker 2: Thank you all for coming, Thank you Mitch for coming
Speaker 2: down from Try.
Speaker 17: Yeah, thanks for having me here.
Speaker 1: Malcolm interviewed Mitch Album live on stage at the ninety
Speaker 1: second Street Y Album is the best selling author of
Speaker 1: some ungodly number of books, but he's probably most famous
Speaker 1: for Tuesdays with Maury. He and Malcolm were there to
Speaker 1: talk about his new novel about the Holocaust, The Little Liar.
Speaker 1: They were warming up with some Mitch backstory about his
Speaker 1: time as a musician in New York.
Speaker 17: I tried the whole starving musician thing, and I played
Speaker 17: in all the clubs around here on Monday nights.
Speaker 1: I was backstage at this event peering out. I hadn't
Speaker 1: read Mitch's book. I was up to something else.
Speaker 2: We should probably do this, befall, we get too far
Speaker 2: afield on the music thing. If you've been talking so much,
Speaker 2: you will note that behind you. Yeah, there's a corg.
Speaker 1: At this point, the audience of people who had come
Speaker 1: that night to hear the author of Tuesdays with Maury
Speaker 1: discussed the Holocaust noticed the electric piano behind him.
Speaker 2: And we have a request that you play one of
Speaker 2: your most famous compositions, which you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about Cooking for two from the legendary Arnold
Speaker 2: Schwarzenegger nineteen ninety two, made for TV movie Christmas in Connecticut.
Speaker 17: Yeah, can you keep the recognition?
Speaker 1: Yes it was my keyboard, and yes I had planted
Speaker 1: it there.
Speaker 2: Mitch, No, no, this.
Speaker 7: For some reason, I have no idea.
Speaker 2: My colleague Ben is obsessed with this and really wanted
Speaker 2: us to do this, And I thought, how great would
Speaker 2: it be for you to sing one of our songs?
Speaker 2: Just like, just give us a little taste.
Speaker 19: I have to tell you this story.
Speaker 1: Tell tell Okay.
Speaker 17: So after I got out of the music business, I
Speaker 17: had a college roommate who went into the movie business.
Speaker 1: That would be Stanley M. Brooks, executive producer of Christmas
Speaker 1: in Connecticut. Stan and Mitch were roommates at Brandeis and he.
Speaker 17: Knew that I was a musician, and he was making
Speaker 17: a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger as a producer, and Schwarzenegger
Speaker 17: was the director of Christmas in Connecticut.
Speaker 1: The remake.
Speaker 17: Sounds about as good as it was, I think, and
Speaker 17: they needed as a song because she played Diane Cannon
Speaker 17: played the lead and she was a cook on TV
Speaker 17: or whatever.
Speaker 19: So the song had to be about food.
Speaker 17: And they wanted to use Harry Connick's Recipe for Love
Speaker 17: or something like that, but they couldn't afford it. So
Speaker 17: stan calls me and says, we need a song that's
Speaker 17: kind of upbeat about food for Ronald Swartzenegger's movie.
Speaker 1: Can you do it?
Speaker 18: You know?
Speaker 17: I said, well, what do you need it?
Speaker 1: By Thursday? You know, it was Tuesday, you know, So
Speaker 1: I just went and wrote a little song.
Speaker 17: And my wife is a singer a fantastic singer, and
Speaker 17: I said, honey, can you sing this song because we
Speaker 17: don't have time to go find anybody else. And he
Speaker 17: listened to it and he said, I liked a bun
Speaker 17: but the girl. And that's how the song was chosen. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 17: I want you to play it. I really think you should.
Speaker 5: So it went.
Speaker 18: Now, remember it had to be about food, food, So
Speaker 18: it went, let's go to the kitchen. I got something
Speaker 18: fixing advertising and dowd.
Speaker 19: Here we're cooking for two. They're inside the oven something
Speaker 19: warm and loving.
Speaker 18: Friends would laugh. They knew that it's true.
Speaker 3: We're cooking for two.
Speaker 1: Here's the bridge.
Speaker 3: I was a souper WONDERL.
Speaker 18: Left numbers every night all but once I tasted your kisses.
Speaker 19: I was dining my candlelight. Here's a recipe for all
Speaker 19: the world to see.
Speaker 1: We take some me and some you. Then it's too We're.
Speaker 7: Cooking for two.
Speaker 14: I love you.
Speaker 19: We're cooking for two.
Speaker 1: That definitely ranks amongst one of the most embarrassing.
Speaker 20: Things I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: They planned to play it over the credits with a
Speaker 1: Mitch album closing track in hand. Christmas in Connecticut was
Speaker 1: almost ready to debut most made for TV movies you
Speaker 1: just put out on television, but not this one.
Speaker 3: First of all, TV movies don't have screenings. If we
Speaker 3: have a screening, it's like ten people and you know,
Speaker 3: you were in a screening room somewhere like this was
Speaker 3: the big theater at the DGA, which holds I don't know,
Speaker 3: a thousand people, massive screen and there's a huge red
Speaker 3: carpet and a press line.
Speaker 8: We had two theaters going and there were phil When
Speaker 8: I tell you that there's.
Speaker 3: Never been a television movie before since, they had a
Speaker 3: press line. And he's walking down working the press, and
Speaker 3: like you know and I know that this see person.
Speaker 3: This is the Ambros Executi.
Speaker 1: Producer h l According to san Ivan Wrightman and James
Speaker 1: Cameron were there, along with the whole slew of Hollywood Royalty.
Speaker 1: The screening was in LA. It was a media sensation.
Speaker 8: Watch out Hollywood.
Speaker 12: There's a new director in town, and he's used to
Speaker 12: making a big impact that is in front of the camera.
Speaker 11: When you act and you see such talent that directs
Speaker 11: as I've worked with, it inspires you.
Speaker 1: Janet Brownell, the screenwriter, was not having such a good night.
Speaker 8: I remember sitting at the screening with my agent and
Speaker 8: I was like crying.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was like, oh my god, why were
Speaker 1: you crying?
Speaker 8: This is like it's so bad, and my name is
Speaker 8: on this.
Speaker 12: My agent was very fast to get me a drink
Speaker 12: at that point. I just remember outside there was kind
Speaker 12: of a Christmas theme sort of party.
Speaker 1: And just like I need to get out of here.
Speaker 1: But there was no putting the genie back in the bottle.
Speaker 1: TNT was running promo's NonStop.
Speaker 5: I love romantic comedies, so I made one myself, Christmas
Speaker 5: in Connecticut.
Speaker 3: It's a romantic comedy with all the trimmings.
Speaker 11: What in the world could possibly go wrong?
Speaker 3: Christmas in Connectic directed by Arnold Schwartznick, you have a
Speaker 3: problem with that? A TNT exclusive premiere Monday, April thirteen.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you caught that, but the film
Speaker 1: came out in April, one week before Easter. As one
Speaker 1: review put it, quote, don't ask me why a Christmas
Speaker 1: movie is premiering in April. As his then wife Maria
Speaker 1: Shreiver reflected, he just does. He's a big one on
Speaker 1: don't think about it or talk about it, do it.
Speaker 3: And then he goes, I think we want to scud
Speaker 3: into it again. That was too much fun. I go, okay,
Speaker 3: I go see if I can organ. I goes no,
Speaker 3: I want to ski in Washington. And by friend Jack Lent,
Speaker 3: so now we all fight Washington and uh. And it
Speaker 3: was a it was a who's who of of Washington,
Speaker 3: and it was senators and members of cabinet. It was
Speaker 3: a seated dinner and I remember my wife and I
Speaker 3: sit down. We weren't work in the room, so we
Speaker 3: sit last at our table. And the guy next to
Speaker 3: me has got like a dressed uniform on, and I say, hey,
Speaker 3: Stam Brooks, I'm the producer, and he goes, hey, Oliver North.
Speaker 1: Oliver North of Iran contra fame. The film a big
Speaker 1: hit in the belt Way. Suff I sit to say,
Speaker 1: this made for television Christmas movie had an unusually big reception,
Speaker 1: but it also didn't really do much to establish Arnold
Speaker 1: Schwarzenegger as a director. The reviews were mixed.
Speaker 15: Well, I'm looking on IMDb right now, it's like the
Speaker 15: rating is four point eight out of ten, and they're
Speaker 15: not far off.
Speaker 3: We nobody had any Oh my god, we're making It's
Speaker 3: a wonderful life.
Speaker 1: I realize I've had a lot of fun with this
Speaker 1: movie and gun to my head. Do I think it's good?
Speaker 13: No?
Speaker 1: But do I love it? Obviously yes, because it's so
Speaker 1: totally weird and over committed to its bit that it
Speaker 1: has a kind of joyfulness to it that honestly gets
Speaker 1: me in the Christmas spirit and at its core, like
Speaker 1: the best Christmas films, The story behind the movie is
Speaker 1: a story of love and friendship between Arnold Schwartzenegger and
Speaker 1: San Brooks, two men brought together by a love of
Speaker 1: making movies. After the film, Stan and Arnold stayed touch.
Speaker 1: Stan even moved into Arnold Schwarzenegger's office building. The kids
Speaker 1: played football together, and even though they never made another
Speaker 1: movie together, their collaboration had one more act. Almost ten
Speaker 1: years to the day from when Christmas in Connecticut began shooting,
Speaker 1: Arnold Schwarzenegger became the governor of California. At the time,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of hand ringing over an issue
Speaker 1: called runaway production. Lots of states had started offering tax
Speaker 1: breaks to lure films into shooting somewhere other than California.
Speaker 1: It had become a real problem for Hollywood as an
Speaker 1: industry town. This was one of the crises Schwarzenegger would
Speaker 1: have to face in his new role as governor. Now,
Speaker 1: the way people talked about his becoming governor was the
Speaker 1: same way they talked about his becoming a director. So
Speaker 1: it only makes sense that he wanted stan Brooks in
Speaker 1: his administration.
Speaker 16: So when he became governor, he was in about a
Speaker 16: year and he called me and he said, how would
Speaker 16: you like to be on the film Commission? And I said, well,
Speaker 16: that's a dumb idea.
Speaker 7: He goes why.
Speaker 16: I said, well, because I don't shoot movies in California.
Speaker 16: I said, I'm like the worst person you could put
Speaker 16: on the film commission because I take my movies out
Speaker 16: of state. And he goes, oh, that's why we want
Speaker 16: to because we want to try and pass the taxpayer.
Speaker 1: Stan joined the California Film Commission, and over the next
Speaker 1: few years he was a key part of the lobbying
Speaker 1: efforts to pass the tax credits that would make it
Speaker 1: easier to film in California.
Speaker 16: It was a hard fight, and so I ended up
Speaker 16: making a short film, a short documentary film where we
Speaker 16: interviewed some of the families that left on why and
Speaker 16: that ended up being more powerful than any speech we
Speaker 16: could make in their office.
Speaker 1: The first tax credits passed in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: They've been renewed ever since. So back to our original question,
Speaker 1: why did Arnold Schwarzenegger direct to this bizarre one off
Speaker 1: Christmas film? I found my answer in a story Stan
Speaker 1: told me.
Speaker 3: He says to me one night we finished around seven
Speaker 3: or eight, and he goes, well, you're doing And I said,
Speaker 3: I'm on holme. He goes, hees, Maria's making you know
Speaker 3: you want to come to the house. So oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So we both jump in our cars and we drive
Speaker 3: to Pacific Kyli State. And at that dinner, I remember
Speaker 3: Arnold turned to me. He says, you have a good talent.
Speaker 3: I own the stat why don't be big feet chifs?
Speaker 3: And I said, to be honest, I didn't get in
Speaker 3: the business to make big famous movies and got in
Speaker 3: the business to make movies. And I get to make
Speaker 3: two or three a year. If I'm in the future business,
Speaker 3: I'm lucky. If I make one every other year every
Speaker 3: three years, I go, I'm happy with my life. He goes, well,
Speaker 3: that's fantastic.
Speaker 1: The story really had honed for me because I get
Speaker 1: what that's like to just love making something, even a
Speaker 1: kind of improbably dense story about the making of the
Speaker 1: remake of a Christmas movie. It's like Stan said, if
Speaker 1: you love making movies or anything, it's just a gift
Speaker 1: to get to make more, even if they're maybe not
Speaker 1: the best, especially if it's clear how much fun you
Speaker 1: had make whatever it is you're making. So to close,
Speaker 1: let me just share one quote from the very last
Speaker 1: page of Charles Dickens as a Christmas Carol, a passage
Speaker 1: about Scrooge after he's seen the light. Quote. Some people
Speaker 1: laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let
Speaker 1: them laugh, and little heeded them, for he was wise
Speaker 1: enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe
Speaker 1: for good, at which some people did not have their
Speaker 1: fill of laughter. In the outset, his own heart laughed,
Speaker 1: and that was quite enough for him. Maybe Stan and
Speaker 1: Arnold didn't make It's a Wonderful Life, but it seems
Speaker 1: to me like their own hearts were laughing. So from
Speaker 1: all of us here at Revision's History, Happy holidays, you foreheads.
Speaker 1: See you in the New year. Revisionist History is produced
Speaker 1: by me Bennatt of Haffrey and Lucy Sullivan with Nina
Speaker 1: Bird Lawrence. Our editor is Karen Chakerji. Fact checking on
Speaker 1: this episode by Sam Russick, a resident Schwarzenegger fan. Original
Speaker 1: scoring by Luis Gara, mastering by Jake Krsky. Our executive
Speaker 1: producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Sarah Nix, David Arnott,
Speaker 1: Linda Berman, Iris Grossman, and Scott Sassa. I'm Ben Mattapaffery.
Speaker 20: Three two one. We wish Royal Berry Christmas. We wish
Speaker 20: you Merry Christmas.
Speaker 5: Queen.
Speaker 1: Wait, you are Merry Christmas?
Speaker 20: New with you, guys,