Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is
Speaker 2: Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And today on the show,
Speaker 3: we're going to be talking about a movie from nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty six, a film called Seconds, directed by John Frankenheimer.
Speaker 3: And I was trying to think. I was trying to
Speaker 3: think what to call it. Would you call this a
Speaker 3: science fiction thriller or a philosophical horror thriller? This really
Speaker 3: does defy genres in a way.
Speaker 2: It really does. I mean, you can see there are
Speaker 2: elements of conspiracy drama, the conspiracy thriller. There, there are
Speaker 2: elements of sci fi and horror, but it's not really
Speaker 2: any of those things. It is deeply psychological in many respects.
Speaker 2: So you might say it's psychological ab or c. But
Speaker 2: any attempt to pin this down is gonna miss something crucial,
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 3: So I'm really excited to talk about this movie. I'm
Speaker 3: honestly astounded how interesting I found it. But I do
Speaker 3: want to issue a sort of dual warning here at
Speaker 3: the top. First of all, about the podcast episode. This
Speaker 3: film has some I would say extremely powerful twists and
Speaker 3: surprises in it, and in order to talk about the
Speaker 3: movie in detail, we have to sort of reveal those surprises,
Speaker 3: including the ending, a little later in our conversation. So
Speaker 3: if you want to watch it spoiler free and preserve
Speaker 3: your surprise, you should do that before listening. But secondary
Speaker 3: warning before you go off to do that. I also
Speaker 3: have to say I was absolutely floored by the ending
Speaker 3: of this movie. And I don't usually feel the need
Speaker 3: to issue like warnings just about a movie having disturbing
Speaker 3: content or being really unsettling, but you know, we cover
Speaker 3: a lot of weird horror and stuff, but this one was, like,
Speaker 3: it shook me so hard that I feel like I
Speaker 3: should give people a bit of a heads up, especially
Speaker 3: because I think you're not really expecting it given the context.
Speaker 3: This movie is from nineteen sixty six. It's shot in
Speaker 3: black and white. The cinematography is amazing. It looks like
Speaker 3: a film from a little bit earlier, Like it looks
Speaker 3: like it could be a really well shot, interesting looking
Speaker 3: film from the fifties. It stars Rock Hudson's that really
Speaker 3: also makes it feel like, I don't know, one of
Speaker 3: these kind of romantic comedy movies from the fifties or something,
Speaker 3: But I think, especially given all that context, I was
Speaker 3: just not prepared for the raw horror and desperate bleakness
Speaker 3: achieved by the end of this film. So if you
Speaker 3: watch it, prepared to be shaken.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: This movie is a sixties film that looks in many
Speaker 2: respects like a nineteen fifties movie, but ultimately has the
Speaker 2: feel of a seventies or even eighties film in terms
Speaker 2: of its impact.
Speaker 3: I guess I could worry that on the other end,
Speaker 3: I might be kind of diminishing the dramatic effect by
Speaker 3: giving this warning, but so be it. I was shocked
Speaker 3: by the ending, and I was kind of like walking
Speaker 3: around the house feeling a pit in my stomach afterwards.
Speaker 3: So so you know, if people were going to go
Speaker 3: off and watch this, be prepared.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was finishing watching this movie after my son came
Speaker 2: back from from summer camp, and I was like watching
Speaker 2: it in the living room but with headphones in, and
Speaker 2: right as everything was going down, and I was I
Speaker 2: was like prepared to jump up and like like pause
Speaker 2: the movies from entering the room just because I was like,
Speaker 2: this is too this is to to start.
Speaker 3: Exactly right after I finished, I was going to go
Speaker 3: play with my baby, and I mean, I guess that's
Speaker 3: a good thing to do, actually, because I want to say.
Speaker 3: But on the other hand, I don't want to scare
Speaker 3: people off too much because I think Seconds is a
Speaker 3: phenomenal film. I had never seen it before we watched
Speaker 3: it this week for the show. I understand it received
Speaker 3: I think a very polarized reaction from critics back when
Speaker 3: it was first released. I think some thought it was
Speaker 3: a kind of strange masterpiece. Others thought it was cold
Speaker 3: and even reprehensible. And I didn't fully understand this division
Speaker 3: in opinion while I was watching it until the ending,
Speaker 3: and then it made sense. But I think I would
Speaker 3: side more with the supporters. In my opinion. Seconds is
Speaker 3: a piercing, fascinating look at the nature of desire. This
Speaker 3: is a film about what it means to want things
Speaker 3: and to want something different for your life, and it
Speaker 3: explores the really complex, troubling, hidden architecture underneath the visible
Speaker 3: edifice of all those desires.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I won't say anything more about the ending until
Speaker 2: we get to it, but I will say it's not
Speaker 2: a gut punch ending. It's not one of those undeserved
Speaker 2: gut punch indings anyway, I think it's as you were.
Speaker 2: As you're there on the floor holding your stomach, you
Speaker 2: realize no, that gut punch was warranted, Yeah, and is
Speaker 2: supported by the film. Now, one thing that I think
Speaker 2: is interesting to point out. This is purely accidental, but
Speaker 2: I think Seconds is in many ways an inter companion
Speaker 2: piece to The Incredible Shrinking Man from nineteen fifty seven
Speaker 2: that we've recently talked about on the show. They both
Speaker 2: deal with themes of mid century midlife crisis and fantastic
Speaker 2: treatments of desired or undesired change. In The Incredible Shrinking Man,
Speaker 2: our protagonist is literally diminished and ultimately reaches a point
Speaker 2: of acceptance and ultimately even transcendence. Seconds, however, deals with
Speaker 2: the siren song of escape and liberation from one's own life,
Speaker 2: and is ultimately a far darker tale.
Speaker 3: Agree one hundred percent. These are both excellent movies and
Speaker 3: offer really interesting philosophical counterpoints to one another.
Speaker 2: My elevator pitch is feature length twilight zone midlife crisis.
Speaker 2: All right, let's go ahead and hear the audio from
Speaker 2: the trailer.
Speaker 5: A bold, bizarre, terrifying.
Speaker 4: Rock Hudson in an astonishing change of pace stars in seconds.
Speaker 4: Rock Hudson as a second freed from all responsibilities, now
Speaker 4: ready to taste new pleasures. Rock Hudson as a man
Speaker 4: who buys for himself a totally new life, a chance
Speaker 4: to begin again every man's dream since time began.
Speaker 5: As soon as these people leave, I'm going to attack you.
Speaker 4: I want you to know that I'm counting on it.
Speaker 4: Rock Hudson as a man who lives the nightmare of
Speaker 4: being a second stirring Have.
Speaker 5: You liked that? Hey, John, John, John? Why are they
Speaker 5: stirring me like that? They know? He O what they're like?
Speaker 5: You reborn?
Speaker 2: All right? Now, if you're eager to go out and
Speaker 2: see this film for yourself before we discuss it any further,
Speaker 2: and this would be a good place to do that
Speaker 2: because after this, you know, we're going to start getting
Speaker 2: into the characters and into the plot, and even in
Speaker 2: discussing the characters, we're going to spoil a few things
Speaker 2: for you. So yeah, go out and see it if
Speaker 2: you're interested. It's widely available on digital and it was
Speaker 2: released on Blu Ray as part of the Criterion collection.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's a film that, despite it's seeming mixed
Speaker 2: reviews when it came out, or mixed reception critically, and
Speaker 2: so forth. It has developed a cult following over the decades,
Speaker 2: and I think is largely very well received and admired today.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it really aged into proper acclaim.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well, let's talk about some of the
Speaker 2: folks involved in making this picture. Starting at the top,
Speaker 2: I mentioned that this is a John Frankenheimer film. He
Speaker 2: directed it. Frankenheimer lived nineteen thirty through two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: Started out in TV in the mid fifties and directed
Speaker 2: twenty six episodes of Climax exclamation Point. He made his
Speaker 2: film directorial debut with nineteen fifty seven's The Young Stranger,
Speaker 2: a drama starring Kim Hunter. In the sixties, though, he
Speaker 2: really came into his own first with The Young Savages,
Speaker 2: a nineteen sixty one street gang flick starring Burt Lancaster
Speaker 2: as a district attorney, not as a troubled youth, I
Speaker 2: should say, because I don't know Burt Lancaster ever was
Speaker 2: a youth. He also did a trio of films in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty two, All Fall Down with Warren Beatty, Birdman
Speaker 2: of Alcatraz, with Lancaster and Carl Malden and The Manchurian
Speaker 2: Candidate starring Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansberry. That is probably
Speaker 2: one of his more famous films.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a very different kind of genre and subject matter.
Speaker 3: I would say one thing that is shared in common
Speaker 3: between Manchurian Candidate and Seconds is the atmosphere of secretiveness
Speaker 3: and paranoia that is conjured in both films.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, this after This came nineteen sixty four to
Speaker 2: seven Days in May. This is about a military coup
Speaker 2: taking place in the United States, which I think also
Speaker 2: has similar strains you know, obviously of conspiracy and so
Speaker 2: forth in paranoia. And then a film called The Train,
Speaker 2: which I think is maybe a little less on the
Speaker 2: intrigue and conspiracy spectrum. And then comes the movie Seconds.
Speaker 2: Frankenheimer continued to work steadily throughout the rest of his life,
Speaker 2: and some of the standouts include seventy five's The French
Speaker 2: Connection two, nineteen seventy seven's Black Sunday. This was the
Speaker 2: first film adaptation of a Thomas Harris novel. The nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy nine Mutant Bear movie Prophecy, which we've we've mentioned
Speaker 2: a few times on the show before.
Speaker 3: Seems to come up frequently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's a Mutant Bear movie,
Speaker 2: directed by John Frankenheimer. I still haven't seen it all
Speaker 2: the way. I started watching it and then realized it
Speaker 2: it was maybe too serious for what I had in
Speaker 2: mind for myself. He directed the nineteen eighty two John
Speaker 2: Salis scripted action movie The Challenge, starring Scott glenn In
Speaker 2: Toshiro Mafuni. Nineteen ninety four is The Burning Season starring
Speaker 2: Raal Julia. He of course stepped in to replace Richard
Speaker 2: Stanley on nineteen ninety six is The Island of Doctor Moreau.
Speaker 2: And then he also directed nineteen ninety eight's Ronan, which
Speaker 2: is a pretty entertaining espionage thriller. As I recall, it's
Speaker 2: got a really solid cast and some excellent vehicular stunts.
Speaker 3: I think that's one of those movies I saw when
Speaker 3: you know, I was like too young to understand the
Speaker 3: plot at all, but I do remember, like Robert de
Speaker 3: Niro and Sean Bean and still in Scars Guard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even you don't have to understand the plot of Ronan. Really,
Speaker 2: it's just, you know, various spy types are encountering each
Speaker 2: other saying cryptic things, and then stuff gets blown up
Speaker 2: and so forth. All Right. This greenplay for this film
Speaker 2: was written by Lewis John Carlino, who lived nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: two through twenty twenty American screenwriter and director. He'd written
Speaker 2: for TV previously, but this was his first feature screenplay credit,
Speaker 2: but certainly not the last. His later screenplays include nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy twos of the Mechanic and nineteen seventy nine's The
Speaker 2: Great Santini starring Robert Devall. This was based on the
Speaker 2: Pat conroy novel, and Carlino also directed that film. Now
Speaker 2: this film, Seconds is based on the novel by David
Speaker 2: Ealy born nineteen twenty seven. The only other adaptation of
Speaker 2: his work that I ran across as a nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: one segment on Night Gallery titled The Academy starring Pat Boone.
Speaker 2: I think I've seen this one because I think it's
Speaker 2: season one, but I don't remember it at all. Seconds
Speaker 2: was a nineteen sixty three novel, and his other works
Speaker 2: include sixty eight Time Out and nineteen ninety twos A
Speaker 2: Journal of the Flood Year, all Right, Getting into the
Speaker 2: cast here and Yes, There are gonna be some spoilers
Speaker 2: as we discussed, like who who each of these people
Speaker 2: is playing. We have this character named Arthur Hamilton. He's
Speaker 2: the initial incarnation of our protagonist, a successful man who's
Speaker 2: deeply uncomfortable in his own life and completely bottled up emotionally.
Speaker 2: It is, in my opinion, just a really great performance
Speaker 2: by the actor. John Randolph, who lived nineteen fifteen through
Speaker 2: two thousand and four.
Speaker 3: Agree that the cast is excellent across the board. I
Speaker 3: think really everybody who gets speaking roles in this is
Speaker 3: very good, But the two actors playing the protagonist are
Speaker 3: I think should be singled out for really high praise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, obviously a performance doesn't exist in isolation.
Speaker 2: Randolph's performance here is accentuated by great direction, great cinematography.
Speaker 2: But man, it really all comes together in this very
Speaker 2: uncomfortable and at times like really surprisingly raw, like emotionally raw,
Speaker 2: and also just paranoia inducing performance.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 2: Randolph was born Emmanuel Hirsch Cohen and was active on
Speaker 2: Broadway as far back as nineteen thirty eight according to
Speaker 2: the Internet Broadway Database, and his earliest TV and film
Speaker 2: credits go back to forty eight and forty nine, but
Speaker 2: he and his wife Sarah Cunningham were both blacklisted around
Speaker 2: that time, and in nineteen fifty five they were both
Speaker 2: called to testify before the House and American Activities Committee.
Speaker 2: As such, Randolph was forced to work outside of Hollywood
Speaker 2: and New York film, television and radio for a good
Speaker 2: fifteen years.
Speaker 3: Man, I feel like Huak has been coming up a
Speaker 3: lot in Weird House episodes recently. That's not by design,
Speaker 3: It just happens.
Speaker 2: To me, It just happens. It seems like it's a
Speaker 2: case of watching meaningful films with talented folks in them
Speaker 2: from this time period just ended up impacting so many people,
Speaker 2: either the Blacklist or the Gray List or the ramifications
Speaker 2: of those lists. So anyway, Yeah, he continued working in
Speaker 2: New York theater. I don't think that was like directly impacted.
Speaker 2: It may have been indirectly, but his TV and film
Speaker 2: credits are pretty bluster up until the mid sixties, and
Speaker 2: this film Seconds was his first real film role coming
Speaker 2: out of that blacklist period. Now, after Seconds, he did
Speaker 2: a lot more TV work, including Night Gallery, and played
Speaker 2: the chairman in two Planet of the Apes movies, Escape
Speaker 2: in Conquest. At seventy one and seventy two. He was
Speaker 2: in Serpico in seventy three, the al Pacino cop movie.
Speaker 2: He was in the seventy six King Kong film Heaven
Speaker 2: Can Waite in seventy eight, Pritzy's Honor in eighty five. Oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't recognize him at all from this, but he
Speaker 2: was in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation in eighty nine playing
Speaker 2: Clark griswold sor no memory of that, though I've seen
Speaker 2: that movie. Yeah, he was in You've Got Mail in
Speaker 2: ninety eight, and he played the original Frank Costanza on Seinfeld.
Speaker 2: I either didn't know or had forgotten that this was
Speaker 2: ever a case of someone else ever having played the
Speaker 2: plot for Jerry Stiller, and I couldn't find a clear an.
Speaker 2: It seems like it might have been just scheduling issues
Speaker 2: that the reason they ended up replacing him as playing
Speaker 2: Frank Castanza, but it also may have been a desire
Speaker 2: to go in a new direction with the character. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure. I can't can't really imagine him being Frank
Speaker 2: is Stanza long term on the show. Likewise, I can't
Speaker 2: imagine Jerry Stiller playing this role in this movie.
Speaker 3: So you know, I really want to give credit to
Speaker 3: Randolph in this role because he's very good, and in
Speaker 3: many ways it's a thankless kind of performance because he
Speaker 3: it's very complex and he's pitch perfect in it, but
Speaker 3: it's a role where he doesn't really get to branch
Speaker 3: out and like offer much emotion because like the whole
Speaker 3: point is that his character is kind of like unfulfilled
Speaker 3: and unfulfilling. He's just sitting there like containing all of
Speaker 3: his disappointment within himself and not really getting to express it.
Speaker 3: And this character does have an arc where he goes
Speaker 3: other places, but as we're about to reveal in a minute,
Speaker 3: this actor doesn't get to be there for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the key thing is that as a
Speaker 2: vessel containing these complex emotions that are just straining to
Speaker 2: leak out, Like you can see that, you can observe that,
Speaker 2: you can feel that in its performance, and it's not
Speaker 2: it's not a situation where you just have to imagine,
Speaker 2: you know, purely imagine what's going on inside, like you
Speaker 2: can see the gears turning. So excellent performance. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 2: And you know, I don't think i'd really seen much
Speaker 2: of his work before outside of obviously Christmas vacation, which
Speaker 2: you know is perfectly fine. I've seen it a million times,
Speaker 2: but not really a showcase for his work, all right.
Speaker 2: Playing author Hamilton's wife Emily Hamilton is Francis Reid, who
Speaker 2: lived nineteen fourteen through twenty ten. American actor, best known
Speaker 2: in film for her role here, but she also acted
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy one's The Andromeda Strain soap opera. Fans, however,
Speaker 2: might recognize her from this is correct three three hundred
Speaker 2: and ninety three episodes of Days of Our Lives, on
Speaker 2: which she played Alice Horton from nineteen sixty five through
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: How is that even possible? I don't know.
Speaker 2: It just it sounds astounding, But I guess they just
Speaker 2: really cranked these out. I mean, this was like a
Speaker 2: daily show, right.
Speaker 3: That sound I had no idea that show ran that long.
Speaker 3: But also I want to say Francis Reid extremely good
Speaker 3: in this movie in a similarly thankless kind of role
Speaker 3: to to John Randolph here, that she you know, she
Speaker 3: plays a character whose complexity is a lot in what
Speaker 3: she doesn't get to say and doesn't get too emote.
Speaker 2: Absolutely yeah, So I think it's also a solid performance,
Speaker 2: and there's there's kind of a part one in part
Speaker 2: two of it that I think equals things out really well.
Speaker 2: All Right, the next character we're going to discuss here
Speaker 2: has a different name. It's Antiochus Wilson or Wilson as
Speaker 2: he's mostly referred to. This is the reborn author Hamilton.
Speaker 2: So this is we'll explain, this is the character he becomes.
Speaker 2: He is reborn as this person through like surgical reconstruction
Speaker 2: and through fraudulent documents and so forth. There's a whole
Speaker 2: organization we'll get to that, but basically, one character becomes
Speaker 2: this other take on the character, and a new actor
Speaker 2: takes over the role. That actor is Rock Hudson, who
Speaker 2: lived nineteen twenty five through nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 3: I'm not super well versed on Rock Hudson's career, but
Speaker 3: from what I understand, this was a major departure for
Speaker 3: him that he had mostly done much lighter movies. You know,
Speaker 3: he's known as that, like, he's a handsome guy. He's
Speaker 3: there to like be like the fun, good looking guy
Speaker 3: in like a romance or romantic comedy or something to
Speaker 3: be in a in a dark, brooding, philosophical science fiction
Speaker 3: film like this. I don't think think he'd really done
Speaker 3: anything like this, had he?
Speaker 2: No, No, I was looking around. I don't think he'd
Speaker 2: ever done anything that you could classify as horror or
Speaker 2: science fiction or certainly fantasy. And you know, part of
Speaker 2: that is we've discussed highly successful actors or directors or
Speaker 2: what have you of the day, they generally didn't have
Speaker 2: to do that. It's such an inversion of what we
Speaker 2: have today, where the biggest actors around are you know,
Speaker 2: almost inevitably, with some notable exceptions. Obviously there's no any
Speaker 2: of these generalities are not going to be one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's not surprising to see someone who's
Speaker 2: won multiple Oscars show up in a Marvel movie or
Speaker 2: in you know, whatever the or Star Wars or what
Speaker 2: have you. But back in the day, you know, as
Speaker 2: we've discussed on these various genre pictures, they were lower
Speaker 2: down on the pecking order, and so yeah, it's not
Speaker 2: surprising to find a situation for Rockets and had never
Speaker 2: been in a movie that had robots or aliens or
Speaker 2: even you know, the sort of ultimately kind of light
Speaker 2: sophisticated sci fi, you know, kind of more Twilight Zone
Speaker 2: ish l elements that you find in this picture. Like
Speaker 2: you said he was, I mean, he was a nineteen
Speaker 2: fifties leading man, perhaps, I mean not just a he
Speaker 2: was kind of the nineteen fifties leading man. He's the
Speaker 2: top build actor in this film, and he was easily
Speaker 2: one of the biggest, if not biggest movie stars off
Speaker 2: his era. His main film roles were stuff like his
Speaker 2: biggest pictures anyway from the fifties were stuff like All
Speaker 2: That Heaven Allows, Giant Written on the Wind, and Pillar Talk.
Speaker 2: These are all movies where you look at you can
Speaker 2: pull them up now on the database of your choice.
Speaker 2: And all the posters prominently feature his character romantically embracing
Speaker 2: the lead actress. That is not the case with Seconds No.
Speaker 2: So yeah, going into that, this was a departure, and
Speaker 2: I'm to understand he was not Frankenheimer's first choice for
Speaker 2: the role. Apparently Frankenheimer considered rock Hudson to, you know,
Speaker 2: to be maybe a lighter weight actor. Ultimately, you know,
Speaker 2: he's the rom com guy, he's the heart throb guy.
Speaker 2: He's like, I need somebody like a Bert Land caster.
Speaker 2: But ultimately he gets sold on rock Hudson, Like his
Speaker 2: agent says, you know, no, Hudson can do this. He's
Speaker 2: excited for this role and and in thees so Frankenheimers
Speaker 2: proved wrong and has admitted to such, and and I know,
Speaker 2: I absolutely agree. I think Hudson's performance in this is great.
Speaker 2: I think he perfectly captures this sense of the reborn
Speaker 2: in seconds.
Speaker 3: Fully agree. I wouldn't want anybody else in this role.
Speaker 3: I think he's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like he's playing a character that's outwardly strong
Speaker 2: and confident, you know, a complete transformation from his previous incarnation,
Speaker 2: but inside, you know there's still this uncertainty, there's perhaps
Speaker 2: this sense of inadequacy, and you can see all of
Speaker 2: that happening.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: It just was I was worried, honestly because the first
Speaker 2: performance of this character, John Randolph's performance is so strong.
Speaker 2: I was like, even not being that familiar with Rock
Speaker 2: Hudson's work, I was like, I don't know, I Hudson's
Speaker 2: going to really be able to pull this off. Feel
Speaker 2: it's going to feel unequal, But I really think that
Speaker 2: he pulls off a great performance here, And yeah, I
Speaker 2: can't imagine it being any different now. Hudson would go
Speaker 2: on to appear in two more films you could qualify
Speaker 2: as science fiction nineteen seventy six is Embryo and nineteen
Speaker 2: eighties The Martian Chronicles, and the various other films. I
Speaker 2: think he's in an avalanche movie that was covered on
Speaker 2: Mystery Science Theater at some point late in his career.
Speaker 2: Much has been written about Hudson's personal life, as he
Speaker 2: was a gay man working at a time and in
Speaker 2: a position that did not permit him to live openly
Speaker 2: as such. And this is also factored into a fair
Speaker 2: amount of film analysis, you know, retrospectively concerning seconds. But
Speaker 2: any way you shake it, anyway you look at it,
Speaker 2: this is now largely considered to be one of his
Speaker 2: best performances. I think I read that it's a performance
Speaker 2: that Hudson himself was very proud of, and I think
Speaker 2: with good reason.
Speaker 3: Here here hats off to Rock Hudson.
Speaker 2: This is one of those episodes where we don't get
Speaker 2: to harp on any bio or critique anybody's performance. It's
Speaker 2: like every one of them is like, Wow, they nailed it,
Speaker 2: absolutely well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's how it is across the board. I feel
Speaker 3: like everybody did great, great work here.
Speaker 2: Now up Next, we have Salome Jens playing Nora Marcus
Speaker 2: Or nineteen thirty five American modern dancer turned actor of stage,
Speaker 2: screen and TV. Her first major role was playing the
Speaker 2: Future Woman in nineteen fifty eight Terror from the Year
Speaker 2: of five thousand, a movie some of you mistis out
Speaker 2: there might remember from Mystery Senti's Theater three thousand. It's
Speaker 2: not actually that memorable a film, but a lot of
Speaker 2: people probably saw it through MST. She played the title
Speaker 2: role in nineteen sixty one's Angel Baby, which starred George
Speaker 2: Hamilton and was the film debut of Burt Reynolds pre Mustache.
Speaker 2: Of course, she was in sixty five's The Fool Killer
Speaker 2: opposite Anthony Perkins. And then comes Seconds in which she
Speaker 2: plays this captivating character Nora, that our protagonist encounters in
Speaker 2: his new life in bohemian California.
Speaker 3: She is a self actualized free spirit who has taken
Speaker 3: her life into her own hands, and she represents, in
Speaker 3: a way, I think, the potential to live life in
Speaker 3: freedom and self determination.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's so alive, but to the degree that, at
Speaker 2: least through the lens of our main character, you know
Speaker 2: she is exciting and full of promise, but also maybe
Speaker 2: a little bit intimidating and frightening, and I think it's
Speaker 2: all played perfectly. It's a very lively and charismatic performance.
Speaker 2: So hats off to solome A Gen's here. She worked
Speaker 2: a lot after this, mostly in TV, but her TV
Speaker 2: credentials are really solid, including The Outer Limits, the original
Speaker 2: Outer Limits. She was also in a single episode of
Speaker 2: Tales from the Cryptomaniac at Large. That one's notable because
Speaker 2: that one was directed by John Frankenheimer. That was a
Speaker 2: pretty solid episode. That was one that we actually discussed
Speaker 2: on a past anthology of horror for stuff to blow
Speaker 2: your mind. Oh okay, that one had adam Ant in it.
Speaker 2: You might recall. She also pops up on Star Trek
Speaker 2: the Next Generation, and also had a more substantial role
Speaker 2: as the female shape shifter on fifteen episodes of Star
Speaker 2: Trek Deep Space nine. She narrated nineteen eighty six's Clan
Speaker 2: of the Cave Bear and did other voice work late
Speaker 2: in her career. All right, So at the heart of
Speaker 2: this movie, there's a sinister corporation that is called The Company,
Speaker 2: and it has various individuals working in it. I'm going
Speaker 2: to go lighter on the backgrounds on these actors just
Speaker 2: because I don't want to spend the entire podcast just
Speaker 2: talking about the stellar cast. But heading this up, or
Speaker 2: seemingly heading this up is the Old Man played by
Speaker 2: Will Gear, who lived nineteen oh two through nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 2: botanist turned actor and lifelong activists who also found himself
Speaker 2: blacklisted in nineteen fifties Hollywood after refusing to name names
Speaker 2: before Congress. Other films of note include nineteen sixty sevens
Speaker 2: in Cold Blood. In nineteen seventy two's Jeremiah Johnson.
Speaker 3: Will Gear really stood out to me. He was perfect
Speaker 3: in his role. I think we can talk more about
Speaker 3: him when we get into the plot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we also have a man by the name of
Speaker 2: mister Ruby played by Jeff Corey. Jeff Corey lived nineteen
Speaker 2: fourteen through two thousand and two, another stage and screen
Speaker 2: actor blacklisted during the nineteen fifties, also for refusing to
Speaker 2: name names. He became a noted acting teacher during that
Speaker 2: period and worked with a number of future stars. His
Speaker 2: biggest films include sixty nine's True Grit, as well as
Speaker 2: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and nineteen seventies Beneath
Speaker 2: the Planet of the Apes, also the film Little Big
Speaker 2: Man from nineteen seventy. We also have a character named
Speaker 2: Doctor Inness. This is the I guess, the plastic surgeon
Speaker 2: that works for the company, and he is played by
Speaker 2: Richard Anderson who lived nineteen twenty six through twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: American actor, best known on screen for supporting roles in
Speaker 2: fifty eight Paths of Glory, fifty nine's Compulsion, and fifty
Speaker 2: six is Forbidden Planet. On TV, he played Oscar Goldman,
Speaker 2: who is the boss of both the six million Dollar
Speaker 2: Man and the six million Dollar Woman or I guess
Speaker 2: like the twelve million dollar Man in Woman. There's also
Speaker 2: another interesting character in the company, a character named Devallo,
Speaker 2: and he's played by the actor Kai d He's a
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen ten through nineteen ninety one an American
Speaker 2: actor of Anglo Egyptian Sudanese ancestry who tended to play
Speaker 2: characters of Asian descent in various pictures and TV projects
Speaker 2: from nineteen fifty through about nineteen ninety. His other big
Speaker 2: film was nineteen sixty two's The Manchurian Candidate, where he
Speaker 2: played the brainwashing expert doctor Yen Lowe.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, okay. In this movie, he has an interesting role.
Speaker 3: It's a very small role, but an interesting moment in
Speaker 3: the plot where he is there to sort of illicit
Speaker 3: confessions and monologues from the client of this company to
Speaker 3: sort of reveal their hidden true desires.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's a similar feel, I guess in some
Speaker 2: ways to this character from the Manchurian Candidate and also
Speaker 2: a wonderful mustache. Yes, we also have a character named John.
Speaker 2: We don't know his last name, he's just John. We'll
Speaker 2: discuss his role and everything in a bit, but he's
Speaker 2: played by Wesley Addie, who lived nineteen thirteen through nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety six stage and screen actor, best known for nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty five, Kissed Me Deadly, nineteen seventies Tora Tora, Tora
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy six is network all right? Moving outside
Speaker 2: of the company here we have another character or not
Speaker 2: completely outside of the company, but another character encounter is
Speaker 2: a character named Charlie, and he's played by Murray Hamilton
Speaker 2: who lived nineteen twenty three through nineteen eighty six. Stage
Speaker 2: and screen actor who might not be as recognizable to
Speaker 2: many in this film. But Joe, where do you know
Speaker 2: this guy from.
Speaker 3: Oh, this is the Mayor from Jaws in a way,
Speaker 3: playing the same kind of squirrely scammer he is in Jaws.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, this is Ma from the first two Jaws movies.
Speaker 2: He was also mister Robinson in sixty sevens The Graduate,
Speaker 2: and Father Ryan in the Amityville Horror from nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 3: It is weird seeing him without one of his signature
Speaker 3: blazers from Jaws. By the way, if you've never noticed
Speaker 3: in Jaws before the jackets that Mayor Vaughan wears, they
Speaker 3: are words can't even describe, just chef kiss. I want
Speaker 3: them all in my closet. One of them is an
Speaker 3: anchor print. It's just got a little anchors all over it.
Speaker 3: And another one is rob Look at the one with
Speaker 3: the parallel lines. I don't even know how to describe this.
Speaker 2: Wow, I went. I would be very surprised if someone's
Speaker 2: not putting these out again now, because I'm served ads
Speaker 2: of late for reproductions of like shirt prints from like
Speaker 2: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and other films like
Speaker 2: this is like people have realized that people just want
Speaker 2: to wear that shirt. So how long until this Blazer
Speaker 2: with all the anchors on. It is out when people realize, Hey,
Speaker 2: as I you know, settle in to the late middle age,
Speaker 2: I want to start wearing jackets like like the mayor
Speaker 2: from Jaws does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Amity, as you know, means friendship.
Speaker 2: All right. The music in this film is by Jerry Goldsmith,
Speaker 2: who lived twenty nine through two thousand and four. His
Speaker 2: work has come up on Weird House previously, I believe,
Speaker 2: in the Congo episode and in the Grimlins two episode.
Speaker 2: So I won't go really deep here or anything, but
Speaker 2: suffice to say a very successful and prolific film composer,
Speaker 2: and I think the score hits all the right notes.
Speaker 2: It leans into the melodrama where that's appropriate, and certainly
Speaker 2: into the paranoia.
Speaker 3: I agree. I think this very strong score really does
Speaker 3: help but drive home the paranoia. But another thing, probably
Speaker 3: the thing that more than anything else, really sets the
Speaker 3: tone of paranoia is the excellent cinematography.
Speaker 2: That's right, and this is the work of James Wong Howe.
Speaker 2: Howe lived eighteen ninety nine through nineteen seventy six, and
Speaker 2: he's actually the reason this film initially popped up on
Speaker 2: my race are. That was because I was reading about
Speaker 2: notable Asian American film industry folks and James long Howe
Speaker 2: is considered one of the best cinematographers of all time,
Speaker 2: A real master of shadow. Was highly sought after for
Speaker 2: multiple decades, ultimately earned ten Oscar nominations, including for this
Speaker 2: film and one two of them they're only like. When
Speaker 2: I was looking into him, I was like, well, hopefully
Speaker 2: this guy did some weird films, something that we could
Speaker 2: discuss for weird house cinema. And out of all the
Speaker 2: movies he did, I think only two or three classify it,
Speaker 2: but this was one of them, and I'm glad we
Speaker 2: went with this one.
Speaker 3: Another one I think it was Mark of the Vampire, right,
Speaker 3: which is a vampire movie famous for having kind of
Speaker 3: a Scooby Doo ending.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a Todd Browning. It's supposed to
Speaker 2: look gorgeous. Nineteen thirty five has a great cast, but
Speaker 2: I don't think it's the Todd Browning film we need
Speaker 2: to watch. So this one was I think the right
Speaker 2: choice for James Wonghowe.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I haven't seen that other movie, but you can't
Speaker 3: be disappointed with his work on this one. It's just amazing.
Speaker 2: So how was born in but his father went to
Speaker 2: work in America for the Northern Pacific Railway and eventually
Speaker 2: was able to bring his family over as well. I
Speaker 2: think how would have been four or five at the time.
Speaker 2: His father eventually ran a general store in Washington State,
Speaker 2: and Howe got his young hands on an Eastman Kodak
Speaker 2: Brownie camera, which I'm to understand was kind of like
Speaker 2: this was where things would begin his interest in photography,
Speaker 2: ultimately cinematography now as he grew older, he tried his
Speaker 2: hand at a few different career paths, but eventually worked
Speaker 2: his way into first commercial photography and then cinematography in
Speaker 2: la during the Silent film era. He did assistant camera
Speaker 2: and clapper work as early as nineteen nineteen, but served
Speaker 2: as a cinematographer for the first time on nineteen twenty
Speaker 2: three's Drums of Fate, due apparently in part to star
Speaker 2: Mary Miles Minter, who took note of Howe's technical ability
Speaker 2: capturing I believe the darkness in her eyes or he
Speaker 2: had some trick for photographing her just the way, and
Speaker 2: she's like, well, this is the guy, this is who
Speaker 2: I want to work with, and work he did. He
Speaker 2: worked steadily throughout the twenties, thirties and forties, and became
Speaker 2: highly sought after working with such directors as Howard Hawks
Speaker 2: again Todd Browning. He worked on such films as nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty four as The Thin Man. He was also the
Speaker 2: uncredited cinematographer on those orchestra segments in Disney's Fantasia in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty.
Speaker 3: Oh okay.
Speaker 2: He made numerous technological innovations as well, and ultimately cemented
Speaker 2: his place as an innovator and master, particularly of shadow
Speaker 2: as well as deep focused cinematography. Now in many respects, Yeah,
Speaker 2: his is a great Chinese American success story, but it's
Speaker 2: also essential to realize a lot of what he was
Speaker 2: up against. He couldn't obtain US citizenship till the nineteen
Speaker 2: forties due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, which ran from
Speaker 2: eighteen eighty two through nineteen forty three, and he also
Speaker 2: could neither legally marry or publicly acknowledge his wife, Sonora
Speaker 2: Babb until the nineteen fifty due to California laws against
Speaker 2: interracial marriage and the moral clause of his studio contract,
Speaker 2: which I think that the basic idea is there, Like,
Speaker 2: he couldn't legally marry her, and then due to the
Speaker 2: moral clause of his contract, he could not like publicly
Speaker 2: be in a relationship with her that sort of thing. Then,
Speaker 2: during the years of the Hollywood Blacklist, his wife was
Speaker 2: blacklisted for alleged Communist sympathies, and Howl himself was gray listed.
Speaker 2: This forced them to move to Mexico for a period,
Speaker 2: though year by year his output seemed to remain pretty
Speaker 2: steady by the look of things, so you know, one
Speaker 2: way or another, he was still finding projects to work on.
Speaker 2: Other films of note that he worked on include nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty six's The Rose Tattoo. This was his first Oscar win,
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight's The Old Man in the Sea, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty three's Hud That's also one that won him an Oscar,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight's The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, nineteen
Speaker 2: seventies The Molly Maguires, and nineteen seventy five's Funny Lady.
Speaker 2: This was his last film for which he was also
Speaker 2: nominated for an Oscar. He also has eight directorial credits
Speaker 2: to his name, including nineteen fifty fours Go Man Go
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty eight's Invisible Danger. But again his work
Speaker 2: in this film is just tremendous. I think you've never
Speaker 2: seen a film that he worked on like this is
Speaker 2: a perfect starting place.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, yeah, all right, were ready to talk about the plot,
Speaker 3: let's do it, all right. So I found myself thinking
Speaker 3: we probably shouldn't do a detailed scene by scene recap
Speaker 3: of this one like we do in some episodes. Actually,
Speaker 3: this movie got me thinking about which movies feel right
Speaker 3: for them and which ones don't. Somehow, I think it's
Speaker 3: the campier or sillier outings that really invite the more
Speaker 3: minute scene by scene treatment, and for some reason, the
Speaker 3: more weighty and serious dramas don't. I don't exactly know
Speaker 3: why that is, but that does to be the general trend.
Speaker 2: A lot of times, we kind of breathe life into
Speaker 2: the spaces where there's not life, and yeah, a film
Speaker 2: like this, it's like all the spaces are occupied, all
Speaker 2: the spaces are meaningful, and they don't necessarily need us
Speaker 2: to interpret them exactly.
Speaker 3: So something would feel kind of cheap, I think about
Speaker 3: looking at it too closely. So instead we're going to
Speaker 3: zoom in and zoom out a little bit. But one
Speaker 3: place I do want to start zoomed in is the
Speaker 3: very beginning with the opening credits, where we have dissonant
Speaker 3: mechanical music, almost like the sound of a kind of
Speaker 3: scanning device emitting a signal that there is something being
Speaker 3: detected right here. It made me think of the motion
Speaker 3: trackers and aliens, but I don't know, some kind of
Speaker 3: music like that. And then you also have dark, moody
Speaker 3: strings and minor chords on the organ. Again, this is
Speaker 3: a score by Jerry Goldsmith. Kind of reminds me in
Speaker 3: a way of some of Howard Shor's music for like
Speaker 3: David Cronenberg movies. Yeah, that would come later, of course.
Speaker 3: And throughout the credit sequence we have extreme close ups
Speaker 3: on human and facial features with a kind of fun
Speaker 3: house mirror effect. Everything is warped and inverting upon itself lips, teeth, ears, eyes,
Speaker 3: and then there's one part that's kind of funny with
Speaker 3: the name Rock Hudson appearing across the sclare of a
Speaker 3: tortured eyeball, and then finally a face covered in cloth wrapping,
Speaker 3: almost like a ski mask, but I think it is
Speaker 3: supposed to be bandages.
Speaker 2: Now it's a note that the One and Only saw
Speaker 2: Bass is credited with the titles here He of course
Speaker 2: directed Phase four, the Ant movie that we discussed on
Speaker 2: the show previously, though to just call it an ant
Speaker 2: movie is almost a disservice. That was his one and
Speaker 2: only feature directing credit. But the man's main bread and
Speaker 2: butter was this sort of work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like main titles and credit sequences and stuff posters
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and these are great, But again, but kind of
Speaker 2: to your point, if you don't want to look up
Speaker 2: anybody's nose or into someone's ear, if that's like a
Speaker 2: real turn off for you, you might want to skip
Speaker 2: this section of the movie.
Speaker 3: Well if you, if you got that kind of constitution,
Speaker 3: you might just not want to watch seconds. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: the movie begins. You were speaking earlier about the paranoid cinematography,
Speaker 3: and there's a great example of that right at the beginning.
Speaker 3: The movie begins with a man moving through a train station.
Speaker 3: I think it's actually Grand Central station. It is, And
Speaker 3: there is a type of shot that I believe occurs
Speaker 3: several times in the film where the camera is kind
Speaker 3: of floating over the man's shoulder from behind and following
Speaker 3: him very tightly as he moves. It's almost like it's
Speaker 3: glued to him. And this has for some reason, a
Speaker 3: very unsettling paranoid effect. It's like the feeling of an
Speaker 3: unseen spirit chasing and observing your every move.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, this movie doesn't play around with these the
Speaker 2: feeling of something unsettling about the nature of reality.
Speaker 3: And so it's following this man through a train station.
Speaker 3: We see this man moving, and then another man who's
Speaker 3: always sort of photographed from the middle of the face
Speaker 3: up I believe, with like the brim of his hat
Speaker 3: down in in a kind of sinister way, following behind him.
Speaker 3: So the man who's walking ahead turns out to be
Speaker 3: our protagonist, Arthur Hamilton, and the stranger who's following him
Speaker 3: follows him through the crowd, down the stairs, all the
Speaker 3: way onto a train and then suddenly calls out his
Speaker 3: name and hands him an address written on a piece
Speaker 3: of paper and then departs, leaving Arthur just standing there
Speaker 3: on the train baffled. What is this?
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the whole setup, it's like, what's gonna happen?
Speaker 2: Is so I'm gonna be stabbed or shot? You No,
Speaker 2: there's a handoff of a note, and somehow that makes
Speaker 2: it all the more sinister because you know, especially from
Speaker 2: the individual's reaction like there's something really wrong about about
Speaker 2: what just happened. Nothing good will come of this.
Speaker 3: I guess we should take a moment to describe Arthur
Speaker 3: the man here. What is his vibe?
Speaker 2: Well, it's like we kind of discussed earlier. He has
Speaker 2: a vessel, an unleaking vessel, straining with all sorts of
Speaker 2: uncomfortable emotions. He is not comfortable in his own flesh,
Speaker 2: in his own body. He's a man in his I mean,
Speaker 2: to be one accurate. I mean, the actor himself was
Speaker 2: in his early fifties at this point, though it's nineteen fifties,
Speaker 2: early fifties, which is kind of a different animal than
Speaker 2: we tend to have nowadays. You know, a lot is
Speaker 2: said and commented upon regarding like differences in aging or
Speaker 2: seemingly different there are differences in aging, etc.
Speaker 3: I think the way he plays it and the way
Speaker 3: he's made up in photographed just makes him feel older
Speaker 3: than he actually is. Yeah, so we learn a bit
Speaker 3: about Arthur's life. We see him interacting with his wife,
Speaker 3: we see him at work. He is a moderately successful
Speaker 3: man in middle age. He's a banker. He obviously has
Speaker 3: a steady income and some accumulated wealth. He has a
Speaker 3: very nice home. He has a wife and an adult
Speaker 3: daughter who is out of the home now. She lives
Speaker 3: with her husband in another state. And yet he seems
Speaker 3: rather unhappy with his life. And this doesn't come from
Speaker 3: overt expressions of emotion, but rather from kind of what
Speaker 3: is unsaid and his something kind of straining underneath the surface.
Speaker 3: We see him at his job, where he obviously makes
Speaker 3: a very good living. It seems he could hardly complain
Speaker 3: about that, and yet he is just clearly bored with
Speaker 3: his work and preoccupied. We see scenes of Arthur and
Speaker 3: his wife emily interacting, and there's an interesting approach here.
Speaker 3: I feel like a lesser film might have made their
Speaker 3: relationship more strife ridden or more strained. But they don't fight,
Speaker 3: they're not overtly unhappy. They are basically loving and supportive
Speaker 3: of one another. But there's something kind of intangible missing.
Speaker 3: You get the sense that their marriage is basically celibate,
Speaker 3: and that they're like in that he reads this in
Speaker 3: a way that's just kind of gray and disappointing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like he's like a lesser film would have also
Speaker 2: made him just completely cold, and it's not quite what's
Speaker 2: going on. There's this just this this sense of like
Speaker 2: I feel like I should want to and yet I cannot. Yeah,
Speaker 2: sort of thing, you know. It's it's it's complex.
Speaker 3: And in the middle of all this, Arthur has begun
Speaker 3: receiving strange phone calls in the middle of the night,
Speaker 3: calls that claim to be from someone he knows from
Speaker 3: his old friend, Charlie, who played They played tennis together
Speaker 3: when they were in college. And at first this seems
Speaker 3: impossible because Charlie died several years before. But one night,
Speaker 3: the man claiming to be Charlie gets Arthur talking and
Speaker 3: he provides all kinds of private details that no one
Speaker 3: would have any way of knowing. It has to be Charlie.
Speaker 3: But how could he be back from the dead. Well,
Speaker 3: Charlie tells Arthur to go to the address the man
Speaker 3: on the train gave him. He sort of like gives
Speaker 3: him this this exhortation. I think he I don't recall exactly.
Speaker 3: I think I think he also sort of implies like,
Speaker 3: you've got to do it for me.
Speaker 5: M Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, I'm not going to go into great detail about this,
Speaker 3: but this does lead to a kind of hunt sequence
Speaker 3: where where Arthur decides that he does have to go
Speaker 3: find this place, this address, and he goes to like
Speaker 3: this laundromat where he's asking around about it. I liked
Speaker 3: this whole sequence because it's not exactly easy to find
Speaker 3: the thing that Arthur is looking for, and he doesn't
Speaker 3: even know what it is he's looking for. He's looking
Speaker 3: for an unknown and yet he's he's going to all
Speaker 3: these lengths to find it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and really going through, you know, the underbelly
Speaker 2: of the world here, like the laundry mat where you know,
Speaker 2: where the garments are washed and pressed and their steam
Speaker 2: and sweat going through. Then this there's this whole scene
Speaker 2: where they're going through this like meat processing place where
Speaker 2: you know, obviously big swabs of meat is taking place,
Speaker 2: animals are being processed, and people are walking around and
Speaker 2: in smocks, you know, and the whole time we're like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, what's gonna what's gonna happen? Author or
Speaker 2: you should really really be walking in I don't want
Speaker 2: to say confidently, because he doesn't really do anything with confidence,
Speaker 2: but it's there's it's a very sinister ara to everything.
Speaker 3: I think the significance of the meat packing plants the
Speaker 3: gateway to his final destination will make a lot more
Speaker 3: sense once you see the end of the film. Yeah, So,
Speaker 3: eventually Arthur meets someone who knows what he's looking for,
Speaker 3: and they sort of like they They load him into
Speaker 3: the back of a truck because he can't see where
Speaker 3: he's going, and he's transported into the bowels of some
Speaker 3: large building with no windows, to the heart of a
Speaker 3: secretive organization. And they have a proposition for him. They say, Arthur,
Speaker 3: what if you could have another chance at life? In fact,
Speaker 3: we know that you are unhappy with your life, You
Speaker 3: are not satisfied. What if you could start over somewhere
Speaker 3: else and have the life that you really wanted, that
Speaker 3: you know you should have had to begin with. This
Speaker 3: company claims they can give that to you. They charge
Speaker 3: a very hefty fee they're going to take. I think
Speaker 3: they say it's thirty thousand dollars, which is a lot
Speaker 3: in the money of the time. But they can do
Speaker 3: this impossible thing. They will stage your death, freeing you
Speaker 3: from your family and work obligations, and they will give
Speaker 3: you advanced plastic surgery basically full body plastic surgery to
Speaker 3: completely transform your identity and appearance so they can take
Speaker 3: this bored, middle aged man and his boring gray life
Speaker 3: and transform him into the man he wishes he could be.
Speaker 3: Now there's an interesting ripple here because at first Arthur
Speaker 3: seems very hesitant, but they say, well, we know everybody
Speaker 3: actually wants this, but they're going to feel unable to
Speaker 3: say yes. So to help you along with your decision,
Speaker 3: we have removed that choice for you with the help
Speaker 3: of blackmail. So they say, when you first arrived, we
Speaker 3: drugged you and we took photos staging a fake sexual
Speaker 3: assault with you as the perpetrator, and if you try
Speaker 3: to leave, we'll release the photos. So you have no choice.
Speaker 3: You have to say yes. But this is presented as
Speaker 3: we're doing you a favor because we know you want
Speaker 3: to agree to this. You just don't feel like you can.
Speaker 3: Now you don't have a choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like we both know you want to leave
Speaker 2: this lot in a new car. To help you out,
Speaker 2: we went ahead and set your old car on fire.
Speaker 3: Yes, and all this is.
Speaker 2: Played very well, like you can see just how uncomfortable
Speaker 2: and afraid he becomes at this, and the whole setup
Speaker 2: for it is also like hypnotic and disturbing, so already
Speaker 2: we're well into the twilight zone here.
Speaker 3: Right, But despite all of his hesitation and fear, Arthur
Speaker 3: does agree. So he undergoes plastic surgery and then a
Speaker 3: serious rehabilitation course and is transformed from his boring doughe
Speaker 3: middle aged self into Rock Hudson, a lithe, dashingly handsome
Speaker 3: and glam man, and he's given a full new identity.
Speaker 3: He's a man called Antiochus Wilson. Now, of course, since
Speaker 3: the company faked his death and committed all this fraud,
Speaker 3: he has to keep his past life absolutely secret, so
Speaker 3: he can't go around saying, you know, I used to
Speaker 3: be this other guy. He has to just pretend all
Speaker 3: he is is Antiochus Wilson, that other life never existed.
Speaker 3: During this process, he undergoes therapy sessions to sort of
Speaker 3: I think it's to uncover his true desires. And there's
Speaker 3: a theme that emerges during these therapy sessions that'll come
Speaker 3: up a couple of times in the film, where I
Speaker 3: think they put him under hypnosis and record the things
Speaker 3: he's talking about, and before he gets into talking about
Speaker 3: the things that they try to actualize, there are moments
Speaker 3: where he kind of regresses into childhood desires, and he
Speaker 3: keeps talking about a big red ball. So there's this
Speaker 3: establishment of a theme that becoming free to actually seek
Speaker 3: one's true desires is in a way a kind of
Speaker 3: regression into more and more immature objects of desire. But
Speaker 3: they find through all this process that Arthur actually always
Speaker 3: had an interest in painting. We find out later that
Speaker 3: he sort of had a watercolor hobby, you know, he
Speaker 3: would do little paintings, but he never got to really
Speaker 3: pursue this because, of course, you know, he's trying to
Speaker 3: have a serious career as a banker. So they set
Speaker 3: him up as a professional painter with a house on
Speaker 3: the West coast, and they send him off to settle
Speaker 3: into his new life where he has like a butler
Speaker 3: or a valet. I think the guy's name is John,
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 2: This is John the Silver Fox.
Speaker 3: Yes, the butler who is provided by the company, who
Speaker 3: attends to all of his needs. He's got this nice,
Speaker 3: swanky house, he lives on the beach. He has this exciting,
Speaker 3: glamorous life where he can do whatever he wants, and
Speaker 3: he has all these friends, and he has this exciting
Speaker 3: career with actual artistic fulfillment. Now he gets to be
Speaker 3: the painter that he thinks he really should have been.
Speaker 3: Also meets an exciting woman, a woman named Nora Marcus
Speaker 3: played by salome A Gens, and she's like a free
Speaker 3: spirit who also left her previous life behind. Of course,
Speaker 3: he can't admit that he did this. And they meet
Speaker 3: and get to know one another, and they bond, and
Speaker 3: eventually there's a scene where they attend like a literal
Speaker 3: bacchan al together a bunch of hippies get naked and
Speaker 3: they're they're like chugging wine and playing musical instruments and
Speaker 3: stomping on grapes and a big.
Speaker 2: Vat Yeah, some obvious jazz cigarettes being smoked at this event.
Speaker 2: I can come back to one second to one second
Speaker 2: for the whole idea of them setting him up as
Speaker 2: an artist. There was one of the mini scenes where
Speaker 2: the company men are talking him through what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: There was one scene in particular I thought it was
Speaker 2: really good because he's he's they're showing him the paintings
Speaker 2: that they have provided that he They're setting him up
Speaker 2: with his portfolio of his previous work and talking about
Speaker 2: you know, and then you'll you'll change up your style
Speaker 2: a bit and you'll do something different, and they he
Speaker 2: has some hesitation about this, you know, because it's like,
Speaker 2: I really I don't have that level of ability, and
Speaker 2: they're like, it doesn't matter because you will be established.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was that was very chilling and
Speaker 2: kind of kind of cutting, and one of the many
Speaker 2: moments in the film that you know isn't about like,
Speaker 2: you know, high levels of anxiety or fear, but it's
Speaker 2: just very solid.
Speaker 3: I totally agree, and in fact, I think we see
Speaker 3: it with like the Wild, the bacchanalia, the party lifestyle,
Speaker 3: and with his supposedly fulfilling artistic career. In both of
Speaker 3: these cases we sense that despite him quote getting what
Speaker 3: he wants, something is very wrong and very empty with
Speaker 3: this life. There's a scene where he paints, and that
Speaker 3: the scene is just painful because, as you said earlier,
Speaker 3: like there so they establish his reputation as an artist
Speaker 3: by buying paintings done by someone else, faking them as his,
Speaker 3: passing them off as his, and now he gets to paint.
Speaker 3: But when he goes to paint, it's it's obvious he's
Speaker 3: not happy doing it, like he may have been happy
Speaker 3: in his previous life doing his little amateur watercolors. But
Speaker 3: now that he is supposed to be a serious painter
Speaker 3: and he realizes he's not like satisfied with the paintings
Speaker 3: that he can produce with his own hand. Something is
Speaker 3: very like gnawing at him about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's it's been taken out of like
Speaker 2: the organic pattern of his life and now have presented
Speaker 2: in this unnatural state. And therefore it's not fulfilling because
Speaker 2: the things that made it fulfilling and and made it desirable,
Speaker 2: all of those conditions have been removed.
Speaker 3: He may have not been able to be a painter professionally,
Speaker 3: but in his other life when he was painting, at
Speaker 3: least that was an honest pursuit and now it's all
Speaker 3: a fraud. Yeah, So that that emptiness comes through in
Speaker 3: the painting scene. But there are also the scenes where
Speaker 3: he like he has these parties where he you know,
Speaker 3: is drinking and doing drugs and you know, having this
Speaker 3: excise lifestyle. But then he gets drunk and he blabs
Speaker 3: about his previous life.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, does he get drunk. This is such a
Speaker 2: like these are such cringey scenes, like I'm tempted to
Speaker 2: compare them to like something you would see on I
Speaker 2: think you should leave, Yes, yeah, but without the comedy,
Speaker 2: you know, just like that level of windful. It is
Speaker 2: painful to watch. I mean, he's it's beyond like oh
Speaker 2: he's a funny drunk, or and he's just like a
Speaker 2: he gets sloppy drunk where you characters are trying to
Speaker 2: say you shouldn't drink anymore or you should leave, and
Speaker 2: he keeps going.
Speaker 3: And there is a scene where at one point he
Speaker 3: gets drunk and he starts blabbing about his previous life
Speaker 3: and some people from the party have to grab him
Speaker 3: and take him into his bedroom and explain to him,
Speaker 3: you need to keep your mouth shut, because it turns
Speaker 3: out all of his new friends they're not necessarily like
Speaker 3: organic friends. Most of these people at the party, maybe
Speaker 3: not all of them, are also people being second lives.
Speaker 3: They're also born yes, they're also reborns. And they're like,
Speaker 3: you're gonna spoil this for all of us if, like
Speaker 3: the company gets exposed, if we get found out too,
Speaker 3: you got to shut up. And you got to think
Speaker 3: that that also sort of cheapens it for him, right
Speaker 3: that like all of his so called friends are also frauds.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So this leads to a break where he ends up
Speaker 3: going back to visit his wife. As Rock Hudson. He
Speaker 3: doesn't say like, hey, you know, I'm your husband, remember me.
Speaker 3: She is still going on under the impression that her
Speaker 3: husband died in a fire in a hotel room, which
Speaker 3: is what the company staged for him and Rock Hudson.
Speaker 3: He pretends to be a friend of her late husband's
Speaker 3: and so he goes to visit the house and speaks
Speaker 3: to her. I think he's like, hey, you know, I
Speaker 3: maybe wanted I'm a painter and I wanted to paint
Speaker 3: a portrait of your husband because he was a friend
Speaker 3: of mine. He also asks about the watercolors. He's like,
Speaker 3: you know your your husband's water colors? Do you still
Speaker 3: have them? And it's interesting there's an unresolved thing from
Speaker 3: this conversation. I wonder what you made of this where
Speaker 3: she's like, oh, the watercolors. Yeah, and he's like, did
Speaker 3: you get rid of them? And she says not exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was expecting there to be some follow up like
Speaker 2: maybe she donated them somewhere or they were painted over.
Speaker 2: I don't know, because in a sense, I mean his
Speaker 2: life has been painted over right, But yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 2: don't get the second beat on that really.
Speaker 3: But she actually in the scene has insights about her
Speaker 3: late husband, very cutting ones, the kind of thing that
Speaker 3: you know, she never would have said to him when
Speaker 3: she thought he was alive. And she says that she
Speaker 3: thinks he spent his life trying to acquire what he
Speaker 3: had been taught to want, you know, a good job,
Speaker 3: a steady income, a nice home, a family, and yet
Speaker 3: he was deeply unsatisfied. She says that it was like
Speaker 3: there was something he always wanted to say, but he
Speaker 3: couldn't say it. He was just holding it in. And
Speaker 3: in the background in this scene, we know that now
Speaker 3: he's gotten all of the things that he yearned for
Speaker 3: when he was unsatisfied with his previous life, the life
Speaker 3: he had when he pursued what he had been taught
Speaker 3: to want. So there's the second order thing, the things
Speaker 3: he thinks he really wanted, his genuine wants good looks, glamour,
Speaker 3: artistic expression, excitement, sex, drugs, bachanalia. And yet we can
Speaker 3: tell that he is not at all happy by acquiring
Speaker 3: these things either. There is a deep hollowness and fraudulence
Speaker 3: and anxiety at the core of his new existence. So
Speaker 3: his wife sends him away with a memento of her
Speaker 3: late husband. It's his tennis trophy, which is is a
Speaker 3: callback to a scene earlier where when his friend Charlie
Speaker 3: called him on the phone and said, hey, you know
Speaker 3: this is really me. You can know because look on
Speaker 3: the underside of our tennis trophy from the doubles tournament.
Speaker 3: We carved this into the bottom. I think it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, Fidelis Eternia or something. And so when Antiochus
Speaker 3: Wilson leaves the house, he is picked up by John,
Speaker 3: the valet from the company, in a car and he says,
Speaker 3: I want to go back, and John says, of course, sir.
Speaker 3: He says, no, no, no, I don't mean to California.
Speaker 3: I want to go back to the company. I want
Speaker 3: to start again again. Is it possible, Antikus Wilson can die,
Speaker 3: can't he? And John says, I think that can be arranged, sir.
Speaker 3: So they go back to the company and here Rock
Speaker 3: Hudson meets with his caseworker and they explained to him, yeah,
Speaker 3: we can set you up with a new life once again.
Speaker 3: You Sometimes this happens. People are not satisfied with their
Speaker 3: second life. They need another. But before we do that,
Speaker 3: we do need you to do something for us. We
Speaker 3: would ask you to sponsor someone else for our programs.
Speaker 3: Someone you know obviously, you know you must know tons
Speaker 3: of people who would be good candidates. We just need
Speaker 3: you to give us a name, somebody we can get
Speaker 3: in touch with, and we might need you to stay
Speaker 3: on hand to help them, maybe make some phone calls
Speaker 3: to them to make sure that the you know, that
Speaker 3: they end up in our care. And this makes sense
Speaker 3: because they can't add what they do is illegal. They
Speaker 3: can't advertise on the news in the newspaper. They have
Speaker 3: to operate on a personal referral basis. And here it
Speaker 3: becomes clear there's a payoff of a waiting room that
Speaker 3: Arthur Hamilton went into earlier in the movie. That's full
Speaker 3: of men just sitting around, playing cards, reading books, hanging out,
Speaker 3: just seemingly waiting, you know, wiling away the hours. Here
Speaker 3: we meet Murray Hamilton and it turns out this is uh,
Speaker 3: this is Arthur Hamilton's old friend Charlie, the guy from school,
Speaker 3: except of course he looks nothing like him. He has
Speaker 3: had a second, second life. He is a reborn by
Speaker 3: this company, but it turned out he also needed another chance.
Speaker 3: He also needed to start over again, but he couldn't
Speaker 3: do that until he fulfilled his duty for referring Arthur
Speaker 3: Hamilton here, and they'd had him on hand so he
Speaker 3: could continue making phone calls to him and helping him
Speaker 3: get settled in. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a great vibe with the day room because
Speaker 2: we saw the day room earlier and we saw everyone
Speaker 2: it looked like more like they were working or studying,
Speaker 2: And now we realize they're just passing the time. And
Speaker 2: we also see that they're being given little cups of
Speaker 2: medication to help them pass the time, and that it's
Speaker 2: this kind of limbo between lives with all of them
Speaker 2: clear they are waiting for their next chance to get
Speaker 2: their third life, or perhaps their fourth or fifth, who knows.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't know how many times. So but now
Speaker 3: finally the mayor from Jaws is going to get another shot.
Speaker 3: Whatever he blew the last for some reason, it is
Speaker 3: not what he wanted, so he's going to get another one.
Speaker 3: But now this is where, this is where Rock Hudson
Speaker 3: is stuck. And so they say, okay, that's fine, we
Speaker 3: can give you another one, but we do need you
Speaker 3: to refer somebody first, and the problem is he refuses.
Speaker 3: He's like, I can't think of anybody to refer. I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: and he's really hung up on he's got to have
Speaker 3: another chance at a new life because he he screwed
Speaker 3: up the first one. You know, he just wanted what
Speaker 3: people taught him to want. The second time, he wanted
Speaker 3: something else, but he didn't do it right. Something wasn't
Speaker 3: right about it. But the third time, then he'll get it.
Speaker 3: Then he'll really fulfill his desires.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he expresses that he this on his second life.
Speaker 2: He also didn't have input in it like the first life. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he didn't have input into what he should want. And
Speaker 2: the second time around, like what did they do? They
Speaker 2: kind of drug some things out of him during hypnosis,
Speaker 2: constructed something for him, and then put him into that slot.
Speaker 2: And so he kind of he felt ultimately trapped and
Speaker 2: in an artificial place once more, and he thinks, well,
Speaker 2: this next time, I want lots of input into it.
Speaker 2: I have ideas. Let's work together so that this can work.
Speaker 3: But they keep asking him, you know, we got to
Speaker 3: get a referral. You got to give us somebody, and
Speaker 3: he doesn't. He's just like, I can't think of anybody.
Speaker 3: So then we are finally let after he refuses multiple times,
Speaker 3: he's led to another meeting with the old man played
Speaker 3: by Will Gear, who he spoke to earlier the first
Speaker 3: time he was in the building belonging to the company.
Speaker 3: Will Gear is very good in this role because he's
Speaker 3: very folksy, and he's very soft spoken, and he's just
Speaker 3: like a sweet, sweet old man who talks about his
Speaker 3: dream of giving people what they really want. He knows
Speaker 3: that so many people live lives of kind of quiet
Speaker 3: misery that they just can't really commit to living the
Speaker 3: lives they know they should be living, and he wanted
Speaker 3: to create the opportunity for people to have that chance.
Speaker 3: But then he also gets a real He's like, you know,
Speaker 3: so that is the ideal under which I started the company.
Speaker 3: But the fact is, you know, now we have a
Speaker 3: lot of employees and we got to make payroll, and
Speaker 3: we have shareholders, and we've got to meet our obligations
Speaker 3: to shareholders. So if we don't have an ongoing you know,
Speaker 3: basis of new referrals coming in, we really can't keep
Speaker 3: doing what we're doing. In order to make the dream work,
Speaker 3: we got we gotta have money coming in, so you've
Speaker 3: got to refer somebody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the dream again is basically as he puts
Speaker 2: it is, is to end human suffering, like he has this,
Speaker 2: and I think that's one of the great things about
Speaker 2: the Old Man particularly, But the company as a whole,
Speaker 2: while there's almost everything about it is sinister and at
Speaker 2: times very cold, and very also very you know, corporate
Speaker 2: and so forth, it is presented as if, like at
Speaker 2: in its roots anyway, it is trying to help people.
Speaker 3: Will Gearrett. Yeah, he at least thinks he is trying
Speaker 3: to help people. But then, of course, you know, once
Speaker 3: you start, once you start a business, it kind of
Speaker 3: has a has hungers of its own, like you got
Speaker 3: to you got to keep the lights on. So they
Speaker 3: need the referrals, and he doesn't give them the referrals.
Speaker 3: So they're like, okay, well that's all right. And then
Speaker 3: this leads up to the ending, the the shocking, horrifying
Speaker 3: ending where they strap rock HUDs into a gurney. He
Speaker 3: thinks he's being taken off to his next plastic surgery
Speaker 3: to get a whole new face, a whole new body,
Speaker 3: a whole new identity again, and it turns out no,
Speaker 3: they are taking him off to become one of the
Speaker 3: cadavers that will be used to fake the death of
Speaker 3: a new applicant.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh god, it's there's there. It really builds up
Speaker 2: to because at first he's like, where we go, We're
Speaker 2: going to my my surgery. It's too soon because you know,
Speaker 2: we didn't talk through all the details. You know, I
Speaker 2: really I have ideas, you guys have ideas, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to make sure we're doing it right this time.
Speaker 2: And they're reassuring him. But then is there going It's
Speaker 2: fabulously shot, this strange hallway that they're going down. I
Speaker 2: can only imagine that some of the gurney scenes in
Speaker 2: Jacob's Ladder that would come many many many years later,
Speaker 2: or perhaps referring back to this sequence, because you know,
Speaker 2: at first he's you know, he's just expressing his concerns
Speaker 2: over it, and then it becomes clear that this priest
Speaker 2: perhaps that is speaking to him, is basically administering last rites.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is hard for me to communicate how chilling.
Speaker 3: The last few minutes of this movie are one of
Speaker 3: the most shocking, unsettling things i've ever seen in film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because when he begins to realize what's really happening,
Speaker 2: he begins to struggle. They jump, they like strap his
Speaker 2: mouth closed, and he continues to fight and scream horribly
Speaker 2: for what feels like fifteen minutes or so. It's it's
Speaker 2: a lot as they drag him off to the death room.
Speaker 2: And I kept thinking, well, they're gonna stop out the way,
Speaker 2: We're going to fade away or cut away as they
Speaker 2: roll them into that room, and they don't. We go
Speaker 2: into the death room with him, and there is the
Speaker 2: doctor from earlier, his plastic surgeon, and he explains, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you were my best work. I really nailed it.
Speaker 3: I made a rock Hudson out of you.
Speaker 2: I made Rock Hudson out of you. And I hate
Speaker 2: to see this work, you know, go down the drain
Speaker 2: and then we go. We follow the scene right through
Speaker 2: like the cranial drilling of our main character as they
Speaker 2: drill the life out of him, and we get like
Speaker 2: the final sort of like death desire hallucination, and it
Speaker 2: is a scene what of presumably either him and his
Speaker 2: daughter on the beach with a red ball, or perhaps
Speaker 2: it is some other scene maybe you could interpret it
Speaker 2: as him and the parental unit on the beach with
Speaker 2: a red ball, like you know, it's it's I guess
Speaker 2: it's abstract like that, but like this, I guess was
Speaker 2: the true desire. You know, this was you know, deep
Speaker 2: down in him, like this is the most honest part,
Speaker 2: the purest part of his life, and it's the last
Speaker 2: thing we see. You know.
Speaker 3: It made me think about how so once I saw
Speaker 3: the ending, I was like, oh, Okay, now I think
Speaker 3: I understand because the ending of the movie feels so bad.
Speaker 3: I understand why some people hated this movie and thought
Speaker 3: it was like cold and awful. I think it's actually
Speaker 3: quite brilliant. But I think the film and I'm not
Speaker 3: at all saying it should have done this. I'm just
Speaker 3: saying imagining a different movie that could have been. I
Speaker 3: think the ending would have felt very different if there
Speaker 3: was some character in it somewhere who got it, who
Speaker 3: figured out the I don't know what the correct desire is,
Speaker 3: the desire that that one can have in order to
Speaker 3: find true happiness, And the movie does not give an
Speaker 3: answer on that. It doesn't. It just show. It shows
Speaker 3: you lots of failures of wisdom and failures to understand
Speaker 3: ourselves and the pitfalls of desire and the hollowness of desire.
Speaker 3: But it never shows you the right way. It never
Speaker 3: provides the solution. So so you you know, you're not
Speaker 3: given like that sort of ladder out of the pit
Speaker 3: of despair.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no there's no Buddha in this film. And
Speaker 2: I thought for a little bit they were setting our
Speaker 2: main character up to be a kind of Buddha, that
Speaker 2: he would realize that essentially, in the day Room, you
Speaker 2: have these characters that are going in and out of incarnations,
Speaker 2: and it's very much like the Buddhist Wheel of Semsara
Speaker 2: in the realization that like everything is just a cycle
Speaker 2: of life and death and rebirth, and that the only
Speaker 2: way to find true liberation is to remove yourself from
Speaker 2: that cycle. But there is no such revelation in this
Speaker 2: film because ultimately he's like, give me another shot. I
Speaker 2: think the next shot is it. I think the next
Speaker 2: shot will be better, and he just commits to the
Speaker 2: wheel and that is undoing.
Speaker 3: Well in a way, I think this film is extremely
Speaker 3: compatible with Buddhist ideals, Like I think that is sort
Speaker 3: of the wisdom of the movie. But there's no character
Speaker 3: who embodies that realization. You only see the characters who
Speaker 3: are who fail and just like you know, are are
Speaker 3: slavering after their their next desire.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're all all hungry ghosts.
Speaker 3: So the ending is bleak, dark, shocking. It does not
Speaker 3: feel good at all, but I think it is quite powerful,
Speaker 3: and I want to make clear again, I don't I
Speaker 3: don't think I would change it. I don't think I
Speaker 3: would prefer the film with the character who does get
Speaker 3: it or does embody sort of the wisdom of the
Speaker 3: movie's message.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I think it's it's perfect as is.
Speaker 2: I like the direction they ended up going in. I'm
Speaker 2: I didn't even look into it. I'm assuming this is
Speaker 2: the basic direction of the novel as well, but perhaps
Speaker 2: it goes in a different direction. I'm also I'm also
Speaker 2: a little shocked that no one has remade this film
Speaker 2: or or certainly maybe not as a as a motion picture.
Speaker 2: But it seems like the kind of thing that someone
Speaker 2: could pick up for some sort of television series, you know,
Speaker 2: especially nowadays thinking of the success of things like Severance
Speaker 2: and so forth. There's a lot you could do with seconds.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, as we often say with
Speaker 2: films that really nail something, I don't really want to
Speaker 2: see someone else coming and perhaps screw it up. This
Speaker 2: this film doesn't need to be reborn. As I mentioned
Speaker 2: the other day, off off, my one caveat would be
Speaker 2: this would have made a great Treehouse of Horror episode
Speaker 2: if the Simpsons had done a send up of this
Speaker 2: with Homer Simpson or I don't know, there are various
Speaker 2: other Simpsons characters that might have been ideal for this treatment,
Speaker 2: but I can imagine at least the old days of
Speaker 2: the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror, they could they could have
Speaker 2: done this up really nicely.
Speaker 3: First life, you're Ned Flanders, Second life, you're Troy McClure.
Speaker 3: Third well, third life, you know, you refer Homer and
Speaker 3: you get to go be somebody else, you get to
Speaker 3: be Auto.
Speaker 2: Finally, yeah, yeah, all right, Well that is seconds from
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty six. Uh yeah, terrific picture. Not for the
Speaker 2: Week of Heart, not for someone expecting just kind of
Speaker 2: a I don't know, an easygoing psychological horror film.
Speaker 4: This one.
Speaker 2: This one has a lot going on in it, so
Speaker 2: obviously we'd love to hear anyone's thoughts out there about
Speaker 2: the film. You know what, what's your interpretation of its message?
Speaker 2: What do you think about some of the choices here
Speaker 2: and the performance and the cinematography and so forth. Right
Speaker 2: in We'd love to hear from you, we discuss listener
Speaker 2: mail from everything we do here in the Stuff to
Speaker 2: Blowing Mind podcast feed on our Monday listener mail episodes.
Speaker 2: Our core science episodes air on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On
Speaker 2: Wednesdays we do a short form monster fact or artifact episode,
Speaker 2: and on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns even
Speaker 2: though it's a pretty serious movie, and many respects for
Speaker 2: Weird House cinema. And if you want to see a
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Speaker 2: And that website allows you to do a lot of
Speaker 2: really cool things too, like organized by decades and years
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Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer, Jjposway. If you
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