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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. This is Rob

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Speaker 1: Lamb and hey, you caught us on Cat Week. All

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Speaker 1: the episodes in the feed this week are going to

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Speaker 1: be cat related. Should be a great time. We've got

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Speaker 1: an episode on folkloric cats of the Bridge Isles, the

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Speaker 1: Cats of Cyprus. There's going to be a monster fact

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Speaker 1: about a particular magical animated cat that everyone's crazy about

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Speaker 1: right now. And you know that Weird House this week

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Speaker 1: is going to revolve some sort of crazy cat movie,

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Speaker 1: so tune in for that. But hey, we're going to

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Speaker 1: kick it off here with our Weird House Cinema Rewind

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Speaker 1: selection for the week. It is The Incredible Shrinking Man,

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Speaker 1: a classic and legitimately great nineteen fifty seven miniaturization movie.

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Speaker 1: This episode originally published three twenty four, twenty three. Why

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Speaker 1: put it out on Cat Week? Well because it features

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Speaker 1: a terrific special effects scene in which are incredibly shrinking

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Speaker 1: man is attacked by an incredible life size housecat. A

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Speaker 1: great sequence, and you know it does right by the

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Speaker 1: ferocity of cats toward smaller creatures. So let's dive right in.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. A production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 2: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And

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Speaker 2: today's movie on Weird House Cinema is the nineteen fifty

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Speaker 2: seven introspective science fiction adventure The Incredible Shrinking Man, directed

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Speaker 2: by Jack Arnold and based on a screenplay by Richard Matheson.

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Speaker 2: And man, I've got to say this one totally surprised me.

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Speaker 2: This is not what I was expecting at all for

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Speaker 2: a late fifties shrink movie from the director of Tarantula.

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Speaker 2: I was. I was expecting something much sillier and much campier,

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Speaker 2: and instead what we got here is in many ways

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Speaker 2: a rather thoughtful and fascinating science fiction tale about the

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Speaker 2: search for meaning and dignity in the face of absurdity

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Speaker 2: and doom. And I suspect that a lot of the

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Speaker 2: intelligence and the soul of this movie is sort of

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Speaker 2: there on the page, like it comes from the story

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Speaker 2: by Matheson. But also the special effects are excellent for

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Speaker 2: the time, and most of the performances in this movie

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Speaker 2: are very kind of a nuanced and warmly human This

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Speaker 2: was a shockingly great film and not at all what

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Speaker 2: I thought. We were going to get based on the

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Speaker 2: title and the premise.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I had the same experience with it. The

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Speaker 1: only thing I'd ever seen from this film is I'd

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Speaker 1: seen a kind of famous sequence from it in which

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Speaker 1: a kiny man has been reduced to the size of

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Speaker 1: a doll is hunted by his own house cat living room,

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Speaker 1: and I believe I saw it, and it came from

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Speaker 1: Hollywood that, you know, that older picture that had a

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Speaker 1: lot of trailers and clips and a lot of joking

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Speaker 1: and riffing of the material there. The riffing wasn't particularly funny,

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Speaker 1: but in isolation that that sequence was amusing and kind

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Speaker 1: of hilarious, and I just figured, yeah, the rest of

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Speaker 1: the film would kind of fallow suit. And we ended

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Speaker 1: up picking this one up because we were actually, I

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Speaker 1: think we're going to watch the amazing Colossal Man. I

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Speaker 1: went to Video Drum to rent it and it's not

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Speaker 1: available on disc anywhere, and which is a crime crime. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but they said, well, we do have the incredible Shrinking Man,

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Speaker 1: and not only do we have it, we have it

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Speaker 1: in this excellent criterion collection edition. So I was like, well,

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Speaker 1: I didn't think this was the type of film that

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Speaker 1: really merited that sort of treatment. But it looks looks interesting.

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Speaker 1: I love that one sequence. Let's check it out, and

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Speaker 1: here we are.

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Speaker 2: Well. This is another way I was surprised because I

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Speaker 2: have so. I had also seen the cat attack part

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Speaker 2: of the movie in isolation, in which it seemed quite

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Speaker 2: funny to me, but in context I saw it in

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Speaker 2: a whole new light, even though I'd seen the exact

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Speaker 2: same footage before, in the context of the plot, I

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Speaker 2: found it a rather frightening and effective action set piece.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, the effects in this are great

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Speaker 1: for the day. They were ambitious for the day. And

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Speaker 1: you know, you can't you can't look back in a

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Speaker 1: film like this without seeing a few scenes and special

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Speaker 1: effects generally speaking, and that's the case here. But by

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Speaker 1: and large everything looks looks wonderful. And if you take

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Speaker 1: the film in its entirety and you let it do

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Speaker 1: its work on you, yeah, everything holds up really well.

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Speaker 2: Another way in which I think we have to take

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Speaker 2: it as from its time is I did say the

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Speaker 2: film is very like thoughtful and introspective, which it is,

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Speaker 2: but a lot of that thoughtfulness and introspection comes in

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Speaker 2: the form of kind of ponderously delivered stentorian narration. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's like the voiceover narration that like tells you all

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Speaker 2: of the main character's inner thoughts about his own search

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Speaker 2: for meaning. Is maybe a bit blustery in its delivery,

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Speaker 2: but nevertheless, like the sentiments expressed in the writing in

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Speaker 2: those sections I think are really good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of it does have to deal with

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Speaker 1: like fifties American masculinity, and there are plenty of nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifties pictures that we've watched that have that masculinity of

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Speaker 1: the time period prominently featured. But usually it's not self reflective.

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Speaker 1: Usually it's not at all analyzing what this is that?

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Speaker 1: What is this? What are these ideas? These fears and

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Speaker 1: expectations that everyone's trapped with the right. Instead, it's usually

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Speaker 1: just like here is your jawline, who's ready to punch

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Speaker 1: the alien that stands in for a communist? Yeah? As

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Speaker 1: I was watching it, I kept thinking a little bit

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Speaker 1: about the television series mad Men, And in fact, my

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Speaker 1: elevator pitch would be what if the male characters in

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Speaker 1: mad Men physically trunk and were attacked by their own

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Speaker 1: cats and household pests?

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Speaker 2: I mean that nails it. The main character in this

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Speaker 2: movie is literally an advertising I don't know if he's

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Speaker 2: an executive, but he's he works in advertising. He's an.

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Speaker 1: Three interesting stats just for weird House Cinema here. This

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Speaker 1: is our second Jack Arnold picture. This is our second

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Speaker 1: Richard Matheson screenplay, and it's actually our second miniaturization film.

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Speaker 1: We previously discussed nineteen forty's Doctor Cyclops.

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Speaker 2: Which Doctor Cyclops also had really excellent special effects for

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Speaker 2: the time. That was a great looking movie, though, I

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Speaker 2: think this one is a lot more interesting in terms

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Speaker 2: of the characters.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely.

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Speaker 2: The other Jack Arnold movie was Tarantula, which was not

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Speaker 2: nearly as good as this, but was a lot of

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Speaker 2: fun in that campier direction. I was expecting this time.

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Speaker 2: What was the other Matheson movie?

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Speaker 1: The other Madison picture was The Devil Rides Out. It

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Speaker 1: was he was adapting someone else's novel, A Weekly Novel.

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Speaker 1: In this picture he adapts his own.

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Speaker 2: Novel, simon I'd rather see you dead than dabbling with

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Speaker 2: shrink misted.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's go ahead and listen to the trailer.

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Speaker 1: Some trailer audio here. This one's a lot of fun,

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Speaker 1: and I love how this one begins with the incredible. Shrinking, man, shrink, You.

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Speaker 3: Are getting smaller. There's no medical precedent for what's happening

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Speaker 3: to you. I simply know that you're getting smaller. I

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Speaker 3: want you to stop thinking about us our marriage.

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Speaker 2: Some awful things might happen as long.

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Speaker 4: As you've got this wedding ring on.

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Speaker 1: You got me.

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Speaker 3: This is Awson Well speaking. I have forty five seconds

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Speaker 3: to tell you about something I think you will remember

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Speaker 3: the longest day you lived. It's about a man named

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Speaker 3: Scott Carry. A few months ago, he was six feet

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Speaker 3: two inches tall and weighed a hundred and ninety pounds.

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Speaker 3: To day, he's two inches tall and you can hold

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Speaker 3: him in the palm of your hands. Now he lives

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Speaker 3: in a world where he must fight for his life,

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Speaker 3: a world or a friendly house cat. He's a predatory monster.

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Speaker 4: Incredible because it's almost beyond imagining. Incredible because every hour.

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Speaker 1: He gets smaller and smaller.

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Speaker 4: In front of all of it, called every moment the

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Speaker 4: pro homes.

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Speaker 1: A note before we keep going if you want to

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Speaker 1: watch this as well. We watched it on the excellent

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Speaker 1: Criterion collection disc, which features a great four K digital

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Speaker 1: restoration of the film itself and a load of great extras.

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Speaker 1: I didn't get to go through all the extras, but

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Speaker 1: I went through some of them and there they're pretty great.

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Speaker 1: Highly recommend this edition. It's available on DVD and Blu

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Speaker 1: Ray rented the Blue from Video Drome. It's also available

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Speaker 1: for digital rental on most platforms. All right, well, let's

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Speaker 1: start talking a little bit about the people involved here.

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Speaker 1: Some of these are people we've covered before, in which

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Speaker 1: cause I'm going to try and cover them just a

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Speaker 1: little a little differently than before. But yeah, at the

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Speaker 1: top of the picture we have Jack Arnold, the director

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Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twelve through nineteen ninety two. Again, this

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Speaker 1: is our second Jack Arnold film, following nineteen fifty five Tarantula.

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Speaker 1: He learned cinematography and filmmaking under rock for Jay Flaherty

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Speaker 1: while serving in the US military in World War Two,

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Speaker 1: and following the war, started the Promotional Films Company with

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Speaker 1: Lee Goldman. He directed the nineteen forty eight short Chick

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Speaker 1: Enough Tomorrow. This one is riffed on Mystery Science Theater

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Speaker 1: two thousand. So I'd seen this one many times, but

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Speaker 1: I did not know until this week but it was

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Speaker 1: a Jack Arnold production.

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Speaker 2: I have never seen this in full, and I haven't

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Speaker 2: seen it rift, but I was skipping around in the

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Speaker 2: link you sent me and there are parts where like

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Speaker 2: it shows maps and the map segment the animated map

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Speaker 2: segments reminded me of the World War II propaganda films

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Speaker 2: that Walt Disney made, like Victory through Air Power.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it makes sense given where he came

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Speaker 1: out of, where he learned his craft. And in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty he directed the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union documentary

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Speaker 1: With These Hands, which was nominated for an Oscar.

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Speaker 2: This immediately caught my eye because, okay, so this is

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Speaker 2: an independent promotional film for the ILGWU, but the International

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Speaker 2: Ladies Garment Workers Union is also the subject of my

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Speaker 2: longtime favorite commercial that appears on many tapes of the

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Speaker 2: Star Wars Holiday Special where they sing the union song

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Speaker 2: you know, you know the one I'm talking about one. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's great. It's tied for my favorite with Tobar. Of course.

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Speaker 1: You know, our coworker Annie Reese really wants to come

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Speaker 1: on the show and discuss about the Star Wars Holiday Special.

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Speaker 2: This year.

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Speaker 1: She has made it known.

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Speaker 2: Oh, Annie and I have discussed the International Ladies Garment

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Speaker 2: Workers Union commercial and to war the Telesonic robot a

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Speaker 2: number of times, so we can maybe when she does

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Speaker 2: come we can do a full ranking of all the

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Speaker 2: holiday special commercials.

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Speaker 1: Sounds good. So anyway, with these hands was was a hit,

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Speaker 1: didn't win the Oscar, but was nominated, and this enough,

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Speaker 1: it was enough to catch the attention of Universal Studios,

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Speaker 1: so they signed Jack Arnold on is one of their directors.

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Speaker 1: So I mentioned there's a great there's some great extras

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Speaker 1: on that Criterion collection disc and there's a great about

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Speaker 1: an hour long bio about Arnold's career, and one of

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Speaker 1: the things that they stress in it is that when

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Speaker 1: you got hired by a major film studio as a

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Speaker 1: director during this period, you were expected to deliver on

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Speaker 1: whatever they needed. So a studio like Universal they had

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Speaker 1: to bust out the full menu of films. You know,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't just the pricey specials. They also had had appetizers,

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Speaker 1: you know, they had to have the crowd pleasers, so

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Speaker 1: you know, they had their prestige titles all the way

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Speaker 1: down to the genre dregs, and certainly in this time

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Speaker 1: that's where you would find your science fiction.

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Speaker 2: So if you are a studio employed director, like Jack

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Speaker 2: Arnold at this time, you're probably not doing a lot

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Speaker 2: of what many people probably imagine directors doing today, which

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Speaker 2: is like striking out on their own with like a

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Speaker 2: script that they're really excited about and then finding funding

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Speaker 2: for that and putting together a production. It's a lot

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Speaker 2: more kind of like work for hire, like the studio says,

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Speaker 2: here's the movie you're making.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they might assigned you a Western, a horror,

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Speaker 1: a sci fi film, you name it, and it was

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Speaker 1: up to you to make it work and deliver. I

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Speaker 1: guess this. This was referenced a good bit in the

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Speaker 1: Coen Brothers film the titles Eluding Me at the Moment

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Speaker 1: Wrestling Pictures.

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Speaker 2: Oh, Barton Fink. Barton Fink.

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Speaker 1: Yes, he was a writer in but he was very

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Speaker 1: much in the studio system and was expected to deliver

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Speaker 1: what they needed.

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Speaker 2: He was going to write for Wallace Bury or something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So Arnold comes aboard their universal and the first

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Speaker 1: thing they give him his nineteen fifty three's Girls in

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Speaker 1: the Night. This is a troubled youth picture with fittingly

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Speaker 1: aged youths, you know that are clearly like in their

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Speaker 1: thirties or something. But he apparently did well with it

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Speaker 1: and he was handed it came from outer Space, which

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Speaker 1: ultimately came out the same year. Now I haven't seen

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Speaker 1: it came from outer space, but the way they were

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Speaker 1: discussing it in this extra made it sound like something

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Speaker 1: we might want to check out sometime because it was

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Speaker 1: based on a story treatment from Ray Bradberry, and it

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Speaker 1: was pretty ambitious and ahead of its time in many ways.

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Speaker 1: So it's one of these films where the aliens are

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Speaker 1: not villainous but merely just difficult to understand. And also

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Speaker 1: this is pretty crazy too. You were actually never meant

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Speaker 1: to see the aliens. And this is the way they

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Speaker 1: initially shot the picture and approached the picture. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: until the studio basically had some time to think about

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Speaker 1: this and they're like, look, we can't put nothing on

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Speaker 1: a poster. We need to put a monster on the poster.

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Speaker 1: This is a monster movie, Gosh darn it. So they

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Speaker 1: ended up having to compromise and actually came up with

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Speaker 1: like a pretty interesting looking creature to fit in there.

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Speaker 1: And still, even though they had to compromise, the results

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Speaker 1: were supposed to be pretty good.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I would be absolutely game to talk about this one.

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Speaker 1: So that film was a hit, and for a long

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Speaker 1: stretch it kind of cemented Arnold's place as their sci

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Speaker 1: fi guy, you know, and this was a solid position,

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Speaker 1: even though you're further down the ranks and fifties Hotllywood

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Speaker 1: his follow up, certainly when we look back on Jack

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Speaker 1: Arnold's pictures, like this is maybe the one that made

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Speaker 1: the biggest impact on popular culture. Nineteen fifty fourth Creature

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Speaker 1: from the Black Ligo Ah.

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Speaker 2: The creature from which, of course becomes one of the

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Speaker 2: pantheon of universal monsters, the big ones you know about.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and I mean it really just strikes through

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Speaker 1: to the public horror consciousness, becomes this enduring pop culture

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Speaker 1: figure and was a huge hit at the time, so

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Speaker 1: huge that it actually inspired a sequel, which wasn't like

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Speaker 1: the normal like nowadays we just think, you know, that's

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Speaker 1: what you assume is going to happen. If there's not

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Speaker 1: a sequel, then I guess the first one wasn't successful,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't a given back in the day, so

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Speaker 1: he ended up doing the sequel, which is not as

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Speaker 1: good or I don't know. It's hard to really judge

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Speaker 1: the Creature films because the first one is it's both

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Speaker 1: mostly about just how good that creature suit looks.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The first one I think of as wonderfully atmospheric

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Speaker 2: and having that great monster in it. But I've seen

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Speaker 2: it several times and I really couldn't tell you anything

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Speaker 2: about the human characters. I don't recall at all. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I just remember the humans come off as jerks, like

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Speaker 2: they come to where the creature lives and they start

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Speaker 2: shooting at him and stuff. They're like, he's not attacking

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Speaker 2: cities or anything. He's just hanging out in a bog

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Speaker 2: or in a lake somewhere in the jungle and they

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Speaker 2: come to him.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So it's kind of hard to digest that.

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Speaker 1: And then the second one they kind of rehash it,

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Speaker 1: except they make the suit look goofy, like the eyes

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Speaker 1: look goofy in the second one. Yeah, And then the

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Speaker 1: third one is more disturbing, and perhaps there's a lot

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Speaker 1: to talk about with the third one, but also it's

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Speaker 1: just it's not as fun it's the first one by

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Speaker 1: any stretch. So anyway, it was a huge hit. Arnold

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Speaker 1: comes back with Tarantula, which we've talked about on the show,

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Speaker 1: and then in nineteen fifty seven he pulls off easily

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Speaker 1: his greatest achievement in sci fi cinema, The Incredible Shrinking Man.

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Speaker 1: It's like we've been saying, it's really the total package,

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Speaker 1: a big budget effects movie for the time and for

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Speaker 1: the genre, with a great, intelligent script built on solid formances.

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Speaker 1: This wouldn't be his last sci fi film, but outside

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Speaker 1: of the sheer popularity of the creature itself from Creature

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Speaker 1: from the Black Lagoon, this one is kind of his

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Speaker 1: career defining film.

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Speaker 2: Okay, now, we also talked about how this film benefits

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Speaker 2: from some excellent writing by Richard Matheson.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Richard Matheson lived nineteen twenty six through twenty thirteen,

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Speaker 1: American writer who's in large part I think best remembered

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Speaker 1: for his nineteen fifty four novel I Am Legend. But

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Speaker 1: for a few different reasons, like some people who just

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Speaker 1: are really fond of the book, and I've loved the book.

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Speaker 1: I haven't read it in many years, but I read

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Speaker 1: it a couple of times and loved it. But of

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Speaker 1: course it became the basis for I think three different

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Speaker 1: film adaptations. Sixty four is The Last Man on Earth

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Speaker 1: starring Vincent Price, nineteen seventy one's The Omega Man starring

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Speaker 1: Chuck Heston, and then two thousand and seven's I Am

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Speaker 1: Legend starring Will Smith, each one a very distinct, very

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Speaker 1: set in its time adaptation of the source material.

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Speaker 2: I got an idea, someday we should do three weeks

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Speaker 2: in a row where we do all three of these movies.

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Speaker 1: It could be fun, it could be we could learn

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Speaker 1: a lot about ourselves. I think yeah. But it wasn't

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Speaker 1: a one trick pony. He also wrote the excellent Haunted

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Speaker 1: House novel hell House, the thriller Duel, The Shrinking Man.

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Speaker 1: All of these were adapted into films A Duel by

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Speaker 1: young Steven Spielberg. Some other books he had read it

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Speaker 1: adapted included What Dreams May Come and A Stir of Echoes.

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Speaker 2: So in this case, he wrote a screenplay for this

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Speaker 2: movie based on a novel he had published just the

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Speaker 2: previous year. I think right, yeah, it was still hot,

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Speaker 2: still hot. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: He also wrote a lot of TV, including sixteen episodes

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Speaker 1: of the original Twilight Zone, including such episodes as Nightmare

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Speaker 1: at twenty thousand Feet. He also wrote for such shows

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Speaker 1: as Night Gallery, The Original Star Trek, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,

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Speaker 1: and thriller. So as we've been discussing an Incredible Shrinking

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Speaker 1: Man based on The Shrinking Man the novel, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's you know, it's not just about the fantastic scenario

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Speaker 1: of gradual miniaturization, but it is this kind of analysis

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Speaker 1: and rumination on masculine ideals in middle class America of

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Speaker 1: the time. The book and this movie would also serve

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Speaker 1: as inspiration for The Incredible Shrinking Woman in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: one that was scripted by Jane Wagner, and I believe

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Speaker 1: that was directed by Joel Schumacher. Oh, okay, I personally

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Speaker 1: haven't seen it, but I hear it's good and it's

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Speaker 1: a great idea, you know, to take this older movie

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Speaker 1: that is all about like masculine miniaturization and what does

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Speaker 1: that mean if you approach it from a feminine perspective.

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Speaker 2: Oh, I just looked up. It's Lily Tomlin is the

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Speaker 2: film character.

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Speaker 1: She's our shrinker. Yeah, our shrunken man in this film, however,

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Speaker 1: playing the character Scott Carrey is the actor Grant Williams,

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Speaker 1: who have nineteen thirty one through nineteen eighty five. Williams

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Speaker 1: was a versatile American actor of stage, TV, and screen.

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Speaker 1: It's noted in the Criterion Collection edition that his casting

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Speaker 1: in this film was very much that of an ascendant

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Speaker 1: talent who could play a relatable character, as opposed to

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Speaker 1: what you sometimes got in genre films of the day,

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Speaker 1: some sort of pure Hollywood actor type who's kind of

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Speaker 1: square job guy who's sort of fallen down the ladder

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Speaker 1: of success and winds up in your B picture or

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Speaker 1: your genre picture. But yeah, Grant Williams does it, really,

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Speaker 1: I think a great job, and it's very tremendous, a

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Speaker 1: very sort of isolated, self reflective kind of performance.

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Speaker 2: This guy had a little bit less of the stink

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Speaker 2: of westerns than a lot of fifty sci fi movie

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Speaker 2: protagonists do.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Like you look

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Speaker 1: at him and you don't instantly think, when's this guy

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Speaker 1: going to punch some body?

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So Williams had smaller roles in TV and film before this,

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Speaker 1: But what really made him stand out was a bit

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Speaker 1: performance in the nineteen fifty six film a Rock Hudson

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Speaker 1: picture titled Written on the Wind's I think he's like

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Speaker 1: a gas station attendant in it or something. Not a

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Speaker 1: very big part, but it made an impact. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: The Incredible Shrinking Man is a great showcase for his

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Speaker 1: acting talents and allows him to really stand out. He

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Speaker 1: followed this up with the lead role in The Monolith Monsters.

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Speaker 1: An interesting looking picture from one of the writers of Tarantula,

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Speaker 1: and we talked about that a bit in our Tarantula

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Speaker 1: episode that I have not seen it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I've eyed Monolith Monsters for Weird House before.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because that one. Like the basic idea is, let's

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Speaker 1: do you know a fifties monster movie, but the monsters

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Speaker 1: are geology. It sounds like a terrible idea. So it's

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Speaker 1: like I have to I have to look and see,

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Speaker 1: you know, yeah, or it sounds like a studio might

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Speaker 1: have stumbled over. Anyway. Williams found some success here. Then

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Speaker 1: he moved from Universal to Warner Brothers in fifty nine.

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Speaker 1: He did various TV and film roles after that. Some

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Speaker 1: of the standouts include nineteen sixties The Leech Woman. This

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Speaker 1: is one that was also featured on Mystery Science Theater.

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Speaker 1: This is the one that has a great line from

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Speaker 1: The Leech Woman where she says, you will never escape me.

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Speaker 1: You are the one in my dreams of blood. Great line,

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Speaker 1: how romantic, it's not supposed to be romantic exactly, but anyway.

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Speaker 1: He was also in sixty threes, p two, one oh nine,

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one's Brain of Blood, and nineteen seventy six's

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Speaker 1: Doomsday Machine. He did fifty episodes of TV's Hawaiian I,

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Speaker 1: and he pops up in one episode of the original

408
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Speaker 1: The Outer Limits. He also did one episode of The Monsters.

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Speaker 2: Oh is he a boyfriend that Marilyn Munster brings home?

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Speaker 2: And then he gets scared and runs away, and they said, oh,

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Speaker 2: you did it again.

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Speaker 1: One assumes yes, all right, So he's the I mean,

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Speaker 1: he's the centerpiece in this picture. Most of your screen

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Speaker 1: time is spent with him. But we also have a

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Speaker 1: major character in Louise Carey, his wife, played by Randy Stewart.

416
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Speaker 1: Who lived nineteen twenty four through nineteen ninety six. She

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Speaker 1: was an actor in numerous popular movies of the forties

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Speaker 1: and fifties like Late forties and in the fifties, and

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Speaker 1: later a frequent TV player. She was a supporting player

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Speaker 1: in Howard Hawks, I was a male Warbride from nineteen

421
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Speaker 1: forty nine, All About Eve from nineteen fifty and she

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Speaker 1: did a lot of TV in westerns leading into The

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Speaker 1: Incredible Shrinking Man, and afterwards it was mostly TV westerns

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Speaker 1: and police shows until the mid nineteen seventies. Now, there's

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Speaker 1: another female character in this that we'll discuss when we

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Speaker 1: get more into the plot. This is a character named Clarice,

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Speaker 1: played by April Kent, who lived nineteen thirty five through

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight. She has only six film credits to

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Speaker 1: her name. She was the daughter of noted actor June Havoc,

430
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Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twelve through twenty ten, and was niece

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Speaker 1: of the legendary burlesque dancer Gypsy rose Lee, who lived

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Speaker 1: nineteen eleven through nineteen seventy.

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00:23:57,920 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 2: She's only in a couple of scenes, but she's very good.

434
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 2: He's kind of the soul of the movie in a way.

435
00:24:02,200 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, you're right, Okay. The Shrinking Man also has

436
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:09,760
Speaker 1: a brother named Charlie. Charlie is played by Paul Langton,

437
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen thirteen through nineteen eighty TV and film

438
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,119
Speaker 1: actor who appeared on a couple episodes of The Twilight Zones,

439
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: a nineteen fifty four Yetti movie called The Snow Creature,

440
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:23,359
Speaker 1: and nineteen fifty eight's it The Terror from Beyond Space,

441
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 1: which I've heard great things about that. One might be

442
00:24:25,720 --> 00:24:27,879
Speaker 1: one to look at in the future. This guy is

443
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:28,640
Speaker 1: your square job.

444
00:24:29,080 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, he plays just kind of like he's like

445
00:24:32,359 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 2: a business executive. I don't remember him being super notable.

446
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,400
Speaker 1: No, but you know who is notable? Oh my god,

447
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:42,440
Speaker 1: a feline actor. We don't get to talk about feline actor.

448
00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:46,159
Speaker 1: Its I'm weird health cinema. But Orang the Cat plays

449
00:24:46,200 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: Butch the cat.

450
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:51,879
Speaker 2: Orang not super creative name, Butch also kind of a

451
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 2: strange name for a cat, It seems to me. I

452
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:54,640
Speaker 2: don't know why.

453
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:58,800
Speaker 1: I think Butch could work for a rough and tumble

454
00:24:58,880 --> 00:25:01,399
Speaker 1: tom cat, you know, maybe a indoor outdoor cat that

455
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: shows up bleeding from a lot of fights, that sort

456
00:25:04,880 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 1: of thing. But Orang Orange is very much the sort

457
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 1: of name that a that a toddler gives a stuffed cat.

458
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:19,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. But orangy, Wow, what a presence in this film,

459
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:22,359
Speaker 2: and not just in the attack scene. There are some

460
00:25:22,480 --> 00:25:26,520
Speaker 2: interesting moments from before that that sort of rides the

461
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:30,159
Speaker 2: line between cute and ominous, especially because you sort of

462
00:25:30,320 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 2: sense what may be coming.

463
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:34,760
Speaker 1: There are basically two ways of looking at Orang as

464
00:25:34,800 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: a as a career actor in Hollywood. Either this is

465
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 1: one cat, and I tend to maybe I want to

466
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: side with that because that sounds it's a better story

467
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 1: that way. But it's also possible that this was more

468
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:48,680
Speaker 1: than one cat that was marketed as Orangey to Hollywood.

469
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: So I'm probably going to lean more into the idea

470
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,960
Speaker 1: of this being an individual cat that lived nineteen fifty

471
00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:58,160
Speaker 1: through nineteen sixty seven because Rangi had star power. Orang

472
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: was a rare male marmalade tat cat owned and trained

473
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: by the famous Hollywood animal handler Frank in In's other

474
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 1: animals included the dogs of the Bingi franchise Woa Yeah.

475
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 1: And Orange is a true Hollywood legend and the only

476
00:26:14,160 --> 00:26:17,879
Speaker 1: two time winner of the Patsy Award that's Picture Animal

477
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,240
Speaker 1: Top Star of the Year, which the American Humane Association

478
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:21,639
Speaker 1: put on.

479
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:24,680
Speaker 2: What do you think Orange's a reward was when he

480
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:27,439
Speaker 2: won this prize, you get like three hole cans of

481
00:26:27,480 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 2: tuna to himself, just faced down in the can.

482
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:35,120
Speaker 1: I would hope. So what pictures was Orang in? Well,

483
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 1: between nineteen fifty one and nineteen sixty five, Orange was

484
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,159
Speaker 1: in Roubard, which I think is about a cat that

485
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 1: owns a baseball team or something. This Island Earth, The

486
00:26:46,080 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: Incredible Shrinking Man, Obviously, The Matchmaker, The Diary of Anne Frank,

487
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 1: plays a cat that almost gives up Anne Frank's family

488
00:26:54,640 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: to the Nazis. Oh, No, visit to a Small Planet,

489
00:26:59,119 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 1: Breakfast at tiff Denise, Okay, Gidget, The Comedy of Terrors,

490
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:06,359
Speaker 1: and the Village of the Giants.

491
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:08,200
Speaker 2: Oh that's a mister big movie.

492
00:27:08,600 --> 00:27:12,359
Speaker 1: Yeah. On the small screen, he acted in such shows

493
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: as Alfred Ditchcock Presents, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The

494
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:18,880
Speaker 1: Beverly Hillbillies, My Favorite Martian Mission Impossible, and the old

495
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: Batman TV series.

496
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 2: Was he a villain on Batman called Orange g I.

497
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:27,439
Speaker 1: Don't know, because you know, sometimes you just need a

498
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:30,199
Speaker 1: cat for a small part of the set. Sometimes you

499
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:32,359
Speaker 1: need a cat to try and eat your hero. So

500
00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:34,800
Speaker 1: it varies what you're going to bring Orange in for.

501
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 1: But Orange you got to work with a number of actors.

502
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:40,640
Speaker 1: And these are actors that he actually shared scenes with.

503
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: Audrey Hepburn, Basil Rathbone, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Peter Lourie.

504
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:47,440
Speaker 2: Amazing.

505
00:27:47,760 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, all of these actors petted this cat. Yeah,

506
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:55,639
Speaker 1: you know, there's there's scenes of like Vincent Price holding Orange.

507
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:58,840
Speaker 1: There's a there's a you can see screenshots of like

508
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: Boris Carloff pretending to be dead while Orange is on

509
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:05,440
Speaker 1: his chest. So sometimes he's right up in there.

510
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 2: Of all those actors, who do you think gives the

511
00:28:07,280 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 2: best pets?

512
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:11,360
Speaker 1: Vincent Price? Right?

513
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the Vincent Price belly rubs are superb.

514
00:28:16,640 --> 00:28:19,959
Speaker 1: Now, rang was apparently not the nicest cat, As is

515
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,400
Speaker 1: sometimes the case with human actors. He often lashed out

516
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:26,640
Speaker 1: at his co stars. He might bite them or scratch them.

517
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: He might leave the set for no apparent reason, shutting

518
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:32,679
Speaker 1: down the production, which again, some human actors may do

519
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:33,640
Speaker 1: this from time to time.

520
00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 2: But he was Orange.

521
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I can imagine Orange only communicating with

522
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: the director via post it notes, that sort of thing.

523
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 1: But he was also considered like the best, and I

524
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 1: guess you're also it's basically, I mean, you're hiring frank

525
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: In for his animals. And one of the things about

526
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 1: Orange is that Orangy was not as prone to watering

527
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: off the set. Cats, as many filmmakers have testified to

528
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,760
Speaker 1: over the years, are harder to work with than dogs.

529
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,560
Speaker 1: It's harder to convince them to do what you need

530
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: them to do.

531
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:09,120
Speaker 2: For a given shot or sequence ORANGI was Marlon Brando

532
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 2: filming The Island of Doctor Moreau.

533
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: Just basically yeah. I remember seeing some extras where the

534
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 1: Coen Brothers were talking about filming with a cat on

535
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 1: what was it, the the Lewin the Lewyn Davis movie,

536
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 1: the Folk Singer movie. Yeah, yeah, there's a cat that

537
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 1: plays a prominent role in the plot, and they were like,

538
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:30,480
Speaker 1: it was so hard to shoot with this cat. We'll

539
00:29:30,480 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 1: never make a film with a cat again.

540
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 2: Oh that makes sense, But that kind of comes through

541
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:37,760
Speaker 2: in the movie because the point of the cat is that,

542
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 2: like he's trying to keep it from getting away.

543
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, yeah, all right. Some other bit players

544
00:29:44,240 --> 00:29:47,520
Speaker 1: in this, So Raymond Bailey, who lived nineteen oh four

545
00:29:47,560 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 1: through nineteen eighty plays one of two doctors that our

546
00:29:50,920 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: hero goes to, our main character goes to. We've talked

547
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 1: about him before because he was in Tarantula. He played

548
00:29:57,400 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 1: a character with a nim of Townshend, and he's probably

549
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:03,880
Speaker 1: best remembered for playing mister Drysdale on The Beverly Hillbill.

550
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: He's from nineteen sixty through nineteen seventy one.

551
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 2: Oh, is this the first doctor that dude goes to.

552
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: This is the This is not the skinnier doctor, this

553
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: is the other doctor. So this might be the later doctor.

554
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,920
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, mister Drysdale. Okay, yeah, later doctor.

555
00:30:20,400 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 2: I seemed Tarantula. I I don't remember who townshend was.

556
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:27,480
Speaker 1: It's hard to remember anyone other than our two main characters,

557
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: the Tarantula and Clint Eastwood in that movie. Yeah. Well,

558
00:30:30,640 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: then of course our scientist Leo G. Carrol with a

559
00:30:36,120 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: mutated face. Yes, right, they are multiple memorable characters, but

560
00:30:39,600 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: Raymond Bailey's not one of them.

561
00:30:41,480 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 2: Oh okay, I think. I think Raymond Bailey played the

562
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:47,959
Speaker 2: small town doctor in Tarantula who's arguing with John Agar

563
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 2: about who died of what reason?

564
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 1: Yes, I believe so.

565
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

566
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 1: Now the other doctor in this is played by William Shallard,

567
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen twenty two through twenty and sixteen. American

568
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 1: acts through with a very long career stretching from nineteen

569
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: forty seven through twenty fourteen. That's eight decades and three

570
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty eight TV in film credits on IMDb.

571
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: One time president of the Screen Actors Guild, he also

572
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: played a doctor in Joe Dante's Interspace from nineteen eighty seven,

573
00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:19,520
Speaker 1: which is fun because it's another miniaturization film, and I

574
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: think Dante used him a few different times, like he

575
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:26,880
Speaker 1: shows up in Gremlins, for example. But other film credits

576
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:28,840
Speaker 1: include Singing in the Rain and The Heat of the

577
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:31,880
Speaker 1: Night Written on the Wind, which we talked about already,

578
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: them the Forben Project, Mighty Joe Young, the Man from

579
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 1: Planet X, The Monolith Monsters, Gog and tobor the Great.

580
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:42,800
Speaker 2: Oh, which we covered just a few months ago.

581
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

582
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm just looking at this relationship and thinking

583
00:31:46,520 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 2: Joe Dante, I think, is very fond of making movies

584
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:52,400
Speaker 2: that call back to movies he saw when he was

585
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 2: a kid. So I'd be surprised if he made a

586
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 2: Shrink movie that has this guy in it who is

587
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 2: in another famous Shrink movie from a couple of decades earlier.

588
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 2: That that can't be an accident.

589
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 1: Oh no, there are no accidents with casting like that

590
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: from Dante. All right. Finally, when it comes to the music,

591
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,200
Speaker 1: this is one of those films where there's in the

592
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: credits there's no like credited you score composed by that

593
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 1: they credit the main trumpet player, but there are like

594
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: four uncredited names on the studio soundtrack when you look

595
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:25,160
Speaker 1: it up in the databases, suffice to say that it's

596
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 1: a very traditional and melodramatic score for the most part,

597
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: not the kind of thing that I would ever listen

598
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: to an isolation, But it works really well in this film,

599
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: providing I think, a mostly serious musical framework for the visuals.

600
00:32:39,320 --> 00:32:39,520
Speaker 4: Yeah.

601
00:32:39,560 --> 00:32:43,120
Speaker 2: I thought there were parts here where the musical score

602
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 2: was more distinctive than most movies of this time.

603
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, and certainly towards the end.

604
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, because like I recall thinking with the opening credits

605
00:32:54,160 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 2: that I was like, what does this music remind me of?

606
00:32:56,960 --> 00:32:59,680
Speaker 2: And obviously it wasn't this, but I realized it reminded

607
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 2: me of Ershwin, Like it kind of sounds like the

608
00:33:02,760 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 2: It had this blooming trumpet motif that reminded me of

609
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 2: Rhapsody in Blue.

610
00:33:07,400 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 4: Oh.

611
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 1: Interesting. The trumpet soloist who is credited in the credits

612
00:33:12,320 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 1: was Ray Anthony born nineteen twenty two and, as of

613
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:18,400
Speaker 1: this recording, the last surviving member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

614
00:33:27,520 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 2: All right, well you're ready to discuss the plot.

615
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: Oh, let's get into it.

616
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 2: So in the opening credits, while this music plays, we

617
00:33:34,560 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 2: see a blank white silhouette of a man on a

618
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:41,200
Speaker 2: black background. Again, there's this this horn, heavy music playing.

619
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 2: And I really like the sort of abstract imagery of

620
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 2: the credits because we start by just zooming toward a jagged,

621
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 2: irregular white shape in the distance. It's like a black

622
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 2: background in a white shape, and you're thinking, what is it?

623
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 2: Is this some kind of like cloud maybe, or is

624
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 2: it a low crystal? And eventually you realize that it

625
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 2: is sunlight. You are zooming through a cave to the

626
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 2: mouth of the cave, out of the dark cave into

627
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,759
Speaker 2: the daylight, and so that growing white object in the

628
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,280
Speaker 2: distance was the mouth of the cave and the light outside.

629
00:34:17,360 --> 00:34:19,240
Speaker 2: And so when we come out, we see the ocean.

630
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 2: There are waves breaking, birds of boat rocking in the tide,

631
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:26,479
Speaker 2: and there begins narration. And I'm gonna be a little

632
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:29,720
Speaker 2: harsh here, because overall I think this is a fantastic movie.

633
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,919
Speaker 2: I think it has a really just flat on its

634
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,760
Speaker 2: face opener, not good, not good opening lines. It starts

635
00:34:37,120 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 2: with the narration saying, the strange, almost unbelievable story of

636
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:45,479
Speaker 2: Robert Scott carry began on a very ordinary summer day.

637
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:49,200
Speaker 2: I know this story better than anyone, because I am

638
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:53,759
Speaker 2: Robert Scott carry why would you phrase it that way?

639
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:56,680
Speaker 2: So it's like some kind of reveal, but you're only

640
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 2: two sentences in. You're not gonna be blowing anybody's mind

641
00:34:59,600 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 2: with a twin whist at this point, Like would people

642
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 2: be saying, oh, whoa the narrator who just now started

643
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:09,040
Speaker 2: talking is also the guy he's talking about.

644
00:35:09,600 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like Herman Melville does it right off

645
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: the bat right, Yeah, but I know what you made. Yeah,

646
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 1: this kind of struck me as being maybe something I

647
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: haven't read the original novel, but maybe this is kind

648
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: of tightly bound to the original novel.

649
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe it's better on the page, that sort of thing. So, yeah,

650
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,920
Speaker 2: it's a great script, but this is not a good opener.

651
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:32,920
Speaker 2: You could have come up with something better anyway. So

652
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 2: in the beginning, we see a man presumably Robert Scott

653
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:39,359
Speaker 2: Carey from the narration, and a woman and we find

654
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:42,399
Speaker 2: out this is his wife, Louise, and they're lounging side

655
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:45,240
Speaker 2: by side in the sun on the bow of boat.

656
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 2: And the situation is they revealed they've been married for

657
00:35:49,280 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 2: six years. They are on vacation. The boat belongs to

658
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 2: Robert Scott Carey's brother. Robert Scott Carey needs to get

659
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:00,320
Speaker 2: beer in him, and he yearns for Louise to retrieve

660
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 2: the beer on his behalf, and Louis desireth not to

661
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 2: bring him the beer and tells him he should fetch

662
00:36:06,120 --> 00:36:06,840
Speaker 2: his own beer.

663
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 1: This is a very simple scene, but I thought it

664
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:14,200
Speaker 1: was very good, very well acted. Yeah, it comes off playful,

665
00:36:14,239 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: but it also in some ways lays the groundwork for

666
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 1: the developments in their relationship to come, the problems that

667
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:23,480
Speaker 1: will emerge, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, And

668
00:36:23,520 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: one other thing. This took me a little bit to

669
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 1: break down about this scene, but okay, these two characters

670
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: are wearing bathing suits, you know, nineteen fifties bathing suits

671
00:36:32,200 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: that are distinct. They would look a little old fashioned today,

672
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 1: but they're not that different from what a couple might

673
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:42,160
Speaker 1: wear on a boat today. And for some reason, I

674
00:36:42,200 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 1: thought this made them feel a little more relatable in

675
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 1: this scene to modern audiences, because, unlike many other scenes

676
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 1: in the movie, they're not wearing those nineteen fifties domestic uniforms,

677
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:56,520
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of standard dress of a merry,

678
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 1: middle class couple in nineteen fifties America that you see

679
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 1: in every other film.

680
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,839
Speaker 2: Right, leave it to Beaver wearing a coat and tie

681
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 2: while sitting on the couch at home.

682
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're again, they're also being very human and

683
00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:10,319
Speaker 1: relatable in this scene. And they're not because there are

684
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: plenty of films from this time period in which you

685
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:13,759
Speaker 1: have people in bathing suits. So it's not just the

686
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:16,480
Speaker 1: bathing suit, but so many of those sequences are people

687
00:37:16,520 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 1: being yep in bathing suits, and these characters are being real.

688
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:22,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're being playful and their relationship is sweet, so

689
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:25,880
Speaker 2: like that. They playfully argue about this, But eventually Louise

690
00:37:26,000 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 2: is like, Okay, I'll get him a beer. I think

691
00:37:27,600 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 2: he promises her something and he's gonna make dinner. He's

692
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,680
Speaker 2: gonna make dinner. Yeah, So she goes down into the

693
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:37,440
Speaker 2: cabin to get him a beer, and as soon as

694
00:37:37,440 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 2: she disappears, down below, Robert Scott Carey here witnesses a

695
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:45,760
Speaker 2: bizarre site. There is an ominous white cloud of vapor

696
00:37:46,160 --> 00:37:49,720
Speaker 2: billowing rapidly in his direction over the surface of the water.

697
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 2: And this is totally unexplained. It's not like one of

698
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:57,439
Speaker 2: those scenes in a movie where you know you've heard

699
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 2: already a radio announcement in the backgrounds, like a cloud

700
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,919
Speaker 2: of vapor escaped from a chemical transport is blah blah blah.

701
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 2: You just have no idea what this is.

702
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:09,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I love how how unexplained it is, because

703
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:12,760
Speaker 1: it could It almost takes on the feeling of vision

704
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:15,359
Speaker 1: or prophecy, though of course, with the context of the film,

705
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:17,399
Speaker 1: we are to assume this is something that actually does

706
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 1: happen to him. Yeah, but I like how it the

707
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: way that it is, like on the horizon, the way

708
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:28,360
Speaker 1: the film that the scene is shot too, with we're

709
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:32,320
Speaker 1: we're viewing him back turned to the camera, the cloud

710
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,440
Speaker 1: in the distance moving ever closer. It ends up taking

711
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 1: on a kind of temporal quality to it, you know,

712
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:40,920
Speaker 1: like the thing that is approaching is not only like

713
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: an actual physical sci fi threat and the scene, but

714
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: it also represents like the uncertainty of the future, the

715
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:49,840
Speaker 1: known and unknown challenges of the future.

716
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:52,719
Speaker 2: It's coming on faster than he can react, and he

717
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 2: can't see through it to what's on the other side. Yeah,

718
00:38:56,160 --> 00:38:59,280
Speaker 2: So before he really has time to understand what's happening,

719
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:03,000
Speaker 2: the cloud of overtakes the boat and it envelops him,

720
00:39:03,120 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 2: and then it just blows on by, and so it's

721
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 2: gone before Louise even emerges from down below, but it

722
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 2: leaves Scott here covered in what looks like glitter.

723
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 1: This is probably a good time to mention for anyone

724
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:17,880
Speaker 1: who's purely listening to this and has it's saying, this

725
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,720
Speaker 1: is a black and white film, so the glitter, the glitter,

726
00:39:21,800 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 1: You can still laugh at it by all means, but

727
00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:26,440
Speaker 1: it is at least in black and white and not

728
00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:28,040
Speaker 1: like sparkling purple or anything.

729
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:30,799
Speaker 2: So we cut from here to six months later, and

730
00:39:30,960 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 2: it's a pleasant domestic scene. Louise is at their home

731
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 2: calling out to a cat to give him some milk.

732
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 2: This is the first time we meet Orange or Butch

733
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:43,480
Speaker 2: in the movie. And as soon as I saw this,

734
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, everybody here is going to recognize

735
00:39:47,160 --> 00:39:49,879
Speaker 2: a Chekhov's cat in a shrink movie when they see it.

736
00:39:50,160 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think the cat was prominently featured in

737
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: promotional material, so I think a lot of the original

738
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:56,799
Speaker 1: audience saw this coming as well.

739
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 2: And actually I think the movie, in a smart way,

740
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 2: play into that, because instead of trying to keep it secret, like, oh,

741
00:40:05,680 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 2: you know, there's gonna be a big twist that like

742
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 2: the cat attacks him. It plays up the fact that

743
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:12,839
Speaker 2: the cat is going to be a threat, I think,

744
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 2: by in a very subtle way. A few times after

745
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 2: Scott starts shrinking, having these little moments where like, the

746
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 2: cat does something cute, but it's photographed in a way

747
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:24,880
Speaker 2: that could be interpreted as a little bit unnerving.

748
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 1: Yeah.

749
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 2: Anyway, so we go into the house and it's you know,

750
00:40:29,239 --> 00:40:31,560
Speaker 2: the kitchen looks like the I Love Lucy kitchen, the

751
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 2: old school refrigerator with round edges, it's that kind of

752
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 2: mid century home. Scott's getting dressed and he's running into

753
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:41,000
Speaker 2: a problem. It seems like none of his clothes fit anymore.

754
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 2: They're all too big, and he even thinks Louise might

755
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:46,160
Speaker 2: have picked up the wrong bag at the dry cleaners.

756
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 2: And he's eating less than he used to. He has

757
00:40:49,040 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 2: one egg for breakfast instead of two. So he goes

758
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:53,840
Speaker 2: to the doctor to get this checked out, and the

759
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:57,760
Speaker 2: doctor confirms that he is not only ten pounds lighter

760
00:40:57,760 --> 00:41:00,840
Speaker 2: than he used to be. He measures Scott's height and

761
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 2: Scott's like, that doesn't make sense. That's several inches shorter

762
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:06,400
Speaker 2: than I used to be. How's that supposed to happen?

763
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:10,919
Speaker 2: But this scene was good because the doctor has very

764
00:41:11,040 --> 00:41:13,880
Speaker 2: reasonable things to say. So he attributes the weight loss

765
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 2: to stress, and then he doubts that Scott is actually

766
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:20,560
Speaker 2: getting shorter. He says, you know, like he brings real knowledge.

767
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:22,919
Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense. He argues that, well,

768
00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:26,080
Speaker 2: maybe your previous height measurements, you know, you only have

769
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 2: a couple of sources for that. That was a couple

770
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 2: of physicals over the last many years. Those might have

771
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 2: been early in the morning when we're actually a bit

772
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:35,840
Speaker 2: taller than we are later in the day, which is

773
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 2: true due to compression of the spine from being upright

774
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 2: throughout the day. Generally you lose, you know, some small

775
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:47,440
Speaker 2: but real amount of height. And maybe there was just

776
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:51,480
Speaker 2: errors on top of that, so that seems possible. And

777
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 2: back home, Scott seems preoccupied after this doctor visit. Louise

778
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 2: asks him, Hey, what did Charlie that's referring to his brother,

779
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 2: What Charlie think about your idea for a newspaper ad? So, Scott,

780
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,480
Speaker 2: we learn as an ad man, what is the It's

781
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 2: not a wheel, it's a carousel of shrinking down to

782
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 2: the size of an atom.

783
00:42:12,040 --> 00:42:12,400
Speaker 1: I don't know.

784
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:14,960
Speaker 2: We'll keep that in mind as we go. Yeah, but

785
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,399
Speaker 2: they start putting several lines of evidence together, so it's

786
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 2: undeniable that he's getting smaller every day because Louis is

787
00:42:23,239 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 2: used to have to like stand up on her toes

788
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:27,920
Speaker 2: to kiss him, and now she doesn't. And this kind

789
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 2: of foreshadows the way the premise of the movie comes

790
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:35,000
Speaker 2: as an injury to his sense of manhood.

791
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also that it's he's thinking he's shorter, just

792
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 1: in a large part because things are changing, his relationship

793
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:45,480
Speaker 1: to things are changing. So one of the great things

794
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 1: about this the way the picture treats this shrinking, which

795
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:53,840
Speaker 1: again is very much a sci fi miniaturization gimmick. But

796
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,480
Speaker 1: they're always playing, at least a little bit with the

797
00:42:57,719 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 1: metaphorical nature of this. What does it mean that you

798
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: are changing in relation to the rest of the world,

799
00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:06,799
Speaker 1: and how many things in the modern life could that

800
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:07,759
Speaker 1: be compared to?

801
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:10,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, the story is rich with metaphors in that way.

802
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 2: So he eventually he goes back to the doctor and

803
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 2: it turns out there's no mistaking it. They do X

804
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:20,839
Speaker 2: rays to confirm that Scott is definitely actually shrinking, and

805
00:43:20,880 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 2: the doctor sends him off to a special medical research

806
00:43:23,920 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 2: institute in California to discover the cause of his condition

807
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:29,840
Speaker 2: and hopefully to cure it. They do a bazillion different

808
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 2: kinds of tests shown in what I thought was a

809
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 2: very effective montage. It almost reminded me of the freaky,

810
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:39,759
Speaker 2: alienating montage of medical tests and the Exorcist.

811
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they're doing a number of things. He's describing

812
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:45,280
Speaker 1: some of them in the narration. But yeah, they're seeing

813
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: they're looking all inside him, they're looking at all these

814
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 1: test results, just trying, mostly in vain, to understand what's

815
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: happening and what can we do to treat it.

816
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:58,160
Speaker 2: Eventually they come up with a diagnosis. They figure out

817
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:00,680
Speaker 2: what's going on. They say, quote, it's a re arrangement

818
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 2: of the molecular structure of the cells in your body.

819
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 2: And you know, that's a funny phrase when you pull

820
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:08,719
Speaker 2: it out of context here. But I'm going to give

821
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 2: this movie a lot of credit. It does a very

822
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:13,760
Speaker 2: good job of selling its sy tech babble.

823
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, in the scene, you believe it, and more

824
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 1: to the point, you can tell that our main character

825
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: believes it, like and he's finding comfort in the fact

826
00:44:22,080 --> 00:44:23,879
Speaker 1: that Okay, they figured it out. Now we can move

827
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: on to the next thing, the modern world can fix this.

828
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they even put together, like what was probably

829
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 2: the cause? They they think that it was sort of

830
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:37,319
Speaker 2: a two stage chain of causes. One was that he

831
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:43,560
Speaker 2: was recently exposed to an insecticide, which he remembers a

832
00:44:43,600 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 2: case of like being around past control people spraying. But

833
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:49,640
Speaker 2: then before that they were like, have you ever been

834
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 2: exposed to any radio activity? Because that, in combination with

835
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,879
Speaker 2: the insecticide, did something. And then he remembers finally the boat,

836
00:44:57,040 --> 00:45:00,759
Speaker 2: the mist, the mist, And they determine and he might

837
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:03,319
Speaker 2: just keep shrinking. They don't know what to do about

838
00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:06,719
Speaker 2: it yet, And so there's a discussion between Scott and

839
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 2: Louise where he becomes quickly quite fatalistic about it. You know,

840
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 2: this may kill him or make him no longer the

841
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 2: man she married, in which case he says, well, there

842
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 2: will be limitations on her obligations to him, and she

843
00:45:22,040 --> 00:45:24,239
Speaker 2: poo poos this. She tells him she still loves him.

844
00:45:24,239 --> 00:45:25,959
Speaker 2: But right in the middle of the scene, his wedding

845
00:45:26,080 --> 00:45:28,319
Speaker 2: ring falls off of his finger onto the floor of

846
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:28,840
Speaker 2: the car.

847
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, that may have been all over the top, but

848
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the really fun things about

849
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: these pictures that there's still moments like that that are

850
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:40,200
Speaker 1: a little overly dramatic and you can laugh at but

851
00:45:40,920 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 1: your laughter doesn't really take you out, you know.

852
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,239
Speaker 2: Well, there's another one that comes up, so we more

853
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 2: time passes, and there's a scene where we meet Scott's brother, Charlie,

854
00:45:51,719 --> 00:45:56,120
Speaker 2: and you see Charlie and Louise in like a living

855
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:58,279
Speaker 2: room together and Charlie's just kind of like talking into

856
00:45:58,360 --> 00:46:01,240
Speaker 2: a chair that appears to be empty, and he's saying,

857
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:04,399
Speaker 2: you know, his business has turned. Things have gone bad

858
00:46:04,440 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 2: at the plant. His income is gone, so he's running

859
00:46:08,200 --> 00:46:12,880
Speaker 2: out of ways to help support Louise and Scott. But

860
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:14,840
Speaker 2: he does know of another way to bring in money,

861
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:17,920
Speaker 2: which is that reporters are offering to pay for the story.

862
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:20,759
Speaker 2: They've heard the rumors about the rumors of the incredible

863
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,680
Speaker 2: shrinking Man. So Charlie's like, hey, what if we just

864
00:46:23,719 --> 00:46:25,720
Speaker 2: take the money and we you know, let you become

865
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 2: an objective media fixation. And then there's a reveal. There's

866
00:46:30,239 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 2: a reverse shot and we see that Charlie has been

867
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:35,480
Speaker 2: speaking into this chair the whole time, and we finally

868
00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:38,280
Speaker 2: see Scott in the chair, but now he has shrunken

869
00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:40,440
Speaker 2: to the size where like he doesn't you know, his

870
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:43,040
Speaker 2: head doesn't reach above the cushion and his feet don't

871
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:46,719
Speaker 2: dangle below the cushions. It seems like he's about three

872
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:47,560
Speaker 2: feet tall here.

873
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:50,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's this is a this is I guess, our

874
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:54,160
Speaker 1: first look at some of these fantastic sets they put

875
00:46:54,200 --> 00:46:59,320
Speaker 1: together to utilize with other effects methods in order to

876
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: make it look like he's smaller, you know, in this

877
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 1: case is like a giant chair. But h but this

878
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 1: reveal is also quite funny. It's something about the really

879
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:11,400
Speaker 1: dramatic music that hits when we see him there. Yeah.

880
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:12,920
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know to what extent it was

881
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 1: meant to be funny, but like I'm saying, you can

882
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:17,400
Speaker 1: you can laugh at moments like that in the film

883
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 1: and it doesn't really detach you from the serious nature

884
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:21,959
Speaker 1: of the film as well.

885
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 2: I agree, I don't think it was meant to be

886
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 2: funny at all, but and it is kind of funny,

887
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:30,000
Speaker 2: but I think that's just a I don't know, time

888
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:33,880
Speaker 2: and film convention thing, and the movie still works. Yeah.

889
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 2: Now there was another thing I was wondering about though,

890
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:38,240
Speaker 2: and this is sort of getting into the unspoken themes

891
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,719
Speaker 2: of this movie. A lot of what's interesting about it

892
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 2: is unspoken but implied. The thing is that, you know,

893
00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 2: Scott doesn't have a job anymore, so he's, uh, he's

894
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:51,320
Speaker 2: having to get support from his brother and ultimately support

895
00:47:51,360 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 2: from these you know, these media vultures who want to

896
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:56,480
Speaker 2: who want to make a buck off his story. But

897
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 2: I was thinking, why doesn't Scott have a job anymore?

898
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 2: They say he works in advertising, and obviously, like his

899
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,759
Speaker 2: shrinking would not interfere with his ability to come up

900
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 2: with ideas for advertisements, Like he could still pitch ideas

901
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 2: for you know, magazine spreads about how cigarettes are good

902
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 2: for you. But I guess maybe it's implying that he

903
00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 2: lost his job because it is something about like like

904
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 2: embarrassment or fear of how he'd be perceived or the

905
00:48:24,880 --> 00:48:27,880
Speaker 2: way people would treat him. Just the idea that like

906
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:30,239
Speaker 2: he can't go out to the workplace and be seen

907
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 2: like this.

908
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, I think to a large extent, that's

909
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:34,960
Speaker 1: that's part of it, right, Like this fear of being

910
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 1: ostracized for now being different, for not fitting in, for

911
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:42,400
Speaker 1: not you know, for not fitting the sort of template

912
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 1: for for what it meant to be a man anymore

913
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:49,800
Speaker 1: in that time because he's he's physically reduced, he's literally reduced.

914
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:52,440
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I don't know, it's like you,

915
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:54,719
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what his job consisted of. But

916
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:57,279
Speaker 1: I instantly come back to Mad Men, you know, and

917
00:48:57,320 --> 00:49:01,440
Speaker 1: all the various schmoozing and socializing that our various characters,

918
00:49:01,480 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: professional characters in that show have to do, and he

919
00:49:05,360 --> 00:49:07,560
Speaker 1: just like he can't do it anymore. How's he going

920
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 1: to go and drink and eat oysters with other businessmen

921
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:14,319
Speaker 1: at lunch if he's now three k tall?

922
00:49:14,760 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, faced with no other options, Scott decides, Okay,

923
00:49:18,600 --> 00:49:21,839
Speaker 2: I will become a media sensation, and that's what they do.

924
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:24,279
Speaker 2: They apparently get some money out of this, but it

925
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 2: leads to people like reporters and just gawkers gathering outside

926
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 2: the house hoping to get a glimpse of him, and

927
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,359
Speaker 2: the special effects really start to be revealed here, Like

928
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 2: Scott is shown in an extremely convincing set of the

929
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:41,200
Speaker 2: home living room where the couch cushions are taller than

930
00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:43,080
Speaker 2: him and the cat comes up to his waist and

931
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 2: so forth, and it looks great.

932
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:48,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's he's not so small that the cat will

933
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:51,839
Speaker 1: attack him yet, which I don't know. Depending on your

934
00:49:51,920 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 1: experience with your cat at home listeners, you may have

935
00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:57,239
Speaker 1: a different take on all this. I know that I'm

936
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 1: a full sized human being and my cat attack my

937
00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:05,920
Speaker 1: feet on an almost daily daily level. It's like daily

938
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 1: assaults daily. I'm hunted for sport by this creature that

939
00:50:10,560 --> 00:50:13,200
Speaker 1: I feed and care for, so I don't think I

940
00:50:13,200 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 1: would have to get much smaller to experience worse treatment

941
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:18,720
Speaker 1: by my own cat.

942
00:50:19,040 --> 00:50:23,640
Speaker 2: Well, we'll have to compare the movie's depiction of cat

943
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 2: feline viciousness to the reality that you may have experienced

944
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:32,120
Speaker 2: in a little bit here, okay, But also in the

945
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:35,320
Speaker 2: scene we get the first glimpse of Scott's real anguish

946
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:38,960
Speaker 2: about what's going on. He's, you know, obviously somebody who

947
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 2: was going through a medical situation like this would be afraid.

948
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 2: But Scott is also An important aspect of how this

949
00:50:46,840 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 2: works is that he's humiliated. He feels humiliated by how

950
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:54,600
Speaker 2: people see him. Of course, he's afraid of what he'll become,

951
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 2: and he turns this into anger, like he lashes out

952
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 2: in anger at Louise for no good reason that he

953
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:04,160
Speaker 2: does feel remorse about this.

954
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:08,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and again This is some of the stuff

955
00:51:08,040 --> 00:51:10,719
Speaker 1: that kind of works nicely with what we see of

956
00:51:11,360 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 1: their healthier relationship earlier on. You know, there's this kind

957
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:18,200
Speaker 1: of you know, subtle, playful teasing there. But but at

958
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:20,759
Speaker 1: this point, like they're there, you know, their relationship is

959
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:22,719
Speaker 1: a little more out of more than a little bit

960
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 1: out of whack due to his condition, the way he's

961
00:51:25,680 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 1: handling his condition, and the way he's taking it out

962
00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:28,839
Speaker 1: on her.

963
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:31,439
Speaker 2: We also learned here that he's writing a book about

964
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:33,480
Speaker 2: his experience, and this seems to be sort of where

965
00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:37,680
Speaker 2: the narration, the voiceover narration is coming in, Like the uh,

966
00:51:37,880 --> 00:51:40,160
Speaker 2: it's sort of based on the thoughts he's writing in

967
00:51:40,160 --> 00:51:41,279
Speaker 2: his memoir, I think.

968
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is where we got it. We get

969
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:50,439
Speaker 1: you know, all of this reflective, analytical content where he's

970
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about his anger, he's thinking about the

971
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: way he's processing everything and beginning to tease it apart

972
00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:57,720
Speaker 1: to the best of his ability.

973
00:51:58,080 --> 00:52:00,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, and through this narration, we learn that Scott just

974
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 2: wants he wants to hide, He wants to get away

975
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 2: to somewhere where nobody can find him, nobody can know

976
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 2: about him. Now, the doctors eventually do come up with

977
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:20,280
Speaker 2: something they come up with a treatment that they think

978
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 2: will have about a fifty percent chance of curing him,

979
00:52:23,040 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 2: and they do the injection and they run some tests

980
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 2: and it seems like it works. It does stop the

981
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:31,399
Speaker 2: shrinking at least for now, though they don't have any

982
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 2: guarantee that he will recover to his original size, but

983
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:36,360
Speaker 2: it seems for a while like he's not going to

984
00:52:36,400 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 2: get any smaller than he was, which they say is

985
00:52:38,760 --> 00:52:42,359
Speaker 2: installed at thirty six inches fifty two pounds. And again

986
00:52:42,400 --> 00:52:44,839
Speaker 2: here there are scenes that are what I was talking

987
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 2: about earlier with the cat scenes where the camera it

988
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,520
Speaker 2: seems to me, kind of meaningfully captures the cat. There's

989
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 2: no direct indication yet that the cat will be any

990
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:57,200
Speaker 2: kind of threat, but there are these little cuddles and

991
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:01,560
Speaker 2: meows that I are perfectly bound between cute and kind

992
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:07,640
Speaker 2: of ominous. Now, ultimately, in his search for relief from

993
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:12,359
Speaker 2: his hopelessness and his emasculation, Scott leaves the house one night.

994
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:15,840
Speaker 2: He just like leaves. He goes out walking, and of

995
00:53:15,880 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 2: course people stare at him as he walks by in

996
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:20,920
Speaker 2: the sidewalk, but he makes his way to a carnival

997
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:24,920
Speaker 2: in town where there is a there's a Barker advertising

998
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:27,799
Speaker 2: the Freak Show, which has all the usual performers, and

999
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:31,280
Speaker 2: there is like so the Barker is announcing a dwarf

1000
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 2: factress named Tiny Tina, and watching all of this, it's

1001
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:38,440
Speaker 2: very interesting, like Scott has. It's much of it is unspoken,

1002
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 2: but you can tell Scott is having this mix of

1003
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:44,160
Speaker 2: I think self pity and remorse. So he has the

1004
00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:47,759
Speaker 2: self pity of realizing that people now would look at

1005
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:51,239
Speaker 2: him with the same dehumanizing lens through which they see

1006
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:53,560
Speaker 2: the people in the Freak Show. But I think it's

1007
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:58,240
Speaker 2: also implied that he realizes, you know, before the radioactive cloud,

1008
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:00,799
Speaker 2: he would have been just like those people in the

1009
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 2: audience looking on the performers, people like Tiny Tina as

1010
00:54:04,760 --> 00:54:06,240
Speaker 2: inhuman curiosities.

1011
00:54:07,080 --> 00:54:10,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this whole sequence here and what is about

1012
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:14,359
Speaker 1: to come. I remember thinking this is exactly the sort

1013
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:19,280
Speaker 1: of sequence that might feel like just filler in another

1014
00:54:19,320 --> 00:54:21,880
Speaker 1: film about somebody going through some sort of a change.

1015
00:54:22,360 --> 00:54:25,799
Speaker 1: In fact, I think I think it has essentially been

1016
00:54:25,880 --> 00:54:29,799
Speaker 1: such filler in films, but perhaps inspired by this sequence,

1017
00:54:30,880 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 1: But it really works here. It feels like it is

1018
00:54:33,680 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 1: basically we're getting to kind of like the soul of

1019
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:36,400
Speaker 1: the picture.

1020
00:54:36,440 --> 00:54:38,279
Speaker 2: And speaking of this is where we're about to meet

1021
00:54:38,280 --> 00:54:41,280
Speaker 2: the character Clarie. So he goes into a nearby cafe

1022
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:43,799
Speaker 2: across the street from the carnival, and he orders a

1023
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 2: coffee and sits by himself, and he is joined at

1024
00:54:46,719 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 2: his table by a woman named Clarice, who is also

1025
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:54,960
Speaker 2: a dwarf performer, and they have an interesting conversation. She's

1026
00:54:55,280 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 2: very very kind and very wise, and they talk about

1027
00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:02,600
Speaker 2: what's going on. She realizes who he is because his

1028
00:55:02,680 --> 00:55:05,120
Speaker 2: name's been in the news, so she understands his situation,

1029
00:55:06,480 --> 00:55:09,600
Speaker 2: and he starts sharing his fears and is angst about

1030
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:14,200
Speaker 2: living the way he is, and Clarice advises him to,

1031
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:18,239
Speaker 2: you know, maybe just start by uh, to try to

1032
00:55:18,239 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 2: find a way forward, just by thinking about the future.

1033
00:55:21,200 --> 00:55:23,640
Speaker 2: And there's a part where Scott says what future in

1034
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:26,880
Speaker 2: a world of giants and Clarie says, I've lived with

1035
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:30,320
Speaker 2: them all my life. And I thought this was also

1036
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:34,440
Speaker 2: a very interesting scene, like seeing people of typical size

1037
00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:37,799
Speaker 2: as giants, and like the turning of the tables. This

1038
00:55:37,840 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 2: way was interesting because like thespective, is the perspective that

1039
00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:46,480
Speaker 2: the only thing potentially bothersome about her size would come

1040
00:55:46,560 --> 00:55:49,400
Speaker 2: from the behavior of the giants, and she just doesn't

1041
00:55:49,400 --> 00:55:52,279
Speaker 2: really concern herself with them and how they behave or

1042
00:55:52,280 --> 00:55:52,880
Speaker 2: what they think.

1043
00:55:53,640 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, like they're outsized as opposed to just me being downsized.

1044
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:01,360
Speaker 2: And she tells, you know, the world can still be

1045
00:56:01,400 --> 00:56:04,040
Speaker 2: a wonderful place. The sky is as blue as it

1046
00:56:04,120 --> 00:56:06,480
Speaker 2: is for the giants, the friends are as warm.

1047
00:56:07,360 --> 00:56:07,920
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1048
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:10,279
Speaker 2: And so this meeting with Clarice and her wisdom and

1049
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:13,600
Speaker 2: her kindness that kind of revives Scott and he he

1050
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:16,600
Speaker 2: comes out of his out of his depression. He throws

1051
00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 2: himself back into writing. He becomes deeply absorbed in his memoir.

1052
00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:23,200
Speaker 2: And that lasts for a while until we get to

1053
00:56:23,239 --> 00:56:27,600
Speaker 2: a terrible realization, which is he realizes upon a meeting

1054
00:56:27,640 --> 00:56:31,319
Speaker 2: with Clarice that he is actually shrinking once again, that

1055
00:56:31,360 --> 00:56:34,560
Speaker 2: the treatment he's been given by the doctors is no

1056
00:56:34,640 --> 00:56:36,880
Speaker 2: longer stalling the progression of his condition.

1057
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:39,879
Speaker 1: Yeah. This is interesting because, yeah, because in that first

1058
00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:42,040
Speaker 1: sequence it is noticeable that he's a little bit taller

1059
00:56:43,040 --> 00:56:46,320
Speaker 1: than her, and and so on one level, you're you

1060
00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:47,759
Speaker 1: kind of look at that and you think, well, how

1061
00:56:47,800 --> 00:56:51,160
Speaker 1: much of this is kind of like his the remnants

1062
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:53,279
Speaker 1: of that that mask on ego that like he's able

1063
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:54,840
Speaker 1: to build some of it up because it's kind of like,

1064
00:56:54,920 --> 00:56:57,480
Speaker 1: on some level, Oh, finally a woman that I'm I'm

1065
00:56:57,520 --> 00:57:00,680
Speaker 1: taller than so I can I can fall into some

1066
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:04,880
Speaker 1: of that that older thinking about the masculine roles in society.

1067
00:57:05,200 --> 00:57:08,520
Speaker 1: And now that's gone. Now he's clearly shorter. But then

1068
00:57:08,520 --> 00:57:10,359
Speaker 1: also you can you can take it at face value,

1069
00:57:10,440 --> 00:57:13,160
Speaker 1: you can you can take it in any additional direction

1070
00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:15,520
Speaker 1: of character, depth or metaphor as well.

1071
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:19,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, once again, a bunch of time passes, and

1072
00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:22,120
Speaker 2: so the next time we meet Scott, he's living in

1073
00:57:22,160 --> 00:57:24,840
Speaker 2: a dollhouse on the floor in the in the home.

1074
00:57:25,400 --> 00:57:28,440
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is a great sequence because they're in

1075
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:31,000
Speaker 1: separate parts of the house. And at first you don't

1076
00:57:31,040 --> 00:57:32,280
Speaker 1: know that he's gotten that small.

1077
00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:35,400
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, so you don't quite realize. But then

1078
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:38,240
Speaker 2: they come to speak to one another and Louise just

1079
00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:41,920
Speaker 2: speaking in a normal voice, like her voice hurts his ears.

1080
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:46,360
Speaker 2: It's too loud, and he's yelling. And at first I

1081
00:57:46,400 --> 00:57:48,640
Speaker 2: didn't realize. I says, he's yelling because he's so small,

1082
00:57:48,680 --> 00:57:51,480
Speaker 2: he has to yell everything in order for her to

1083
00:57:51,560 --> 00:57:54,880
Speaker 2: hear him. But it also reads the other way too, Yes,

1084
00:57:55,000 --> 00:57:57,800
Speaker 2: and he's so he reflects upon himself, Like he said,

1085
00:57:57,960 --> 00:58:01,840
Speaker 2: he essentially explains that the small he got, the more

1086
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:07,400
Speaker 2: domineering and controlling and angry he became at Louise. You know,

1087
00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 2: he felt he was no longer really himself. And I

1088
00:58:10,840 --> 00:58:14,080
Speaker 2: thought this was really interesting about showing this kind of

1089
00:58:14,560 --> 00:58:18,440
Speaker 2: you know, to to generalize this weird sci fi scenario

1090
00:58:18,520 --> 00:58:23,320
Speaker 2: into reality that like fear and a sense of vulnerability

1091
00:58:23,560 --> 00:58:27,760
Speaker 2: creates anger and resentment and a desire to control other people.

1092
00:58:28,520 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely so.

1093
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:33,720
Speaker 2: It's because like he's so dependent on Louise now, he's

1094
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:37,360
Speaker 2: like he's really controlling of her movements and stuff. Like she's,

1095
00:58:37,440 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 2: you know, wanting to go out to the store real

1096
00:58:39,280 --> 00:58:41,520
Speaker 2: quickly and he's like, tell me where you're going, you know,

1097
00:58:41,560 --> 00:58:43,520
Speaker 2: when will you be back and that sort of thing.

1098
00:58:44,080 --> 00:58:46,840
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And so she goes to the store. But

1099
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:51,280
Speaker 1: something happens. Yeah, the cat comes in. I guess the

1100
00:58:51,320 --> 00:58:54,600
Speaker 1: cat has been he's they realize he's too small, and

1101
00:58:54,680 --> 00:58:57,400
Speaker 1: the cat lives outside now or is you know, stuck

1102
00:58:57,440 --> 00:58:58,920
Speaker 1: away in a room. I don't know how they have

1103
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:01,720
Speaker 1: it worked out, but he's kept at a safe distance

1104
00:59:01,760 --> 00:59:04,439
Speaker 1: from the cat, but the cat has snuck back into

1105
00:59:04,480 --> 00:59:07,160
Speaker 1: the house and has been left alone in the house

1106
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:09,400
Speaker 1: while she is at the store.

1107
00:59:09,760 --> 00:59:12,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so here's the famous scene that we alluded

1108
00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:15,720
Speaker 2: to earlier, the cat attack scene. I think, within the

1109
00:59:15,760 --> 00:59:17,760
Speaker 2: context of the rest of the story, the scene is

1110
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 2: really frightening. The effects are very good, and the horror

1111
00:59:20,640 --> 00:59:25,000
Speaker 2: plays directly on the themes because the attack is not

1112
00:59:25,120 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 2: coming from something that was ever originally threatening to Scott.

1113
00:59:29,240 --> 00:59:33,480
Speaker 2: The attack is from something that was previously harmless but

1114
00:59:33,600 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 2: has become threatening because the relationship between them has changed.

1115
00:59:39,240 --> 00:59:41,640
Speaker 2: And it kind of reminds me of the other scene

1116
00:59:41,680 --> 00:59:44,680
Speaker 2: where they talk about now seeing other people as giants.

1117
00:59:45,400 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 2: But of course, at least like the giants can be

1118
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:51,520
Speaker 2: spoken to and reasoned with, like the cat cannot be

1119
00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:54,040
Speaker 2: spoken to or reason with. It just no longer even

1120
00:59:54,080 --> 00:59:57,560
Speaker 2: recognizes Scott as human. He's just a small, prey animal

1121
00:59:57,680 --> 00:59:58,200
Speaker 2: like any other.

1122
00:59:58,920 --> 01:00:02,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like the relationship shifted that far that, Yeah, you're

1123
01:00:02,440 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 1: not who or what you were before. Now you are

1124
01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:07,240
Speaker 1: merely prey. And this, of course, this is exactly how

1125
01:00:07,240 --> 01:00:09,240
Speaker 1: it would go down with a cat. I think we

1126
01:00:09,320 --> 01:00:13,040
Speaker 1: all realize this, even those of us who own cats

1127
01:00:13,080 --> 01:00:17,640
Speaker 1: and love cats. If you were this small, your cat

1128
01:00:17,680 --> 01:00:20,480
Speaker 1: would destroy you. There's just no way around it. It's like,

1129
01:00:20,520 --> 01:00:23,680
Speaker 1: that's what your cat is programmed to do. That's what

1130
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:26,720
Speaker 1: your cat has evolved to do. And you have, if

1131
01:00:26,760 --> 01:00:30,080
Speaker 1: you are unfortunate enough to magically shrink this small well,

1132
01:00:30,120 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 1: you have fallen in line with its central hunting programming.

1133
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:36,600
Speaker 2: In this scene we get really the first hint of

1134
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:38,960
Speaker 2: something that will take up most of the rest of

1135
01:00:39,000 --> 01:00:44,680
Speaker 2: the movie, which is interesting problem solving relationships between Scott

1136
01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:46,960
Speaker 2: and his environment. So when the cat is attacking him,

1137
01:00:46,960 --> 01:00:49,640
Speaker 2: he really has no method of self defense, but he

1138
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:52,480
Speaker 2: comes up with something clever. He pulls down on the

1139
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:56,080
Speaker 2: cord of a lamp that's on a table above and

1140
01:00:56,400 --> 01:00:58,400
Speaker 2: manages to get it to tip over off of the

1141
01:00:58,440 --> 01:01:01,000
Speaker 2: side table and fall down. Frightens the cat away.

1142
01:01:01,560 --> 01:01:04,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he basically just runs for it. Now, the

1143
01:01:04,640 --> 01:01:06,960
Speaker 1: sequence is frightening. I love the image where the cat

1144
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:09,560
Speaker 1: is creeping up on the dollhouse originally and then reaches

1145
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:14,400
Speaker 1: its paw through and does the bat thing with the claw. Now,

1146
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:17,520
Speaker 1: I don't want to criticize Orangey's performance and the way

1147
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:21,200
Speaker 1: that Orangey chose to to perform this role, and you

1148
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:23,880
Speaker 1: know the way that Jack Arnold directed it and the

1149
01:01:23,880 --> 01:01:26,440
Speaker 1: way Mathison wrote it. But I did find that the

1150
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:29,880
Speaker 1: cat is is hissing and snarling too much. I think

1151
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:32,200
Speaker 1: any of us that have been around cats, hunting or

1152
01:01:32,200 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 1: pretending to hunt, it's a very It's mostly a silent fair.

1153
01:01:35,800 --> 01:01:38,240
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes you encounter that that weird chirping they

1154
01:01:38,240 --> 01:01:40,880
Speaker 1: do it, birds outside the window, that sort of thing.

1155
01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:43,280
Speaker 1: But when the hunt is on, there's a silence to

1156
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:46,080
Speaker 1: the cat. You're gonna have more of that. There's gonna

1157
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:48,040
Speaker 1: be that kind of butt wiggling thing they do where

1158
01:01:48,040 --> 01:01:50,360
Speaker 1: they're getting ready to spring, and we don't see any

1159
01:01:50,400 --> 01:01:56,640
Speaker 1: of that from this performance by Orangey. It still doesn't

1160
01:01:56,640 --> 01:01:58,360
Speaker 1: take away from the sequences but at all. But I

1161
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:00,640
Speaker 1: was I was thinking about as I was watching it, like, Okay,

1162
01:02:00,640 --> 01:02:04,640
Speaker 1: it really would go like this. And also he takes

1163
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:07,520
Speaker 1: a couple of swipes from Butch the cat in the

1164
01:02:07,560 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 1: sequence like Butch like blood's him up a good bit.

1165
01:02:11,440 --> 01:02:13,520
Speaker 1: In reality, I think if you're that small, I don't

1166
01:02:13,520 --> 01:02:16,320
Speaker 1: think you would have survived this encounter at all, no

1167
01:02:16,360 --> 01:02:19,080
Speaker 1: matter how clever you were, there's just no denying just

1168
01:02:19,240 --> 01:02:23,280
Speaker 1: how brutal a cat that size relative of your own

1169
01:02:23,320 --> 01:02:25,920
Speaker 1: body would be. You would just be torn apart. You

1170
01:02:26,720 --> 01:02:28,760
Speaker 1: might be played with a little bit, but you would

1171
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:29,320
Speaker 1: be doomed.

1172
01:02:30,040 --> 01:02:33,200
Speaker 2: I totally agree. Yeah, the predator prey relationship I think

1173
01:02:33,360 --> 01:02:37,200
Speaker 2: doesn't play out. Something's weird here, though. You could say

1174
01:02:37,280 --> 01:02:41,120
Speaker 2: maybe the cat's normal hunting instincts are a little bit

1175
01:02:41,160 --> 01:02:45,320
Speaker 2: disrupted because he is somewhat different than I don't know.

1176
01:02:45,400 --> 01:02:49,120
Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know something's going on. I can think

1177
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:53,560
Speaker 2: of one memory of a cat just hissing at something

1178
01:02:53,680 --> 01:02:56,520
Speaker 2: much smaller than it, and it was a cat. It

1179
01:02:56,600 --> 01:02:59,400
Speaker 2: was a cat hissing at a huge black spider.

1180
01:03:00,080 --> 01:03:03,000
Speaker 1: Hmm, okay, all right, well maybe maybe it does work.

1181
01:03:03,560 --> 01:03:04,959
Speaker 1: I mean cats, cats are weird.

1182
01:03:05,040 --> 01:03:07,760
Speaker 2: So I mean the cat did not did not hunt

1183
01:03:07,760 --> 01:03:11,240
Speaker 2: the spider. It was clearly threatened by it. I guess

1184
01:03:11,280 --> 01:03:13,760
Speaker 2: that's also going to connect to something in the movie

1185
01:03:13,800 --> 01:03:17,960
Speaker 2: in a minute here. So anyway, Scott escapes to the basement.

1186
01:03:18,040 --> 01:03:21,720
Speaker 2: He goes down through the basement door and ends up

1187
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:25,600
Speaker 2: falling a long way into a laundry hamper. And then

1188
01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:28,800
Speaker 2: Louise gets home. She finds Butch the cat with like

1189
01:03:28,880 --> 01:03:33,760
Speaker 2: a torn piece of Scott's clothing that has blood on it,

1190
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:37,360
Speaker 2: and licking blood from his paws, and so she assumes

1191
01:03:37,480 --> 01:03:39,800
Speaker 2: that Butch the cat has eaten her husband.

1192
01:03:40,120 --> 01:03:42,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's only one way to interpret the evidence.

1193
01:03:52,200 --> 01:03:55,160
Speaker 2: So now Scott is trapped in the basement and Louise

1194
01:03:55,200 --> 01:03:58,920
Speaker 2: doesn't know he's there. She thinks he's dead, and he

1195
01:03:58,920 --> 01:04:01,120
Speaker 2: he has to try to find his way out of

1196
01:04:01,160 --> 01:04:04,440
Speaker 2: the laundry hamper, He has to navigate the landscape of

1197
01:04:04,560 --> 01:04:07,560
Speaker 2: giant objects. He has to try to find a way

1198
01:04:07,600 --> 01:04:10,840
Speaker 2: to contact Louise and make her realize he's still alive,

1199
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:13,040
Speaker 2: but he can't make it up the stairs and she

1200
01:04:13,160 --> 01:04:16,680
Speaker 2: can't hear him call out. So he's just sort of

1201
01:04:16,720 --> 01:04:20,080
Speaker 2: like stuck here trying to deal with this the landscape

1202
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:23,520
Speaker 2: of the basement of the house and once again to

1203
01:04:23,600 --> 01:04:27,200
Speaker 2: hear the effects and the sets are marvelous. They're excellent

1204
01:04:27,200 --> 01:04:31,520
Speaker 2: at making you feel the change in scale as genuine horror,

1205
01:04:31,560 --> 01:04:34,680
Speaker 2: and a horror that has great verisimilit to it. I

1206
01:04:35,000 --> 01:04:37,480
Speaker 2: had this sense like, this is what it would be

1207
01:04:37,680 --> 01:04:40,880
Speaker 2: like to be several inches tall trapped in the basement

1208
01:04:40,920 --> 01:04:42,480
Speaker 2: of a mid century American house.

1209
01:04:43,400 --> 01:04:45,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, again, the prop work the sets are just

1210
01:04:45,680 --> 01:04:49,480
Speaker 1: amazing in this, in this whole sequence and also to

1211
01:04:49,520 --> 01:04:52,920
Speaker 1: black and white. Black and white, the film's you know,

1212
01:04:53,400 --> 01:04:57,480
Speaker 1: nicely shot throughout, but these basement sequences, especially take they

1213
01:04:57,560 --> 01:05:01,280
Speaker 1: end up taking on this just like rich you know,

1214
01:05:02,120 --> 01:05:05,600
Speaker 1: the Blacks are just so much darker and deeper in

1215
01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:09,280
Speaker 1: these sequences. I thought it's just excellent. It's almost it's

1216
01:05:09,280 --> 01:05:11,120
Speaker 1: almost like German expressionism or something.

1217
01:05:12,320 --> 01:05:15,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. In the narration, he says, the cellars stretched before

1218
01:05:15,520 --> 01:05:20,080
Speaker 2: me like some vast primeval plane, empty of life, littered

1219
01:05:20,120 --> 01:05:23,600
Speaker 2: with the relics of a vanished race, no desert island,

1220
01:05:23,640 --> 01:05:28,000
Speaker 2: castaway ever faced, so bleak a prospect. But he's in

1221
01:05:28,080 --> 01:05:28,560
Speaker 2: his house.

1222
01:05:29,400 --> 01:05:31,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but it's like he's and this works in

1223
01:05:31,960 --> 01:05:34,080
Speaker 1: so many levels. You know, he's fallen into the underworld.

1224
01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:35,920
Speaker 1: He's fallen into the place you've put things that have

1225
01:05:36,000 --> 01:05:39,760
Speaker 1: forgotten about, where where things that you forget about when

1226
01:05:39,760 --> 01:05:42,760
Speaker 1: they're working are found, like the hot water heater and

1227
01:05:42,800 --> 01:05:45,960
Speaker 1: so forth. I also found it interest I read that

1228
01:05:46,680 --> 01:05:50,520
Speaker 1: Matheson wrote the novel in large part in a cellar

1229
01:05:50,560 --> 01:05:52,960
Speaker 1: in a basement and would comment that, you know, like

1230
01:05:53,000 --> 01:05:54,919
Speaker 1: he was he was writing it, he would just look

1231
01:05:55,000 --> 01:05:57,160
Speaker 1: up and look around him to sort of take in

1232
01:05:57,320 --> 01:06:01,160
Speaker 1: the scene as he was right, and that he thought

1233
01:06:01,160 --> 01:06:03,720
Speaker 1: that the movie matched it perfectly.

1234
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:06,440
Speaker 2: And there's brilliant simplicity to a lot of what follows.

1235
01:06:06,480 --> 01:06:08,200
Speaker 2: I mean, for most of the rest of the movie

1236
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:12,240
Speaker 2: is watching our hero problem solving with ordinary objects at

1237
01:06:12,240 --> 01:06:16,360
Speaker 2: an alien scale. So he's hungry and he has to

1238
01:06:16,360 --> 01:06:19,960
Speaker 2: search for food, and there he looks across and he

1239
01:06:20,080 --> 01:06:23,880
Speaker 2: sees something. He realizes it is a mouse trap, and

1240
01:06:23,920 --> 01:06:26,960
Speaker 2: it does have cheese on it. But it's a mouse trap.

1241
01:06:27,600 --> 01:06:29,480
Speaker 1: Oh my god, and you know exactly what's gonna happen.

1242
01:06:29,520 --> 01:06:31,280
Speaker 1: He's going to try and rob that mouse trap, and

1243
01:06:31,320 --> 01:06:33,439
Speaker 1: he's problem solving with the mouse trap, but he's also

1244
01:06:33,480 --> 01:06:37,320
Speaker 1: really hungry and desperate, and it's the same sort of

1245
01:06:37,360 --> 01:06:39,400
Speaker 1: gimmick like this has probably played out more or less

1246
01:06:39,400 --> 01:06:41,640
Speaker 1: than so many cartoons over the days. Like I felt,

1247
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:43,760
Speaker 1: this is a basic Tom and Jerry kind of a bit,

1248
01:06:44,280 --> 01:06:48,240
Speaker 1: but it really is scary to watch, Like I actually

1249
01:06:48,280 --> 01:06:50,560
Speaker 1: cried out a few times as he's like fumbling with

1250
01:06:50,600 --> 01:06:56,080
Speaker 1: the cheese and nearly making the trap go off. It's great.

1251
01:06:56,560 --> 01:07:00,840
Speaker 2: So eventually Scott realizes that there is some cake that

1252
01:07:00,920 --> 01:07:04,760
Speaker 2: Louis left on a plate on a shelf, and if

1253
01:07:04,760 --> 01:07:06,520
Speaker 2: he could just get to that, he could eat that,

1254
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:09,560
Speaker 2: but it's way way high up, so it's like a

1255
01:07:09,600 --> 01:07:13,560
Speaker 2: mountain climb basically to get to it, and we see

1256
01:07:13,600 --> 01:07:15,320
Speaker 2: all kinds of things happen. I don't want to spoil

1257
01:07:15,400 --> 01:07:18,920
Speaker 2: every little detail, but there are you know, there's discovery

1258
01:07:18,920 --> 01:07:21,120
Speaker 2: of a sewing kit and a pin cushion and some

1259
01:07:21,240 --> 01:07:24,120
Speaker 2: pins that can be manipulated to form weapons, and a

1260
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:30,800
Speaker 2: kind of grappling hook. There is there is a sequence

1261
01:07:30,800 --> 01:07:33,360
Speaker 2: where he has to cross a gap in a wooden crate,

1262
01:07:33,560 --> 01:07:37,640
Speaker 2: jumping from one thing to another. And I did want

1263
01:07:37,680 --> 01:07:41,919
Speaker 2: to do one, okay, brief monster science digression that will

1264
01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:44,439
Speaker 2: be familiar to people who have been listening to Weird

1265
01:07:44,480 --> 01:07:46,760
Speaker 2: House Cinema for a while, because I talked about the

1266
01:07:46,760 --> 01:07:51,120
Speaker 2: same source in our episode on robot jocks. But pedantic

1267
01:07:51,200 --> 01:07:54,360
Speaker 2: science note, which, by the way, should not take away

1268
01:07:54,360 --> 01:07:56,600
Speaker 2: from your enjoyment of this part of the movie, because

1269
01:07:56,640 --> 01:07:59,880
Speaker 2: if you know, like you shouldn't get hung up on

1270
01:08:00,080 --> 01:08:04,240
Speaker 2: physical implausibility if it works in the story. But I

1271
01:08:04,240 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 2: think the reality is if you were only a couple

1272
01:08:06,680 --> 01:08:10,680
Speaker 2: of inches tall, falling a great distance would be far

1273
01:08:10,960 --> 01:08:12,960
Speaker 2: less of a concern to you, way less of a

1274
01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:17,000
Speaker 2: threatening prospect than it is to people with bodies of

1275
01:08:17,439 --> 01:08:21,320
Speaker 2: our absolute size. And this is something that is discussed

1276
01:08:21,360 --> 01:08:26,120
Speaker 2: in the magnificent JBS Haldane essay from nineteen twenty six

1277
01:08:26,240 --> 01:08:29,840
Speaker 2: called on being the Right Size, And this is the

1278
01:08:30,000 --> 01:08:35,720
Speaker 2: essay that explains how essentially there are different regimes of

1279
01:08:35,720 --> 01:08:40,440
Speaker 2: physical forces that present threats and problems to an organism

1280
01:08:40,880 --> 01:08:45,919
Speaker 2: depending on what its absolute size is. So for tiny animals,

1281
01:08:45,960 --> 01:08:48,400
Speaker 2: there actually is not that much of a threat due

1282
01:08:48,400 --> 01:08:51,960
Speaker 2: to gravity. Like you know, falling a great distance is

1283
01:08:52,000 --> 01:08:54,840
Speaker 2: not going to harm a very small animal very much.

1284
01:08:55,320 --> 01:08:58,519
Speaker 2: But there is a much greater threat to small animals

1285
01:08:58,680 --> 01:09:02,479
Speaker 2: from the surface echin of water, which is a theme

1286
01:09:02,560 --> 01:09:05,439
Speaker 2: that I would like to see explored to more horrific

1287
01:09:05,560 --> 01:09:06,799
Speaker 2: ends and shrink movies.

1288
01:09:07,200 --> 01:09:09,320
Speaker 1: I seem to recall it's been a long time since

1289
01:09:09,360 --> 01:09:10,880
Speaker 1: I watched Tony I Shruck the Kids, but I think

1290
01:09:10,880 --> 01:09:13,679
Speaker 1: there's a scene in that where there are water droplet's

1291
01:09:13,720 --> 01:09:16,720
Speaker 1: following falling from the from the sky, maybe like a

1292
01:09:16,760 --> 01:09:19,240
Speaker 1: sprinkler system, and they're following light like bombs.

1293
01:09:19,520 --> 01:09:19,800
Speaker 3: Hmm.

1294
01:09:19,960 --> 01:09:23,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, So to a certain extent that it gets into

1295
01:09:23,520 --> 01:09:24,400
Speaker 1: this topic.

1296
01:09:24,439 --> 01:09:29,280
Speaker 2: Well to explain, Okay, so Haldane gives this you know

1297
01:09:29,320 --> 01:09:32,080
Speaker 2: whole thing. The famous line is he's talking about animals

1298
01:09:32,120 --> 01:09:35,240
Speaker 2: falling down a thousand yard mind shaft. He says, you know,

1299
01:09:35,280 --> 01:09:38,160
Speaker 2: a tiny mouse drops down a thousand yard mind shaft,

1300
01:09:38,200 --> 01:09:40,200
Speaker 2: and it might get a shock when it's the bottom,

1301
01:09:40,200 --> 01:09:43,200
Speaker 2: but if the if the bottom is relatively soft, it

1302
01:09:43,240 --> 01:09:45,639
Speaker 2: will probably be okay. But then he says, a rat

1303
01:09:45,840 --> 01:09:50,600
Speaker 2: is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes. For

1304
01:09:50,960 --> 01:09:54,280
Speaker 2: the resistance presented to movement by the air is proportional

1305
01:09:54,360 --> 01:09:58,639
Speaker 2: to the surface of the moving object. Divide in animals length, breadth,

1306
01:09:58,680 --> 01:10:01,720
Speaker 2: and height each by ten. Its weight is reduced to

1307
01:10:01,800 --> 01:10:05,360
Speaker 2: a thousandth but its surface only one hundredth. So the

1308
01:10:05,439 --> 01:10:08,360
Speaker 2: resistance to falling in the case of a small animal

1309
01:10:08,600 --> 01:10:12,400
Speaker 2: is relatively ten times greater than the driving force. So

1310
01:10:12,439 --> 01:10:15,360
Speaker 2: that's why being small, falling is less of a big deal.

1311
01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:19,719
Speaker 2: But he goes on. An insect therefore is not afraid

1312
01:10:19,760 --> 01:10:22,960
Speaker 2: of gravity. It can fall without danger, and can cling

1313
01:10:23,040 --> 01:10:25,920
Speaker 2: to the ceiling with remarkably little trouble. It can go

1314
01:10:26,040 --> 01:10:29,000
Speaker 2: in for elegant and fantastic forms of support like that

1315
01:10:29,120 --> 01:10:32,080
Speaker 2: of the daddy long legs. But there is a force

1316
01:10:32,120 --> 01:10:35,200
Speaker 2: which is as formidable to an insect as gravitation to

1317
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:39,280
Speaker 2: a mammal. This is surface tension. A man coming out

1318
01:10:39,320 --> 01:10:41,400
Speaker 2: of a bath carries with him a film of water

1319
01:10:41,520 --> 01:10:45,479
Speaker 2: about one fiftieth of an inch in thickness. This weighs

1320
01:10:45,560 --> 01:10:49,000
Speaker 2: roughly a pound. A wet mouse has to carry about

1321
01:10:49,080 --> 01:10:52,760
Speaker 2: its own weight of water. A wet fly has to

1322
01:10:52,840 --> 01:10:56,759
Speaker 2: lift many times its own weight, and as everyone knows,

1323
01:10:56,880 --> 01:11:00,000
Speaker 2: a fly, once wetted by water or any other life,

1324
01:11:00,439 --> 01:11:04,240
Speaker 2: is in a very serious position. Indeed, an insect going

1325
01:11:04,280 --> 01:11:06,720
Speaker 2: for a drink is in a great danger as a

1326
01:11:06,720 --> 01:11:09,799
Speaker 2: man leaning out over a precipice in search of food.

1327
01:11:10,280 --> 01:11:12,759
Speaker 2: If it once falls into the grip of the surface

1328
01:11:12,800 --> 01:11:15,639
Speaker 2: tension of the water, that is to say, gets wet,

1329
01:11:15,960 --> 01:11:19,240
Speaker 2: it is likely to remain so until it drowns. A

1330
01:11:19,320 --> 01:11:23,120
Speaker 2: few insects, such as water beetles, contrive to be unwettable.

1331
01:11:23,479 --> 01:11:26,479
Speaker 2: The majority keep well away from their drink by means

1332
01:11:26,479 --> 01:11:31,320
Speaker 2: of a long prebosis. And so this made me think

1333
01:11:31,560 --> 01:11:34,840
Speaker 2: more about a possibly more horrifying take on the water

1334
01:11:34,920 --> 01:11:37,400
Speaker 2: heater scene that will follow in the movie.

1335
01:11:38,640 --> 01:11:38,880
Speaker 4: Now.

1336
01:11:39,120 --> 01:11:41,559
Speaker 2: I believe this came up in our episode on robot Jocks,

1337
01:11:41,560 --> 01:11:43,760
Speaker 2: because we were talking about how, you know, if you

1338
01:11:43,800 --> 01:11:46,960
Speaker 2: had real hundred foot tall robots actually slugging it out,

1339
01:11:47,000 --> 01:11:49,640
Speaker 2: they would really really need to worry about gravity. I

1340
01:11:49,680 --> 01:11:52,360
Speaker 2: think basically any fall would destroy them.

1341
01:11:52,680 --> 01:11:55,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the idea of having a bipedal one is

1342
01:11:55,080 --> 01:11:57,520
Speaker 1: just even crazier because it just makes it more susceptible

1343
01:11:57,560 --> 01:11:58,000
Speaker 1: to falls.

1344
01:11:58,640 --> 01:12:01,000
Speaker 2: So if you're out there, think about making your own

1345
01:12:01,040 --> 01:12:04,040
Speaker 2: shrink movie. I want to see the truly horrific take

1346
01:12:04,080 --> 01:12:06,760
Speaker 2: on the surface tension of water. That is that is

1347
01:12:06,760 --> 01:12:10,759
Speaker 2: implied by Haldane's essay here that any drop of water

1348
01:12:10,840 --> 01:12:12,400
Speaker 2: is almost kind of like the blob.

1349
01:12:12,720 --> 01:12:16,400
Speaker 1: It's just yeah, I only saw the first of these

1350
01:12:16,439 --> 01:12:18,200
Speaker 1: ant man movies that came out, so I don't know

1351
01:12:18,200 --> 01:12:20,000
Speaker 1: if they ever get into any of that. And it

1352
01:12:20,000 --> 01:12:22,720
Speaker 1: seems like they're at least more recently gotten more down

1353
01:12:22,720 --> 01:12:26,320
Speaker 1: to like quantum stuff where you're not even they just

1354
01:12:26,360 --> 01:12:28,400
Speaker 1: turn it into like alien worlds and so forth.

1355
01:12:29,040 --> 01:12:31,519
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I've never seen any of those.

1356
01:12:32,720 --> 01:12:34,559
Speaker 1: The first one was fun, remember the first one.

1357
01:12:34,560 --> 01:12:37,080
Speaker 2: Was fun anyway. Sorry, But to come back to the

1358
01:12:37,120 --> 01:12:41,400
Speaker 2: plot of the Incredible Shrinking Man. So Scott finally makes

1359
01:12:41,400 --> 01:12:43,439
Speaker 2: his way up to the cake. He achieves some cake,

1360
01:12:43,479 --> 01:12:46,000
Speaker 2: but it is stale once he gets to it, and

1361
01:12:46,120 --> 01:12:49,080
Speaker 2: it's sitting right in the shadow of a giant spider

1362
01:12:49,120 --> 01:12:52,240
Speaker 2: web and there's a part where he goes up to

1363
01:12:52,320 --> 01:12:54,840
Speaker 2: sort of a vent grate and looks out through it

1364
01:12:54,960 --> 01:12:57,200
Speaker 2: to see a bird out in the yard, which, of course,

1365
01:12:57,240 --> 01:12:59,080
Speaker 2: to him at this point would be like a dinosaur,

1366
01:12:59,240 --> 01:13:02,479
Speaker 2: like a giant t rex. And he looks out at

1367
01:13:02,560 --> 01:13:05,280
Speaker 2: the world outside and he becomes sort of like he

1368
01:13:05,360 --> 01:13:08,920
Speaker 2: starts laughing, but he's also angry, and he says, in

1369
01:13:09,040 --> 01:13:11,639
Speaker 2: narration my prison almost as far as I could see

1370
01:13:11,680 --> 01:13:15,439
Speaker 2: a gray, friendless area of space and time, and I

1371
01:13:15,520 --> 01:13:18,599
Speaker 2: resolved that as man had dominated the world of the sun,

1372
01:13:19,120 --> 01:13:22,639
Speaker 2: so I would dominate my world. So he sets about.

1373
01:13:22,680 --> 01:13:25,439
Speaker 2: He sets up a shelter for himself in a match box. Oh,

1374
01:13:25,520 --> 01:13:27,160
Speaker 2: and he has to retreat to it in a in

1375
01:13:27,200 --> 01:13:28,799
Speaker 2: a terrifying spider attack.

1376
01:13:29,640 --> 01:13:32,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, the spider that lives in the web at the

1377
01:13:32,120 --> 01:13:34,960
Speaker 1: top mix of the cake is clearly played by a tarantula,

1378
01:13:35,479 --> 01:13:37,800
Speaker 1: which of course would not be living in that web,

1379
01:13:37,920 --> 01:13:40,120
Speaker 1: or I'm not even sure it would be in this basement.

1380
01:13:40,600 --> 01:13:43,600
Speaker 1: Who knows, I supposedly got there. At any rate, it

1381
01:13:43,680 --> 01:13:47,280
Speaker 1: still looks great, great use of a tarantula, a live

1382
01:13:47,360 --> 01:13:50,439
Speaker 1: tarantula in this and of course it fits because it's

1383
01:13:50,479 --> 01:13:52,160
Speaker 1: the director of Tarantula.

1384
01:13:52,080 --> 01:13:54,920
Speaker 2: Do you think he used the same tarantula guy from

1385
01:13:55,720 --> 01:13:58,040
Speaker 2: whoever provided Tarantula's for Tarantula.

1386
01:13:58,439 --> 01:14:00,920
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe, but I think he did play

1387
01:14:01,040 --> 01:14:03,840
Speaker 1: on some of his experienced shooting tarantulists because they had

1388
01:14:03,880 --> 01:14:06,479
Speaker 1: certain there's certain things they learned about, like you know

1389
01:14:06,520 --> 01:14:08,800
Speaker 1: what variety of tarantula you need. You know, like you

1390
01:14:08,840 --> 01:14:12,680
Speaker 1: need an animal that's big enough and moves appropriately that

1391
01:14:12,720 --> 01:14:15,920
Speaker 1: you can then create the special effects around it. There

1392
01:14:15,920 --> 01:14:19,040
Speaker 1: are a lot of kind of hokey scenes out there

1393
01:14:19,080 --> 01:14:24,559
Speaker 1: in cinema where someone fights a quote unquote giant animal

1394
01:14:24,640 --> 01:14:28,000
Speaker 1: and force perspective and so forth and split screen. But

1395
01:14:28,160 --> 01:14:30,920
Speaker 1: this one's really good. Like this one, they put a

1396
01:14:30,960 --> 01:14:33,559
Speaker 1: lot of effort into making it look look look great.

1397
01:14:34,080 --> 01:14:36,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so there are some major struggles. In the

1398
01:14:36,840 --> 01:14:39,120
Speaker 2: final stretch of the film, he has to do battle

1399
01:14:39,200 --> 01:14:42,960
Speaker 2: with the spider in order to survive. Before that, there's

1400
01:14:43,000 --> 01:14:46,040
Speaker 2: a scene of a great flood that comes when the

1401
01:14:46,400 --> 01:14:51,360
Speaker 2: water heater bursts, and in the scene, you know, Louise

1402
01:14:51,439 --> 01:14:54,120
Speaker 2: and Charlie they finally do come down to the cellar,

1403
01:14:54,160 --> 01:14:56,160
Speaker 2: which is what he'd been waiting on. He was like, Okay,

1404
01:14:56,160 --> 01:14:57,800
Speaker 2: when they're here, I can call out to them and

1405
01:14:57,840 --> 01:15:00,680
Speaker 2: they'll and they'll get me, but he's too He's too

1406
01:15:00,680 --> 01:15:03,080
Speaker 2: small for them to hear or to see.

1407
01:15:03,880 --> 01:15:07,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like he's really passed out of their lives

1408
01:15:07,360 --> 01:15:09,880
Speaker 1: and has to realize it at this point.

1409
01:15:10,720 --> 01:15:13,280
Speaker 2: And there is a scary scene with the flood. It

1410
01:15:13,320 --> 01:15:16,960
Speaker 2: doesn't quite do the weird scale surface tension thing, but

1411
01:15:17,000 --> 01:15:19,160
Speaker 2: he does almost get washed down a drain, which is

1412
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:22,800
Speaker 2: a horrifying prospect. But after surviving the flood, there's a

1413
01:15:22,880 --> 01:15:25,160
Speaker 2: change where Scott seems to gain a new kind of

1414
01:15:25,200 --> 01:15:30,120
Speaker 2: clarity and strength. He says, quote, a strange calm possessed me.

1415
01:15:30,520 --> 01:15:32,960
Speaker 2: I thought more clearly than I ever had before, as

1416
01:15:33,000 --> 01:15:36,200
Speaker 2: if my mind were bathed in a brilliant light. I

1417
01:15:36,280 --> 01:15:39,200
Speaker 2: recognize that part of my illness was rooted in hunger,

1418
01:15:39,640 --> 01:15:42,280
Speaker 2: and I remembered the food on the shelf, the cake

1419
01:15:42,439 --> 01:15:45,880
Speaker 2: threaded with spider web. I no longer felt hatred for

1420
01:15:45,920 --> 01:15:49,880
Speaker 2: the spider. Like myself, it struggled blindly for the means

1421
01:15:49,920 --> 01:15:54,439
Speaker 2: to survive. And so there is ultimately a confrontation with

1422
01:15:54,520 --> 01:15:59,320
Speaker 2: the spider that involves some clever use of tools, again

1423
01:15:59,360 --> 01:16:03,360
Speaker 2: at the alien scale, and then there there is in

1424
01:16:03,439 --> 01:16:07,960
Speaker 2: the end a kind of soliloquy like he he comes

1425
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:12,959
Speaker 2: to realize that he somehow in like in passing beyond

1426
01:16:13,120 --> 01:16:16,479
Speaker 2: the realm where humans can even recognize him and help

1427
01:16:16,520 --> 01:16:19,519
Speaker 2: him anymore, Like the fact that Luis couldn't even hear

1428
01:16:19,600 --> 01:16:23,240
Speaker 2: him calling out. It seems that somehow gives him a

1429
01:16:23,280 --> 01:16:27,560
Speaker 2: new sense of meaning in that, like by being definitely

1430
01:16:27,680 --> 01:16:32,840
Speaker 2: wholly denied any prospect of salvation from the world he knew.

1431
01:16:33,960 --> 01:16:37,000
Speaker 2: It's like he can now fully commit to existence on

1432
01:16:37,080 --> 01:16:39,840
Speaker 2: whatever new terms come to him, If that makes any sense.

1433
01:16:40,280 --> 01:16:43,679
Speaker 1: No, Yeah, absolutely, Like he's he has completely passed out

1434
01:16:43,720 --> 01:16:47,559
Speaker 1: of their world now, like he is. They thought him dead,

1435
01:16:47,880 --> 01:16:49,680
Speaker 1: they believed him to be dead, and now he kind

1436
01:16:49,680 --> 01:16:53,800
Speaker 1: of realizes that that that part of his life is over. Yeah,

1437
01:16:53,800 --> 01:16:55,840
Speaker 1: and whatever he is now, it is just it's on

1438
01:16:55,880 --> 01:16:59,080
Speaker 1: a different scale. It's a different world, but with different possibilities.

1439
01:16:59,600 --> 01:17:02,040
Speaker 2: I'm not to read the entire thing in full, but yeah.

1440
01:17:02,040 --> 01:17:04,280
Speaker 2: He ends with giving this kind of speech where he says,

1441
01:17:04,280 --> 01:17:08,320
Speaker 2: I was continuing to shrink to become what the infinitesimal?

1442
01:17:08,840 --> 01:17:11,680
Speaker 2: What was I still a human being? Or was I

1443
01:17:11,800 --> 01:17:15,240
Speaker 2: the man of the future? He says, the unbelievably small

1444
01:17:15,280 --> 01:17:19,080
Speaker 2: and unbelievably vast eventually meet like the closing of a

1445
01:17:19,120 --> 01:17:22,840
Speaker 2: gigantic circle, and so he comes to feel that by

1446
01:17:22,920 --> 01:17:26,280
Speaker 2: shrinking down forever and ever and becoming ever smaller, he's

1447
01:17:26,320 --> 01:17:28,280
Speaker 2: also somehow becoming infinite.

1448
01:17:28,760 --> 01:17:32,160
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was not expecting such a transcendent and kind

1449
01:17:32,200 --> 01:17:36,200
Speaker 1: of psychedelic ending to this picture, but it really almost

1450
01:17:36,200 --> 01:17:39,120
Speaker 1: brought to mind Phase four, which has a more overtly

1451
01:17:39,160 --> 01:17:45,000
Speaker 1: psychedelic ending and futuristic far seeing ending. And this is

1452
01:17:45,040 --> 01:17:49,960
Speaker 1: a little different, but also feels that grand feels that expansive,

1453
01:17:50,000 --> 01:17:51,599
Speaker 1: which again ties me to this idea that he has

1454
01:17:51,640 --> 01:17:54,519
Speaker 1: become so small that he has become infinite or is

1455
01:17:54,520 --> 01:17:55,560
Speaker 1: becoming infinite.

1456
01:17:55,680 --> 01:17:58,240
Speaker 2: It has this in common Phase four, that both are

1457
01:17:58,240 --> 01:18:04,120
Speaker 2: like an ending where the protagonists will survive in a sense,

1458
01:18:04,200 --> 01:18:06,920
Speaker 2: but they are becoming so changed that they can no

1459
01:18:06,960 --> 01:18:09,680
Speaker 2: longer describe their experience in language.

1460
01:18:10,360 --> 01:18:15,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. One of the extras on the Criterion

1461
01:18:15,240 --> 01:18:18,680
Speaker 1: collection discs, they pointed out that in the novel, he

1462
01:18:18,800 --> 01:18:21,439
Speaker 1: basically it's a little more of a downer and maybe

1463
01:18:21,439 --> 01:18:23,599
Speaker 1: it's something that works better on the page where he's

1464
01:18:23,600 --> 01:18:27,360
Speaker 1: basically like he becomes nothing. I have become nothing at

1465
01:18:27,360 --> 01:18:30,759
Speaker 1: the end, and they wanted to do something more upbeat

1466
01:18:31,040 --> 01:18:35,280
Speaker 1: for the movie. The studio of course submitted an idea.

1467
01:18:35,320 --> 01:18:37,439
Speaker 1: They said, what if he gets bigger again and is

1468
01:18:37,439 --> 01:18:43,719
Speaker 1: reunited with his wife and of course the Jacks conquers

1469
01:18:43,760 --> 01:18:47,800
Speaker 1: all and yeah, and of course Jack Arma was like, no,

1470
01:18:47,840 --> 01:18:53,280
Speaker 1: we're not doing that. So apparently this ending is like

1471
01:18:53,320 --> 01:18:57,439
Speaker 1: the whole you know, the small meets big and the

1472
01:18:57,439 --> 01:18:59,960
Speaker 1: closing of the circle and the infinite, like this was

1473
01:19:00,160 --> 01:19:02,080
Speaker 1: what Jack Arnold brought to it for the most part,

1474
01:19:02,120 --> 01:19:03,519
Speaker 1: Like this was mostly his idea.

1475
01:19:04,840 --> 01:19:08,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it has interesting references to God and stuff

1476
01:19:08,479 --> 01:19:12,000
Speaker 2: like that that I mean that that kind of came

1477
01:19:12,000 --> 01:19:14,880
Speaker 2: out of nowhere because there were previously no religious themes

1478
01:19:14,880 --> 01:19:18,240
Speaker 2: at all in the movie. But it also I feel like,

1479
01:19:18,320 --> 01:19:20,920
Speaker 2: kind of works. The only real downside I would say

1480
01:19:20,920 --> 01:19:23,479
Speaker 2: to the ending, which overall is great, is again the

1481
01:19:23,880 --> 01:19:28,440
Speaker 2: delivery is a little i don't know, a little speechy,

1482
01:19:29,760 --> 01:19:31,599
Speaker 2: like I feel like it could have been the narration

1483
01:19:31,680 --> 01:19:33,960
Speaker 2: could have been a little more subtle. But the writing

1484
01:19:34,040 --> 01:19:34,599
Speaker 2: is excellent.

1485
01:19:35,120 --> 01:19:38,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we do see some visuals of the arms

1486
01:19:38,600 --> 01:19:41,080
Speaker 1: of the spiral galaxy and so forth, as we're talking

1487
01:19:41,080 --> 01:19:44,160
Speaker 1: about the infinite. Yeah, so there are some stunning visuals

1488
01:19:44,360 --> 01:19:47,200
Speaker 1: in Black and white to back it up. But but yeah,

1489
01:19:47,240 --> 01:19:48,280
Speaker 1: I see what, I see what you mean.

1490
01:19:48,520 --> 01:19:51,920
Speaker 2: Oh, also when in his final when because he has

1491
01:19:52,000 --> 01:19:55,439
Speaker 2: to keep changing clothes because he's continually growing smaller in

1492
01:19:55,520 --> 01:19:59,120
Speaker 2: his final form, when he's giving this final speech, the

1493
01:19:59,160 --> 01:20:01,439
Speaker 2: clothing he's dressed and makes him look like a prophet,

1494
01:20:01,560 --> 01:20:03,840
Speaker 2: you know, he looks like a like John the Baptist

1495
01:20:03,880 --> 01:20:05,639
Speaker 2: from one of the Bible movies or something.

1496
01:20:06,360 --> 01:20:09,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's just just going out there into the unknown,

1497
01:20:09,760 --> 01:20:13,040
Speaker 1: into the into a wild and and and ultimately and

1498
01:20:13,120 --> 01:20:16,080
Speaker 1: a world beyond humans because he has he has shrunk

1499
01:20:16,120 --> 01:20:19,280
Speaker 1: beyond their scale. And it's yeah, it's it's pretty tremendous

1500
01:20:19,280 --> 01:20:21,439
Speaker 1: that it ends up on a on a great note

1501
01:20:21,479 --> 01:20:23,200
Speaker 1: and you end up just looking back on it and

1502
01:20:23,600 --> 01:20:26,840
Speaker 1: being like, wow, that that film was really a great ride.

1503
01:20:27,240 --> 01:20:31,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly agree. So the Incredible Shrinking Man. Uh,

1504
01:20:31,600 --> 01:20:34,240
Speaker 2: two thumbs up both from me, both hands thumbs.

1505
01:20:34,000 --> 01:20:39,559
Speaker 1: Up, the Incredible Shrinking Man. Yes, it's a it's a

1506
01:20:39,560 --> 01:20:42,400
Speaker 1: great one. And you know, I think the current plan

1507
01:20:42,640 --> 01:20:46,799
Speaker 1: is that we are going to do another incredible shrinking

1508
01:20:46,880 --> 01:20:50,160
Speaker 1: movie for next week. Yeah, one that will hopefully be

1509
01:20:50,840 --> 01:20:54,400
Speaker 1: still as as intellectually stimulating as this picture.

1510
01:20:55,280 --> 01:20:58,280
Speaker 2: Next week, we're planning on doing another Shrink movie that is,

1511
01:20:58,439 --> 01:21:01,000
Speaker 2: from what I understand, a direct to rip off of this.

1512
01:21:02,520 --> 01:21:05,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it looks like it'll be a lot of fun. Okay,

1513
01:21:05,520 --> 01:21:07,400
Speaker 1: all right, we're going to go ahead and close this

1514
01:21:07,439 --> 01:21:10,080
Speaker 1: one out. But first of all, reminds you that we're

1515
01:21:10,080 --> 01:21:12,920
Speaker 1: primarily a science podcast, with our core episodes of Stuff

1516
01:21:12,920 --> 01:21:14,400
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind publishing and the Stuff to Blow

1517
01:21:14,400 --> 01:21:17,800
Speaker 1: your Mind podcast feed. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do

1518
01:21:18,200 --> 01:21:20,919
Speaker 1: an artifact or monster fact short form episode. On Wednesdays,

1519
01:21:20,920 --> 01:21:23,160
Speaker 1: we do listener mail on Mondays, and on Fridays, we

1520
01:21:23,240 --> 01:21:25,200
Speaker 1: set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a

1521
01:21:25,240 --> 01:21:27,439
Speaker 1: weird film here on Weird House Cinema. If you want

1522
01:21:27,439 --> 01:21:30,120
Speaker 1: to see what other films we've covered on Weird House Cinema,

1523
01:21:30,160 --> 01:21:31,960
Speaker 1: there are a few different ways to do it. You

1524
01:21:31,960 --> 01:21:34,000
Speaker 1: can just look back through the podcast feed and do

1525
01:21:34,080 --> 01:21:37,280
Speaker 1: it that way. But also if you go to letterboxed

1526
01:21:37,360 --> 01:21:39,280
Speaker 1: dot com that's l E T T E r bo

1527
01:21:39,479 --> 01:21:43,280
Speaker 1: x D, we have a user profile in there it's

1528
01:21:43,439 --> 01:21:45,479
Speaker 1: called weird House, and we have a list there of

1529
01:21:45,560 --> 01:21:47,880
Speaker 1: all the movies we've covered in order, and I also

1530
01:21:47,920 --> 01:21:49,760
Speaker 1: have some links to where you can listen to them

1531
01:21:50,000 --> 01:21:52,439
Speaker 1: on each individual listing. It's also a great way to

1532
01:21:52,479 --> 01:21:54,519
Speaker 1: sort of visualize what we've done to break it up

1533
01:21:54,520 --> 01:21:57,040
Speaker 1: by decades or genre, or however you want to want

1534
01:21:57,040 --> 01:21:59,800
Speaker 1: to do it. And the website, of course, is also

1535
01:21:59,800 --> 01:22:02,479
Speaker 1: a lot. I also blog about these episodes at s

1536
01:22:02,479 --> 01:22:05,040
Speaker 1: Immuta music dot com. It's just my personal blog for

1537
01:22:05,080 --> 01:22:05,679
Speaker 1: this sort of thing.

1538
01:22:06,240 --> 01:22:10,120
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our audio producer Jjposway. If you would

1539
01:22:10,160 --> 01:22:12,160
Speaker 2: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

1540
01:22:12,240 --> 01:22:14,600
Speaker 2: this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for

1541
01:22:14,640 --> 01:22:17,200
Speaker 2: the future, or just to say hello, you can email

1542
01:22:17,280 --> 01:22:27,479
Speaker 2: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1543
01:22:27,600 --> 01:22:30,120
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio.

1544
01:22:30,439 --> 01:22:33,439
Speaker 4: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1545
01:22:33,560 --> 01:22:36,800
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.