Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind, we have
Speaker 1: a fun one here for you today. This one originally
Speaker 1: published eleven, twenty two, twenty twenty four. It is the
Speaker 1: early sixties Danish American co production Reptilicus. So we have
Speaker 1: some excellent euro Kaiju action to dive into here. Let's
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 3: we are going to be talking about a movie that
Speaker 3: has two faces, but one slimy toxic heart, and that
Speaker 3: is the nineteen sixty two English language version of the
Speaker 3: euro Kaiju movie Reptilicus, directed by Sydney Pink. Now, one
Speaker 3: thing to mention right at the beginning here is that
Speaker 3: this movie is kind of weird. There exist two different
Speaker 3: versions of the film, one in English and one in Danish,
Speaker 3: and neither one is simply a dub of the other.
Speaker 3: There were actually two different movies shot separately, but sharing
Speaker 3: the same story and most of the same cast, but
Speaker 3: with different lines in each language and two different directors.
Speaker 3: So The Danish version you'll get was directed by Paul
Speaker 3: Bong and the English version by Sidney Pink, the latter
Speaker 3: of which, again is the one we're gonna be talking
Speaker 3: about today. Both of these movies have the same basic storyline,
Speaker 3: the same scenes overall. Both films are set in Denmark
Speaker 3: and concern Danish paleontologists attempting to investigate the remains of
Speaker 3: a giant frozen dinosaur tale uncovered from deep underground, which
Speaker 3: eventually turns into a big dragon thing is named Reptilicus,
Speaker 3: and then just goes nuts on Denmark, runs around eating
Speaker 3: cows and attacking people at the beach, attacking the city,
Speaker 3: attacking famous beautiful landmarks that you should visit by the way,
Speaker 3: if you're ever in scene at Copenhagen. And yeah, and
Speaker 3: so this is a giant monster movie like many others
Speaker 3: we've talked about before, but with I don't know, some
Speaker 3: interesting distinctions we can get into as we go along.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I guess you could say it's kind of
Speaker 1: like the situation with nineteen thirty one's Dracula, where you
Speaker 1: have the Mexican version that is shot on the same sets,
Speaker 1: though that one doesn't have the same actors. This one
Speaker 1: has almost exclusively the same actors. They're just we just
Speaker 1: have them delivering their lines in different languages in separate shots.
Speaker 3: Exactly. It would be like if the thirty one Todd
Speaker 3: Browning Dracula and then the Spanish language version were It
Speaker 3: would be like that situation if they used mostly the
Speaker 3: same cast, but not entirely, if.
Speaker 1: They had been like okay, Bella, how's your Spanish, that
Speaker 1: they went a different direction. Obviously.
Speaker 3: Yes, Now we were talking about something before we came on, Mike,
Speaker 3: which is that I think both of us really enjoyed
Speaker 3: watching Reptilicus. But I do have to be honest about
Speaker 3: this one and not over sell any of its individual merits,
Speaker 3: because I don't think it has a lot of extreme
Speaker 3: merits in any particular direction. I would not honestly be
Speaker 3: able to say that this is a great idea or
Speaker 3: a great script. I would not honestly. You know, sometimes
Speaker 3: we can say, like the story's kind of weak, but
Speaker 3: it's got a great cast, no offense to any of
Speaker 3: the wonderful cast members involved here, but it is not
Speaker 3: an especially stand out screen presence we're dealing with with
Speaker 3: anybody here. The I would say even the special effects
Speaker 3: are not really that impressive. They're they're enjoyable in a
Speaker 3: certain way, but none of they're not even on the
Speaker 3: level of Gorgo, which we'll get to in a minute.
Speaker 3: So there is there's really no element of this movie
Speaker 3: I can point to and say, well, at least that's
Speaker 3: really great. And yet overall I love Reptilicus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a charming picture, like it's a feel
Speaker 1: good monster picture, and the areas where it's rough around
Speaker 1: the edges adds to its charm. But indeed, it's hard
Speaker 1: to recommend it to folks unless you are looking for
Speaker 1: a picture like this. You got to be on board
Speaker 1: for something that has this vibe. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So maybe, despite not being stellar filmmaking in any particular direction,
Speaker 3: Reptilicus has many appealing things. One of them is just
Speaker 3: the word reptilicus, which is one of the most pleasing
Speaker 3: words to say that I've ever come across. I discovered
Speaker 3: before we came in to record. I was walking around
Speaker 3: the house with my wife and I discovered that the
Speaker 3: word reptilicus has the same stress pattern as the word America,
Speaker 3: and then, for that reason, can be subbed into any
Speaker 3: song lyrics containing the word America. So like you know,
Speaker 3: Reptilicus the Beautiful. I'm proud to be a Reptilican. They've
Speaker 3: all gone to look for Reptilicus and so forth. There's
Speaker 3: been a lot of that going on at the house.
Speaker 3: So you know, take Reptilicus into your vocabulary and use
Speaker 3: it with whatever gusto you please. But I will say
Speaker 3: another big appeal of Reptilicus for me is conceptual. For
Speaker 3: some reason, audiences seem to have long reacted to this
Speaker 3: movie with amusement at the idea of a giant monster
Speaker 3: attack film set in Denmark, and I recall a similar
Speaker 3: sense of fun in the way that people including us
Speaker 3: reacted to another movie we covered earlier this year, Gorgo,
Speaker 3: from nineteen sixty one, so right around the same time period.
Speaker 3: I think these were produced within like a year of
Speaker 3: each other, And Gorgo was a movie in which an
Speaker 3: enormous rat like god monster emerges from the sea off
Speaker 3: the coast of an Irish island, is captured and transported
Speaker 3: for display in a London circus, and then triggers a
Speaker 3: monster rampage in the streets of London, sort of a
Speaker 3: rat god amphibious attack from the Thames. Yes, and so
Speaker 3: of course no one language or culture owns the idea
Speaker 3: of a giant monster. Giant monsters go back in you know,
Speaker 3: literature of many different cultures, deep into history. But I
Speaker 3: think it's safe to say that Japan in general, and
Speaker 3: Toho Studios in particular, really grew and perfected the art
Speaker 3: of the giant monster movie. Though of course the creators
Speaker 3: of films like the nineteen fifty four Godzilla were inspired
Speaker 3: at least in part by American films like RKO's King Kong.
Speaker 3: So there's plenty of you know, trading back and forth
Speaker 3: of inspiration and creative energy across borders, as there always
Speaker 3: has been. But many of the greatest and most enduring
Speaker 3: giant monster movies ever made are Toho productions from Japan.
Speaker 3: And in the Gorgo episode, I think we had a
Speaker 3: brief discussion about the question of why people seem to
Speaker 3: think it's inherently funny or countering intuitive for a giant
Speaker 3: monster to attack and crush office buildings in London or
Speaker 3: in the case of today's movie, in Denmark in a
Speaker 3: way that it's just not counterintuitive or funny for that
Speaker 3: to happen in Japan, or for that matter in the
Speaker 3: United States. So like a monster from the sea, giant
Speaker 3: monster comes out and attacks Tokyo or New York. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we buy that monster comes out of the copper minds
Speaker 3: and attacks Copenhagen. That just makes people laugh. And I
Speaker 3: feel this as well, but I don't quite fully understand it.
Speaker 3: I was trying to think of reasons, and I was thinking,
Speaker 3: maybe it's as simple as this is the only Danish
Speaker 3: kaiju movie that I know of, so it's just unfamiliar.
Speaker 3: If there were more of them, it would feel normal.
Speaker 3: Or maybe it's something about the like the cultural or
Speaker 3: geographic setting that just doesn't interface as naturally with the
Speaker 3: soul of a beast like reptilicus. Could it be something
Speaker 3: about I don't know, predominant styles of local architecture. I
Speaker 3: really don't know the answer, but I do think it's
Speaker 3: it's interesting that people quite consistently have this reaction, So
Speaker 3: it's just something to think about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think part of it is that we from
Speaker 1: very early on, we associate like New York City and
Speaker 1: Tokyo with giant monster attacks, and it kind of sticks,
Speaker 1: and yeah, it would we would maybe expect like Copenhagen
Speaker 1: have its own thing like I don't know, like you know,
Speaker 1: killer mermaids come out and attack Copenhagen. That tracks.
Speaker 3: Oh that'd be great.
Speaker 1: But I mean, but then from the Danish perspective, why
Speaker 1: not Copenhagen, As we learn in this film, it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful city with a lot to offer. That's all right.
Speaker 3: I was not able to research this before we recorded today,
Speaker 3: but I would love to know if, like the I
Speaker 3: don't know local the Copenhagen Tourism board or something was
Speaker 3: a producer on this film, if they put some funding
Speaker 3: into it, because there is a segment in the middle
Speaker 3: of the movie that is an almost too too good
Speaker 3: to believe, just travel brochure for the city of covid.
Speaker 3: Look at all of the beautiful local landmarks. You can
Speaker 3: visit the swinging you know, nightlife district. Oh, check out
Speaker 3: this gorgeous bridge and fountain. Great place to take the kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, everything that they say during this ten minute travel
Speaker 1: brochure section of the film, you could easily imagine Rick
Speaker 1: Steve's saying all of it in an episode of his
Speaker 1: show or his podcast Love Rick Steves by the way.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I can imagine him saying, like, you know,
Speaker 1: many people say that Danes were born on their bicycles
Speaker 1: and when you travel through Copenhagen and so forth.
Speaker 3: It it ends with a scene of it's like two
Speaker 3: military guys who are both on a date with the
Speaker 3: same woman at the same time. That's what it's showing.
Speaker 3: I don't know what that means, but they go out
Speaker 3: on the state and they just go to a nightclub
Speaker 3: and like watch a musical number and we watch too.
Speaker 1: Here we are. But I love that the film felt
Speaker 1: as if the film knew that American audiences might say,
Speaker 1: why Copenhagen, and so here's the answer, Here's why Copenhagen.
Speaker 3: Okay. Another thing to consider this also has come up
Speaker 3: in past episodes where we talked about giant monster films,
Speaker 3: the surprisingly sober themes that come out of some of
Speaker 3: these movies. Now, many of them are just deliberately and
Speaker 3: consciously silly, just some good, wholesome atomic beast rasslin, but
Speaker 3: other Kaiju movies have some pretty serious ideas in mind,
Speaker 3: at least in the back of the mind. I think
Speaker 3: it's well known that the original fifty four Godzilla obviously
Speaker 3: had nuclear weapons on its mind. Later Godzilla films have
Speaker 3: some pretty clear environmental themes like the idea that we
Speaker 3: have polluted the earth, and the Earth is striking back
Speaker 3: in the form of an embodied monster, a sort of
Speaker 3: meat form immago of the very real but sometimes more
Speaker 3: invisible and diffuse human consequences downstream from pollution, pollution of
Speaker 3: the air and water, and destruction and natural habitats and
Speaker 3: so forth. So I was wondering does Reptilicus fit into
Speaker 3: this picture. Does rep Tilicus have any serious themes in mind?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but we could come back to this
Speaker 3: question later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if they're there, it's a very and we can
Speaker 1: only speak to the American version here. Something like this
Speaker 1: could be more stressed in the Danish version. But I
Speaker 1: got maybe mild vibes of the importance of international cooperation
Speaker 1: against threats regenerative threats, but it's very shallow if it's
Speaker 1: there at all.
Speaker 3: Okay, should we hear some trailer audio?
Speaker 1: Sure? Sure? My? Oh my elevator pitch. By the way,
Speaker 1: is springboarding off? Is something you said, is they're coming
Speaker 1: to Reptilicus today. I'm not going to sing it, because
Speaker 1: I don't know if we get pained for that anyway. Yes,
Speaker 1: the US trailer for this is pretty fun. Let's have
Speaker 1: a listen.
Speaker 4: Somewhere in the Forbidding Tundra mountains of Lapland, high above
Speaker 4: the Arctic Circle, a group of mining engineers were prospecting
Speaker 4: for copper. But what they on earth was a story,
Speaker 4: a story that was to terrorize the whole world.
Speaker 1: Fossil bones.
Speaker 5: I have never seen bone fragments like this before.
Speaker 4: I'll work with the army through Captain Bratt, Commandersvencent, you'll
Speaker 4: stand by for any naval action required. As chief of police,
Speaker 4: I'll rely on you to handle the population. Handel Grayson
Speaker 4: where day out of his way? How long do you
Speaker 4: expect me to continue this hill?
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 1: If you want to go out and watch Reptilicus yourself,
Speaker 1: we encourage you to do so. The Vinegar Syndrome blu
Speaker 1: ray is clearly the best choice here, features a restored
Speaker 1: cut of the American version of the film, as well
Speaker 1: as the original Danish version or I guess it's the original.
Speaker 1: I will say it's the original version, but anyway, both
Speaker 1: English version and Danish version.
Speaker 3: I own this Blu Ray set from Vinegar Syndrome and
Speaker 3: it is gorgeous. I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they do great work. Sadly this version was checked out.
Speaker 1: When I went to rent in at Video Drome, they
Speaker 1: were very apologetic. They were like, they were like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna be able to watch it in the
Speaker 1: best quality possible. And I was like, it's fine, this
Speaker 1: is a time constraint situation and so forth. So I
Speaker 1: had to rent an older DVD of the American cut
Speaker 1: of the film, which was fine. I thought the quality
Speaker 1: was certainly watchable, though I did have French subtitles that
Speaker 1: I could not make go away, but that did not
Speaker 1: get in the way of my enjoyment of the film.
Speaker 3: What was the movie that we watch that had hard
Speaker 3: burned Dutch subtype titles? Was that the Hawaiian Werewolf movie?
Speaker 1: It was, Yes, there was a TV movie, so we
Speaker 1: were having to watch like a YouTube cut off it,
Speaker 1: YouTube up load of it that had been like ripped
Speaker 1: from television over there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with a verk beast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Death Moon. Death Moon is the motion picture. Someone
Speaker 1: needs to put it out on Blu ray. Someone make
Speaker 1: that happen. All right, let's get into the connections here,
Speaker 1: starting with the director we already referenced. This is Sydney W. Pink,
Speaker 1: director of the US version producer I believe of both reptilicuses,
Speaker 1: and one of the credited writers. He lived nineteen sixteen
Speaker 1: through two thousand and two. American director and producer, often
Speaker 1: singled out for his contributions to three D cinema. In fact,
Speaker 1: he was an ap on the associate producer on the
Speaker 1: first widely released feature link three D film, Bwana Devil
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty two, a film we mentioned in our
Speaker 1: previous Weird House Cinema episodes talking about three D pictures.
Speaker 1: He also gave us the cinemagic technique in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: nine's The Angry Red Planet, in which a pink red
Speaker 1: tint is applied to black and white film to give
Speaker 1: us the surface of Mars. To take us to the
Speaker 1: surface of Mars. He also directed Journey to the Seventh
Speaker 1: Planet right before this picture in sixty two, starring John Agar.
Speaker 1: There you Go. Also, I'm Always into a good I
Speaker 1: was a title that always catches my interest. So I'll
Speaker 1: just point out that his first film, both as a
Speaker 1: director and a producer was nineteen fifty three's I Was
Speaker 1: a Burlesque Queen, which also had three D dance sequences
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 3: I Was a teenage reptilicus.
Speaker 1: All right. The other writing credit goes to an individual
Speaker 1: who's come up on the show before. It's Ebe Melchior,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen seven team through twenty fifteen, Danish American
Speaker 1: screenwriter with some impressive credits. We previously referenced him as
Speaker 1: one of the writers of Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires.
Speaker 3: Oh, I knew I recognized the name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's a name that stands out. He
Speaker 1: wrote and directed The Angry Red Planet fifty nine, Time
Speaker 1: Traveler sixty four, co screenwriter on Robinson Crusoe on Mars
Speaker 1: and sixty four, and his nineteen sixty five short story
Speaker 1: The Racer was adapted into the nineteen seventy five Corman
Speaker 1: producer Paul Bartel directed movie Death Race two thousand.
Speaker 3: Ooh, yeah, man, I haven't seen that one in many years,
Speaker 3: but I have some fond memories about it. Is it
Speaker 3: as good as I remember? I don't know Frankenstein Frankenstein, Yeah, Oh,
Speaker 3: that's the Chardine character, right, yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And what's Stallon's in it?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Cass like one of the villains. He's like machine Gun
Speaker 3: Joe v Turbo or something.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Him. I just remember Frankenstein, Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I also remembered as being fun, all right. Now, getting
Speaker 1: into the cast, there are a lot of folks that
Speaker 1: kind of fade into the background here performing various bureaucratic
Speaker 1: kaiju fighting duties. This is often the case in some
Speaker 1: of these older giant monster films. You have governmental bodies
Speaker 1: in organizations responding to the threat. And so there's a
Speaker 1: lot in this movie and other movies of like folks
Speaker 1: setting around having meetings and smoking cigarettes, and it can
Speaker 1: get a little boring. It can be also incredibly thrilling,
Speaker 1: as we know from films like Shin Godzilla. Yes it's
Speaker 1: not an inherently boring idea, but it can be boring.
Speaker 3: Yes, Reptiloicus has many pleasures, as we've said, but I
Speaker 3: do not think it is a highlight in the stretches
Speaker 3: where we're just like watching military men stand around a
Speaker 3: table and like you know, talk about their strategy. They're like,
Speaker 3: we're going to have to flesh them out here, we
Speaker 3: will position our artillery. It's not very thrilling.
Speaker 1: All right. So I'm not gonna have as much to
Speaker 1: say about some of these actors because a number of them,
Speaker 1: like almost almost did not exclusively work in Danish cinema,
Speaker 1: And if there's more to add about some of these
Speaker 1: folks that we don't get into, if you were familiar
Speaker 1: with Danish cinema, if that's like your area of expertise,
Speaker 1: or if we have any Danish listeners or listeners of
Speaker 1: Danish heritage out there and you recognize these names right in,
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from you. So let's go through
Speaker 1: some of the names here. We have Karl Ottosen who
Speaker 1: lived nineteen eighteen through nineteen seventy too, playing General Mark Grayson.
Speaker 1: He was a Danish actor. He was also in Journey
Speaker 1: to the Seventh Planet. This is the dark haired general guy.
Speaker 1: He is.
Speaker 3: I think it took me a while to realize this,
Speaker 3: but he's like the voice who's narrating at the beginning
Speaker 3: of the movie and then he shows up halfway through.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, all right. Then we have Anne Smyrner playing
Speaker 1: Lisa Martins. She lived nineteen thirty four through twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Danish actress who appeared in a handful of Sydney Pink movies.
Speaker 1: Mostly worked in German cinema, though until her retirement from
Speaker 1: acting in the seventies and then we have Mimi Heinrich
Speaker 1: as Karen Martin's. She lived nineteen thirty six through twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: Danish actress who was also in Journey to the Seventh Planet. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then we have Asjorn Anderson as Professor Otto Martin's.
Speaker 1: This is the he's also the parent of the character
Speaker 1: I just reference. This actor lived nineteen oh thirty through
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight, Danish film actor and director who plays
Speaker 1: one of the more memorable parts here as the kind
Speaker 1: of l Ron Hubbard looking professor who is studying the
Speaker 1: rise of Reptilicus. He mostly worked in Danish cinema, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he's mimorable here. I do like him a lot.
Speaker 3: The movie plays him like a hero, but he's kind
Speaker 3: of low key the villain of the movie. You know,
Speaker 3: he's like, yes, let's grow Reptilicus some more.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he's not presented like a mad scientist, but
Speaker 1: he does mad science for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right. We also have Bent Midging playing Svend Vitrolof.
Speaker 1: He lived nineteen thirty seven through twenty twenty four. This
Speaker 1: is our slim, blonde, sort of leading man type. He's
Speaker 1: the guy who goes in parties on the Beach, played
Speaker 1: by award winning Danish actor here only in his third
Speaker 1: film role, but he would go on to have a
Speaker 1: long career in Danish cinema. So this is definitely, I
Speaker 1: think one of those names where if Danish cinema is
Speaker 1: your sweet spot, you know this guy and you can
Speaker 1: tell us all about it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: For most of the runtime, he is completely superfluous to
Speaker 3: the plot, which makes me think that originally this movie
Speaker 3: was just written to be about like the old scientists
Speaker 3: and the military guys, and the producer might have been like,
Speaker 3: what is going on, Why don't you have any young
Speaker 3: attractive characters in here? So they just wrote in like,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, there are just like several good looking people
Speaker 3: in their twenties who are standing around in whatever scene.
Speaker 3: So that's when we get Svinn and Lisa and Karen
Speaker 3: and that problem solved.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and then also we have Connie here. The
Speaker 1: character of Connie I think was probably brought in for
Speaker 1: the same reasons. Almost definitely played by Marley's Barons born
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine. You know, occasionally, a former nationwide beauty
Speaker 1: pageant winner pops up in the movies we watch, and
Speaker 1: including Miss Mexico's. I think we've had a few different
Speaker 1: Miss Mexicos pop up, and so I was not shocked
Speaker 1: at all to read that this majorly attractive minor character
Speaker 1: in this film was played by Miss Germany nineteen fifty eight.
Speaker 3: Now, wait a minute, is this the actress who plays
Speaker 3: this role in the American version or in the Danish version,
Speaker 3: because I believe this role is the one that where
Speaker 3: they's actually swapped out the cast, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: This is yes, you will only find her in the
Speaker 1: English cut of the film because the actress who plays
Speaker 1: Connie in the Danish version apparently she couldn't do the
Speaker 1: English lines, so they needed someone else to play the
Speaker 1: character in the English version. Okay, she didn't appear in much,
Speaker 1: but yeah, her presence here kind of highlights some aspects
Speaker 1: of the filmmaking.
Speaker 3: Prom Well, yeah, as I was saying, this movie is
Speaker 3: full of characters who there's no plausible reason that they
Speaker 3: would actually be in the place where this scene is happening,
Speaker 3: but they're just standing around to sort of like fill
Speaker 3: out the cast. So it's not just you know, General
Speaker 3: Grayson standing there being sad and like, oh, we gotta
Speaker 3: fight Reptilicus. So let's just have Spinn and Lisa and
Speaker 3: Karen and Connie and everybody kind of pile into the
Speaker 3: shot and they'll be like, what's happening with Reptilicus?
Speaker 1: All right? But as far as the cast goes, we
Speaker 1: save the best for the last, in my opinion, because
Speaker 1: we have, for my money, the most visually stimulating performance
Speaker 1: in this film. It's not another former Miss Germany, but
Speaker 1: rather the legendary Danish comedian and character actor Dirtsch Passer
Speaker 1: who nineteen twenty six through nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: He is the true star of the film. He only
Speaker 3: gets a couple of scenes and we never learned what
Speaker 3: happens to him. We never learn of Dirtsch's fate, like
Speaker 3: does he does he succumb to Reptilicus or does he
Speaker 3: make it out and live happily ever after? We don't
Speaker 3: know knowledge at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He plays Peterson, who is very much a comic
Speaker 1: relief character, a sort of bumbling janitor slash security guards
Speaker 1: slash occasional sort of lab assistant. And he may or
Speaker 1: may not sleep in the building on chairs.
Speaker 3: It's unclear unclear what his job is. He's a guy
Speaker 3: in overalls who is brought in by one of the
Speaker 3: professor's daughter is almost as if like he's her boyfriend
Speaker 3: or something, and she brings him in like here he
Speaker 3: is father, and he's just this guy in overalls who's like, yes,
Speaker 3: hire me, and I will keep an eye out for
Speaker 3: anything fishy. And then he walks around the halls and
Speaker 3: like sticks his hand in eel tanks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has some great comedic moments because Pat Passer
Speaker 1: in this film is a big man and he has
Speaker 1: one in wearing the overalls, and he has one of
Speaker 1: the most comedically expressive faces. I think you could ask
Speaker 1: for the eyes, the mouth, the energy he's able to
Speaker 1: project through his face. We started you and I started
Speaker 1: talking about him when he showed up instills for a
Speaker 1: movie that came up in our discussions on our train
Speaker 1: episodes for stuff to blow your mind. It's a nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy six what is this? I think this may have
Speaker 1: been a TV movie, a Danish TV movie called ghost Train.
Speaker 3: Oh, which was an adaptation of this. I think it
Speaker 3: was British play. There's like a play about a ghost train.
Speaker 3: People trapped in a station with a story about a
Speaker 3: ghost train, and then it all turns out to be
Speaker 3: a ruse covering up a like secret espionage caper where
Speaker 3: like communists are infiltrating Britain by way of a secret train. Yeah,
Speaker 3: which is okay, but then yeah, so there were many
Speaker 3: adaptations of this plot, and one of them is this
Speaker 3: one that has Dirt Passer in it, who I don't
Speaker 3: remember which character he plays.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he ends up on some of the promotional
Speaker 1: materials for it. Because he had that very expressive face
Speaker 1: with which I think he could use for sort of
Speaker 1: terror as well as comedy, Like he could open his
Speaker 1: mouth really wide, and yeah, I was instantly impressed by
Speaker 1: those stills, Like you know, you see a still like
Speaker 1: that and you're like, who is this hyper expressive actor. Indeed,
Speaker 1: he was a pretty legendary within the Danish world of
Speaker 1: entertainment as an actor, a kind of a character actor,
Speaker 1: but also as a comedian, noted for his improv skills
Speaker 1: and apparently also just really explosive loud performances. Though in
Speaker 1: his private life, as is often the case, you know,
Speaker 1: he was said to be a very quiet, reserved man. Huh,
Speaker 1: that's funny, but on the stage, a loud speaker for
Speaker 1: the absurdity of the human condition. He was also apparently
Speaker 1: had a clown act and famously Slash tragically died in
Speaker 1: his clown makeup. He suffered cardiac arrest in the midstore
Speaker 1: immediately following a performance. And so I guess this is
Speaker 1: one of those things that cannot help but sort of
Speaker 1: add to one legendary status. But he's apparently highly influential
Speaker 1: within the Danish acting world, and I can see why,
Speaker 1: Like this is a guy that even in this small,
Speaker 1: you know, just comedic role, like he stands out like
Speaker 1: he's the main actor that sticks in my mind from
Speaker 1: this picture.
Speaker 3: Agreed, There are some shots where as we were discussing,
Speaker 3: he has a bit of a Stephen King in the
Speaker 3: eighties energy going on. Yeah, he brings with him the
Speaker 3: great suggestion of tom foolery soon to follow. Like when
Speaker 3: he's walking down the hall and you see the eel tank,
Speaker 3: you just know before it even happens, is like he's
Speaker 3: going to end up at least part of his body
Speaker 3: is going to be in that eel tank.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, thank thank goodness, it happens. But again we'll
Speaker 1: just going to prepare you for disappointment. He does just
Speaker 1: disappear at some point in the film and does not
Speaker 1: come back for more comedic misapps.
Speaker 3: They should have had him defeat Reptilicus. I would have
Speaker 3: bought it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he seemed like a big I think you could
Speaker 1: handle it all right. Finally a music for this picture,
Speaker 1: the US version anyway. It's another Less Baxter score. It
Speaker 1: Live nineteen twenty two through nineteen ninety six. We've talked
Speaker 1: about him numerous times for you know, some of his
Speaker 1: very traditional scores, his weird score for a very minimalist
Speaker 1: electronic score for Frogs in the seventies. This is another
Speaker 1: film score by the master of exotica music that I
Speaker 1: guess mostly doesn't hit any exotica notes, at least until
Speaker 1: the very end, right, it gets a little exotica right
Speaker 1: there at the end.
Speaker 3: No, there's some mean So there's nothing wrong with the
Speaker 3: music in this movie except the way it is matched
Speaker 3: with what's happening on screen, like persistently funny music choices throughout.
Speaker 3: It'll have these these like stings and stings, the orchestra
Speaker 3: stings that are timed strangely. It'll have the use of
Speaker 3: like blustery march music like seventy six trombones kind of
Speaker 3: marches playing over scenes where it doesn't feel like it
Speaker 3: makes any sense, just like a pulling up to a building.
Speaker 3: And then one of the funniest things is like right
Speaker 3: at the end, when they're looking out over the water
Speaker 3: and it's like, well, we killed Reptilicus. And it's while
Speaker 3: the guy is saying this, it's playing like the nightclub
Speaker 3: music that we heard earlier, like the lounge song.
Speaker 1: Bum it needs to feel good film.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, time just talk about the plot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's get into it.
Speaker 3: Okay, So we begin with the glorious aip logos. We
Speaker 3: pan over a vista of rippling hills dotted with green shrubbery,
Speaker 3: and then we get a voice over. This is later
Speaker 3: going to be revealed to be I'm pretty sure it's
Speaker 3: the general, Brigadier General Grayson, but we don't know that yet.
Speaker 3: It's just somebody saying somewhere in the Forbidding Tundra mountains
Speaker 3: of Lapland, high above the Arctic Circle, a group of
Speaker 3: mining engineers were prospecting for copper. But what they unearthed
Speaker 3: was a story, a story that was to terrorize the
Speaker 3: whole world. I'm already fact check they did not. This
Speaker 3: movie does not have worldwide implications.
Speaker 1: This is more regional conflict.
Speaker 3: Yes, And so what we see, by the way, when
Speaker 3: this is happening, we see some guys in like khaki
Speaker 3: jumpsuits and white helmets working on a bunch of mining
Speaker 3: equipment in the middle of a forest. What looks to me,
Speaker 3: I could be wrong. What looks to me like a
Speaker 3: pretty warm forest. Wherever this is. I don't think this
Speaker 3: is the tundra, as he says. But then he goes
Speaker 3: on to say, when the events began that were to
Speaker 3: place a burden of decision involving the lives of an
Speaker 3: entire city on my shoulders, I was far away, unsuspecting, unknowing.
Speaker 3: And then we zoom in on one of the miners
Speaker 3: who is busy retracting a drill bit from a borehole
Speaker 3: in the earth, and as the drill comes up out
Speaker 3: of the ground, he feeds it onto a pulley system
Speaker 3: above his head and then notices that the drill is wet,
Speaker 3: not with water or with oil, but with some viscous,
Speaker 3: bright red substance. He says, it's blood, and then we
Speaker 3: zoom on his bloody hands and then get the title reptilicus.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a great start it's shocking.
Speaker 3: I mean driu yeah, chiller font reptilicus. It's all dripping everywhere,
Speaker 3: and the orchestra is like stinging again and again. But
Speaker 3: after the title we rejoin the scene where the miners
Speaker 3: are freaking out about the presence of blood on their drill.
Speaker 3: They start digging at the mudcaked threads of the drill
Speaker 3: bit with their hands, and then they start pulling all
Speaker 3: of this weird gore off of it, floppy, moist red
Speaker 3: flaps of something, and one of them says, it's a
Speaker 3: piece of skin, like leather.
Speaker 1: This is effectively gross. I was reminded of the music
Speaker 1: video for a sober bitool scenes of like meat moving
Speaker 1: through a tube at times, and like that's similar, vibing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So more gore comes off of the drill,
Speaker 3: and it's like sometimes it's uh, sometimes it's these flaps
Speaker 3: of stuff. Sometimes it's something rigid covered in blood. And
Speaker 3: to the rigid stuff, the head miner says, bones, fossil bones,
Speaker 3: And then this other guy says what kind of thing
Speaker 3: is down there? And the head miner says, I don't know,
Speaker 3: but I intend to find out, and he decides they
Speaker 3: have to halt operations until they, you know, figure out
Speaker 3: what's going on with the drill. And there's some great
Speaker 3: dialogue here. The main guy who later will learn this
Speaker 3: guy is the character Spin. So Spin says to his
Speaker 3: friend Henry, as an American, you have drilled all over
Speaker 3: the world. What do you make of it? And Henry says,
Speaker 3: it can't be a living thing? Let it be. And
Speaker 3: so Spin here is tall, blonde, handsome. He's going to
Speaker 3: be our geo hunk for the film. He's a miner
Speaker 3: and he's just a good looking, strapping lad. He says
Speaker 3: to his friend that he's going to radio someone named
Speaker 3: Navik at the University of Copenhagen. But first they're going
Speaker 3: to take some polaroids of this wheelbarrow full of bloody slop.
Speaker 3: And what they don't see, like they take some pictures
Speaker 3: and then walk away. What they don't see is that
Speaker 3: the gore starts breathing. These little sacks are inflating and
Speaker 3: deflating in the gunk. Then the same voiceover from earlier
Speaker 3: resumes saying within hours two Danish scientists had joined the
Speaker 3: mining engineers. Professor Martin's from Copenhagen's don Mark's Aquarium and
Speaker 3: his associate doctor Peter Dalby, as well as a third man,
Speaker 3: Hans Carlson, a newspaper reporter. So we see all these
Speaker 3: guys sitting around a campfire wearing hats with ear flaps,
Speaker 3: and the narrator says, the two scientists had examined the
Speaker 3: startling find hidden beneath the frozen tundra and brought by
Speaker 3: the drill bit they reasoned out the meaning of the
Speaker 3: gruesome puzzle without ever dreaming of its full deadly secret.
Speaker 3: So one of the scientists explains the results of their investigation.
Speaker 3: They're like, these are the bones of a gigantic creature
Speaker 3: which lies fossilized down in the ground below us. And
Speaker 3: then the miner is like, but how do you explain
Speaker 3: the blood? And Professor Martin's then says, there is quote
Speaker 3: a streak of icy muck underground. The creature must be
Speaker 3: embedded in it, frozen solid. And then this was great.
Speaker 3: Dalby says, not unusual really, So they say, the drill
Speaker 3: cut through this frozen creature's flesh. The friction of the
Speaker 3: drill thawed the flesh out, and bam, there you get wet,
Speaker 3: wet blood.
Speaker 1: It's pretty I mean, for the time and for the
Speaker 1: relative vibe of the picture pretty gorey, like there's an
Speaker 1: effective slop in this.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah. So Dalby explains that normally when this happens,
Speaker 3: the frozen animal underground is a mammal like a wooly mammoth.
Speaker 3: In this case, the flesh brought up by the drill
Speaker 3: is instead from a giant reptile, and that is totally unique.
Speaker 3: So the scientists explain that they're going to excavate and
Speaker 3: then ship the remains to the aquarium in Copenhagen. So
Speaker 3: let's go straight straight to Copenhagen now, So we get
Speaker 3: like a Copenhagen title in yellow text in this metal
Speaker 3: band font. People are walking around in the streets. We
Speaker 3: see lots of bicycles, motor traffic, old buildings, and so forth.
Speaker 3: The music in this part is funny because it's just
Speaker 3: playing this march. What we're seeing is like a red
Speaker 3: convertible pulling up to a building. So the people in
Speaker 3: the car are Professor Martin's who've already met Auto Martins
Speaker 3: is his name, and his adult daughter Lisa, and she's
Speaker 3: dropping him off at the aquarium, and Lisa says, don't
Speaker 3: spend all your time with those old fossils, father, you
Speaker 3: might become one. And then Otto says, with two daughters
Speaker 3: like you and Karen, it's a pleasure to retire my
Speaker 3: old bones. From what I can tell, this was written
Speaker 3: in English and not in Danish. And then like losing
Speaker 3: something in translation, but it feels like something where we've
Speaker 3: lost something in translation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there are a lot of lines like this
Speaker 1: in the picture.
Speaker 3: So we follow Professor Martin's as he wanders through the
Speaker 3: don marks Akvarium to his laboratory. He's like passing through
Speaker 3: exhibit tanks full of fish and sea turtles on the way,
Speaker 3: and what I just noticed. They've got these sea turtles
Speaker 3: in a tank that looks quite small, and then the
Speaker 3: professor stops to bang on the glass in.
Speaker 1: Them, and everyone knows you're not supposed to do that.
Speaker 3: So they get to the lab and there are various
Speaker 3: technicians at work. Martin's and Dalby discussed the remains they
Speaker 3: unearthed from the mine. Dalby has been trying to reconstruct
Speaker 3: the creature, and so far his attempts have all failed.
Speaker 3: He expresses his puzzlement, saying, I don't know why we
Speaker 3: can't put this thing back together. We've got plenty of bones,
Speaker 3: and Martin's says, too many bones. We aren't even sure
Speaker 3: they belong to the same animal, but Dalby is sure.
Speaker 3: He says it's unlike anything in the fossil record, completely unique.
Speaker 3: So anyway, Otto's other adult daughter, Karen, arrives with a
Speaker 3: telegram from Spinn the handsome miner, that apparently he found
Speaker 3: more bones and he's bringing them to the museum and
Speaker 3: he'll be here in an hour. He needs somebody to
Speaker 3: pick him up at the airport with the bones, so
Speaker 3: Otto sends Karen and his daughter to pick him up
Speaker 3: at the airport, and Karen is portrayed as boy crazy.
Speaker 3: She's like, ooh, is he handsome father? And he tries
Speaker 3: to dissuade her. He says, like, no, he has three
Speaker 3: eyes and a false mustache. Now hurry up. But the
Speaker 3: next scene is that Svin and the bone fragments are
Speaker 3: already here, and this is where we get that great delivery,
Speaker 3: where Atto says like, I have never seen bone fragments
Speaker 3: like this before. Well, what's so weird about the bones?
Speaker 3: While the professor explains they are resilient but very strong,
Speaker 3: almost like the cartilaginous bones of a shark. That's what
Speaker 3: he says. Meanwhile, they discuss how they have identified the
Speaker 3: frozen piece they discovered, and it is from the creature's tail,
Speaker 3: and now it's being kept under deep freeze conditions beyond
Speaker 3: this heavy iron door in the wall of the laboratory,
Speaker 3: and we get to see inside and this actually looks
Speaker 3: kind of cool. They've got it under like blue green lighting,
Speaker 3: sort of frosty and shimmering. I thought it looked like
Speaker 3: the texture of a puppet from the Nightmare before Christmas.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But then later we see a cross section of
Speaker 3: it and it looks like a like a beef roast.
Speaker 3: It's like an oxtail. Anyway, they can estimate just from
Speaker 3: the tail that this creature would have been among the
Speaker 3: biggest reptiles or dinosaurs ever to live. They say ninety
Speaker 3: feet or more. They don't specify in what direction. And
Speaker 3: they say it lived seventy to one hundred million years ago.
Speaker 3: And then also in this scene, Karen Martin's daughter is
Speaker 3: just coming on so strong to spin. She says, like, father,
Speaker 3: now that you've told Spinn about frozen matters, can I
Speaker 3: thaw him a little? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: But then the other professor Otto daughter shows up again.
Speaker 3: This is Lisa, and now Lisa brought a guy with
Speaker 3: her as well, but this is Dirt, so I don't
Speaker 3: think they actually meant that, like dirtch is her boyfriend,
Speaker 3: but that's almost how it comes off. She like brings
Speaker 3: him up like here he is father.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, because again this is Peterson. He appears to
Speaker 1: work here, or at least he is here and is
Speaker 1: ordered around to do things right.
Speaker 3: So he's this strange looking guy in a gray flannel
Speaker 3: shirt and denim overalls. And by the way, in the
Speaker 3: scene like this, the sisters are mocking and sniping at
Speaker 3: each other like they're fighting over the handsome minor the geohunk,
Speaker 3: literally pulling him in opposite directions, you know, they each
Speaker 3: take one of his arms and they're fighting over him.
Speaker 3: And then these two old scientists Martin's and Dalby are
Speaker 3: acting like creeps. One of them. Dalby's like Auto, I
Speaker 3: envy that young man and running off with your daughters,
Speaker 3: and Auto is like, yes, he will be very busy now,
Speaker 3: and this gives way into the Dirt passer scene, where
Speaker 3: he is explaining that he is there to help them
Speaker 3: keep an eye on things when no one's around, he
Speaker 3: will be there to keep a lookout. So he seems
Speaker 3: to me more security guard than janitor, but it's still
Speaker 3: never very clear. Like basically what he does is he
Speaker 3: just walks around in the hall and gets into gets
Speaker 3: into trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it gets in little mishaps. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, the scientists stressed to Peterson that the most important
Speaker 3: thing is to always keep this reptilicous tail frozen, never
Speaker 3: let the freezer thaw out. And he's like, okay, got it, boss.
Speaker 3: And so I really had my expectations subverted because as
Speaker 3: soon as I saw this scene, I was like, I
Speaker 3: know what's gonna happen. Dirt, Dirt passer is gonna mess
Speaker 3: this up. He is gonna thaw this tail. But it
Speaker 3: is not Dirt's fault.
Speaker 1: Is it. No, No, not at all, which is surprising. Again,
Speaker 1: like generally when someone says, hey, make sure this doesn't happen, ay,
Speaker 1: that thing is going to happen. And if you have
Speaker 1: a comic relief bumbling security guard like who better than
Speaker 1: to accidentally thaw the reptilicus.
Speaker 3: That's right. But so he's not the one who thows it.
Speaker 3: He does get into some other trouble. He is walking
Speaker 3: down a hallway and just in the middle of the
Speaker 3: hallway there is an open tank that has all these
Speaker 3: like electricity warning signs on it. It's got electric eels
Speaker 3: in it, and Dirt is like, I just got I
Speaker 3: gotta stick my hand in the tank.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Well we build up to right. It's the
Speaker 1: first is it the first scene where he just passes
Speaker 1: by and he's like he says like, yep, everything around
Speaker 1: here runs on electricity, which is a line I genuinely
Speaker 1: laughed at. I thought, oh, yeah, it's pretty good.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, okay, No, he doesn't stick his hand in
Speaker 3: it yet, that's later, but he he comments on the
Speaker 3: fact that they're electric, just like the lights.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know that hand is going there. You
Speaker 1: know we're going to come back to that electric eel.
Speaker 3: It's Chekhov's eel. Yeah. So later that night, Dalby is
Speaker 3: taking some Reptilicus samples and analyzing them under the microscope,
Speaker 3: but he is overworked and drowsy and soon falls asleep
Speaker 3: at his desk. Meanwhile, outside there's a lightning storm raging,
Speaker 3: and somehow this leads to the freezer door falling open.
Speaker 3: I think that Dalby like didn't shut it right or
Speaker 3: something when he was getting the sample out and the
Speaker 3: freezer begins to thaw.
Speaker 1: That's right, you can't nail Peterson for this. He had
Speaker 1: no hand in.
Speaker 3: This, right, not his fault. It was Delby. And then
Speaker 3: the next morning Professor Martin's and Lisa, they come into
Speaker 3: the office and discover the scene. Dalby is asleep, head
Speaker 3: on the desk, the freezer's hanging open, and the reptilicus
Speaker 3: tail is dripping blood on the floor, and we see
Speaker 3: it in its thawed state after it has come up
Speaker 3: to room temperature, and it now looks much nastier than before,
Speaker 3: like it's covered in a red brown damp wool. Obviously
Speaker 3: unhappy to see this that everybody rushes in and Auto
Speaker 3: is like unfrozen. So there's some general fretting and chewing
Speaker 3: out of people until they discover something shocking. The drill
Speaker 3: hole in the tail that the handsome miner made by
Speaker 3: you know, with his drill bit. It is now healing,
Speaker 3: and the scientists say, you realize what this means. You
Speaker 3: let it thaw and now it is alive. So the
Speaker 3: next scene is Professor Martin's having a meeting in his
Speaker 3: office with somebody. We haven't met before. It turns out
Speaker 3: this is a UNESCO official named Connie Miller, and the
Speaker 3: first thing he says to her is some casual sexism.
Speaker 3: He's like, oh, we don't often see women as beautiful
Speaker 3: as you associated with science, and she's like, dude, I
Speaker 3: am qualified, and he's like, ah, yes, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 3: am old. But I'm still unclear on exactly what Miller's
Speaker 3: job is supposed to be here. I take it this
Speaker 3: is like a job interview where they're having this meeting here,
Speaker 3: but they don't explain exactly what she's doing. It's something
Speaker 3: related to reptilicus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure exactly what this character is supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing. Like I was mainly distracted by, like,
Speaker 1: who's this actor playing this role? You know? And this
Speaker 1: is where I came upon the Miss Germany factoid. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then also, for some reason, the dude's daughter Lisa
Speaker 3: is just looming over this lady during the interview.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Just one of many many examples of throughout the whole film.
Speaker 3: Why would this character be here? But then suddenly we
Speaker 3: meet another new character, the American brigadier general named Mark Grayson,
Speaker 3: who again this is I think this was the guy
Speaker 3: narrating in voiceover earlier, but we meet him through one
Speaker 3: of those sentence completed from across the room by a
Speaker 3: newly arrived character intros. So, I think Martin's is saying
Speaker 3: we have a general coming in. His name is and
Speaker 3: then he's looking amongst his papers, and then the guy
Speaker 3: you hear another voice and he says Mark Grayson, and
Speaker 3: I have never seen a man introduce himself in a
Speaker 3: movie with such apparent disgust. He says his own name
Speaker 3: the way that cop talked about hippies in The Living
Speaker 3: Dead at Manchester Morgue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so weird.
Speaker 3: So Grayson wanders over to Professor Martin's. He's scowling, he's
Speaker 3: not happy about whatever's going on. The professor welcomes him,
Speaker 3: and Grayson says, I think the line is, I don't
Speaker 3: know why I'm here, Professor, I assume you'll let me know.
Speaker 3: Classic didn't we just talk about movies with the scene
Speaker 3: of the scene convention of like we're all here for
Speaker 3: a mission, but we don't know what it is. Now
Speaker 3: we're going to get the briefing.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. We have kind of like a mini version
Speaker 1: of that here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, though, I guess we talked about how the most
Speaker 3: believable context is when it's a military things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it makes sense here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but here all of the characters are introduced to
Speaker 3: each other. He got Miller, Lisa Grayson all saying hello, introducing,
Speaker 3: and it's very stiff all around. Now, the next scene
Speaker 3: is a news conference hosted by Otto Martin's highlights. So
Speaker 3: the press is gathered and he gives sort of a talk,
Speaker 3: and the highlights are, this creature is alive, it is
Speaker 3: quote regenerating, and he explains that by saying a lizard
Speaker 3: can regrow its tail when it's chopped off, a flatworm
Speaker 3: can regrow whole parts of its body, even its brain
Speaker 3: after being cut in half. And that's what's happening right now. Also,
Speaker 3: we learned that the animal is called reptilicus. The name
Speaker 3: is suggested by a journalist, and Martin's is just like
Speaker 3: reptilicus it is.
Speaker 1: I think that's standard, right. It's like the journalist gets
Speaker 1: there first, they get to officially name a new organism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what publication they're from.
Speaker 3: What if we name it the Daily Maelosaurus. So all
Speaker 3: the journalists come in and flock to look at the tank,
Speaker 3: like they're clamoring up the staircase to look in the
Speaker 3: window inside, and they're murmuring. And then we see newspaper
Speaker 3: headlines spinning at the screen. We see prehistoric monster growing
Speaker 3: in huge tank. And I really like that one because
Speaker 3: it's got the word huge in it, but it refers
Speaker 3: to the tank. And then another headline prominently featuring the
Speaker 3: concept of tank, it is incubator tank feeds monster from pass.
Speaker 3: So after this, there's a scene of Brigadier General Mark
Speaker 3: Grayson sulking because he is being relegated to the command
Speaker 3: of in his words, two captains, three office boys, and
Speaker 3: a damn lizard. And he's like, I'm a war hero,
Speaker 3: I'm worthy of prestige. How dare they put me on
Speaker 3: Reptilicus detail. Now, the next scene we get is a
Speaker 3: good old dirt scene. Here we're not at the eel
Speaker 3: part yet. Instead, here he's eating a sandwich and painting
Speaker 3: something on a microscope slide and then looking through the microscope,
Speaker 3: then putting his sandwich under the microscope and seeing lots
Speaker 3: of bacteria, and then he burps, and then we get
Speaker 3: like harp music playing, and we cut to Black.
Speaker 1: I have no idea. This is a scene where I
Speaker 1: really was trying to figure out what Peterson's role here is.
Speaker 1: Like he did not before the scene. He did not
Speaker 1: seem like a character who had microscope access. You know.
Speaker 3: It's like he's just now discovering that there are microbes
Speaker 3: on his food.
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess maybe I would not be surprised
Speaker 1: if they this was not a scene where they were like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's just let's just improve some stuff. Let's just get
Speaker 1: the camera on this guy and just see what he's got.
Speaker 3: Turn dirt loose in the lab. See, Yeah, he's like
Speaker 3: Billy Crystal and yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: Also this right after this, I think is when he
Speaker 3: actually does cram his hand in the electric eel tank. Yes,
Speaker 3: so he's like going down the hall and just wants
Speaker 3: to get a little taste a free sample of electric eel,
Speaker 3: and it I don't know, I guess it shocks him.
Speaker 3: I assume we were to take it as him really
Speaker 3: being electrified, not him pretending to be.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think it was supposed to be real electrocution,
Speaker 1: because we get we get as we're hoping like full
Speaker 1: like a full array of facial emotions here like, he
Speaker 1: goes to the seven stages of being shocked by an eel,
Speaker 1: and it's pretty great.
Speaker 3: But while this is happening, there is a distraction because
Speaker 3: he hears a rumbling in the reptilicus tank and he
Speaker 3: gets very alarmed, in fact, so alarmed that he pulls
Speaker 3: an alarm. He pulls the fire alarm. Everybody comes running.
Speaker 3: They're like, what's happening, what's wrong Peterson? And he explains,
Speaker 3: But then Martin's says to him, don't worry Peterson. Here's
Speaker 3: the quote. He says, Reptilicus has no conscious life. Yet
Speaker 3: what you heard was merely involuntary embryonic movement. So you know.
Speaker 3: In the meantime, we learn more about Reptilicus. The scientists
Speaker 3: are constantly studying it as it grows. Martin's is like, yes,
Speaker 3: grow more reptilicus, and they learn he has big, strong
Speaker 3: scales on his back, slimy secretion from his mouth which
Speaker 3: has a corrosive effect, like like highly concentrated acid, and
Speaker 3: so they're like, yes, keep keep growing it. Oh, and
Speaker 3: this is the part where we get to the Copenhagen
Speaker 3: tourism reel. Oh, Yes, like there's this I think I
Speaker 3: don't know German general. There's a general from somewhere named
Speaker 3: Brandt who is working with Grayson, and he comes into
Speaker 3: his office and he says, is there is there anything
Speaker 3: I can do for you? And Grayson says, yeah, get
Speaker 3: me transferred out of this damn place. So he's being
Speaker 3: grumpy as usual, but then Brandt suggests to him, why
Speaker 3: not go out for a night on the town and
Speaker 3: see all the sights in this beautiful locale, and Grayson
Speaker 3: is like splendid idea actually, So they go out together
Speaker 3: and we see all of the fountains and the bridges
Speaker 3: and the trams and the bicycles and the palace, and
Speaker 3: then we end up. Oh, they go over the longebro Bridge,
Speaker 3: which is an important landmark in the movie that will happen.
Speaker 3: We will encounter again later when Reptilochus is rampaging. But
Speaker 3: this is the part where Brant and Grayson both take
Speaker 3: Connie Connie Miller from Unesco on a date to dinner
Speaker 3: and she's walking around holding both of their arms and
Speaker 3: it's playing what the subtitles referred to as soft sultry music,
Speaker 3: and this like nightclub singer isinging a song called Tivoli Knights,
Speaker 3: Tivoli Knights, So what a sight. This might be a
Speaker 3: standard I wasn't familiar with it though, but it does
Speaker 3: include also some pretty good Danish scat singing.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love this whole sequence here again,
Speaker 1: it's so overt, you know, it is like a travel brochure.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, this is probably a sequence
Speaker 1: where some viewers are saying, hey, didn't I pop in
Speaker 1: a monster movie? Isn't there supposed to be a monster
Speaker 1: rampage at some point?
Speaker 3: Well, if that's what you're thinking, you're in luck, because
Speaker 3: it is finally time for Reptilicus to break loose. So
Speaker 3: one night, I don't know if it's supposed to be
Speaker 3: the same night, but it's continuous with what we just saw.
Speaker 3: There's another frightening thunderstorm. Only Dalby and Peterson are working
Speaker 3: late in the office as usual, and they hear what
Speaker 3: sounds like a crash, and they go out in the
Speaker 3: hallway looking toward the Reptilicus tank and they see something
Speaker 3: with horror in their eyes. Dalby sends Peterson off to
Speaker 3: the police, and then there there's like a weird exchange
Speaker 3: here where I thought it was building up to some
Speaker 3: big comedic payoff, and then it doesn't. It's just Peterson
Speaker 3: and this cop playing chess with himself, going back and
Speaker 3: forth over and over trying to figure out what they're
Speaker 3: talking about about the monster being loose.
Speaker 1: There's some fun lines, there's there are more electric eel jokes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh that's right. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you're right,
Speaker 3: because what do they say is like the electricity went out,
Speaker 3: and the cops like really, and then Peterson, yeah, even
Speaker 3: the electric eel went out?
Speaker 1: Wonk, wonk, It's great. I like it.
Speaker 3: So next thing that all the other characters arrive at
Speaker 3: the lab and Reptilicus is gone and so is Delby.
Speaker 3: Only his glasses remain. And then meanwhile some military guys
Speaker 3: find Reptilicus's tracks leading down into the water where they vanish.
Speaker 3: And here the movie shifts into rampage and response mode.
Speaker 3: So there's gonna be a lot less fewer dialogue scenes
Speaker 3: from now on, and more of people running around trying
Speaker 3: to set up artillery and soldiers and jeeps and tanks
Speaker 3: and everything to face off against Reptilicus and Reptilogus. Is
Speaker 3: he going to be put down by the artillery? Of
Speaker 3: course not we're going to have to have some kind
Speaker 3: of secret weapon in the end, but we're not there yet.
Speaker 1: Pretty standard stuff. So when she reached this stage of
Speaker 1: a Kaichu film, you know, the stock footage is coming out.
Speaker 1: You know, they're going to be a few different plans
Speaker 1: to kill or capture the beasts. One or two are
Speaker 1: not going to work, and that third one is going
Speaker 1: to be what really is effective.
Speaker 3: That's right. So one thing that's different at this point
Speaker 3: in the movie is that General Grayson is in charge now,
Speaker 3: so what he always wanted. He's very excited, so he's
Speaker 3: he's like chasing around after the monster. The first attack
Speaker 3: is at what they call a small farm on the coast,
Speaker 3: so we see a lot of footage of pe you know,
Speaker 3: soldiers loading up into transport vehicles and heading down the road,
Speaker 3: and we get to the farm and the farmer there
Speaker 3: he's like, oh, he killed fourteen of my best cows,
Speaker 3: and we see a bloody skinned cow head on the
Speaker 3: ground round and then it's a bunch of military dudes
Speaker 3: driving around and barking things back and forth on radios,
Speaker 3: trying to find the monster until finally they do. And
Speaker 3: I like this line delivery because it has kind of
Speaker 3: unintended implications. This soldier like he looks up when he
Speaker 3: finally sees Reptilicus and he says, it's my god. It
Speaker 3: is your god.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean really it could be.
Speaker 3: You know, you were created to serve it as a character.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Reptilicus is pretty It's pretty cool looking, you know,
Speaker 1: though the effects, like we say, are rough around the edges,
Speaker 1: hard not to love, but also difficult to believe. At times,
Speaker 1: he seems to he has like little stationary jazz hands,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, when he's writhing about. But I like him.
Speaker 1: I think he's a memorable kaiju.
Speaker 3: Reptilicus is kind of like a snake. Like he has
Speaker 3: a long, thin neck, but it's covered in a very raised,
Speaker 3: layered scale. He has fangs like a snake and a
Speaker 3: head like a snake. And then he has big spiny wings.
Speaker 3: So I don't know, maybe those wings are we never
Speaker 3: see Reptilicus fly from what I recall, so the wings
Speaker 3: might be more like, you know, neural spines. It might
Speaker 3: be more for cooling purposes. To go back to a
Speaker 3: core episode we just talked about.
Speaker 1: Would you say that Reptilicus is a cross between a
Speaker 1: sorrow pod and an aquatic lizard that is striving to
Speaker 1: become a mammal.
Speaker 3: Ooh yeah, wow, perfect, yes, because.
Speaker 1: That's how it presented a couple of times in the film.
Speaker 3: Aren't we all striving to become a mammal?
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I mean every day it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's you get up every morning and you strive to
Speaker 1: become a mammal, stay a mammal, Be a mammal, and
Speaker 1: so forth.
Speaker 3: I just want to live up to my destiny. So yeah,
Speaker 3: the military guy's unleash artillery and machine gun fire at Reptilicus.
Speaker 3: They and then they even so that doesn't work at first,
Speaker 3: but then they try a giant flamethrower and Reptilicus really
Speaker 3: does not like the flamethrower. Reptilicus squeals quite repetitively. The
Speaker 3: same sound effect is used over and over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's terrifying stock footage of a military flamethrower, Like
Speaker 1: not one of these, like novelty. You know, I'm still
Speaker 1: dangerous things you see like it, you know, burns and whatnot,
Speaker 1: but like the real jelly gasoline horror show. So I
Speaker 1: understand Reptilicus's response here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not mega weapon. It's like, actually, you're seeing
Speaker 3: the jet come out. It's scary as hell. Yeah, But Reptilicus,
Speaker 3: after being hit with the flamethrower, gets really upset and
Speaker 3: then slithers off into the sea. So all of the
Speaker 3: characters are standing here on the beach. Why are they
Speaker 3: all here, I don't know, but they're like spins here.
Speaker 3: The daughters are here. They're all here on the beach.
Speaker 3: They're watching what's going on. Grayson is like, maybe he'll die,
Speaker 3: and then Connie, for some reason says, not a chance.
Speaker 3: He's just taking time to let his wounds heal. And
Speaker 3: then Grayson says, regeneration.
Speaker 1: You know, I just dawned on me. The thing that's
Speaker 1: missing that I guess Connie is kind of filling in
Speaker 1: for here is we need a child. We need a
Speaker 1: child that is having revelations about the kaiju. Like that's
Speaker 1: what's missing here, Timmy, if you will.
Speaker 3: Yes, we do need that, yeah, to like sort of
Speaker 3: intuit the the intentions and spirit and meaning of the monster.
Speaker 1: But in lieu of child Connie, we.
Speaker 3: Don't even know if Reptilicus is a friend to all children.
Speaker 3: It's possible he is, and nobody even just nobody ever
Speaker 3: gets to say so. So it's like not even considered.
Speaker 1: Nobody thought to try. So.
Speaker 3: After all this, the military and scientists regroup and they
Speaker 3: launch a naval search operation to find Reptilicus. So we're
Speaker 3: out on the water and we see all these you know,
Speaker 3: battleships and destroyers going around, and again, why is Spinn
Speaker 3: the miner on one.
Speaker 1: Of these battleships.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So they find Reptilicus with sonar and then they
Speaker 3: launch a depth depth charges as he is slumbering on
Speaker 3: the ocean floor. Connie tries to get the to stop.
Speaker 3: She's like, don't you realize what you're doing. If Reptilicus
Speaker 3: is hit, you'll never find all the pieces underwater. He'll
Speaker 3: regenerate Mark. But it's too late. We see some bloody
Speaker 3: Reptilicus chunks floating around in the water column, so it's
Speaker 3: too late. And then there's fallout from this. Martin's who
Speaker 3: was also on one of the boats, has a medical
Speaker 3: event and is taken to the hospital. Later we learned
Speaker 3: that Reptilicus has been attacking ships and ports throughout the
Speaker 3: Baltic Sea and retaliation, so it's very Oh, the humanity
Speaker 3: and then we get a scene of spin the handsome minor,
Speaker 3: being consoled by Karen the I think by Karen, the
Speaker 3: daughter of Martin's and Spinn says Harvard's Freighters, I had
Speaker 3: the blood of Reptilicus on my hands. Sometimes I feel
Speaker 3: that it's perhaps also the blood of all those people. Yes,
Speaker 3: of all the ridiculous dark Knight of the Soul scenes
Speaker 3: in movies, this is this is one of the best.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 3: Oh, anyway, next, this movie has been very short on
Speaker 3: like bikinis up to this point, so they just bring you, like,
Speaker 3: what if we did a Jaws style beach scene, beach
Speaker 3: attack scene, So that's what's next. We just go to
Speaker 3: the beach, a bunch of young hip people hanging out
Speaker 3: in bathing suits, lounging in the sand, and then here's Reptilicus.
Speaker 1: Yep, shooting green slime out of his mouth. That everyone
Speaker 1: the effect here is marvelous, not believable at all, but charming, agreed.
Speaker 3: So when Reptilicus rears up out of the water, everybody
Speaker 3: panics and runs away, and then we see more military
Speaker 3: personnel and vehicles getting into position to face the Reptilicus menace,
Speaker 3: and we just know now is the time for Reptilicus
Speaker 3: to attack all of those beautiful tourist friendly landmarks and
Speaker 3: affordable locations in Copenhagen.
Speaker 1: Not the Little Mermaid.
Speaker 3: So we see like the you know, the military, they're
Speaker 3: just shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting. They unload
Speaker 3: zillion bullets into Reptilicus, but it's just making him matter.
Speaker 3: Reptilicus rides around, he slams his head into little models
Speaker 3: of buildings. They say, we can't use our flame throwers,
Speaker 3: which he didn't like last time, because we can't get
Speaker 3: close to the acid slime. Now Reptilicus is like spitting
Speaker 3: green goo at people so they can't get too close.
Speaker 3: And next we see Reptilicus attack the lungebro Bridge, where Spin,
Speaker 3: the miner, I think, gets to have a heroic moment
Speaker 3: because like somebody has to operate the controls of the
Speaker 3: bridge to like lower the drawbridge so that the panicking
Speaker 3: civilians can run away, but the guy who's supposed to
Speaker 3: lower it is paralyzed by fear, so Spin has to
Speaker 3: do it. I think that's what happened. Yeah, so the
Speaker 3: military tries more plans. They're going to try to like
Speaker 3: steer Reptilicus in one place or another to so they
Speaker 3: can use certain weapons. Reptilicus attacks the stock exchange, Oh no,
Speaker 3: not the stock exchange. More rampage and shooting, all heading
Speaker 3: toward a final confrontation. So we get the lead up
Speaker 3: to that final showdown where there's another plotting scene where
Speaker 3: they're all like standing around in a room over a
Speaker 3: map and Grayson says he wants to use bombs, but
Speaker 3: Martin appears, now recovered from his medical event to argue.
Speaker 3: He says Reptilicus cannot be blown to bits because the
Speaker 3: pieces of him will regenerate, and Grayson says, I'm a soldier,
Speaker 3: not a scientist. That's the way I know how to kill.
Speaker 3: And then Martin says, then you will have to learn
Speaker 3: another way. So what's it going to be? We have
Speaker 3: a showdown here between these worldviews is like science versus militarism,
Speaker 3: and which one is going to triumph over Reptilicus. It
Speaker 3: seems like they go for a synthesis of the two.
Speaker 3: Because ladies and gentlemen, the solution to all of the
Speaker 3: Reptilicus problems in this movie is a drug Bazuka.
Speaker 1: Yes, the drug Bozukah, another one of my favorite aspects
Speaker 1: of this picture.
Speaker 3: So they get the idea from like they're just having
Speaker 3: a conversation. I think it's Vin and Lisa are talk
Speaker 3: or Svin and Karen are talking, and he's like, how's
Speaker 3: your father and she says sedated? They gave him a
Speaker 3: hypo And then somebody says, what about reptilicus? And somebody says,
Speaker 3: if only we could give him a hypo? And then
Speaker 3: you can see it dawn on them and they're like, bye, George,
Speaker 3: that's it.
Speaker 1: There's some great lines here, like they're they're like, well,
Speaker 1: was there some sort of drug we could give him?
Speaker 1: And they're like, we could we get enough of that drug?
Speaker 1: And somebody in the midst of this I don't remember
Speaker 1: who's like drug, Like they'd never heard the word before.
Speaker 3: One of them says, by my calculations, we'll need a
Speaker 3: gallon of it for reptilicus. So yeah, they well, they
Speaker 3: kind of split up into different teams, like the young
Speaker 3: attractive people all go to get a gallon of reptilicus
Speaker 3: drugs and Grayson is like rigging up some way to
Speaker 3: deliver it. And I love that. After this there are
Speaker 3: repeated scenes of people explaining the drug bazuka concept to
Speaker 3: each other in detail as Reptilicus is raging in the background,
Speaker 3: and they keep saying things like I'm gonna take a
Speaker 3: crack at Reptilicus. So eventually they load up the drug
Speaker 3: bazooka and shoot. Grayson does it, of course, you know,
Speaker 3: he's the he's the real hero. In the end, he
Speaker 3: shoots and it's a hit. It hits Reptilicus right in
Speaker 3: the mouth, which was the only place they could get in,
Speaker 3: but it works, and then Reptilicus thrashes around a little
Speaker 3: bit and then falls asleep. So afterwards we surveyed the destruction,
Speaker 3: you know, the burned and crushed buildings and everybody wandering
Speaker 3: around looking like what happened? What has Reptilicus wrought? But
Speaker 3: then the weirdest thing I mentioned this earlier, the what
Speaker 3: the subtitles describe as soft, sultry nightclub music starts playing
Speaker 3: and Grayson is standing there with Connie and he says,
Speaker 3: it's a good thing that there's no more like him.
Speaker 3: And then we cut to the bottom of the ocean
Speaker 3: where one of Reptilicus's legs, severed legs, is walking around
Speaker 3: by itself and then the end.
Speaker 1: You know what that means, It's going to regenerate into
Speaker 1: a full reptilicus, and then the whole problem emerges again.
Speaker 3: That's right. Reptilicus can never be defeated unless they launch
Speaker 3: him into space.
Speaker 1: That's right. I mean, I guess that's where we're going
Speaker 1: in the sequel, like maybe sedated Reptilicus versus new regenerated
Speaker 1: reptilicus and then we have to just yeah, we have
Speaker 1: to launch both of them into space today.
Speaker 3: How long does the drug sedate Reptilicus for?
Speaker 1: Though I don't know, they don't really get into that,
Speaker 1: Like what's the plan next? Yeah, launch him into space,
Speaker 1: freeze him. We don't know it just we have to
Speaker 1: trust that the scientific world will take care of it
Speaker 1: this time, even though they're the ones that accidentally thawed
Speaker 1: the foot to begin with and did the mad science
Speaker 1: that got us to this predicament in the first place.
Speaker 3: They had to do that with one of the villains
Speaker 3: on the Boys, right.
Speaker 1: That's right, they did, like I forget his name, but
Speaker 1: like the evil take on Captain America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like couldn't be destroyed. They had to just keep
Speaker 3: them permanently sedated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean sometimes that's the way it is
Speaker 1: with your area. As we've discussed on Weird Hoow some
Speaker 1: of your various takes on vampires and werewolves, Like, is
Speaker 1: the what does the stake do to the unholy creature?
Speaker 1: Does it murder them or does it just hold them
Speaker 1: in place a steak that may one day be removed
Speaker 1: and free them.
Speaker 3: It's like a lock, yeah.
Speaker 1: Which, you know, it's an it. I feel like if
Speaker 1: Reptilicus does have any kind of like deeper meaning, it
Speaker 1: is getting at the idea that, yeah, solutions to problems
Speaker 1: are not permanent solutions. They are. They are all inherently temporary,
Speaker 1: you know, and you have to you have to keep
Speaker 1: at it and or keep solving the same problems over
Speaker 1: and over again, in this case, giant lizards that regenerate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I guess Reptilicus is an update on the
Speaker 3: tail of the Hydra, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the Hydra's very much like the classic telling
Speaker 1: of that story. Right. The problem not only a problem
Speaker 1: that keeps springing back up, but springs up, you know,
Speaker 1: with additional problems. Every time you cut away the head,
Speaker 1: you get more heads. And indeed, every time you defeat
Speaker 1: one reptelicus, you potentially.
Speaker 3: Get more, so you got to think outside the box. Yeah,
Speaker 3: for Hercules, it was what it was like cauterizing the
Speaker 3: stumps with fire.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and help from your cousin, right, but his cousin
Speaker 1: helping them. Yeah.
Speaker 3: In this case, it's it's a drug bazuka.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, on that note, we're going to go
Speaker 1: ahead and close it out here. We hope everyone has
Speaker 1: a good Turkey Day if you celebrate Turkey Day. In
Speaker 1: the past, we've kind of made it an official thing
Speaker 1: to do, or an unofficial thing even to sort of
Speaker 1: to do a film that has been covered on Mystery
Speaker 1: Science Theater three thousand, you know, thinking back to those
Speaker 1: Turkey Day marathons of old and they still put it on,
Speaker 1: So look for that if you're into it. But this
Speaker 1: movie was of course covered on one of the recent
Speaker 1: seasons of Mystery Science Theater three thousand, So just a
Speaker 1: reminder that, yeah, if you don't want to seek out
Speaker 1: the original version, I think you can still find the
Speaker 1: m T three K version on Netflix, so you know,
Speaker 1: go watch it there. This is a fun movie. This
Speaker 1: is a good one to riff on.
Speaker 3: I think it was the first episode of the reboot.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it was a Jonah episode. I think it
Speaker 1: had a fun song in there about how every country,
Speaker 1: every culture has its monster. So oh yeah. All right.
Speaker 1: Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most
Speaker 1: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. Find the full list of the movies
Speaker 1: we've done on a letterbox dot com. That's l E
Speaker 1: T T E R b o x d dot com.
Speaker 1: Our username is weird House, and if you're on Instagram,
Speaker 1: follow the show feed at st b ym podcast.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, Jjposway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
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