Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatra was one of the most iconic musical artists
Speaker 1: of all time. His voice was synonymous with the idea
Speaker 1: of a crooner or a dreamy singer who sings love songs.
Speaker 1: You may know that he was also a successful dramatic actor,
Speaker 1: but what most people don't realize is that he was
Speaker 1: one role away from becoming an action star. Sinatra's acting
Speaker 1: career began all the way back in the nineteen forties,
Speaker 1: but in nineteen sixty eight he was looking to challenge
Speaker 1: himself to see if he could get outside of his wheelhouse.
Speaker 1: Up to this point, Sinatra tended to play characters that
Speaker 1: were kind of already in his DNA. He was a singer,
Speaker 1: so he played singers. He had a lot of friends
Speaker 1: in the mob, so he played mobsters. He played a
Speaker 1: lot of criminals, But could he play a character on
Speaker 1: the other side of the law. His new film, The
Speaker 1: Detective would give him that chance. The Detective was based
Speaker 1: on a novel by author Roderick Thorpe. It follows Detective
Speaker 1: Joe Leland, a tired working class man exposed to heinous
Speaker 1: crime after heinous crime. He doesn't like to listen to
Speaker 1: orders from his incompetent superiors, and his marriage is disintegrating
Speaker 1: as he gets pulled in deeper and deeper by his work.
Speaker 1: It was the perfect role for Sinatra. It allowed him
Speaker 1: to showcase his signature grumpy persona while in a mature,
Speaker 1: nuanced package. The film portrayed police work in a much
Speaker 1: more realistic way than most films, and even discussed some
Speaker 1: at the time taboo subjects homosexuality and sexual violence. The
Speaker 1: Detective was a critical and commercial hit. Seeing the wild
Speaker 1: success of his novel being adapted for film, Thorpe was
Speaker 1: eager to write a sequel so that it, too could
Speaker 1: be turned into a movie. His second Joe Leland's story,
Speaker 1: Nothing Last Forever, turned the drama up to eleven. It
Speaker 1: took Joe across the country from New York to visit
Speaker 1: his estranged daughter at her office in downtown La While there,
Speaker 1: criminals attacked the office and Joe is forced to use
Speaker 1: his skills as a detective to stop them. He manages
Speaker 1: to succeed, but not before his daughter is killed. It
Speaker 1: was a well received sequel and producers were excited to
Speaker 1: turn it into a film. The only problem was that
Speaker 1: by the time they were ready to make the movie
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, Sinatra was seventy two years old.
Speaker 1: No way could he reprise the role in such an
Speaker 1: action heavy sequel. And the part that really stunk for
Speaker 1: the producers was that Sinatra's contract from the Detective stipulated
Speaker 1: that they had to offer him the role for any sequels.
Speaker 1: So they approached him, hands likely shaking as they gave
Speaker 1: him the script, secretly hoping that he would turn it down.
Speaker 1: And Sinatra read the script with his usual grim expression,
Speaker 1: not giving any indication if he liked it or not,
Speaker 1: And then once he was finished, he looked back over
Speaker 1: to the waiting producers and told them that this was
Speaker 1: probably a little more than he could handle at this
Speaker 1: point in his life, so he declined the role. I
Speaker 1: can imagine the producers jumping for joy as soon as
Speaker 1: Sinatra left their office, and what followed was an intense
Speaker 1: casting call to find just the right successor to Sinatra.
Speaker 1: All the great action stars of the time were called
Speaker 1: up too, Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Gibson, Burt Reynolds, but in the
Speaker 1: end all of them turned down the role as well. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the producers had to go with a newer, younger actor
Speaker 1: who was more popular on television than film. They rewrote
Speaker 1: the script to be a little less dark and a
Speaker 1: little more funny too. For example, the detective was now
Speaker 1: trying to save his wife instead of his daughter, and
Speaker 1: he was successful in the end. Also, the criminals weren't
Speaker 1: out for revenge, they just wanted money. And finally, the
Speaker 1: character of Joe Leland had his name changed to reflect
Speaker 1: that this was not really the same guy from the
Speaker 1: movie from twenty years before. And I'm happy to say
Speaker 1: that it worked. When it was released in nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: the film became an instant hit and is considered today
Speaker 1: to be one of the greatest action movies of all time,
Speaker 1: a film that should have starred Frank Sinatra but instead
Speaker 1: starred Bruce Willis die Hard. As Winter rolls in, I've
Speaker 1: found myself thinking of the emotions and feelings we associate
Speaker 1: with the season. The winter months are a time of joy,
Speaker 1: of celebration, Christmas, New Year's, winter revels, yule Tide carols,
Speaker 1: and warm fires. You get the idea, breaks from the
Speaker 1: drudgery of work to spend time with family, friends, and
Speaker 1: our communities. These things are universally beloved, even if you
Speaker 1: don't describe to any particular holiday. But that's not all
Speaker 1: the winter is made of. After all, we only light
Speaker 1: a cozy fire in order to stave off the biting,
Speaker 1: bitter cold, and many cultural traditions associate the cold with
Speaker 1: ghost stories just as much as jolly El's. And you've
Speaker 1: probably heard of Crampus, the goat like creature that follows
Speaker 1: Saint Nicholas around in German Christmas stories. But he's merely
Speaker 1: the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Christmas Boogeyman.
Speaker 1: You see. German folklore is full of so called childhood
Speaker 1: nightmare figures. These are the monsters that you tell your
Speaker 1: children about in order to scare them into doing their
Speaker 1: chores or going to bed on time, but some of
Speaker 1: them come for adults too. In Central Europe, one of
Speaker 1: the most well known of these beans is Frauperkta an
Speaker 1: old crone who cares very much about the cleanliness of
Speaker 1: your house and whether you've done all your weaving for
Speaker 1: the season. It's said that if your house isn't clean,
Speaker 1: she will come in with a pair of scissors, slit
Speaker 1: your belly open and fill it with rocks. She also
Speaker 1: disembowls lazy children upon occasion as well. Those who observe
Speaker 1: her traditions make sure to leave out an offering dumplings
Speaker 1: in some regions, or porridge and herring. Other regions say
Speaker 1: that you must leave an egg on your roof as
Speaker 1: a tribute. Why on the roof, while some say that
Speaker 1: frau Perkta flies through the air on the darkest night
Speaker 1: of the year, the winter solstice, and behind her is
Speaker 1: a caravan of spirits. In some traditions these are the
Speaker 1: spirits of unbaptized children, and others they are a parade
Speaker 1: of monstrous crompus like creatures called perktin. And she flies
Speaker 1: by writing on a distaff, a wool spinning tool that
Speaker 1: looks very much like a broom enough so that her
Speaker 1: image might call to mind that classical image of a
Speaker 1: witch on a broomstick. But Frau. Perkta is not a witch.
Speaker 1: She's a result of something that we would call syncretism
Speaker 1: and assimilation. Perkta was originally something more resembling a goddess
Speaker 1: or a folk deity. Her tradition can actually be traced
Speaker 1: all the way back to the Norse goddess Friga, and
Speaker 1: she was the goddess of in between spaces who guided
Speaker 1: the spirits of the dead to the afterlife. In these
Speaker 1: older stories, it said that she taught people how to
Speaker 1: weave flax into linen. But when Christianity started taking over
Speaker 1: the region, it went to work relegating the creatures of
Speaker 1: folklore to secondary roles that fit into Christian worship. Crampus,
Speaker 1: for instance, became Santa's helper, and Perkta became a figure
Speaker 1: who haunted people not on the Winter solstice, but on
Speaker 1: January sixth, the twelfth day of Christmas. But that day
Speaker 1: still holds its own special name for those who prefer
Speaker 1: to celebrate it the old way. Perkdinag. Like many classic
Speaker 1: pre Christian gods or goddesses, Perkta has a sort of
Speaker 1: duality to her. She is a creepy old woman who
Speaker 1: may punish you for disobedience, but she is also wise
Speaker 1: and elderly. She leads a train of ghosts through the
Speaker 1: sky in the dark of night, but she also guides
Speaker 1: those spirits that are lost to a final resting place.
Speaker 1: And as the nights grow longer and the days grow shorter,
Speaker 1: she makes you focus on the hearth and home, ensuring
Speaker 1: all is ready not just for her, but for your
Speaker 1: family as well. This duality makes her perfectly suited for
Speaker 1: the winter months. It also makes her resistant to the
Speaker 1: ways that Christian influence tried to demonize her, and to
Speaker 1: this day, many Alpine communities still dress as Frauperkta in
Speaker 1: holiday festivals and pay tribute to her just as enthusiastically
Speaker 1: as they do to Saint Nicholas. Some figures from folklore
Speaker 1: stand the test of time, and some survive by adapting
Speaker 1: to a strange new world. So as the nights get
Speaker 1: colder this month, keep an eye on the dark sky above,
Speaker 1: and maybe keep an egg on your roof. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me, Aaron Mankey in partnership with Houstuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at Theworldoflore dot com. And
Speaker 1: until next time, stay curious.