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Speaker 1: Uh, that's all right. That's it, that's the whole thing.

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Speaker 1: How we're starting the episode. I welcomed Behind the Bastards,

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Speaker 1: the only podcast where the host, Robert Evans is sick. Uh,

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Speaker 1: Caitlyn DURRANTI, how are you doing? I'm doing quite well. Thanks.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry to hear that you're sick. Just as a

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Speaker 1: heads up, we're going to be relying entirely on you

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Speaker 1: for our our our frenetic energy this week, so all right,

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Speaker 1: you better bring it. Yeah, everybody, it's Behind the Bastards.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Caitlin. This is exactly what we needed now. Caitlin,

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Speaker 1: you are the host of a podcast while the co host.

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Speaker 1: But I'm in a feud with your co host. So

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say you're the only host of the

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Speaker 1: Bechtel cast um to hell with James Loftus and it's

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Speaker 1: god damn Webby. I don't co sign that. Also, shout

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Speaker 1: out to shout out to our webby that we want

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Speaker 1: shout out to your webby. Indeed, huge congrats, very proud, Caitlin.

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Speaker 1: How do you feel about movies? Well, Robert, I'm so

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Speaker 1: glad you asked me about how I feel about movies,

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Speaker 1: because I famously have cultivated an entire personality around movies

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Speaker 1: and loving them, and I really have nothing else going

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Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, I mean, your nickname famously is Caitlin.

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Speaker 1: I think films are not at all problematic durante, which

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Speaker 1: is a little bit of a mouthful, but you know,

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Speaker 1: too many syllables, too many syllables. But you know, we

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Speaker 1: respect your choices. Dad. Who do you got a favorite director? Um,

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Speaker 1: honestly that I should. I should, for how I I

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Speaker 1: don't think anyone should, but I think, well, well, we'll

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Speaker 1: be talking a lot about au tour theory in a

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Speaker 1: little bit, But yeah, I think it's debatable as to

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Speaker 1: whether or not you should have a favorite director. That's

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Speaker 1: the thing I mean, because there's no one director who

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Speaker 1: has made like every movie in their repertoire. There they're

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Speaker 1: other words, maybe George Miller, George, Well, have you seen

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Speaker 1: Happy Feet? Though that I thought happy It was that

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Speaker 1: I am the only person apparently who thinks that Happy

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Speaker 1: Feet sucks shit? But wow, strong opinions on Happy Feet? Well,

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Speaker 1: what what's fun about? George Miller is number one? He

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Speaker 1: comes up in this episode, although negative way, but you know,

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Speaker 1: he's one of those directors where if you're talking about

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Speaker 1: things you don't like, you're generally talking just about like, well,

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Speaker 1: this film didn't work for me. Right today are primarily

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Speaker 1: talking about a director who inspires rather more strong opinions

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Speaker 1: for for important reasons. Caitlin, what do you know about

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Speaker 1: John Landis? I know? Okay, here's everything I know about

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Speaker 1: John Landis, which is not very much. Um. I know

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Speaker 1: that he directed a film in which either some people

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Speaker 1: died or some horses died. Okay, that's it starts start

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Speaker 1: people dying and horses dying. Um. But we're all just animals,

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Speaker 1: aren't we dying in the world on the earth? Um?

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Speaker 1: I just remember there being conditioned on his set which

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Speaker 1: were very dangerous and some living things. You're going to

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Speaker 1: have fun with this one. You talk a lot about

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Speaker 1: directors that are like their movies are problematic because of

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Speaker 1: issues with like jin or and other kinds of stuff

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Speaker 1: like that. With with John Landis, it is it is

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Speaker 1: problematic on a level of like human rights violations that

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Speaker 1: lead to this. It's a hoot. It's a hoot, Caitlin.

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Speaker 1: We're going to have fun with this one. Um. First,

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk a little bit about some film theory. Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: you know you live in l A. Now, I lived

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Speaker 1: in l A for half a decade. We both worked

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Speaker 1: in and around the entertainment industry, and I think we

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Speaker 1: can both agree that the worst people on planet Earth

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Speaker 1: are film nerds. Right, there's film nerds and then war

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Speaker 1: criminals just a little bit lower than than film nerds.

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Speaker 1: You know, That's that's how I tend to think about it.

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Speaker 1: As a film nerd certainly one of the worst people

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Speaker 1: walking on this earth. Yes, yeah, we need a Nuremberg

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Speaker 1: for people who think too much about Magnolia, P t

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Speaker 1: A and other director that. Sometimes I'm just like, what

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Speaker 1: are we all going to out for this guy so much? Uh? Man?

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Speaker 1: Tom Cruise in that movie is a pretty incredible performance, though,

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Speaker 1: you know what is as much as I love to

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Speaker 1: hate Tom Cruise, I also love to love a lot

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Speaker 1: of his performances. Look, you can't didn't. You can say

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Speaker 1: a lot of things about Tom Cruise, and most of

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Speaker 1: them are bad, but you can't deny the man is

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Speaker 1: a star. He's a star, and he's attempted performer. Yeah. Absolutely, Um,

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Speaker 1: So we're talking about kind of aw tour theory, right,

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Speaker 1: which is a term that we get. I've read a

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Speaker 1: few things on this. I'm not an expert in any

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Speaker 1: of this, but it seems broadly agreed upon that like

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Speaker 1: the word emerged in its common usage in the forties

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Speaker 1: and fifties among a bunch of like French film nerds,

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Speaker 1: and the basic idea is that the director of a

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Speaker 1: film should be seen as the author of that film,

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Speaker 1: and thus films are primarily reflections of the specific vision

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Speaker 1: of whoever directs them. If you're looking at a film

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Speaker 1: made by a specific director, it's going to have themes

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Speaker 1: and visual cues that work as signatures. Um, this is obvious.

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Speaker 1: Like this is not like particularly problematic. It's obviously true

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Speaker 1: of a lot of directors. At least. There's certainly directors

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Speaker 1: like Brett Ratner where it's like I could I couldn't

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Speaker 1: tell you if that was someone else's film or Brett

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Speaker 1: Ratner's film, because they're all they all look like a

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Speaker 1: million films. But then there's guys like like if if

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Speaker 1: you put a Quentin Tarantino film on that you've never

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Speaker 1: seen or heard of, you'll you'll immediately be like in tenments, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's a Quentin Tarantino film, right, Um, same with like

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Speaker 1: Paul and Paul Thomas Anders, and same with even like

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Speaker 1: a guy you wouldn't most people wouldn't call an artist

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Speaker 1: like Michael Bay. You put a Michael Bay film on,

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Speaker 1: most people are gonna be like this, this seems like

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Speaker 1: a Michael Bay movie. And yeah, absolutely, it has a

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Speaker 1: very recognizable conventions that he uses in his filmmaking and

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Speaker 1: storytelling and you know all that stuff. So as kind

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Speaker 1: of a basic sort of element of analyzing film, there's

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Speaker 1: nothing like high falutin nor even like problematic about the

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Speaker 1: idea of like an odd like autour theory. Right, it's not, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's just like a pretty neutral concept that's kind

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Speaker 1: of hard to argue with at its basic level. The

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Speaker 1: term itself was coined by again a bunch of French

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Speaker 1: film critics writing in a journal I'm not going to

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Speaker 1: try to pronounce um, and a lot of these guys

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Speaker 1: became French New wave directors. New York University professor Julian

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Speaker 1: Cornell points out that the basic idea of an aw

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Speaker 1: tour in a film had existed as long as films had,

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Speaker 1: and it probably originally it's most clearly from a German

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Speaker 1: theater director Max Reinhardt in the nineteen teens. The concept

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Speaker 1: started to gain popularity though in the United States starting

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Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies. UM and this came alongside

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Speaker 1: the rise of like the directors generally seen as like

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Speaker 1: the aw Tours, Right, guys like Alfred Hitchcock, Marty Scorsese,

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Speaker 1: Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola, and William Friedkin. Right. And

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Speaker 1: these are the the area in which like this idea

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Speaker 1: of like the and it kind of expands from this

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Speaker 1: idea that like films have a recognizable author to like

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Speaker 1: the director is this kind of is like the god

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Speaker 1: of the movie they're making. Right, Um, they are the

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Speaker 1: only voice that matters. And if you if you want

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Speaker 1: to really make great film art, they have to just

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Speaker 1: be kind of followed blindly by the people on set. Um.

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Speaker 1: And this, you know, one thing you can't argue with

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Speaker 1: is that this is an era in which a lot

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Speaker 1: of the most influential films of all time are being made. Right.

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Speaker 1: You're getting The Exorcist, You're getting Ship Like the Birds, Psycho. Um,

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Speaker 1: you're getting Easy Rider, Taxi Driver two thousand one of Spade,

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Speaker 1: The Godfather, UM, like some some pretty fucking good movies

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Speaker 1: are getting made in this Yeah, that's defining the language

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Speaker 1: of cinemas and yeah, exactly, yeah, the shining right. Um.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, this isn't the the era in which people

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Speaker 1: start to see directors this way. Is also the era

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Speaker 1: in which movies that are generally seen as like the

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Speaker 1: most famous movies of all time are getting made. Um.

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Speaker 1: And the sheer density of history making where of cinematic

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Speaker 1: art in this period leads people to get a little

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Speaker 1: bit carried away with kind of how important a director

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Speaker 1: is and how they should be treated. Right, man, how

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Speaker 1: giving an artist specifically not just giving a manpower, giving

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Speaker 1: a bunch of men in their mid thirties with access

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Speaker 1: to infinite money in cocaine ultimate power in any situation

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Speaker 1: is going to lead to problems, right yeah. And it

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Speaker 1: is not for nothing that this is the era in

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Speaker 1: which cocaine goes super viral too. But one of the

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Speaker 1: clearest examples of like how odd tour theory can lead

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Speaker 1: to some relief, or how the idea of like the

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Speaker 1: director is this kind of author of the film can

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Speaker 1: lead to some fund up behavior is Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. Um.

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Speaker 1: This is one of the most famous horror movies of

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Speaker 1: all time, and it relied heavily on the director's ability

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Speaker 1: to mentally and physically abuse actress Tippy Hedron. We've discussed

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Speaker 1: this at some length in our hitch Cock episodes, but

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Speaker 1: I'm going to read a brief summary from a write

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Speaker 1: up in People based on Hedren's recently released memoir quote.

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Speaker 1: Everything was building towards the famous bedroom scene, Hedron writes,

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Speaker 1: of the scene in which her character Melanie suffers a

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Speaker 1: vicious on camera attack by the birds. Up until the

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Speaker 1: day of the filming, Hedron says Hitchcock had promised her

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Speaker 1: they'd used mechanical birds, but on the day they started shooting,

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Speaker 1: Hedron was informed by assistant director James H. Brown that

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Speaker 1: the mechanical birds aren't working, so we're going to have

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Speaker 1: to use live ones. Hedron writes that she endured five

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Speaker 1: days of filming where handlers hurled ravens, doves, and a

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Speaker 1: few pigeons at her. It was brutal and ugly and

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Speaker 1: relentless rites Hedron. Carrie Grant, one of Hitch's favorite leading men,

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Speaker 1: happened to be visiting the set that day and told

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Speaker 1: me between takes, you're the bravest woman I've ever seen.

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Speaker 1: On the final day of shooting the scene, live birds

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Speaker 1: were loosely tied to Hedron's costume while she lied on

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Speaker 1: the floor. The actress says, when action was called, the

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Speaker 1: birds that were tied to her started pecking her and

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Speaker 1: the wranglers again through live birds directly at her. So

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Speaker 1: that's good, great for the actor, great for the animals,

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Speaker 1: for everybody involved. For an idea of like how much

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Speaker 1: this fox with Tippy Hedron, the next big thing that

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Speaker 1: she will do is spend five years living on a

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Speaker 1: compound with several hundred adults lions and tigers and her

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Speaker 1: family and filming it. They all get horribly mauled. Several times.

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Speaker 1: She has her legs shattered by an elephant. Um. But

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Speaker 1: it's it's oh my god, it is um a ship.

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Speaker 1: What was the roar? It's called roar. It is incredible.

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Speaker 1: It's an amazing because you're just watching. There's like maybe

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Speaker 1: thirty minutes of actual dialogue in the film, and most

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Speaker 1: of the movie is them struggling to get through their lines,

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Speaker 1: and every like ten seconds someone gets brutally mauled by

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Speaker 1: an animal. It's so good, it's amazing. Because like I

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Speaker 1: don't want to, but I mean her tell everyone involved

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Speaker 1: in it knows what they're getting into. Unlike The Birds,

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Speaker 1: where Hitchcock like tricked her into traumatizing her. They knew

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Speaker 1: we're living in a house with two hundred lions and tigers, right,

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Speaker 1: Like nobody's misled about the danger. And it's a mark

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Speaker 1: of like how much Hitchcock, how much damage he did that.

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Speaker 1: I don't think Tippy Hedron considers being repeatedly mauled by

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Speaker 1: giant animals to be the most traumatic event of her career,

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Speaker 1: Like you know, like watching roar and realize like that

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Speaker 1: to her was a lot less bad than working with

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Speaker 1: Alfred often. I love this movie. It's the movie he

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Speaker 1: decided to put on, and my mom and I came

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Speaker 1: to his house. He was like, no volume, Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: don't need to hear the dialogue. It's not important. M hmm.

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Speaker 1: Such a good movie anyway. So there's nothing inherently problematic

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Speaker 1: But the obsession with these directors is the sole voice

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Speaker 1: and driving force behind their art. Lad repeatedly to whole

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Speaker 1: teams of adults just kind of standing by while again

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Speaker 1: dudes often think Hitchcock was older, but often just like

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Speaker 1: dudes in their thirties or forties, abused entire cruise full

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Speaker 1: of people in specifically generally female like actors like that's

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Speaker 1: where most of the violence comes down. And a really

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Speaker 1: good example of this would be the classic William Friedkin

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Speaker 1: film The Exorcist. Now, this is still considered to be

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Speaker 1: one of the scariest movies ever made. Friedkin was obsessed

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Speaker 1: to the audience if he didn't deeply traumatize his actors.

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Speaker 1: Ellen Burston played the mother of a possessed child in

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Speaker 1: the movie, and one day her daughter, played by Linda Blair,

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Speaker 1: pushes Burst into the ground. Now that doesn't seem like

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Speaker 1: it should be a super intense scene, but again, Linda

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Speaker 1: Blair is like possessed with a demonic spirit, right, so

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Speaker 1: she's super strong. So Friedkin wanted to have Burst and

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Speaker 1: basically yanked to the ground by a wire police system

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Speaker 1: to simulate being shoved by demonic super strike. Burston later

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Speaker 1: recalled quote when she knocks me to the ground, I

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Speaker 1: landed on my back, And William Friedkin said cut take two,

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Speaker 1: and I said, Billy, he's pulling me too hard because

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Speaker 1: I had a wire pulling me to the floor. And

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Speaker 1: Billy said, well, it has to look real, and I said,

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Speaker 1: I know it has to look real, but I'm telling

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Speaker 1: you I could get hurt. And so he said, Okay,

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Speaker 1: don't pull her so hard. But then I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: that he didn't cancel that behind my back because the

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Speaker 1: guy smashed me into the floor. And this is hard

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Speaker 1: enough that she suffers a permanent spinal injury, right, Like

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Speaker 1: she's injured the rest of her life because of this scene.

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Speaker 1: And there's a bunch when The Exorcist comes out, a

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Speaker 1: whole lot's made about like most of the advertising campaign

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Speaker 1: has to do with like people have seizures in this movie,

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Speaker 1: Like you can't come in after it started. It's too scary,

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Speaker 1: Like you won't be able to handle it. Like people

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Speaker 1: are like getting hospitalized like that. That's a whole big

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Speaker 1: part of like the push behind this movie is that

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Speaker 1: it's hurting the audience. And like I'm gonna say right here,

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Speaker 1: as as someone who's watched to enjoyed The Exercist, Friedkin

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Speaker 1: was nuts because that movie was not scarier because they

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Speaker 1: permanently damaged Ellen Burston's spine, Like, no, they could have

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Speaker 1: done without that. There's like, look, there's some very frightening

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Speaker 1: movies that I have seen in my life. Um it

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Speaker 1: follows very scary movie get Out, very scary movie that

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Speaker 1: one VHS where their documentary crew when they come upon

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Speaker 1: a bunch of like a demon cult in the jungle.

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Speaker 1: Pretty scary. I don't think any of those movies permanently

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Speaker 1: damaged somebody's spine. Um, yeah, it's not just not necessary

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Speaker 1: for there to be horror in your movie. It's like

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Speaker 1: that famous I forget who it is who's supposed to

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Speaker 1: have said this about like method actors. But it's like

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Speaker 1: you could just like act instead, Like you don't need to,

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Speaker 1: You don't need like a policys them to damage your

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Speaker 1: actress is spine. She could just act. That is the

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Speaker 1: thing about like method acting and aw tour directors who

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Speaker 1: abuse their power is just like it's not considering for

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Speaker 1: a second how your choices are affecting other people, because

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Speaker 1: you like seeing your vision into fruition and not compromising

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Speaker 1: your vision for any reason is like the most important thing,

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Speaker 1: And it's like, no, the most important thing is that

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Speaker 1: your workplace is safe and it is a movie, but

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Speaker 1: like the stakes are not. You don't want to nearly

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Speaker 1: kill people to see your vision come to life. Is

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Speaker 1: not how that works. You almost exclusively see it with

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Speaker 1: people directing horror, right, Like that's where really a lot

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Speaker 1: of the worst abuses come from. Um. Like you can

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Speaker 1: look at the show Ning Too, where it's not so

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Speaker 1: much physical, but Shelley Deval is like really mentally abused

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Speaker 1: in that movie. Um. And I guess because they want

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Speaker 1: realism or some ship. I'm a big Michael Man fan. Um,

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Speaker 1: I you know, I'm a I'm a gun nerd um.

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Speaker 1: And the movie Heat is revered is regarded by like

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Speaker 1: people who are professional gun users as a perfectly accurate

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Speaker 1: movie with the gunfights that that big bank is just

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Speaker 1: like technically everything ideal. You noticed that Michael Mann did

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Speaker 1: not put life bullets in those guns and require his

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Speaker 1: actors to get shot for real, because again, you can

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Speaker 1: film an incredibly convincing gunfight without killing people, and that's

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Speaker 1: the beauty of cinema. Yeah, because it's a movie. It's

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Speaker 1: it's just wild to me that anyway, this is not

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Speaker 1: the only injury on the or even the most severe

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Speaker 1: one on the set of The Exorcist. Um, and I

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Speaker 1: want to note here to Burston, who suffered that permanent

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Speaker 1: spinal injury. Years later, she said, in an interview of

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Speaker 1: William Friedkin quote, Billy is one of those directors that

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Speaker 1: is so dedicated to getting the shot right that I

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Speaker 1: think some other considerations sort of fall by the wayside.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes he's a brilliant director, and I don't want to

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Speaker 1: knock him. However, I did injure my lower back and

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Speaker 1: I had to work with it ever since. But it's okay,

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Speaker 1: And like, it's not Ellen, it's not okay. You can

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Speaker 1: you can knock him, and you should. Yeah, he should

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Speaker 1: get knocked, especially because of the story we're about to tell. Um.

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Speaker 1: So at least Burston was an adult, right she is.

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Speaker 1: She was not fully informed of how dangerous the scene

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Speaker 1: could be, but she was old enough to choose to

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Speaker 1: get injured on a set, right, Um. Stunt actors do

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Speaker 1: that all the time. Linda Blair was fourteen years old

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Speaker 1: when she played the possessed little girl in The Exorcist. Now.

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Speaker 1: One famous scene called for her to shoot Bolt upright

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Speaker 1: in bed. Right. This is if you like, if you're

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Speaker 1: watching a documentary that talks about movies, and they show

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Speaker 1: a scene from the exerci Is. This is the scene

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Speaker 1: they're going to generally show where she like and it's

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Speaker 1: it's a very like sudden sharp movement. In order to

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Speaker 1: make the scene look kind of properly unnatural, freed Can

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Speaker 1: again used a mechanical rigging system to move her body.

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Speaker 1: Blair later explained quote, in this particular take, the lacing

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Speaker 1: came loose. I'm crying. I'm screaming. They think I'm acting

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Speaker 1: up a storm. It fractured my lower spine. No, they

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Speaker 1: didn't send me to the doctor. It's the footage that's

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Speaker 1: in the movie. So when you see that scene in

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Speaker 1: the Exorcist, her back is being broken, she is fourteen,

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Speaker 1: when she's so child and a spinal injury slash. Breaking

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Speaker 1: your back is so scary and has such high stakes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I mean speaking of high stakes, now she does.

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Speaker 1: She's in a couple of other movies later on that

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Speaker 1: she also gets hurt less hurt in but she winds

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Speaker 1: up suffering severe scoliosis as a result of her injuries.

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Speaker 1: Um and yeah, this cavalier disregard for the safe d

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Speaker 1: of children in the name of shooting a good scary

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Speaker 1: movie only grew more pronounced over the next decade as

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Speaker 1: the tours increasingly took over in Hollywood. The Exorcist was

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Speaker 1: filmed in nineteen seventy two. The movie we're talking about today,

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Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone movie, was filmed in nineteen eighty two.

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Speaker 1: But before we get into that, you know, we should

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Speaker 1: get into some products and services. Products and services because

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Speaker 1: while the director, William Friedkin, the director of the Exorcist,

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Speaker 1: injured a fourteen year old girl without her consent, we

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Speaker 1: promise that all of our products and services only injured

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Speaker 1: children with their consent or the consent of their parents.

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Speaker 1: All Right, here's here's ads. Oh we're back. How are

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Speaker 1: we feeling? How's everybody doing? I mean, I feel I

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Speaker 1: feel like I usually do when I'm a guest on

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Speaker 1: this show, and it's just I mean, I'm I'm very

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Speaker 1: happy to be here, very happy to be with you.

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Speaker 1: But then I'm also like, oh, right, people are bad.

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Speaker 1: Although I do um this, this episode, this topic is

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Speaker 1: is far more in my wheelhouse than anything has been

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Speaker 1: any of the other times I've been on the show.

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Speaker 1: So I feel I'm feeling extremely confident. Honestly, that is

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Speaker 1: very good. You know, one of the documentaries I watched

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Speaker 1: preparing for this was it's called Cursed Films. There's a

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Speaker 1: series of like episodes about different movies that had horrible

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Speaker 1: things happen on set. And on the episode that is

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Speaker 1: about the Twilight Zone movie, one of the people they

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Speaker 1: interview as like a voice of sanity of how like

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Speaker 1: actually know all that matters is safety and it's crazy

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Speaker 1: to take these kind of risks to get a good

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Speaker 1: shot in a fucking movie. Um is like the one

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Speaker 1: of the dudes who ran um Trauma, which is one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite trauma. Oh my god, it's where m

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Speaker 1: James Gunn got a start. Among other things, they did

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Speaker 1: like really gory, violent, like like purposefully outrageous schlock like

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Speaker 1: sex and nudity and like puppets exploding and blood and

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Speaker 1: got like awesome shit. Um, but also had a very

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Speaker 1: good track record for like not killing people because they

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Speaker 1: at the end of the day, we're understood that they

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Speaker 1: were just making movies anyway. Good documentaries to watch. Also,

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Speaker 1: Trauma very fun film studio. So both actresses in the

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Speaker 1: Exorcist seemed to have the opinion that the artistic qualities

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Speaker 1: of the film at least mitigated their suffering, right. UM,

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna make a judgment on that one way

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Speaker 1: or the other. It's there. They have the right to

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Speaker 1: feel however they want. Um, I have to imagine that, like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: if if you suffer, but the thing that gets made

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Speaker 1: is like a legendary work of art, then maybe that

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Speaker 1: makes it a little easier. It makes it feel like

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Speaker 1: more meaningful or something. It does justify it, certainly. But

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Speaker 1: I guess it's like, well, if I broke my back,

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Speaker 1: at least it wasn't for the worst movie ever made exactly,

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Speaker 1: And today, like we're gonna primarily be talking about people

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Speaker 1: sacrificing everything for an incredibly stupid movie. Um, it's so funny.

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Speaker 1: It's not funny children die anyway. Um, Before we get

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Speaker 1: into that, we should spend some time talking about the

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Speaker 1: autour behind the Twilight Zone movie. John Landis now John

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Speaker 1: David Landis, was born on August third, nineteen fifty in Chicago, Illinois.

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Speaker 1: His family were reasonably well off. His father was an

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Speaker 1: interior designer and decorator. Um. Also, his mother's original last

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Speaker 1: name was magazine Er, which is not something I realized

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Speaker 1: people had as a last name. I actually think it

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Speaker 1: was like her last name from previous marriage. But I

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Speaker 1: just never heard of magazine or as a last name,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's silly. Um. I think we need

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Speaker 1: to have an approved list of last names that people

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Speaker 1: are allowed to have. I like the idea of taking

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Speaker 1: a noun. It's just kind of an object, adding an

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Speaker 1: R or an e r to the end of it

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Speaker 1: and then making it kind of like a oh, what

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Speaker 1: do you do for a living? I'm a magazine er?

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Speaker 1: Well that I I guess I would know a couple

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Speaker 1: of dildoers, which would actually be pretty funny. Um do

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Speaker 1: they make dil doos? Do they mean? Is a last name? So?

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Speaker 1: Fair enough? Um? Okay. The Landis family relocates to Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles when John is four months old, which is a

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Speaker 1: decision that would have cataclysmic impacts on Hollywood for decades

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Speaker 1: to come. When he was a little boy, John watched

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Speaker 1: the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, which he told interview where

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Speaker 1: Robert Elder was the movie that made him want to

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Speaker 1: become a director. Quote, I had complete suspension of disbelief. Really,

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Speaker 1: I was eight years old, and it transported me. I

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Speaker 1: was on that beach running from that dragon fighting that

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Speaker 1: eye clops. It just really dazzled me, and I bought

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Speaker 1: it completely, and so I actually sat through it twice

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Speaker 1: and when I got home, I asked my mom, who

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Speaker 1: does that? Who makes the movie? So this is like

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Speaker 1: how he decides he wants to be a director. Right,

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Speaker 1: So John gets a job as a young adult, I

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Speaker 1: think he's like seventeen or eighteen, as a male boy

424
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:21,239
Speaker 1: for twentieth Century Fox. Uh. He pretty quickly moves on

425
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: to working as a gopher on film sets. Basically he

426
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 1: would just kind of hang around and do whatever odd

427
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 1: job needed doing. Um. And this was under the logic,

428
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,680
Speaker 1: which is actually really good logic. In Hollywood, a lot

429
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: of people get their start in a variant of this way.

430
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 1: That like, if you're just there, eventually something you want

431
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 1: to do will need doing, and you can be like, oh,

432
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,479
Speaker 1: I'll do that, And that's how you start getting jobs

433
00:25:43,480 --> 00:25:46,440
Speaker 1: that are more of the jobs you want to do. Um.

434
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: There's a lot of guys, especially in this period where

435
00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: things are a little more wild, um, get their start

436
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,200
Speaker 1: that way. So he gets his chance pretty quickly after

437
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 1: he gets started in Hollywood in nineteen sixty nine, when

438
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: he scores a rare gig as assistant director on the

439
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: World War two heist film Kelly's Heroes, which was filmed

440
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 1: in Yugoslavia. He just sort of again been on set

441
00:26:08,600 --> 00:26:11,639
Speaker 1: working as a gopher, and then the original assistant director

442
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: gets sick and has to go home, and the directors like, well,

443
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,479
Speaker 1: we need another a d and you know, John Lands

444
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: is like, I can do that, and he gets the job.

445
00:26:20,080 --> 00:26:24,720
Speaker 1: You know, After this, his career moves steadily upwards. Uh.

446
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 1: He had more formal roles on Once upon a Time

447
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: in the West, l Condor, and a number of other

448
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,680
Speaker 1: action adventure movies. He was known for being the guy

449
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 1: who would do literally any job the film needed done,

450
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: even if it was dangerous like stunt work and not

451
00:26:37,760 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: something he knew how to do. As he later said, quote,

452
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:43,440
Speaker 1: I worked on some pirates movies, all kinds of movies, French,

453
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:45,640
Speaker 1: foreign movies. I worked in a movie called Red Sun

454
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: where tors Shiro Mufune kills me, puts a sword through me.

455
00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:50,439
Speaker 1: I worked as a stunt guy. I worked as a

456
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: dialogue coach. I worked as an actor. I worked as

457
00:26:52,800 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 1: a production assistant. So he's just doing absolutely any job

458
00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 1: that they have available. And he builds enough kind of experience,

459
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: He builds enough connections with other directors and some actors

460
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: that when he's twenty one years old, he's able to

461
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: put together the resources to direct his first feature film.

462
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:12,560
Speaker 1: Although calling it a feature film is a little bit

463
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:18,119
Speaker 1: of grace that maybe it doesn't deserves sixty one minutes

464
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 1: long or something or it is. It is ultra low budget.

465
00:27:21,760 --> 00:27:24,520
Speaker 1: Most of the money is provided by his dad, Um

466
00:27:24,560 --> 00:27:26,879
Speaker 1: he like takes up a collection from family and friends.

467
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,360
Speaker 1: The title of the movie is schlock Like. It's literally

468
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 1: called schlock very good. Here's how IMDb describes it. A

469
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: small town is terrorized by the Banana Killer, which turns

470
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: out to be the missing link between man and ape.

471
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:46,920
Speaker 1: Now I have not watched this movie. My time is

472
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 1: slightly more valuable than that, But I also came across

473
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 1: a fan summary of the storyline on IMDb, and my goodness,

474
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,119
Speaker 1: I would be doing everyone a disservice if I didn't

475
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: read that too. A monkey type monster falls in love

476
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,119
Speaker 1: with a blind girl, which thinks that he's a giant dog.

477
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 1: After kidnapping the girl and fleeing King Kong like onto

478
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,080
Speaker 1: the roof of a gym, he gets involved with the Army.

479
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:11,639
Speaker 1: Now I have not seen this movie, John Landi is

480
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 1: to be to be entirely fair. John Landez is on

481
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:17,680
Speaker 1: the record is saying it's terrible, right like, he does

482
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,120
Speaker 1: not pretend this was any good. And it was supposed

483
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:24,359
Speaker 1: to be like so bad it's it's funny movie, right like.

484
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:26,920
Speaker 1: That was the goal. This was not like a serious

485
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 1: like it was a loving send up of of of

486
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: shitty monster movies. That's why it's called schlock, you know. Now,

487
00:28:34,520 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 1: John wrote, directed, and starred in costume as the eight Monster. Um.

488
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: He had actually originally intended his first film to be

489
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 1: an underground porn movie, but he apparently gave up on

490
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: the idea when he learned that he need to cut

491
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 1: an organized crime. UM. So, if you're wondering where John

492
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 1: Landis is moral lines, lie, I guess that's that's as

493
00:28:55,240 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 1: close as you're gonna get um again. Schlock was a

494
00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:00,520
Speaker 1: really bad movie, but it did have the thing about

495
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:04,760
Speaker 1: it that was undeniably excellent. The monster costume was really good.

496
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 1: And it's really good because Rick Baker did the costume. Now,

497
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 1: Baker would go on to play King Hong in nineteen

498
00:29:11,040 --> 00:29:14,240
Speaker 1: seventy five. He did the makeup for the Exorcist, for

499
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: Star Wars, for The Rocketeer, for The Nutty Professor, for

500
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: Men in Black, for Mighty Joe Young, for hell Boy,

501
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: for Just Like He's a legend. Rick Baker's huge, incredibly

502
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 1: influential makeup artist. Um Landis could never have afforded him

503
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 1: as an actual professional, but Rick Baker wasn't yet a professional.

504
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 1: Max land or John Landis stumbles into Rick Baker when

505
00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 1: he's like living with his parents and cooking latex costumes

506
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: and their kitchen oven. Um So, he's basically able to

507
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,880
Speaker 1: get this kid for his first gig, this guy who

508
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: becomes like a legendary um like monster kind of prop

509
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 1: maker type dude. Um So. That's one of the reasons

510
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 1: why this movie is noteworthy is that, like as much

511
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 1: of schlock as it is, there's a pretty fucking cool

512
00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: monster costume in it. Um So, for two years, Landis

513
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 1: is unable to get any kind of distribution for his

514
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: weird film. He makes it in seventy one, it doesn't

515
00:30:06,080 --> 00:30:09,400
Speaker 1: get distributed until seventy three. The closest he gets is

516
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: an offer from Roger Corman. Roger Corman is an incredible

517
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 1: schlock director. He's the guy who taught James Cameron everything

518
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 1: by the way, um, and Corman offers to distribute it

519
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: if John Landis quote adds tits Roger Corman, Okay, agree,

520
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: if every movie needs more TIS. If you have, if

521
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 1: you have spent thirty seconds googling Roger Corman, you will

522
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, that makes sense. That's totally scarce. Yeah. So,

523
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 1: Luckily for John Landis, and probably mostly due to the

524
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:49,360
Speaker 1: quality of the monster costume, the film does eventually get

525
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: distributed because of a single influential fan, Johnny Carson. Now, well,

526
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: we will do a whole episode on Johnny Carson because

527
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 1: he was a monster. He was just a horrible, horrible

528
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:04,680
Speaker 1: human being. Um. But he is also like the absolute

529
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 1: king of late night television for like half a century.

530
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: Like basically, if you have if your parents are boomers,

531
00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: for most of the time they were alive, Johnny Carson

532
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: was like the most influential man and entertainment pretty much. Um,

533
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: there's no one alive today who has the kind of

534
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: cultural cachet that Carson had in the seventies. Like that,

535
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:25,680
Speaker 1: we just it's not possible to be that influential in

536
00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: pop culture anymore. Um. I want to play a little

537
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: audio of John Landis explaining what happened next so you

538
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: can get a feel for the guy. Uh and because

539
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: I think the story is kind of interesting, very generous,

540
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 1: and he had me on his show and it was

541
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,600
Speaker 1: funny because that time I was twenty three. The movie

542
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 1: was finished for over a year and a half. Buddy,

543
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:50,480
Speaker 1: I was told I had to say I was twenty one,

544
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 1: because that's the gimmick was, I was twenty one year

545
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 1: old filmmaker. I go, yeah, but I'm twenty three, now

546
00:31:56,040 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 1: shut up. So anyway, I was on that show and

547
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 1: they showed clips and that's I got a distributor like that.

548
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 1: So that's how he like, right, It's like a little

549
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 1: bit of a con from Johnny like he Johnny Carson

550
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 1: being a guy who knows what gets people interested is

551
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 1: like nobody's gonna care about some kid made a movie,

552
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 1: But some twenty one year old makes a movie. Well

553
00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 1: that's a little bit of a star, right, you know,

554
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,480
Speaker 1: My Carson is not a good accent um, but fuck

555
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: fuck him. He sucked. So one of the people who

556
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,320
Speaker 1: watched the Johnny Carson Show that night and saw John

557
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: Landis on it and saw clips from his movie schlock

558
00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: was Bob Zucker. Now that's the last name that should

559
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: be familiar to people, right. The Zucker brothers are the

560
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 1: people who eventually will give us Airplane and the Naked

561
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 1: Gun trilogy and also a bunch of much worse movies. Um.

562
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:53,120
Speaker 1: At this point there again in like their early twenties,

563
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: and they're part of a sketch troup called Kentucky Fried

564
00:32:55,760 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: Theater Um. And they eventually get together with John Landis

565
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 1: and he's the director. They write the screenplay and they

566
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: put together what's like Kentucky Fried movie, which is like,

567
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:08,000
Speaker 1: you know, it's like we've all seen like hot Rod

568
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 1: is like the movie from fucking um what's his name,

569
00:33:11,160 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: m Andy Samberg? Andy Samberg sketch Troup. Like you get

570
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 1: like this is the thing that's been happening for for forever.

571
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 1: This is one of the first cases of it where

572
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 1: like you've got this sketch group, they're pretty big and

573
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: they get a movie, right. Um, Like it's this thing

574
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:27,520
Speaker 1: that will become kind of a big part of how

575
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 1: comedians break into having their careers. Um. And this is

576
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: this is like a reasonably successful a comedian how to

577
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: have a career. Well, it helps to be a Zucker brother. Um, yeah,

578
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,320
Speaker 1: I would. I would definitely try being Bob Zucker if

579
00:33:47,320 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: you can. Um. So with this movie, it's a big

580
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: enough hit that John Landis makes a name for himself

581
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: and a Universal executive picks him out to direct their

582
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,920
Speaker 1: next big movie in the pipeline, a college comedy film

583
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 1: called Animal House. Yeah. Have you seen Animal House? I have.

584
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: It's been many years. I don't remember it very well,

585
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:15,439
Speaker 1: but I remember like the noteworthy parts of it. Yeah,

586
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:19,439
Speaker 1: drinks the whole bottle of liquor. Yeah, there's some there's

587
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 1: some fun stuff in it, like no, but Belushi like

588
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:24,919
Speaker 1: really was a very talented comedic actor. It's a movie

589
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: that's got some really good parts. I haven't seen it

590
00:34:27,239 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: in a couple of years. I'm sure there's some stuff

591
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 1: that hasn't aged well. It has aged better than its

592
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 1: descendant film, Revenge of the Nerds, UM, which is like

593
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: maybe the worst aged movie I have ever seen. It's

594
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:43,040
Speaker 1: right up there. It's real hard to beat that one

595
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:48,600
Speaker 1: in terms of is now unwatchable? Um animal House unless

596
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: I said, like again, there's some really good bits and

597
00:34:50,239 --> 00:34:53,640
Speaker 1: Animal House um, And it's one of those things Animal

598
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: House invince like the college comedy genre. Um, Like there's

599
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:01,360
Speaker 1: a Futurama episode, bat turned off it. There's episodes and

600
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 1: like a ton of different TV shows based on it.

601
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: And like every college comedy movie that's come since is

602
00:35:07,840 --> 00:35:11,280
Speaker 1: patterned off of Animal House. It's also like the first

603
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: gross out comedy. Like it effectively invinced that genre of comedy,

604
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: like fucking um um uh American Pie, Like a whole

605
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:25,520
Speaker 1: bunch of fucking movies um that that come later are

606
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 1: all kind of made in the image of Animal House

607
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: one way or the other. Um. It also is what

608
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 1: kind of really electrifies the career of John Belushi, um,

609
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:38,759
Speaker 1: which does tragically lead us to the career of Jim Belushi.

610
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:45,160
Speaker 1: But you can't blame John Landis for that. So John's

611
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: first contribution to the film, when it's still kind of

612
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 1: in production, was to make it, in his words, much

613
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,320
Speaker 1: less hateful. Uh. The original draft was it was a

614
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:58,880
Speaker 1: National lampoon movie and they liked mean comedy. Um, and

615
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:02,160
Speaker 1: so he felt was nobody to root for. He made uh,

616
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:05,440
Speaker 1: you know the frat that is, the heroes like a

617
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: lot less awful. Um. It's kind of the way he's

618
00:36:08,640 --> 00:36:10,960
Speaker 1: put it. I haven't seen the original draft of the script.

619
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: He also wanted it to be more authentic, right, He

620
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:15,360
Speaker 1: really wanted it to feel real, so he wanted to

621
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:17,760
Speaker 1: film at a real university. They actually picked the University

622
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: of Oregon in Eureka. Um, and he arranges for his

623
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:24,240
Speaker 1: cast to party with a bunch of actual seventies frat

624
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: brothers so that they'll understand what like real frat parties are. Like.

625
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: This does not go well. Um. See, the frat kids

626
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:34,440
Speaker 1: were not impressed with having like be these guys at

627
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 1: the time. Like most of these folks like B and

628
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 1: C list Hollywood types right there. Mostly the folks who

629
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: show up at the party at least are mostly not

630
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:46,560
Speaker 1: big names. Um. And a misunderstanding occurs, and the frat

631
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 1: boys beat the ship out of Landis's actors. Yeah, it's

632
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:55,799
Speaker 1: really fun. They just fucking wail on them. Um, I'm

633
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:59,399
Speaker 1: gonna quote from Stumped magazine. Now. Landis was never told

634
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 1: about the fire, as he was saved by his first

635
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:04,959
Speaker 1: assistant director, Cliff Coleman of Krusty Cowboy boot wearing Sam

636
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:07,160
Speaker 1: Peck and Paul Veteran. It was Coleman who insisted that

637
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: nobody tell the director a thing about the brawl. And

638
00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 1: he also found the necessary medical care for the actors bruises,

639
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: chipped teeth, and other wounds. He was gruffin big and

640
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 1: we were kind of like the grizzled old sergeant Private,

641
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: Landis says of Coleman, adding that he was glad he

642
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: never heard about the fight, noting I would have freaked out. Um. Now,

643
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,440
Speaker 1: given what comes next, I don't know if I believe that. Um,

644
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: But whatever you want to say about his tactics in

645
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: this movie, Animal House is a huge success. It changes

646
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:37,520
Speaker 1: the game for comedy blockbusters, and it turns John Landis

647
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:41,000
Speaker 1: into something approaching a household name. Now. That was nineteen.

648
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty, John co wrote and directed what will

649
00:37:45,560 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 1: probably always be his best film, The Blues Brothers, starring

650
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 1: John Belushi and dan Ackroyd and featuring every living musician

651
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 1: worth anything in the United States. And I know I'm

652
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,760
Speaker 1: a big Blues Brothers fan. UM, honestly never seen it.

653
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: It's a good ass movie. I watched it very recently.

654
00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:07,839
Speaker 1: That motherfucker holds up. That is a good ass movie. Um.

655
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 1: It's got like a wreath of Franklin in it. It's

656
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 1: really quality quality film. Um. Features like the most police

657
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:16,880
Speaker 1: cars ever destroyed in a movie. There's a bunch of

658
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:20,080
Speaker 1: cool ship in and it is also this is something

659
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:22,839
Speaker 1: I think people may not realize who have watched it

660
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:25,479
Speaker 1: more recently, because most of us encountered it twenty thirty

661
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 1: years after it was filmed. Um, Animal House was a

662
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:31,319
Speaker 1: two and a half million dollar movie, right, which is

663
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:34,080
Speaker 1: not like micro budget, but it's not high budget for

664
00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 1: the era. Blues Brothers is a thirty million dollar movie.

665
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:40,520
Speaker 1: It is one of the most expensive films in history

666
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:44,919
Speaker 1: at the time that it's made. Um, it's a budget, yeah,

667
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:49,959
Speaker 1: thirty million, which is like, yeah, huge, Well, because there's

668
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 1: I mean, the climax of it. There's like hundreds of

669
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 1: police cars crashing into each other, flying off of overpasses

670
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 1: like it is a it is a like the the

671
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:04,359
Speaker 1: climax of that movie is pretty spectacular. Um, it's really good.

672
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:07,840
Speaker 1: It's a really good Max Landis or sorry, man, I

673
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 1: keep mixing them up. Max Sitis is a bad director.

674
00:39:10,360 --> 00:39:13,000
Speaker 1: John Landis is not a bad director. He's a bad

675
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 1: person and not all of his films are good, but

676
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,320
Speaker 1: like he directed some solid movies and Blues Brothers is

677
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: a really good movie. Um, and so this rockets This

678
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:25,800
Speaker 1: makes it. He's a list now right after Fucking Blues Brothers.

679
00:39:26,000 --> 00:39:28,840
Speaker 1: It's it's still one of the most successful comedy movies

680
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:31,839
Speaker 1: of all time. Um. And at this point he has

681
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 1: become like one of the aw tours that studios are

682
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:37,359
Speaker 1: going to shovel money at and try not to funk with.

683
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,440
Speaker 1: You know. He and Steven Spielberg become friends in this

684
00:39:40,480 --> 00:39:43,400
Speaker 1: period from seventy eight to like the early eighties. Uh,

685
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: and the two allegedly have a friendly competition to see

686
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:49,759
Speaker 1: who can get the most expensive movie made. Right. Um,

687
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:53,359
Speaker 1: so like they're competing, you know, they're they're like thirty three,

688
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 1: thirty four in this period of time, they have unlimited money.

689
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:01,399
Speaker 1: Everybody's telling them their geniuses, and they're all powerful on set, right,

690
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:07,239
Speaker 1: They're both crazy in this period of time. Scary talk

691
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:13,239
Speaker 1: about horror movies. That's a horror movie. Yeah. Now, in

692
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:16,160
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one, John gets to make another one of

693
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 1: his screenplays into a movie, An American Werewolf in London. Uh.

694
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: It was another really big hit. It effectively invented the

695
00:40:23,239 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 1: comedy horror film as a viable profit making genre. There

696
00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:28,799
Speaker 1: had been like comedic horror before. This is the first

697
00:40:28,800 --> 00:40:30,680
Speaker 1: time it's actually like, oh, you can make some fucking

698
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:34,319
Speaker 1: money doing this ship. Right. Um, So, by the time

699
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two runs around, John Lannis has directed one

700
00:40:37,360 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: of the highest budget movies of all time. He's invented

701
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:43,919
Speaker 1: gross out comedy, and he's he's effectively like invent helped

702
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: to invent like comedy horror as like viable profitable genres. Right.

703
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 1: He didn't like create the idea, but he was the

704
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:53,680
Speaker 1: guy who like made them make money for Hollywood. Um,

705
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 1: he's a fucking he's he's he's on top of the

706
00:40:56,560 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: goddamn world. Right. Um, Animal House more like Powerhouse. No,

707
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 1: I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you, Jesus Christ

708
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: and I love you, Caitlin. We're the same person anyway.

709
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:20,239
Speaker 1: Moving on, So, when Warner Brothers decided they wanted to

710
00:41:20,239 --> 00:41:23,440
Speaker 1: release a reboot of perhaps the most beloved franchise and

711
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:27,879
Speaker 1: American horror history, The Twilight Zone, they knew exactly who

712
00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 1: to go to, John Landis, so he signs on to

713
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 1: produce the movie alongside his buddy Steven Spielberg. Right, it's

714
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:39,360
Speaker 1: fucking nineteen eighty two. You've got John Landis and Stephen

715
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 1: fucking Spielberg on the same production, Like yeah, like right,

716
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 1: you couldn't be more set up for success, you know.

717
00:41:46,719 --> 00:41:49,760
Speaker 1: Um Now, it's a little bit of a weird movie

718
00:41:49,800 --> 00:41:52,319
Speaker 1: because again it's based on a TV series that's kind

719
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:54,880
Speaker 1: of an episodic series. They decide the right thing to

720
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:56,480
Speaker 1: do with the Twilight Zone movie is to make it

721
00:41:56,520 --> 00:42:01,680
Speaker 1: an anthology with four segments directed by four front directors. Now,

722
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 1: two of them, Spielberg and Landis, are some of the

723
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 1: biggest names in Hollywood at the time. The other two

724
00:42:07,719 --> 00:42:11,720
Speaker 1: are less well known, Joe Dante and George Miller. Now,

725
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 1: George Miller had just directed Mad Max two, which is

726
00:42:15,280 --> 00:42:17,359
Speaker 1: most people have not seen the first Mad Max. It's

727
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 1: like a really kind of niche like he's still a

728
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: cop in the movie. It's set before like the world

729
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 1: really completely crumbles. Um. And it's very much like an

730
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: Australian movie as opposed to Mad Max two, which is

731
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 1: obviously still Australian but as a huge hit. Right. Um. So,

732
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 1: Miller had just directed Mad Max to like the year before,

733
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 1: so he just kind of broken out as a big director,

734
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:41,279
Speaker 1: and Joe Dante hadn't yet. He was about two years

735
00:42:41,320 --> 00:42:44,120
Speaker 1: off from making Grimlin's which is the film that makes

736
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:48,640
Speaker 1: Joe Dante huge. Right, So you've got Spielberg and Landis,

737
00:42:48,640 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: which are these huge names, and then you've got George

738
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,400
Speaker 1: Miller and Joe Dante, who are gonna be huge names,

739
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 1: but they're still like kind of earlier in their in

740
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:59,759
Speaker 1: their careers at this point. Um. Although I shouldn't say

741
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,360
Speaker 1: George Miller is early in his directing career. He'd already

742
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:06,640
Speaker 1: spent decades working as like an emergency medical doctor. Um,

743
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 1: which a lot of people don't know about George Miller.

744
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:12,360
Speaker 1: He was an r doctor for years and years. Wild

745
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 1: I learned that, I feel like every few years, and

746
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 1: then I promptly forget, and then I relearned it, and

747
00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 1: I'm just just as amazed all over again. If you

748
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,200
Speaker 1: watch I mean, this is still more or less the

749
00:43:23,239 --> 00:43:25,359
Speaker 1: case in Fury Road. But if you watch The Old

750
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 1: Man Max Is, whenever there's a car crash, nobody like

751
00:43:28,440 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 1: walks away from a car crash in one of his movies,

752
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:35,839
Speaker 1: they like crawl while like puking and concussed, because he's

753
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,680
Speaker 1: treated like he's specifically the reason he made the Mad

754
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 1: Max movies, he says, is that like well as a

755
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:44,239
Speaker 1: doctor in Australia, we don't have a gun culture, but

756
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:46,120
Speaker 1: the thing that our young men do to get each

757
00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 1: other killed is street racing and so like, that was

758
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 1: the big part of why those movies are the way

759
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 1: they are because he's treated a lot of people from

760
00:43:53,600 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 1: car accidents and that's why Happy Feet is the way,

761
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 1: such a brutal movie about penguin based crime, which is

762
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:08,880
Speaker 1: the primary cause of death in Australia to this day. Yeah.

763
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: Um So, anyway, the Twilight Zone movie opens with a

764
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:19,359
Speaker 1: prolog scene featuring Dan Ackroyd and Albert Brooks. Um Ackroyd is,

765
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,520
Speaker 1: you know, most famous for Ghostbusters and Albert Books. Brooks

766
00:44:23,600 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 1: is most famous for voicing Hank Scorpio on The Simpsons.

767
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:28,800
Speaker 1: Um So, both guys are kind of driving through the

768
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:31,759
Speaker 1: night and discussing their favorite Twilight Zone episodes. As the

769
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:35,319
Speaker 1: prolog ends, dan Ackroyd convinces Brooks to pull over so

770
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 1: he can show him something scary. He then turns into

771
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:40,480
Speaker 1: a pretty corny monster and eats him. It's not a

772
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:43,520
Speaker 1: great start for the movie. Um kind of not very

773
00:44:43,560 --> 00:44:46,959
Speaker 1: imaginative for again, you know, Landis is directing this scene.

774
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:49,879
Speaker 1: He's certainly a guy who's capable of some imagination. It's

775
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:52,319
Speaker 1: maybe a sign that the movie was not actually in

776
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:55,560
Speaker 1: great hands and that Landis wasn't a good pick um.

777
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 1: But you know, in general, most critics agree that Joe

778
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: on Taste segment of the film, which focuses around a

779
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:05,239
Speaker 1: child with the power to warp matter torturing a bunch

780
00:45:05,280 --> 00:45:07,879
Speaker 1: of strangers he's forced to act as his family, as

781
00:45:07,960 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: like the best part of the movie. It's it's got

782
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 1: some really cool monster work too. There's like a cartoon

783
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:16,239
Speaker 1: the kid pulls out of the TV. It looks pretty good. Uh.

784
00:45:16,360 --> 00:45:19,360
Speaker 1: George Miller's segment is also fine. It's a recreation of

785
00:45:19,480 --> 00:45:22,400
Speaker 1: Nightmare at twenty feet that's the episode with the Grimlin

786
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:25,040
Speaker 1: on the wing of the plane, right. Um, but this

787
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: time John Lithgaw is like the dude who's seeing the Grimlin.

788
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 1: Which anything with John Lithgow is instantly a piece of

789
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:36,279
Speaker 1: beloved Americana. Absolutely, absolutely, John Lithgow has never done anything wrong.

790
00:45:36,320 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: I think we can all agree on that. Um. Spielberg

791
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 1: segment is weaker. Um, it's a weird thing about old

792
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:46,239
Speaker 1: people temporarily becoming young, and it just doesn't fit in

793
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 1: well with the rest of the movie. I don't get

794
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:53,319
Speaker 1: Spielberg's not not like a great horror director in my opinion. Um,

795
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:55,799
Speaker 1: I mean the only other thing I can think of that,

796
00:45:56,320 --> 00:46:00,319
Speaker 1: Uh well, I guess Poulter Geist. And then he did

797
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:02,279
Speaker 1: do it. Yeah, he's got Poulter Guys. But I still

798
00:46:02,280 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 1: don't think Poulter Guys is very scary anyway. Whatever. Yeah,

799
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:11,280
Speaker 1: you know what is good at horror these products and services,

800
00:46:11,719 --> 00:46:15,799
Speaker 1: Because there's nothing more frightening than capitalism, Caitlin. It's an

801
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: engine of blood sharing us all ever closer to destruction,

802
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,719
Speaker 1: just as churned us ever closer to a delicious meal

803
00:46:23,600 --> 00:46:26,720
Speaker 1: by shipping a box directly to your home, filled with ingredients,

804
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 1: all wrapped in individual plastic packages. Um um m m plastic.

805
00:46:39,000 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 1: We're back, Sophie seems happy. No, what's up, Sophie, You're

806
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:50,640
Speaker 1: just so annoying. Yeah, well yeah, well you know you're

807
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:54,839
Speaker 1: trapped here, Sophie. Caitlin's lovely. We have a network. Now

808
00:46:55,120 --> 00:47:05,160
Speaker 1: you are my business partner, forever, forever. So um. Now

809
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 1: we've talked about the other segments of this movie, which

810
00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: again are not bastard worthy, and I'm just going over

811
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:12,359
Speaker 1: to give you kind of a context of what's in

812
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:15,320
Speaker 1: this film. We're gonna spend the rest of our episode

813
00:47:15,360 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 1: talking about John Landis's segment, which would turn out to

814
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:22,560
Speaker 1: be one of the most disastrous things ever filmed. It

815
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 1: was a reworking of the old Twilight Zone episode A

816
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 1: Quality of Mercy Now that episode. The original Twilight Zone

817
00:47:28,640 --> 00:47:31,400
Speaker 1: episode had been about like a young army officer at

818
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: the end of World War Two ordering like there's a

819
00:47:33,960 --> 00:47:36,920
Speaker 1: bunch of trapped Japanese soldiers and they're like sick, and

820
00:47:36,960 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 1: he orders an assault on their position, even though a sergeants, like,

821
00:47:39,760 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 1: the war is almost over, we don't need to do this,

822
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:45,080
Speaker 1: and he's like transported to earlier in the war as

823
00:47:45,080 --> 00:47:48,279
Speaker 1: a Japanese soldier in the opposite situation. Anyway, he learns

824
00:47:48,320 --> 00:47:50,680
Speaker 1: that it's bad to want to kill people, right, like whatever,

825
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: It's not one of the better Twilight Zone episodes, I

826
00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 1: would say, um Landis decides to reimagine the episode in

827
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: some baffling ways. It folks is on Bill Conner, an

828
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 1: angry racist who's like at a bar and he's pissed

829
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 1: that he lost a promotion opportunity to a Jewish colleague,

830
00:48:07,239 --> 00:48:09,760
Speaker 1: and then he like curses says a bunch of racial

831
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 1: slurs in front of like a black dude, and he

832
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:14,239
Speaker 1: does a bunch of like racist ship and then like

833
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:17,880
Speaker 1: suddenly finds himself transported to Nazi occupied France as a

834
00:48:17,960 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: Jewish man, and then he is transported to Alabama in

835
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 1: the fifties, is a black man fleeing the KKK. And

836
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:26,480
Speaker 1: then he winds up in Vietnam is a random villager

837
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,960
Speaker 1: avoiding blood thirst to US troops. Now, the script was

838
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 1: supposed to end with him transported back to the Holocaust,

839
00:48:33,040 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 1: being shipped off to a camp. And that is a

840
00:48:35,719 --> 00:48:39,600
Speaker 1: questionable story in and of itself. Shall we say? Yeah,

841
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:42,120
Speaker 1: and this is the story I think that the studio

842
00:48:42,360 --> 00:48:45,200
Speaker 1: wants him to tell. Landis has some Sorry, this is

843
00:48:45,200 --> 00:48:47,120
Speaker 1: the story Landis initially wants to tell. I think the

844
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:50,520
Speaker 1: studio has some notes. In any case, they want to

845
00:48:50,560 --> 00:48:55,319
Speaker 1: make the the ending less bleak uh, and they want

846
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:57,720
Speaker 1: to have like a redemption for the character Bill Connor.

847
00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:00,680
Speaker 1: So Landis rewrites the script so that it ends with

848
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 1: Cooper as a Vietnamese villager rescuing two young children from

849
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 1: an attacking American helicopter. Right, Um, So they change you know,

850
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:13,280
Speaker 1: what's supposed to be the climax of the episode. Um. Now,

851
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: as you'll remember from Animal House, John Landis had a

852
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:19,799
Speaker 1: thing for realism, and that's you know, it wasn't necessarily

853
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 1: a great decision for making a movie about fraternity kids partying.

854
00:49:23,640 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 1: It's going to be a real problem now that he's

855
00:49:25,840 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 1: making his first big war movie because he wants to,

856
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:33,240
Speaker 1: really he wants to. He wants his Twilight Zone scene

857
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 1: to have like deadly accurate combat recreations that are like

858
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:42,720
Speaker 1: as harrowing as the actual Vietnam War. So he's really

859
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:46,680
Speaker 1: obsessed with having a helicopter swoop in on actor Vic

860
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 1: Morrow who plays Connor, and the children as they're struggling

861
00:49:50,000 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: through a raging river, as like explosions detonate this village

862
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 1: behind them and gunfire stitches through the foliage around them.

863
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:01,440
Speaker 1: This presents some problems for one thing, if if you're

864
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: gonna hire children, there's certain complications, right, Um, there's certain

865
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:09,920
Speaker 1: things you can't do with child actors on set. For example,

866
00:50:10,280 --> 00:50:13,400
Speaker 1: have them next to explosions and a helicopter that is

867
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,399
Speaker 1: flying so low that it could hit a human being. Right,

868
00:50:16,760 --> 00:50:19,400
Speaker 1: You're not supposed to do that with small children on

869
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,880
Speaker 1: a film set, even in the eighties, Right, Things are

870
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: looser than but even in the eighties, you're not supposed

871
00:50:26,160 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 1: to do this. Also, he wants the scene is at night. Now,

872
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:33,480
Speaker 1: everyone around John Landis is like, well, let's shoot day

873
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:35,560
Speaker 1: for night, right, which is a way of shooting a

874
00:50:35,719 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 1: night scene in the day that doesn't look as good,

875
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:42,080
Speaker 1: but is safer because it's safer to have a helicopter

876
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:45,160
Speaker 1: swooping low over people while explosions happen in the day

877
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:46,759
Speaker 1: than it is in the dead of night. You know,

878
00:50:47,640 --> 00:50:51,120
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have to explain why, but it is safer. Um.

879
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 1: John Landis is like, no, that's not real. But it's

880
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:57,320
Speaker 1: also illegal to have children working at night, in addition

881
00:50:57,360 --> 00:50:59,280
Speaker 1: to all of the other things about this that are illegal.

882
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:02,640
Speaker 1: Because the way he wants to shoot this is illegal,

883
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:09,560
Speaker 1: John Landis decides to break the law. Yeah, bad boy.

884
00:51:09,600 --> 00:51:12,319
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from a write up by Crime Library here.

885
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,040
Speaker 1: The second assistant director, Anderson House, had reservations about working

886
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:20,759
Speaker 1: children after hours and around a helicopter and special effects explosives.

887
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: He shared those concerns with Allingham. House wanted to know

888
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,440
Speaker 1: if Landis planned to film the kids during the daytime

889
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:29,839
Speaker 1: and artificially simulate night and then insert those shots into

890
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: ones actually made at night. Allingham told him no. Later,

891
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:36,240
Speaker 1: House asked if Allingham new Landis had considered using dummies

892
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:39,840
Speaker 1: or dwarf stunt people instead of children. Allingham replied that

893
00:51:39,920 --> 00:51:42,799
Speaker 1: Landis had rejected those ideas because he thought they would

894
00:51:42,840 --> 00:51:45,880
Speaker 1: look phony. House pursued the issue and Allingham told him

895
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:48,840
Speaker 1: there was no point in discussing it further. In early

896
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:52,839
Speaker 1: July and two, Landis asked George Folsey to locate two

897
00:51:52,880 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 1: young Asian children for the roles. Folsey agreed to do

898
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 1: so despite misgivings. Production assistant Cynthia and I recalled Folsey

899
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 1: coming out of a meeting with Landis and production manager

900
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:05,920
Speaker 1: Dan Allingham. The trio discussed the illegal hiring of kids, and,

901
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 1: according to Ny Folesy joked, we probably will probably all

902
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:13,640
Speaker 1: be thrown in jail for this. Folsy phoned doctor Harold Schumann,

903
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 1: husband of Folsey's production secretary Donna Schumann. Folsey knew that

904
00:52:17,440 --> 00:52:19,960
Speaker 1: Dr Schumann had often worked with Asian people and asked

905
00:52:19,960 --> 00:52:23,040
Speaker 1: for his help. Dr Schumann called a former associate of his,

906
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:25,440
Speaker 1: Dr Peter Chin, and explained that he had friends who

907
00:52:25,480 --> 00:52:27,440
Speaker 1: were trying to cast a couple of Asian children in

908
00:52:27,480 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 1: a movie. Dr Chinn phoned his brother Mark, who had

909
00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: a six year old daughter named Renee. Mark discussed this

910
00:52:33,280 --> 00:52:36,600
Speaker 1: idea with his wife, Sheenne Hui, and little Renee. She

911
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: and Whui thought that being in a movie would be

912
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:41,520
Speaker 1: a very fine experience for Renee, who would have a

913
00:52:41,520 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 1: lot of the memories of what she had done when

914
00:52:43,480 --> 00:52:46,280
Speaker 1: she grew up. The prospect of acting thrilled the girl.

915
00:52:47,080 --> 00:52:50,839
Speaker 1: So they get two kids six and seven years old

916
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 1: for this movie. Obviously, you see why, like the kids

917
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 1: are excited. You see why the parents are excited. The

918
00:52:58,120 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 1: parents are not. We will talk more about out this

919
00:53:00,280 --> 00:53:03,280
Speaker 1: in part two. The parents are not being told entirely

920
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:06,319
Speaker 1: what these scenes will involve. Um and the kids share,

921
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 1: don't now now. From the beginning, John Landis showed a

922
00:53:09,719 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 1: distinct preference for realism in his Twilight Zone segment over

923
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:15,720
Speaker 1: the safety of the crew. At one point, he grew

924
00:53:15,760 --> 00:53:18,279
Speaker 1: furious that his proper teen couldn't suggest a way to

925
00:53:18,440 --> 00:53:21,080
Speaker 1: realistically there was a scene where like troops were shooting

926
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:25,560
Speaker 1: through jungle underbrush and the blanks weren't realistically tearing up plants.

927
00:53:26,200 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 1: Um and his crew had some suggestions for how to

928
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:30,960
Speaker 1: like blow up the foliage, you know, to make it

929
00:53:30,960 --> 00:53:33,360
Speaker 1: look like gunfire, but they were all going to take

930
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:37,160
Speaker 1: too much time. Um and Max or John Landis grew

931
00:53:37,320 --> 00:53:39,160
Speaker 1: furious about it, and I'm gonna quote now from the

932
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:43,480
Speaker 1: book outrageous Conduct. How long will it take? Landis asked.

933
00:53:43,560 --> 00:53:45,480
Speaker 1: When Stewart said, who's his prop? Guy said that he

934
00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:48,320
Speaker 1: would need fifteen or twenty minutes. Land Is shot back impatiently.

935
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:51,840
Speaker 1: We don't have that kind of time. Camera operators Stephen Lydecker,

936
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 1: who observed that exchange, next, saw Landis and Stewart walk

937
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:57,480
Speaker 1: back towards the special effects truck. When Stewart returned a

938
00:53:57,520 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 1: couple of minutes later, he was carrying three Remington's pot guns.

939
00:54:00,800 --> 00:54:03,560
Speaker 1: Stewart handled one of the shotguns himself and distributed the

940
00:54:03,560 --> 00:54:06,239
Speaker 1: others to members of his team. Lydecker saw twelve Gage

941
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 1: shotgun shells set on top of the camera battery. Vic

942
00:54:09,160 --> 00:54:12,000
Speaker 1: Morrow wanted to know what was going on. Landis reassured him,

943
00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:14,719
Speaker 1: and in a moment, cried action. The scene called for

944
00:54:14,800 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: Morrow to duck under the water in front of the

945
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:18,719
Speaker 1: banana plants, come back up, and then leap out of

946
00:54:18,719 --> 00:54:21,279
Speaker 1: the frame as the guns began firing to make sure

947
00:54:21,320 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 1: that Morrow escaped in time. Kenny and Doso, a stuntman

948
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:27,120
Speaker 1: who was standing out of camera range, actually pulled Vic

949
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:30,239
Speaker 1: away from the banana plants. Just three seconds later, the

950
00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:33,839
Speaker 1: effectsmen began firing at the plants. According to Stuart, they

951
00:54:33,840 --> 00:54:36,840
Speaker 1: fired twelve rounds of ammunition at the target. About halfware

952
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:39,680
Speaker 1: shotguns shells that Lydeker had observed, and the other half

953
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:42,799
Speaker 1: were red jets, plastic projectiles that are less potent than

954
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:45,640
Speaker 1: real bullets but can still be lethal. So they are

955
00:54:45,719 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: firing live AMMO towards an actual human stunt man who

956
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 1: is only not shot because he is physically pulled out

957
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:58,839
Speaker 1: of set immediately before the gunfire starts. Yikes, this is

958
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:04,440
Speaker 1: not good film safety. No, this is not how you

959
00:55:04,480 --> 00:55:08,360
Speaker 1: should do anything with guns, um, except for shoot at people.

960
00:55:08,440 --> 00:55:10,560
Speaker 1: This is actually pretty close to how you shoot people.

961
00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:13,920
Speaker 1: Just don't have someone pull them away if you actually

962
00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:17,040
Speaker 1: want to shoot a person and hit them. That sounds

963
00:55:17,080 --> 00:55:22,960
Speaker 1: like this is two thirds. Yeah. So Vic Morrow finds

964
00:55:22,960 --> 00:55:26,640
Speaker 1: all of this really unsettling. Um, he's not happy with this,

965
00:55:27,040 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 1: but he's also an old actor. He's on the downswing

966
00:55:29,560 --> 00:55:31,880
Speaker 1: of his career. This movie is kind of like a

967
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:34,759
Speaker 1: comeback attempt for him, right, He's had a couple of

968
00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:37,719
Speaker 1: rough years and he's he's seeing this as like his

969
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:41,920
Speaker 1: best hope for revitalizing his career. And so he doesn't

970
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:45,280
Speaker 1: confront Landis directly because he feels like if he goes

971
00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:48,560
Speaker 1: to Landis and complains about how dangerous things are starting

972
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:51,080
Speaker 1: to see him on set and this will yeah, and

973
00:55:51,239 --> 00:55:54,320
Speaker 1: Landis will blacklist it, right because the director is God,

974
00:55:54,520 --> 00:55:57,080
Speaker 1: you know, Landis is a is famous for being dictatorial.

975
00:55:57,239 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 1: That's what a lot of people will say. And he

976
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:02,960
Speaker 1: does not take being questioned well. So, as is the

977
00:56:03,000 --> 00:56:05,919
Speaker 1: standard in Hollywood back then, safety concerns by the crew

978
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 1: are put aside because the autour in charge of the

979
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: production had a vision and unfortunately for everyone that in

980
00:56:12,600 --> 00:56:16,640
Speaker 1: that vision. Next included a helicopter hovering low over Vick Morrow,

981
00:56:16,920 --> 00:56:20,120
Speaker 1: six year old Renee shiny Chen, and seven year old

982
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:24,000
Speaker 1: Micah Dinley. In part two, we're going to talk about

983
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:26,799
Speaker 1: what happened next. But now, Caitlin, we're going to talk

984
00:56:26,800 --> 00:56:30,280
Speaker 1: about your double Oh my gosh. Well, you can follow

985
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:35,000
Speaker 1: me on Twitter and Instagram at Caitlin Durante. You can

986
00:56:35,080 --> 00:56:39,799
Speaker 1: check out my podcast about film in which my co

987
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:43,920
Speaker 1: host Jamie Loftus and I often talk about aw tour

988
00:56:44,000 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 1: directors and the fucory that happens um on their sets,

989
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:55,319
Speaker 1: usually as a result of their tyranny. So um check

990
00:56:55,480 --> 00:57:00,759
Speaker 1: check that out. The Bechtel Cast produced by are very On,

991
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:07,240
Speaker 1: Sophie Lifterman, Hi hi, and uh yeah those that concludes

992
00:57:07,320 --> 00:57:11,040
Speaker 1: my plocables. Well, you should also check out my new

993
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:14,400
Speaker 1: podcast where I listened to episodes of the Bechtel Cast

994
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:18,040
Speaker 1: and devise new drinking games to go with them. It's

995
00:57:18,040 --> 00:57:21,600
Speaker 1: called Get Rectal Cast with the Bechtel Cast, and you

996
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:24,480
Speaker 1: can catch it five days a week on cool Zone Media.

997
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:29,600
Speaker 1: So you check it check out. I was like, what

998
00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:33,160
Speaker 1: was it called again, get rectal cast with Okay, so

999
00:57:33,560 --> 00:57:37,880
Speaker 1: but it just sounds like rectal Yes, yes it does.

1000
00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 1: That's actually what everyone involved in production told me, and

1001
00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:43,960
Speaker 1: I bravely did not listen to them. Well that's because

1002
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 1: you're an a tour. That's exactly what I shouted to

1003
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 1: them while waving a shotgun. Uh good stuff, all right,