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Speaker 2: Off starre is Born. Tonight, I'm going holly hey, folks,
Speaker 2: this is the Movie Racket, and in the first season
Speaker 2: of this Film Spotting affiliated podcast hosted by Moir, we're
Speaker 2: looking at some of the unofficial rules and principles of
Speaker 2: Hollywood and some of the world's great filmmakers' ideas about
Speaker 2: what makes a film, any kind of film work and
Speaker 2: why that sounds pretty grand, doesn't it. Well. As a
Speaker 2: proud holder of an undergraduate degree from a Midwestern state school,
Speaker 2: I can tell you I can do a lot of things.
Speaker 2: I can do accidentally thoughtful. I can do earnestness up
Speaker 2: to five ten minutes at a time. But grand isn't
Speaker 2: really my idea for what the Movie Racket is about.
Speaker 2: We're looking at a century's worth of Hollywood wisdom in
Speaker 2: this program. Often in quip or snappy one line axiom form.
Speaker 2: The pitheist example is probably forever going to be William
Speaker 2: Goldman's line on Hollywood, immortalized at his book Adventures in
Speaker 2: the Screen Trade three words nobody knows anything. Each week
Speaker 2: we're going to stress test a different theory of a
Speaker 2: century's worth of movie making wisdom and see if any
Speaker 2: of it holds water for us here now today. And
Speaker 2: our extraordinarily special guest for episode two is Los Angeles
Speaker 2: Times film critic and longtime podcast veteran Amy Nicholson, and
Speaker 2: topic a as writer director of Preston Sturges used to
Speaker 2: refer obliquely to sex and the of stuff he loves.
Speaker 2: Sneaking past the censors is in fact Preston Sturges himself
Speaker 2: and his own eleven rules for box office appeal. What
Speaker 2: are those eleven rules? Well, sometime in the early nineteen forties,
Speaker 2: after Sturge's won an Oscar for his screenplay for The
Speaker 2: Great McGuinty, Sturges came up with this list as a joke.
Speaker 2: Never really confirmed in terms of where he wrote it
Speaker 2: or exactly when, but some say he scratched it out,
Speaker 2: maybe with friends, maybe alone at the bar of the
Speaker 2: Player's Club, which was a restaurant Sturges owned on Sunset Boulevard.
Speaker 2: This list started circulating around Paramount Pictures, where for a
Speaker 2: time Sturges had a sweetheart picture deal and he did
Speaker 2: not squander it. And you look at his streak as
Speaker 2: writer director from nineteen forty the nineteen forty four The
Speaker 2: Great McGuinty Sullivan's Travels, The Lady Eve, the Palm Beach Story,
Speaker 2: the Miracle of Morgan's Creek, and Hail the Conquering Hero.
Speaker 2: And that doesn't even count his beautiful script for one
Speaker 2: of My Face Christmas movies, Remember the Night, Funny, Sweet sad,
Speaker 2: absolutely singular Hollywood studio film that one. Amy and I
Speaker 2: are going to look at Sturge's eleven rules, some funny,
Speaker 2: some trying to be maybe not so funny, But the
Speaker 2: best of them, I think are a little different and
Speaker 2: a little more interesting. That worth thinking about, especially at
Speaker 2: a time when genuinely funny riders are terrifyingly scarce. Then again,
Speaker 2: Sturges himself didn't have a lot of competition in that
Speaker 2: department in his best years. So are this week's unofficial
Speaker 2: laws of Motion Pictures. According to Preston sturges just a joke,
Speaker 2: just another racket or is there something to them, something
Speaker 2: worth thinking about? Let's poke around, Amy Nicholson, it's so
Speaker 2: great that you could be guessed the second the second
Speaker 2: guest on our new podcast Venture the Movie Racket. Thanks
Speaker 2: really appreciating.
Speaker 3: It's such an honor, such an honor. He did my
Speaker 3: favorite actor first, and now I get to come in afterwards.
Speaker 2: Who all, right, hold on, Michael Shannon's your favorite actor? Yeah,
Speaker 2: well you should have interviewed him. I think why don't
Speaker 2: we We're going to toss out our Yeah, before we
Speaker 2: actually got on, you said that you wish you would
Speaker 2: do more comedies. I think you're probably not alone, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, remember when he played like with the evil Christmas
Speaker 3: elf in that Seth Rogan movie the night before and
Speaker 3: he was just stoner Lex, what's happening right now?
Speaker 2: Just looking into your soul? Man? What are you seeing?
Speaker 2: You need a nice mellow Indica. I got a great
Speaker 2: North Cali bud with a soothing body, high and surprisingly
Speaker 2: accurate visions of the future.
Speaker 3: He's fantastic when he gets menacing and hilarious in the
Speaker 3: same moment. He would also have been my vote for
Speaker 3: Jack Reacher. I always wanted a Jack Reacher with Michael Shannon.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it. The development wheels are turning.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Do development wheels still turn in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: I don't know. You live closer to Hollywood than I do.
Speaker 3: They turn as slowly as possible for all the people
Speaker 3: in development to justify keeping their jobs without spending any money.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense? At least that's my impression.
Speaker 2: The system's working.
Speaker 3: It got to make sure we keep those exacts salary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Amy, These eleven rules of box office appeal
Speaker 2: that Preston Sturges came up with, And as far as
Speaker 2: people can tell, it was nineteen forty one. It was
Speaker 2: after he had written and directed The Great McGuinty and
Speaker 2: this sweetheart deal he had with Paramount, and he was
Speaker 2: already the one of the highest paid screenwriters, certainly in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: and he was about to become one of the highest
Speaker 2: paid filmmakers for a brief period with the string of
Speaker 2: hits he had after McGuinty, including The Lady Eve and
Speaker 2: Sullivan's Travels in the same year. So around that time,
Speaker 2: maybe at his own nightclub after too many drinks, nobody
Speaker 2: really knows for sure. He came up with these eleven rules,
Speaker 2: and I think we should just kind of whip through
Speaker 2: them for people who don't know them. Okay, why don't
Speaker 2: you just take the first one and we're going to
Speaker 2: read these quickly like actors being thrown sides without even
Speaker 2: you know, any prep. So once you do the first
Speaker 2: and I'll do the second, will hit the whole.
Speaker 3: Okay, So see if you even listed these in rr GO.
Speaker 3: A pretty girl is better than an ugly.
Speaker 2: One, A leg is better than an arm.
Speaker 3: A bedroom is better than a living room, and.
Speaker 2: An arrival is better than a departure.
Speaker 3: A birth is better than a death.
Speaker 2: A chase is better than a chat.
Speaker 3: A dog is better than a landscape.
Speaker 2: A kitten is better than a dog.
Speaker 3: A baby is better than a kitten.
Speaker 2: A kiss is better than a baby, and a.
Speaker 3: Prep fall is better than anything.
Speaker 2: Okay, now some of this is yeah, was he drug? Probably?
Speaker 2: Is it just for laughs? Of course that was the intention.
Speaker 2: Is there any sneaky wisdom in there that actually has
Speaker 2: something to say about what he was up to as
Speaker 2: a filmmaker and what we might actually look at today
Speaker 2: or especially people who don't know sturges from Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: Is there something to learn from what he's about as
Speaker 2: a filmmaker. So that's I guess that's why I thought
Speaker 2: of you, Amy, because you you know, you're a blithe,
Speaker 2: witty character, and I think this idea that it's a joke,
Speaker 2: but you know, maybe a little nugget or to a
Speaker 2: wisdom perhaps. But I just wonder what you think about
Speaker 2: this list and is there anything in there to really
Speaker 2: mess with?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's a lot, although it doesn't
Speaker 3: do much for us podcasters that he'd rather be chasing
Speaker 3: each other than chatting right now. Oh well, sorry, Preston.
Speaker 3: I mean, if I was looking at the list overall,
Speaker 3: I feel like, get all points in one direction, which
Speaker 3: is make sure you're writing scripts that are open. You know,
Speaker 3: all of these things are sort of opening the door.
Speaker 3: When you have a birth, you're opening the door to
Speaker 3: a new personality, a new life. When you have a bedroom,
Speaker 3: you're opening the door to some sort of excitement. It
Speaker 3: feels like he's continually pushing screenwriters to write in a
Speaker 3: way that like opens up new possibilities of where their
Speaker 3: script is going to go to add excits. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's my impression what about you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, same, I think so the one that really caught
Speaker 2: my eye looking at this, that feels like, yes, that's
Speaker 2: such a simple thing to remember, but such a good idea,
Speaker 2: and a rival is better than a departure. Oh that's
Speaker 2: my sister, the princess.
Speaker 4: Hello Maude, Hello Noodles.
Speaker 3: Where'd you get the pretty girl?
Speaker 5: She calls me snoodles.
Speaker 2: I mean they're both important, you know, depending on what
Speaker 2: your characters are up to. But I just think the
Speaker 2: idea of the constantly kind of keeping the pressure on
Speaker 2: yourself as a writer to invent new people and new
Speaker 2: interactions and new combinations of characters. Another door, another door,
Speaker 2: and now doors lead to farce right, and to the
Speaker 2: degree he's a far swer Preston sturges and we can
Speaker 2: kind of debate what do you want to call him?
Speaker 2: Is he a screwball comedy? The guy? Is he? You know?
Speaker 2: There's a lot but that I love that one in particular.
Speaker 2: I mean, I love a few of them. Don't love
Speaker 2: a pretty girls better than an ugly one. He's a
Speaker 2: wittier writer than that. But maybe he had to get
Speaker 2: one for the boys off quickly.
Speaker 3: I was trying to think of that in a way
Speaker 3: where I could make it good. I was like, well,
Speaker 3: a pretty girl has an effect on a room, maybe
Speaker 3: she could make it hero nervous. I was like, that's
Speaker 3: my most terriable explanation for why that one would work.
Speaker 2: That one. Yeah, now that one's kind of a cringer,
Speaker 2: you know, that's a yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I am definitely a pressince. They're just
Speaker 3: not so I'm so happy we're talking about this, like
Speaker 3: he's one of the filmmakers who made me fall in
Speaker 3: love with film from the beginning. I took a film
Speaker 3: class my freshman year. We watched Sullivan's Travels. That's still
Speaker 3: my favorite one.
Speaker 5: I want this picture to be a document I want
Speaker 5: to hold a mirror up to life. I want this
Speaker 5: to be a picture of dignity, a true canvas of
Speaker 5: the suffering of humanity. But with the little six or
Speaker 5: a little sex.
Speaker 6: And how about a nice musical?
Speaker 5: How can you talk about musicals at a time like this,
Speaker 5: with the world committing suicide, with corpses piling up on
Speaker 5: the street, with grim death gargling at you from every corner,
Speaker 5: with people slaughtered.
Speaker 6: Like sheep, Maybe they'd like to forget that.
Speaker 5: And why do they hold this one over for a
Speaker 5: fifth week at the Music Hall for the ushers, and
Speaker 5: dined in Pittsburgh like a dog. Well don't they know
Speaker 5: in pitts been or what they but they know what
Speaker 5: they like. They wouldn't live in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 3: And it just cracked open the door for me of
Speaker 3: how much wit and humor and speed there could be
Speaker 3: in a classic comedy. And yet when I look at
Speaker 3: this list, I really love it because I think I
Speaker 3: can see in myself the formation of my taste, you know,
Speaker 3: like his Preston surgiences will go on to influence the
Speaker 3: people who would make the films that then I would love,
Speaker 3: like the Cohen Brothers. And when I look at the
Speaker 3: at the positive side of the list, that the things
Speaker 3: that are better than the other side of the list.
Speaker 3: I see films full of like action and motion and
Speaker 3: comedy and situations. And when I look at the other
Speaker 3: side of the list, I see films that make me
Speaker 3: sad and depressed and I get restless. Landscapes and departures
Speaker 3: and deaths. And my least favorite type of movie is
Speaker 3: the kind where nothing really happens. When a person sits
Speaker 3: on a bus looking out the window out a landscape
Speaker 3: and you don't know what the ending is. I hate that.
Speaker 3: I hate that. So he's writing in a way that's
Speaker 3: all punctuation, right, I mean, I would much rather look
Speaker 3: at a dog than a landscape, especially now when our
Speaker 3: landscapes like I'm thinking of supergoll that just came out
Speaker 3: totally CG. The dog CG too. But at least he's
Speaker 3: better than looking at a bunch of stars. Hmmm.
Speaker 2: Interesting. Interesting. You just want to live in grieving organism,
Speaker 2: you know, at the center of things.
Speaker 3: Right, I do. I do. I like movies over TV
Speaker 3: because they're like condensed action, you know. I want to
Speaker 3: be watching things happen. I mean, yes, I can be
Speaker 3: in the mood to like sit and soak and absorb.
Speaker 3: You know. I'll definitely watch a Tarkowski absolutely, But he's
Speaker 3: not doing a list to advise Tarkowski's of the world.
Speaker 3: I think he'd make a totally different list for them.
Speaker 3: I don't even know if he'd be able to talk
Speaker 3: to them, maybe if they were dunk enough at players
Speaker 3: or something like that. He's making a list for Hollywood,
Speaker 3: right right, And this is the kind of movie I
Speaker 3: want Hollywood to be making again more steadily, just like entertainment, entertainment,
Speaker 3: entertainment that has in mind the audience's engagement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a couple of things I want to jump
Speaker 2: on here. This is a great jumping off point. Your
Speaker 2: point about the speed speed is a tricky prospect because
Speaker 2: it sounds very simple faster. On the other hand, an
Speaker 2: entire generation of performers and filmmakers seem to have forgotten
Speaker 2: the virtues of it, because we have a lot of
Speaker 2: actors who make a lot of movies who actually don't
Speaker 2: have much verbal facility at all. And is that because
Speaker 2: they don't have stage training. Maybe in some cases, but
Speaker 2: I also just think it's like something has fallen out
Speaker 2: of the popular culture that enjoys chasing after these conversations.
Speaker 2: And that was my first impression watching Sturges in high
Speaker 2: school or early college, just about that fantastic, intoxicating, addictive
Speaker 2: sound of overlapping dialogue, almost almost overlapping. His girl Friday
Speaker 2: was probably the first time I heard kind of a
Speaker 2: primo example of that in the kind of comedy. I
Speaker 2: love the Hawks film from right around the same time,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty and actually, when you look at how that
Speaker 2: thing was put together, I mean he spent a lot
Speaker 2: of time in rehearsal, and hawks said simply, okay, fast
Speaker 2: as you can this time. Okay, you up that by
Speaker 2: fifty percent, will shoot. And that's how he got. Even
Speaker 2: with a radically rewritten version of the Front Page, it
Speaker 2: still has basically the whole play in there. That's how
Speaker 2: he got a three hour play down to ninety four
Speaker 2: minutes or something. But also I think maybe to your
Speaker 2: point about who's going to really kind of illuminate a
Speaker 2: room or really sort of like get the room buzzing
Speaker 2: with something other than just money or good looks, but
Speaker 2: maybe both. I mean, Rosalind Russell is such an incredible
Speaker 2: standout in that film. She's i mean fully running fifty
Speaker 2: one percent of that film. And you think of the
Speaker 2: Sturges heroines who really not so much in Sullivan's Travels
Speaker 2: because there's not really a primary I mean Ronica Lake obviously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she has that slow, magical delivery almost she's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: she's like a snake charmer talker, right right.
Speaker 2: Stan Wick and Lady Eve, I mean, you know, or
Speaker 2: Clauda Colbert and the Palm Each story that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's almost entirely vanished now in terms of a role
Speaker 2: that good played by somebody who's more than just conventionally beautiful,
Speaker 2: do you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like we've got comedians who could
Speaker 3: do it right. Like Zoey Deutsch is the one I
Speaker 3: always think of when I think of who could be
Speaker 3: today's Rosalind Russell, because she can do that tough girl,
Speaker 3: moxy fast talking comedic thing. All I care about that
Speaker 3: I'm not still an assistant when I'm twenty eight.
Speaker 2: I'm twenty eight.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm so sorry for you. That's very
Speaker 3: sad for you. I think she's incredibly talented, Zoe Ditch.
Speaker 3: I want to see her in everything. I love her
Speaker 3: in romantic comedies especially, I think she's great in those.
Speaker 3: I mean, it is almost like we lost an entire
Speaker 3: way of talking, like that continental accent that these people
Speaker 3: would use to deliver these like dead pan zingers. I
Speaker 3: don't know where that went. I mean, I guess Marlon
Speaker 3: Brando just went boom it like took it all away.
Speaker 3: He's like, we don't talk like that anymore. Now. We mumble,
Speaker 3: which fine, mumbling has its strength. But I wonder if
Speaker 3: we could resurrect some of this. Although I mean, what
Speaker 3: I think is kind of so so funny about this
Speaker 3: list that Preston Surgis is putting out is I believe
Speaker 3: he abides my these things, but I would say his
Speaker 3: films are about ten times more than this, right, Like
Speaker 3: Preston Sturgis movie is about you know, corruption or people
Speaker 3: doing like hilarious dark things for the wrong reasons. Like
Speaker 3: he's leaving out the bleakness here. I think maybe that's
Speaker 3: his secret. I'm going to make fast paced comedies about
Speaker 3: how I think the world's kind of rotten.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, that's a great point. And they're not necessarily
Speaker 2: just fast, because that's not the key to comedy.
Speaker 5: Really.
Speaker 2: You look at Remember the Night, which he wrote from
Speaker 2: nineteen forty, and that is not really essentially primarily even
Speaker 2: a comedy comedy. I mean, that's a very bittersweet and
Speaker 2: very kind of like arresting Peace, you know. Fred McMurray
Speaker 2: and Barbarus Stanwick.
Speaker 5: Honor. I want to please Honor.
Speaker 4: I don't believe this young woman as well.
Speaker 5: I think a five minute recess want to recover. I
Speaker 5: am undoubtedly responsible for having made it.
Speaker 4: Please check she's not responsible for what she said.
Speaker 3: I'm all right.
Speaker 5: I just want to peet guilty if you honor what
Speaker 5: kindly grant a five minute recess.
Speaker 2: My child?
Speaker 5: Why do you want to plead guilty? And when you
Speaker 5: make a mistake, you've got to pay for it.
Speaker 2: And it just doesn't work that way. I think, you know.
Speaker 2: I was listening to the local classical station where I
Speaker 2: do a little work, and they played Rossini's Overture to
Speaker 2: Barbara Seville, which is full of like great up tempo. Ajitahi,
Speaker 2: you have beautiful fast stuff. It's not all at the
Speaker 2: same speed. It's in and out and in and out there.
Speaker 2: When I rewatch and re listen to the Sturges stuff
Speaker 2: that I really love, it is not just fast, you know,
Speaker 2: it's much more than that.
Speaker 3: That's true. When it is fast, you feel the fast,
Speaker 3: and when he eases the tempo back, you think why,
Speaker 3: and then you sink into it. Yeah, I mean, I
Speaker 3: think of that, especially Sullivan's travels and moving that I
Speaker 3: think goes very fast and very slow and very fast
Speaker 3: and very slow right, and in that he's even I
Speaker 3: think giving like his grand thesis statement at the end,
Speaker 3: you know, comedy matters.
Speaker 5: I don't want to make o brother. We're art though
Speaker 5: we want to make a brother. We're not. No, and
Speaker 5: I say it with some embarrassment. I want to make
Speaker 5: a comedy. Why don't you want to make Old Brother?
Speaker 5: Where art that is selling? In the first place, I'm
Speaker 5: too happy to make Old Brother, We're art Doo. In
Speaker 5: the second place, I haven't suffered enough to make O Brother,
Speaker 5: We're art doo. You haven't suffered enough. He hasn't suffered enough. No,
Speaker 5: But so I'll tell you something else. There's a lot
Speaker 5: to be said for making people laugh. Did you know?
Speaker 5: That's all some people have. It isn't much, but it's
Speaker 5: better than nothing in this cock eyed caravan.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm excited to talk about this list with
Speaker 3: you is because comedy really matters, I think, especially now,
Speaker 3: and I want to Hollywood to be like anointing back
Speaker 3: on the high platform of like this is a great art.
Speaker 3: You know that this is a great entertainment. I mean,
Speaker 3: have you seen the invite that just came out?
Speaker 2: No? I haven't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great adult comedy. I think Sturgis himself
Speaker 3: would really like it, even though people a kind of
Speaker 3: trapped inside chatting the whole time, and they sent the
Speaker 3: kid away.
Speaker 2: This is Olivia Wilds film. It's just now coming to theaters.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's Olivia wild Death Brogan, Edward Norton and Milty cruise.
Speaker 3: But I saw that with a crowd twice.
Speaker 6: This is still a good time.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, are you sure we are not interrupting something.
Speaker 3: It's great, good, it's good for you. Yes, it's great
Speaker 3: for us. Yeah, we love Yep.
Speaker 6: It took you a while to come to the door,
Speaker 6: and it sounded like you were arguing. No, I just
Speaker 6: want to be honest.
Speaker 5: We were.
Speaker 6: We were at the door before we rang, and we
Speaker 6: could hear you were fighting.
Speaker 5: Oh, we were talking.
Speaker 2: We were we were fighting. We were fighting a bit
Speaker 2: of a contentious environment. And here's what I understand. If
Speaker 2: that's repellent to you, No hard feelings, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, completely understand.
Speaker 6: You know we love a contentious environment.
Speaker 2: You had the jackpot, then, my friend, you're in for
Speaker 2: a treat.
Speaker 3: To be in a room of people laughing at dialogue
Speaker 3: felt so good.
Speaker 2: That's a sentence we shouldn't have to say out loud.
Speaker 3: You know, we have to take our shoes off. Oh god, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: great you look.
Speaker 5: At this place.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you, Joe, tell it be honest, do you
Speaker 6: want us to take him off.
Speaker 2: I don't give it if you take your shoes off. Personally,
Speaker 2: Here's one thing I wouldn't mind arguing with Sturge's reputation.
Speaker 2: A bit about he lands on a pratfall is better
Speaker 2: than anything. That's his rule number eleven. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of pratfalls in his films. You get somebody like William
Speaker 2: Demriest anywhere near and these and most of them, most
Speaker 2: of the great ones, half the pratfiles are almost willfully unmotivated.
Speaker 2: It's like, hey, what the hell you know? I throw
Speaker 2: it in and Demerist can do a pratfall. I don't
Speaker 2: know if Sturge's is as dazzling a physical comedy master
Speaker 2: is he is writing verbal slapstick. What do you think
Speaker 2: of my assessment?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's true as fast as it
Speaker 3: goes by. I never do love that scene in Sullivan's
Speaker 3: Travels where suddenly, like the bust that they're on goes
Speaker 3: haywire and everyone's running around and the cook is like
Speaker 3: upside down. I think I've in general, almost never been
Speaker 3: a prat fault person, except when there are emotional stakes
Speaker 3: to it, like I like it when Henry Fonda falls
Speaker 3: in the Lady, Eve, did.
Speaker 4: You hurt yourself?
Speaker 3: I'm fine.
Speaker 5: I just.
Speaker 4: Because his character is just so so together or he
Speaker 4: wants to see it consider himself so together that to
Speaker 4: see that straight faced guy take a prap Faul, great, you.
Speaker 5: Go upstairs and take a bath.
Speaker 3: And I like you just as much as ever.
Speaker 4: There's a good.
Speaker 3: Boy, good lou But messy people falling down has never
Speaker 3: quite been my thing, except for the Jacks movies. They're
Speaker 3: like their own corner of the comedy universe.
Speaker 2: To me, right, yeah, And I think contemporary slapstick tends
Speaker 2: to lean so hard into kind of a much more
Speaker 2: kind of like openly sadistic brand of slapstick. This is
Speaker 2: all flower for our friend Bam.
Speaker 3: We're gonna antiqu him when he gets here.
Speaker 4: Pig five.
Speaker 2: Not my thing. If you're a long way from Keaton
Speaker 2: at that point. Buster Keaton, the media may have peaked
Speaker 2: a little early. Keaton came along when he did. I
Speaker 2: don't know on that front, only on that front, but
Speaker 2: I mean, there are when you see actors in Sturge's films,
Speaker 2: like Palm Beach Story was the one I saw most recently.
Speaker 2: But when when you see Mary aster just sort of
Speaker 2: like swan into this movie at high speed, you know,
Speaker 2: and then just eat these lines alive, you know. And
Speaker 2: and but I mean, god, all money, that's like the
Speaker 2: best high comedy vacation you could take. And just than
Speaker 2: a handful of scenes wonderful. Yeah, And what you said
Speaker 2: earlier just about the sort of the compression quality. Actually,
Speaker 2: that was something that I don't quote Andrew Sarras very
Speaker 2: much because I still don't know if he knows what
Speaker 2: a director does for a living, but he did right
Speaker 2: at one point. What distinguishes Sturges from his contemporaries is
Speaker 2: the frantic congestion of his comedies. Good word, the brugal
Speaker 2: of American comedy directors. Sturge has created a world of
Speaker 2: peripheral professionals, politicians, gangsters, executives, bartenders, cab drivers, secretaries, bookies,
Speaker 2: card sharps, movie producers, doctors, dentists, bodyguards, butlers, inventors, millionaires
Speaker 2: and derelicts. And that is kind of the teeming sense
Speaker 2: of things. I think that you know, when you realized
Speaker 2: he got these cockamamie plots that can barely be diagrammed,
Speaker 2: you know, done in as few as eighty five ninety
Speaker 2: ninety five minutes. It's kind of amazing. And I think
Speaker 2: that's why I love. An arrival is better than a departure,
Speaker 2: because it is always another door for another delight and
Speaker 2: another great actor, right, And that's I guess that's what
Speaker 2: I do. Hope a younger filmmaker would would take a
Speaker 2: look at, like how do you make these? You know?
Speaker 2: I mean, is he an influential filmmaker or just is
Speaker 2: he just like some sort of freakishly talented unicorn that
Speaker 2: we were lucky to get as long as we had him,
Speaker 2: you know, Or that.
Speaker 3: We were lucky to have operating has Peak as long
Speaker 3: as we had I mean, although I do stick up
Speaker 3: for some of his stuff, like Unfaithfully Yours that came
Speaker 3: later in his career, I think he was freakishly talented.
Speaker 3: I think he's at a bar that people haven't quite
Speaker 3: been able to match. But I do think most comedy
Speaker 3: writers working today hold him as like the mechanical rabbit
Speaker 3: on the track, Like can I come up with something
Speaker 3: that makes me laugh like that? At least that's what
Speaker 3: I want to imagine. But you know, what I think
Speaker 3: is interesting is like, not only is he laying down
Speaker 3: these rules and abiding by them. I'm trying to think
Speaker 3: of a scene where he has a kitten that's better
Speaker 3: than a dog, which is the one. I'm a cat person,
Speaker 3: but I'm like, I don't know if I believe it,
Speaker 3: and I feel like dogs are funnier than kittens. I
Speaker 3: love kittens. Eh, that's the one. I'm like as a
Speaker 3: cat person that I quiggle with it. I find kind
Speaker 3: of surprising even by myself. But like he is working,
Speaker 3: he comes to Hollywood, you know, before he's even getting
Speaker 3: to direct on his own, in a time where right
Speaker 3: when the production code is getting serious, when these new
Speaker 3: other rules are being laid down on top of Hollywood,
Speaker 3: you know, where you can't criticize the clergy, where you
Speaker 3: can't criticize anything, you can't allude to all sorts of
Speaker 3: you know, women stepping out. There's so many sexual rules,
Speaker 3: moral rules, ethical rules are suddenly not allowed to break
Speaker 3: on screen because they're trying to be upright citizens in Hollywood,
Speaker 3: or trying to at least convince America that they are.
Speaker 3: And he is making these films that are absolutely criticizing
Speaker 3: American hypocrisy and voter fraud and attitudes towards pregnancy. And
Speaker 3: gold digging at any costs, and like he's getting in
Speaker 3: so many elbows at the American way of life within
Speaker 3: these codes. I think there's something so Paul Grock about,
Speaker 3: like the postcode comedies. I know we talk about pre code.
Speaker 3: I love pre code is like being rebellious and funny.
Speaker 3: But I love the people working right after the code
Speaker 3: who are still getting it across, you know, that are
Speaker 3: figuring out what am I going to do in these
Speaker 3: constrictions to like let you know what we're laughing at.
Speaker 2: And in Surt's case, in war time, I mean it
Speaker 2: was this was no time to make fun of anything.
Speaker 2: And then here he's making Hall a conquering hero, which
Speaker 2: is just very very you know, cynical, kind of like
Speaker 2: zuberant cynicism about patriotism and jingoism.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean right or right now, I'm like, please
Speaker 3: don't let anybody in office know about the great McGuinty.
Speaker 3: Oh no, they'll related. People are going around voting in
Speaker 3: elections thirty times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I read something just this morning. I'd love to
Speaker 2: share the age to see what you think. And it's
Speaker 2: about that sort of not simply what he was getting
Speaker 2: away with miraculously, just frankly out of sheer speed. You know,
Speaker 2: in some of the moments in his films where he
Speaker 2: just sort of came Miracle Morgan's Creek, it's like, wait,
Speaker 2: what are the implications here? You know, A I love
Speaker 2: it that with that film with Betty Huddon as the
Speaker 2: we could just call it mysteriously pregnant home Front woman
Speaker 2: who was for veils kind of like unfurl very quickly
Speaker 2: in this film. But you know, when the brass was saying, well,
Speaker 2: what's this way, what's this film about, it's, oh, it's
Speaker 2: just about, you know, a woman waiting for a man,
Speaker 2: you know, to come back from the war, basically like okay,
Speaker 2: we're fine, you know, we're fine. And then, of course,
Speaker 2: you know, he was always just about ten pages ahead
Speaker 2: of what he had to film the next day, so
Speaker 2: you know, you probably didn't know necessarily where this thing
Speaker 2: was going either. But back in nineteen twenty nine he
Speaker 2: wrote a play, second play on Broadway. He was like
Speaker 2: barely thirty thirty one, I think, strictly dishonorable, and it
Speaker 2: was a huge hit two year run. And in that play,
Speaker 2: it's setting to speak easy. It's just basically a very
Speaker 2: simple romance between a Southern bell who finds yourself in
Speaker 2: manhatt and this Italian opera star who's sort of on
Speaker 2: the make. And that's it. That's the premise, that's the
Speaker 2: setting and all that. But within that, this is Richard
Speaker 2: Nelson here, the director and playwright writing here in a
Speaker 2: collection of plays. He said that this is a writer
Speaker 2: who expresses an international point of view and sympathies, and
Speaker 2: the play, strictly Dishonorable is a wonderful expression of the
Speaker 2: great debate which raged across America in the twenties and
Speaker 2: thirties and still is actually the clash between those urging
Speaker 2: America to remain isolated and those arguing for America to
Speaker 2: accept an international role as an active participant in world affairs.
Speaker 2: I mean, his play turns on this conflict between should
Speaker 2: this young woman who's kind of lost in Manhattan and
Speaker 2: charmed but wary of this Italian opera star. Should she
Speaker 2: The conflict is between staying safe and protected and seeing
Speaker 2: the world and growing. And the play conclude it's on
Speaker 2: the side of expanding one's horizons. And that to me
Speaker 2: is kind of like that struck a bello me. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's The great thing about his Sturge, the Sturge's films,
Speaker 2: It's like, it's not just about protecting the American way
Speaker 2: of life. It's about you know, being sort of like
Speaker 2: thrown for a loop constantly by either the American way
Speaker 2: of life and more's or just like these great sort
Speaker 2: of exotic you know, elements to come in from from nowhere.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: That's what feels modern to me about him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. His curiosity and his ability to say,
Speaker 3: you might screw up disastrously, maybe you're making a mistake,
Speaker 3: but whatever, let's go on, It'll be fine, Like, let's
Speaker 3: carry on here. I mean, I assume that probably a
Speaker 3: lot of that just came from his childhood, right Like,
Speaker 3: he had a mother who I think was continually falling
Speaker 3: in love, continually getting married. He was being struggled back
Speaker 3: and forth between America and France. I believed a lot
Speaker 3: as a boy. So he grew up I think with
Speaker 3: that international perspective, had kind of a I don't know,
Speaker 3: tumultuous sounds maybe more negative than I think it was.
Speaker 3: It just to me it sounds exciting kind of his lifestyle.
Speaker 3: Who knows, I don't know. I don't know how would
Speaker 3: feel to be eleven? And you're like, what's my mother doing? Now?
Speaker 3: What's happening? Why do I have any stepfather? But he
Speaker 3: got to live at the knees of a woman kind
Speaker 3: of chasing her passions and figuring out how to be happy.
Speaker 3: And I wonder if you like invested a lot of
Speaker 3: that in his script. You know, maybe every decision won't
Speaker 3: be right, but look at her, she's still having fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the chaos in the films probably comes from a
Speaker 2: more painful sort of chaos he experienced as a kid.
Speaker 2: But he's not There's no reason to necessarily go there.
Speaker 2: There's a guy with a nice deal at the Paramount Studios,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean just but you can find other
Speaker 2: things that led to the female protagus that we love today.
Speaker 2: And I love what you say about the pre code
Speaker 2: era because he looked at something like a few years
Speaker 2: after that, when the Catholic leads into decency triumphed, you know,
Speaker 2: and clamp down on the more brazen examples of ignoring
Speaker 2: the production code. You still have Leo mca harry doing
Speaker 2: the awful truth. You still have My Man Godfrey, and
Speaker 2: you still have these films where it's more about you know,
Speaker 2: if you didn't have work of that level of wit.
Speaker 2: And that's what I love too. The characters are are
Speaker 2: not just smart ass, they are really quick witted people,
Speaker 2: you know. And even the people that aren't supposed to
Speaker 2: be witty. In the Sturges film, they have the weenie
Speaker 2: King in the Palm Beach story is not a guy
Speaker 2: with a sense of humor, but he's hilarious, you know.
Speaker 2: And for those who don't know the Palm be Sorry rented,
Speaker 2: I don't. I can't possibly do.
Speaker 3: It justice in an explanation, I'll just say that that's
Speaker 3: the gold Digger Cobert. I love her in those kind
Speaker 3: of a phase. She's so good at playing oh yeah,
Speaker 3: the money loving girl that your rootings were. Despite all
Speaker 3: this by being like I think I'd hate this person
Speaker 3: in person, but like, you know, I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I went to a Catholic high school where
Speaker 3: I was always trying to figure out where the rules
Speaker 3: hadn't been written. I guess if that makes sense, you know,
Speaker 3: where I would go through the dress code and it's like, okay,
Speaker 3: so I have to wear this uniform sweater, but nobody
Speaker 3: is saying that I can't cut it into a crop sweater,
Speaker 3: and then I'd get in trouble and then I'd like
Speaker 3: make my case and then they'd have to change the
Speaker 3: rule book. And that was my way of amusing myself,
Speaker 3: you know, like, oh, Okay, I have to wear these shoes,
Speaker 3: but it doesn't say I can't paint them a nail polish. Great,
Speaker 3: I have to do that. Then I get really, yeah,
Speaker 3: just justice for that sake of like knowing that rules
Speaker 3: had flaws in them. And so that's what I'm hearing
Speaker 3: in my head as I'm hearing you talk about all
Speaker 3: of these great postcode comedies. Figuring out how I mean
Speaker 3: Buzby Berkeley has always been my favorite. Where you know,
Speaker 3: he's making the sexiest musical numbers. There's a Webberwell lads calling.
Speaker 5: You buy a waterfall.
Speaker 3: He's dreaming marching body.
Speaker 1: Modern nature change told me.
Speaker 3: And then it cuts to a bunch of baby birds
Speaker 3: in the nest and You're like, oh, I know what
Speaker 3: these people are doing now, they're making baby birds. You know,
Speaker 3: I love that stuff. There's something really punk about it
Speaker 3: that makes me happen, right, I mean.
Speaker 2: It's getting away with murder when not really looking closer
Speaker 2: though looking at the wrong things.
Speaker 3: But yeah, there's anage right now, mother, Nay, it's.
Speaker 2: Not so amy. Let's assume that a lot of people
Speaker 2: reading this list, they're going to say, amusing, whatever, if
Speaker 2: there's something that you could add to this list, And
Speaker 2: the sturge is sort of vein that applies to where
Speaker 2: we are today, not just in the state of comedy,
Speaker 2: which lacks oppressed in sturges, of course, but also just
Speaker 2: with an industry that you know is really even sure,
Speaker 2: which ponied to back on any given quarter of their
Speaker 2: owner's stock reports. Right, are there rules? You think that
Speaker 2: might not be a bad idea to consider in trying
Speaker 2: to make comedies that don't stink in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: whether you're a Sturgis fan or.
Speaker 3: Not, you know, I had two, and I think I
Speaker 3: might have just added a third. Maybe maybe the first
Speaker 3: one's really small. A consequence is better than a threat,
Speaker 3: because I love movies where people are trying to you know,
Speaker 3: oh no, this is gonna happen. What am I going
Speaker 3: to do? Got to evade this, got to get this,
Speaker 3: gotta get this done. And when it's one single threat
Speaker 3: kind of dangling over the whole movie, I find it
Speaker 3: really frustrating they're going to solve it or they won't.
Speaker 3: I like it when I'm watching a film and early
Speaker 3: on the threat comes true and it becomes a now
Speaker 3: what ah good. Yeah, So that's one for me. A
Speaker 3: door opens, A door opens. Yeah. Another one I was
Speaker 3: thinking of really recently because of being kind of mom
Speaker 3: during the very stupid stoner comedies that are coming out
Speaker 3: of Hulu. Hulu is making movies that are like throwing
Speaker 3: back to the eighties. They're wonderful, they're like so moronic
Speaker 3: and fantastic, and they're making me excited about comedies again.
Speaker 3: And they're doing something that doesn't quite fit these rules.
Speaker 3: So I would call this rule a surprise is better
Speaker 3: than a rule, because they're breaking stuff that you don't
Speaker 3: expect to get broken. I don't want to give too
Speaker 3: much a way about one, but there's a scene where
Speaker 3: you think, oh, it's going to be a normal like
Speaker 3: escaping this hallway scene to get away from this person.
Speaker 3: They don't these people don't want to see, and suddenly
Speaker 3: people's heads start exploding. Let's do this.
Speaker 4: Ah what oh oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh
Speaker 4: my god.
Speaker 3: So you don't change it. I think I think I think, oh, okay, okay, well,
Speaker 3: I think our heads explode if we say curse words.
Speaker 4: God damn it.
Speaker 3: And it was the last thing I expected to see
Speaker 3: in this film was heads exploding. But the shock of
Speaker 3: that it made a comedy feel completely alive to me again,
Speaker 3: like anything could happen in this movie. And so, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't want to make the same old comedies. I
Speaker 3: want to make comedies that somehow figure out something new
Speaker 3: to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd like that. Do you have a third one?
Speaker 3: Did you say I have a third one? I think
Speaker 3: it's just really minor. But because I suddenly thought, oh,
Speaker 3: if I can just get in a rule for Hollywood overall, ah,
Speaker 3: then I will say this one, thinking in mind of
Speaker 3: Preston sturg just no how much he stuck up for
Speaker 3: his ensemble, keeping them together. I will say that the
Speaker 3: right comic is better than the famous comic, because I
Speaker 3: think too many movies right now are cast dependent not
Speaker 3: getting even made because you can't get I don't know,
Speaker 3: freaking Kevin Hart to star in them. Terrible. I want
Speaker 3: comedies are where you get to discover new talents, and
Speaker 3: I want to see that there too. I want them
Speaker 3: just to put in some funny person I've never seen before.
Speaker 3: Maybe it'll grow up to be Mick Love and we'll
Speaker 3: never hear from him again. I don't know. But maybe
Speaker 3: it'll grow up to be Cethroga.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And this is there's not anybody in
Speaker 2: Hollywood who hasn't said, in a position of green lighting
Speaker 2: power to the degree that they have it, who hasn't said,
Speaker 2: we want to discover new talent, or you know, we
Speaker 2: want something fresh and original. You know, I mean Jack
Speaker 2: Lipnick in Barton Fink, who ran what is a monumental
Speaker 2: studios in the Coen Brothers film I Forgot. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's he's spouting that kind of nonsense the you know,
Speaker 2: although his I guess his. The motion picture law, according
Speaker 2: to Jack Lipnick, is pretty simple, orphan or dame. How
Speaker 2: are you going to complicate your you know, your screenplay?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'd vote.
Speaker 2: Damn that's good.
Speaker 5: I like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if I had to add one for twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: it would be, I think, as simple as this, and
Speaker 2: it's more of a gripe and that's it. In action comedy,
Speaker 2: which many, many, many examples keep coming at us. Small
Speaker 2: budget and especially big budget in the action comedy. Comedy
Speaker 2: is more important than action. Yeah, I don't like rom
Speaker 2: coms that are just sort of think, well, all right,
Speaker 2: will of course we're going to have huge action set pieces,
Speaker 2: even if it's not inherently kind of like friendly to
Speaker 2: that idea, like the I mean, The Fall Guy or whatever,
Speaker 2: you know. But I'm just I'm just thinking of films
Speaker 2: like The Lost City with Channing Tatum and Sandra Bullock,
Speaker 2: which I haven't thought of at all since this morning
Speaker 2: when I did a little research on it. I had
Speaker 2: actually utterly forgotten about that film. But that's that's the
Speaker 2: kind of film I don't have any patients with anymore.
Speaker 3: That's really true. I mean, that's almost them. We're really
Speaker 3: disagreeing with the rule that we made fun of at
Speaker 3: the beginning that it chases better than a chat, because yeah,
Speaker 3: when it gets that third act and then people have
Speaker 3: to run around or stop the bad guy or the
Speaker 3: comic has to take out a gun or whatever, I
Speaker 3: immediately stop caring. I do not care about that in
Speaker 3: the slightest right. Yeah, I could not agree.
Speaker 2: More, and I couldn't agree more with stur just that
Speaker 2: very rule that chase is better than the chat, I mean,
Speaker 2: how much? Why does he sparkle today? The banter is
Speaker 2: not incidental to the pleasures there, you know, and every
Speaker 2: single character is quick witted.
Speaker 3: Maybe he's trying to throw people off. Maybe he's like,
Speaker 3: only I can be the most prestigious comedy screenwriter in Hollywood.
Speaker 3: I'm going to give him a red herring. Go do that,
Speaker 3: Go do a chase, and I'll be over here writing
Speaker 3: some great chats.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So you would say, Amy, that you find value
Speaker 2: in this list beyond just sort of like a nineteen
Speaker 2: forty one curio.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very much, very much. I mean, gosh, we were
Speaker 3: even just talking about code and skipping over. The bedroom
Speaker 3: is better than a living room. Definitely an eyebrow raise there.
Speaker 2: Love it? Yeah, yeah, I think I always kind of
Speaker 2: default to this line, but I've read it somewhere whereas
Speaker 2: America has sexualized everything except sex, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: advertising everything, but when we see a genuinely sensual, free spirited,
Speaker 2: romantic comedy that actually has every element of love working
Speaker 2: for and through the main characters, it's like a surprise
Speaker 2: that oh, a rediscovery, you know. Yeah, it's all over
Speaker 2: sturgee stuff, my god.
Speaker 3: And then he left us a lot of stuff for
Speaker 3: today's comics to satirize. Yeah, we have not gotten, I
Speaker 3: would say much healthier. So have at it people.
Speaker 2: It Amy, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: I mean, Michael, it's such a pleasure to be here
Speaker 3: as you're joining the podcast universe. I've been in the
Speaker 3: space for a gazillion years with like unspooled, the podcast
Speaker 3: I did with Paul shere we did the AFI Top
Speaker 3: one hundred. I am always impressed when somebody comes up
Speaker 3: with a new, original idea for a show. So kudous
Speaker 3: to you, Thank you, thank.
Speaker 2: You very much. I think you'll just be the permanent cast.
Speaker 2: I appreciate. We'll see you next week. No, thank you, No,
Speaker 2: you're all pro man and the writing at the La
Speaker 2: Times has been just tip top. So way to go.
Speaker 3: Oh thank you, Oh colonel, I'm delighted to see you again.
Speaker 6: We must play cards and lots of cards.
Speaker 5: Stewarts some champion for the colonel curtain name is by Really,
Speaker 5: haven't it right to drag me off like this?
Speaker 2: After Amy and I talked, I thought about something she
Speaker 2: said about how we're introduced to a film or a
Speaker 2: filmmaker in high school, college, whenever it is, and suddenly
Speaker 2: your taste in movies changes. Your taste is being formed
Speaker 2: or reformed, and it's too late. You're basically in love
Speaker 2: in a brand new way. Something is dropped into your life. And,
Speaker 2: as Preston Sturgis says in his eleven Rules for Box
Speaker 2: Office Appeal and arrival is always better than a departure.
Speaker 2: The movie Racket is produced by Joe des and Me.
Speaker 2: Michael Phillips, Adam Kempinar, and Sam ben Holgren executively produced
Speaker 2: the movie Racket. Next week, we look at an incredibly reductive,
Speaker 2: unofficial Hollywood law laid down by the great Howard Hawks.
Speaker 2: And my guest is Billy Murnett, a veteran script analyst
Speaker 2: for Universal Studios. He's read a few thousand scripts, seen
Speaker 2: an ungodly number of changes in this wobbly screen industry,
Speaker 2: and we're going to take on the Howard Hawk's assertion
Speaker 2: that a good movie is three good scenes and no
Speaker 2: bad ones. Sounds so easy when you put it that way.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much to la Times film critic Amy Nicholson
Speaker 2: for joining us this week. She's also a current on
Speaker 2: air voice at LAist and KCRW. Her book on Tom
Speaker 2: Cruise Tom Cruise, Anatomy of an Actor is out and about,
Speaker 2: and her second book, Extra Girls, will be published soon
Speaker 2: by Simon and Schuster. She also co hosts the movie
Speaker 2: podcast Unspooled with Paul Sheer. I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2: If you're in a communicating mood, drop me onanted movie
Speaker 2: racket at film spotting dot net. This is a Film
Speaker 2: Spotting production.
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Phillis, Califonia, Eli