[MUSIC]
A new podcast, a new podcast, I'm trying to put like a New York, a new podcast.
โDo you know what the tagline for who's that knocking at my door was?โ
A new movie? A new classic. Ooh. That's fucking bold. It's a bunch of pull quotes most notably Roger Ebert,
who was an early champion of this movie and dying doubt on that for decades. As you should have, as you should have. He gets credit for being like, "I suspect this Martin Scorsese might be the most classic." Important figure in the next half century of American movies. It's from Ebert.
Yes, he said a new classic. The poster David has a big quote. It says a new classic. A great moment in American movies as a film. It has something to say to everyone, a stunning impact.
The most evocative description of American life I've ever seen.
And then it has a second pull quote.
But then above the title itself, no quote. It just says a new classic. Go see that. So it uses the pull quote. Well, accredited to a film critic.
And then it also just says, "We're going to say it about ourselves." Now of course, there's an alternate tagline here. Because this is a two movie episode. So excuse me, while I reset.
โBy the way, I'm doing mentions one other tagline for who's that knocking at my door,โ
which I have to imagine was for a re-release, which was mean streets was just around the corner. Well, there's streets, a tagline. There's tagline. Basically saying, this movie is maybe retroactively interesting.
If you know that this guy goes on to-- Exactly what it is. Yes. But excuse me, let me do a hard reset here. Blank check in 2026 was a free podcast.
Bertha was just a little bit freer than most.
Well, yes, I know that tagline. American authorities was a free country. Yes. And it's Bertha was JES apostrophe A. JES a little bit freer than most.
Yeah. Yeah. It's actually a good poster. It is. It's great on it.
It's a great title. It's exploding. This mini-series is titled, "Pod Car Birth Cast." No, no, no, no. We're spending the next five and a half months talking about Marnskorsesi.
And of course, we are naming the entire series after a second film, "Pod Car Birth Cast." David's eyebrows have him just-- I'm just waiting for you to be done and introduce our podcast. This is Blank check with Griffin and David.
I'm Griffin. I did it. It's a little bit freer than most. It's a podcast about thermographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of Blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they
want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. Today, we're not talking about massive successes. We're talking about two early primordial films that set the stage.
For next week, a breakthrough, the likes of which has rarely happened in American cinema.
And then sets us off in a wild career of what we're discussing. Amongst the biggest careers we've talked about, it's him and Spielberg. I mean, these are the biggest guys we've talked about in this podcast. I guess that's-- Well, James Cameron.
He's the king of the world. Yeah. He's the king of the world. He's the king of the world. He's the king of the world.
He's the king of the world. I guess my distinction is that, no, you're right. These are now older states, man. They're older states. Living legends.
They've got the long body of work. Yes. He's talking about movies-- six decades of work now. What these guys? This is from the '60s.
Who's that knocking on my door 1967?
โThere were a couple, I think, iterative releases on it.โ
He isn't his seventh decade of making movies. He's currently filming a film. He's filming a film, folks. And his seventh decade of being a pick-up. He's filming a film that we will cover on blank check in, 2027.
I assume. Or 28. Times he takes time in the attic. He'd be slow sometimes. That's true.
If your movie is three and a half hours long, every test screening-- This is the one. This is the one. I don't know. I feel very strongly where I'm just like--
He can do what he wants. He can do what he wants. He can do what he wants. If he wanted to make these movies, 82 minutes long and have four hours of deleted scenes
on the criteria in desk, I'd be fine with that. I'm just like, Marty, show us everything you got now. I obviously would like him to do whatever he wants. But it's just the pitch of the new one just sounds a little more. It does.
Intimate, smaller, maybe. Right. Right. It's Transformer's versus GI Joe. It's a very simple battle between two forces.
It's predominantly featuring TikTok stars. Yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
Chris Hemsworth leads a rag tag team of TikTok stars
โto be the mediators between the Transformers and the GIโ
Drows. That is his ex-film, right, for Skydance? Yeah, here. I'm just looking. I'm trying to find his last sub two-hour movie.
Did you make you go crack two, right? It's two and six, two hours six minutes. Okay, that's probably a little over. Is that his shortest film of the 21st century? Yes, it is.
Yeah, bringing out the dead is two hours and one minute. Okay, so though it feels longer, complement and moves fast. It's got a lot in there, right. But I think after hours, color of money is an even two hours.
And after hours, King of Comedy, those are both under two hours. Obviously after hours is very short. That's sort of the point. 80.
It's not a quiet. It was like 90 something when it's short, you know. Come on, by his 97 minutes, by his standards. That's pretty much it's got. I'm not complaining about how this is under.
Mean streets is under. Today we're talking about two, two, 90 somethings.
And, right, his first two films were about 86 minutes.
Yeah, I mean, they go. It's a humongous film. There'll be a lot of long boys for us. It is. This is a humongous film maker, a humongous career.
And a filmmaker who, you know, for how large he looms in the culture. His name is often mispronounced. And so we obviously just want to get ahead of this on this series and make sure we're communicating this correctly. We will be talking about the films of Marty Scortcheezy.
Marty Scortcheezy on main feed blank check. Right. And of series, we're calling podcast fellas. That's right. Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay.
Point check, doing Marty Scortcheezy. Look. Scortcheezy. Oh, I actually had just some now remembering. I have a new bit.
I want to debut on this first house. Yes. This is the perfect place to do it. Yep. Hey new listeners.
Welcome to the podcast. The bit is pretending like this show is still accessible to people who haven't been in it for years.
โI think what I'm trying to do is I'm really going to try to do some work.โ
To engage with some new listeners. To try and just make them feel like they've got somebody who's just like guiding their handle a little bit. Sure. We're not trying to push new listeners away.
In fact, we welcome them. I just understand it can seem daunting. Yes. Yes. So guys, you're tuning in.
Sometimes the episodes go a little long. Yeah. Okay. Don't let that scare you. No, it's like Martin Scortcheezy movies.
It's rewarding. Yay. Yeah. Given that we've recorded two, three hour plus episodes. Or we've recorded I think four or three hour plus episodes in the last ten days.
There were some big movies. Right. Maybe we can keep this one a little light. Oh, wait. We have to talk about Martin Scortcheezy's entire like childhood and shit.
Although, you know what? He's done that plenty. You can just watch any of the documentaries. He's like, yeah, what's up, born in Queens, you know. Interesting impression.
Yeah. No, I got to get there with him. Got to get there with him. That's okay. And come on.
We're like, wrists of the rat. No, wait. They're not a million miles away from the south. Perfect. Example, new listeners, sometimes we go off on 10.
Sometimes we go off on 10. Just here's another thing we should say to new listeners, vis-a-vis my, I'm Marty. The Scortcheezy joke. The thing about blank check is sometimes I miss pronounced things on purpose because it's funny.
And sometimes I do it not on purpose because I don't know how to talk.
And I ask you to assume that it's always me doing it on purpose.
So he's a ha ha, always. So. Yeah. On blank check, you voted for him in March madness over Tony Scott. The people's champion, the biggest loser in America.
Martin Scorsese finally got his moment in the sun. He finally eaked out a win. And we decided in the interest of, I mean, we can't impose gravity on Mr. Scorsese, but you know, where we can. We will try to make this mini series not take over a year of this show.
So we are combining his first two efforts, the, I guess you would call it. It's sort of an independent film independent before. Yeah. That's the thing really existed the early days. Yeah.
Who's that knocking at my door? Who's that knocking at my door? Yeah. Yep.
โAnd then boxcarver, though, it's for higher work, right?โ
New World Pictures, Roger Corman, or at this point, it wasn't New World. It was American, it's AIP, American International. Yeah. The, you know, the two films that are sort of the films before his, you
know, real debut film of Mean Streets, much as like, the sixth sense is kind of midnight chaman. Yeah. I use the term in the Mean Streets episode, the, the phenomenon of the second first film, a movie that crystallizes the director's thing so thoroughly that
it basically never wins mine becomes the first movie because it's quote-unquote
the first real one. And then there are a few examples of a movie like Mean Streets, early in someone's career, where you're just like, there we go, there it is.
It's fully realized we're off to the races.
He never makes a movie ever again, that doesn't really feel like a martensk
or says a movie. You can argue about the effectiveness of each of those as films on their own. I said to my wife, who sort of came in halfway and we watched a book or birthday. First, I said, yes, I'm jacking it.
No, I didn't say that. No, I said to my wife, like, this movie does have a lot of trains in it, and it's fair to listen to the David's pants for a few examples. No, I said to my wife, like, this is kind of the last one I'm going to watch during this, that's like arguably bad.
And I don't even think box cover, there's like a, you know, you're more negative on it than I am.
โBut I'm not like, but like, this is the last one where I think it's in my opinion,โ
you can kind of be like, that movie just, you know, didn't work or is bad. You could, if you're saying that about the other ones, I mean, of course, you can say, like, I don't like New York, New York, I, you know, I get that. Like I'm not complaining. Right.
But it's like, the rest are interesting to master people. I would say you basically have three types of movies for the rest of his career. You have master pieces, you have movies that just work to some degree. Master piece, right? Yes.
Then you have highly regarded film, really interesting, risky personal swings. You have something that might not quite hit, but it's, it's something that's coming out of his soul, right? And it's a very genuine effort in doing something very artistically daring. And then the third thing is, what for most people would be a kind of strategic career
move movie, a paycheck gig, you know, a favor gig. But all of those movies, I would argue, are defined by the fact that Martin Scorsese chose to make them. It's not just well. He did this to get back in good graces.
All of those movies become defined, not just by the idea that he made it, but what he contributed to that movie. Anything that would be impersonal ends up becoming very personal through him. Boxcar Bertha is the last impersonal movie he makes. Who's that knocking at my door is him making a deeply personal movie before he's figured
out how to make an engaging film. Right. Right. Right. He's just getting his hands on the toolbox.
Right. And Boxcar Bertha's got pretty good craft in it. But you feel that he, he doesn't have anything on the line. He's not putting himself in it in the same way. And from next week on, that's not the case.
What do you agree? I would agree. Except I think good fellow sucks. Yes. Well, of course.
That's our take that we're working towards. Yeah.
That's probably never so missed.
Five minutes of us going. Good fellow sucks, raging bold basic. What if we put him on the bracket? Yeah. Encouraged like, like, yeah.
No. Of course. We're excited to do Scorsese that we do. Like, oh, by the way, we think he's staying. We all agree.
This guy's a fucking fool. Every episode is us like, another stanker. What a gemoo calf. Yeah. Also, I don't like his personality.
I don't find him charming at all. Yeah. Why are you so short, Marty? Yeah. Really even make me look tall.
No, no. My country and take would be like, I actually think he's too tall. Yeah. He should shorten up. Yeah.
Hunch up, Marty. Is I brushing? Yeah. Talk faster. Stop sniping them, browse, Marty.
โI think there should be less women in these movies.โ
All right. Okay. I'll get it. Marty. Bigger glasses, please.
Yeah. I can barely spot the money. I think he should touch your cheeks. That's how big they are. This guy, he draws on and on.
Can't you speed up the conversation about Marty? Get to the point faster and use your hands to express yourself. Let's fucking lose her. Today we're talking about who's then knocking at my door, box carburthe. Martin's, Chris says.
JJ forgot to prepare a dossier for this one. No. He worked really, really hard to get it to us in time. Black of interest. He said.
Also, there's just not an information out there about this guy. I think we are the first podcast to talk about Martin's course essay. Well, that's the first Marty movie you guys all saw before I start this. Oh, wow. First one I saw in theaters must have been gangster.
Same. If that theaters or just saw period or you can answer both, because for me, I know
theaters the answer is gangster New York.
Same. I'm wondering if that was the first one I saw period. I had definitely already seen taxi driver by then, because I was such a normal, well, adjusted kid. I'm trying to think if I would have seen much else.
I don't think I had seen, I know, but I'd seen good fellas. I definitely saw good fellas when I was like an early teenager. Yeah, I guess that would be it.
โYeah, no, I think that was the first one I saw because I understood the weight andโ
importance with which that movie was being presented. And I knew Martin's course essay by reputation as this is the guy everyone uses a short hand for infamous film maker, serious filmmaker. But I think I saw it and then said to my mom, like, so where does that rank?
Now, and then started seeing us as a kid growing up in North Jersey.
Oh, yes, this is my surprise to you that the first film with Marty Scorsesey that I ever
saw. It's good films. Yeah. Now, Ben, we were talking about this the other night. You were saying you have a bit of an interesting relationship to Barnes Scorsesey in
his films across your life, but that there's an interesting opportunity there's potential in this series. Do you want me to say it? Remind me. I was saying that you grew up with the most annoying people on earth, obsessively watching
his most popular films and taking all the wrong lessons from them and reading them in the dumbest, most superficial way possible 100%. And that it did not cause you to resent those movies. But it did cause you to kind of push away from them, definitely, that you kind of reject
โa protective and not in the way that I think he's obviously, it would be crazy to thinkโ
he's a hack, but it's just, you know what, I'll tell you what the loser, I'll make it. I thought it was his freaking loser. Now, it's this kind of the same way with Bruce Springsteen for me, where it's like
obviously the guy's an incredible songwriter, you know, put out incredible albums,
but it just was so jammed down my throat, I was like, I can't, now the can't engage with it. I understand that New Jersey has a couple of Italian recipes. For Seizee is not a Jersey guy, he's not. So it's a little bit of like the classic Jersey thing I like, yeah, but he's making movies
about us moves. So you know, it's like they were owning him, but they were loving him, but they were like the coerce. It's like the coerce. But you're like, with Springsteen, at least it's like, that guy is Jersey, he's from there.
And then I don't know if you know this, but you know how most of us grow up in our childhood bedrooms, we have floor, yes, you can stand on it, Bruce didn't have that, there was a hole in the floor of his childhood bedroom, not right. The thing we stand on that we rely on, he didn't have that for me. It was about not fitting in with the community where I grew up.
So I felt like I needed to differentiate myself from the pack. And so I was drawn to outsiders, artists, musicians, filmmakers that felt worlds away than the culture that the people around me engaged in. The great American filmmaker was born, excuse me, we don't pay Jay Jay to editorialize. We will decide whether or not he's a great American filmmaker, don't tell us that, don't
have that down our threats.
โWas born November 17, 1942 in Flushing, Queens, did you know that?โ
I knew there's a Queens boy, parents or Charles and Catherine Corscott, of course, says he, the children of the Sicilian immigrants.
So they are the first generation born here, Marty's the second.
Both of Marty's parents are born on Elizabeth Street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Charles worked in shipyards and then pressed clothes, they both worked in the garment district for a long time. Marty has an older brother named Frank. You may have heard this before Griffin, but Marty had a bit of a bad pair of lungs.
Yes, he called an illness when he was a tiny baby, probably pretossous, like wofping off for some, you know, like there was an epidemic, a nice doctor supposedly, sort of, you know, saved his life when he was a tiny baby, but he thinks it basically, like allergies, asthma, touching couple, breathe, barely made it, but then it's like his whole child hood.
He's got like a bad set of, you know, like he's a little, you know, whatever, he's a little fragile. Still to this day, it affects, I'm sure, the way he was raised, you know, if you come that close to losing a child, that early on, your parents are going to do everything
โthey can to really try to keep you safe and that fragility, I think gets into the head ofโ
the child. But the, uh, great documentary, the Rebecca Miller did last year. Uh, it's a called Mr. Scourses and you already, yeah, we're talking about TV talks about this. He talks about it in the Richard Chickal book, uh, conversations with Scourses, you
which, JJ wanted me to shout out because he's using it a lot for this stuff and also, but I should shout it out anyway, because I've read it. It is fantastic. It is one of the great, like, critic director discourse, you know, works ever. Like, he grew up in Corona in Queens, like, you know, back then, obviously, that part of
Queens, I think was very heavily Italian and more suburban. It's suburban, like, there's no big buildings there and it's not, like, cramped, like,
A lourven hat and was.
It's like, front yards and, yeah, two family house, they had yard, they had a little tree
and they were forced to move back because Charles got in argument, the move back to the lourry side, move back to the lourry side, move back to the lourry, because Charles got in an argument with the landlord. And I feel like in the documentary, Scourses, he talks about, like, what, you know, it was the classic, kind of, like, you know, was there maybe something shifty or was it just like, you know, ego, bravado kind of stuff, right, but something face could not be loaded.
Yes. Right. And he talks about it as being, like, cast out a paradise. Yes, paradise lost that he was taken out of a place he remembers feeling safe and comfortable and thrown into what felt like an unstable scary environment.
And it's a humiliation. They're moving back to essentially a tenement, this tiny two room apartment on 253 Elizabeth. Now, of course, you would have to be in charge of some sort of oil or aluminum deposit to afford an apartment on 253 Elizabeth. You're like a creative director.
I mean, I guess you could probably buy, like, a studio apartment for, like, $900,000 that
has, like, a toilet in the middle of the room.
I was going to say, the walls are made of toilets that don't work, but have unflushed them. You could maybe get the room that's portrayed in, who's it knocking at my door. That's just the fuckroom. Yeah.
Yeah, right. Exactly. Like, four, four.
โAgain, it's still a very large amount of money, but I think you got to live there with theโ
fuckroom guys. The fuckroom guys are still there. They can't kick him off the lease. 253 Elizabeth, so I work in Soho. Well, you work for blank check for God.
Well, that is true. But I also work for the Atlantic, and I work in Soho. And it was with street between Princeton, you know, is where he grew up and, like, it's like, you know, you know, where Prince Street pizza is, of course, all the tourists love to go around the corner.
It's around the corner. Square slices. They talking around the corner from there. Yeah. Anyway.
So his dad wasn't in the mob, but like, definitely new plenty of people who were there. And I feel like was sort of, like, often mixed up in the local kind of. It's hard not to be at that time in twined in these things, and even if you're trying to distance yourself away from them, there's a, what do you think you're better than
me kind of thing? I mean, it's part of what's interesting about the sort of mystery of them losing the
โhouse in Corona, where you're like, what's he too close or was he too far?โ
There's no these things. He tells this story about, like, the landlord, maybe thought that that was a little too mobbed up, and there was like a fight, someone picked up an axe, the landlord picked up an axe at some point. The dad is like this intense guy, according to Marty, and I feel like, you know, his
parents are so present in his early work, right? Like he does Italian American, the documentary about them. They show a much like him. They do. They look like a human like a little bit like, yeah.
And then, and his mother is just this, like, incredibly warm and interesting figure. Yes. His dad is definitely a little more unknowable. Like, or, like, a firm kind of, like, a soft spoken, right? Anyway, seven people living in three rooms, then they got some rooms down, like, in the
first they were, like, two, four.
I don't know. He talks about it. You know, like, we don't, we don't need to go through every single apartment that he lived in. As JJ included Zillowlistan.
Well, I could look about, again, I bet you, these days pretty pretty pretty pretty. Um, Lori side is pretty rough, as he says, you know, kind of like the dead end kids in old movies. It's close to that kids running up and down the street. You have a garbage can, you would get piece of wood, now you got a sword and a shield,
you play around. But also, Marty's spending a lot of time looking out his window at kids acting up. Yeah. Because his parents are so worried about his dang lungs. He talks about their being, uh, unknowingly trained into the act of being an observer, of
being the watcher, of looking at everything through this frame, and also just like, doodling a lot. And what he sees, the things he can't engage the rug, you can see in the Scorsese doc, the storyboards he made, and it's crazy. Yes.
It's not like, oh, yeah, some stick figures, and you can see that this guy has like a visual sense, it's like these very, very complex, beautiful, like drawings of like stories he's imagining and movies he wants to make.
โI think it was Rebecca Miller, being interviewed by her buddy Sean Phenisi on theโ
big picture. But she was saying, like, you know, I have a difficult relationship with the idea of genius, and I question the label, but when he showed me his storyboards as a child, I was like, this is a level of genius we're dealing with. It also takes effort, and it takes craft, and it takes intelligence.
It's not like people are just gifted, but you look at the storyboards he was doing when he was like 12, and he's like drawing out full color Roman epic sequences. Yes. Yeah. Right.
There's a lot of Roman style. Right. He was like obsessed with. Right. This is really impressive because it's not only is like his technical kind of mastery
of illustration so strong, but you're like, he immediately just kind of got composition.
He understood camera movements.
He understood visual, visual storytelling, and he's not just like drawing a comic book. He specifically like drawing out a movie to some degree this guy just like completely absorbed and understood this language and was able to spit it back out perfectly. So Martin Scorsese hangs out with the kids, there's the rough kids, but he is often the kid with his back against the wall trying not to get too much in the fight.
Little, little, back then is for real, little, little.
Basically like housed and down to canal, Elizabeth over to like, mulberry, but like five
or six or under, yeah, Sicilian. The way he puts it a Elizabeth street was mainly Sicilian. That's interesting to me. I wonder if he really did work that way where it's because little is essentially three streets.
It's not mulberry and Elizabeth, which is like now, it's now you call, I mean literally barely exists and you call some of it, no leader, which is, I made a fence and you know, it's so offensive. Yeah, it sucks. But like, you know, architecturally and culturally now, it's all kind of one thing.
But imagine like just the like ultra-perochialism of like, yeah, you know, the northern Italians, they were, and then the, the, the appellate and they're on mod.
โThe Sicilian's wear on Elizabeth, what I mean, like that's what came from your workโ
is about. What do you think's in New York is a hunny or prior? My point, if you let me finish my sentence, is that New York was like that for a while over a century. I think it was a little bit, would immigrate and then they'd just be like, this is our
blood. Yes, a little bit. You know, a lot of these would sort of mount and there was the sense of this weird, like we know this is the great American melting pot, but there's also a sort of baked in defensive tribalism of like, this is where we come from and this is our family.
I think that that continues though. I think it's a little new neighborhood, but the block by block thing is a little less of that now because there's less tenements. It used to go, you're not like, pack and puff up in stronghold. It was like the neighborhood's really sectioned off.
No, but I mean, I mean, like, when I worked as a labor reporter, you would, I would, you know, that's where I was started. Like, I'm right. The guy in East Community is like, you know, this little pocket here, it knows on park or you know, like you would find, yes, it's also fascinating to me.
I'm a geography nerd. I'm a New York nerd. I love all this stuff. Mostly, he would live in little Italy, but he does say, sometimes you got to stand out on their Queens, see other Italian community people, sometimes you got a 42nd street.
Catch a picture. A picture. You go to the picture houses. Oh, I like the sound. So, I don't know if you guys know this, but Martin Scorsese likes movies.
This is going to be a recurring thing we discuss on this mini series about the films of Martin Scorsese. How much he likes films? Movies. He says around the age of three, his asthma's not great and his father would just take
him to see lots and lots of movies. His father liked movies. His father had been a film buff in the 30s, so he's passing it down.
The first image he remembers seeing a true color trailer for a Roy Rogers movie in which
he was wearing fringes and jumped from a tree onto his horse. His father says, do you know who trigger is? And then he went like, Scorsese goes like this. Oh, it's by the track finger and he's like, no, it's the horse's name and I'll take you to see it next week.
Do you know how much that horse makes? He's got a studio contract. He gets a bucket of apples every day. And then he gets 10% of the apples they bring in at the box office.
โI'll read some of this quote that JJ says is important, but it's like half of it's likeโ
so long. So I was made to think I couldn't do anything physical. I had to be very careful with sort of coddled in a way. The ritual going in the movies with your father didn't matter what film you saw became important to me.
It was a matter of going to lose Commodore on six street and second avenue, which is now part of New York University. It's a film where he's put between those two.
The Academy of Music, which has gone now on 14th street, we were always walking into
the middle of a film. There was a sense of peace there too. There really was. You got faith when you went into the church and you had faith when you went into the movie theater too.
Imagine Griffin. That's what it should be. There should be a movie theater every 10 blocks in New York City, Griffin. And it should be playing movies all the time you just walk in. I agree.
It's walking in the middle of fucking. What's out right now. Project helmet. Yeah. There we go.
I mean, you know, for how much Marm's for says he now represents like the same to the E of cinema right in the purity of it. He talks about that every time he fucking walked into a movie theater, it was like an insane asylum. Like he was like in those days.
โI think it was just a bunch of like latch key kids, especially if it's like a kid thing.โ
Right. Right. But he's just like people just walking in and out at random moments. It's basically running movies all day and you have like shorts and news, reels, and whatever.
And so people just like buy a ticket, show up whenever, sit down for like five hours, leave it at any point. People are screaming and throwing popcorn. There's the moment in Matt and A, I love so much, the Jodante movie, where you see them go into the movie palace for the first time and they open the doors and it's just like
mayhem. It's like ultimate. I also just to your point, I want to throw out, I imported this lovely blue ray box set from the fine folks that imprint in Australia. And Mark's Courseshi films a faith, which is a last temptation, condo and silence put
Together.
But I found it very funny just how blunt this is. On the back of the box, it has an image from Kondon and then a quote from Mark's Courseshi, "My whole life has been movies and religion. That's it. Nothing else."
โI mean, I think he eats a meal, what's it all, I'll put it in the hand.โ
He eats faith and he watches movies. I know Barry reliably that he loves the dumplings at the town downtown. So some of the early movies, bad in the beautiful, first movie he sees about the process of filmmaking. He loved westerns.
Dave the Earth should still the sci-fi film, one of his first great theater experiences at the Academy of Music, a couple thousand people reacting to it.
The Howard Hawks thing, that was an amazing experience, the shock, the humor, the overlapping
dialogue, the monster, two thousand people jumping in one, one amazing experience. Now, his mother is responsible for one of his formative memories. He takes him to see Dool in the Sun, which had been condemned by the church, the King Vedor movie. I don't remember why they condemned it, but who knows, they were condemning it.
But because you're supposed to duel under the moon, of course. And he was too scary for him, I mean, that's a 46 movie. He must have been, he was like four years old, what did you do in taking it? It was what I'm saying. I know.
I know. I know. She couldn't watch the end. It was also frightening, you know, and my mother kept yelling, look at it, you took me here to see it.
Now watch it. So, I guess, even at four, he's like marching up to his mother and being like, "I want to see Dool in the Sun." I love movies. I'm sorry, briefside tangent Ben, I have some terrible news.
I hadn't even told you this, but I just got a text that we had a cancellation for an upcoming George Lucas Talkshow date. We were going to have Doug Bradley as a guest, pinhead himself. I love pinhead. And I was planning to get him to sign your limit configuration.
Why did you cancel? Apparently, pinhead booked a movie. You know what? But it's good that he's getting work. Good job, pinhead.
The whole fucking thing that rocks about him is he's a scouser. He's from Liverpool. Yeah. And when you hear him in like a podcast where he's like, you know, he has a scous accent. And like the idea of like, oh, I would, I would get in trouble.
I can try. I'll try it. Just pinhead being scousest, just really funny. Anyway, 1948, Scorsese gets a television set. One of the first families on that block, a 16 inch RCA victor.
So now he starts seeing even more movies. Perfect. Good. Was the problem?
โOld movies, I guess, like I mean, whatever on television, I think they show a lot ofโ
British cinema. He says like Alexander Corda, beef of Baghdad, you know, and then some Italian film on Friday nights, they would show things like bicycle thieves or roam open city. Like these, you know, more challenging near-realist, Italian film. I feel like filmmakers of his generation, this come up in other series, talk about
this, that also, you know, far fewer channels, very few, but movies would replay. Of course, right. He says a lot of these guys are studying one movie for like four weeks as a child. That's the thing.
He says million dollar movie, which is like a million dollar movie in the 50s.
Yeah. So the same film, like five times a week, and he would just watch it again and again, it would be the movie where it would be like turn it off and they're like, no, I'm kale's a taffman. The Powell Pressburger film, which is so beautiful, movies are made.
Now, of course, he saw it in black and white on a 16 inch RCA victor TV with commercial breaks. And it's still mesmerized him, but obviously like a lot of Powell Pressburgers, maybe the one single, most obvious influence visually on the work of Barton Scorses. Like, you know, they get obviously there's a million other things in the soup there,
but like you watch New York New York, you're like he's trying to make a Powell and Pressburger style. Like he's making the dance. Yeah. The use of color throughout his movies and how important he talks about color being
and how he conceives of things comes from them in so many ways.
One of our favorite filmmakers filmmaking teams ever, a series, we're always threatened
to there. Yeah, we'll do it. Yeah. Series canceled. Marty hit the bricks.
He didn't see Susan Kane until he was 14 or 15. Fanger. He got to get those splatter box stats of Marty face to gas taste.
โHe remembers seeing it at the Taliah theater or Taliah of Taliah, I think, 96 street alongโ
with John Ford's the informer, not a good movie. Look, he likes a lot of movies. So he's right, he draws those story boards as we know of, so we referenced that already. He was very obsessed with like biblical ethics or movies, but his father is not seeing this in going, ah, an artistic streak, perhaps I should foster this.
I'm so excited. We have done. He's like, this is embarrassing. I'm throwing these away, the fuck is this. Who do you think you are, Martin Scorsese?
It is funny to just be the guy that gets used as shorthand for great director...
It's been imagined. You're no Marty Scorsese, Marty Scorsese, he's dad being like, Martin Scorsese, why will you have it there? I have to say about movies, no one cares. So I guess his parents are not deeply religious, he says, but he lives in the little
way, and so he gets sent to Catholic school.
โHe went to St. Patrick's Elementary, which used to be, it existed until I think I lookedโ
it up recently, like until 2015, maybe, but like, it's, so this is what I want to talk about. So I don't know if you guys know this, but they're St. Patrick's old cathedral. New York has St. Patrick's cathedral, like the big ass fuck off cathedral. It's up mid to the right.
Yeah. Exactly.
But that was the second St. Patrick's cathedral guys.
The first St. Patrick's cathedral is in the little Italy, it's on Prince between Martin Mulberry. Is this the thing you said you had to reveal in this episode, David said he was sitting on a hot scoop. Yes.
And you guys have definitely seen this, you know, maybe I haven't been in the church, but it's right there. Yeah. You know, in the middle of soho, you're like, whoa, there's a big old church. It's very much sticks out.
It's a very old church, like it was built, I mean, by American standards, not by European standards. It's like a 12 year old, but, you know, it's like 200 or 50 years old or whatever.
โYeah, it's called now St. Patrick's old cathedral, which is a little rude, I think.โ
It's a technically St. Patrick's Basilica, but, you know, that's that's Pope language. Let's see, when was it built? 1815. So yeah, you know, it's so funny because of the neighborhood where it's like you pass a little way, they write, you're like, oh, yes, we're kind of by a belt for $800 and it's like,
yes, but once this was like the seat of, you know, working class Catholic power, so it's an old, so there used to be a school across the street now, it's condos, but on print street was the Catholic school across the street. That's where he went. He was an altar boy at St. Patrick's Cathedral, okay?
Where are we going with this David?
No, we said this was exciting, and we all know that always works out for everyone just
fiery. I, the other day, towards St. Patrick's old cathedral, you can tour it, there's catacombs underneath. Cool. And you can tour them, bones, now.
On this tour guide, which was, let it always with my friend, wife, my friend, wife, was like, hey, do you want to get dinner and drink, and I'm like, oh, sure, she's like, where we could do something cool, and I'm like, what's cool?
โI'm trying to do fun New York experience, catacombs much, and she's like, catacombs, andโ
I'm like, there are catacombs. We go on this tour. First we go around the graveyard, there's an ancient graveyard there, again, by American standards, like, you know, hundreds of years old, very cool. He's, you know, our tour guide was, imagine, like, sort of an Irish guy from Brooklyn.
Can you imagine this? Totally totally no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no - Have you ever been to the fox? - It's so cool.
- It is. - It is. - It is. - It is.
- Have you ever been to the fox?
- It's so cool. - It's so cool. - No, I tried going the last year. I was there and I didn't make a reservation enough out from when we were in town. - It is as extreme as you would imagine it to be.
- Where you're just like, let me go through a tunnel. Oh, it's just an endless walk lined with boats. - Yeah, so cool. - And the other thing with the Paris ones, especially, you're like, right,
if there was not someone with me, I would get lost immediately and die down. - It feels like a big race. - It feels like a labyrinth. It goes on forever.
It's so many skulls. Like so many. And they're not like behind glass. You're just walking through and being like, that skull.
- And they're like, don't touch the hundreds of years old. Anyway, but on this tour, he was like, "Hey, anyone know Martin Scorsese?" And I was like, yeah, I've heard, you know, yes. And he was like, "It was an off-to-boy here."
And I was like, of course he was. - Yeah. - This was the church. - This is the little church. - This is the little church. - It's one of those New York things
that you walk into like this grand cathedral. I mean, look at that. - I took a fucking picture. You know, you just can't believe, like this is just sitting here in the middle of New York 'cause like he'd do his prayers
and then walk right across the street to rice to riches. - Look at that, it's gorgeous. - Yeah. - It's pretty. - So nice.
- I feel like a thing he talked about, and we're getting out. - I love Catholicism, guys. - What if that's my rope? - This is now, this is a Trad Podcast.
- I'm into Catholicism in that weird JD Vance way.
- We all know Blackfax has always been
a deeply spiritual podcast. I was going to say, I feel like it's a thing that came up and they were back in Miller doc becomes up in a lot of his talks of just like he was a fragile boy.
He was nervous, probably an extension of his physical fragility. - He was in a rowdy neighborhood. And the picture house and the church were the two places he felt safe.
The calm places and the thing about the church, especially is the rougher types, the mob, whatever. They're not messing with the church. No one's going to be named to a priest.
- It's the one place that's basically safe.
- He had a very influential man named Father Prince Bay, who was like a young priest, been tore for him, kind of a hip priest.
โ- I think he says like he played the guitar.โ
- Oh, Dave really? - Yeah, I think so. - My joke's not funny, it was just an accurate. - He felt that he was a big fan of on the waterfront to introduce Martin to, just say he loves the Carl Maldon,
the character, Carl Maldon is so fucking good in that movie. - Carl Maldon, I'll say it, pretty good actor. - The original kind of is Carl Maldon, the original Karen's boy. - Definitely because Carl Maldon's
like a good looking guy, but he's got that big nose huge. And like it kind of just makes him sort of like, you know, like, yeah, affable and interesting and whatever. - But I feel like he's a definitional kind of formative, archetype of the kind of guy that you and I lose our minds over.
- Right, I love it. - I loved for decades. - My guy's got a hunker. - He's got a hunker, it's boy. - You really do feel like you could squeeze it
and then noise, I know go, oh my god. - Like this car, yes. - Father Prince Bay finally saw taxi driver and said to Marty.
I've always told you too much good Friday,
none of these are Sunday and Marty's like, he nailed me. - Anyway, so all very formative for him, he doesn't totally fit in. He wants to be a priest, he enrolls in seminary school, but he just can't take a study seriously enough.
โLike, you need to like fucking learn latin in shit.โ
- And it just feels like all Marty wants to do is watch movies. - It's funny when he talks about how close he feels like he came to becoming a man of the cloth and then you hear from his family and his childhood friends and then we're like, he was never gonna fucking be able
to pull this off. I know he feels like he was being pulled between these things but it was just like, it's pretty short-lived. - If 14, he enrolls in a junior seminary called Cathedral College or so on the upper side.
He's expelled after a year, he says he didn't have his mind on his work and he'd fall in love with a young lady. These are not going, you will not be a priest with this kind of behavior of my friend.
But thank God, this cinema claimed to him.
As he says, like, he's basically like,
my parents were not religious. I liked Father Prince Bay and I liked, you know, the neighborhood priest kind of the neighborhood church thing but like this is not pushed on me. - Yeah, like I probably just didn't have quite enough
of the drive, you know. - So he gets kicked out of that. He goes to Cardinal Hayes, which is a high school in the Bronx. He's still thinking about maybe going to like Jesuit University of Fordham.
Up in the Bronx, Fordham's a Catholic University. That's where his friends are, but bad grades. He was interested in an English literature and read lots of books and stuff like that. But he says it wasn't easy for him to read,
says it wasn't part of our cultural make-up, but I was ready to tell further, I don't know. I just feel like he's, you know, he's not academic, right? Like he figures this all out later. Like he's not, right?
- Yeah, it comes from a working class family. - Yeah. - He's not even that, there was a lot of working class kids who were, you know, climbing, you know, I still haven't rapidly shooting up to the right,
you know, this is what happened.
โBut he's not seeing it in a state-to-date, that's what he says.โ
Like it's like there was, there wasn't a culture of it in his family, right, of like you should read fucking Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens or whatever. And he loved, and he loved movies. Number one thing he loves is movies.
Not books. He makes a short film called The Suvius VI, an eight-millimeter thing, which is shot on the roofs of Mont Street with white sheets. I'm gonna guess he didn't completely recreate
Mount The Suvius VI. - There are clips of this in the Rebecca Miller too, but it's him doing his, yeah. - He says he basically learns some things about camera angles, you know what I mean?
- Yeah. - And then he gets a catalog from the New York University Washington Square College. He's not even called NYU back then. And they have a department called TMR,
television, motion pictures, radio, and he thinks I'm gonna go into radio just kidding. But you know, it's in the village, it's right where he grew up. It's just, you know, one neighborhood up. What if we found out that the great pain
of Martin Scorsese's life is that he wanted to be a drive-time radio guy and he couldn't hack it? - It would be so funny if he wanted to be like right on Howard Stern.
- Yeah, and he's still, and do you think he's ever been on Howard Stern?
- I'm gonna look it up, keep right,
dig in through the dossier, I'm sure he has. - So, hi, my new game? - Oh, yes. - Yeah, very influential, early like teacher for him. Our median American professor, he's in,
โwho's that knocking on my door, I think, briefly.โ
So he shows him, Lumiere movie. See shows him great train robbery, greed. Maybe all the way up to like early philini. It's like, these are the kinds of movies he's showing him. Scorsese, they had to do a report
and a movie he liked, he read a report on the third man.
And he gave me a B plus. Because he said, remember, this is only a thriller. We were opposite ends of the poll in a way, he preferred like Open City, I liked everything. And this is important to Marty and all the new vrats.
I feel like the movie Brats are like, we love Westerns, we love noir, we love fucking Hitchcock where it's like the older guard or like the older guard. - Well, yeah, but that's, that's not serious.
- That's entertainment, right, you know. I mean, sure, it's fun, yeah. - It's funny to say about the third man, too. - Yes, well, well, well, well, were you about to ask Ben? - I wonder, does it, maybe has something to do with TV
growing up with having access to all of these different kinds of genres? - Maybe, but I think TV is so new. - It's more the picture house thing of those movies who just show the, like the trash
of your movie. - You could just sit there and just watch it. - Well, I think that's a lot of it. That these guys really dug in and studied the kind of forming construction of these things.
And there's like, there's artists for you here. Well, not presenting themselves a serious. Does not seem he has ever been a guest on the Howard Sternshire. There are many clips of other people talking about
Howard. - Howard, bye-bye movie. - He has done it in Pritland? - He should, you should do hot ones. That might kill him.
- What he died if he had, let's, let's be careful. I don't know what Marty's died. - Just sniffing those hot sauces might be dangerous. (laughing) - French New Wave is happening while he's in film school.
It's very, very liberating for him. He says, here's Shima Munamor. - Jewelism, the Viva Savi. - My pennies, those are good movies. - You're good movies.
You just thinks about things like Anna Kreen is reading a letter and then there's a jump cut to a man folding it up. He's gone up and taken it out of her hand. You're breaking narrative, right? You know, obviously this is the whole thing
with the French New Wave where you show people now and they're like, I don't get it. - Right.
โ- And you're like, you have to literally,โ
literally had him with the right. - And then, you know, Casabetti's out there. - Yeah. - Chados has been released. - Right?
- Yeah. - Yeah, this is happening in New York. - And he made that on a 16 millimeter camera in New York City. So it can be done. - And it was a scrappy, iterative movie.
- He shot it twice. - Right over a bunch of years and all that. - Right, it's like this guy just kind of eaked it out. - Yeah. - So he works on some shooting stuff.
He's a cinematographer or the photographer a short called Iniesta.
And then his first short is called,
what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? - Now we're gonna talk about these early shorts. - Including this one, right? - Yes, what's all we're gonna do with these shorts? - Kind of box set, that's on there.
Telling American Big Shave, yeah. - In 65, he also marriages his marriages. He marriages. - He marries his college girlfriend, Lorraine Brennan. They have a daughter, Katherine, his oldest daughter,
who is very present in his life, but clearly has a complicated relationship with him when she's young, 'cause he's like, divorces her mother and then they've divorced in '71 and then he's like, you know, being really regular
through all of the symptoms. - It's a big thing that who's that knocking on my door is about, but he still talks about how much shame there was associated with the idea, even like socializing with women. And how kind of sinful it was unless you were immediately
just gonna make an honest woman out of her and get married and start a family, you know?
โAnd I think Marty was always a little bit hornyโ
and felt the need to be like, well then I guess I just gotta get married again. - I'm married a bunch, you're just a marriages. - There was a marriages. - How old was he when he became a dad?
- Well of the first child,
- Oh my God. - Yeah, I mean, geez. - Yeah, he would've been like 23, 24, right? - Yeah, yeah. - So pretty young, not like insane, but
and he still talks about like when he was like, you know, if I wanted to date someone, I felt like I had to marry them. - Who's that knocking on the door? It was actually written as the second part
of a series of films meant to explore his adolescence. The first was going to be called Jerusalem Jerusalem. It's this sort of half finished screenplay he wrote where his protagonist called J.R., later called Charlie, who it's, you know,
mean streets, it's the main character, it's called Charlie. In which they've like spent three, he men's voice spent some days in a religious retreat, you know, sent a little less exciting. Hi, Manugian is his first producer, you know,
helps him make this movie. His father raised his $6,000 for him from a student loan. He thinks it's the first student film shot
In black and white 35 millimeters on the east coast.
- Interesting, that's, it is wild to think about.
- It's that early, things being that nascent. - Yeah, 'cause even just like film school is a new thing. - Part of the idea of cleaning, of course. - And I think it was mostly technical, like it was mostly like, yes, well,
we now make film and television and stuff. - Right. - Here's how to do that. - Right, 'cause then it'd be like the wave is happening. - Right. - So like the art is so exciting
and it's challenging, it's different not to generalize, but it used to be more like fucking joining the circus. Like you would just like get on a fucking bus to Hollywood and get off and be like, what can I do? And then you just learn everything, you know,
from like carrying cratesmanship. But even though the technology has been around for at that point 50 years, it's not very accessible.
โI think basically we're very early in like,โ
you could get your hands on a 16 millimeter camera, maybe that's more portable, and you could maybe like, make a movie for not as much money, right? - Yeah. - Like you develop your film yourself.
It's still gonna be hard, you're gonna have to cut it with scissors and shit. - A 35 millimeter camera, it's still a thing that's like kind of lock behind gates. - You know, it's really hard to get an opportunity
to work with something like that. - There's more. - There are very few film schools. They're all very new. - And it's so expensive.
There's a barrier of entry. - And you gotta buy that. - Yeah, but it, yes, yes.
- But these things have basically been built
around like institutional knowledge. Like there wasn't really a pipeline, and it also was, and it speaks to what we're saying of like the sort of snobbishness against commercial cinema. There was this battle of like, is this a fucking serious thing?
You know, do we need to be like training people and how to make movies? Is that like an intellectual exercise,
โor is that like learning how to work in auto-plant?โ
(funky music) - Harvey Gaita, Harvey Gaita. - Answer is an ad. They put in a publication called Show Business, and he comes in, and Marty has a friend called
Bill Minkin, who's a comedian. Sit behind a desk for this. Harvey comes in and Bill Minkin's like, Marty has coaxed him to be like, what are you doing here?
Harvey's like, I answered an ad, and he's like, there's no ad, and basically go to him into an argument, and then they like watch the argument, and then Marty is like, that was great. And Harvey's like, why aren't you fucking,
tell me to improv something I can do that. Like why are you doing fucking Jamie Kerney, Kennedy experiment on me? - Marty did accent. - Marty did, it sounds like he acts the hell out of Kaito.
- Kaito is working as a court stenographer. So I think that tends to be kind of a nine to five job, so I think making this movie was really annoying. - Harvey could have tells the kind of guy, just his vibe, his look, his generation where I'm like,
you could tell me he was doing any job before he became an actor, and I would believe you. - Yeah, right. - There was no job. - He was a sea captain, I'm like, sure.
- Yeah, of course. - And then he's docked, and he started acting in movies. He was a lion tamer.
โThey shot it over the course of many months, right?โ
Like they had so much trouble matching scenes. They said they were shooting a building, they blow the lights, they'd have to wait for hours to reset everything, they didn't know what they were doing.
The first version is 65 minutes long
is called "Bring on the Dancing Girls." - Yes. - They screen it for people, it's terrible. - Right, and this was just, I wanna make a film about like male camaraderie.
I wanna try to capture what I see in the guys I grew up with in my generation and all of that. - So we kind of make a movie out of this man. - But Ben, it is basically that. It is basically Marty going like,
this is the web series. This conversation we're having right now, none of the girl stuff isn't it. - Yeah, it doesn't have the girl stuff, it's just guys.
- None of it's written, she's not cast, it's not shot, that's not part of the conception of the movie. - No, I mean, there's like a girl in it, but there's no confrontation.
- I'm saying the character of your girl. - All of that is a secondary shoot later, this movie is just guys being dudes. - It's just guys being dudes. So in 60 seconds, people don't like it.
He has no money, his marriage is already falling apart. He's got 50 minutes of a dude hangout movie that no one wants. - Right. - He teams up with Marty Kmartin,
who's an early collaborator of his, and work something in streets and other things. There's neither of them have any money, but they start thinking about things. And somehow they get $37,000 from Hague
and from Joe Wilde, another student who's a lawyer, to finance the rest of the picture which involves scenes with a girl. They needed an actress. They needed a 16 millimeter camera.
They were gonna cut that in with some 35 millimeter stuff. They had shot and they started shooting in some real locations. The way he puts it is, I realized I was in the process of combining two styles.
Let's say cast of Eddies with Ford,
Because it's like these two movies essentially get turned
into one movie are very differently made, 'cause he's learning.
โPreviously tried to see what his with that dialogue,โ
tell the story through images, but it didn't work. They find this actress, Zina Bethune, they call a hybrid guy to help back. Her mother was a big actress of the early American theater and radio.
She was on the original Superman radio show. Eva Bethune was also a dancer soon. - I'm sorry.
- I've never seen Ivy was the mother.
- Yes, and Eva Bethune was also a dancer. She later started her own acting school company that sort of became her legacy. But didn't have many acting roles. - No, she's only got a few film credits.
Kai tells back to working as a court sonographer. They cut his hair and stuff and he's like, "I fuck you, this isn't a ring." - Don't so much to imagine, this is like, what, a year, 18 months later and it's like,
"I gotta do more of that shit when the guy who fucking excites me." (laughs) - This is around the time he also makes the big shave. - Yeah. - That was his breakthrough.
- Right, that wins a prize at a festival of American experimental cinema. - So that gets him a little bit of attention. - We will cover it then, but it's a true short dialogue for a film that is pretty experimental
and an allegorical metaphorical. But it has like a really big impact. It is talked about as like a call-in-card thing as there's sort of a rising like film intelligence,
yeah, you know, and the sort of critical community
of New York City. He's immediately kind of propped up as like this guy's interesting. Now, he has a new cut. He calls it I call first.
He screens in the Chicago film festival, Roger Ebert of the Sun Times. He gives it a great review. - Am I wrong in thinking it is literally Roger Ebert's first published review?
- Not sure about that, okay. - But I can tell you that he said he called it a marvelous evocation of American city life announcing the arrival of an important new director.
He did kind of nail it from the house or the way that one. Roger Ebert dines out on this for the rest of his life. He has many accomplishments, but being able to brag about like I fucking called it. I saw this at the earliest possible showing
and I was like, I put my money down on Martin Scorsese having a good career as a film director and Scorsese also says that it like kind of made him or at the very least empowered him. - David, do you have your own version of that?
- Oh, like the movie, I say I called my shot or I don't think so. - I don't think so.
โ- I think it was the first person to sayโ
hotel, Translating is good, right here. - That was a risky position at that time. - I wasn't actually literally asked it was, I was hoping that you would come up with like, I don't know, something dumb.
- Okay. - Okay. - There's still a chance later. And new listeners, we do this sometimes. - We do this sometimes. Sometimes we see it a bit.
- So he tries to get in the New York Film Festival. He claimed he says they told me I was living aesthetically beyond my means, which is funny. He goes to Europe, you know, takes it around there. He meets a Italian director, sorry, Italian,
Joseph Brenner Associates, a soft core porn distributor, says if you add a new scene, we'll distribute this. - It was the new scene.
- Yes, it was not Ebert's first review,
but it was the first review, score sazy God. It was the first review that movie God. - Yes, but this is very illustrative of this era of filmmaking. If you were making an independent film,
you could screen it for someone and they'd just go like, if you can find a way to throw like five hits in this, I can get it on like five screens. - Right.
- True, they'd be like, they'll give you $20,000, find a couple of moves, edit them into the movie. And that's like, I can make my money back on that. - They're an Amsterdam. They fly Harvey Kytel, who I assume is the middle of like,
you know, you're on, or I am the person. - Yeah, right. - Two Amsterdam. They got, as he puts it, a bunch of girls and did the crazy nude scene to get that in there.
And, you know, he looks back on the film and sees its flaws. But, you know, it's part of, in the context of the late 60s, free love, the sexual revolution. And here's this guy who can't like fuck a girl 'cause he likes her and like his two afraid of sex.
โHe's like, it's out of sync, but in a good way, right?โ
You know what I mean? - I think this movie's fascinating. And I'd actually like it a lot. I think it is one of those movies where it's failings and it's limitations, actually kind of give it more power
because it's sort of about how unsettled it is with itself. And all the things this guy has not yet worked through in himself. It's such a pure primal scream of sparsazzy. And I also think past Mean Streets, his movie stopped being about him.
They've had some about his obsessions and his worldview and they're all very personal. - Sure. - And Mean Streets is about him. - But he did live in the train station in Paris
Made a robot.
- Well, those are his best friends, they've got time on time, right? They write all of his favorite things. The Mean Streets, as we'll talk about next week is this fascinating sort of pivot point
where he has a self-insert character played by Catel but then it feels like,
โbecause like, wait, what if I build the whole movie out of the Deneuro guys?โ
The guys I know not me at the center of the story and who's that not yet my door is a movie about him? It is like Scorsese, like, almost as a therapy session of a film working through all of his concerns and like spilling them out.
And the form of the movie even in it's weird like, you know, segmented production and it's like development across years and all this sort of like wedged in pieces, feels like it, it's a representation
of what he's battling inside of himself in that way, you know? Like it's messing us to me, it's not me saying it's a perfect film or that's a masterpiece but that I think it's a really engaging thing to watch. I like this.
I think it's, it is mostly interesting as a movie made by Martin Scorsese. You know what I mean?
โLike, it's just an interesting blueprint for himโ
and the music is good and the camera work is interesting but it is not a good movie like in terms of like,
if you just short of to someone who never seen a Martin Scorsese
movie there would be like, I loved that. It's an interesting first work. Yeah, it's got some stuff in it and because you know, who made it and like, you know, where it's like, it has all this fascinating like blueprint material. Yes, right, you know, like, which is interesting.
One could call it a bit of a preset of stuff. I think that's almost a stretch. He thinks that's a stretch. He's kind of like, I don't know. Like, you know, he's like, I didn't get the emotions right.
I dislike the movie, it's a rough sketch. But, you know, it tells good. I think it's even a buffoon is good. I think the camera work is good. I like what I, you know, the good music song.
He's got the only editing this one. And then they don't redeem again for another couple pictures. No, for more than a couple. Yeah, for a little while. But especially knowing that he gave her such a weird batch of footage, you know, shot across years in different formats and different areas.
He's doing really interesting stuff in the construction. The stuff with the boys hanging out, you know, like some of that is fun. But like, you have mean streets, which does it a lot better.
So like, you can always just obviously see mean streets in the little bit.
But this is a movie where those things are like, forgetting each other. It's not even like, well, here's a rough version of this and a rough version of that. Like, the nature of how it was made means that you have these scenes that are just the uncut form of guys, rough housing.
And then cutting to like an entirely different mode of filmmaking with these like more intimate dialogue scenes, shot an entirely different film format and the two sides of the movie like clashing against each other because Thomas actually using new wave editing rather than like invisible editing and making something out of the juxtapointing the tune.
โI love filming. You guess who else likes this movie?โ
Roger Ebert. No, guess who else? Who? Kassavetti's. Oh well, yes. He digs it. He, he'll notice that. At least at least he notices the town. Senpa notices. So that is who's that knock-in in my door. Before we move on to Berksburg, Berksburg.
That's all we're going to say about who's saying that's the end of the dossier on who's that. Do you think we talk about the movie a little more and then do the box card dossier section? We should also, you can do a box office game. I think we should do a little. Yes. But no, no, no. I'm not saying we're done when talking about the movie.
Although it is, it's a slight movie in terms of narrative, obviously. But no, it's, you know, I saw it years ago when I was like, I'm going to watch every single script that's going to be ready. Right? You know, like so that I was like, let me clear it out. And I found it very interesting.
This time, I was a little kind of like, I had just watched me in streets because we did just record that episode. We've only been covered in one other. The only we just take one, not leap frog. And I was just the whole time being a little bit like, right, well, there's meat strips. Yeah, but that's okay. That's maybe, that's maybe you problem. That means treats as fresh and you know, three years later. I know, three, no, but it's going to get
you rise. Ben, what did, had you seen this film before? I'd never see it before.
What did you make of? Who's that knocking in my door? Well, uh, the boys reminded me of a lot of characters I grew up with in particular, smart Joey reminds me of a bunch of guys where they're always mad, but seem, and like seemingly don't want people to be around, but also want people around. It's really interesting that now I know the process of how this film was made. Because it did feel really disconnected. Right. You kind of have to know that it was made
That way to get me enjoyment out of it.
this thing is doing? Yeah. Right. Because it's just kind of, I mean, it almost feels like someone made a parody of a scorsese movie with no money, right? Well, they're like, let's just some music. And then just like a bunch of guys go, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, walk out. What are you doing? You know, and you're like, right, this is like what is really right? The parody. And the guys like, but I love Jesus. The violence being so corny. Sure.
And not well thought out. And yet it looks like they're kind of really hitting each other in amateur way. It's also like every piece of the puzzle though. You know, like, I mean, like, one of the first scenes, a guy just talking to a girl about fucking the searchers and they're like, so long that you're like, you have her attention. You're losing her body. Like, there's that,
there's, you know, that thing of like, the theory that filmmakers are always just remaking the same
movie over and over again. Hopefully, they're refining it and stretching it and, you know, morphing it, whatever it is. And it's like, this isn't like the model for, in final form, what his movies will be from here on out. But it is him identifying every single thing he's going to do. What the sensibility is, what the style is. Like, just dumping all the puzzle pieces out in the floor is kind of fascinating to me. Yeah, totally. It's a very interesting thing to watch.
Yeah. I mean, Harvey's good in it. I mean, obviously, again, it's the building box of better Harvey stuff. But like, he's so compelling. It's also, this is the only time he's playing Marty this much and all the scenes with the church. I mean, he's doing a little bit more like Marty then where
โfeels like he's like, I get it. I'm, this is based on his hand. Right. You know, which I thinkโ
it's a comment that you hear about this all the time lead actors who are kind of sort of mirroring their director, even in cases where the character isn't an evident kind of self-insert. And this is the only time where I feel like I've seen Kytel take on the qualities of Scorset because the mainstream's characters more thought through a little bit later, more reserve. Right. It feels like he's building a character based on the thing that Scorset is he wrote.
I do miss a De Niro type. Like he doesn't have a good guy to approach against. No, as you said, the kind of rough guys are all a little generic. You know, it is, the moment he finds De Niro, it changes the entire course of his career. You know, like that guy walking into the bar is just like,
oh, wait a second. If I have something like this in the mix, my movie is constantly like it's
gasoline in the tank. I like Zina Bethoon a lot. I think she plays the character with some dev than agency, even though again, I don't feel like she's been given very much. I mean, let's say what this movie is to not give it a character name. She is the girl. She's girl.
โThey give her a proper title. She is the girl. Oh, no, I think she's just girl. I mean,โ
I'm seeing her girl. Yeah, maybe I thought I saw the girl in there. It's also the kind of classic thing of Marty's like, well, we need the boys in different names because there are multiple male characters. The girl could just be called girl. Excuse me. There's a second female character. His mommy will not. I'm sorry. In the in the sort of sex scene. Yeah, well, they're a multiple girl. They're not even numbered. They are not. They are just girl injury. There is also a
couple girl at party. There you go. Yes. This is the only score says in the movie that's only on DVD and even like on iTunes is a standard death version. I don't know that he's ever cared to like refurbish it. No. There was there was an early 2000s like Warner Bros. Scorsese box set where this was an exclusive DVD for a while. And it was like, that's the one way we're getting that film back in circles. Yeah. And it basically feels like that
DVD master is what is still rentable. They never thought to like put it on a Blu-ray with mean
streets or something. You know what I mean? That's the kind of move they do. Like, yeah, just kind of throw it in. I mean, we'll talk about, you know, box carburetor, which was the other sort of like a banded one for a while. Just got this big cinematic graph. I bought it. I watched it. Same. But that feels like, well, that has more of a curio aspect of being a corpsman movie and fitting into that era of genre pictures and whatever, it feels like inevitably someone's got to put out a better version
of who's that knocking. I'm sure it's just an important American film history. I agree with you,
โbut I think that is largely how it's regarded. Right? Like, no, and I don't know. I mean, evenโ
Shyamal and told me he's remastered and worked on right with anger. It's still not available. And well, because I was like, are you going to release it? And he is like, I don't have embarrassed. Yeah, he was like, I wanted to show it to my kids in like that format. I have no idea if I wanted to do anything more. I don't like, I get it. Because it's like, it's a very amateurish movie. I miss so many ways. I was looking up. I was like, what are there other holes? I need to plug in my like blank
check disc collection of the main feed episodes. And I was like, am I wrong about this? And I
Double-tracked like, praying anger never got any didn't get even like a VHS.
certainly never got any DVD or anything. I certainly don't. There's no way it got a DVD right. Right.
โYou can watch it on the internet archive. I mean, that's where we watched it. I believe 10, 10, 11 yearsโ
long time ago. Yeah. No, I want to see if there is a VHS. And do I need to buy the VHS? And it is praying with anger or porch movie. These are important questions that will be settled later. It doesn't seem like there was a VHS. I'm really encouraging it right now. Sound insulation. Do I need to encourage it? He's true. He's snowballing down the hill long ago. Yeah, he's not even bidding. He's just buying now. What will be will be? Oh yeah, he buys it now. Excuse me,
the thrill of the hunt. Yeah, I was going to say I don't buy it. I'm actually kind of lazy enough. I'm more than buying that. Yeah. Griff is kind of like best offer. Eight cents lower. What do you think? You don't understand how much time I waste a week trying to put that in your cart. They'll notice. And then they'll contact you. Yeah, that's my real strategy. And it doesn't all the time. I saved dollars this week at least six fantastic. So what else? Yeah, there's there's a nude scene.
Oh yeah, what else? So it's like again, the camera stuff is fun. He's doing camera stuff. Like there's moments where he's like doing like bird's eye view shit where you're like,
I mean, it's the kind of first film stuff where you're like, you didn't need to do that. You know,
it's not, it's not really suggesting anything, but clearly you just wanted to see what would like what that would look like. Some close of kissing. Yeah. The eyeball close ups. I don't think people should kiss in my waist. Can we say this movie does have a just kidding? The story of this
โmovie is a guy who J.R. You could say it's trying very hard to fit in with the boys, right?โ
There seems to be something a little more thoughtful, a little more sensitive within him. He likes just sitting in nature and taking it in, but he knows that's, you know, maybe that's not true. That's that cool. Right. Sally Gagaz is not going to like that. Right. So he goes out and gets drunk and they punch each other and they crack about who was. And he meets a girl that he likes. Yes, he's going to go on the Staten Island ferry and he's talking to her like he's about to
fucking, you know, go to Antarctica. He's like, yeah, I mean, Jesus. But he brought he meets her at the like at the ferry station. I feel like that's where he talks to your you're off about the searcher. They, they mentioned Jeffrey Hunter. Does, you know, who do you know who he is? Yeah. I don't. Jeffrey Hunter's in the searchers. He's also Captain Christopher Pike. This is another famous role. Captain, Captain Christopher Pike was the captain of the
Enterprise on the original pilot of Star Trek and they recast him because they thought he didn't have the juice and they replaced him with William Schatter. Who did have the juice? He did. Captain Kirk has the juice. Yes. He is almost like Mr. Juicy Juicy in terms of how much
Juicy had. But it is basically that they recut the pilot footage into a later two-part
episode that is true. Where Captain Pike was the kind of rejected and scorned... Well, he just, they canonically made him the captain. And he got burned up in the accident. And he's in a big kind of robot body wheelchair. Yeah, pretty cool actually. He's actually really cool guy in the Bruce Greenwood plays him in the JJ movie right now. He's an excellent performance study hand. Could play some nice amounts. He's really, really good. But it's just funny that in Martin's
Chris says he's first movie someone says Jeffrey Hunter. Oh, sure. Like Captain Pike. Captain Pike. Anyway, yeah, he meets a girl and he likes her. He's having kind of a secret romance with her and it feels like he both is trying to shield from his boyfriends that he has feelings, that he has a romantic attachment to a woman who he wants to talk to, who's bringing he is interested in. And also his overwhelming Catholic guilt.
Well, because also at that time, he's still living at home. We talked about this a little bit on our Mean Streets episode and he's he can't bring your your this girl around your mom. No, you get in trouble. No. And then people who live alone at this age are seen as deviance. The only reason you could possibly want to do that is so you could have pre-marital sex,
โthe worst thing in the world. I actually love it. Big fam. I can't wait.โ
Wild coming from the two married guys in the room. You guys thought that one away. So what was I going to say? Um, that they have this attachment and then you won't have sex with her. Yes, because he doesn't want to spoil you. He doesn't want to spoil her and she reveals to him a bit retrograde. Yes. Yes. That she is a survivor sexual assault. Yes. And he has a very negative response to it. He is not mature enough to grapple with that in a good way. That she feels dirty and
tarnished. What did you do to encourage that? Why were you even with that guy in the first place? He's so selfish and has no empathy. It makes me very mad. He just doesn't. He's not mature enough. He cannot
Handle it.
Well, right. If we can parse this for a second, right? I mean, this is the whole kind of like
โtightly wound Catholic guilt ball of wax is like, all I want is to have sex. I am told thatโ
if I have sex, that's a worse thing I could possibly do. So there's this, you know, the Madonna in the horror by-for-cation, right? Of like, I can go ran out of an apartment and have my own fucking like boom, boom, sex, or G. Because that's the way I get my rocks off without tarnishing the sanctity of a woman I actually care about. And then the notion that she has had sex in any form when he feels like he cannot allow himself to have sex with her, even if the sex she had
was a rape was violent, was not of her own agency, is a thing that he can't process. Because all he wants is to have like intimate relations with her, which he feels like he cannot do without ruining her. It is a movie about his immaturity. This is not a plot driven movie.
This is the closest thing the movie has to like an emotional arc or a story and it's basically
not developed into over halfway through. And I think like the note of maturity in this film, the thing that shows a little bit of understand from Scorsesey, with this point, has just not processed his own shit enough to be able to make a film with enough objective distance. I give him credit for understanding that the end of this movie when he goes and tries to do
โthe like, you know what, I apologize, I forgive you, that she's like fuck you. That's what I like,โ
right, he's like, I'll marry you anyway and she's like, you clearly cannot handle like, what has happened to me and do not have like the right feelings for this. You watch me from the 1960s and you're worried that the guy is going to be rewarded for saying, I will accept you right. You're the thing you told me and I have, yeah, I accept you. Now instead, she's like, fuck off and he goes to the church and doesn't know what to do with himself. It's not Scorsesey.
Right, what's up then? Let's play the box up. Well, yeah, thankfully we've gone to the end Yes, and we're not talking about the end, which is a needle drop. Oh, sure. And it's a song that's things by a group that also thinks going the doors. Oh, it's just that I had this no, or I'm just like, oh, good. The doors are in this movie. Just what I guess they were, they were hot stuff. This was, he was at the tip of the spear on this one. You do have to give him credit. Like, people are
pointing out. They're like a couple of years old. It's credited as, uh, it's listed like a 67 movie.
โBut I think the final sort of round of shooting they do to add the boobs and the boom boom man,โ
maybe happens in 68. I'm not sure about that. It was released in American 60, but it was screened in Chicago in 67. But I think what Ebert's Hall was a slightly earlier version. That is possible. I don't know. I saw someone interrogating that the, this is the end comes out in 1967 and they were like, that's a really fast turnaround. But it seems like maybe the song was only added when the film got proper distribution in 68. Anyway, uh, come on, baby, like my fire. I'm that's not the song,
right, uh. He walked out. The whole version of this game of the ancient gallery. That just, just, a band just takes us back and think of him being the first one to ever be like, hey, you hear the song from the doors. I'm not saying you're going to get in credit. I don't know. This is the real question. Right, Ben. It's 1967. You are Ben Hossley. I hope you've been dropped in there. Someone puts on the
doors. Bell bottoms or whatever. Do you like it? Someone's like, you know, if you've never met,
I'm going to spin a groovy tune. You've never met a guy who likes the doors, right? You've ever met a guy who's built his personality. You've never been in a college dorm room. You've seen a poster of Jim Morrison. Right. You're a high schooler. Let's say 1967. You're walking around Greenwich Village. You walk into a record store. It's playing. No one even introduces it to you. No one recommends that you're not associating it with a person. You're hearing it fresh. What's
this eye here? I'm hearing this for the first time. Wow. What is there to say? Do you think you hate them that much just from the music alone? I will give you that I wouldn't hate the shirt. It wouldn't be your thing. It wouldn't be out. Yeah, but I would be at least interested because they have a unique going. Yeah. This fucking drunk poet idiot and an organist. Yeah. Where do you think was number one in the box of this one? Jim Morrison was kind of an organist as
well, if you know what I'm saying. When this quote unquote came out in famously America. What do I think was number one at the box office in 1968? September 16th September, 1967. I can give you a hint.
It's a film that features an actor who liked this movie.
The dirty dozen. Yeah. Rosemary's baby. Rosemary's baby. Interesting. Which was number one
for a million weeks? Like you know, like it was such a big hit. Number two at the box office
of film we've covered on this podcast. Number two is a film we've covered on this podcast. It's something of a totemic film. Is it a 67 picture or 68? It's 68. It's a 68. It's a totemic film. Is it a Kubrick? Yes. It would be 2001. That's right. Yeah. Quite totemic. Do you agree? You said it not I. Number three. It's really crazy to think that this movie we just saw came out
โat the same time as that. That's why that film crazy. It really is right. It's not just thatโ
movie looks good for 1968. It looks good for 368. And everything else was just like on a different planet. Number three at the box office is a romantic comedy film. It stars Sydney Poitier. That's what I'm giving you. Just sir with love? No. Good guess. And it's not, uh, guess who's coming to dinner? No. It's a lesser known. It's a lesser known. But I mean, I think I know it is at a known title. Sure. Yeah. I'm not sure. I'll give you more hints. Directed by Daniel Mann. Okay. Uh,
you know, made a lot of movies. Who's the lady in lady of this picture? Abby Lincoln. But I can who's, you know, he's a great, great African American singer. I can tell you the boat bridges in this film. Carol O'Connor. Oh, did he have some opinions on the character in this? Yeah. Uh, I can tell you this score was composed by Quincy Jones and he wrote the title theme song as well, which was not made for best song at the Academy Award. And it is the title of the movie. It's not like,
fucking love is a many splendor. You're not that far off. I'm going to give it to you. It's for love of Ivy. Oh, sure. Here's another film. Number four at the box office. Let me look it up here. Look it up here, please. Is a 1968 British film starring Oscar Werner. Okay. Good actor. I love Oscar Werner. And Barbara Ferris. Okay. I can't say I've heard of this one. Hmm. Get directed by Kevin Billington. I don't think you've got this one. Does there seem to be
a genre attached to this picture? Drama. Drama. That's helpful. A famous male conductor gives an interview to an attractive female reporter. He speaks to frankly and ends up being given an unwanted sabbatical from conducting. So far, it sounds like tar. That was going to say. He begins in a fair with a reporter during his blank, which is the title of the movie. sabbatical. Close. Interlude. And the accumulation of difference in their ages and background begins to mount.
I don't know. Sounds okay. Oh, he was like a orchestra. Yeah, I don't train. I was thinking. It would be funny if she's got dreams on the brain and the train. Yeah. Number five at the box office
โis a 67 film griff. And that's how successful it's been. Been in the box office for 39 weeks.โ
It is another totemic movie. It is a romantic comedy graduate. It is though. Yeah, graduate. The highest grossing film of 1967. Graduates. Yes. I mean, 1967, I'm see is the pictures at revolution year. That's the, that the embodying pie. Graduates in the
United States. Yeah. And then Dr. Doolittle, of course. Graduates, the most revolutionary film
of all. But I was just looking at my, my 67 letter box. It is insane how good that you're is. 67, even just for international cinema. When you take away like sort of what was happening at the Oscars. Fucking great movie. It's fucking, you know what? Like every movie. If you throw a, you know, dart at an old movie, you're like, God damn, like, it's the best playtime came out in '67? Yeah. Weekend came out. Lou weekend. Yeah, that's a regular ass movie. Yeah, this.
My wife almost divorced me over that movie. Really? No. No. But you took her to see it.
โI took her to see it. She was like, the fuck. I was like, sorry. I remember this being a little,โ
a little more narrative than. Yeah. No. It's just what if just hard people. Well, though, that's the first part. But then it's just people talking about communism all the way sandwiches. He loved doing it. He did love what it's really the start of him being like, what if this is a lot of the movie? Anyway, uh, some of the other films in the top 10 are, uh, the odd couple.
Fun. Rachel Rachel. Yeah. The Paul Newman. Mm-hmm. Directed. I've never seen it.
Yeah. They're right. Yep. Hang them high, which is, which is a Clint Eastwood film. Mm-hmm. But he didn't direct. But like, Ted post, it's kind of like, you know, in the Eastwood sort of, you know, it's just now so put an hour and four. Probably dead. Yeah. Yeah. Like those fuckers, like probably. A film called Prudence in the Pill, which is a British comedy and Ronald Neem films for a really good title. That I assume is kind of like your
classic like British kitchen sink. You kind of comedy like where they're like, well, it's like,
Ooh, the pill is new.
leave-and-cleaf cult movie called The Big Gun Down. And now, can I turn about as fair play? Can I
โthrow a little game at you? Yeah, sure. Do you think you can't get a spaghetti Western?โ
Yes. The top five highest grossing films of the year 1960. 1968 in film. And I will say two of the films that were just in the top five is about to say, two thousand ones in there. Yeah. Where do you think it is? One or two. Two. What do you think would it be in that? In 68 is the odd couple of them. Odd couples number three. There you go. Odd couple made a robust $20 million, $21 and one film beat them both with 24. It is a film that
won one of the major acting categories this year. It's the arrival of a giant star. And a star we're bigger familiar with on this podcast. Oh, funny girl. Yeah. That was the number one moving. Yeah, it's funny that a local New York act like that. Funny how to be the highest grossing film. Well, it's funny that there was a girl. Well, the film people were laughing just when they saw the mark. This is a funny girl. Let me see the poster. Is Rosemary's baby in the top five? Rosemary's
baby is number seven. Okay. But it was so big. It was always very big hit. It's plan of the
โapes in the top five. The apes is number six. Both of those did 15. Okay. Can you get four and five?โ
Four is I don't want to use the word, but it's it is a it is a giant action film classic. It weirdly did not become a franchise, but has often been threatened with a remake. Oh, bullet. Correct. Oh. And number five. Fun. Not my favorite. Number five. But for your sexy. Is a musical. It's a musical. I don't want to get funny girl. I don't want to give you the obvious hand, but it's a musical. Oh, well, is it all of her? Correct. Is that the fifth price grossing film of the year?
Because that's the whole thing with the biscuit book. Or he's like, wow, you know, Hollywood's it. I mean, it's like, yeah, well, the next year they're like, let's get over. Bring them all big and funny girl for that. And right, right. It was at least funny girls a little more like, but the next year fresh was more classical. Yeah. You have Rosemary's baby there. It's seven. You
โhave 2001 at two. But then, you know, funny girl odd couple plan of the apes is the beginning ofโ
something new. Number eight was the ziferally Romeo and Juliet, normal film, no legal problems there. Number nine of course was yours. Mine and ours. I have heard of it. The Peter Fonda Lucille ball movie that's basically rift on in licorice pizza and was remade with Dennis Quaid and Renee Russo. Right. That's my favorite movie all time. The remake. Right. But it's the movie itself was a cheaper by the dozen ripoff that then got remade as a ripoff of the cheaper. If I'm a dozen,
really. Of the sequel. And then number 10 was line and winter. Which is also a best picture.
Contender, I guess. Yeah. But not the winner right guy. Right. Always forget. I always
man for all seasons is the one that one best picture line and winter just wins like acting worse. Right. Because it had burn winds. She ties with with strikes and strikes and yes. Let's talk about box car birth that. Let's talk now. I have also only seen this film once before I watched it for today's podcast. So I didn't ask. Out of a sense of completion is the one game. Yeah. It is a film directed by Martin Scorsese. He did mean in 1970. Yeah. Yeah. Now I will tell you that
after who's that knocking he was hired to film. Did write a film called The Honeymoon Killers. It was brought to him by an agent. His agent Harry Uffland. His script was very long. He couldn't connect to the material. And he said he wanted to try to make it in the style of a crawler or dryer film. I'm sure the producers loved hearing. Interesting news is that he was fired one week into shooting. Yep. Essentially because he was like shooting master shots with no coverage. He was in
our taste. He was not going to make, you know, whatever the people wanted. Hey. This is a business kid. This is when they're starting to say we don't got time for your fancy stuff. So he picks up some odd jobs. Write some dialogue for a Dutch thriller called Obsessions. He does some editing work. Street scenes does camera work for Woodstock. We're going to get to that. Okay. We're going to get them because that's a big one. Huge one. He was the artist in the residence of the film
Society Lincoln Center. Did some instruction at NYU. And Oliver Stone, one of his students. Michael Wadley, who photographed who's that knocking, comes to and Thelmos who's screwed maker. Right. Wadley is the director of Woodstock. So he brings him and Thelma in right to work on that movie. It's a significant American film. I would say Woodstock. Right. Like it's like, it's like again, one of those things where you're like, well, sure. This is the Woodstock
movie with like the movie with this. But you're like, yeah, but like this kind of concert movie didn't exist. The movie itself is major. It's not just that it was a like a pro shot of a famous
Concert.
really experimental abrasive editing style. And it has like, you know, it's fucking like
โScruffsasey and George Lucas operating cameras and shit. Like, there is this sort of weirdโ
thing of, right, because it was made by an NYU professor. It's got the like the future of movies working in all the crew positions influencing the language and everything. And then it also sort of works as like a cultural moment document documentary of the phenomenon of what's happening there. Like, all of the sort of talking head interviews of the concert goers are fascinated. Would you have gone to Woodstock? Oh, yeah. Sounds like a pain though. It does. Yeah, but it was just
so worth it. Yeah. Like, I know my dad, he regrets not going. Ben, I know you feel like, oh, man, the concert must have been the exciting part. Like going there, seeing it, watching it. But what if I told you, the closeted gay man who rented out his parents backyard for the festival has a story of his own that might be interesting enough to fill an entire film. What are you talking
โabout? Well, in order to take Woodstock to meetry Martin had to offer a night.โ
It might is the strong might be enough to show. Sure. You can just take it. He had to give it to you first. I really did forget all about that. How could you forget? That's the most interesting part of Woodstock. We all wanted to see the movie about Woodstock. Who owned the field? Where the guy doesn't watch any of the performance. Scurs as he ends up out in LA. Who's that knocking's being shown there under the title of J R? Roger Corman sees it. So Roger Corman, obviously, at this point is
already a very established figure. Right. He had already directed tens of movies by the 70 years against the point where he focuses more on producing and running his own studio. The 60s is the height of little shopahars and man with the X-ray. When he's personally directing like, you know, four movies a year. Yeah. And he sees it and says, I like this. Would you want to direct a sequel to my
film, Bloody Mama? Have you ever seen that film? Never. I hardly winters. I know. I have because
one of the two Demi Roger Corman films is only available on a double feature Blu-ray with it. I think crazy Mama. I think crazy Mama. Yeah. He's like, it's got guns. It's got costumes. Scurs as he's like, I'll do it. Corman says, I'll see you in six months. Love is script. And I was like, oh, geez. Okay. You know what I'm wrong about that, but I've seen the movie anyway. It's interesting. Mama goes bad. You know, whatever. Instead, you know, so Scurs says like six
months, forget it. And instead he does some post production on a documentary called Medicine Ball, Caravan, which is about a 154 person bus and truck tour, bus and truck, Rex Reed. What did I can't remember? You know what? He referred to something as a bus and truck. It's a spider-man thing. Did he refer to spider-man as a bus and truck Superman? Is that what it is?
โI can't remember. I think that's what it is. I think it's his review of the first spider-man movie.โ
Yes, a Batman bus and truck. I considered spider-man a bus and truck version of Batman. We've probably spent seven minutes on that in that episode. I just remember boggling our minds. And we couldn't breath so good. I figured out what bus and truck rest is the best. Who's the same person?
Which it basically means second tier touring performance of a previously broadway show?
Is that right? It's like you take it out of a bill like right. But you're like the show's shitty enough. You can fit the entire set. Put it on a bus and a truck. You guys go in the bus set goes in the truck. You read go. Yeah, I'm in Batman. That's my take on Batman, by the way. If James comes accepting pitches. Anyway, a municipal camera is a bus to truck tour spreading the gospel of flower power out in the 60s.
You know, it's another kind of like hippiest documentary. He says working on that was a huge pain in the ass. Almost kills him. It gets about back to California. He meets Georgie Lucas. He's making THX one with Georgie. Or he already knows him, but like, you know, Georgie. He hangs out with George. France is copalize there. Okay. Brian DePaulma, he'd already kind of worked with in New York a little bit. No, it's like a group of rats. Seriously. We also got to know Steven Spielberg, who is making television
shows for universal. Okay. He's doing a little bit of helping Kassavetti do some sound effects for many enmask events. Hell yeah. That move on. It does for all. That movie's a little at a circulation. Am I wrong? Is it? I feel like there's been like five years of a certain corner the internet that's like
million people was starting talking about it. No, I feel like it's not a villain. Maybe it's not.
And people are constantly crossing the fingers and hoping Kretir ends about to announce it. I watched it up that long ago, but I guess it's kind of like must have been on Kretir or something. Yeah. At one point, he did sound effects for a fight. So, of course, as you just hold Kassavetti's
Also want punches him in the corner, you know.
Then Roger Corman calls. I've been a few months and says, I have script.
โBloody Mama II, which is then based is Boxkerbrook. His wife, first there's a demand for Bloodyโ
Mama II because Bloody Mama has performed well. They start Marty developing that and then his wife
locates a book. The book is called Sister of the Road and basically sort of Yankee swaps goes like,
what if what we have pegged as untitled Bloody Mama project becomes Boxkerbrook. This feels like a better way to service the same sort of niche. The script doesn't as the movie does with a crucifixion. I had nothing to do with that. This is Martin Scorsese. This is actually a revelation. Yep. Because you figure you watch it. You're like, "Dude was Marty just like any should get crucifixion." Right? Right. Like Jesus. Yeah. Here we go. He gets a bunch of six hundred thousand
dollars and he's basically told, "Do what you want, stand to that number." So he throws in some references to the archers. He throws in some Wizard of Oz, you know, winks. The cinematic graph release has, uh, you can watch it with the TCM intros. Yes, it does. That's right. Part of a Corman series work that Raymond was interviewed by Manquets himself. And Corman said that Scorsese was literally
the first filmmaker he ever worked with, who had storyboards, had storyboarded them himself,
and had done the entire movie. Not just all three of those things, but any of them. You know, Corman was like, "We're running gun. How do I approach a day? I got to get a close up at the main actor." Once I'm done with that, I should probably get the other person's close up, maybe a shot of the two of them together moving on. Right. Right. Now take your breath. Right. It's because the don't spend over the budget. Make sure you have a little bit nudity. Nothing crazy,
but, you know, we need some food. The first thing about Corman, I don't know if you've ever seen him ban, because we use him a lot as shorthand for stuff. He is the most kind of like square, protrusion man. He's like a sitcom dad from like, "Leave it to Beaver." And was just like very
โmuch like, "Well, that's what the kids want to see." You know, like he wasn't Russ Myers,โ
where he felt animated by his love of the boobs, or the blood, or any of these sort of like things. But, but he was just like very open-minded. You know, he was very like, "You got to chase the trans." And the whole classic thing with him was like, "You're the exact amount of money you have." Here's like the locations. Here are the things that need to be in the movie. What I need to on the poster, you know, the title. But like, outside of that, I leave you, you know. He was sort of
go like, "You got 10 days and $4 to make whatever you want." And he would always say to people,
"Well, this is why there's sort of the short-handed Roger Corman film school that so many people graduated from." He's like, "If you make this movie well enough, you'll never have to work with me ever." You know, you graduate off of me, but this is a way to like get the experience under your belt and so many people rise out of his ranks. Of course, as he says, the movie is part of like a
โsort of exploitation genre that starts with bombing class. I was going to say, it's a law,โ
very on the road kind of movie. Yes. The young lovers. He's like, "Slasher movies are still four or five years off." This is the kind of glory exploitation movie of the moment. And indeed, he did have 500 storyboards. He did that because he didn't want to get fired again. He was afraid of a honeymoon killer situation. Then he shows up with the storyboards and Corman, like, see, like, takes a quick look. He's like, "You want to see these?" And he's like, "No, that's fine."
Like, whatever you want to do, he did say in the manquets thing. He was like, "It was the first time a filmmaker ever came to me and I could see the entire movie before it was made." That he had so clearly worked at all out and it played. But I also imagine he was like, "You're over-prepared throw out 300 of these storyboards. You're not going to have time to film them." That is true. They did not have a ton of, they shot it in Arkansas. He said it still kind of
looks like the depression back, you know, at that point. 24 days, straight shooting. Now you fucking make, you know, any 24 movie with that. But back then, that wasn't a lot. Roger at one point, Corman takes some aside at one point and says, "You know, you don't have a chasing." Like, audiences do like those. Like, this is a kind of bunny and Clyde thing. And then, and so smart, he's like, "Okay, can I have another day? If you want me to shoot a chasing?" And he's like,
"No, no, just figure it out." He's doing some camera movement stuff that I feel like is very pro-do-mardi. Yep. He loves to move the camera, especially the final shoot out into the crucifixion, or I guess off of the crucifixion. Yeah, feels like a real, a true Marty sequence. They profely realized in my opinion. Film previews at the Pantagious Theatre. Audience loves and plots. Corman came out smiling. Sam Arcoff looks at him and says, "I got to tell you.
It's almost good." He's feeling good about himself. No one's going to be able to burst his
Balloon.
Yeah, almost. Good. Almost good. But that's what you want out of the Corman experience. Right? Good job, kid. Oh, how many of your days you delivered at place for an audience? You're, you're moving up the ladder. He shows now it's to be fair. It is Casa Vettis. He's shown a rough cut. Two hours. And Casa Vettis says, "Mardi, you just spent your whole life, you whole your life, making a piece of shit. It's a good picture, but you're better than the
people who make this kind of move." That is the part that usually gets left out for the story. You have done a fine job with this. You are not going to be an exploitation director. You've got something else in it. You're wasting your time. And this is clearly not a movie that matters to you. You know, like, "So what? Do you want to be a guy who can deliver for other people?"
โAnd I think part of that, Scorsese's whole thing, or Casa Vettis whole thing, excuse me,โ
there's, like, the infamous radio show where he starts, like, ideating and comes up with the idea for shadows in real time. And it's extensive him complaining about everything he found frustrating about American filmmaking as an actor. And how he felt like things were two dramatically safe that they were not. They were limiting actors, you know, that the camera was dictating everything and stylization and sort of hollowness and a sentimentality in all of this, right? And who's
knocking at my door for all of its failings, its limitations, you know, its roughness, has some of that quality. And, you know, it is a movie that is touching third rails. It is talking about things that aren't talked about. It is depicting unappealing characters, you know, with the uncursmatic behavior, things like this that you're just, like, a guy like Casa Vettis is going to look at it and go, "You actually have shit to say. You're not just here someone who's going to technically
service whatever piece of material. There's clearly stuff you're working through. Imagine if this guy could refine what he's saying. And then he sees this movie that's like, great job who gives a fuck. You took some assignment and you did okay. Are you really going to get stuck wasting your life for 20 years doing that? Obviously, clearly resonated with. Because he's telling the story
for 60 years later. The answer is that the movie is a pretty good exploitation movie, but
my problem with it has always been like because I think Scorsese is not suited to making this kind of movie. Yeah, it's not fun. I agree. Like, the really good Norman movies are like fun and like wacky. Like, you know, well, he has the shaggy energy you kind of want. Right, this kind of like, live fast, die young, leave a pretty corpse. Like, you know, like, want an sort of countercultural thing is so outside of his milieu, he doesn't totally know how to
dramatize people who would not be racked with guilt over every one of these since so early in his career and he's right. He hasn't gotten to tell these stories properly yet. Uh, it's about Fox Carbertha played by the great Barbara Hershey who I love. And of course he works with again in the last edition of Christ. Do you work with any other times? It's just that but she gives him the
โbook when they're filming this movie. That's what starts his obsession with, oh, I got to makeโ
classification as a film someday. So it's putting her in that is a real kind of full circle moment. She rolls. We talked about her a lot on portions of a lady because that's her one Oscar nomination. But it is fascinating because we were sort of talking about where she was at
in the 90s when she got that, and when she had had this sort of like second wave of her career,
relative to what her reputation was at this time, which is she hits the scene as part of this couple with David Carradine. They were like flower children and everyone's like, is this person actually good actor or is she just like some hippie who keeps giving weird interviews and get a press? There's a few actors like that if you like in that era. But it feels like she really got tagged with this. Yeah. Yeah. And sort of became like the hippie version of like Sydney Swainier,
something where they're like, why the fuck are we talking about her? There was like a real like anger and animosity towards her. You see like her interviews are like very defensive. Some of the stories are her and David Carradine do a playboy spread when this movie comes out,
basically restaging their nude scenes from this film. That's people like, why are you showing
us like your private lives, you know, when the movie already exists? They have a child together.
โShe breast feeds that child, I believe, on the Decavacho. One of the movie she does after this,โ
there's a sequence with a bird that she has to keep catching and after like 10 takes, she realizes that she's accidentally broken the Seagull's neck and she is so affected by this emotionally that she changes her name professionally to Barbara Seagull and keeps being like, I must honor this Seagull. We had an emotional connection. I'm like that. And his spirit should be
Remembered and would like get into arguments with producers where they were l...
Barbara Seagull on the poster. That sounds dumb. Well, this to say, it's this era where it's like she's compelling on screen, but is she just naturally kind of charismatic or is she actually a good actress? And also every time she says stuff, she annoys us why is she this happy lady? It's just interesting to me that this moment is kind of like the grounds zero of that, which then by the 80s, she like sort of wins back every one to like, oh fuck, has she become one of the better
American actresses for a couple of years? And to see, she's so good. She wins back to back best actress awards a can. Is that right? One of the major festivals, she won two consecutive lead actress awards. Here I go, looking on her IMDB page, she will answer your question. You are correct. It's Ken. Yeah. She won best actress for shy people. Yes. The, uh, Con, Con, that was the one where people went like, have we been sleeping on barber her? She actually
an interesting actress. And then she wins a sort of tie award for the, uh, the film world apart
โwith the other women, like the three leads of that film, a Jodie Man Linda Moose, see, I thinkโ
your name is. Never seen that film. I have seen Boxcar breath. Did either of you ever want to
be a tramp? No, now Ben, you brought some interesting, you did your own research for this episode. So he talks in an article in a video post episode about living off the grid. It's not appealing to me. I love the grid. I want to live on the trunk and I'm sure we did that bit in that episode. I don't even remember digital frontier, right, by a digital jazz. Well, a younger Raz, a young Ben was quite thrilled by the idea of adventure. You pack a bundle, pack a bundle,
because I had gotten obsessed with Bob Dylan. I would like to read reading all about his excapades. There's just, there's, there's romance there. And yet, you know, thinking about taking a shit in the woods, right? Yeah, there you know, you know, add that to the soup. No, that's the part that really scares me off. Yeah, that seems rough. Kind of a deal breaker for me, for sure. Yeah.
โIt's not enough AG1 in the world to make that a smooth process. I think, you know, we're comingโ
up on two hours. I don't want to spend too much time on this. I think I want to just maybe more shout it out. But I did, in fact, bring a hobo book, which it's called mostly true, the West most popular hobo graffiti magazine. It's published by Microcosm publishing. It's available now
on paper back. We'll put a link in the description. It's basically a book that spots spotlights
beloved railroad artists. There is a whole kind of scene and community of people who'd ride the rails and would using chalk draw these little cartoons as well as leave little messages to other writers. Yeah. Here's a little diagram. I'm holding the up and showing the hobo code that had like different people, you know, messages and and, you know, a little secret hidden meanings to these symbols that they would leave for other writers to know. I'm just realizing
you've, you've invoked how important a Dylan was to you growing up many times and people may not know that most times we try to throw a Ben's choice on the schedule. You have thrown out, don't look back as an option to pay the record. We're obviously not going to get to cover this, but we are going to get to do a fucking Dylan's first easy episode on Patreon. We're going to get let's let Ben go off on Bob. I'm so excited. Can it go off on Bob? Man's gonna talk about Bob. I'm a hobo, but the
holding with Dylan is that Dylan had a relatively normal middle-class upbringing in Minnesota then he appears and he's like, yeah, I joined the circus when I was kicked out this way of playing
out. You know, if I talk like this. Can I say it? Incredible bit. You was kind of a
complete unknown if you think about it. How would that feel though? Anyway, Box Barber the Box Barber. She's a girl. Her dad's playing crashes. Kind of an arresting start to the film.
โI think it's a really good opening and Bernie Casey. He doesn't actually crash, of course.โ
He's a doctor by aliens later. He will defeat the aliens at the Battle of Independence Day. We all know that. Oh, sure. It's Randy Grazikor, I'm Duster. Yep, yep, yep. It took a second. Got it. You know, that's, that's in that movie. Yes. I remember when I walked out of Independence Day when I was 10. You know, because, you know, they defeat the mothership. Yeah, it's very satisfying. And they said the reason you're still free. Exactly. And they say like, now send the message to the other
ones that I sing to my dad, like what they said, like, make sure you have like a spare crop duster weird out of fly into the fucking ship. Like, what's the message they said? Like, they said, like, you won't believe it. It was kind of a day of sex boxing. Right at the end there.
We were out of missiles.
He even meaning to fly into the ship. He was just trying to get away from the Hollywood black. The Bushwackers were after him. I had like a Mandela effect. Last time I walked into Pennants Day, sometime in the last 10 years. I recently rewashed my brain. And I was like, ready for the satisfaction of the Randy quade moment. And I was like, what the fuck? I vividly remember they're being a shot of him in like an old time. They filmed that and didn't use correct.
Yes, they, they filmed my mind. I had edited the deleted alternate ending that was deemed too
โgoofy. So then they put him in like a proper fighter jet. I think, yeah, I think it was deemedโ
basically like hat on hat on hat, you know, where it's kind of like, don't tell me that like we've
already got all this shit going on. I mean, he's like, by the way, I'm also in a crop and his plane's like, he's spitting like fucking, and we're clear into the gas tank. Oh my god. Yeah. Oh my god. Anyway, her dad dies. Her dad dies. The depression hits. And she starts freight hopping, which I guess is like a cooler version of fucking hitchhiking. It's just freight car comes by. I get in. Can we close it going? The great Bernie Casey. Sure. Who I feel football player? Yes. He played for the 49ers,
I believe. He, he often later becomes a very kind of stern stoic figure. Go on. This movie he gets to sort of be the wild character, which is fun to see
younger Casey Von Morten who is like a bank robber who I guess worked with her dad or whatever.
Like I can't remember. You know, like I'm then she like hooks up with Big Bill Shelley played by baby carity, a striking man. He has one of the most interesting faces. Slender sort of figure and right. Yeah, it's faces. Cool guy. Yeah, crazy acting dynasty. His father Ben appears in the movie as well. Right. Of course, John Kerrding. He's sort of torus. I mean, John Kerrding is like your classic like he's in all this like monster movies and stuff. John Kerrding. I mean,
this is the crazy thing. I believe Bella will be the middle guy. I don't know what goes the only play Dracula one time. Maybe. Well, they Dracula in three different movies. Legosier Kerrding.
โKerrding. Right. That's why I was going to say, I think Legosier only ever does the originalโ
and then Kerrding does most of the like Dracula meets movies. Right. He's a kind of fellow meet Frankenstein. It's Kerrding is Dracula. Yeah. He was he spent more time playing Universal Dracula. I'm excited to watch Dracula. I am too. That's why I'm making this connection point. But it's just funny that that guy takes over. We're going to do it on Patreon. We're doing it on Patreon. We're doing it on Patreon. We are doing the commentary. Don't forget you must watch Dracula.
Yeah, it's been. When you watch the Dracula, you must do these with your hand. Yeah, more than before, you're bad. He's very honking you like us. He wants to have this sex. Box called Perth is a flawed film. Yeah. He got very, very pre-miss and Bernie Casey as the other members of a kind of a train robbery crew that kind of knocks together. Bill Big Bill is a union organizer, but they start up busting up trains.
I just want to connect the dot stuff for Ben. Ben, my favorite Bernie Casey role and the thing that he looms largest in my mind for doing is he is, of course, the teacher in Bill and Ted's excellent adventure who warns them that they will not get a passing grade on the class, unless they do the greatest history presentation of all time. Have you brought this up before? I brought up that Napoleon, in Bill and Ted was a poor person. Ricky Calamary. He's also,
I believe, he's feeling a lighter in the, never seen it again. Yeah, the off-brand bond.
He's in spies like us. Yeah, he's a great actor. But Bernie Casey basically is like the inciting incident in Bill and Ted. He is the stakes and he has a couple of my favorite line deliveries of all time because he's reading off to them how insufficient their essay was or their paper was. Oh, yeah, that's pretty funny. He is funny in that. Right. And he said, so Bill, what you're telling me essentially is that Napoleon was a short dead dude. Funny. And he also has, it seems to me
โthe only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a quote, "salad dressing dude."โ
That's pretty funny too. I'm the funny shit of all time. Also, the Caesar salad dressing was invented in Mexico. Thank you very much. Well, this is the bit Bill and Ted don't know what they're talking about. Did you think it was invented by Julius Caesar originally? Yeah, Bill and Ted are dumb. He was like,
Vinny Vidi Vici.
anchovies while I'm at it. But you got to mash the anchovies up. Really fine. Because they put
โanything to solve. Funny mashmob and that's so nice. Uh, but yes, this movie basically becomes, you know,โ
a rag tag gang by a sexy couple. Right. Isn't it so funny that it's called boxcar bertha? Before I saw this movie, when I was a teenager, I heard that Martin Scorske's as he had like a sort of bad movie called boxcar bertha. I was like, is it about like a big old lady who like drives a train? Like boxcar bertha sounds like a sort of six year old lady with like a strange power. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, not like the sexiest, you know, who she gangster he ever did see, right? Like then
which is what she is, she's beguiling. She is very appealing in this film. Yes, she's a fucking
hotty. She's a handsome lady. She's a handsome, hippy lady. I say, is a hippy before hippy, right?
Because it's like the thirties or whatever. But it has good time. She has her interest. Yes, is bringing, yes, much like Bonnie and Clyde. It's a period film that's bringing the vibes and the feelings of the error in which it is made. Because it's nice to see that they're,
โthey're not passing judgment on her character. No. No, I mean, that's what they thought thatโ
kids wanted. They're like, "Bring me is right." Yeah, and the Bonnie and Clyde rip off. They're like, "Yeah, they're free spirits." I was going to say the bang. I find the 70s porn and films, and especially like the ones of this stripe, just they are weirdly comfort food watches for me. There was something to, and I was trying to crack why I find them so appealing and relaxing to watch. There was something to the kind of like post BBS and Bonnie and Clyde,
like, "Okay, fuck, like easy riders ahead. Bonnie and Clyde's ahead. These kids want weird shit. They don't want morals and ethics in their movies." Right? Is everything sort of like a political statement or is it just about like a vibe and a feeling? And so a guy like Hormann whose job is just deliver things into like proven genres. The genre that he's trying to emulate now is like,
โ"I don't know, like actors have an interesting moments, you know, like energy bouncing off each other,โ
doing some shit, you know, like it doesn't have to lean too hard into genre plot mechanics, and you have these filmmakers who most of whom like rose into becoming their own people, who had a solid understanding of craft, and then they're just kind of like accidentally very interesting vibe hangout movies. Yeah, this has some, this has some vibes. I find the air of these films very, very comfortable. Yeah, yeah, come for you. This is what I'm
saying. It's like a weird like, yeah, I don't find this company. It's not that I find the story of the film or the emotions of creating. I like the style of filming. Yeah, like Hobos. Yeah, what we know you like Hobos and you would want to be a hobo and follow the hobo code. Yes, make the symbols. I love rail culture. But they are mostly bank robbers. Well, that's right. They're not really just like, hey, wherever I lay my hat there, that's my home. They're more like, give me your money.
I have a gun. They all start out with good intentions. You're trying to go against the right, dismount robber on the railroad. Oh, yeah, you got an H buckrums art tourist, played by John Carey. That's the John Carey. That's the John Carey. That was real real awesome. A phenomenon I love when close relatives are in the same movie, not playing relatives. Sure, but they are playing, you know, opposite figure. Yes, this is exciting. But not father and son.
No, he's got, you know, he's got a tie in a big beard, a mustache or whatever. That's mean. Yeah, he's a grumpy old man. And yeah, I mean, what happens to this really? He ends up in a chain gang. They got arrested. Yeah, they got arrested. I feel Bill and von go to the chain gang. Birth up becomes a woman of her night is learned into yes and to do being an in fact a character for
first her as a whole. This is true. Yes. This is true. And kind of goes on for a bit. And I'm kind of like,
you know, but I'm just like, I'm done with this hangout. And then she runs into Vaughn, and he's like Bill has broken out of jail. And don't go to Bill. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, that ends in him being crucified again. Bill seems pretty broken. He's aged a lot. Yes. They fuck a lot as well. And like the hey. Yes. Oh, yeah. I was going to ask you guys a lot of fucking first time you had sex. Hey, a bail hey. Yeah. I just wasn't ready for him. I rented a hotel room.
Then I said, hold on. I'll be back in one second. When are on the box of bodega? Where's your hay? Do you have straw? I'll free laid it out gingerly on the bed. I have obviously been to like events where you sit on a bail of hay. But some candles. Right. You know, like, have you done close to the hay? You know, you're up into like an event where like you're sitting on a bail of hay. Like a
Planet.
are like kind of outdoor kind of farmey weddings for it. It's like, hey, we just put down some
bills like, you know, like, and every time you sit in the bail of hay, you're like, you know, chairs rock. One of the better events. Yeah, you know what, just because this is a square, it doesn't really mean it should be sat up. We just ordered new chairs for the office. Yeah, fucking excited. When are they coming soon? Yeah. We've had the same chairs for years, which we even inherited. And we just suddenly were like, what if we got new chairs? We got like fucking nice chairs.
Now, of course, Griffin briefly suggested we get like the emperors here. I want to be really free. Oh, you're so mad that I brought this up. He's mad. He's mad. He's mad. He's mad. I'm not mad. I just
don't like the framing of the story, which is after we all agreed on getting chairs that are
actually comfortable and won't hurt our back. Sure. I, as a self-owned fan, I want you all to know that I consider recommending these. It was after agreeing. It wasn't made by some company, it was called like Bob's rip off of nerds. It's called legal robot. And they have an official license with Lucasfilm. This is a high quality product. And I, I had no point trying to sway the vote.
โI had already signed off on the chrono. I'm looking at that. I'm pretty sure that's pretty. I thinkโ
said something like how do we get three nice chairs in one stupid chair for Griffin. Yeah. And this is what I don't like is acting like I said, you want to put it in the chat. As a self-owned, I said,
I was going to, you're self-hoting and you're like, oh no, I'm being honest. I just, I want credit for
framing myself as the joke. Rather than acting like I did something honestly, it's just funny that you showed us that shit because I done the fucking $1600. Real crafts people have to work on that. You think the emperor is sitting on bullshit? It's a high quality chair. Okay. Um, anything else about Bob's purpose that we want to discuss? It's just crazy that she's like anyway, what's up with you? And he's like, I don't know. I mean, I'm going to like
classify this man. Well, I would say, and this is something that you see with stories from this era, it's crazy how Americans were so anti-communist that it like essentially, if you are an Amtrak employee, you could just murk people and get away with it. It's a wild time. Yeah, it's crazy to me. Yeah. Um, no, I mean, I just like, I like these movies. I felt the same way watching the, the demmy, uh, corpsments. And when corpsments sort of swings later this decade more in
the 80s into more creature features and Star Wars ripoffs, I find those movies compelling in a different way, but this, this moment of him trying to figure out how to replicate the youth picture and the rebel picture, the new Hollywood shit. I, I just find the weird like middle ground of corpsman doing
โthat with a limitation on budget and developing filmmakers. And I think there's just some weirdโ
energy that comes out of this movie. So I, I find this compelling to watch. It's not great movie. As, as Kasperia said, like he, he did the job well. He delivered a movie that cuts together. That is true. I mean, there's no question that right, like, it's, it's a functional movie and like, it's a functional stuff and not that. But you can feel the lack of understanding of the characters and personal investment. And I just feel like junkier might be better. Like, it's, it's just
one of those things. We're like, right, the already, and it's almost gets in the way. I think it can go junky, but it, this isn't the type of, yeah, he's dealing. He doesn't have to push this to the more expressionistic limits if that makes sense. It's the debate over Shutter Island. All those years later, I feel like, or some people are kind of like, this is kind of junky. And I'm, you know, I'm, it's like, well, that's the point. And some of the stuff he's inspired by,
but like, he has such a prestige, he's seen at that point. And like, he's so such a gifted filmmaker that people are like, I can't see past that. Like, so the job is like, clashes with it.
โDoesn't work. That, that, that's not a problem. I have there. But I remember that coming up,โ
yeah, right. Yeah. Or even like, we'll haul street or whatever. Also, I, I think there's some stuff in Shutter Island. Well, we'll talk about it. Well, I'm going to save those thoughts for four and a half months from now. Can't wait for that. I was not to repeat myself. Yeah, that's one of your favorites. I love it. Yeah. I love all those movies. Except for Box Carbertha, which is just okay. Do you put it dead last? No, I put, yes, I put it dead last. I mean, not to spoil my list, but I
do have a dead last. Yeah, because I, I'm right. I, I'm more engaged by who's that knocking. Yes, I would have to do that knocking above it just as, right, a little bit more like, this is the real Scorsese here, even if it's primal clay or whatever. So the Box Office, though, this film
Comes out in June, middle of June, 1972.
that disclosure day spot. Um, number one of the Box Office is the film that's going to win
โbest picture of 1972. Uh, French connection? No. Is that the year before? I believe so. Okay.โ
72 would be the godfather. That's the one. Interesting that these are coming out the same time. So France is was he's meant for this. Obviously, France is right. Guy's started making movies earlier. France, but imagine being like, he France is, what do you think of Box Carbertha? He's like, oh, yeah, not bad. What do you think of the godfather? I'm too busy literally making the godfather. Yeah, I get. Yeah. And also, it's not like, the godfather, which was like, well,
respected at the time. Oh, exactly. Well, it was my initially success. It will right out the gate. The widest, the actual release of all time, it immediately exploded at the Box Office.
And yet, look at where they're at now. Compare to a pair of making films of equal quality. Yeah,
it was the flower moon and mega office. Ben, you sound like someone who hasn't locked it off yet when you make a comment like that. Oh, I've locked. You've locked. I certainly have. But you haven't seen the new. What is he keeps calling it? That impression doesn't happen. He's like, I'm working on a new wilder cut. I feel like what I released the abstractly was a little bit worthless for me. Yeah, Jim's dad's in it. Yeah, unrated, not a control. He said he's working
on a new cut. I hope there's so much more megallon in it. Yeah, they need more. I need more explanations there. Absolutely. Or what if he was just like, I got an MGM original series Greenwood. I don't know, they'll don't Greenlight anything. Like, you know what I mean? Mega lopless, the show. What's the reporter's name? I don't remember the names. The only ones I remember, it's like a sham well. Oh, oh, yeah, well, platinum. Oh, well, it's actually, it's really funny.
Wow, it's pretty close. But it's funny that you bring that up, Ben, right? Because the character name is wild platinum. And on the doughboys podcast, we're friends with the doughboys, right? The gray podcast on their podcast, they say the word wow a lot. That's one of their most frequently other words. And also the platinum plate club is their highest honor that they bestow upon chains. And so when I was watching the movie and they keep saying, wow, platinum, I was asking myself,
it's a couple actually secretly a doughboys fan, which would make sense because they're a couple of goofballs. You almost lost it there. I could feel you kind of like, I didn't. I had it. Look, I was so focused. Number two of the box office is an animated film that's for growing ups. Is it Fritz the cat again? Fritz the cat. Didn't it just come up in a box office game? I don't know.
โI think it's I think a different back she did, but we've definitely talked about it before.โ
I think it was a Fritz the cat double feature. That might be true. That might be true. Yes. Number three of the box. Have you seen Fritz the cat? No. It's kind of a bending movie in the way. I think it was still in the box office for Main Street. It's re-released with something else. I think you're right. We'll see if that happens next week. Number three of the box office is I assume what had to be a filmed version. Yes,
a theatrical release of a very famously oriscay theatrical review. It's it's what it was. You may not know what this is, but it was like a British theater review. Okay, review like our review. Yeah. That had sketches on six related topics. That was like kind of a broad way sensation in the late 60s because it had total nudity and jokes and can you believe it jokes? That sounds pretty good. And a filmed version of it was shown in theaters on 1972,
but many cities banned. The screen like this. You could see people in this. All, but it's like something like that. But that's an already moved. Right. It's more. What is this called? It's called O'Cowcutta.
โOh, I know the name. I did not know that's what it was. It's still the eighth longest running Broadway show ever.โ
I actually, I think it's been just, you know, there's stuff like Chicago. I think that's awesome. It ran for 6,000 shows, you know, for like 15 years. Bring it back. Yeah, maybe bring it back. I mean, Britain. There was a thing called puppetry of the penis. Oh, yeah. Where it was one of those things.
It was like a certain point. You know, ran for years. That crossed over my first. I know, but it never took on here like it didn't
Britain. I feel like it didn't set the world on fire. It was big here. And it didn't need to be no special. Yes. I'll trade the penis. Do you know what that show was about, Ben? Yes, I do. Two gentlemen walked on the page. Yeah, explain it to the listeners who may not. And they would puppeteer their penis. It's not like a play that has a clever title. It was two guys being like, here's how you make your penis and balls look like a burger. What would they speak? Number. They'd explain. They'd be like in here. A goose. But the characters don't
like, they're not characters. The guys come out. The goose doesn't talk. No, I don't think so. I don't
Think David does the penis have any dialogue.
I did see like there was like the, uh, fuck, it was like the Shakespeare one. Not the improvised one, but there was like, you know, enough, Britain would just have these long running things. Where it was called like the Shakespeare Shakespeare. No, there was no dex, but like the ridiculous Shakespeare company, whatever. Oh, sure. And it would just be like in some little theater, I guess, and we're just running for 20 years and people just doing puns and shit. I don't think you're now. Yeah, they had to figure it out. Number
of four of the box offices is a disaster film. It's lame, sir. It's plain. Is it airport? No, it's
prior to that. Maybe. It is. It's plain. No, the first airport is 1970. So this is two years later,
โand it's not an airport. So it's an airport rip off. Well, it's a set on a plane. I think rather thanโ
on an airport. Interesting. It stars Charlton Heston. Hmm. It's not earthquake, is it? No. It's a little lesser known one. I don't really know this movie. I can tell you it was directed by John Gillerman. Uh-huh. You know, men? Yeah. Uh, who directed King Kong, you know, the King Kong movie. And did you direct one the plan of the Epsicular? You know, he directed Shaffton Africa? Not seeing that one. Don't. Yes. No, he did. There we go. There it is. Um, this isn't.
But what's also in Heston, James Brolin, the film is sky jacked. It's a good title. Pretty good title. Pretty good title. Uh, and number five at the box office is a film directed by and starring Sidney Puantie directed by and starring and starring. Hmm. It is a Western. Okay. Oh, oh, oh, what's the call? What's this movie? Harry Bellafonte is the star. Yeah. Is it is the title. They're names. Yes. You've got to just tell me I'm not going to pull it. Buck and the preacher. Ruby D is also in this film.
โYep. I think kind of, you know, I've always wanted. It's not like a masterpiece for like,โ
it has no important movie in both bodies kind of like emerging like, you know, it's like his first kind of good movie that he directed. Yeah. It's the first movie that you're directed. Yeah. Yeah. And like a revisionist, Western black characters, very interesting. David, I now ask you, can you guess the top five highest grossing films of 1972? Okay. Number one you already called. They've got
a course. 86 million dollars in domestic rentals that year. It was the highest grossing film of all
time, of course, until Jaws broke 100. Great. Just on an initial couple years later. Right. Number two. Cabaret. Cabaret is down at number six. But it wasn't made a robust 20. But this is Godfather 86. The number two movie 42. Godfather. I mean, yeah, Godfather. I mean 42 million. It's a big, big disaster movie. Mm, disaster. Okay. Is there a sway? It's one of the biggest ones. Okay. Poseidon about your correct. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Number three. It is a comedy. And it's a comedy starring
kind of a local New York act. Uh, it's weird. They sold this many tickets and once you worked on correct. That was that big a hit movie. That $28 million. Okay. All right. The next great movie. Yeah. Very fun. Number three, four, and five are all films from the fine folks of Warner Bros. The number four is Warner Bros. It is, uh, it's a very new Hollywood version of a revenge film. It's a real movie of its moment movie of its time. I wonder if this movie, it was such a
reference point. I wonder if it's a thing that's a little bit lost. Now, that's a big movie. It's not like rolling. It's a short hand movie. It's a, oh, deliverance. Correct. That movie is a mess. I love that one. Yeah, but I do understand that it feels a little asher. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe whatever. The scan, like, the scan, the listeners of it is is a little lesser now, but deliverance rocks. I love deliverance.
But basically created like 30 years of punch lines and bad jokes. The number five movie of
1972 is a Western picture. It's not bucking the picture. Uh, Western in 72. Yep. Okay. Bit of a, uh, to have a movie then revisionist. You could sell a video maybe certainly a new
โHollywood restaurant. It was a film that famously the studio did not believe in. I believe it.โ
It's had on shelf for two years and then became a very big hit. It's okay. It's not like pack Garrett believe the kit. No, it's not like high-point thrifters. It's not a Clint. No. It's not on the shelf. It's revisionist the right way to put it. It definitely doesn't feel like a conventional Western. It's a big director and a big star who will work together many many times. And I believe this isn't even their first film, but it's, it's a milestone film for both
that I think it helps kind of make their careers. It's a big, oh, it's um, the gift movie. Jeremiah Johnson. Jeremiah Johnson, the king of the nod himself. Right. Cabaret is number six. Okay.
Deep throat is number seven.
Good movie. Number nine is brother of the wind. Never heard of it. It's an independent film
a mountain man saves four wolf clubs after their mother died. It took some pictures of animals for you. True. Yeah. It's Wikipedia entry is two sentences long. There's like nothing about this movie. It was released by Sun International. Number 10 was Lady Singes The Blues. Oh, you know, never seen that. I never have either. I remember my mom just talking about that movie that where she was like, we all thought Diana Ross couldn't pull it off and then she did. Okay. I have a,
โI have a game for you. Uh, do you guys want to guess the most popular drugs of the 1970s?โ
Absolutely. Sure. So I got a judge. You want to come in at number one. Okay. Yeah. That's teach it. Duffles lettuce. Where does it ask to go? As fast as it is is getting pretty hot. Do you have a list? Are we counting? Okay. What about, um, what about, like, over the counterdrucks of like, ludes, quailudes, lingo. Okay. But they're not counting things like aspirin. Right. We're talking like,
oh, it was mind expanders. It's hard one. Yeah. On your head. Yeah. Okay. Is cocaine has a crack the tent at this point or is it okay? Yeah. That's okay. It's kind of, right. Yeah. Sort of the doors of drugs. That's good. It's just entered the scene. They've taken it out of soda. What about, uh, putting it into little baggies and it's about to, we'll have a very successful rebranding. It's had a lot of names. You know, we smoked it in
dens. We injected in our bloodstream. Okay. Heroin. What do we have? What? What? What number is heroin? Give us the numbers on these. There, it doesn't have, like, a top of bottom. Okay. How many of them? Yeah. Yeah.
โYeah. How many of them crash? How many of the tent have we gotten so far?โ
Uh, I didn't specify 10. Okay. Uh, missing anything. You're missing. He looks so relaxed. He's
loving this. He basically just missing one last one. You've hit all the magic mushrooms.
There's one big one. No. What was that? What was like a, uh, a biker truck driver? Oh, speed bingo. Oh, just like a straight up. Yeah. I'm just fed of me. Yeah. They didn't have five hour energy yet. You needed just just another thing you could just buy over the counter. Yeah. Well, right, because cocaine used to be in Coca-Cola, but speed used to be in Sprite. Isn't that right? I think that's made up. That's me making. Yeah. That's good stuff. Love it. Uh, yeah.
So box cover effect, you know, and who's that knock in the pieces are there. It's all very interesting. But next week, we will talk about mean streets and I would say it's just a bit of a jump. I think it's a good movie. It's a bit of being itself. It's just a bit of a jump out. It's a bit of a jump out. I prefer it. It's just funny how Scores says he's like, yeah, I'm working things out. And I'm like, you made mean streets one year later. That's the second first film thing where you're
like, where the fuck did this come for? And obviously, watch, she's not knocking. You're like, okay, sure. He's building how long does it take him seven movies before he figures it out. And then it's like, no, I had it all actually. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and that episode is out next week. I'm like, check with Mary and Belle. The great Mary and Belle returning after eight years. Eight. You're long here. Eight long years. Not since basic instinct. Uh, but tune in for that. And
โover on Patreon, we're investigating the umbrella corporation, currently. This. I think we are.โ
Yeah. So drops on August 9. Yeah. And we started that August first. So yeah, we just, uh, just entered the rest of the people. But we'll be doing our Scores says you shorts episode very soon. And also,
you could always refer to our social media, uh, of check out our Instagram or subscribe to our
newsletter on Stubstack where we always have a release schedule listed and up to date. But let's also just clarify this because we hit, we had talked it out a little bit in the March madness. Uh, oh, that preview episodes. We are going to just do Scores just crazy through. There is a concentration of it seems like probably enough new releases towards the end of this year that that's going to occupy the spot of where we previously said there aren't any idea of doing
a palette cleanser little. We're not. We're not fucking doing it. So every narrative scripted film happening on main fee. Other stuff on Patreon running chronologically save for new release. And March madness next year is probably going to be about just short these guys. It's going to, oh, I, let's, let's commit to it. Right. Short, short. Shorties only. Single. Under 10. Single. Digis. Ballbacker finally maybe is going to have his chance to veto, baby.
veto. I mean, the short king. Yeah, literally. Yeah. It's actually, do we fucking, do we put baby up in front of the firing squad again for shorties or is that rude? No, no, no, no. He needed to be humbled a little bit. That guy's had a lot of success. Exactly. So full of himself. Um, but yes, tune in for many, many months of Marty both here and on our Patreon. We'll
Be covering a lot of things like the music docs and the shorts and such.
Mets game now. I assume that by the time this post and August, the Mets have turned everything around
โand are doing so good. Yeah, I've heard things are bad. Yeah, we've lost 12 games in a row.โ
I put my brother and his friend Gabe on a group text with John Fennessey so they can come Israel at the Mets together. I just, I'm also on a group text with John Fennessey about the
bit. I just asked that they not remove me. So even though I don't understand what they're talking
โabout, I can see their emotional meltdowns and things have not been good in that text group.โ
I would say that I have a very different relationship to sports fandom than that. But yes, we are objectively about baseball team current. Maybe we'll be good someday. Do you want to say here that by the time this episode comes out? Of course. Boba Shed is raking by this point.
โI assume God anything I say now. It's just like those guys will all fall into pits likeโ
that Simpson's episode. We're putting on the board. Boba Shed is raking. I definitely get what that
means. A tune in next week for Mean Streets. Yes. And there's always. And there's always.
I'm more months of this. Nine more months. I'm hearing people say, Fula. Like check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas and our associate producers AJ McKeean. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeean and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American novel
with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Our work by Joe Bowen, Holly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is minic. Special thanks to David Cho Jordan Fish and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon blankcheck special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social @blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter checkbook
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