May 9, 2026 • 52 mins
First of all, movies can't be cursed because curses aren't real. However, that can't stop Josh and Chuck from taking a look at some movies throughout history that have had a disturbing number of bad things surrounding their production and release. Dive into the world of cursed movies in this very fun classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Happy Saturday. Chuck here with your Saturday selects.
And this week I think it inspired me because recently
we did an episode on the movie Roar, the most
dangerous movie ever made, supposedly, And so let's go back
to November of twenty seventeen, the sixteenth to be exact,
to talk about movies being cursed in this episode that
runs at fifty six minutes long. Can movies be cursed?
(00:24):
Please enjoy it right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry.
My tongue is super big today for some reason. Cross
and this is stuff you should know. I know, it's
like it sound like Peter Overbee, for God's sake, who's
that You know that guy's voice anywhere?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
He's like an MPR reporter.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Oh yeah, and like he he has me even beat
for the large tongues candy sucking sound. Do you remember
when we first came out and people would write it
in and be like, t Josh, stop sucking on candy
while these podcasting, And I'd just be like, that's my
normal voice.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Man, thanks a lot, Yeah, appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
But now now that we're high rollers, they provided me
with a private nurse to suction out the saliva every
thirty seconds. My god, and then Jerry has to edit
it out. So gross, gross but true, right, like a
cursed movie story.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
True?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah. Do you know what? I hated the dentists besides everything?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Man, that was a pretty good segue.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I know that I just totally mowed over. I hated
the dentists. Now, you know, you don't have to spit
anymore because they do have those suction things, But it's
still like I still do the fake swallow, you know
how it feels like it builds up in the back
of your now so like they'll be in your mouth
and you'll just go like that.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I hate that.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It's funny. Do you do that?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Does everyone do that?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
A gag reflex thing?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Well, it's not even a gag reflex, it's just the.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Hard swallow that it's almost swallow.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, the sort of swallow reflex.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
If that's such a thing, do you feel like you're
gonna break your vocal cords or your throat muscles?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Got I hate that.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I know what you mean. I don't hate it, though.
I think it's kind of yeah, not enjoyable, But I
don't know, and I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
When they talk to you and expect me.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
To talk about they can talk, but yeah, they can't
be any questions involved. Maybe rhetorical questions that you can
shrug at.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
My last hygienist I really didn't care for, Like that
was a personality thing. And they have TVs at my
dentists that they'll put down in front of you, and
which is fine, I don't really care. But she would
stop and like look and make comments about the news
and stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, why don't they just why don't they
just let him do his job?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I didn't like it. It was real annoying. And then
I came back in not too long ago and there
was a new hygienis for me and she was awesome,
and on the way out, I was like, by the way,
I was like, I won't say your name. I was like,
but this new hygienis I really like a lot. And
she was like, what about before? I was like, I
wasn't crazy about her, and she went, no one was,
and you guys need to tell us that. And we
(03:20):
let her go because we got all these complaints huh
started flooding in. I was like, well, I feel bad,
like I don't want to get anyone fired. Sure, but
I didn't that was she wasn't good.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Huh. So anyway, was this in brook Haven?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Uh? Yeah? Is it Brookhaven? How do you know where
my dentist is?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Why? I just hadn't experience in brook Haven And I'm like,
this town is just small enough for that to be possible.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, I'll go ahead and shout out my dentist, the
great doctor Darryl Kimchi. She's wonderful kimchi.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Uh huh, that's one of my favorite foods.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, but is that your dentist?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Okay, but it's possible that we're talking about like a
hygienus that gets fired pretty full.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Maybe you know she's just making the rounds and buck
ed Brookhaven, right, yeah, doctor Darryl Kimchi of Atlanta Cosmetic
Sports Dentistry.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Wow, that is quite a shout out.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I think doctor kim Chi owes us some free kimchi
maybe as a thank you.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
She's sort of a celebrity that she does a lot
of the sports people in Atlanta and the Real Housewives maybe,
but I went in and they have memorabilia up everywhere,
and when the TV shows out of giving them a
poster and they never put it up.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Oh no way, that's hilarious. Yeah, wow, that's great.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That reminds me of the Friends when Joey tried to
get his head shot up at the I think it's
like the dry cleaner or something. Right and do it?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Man, that is so stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
All right, Well, this has got a nice loose start.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Indeed, chuck, but this is a this is this is
a fun one. But let's begin, shall we.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well, yeah, this was written by the grabster of the
article is ten movies that were supposed cursed, and Ed
goes to great links to point out health there's no
way that anything can ever be really cursed, right.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I think probably his couple of lines where he's like
just so stupid kind of it was edited out.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You know, I got the only guy to sign this
was like, oh god kidding me. I want to write
about real stuff like satanic panic.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
But he does love writing about movies. He's definitely a
movie guy. Yeah, especially horror movies. And it seems like
more than any other movie, horror movies. They're the variety
that tend to be associated with curses more than other types, right.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Or at least the marketing department cooks that up.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
So, yeah, that's definitely par for the course these days.
But there was a more innocent, gentler time when when
rumors of Satan influencing the production of a movie was
a legitimate rumor. You know, it wasn't a pr stunt, right, So,
like you said, it goes to some trouble to point
out what's actually behind the idea of a movie curse.
(05:58):
That some things are bound to happen on just about
any movie track, especially when you stop and consider, especially
in the early days, the kind of stuff they were
doing with the technology they were working with at the time.
Of course, bad things happened on movies since of course
people died. Yeah, Like for example, I look this up, right,
(06:21):
there was a nineteen twenty eight movie called Noah's Arc
and they used six hundred thousand gallons of water to
create the flood scene one take. They did, one take
and three extras drowned. One guy who did survive had
to have a leg amputated.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It was broken so badly. Because this is the flood.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Scene and you needed to basically get it as real
as possible.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
That is? Yeah, especially back in those days. But they
didn't care back then, right, they.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Were just like, Oh, they're just extras. Who cares? Although
John Wayne turns out was an extra in that movie,
but he's really obviously.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, and any actors into another curse he does.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
He also worked in the special effects department on that movie.
Or prop prop sorry, prop.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Like special effects was what he did early CGI. Right.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
He would he would clap the coconuts together.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
For all the horse scenes.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Right, But oh, I have another one.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Okay, so this is another movie years later they died
with their boots on. I think it's about the charge
of the light Brigade maybe, Okay. It was a nineteen
forty one movie starring Erow Flynn and during this cavalry
charge that they recreated, three extras in that movie died
just in that one shot.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
That one scene.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
One of the guys was thrown from his horse and
he threw his sword like away from him. Unfortunately threw
it ahead of himself and the sword stuck into the ground,
handle first, and he was impaled on the sword. Wow,
this is this happened on a movie set. And it's
not just like back in the day either. In nineteen
eighty three, the Twilight Zone movie, very famously, there was
(08:03):
a disaster.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Right, Yeah, it was very sad. That's when Vic Morrow,
two children were chopped up by helicopter blade, very infamously.
It was terrible, terrible tragedy.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah, Shin Yi Chan and Micah Din Lee were the
two child actors who were killed. So things do happen
on movie sets. And again, when you stop and think
about what they're doing, it's often very dangerous. So what
Ed is saying is when you start to put these
things together and then you get rid of all of
the things that don't support your point, you got to
(08:40):
curse on your hands.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Should we start with Poltergeist? Yes, Poltergeist. That's one where
people always list this is a cursed movie because quite
a few of the actors died sort of unexpectedly after
the movie. And then Ed goes on to say, very astutely,
but it's also a textbook example of why the idea
(09:04):
of curses is silly. If I mentioned that curses are silly,
so over and over, so three of those first three
Poulter guys eighty two, eighty six, and eighty eight. I
didn't see the remake, did you.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I didn't even know there was one.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, of course there was. They remade it a few
years ago.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
No, I didn't. I didn't see it.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
No, I don't think it was very popular. But Dominic
dunnique Dominique, excuse me? Her father was Dominic done correct.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, and her brother was Griffin Dunny is Gryffin done?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, she was well, she was murdered. She was murdered
by her boyfriend John Sweeney. Yeah, and that was a
very disturbing case. Have you ever poked around that case? Yes,
Like these signs were all there. It was one of
those things that could have been prevented. And he got
(10:01):
away with it for the most part.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
He did like three years in prison. And Dominic dunn
her father, he was there every day for the trial
of the man and was just just crushed by the
injustice of the sentence that the guy received.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well, changed his life. He became a crusader, it did.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
You can read some of the best coverage of high
profile murder cases in the pages of Vanity Fair that
he covered for years and years and years as a
direct result of him basically covering his own daughter's murderers trial.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, oj, very famously he covered that guy.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yes he did, and he apparently the Duns spent a
great deal of time basically keeping tabs on John Sweeney
for years, and.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
He was a chef for a while, he was, And
I even started tracking him down this. I just went
down the rabbit hole like six or eight months ago
on this for some reason.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Really.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah. This is one of those you know things where
you see something on Facebook and then all of a
sudden you go, oh yeah, and then you go down
the rabbit hole. And I was, I was trying to
find this guy. I was like, where's this guy? Where
is he? And the last I saw he was some
chef somewhere. I think he had changed his name even
of course.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
He had to John Mora.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I mean you are a Yeah, well keep changing that name, buddy,
because it's going to follow you around.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
And I mean, like there was no question whether he
did it or not. He admitted to it. Like he
told this guy who who had been in the house
at the time in Dominique Dunn's house rehearsing lines to
call the police, that he just killed his girlfriend. Yeah,
but yeah, he was hounded for many years, and I
guess toward the end of his life, Dominic Dunn said,
(11:44):
you know what that can ote my life, like keeping
tabs on this guy anymore, and just just dropped it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But yeah, there's a lot of people out there who
don't like that, dude.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, I would imagine so so, so she died by
murder then the the Young Girl, And.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
This was like a couple months after poultry geyst came out, right,
so it was very close to the production.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah. Yeah, she was not in the sequels obviously. Heather
O'Rourke was the Little Girl and poulter Geist, and she
passed away after in nineteen eighty eight, after Poultrygeist two
was wrapped, and she initially was diagnosed with a flu.
We talked about this in our flu episode a little bite,
(12:26):
but what she really had was an intestinal blockage and
at the tender age of twelve, she had a heart
attack and sepsis and passed away. Super tragic.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah, and so those two dying so close to the
production of the actual movie she died.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
It was poultry Guysed three.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I believe that Heather O'Rourke died after filming, they were
basically done.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Did ed get it wrong?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I got it wrong?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Oh man?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And then Dominique Akin died just a couple of months
after the first Poultry Guys came out.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
So that's like.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
One big hallmark of a movie being cursed story is
the deaths that happen typically need to happen either during
production or right around production. Right, Okay, so those two
are the big ones. But then people say, oh, oh,
still not convinced. Well, listen to this. In Polsier Guys too,
there was an actor named will Sampson who played Taylor,
(13:24):
the medicine man who helps the family. Yeah, and he
is better known for playing the chief in One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yes, one of the great characters
of all time. He died, I guess after filming a
few years after filming the year after filming in nineteen
(13:45):
eighty seven. He died following a heart and lung transplant.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, and he had a history of health issues. He
was a giant man. Yeah, and so that was, you know,
again tied to the curse. But what can you say
about someone who just died sort of natural issu.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Causes after a heart and long transplant. I think there's
pretty good odds. Yeah, and then there's Julian Beck who
played the scary, scary, scary preacher. Yes Caine also in
Poultry Guys Too.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Man, he was creepy.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
He died I guess before Poultry Guys Too actually came out,
so that would have been close to the production as well,
So it checks those boxes. But he died of stomach
cancer and he apparently had a long standing issue with
battling it as well, So you can make the case
it doesn't really count. But are you really trying to
(14:40):
make a case about curses. Yeah, let's just talk about
him instead about that, agreed?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Okay, what's next? The Wizard of Oz is next.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
That's right. Nineteen thirty nine. Great great movie, but a
great movie that was marred by for such a happy movie,
it had some rough stuff going on because it was
in the early days of making movies, and like you
said earlier, back then it was they didn't know or
care as much about safety. Like for instance, the tin
(15:12):
Man Buddy Ebsen. They said, all right, we need to
make you look silver, and so we'll just coat you
with aluminium powder. And that stuff was really dangerous. He
went to the hospital that irritated his lungs and he
could not even continue in the role.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
No. Luckily he survived to go on to play Jed
the Dad in Beverly Hillbillies, thank god, but he was
out of the Wizard of Oz. He was so Buddy
Ebsen was replaced by Jack Hayley, and they said, well,
we probably shouldn't use that same aluminum powder, so they
used an aluminum paste which didn't get into his lungs,
but to give him a really bad eye infection. Man, right,
(15:51):
So thein just the Tin Man role itself had a
bunch of problems, but that was just one of many.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West, she was
burnt pretty badly with some of the pyrotechnics from the movie,
and I think she was only she was hospitalized, but
she came back and you know, completed work on the movie.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Yeah, but she said she wasn't going to do any
more firework. Apparently the trap door that she was standing on,
the timing of it wasn't wasn't right.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, So it didn't open up.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
And drop her right before the fireworks went off, but
did it simultaneous to the fireworks going off, which is
not what you want, but it was nineteen thirty nine, right,
so they were like, whatever, what are you going to do?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
There's the very famous urban legend, which is not true,
but it bears mentioning that one of the munchkins hanged
himself in the background of a scene. Yeah, if you
just google image that junk hanged Munchkin Wizard of Oz,
it will have a screen cap with a little circle around.
I mean, he doesn't even look It just looks like
(16:56):
something that is not a tree, in other words, not
attached to the ground. It doesn't necessarily look like a
hanging muchkin. But apparently there was a bird.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, it doesn't look like a bird to me either, though,
like supposedly it's a silhouette of a bird.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
And if you watch the like a close up of the.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Video of it, it does sway back and forth above
the ground. So, I mean you can see where people came.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Up with that for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, but that is not the case. There was no
munchkin that just couldn't take it anymore.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
There's actually there's a really great horror fiction story by
I think a guy named Steve Naggy called the Hanged
Man of Oz looking up and reading. It's pretty good,
but it's about this dude kind of becoming obsessed with
that rumor and seeing it on video and not being
able to unsee it, and all the stuff that happens after. Wow,
(17:46):
I think it's Steve Naggy. It's definitely called the Hanged
Man of Oz.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Right, we'll check that out. Other tragedies and Wizard of
Oz anti em miss Clara Blandick. She killed herself.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
At age eighty one.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, and she left in her suicide note that she
was going on her greatest adventure.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Well that's kind of nice, I guess.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
So it's about as pleasant as it can get. With
the suicide note.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I think the Wizard himself, Frank Morgan, he was injured
in a car wreck just a few months after they
released the movie. And then, of course Judy Garland had
one of the more tragic lives in Hollywood history. Yes,
they're making a movie about her soon, I think she.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I can't believe they haven't already.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I think they've done it on TV, but not a
big movie thing.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
I don't think she was basically owned by MGM. Yeah,
like almost almost the definition of being owned right.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
She was.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Like we discovered at age thirteen, I think in Kansas
actually at a state fair and they said, well, we're
just going to buy you from your parents, basically, and
they took her and they said, you can't get fat,
so smoke eighty cigarettes a day. Yeah, they basically prescribed
her that. They got her on amphetamines to keep her going.
(19:11):
They let her have one square meal a day.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Terrible.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, really so she and she Yeah, if ed makes
a really good point. If there was any real tragedy
that came out of the Wizard of Oz, it was
Judy Garland's life.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yeah. Absolutely, so. She eventually would die by suicide herself
on an overdose of barbituates. And I think it's she
had the equivalent of ten seeking all capsules. Lord.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, well, man, let's say it. I want to see
that movie. Do you know who's going to play her? Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Man, I just saw this the other day. I can't
remember who, but I remember thinking, yeah, good casting. Oh okay,
like it wasn't Owen Wilson. That'd be pretty bad troubles
come on and get happy. So right, she was forty
seven years young, by the way, which is far far
too young. Sure, to have lost Judy Garland. Yeah, uh,
(20:15):
you want to take.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
A break, Yeah, that downer.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yes, all right, we'll come back and talk about the
Man of Steel right after this.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
All right, Chuck.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
So there's actually a role Superman that's considered a cursed role.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Did you know that?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I did know that because I remember as a kid,
even though I'm not, you know, sixty five years old.
I like to watch reruns of stuff like Gilgan's Island
and Green Acres and Petticoat Junction.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Oh really, Petticoat Junkes. Is it good?
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah? I mean, you know, it's one of those old shows.
They're all great.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
What about Troop Troops probably one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I watch stuff Troop, I'll watch all that stuff Superman.
The name of the show that I watch was called
Adventures of Superman, and that was straight up from the
nineteen fifties and still in reruns in the mid seventies
at least, Yeah, because that's where I watched it. And
that was the one starring George Reeves as the not
even very muscular and slightly tubby Superman.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, like that kind of like fifties fit which Daryl chested,
chunky and just weird, like weirdly shaped. Yeah, like what
were they What kind of exercise were they doing back then?
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Well? I don't think they did exercise back then. Wasn't
that the deal?
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Oh? Is that what it was?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah? They were just like, you know, you're gonna play Superman,
So eat a bunch of steak, right, like buff up
a little bit, right, do some push ups? Maybe so?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
He George Reeves Reeves, He's George Reeves. Christopher Reeve was
not plurals singular version right, Yes, George Reeves became synonymous
with Superman. Like everybody thought of him as Superman. He
liked like they he wouldn't be cast in anything else, right,
And he had some He had to put up with
(22:25):
quite a bit being known as Superman who recognized as Superman.
Apparently kids would come up and like punch him in
the stomach to see if he was made a steel there.
I looked into it. I learned this years ago from
the Uncle John's bathroom reader, and I looked into it,
and I think it actually may be correct. But at
one like public appearance, he had to talk a kid
(22:46):
out of shooting him, like this kid had brought his
father's loaded thirty eight caliber pistol to shoot Superman to
see if the bullets really bounced off of him, and
George Reeve got the kid to put to hand the
gun over to like a cop or something, because he
told him that sure, of course the bullet would bounce
off of him, but it could ricochet and hurt somebody
(23:08):
else who is standing nearby.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, that was in the Ben Affleck movie. Hollywood Land
is about George Reeves, and that scene was in the
movie Okay, and he does it's it's okay, it's not great,
but you you lost me at ben aff It's not bad.
But yeah, he talks the kid out of it in
the in the movie and has said exactly what you said,
(23:31):
like of course, blah blah blah, and then he takes it.
Then you can see him he's just like, oh God Jesus,
like almost got shot right.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Yeah, Yeah that was. I can't imagine the relief that
would wash over you after that.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah. So George Reeves Reeves, Reeves.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, he's the plural. It's tough to keep.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Up with it is he He had a very sort
of sad life, which is in that Hollywood Land movie.
He like you said, he couldn't get other work, and
he was only known as Superman. I think he turned
to the booze and was not a happy guy. And eventually,
in June of nineteen fifty nine, there was a he
(24:11):
was having a party at his own house as fiance
was sewing a party, and he said, I'm gonna go
upstairs and shoot myself in the head.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, And Ed makes it sound like he was upset
about the noise or something like that from the party.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I mean that may have been the straw, but he
was upset about life.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I gotcha.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And I got the sense like legitimately depressed, you know,
like clinically depressed.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Right, Yeah, I mean like it's it's as we get
to know more and more about like depression, it's so
much easier to look back at, like, you know, people
who were depressed before. But you just never really kind
of pegged him like that because people didn't know about
that kind of thing. Then it's just sad to see,
(24:56):
like how many people suffered like that because no one
knew what was going on, or they just thought it
was the blues or you should just snap out of it, right, Yeah. Yeah,
we've never done one on depression. I think we should
have We not, I don't believe we have.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Man, Well, then we should definitely do that.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
We have the one on Cats.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And then Christopher Reeve played Superman and that is why
some say it is a cursed role because he was
very sadly injured in a horse riding accident in the
mid nineties which left him paralyzed from the neck down.
And he became very much an inspiration to people because
he became an advocate for research into spinal cord injuries
(25:42):
and he went on to direct and even act them
as well after that.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
And it also points out that after Christopher Reeve died,
his wife Dana, who saw him through this whole thing. Yeah,
she died of cancer like two years afterward.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Just man, I felt so awful for that family and
less kids.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah, I mean just to get like that random, to
be thrown from a horse and then just be paralyzed
from the neck down.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
So you put those two together and everyone says, well,
Superman is a cursed role, correct? What would the grabster say?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
No such thing as curses, so stupid. The Conqueror is
a movie that, like we said, John Wayne factored in,
and this one was definitely. I don't know about Cursed,
but well, here's the story. It is very unlikely that
John Wayne would play Mongolian Genghis Khan. He did, though,
(26:42):
but it was Hollywood back in the day where they
just would cast white people to play whoever, right, And
he played Genghis Khan. And they shot the Conquer in Utah,
less than one hundred and fifty miles from the Nevada
Test Site, sorry Nevada test site, where our own US
government set off eleven nuclear detonations above ground.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
The year before, just in the year before.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah, and that area was crawling with bad stuff, lingering
fallout in the dirt and in the rocks and like
everything it was in the soil, and they were just
running around in their filming movies.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I read this really interesting article in the Guardian called
Hollywood and the down Windows about the people who lived
in that area who suffered tremendously health problems from the fallout,
and the government went to great lengths to cover it
up and just assured everybody that there was no danger
whatsoever to them, even though their houses and school yards
(27:51):
were covered in radioactive ash and so from filming there.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
When this production came to town and they filmed there.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah, they were exposed to the same radioactive debris and
dust and dirt that these people who lived in the
area were as well. And as a result, supposedly something
like ninety one out of two hundred and twenty cast
and crew members who worked on location for the movie
(28:20):
The Conqueror came down with cancer later on in life,
which is highly unusual statistically speaking.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, that's like forty something percent of the crew. And
years later, in People magazine in nineteen eighty they actually
did a special report on that movie in the Cancer Connection,
like John Wayne, Agnes Morehead, Gene Gerson, Susan Hayward, the
director Dick Powell, they all died of cancer. And in
(28:49):
that People magazine, doctor Robert C. Pendleton, he was director
of radiological health at the University of Utah, said that,
like this would hold up in a court of law.
That's such an outstanding number of people.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, and apparently not even just the people who worked
on the production. It came to be known The Conqueror
came to be known by the way, it's considered one
of the best bad movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
But people who visited the set battle cancer later in
life too. Both of John Wayne's sons who came to
(29:23):
visit him. There's a famous picture of him with two
of his sons and a guy using a Geiger counter
on set. Wow, both of his sons had cancer later
in life too. But supposedly the family and Dick Powell's
son Norman, who's interviewed in that article I read, they
discount the idea that it was that people got cancer
(29:45):
from that test site. They say, maybe it was a
contributing factor, but these people all smoked heavily eight steak,
like eight times a day, and that they had a
lot of other risk factors that probably led to it.
But it's also entirely possible that they may not have
(30:05):
died of cancer as early had they not filmed at
that site.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Well, that doctor Robert Pendleton said essentially that this is
about three times the rate of cancer that you would expect.
So right, I think that it definitely contributed.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
It's pretty curious. I want to see it. Have you
ever seen The Conqueror? No, I gotta see this.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I've seen pictures of John Wayne as Genghis Khan. Yeah,
it's pretty pretty cringe.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, super racist, but apparently, like even if you take
all that away, just like the dialogue is awful, like
the whole premise of it, as he kidnaps a woman
and forces her to marry him, and of course romance
blossoms as a result, you know, just the usual stuff
from the fifties.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
The Omen. Yes, this is a good one because this
is one of those where it's a movie about the devil,
and so all these stories are going to be heightened, right,
because it's kind of like Poulter guys, like it wouldn't
if this was when Harry met Sally and then some
of this stuff happened.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
That when Harry met Sally was cursed with great.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Laughs, it was I love that movie. One of the
few romantic comedies that were legit good movies. Yeah, you know, yeah,
so let's go back to the beginning of this one. Obviously,
the omen everyone knows was the great movie from nineteen
seventy six about the Antichrist taking well not but I
(31:33):
guess possession you could call it. But it's not like
an exorcist thing. It basically the Antichrist is this little boy.
He comes back as a little boy.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah, yeah, in a bad, bad naughty little boy Damien
who dresses like Angus Young. Yeah, sure, okay, So Damien
is adopted by Gregory Peck in the movie, and in
real life, Gregory Peck's son killed himself. He died by suicide,
(32:03):
apparently out of the blue. No suicide note or anything
like that. Yeah, And this was before production had started,
but after Peck had agreed to do the movie, right,
and he still went ahead and did the movie. He
left the US and went to London, and even on
(32:23):
the way to London, before you even got to London
to start shooting, something happened to him, right.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, he said, I'm gonna get on a plane and
fly to London. His plane was struck by lightning, right,
and the producer's plane was struck by lightning separately.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
These are different, two different planes struck by lightning on
the way to start shooting in London.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
So this curse thing is being legit this time.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
This is the one that even Ed got a little
shaky on if you ask me.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
How about this. The hotel where they stayed, at least
where the producer and some other folks stayed, was bombed
by the Irish Republican Army.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, Hilton, the London Hilton.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
I don't know about a curse in that case, because
the mid seventies there's a lot of that going on.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah, the IRI was bombing all sorts of stuff back then.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah. So it was like a restaurant where the crew
and the cats went to eat one night.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, they were about to go eat there.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
So there's actually like all these close calls actually make
it seem like this this movie production wasn't cursed, but
instead was actually being looked out for on high by
the dark Lord.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
So like the crew that was going to go to
dinner didn't go to dinner, they didn't make it there
in time for the bombing. The people who were staying
in the hotel when it was bombed weren't there yet.
There were a lot of close calls, but there was
one close call that really is just mind numbing. I
would have freaked out had I been one of the
(33:48):
people involved.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
The private jet.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, so they chartered a private jet to fly them
around London to get some good aerial footage of London,
and at the last minute, the charter service switched planes
to accommodate a group of Japanese businessmen. Well, the plane
that the Japanese businessman took that the crew was supposed
to be on, crashed on takeoff, actually crashed into a
(34:13):
car and killed everybody on board the plane and everybody
in the car.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
It crashed into.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And this is like a last minute switched to supposedly.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yeah, those make you think, yeah that.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
I mean cursor, No, just knowing that you were that close,
It just that gets you.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
How about this? A worker there was an animal sanctuary
where they filmed, and a worker there was killed by
a tiger. Yep, that one.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Uh, I think I think that was the actual animal
wrangler for the movie was killed. Really yeah, which makes
it even closer. This is the one, though, Chuck, you
got to take this one home. This is the one
that really gets everybody, even though I think it's like
a lot of it's made up.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, there was a car crash with John Richardson, who
was a special effects worker. He designed the effects for
the omen.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Including a very famous decapitation scene toward the end.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yes, very famous. And I thought that was at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Was it the beginning?
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I think so. I think it's how it opened if
I remember. But it's been a while okay either way.
He was in Holland after working on a movie called
A Bridge Too Far, and he was involved in a
head on collision in his car and was injured. But
his assistant Liz Moore, was decapitated and killed in that
car wreck. And he claims, and I don't know if
(35:34):
this is lore or not, sounds laurish. It does sound laurish,
but he claims that he awoke from that crash and
looked up and there was a street sign where they
crashed that said the distance to the next town, and
it was the town of oh Men, mn N. At
a distance of sixty six point six kilometers.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Sam, Now, is that true.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
There's no way it's true, because I looked up up
on the internet that sign trying to find any picture
of that sign. If that sign existed, there would be
so many pictures from tourists taking photos of it on
the internet. There's not a single one.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Do you think from back then those pictures would still
be around.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
The sign would probably be still be around.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Well, see, I think that's the presumption. That may not
be true. Like they may have taken the sign down
for that reason.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Maybe I guess that's possible, But no, picture of it
whatsoever that no AP photographer went, I gotta get a
picture of that sign. Nobody did that. There's no existing
photo of that.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah, that's the one that makes me think, like, although,
there is a town called Omen in the Netherlands, so
it's entirely possible a crash took place by there.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So that checks out.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
That definitely checks out. So we're gonna take a break, everybody,
we just decided, but we're gonna be right back, So
don't worry, because we're gonna talk some more about cursed movies.
(37:17):
All right, We're back, as I promised, and we're on
the Brainstorm, which I think Ed was just kind of
showing off with this one, because he even says, like,
you're not going to find this on many lists of
curse movies.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Yeah, I'm not sure I get the curse in this one,
but we'll talk about it. Brainstorm was the nineteen eighty
three sci fi movie most famously known as being the
Great Natalie Woods final film, right because she died in
real life after the movie, obviously, when she drowned after
(37:50):
being out on a boat one night partying with her
husband Robert Wagner and her co star Christopher Walken right
under some say many say mysterious circumstances. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
I was reading up about that case. And they apparently
have been drinking since at least four in the afternoon,
and they made it back to the boat pretty late,
and they've been.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Drinking through dinner.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
They were all just pretty pretty crocked, right, And supposedly
Natalie Wood was either afraid of water and or couldn't swim,
and for some reason she had tried to get into
a dinghy that was attached to the boat that they
were staying on and probably hit her head and drowned.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
That's the story.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
That's the official story, right.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
But apparently in twenty twelve it was reopened or her
cause of death was changed from accident to undetermined.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, I mean there were stories that she and Robert
Wagner had been fighting. The captain even many years later,
said that he actually killed her. No charges wherever brought
Christopher walking for his I think he's never talked about
it publicly, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
No, he finally did years and years later in a
Playboy interview, and he basically said it was it must
have been an accident that no one knows but she
surely it was a incident.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
That was what he said, and that's probably the only
thing he said, because I didn't think he ever said anything.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Uh, he said it's an accident. Clearly.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
That was great.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Because that was that was Christopher walking with just a
hint of John Travolta.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, what's a little trible to esk for? Yeah, so yeah,
I mean that's tied to Brainstorm as being a curse,
I guess because they were both in the movie, even
though the grabster points out that some people tied this
back to a Rebel without a Cause curse.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Because that makes way more sense to me.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, because James Dean and Salminio and Natalie wood Than
all died from that movie relatively young.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
She made it the longest. She was in her early forties,
I think when she died. But James Dean died very
young in a car crash right after Rebel without a
Cause was released.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
I think yeah, And I think wouldn't saw many a murdered.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
He was murdered in nineteen seventy six at a pretty
young age.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Still.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
He was stabbed to death in the heart in Ali
behind his house. Yeah, I have a pizza man to me,
Oh really, yeah, huh, it's so weird. Well it is,
but I mean we're talking about curses so well.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I mean usually the pizza man gets stabbed, you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Right, I think this guy was actually a serial killing
pizza man.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Oh wow, Yeah, I just saw recently. Is there a
serial killer in like central Florida?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
I hadn't heard anything. But aren't there like at least
fifty serial killers operating at any given point in time?
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I don't know, but I do know that I saw
something that I heard that like three murders in the
Tampa area were just linked. Oh man, I think that
made me think it's been a while.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah, you don't hear about him very often, but as
I grow older and wiser, I'm starting to think, like
there's a lot more serial killers out there than you
would imagine. That, like human life has very little value
to more people than you would hope.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, that the darkest thing you can think of.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It's pretty dark.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
The last high profile when I remember is BTK. But
surely there's been one since then.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Right, yeah, because he was like early two thousands, right,
I know, but I can't think of one.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I can't either, man, But.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
It's been a long time since. You know, we've heard
of like Jeffrey Dahmers and man that was said, Bundy's
and stuff like that. Yeah, thankfully, sure, the Son of
Sam's and the Zodiacs. It seems like the seventies and
eighties were sort of the time where that was happening more.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yeah, I don't know why.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Maybe it was harder to get away with it, or
easier to get away with it, or.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
I don't know, who knows.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
I'm listening to that Heaven's Gate podcast. Have you heard that?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
I haven't heard that. No, it's good.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
It's from our buddy Chris Bannon over at Midroll put
it out and is he hosting it? No, no, no,
Glenn Washington narrates it. But having through three episodes now,
it's really good. But it's kind of funny, man, that
time of the sixties and seventies, it was just and
we talked about it some in our Cults episode. It
was people just believed more in trying stuff out like
(42:27):
that and UFOs and it was all just kind of
the in the mainstream right and it just all seems
so unbelievable now but back then it wasn't. It was
kind of believable that someone might join up with a cult.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Well, a lot of people were on grass back then,
on the Grass.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yeah, that's crazy. I got to hear that.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
It's good podcast. Man, that's just a fascinating story.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
But now that means we can't do Heaven's.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Kate because Bannon did it.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, and then they did. You know, you can't cover
in forty five minutes what they cover in whatever ten episodes.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Ten sounds about right.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
I'm not sure. I haven't. I don't think they released
it all at once, but it feels like a ten.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Let's say seven to ten.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
So anyway, can we close on Brainstorm or are we
still uh? Do we miss something?
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Yeah, I think yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
I mean Natalie Wood's murders or death death sorry is unsolved,
still in its mystery.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
It may always be.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
I had no idea about that about Robert Wagner. I
just knew Natalie Wood drowned. I'd never heard anything about
it being mysterious.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, it's it's long been mysterious, and well, here's how
we'll finish it. Then she wasn't even able to finish
filming on that movie. And they did use a body
double to complete some of those scenes and it was
a big flop.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Dude, Yeah, yes, it was okay, Chuck. So for the
last one, then we're gonna combine two together.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Strangely, they are almost the same story, but with two
different films, and both of them were films that were
never made or have yet to be made, is a
better way to put it. The first one is a
Confederacy of Dunces, the film adaptation of John Kennedy Toole's book.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
I Guess Novel.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Great book.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Yeah, I've never read it so good I really want
to have just never read it for some reason.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, it's a classic, classic book. And very sadly, Tool
killed himself in nineteen sixty nine and the book was
not out yet, And part of the reason he killed
himself is because he could not achieve success as a writer.
His mother gets a published it wins a Pulitzer Prize
in nineteen eighty one, and posthumously he became a famous author.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
So people when it first was published in the early eighties,
people were like, Oh, we've got to turn this into
a movie. This is a great IDEA great book will
be a great movie. And they said, could who can
possibly play the main character? Belushi? He'd be perfect. Belushi dies, Well,
who's next? Let's wait a few years and let's see
(45:00):
who else could play this main character? John Candy. John
Candy died. Okay, all right, everybody, let's just take a breather.
We'll wait a year or two. Who's the next guy
who's gonna play this? I got it this young up
and comer named Chris Farley. Yeah, Chris Farley die. So
a confederacy of Dunce has just kept getting put off
(45:22):
and off and off. Right, Then finally Will Ferrell steps in,
and it looks like it's going to happen because Will
Ferrell is obviously indestructible.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Right, yeah, And if you haven't gathered by hearing the
people cast as ignatious, Riley was, he was a heavy
man in the book. So obviously Belushi, Candy, and Farley
are all big dudes, and they all died. So finally
to go to Ferrell and they're like, well, he's in shape,
and we can bulk him up. Maybe you some special effects.
(45:52):
Have no idea, but at least he's probably not gonna
drop dead of a heart attack or something, right, he
was a safe bet. Yeah, but that didn't happen either.
I think it was sort of in turnaround forever. It
took a long time in development, and eventually the head
of the Louisiana State Film Commission. It set in New Orleans,
so they would have shot there. He was murdered and
(46:15):
Hurricane Katrina came along to wipe out a lot of
where the film would be shot, and so I think
that kind of just helped to put it on indefinite
hold at the very least. But they are. I just
saw I was looking this up see if I was
back on track, and I saw there's a movie called
The Butterfly and the Typewriter about John Kennedy Tool oh
(46:36):
neat So they're doing a biopic on him with Thomas Man.
Now Thomas Mann playing Tool. Who's he he's an actor right?
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Well obviously, but what has he been in?
Speaker 1 (46:49):
The thing that I saw him in was a movie
out a couple of years ago called Me and Earl
and the Dying Girl. Oh okay, it's a good, good
little indie film. So he's good. So he's playing to
and then I think Susan Sarandon places his mom oh
and Diane Krueger's in it as well.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
So and Susan Sarandon's going to totally try to date
him too, I'll bet.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Why would you say that? Oh she likes younger dudes?
Speaker 1 (47:13):
O really? Oh yeah, maybe I have a shot.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
She likes young hipster dudes. No way younger than you,
my friend.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Maybe not good for her. I love Susan Sarandon.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
So oh yeah, more power too. I think she's great.
But she is totally going to try to date Thomas Man.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
All right, Well, good for him too.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Then sure I'm not being judgy, no, I know, Okay,
So then that's a confederacy of dunces. Right, Yes, there's
another script out there called A Took that has virtually
the same story to it, Right well, but the story
is totally different, But the cursed story is virtually the
(47:49):
same with A Took.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
It's like a fish.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Out of Water movie about an Inuit man who comes
to New York and has to make his way in
the big city.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Right, Yes, that script.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Was early on, it was optioned and John Belushi was
scheduled to play the main character. Right well, what happened
to John Belushi?
Speaker 1 (48:13):
He died?
Speaker 2 (48:14):
So who was up next?
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Chuck John Candy.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Yeah, okay, Well John Candy passed, God rest his soul.
Who was after John Candy Chris Farley. That's right, Chris Farley.
And so the narrative to this curse story takes a
huge sudden turn when the next person up after Chris
Farley is Sam Kennison.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yes, and Sam Kennison. They were actually, I mean they
were actually gonna make the movie. It was happening, and
Sam Kennison kind of destroyed that because he wanted to
He want to be really heavily involved in the scriptory
rights in the direction of the film. He wanted a
creative control. He battled with the studio. I think there
may have even been lawsuits going on, yeah, and that
(49:00):
he eventually got to the point where he was like,
you know what if I'm gonna if you're not going
to give me creative control, I'll be in your movie
and I'll suck on purpose.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
On purpose.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
And they said, oh yeah, we're gonna sue you, and
he said, oh yeah, right, and then he died in
a car wreck, yeah, before anything could happen as a result.
So I took for the moment died with him again.
In that bizarre it is the idea that those two
things crossed over like that that one. Obviously it's not
(49:32):
a curse, but I think that it's pretty interesting at
the very least.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Well, if you guys want to know more about movie curses,
just go start watching movies and ask people or is
this one cursed? And then if they say no, go
watch another one and ask about that. And then eventually
someone will say yes, this one's cursed, and then ask
them the story behind it. And in the meantime, since
I said all that, it's time for listener.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
Now, I'm gonna call this just a very kind of
email from a kind assie.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Hey, guys, discovered your show a couple of months ago,
and I reckon I have listened to two or three
podcasts a day since then.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
I absolutely love you guys, and to say that your
show is addictive would be an understatement. Until very recently,
I was a news junkie. I live in Melbourne, Australia.
I would listen to Radio National at every opportunity, but
since Brexit in the recent US election, listening to the
news and current affairs has become a health hazard for me.
I also have two youngest children, eleven and nine, and
having grown up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud myself,
(50:33):
I don't want to subject my kids to the same fear.
So finding your podcast has been a true joy. I
love how enthusiastic and optimistic you both are about everything,
and your curiosity is truly infectious.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
That is so nice, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
You are so gloriously accepting of different ideas and cultures.
And I've even adopted Chucks. I don't want to young
someone else's young, which, by the way, Bridget, I did
not make that up.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Now, that was another listener who knows most, but we love.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
To say it. For sure, you've adopted that. But I
love the podcast so much I've got my husband and
kids into it as well. My husband is a radio
ham and you listen to your episode on Ham Radio together.
He was impressed with your efforts. Keep it up, guys,
and thank you for all the joy and information you
brought to my life. Cheers is from Bridget Foster and Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Cheers with some Fosters.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
And I tell you what, Bridgid, We're coming to Melbourne
in September of next year for shows.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
And you right in with a friendly reminder, and you
and your family can get on the old guest list.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
How about that awesome man, Chuck, you're the guy.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
You're the guy. They're your passes too, all right?
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Cool?
Speaker 3 (51:35):
Well, thank you them out, Thanks a lot, Bridget, it
was Bridget and family, right yeah, Bridgid with a D.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Bridgid.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Thank you for writing in And if you want to
get in touch with us, like Bridget did, you can
send us an email of the Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, Happy Saturday. Chuck here with your Saturday selects.
And this week I think it inspired me because recently
we did an episode on the movie Roar, the most
dangerous movie ever made, supposedly, And so let's go back
to November of twenty seventeen, the sixteenth to be exact,
to talk about movies being cursed in this episode that
runs at fifty six minutes long. Can movies be cursed?
(00:24):
Please enjoy it right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know,
a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry.
My tongue is super big today for some reason. Cross
and this is stuff you should know. I know, it's
like it sound like Peter Overbee, for God's sake, who's
that You know that guy's voice anywhere?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
He's like an MPR reporter.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Oh yeah, and like he he has me even beat
for the large tongues candy sucking sound. Do you remember
when we first came out and people would write it
in and be like, t Josh, stop sucking on candy
while these podcasting, And I'd just be like, that's my
normal voice.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Man, thanks a lot, Yeah, appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
But now now that we're high rollers, they provided me
with a private nurse to suction out the saliva every
thirty seconds. My god, and then Jerry has to edit
it out. So gross, gross but true, right, like a
cursed movie story.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
True?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah. Do you know what? I hated the dentists besides everything?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Man, that was a pretty good segue.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
I know that I just totally mowed over. I hated
the dentists. Now, you know, you don't have to spit
anymore because they do have those suction things, But it's
still like I still do the fake swallow, you know
how it feels like it builds up in the back
of your now so like they'll be in your mouth
and you'll just go like that.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
I hate that.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
It's funny. Do you do that?
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Does everyone do that?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
A gag reflex thing?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Well, it's not even a gag reflex, it's just the.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Hard swallow that it's almost swallow.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, the sort of swallow reflex.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
If that's such a thing, do you feel like you're
gonna break your vocal cords or your throat muscles?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Got I hate that.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I know what you mean. I don't hate it, though.
I think it's kind of yeah, not enjoyable, But I
don't know, and I don't know.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
When they talk to you and expect me.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
To talk about they can talk, but yeah, they can't
be any questions involved. Maybe rhetorical questions that you can
shrug at.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
My last hygienist I really didn't care for, Like that
was a personality thing. And they have TVs at my
dentists that they'll put down in front of you, and
which is fine, I don't really care. But she would
stop and like look and make comments about the news
and stuff.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Oh yeah, yeah, why don't they just why don't they
just let him do his job?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I didn't like it. It was real annoying. And then
I came back in not too long ago and there
was a new hygienis for me and she was awesome,
and on the way out, I was like, by the way,
I was like, I won't say your name. I was like,
but this new hygienis I really like a lot. And
she was like, what about before? I was like, I
wasn't crazy about her, and she went, no one was,
and you guys need to tell us that. And we
(03:20):
let her go because we got all these complaints huh
started flooding in. I was like, well, I feel bad,
like I don't want to get anyone fired. Sure, but
I didn't that was she wasn't good.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Huh. So anyway, was this in brook Haven?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Uh? Yeah? Is it Brookhaven? How do you know where
my dentist is?
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Why? I just hadn't experience in brook Haven And I'm like,
this town is just small enough for that to be possible.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, I'll go ahead and shout out my dentist, the
great doctor Darryl Kimchi. She's wonderful kimchi.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Uh huh, that's one of my favorite foods.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, but is that your dentist?
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Okay, but it's possible that we're talking about like a
hygienus that gets fired pretty full.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Maybe you know she's just making the rounds and buck
ed Brookhaven, right, yeah, doctor Darryl Kimchi of Atlanta Cosmetic
Sports Dentistry.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Wow, that is quite a shout out.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I think doctor kim Chi owes us some free kimchi
maybe as a thank you.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
She's sort of a celebrity that she does a lot
of the sports people in Atlanta and the Real Housewives maybe,
but I went in and they have memorabilia up everywhere,
and when the TV shows out of giving them a
poster and they never put it up.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Oh no way, that's hilarious. Yeah, wow, that's great.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
That reminds me of the Friends when Joey tried to
get his head shot up at the I think it's
like the dry cleaner or something. Right and do it?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Man, that is so stuff you should know.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
All right, Well, this has got a nice loose start.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Indeed, chuck, but this is a this is this is
a fun one. But let's begin, shall we.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Well, yeah, this was written by the grabster of the
article is ten movies that were supposed cursed, and Ed
goes to great links to point out health there's no
way that anything can ever be really cursed, right.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
I think probably his couple of lines where he's like
just so stupid kind of it was edited out.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
You know, I got the only guy to sign this
was like, oh god kidding me. I want to write
about real stuff like satanic panic.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
But he does love writing about movies. He's definitely a
movie guy. Yeah, especially horror movies. And it seems like
more than any other movie, horror movies. They're the variety
that tend to be associated with curses more than other types, right.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Or at least the marketing department cooks that up.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
So, yeah, that's definitely par for the course these days.
But there was a more innocent, gentler time when when
rumors of Satan influencing the production of a movie was
a legitimate rumor. You know, it wasn't a pr stunt, right, So,
like you said, it goes to some trouble to point
out what's actually behind the idea of a movie curse.
(05:58):
That some things are bound to happen on just about
any movie track, especially when you stop and consider, especially
in the early days, the kind of stuff they were
doing with the technology they were working with at the time.
Of course, bad things happened on movies since of course
people died. Yeah, Like for example, I look this up, right,
(06:21):
there was a nineteen twenty eight movie called Noah's Arc
and they used six hundred thousand gallons of water to
create the flood scene one take. They did, one take
and three extras drowned. One guy who did survive had
to have a leg amputated.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
It was broken so badly. Because this is the flood.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Scene and you needed to basically get it as real
as possible.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
That is? Yeah, especially back in those days. But they
didn't care back then, right, they.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Were just like, Oh, they're just extras. Who cares? Although
John Wayne turns out was an extra in that movie,
but he's really obviously.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Yeah, and any actors into another curse he does.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
He also worked in the special effects department on that movie.
Or prop prop sorry, prop.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Like special effects was what he did early CGI. Right.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
He would he would clap the coconuts together.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
For all the horse scenes.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Right, But oh, I have another one.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Okay, so this is another movie years later they died
with their boots on. I think it's about the charge
of the light Brigade maybe, Okay. It was a nineteen
forty one movie starring Erow Flynn and during this cavalry
charge that they recreated, three extras in that movie died
just in that one shot.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
That one scene.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
One of the guys was thrown from his horse and
he threw his sword like away from him. Unfortunately threw
it ahead of himself and the sword stuck into the ground,
handle first, and he was impaled on the sword. Wow,
this is this happened on a movie set. And it's
not just like back in the day either. In nineteen
eighty three, the Twilight Zone movie, very famously, there was
(08:03):
a disaster.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Right, Yeah, it was very sad. That's when Vic Morrow,
two children were chopped up by helicopter blade, very infamously.
It was terrible, terrible tragedy.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yeah, Shin Yi Chan and Micah Din Lee were the
two child actors who were killed. So things do happen
on movie sets. And again, when you stop and think
about what they're doing, it's often very dangerous. So what
Ed is saying is when you start to put these
things together and then you get rid of all of
the things that don't support your point, you got to
(08:40):
curse on your hands.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Should we start with Poltergeist? Yes, Poltergeist. That's one where
people always list this is a cursed movie because quite
a few of the actors died sort of unexpectedly after
the movie. And then Ed goes on to say, very astutely,
but it's also a textbook example of why the idea
(09:04):
of curses is silly. If I mentioned that curses are silly,
so over and over, so three of those first three
Poulter guys eighty two, eighty six, and eighty eight. I
didn't see the remake, did you.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I didn't even know there was one.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Yeah, of course there was. They remade it a few
years ago.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
No, I didn't. I didn't see it.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
No, I don't think it was very popular. But Dominic
dunnique Dominique, excuse me? Her father was Dominic done correct.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, and her brother was Griffin Dunny is Gryffin done?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, she was well, she was murdered. She was murdered
by her boyfriend John Sweeney. Yeah, and that was a
very disturbing case. Have you ever poked around that case? Yes,
Like these signs were all there. It was one of
those things that could have been prevented. And he got
(10:01):
away with it for the most part.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
He did like three years in prison. And Dominic dunn
her father, he was there every day for the trial
of the man and was just just crushed by the
injustice of the sentence that the guy received.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Well, changed his life. He became a crusader, it did.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
You can read some of the best coverage of high
profile murder cases in the pages of Vanity Fair that
he covered for years and years and years as a
direct result of him basically covering his own daughter's murderers trial.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, oj, very famously he covered that guy.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Yes he did, and he apparently the Duns spent a
great deal of time basically keeping tabs on John Sweeney
for years, and.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
He was a chef for a while, he was, And
I even started tracking him down this. I just went
down the rabbit hole like six or eight months ago
on this for some reason.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Really.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Yeah. This is one of those you know things where
you see something on Facebook and then all of a
sudden you go, oh yeah, and then you go down
the rabbit hole. And I was, I was trying to
find this guy. I was like, where's this guy? Where
is he? And the last I saw he was some
chef somewhere. I think he had changed his name even
of course.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
He had to John Mora.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
I mean you are a Yeah, well keep changing that name, buddy,
because it's going to follow you around.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
And I mean, like there was no question whether he
did it or not. He admitted to it. Like he
told this guy who who had been in the house
at the time in Dominique Dunn's house rehearsing lines to
call the police, that he just killed his girlfriend. Yeah,
but yeah, he was hounded for many years, and I
guess toward the end of his life, Dominic Dunn said,
(11:44):
you know what that can ote my life, like keeping
tabs on this guy anymore, and just just dropped it.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
But yeah, there's a lot of people out there who
don't like that, dude.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, I would imagine so so, so she died by
murder then the the Young Girl, And.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
This was like a couple months after poultry geyst came out, right,
so it was very close to the production.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
Yeah. Yeah, she was not in the sequels obviously. Heather
O'Rourke was the Little Girl and poulter Geist, and she
passed away after in nineteen eighty eight, after Poultrygeist two
was wrapped, and she initially was diagnosed with a flu.
We talked about this in our flu episode a little bite,
(12:26):
but what she really had was an intestinal blockage and
at the tender age of twelve, she had a heart
attack and sepsis and passed away. Super tragic.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Yeah, and so those two dying so close to the
production of the actual movie she died.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
It was poultry Guysed three.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I believe that Heather O'Rourke died after filming, they were
basically done.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Did ed get it wrong?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
I got it wrong?
Speaker 1 (12:53):
Oh man?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
And then Dominique Akin died just a couple of months
after the first Poultry Guys came out.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
So that's like.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
One big hallmark of a movie being cursed story is
the deaths that happen typically need to happen either during
production or right around production. Right, Okay, so those two
are the big ones. But then people say, oh, oh,
still not convinced. Well, listen to this. In Polsier Guys too,
there was an actor named will Sampson who played Taylor,
(13:24):
the medicine man who helps the family. Yeah, and he
is better known for playing the chief in One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yes, one of the great characters
of all time. He died, I guess after filming a
few years after filming the year after filming in nineteen
(13:45):
eighty seven. He died following a heart and lung transplant.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah, and he had a history of health issues. He
was a giant man. Yeah, and so that was, you know,
again tied to the curse. But what can you say
about someone who just died sort of natural issu.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
Causes after a heart and long transplant. I think there's
pretty good odds. Yeah, and then there's Julian Beck who
played the scary, scary, scary preacher. Yes Caine also in
Poultry Guys Too.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Man, he was creepy.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
He died I guess before Poultry Guys Too actually came out,
so that would have been close to the production as well,
So it checks those boxes. But he died of stomach
cancer and he apparently had a long standing issue with
battling it as well, So you can make the case
it doesn't really count. But are you really trying to
(14:40):
make a case about curses. Yeah, let's just talk about
him instead about that, agreed?
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Okay, what's next? The Wizard of Oz is next.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
That's right. Nineteen thirty nine. Great great movie, but a
great movie that was marred by for such a happy movie,
it had some rough stuff going on because it was
in the early days of making movies, and like you
said earlier, back then it was they didn't know or
care as much about safety. Like for instance, the tin
(15:12):
Man Buddy Ebsen. They said, all right, we need to
make you look silver, and so we'll just coat you
with aluminium powder. And that stuff was really dangerous. He
went to the hospital that irritated his lungs and he
could not even continue in the role.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
No. Luckily he survived to go on to play Jed
the Dad in Beverly Hillbillies, thank god, but he was
out of the Wizard of Oz. He was so Buddy
Ebsen was replaced by Jack Hayley, and they said, well,
we probably shouldn't use that same aluminum powder, so they
used an aluminum paste which didn't get into his lungs,
but to give him a really bad eye infection. Man, right,
(15:51):
So thein just the Tin Man role itself had a
bunch of problems, but that was just one of many.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West, she was
burnt pretty badly with some of the pyrotechnics from the movie,
and I think she was only she was hospitalized, but
she came back and you know, completed work on the movie.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Yeah, but she said she wasn't going to do any
more firework. Apparently the trap door that she was standing on,
the timing of it wasn't wasn't right.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah, So it didn't open up.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
And drop her right before the fireworks went off, but
did it simultaneous to the fireworks going off, which is
not what you want, but it was nineteen thirty nine, right,
so they were like, whatever, what are you going to do?
Speaker 1 (16:35):
There's the very famous urban legend, which is not true,
but it bears mentioning that one of the munchkins hanged
himself in the background of a scene. Yeah, if you
just google image that junk hanged Munchkin Wizard of Oz,
it will have a screen cap with a little circle around.
I mean, he doesn't even look It just looks like
(16:56):
something that is not a tree, in other words, not
attached to the ground. It doesn't necessarily look like a
hanging muchkin. But apparently there was a bird.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, it doesn't look like a bird to me either, though,
like supposedly it's a silhouette of a bird.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
And if you watch the like a close up of the.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
Video of it, it does sway back and forth above
the ground. So, I mean you can see where people came.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Up with that for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, but that is not the case. There was no
munchkin that just couldn't take it anymore.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
There's actually there's a really great horror fiction story by
I think a guy named Steve Naggy called the Hanged
Man of Oz looking up and reading. It's pretty good,
but it's about this dude kind of becoming obsessed with
that rumor and seeing it on video and not being
able to unsee it, and all the stuff that happens after. Wow,
(17:46):
I think it's Steve Naggy. It's definitely called the Hanged
Man of Oz.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Right, we'll check that out. Other tragedies and Wizard of
Oz anti em miss Clara Blandick. She killed herself.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
At age eighty one.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Yeah, and she left in her suicide note that she
was going on her greatest adventure.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Well that's kind of nice, I guess.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
So it's about as pleasant as it can get. With
the suicide note.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
I think the Wizard himself, Frank Morgan, he was injured
in a car wreck just a few months after they
released the movie. And then, of course Judy Garland had
one of the more tragic lives in Hollywood history. Yes,
they're making a movie about her soon, I think she.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
I can't believe they haven't already.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I think they've done it on TV, but not a
big movie thing.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
I don't think she was basically owned by MGM. Yeah,
like almost almost the definition of being owned right.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
She was.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Like we discovered at age thirteen, I think in Kansas
actually at a state fair and they said, well, we're
just going to buy you from your parents, basically, and
they took her and they said, you can't get fat,
so smoke eighty cigarettes a day. Yeah, they basically prescribed
her that. They got her on amphetamines to keep her going.
(19:11):
They let her have one square meal a day.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Terrible.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Yeah, really so she and she Yeah, if ed makes
a really good point. If there was any real tragedy
that came out of the Wizard of Oz, it was
Judy Garland's life.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yeah. Absolutely, so. She eventually would die by suicide herself
on an overdose of barbituates. And I think it's she
had the equivalent of ten seeking all capsules. Lord.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Yeah, well, man, let's say it. I want to see
that movie. Do you know who's going to play her? Oh?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Man, I just saw this the other day. I can't
remember who, but I remember thinking, yeah, good casting. Oh okay,
like it wasn't Owen Wilson. That'd be pretty bad troubles
come on and get happy. So right, she was forty
seven years young, by the way, which is far far
too young. Sure, to have lost Judy Garland. Yeah, uh,
(20:15):
you want to take.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
A break, Yeah, that downer.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Yes, all right, we'll come back and talk about the
Man of Steel right after this.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
All right, Chuck.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
So there's actually a role Superman that's considered a cursed role.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
Did you know that?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I did know that because I remember as a kid,
even though I'm not, you know, sixty five years old.
I like to watch reruns of stuff like Gilgan's Island
and Green Acres and Petticoat Junction.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Oh really, Petticoat Junkes. Is it good?
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Yeah? I mean, you know, it's one of those old shows.
They're all great.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
What about Troop Troops probably one of my favorites.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
I watch stuff Troop, I'll watch all that stuff Superman.
The name of the show that I watch was called
Adventures of Superman, and that was straight up from the
nineteen fifties and still in reruns in the mid seventies
at least, Yeah, because that's where I watched it. And
that was the one starring George Reeves as the not
even very muscular and slightly tubby Superman.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Yeah, like that kind of like fifties fit which Daryl chested,
chunky and just weird, like weirdly shaped. Yeah, like what
were they What kind of exercise were they doing back then?
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Well? I don't think they did exercise back then. Wasn't
that the deal?
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Oh? Is that what it was?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah? They were just like, you know, you're gonna play Superman,
So eat a bunch of steak, right, like buff up
a little bit, right, do some push ups? Maybe so?
Speaker 3 (22:03):
He George Reeves Reeves, He's George Reeves. Christopher Reeve was
not plurals singular version right, Yes, George Reeves became synonymous
with Superman. Like everybody thought of him as Superman. He
liked like they he wouldn't be cast in anything else, right,
And he had some He had to put up with
(22:25):
quite a bit being known as Superman who recognized as Superman.
Apparently kids would come up and like punch him in
the stomach to see if he was made a steel there.
I looked into it. I learned this years ago from
the Uncle John's bathroom reader, and I looked into it,
and I think it actually may be correct. But at
one like public appearance, he had to talk a kid
(22:46):
out of shooting him, like this kid had brought his
father's loaded thirty eight caliber pistol to shoot Superman to
see if the bullets really bounced off of him, and
George Reeve got the kid to put to hand the
gun over to like a cop or something, because he
told him that sure, of course the bullet would bounce
off of him, but it could ricochet and hurt somebody
(23:08):
else who is standing nearby.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, that was in the Ben Affleck movie. Hollywood Land
is about George Reeves, and that scene was in the
movie Okay, and he does it's it's okay, it's not great,
but you you lost me at ben aff It's not bad.
But yeah, he talks the kid out of it in
the in the movie and has said exactly what you said,
(23:31):
like of course, blah blah blah, and then he takes it.
Then you can see him he's just like, oh God Jesus,
like almost got shot right.
Speaker 3 (23:38):
Yeah, Yeah that was. I can't imagine the relief that
would wash over you after that.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah. So George Reeves Reeves, Reeves.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, he's the plural. It's tough to keep.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Up with it is he He had a very sort
of sad life, which is in that Hollywood Land movie.
He like you said, he couldn't get other work, and
he was only known as Superman. I think he turned
to the booze and was not a happy guy. And eventually,
in June of nineteen fifty nine, there was a he
(24:11):
was having a party at his own house as fiance
was sewing a party, and he said, I'm gonna go
upstairs and shoot myself in the head.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Yeah, And Ed makes it sound like he was upset
about the noise or something like that from the party.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
I mean that may have been the straw, but he
was upset about life.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I gotcha.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
And I got the sense like legitimately depressed, you know,
like clinically depressed.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
Right, Yeah, I mean like it's it's as we get
to know more and more about like depression, it's so
much easier to look back at, like, you know, people
who were depressed before. But you just never really kind
of pegged him like that because people didn't know about
that kind of thing. Then it's just sad to see,
(24:56):
like how many people suffered like that because no one
knew what was going on, or they just thought it
was the blues or you should just snap out of it, right, Yeah. Yeah,
we've never done one on depression. I think we should
have We not, I don't believe we have.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Man, Well, then we should definitely do that.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
We have the one on Cats.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And then Christopher Reeve played Superman and that is why
some say it is a cursed role because he was
very sadly injured in a horse riding accident in the
mid nineties which left him paralyzed from the neck down.
And he became very much an inspiration to people because
he became an advocate for research into spinal cord injuries
(25:42):
and he went on to direct and even act them
as well after that.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
And it also points out that after Christopher Reeve died,
his wife Dana, who saw him through this whole thing. Yeah,
she died of cancer like two years afterward.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Just man, I felt so awful for that family and
less kids.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah, I mean just to get like that random, to
be thrown from a horse and then just be paralyzed
from the neck down.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
So you put those two together and everyone says, well,
Superman is a cursed role, correct? What would the grabster say?
Speaker 1 (26:19):
No such thing as curses, so stupid. The Conqueror is
a movie that, like we said, John Wayne factored in,
and this one was definitely. I don't know about Cursed,
but well, here's the story. It is very unlikely that
John Wayne would play Mongolian Genghis Khan. He did, though,
(26:42):
but it was Hollywood back in the day where they
just would cast white people to play whoever, right, And
he played Genghis Khan. And they shot the Conquer in Utah,
less than one hundred and fifty miles from the Nevada
Test Site, sorry Nevada test site, where our own US
government set off eleven nuclear detonations above ground.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
The year before, just in the year before.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
Yeah, and that area was crawling with bad stuff, lingering
fallout in the dirt and in the rocks and like
everything it was in the soil, and they were just
running around in their filming movies.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
I read this really interesting article in the Guardian called
Hollywood and the down Windows about the people who lived
in that area who suffered tremendously health problems from the fallout,
and the government went to great lengths to cover it
up and just assured everybody that there was no danger
whatsoever to them, even though their houses and school yards
(27:51):
were covered in radioactive ash and so from filming there.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
When this production came to town and they filmed there.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Yeah, they were exposed to the same radioactive debris and
dust and dirt that these people who lived in the
area were as well. And as a result, supposedly something
like ninety one out of two hundred and twenty cast
and crew members who worked on location for the movie
(28:20):
The Conqueror came down with cancer later on in life,
which is highly unusual statistically speaking.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, that's like forty something percent of the crew. And
years later, in People magazine in nineteen eighty they actually
did a special report on that movie in the Cancer Connection,
like John Wayne, Agnes Morehead, Gene Gerson, Susan Hayward, the
director Dick Powell, they all died of cancer. And in
(28:49):
that People magazine, doctor Robert C. Pendleton, he was director
of radiological health at the University of Utah, said that,
like this would hold up in a court of law.
That's such an outstanding number of people.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yeah, and apparently not even just the people who worked
on the production. It came to be known The Conqueror
came to be known by the way, it's considered one
of the best bad movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
But people who visited the set battle cancer later in
life too. Both of John Wayne's sons who came to
(29:23):
visit him. There's a famous picture of him with two
of his sons and a guy using a Geiger counter
on set. Wow, both of his sons had cancer later
in life too. But supposedly the family and Dick Powell's
son Norman, who's interviewed in that article I read, they
discount the idea that it was that people got cancer
(29:45):
from that test site. They say, maybe it was a
contributing factor, but these people all smoked heavily eight steak,
like eight times a day, and that they had a
lot of other risk factors that probably led to it.
But it's also entirely possible that they may not have
(30:05):
died of cancer as early had they not filmed at
that site.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Well, that doctor Robert Pendleton said essentially that this is
about three times the rate of cancer that you would expect.
So right, I think that it definitely contributed.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
It's pretty curious. I want to see it. Have you
ever seen The Conqueror? No, I gotta see this.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I've seen pictures of John Wayne as Genghis Khan. Yeah,
it's pretty pretty cringe.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Yeah, super racist, but apparently, like even if you take
all that away, just like the dialogue is awful, like
the whole premise of it, as he kidnaps a woman
and forces her to marry him, and of course romance
blossoms as a result, you know, just the usual stuff
from the fifties.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
The Omen. Yes, this is a good one because this
is one of those where it's a movie about the devil,
and so all these stories are going to be heightened, right,
because it's kind of like Poulter guys, like it wouldn't
if this was when Harry met Sally and then some
of this stuff happened.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
That when Harry met Sally was cursed with great.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
Laughs, it was I love that movie. One of the
few romantic comedies that were legit good movies. Yeah, you know, yeah,
so let's go back to the beginning of this one. Obviously,
the omen everyone knows was the great movie from nineteen
seventy six about the Antichrist taking well not but I
(31:33):
guess possession you could call it. But it's not like
an exorcist thing. It basically the Antichrist is this little boy.
He comes back as a little boy.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah, yeah, in a bad, bad naughty little boy Damien
who dresses like Angus Young. Yeah, sure, okay, So Damien
is adopted by Gregory Peck in the movie, and in
real life, Gregory Peck's son killed himself. He died by suicide,
(32:03):
apparently out of the blue. No suicide note or anything
like that. Yeah, And this was before production had started,
but after Peck had agreed to do the movie, right,
and he still went ahead and did the movie. He
left the US and went to London, and even on
(32:23):
the way to London, before you even got to London
to start shooting, something happened to him, right.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, he said, I'm gonna get on a plane and
fly to London. His plane was struck by lightning, right,
and the producer's plane was struck by lightning separately.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
These are different, two different planes struck by lightning on
the way to start shooting in London.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
So this curse thing is being legit this time.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
This is the one that even Ed got a little
shaky on if you ask me.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
How about this. The hotel where they stayed, at least
where the producer and some other folks stayed, was bombed
by the Irish Republican Army.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, Hilton, the London Hilton.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
I don't know about a curse in that case, because
the mid seventies there's a lot of that going on.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
Yeah, the IRI was bombing all sorts of stuff back then.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah. So it was like a restaurant where the crew
and the cats went to eat one night.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, they were about to go eat there.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
So there's actually like all these close calls actually make
it seem like this this movie production wasn't cursed, but
instead was actually being looked out for on high by
the dark Lord.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Right.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
So like the crew that was going to go to
dinner didn't go to dinner, they didn't make it there
in time for the bombing. The people who were staying
in the hotel when it was bombed weren't there yet.
There were a lot of close calls, but there was
one close call that really is just mind numbing. I
would have freaked out had I been one of the
(33:48):
people involved.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
The private jet.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, so they chartered a private jet to fly them
around London to get some good aerial footage of London,
and at the last minute, the charter service switched planes
to accommodate a group of Japanese businessmen. Well, the plane
that the Japanese businessman took that the crew was supposed
to be on, crashed on takeoff, actually crashed into a
(34:13):
car and killed everybody on board the plane and everybody
in the car.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
It crashed into.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
How about that?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
And this is like a last minute switched to supposedly.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yeah, those make you think, yeah that.
Speaker 3 (34:25):
I mean cursor, No, just knowing that you were that close,
It just that gets you.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
How about this? A worker there was an animal sanctuary
where they filmed, and a worker there was killed by
a tiger. Yep, that one.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
Uh, I think I think that was the actual animal
wrangler for the movie was killed. Really yeah, which makes
it even closer. This is the one, though, Chuck, you
got to take this one home. This is the one
that really gets everybody, even though I think it's like
a lot of it's made up.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, there was a car crash with John Richardson, who
was a special effects worker. He designed the effects for
the omen.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
Including a very famous decapitation scene toward the end.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yes, very famous. And I thought that was at the beginning.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Was it the beginning?
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I think so. I think it's how it opened if
I remember. But it's been a while okay either way.
He was in Holland after working on a movie called
A Bridge Too Far, and he was involved in a
head on collision in his car and was injured. But
his assistant Liz Moore, was decapitated and killed in that
car wreck. And he claims, and I don't know if
(35:34):
this is lore or not, sounds laurish. It does sound laurish,
but he claims that he awoke from that crash and
looked up and there was a street sign where they
crashed that said the distance to the next town, and
it was the town of oh Men, mn N. At
a distance of sixty six point six kilometers.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Sam, Now, is that true.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
There's no way it's true, because I looked up up
on the internet that sign trying to find any picture
of that sign. If that sign existed, there would be
so many pictures from tourists taking photos of it on
the internet. There's not a single one.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Do you think from back then those pictures would still
be around.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
The sign would probably be still be around.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Well, see, I think that's the presumption. That may not
be true. Like they may have taken the sign down
for that reason.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Maybe I guess that's possible, But no, picture of it
whatsoever that no AP photographer went, I gotta get a
picture of that sign. Nobody did that. There's no existing
photo of that.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah, that's the one that makes me think, like, although,
there is a town called Omen in the Netherlands, so
it's entirely possible a crash took place by there.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
So that checks out.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
That definitely checks out. So we're gonna take a break, everybody,
we just decided, but we're gonna be right back, So
don't worry, because we're gonna talk some more about cursed movies.
(37:17):
All right, We're back, as I promised, and we're on
the Brainstorm, which I think Ed was just kind of
showing off with this one, because he even says, like,
you're not going to find this on many lists of
curse movies.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Yeah, I'm not sure I get the curse in this one,
but we'll talk about it. Brainstorm was the nineteen eighty
three sci fi movie most famously known as being the
Great Natalie Woods final film, right because she died in
real life after the movie, obviously, when she drowned after
(37:50):
being out on a boat one night partying with her
husband Robert Wagner and her co star Christopher Walken right
under some say many say mysterious circumstances. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
I was reading up about that case. And they apparently
have been drinking since at least four in the afternoon,
and they made it back to the boat pretty late,
and they've been.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Drinking through dinner.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
They were all just pretty pretty crocked, right, And supposedly
Natalie Wood was either afraid of water and or couldn't swim,
and for some reason she had tried to get into
a dinghy that was attached to the boat that they
were staying on and probably hit her head and drowned.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
That's the story.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
That's the official story, right.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
But apparently in twenty twelve it was reopened or her
cause of death was changed from accident to undetermined.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, I mean there were stories that she and Robert
Wagner had been fighting. The captain even many years later,
said that he actually killed her. No charges wherever brought
Christopher walking for his I think he's never talked about
it publicly, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
No, he finally did years and years later in a
Playboy interview, and he basically said it was it must
have been an accident that no one knows but she
surely it was a incident.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
That was what he said, and that's probably the only
thing he said, because I didn't think he ever said anything.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Uh, he said it's an accident. Clearly.
Speaker 2 (39:24):
That was great.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Because that was that was Christopher walking with just a
hint of John Travolta.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, what's a little trible to esk for? Yeah, so yeah,
I mean that's tied to Brainstorm as being a curse,
I guess because they were both in the movie, even
though the grabster points out that some people tied this
back to a Rebel without a Cause curse.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Because that makes way more sense to me.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Yeah, because James Dean and Salminio and Natalie wood Than
all died from that movie relatively young.
Speaker 3 (39:58):
She made it the longest. She was in her early forties,
I think when she died. But James Dean died very
young in a car crash right after Rebel without a
Cause was released.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
I think yeah, And I think wouldn't saw many a murdered.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
He was murdered in nineteen seventy six at a pretty
young age.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Still.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
He was stabbed to death in the heart in Ali
behind his house. Yeah, I have a pizza man to me,
Oh really, yeah, huh, it's so weird. Well it is,
but I mean we're talking about curses so well.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
I mean usually the pizza man gets stabbed, you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
Right, I think this guy was actually a serial killing
pizza man.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Oh wow, Yeah, I just saw recently. Is there a
serial killer in like central Florida?
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
I hadn't heard anything. But aren't there like at least
fifty serial killers operating at any given point in time?
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I don't know, but I do know that I saw
something that I heard that like three murders in the
Tampa area were just linked. Oh man, I think that
made me think it's been a while.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah, you don't hear about him very often, but as
I grow older and wiser, I'm starting to think, like
there's a lot more serial killers out there than you
would imagine. That, like human life has very little value
to more people than you would hope.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yeah, that the darkest thing you can think of.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
It's pretty dark.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
The last high profile when I remember is BTK. But
surely there's been one since then.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Right, yeah, because he was like early two thousands, right,
I know, but I can't think of one.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I can't either, man, But.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
It's been a long time since. You know, we've heard
of like Jeffrey Dahmers and man that was said, Bundy's
and stuff like that. Yeah, thankfully, sure, the Son of
Sam's and the Zodiacs. It seems like the seventies and
eighties were sort of the time where that was happening more.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yeah, I don't know why.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
Maybe it was harder to get away with it, or
easier to get away with it, or.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
I don't know, who knows.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
I'm listening to that Heaven's Gate podcast. Have you heard that?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
I haven't heard that. No, it's good.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
It's from our buddy Chris Bannon over at Midroll put
it out and is he hosting it? No, no, no,
Glenn Washington narrates it. But having through three episodes now,
it's really good. But it's kind of funny, man, that
time of the sixties and seventies, it was just and
we talked about it some in our Cults episode. It
was people just believed more in trying stuff out like
(42:27):
that and UFOs and it was all just kind of
the in the mainstream right and it just all seems
so unbelievable now but back then it wasn't. It was
kind of believable that someone might join up with a cult.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
Well, a lot of people were on grass back then,
on the Grass.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Yeah, that's crazy. I got to hear that.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
It's good podcast. Man, that's just a fascinating story.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
But now that means we can't do Heaven's.
Speaker 2 (42:51):
Kate because Bannon did it.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, and then they did. You know, you can't cover
in forty five minutes what they cover in whatever ten episodes.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Ten sounds about right.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
I'm not sure. I haven't. I don't think they released
it all at once, but it feels like a ten.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
Let's say seven to ten.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
So anyway, can we close on Brainstorm or are we
still uh? Do we miss something?
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (43:13):
Yeah, I think yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
I mean Natalie Wood's murders or death death sorry is unsolved,
still in its mystery.
Speaker 2 (43:21):
It may always be.
Speaker 3 (43:22):
I had no idea about that about Robert Wagner. I
just knew Natalie Wood drowned. I'd never heard anything about
it being mysterious.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Yeah, it's it's long been mysterious, and well, here's how
we'll finish it. Then she wasn't even able to finish
filming on that movie. And they did use a body
double to complete some of those scenes and it was
a big flop.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
Dude, Yeah, yes, it was okay, Chuck. So for the
last one, then we're gonna combine two together.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Strangely, they are almost the same story, but with two
different films, and both of them were films that were
never made or have yet to be made, is a
better way to put it. The first one is a
Confederacy of Dunces, the film adaptation of John Kennedy Toole's book.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
I Guess Novel.
Speaker 1 (44:11):
Great book.
Speaker 3 (44:12):
Yeah, I've never read it so good I really want
to have just never read it for some reason.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Yeah, it's a classic, classic book. And very sadly, Tool
killed himself in nineteen sixty nine and the book was
not out yet, And part of the reason he killed
himself is because he could not achieve success as a writer.
His mother gets a published it wins a Pulitzer Prize
in nineteen eighty one, and posthumously he became a famous author.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:39):
So people when it first was published in the early eighties,
people were like, Oh, we've got to turn this into
a movie. This is a great IDEA great book will
be a great movie. And they said, could who can
possibly play the main character? Belushi? He'd be perfect. Belushi dies, Well,
who's next? Let's wait a few years and let's see
(45:00):
who else could play this main character? John Candy. John
Candy died. Okay, all right, everybody, let's just take a breather.
We'll wait a year or two. Who's the next guy
who's gonna play this? I got it this young up
and comer named Chris Farley. Yeah, Chris Farley die. So
a confederacy of Dunce has just kept getting put off
(45:22):
and off and off. Right, Then finally Will Ferrell steps in,
and it looks like it's going to happen because Will
Ferrell is obviously indestructible.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Right, yeah, And if you haven't gathered by hearing the
people cast as ignatious, Riley was, he was a heavy
man in the book. So obviously Belushi, Candy, and Farley
are all big dudes, and they all died. So finally
to go to Ferrell and they're like, well, he's in shape,
and we can bulk him up. Maybe you some special effects.
(45:52):
Have no idea, but at least he's probably not gonna
drop dead of a heart attack or something, right, he
was a safe bet. Yeah, but that didn't happen either.
I think it was sort of in turnaround forever. It
took a long time in development, and eventually the head
of the Louisiana State Film Commission. It set in New Orleans,
so they would have shot there. He was murdered and
(46:15):
Hurricane Katrina came along to wipe out a lot of
where the film would be shot, and so I think
that kind of just helped to put it on indefinite
hold at the very least. But they are. I just
saw I was looking this up see if I was
back on track, and I saw there's a movie called
The Butterfly and the Typewriter about John Kennedy Tool oh
(46:36):
neat So they're doing a biopic on him with Thomas Man.
Now Thomas Mann playing Tool. Who's he he's an actor right?
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Well obviously, but what has he been in?
Speaker 1 (46:49):
The thing that I saw him in was a movie
out a couple of years ago called Me and Earl
and the Dying Girl. Oh okay, it's a good, good
little indie film. So he's good. So he's playing to
and then I think Susan Sarandon places his mom oh
and Diane Krueger's in it as well.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
So and Susan Sarandon's going to totally try to date
him too, I'll bet.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Why would you say that? Oh she likes younger dudes?
Speaker 1 (47:13):
O really? Oh yeah, maybe I have a shot.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
She likes young hipster dudes. No way younger than you,
my friend.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
Maybe not good for her. I love Susan Sarandon.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
So oh yeah, more power too. I think she's great.
But she is totally going to try to date Thomas Man.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
All right, Well, good for him too.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Then sure I'm not being judgy, no, I know, Okay,
So then that's a confederacy of dunces. Right, Yes, there's
another script out there called A Took that has virtually
the same story to it, Right well, but the story
is totally different, But the cursed story is virtually the
(47:49):
same with A Took.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
It's like a fish.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Out of Water movie about an Inuit man who comes
to New York and has to make his way in
the big city.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Right, Yes, that script.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Was early on, it was optioned and John Belushi was
scheduled to play the main character. Right well, what happened
to John Belushi?
Speaker 1 (48:13):
He died?
Speaker 2 (48:14):
So who was up next?
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Chuck John Candy.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 3 (48:18):
Yeah, okay, Well John Candy passed, God rest his soul.
Who was after John Candy Chris Farley. That's right, Chris Farley.
And so the narrative to this curse story takes a
huge sudden turn when the next person up after Chris
Farley is Sam Kennison.
Speaker 1 (48:38):
Yes, and Sam Kennison. They were actually, I mean they
were actually gonna make the movie. It was happening, and
Sam Kennison kind of destroyed that because he wanted to
He want to be really heavily involved in the scriptory
rights in the direction of the film. He wanted a
creative control. He battled with the studio. I think there
may have even been lawsuits going on, yeah, and that
(49:00):
he eventually got to the point where he was like,
you know what if I'm gonna if you're not going
to give me creative control, I'll be in your movie
and I'll suck on purpose.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
On purpose.
Speaker 3 (49:10):
And they said, oh yeah, we're gonna sue you, and
he said, oh yeah, right, and then he died in
a car wreck, yeah, before anything could happen as a result.
So I took for the moment died with him again.
In that bizarre it is the idea that those two
things crossed over like that that one. Obviously it's not
(49:32):
a curse, but I think that it's pretty interesting at
the very least.
Speaker 1 (49:35):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (49:37):
Well, if you guys want to know more about movie curses,
just go start watching movies and ask people or is
this one cursed? And then if they say no, go
watch another one and ask about that. And then eventually
someone will say yes, this one's cursed, and then ask
them the story behind it. And in the meantime, since
I said all that, it's time for listener.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
Now, I'm gonna call this just a very kind of
email from a kind assie.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Hey, guys, discovered your show a couple of months ago,
and I reckon I have listened to two or three
podcasts a day since then.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
I absolutely love you guys, and to say that your
show is addictive would be an understatement. Until very recently,
I was a news junkie. I live in Melbourne, Australia.
I would listen to Radio National at every opportunity, but
since Brexit in the recent US election, listening to the
news and current affairs has become a health hazard for me.
I also have two youngest children, eleven and nine, and
having grown up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud myself,
(50:33):
I don't want to subject my kids to the same fear.
So finding your podcast has been a true joy. I
love how enthusiastic and optimistic you both are about everything,
and your curiosity is truly infectious.
Speaker 2 (50:44):
That is so nice, isn't it.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
You are so gloriously accepting of different ideas and cultures.
And I've even adopted Chucks. I don't want to young
someone else's young, which, by the way, Bridget, I did
not make that up.
Speaker 2 (50:55):
Now, that was another listener who knows most, but we love.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
To say it. For sure, you've adopted that. But I
love the podcast so much I've got my husband and
kids into it as well. My husband is a radio
ham and you listen to your episode on Ham Radio together.
He was impressed with your efforts. Keep it up, guys,
and thank you for all the joy and information you
brought to my life. Cheers is from Bridget Foster and Melbourne.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Cheers with some Fosters.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
And I tell you what, Bridgid, We're coming to Melbourne
in September of next year for shows.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
And you right in with a friendly reminder, and you
and your family can get on the old guest list.
Speaker 2 (51:28):
How about that awesome man, Chuck, you're the guy.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
You're the guy. They're your passes too, all right?
Speaker 2 (51:34):
Cool?
Speaker 3 (51:35):
Well, thank you them out, Thanks a lot, Bridget, it
was Bridget and family, right yeah, Bridgid with a D.
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Bridgid.
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Thank you for writing in And if you want to
get in touch with us, like Bridget did, you can
send us an email of the Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio
dot com.
Speaker 1 (51:52):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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