REPETE: Justin Hamilton and The French Connection

With the recent passing of Gene Hackman, we’re diving into the You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet archives to revisit one of our favorite episodes - celebrating a truly legendary actor.

 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey there, Pete here, just a quick little message before
we get into today's episode, which is a replay or
a repeat, as we like to call them here at Yesnik,
because my name's Pete, get it. Because of the sad
passing of Gene Hackman, we thought it would be perhaps
a nice time to replay one of the episodes we
did of The French Connection with my great mate comedian
Justin Hamilton, just to I guess recognize what a great,

(00:23):
great contribution Gene Hackman made to movies and what an
indelible part a role he played in our movie going experiences,
from the French Connection to Missippi Burning to the Royal
Town of Barms. What a talent he was. So I
hope you enjoy this repeat of The French Connection with
Justin Hamilton with the course Gene Hackman. Good day, Peter,

(00:46):
Helly here, welcome to you Ain't Seen Nothing Yet the
movie podcast where I chat to a movie lover about
a classic or beloved movie they haven't quite got around
to watching until now. In today's guest comedian podcaster mate
Justin Hamilton, spot wax On, wax Off. I do wish

(01:27):
we could chat, Latiner, but.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
I'm having an old fan Fordnight.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
But haven't any right now?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
You ain't seen nothing year.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
I have a dirty secret, you ain't seen nothing yet.
Vance This isn't my first movie podcast, no way back,
almost a decade ago, I did a little podcast called
HELLI You and Hammo Dig Flicks with my great mate
Justin Hamilton. We started that podcast because well, I enjoyed
speaking to no one about movies more than I did

(02:03):
with my mate Hammo. I met Hamo a couple of
decades ago when he was putting the La comedy scene
on his back with another great mate of mine, Limo.
He eventually moved to Melbourne, where he built his audience
not through TV appearances or radio gigs, but by smashing
it every time he hit the stage. Not only is
Justin Hamilton one of the top stand up comedians in

(02:24):
the country, he's also one of the most in demand
writers in Australia as we speak. He also has a
brilliant pop cultural podcast called Big Squid. Amongst many other things.
Check out Big Squid It is going Bananas. Hamo isn't
the kind of comic that asks what is comedy right now? Instead,
Justin Hamilton ass what can comedy be? I'm bloody stoked

(02:49):
they have my mate, Justin Hamilton hanging out with me today.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
Hello, my name is Justin Hamilton.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
And as of today, the twenty eighth of July twenty
twenty one, my three favorite films are Interstellar.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I sp We Forgotten who we are.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Now, Miller's Crossing Now if you can't trust the Fixed,
why can you Drift? And Lost Highway.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
But as of just recently, I had never seen the
movie The French Connection.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
It's nineteen seventy one New York City and a decade
of paranoia is about to begin, and what better way
to kick it off than with Gene Hackman's complicated, booze
fueled cop Jimmy Popeye, Doyle and Roy Scheider's bruised and
beaten cloudy Rousseau zigzagging their way through urban New York
in trench coats, peering through shop windows on the tail

(03:55):
of Frog one and Frog two. Yeah, we might talk
about that later. William Freakin's breakout film explores a thin
line between good and evil as Doyle and Russo stumble
upon a drug ring with origins in France, with a
cracking score from Don Allis, shot almost handheld documentary style
by dop Owen Roseman. His first film, He Went Under
the Shoot the Exercise with Freaking also Tutsian Network, Nice

(04:19):
and Nice CV there based on a book by Robert Moore,
The French Connection is a movie that set the tone
for generations of cop movies that followed. It also contains
one of the best car chases of all time, Hammo
out of interest, did you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Why do you keep asking me that?

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Why you got nothing to do with the film.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Like every time it's been years. It's the first thing
you've ever asked me. I can't keep you knowing it.
I can't keep you knowing it.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Stop picking your feet, not just in Poor Keepsi, in Adelaide,
in Sydney, in Melbourne, that stopped doing it. It's gross.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
It's a bad habits. It's a nervous tick.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
We'll get to that line maybe when we talk more
about the film later on, but it's certainly one that
caused me a bit of confusion. But you nominated a
few films off the list that I give as a guide,
and it's just a guide for my guests to kind
of pick a thought starters. There were quite a few films,
about half a dozen films you came back with. We've
done quite a bit of the eighties recently, so I

(05:21):
was keen to get out of the eighties. So I
was pretty happy you chose the French Connection from nineteen
seventy one because I had seen it. But I reckon
what I did is I watched it before I was
ready to actually watch it. I reckon I watched it
in my teens when this felt it just felt boring
to me, and I think I kind of fat I
may even fast forward it to the car chase, which

(05:44):
i'd heard was one of the all time great car chases.
So I've kind of really fall in tenths and purposes,
felt like I was watching it again for the first time.
But why did you choose the French Connection in the end.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
So that's really funny because so a couple of things.
One is I thought I'd never seen it. Well, for
a while, I thought I had seen it because the
car chase, specifically that scene of Gene Hackman's Popeye, who
nearly takes out a young woman with her pram, and
that scene is so kind of indelible. It was like, oh, yeah,

(06:17):
I must have seen this movie heaps of times, and
then I realized, oh no, I haven't seen it. And
not only haven't I seen it, but do you remember
when DVDs, not when they first came out, but when
they became so ubiquitous there would be sales all the
time to get rid of the stock.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
And that was one of the movies that I bought.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
I reckon a good ten to twelve years ago that
when you said let's do that one, I was like, great,
because you know what I can finally do.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Unwrap it like it was.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
It was still stuck all up in the collection.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
So I was like, this is great. So I peeled
it open.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
Then I watched it, and then it was weird because
I felt like I was getting flashes of it, like
hang on, maybe I have seen this. And then I
spoke to my mum and she reckons, I have seen it,
but probably exactly the same way you viewed it, probably
quite young, I reckon. It might have been one of
those things where mum was up watching a film I

(07:15):
didn't want to go to bed.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
She said, do you want to watch this?

Speaker 3 (07:18):
And I probably checked out at some point because in
the ways it is, it's a real throwback film. There's
not a lot of dialogue. It is kind of the
boring aspects of police work, which is a lot of
just standing around in the cold, watching other people eat
really good food. And also Gene Hackman's character is compelling

(07:41):
but quite shocking, and I think he was probably shocking
to me as a teenager and in the current era,
who like, there's a lot to unpack there with Popeye, right.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
There really is, there really is, And you're right, it
does take a while, it takes its time. You're absolutely right.
It dives into the boring aspects of policing, like you say,
and I think as a teenager watching it, and to
be honest, no doubt many adults. I'll be interested to
see what when our listeners think of the French connection
if they haven't seen it. And I had the same

(08:11):
feeling when I watched a conversation about ten years ago
just how, which is maybe I think three years after this,
another kind of surveillance film starring Gene Hackman made by
Francis for a Copula, And there's the pacing. Sometimes you'll
see a film and this is what I love doing
this podcast because I know I'm kind of forced to
watch it. I'm kind of like, I know, I don't
like there have been films that I've watched for this podcast,

(08:33):
like Butchcassid in The Sundance Kid and straight away I'm like,
I love this film. I'm here for it. This wasn't
one of those films for me. I had to work
and I you know, I'm probably getting too far into
the film that I kind of like to at this
stage of the podcast, but I had to. I had
to kind of, you know, kind of mindfully keep engage

(08:53):
myself and remind myself that I need to be talking
about this with Hamo in the morning, so you need
you need to watch it. I got there. I got there,
you know, and I you know, but it is, you know,
those seventies films, they are at different pace. We're so
used to things happening, you know, and getting spoon fed
and having stuff delivered on the plate to us these days,

(09:15):
and this film does not do that in any way,
shape or form.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, it's fascinating.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
It also has a definitive pace, which is, as you said,
very seventies, but it also has an esthetic that feels
very modern. And you know, like, so I was reading
about how Freed. Can you know the way it's shot.
It's shot like a documentary. It doesn't go looking for
the characters. Characters kind of walk into the shot, and

(09:42):
that hadn't.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Really been done before.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
I think there was a French movie that he'd seen
that he was inspired by, and because he had a
documentary background, he applied it to this film.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
But you know, they're very different films. But funnily enough,
I was getting a tenant vibe from it.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
The look of it and the way it was shot
and the lack of dialogue and the seventies esthetic. Is
it's quite popular amongst a lot of filmmakers now and
then they've just sped it up with things.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Kind of happening.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
But at the same time, one of the most riveting scenes,
and it's a funny thing to say, but one of
the most riveting scenes is Geene hack been trying to
tail you know, the bad guy and then walking on
and off a train.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yes, yes, how is this riveting?

Speaker 1 (10:31):
But it is absolutely And I love that scene and
I have led you way further down this path that
I plan to go at this stage of the film.
But this is what Hammo and me do. We basically
we get chatting Hamos in Sydney. I'm in Melbourne. We
used to hang out a lot, like physically, you know,
catch up. We are going to do that. We have

(10:52):
a podcast. I mentioned that in the intro and that
was basically was we made that because based on the
conversation we're having. Listen, we want to this record these
conversations we're having.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
And why we waste it.

Speaker 1 (11:05):
But it's always hard the court. It takes me about
fifteen minutes to get the work each day and it's
it's not quite well, it's nowhere near enough time for
me to call you in that time. So we actually
hadn't spoken to each other for a little while, because
even though despite the various lockdowns you know, this year,
we hadn't spoked with each other for a little while.

(11:25):
So there's a lot to a lot to talk about.
And I want to talk about your three favorite films.
I suspect you have and correct me if I'm wrong.
I suspect I'm always fascinated by the psychology of my
guess and how they kind of go about deciding their
three films. I like the fact that you date stamped
it because this could change I imagine at any point

(11:48):
in time. But I imagine it's a reflection of interests, even
though there's you know that these films aren't necessarily a
mile apart. But would I be wrong in saying you
were you would have been tempted to have three Christopher
Nolan films as your top three films? Did you have?
Is in the Stella at the Outright? Your outright because

(12:11):
Vher Nolan is there? The Dark Knight, you know, the
you know, almost level with it, how closest tenant there
because you are a a Nolan well, the biggest Nolan
fan that I know.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, It's It's one of those things. It's funny because
I was a fan from I remember seeing Memento at
the cinema and it was like one of those what
just happened kind of movies, you know what you walk
out and then it's like, well, I'm going to keep
an eye on what this guy next. And then of
course the next film he makes is Insomnia and I
Love al Pacino and it's Robin Williams in a you know,

(12:44):
before he started doing a few more darker roles. It
was like, holy shit, what is this with Robin Williams?
And then of course Batman begins came out, and I
remember being halfway through that film and he just became
Batman and turning around to our friend Adam Richard and saying,
I hope it doesn't shit the bed now, Like this
has been really good and he hasn't even become Batman yet.

(13:05):
So you know, I've enjoyed all of his films. No,
it's Interstella is definitely my favorite. I think Dunkirk might
actually be his best film. I think Dunkirk is a masterpiece.
And I was, I was all over Tenant.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
I was.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
You know, that to me was pure Nolan hero went
straight into my eyes. And if someone said to me
I didn't like it for these reasons, I go, oh, yeah,
fair enough. But guess what, I loved it every second
of it.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
My brother said to me the other day, I just
saw the worst film I've ever seen. I said, what
you guys are ten or something. I said, listen, it's
not the worst one you've ever seen, but it's not
for everyone.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
It's not for everyone, but it's you know, you need pages.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
I saw that with Luke McGregor in the cinema. Is
actually the first movie I saw in the cinema when
we came out of one of the lockdowns and it
was kind of joyous is to be in the cinema,
and I really enjoy I'll need to watch it again
to have like even really even a conversation with you
about it, despite the fact I'm going to ask you
more quich it is probably more about any to sell it,

(14:07):
but I need to see it again. But the one
thing I remember saying that Luke is fuck. I love
Christopher Nolan's ambition, you know, I really like here's nowhere
near resting on his laurels. I don't think no.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
And it's look, essentially, it makes as much sense as
a Bond film, and that's what it is. It's just
his his version of a Bond film, which isn't cluttered
with any sense of history. It can just be its
standalone thing. It's almost like yours. It's an origin movie.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
It could be the third of a five part series.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
It has the potential for more stories, but in a
weird way, I don't want them. I like that this
is one of many that and this is the only
one he's going to produce. Like what ruined Star Wars.
I don't need fucking prequels. I don't need sequels. Just
give me the original trilogy, you know, So that's all
he's going to give me.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
With talent, That's what I love about Inception.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
Could have heapsmall movies about Inception, but just one is
really tasty, and I think it does kind of make
sense if you you know. Of course, it's overwhelming when
you first see it because it's a spectacle, but the
more you watch it there is it does make sense.
And I like the ambiguity about it, which is a
word that we'll get back to later on, especially with
the French connection. It's something that I've enjoyed in the

(15:22):
last few years, and it's it's where I would rather work,
which is the ambiguous state of storytelling, where whoever's watching
it can kind of project what they want to believe
onto it. And in a way, you know, that's why
I think Tenet does beautifully. And then if you really
want to do a deep dive, look up what a

(15:43):
satur square is and realize that Nolan has made his
version of a satur square.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
I won't say anything more.

Speaker 3 (15:50):
Just look it up or listen to my podcast Big Squid,
where I fucking break that shit down. But it's right,
But Interstellar is it is everything I like in a recipe,
cook perfectly and served up, and I was just wrapped
with it.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
I love sci fi. I love big ideas.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
I love you know, the idea of you know, I
also like that it's kind of a little bit scary
and that it's like.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
A documentary from the future.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
And if you think I'm overreacting, check out the dust
storms that are happening through China at the moment. And
don't tell me that you want to suddenly become a
corn farmer so you have a job in the future.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
You know. It's yeah, I mean the rise of, the
rise of you know, the way that with global warming,
with politics, with they said, dust storms, with back and
mice plagues. You know, there's a feeling, there's a feeling
that we're closer to the end then we are to start.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
Well, that's it, and that you can kind of look
at Nolan's last three films, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Tenant, and
they are about survival and they are about trying to
overcome utter annihilation. And even though you know, Dunkirk's quite
clearly a film about war and something that really happened,
it's that there aren't any victories in other than getting

(17:12):
back to safety and sort of celebrating that that is
a victory in itself. And you know, intenet the idea,
and it's a heady idea, but the idea that the
future is so terrible that they're willing to destroy the
past in the hope that that somehow makes the future better.
They don't know if it will, but that's how bad
things have gotten. And you go, oh, that is that

(17:35):
is a heady philosophical conundrum to think about, all wrapped
up in very handsome John David Washington and Robert Patterson
kicking ars.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
And what I love about Noel and what I admire
about Tenant is you can still go like, the way
I watch films is I don't necessary I'm not necessarily
trying to solve every crime or kind of let generally
I'm the first watch I'm letting it wash over me.
I'm not trying to which which makes you know Nolan

(18:09):
films when he's in his Interstellar inception, you know, it
can be problematic in a way because those films do
demand I think a bit of work and you're you're
they They've always got my attention in my engagement, but
I am just letting it wash over me. But what
I love about Nolan is at a base level, even

(18:32):
if it's just the fact that you are getting little
Endoorphine hits, because the things that didn't you you were
confused about in the first half of the film slowly
start making sense. Even if it's like, Oh, that's where
that spinning car came from, that's that spinning cat like that,
There's these little things that kind of at least keep
you going, Ah, I'm following some of this, you know,

(18:54):
I'm I'm not completely down with every philosophical you know,
wormhole Nolan's going down here, But I remember that spinning
car from earlier.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, well, you know, the thing to kind of remember
with him is that he's a fan of movies, and
he watches all the Marvel movies, and he loves the
Fast and the Furious franchise, and you know, loves the
James Bond franchise. And you know, even when he loves
those franchises, the Bond film he loves the most is
the George Lazenbury one, and the Fast and the Furious

(19:26):
movie he loves is the one that people don't like much.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Which is Tokyo Drift.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
You know, he's a and the thing is is that
he loves the work of Kubrick, but the movie that
changed his life was Star Wars, and so when you
take all of that into account, it's funny. Sometimes you
hear people getting angry like he's trying to bamboozle you,
and it's no, no, no, he's not trying to bamboozle you.
He's trying to give you the same sentenceation he felt
when he saw Luke sky Walker stare at two sons.

(19:52):
He wants to give you something that you've never seen before,
and he wants to do it in an entertaining way.
And he's not going to talk down to you like
you'll give he'll if you're jumping on points. So I
think that's one of the criticisms of Nolan that sometimes
his dialogue explains what's going on. But also i'd say,
for a ten year old who's watching tenant, if you've
got someone explaining how it works, like, I'm fine with that.

(20:12):
He's a populis. His movies aren't m rated, they're pg.
He wants everyone to see them, and he wants everyone
to have a good time and walk out of it
feeling like they've experienced something new. I think that's quite
a lofty ambition in a movie director these days.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Absolutely, the Coen Brothers. I'm not surprised to see the
Coen Brothers on you lease. I thought either there will
be three Nolan films, and I thought possibly couple. The
Coen Brothers is one. But Miller's Crossing is a fine pixer.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
Oh my god, it's such a good film.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
Once again, the ambiguity of Gabriel Byrne in that where
it's funny he's kind of really loyal, but he's also
loyal to himself, and he does he makes disloyal decisions
and he's just he's in such a moral gray area.
But at the end, you know he's he's done all
the right things and in his inability to change means

(21:09):
that he kind of comes out.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Alone out of it. You know. It's the music's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
I remember seeing it at the cinema and Carter Burwell's
music and the and the hat, you know, floating across
the forest, and it was just such a such a
stunning film, and a lot of the like. It was
hard to pick a Coen Brothers film actually I could
have plumped for A Serious Man, you know, which is
one of those underrated Coen Brothers films where if you

(21:37):
really pay attention, it is really funny and there's a
lot going on inside. Lewen Davis is also underrated, but
you know, and then of course the classics like Fargo,
No Country for Old Men, you know, the Big Lebowski, like,
they're all such great films, and but Miller's Crossing is
the one that I think is the emotional favorite.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Carter Burwell is just a genius. He like, he's one
of the few, and maybe I should listen to more
scores when I'm in my car, but he's his scores
or one of the the you know, the who he's
a composed that I was just one of the few
composed older just put on in the car and listen to.
I mean, he's burn after reading. It's funny you think
mentioned Bern after reading? How good are the Coen Brothers'

(22:23):
career is when Burn after Reading is not one of
the movies you mentioned when you mentioned eight other films
they've done.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
I know that it's got one of the greatest moments
in movie history where you're sitting there going I can't
wait for Brad Pitt and George Clooney to finally meet up.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Did you seriously do this to us? Which is great?

Speaker 1 (22:44):
I think, I think burn after reading. I think George
Clooney at his comedic best. I think sometimes he overdoes
it sometimes, and I think he's overdone it in some
other Coen Brothers films. But and it's Brad Pitt at
his funniest as well. Everyone's so good in that. I
love it. Miller's Crossing I just think of that. I
think of the hat when when I when I think
of Miller's Crossing, I just think of that's that that

(23:06):
that that hat, you know in the wind be lieve
the autumn leaves it is. It is stunning. In the
cutterbell Well composition.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
So many great set pieces, you know, the when they
tried to take out the Big Boss, Albert.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Finny and he he pulls.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
Out the machine gun to Danny Boy like that is
a maze. The I don't think I'd ever seen John
Taturo in a film before, so the you know, the
look into your heart, Tommy, look into your heart, you know,
all of that's so fantastic. And then his heel turn
is just Pitch Perfect. You know, the great scene where

(23:43):
you know the Dane is, you know, looks like he's
going to choke Tom Reagan to death, all the all
the weird camera angles and the and the and the heat.
You can feel the heat in that scene. You know,
It's just got so many great moments. And you know,
I saw that probably around the time. So I think
I saw The Untouchables was the first film that I

(24:05):
became seriously obsessed with that was kind of like my
gateway to grown up films on my own. Like, you know,
there's the time where your parents show your grown up
movies that you like, but then there's the grown up
movie that you find off the back of being interested.
So I saw The Untouchables and then that kind of
opened up the world of The Godfather Godfather Part two.

(24:25):
I think Goodfellas came out in a similar time, and
I remember around that period seeing Miller's Crossing, and I
put that up there with all of those.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
You mentioned. Ambiguity and the Coen Brothers a good one
to look at ambiguity in films because they possibly are
the masters at it. Like people are often trying to
dissect Coen Brothers films they're quite reluctant to discuss their
films and the themes of their films in any specific detail.

(24:54):
And I've heard them say, to be honest, they say,
people think films mean you know a lot, they mean
lesson they think you know. And I love I love that.
It seems like it might be a theme today, but
I didn't the Coen Brothers. They are making films. There's

(25:15):
smart films, and no doubt there's themes you know in
these films, and but there is ambiguity all through their films. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
I think what you do is, this is my guess.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
Anyway, you make a film and you have everything in
your head about what it's about, and you just don't
give everyone every bit of information. And I can't tell
you how relieved I am that the Coen Brothers don't
talk about their films. Because recently, Quentin Tarantino, it's been
on the campaign trail and a few podcasts I listened to.

(25:47):
He's been on talking about how he wrote a novelization
of What's Upon a Time in Hollywood, Yeah, which was
a movie that when I first saw it, I enjoyed
it while I was watching, and then I got out
of there. And I didn't know how I felt about it,
because Mum had been a big fan of Sharon Tate
and so I'd known that story about her for like
forty years, and I didn't know how I felt about

(26:10):
where it ended up and what it said about her.
And it took me a few days to think about it,
and then I kind of came to the conclusion. I know,
I think it's a work of genius because it's the
first time I've thought of Sharon Tate as an actress
and not a murder victim, and I think that is
a great thing to, you know, bestow upon someone who
has filled in a part of pop culture for terrible reasons.

(26:33):
But he's been talking recently, and he's just been pointing
out what some scenes actually mean, like the fight with
Bruce Lee, which I always saw as Brad Pitt's character
being an unreliable narrator and remembering something how he wanted
it to be. But Tarantino's come out and said no, no, no,
like in the context of the movie that actually happened,

(26:55):
and it's like you just kind of chat on your
own movie, like don't why are you telling me? Like
you shot it in a way for me to make
up my own mind, and now you're telling me my
mind was wrong, and I don't like this decision.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
Boo shitting on his own movie. Perhaps it also shitting
on the legacy and memory of you know, Bruce Lee,
which you know, I think he's I think he's been
forced to discuss this a little bit recently because Shannon Lee,
Bruce's daughter with discusses a bit on the show recently,
has come out and said, yeah, not not cool. It's
not cool.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
And you know, he's saying, oh, I did all this
research and all these people said these things, and it's
like everyone's come out, so no, like what's he talking about?

Speaker 1 (27:35):
You know?

Speaker 2 (27:35):
So anyway, but.

Speaker 3 (27:37):
So I love that the Coen Brothers don't come out
of nowhere and say, now, let us explain the Big
Lebowski and I'll be like a l l l l
l L la la la, No, don't ruin it.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
It's all good. I'm fine.

Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah. David Lynch is somebody who I I'm not an
aficionado on David Lynch by any stretch of imagination. I
do remember seeing Whilst Highway in cinemas and really enjoying it,
and I think I've watched it since, so I would
even struggle to recall the plot line, to be honest,

(28:08):
of this David Lynch film, outside of David Arkettes in it,
is that right, Patricia Arquette, Patricia Arquette, Okay, one of
the art kids in there some ready. I can see
David Arkette in it. But Patricia Arquette is in it.
And Bill Pullman, Bill Pullman, that's it. I was actually, yes, yes, yes,
what's it about?

Speaker 3 (28:27):
So it came out in sort of like the mid
to late nineties and wasn't a big hit at all,
but it was. It kind of emotionally predicts the twenty
first century, and it's a bit of a horror movie,
but in a very David Lynch way. So essentially, Bill
Pullman's character is a saxophonist and he plays at night,

(28:50):
and then he and his wife, who's played by Patricia Arquette,
start getting delivered these video cassettes, and the video cassettes
when they put them on and watch them, it's them
being filmed at night. And then eventually a few strange
things happen, and then at some point his wife is

(29:11):
murdered and he's taken away as the suspect, even though
he claims he didn't do it, and then while he's
in jail, he becomes a completely different person, a young
man who then goes back to his life, and it
is that's essentially what the movie is about, and it's
there's nothing spelled out for you. There is nothing that

(29:33):
is pointed to at any point that you can say, ah,
did you see that scene where they pointed to that
and that told you everything. There's nothing like that at all.
And one of the things I love in storytelling is
a circular shape, and there's a circular shape to this film,
which is what to me spells out the horror of it.

(29:54):
And it is, you know, it's funny in points, like
a David Lynch film, but you know, a good horror
film does make your life. Sometimes it's not jump scares.
It's an emotional horror of being disassociated from your life
and the trouble that can get you into. And I
come back to it all the time. I think it's
a I think it's a masterpiece. But once again, I

(30:14):
could imagine some people watching it and going geez, this
is taking a while, and wow, I got to the end,
and I really have no idea what happened? But I
think it's a I think it's an immersive film and
if you kind of give yourself over to.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
It, watch it in the dark, don't you know?

Speaker 3 (30:29):
As we hear inteny, i't try to understand it, just
feel it and you will be taken on a real journey.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah. And I think if I hadn't have seen it
in the cinema, I may have you know, I may
have drifted off and gotten distracted by various things around me.
And I think you're asolutely right. I should revisit it, actually,
because I remember really enjoying it at the time. We're
going to take a break and then we're going to
come back, and I want to know what you actually
thought of William A. Freakin's nineteen seventy one classic The

(30:58):
French Connection. All right, we're back with Justin Hammer and Hammo.
I need to know what what do you? What are
your thought? We did we did? You know? We share
some thoughts earlier. But did you like it? Oh?

Speaker 3 (31:13):
I loved it like I loved it and I was riveted.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
And you know, I think I mentioned this earlier.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
It's it's strangely modern, like the way the camera moves
and the way it depicts people. It's i'll tell you
what it's confronting as well, because especially watching it in
the modern day, I don't think you were ever meant
to like the character of Popeye, but even more so
now with how we know, you know, some aspects of

(31:42):
American police force work. You're sitting there going, oh, the
casual racism, the.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Just the the first scene where one of the first
scenes where they're basically, you know, they're dressed up as
Santa and then they they're beating up a you know,
African American kid, you know, or you know, a young adults.
It's really it is really hard to watch. And most
of the black characters, you know ari that yeah, you know,

(32:12):
criminals or you know, drug users, you know, a problematic
you know. So, yeah, that is you know, yeah, that
is tough to watch in twenty twenty one. You know,
I'm not sure how it felt in nineteen seventy one.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
Yeah, I don't. Yeah, that's a really good question. Actually,
I wonder how it did feel in nineteen seventy one.
You know, it's an R rated film, so I don't
think it's meant to be consumed by the masses.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
It's definitely a grown up movie. I think it's probably.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Depicts the world that those characters live in perfectly, and
I think that's what in the end, watching it with
that context in mind is what made the film not
feel exploitive. It was it was, Okay, well, this is
their world. It's not a world that I particularly like.
It's not a world that I would particularly want to visit,
but I understand that's the world that they're in. But

(33:03):
it's a hell of a performance by both of them.
Gene Hackman, his intensity all the way through it is great.
And I'm also curious to know if you thought that
there were times where Roy Scheider is actually laughing as
Roy Scheider, because you know, when Gene Hackman's on a
roll trying to get information, there's a couple of shots

(33:24):
where you see Roy Schider walking off laughing, and I
honestly feel like that was him kind of breaking character,
but still somehow being in character because Popeye is so
ridiculous and being over the top.

Speaker 1 (33:38):
I love that. I hope you're right. I'm gonna have
to go back and watch it again. I certainly think
Roy Schider is the his character is the more passive
of the two. I think if you say one criticism
of the yeah, you've got Popeye Doyle, who's, you know,
a fascinating character, and Roy Schider is kind of a

(33:59):
long for the ride.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
Yeah, well you kind of get flashes of his character
in that. Once again, you don't really spend as much
time with him, but you do pick up he's incredibly loyal,
but he doesn't.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
The reason he gets along.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
With Popeye's he'll put up with his shit to a
certain extent, but then there'll be moments when he pushes
back and will sort of, you know, slap him around
a little bit to get him back on track. But then,
you know, especially in that phenomenal scene, once again, describing
it will sound strange that it's riveting, but when they're
pulling the car apart looking for the drugs, and and

(34:35):
that scene goes forever, and the longer.

Speaker 2 (34:39):
It goes, you're like, this has been a terrible mistake.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
And we've seen them most too, so it's quite on
the cards that they have fucked this up absolutely, And I.

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Think it's it's it's it's set up from the very
opening that this is a film it's going to take
its time, you know, and I it's alike on this
podcast chatting about how a movie starts, you know, what
it sets up, And I think, what what this movie
sets up? What freaking's trying to do? You have the

(35:10):
the French guy who we we don't know who this
guy is. We suspect he's on the lookout. He's kind
of doing his own little stakeout. He's kind of hiding
behind corners. He's he's spying on some people. And then
we just follow him like, you know, he's eating eating
a baget or something, and then he has a baguett
and then and then and then he just walks through

(35:32):
the streets of Massailles, and we're following and we think, okay,
this guy's, you know, one of the players of this
this film, and and then he just gets shot in
the head, to the point where I was like, when
the gun came up, I'm like, they're not going to
shoot him because he's like, he's a guy, he's a
person of interest, obviously, because it's spent two minutes, you know,

(35:54):
walking the streets to Massaiah within and but no, he
gets shot in the head and blood split on the walls,
very red. The blood is very red in this film,
it's I think I think it might have had some
had some filtering in post go on, there some grading,
but and then the lovely touch of the killer basically

(36:17):
taking a little bit of breadstick and theget and it
was a lovely touch.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
It is. I'm so glad you brought that up.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
That was one of my notes that I wrote down
because it made me laugh so much, because you've just
seen this poor guy get shot in the face. And
not only does the guy go and take the beget,
but he only takes some of it, Like he just
takes it.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
The whole fucking beget. Mate, He's paid for it.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
Well, unless unless the rest of the beget had some
blood on it, because there was a lot of there
was a lot of splatter. I would have loved to
have seen that actually, just like brushing a little bit
of blood off the beget before before reading it. I
must I think I thought of you when I when
that happened, because I thought, I reckon, Hammo is gonna
be chuckling at that?

Speaker 2 (36:58):
Yeah, No, you know, well, I just it is.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
It's such a perfect little kind of touch to add
to a film, isn't it That? It just what's over
I'll just take a little bit, keeps walking, and that's
the end of that guy's story.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
And then it's juxtaposed beautifully. Yeah, you got the basically
the south of France and the year on the the
rivery era, I guess, and the house of the criminal,
you know, our mastermind criminal kind of lives and then
he's going to be the villain for the film. And
and then you go to Brooklyn and you you see
Hackman and Scheider on you know, it's interesting because you

(37:34):
have the they said the bad guy, they said, the killer.
You know, he kills somebody, you know, okay, he's the killer.
And you have the cops you know, on a on
a steakout if you're like, and and the resting criminals,
you know, so everyone's clearly defined very early on in
this film. So Hackman is dressed up as Santa, which
I guess tells you that you know, he's you know,

(37:56):
he's not he's prepared to do he thinks outside the square, Yeah,
this guy, which is a nice, nice touch. And them
we lead into the scene which is you know it
is it is a tough watch. And they dragged him
into the alleyway and they had this conversation with him,
and I mentioned this, I asked you this, it's worth
having a little chat about this is this is the
scene where they are really playing the good cop back

(38:21):
with the the young man they they've dragged away. And
there's a week question that that Gene Hackman's popeye keeps
asking what the sweet I n what's saying? The stret
he lives on?

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Hey ship ed was like playing pick your feet?

Speaker 3 (38:39):
What's he talking about?

Speaker 2 (38:41):
I've got a man of Phokeepsie want to talk to you.

Speaker 4 (38:42):
Have you ever been for huh?

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Have you ever been for Keepsie? At here? You said?
Come on, have you ever been for Keepsie? You better Forughkeepsie?
Haven't you?

Speaker 2 (38:53):
I want to hear it? Come on, yes, have you
been there?

Speaker 5 (38:55):
Right?

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (38:56):
You sat on the edge of the back, didn't you?

Speaker 1 (38:57):
Can you have your shoes?

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Put your finger between I was to.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Pick your feet, don't you?

Speaker 2 (39:01):
That's all right?

Speaker 1 (39:03):
You want to see on my fight?

Speaker 2 (39:04):
You know what that means?

Speaker 1 (39:05):
God damn it?

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Oh what wrong? I got? Let's grape and balis bowling scores.

Speaker 3 (39:10):
Now I'm gonna fust your out for those three bags
and I'm gonna nail your.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
I mean, it's it's strange, like it's so the story
behind it is so the two the two. So this
is based on a book. The book was touch boring,
so we in frequent wasn't particularly interested in adapting it.
But then he actually met two of the guys who did.

(39:36):
Was he we were involved with this big kind of
drug busts uh and and they cops names were it
was Grasso and and Eden I think their names were.
And they he hung out with them and thought, oh,
you guys are really interesting and would follow him around
on bus and and like go, wow, okay, maybe I
could take that story, but add a whole lot of

(39:56):
you know, add a car chase, and add you know,
some set pieces and and some fun stuff and and
apparently they had dressed up as Santa Claus as you know,
to bust people. They yeah, you know, Popeye would would
ring the bell twice to alert the police to come
and arrest somebody. But apparently one of the tactics was

(40:17):
that Popeye would often ask somebody, did you did you
say did you pick your feet in Poor Keepsi in
a way to throw to confuse the guys, they're kind
of who are they're interrogating? So and then when so
when his partner comes in and asks the question that
they actually want to ask, he's kind of almost relieved
that he can actually answer this question because he knows

(40:38):
what they're talking about. So it is that kind of
a tactic. So I've used it here, But for me,
I must say, it kind of just confused me because
I was going, what, like, you're trying to work out
early on in the movie, and again I'm trying to
let it wash over me, but I am kind of thinking, okay,
You're still trying to follow it, and I'm thinking, what, okay,
so there's something that happening in Poughkeepsi. Okay, I'll keep
that in mind, Pokeepsi. And then it doesn't. It does

(41:00):
not come up again.

Speaker 3 (41:02):
Well, it comes up very briefly, and so I was
like you, I was like, what is going on here?

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Do I need to remember about this?

Speaker 3 (41:08):
And then the I figured it must have been a
tactic to make someone feel disorientated, but I didn't I
didn't know if there was a specificity to that term.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
And the only reason I sort of thought it must be.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
So that's one of the scenes where Roy Scheider starts laughing,
and so he turns away at one point and he's
got the giggles, So I'm thinking, Okay, well, there's there's
something going on there. And then later on one of
the other cops says to Popeye, he are you still
picking your feet and Poughkeepsie, you know, and he kind
of right. So I was like, oh, is he known

(41:44):
for this? So I didn't know if there was a
specific thing to it or is it essentially just absurdism
and you and by keep asking a question that they
have that he bullies them into saying yes. So then
when they do ask the right question, it would just
be easier for them to be honest because they've already
been bamboozled so much.

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Is that that's essentially.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
I think that's absolutely correct. Yeah, And then they they
shot that. They went to shoot out I think on
the first day, and Gene Hackman was quite uncomfortable, you know,
with the racist elements. So even he I guess to
go back to what we're talking about before, had this
felt in nineteen seventy one, the fact that Gene Hackman
was uncomfortable with it? Yeah, and he I think those

(42:27):
shooting is on the first day and he wasn't that
he wasn't really committing to it, and and I think
part of it was his discomfort with, you know, bailing
up this African African American kid, but also he thought
that him and Scheider hadn't kind of gotten into their
kind of natural rhythms of you know, of the good
cop back up kind of roll. And he ends up

(42:50):
quitting on the on the second day and freaking was
was kind of harsh. We try to make him kind
of angry to kind of you know, stir him up.
We've spoken about this on on this podcast before. This
idea that directors will and hopefully it's an outdated method,
the idea that you need to get under the skin
or to agitate your actor. If you hire the right person,

(43:12):
surely you don't need to do those kinds. I think
Kubrick was famous for it, and then Shelley Devall and
the shining Yeah is famous or infamous. So and then
they he came back, his's manager committing you to come back,
and he eventually got into the role. And then they

(43:35):
went back on the last day, I think, and shot
this role, shot this scene again and it was you
know what we see on the on the screen now.

Speaker 2 (43:42):
Yeah, manipulating actors.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
There's something kind of you know, it's bullying in many ways,
and you've seen it with.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
That that that Kubrick story is awful.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
There's the that awful story about Dustin Hoffman really slapping
Meryl Streep and Kramer versus Kramer like and you know
she wasn't expecting. On the plot side, Edward Norton punching
Brad Pitt in the year after Fincher told him to
do it. So then you get that reaction of ah,
my ear like that reaction.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
But you know that feels that feels different.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
You're you're making a movie called Fight Club with David Fincher,
guess what he's probably going to do at some point.
But these other films, it's like, you know, acting is pretendsies.
Just you know, like I'm not downplaying it. It's a
it's a wonderful skill, but it is pretensies. And I
don't know if you have to psychologically damage someone to
get a performance.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
I just think it comes down to when you when
you hire your actor, hire the actor that you know
can get to that point that you need that you
need them to be yeah, you know.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
And it's amazing that he wanted to quit because he
wins Best Actor in nineteen seventy one for this performance.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yeah, this one. It's one of a couple of a
couple of oscars. There's talk that there's a lot of
improvis going on. There's been quite a bit of debate
because a screenwriter said, and he won for Best Screenplay
and has kind of said, no, there wasn't as much
as you think. I do get a little bit, I
don't know, uneasy when actors overstate the amount of improv

(45:13):
that was done, because I think sometimes sometimes I think
they're referring to even the improv of their own performance
of you know, like the way they might move your acting.
There's improv in every acting performance because you are you know,
not everything is on the page. The way you move,
you know, the way you move your hands, you know,
the way you move, you know, throughout a scene. I

(45:37):
think when you talk about improval, I think people just
go to dialogue, and I think it is more than that.
And I feel for screenwriters. The first time I really
felt uncomfortable with hearing Vince Vaughan talking about how much
they they improvised in Wedding Crashes with Owen Wilson and
I just kind of thought, you know, there's somebody who
wrote that, and I reckon theyrobably wrote ninety percent of

(46:02):
what we see in your improvise. And I always think,
and I quite like Vince Vaughn, but I think it's
very visible when Vince Vaughan is improvising, yeah, because it
feels like, oh, that's a bit they could have shortened. Yeah,
that's a bit, that's a bit that's a bit self indulgent. Yeah,
and yeah, I just get a little bit uneasy when
when when actors talk about how much they were improvising.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
No, I totally agree, And I think it's there's been
kind of a movement that is not dissimilar to maybe
I don't know, it's hard. I don't know anything about
time anymore since Lockdown. It's till twenty twenty one, isn't it.
But I feel like about twelve fifteen years ago there
was a movement in the Australian comedy scene where it

(46:47):
was like he's doing a routine, he's prepared, and it
was you know, no, I just improvised my material. And
it's like, well, I can tell like there's improvisation in
the material that you prepare because every performance is different
and every audience has a different reaction to different parts,
so you're even if it is a pre prepared routine,

(47:09):
you are still improvising within it because sometimes you'll also
find new jokes, so you're always doing that and getting
back to your Vince Fawn point. Often you could tell
the comedians who were getting up, who were going, I'm
not going to do a routine. I'm just going to
take seven displit words I've never put in a sentence
before and keep going until I find it out, and
you sit there and go, fuck, that could have been trimmed.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
I completely agree. To get back to your point, you've
almost set it up as a theme for this episode,
which I love is the ambiguity of this, and I
do love that we don't we don't really know anything
about their past. We don't know how long these two, ma'am.
I've only seen it, you know, last night, so maybe
I've missed it. But we don't know how long these

(47:52):
guys have ever been partners for, you know, are there
we assume there's no there's no partners involved in wives Popeyes.
You know he's you know, he's got a few little ladies.
He sleeps within the film, so we suspect there's no
wife or a significant other, and we don't see anything
from Shiders. But and I like that this is a

(48:13):
movie about two corps trying to bring down a drug ring.
The stuff we don't need. We don't need to, you know,
we don't need to know their emotional wounds, really like,
even though sometimes that can be very important in the film,
you know, but understanding when it's needed and when it's not.
And I think it's not needed in this film, and
it doesn't suffer for it.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
Yeah, you feel like they I totally agree, And I
feel like they've been together for a while. I think
you kind of get that impression with the way they
talk to each other.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
I think you get that in the way, as we.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Discussed before about the way Shido Back's Popeye, we get
little bits and pieces from the other cops. He's obviously
had hunters where he's been right on the money, and
it looks like he's had hunches where he has been
way off.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
And he's also so.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
One of his hunters has led to the death of
another cop at some point, and he seems to be
either just completely ignoring it or maybe that's why he's
an alcoholic. Maybe part of his genius is that, you know,
he can't control it, and he dampens it by you know,
running himself into the ground. And part of what makes

(49:22):
this movie so fascinating is, you know, you talked about
that opening where you go, oh, this must be one
of our main characters.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
Up, mister Burgett. He's gone. And then suddenly we're following.

Speaker 3 (49:31):
These two cops and these two worlds intertwine by chance
because they go to the club and then they look
over and they see someone that you know, Popeye's brilliance
genius gets a hunch on that is correct, that leads
to something much bigger, and it's yeah, it's fascinating the

(49:51):
way it kind of plays out that way.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Yeah, I do love that these two almost I guess,
you know, I'm the sure if beat cops is the
right word. Yeah, they're cops that aren't you suspect you know,
if you've seen the other guys, they're not quite the
other guys where they're being they're coping ship back at
the station because but you know, they're not they're not
receiving medals and they're not you know, but and they

(50:14):
they run their own they run their own race in
a way. But you're right, they've had some failures and
some tragedies and disasters. They're not the cops at the
das putting out in front of the the press and saying,
you know, these are these are our finest.

Speaker 3 (50:31):
Oh yeah, And I don't want to get to the
ending just yet, but just to keep in mind when
we do get there, I think the very final title
card also informs us of.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
Their history, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (50:45):
So okay, with the denouement, I think they kind of
sets in stone the type of guys we've been watching
for the whole movie.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
Okay, we'll put that. We'll come back to a little
placeholder there.

Speaker 5 (50:59):
Forward.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Anything from commercial radio.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
Now he's some smash mouth so Roy Scheider, they've got
him cloudy. I think in this I think in one
of the in the IMBD he's referred to as Buddy Russo.
So we've got we're him his Cloudy and from here

(51:24):
on in so Cloudy goes back to Popeye's house or apartment,
and it's I think deliver very much deliberately. It's it's
almost like a prison set up. It's quite a depressing place.
To live and he's just ridden past that, the girl
on the bike, and you know, even and then these
days twenty twenty one, I'm not sure what I felt

(51:44):
like fifty years ago, ninety seventy one, but it's a
bit like, eh and thank god, thank god. In a way,
he was the one chained up, handcuffed in that bed,
and the woman was safe in between, powered, you know,
in the other room.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:58):
Look, we don't spend a lot of time with her,
so I'm not going to say that she wasn't empowered.
But yes, thank goodness, he was the one with the handcuffs,
him to the bear.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
But just that whole setup.

Speaker 3 (52:09):
As soon as soon as the door opens and the
pushbike has kind of leaned up against the door, it's
a bummer, Like you already have an idea that this
guy things aren't great for him, and then you get
to his house and you go, oh, I underestimated how
shitty's life. Yes, and it feels like it's his fault

(52:29):
as well, do you know what I mean? Like you
feel like his life is this way because of the
way he conducts himself and he can't conduct himself any
other way.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Yeah, And I like the fact that they're not. They
didn't whether this was a trope already or they just
ignored it or it became a trip later on. But
he's not. He's not a divorce divorcee who's you know,
been left with nothing and this is what he's been
left with. It's like, no, this is this is all
him is all he's doing. Yeah. And also you know

(52:59):
the fact that I imagine New York cops of that
ELK weren't you know, this is probably not you know,
they were making a lot of money, you know, so
which you know, we led to a lot of the corruption.
I also, when I was watching this was thinking about
the time it was made nineteen seventy one and surveillance
being a reasonably like that technology those great scenes where

(53:22):
they're listening in you know, I'm sure they were wires beforehand.
And the idea of bugging a place, I think it
even comes up, well it comes from the Godfather, but
the Godfather is after this, But I wonder how exciting
that felt for audiences like to see, like how and

(53:43):
I've had more time on maybe you know, do a
bit more research as far as films that kind of
looked at surveillance, But I imagine it felt reasonably kind of schmick.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Yeah, and yeah, that would have felt ahead of the time.
You know, it's funny because now you know it's a
called this. I have to take the tape off my
camera on my computer because that's just what you do,
like it is, you know, Oh yeah, everything's listening to me.
Oh hang on, let me just have a conversation about
the French connection. Hang on, I'll just go on Instagram.

(54:14):
Oh look, there's a site that was to send me
the box set, Like, how did that happen? You know,
But the idea of them listening in I feel like
it would have been people who are super nerdy and
up to date with surveillance techniques and people who are
into conspiracy theories. The government's listening to you man, you know,

(54:35):
it would have been that kind of thing. And here
they are. Not only are they doing it, but geez
it looks really boring.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Yeah. One of my favorite, one of my favorite scenes
is and because we mentioned this, you mentioned the scientific
shut a bit. A bit more about it later. The
lack of dialogue. There's long stretches where there's no dialogue,
but there's a I think there's a scene where it's
I think the best dialogue perhaps in the film is
when they're they're having the heroin measured or tested to

(55:06):
see how pier it is, and there's a lovely dialogue
that comes from the man doing it. Let's have a listen.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
Plas stuff one eight zero two hundred Good Housekeeping Seale
of Approval to ten US Governments Certified two twenty Lunar

(55:34):
Trajectory Junk of the Month club Sirloin Steak two thirty
Create a Poison, Absolute Dynamite.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
Junk of the Month, club Sirloin Steak. It's a one.
It's the one time where somebody's allowed to have this
kind of almost clean, patient kind of you know dialogue
that's actually it's got a bit of swagger about it, really,
like it's the rest of it's so real and so like,
you know, in the moment and heated that this is

(56:10):
like quiet a moment. This guy is completely relaxed about it,
you know, and is in his element.

Speaker 5 (56:16):
Oh mate, he's a beat poet the way he's and
you know, it is one of the things that I
enjoy with watching specifically older movies as well, is thinking, oh,
would you like to see this as a TV show.

Speaker 3 (56:32):
Now, I think this is perfect as a movie, but
if they made this as a TV show, I'm giving
that character.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
An ARC because I want to keep.

Speaker 3 (56:41):
Just testing junk all over town, just being really cool,
and I don't really want to give him any come uppance. Like,
I know he's not a good dude, but I'm happy
to keep following him. He's kind of amusing, I've got
to say, one of the most refreshing aspects.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
Of this film.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
And he is a example of this. He doesn't have
cap teeth. He just has normal teeth. There's a little
crack there, you know, it's like just kind of have
normal mouths and people kind of you know, everyone looks
like it's a sea of Caucasian men and they all

(57:18):
look different, and it's quite it's quite satisfying.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
Some are a bit pudgy, some are a bit round.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
You know, Roy Scheider's got this this rugged handsomeness that
you just do not see in actors in any way anymore.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
You know.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
Now actors are and this is not you know, having
a go, but now they you know, they have chemical
pills and they look after their faces and all that
kind of stuff that Roy Scheider looks like I just
spent sixteen hours in the sun smoking, and I.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
Feel and Gene Hackman running is just like here's forty
one when he made this, and and yeah, I love
that He's not yeah, is not Vin Diesel, you know,
chasing somebody down. He's fucking struggling. The only the only
way they catch that that kid at the start is
because he thought he falls over, you know, and every

(58:11):
when he jumps, he jumps the rail. At one point
it looks like he came so close to not making that,
not clearing that rail.

Speaker 3 (58:18):
I reckon if he had not cleared it, I have
a feeling that would have been in the movie because
he would have just going and they just would have
they would have just left the realism of it, because
you know, they left the realism of everything that happened
with the car. So Geene Hackman face planting would have
become a part of the story.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
I would have loved to have seen that and the realism.
How's this for nineteen seventy seventies Hollywood filmmaking New Hollywood?
And that scene that we'd just listened to where they're
measuring the heroin it was real heroin?

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Oh you serious? It's a Heroin.

Speaker 3 (58:49):
All right, we'll get some it's real because you know
what the best part of that is. I guess they
had to claim it on tax movie king product.

Speaker 1 (59:03):
They I don't know, and I imagine, imagine not every
time you see the Heroin, it's it's it's real. But
in that instance when they measured it so that small
amount where they may put whatever they put in there,
and to do it all they wanted to make it
as real as possible. And yeah, real Heroin. So maybe

(59:27):
that guy of a rat party.

Speaker 3 (59:29):
Yeah, started off really exciting and then everyone just kind
of sat around and listened to.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
The Let's talk about the train. You refer to it
earlier on it is it's one of my favorite scenes
of the film. It it. I think you said something
like it has no right being that that intriguing it
is so it is so beautiful, you know, choreographed and
and and performed.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Oh and the fact that I think what's fascinating about it.
I don't know if you read it the same way,
but at first I can't tell if the tail knows
that he's being tailed. So that's part of the intrigue.
Is is he aware or is he not aware? And
is he kind of messing with Popeye or is he
uncertain that Popeye is there and trying to trick him.

(01:00:20):
And then there's just a point where you sit there
and you go, nah, he knows, he knows, and he's
messing with Popeye. And then you can see it dawn
on Hackman's face where he's like, I think he's onto me,
but now we're in this dance and I have to
stick with it. And then he manages to trick him,
and it's like all pretenses off. It's just Hackman throwing

(01:00:43):
the hat on the ground, just shaking his fist. That
this cat and mouse game that became something completely different.

Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
Well that guy just won.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Yeah, yeah, I read it exactly the same way, and
it was It was just fascinating, even when when I
think the last time Hacking or Popeye gets off the
train and you have the French villain in the background
and you know he's gone back on, but we know
that Pope are still looking the wrong way, and it's

(01:01:13):
too late.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
You go to know, look the other way, the other
way around, and why are you still playing the game
of Oh yeah, I'm just casually stepping off for the
fifteenth time, and I don't want you to know that
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
And then that's how that's what I thought.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
I thought. I thought, surely at some point you're kind
of like you got to make a little bit of
eye contact and go, let's do this. Yeah, it's on.
The cat has found the mouse.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
It's so good.

Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
But once again, just describing that people would be thinking
walking on and off a train, how is that compelling?

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
But it is amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
And we've seen we've seen you know, that scene since then,
and I'm not sure you know if there's how many
cops chasing bad guys on trains or not even cops necessarily,
but you know how many scenes like that there were
predates this one, But this, I know, this feels like

(01:02:04):
it might have been one that has inspired many of
those scenes we see where bad guys are being chased
through trains and carriages and vice versa.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
Yeah, this feels like a really groundbreaking movie, like a
ground zero for a lot of where these types of
movies go in the future. And it's part of the
fun of watching these films, isn't it. And suddenly, oh,
I've seen that in you know, in the future down
the road. There's been movies over gone we're going to
do our version of that scene. And this is where

(01:02:37):
this scene kind of came together. And once again I
would saying, you know, as I said to you up top,
it it felt even though it takes its time, which
feels weird to us because we're so used to so
many cuts in films now, it also felt strangely, you know,
quite modern in the way it was shot and the
way music was used, and the sparsity of dialogue.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
I thought it was extraordinary. The more I think about.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
It, Well, it's we mentioned it shot, you know, documentary style.
It was a gorilla style because it's it's they didn't
get permits for anything. So so in that scene we
in frequent is basically whether it's him pushing it, the
dop or at least the cameraman. I'm sure the DP
shot that particular scene, or if he had cameraman you know,

(01:03:24):
taking his place, but he was basically pushed in a
wheelchair filming in a wheelchair. And there's a bit where
Pop Up Million where gets on the plane where the
camera starts you know, almost it rises and it shakes
a little bit. That's him literally getting off the wheelchair, yeah,
and following it. But using all the natural They used
all the natural light as far as that's what I
say light from you know, outside daylight. It's also lamps

(01:03:49):
and whatever was they shot handheld a small unit and
whatever light they had they made use. And if you
look at the way that, you know, that's why when
the camera comes up to the you don't see any
kind of reflection. Usually there might be a light even
on the camera to help out. There's none of that.
And even when they're at the kiosk they're having their

(01:04:11):
pop us having his toffy apple and the and the
Frenchman's having whatever he's having. You know, it's it's it
looks beautiful like it looks it looks it looks great
and and it's still using the lighting that's uh. And
it was the d I p owen Owen Roseman's first
first film, like first first feature film. So he goes

(01:04:32):
on to make the exous two years later with with
Freaking Again and uh and like I mentioned earlier, the
TOTSI network and he's a legend. But just yeah, that
that that sequence was just that's that's what I really decided.
This is this is this is great, This is this
is great.

Speaker 3 (01:04:51):
This is a masterpiece and the way that they just
kind of take their time with it. I had a
suspicion somewhere in the movie, maybe the verse third. I
kind of knew that the car chase didn't have any permits,
but they kind of hit in the back of my head.
I wonder if they really had any permits for anything.
And for a few scenes in public, and I had

(01:05:12):
to stop myself from doing this, but I started looking
at some of the other people in the shots, and
you can tell that it's there's no permits because there's
people going, oh, you know, kind of is that a
cameraman or oh is actually happened, you know, as they
wore parts kind of thing. So so I had to
stop myself for looking for that because it popped into

(01:05:32):
my head. Had a little look noticed it went, don't
watch the film. Don't be watching that bit there.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Yeah, that's that's where your second view. And but that's
that when I when I when I hear you films
where they haven't got permits and they're not extras, they're
real people, I always think, yeah, okay, but how how
they're not looking to the camera, Because if you're walking
down the stairs and there's a camera there, your eyes
drawn to the camera. I mean, yeah, you only have
to watch any news reporter doing a broadcast them outside

(01:06:01):
of a state of origin match to realize that, you know,
you know, that must be a flame when there's a
camera involved.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
I reckon on the street.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
Though for the most part it takes you a bit
by a surprise, and I think the majority of people
your gut instinct is I don't want to be in this, right,
you know, I don't know what this is like at
the state of origin or something like that. You're there,
you know, for sport, and you kind of will instinctively
put two and two together, which is they must be
reporting on the sport.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
I'm into sport. I'm on the camera. But I reckon
on the street.

Speaker 3 (01:06:30):
When you're just trying to go and you've got forty
five minutes for lunch and you just want to get
yourself a non bloody forget, and you see a camera,
you think, oh god, I don't need to be a
part of this, and you quickly cross the road.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're probably right. The pace certainly picks
up around this at this point. You get the train
and then you've got the assassination attempt on Popeye. I thought,
I when I seem started, and then there's the baby
in the pram right, and then the mum gets shot. Yeah,
and I was I was waiting for almost the you know,

(01:07:03):
one of my favorite movies, The Untouchable, is that they're
great scene with the pram in the in the central
station and and it's just such a brilliant Elliott nests
you know, and Andy Garcia save Yeah. Yeah, it's brilliant
and we'll definitely do that movie at one point. But

(01:07:24):
I was expecting, you know, yeah, go save the baby bye, like,
but again, I'm fine with the idea that they they didn't.
It's like that is often what we see where you give,
you know, a character who may be perceived as unlikable
a hero heroic moment the show. No, even though he

(01:07:47):
you know, he's racist and he does these things, let's
show him, you know, his moral code maybe shining through
a little bit of rising to the top because he's
you know, he's going to save that baby. And they
say that woman and get her to safety and then
but as none of that, he hides me on a tree.

Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
Yeah, and you know, it feels like it would have
been out of character to have that, like, that's not
this movie, isn't it. Like if he's suddenly crouching over
the woman and dragging her to safety and running out
to get the baby, you're suddenly thinking is this Popeye?

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Or is this maybe this is what Gene Hackman would do.

Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
But Popeye just you know, he wants to whoever's shooting
at him, He's going to get him. And it's and
once again, that's another thing that plays into the ending
as well. You know, we've already seen when we get
to the end and how that plays out. We've already
seen what happens when he gets shot at with an
innocent bystander being shot.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
He is single minded and this is probably.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
What works for him as a cop and also what
works against him.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Absolutely. I think the guy who is sent to kill him,
he says, basically, I'll take care of this in a
pretty cocky way, really fucked this up. Like like if
you if you're gonna say in your French, you know,
in your cocky French, you know with certain amount of assurance,

(01:09:14):
you know, I'll take care of this. Have a better plan, mate, Like,
surely there's a better way of going up on a
rooftop and try to take him out from there. I mean,
you know, I've seen I've seen hits in movies before,
and there's better. There's been better plans than this. He
shut the bed on this one.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
Well, I think he probably overthought it because he was
a cop, so we thought I'd better do this from
a distance. But I have a feeling that there would
have been there would have been a lot of cops
coming after him, but there would have been also a
lot of cops that went, oh, thank goodness, because that
guy is a pain in the ass and now I
don't have to deal with him anymore. So he probably
overthought how to do it. Also, like you know, like

(01:09:54):
you just walked up to someone in Massill. You know,
maybe maybe it was home called advantage in Massai, and
then from home, you just don't do things like the
normal way that you would do it. That's that's how
the conversation would have gone if he'd gotten back to
his boss. Why did you do that? You always just
walk up to them and shoot them. Sorry, I'm just
I'm not in my own bed.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
He didn't ever forget and then and then we're led.
So basically there's a chase, and it leads to this
amazing car chase which you alluded to before. No permits
are given, so assistant directors helped out, but also local
police helped out. Basically off duty police officers helped out

(01:10:41):
to kind of keep it reasonably safe for about five
blocks and then they're on there, so they shut They
kept shooting outside those five blocks and that's when they
were like they didn't have as much protection. We in
Freakent has said that is kind of amazed it was
done without anybody getting hurt or killed, which is you know,
concerning and obviously wouldn't happen anymore. But it's a stunning chase.

(01:11:05):
It's basically there's a camera on the front of the
of the of the car that they rigged up. There's
one at the back of Popeye for Popeye's point of view,
and then there's one looking back at Popeye. So it
just looks you know, you're right there, you feel, you
feel really fucking close to it, you feel in it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:23):
Oh yeah, it feels real, and because even the little
accidents that happen in it are weighted in reality, like
you know when you see you know, I've seen some
great car chases in movies. But often when you know
someone gets hit or whatever, there is a moment where
you just this little part of your brain that thinks

(01:11:44):
they're not walking out of that, how are they walking
out of that?

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
That is they have been wiped out.

Speaker 3 (01:11:49):
I'm pretty certain a seat belt wouldn't have made that
much difference. Always wear a seatbelt, kids, But I don't
think in that hit in particular, they're getting out of
it and now able to run after someone. But every
accident in this there's so many near misses, and the
accidents that do happen are you know, just kind of

(01:12:10):
scraping alongside another car or just you know, it feels real,
which then adds to the esthetic, which makes you just
feel so anxious as well, especially because we know that
the train isn't going to stop, so you think, oh, no,
he needs to keep driving, Like I was hoping he
was going to get to the next station and get out.

(01:12:30):
But he's trying to keep an eye up and it's
it's amazing, Like it's one of the what top three
car chases in any movie. It's that bullet, The chasing
Bullet's still my favorite.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
Yeah, well, bullet Bullet was an inspiration for this. In fact,
we frequent said that he wanted to you know, that
was that was the blueprint and he wanted to try
to outdo that. But let's say a bullet the French
connection Blues Brothers, you know, and I mean one, I
think they have a great car chase, but sometimes it's
it's it's also what else is going on and the

(01:13:04):
fact that this is happening underneath the train line, you know,
where he's looking up and you can kind of see
the train and like you said, we know that, you know,
it's not stopping at the next one is so it's
it's it's so good.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
Story going on on the train as well, so you know.

Speaker 3 (01:13:22):
Exactly, Yeah, the car chase, it's this guy that he's
chasing people suddenly realizing this dude is not right and
him going to the front of the train. The poor
conductor ends up having a heart attack of some sort.
Like there's just so much going on up there. And
then when you cut back to then it's the thrilling,

(01:13:42):
visceral car chase, and there's a lot happening in that
that overall scene.

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
And that train conductor is a real train conductor. They
could they weren't allowed to have anybody else. Actually, they
couldn't have an actor because he actually he had to
stop the train, you know, at some point. So so
he was actually real, a real, a real train conductor.
And the guy who gets shot also it was a
real I'm not sure what they call that role, but

(01:14:09):
he was. He was like a he belonged to the
Actors Guild, and so he got that that that part
good on him. And then they and then we get
to the point where they get the car and they
take it apart, and it's it's it's so it's so good,
like they are really they are really taking that car apart.

(01:14:30):
I mean it's you know.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
Even the lead up to it, of them on the
stakeout and watching the car that goes around the block
three times, and eventually when they start, that car stops
and starts breaking into it, and then all the cops descend.
And I don't know about you, but I was sitting
there going, I reckon, these are just punks who have
seen a car and they're just coming back two more
times to check it out before they steal it. And

(01:14:52):
then it turns out that the cops have made a
terrible mistake. They've jumped the wrong people. So I think
that adds to the anxiety when they're pulling it apart,
because it's like, are you sure, Like I've already seen
you make a mistake, and now you're pulling this car apart,
and you're desperate to find these drugs and you are
pulling everything apart like and it's quite like. I'm not like,

(01:15:16):
I don't have a car, I've never driven a car.
I'm not mechanically minded or anything. But I found it
mesmerizing watching them just pulling it apart bit by bit.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
So did I I completely agree. And as much as
they take it apart, boy, they put it back together nicely,
don't they. I Mean, they come for the car, and
we suspect that they're not going to get the car
because the car's fucking total. It's been literally pulled apart.
They found the drugs in there eventually, and I was

(01:15:50):
at the point where I was like, well, I can't
imagine where the drugs would be now, so it's a
dead end. But they do, they do find them, and
then when they're told that your car is ready, I
was kind of half expecting then the kind of like
they're playing a bit of a joke on them, like, yeah,
your car's ready, and here it is and it's completely
it's totaled, and it's like, well, you're arrested or you know,

(01:16:13):
whatever it might be. But no, it's like that the
car is usually put back together. They's done a sterling job.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
I was gobsmacked. I thought exactly the same thing.

Speaker 3 (01:16:23):
I honestly thought it was going to end with them saying, eh, like,
what have you done to our car? It's like you're nicked,
But instead it comes out brand new, and I was like,
holy shit, like how did Wow? Those guys really deserve
my respect. They've done a great job, which.

Speaker 1 (01:16:39):
Again these days you would go, well, hang on that,
they haven't that. That's going to take longer. That's going
to take a week to surely do that, you know,
And you know, I don't know if there's any panel
beaters listening Yasney Podcasts at gmail dot com, let us
know how long it would take to put that car
back together. But I'm assumed it's not twenty minutes or

(01:17:01):
whatever it might. It might have been an hour or something.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
Who knows how long they've been pulling it apart before
the guys come in but we do know that once
those guys get there, they've been there four hours. So
depending on like you know, are we are we meant
to be thinking that they're still pulling it apart while
they're there, or maybe we're seeing them pulling it apart
and then they come in and that's actually when they've

(01:17:26):
started putting it back together.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
Yeah, for some reason, my mind was telling me and
I might be wrong, but they were still pulling it
apart while though they were in the office, So I
might be wrong. But it's a remarkable, a remarkable effort.
But again, a's surprise you. But it doesn't. It doesn't,
It doesn't impact anything like you know, I think now
it we'll be like, oh, come on, it's but I
think you know, I think you set up your own

(01:17:50):
culture in a film, and this is you know, if
you're not worried about too much backstory, you know, for
hearing you know, and then you know you forgive films
because they've set up there are the rules. This is
the universe we're living in, and this happened to deal
with it. So we are moving on with it. We
are moving on, whether you're with or you're not.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
So is it is it possibly just another car that
looks like that, that they've put the price back on
the front because there was a car in the Pound.
But I don't know if that's true either, because cars
back then there's there seem to be lots of cars
that look very different as opposed to now where you'd say, oh, yeah,
they just.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
Yeah a new one, Yeah they got it. They got
a Kiya in there, they Suzuki Swift. It seemed to
me that was a reasoning unique car, and if not
totally unique, it was maybe more European.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
Yeah. No, they put it back together for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
Yeah, I reckon we're supposed to believe that that they've
put it back together. There's a great they go across
the bridge, they're waiting for them. There's a great wave,
which is an image I've seen and he's often the
image used when you know, if you're reading an article
on the French connection, and it's that close up of
Popeye waving back to our to our villains. And then

(01:19:06):
we're at the warehouse and this is basically the end
of the film, and it's quite extraordinary. They go in
chasing the bad guys. They take one or two out,
but there's the main bad guy who's he's still in there,
and he well, we shoot, we shoot the other cop,
which is and you know, he shoot shooting him dead.

(01:19:28):
What's interesting about this is that guy, uh based on
a real cop. He's in the cinema watching watching, he
sees himself get killed on screen. He stands up and
yelled bullshit right, and then sues for ten million dollars

(01:19:49):
and then settles out of court for ten thousand or
something like that. But it's pretty amazing. It's pretty amazing,
and apparently the decided in the moment they kind of
like do that. They go it be wouldn't be good
to shoot that guy because he's been pain in the ass.
Let's shoot him, let's take him out. Wow, So give
the guy that happens, Yeah, if you've got an invite

(01:20:12):
him to the premiere, at least let him know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:14):
Yeah, or even give him a wait till you get
to the end, mate, because you don't absolutely you miss
out in the last three minutes. But I feel like
that is that's one of those things where in hindsight
we really get an idea of what kind of character
Popeye is that you know, it's the baby, it's thought

(01:20:37):
there's the woman with the baby being murdered, and he
just keeps going and he has he's obviously calls the
death of a cop before. And then this is the
guy that's been pointing that out and been riding his
ass because of what he's done in the past.

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
Which we don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:52):
Maybe this guy riding him is completely deserved.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):
But he does not bat an eyelid. He just you know,
he threeloads his gun.

Speaker 1 (01:21:02):
And yeah, yeah, yeah you can if you look for it,
you can. You can probably read into it a bit
of like a Okay, that's something I might have to
deal with that, but I'm not going to deal with
it now. But it's quite extraordinary, and you touched on
it earlier with the baby in the pram. It's not
this character. Yeah, other characters would would maybe if they

(01:21:25):
made French connection in twenty twenty one, he would have
a pop up, would have a different reaction that in
that moment, or maybe he wouldn't be dead, but he
would just be shot in the shoulder or something, and
it's like, oh, sorry, buddy, And then he goes up
to chase the villain. What did and what did you
make of the soprano like ending of Popeye disappearing into
a back room in this warehouse and a single bullet

(01:21:47):
shot being so.

Speaker 3 (01:21:49):
Just briefly before I get to that, it makes sense
that he shoots that cop as well, because he nearly
shoots Roy Scheider, like he nearly takes out his mate
when he comes in as well.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
Is he's ready to shoot? Yeah, it's all done.

Speaker 3 (01:22:05):
I loved the ending, the ambiguity of the ending of
him going off into that room, and then you just
start getting these place cards, and the place cards telling you,
like the whole operation is not one hundred percent of success.
It's a mild success, but it's not enough of a

(01:22:28):
success because what we learn in the very final the
final panel of these guys get reassigned like they have
quite clearly been on the edge before this movie ever started.
They have been just keeping their jobs, just getting enough done,
and then when they don't completely and utterly nail this case,

(01:22:50):
that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
They're done.

Speaker 3 (01:22:52):
And there's a part of me so I know there's
a sequel, and I have no interest in the sequel
because I love this ending so much, and there's a
you know how they say, we don't know if this
Frenchman got away? But did Popeye shoot him and like
dump him in a river or something like that? You
know is or did he get away? Like the not

(01:23:16):
knowing is what makes it fascinating to me.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
The sequel and I haven't seen it. It kind of
it kind of it kind of ruins this ending for
me a little bit, you know, because I because I
know and maybe I should have read at least a
little bit of what the sequel is about. But I
know that that he got away, like because because a
sequel is is Popeye for some reason with that cloudy

(01:23:45):
going to France besides searching for our villain whose name
is Elaine Chenier, And that's what the sequel is about.
So what happened? Then? Somebody just fired off a shot
that didn't land? And is that? Is that a good

(01:24:07):
enough ending? Like I assume they're not doing this for
a sequel, for a sequel to exist. I assume that,
like they're not this. They wouldn't have known. This is
when William Freakan's first films. They wouldn't have known. This
is also very early Gene Hackman, and very early Gene
having his first big film, as was Roy Scheiter. So

(01:24:27):
it's not like these are stars and with the star director,
with you know, all this faith in this project, it's
going to be a franchise like this is this was
a you know, Hail Mary, and and so they're not saying,
I don't think they're setting up a sequel. So I
knowing that the sequel doesn't exist, I I I love
the ending, but because a sequel exists, I'll be like, well,

(01:24:51):
I don't know, Like and that's more in hindsight, because
in the moment I enjoyed it, Yeah, I must. I
was a bit confused though, and I because I didn't
love what I would have loved. I would have like
a gunshot and maybe cut to black for a few
seconds and then the place cards because I literally thought
there was something wrong with my my I was streaming
it on Disney.

Speaker 2 (01:25:13):
And on the Disney app.

Speaker 1 (01:25:16):
It's in a Pixar section. Surprisingly, it is on the
Disney app if you're looking for it, and I was like, Oh,
what's what's going on? Because it's just a freeze of
the close up of one of the actors and then
and then the title card comes the words come up.
I was, ah, that's the that's the ending. Because I
was fully ready. Okay, now it's the chase moment, and

(01:25:38):
I'm okay not to have that moment, but I was.
I just would have loved a little space of me
of allowing me to kind of comprehend, shit, did pop
I just get shot or did instead of like having
all this information about what happened to some of the
other characters. You know, there's a few seconds of me

(01:25:59):
having that in my head of like, what the fuck
just happened.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
It's funny. It's even the start of the film.

Speaker 3 (01:26:04):
It's a little bit like the film started and oh
it's ended, and it's it's like Freedkin just comes in
hard while the story's already got a bit of momentum
and finishes it where he desides he's going to finish it.
I wish I hadn't looked up what the sequel was
about either. I reckon, you're completely right, because I like,

(01:26:27):
there's four years difference between the person and the second,
and you know, there weren't really you know, you had.

Speaker 2 (01:26:34):
Bond, but there weren't really those types of movie franchises.

Speaker 3 (01:26:38):
Like I think it was a pretty big deal when
Godfather Part two was that's right, so and it didn't
do like I think it did all right, but it
it didn't do as well. And I think the thing
I read was Hackman saying, you know, four years difference
is too much. But also I just like, I really

(01:26:59):
loved the film and I just didn't have any urge
to see Popeye again.

Speaker 1 (01:27:04):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. And there was also a TV
series in eighty four with Ed O'Neil TV's Ted Bundy
and also obviously j for Modern Family as Popeye himself.
Before we go, here's some fun facts. I've weaved some
of these fun facts throughout the episode, but here is

(01:27:28):
someone did get to the straw hat that he puts
on the back dash of the car is taken from
That's a sign apparently in New York at the time
when undercover agents were on duty, so be assigned to
other police officers. So if that was the case, a
lot of police officers would think my parents were off

(01:27:49):
of police.

Speaker 3 (01:27:50):
Police officers somewhere He's not meant to they see the
straw hat. He's on the job, no worries inside and
getting some cake and coffee.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
Apparently one of the coldest New York winters on record
at the time of shooting. Was particularly it was bloody
freezing so or the movie it does you feel it,
don't you? Yeah? And they cut to eat it in
the grass. That were advisors we mentioned, and they also

(01:28:22):
went on to become they almost quit their jobs and
when on become technical advisors in various Hollywood films and
even appearing in some films. I think one of them
either maybe had a very small role in the Godfather
and at least advised on some of that as well.
So and also that the car chase they cut they

(01:28:43):
when they were cutting it in the editor room, they
cut it to a song by Santana. Oh yes, Black
Magic Woman. Yeah, yeah, it was a song I'm not
familiar with.

Speaker 2 (01:28:58):
I wonder if that's been used in another movie. I
do know that song. I feel like maybe it's.

Speaker 3 (01:29:07):
I don't know why, but as soon as I'd heard
about that, I suddenly thought of Carlito's way. That might
be incorrect, but it feels like something musically from that world.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
Apparently if you play that to the to the car chase,
very enjoyable experience.

Speaker 2 (01:29:26):
I'm told I am going to give that a crack.

Speaker 3 (01:29:28):
Actually, I am going to find that and I'm going
to give that a go because that sounds fascinating because
it does have a rhythm to it as well, like
has a very specific feel and rhythm as to how
it plays out. And it's just going to be like
the gritty version of Pink Floyd to Wizard of Oz.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
There's also I think what was the Space Odyssey? We
did that recently with Tony Armstrong and there's it was
that Pink Floyd again or was another Pink Floyd song
when they go through that start our gate there's a
particular Pink Floyd. So I imagine if you smoke the
ride drugs and listen to Pink Floyd and put onto
any movie, it'll you know, it'll it'll work. It's magic somehow.

Speaker 3 (01:30:10):
On Golden Pond put with Henry Fonder and Katherine Herbert
side of the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:30:17):
Yep, this is a little matter, mate. Always a pleasure
to hang out and it's good to talk movies in
microphones with you again after all these years. I know
this podcast comes with homework. I really appreciate it. I
did mention it in the intro your podcast The Big Squid,

(01:30:40):
which covers a lot of really deep diving pop cultural stuff,
and they did last time on The Watchmen and a
whole heap of stuff. So yeah, congratulations on that leads.
It's going gangbusters.

Speaker 2 (01:30:53):
Oh yeah, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:30:54):
Yeah, it's TV, movies, books, graphic novels, music, whatever people
are into.

Speaker 2 (01:31:00):
You know, we like to celebrate it. And it doesn't
mean it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:03):
We don't have criticism sometimes, but we try to come
at criticisms from a place of love rather than just
you know, shitting on things. Unless it's the movie Shape
of Water, then we're happy to.

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
I will defend the Shape. I'll watch the Shape of
Water reacter because Hughsey was going to do the Shape
of Water and then and then like I got home
one night, the night before we were recording, and and
like eleven thirty at night, and he gets it. He
leaves me a messag saying, ah, I couldn't download the
Shape of Water. Can we do? I've done Pretty in
Pink instead, So okay, you've done it, that have you? Okay,

(01:31:37):
I'm gonna watch Pretty in Pink now. But Shape we
can talk about the Shape Water another time. But mate,
thanks so much. You're you're a bloody legend. You're a
hell of a human being. And we'll speak against her.

Speaker 2 (01:31:51):
Yeah, that's great. Great to see your pink.

Speaker 1 (01:31:56):
There we go one an incredible talent Jean Hackman. Was
I really enjoyed that chat at the time with my
great mate Hammo. We'll be back next week. Back on course.
Apologies for those who are expecting the Josh Thompson Toy
Story two episode this week. That'll be rather about next week.
Of course you can see Josh on Win or Lose
on Disney It picks us first TV series, so that

(01:32:16):
is next week on You ain't say nothing yet, And
so we leave old Pete say fan salt and to
our friends of the radio audience, we've been a pleasant
good night.