June Hackmonth: Unforgiven (1992)

Brian and Cargill embark on their month long celebration of the legendary Gene Hackman. 

First up, the movie that reminded us that deserve's got nothing to do with it...and that there's a difference between an El Camino and a Gran Torino?

Anyone who doesn't listen and share this episode will be Unforgiven. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Up top.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
I do want to say a few words, if you'll
allow me my soapbox for just a moment. The other day,
we lost Jonathan Jos. Joss is a Native American actor
who has quietly been a part of my life for years.
I watched every episode of King of the Hill when
it first aired. He was the voice of John Redcorn.
I was a huge fan of his recurring character on
Parks and rec Ken Hutat, And on my birthday in

(00:23):
twenty sixteen, I saw the Magnificent Seven remake alone in
a theater. Loved it dearly, and through repeat viewings it
has become one of my all time favorite movies. And
it was on a very recent revisit, which I think
was already somewhere in the high teens of repeats, that
it finally dawned on me that the sinister Native assassin
Denali in that movie is in fact the same actor

(00:43):
who played Kenjutat and voiced John Redcorn. Now I say
we lost Jonathan Joss, but that spineless newspaper passiveness. Jonathan
Joss was murdered in a hate crime by the same
cowardly biggots who had earlier burned down his house all
because he was gay. This happened just over an hour

(01:04):
down the road for me in San Antonio, a city
that means so much to me, and it happened at
the beginning of Pride Month. So let me take this
brief opportunity to say only this. If you harbor hate
in your heart because of the way someone looks, the
place they come from, the way they worship, or who
they love, unsubscribe from this fucking podcast. Stop listening now,

(01:24):
unfollow us on social media, and disappear from our lives.
There is no place for that evil on this show
or on this planet. Fuck off homophobes, and now on
with our show.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Alright, this is Dick Miller. If you're listening to Jung
Food Cinema, who are these guys? Any man?

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Don't want to hear a podcast? Better clear on out
the back.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Because it's time for Jump Food Cinema, brought to you
by why Oyoming dot org, dot org dot com dot
Beware the Duck of Death. This is, of course, the
weekly cult and exploitation filmcast. So good it just has
to be fattening. I am your host, Brian Salisbury, and
I'm joined as per usual by my friend and co host.

(02:42):
He is a novelist, he is a screenwriter, a lieutenant
Omega Force. He was a comely young man and not
without prospects. Therefore, it was heartbreaking to his mother that
he would enter into a podcast with Brian Salisbury.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
It's c Robert Cargill. Hi, how's it going, man?

Speaker 3 (02:58):
It is going. It is Gene hack Months.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
It is, in fact, June hack Month, which is our
month long celebration of the works of the late great

(03:22):
Gene Hackman, who we lost a few months ago.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
And I'm you know, it seems like we.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Just put this off for the sake of the pun,
but honestly, I'm kind of glad that we gave it
some time to air out, because the details surrounding his
passing we're just.

Speaker 3 (03:39):
Awful and impressing as fuck.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
So horrible. Guys.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Please check in on your elderly relatives, whether you have
a good relationship with him or not, because nobody, nobody
deserves to die like that. And I'm so glad that
now that we've we've given it a little time, we
can go back and we can celebrate the Gene Hackman
movies that mean the absolute most to us.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
And I want to say.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Also up top, just as just as a disclaimer, We've
already covered, within the breadth of the eleven years of
this show, movies like The Quick and the Dead. We've
covered movies like Enemy the State. We've covered movies like
Crimson Tide. There have been quite a few Gene Hackman
movies that you're probably wondering, why aren't they covering in
June Hackmuth. Well, it's because we already have. And honestly,

(04:21):
I was a little hesitant to kick off June hackmnth
with this film, but in a lot of ways it
is the best possible movie to kick off June Hackmuth.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
I'm of course talking about Unforgiven from nineteen ninety two.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
How about being my partner. You're going to kill a
couple of no good catboys for what?

Speaker 2 (04:38):
For?

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Kutting not the lady. It was a time when lawmack
were killers, outlaws were heroes.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
He used Still that's Spencer iom and a bad reputation.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
I've always been lucky when it comes to killing folks.
Was as good as gold.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freemont, Richard Harris.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Unforgive Fun rated R starts Friday, August seven Targo.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Would you say normally a Best Picture winner might fall
slightly outside the purview of JFC.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Well, I mean yes, but no, you know, there are
several movies that are you know, junk food classics that
have won Oscars in some way, shape or form. And
since Westerns are part of our core values and have
been since the very early days, yep, talking about the

(05:30):
best Western ever made. Arguably it falls in line, especially
considering what we've been covering lately. The fact that it's
come up. It was kind of perfect timing because we've
just been doing the Stream of Consciousness programming for the
last few months, where one one movie leads it to another,
and of course we talked about Unforgiven last week, so

(05:51):
it was a no brainer when we were doing June
half month, which we were already going to do this
one to do it this week. But yeah, it is
one of those movies that also doesn't seem like typical
Oscar fair certainly not today. This is one of the
last Oscar winners before what I believe is Harvey Weinstein

(06:15):
broke the Oscars and Oscars stopped being about the movies
that really moved us culturally and rewarding those and instead
turning towards rewarding the films we wish the culture would embrace,
which stems from the fact that whenever a movie would
win the Oscar for Best Picture, invariably there was a

(06:37):
formula you could almost compute down down to the dollar
of how much money you were going to make more
in the box office by putting it back again or
on video if it were out on video already and
get that bump. And as a result, you would see
lots of people in Hollywood going, well, instead of giving

(06:58):
it to the movies that are already making lots of money,
what if we give it to the movies we wish
made a lot of money. And that's how you get
decades like last decade, where there's only one or two
films that people can universally agree, yeah, that was the
best picture. Where there's lots of times where people joke
about the king speech or the artist or films nobody
talks about anymore, whereas Unforgiven as a movie we reference

(07:20):
all the time. It is one of those great touchstones,
and this amazing film. It is an actor giving one
of his greatest performances while directing what is probably his
greatest movie in a script that is just pitch perfect
and both deconstructing familiar tropes but doing things that you

(07:42):
don't usually see in these movies and doing them better
than they had ever been done. So this is one
of those movies that I think, absolutely, while kind of
too big for us because we like to pretend that
we're always slumming, it really does get into a lot
of our core fucking values.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
It's entirely true.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
And we have been in a stream of consciousness type
of programming the Human Scent Human Scent to pod, if
you will, but it has landed on westerns the last
two weeks, so I figured why not to complete the
triumvirent to dovetail into June hack month.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
And also something I find fascinating.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Cargill is that the western is arguably the oldest genre
to the medium of film. Like since day one of
making silent films, we've been making westerns and we've been
making horror movies.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Right, Hey, the very first film that rocked people's brains
was a train.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
It was.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Not the band train because they were there, weren't drops
of Jupiter falling onto the screen, but yes, a train
pulling into the Station in fact, and yet when and yet,
and yet when Unforgiven won the Best Picture Oscar for
nineteen ninety two, which would have been in nineteen ninety three.
It was only the third Western to win Best Picture,
and two of them were in the nineties, within two

(09:03):
years of each other. So that means that even though
the Westerns are this sort of heralded ground for cinema,
we haven't embraced them as much on an artistic level
or an appreciation level as they really should have been.
Like the fact that there have only been three Westerns
to win Best Picture and two of them were in

(09:23):
the nineties kind of melted my brain a little bit.

Speaker 3 (09:27):
Yeah, and then and one of those doesn't really get
thought of as a Western, right it is technically because
it doesn't fit all the traditional tropes. And we're of
course t i about dances with wolves. But yeah, no,
I mean it really is. You know, it's you know,
it's the films that have won Academy Awards or Best
Picture are all just kind of like, you know, legendary movies.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Absolutely, and so there's a little bit of an underdog component,
even though yes, we're talking about literally the best film
of nineteen ninety two. There is a bit of an
underdog component for a number of reasons, that being one
of them, the other being what this movie represents for
Clint Eastwood as a career actor, as an artist, as

(10:10):
a filmmaker, and as a human. Like, there's so much
about this movie that feels like a curtain call. It
feels like Clint burning certain things down and moving on forever.
I think it's fitting that we followed Pale Rider with Unforgiven,
not simply because they are consecutive Clint westerns, not merely

(10:31):
because they are Clint's last to westerns. But both of
these films are Clint's responses to his own success within
the genre, and to me, both of these movies serve
as counterpoints to his spaghetti westerns. I mean, arguably the
thing that made him famous, especially within the genre was

(10:51):
you know, he was doing TV. He was doing Rawhide,
he was under contract to Rawhide, he was having guest
appearances on shows like Maverick, like, he was locked in
as a TV western guy, and part of his contract
for Rawhide stipulated that he couldn't go off and make
movies while he was shooting the show or at least
he couldn't go off and make movies while he was
shooting the show if those movies were being produced in America,

(11:14):
which is the loophole in the contract that he found
that led him overseas to work with Sergio Leone, and
literally that loophole turned into the biggest move of his career.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
I do think there is a quick sidebar we should
talk about because many of you may have recently heard
that Clint Eastwood, you know, gave a speech and had
comments about filmmaking, and a lot of people have had

(11:49):
problems with what he said.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
I actually do not know about this.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Oh yeah. Essentially he was talking to filmmakers and saying,
you know, you need to be focusing on making original stories,
not sequels, not franchises, that we need original films and
we need original films to prosper again and uh. And

(12:14):
a lot of people gave him shit because like, well,
what about the Man with No Name trilogy? What about
you know, your your orangutang sequels? What about Uh? Oh,
there was another one that he he had dirty Yeah,
the Dirty Harry movies and uh. And then I think
people have rightfully pointed out those were movies he acted
in not movies he directed, And uh, he's talking as

(12:35):
a director, And if you look at his work as
a body of work as a director, he's sticking to
the same principles he's preaching. So I don't think there's
any hypocrisy there. But he is someone that came out
of franchises and then as a director did not want
to make franchises, and I have a lot of respect
for that.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
I'm sorry, I'm gonna how in the world could you
see a movie like Unforgiven and accused Clint of not
living by the prince, of breaking away from franchises and
sequels like again, because Pale Writer. If Pale Writer is
the angel on Clint's shoulder responding to his Man with

(13:12):
No Name trilogy, Unforgiven is the devil on the shoulder
telling him how to respond to the Man with No Name.
Trilogy like it is this pair of denu months for
the Man with No Name. Like Pale Writer is the
optimistic counterweight that subtly judges the bleak cynicism of Sergio Leone,
whereas Unforgiven is the dour black hole that judges you

(13:35):
forever having the audacity of thinking people were ever good
in any way like this is. This is him burning
down everything that he used to be and saying, from
here on out, the characters that I play, as well
as the stories I tell, are completely in my control
and don't belong to anyone else. So of course he's

(13:57):
making that statement now. He couldn't have made that statement before. Unforgiven.
He is absolutely one allowed to make that statement now.

Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yes, I agree, after these messages, we'll be right back tonight.

Speaker 4 (14:18):
Academy Award winner Gene Hackman stars as a wiretapper whose
life is in danger in a television premiere on the
CBS Wednesday Night Movies. Gene Hackman is Harry cal a
man who lives in a world of hidden mics and
two way mirrors.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
The best fa none, I'll drink to that best what
the best bugger on the West Coast.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
With Cindy Williams.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
You see him and then moved to hearing from following.

Speaker 4 (14:48):
And Harrison Ford of Star Wars.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
Don't get involved in this, mister Carr.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
But he did and someone died the conversation.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
So if you haven't seen Unforgiven, and I will be honest,
it took me a long time to get around to
seeing this movie, and the first time I watched really
oh yeah. I think we mentioned this briefly on the
Pale Writer episode. The first time I watched Unforgiven, I
wasn't ready for it, both in terms of my age
and my film appreciation, my film literacy. I was not
ready for that movie. And it didn't hit for me.

(15:23):
It bounced off me, and that sucks. But recently I
went back to it and it really hit me like
a hammer and it just sat on my chest and
it sat in my brain and I couldn't stop thinking
about it, and you know, revisiting it again for this episode,
I just I appreciated even more about it, Like this
is a movie that has really attached to me later

(15:45):
in life, and I feel like it had to, you know,
much like the production of the movie, Like this is
a script that came to Clint twenty years before the
movie got made, give or take, and although he optioned it,
was he knew that it was gonna be the kind
of movie he had to play when he got older
and demonstrated patients that I think few actors have to

(16:07):
go I'm gonna wait on this.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
In fact, that was it's a famous story because he
bought it, and the screenwriter was very excited because Clint
Eastwood's gonna make my fucking movie. And they're like, all right,
who are we casting. He's like, no one yet. I'm
waiting until I'm old and nobody wants to see me
in a movie anymore. Yeah, and he did, and boy
howdy was it the reinvention he needed.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Now, who was that screenwriter Cargo?

Speaker 3 (16:34):
I don't know who was that screenwriter?

Speaker 1 (16:37):
David Webb Peoples? Was that fucking screenwriter?

Speaker 3 (16:39):
Like David web Peoples.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Literally putting this movie together after his first film, which
was a documentary about the creation of the Adam bomb.
He writes this script that I believe initially was called uh.
I think it was just it had like a really
crude title, like the cut Up Whrrors or something like.
It was like a really basic exploitation type title. And
initially it was gonna be made Francis Ford Koppola was

(17:05):
wanting to make it with John Malkovich in the lead,
which is really funny because by the year after the
movie come out, Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich were in
a movie together in the Line of Fire that I
think we've covered on this podcast. Actually and even John
Malcovich just said like, oh, yeah, no, it's it's it's
insanely good that I didn't end up playing that part

(17:26):
because no one would have seen it and it would
have been terrible. He was like, it absolutely went to
the right place.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
But yeah, But by the way, David Webb Peoples, for
those of you that don't know, is perhaps one of
the greatest junk food screenwriters of all time. Now, the
thing is is he's not quite John Sales because very
few of his movies are junk So many of his

(17:53):
movies are definitely junk food adjacent, but are so good
do they qualify? And we have had had conversations on
almost all of those episodes, because we've covered many of
these as to whether they are too good for us.
But let's just run through the hits. We've got Blade Runner.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
His second fucking script is Blade Runner, for God's.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Sake, Blade Runner follows that up with Lady Hawk. Yep,
takes a couple of years to get another one off
the ground with Levaya. Then yep, that's an episode, the
Blood of Heroes. That's an episode. That's an episode. Wait
we've already Oh wait, have we done Blood of Heroes.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Yet I did that one with Scott Weinberg.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yes, that is why I don't know it. He took
his name off, which makes me think of Fatal Sky.
Makes me think somebody fucked that up, because you don't
take your name off when you know on something you know,
you think is good unforgiven. And then we get into

(18:53):
hero which is a really good, underrated movie. And then
of course we talked about Twelve Monkeys, and then we
get to The Beloved and Maligned Soldier, the pseudo sequel
to Blade Runner.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
I love a guy that can do this. I love
a screenwriter that can write something like Blade Runner, which becomes,
you know, one of the greatest sci fi movies of
all time. Can write really interesting stuff like Leviathan, can
write super trashy stuff like Blood of Heroes, can write deeply,
deeply cerebral science fiction like Twelve Monkeys, and then write
schlock for Paul W. S Anderson, Like this is my

(19:29):
kind of screenwriter. It's like I can write a classic,
I choose sometimes to write junk, and I'm fucking here
for it.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
And I'm also just finding out for the first time
that there's a Japanese remake of unforgiven with oh.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
God, yes I have, dude, I've got to see that.
I heard about that a couple of years ago, and
I had never.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
Heard about this and I'm fucking watching it now as
starring Ken Watson. Abby Yes, please all in absolutely.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
I was gonna go through the plot of this movie,
but I think it said I just kind of want
to go through what I love about it, because it's
going to basically be frame by frame what I love
about this movie, and we'll just buy we'll de facto
get to the plot.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
The thing is, there's not the One of the great
things about this movie is there's not much of a plot.
The plot is, you know, something happens at the very
beginning of the movie, a very small thing. A prostitute
gets cut up for laughing at a guy's micro penis
the rest of the whores at the establishment they work

(20:30):
at all pull their money together to hire gunmen to
come and get the justice that they are denied by
the local bully sheriff. And the rest of the movie
is just all of that simmering, with the sheriff trying
to tamp down anyone that shows up in town so
that people will stop trying to kill the people under
his protection, and our band of bandits on the road

(20:57):
going to meet and collide with this town. Like that's it,
that's the whole movie.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
It just struck me as you said that, Cargill, that
the structure of this movie is reverse High Nuon. Yeah,
the structure of this movie is the antagonist is waiting
for the protagonists to show up and start some shit,
and we're actually following.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
We're following the protagonists.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
We're following in this case, the Bill Miller character from
High Nuon as he's making his way to town and
we're rooting for him to start some shit. But it
also calls into question a lot about like this movie
doesn't really have heroes and villains. It has protagonists and antagonists,
but there is there is not a really morally chased
character on either side like this. Oh the way this movie,

(21:39):
this movie plays with morality, and the way this movie
plays with bleakness. I've got so much to say about it,
but I want to say right up top, the music
in this movie is so good, and it's so good
that even though most of the score was composed by
longtime Clint collaborator Lenny Nihaus, who we just talked about
last week for his work on Pale Rider. It's Clint

(22:02):
Eastwood who wrote this theme. Evidently Clint Eastwood himself wrote
like the running like motif through the movie, and then
the rest of the score was done by Lenny Nihaus
like which.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
Which, by the way, needs to point out that Clin
Eastwood did have a musical component to his career. Keep
forgetting that, for better and for worse like he like he,
He inspired a couple other actors and it became one
of those things where actors would go off and they
would just play jazz for fun and uh then every

(22:33):
once in a while decide to sing the theme song
to their own movie.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
See that's why I thought you were joking when you
said that he had some kind of musical component to his.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Career, because half joking, half telling the truth, because I.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Watched El Camino with you and listened to him sing
that song and thought it was a joke.

Speaker 3 (22:54):
We had a we we had we had a sidebark,
we had a screener for that, and we had an
old group of friends that we would I mean, that's
how this you know, me and Brian became friends and
how junk cinema kind of started was we had a
group of friends that all went to the same film
festival together. And after each film festival, we would get
together at usually at Brian's place, and get like fifteen

(23:15):
twenty people together, and then we'd watch screeners of the
movies that a bunch of us had missed to kind
of catch up on festival films because a bunch of
us were critics. Well after we went through those films,
we all decided, Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we
just kept watching movies together and programming stuff, And so
people would we would go over to various people's houses
and they would program a whole night of movies and
we'd all hang out and drink and watch movies and

(23:36):
talk movies together. And on a slow night you'd have
ten people, but most nights it was like fifteen to twenty.
It was really rad. And one of those nights I
decided to, during Oscar season, have everybody over to watch
three programmed Oscar screeners that I had not watched yet,

(23:57):
and El Camino was one of them. I also watched
The Wrestler and uh, slum Dog Millionaire.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
One of these things is not like the other and
all of them good. Okay, really, I disc.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
I love El Camino.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
Fuck off get the Get off my Lawn movie.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Okay that's oh oh yes, get off my lawn.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
I'm gonna sing a song about my car.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Oh Camino ewo. I could not like everybody. The reason
we're telling the story is everyone's face. When that song
came up, everyone looked at each other, and then everyone
looked at me like I was pranking everyone. Everybody's like,
the fuck did you just do? What are you pulling

(24:44):
on us? And I'm like, no, no, no, this is really
the movie. I swear to god, I had nothing to
do with this.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
The front is like a car and the back is
like a truck. The front is where we kiss. The
back is where we el Comino. Think was the song
that he sang at the end of that movie? That
was a trip? But yeah, like I thought El Camino
was a gag.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
But then yes, that same night we watched The Fucking
Wrestler and slum Dog Millionaire, so that that was a
pretty good evening. All that being said, Clint Eastwood in
this movie plays Bill Money, who The opening text lets
us know that Bill Money was once a killer, but
we allow ourselves to forget that, because really, the first
we see of Bill Money, he's a widower and kind

(25:27):
of a hapless pig farmer. Like we literally see Clint Eastwood,
one of the toughest tough guys in Tough Guy.

Speaker 3 (25:32):
Cinema covered in pig shit.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
Covered in pig shit like that is great shorthand that
also effectively disarms the audience, which is a really sly trick.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Yeah, Like it really is one of those like, yeah,
this guy's kind of happless. This guy's trying, you know,
they're dealing with their their his pigs have hog fever
and he's trying to deal with it. But he's falling
over in the fucking mud and shit and he's covering shit.
And then some guy shows up.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
So while this is going on over in the town
of Big Whiskey, Wyoming, which I am big here for
that name.

Speaker 3 (26:08):
Oh by the way, hold on one second. I meant
to do this up front, but you got real abvy
on me.

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Sorry.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
The jung food pairing to this movie is whiskey. Yes,
there's no discussion at the end of this If you
are not drinking whiskey by the third act of this movie,
if you have not gotten yourself at least a light
buzz are you even watching? Unforgiven it's the whole theme
of the movie. In fact, Jess had not seen it
in like twenty years, and she's like, many, really, you

(26:36):
stop stop being an enabler. Stop trying to get him
to drink whiskey, because you keep trying to get him
to drink whiskey. And I'm like, it's part of the
whole undercurrent of the movie. His friend is trying to
get him drunk because he needs his old friend back. Uh,
And we'll get into that, but yes, whiskey is important,
and the town is even named Big Whiskey.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
And I have a very specific whiskey that I'm gonna
pair with this movie. But yes, Cargole is right. It
does play like that really enabling drinking. Buddy, that's a
terrible influence on you. So I'm glad it wasn't me
this time. That's that's fun. But yeah, because it is.
It is an effective metaphor because the obvious metaphor is
that you know, Clint's character blame much of his old
violent ways on the whiskey, and that his wife, who

(27:20):
has now passed away, kind of cured him of that,
and he was living the provincial life as a farmer.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
And he's you know, just.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
When I thought I was out, they pull me back
into the bottle kind of a situation. But over in
Big Whisky, yes, we are introduced to these prostitutes, one
of whom is savagely cut up by a guy named
Quick Mike because she laughed at his tiny penis. And
I know once again that Clint has said over and
over again that he doesn't think about politics when he

(27:47):
makes movies. And I believe him because a lot of
the things that I find politically interesting about his movies,
they're a little ahead of their time. Not fully, now,
you're not, not completely. But in terms of this opening,
this movie is a really interesting meditation on toxic masculinity.
Like and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sit here
and tell you that the Western genre is where anyone

(28:09):
would go at any point to find paradigms of feminism,
because that would be insane. We all understand that we
accept the genre despite that. I mean, most of most
Westerners were set in the eighteenth century, where women were
still largely viewed as property had zero rights. However, it's
rare that a Western would address this sexual iniquity beyond

(28:32):
just like platitudes of chivalry like let me help you
up on your horse and hold the door open, and
little lady and all that unforgiven at the very least
has a tacit understanding of what we would now call
toxic masculinity, the idea that a man would meet with
extreme violence any affront to his ego by a woman.

(28:52):
That's basically Quick Mike in this movie. He is like
his penis gets laughed at and the only response he
can think of is to slide this woman's face with
a razor.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
And we say, this woman And you know, by the way,
this is an incredible actress, Anna Thompson, who's been in
a bunch of your favorite fucking movies. She's just one
of those great character actresses that you not only know
from that, you'll know her from other junk Food episodes
or episodes to come, like Warlock Desperately Seeking Susan the Crow,

(29:29):
Bad Boys. She's done a lot of great stuff, and
she's absolutely fantastic true romance. She's absolutely fantastic here.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
And did you recognize the actor playing Quick Mike, Because
I didn't until I saw his IMDb profile, No I
did not. So he's played by David Mucci, who we
recently talked about in prom Night. He's the uniprow bully
who's decapitated head rolls down the runway.

Speaker 3 (29:55):
Yeah he is. That is exactly who that is.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
His IMDb photo is litter the prosthetic head on the
runway in promnin It's not even a picture of him,
And I think that's great. So, yeah, the prostitutes get together,
We're gonna raise some money. We're gonna have these gunmen
come in and take care of these dudes because unfortunately,
the local sheriff is little Bill Daggett, played by the
incredible Gene Hackman and Genie.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
The reason for this month, the reason for this is
the reason for the season.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
Correct amundo.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
And he is a fascinating antagonist because, like I said,
he's not a villain. Little Bill Daggett is a character
that wants law and order, which he erroneously equates with
peace and quiet and control. So as long as he
has control of everything, there's law and order. But honestly,
his motivations are borderline admirable, like why wouldn't you want

(30:48):
to keep hired killers out of your town.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
Borderline is a good way for that.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
Yeah, Because his flaw is that he is violently opposed
to anyone threatening his control of the town, whether that
can role is based on altruism or duty or not.
If anyone threatens his control of this town, he lashes
out and gets violence and oversteps his dominion. So that
is the flaw of this character. But I cannot even
call this character a villain. Which is what makes this

(31:15):
movie so interesting is that everyone has flaws. Some of
them have way bigger flaws than others. But it's it's
just a really interesting like holding a magnet basically to
the moral compass so that it never points north.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Is this entire movie's mo.

Speaker 3 (31:32):
Yeah, bringing all this together, what you're talking about the
theme of toxic masculinity as well as you know, the
the grayness of the characters. I'm in love with the
triptych that is in this movie. There are three characters
that are all juxtaposed against one another in the way

(31:52):
this in the way they work. You've got English Bob,
who is played by the legendary Richard Harris.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Who we recently talked about in Orca and apparently when
he got the call by Clint Eastwood to play this role,
he was watching high Planes Drifter, so he thought it
was a prank call.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
That's a true story that Clint Eastood.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
Told so English Bob is a cutthroat murderer who is
also a racist murderer on top of all things. He's
been hired by the railroad company to come out and
kill off a bunch of chinamen. And there's even a
moment where he's riding into Big Whiskey where he sees

(32:35):
two Chinese immigrants and he just kind of raises his
finger as a finger gun and shoots them both and
then smiles as he does it, like he really enjoys
doing that. Got a really legendary and shitty background as
we find out that he has elevated himself well beyond
telling stories that didn't really happen that way, and he's

(32:59):
being followed around by a biographer played by Saul Rubinic,
who's writing up his legendary stories and following him on
this adventure two as we assume come and murder these
men for the thousand dollars reward. Now Bob of course
gets his ass kicked and get kicked out of town
by Little Bill. And then we learn about Little Bill

(33:22):
as Little Bill talks to Saul Rubinic and he tells
the stories as they really happen, and we find out
that Little Bill also one of those murderous, cutthroat assholes
back in the day, definitely someone to fear, not always
on the right side of the law, and is telling
the stories as they happened, and he feels that it's

(33:45):
important to tell the stories as they happen, that the
legend needs to be diffused. And so you've got English Bob,
who's building up his own legend. You have Gene Hackman,
who's telling the truth about his own legend and the
legends of those around us. And then we have Bill Money,
who whenever anybody tells one of his stories, he lets

(34:07):
him just tell it and says, I don't much remember that,
and doesn't want to tell those stories, and also doesn't
tell the truth of them because they're even more scarier
and more fucked up and legendary than people are telling
his stories. He doesn't want people telling his stories. He
wants to forget. And so the juxtaposition against these three

(34:27):
men who have all committed these deeds, one of them
wants his deeds to be even more monstrous and more legendary.
One just wants the people to know the truth, and
the other doesn't want anyone to know the truth at
all and wants to be forgotten. And I love that
theme throughout this movie because it's such a deconstruction of
the Western on the whole. Just within that element of the.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Movie, it's a massively violent deconstruction. I think Unforgiven is
dedicated to eradicating myth within the Sean whose entire stock
in trade had, you know, for many many decades been
paradigms of right and wrong. But Unforgiven is not interested

(35:11):
in white hats versus black hats. Instead, it gives you
the absolute fact that the color of a hat is
inconsequential when it's worn.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
By any given man.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Like the nihilism of this movie is almost like a mantra,
like to engage in the suffering of the world, and
we're all going to do it because there are no
good characters. There are no bad characters. There are just
people with human motivations. And that's the scariest thing. Like,
there is so much about this movie that wants to
demystify the American West that wants to tell you what

(35:45):
the Frontier.

Speaker 1 (35:46):
Was actually like.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
And it's interesting to me that one of the reasons
that when Gene Hackman originally read this script, he didn't
want to play the character because he didn't want to
be in another movie that glorified violence. He thought that
being in a Western like this. And it's funny because
this is literally three years before The Quick and the Dead,
which between the two movies, I think Quick in the
Dead is a lot more playful with its violence. But

(36:10):
he Clint Easwood had to explain to him, like, no,
this movie's not going to glorify violence, and it definitely
does not. And we'll get into the ways that the
movie really, you know, severs that illusion.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
But the movie itself overall is.

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Trying to separate the romantic cowboy mythos from harsh frontier
reality and English Bob as a character is emblematic of
that relationship, like this, this posh British accent and the
stories he's telling. He's got his biographer with him, played
by Saul Rubinik, who he's brought along to document and

(36:48):
grandize all of his tales, and little Bill seems to
be the only person who knows what an enormous fraud
Bob is. And it's not just like Gene Hackman's character,
as flawed as he is, says like, I hate assassins.
I absolutely hate gunslingers. They're the they're like they boil

(37:09):
my blood. I fucking hate them. And so the beating
that he throws English English Bob is phenomenal. It's a
fantastic beating. And then you see this posh, erudite English
accent giving way to Bob's true voices. He's running Bob
out of town. Bob's screaming from the wagon. It's this
working class Cockney drawl, which was Richard Harris's idea, but

(37:32):
speaks so directly to the idea that this movie wants
to shatter all of the myths of the romantic cowboy
and show it as it truly was. And it's really
fucking ugly. Yeah, and it's funny too, because Bill's disdain
for the posturing of English Bob is almost identical to
how Harod from Quick and the Dead feels about Lance

(37:53):
Henrickson's character Ace Hanlin, because Ace Hanlin's a character that
has all these stories, and Harrod's the one guy that's
like you know that's bold shit, right, And I despise
everything that you pretend to be like.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
It's like something that follows Gene Hackman for a few
years after this, and I think that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
After these messages, we'll be right back. She's tough enough, dear,
You're not. She's fast enough. You want to play poker
with me? Little lady.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Looks like you're having a pretty good time playing with yourself.

Speaker 4 (38:19):
The only question is always every one day your luck
will run out?

Speaker 3 (38:23):
Are they mad enough scull your butt out of ten?

Speaker 2 (38:26):
Say that again, Sharon.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
Stall, Genet Leonardo DiCaprio sure must want.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
To die young, Miss the Quick and the Dead rated
r at Theaters, February Texts.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
But we're introduced, of course, to these characters, and we
have this this bounty that's put on Quick, Mike and
his accomplice because Gene Hackman fails to do the one
thing that he's really entrusted to do. He fails to
bring about justice. And I think that's another interesting distinction
the movie makes, is that justice is a societal need,

(39:03):
whereas vengeance is a human desire, which again I think
is another big difference between Pale Writer and unforgiven. Pale
writers about justice, unforgivens about vengeance, and Little Bill fails
to bring justice and in doing so incites vengeance. His
failure to bring justice is that he lets these guys
off with a real slap on the wrist, you know,

(39:24):
deliver some ponies, not even a beating, like they the
prostitutes are rightly and sense like this is literally the
only penalty for cutting this woman up and ruining her life.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
They have to give up horses.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
Well. One of the things I find really interesting about
Big Whiskey is, unlike the towns we previously have talked
about in the last two episodes, this is not some
nice little town of you know, prospectors or you know,
you know people getting by on farming and just doing
you know, God's work in the fields. This is a

(39:57):
little nothing town that exists pretty much for a fucking bordello,
shit kicker city, shit kicker city, and it is you know,
they the hookers all work out of a billiard haul.
And there's a great line in it where when they're
talking about it to someone say, well, you know, you know,
what do we do. We'll ask for the billiards. It's like,

(40:20):
what if they misunderstand us and think we want to
play pool. It's like, oh, it don't matter none. They
built they burnt the billiard table for firewood back in
seventy eight. Like the idea that everyone knows what this
fucking thing is. It's part of the whole thing, and
it's an essential financial part of the town. So when

(40:41):
it comes to the real issue that little Bob has
to deal with, it's the financial issue of what has
been violated in this contract of what these guys now
own the biggest business in town. And so for him,
settling that is much more important than uh then going

(41:01):
ahead and uh, you know, just whipping the guys and
even then the horse thing whipping him is too little, right,
but he lets them off with what is a costly offense.
It is very costly, and so these guys have to
bring in what little they own, which are these ponies

(41:21):
that they're raising. And then there's this great moment where,
you know, the one who didn't do the cutting tries
to give one of his ponies to the girl to
clear her conscience, and which is thoroughly, resoundly rejected because
it is a you know, it's a hollow apology, but
it is. Uh, it's very interesting to see how little

(41:45):
Bob is just dealing with the town politics there. It's
not that he's being an ass, it's that he thinks
this is what's really going to keep the peace.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, and it's it's a fine and it's a hollow
gesture to give the prostitute one of the horses, because
it's not and the guy that cut her up that's
giving her the horse. It's the guy that was there
with him that night, and so it's like it makes
it even more hollow. And Little Bill is a very
interesting character and is one that Gene Hackman really digs into.
And it's not surprising to me at all that Gene

(42:16):
Hackman won Best Supporting Actor for this role, because on
the one hand, you're right, he is taking from these
guys what they have, their livelihood, so you could almost
make the argument that he does really punish them, but
on the other hand, he's really letting them off with
a slap on the wrist. Whereas later in the movie
an actor we haven't mentioned yet, Morgan Freeman, who is

(42:36):
absolutely fucking phenomenal in this movie. And if you expected
anything else, you're out of your goddamn mine.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
Met my granddaughter, I mean, my date.

Speaker 1 (42:48):
Well, don't worry about it.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
But he's a former running buddy of Bill Moody, Like
they used to get into some shit back in the
day and now they're both farmers trying to live that
quiet life and they're brought back into this And there's
a great scene, you know, not the tangent too much
of it. There's a great scene when Clinicetwood goes to
Morgan Freeman's house to basically enlist him back into this shit.

(43:10):
Morgan Freeman is married to a Native woman.

Speaker 3 (43:13):
Who does alto trees.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Sally two Trees does not have a line of dialogue
in this movie, but has one of the best moments
in the whole film, where you know, Clinicewood rides up
and him and Morgan Freeman are talking and they're you know,
it's it's it's Bill Mooney and Ned and Bill money
in Ned and they're talking and you know, bullshit and whatever.
And she just walks past Clint Eastwood right to his
horse and sees the gun on the back of the

(43:35):
horse and just touches it. And in this moment, it's like, fuck,
I know why he's here, and I know my husband's
not going to say no, and this is gonna be
you know, the moment that drags him back at Like
she communicates all of this in one tiny moment with
no dialogue, and it's so goddamn brilliant.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
And the way she makes just shooting daggers from her
eyes at Clint Eastwood, Yeah, and then doing the same
to Morgan Freeman. And you see this moment, and when
you've seen the film, it's even more heartbreaking because you
realize this is the last moment he's sharing with his wife.
They're not saying goodbye, they're not kissing, and when asked

(44:13):
about it later, it's just mentioned that natives are a
hard people, that they're not really friendly, like and that's it,
Like she's just not a friendly person, and that's what
we hear. And you know, knowing that he's never gonna
see her again, like that's it. The choice has been made.

(44:34):
He doesn't even end up doing any of the killing.
He ends up not being. He ends up being, you know,
one of those old West braggarts as well, which is
kind of heartbreaking. He claims he could still shoot the
eye out of an out of a hawk, and he can't.
He can't see as well anymore, even though he ends
up giving the Schofield kid shit for that same thing

(44:57):
and so and when he decides to write out and
then having not done anything, getting tortured to death by
little Bill, that sets up our last twenty minutes that
are fucking epic.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
And by the way, the Scholfield Kid just for a moment.
James Wolvett is his name. A guy that I spent
the first two viewings. There was no person on this
planet that was gonna convince me it wasn't Ricky Schroeder.

Speaker 3 (45:22):
Oh weird. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Every time I looked at it, I was like, that's Ricky Schroeder.
I was like, who's James Wolvet.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
It's not him, okay, A guy who went on to
be a prolific voice actor, James Wolvett and is really
just this upstart little shit And I love the reveal
that he's got bad eyesight, and like, he's just He's
a guy that's got He is the character that represents
what people think the West is. He's got all these
stories and I did this and did I heard you
did this? And you know, he's looking for action, he's

(45:47):
looking for adventure. And then when push comes to shove,
like he is that character in every war movie that
when he finally sees the shit just completely collapses. And
we'll definitely get into that. But all of this to
say that the way that Little Bill lets the guys
off the hook that cut up this poor prostitute's face,
and then when he gets a hold of Morgan Freeman,

(46:08):
who literally at this point in the film has not
killed or wounded a single person, is you know, he
gets captured and he gets flogged viciously by Little Bill.
Now is he flogging Ned because Ned is riding with
the guys that killed Davy.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
No?

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Is it because he won't give up the names and
whereabouts of his partners. No, Bill is flogging Ned because
he dared to carry out the sense. He dared to
be a part of the group that carried out the
sentence that Little Bill failed to and therefore is undermining
his control of the town. And that response that springing
to violence for a character that at this point in

(46:46):
the movie hasn't done anything is the fatal flaw of
this character. And why again there are no real heroes
or villains in this movie, but this is the flaw
that makes Bill such an interesting pro antagonist. And I
have to say this again, Clint Eastwood swears up and
down politics do not enter into his movies. Then explain

(47:10):
to me why Clint Eastwood ask Gene Hackman to model
little Bill Daggett on then LAPD chief Darryl Gates. And
when you know that, and when you watch this scene,
you realize, like, yeah, he absolutely Now you guys can
google Daryl Gates. I'm not going to go into the

(47:32):
myriad reasons why he's not a favorable part of history.
I mean, the chief among them being you know his
you know, he really moved away from community policing. And
he was at a fundraiser the night that the LA
riots broke out, like and the riots or the fundraiser
was literally to remove the terms of office for a

(47:53):
police chief so he could stay in power. That's what
he was doing instead of dealing with the LA riots.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
I will argue, I would argue that Clint Eastwood is
an old school conservative, like old school conservative, and for
old school conservatives like him, ideas of social justice are
absolutely separate from politics. Sure, and so that what he's
talking about in terms of like the LA situation with

(48:20):
the LAPD that is a criticism of social justice norms
and people's ethics, and not a political response, because back
in nineteen ninety two, you know, it was not necessarily
an overwhelming Republican thing to be pro police the way
it's become in the last decade, to where you do

(48:41):
not speak ill of people in uniform because we are
ride or die for people in uniform. That was not
necessarily the thing in nineteen ninety two. And I say
this as someone who is a conservative. In nineteen ninety two,
you know, we all got to grow up somewhere.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yeah, no, no, no, I totally got.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
It.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
Was what I say, I recovered. I'm a recovering Catholic
and a recovering Conservative, and I'm still in recovery. But
that said, so, when he says he doesn't let politics enter,
he's not preaching a liberal or a conservative ideology. He's
even kind of being fair to little Bill, because, as
you've said yourself, you know, he's trying to do the

(49:25):
right thing for his community.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
And he's going about it the wrong way.

Speaker 2 (49:29):
And yeah, you're right when I say politics, I'm not
speaking of partisan politics. But I still think it's insane
when you're dealing with issues of social justice that speak
directly to what's going on in the world around you.
When you're making the movie, you can't say that you're
not a political filmmaker.

Speaker 1 (49:44):
You might actually.

Speaker 3 (49:45):
When one of his co stars, the chair that he's
sitting on in that scene would later represent Obama on
stage in twenty twelve.

Speaker 4 (49:51):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Still the weirdest political stuff, Like literally to the point
that I can't even blame him for that because I
don't understand what the message was supposed to be, to
understand where he falls on which side of the aisle.
That just seemed like the greatest captured senior moment of
all time.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
It's been making a movie for thirteen years since then.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
Made a movie.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
We're in a threesome with two nineteen year old girls,
and it was amazing.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
Hey man, Clint East would be fucking that is the
one absolute of his entire career. Politics made change, you know,
police chiefs come and go, presidents come and go. Clint
East would be fucking like, we didn't even talk about cargo.
We didn't even talk about this on The Pale Writer
episode the Night of the Pale Writer premiere. This is

(50:36):
all according to IMDb, so I'll stick the allegedly all
over the place. He apparently left the premiere to go
have sex with a flight attendant that he was having
an affair with, and that night conceived Scott Eastwood Clint
east would be fucking more like bareback writer. But look,

(50:58):
we still don't.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
Know exactly rider right, said old man?

Speaker 1 (51:06):
Would you fuck my wife?

Speaker 2 (51:07):
No? Look, I the thing is, we still don't know
how many children Clint Eastwood has because he's only slowly
been acknowledging them over the years.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
So the guy be fucking like.

Speaker 3 (51:19):
That's why one.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
Clint Muskwood is fucking That's all I'm saying. And so yeah,
that doesn't surprise me. But at all, I don't remember
what I was trying to say on this episode because
that all just went right out the window. Other than
I think Gene Hackman's character is fascinating, and his flaw
is that he's trying to hold onto control. It's not
actually and I don't even think I honestly don't even
think little Bill knows this. I think in little Bill's

(51:47):
head it is law and order he's holding onto. He
doesn't understand that it's actually just control that he wants.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
Well, but The thing is is that's one of the
interesting things about Little Bill is Little Bill is completely delusional,
right down to his carpentry skills. Yes, Like, that's my
favorite running gag through that whole movie is is his
horrible house. And we see how bad, you know, And
there's even a moment where they're trying to have a
serious conversation and somebody can't stop bagging on how bad

(52:16):
a carpenter Little Bill is. He just keeps coming back
to it. It's like Brian when he's got a you know,
his clauset is something. It has to get all twelve
puns out, He's got to do it.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
And then to the bit cargo. We've talked about.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
This, but yeah, they he just keeps that. You know,
they ain't a right angle in that house. And we
see during a rainstorm just how bad it is and
how delusional little Bill is. Because the Little Bill is
equally as delusionable delusional as to the type of law
and order he's keeping. Because he's not keeping lawn order.

(52:51):
He's an aggressive bully. He's beating the shit out of people,
and beating the shit out of people without without due process.
You know, you know, he doesn't know what Bob is
there for. He just suspects what Bob is there for. Yeah,
he doesn't know what the guys are there for when
they show, when they ride into town, he just suspects.

(53:11):
And because he suspects, that's all he needs to know.
And you know, and while you've got somebody riding south,
not participating in what's going on and leaving as he wanted,
still caught him and still tortures him to death to
find out who his buddies are. And then they decorate

(53:33):
the saloon with him. And this is not a town
of law and or. This is a town on the
edge of civilization that is not as civilized as it
believes itself to be.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
That is the absolutely incredible thing that binds Little Bill
and Bill Money, not just their names, the fact that
Little Bill is a violent bully scumbag pretending to be
a sheriff, and Bill Money is a violent police comeback
pretending to be a farmer. And neither one of them,

(54:06):
very literally can make a home.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
I would disagree with that last part.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
They can't make a home.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
No, no, no, that that Bill Money is pretending to
be a farmer.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
He's terrible at it. All of his hogs are dying.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Yeah. But also the thing is is he's terrible at
being a killer until he's got the whiskey in it.
And he says multiple times he's a different person when
he's drunk, and you you would he can't even shoot
straight when he's sober, like that's the that's the funny
part about the beginning, Like.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
In there, pistry in there.

Speaker 3 (54:39):
You know, he can't shoot straight at all. So he
goes in and gets a shotgun to blow away the
can that he's shooting at, just so that he can
feel like he did something, you know, hitting it with
a scatter gun. He can't. But the minute he gets drunk,
that gun comes out and he doesn't miss, like he
doesn't even have you know, when he shoots, he shoots
to kill when he's drunk. Uh and uh, And it

(55:01):
is a very different story he you know, he he
has a very hard time with the scouh with the
not the scofield, the uh, with the rifle, the Winchester,
the Winchester even hitting the guy that they're out there
to kill, and then hits him in a way that
he doesn't even kill him, you know, good and clean.
He's gonna die slowly.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
It's like the Mustafa gag in Austin Powers. It's like,
why did you shoot me there? This is gonna take
longer to die And.

Speaker 3 (55:30):
It's guys, guys, I'm so thirsty, Bring me water, dude,
Like he calls, like Clint Eastwood calls off the shootout
so that they could take him some water because he
feels so bad about the guy that he just killed,
because he killed him badly.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
There's a part of me that wanted there to be
like the Popeye Spinach sound effect every time Clint Eastwood
took a drink in this movie, because you're right, that
is literally the secret sauce of his power is is
when he can't be a good uh, he can't be
a good assassin unless he's drunk. And that scene where
he's shooting, he's shooting that accomplice. This is the guy
who gave the horse, but it wasn't the guy that

(56:04):
actually cut up the prostitute. He was the guy who
was just kind of there with him, and he's this
is really the interesting demystifizing, de romanticizing, demystifying, de romanticizing
of Western gun violence, because yeah, like we literally see
him shooting when he first shoots at the guy, he
hits the horse. The horse falls over onto the guy's

(56:26):
leg and he's just like, oh my god, my leg
and he's laying there in Agony has to drag himself
out from under this dead horse and then gets shot
in the gut and slowly bleeds out while crying for water, like, yeah,
I don't think this movie is doing anything to make
western gun violence look romantic, like this is definitely not
This is definitely not a Gary Cooper film.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Yeah, no, I mean that's the thing about it is
when he finally when we finally get the explosion of
violence at the end, everyone even little Bill is terrified.
Oh yeah, and the only person not terrified drunk off
his ass and killing people. I'd got that great thing.
We haven't mentioned him yet, Anthony James, who was King
of the Creeps in the late seventies and all through

(57:09):
the eighties, Like he was just great at playing creeps.
This is his last role, and not because he passed away,
because he decided he was done with acting and moved
on to become an artist and would go on to
live almost another thirty years after that. He never came
back to acting. This was his final role. He was
like I was in the best movie I'm ever going
to be in I'm Out.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
It's so weird that the thing I know him from
most is Naked Gun Too and a half as the
guy who keeps planning all the bombs.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
I mean, weirdly, the guy I know him best from
is his episodes of Buck Rogers. You know, Okay, incredible career,
lots of TV work, because the minute you see him
in a crime movie, you know he's the creepy guy.
But also, you know, his second movie, or his first

(57:54):
actual movie, his second acting role is in the Heat
of the Night. Yeah, he starts out in one of
the best movies ever made, and then keeps moving forward
doing all this great stuff, showing up in great movies
every once in a while, showing up on television all
the fucking time, and then just doing unforgiven and noping out.
But his death scene is has is followed by one

(58:15):
of the greatest lines of dialogue in movie history when
he when he gets hit by a blastrum from that shotgun,
and you know, little Bill's like, you just shot an
un armed man. Well, maybe he should have barmed himself.
He was going to decorate a saloon with my dead friend.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
The propping up of Ned's body in front of the
saloon as a warning to other a set like it's
just so cold blooded, And that's one of the many
ways of this movie demystifies the violence. But there's also
more subtle ways, like when Bill is trying to round
up when Little Bills shown to round up a posse
to go after the Scholfield kid kid and build money. Right,

(58:52):
they start talking about the financial logistics of forming a posse,
like one of the guys that is the count, gonna
pay for the feed for the horses, so that guy
won't tell us anymore thirty thirty shot. They're literally discussing
the financials of forming a posse.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
Like because it's this this movie is grounded and real world,
and that's what Clint Eastood wanted to do. He wanted
to make it this is you know, these are a
bunch of fucking you know farm farmers and ranch hands
that are gonna get guns and ride their horses out
to chase Bill Money. And then Bill Money walks in
the door and is like, anyone who doesn't want to

(59:29):
die can leave through the back.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Yeah, and some of them do like the way most
of them do, the way which.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
Bill Money avoids so much fighting in this movie just
by being Bill Money and talking, you know, violently, like
it's it's incredible. He cuts a promo that scares off
half the fucking h na're duels that want to come
after him. But I mean, I don't want to take
away from another way that I think this movie really

(59:56):
gets it, taking away the romance of western gun violence.
And it's the Schofield kid whose arc is so well developed,
where you know, the whole movie is I'm gonna kill
these dudes. I've killed all these people. I'm a gunslinger,
I'm a great shot. I'm gonna collect this money myself.
I don't need anybody. And then when it finally comes
to him to kill Quick Mike, and he opens the

(01:00:18):
outhouse door and literally has him dead to rights the
hesitation before shooting him. And then when he finally does
shoot him, how much that killing fucks him up, Like
the very thing he set out to do from the
jump completely destroys him. And then we come to find
out it's because that's the first man he's ever killed,
despite his earlier boasts, and he renounces everything He's like,

(01:00:41):
I don't want to be a part of this. You
can have the money. I'm gone, I'm done. Like that's incredible.
This is not about romantic cowboy shit. This is the
reality of violence, and when someone gets shot, it's horrible,
and when you take someone's life, it's horrible. Like this
movie really lends a lot of weight to what in other,
even other Clint Eastwood movies, would be casual violence, which

(01:01:04):
is why I feel like Clint is sending such a
message about where he's been and how he's done with that,
and he's moving on, like he literally feels like you know,
Columbus burning the ships behind him. It's just like, I've
discovered how to tell new stories and I'm never going
back and burns the American Western down in fact, just
burns the concept of westerns, because he's burning spaghetti westerns

(01:01:27):
down to the ground.

Speaker 1 (01:01:27):
Because that's the other thing. I went back and watched
The Man with No Name.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
Trilogy in preparation for this episode, and there's nothing in
any of those movies that feels as bleak or nihilistic
or heavy as anything in this movie. So he really
is making a statement about all the different types of Westerns,
including the ones that made him famous.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
After these messages, we'll be right back. He saw the
man's a thing who witnessed a murder. One man knows
the truth, he's a burglar. Who's gonna believe him? One
man holds the key, you know. So here, the most
powerful man in the world has just met his match.

(01:02:07):
You can't make a mistake. Can I kill him? Clint Eastwood?
That's entirely unacceptable. Absolute power Radar opens everywhere. If ever
worry fourteenth.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
By the way, you know, we talked about how Anthony
James was in a lot of movies. He was also,
of course in High Planes Drifter, which is the movie
I thought was pail writer. But it makes sense to me,
you know, that they're working together again. He's working with
the same composer again. I am impressed that Clint is
one of those filmmakers who seems to build a loyal
crew community. Like making a Clint Eastwood film, it turns

(01:02:41):
out as sort of a cottage industry because he works
with the same people again and again and again. I
watched this documentary about the making of the film, and
you know, it's Richard Harris who says, like he's been
working with some of these people for thirty years. And
they go around and start talking, and you know, one
guy's like, yeah, I've been here for fourteen years. Yah,
I've been working with Clint for twenty years, oh, since
his very first movie. Propmaster's script advisors, cameraman, dp's composers,

(01:03:03):
like all these people who worked with him for decades.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Yeah, that's impressive to me.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Yeah, I mean, and a lot of great filmmakers. That's
how they work. When you when you're the type of
filmmaker that makes a movie every year or so, like him,
like the Coen Brothers were, that's how you have to
do it. You know, you get your crew, you get
you trust them, and you want to trust them. And
you know, Scott and I have been slowly putting together
our crew over the years. You know, every every film,

(01:03:32):
we collect new people that we always had that talk about.
They're the keepers, you know, these are the people that
we've got to work with from here on out until
we're done making movies. And that's a great way to
make movies. And yeah, and and by all accounts, Clint
is a great director to be on set with in
terms of as a human so I've always had mad

(01:03:52):
respect for him.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
And I'm not surprised that, you know, shortly after this,
Hackman and Eastwood would work together again in absolute power,
because the two of them together on screen, it's just
it's so electric, Like the beating that little Bill throws
to Bill Money in the bar when he figures out
who he is and that he's armed and he's convinced
that he's one of the assassins it's come to collect

(01:04:15):
on the bounty. That beating is so visceral, and he's
talking about how this is scum, and you see it
in all the big cities. But it's also the moments
after that beating where Clint is recouping and confessing that
he's afraid of dying. That's maybe the best acting of
Clint Easwood's entire career. Like to show a character like that,

(01:04:35):
you know, another sort of nameless Western tough guy, you know,
the thing that is Clint's bread and butter, be so
vulnerable and so afraid and so human, it's it's almost unsettling.
And he plays it with so much, just so much
genuine fear, and I literally I racked my brain. I

(01:04:56):
watched this scene a couple times, and I kept racking
my brain, like, have I ever seen a more well
performed Clinting Swood scene? And I don't think I have.
He's great in that moment, and it makes total sense.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
Yeah, he's amazing. Also, it's it's dawning on me. We
keep we have memed to death Grand Tourno so much
that we've been calling it el Camino this entire You.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Are shitting me, are you? Is it grand Torino?

Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
It's not. We've just called it el Comino as a
joke for like nearly twenty years now. We've forgotten that
it was called grand Currino. And then I was like, wait,
a good why do we keep calling Grandrino el Camino?

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
No, I'm looking There's no fucking way. There is no
fucking way.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
It's called grant It's I'm looking this up right now
because I don't believe you.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
I feel like a different car, different car entirely.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Holy shit, it's grand Torino.

Speaker 3 (01:05:51):
And I also love that people are out there listening.
Why are they? What the fuck are they doing? Is
this bit?

Speaker 1 (01:05:57):
It's not a bit.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
We're just two men who's have turned to mush from
years of big whiskey Uh, oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
Yeah we we, I mean we el Camino. That thing immediately.
It's stuck in our brains ever since.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
Yeah, no, no, no, it's the movie. It's el Camino.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
It's the movie where he drives the car over to
Sindbad's house, who is a genie? And wait a minute,
hold on, now, now I think I'm I'm confusing a
lot of different things.

Speaker 3 (01:06:22):
I tell you the truth. All this excitement, I have
kind of lost track myself.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
This is okay, Wow, this is crazy. It's Grand Tourino.

Speaker 2 (01:06:28):
See the next thing that's gonna happen, Cargill is I'm
going to assume that clin Eesewood was in the movie
based on the video game Grand Turismo.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
And that's what I'm gonna start fucking calling it from
now on.

Speaker 3 (01:06:37):
Yeah, kind of like billion dollar baby.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
What is what is wrong with us? What what happened?

Speaker 3 (01:06:46):
We're middle aged white guys with a podcast. What do
you think is wrong?

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
You know what?

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
It's because Pink el Camino was another film he did.
It was a comedy did with Bernadette Peters. Now I
understand the confusion. Yes, absolutely, Pink el Comino.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
Yes, girl, it's.

Speaker 2 (01:07:02):
The hell of a thing, killing a man's brain, take
away all he's gotten, all he's ever gonna have in.

Speaker 1 (01:07:07):
Terms of neurons.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
That is correct.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
That final showdown, though, between because it's it's great again,
you've got little Bill like forming this posse. We're gonna
do this and we're gonna head out this road and
you're gonna go and he's just Bill Money is just
standing there like I'm right here, motherfuckers.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
I'm not scared of you. There's nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:24):
But at the same time, there is nothing pretty or
heroic about this final showdown, Like several of the shots miss.
Clint's shotgun literally missfires, and he awkwardly throws it at
a guy you know, and he's got that line like
any man don't want to get killed, but are clear
out the back, and most of them do. And then
Saul Rubenek, who again is just so desperately trying to

(01:07:44):
find the mythos here and trying to find the story
to write about, is like, well, you obviously killed him
because he's the best shot, and statistically, when a fighter
is taking on multiple men, he goes after and Clinta's
was just like, no, I was lucky in the order.
I've always been lucky when it comes to killing killing folks.

Speaker 1 (01:08:00):
Like literally, like no, I don't have a mantra that
I follow.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
I just got lucky, Like literally Clinice would saying I
feel lucky, punk, come.

Speaker 1 (01:08:09):
On, people, go ahead, make my day.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
And then yeah, just that final moment when he's got
he's got little Bill dead to rights and Bill says,
I don't deserve this.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
I just bought a house. I just built a house.

Speaker 2 (01:08:22):
And the greatest line of the whole fucking movie that
sums up everything.

Speaker 1 (01:08:26):
This movie is nothing to do with it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
Because again, this isn't about justice. This is about vengeance,
and vengeance is a choice. Vengeance is a choice that
personally satisfies a human being and has nothing to do
with setting the scales of right and wrong. Deserves got
nothing to do with it. And then fucking Gene Hackman,
I'll see you in Hell, Bill Money, and there's this
long pause and Clinice Wood just goes yeah and it shoots.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
Him like ah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
The writing of this movie, David went Peoples, you are
so girl.

Speaker 3 (01:09:00):
Yeah, so good, so good. So I just I've got
a question for you.

Speaker 1 (01:09:05):
Sidebar, it is still called grand Turino.

Speaker 3 (01:09:14):
Yes, absolutely, we've been talking about how great Clint Eastwood
is as a director, and we've been talking about him
in the last few weeks. However, I want to ask
you a question. It's a kind of this or that
one of these three things. Pick one. Okay, what is
the worst decision Clint Eastwood has ever made as a director?

(01:09:35):
Is it a the Baby from American Sniper B choosing
to sing the theme song to Grand Turino oof? Or
see the threesome scene in the Mule.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
See I'm glad when you said it's this or that
and there's three options, you weren't talking about that scene
in the Mule. I think it's secret choice D, which
is making that awful whatever fifteen to Paris movie and
going instead of actors, I'm gonna cast the people who
were actually involved in that incident.

Speaker 3 (01:10:10):
Mmmmm, okay, what the I don't know if have you
fucking never seen?

Speaker 2 (01:10:16):
Oh, it's not even a movie like do you remember
fucking Sidebar?

Speaker 1 (01:10:27):
Do you remember after last season?

Speaker 3 (01:10:31):
Do I remember after last season?

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
The movie so bad, so inscrutable, so not a movie that,
even though they shot it on thirty five prints, it
did so poorly in theaters that the filmmakers told the
theaters to burn the princes because they weren't gonna pay
to send them back.

Speaker 3 (01:10:48):
It was cheaper than sending it back.

Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Yeah, a trailer for that movie ends on the line.
I think there's a printer on the second floor boom.
After last season, what the actual fucking fuck fuck fuck
same energy fifteen seventeen to Paris, same fucking energy as
after last season. It may be the worst piece of
shit that the Clint East would have ever had his
hands on. And I've seen Jay Edgar so like that

(01:11:11):
that really means something. But yeah, uh it's it's like
incomprehensibly terrible. Okay, that's my that's my secret.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
That's you're Andrew, you opted for d none of the above.

Speaker 1 (01:11:25):
None of the above.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
And then Bill Money walks out of the street, scares
away the whole town. You know, anybody takes a shot
at me, I'll kill their I'll kill them, I'll kill
their wives, I'll burn their fucking oars down.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
And you're like, uh, don't.

Speaker 2 (01:11:36):
And then he gets up on his horse, like literally
gets on his high horse, and it's like, you shouldn't
cut up horse, and you shouldn't do this, and and
give my friend a proper burial or I'll come back
and kill all you sons of bitches like like he again,
just like raising the entire town to the ground. And
I love it. But I gotta then talk about the
final shot of this movie, because that scene makes the

(01:11:57):
last shot of this movie full on impish, ambish Clint Eastwood,
because we've just been dragged through a prairie's worth a
broken glass and how bleak and heavy and nihilistic this
movie is. And then we end on a gorgeous violet
sunset and we hear the wistful plucking of a sad
guitar playing that sweet theme song like a lullaby. Clint

(01:12:18):
just spent over two hours ripping Westerns to shreds, setting
fire to the rendered chunks, and pissing on the ashes
only quietly in the film in a vista that would
bring tears to the eyes of John Ford. That's such
a middle figure, like he's really like he's really given
it to us at that point.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
He really is. And it's an amazing way to end
that movie. And it's wonderful, it really is.

Speaker 1 (01:12:43):
I fucking love this movie so much.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
I hate that it took I mean, I would say
I hate that it took me so long to come
around on this movie. But then again, much like Clint Eastwood,
I think you kind of have to put this movie
on a shelf for a while until you're at the
appropriate point in your life where it speaks to you directly.
And I really am glad that it came back into
my life when I did, and I was able to
appreciate it more.

Speaker 1 (01:13:05):
It was literally because of our Pale Rider episode.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
In preparation for that, I was like, I'll give Unforgiven
another shot, and then that's when the movie completely clicked
for me and why I was like, I guess we
should absolutely kick off June Hack month with Unforgiven. And
I think it's completely appropriate that Clint Eastwood dedicated this
movie to his mentors, director Sergio Leone and Don Siegel,

(01:13:30):
So the final screen credit reads dedicated to Sergio and Don.
It's appropriate because again it's Clint burying not only Westerns,
but he's burying dirty Harry and he's burying the man
with No Name. These are the two identities that defined
his career to that point, but were created by someone else.
And from here on, like I said, Clint is in
control of the stories he tells and the people he portrays,

(01:13:52):
so he is putting everything else to rest. And it's
so apropos that he dedicates this to Sergio and Don.

Speaker 3 (01:13:58):
Yet it's the hell of it. I ain't killing a man.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
The takeaway always got, always ever gonna.

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
Oh, yes, they had it come.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
We all have its coming, and that brings us to
the jump.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Yeah it's oh, you are correct, But I want to
go a step further. And my junk food pairing is
small batch Wyoming Whiskey, which is the Wyoming distillery that
is based in not big whiskey, but definitely in Wyoming,
born and distilled in the Cowboys state. This five year aged,
eighty eight proof bourbon is made from filtered water from
a limestone aquifer deep in the earth and the finest

(01:14:37):
Wyoming grain. It may not be big whiskey, but it's
got big flavor and I think it's the perfect thing
to sip on as you watch an elegant bludgeoning that
is unforgiven. Yes, Oh, I'm so glad we used this
to kick off June hack Month. We will be back
next week with another great Gene Hackman performance in a

(01:14:58):
great Gene Hackman movie or just a Gene Hackman movie
we love. I don't care if it's great or not.
Most of them are great because Gene Hackman is great
and everything. That's just the way it is.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
But if you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
No, it is not. It's not the movie that made
him quit forever. Thanks a lot, Ray Romano. All right,
what did I do? You made the fucking movie. That's
what you did, and you know it. Cargill, Please tell
people where they can find you on the interwebs.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
You can find me on Blue Sky at Sea Robert Cargill,
that Blue Skuy at social You can find my latest movie,
The Gorge wherever you are on Apple Plus. Rather. You
can find the trailer for my next movie, Black Phone
two on YouTube all over the place? What was that?

Speaker 1 (01:15:40):
Bambalam Bambalam?

Speaker 3 (01:15:43):
And you can find my upcoming book, All the Ash
We Leave Behind on Subterranean Press and for those asking,
coming soon to audio as well Noice.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
You can find Junk Food Cinema eleven years worth of
this horseshit on your favorite podcast. You can also follow
us on social media at Junk Food Cinema. And if
you really like the show.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
I mean you really like the show, you like it as.

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
Much as I'm kind of coming around on that Clint
Easwood movie El Camino. You can go to patreon dot
com slash junk Food Cinema and financially support the show.

Speaker 1 (01:16:14):
We greatly appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:16):
I'm gonna wrap this up by saying definitively that I
deserve to be able to eat putting roll ups again,
But according to the letters I got back from Betty Crocker,
deserves got nothing to do with it.

Speaker 4 (01:16:26):
General now tenders.

Speaker 3 (01:16:30):
Whispers through my gram Torino clisling other tired so engine
arms and better dreams grow