December 17, 2024 • 69 mins
On the merit of the title alone, Devon and Doug watched a French film from 1973 called, A Slightly Pregnant Man directed by Jaques Demy. The movie raised a lot of questions and oh boy does Devon go out of her way to answer those. We also learn in great detail what a rabbit test is and why it’s important to never let Steven Tyler know anything you don’t!
“L'Événement le plus Important depuis que l'Homme a Marché sur la Lune”
“Paris Perdu”
Performed by Mireille Mathieu
“Ben”
Performed by Michael Jackson
“Bright Eyes” (Theme From Watership Down)
Performed by Art Garfunkel
About The Film
A Slightly Pregnant Man (French: L'Événement le plus important depuis que l'homme a marché sur la Lune, lit. 'The Most Important Event Since Man Walked on the Moon'; Italian: Niente di grave, suo marito è incinto, lit. 'No Big Deal, Her Husband Is Pregnant') is a 1973 comedy film written and directed by Jacques Demy.[2] The film stars Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni, with Micheline Presle, Marisa Pavan, Claude Melki, André Falcon, Alice Sapritch and Raymond Gérôme.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
You're listening to Radio Free Rhinecliffe.
I just remembered how to start the show.
Are you ready?
Yes.
Welcome to Studio Property,
the cinema podcast for people like you.
My name is Doug Wartell.
And I'm Devin Irby.
And this week, we are discussing the
(00:22):
French film,
A Slightly Pregnant Man,
circa 1973.
It's a
French comedy that explores gender roles
and the possibilities of a biologically
equal species,
or, as your dumb Uncle Earl would call it,
antique welkness.
Yes. So
A Slightly Pregnant Man
(00:42):
stars Catherine Deneuve and Marcello
Mastroianni, who are a couple in real life.
Yeah,
and it is directed and written by
Jacques Demi,
who micromanages the
out of this movie.
But we'll get to that in a moment.
Devin, hit the theme song.
Roll it.
Scorsese's at it again.
(01:03):
Oh, Cinema's dead.
Franchise movies killed it. It
wins.
We random dated.
We think you might be right.
Put that prop turn down.
Put back the canisters you stole.
The devil laughed out loud when you signed
away your rotten soul.
That's studio property, your studio
property.
(01:24):
Shut your mouth,
or you'll never
work in Hollywood
again.
Ha-cha.
So you were saying that he wrote the film
And directed the film.
Yes.
And, you know,
you have to admit, this is not at the top of his
(01:45):
success list.
This is not
his best film.
We're here already. Yes. I mean,
you picked this, I'm guessing because you
saw the title.
Oh, absolutely.
This.
What could go wrong?
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, I couldn't help myself.
I was like a slightly pregnant man.
Yes, thank you.
Right.
(02:06):
Cause we didn't learn our lesson with
Junior.
Nope.
As far as the Jacques Demi
catalog goes.
Yeah, no, it's not one of his more popular
films, but
we were about to explore.
He was not kidding.
And he is,
he was quite obsessed
with making this film. Yeah.
I mean, right down to the color palette
(02:26):
of every
shot.
He's like telling a visual story
even while he's
playing out this sort of.
Hyper reality.
On the other hand, it's not like your
slapstick,
dumb, dumb
jokes about having to go to the bathroom a
lot or cravings or.
No, it's not that movie.
No, not at all. It is
(02:46):
treated as though we have a legitimate male
pregnancy, you know, and how that plays out.
It starts with
a stomach problem. Yes,
it starts with, yeah, I mean, it starts
with like
he has some symptoms in his belly.
And he decides he's going to go to the
doctor.
Oh, and you know what? He had dizziness.
That's what it was.
Yes.
(03:07):
Yes.
Because he's a driver's ed teacher.
Yes.
He owns a little driving school. Yeah.
Yeah And there's a lot of conversations at
the beginning about
he eats a lot of chicken and maybe the
chicken was bad.
He's not feeling well because it's bad
chicken. And
then the woman who either works for him or
is his mother, we have not determined this
(03:28):
because it's not
it's not telegraphed at all.
No, no, could be a nanny.
You know,
she makes a lot of chicken.
She makes a lot of chicken to a point where
Catherine Deneuve's character even comments
that she lacks imagination.
So let's let's
get the character names so we can move
forward as we pick a few selected scenes
(03:50):
we'll tell you about and then kind of go
over what we thought
of the film.
Marcello
Mastriani
is Marco and Catherine Deneuve is his
girlfriend, Irene.
And they have a little boy named Lucas.
So they aren't married, but they have a son
and he must be
8-9 ish
in the film.
(04:10):
He has these friends that
work at the driver's school with him and
she works at a hair salon.
Yes,
a very colorful hair salon.
To put it lightly, yes.
I mean,
she works on a piece of pop art is what it
looks like,
basically, and has all her employees
dress in said pop art as well.
(04:31):
This is the beginning when you start to
notice how much he micromanages everything.
One of the hairdressers is wearing this
great purple sweater.
It's the exact same shade as the curtain
off to this right of the screen.
And it just,
yeah.
And like every shot looks like sort of like
a framed, especially in that environment,
looks like a framed painting
almost.
(04:52):
It does.
It's it's
truly beautiful.
And it's got that real aggressive 70s, like
like that blue wallpaper is kind of, you
can tell it's flocked.
It's got texture,
which of course probably causes some like
mesothelioma or something.
But at the time, it's just gorgeous,
right? Yeah.
But
it's
not muted.
(05:12):
Yeah, it's not muted 70s.
It's not like it's got
high contrast, like kick the saturation up,
almost Robbie Muller.
Yeah, it's
but it's fun.
And and you're kind of on board with this
because it's fun.
Yeah.
So
he goes to see a
a General practitioner.
(05:32):
Now
she's smoking a cigarette from one of those long
stem filters like Hunter S Thompson.
Right.
And she's talking to him like he's absolute filth.
She's using medical terminology with him.
He doesn't understand these words.
And she's like, oh, of course you don't
understand this word, darling.
You're a stupid man.
And just continues
(05:53):
this conversation
as she's like
prodding at his stomach and stuff.
And
she's not wearing a mask.
She's not even wearing a lab coat or scrubs
or anything.
She is in a.
Perfectly tailored
power suit
with
a lot of jewelry.
(06:16):
A lot of rattling jewelry.
Rattling jewelry.
Very jangly.
Lots of rattling.
Like the kind of jewelry you would wear if
you were doing a sound effect for a cartoon
featuring a skeleton
using his rib cage as a xylophone.
Yes,
yes, exactly.
So she sounded like the ghost of Christmas
future just wandering around.
(06:37):
But she does.
She did have this bracelet though that I I
couldn't take my eyes off and it was a
charm bracelet.
It had these very big charms on it and one
of them was a snail shell
and that becomes a line
later in the film.
It's not a direct reference to
the
the bracelet itself.
I just, I just probably made a connection
where there was none.
But
(06:58):
yeah, but later said we're not snails when
referring to the.
The pregnancy, but we'll get there. So
she tells him that he has the symptoms of a
four month old pregnant woman.
Yes.
That's what she said to him.
Yes.
Well, you know, you
kind of feel like maybe you're a pregnant woman.
Yeah,
you just.
I mean, everything's adding up to you being
(07:18):
pregnant.
I'd say about four months
to which of course he says quoi.
She's like,
well, you know, you seem like
the way your stomach is sort of inflated.
And I don't know that she made any
reference to anything else that might have
been scientifically specific.
No. Uh uh.
She was taking a stab in the dark, wrote him
(07:40):
a recommendation to
go to a specialist.
And we're off to the races.
We're off to the races.
Gets him an appointment the very next day
and she's like, this is a big deal because
this
gynecologist is top notch and hard to get into
again.
And then what happens is he's he's
going home
(08:01):
and he decides to stop into a bookstore
and pick up a medical book
as if like science might have moved forward
since the last he checked it,
right?
It's not any medical book.
It's a pop-up medical book with like you
know like
like a four year old might read.
Like it has
models of like
(08:22):
like a cardboard windows.
Like you can open up the
the skin and you'd see the anatomy inside.
Yeah, all your biological business is just like
a scratch and sniff away.
Apparently you just.
It looked kind of fun.
I'm not going to front, but like it.
I don't.
I'm trying to understand the motivation
behind this research.
Like, he's like, you know,
(08:43):
well, maybe I am pregnant.
Let me consult this book.
And of course, our doctor, Dr.
Delevingne, has just told him that he's dumb.
So of course he went for a real,
you know, like, I need something I can
understand, you know? So that's
probably
why
he
got that weird pop-up medical book,
right?
So
(09:04):
he gets home.
Where his wife and well, his
girlfriend and his son
are,
well, she's not home yet.
He gets in and he starts flipping through
this book and then he hears her come to the door.
He hides the book
and he mentions to her that he has to see a
specialist, but at this point doesn't say why,
right?
(09:24):
But we get again a couple of intentional
shots of wallpaper matching the pots on the stove.
Yep.
Really. Like,
you know,
two or three times.
All right, maybe it's an accident.
No, no, this is every shot of the movie.
Just like some
sort of like, yeah, there's some sort of
riddle being presented
in the in it's in its color palette.
But
he go, he eventually goes to see the
(09:45):
specialist and where it is confirmed
that he is.
Pregnant.
Very pregnant.
And of course the
best part is he finally breaks down on his
way to the specialist and tells
Irene
the
the girlfriend.
Uh yeah, so I might be pregnant and she
faints.
Of course
she
(10:05):
she faints, so he's got to go to.
He's supposedly pregnant, but has to get the
girlfriend who's just fainted
to the gynecologist with
him where it's confirmed
he is pregnant.
The film does
doesn't exist in a reality that you and I
live in.
It exists in almost like this weird Peter
Sellers reality
or like those like.
Very dreamy 70s sitcoms where you're like,
(10:27):
oh, yeah, of course there's a fantasy
island.
And of course your dreams are going to come
true on it.
Like you just kind of roll with the premise
of whatever's happening, you know?
Exactly. Yeah.
He goes to work and tells his friend
about this.
And this is where we knew we weren't, where
we live now
is because the friend's like, really?
Huh.
(10:47):
Well, who shafted you?
Yeah, he's like,
remember, he's like, who shacked you?
And the response is like, well, homosexuals
can't have children.
You're like, what?
Yeah.
And he's like, clearly it's my girlfriend. Like,
who do you think?
Who do you think knocked me up?
In case we we rush that a bit, that's
(11:09):
a premise that's established more than once
in the film,
that a woman can get a man pregnant, but
homosexuals cannot have children.
Yes.
It does come up more than once.
Now you want to explain the science that we
were presented with, Devin?
Yes.
As to how this
happened.
As to how that. Yeah.
And it's interesting because they do come
(11:30):
at you with some science,
essentially the fancy gynecologist who
confirms this pregnancy.
says we've suspected this was going to
happen and this was on its way,
and it's because of the food we eat.
It's because so much of the
the ingredients in our food are
(11:50):
laced with hormones.
Like chicken is full of hormones
and artificial, you know,
you know ingredients are artificial and
whatnot.
So ultimately it was going to lead
to a hormone imbalance in both men and women,
and we knew this was a possible outcome.
So it's almost like
I immediately kind of what I thought was, oh, so
(12:12):
you know, the EU has always been fairly
ahead of the United States as far as
FDA type things, right? Like how they how they
go through drug trials, how they,
you know, what's allowed food wise, you
know, GMOs, those kinds of things.
They've always been sort of, you know,
definitely
ahead
of the United States in that
regard.
And so I was like, oh, as far back as 73,
(12:34):
they were having conversations about what
happens when there's
see hormones in your chicken.
Again, because we go back to the whole, he
eats too much chicken.
Right.
Which is
the event horizon, apparently.
Yes,
the event horizon.
But what happens is, is
he he goes and tells his friend
that he's pregnant.
What's interesting about that is,
it's not a leap for them.
(12:56):
They're like,
That's outrageous.
And that outrage lasted
about as long as that last sentence did.
And they just sort of be on the board like,
huh, well
I guess you're going to be the first
pregnant man.
Okay.
And they're just kind of like,
just
rolling.
And there's a
little bit of a, oh, I guess, does this
mean I can get pregnant? Well, I mean, we
assume so.
(13:16):
Most famously, like I think
the closest we came to this, like in terms of
of a comedy, right, I guess was the
Schwarzenegger movie, right?
Junior.
But in '78, there was a film
which
featured
Billy Crystal.
It was his first
on-screen appearance ever.
And it was, uh
(13:37):
Michael Keaton's in this movie too.
He has a nice
non-speaking role.
But the movie was written and directed by
Joan Rivers, the only time she ever
directed anything.
And it was a film called Rabbit Test.
And
it it didn't do well with the critics at all.
Like
it, yeah, it was apparently just like a
bunch of like one liners strung together.
It was like barely cohesive movie, but it
(13:58):
made its money back.
And I just needed to insert that there
because
we didn't wait that long to try to make
this movie. It
was five, only five years later. Yeah.
And of course, you know,
Neither of us have sat through rabbit test.
Not sure that either of us will at this point.
However, we are aware
it's they are essentially, it's the same
premise, but two very, you know, they're
(14:21):
two very different films represented in
very, very different ways.
Yeah.
The latter would probably, I'm just
guessing,
probably has all the ingredients I might
have mentioned earlier.
Like it's probably the,
yeah, a
lot of like, I got to go to the bathroom again,
you know, like, yeah,
exactly.
It's probably a lot of that.
(14:41):
Yeah,
I love Joan Rivers to death, but,
you know, sometimes when you put pen to paper.
Right? And what a weird choice.
She wrote and directed it.
Her only directing gig was to write a movie
about a pregnant man.
Well,
I mean,
not really out of character for Joan
Rivers, now that I think about it.
She's a trailblazer when it comes to
being a woman in comedy and
(15:03):
probably the the woman who gave
Johnny Carson the biggest run for his money.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Yeah.
So yeah, I could see where she would write
that and direct that film and just, but it
just not,
you know, not land. Right.
Right. Yeah. They
can't all be winners.
No,
I never saw Junior either.
(15:23):
I'm just aware of it.
No, I didn't.
And I do believe the premise of Junior is more,
it's a little bit more sciencey because
it's, I think there's more of a premise
that they're fertility research specialists
and somehow.
There's a reason why they decide to go
ahead and
essentially he doesn't get pregnant.
He's just
(15:45):
carrying the pregnancy.
Yeah.
So it's a little bit more.
There is no you've eaten too much chicken
laced with hormones. No,
it's
not that at all.
It's it's
just,
yeah, it's just
we've got a test tube baby and we're going
to have a man carry it is kind of more of
the premise.
Explain what a rabbit test is.
(16:06):
Oh, yeah, so rabbit test.
And honestly, I only know this because I
read the Julie Andrews memoir
a number of years ago.
We
had this conversation that I totally
forgot.
Yeah,
she
yeah, she
talks about getting pregnant with her first child.
So apparently before
(16:28):
ladies could pee on a stick.
To see if the correct hormones were present
to show that you are pregnant, cause that's
essentially the function of a pregnancy
test, right? Whether you're having blood
drawn, you pee on a stick,
it's do you have
pregnancy hormones? That's essentially what
it's doing.
But
there was a way where they like
injected
rabbits and I think also like
(16:50):
mice or hamsters
with
I don't know if it was like.
Your blood.
I don't know. I
don't.
They took something from the lady.
I don't know if it was urine or or blood or
whatever.
And they like somehow injected it into
very small critters
and it had something to do with they
turned colors or something.
(17:11):
I swear.
I swear it had to do with
like turning
blue.
It's
insane.
Also,
I don't, I don't necessarily love
mice
or hamsters or any of that.
But I don't need to kill them
just to find out if I'm pregnant.
It's really weird.
Who came up with that science?
(17:32):
I'm going to, I'm going to get a little bit
more sciency about this cause I don't want
somebody listening later to be like she
didn't get the details right.
OK,
the rabbit test, I can't stop thinking
about it,
also known as
the Friedman test. It
injected a woman's urine
into
a rabbit and then examining the rabbit's
ovaries to determine if the woman was
(17:53):
pregnant.
So inject. OK,
no joke.
Apparently he's here's the steps according to
Google.
One, inject a woman's urine into a live
female rabbit.
Two, wait a few days.
Three, kill the rabbit.
Four, dissect the rabbit.
Five, eight.
Five.
Kill the rabbit.
Exit. Right.
Don't blame me because the rabbit done
(18:14):
died. Right. OK. And
then
five,
exam.
Tyler knew what a rabbit test was, but I
didn't.
Stewart Tyler knew a thing.
That I didn't.
Don't ever let that happen to you. Don't
listen at home.
Don't ever let Steven Tyler know a thing
more than you. This
has been a public service message from
Studio Property
and Radio Free Rhinecliffe.
(18:36):
OK, I'm going to finish this because it's it's.
And I'll just play the watership down. OK,
Step 5.
Examine the rabbit's ovaries for Corpora Ludia.
OK, for what now?
Cor.
OK, Corpora Ludia.
Now I'm going to have to figure out what
the hell Corpora Ludia is.
OK, the rabbit test was used from the 30s
through the 60s
(18:57):
and I love this comment.
It was effective, but also expensive,
time-consuming and cruel.
Thank you for acknowledging that for me,
Google,
because it is mean.
Yeah,
it's so horrible.
I can't stop laughing,
right? It's terrible.
OK, So what the hell is?
(19:18):
Corpora luteum.
That's got to be a hormone.
It's my new band is what it is.
Corpora luteum.
By the way, we playing in the rec center
this weekend.
All right.
Corpus luteum
is a temporary endocrine gland that forms
in the ovary after ovulation and plays a
(19:40):
key role
in fertility.
So apparently somehow taking your
your pregnant.
Urine and injecting it into the rabbit
makes the rabbit think it's pregnant.
So it.
So basically what it's telling me is
gynecologists and obstetricians were fine
doing this to rabbits and hamsters because
the only other way to do it would have been to
(20:03):
dissect the lady, right? Because
right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, basically, yeah,
that seems really time consuming.
It seems super time consuming.
Yeah, maybe expensive.
Yeah,
I just, I
just feel like there had to be other ways
to figure out you were pregnant.
I mean, we got there, right? We discovered,
(20:23):
we discovered how like, right, you know,
again, somehow
peeing on a stick
that gives you the little like plus minus or
:) or whatever seems
so much
classier now
in a world where we were only maybe 13
years away from peeing on a stick.
(20:43):
Right.
We're making movies about
men getting pregnant from chicken.
Oh, my God. Yeah. See,
exactly.
That's the other thing that blew my mind
about this film
is
that concept.
No, it's true.
Is that concept of
where were we? Well, and also first test
tube baby.
That was only like
(21:04):
79 or something, right?
Was it? Was it 79? I I want to say it was like
79.
Don't quote me on that, but I'm feeling
fairly confident.
That one's worth looking up.
OK, let's see.
I was off 1978.
78. OK,
(21:25):
yeah.
So literally, like you said,
our first test tube baby being able to pee
on a stick to tell you you're pregnant.
A French conceptual film about what would
happen if men got pregnant
because of hormone
laced chicken.
And we're not-- and shortly,
too soon before that,
(21:45):
we're injecting rabbits
with
ladies' urine to see if we're pregnant.
Those were
the days.
I was going
to say,
we just lost half of our listeners who were like,
No, I was here for movies,
not for your crazy science.
And you knew who you were
then.
(22:09):
But
yeah, so,
oh
boy.
Now back to the micromanagement
of one Jacques Demy.
Right. So he
gets home after being diagnosed
pregnant,
after
a day at work telling his friends,
because it's coming out in the paper.
But before we get there,
because remember, they wanted
(22:30):
to keep it
quiet,
but the science community very much were
like, Hey, listen, this is this is really
important.
We're going to have to tell.
Everybody, right? You know Because science!
But
the thing is, is that
when he gets home,
the color palette completely changes.
He's wearing baby blues
and pink shirts,
(22:51):
and she's wearing very stark, dark blues.
And it's,
yeah.
And
again, the pink in his shirt, which by the
way, he wears the next day,
again,
because he's not wearing a sweater over it,
I'm on the costume department in 1973.
It
perfectly matches the wallpaper
(23:11):
of the pink flowers
that are
the opposite of phallic.
In their little Parisian
kitchen. Yeah,
the little party kitchen.
So he's like practically camouflaged
into his wallpaper with this pink shirt.
But
yeah, so again, like
(23:31):
this guy is obsessed with this film.
Like he's obsessed with every shot of it.
And
it becomes really
apparent
when a character named Ramona
enters the picture.
She's a peripheral character.
She's not important at all.
She just comes in and out of
their lives, in and out of their
(23:51):
bar,
where the where the
driving
teachers hang out.
Ramona's a,
oh, she's played by, what is it, Alice
Safrich.
Alice Safrich, yeah.
So Americans would know her if you have
that kind of a memory
watching
National Lampoon's European Vacation.
(24:14):
She's in the
the
Eiffel Tower scene
briefly.
She's made like 60 something movies though.
But when I read up on her, she was like this,
just this wild character.
I have a wonderful picture of her from
Getty Images.
Where
she just, again, she's just smoking a
cigarette out of those like long ass
filters.
But she's a very unusual looking woman,
(24:35):
right?
And
these are her words.
She's like, I knew I was really
unattractive
and I made it work for me.
I cooked with what I had.
That made me think like you were the
coolest person on the planet,
right? And it's such a solid quote too.
I cooked with what I had.
I love that,
she says in the bar at one point, because
(24:57):
she plays an actress.
Who's constantly auditioning for things,
whatever.
She's starring in a play and she said, and
something comes up where he's like, well,
is it going to be A, B or C? And she goes,
I'm starring in a
in a play, not a farce.
And that's the director letting you know
that this ain't
a big bag of yuck yucks.
(25:17):
Right.
This is a play, wherever it goes, for all
intents, for better or worse,
this is a piece of art, darling.
Precisely.
So
that's why it's so
micromatic, and he
reminds you of this,
a bunch of different times.
Yeah.
When he gets home from their big day,
because now it's hit the paper,
(25:39):
and again,
everyone's kind of giving it, like there's
sort of an air of, oh, it's about time.
Yeah.
Rather than outrage or
fear or,
yeah, or
or even confusion,
right? Maybe some mild skepticism.
But you know like you know a little bit of
like, really? Are we sure? Oh, OK, yeah.
(26:00):
There's--
acceptance is much faster than you think it
would be.
So they get home from this rough day of
delayed
acceptance.
And
Marco decides he's going to take his
filming to a concert.
And this is really interesting.
The concert they go to see.
(26:20):
is a woman named, and I I just, I'm tempted
to call her Muriel, but it's like, . Yeah
I'm definitely
not pronounced.
I'm definitely
like, I'm
doing something
awful with the accent,
not intentionally, but it's like,
but it's something that quick.
It's a Muriel Macho,
you know.
It It looks like
(26:41):
Muriel Matthew is essentially what it looks like.
So however you say Muriel Matthew in
French.
Right.
And if you're,
Aggressive or angry or if you're
hit the pronunciation key on Wikipedia in
which I did
and it said and
it
was
just really
it just sounded
like I was being spit on.
So I
(27:03):
mean
I'm I'm
just telling you how it went down.
But
so
it turns out
that this woman
has sold 122 million records in 11
languages.
She was,
one
of her biggest hits was
a cover of the Barbra Streisand tune, Woman
(27:25):
in Love,
right?
Ooh, yeah.
She's had hits after hits.
And some of them were original, some of
them were standard.
She did have that sort of Grace Jonesy
career where everything was a cover,
right? Yep, mm-hmm.
But
Demi hires her for his movie
and then writes the songs she's going to be
(27:48):
performing,
not just in the scene where she shows up.
And by the way, in the '70s back then, like
if you were in
a
in a musical group and you were in a group,
or if you were in a film, they were going
to stop this film
and feature your performance
as if they were like,
you know what, all the characters and the
story's going to pause for a moment because we're
(28:08):
we're watching this woman perform
in a film.
And
it's a it's
a song, again, written by
Jacques Demy,
But the music
is done by a man named Michelle Legrand,
who was a composer,
a very famous composer.
He's won a ton of Oscars.
(28:29):
But here in America, we know him.
He scored the
Thomas Crown Affair
and most famously Yentl.
Wow. Yeah,
yeah.
So he composed Yentl.
So that's wild.
And then turned around and
composed the music.
for a really weird
song that Jacques Demi wrote the lyrics for
(28:50):
and had. And the
title is so long and like I don't want to
butcher it, but I mean, I'm going to tell
you, it's like
like a Fiona Apple album title.
Like it just goes,
it's like a chapter long.
But let me, yeah, let me find this clip for
you so you can hear this
this song because it's
really kind of funky.
(29:15):
Like, that's the title.
Yeah.
The title
stopped there.
How great is the bass on these two?
(29:37):
Yeah,
it's the--
It's
like French Paul McCartney.
Honestly, I love French pop music like that.
It's great,
right? It's great.
I don't know what it is.
It's something. I
don't know.
I think it's the language
because you
started this, by the way, we started this
episode with a with a the song she does in
(29:57):
the credits.
But like, yeah, this is the the song that
the she's
performing
and the greatest she it looks like a school
auditorium,
doesn't
it? And she just like, there's like an
introduction and then she kind of walks out
from the curtain very stiff.
There's no band.
And she's just standing with her arms at
her side, just singing this song.
Just like,
what is? She's not even emoting it. And
(30:20):
just kind of like, what is happening right now?
Her and her fancy flowy red 70s gown and
her mushroom cut.
And she just hits it.
Yep, just
belts out that.
Yep, belts out that tune.
Good tune, though.
But it is a good tune.
It is a good tune.
But this guy, could you imagine this guy?
(30:41):
Like how insufferable was Demi on the set,
right? Like
every shot is micromanaged to the nines.
And then like
the cameo, he's like, no, no, I got the
lyrics too.
You're right.
And
we have to talk about
the
the,
the, the opening song
that she sings.
(31:02):
I I just, I cannot express enough how
instantaneously I was sucked into the film
because of course,
you know,
it's subtitled, right? So I'm I'm reading
the lyrics of the song.
So the the long
title of the film is
a slightly pregnant man.
Parentheses,
the most important thing to happen to
(31:24):
mankind since man walked on the moon.
And that's literally like one of the first
lines of the song.
I think that's this song.
That's this song.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's literally.
And
I just, I
immediately, I was like, that's the title
of this.
That's that's the.
But it's in French, but it's the title of
(31:45):
this song.
Yeah.
The most important thing. Yeah. And I
I was, I was sucked in instantaneously.
I was like, I just saw that just now, by
the way, I didn't know that.
I'm not gonna pretend I did.
I just as
you said it.
I was like, Oh yeah, there's the word
important.
Luna.
Yeah, that's it.
That's this is exactly it.
You're right.
And then something about it
being bizarre.
That was the other.
(32:06):
I have
10 words in French, but bizarre.
I was like, oh, Yep, because it is weird.
Agreed.
Don't you want to know what that
conversation was? Jacques Demi being like,
listen, girl,
I really want you to cameo in my film,
but this is the song I'm going to have to
have you sing.
And this is the premise of the film.
Like, do you think she was just like,
(32:27):
yeah,
I need to do this.
Not cause she needed the work or the money
or more popularity cause we know she was
super popular and sold tons of records,
but just was like,
I need to be a part of this.
This is weird cause I had a conversation
with my mom about this, right? Cause we
lived in Stuttgart when I was a baby
and
apparently when we were over there
like she was in town.
(32:48):
So like the posters were like everywhere.
Yeah.
And my mom described the haircut and
everything. So she.
wasn't remembering it.
She wasn't like, was it really Nina Hagen?
No, it was,
umm yeah her description matched the
culprit.
And you
were like,
yes,
this is the lady.
Yeah.
Yeah
So now here I
am.
(33:10):
Many, many years later,
having experienced her
her aura.
Right.
Her aura
in a completely unexpected way.
I would say in a magical way.
Agreed.
I would say a lot of things, yeah.
But
so after this
random scene where, you know,
we're returned to our
our film already in progress.
(33:32):
Yes.
And what happens is
everyone around Marco
is almost excited for him.
And the white, there's no
friction.
There's no conflict here.
No, there's not really a lot of.
I mean, there's a little.
There's a tiny bit of teasing from like a
couple of his buddies.
He goes to the bar with his coworker,
(33:53):
Lucien. So mean
Lucien.
And
you know, the guys are kind of like,
did you see about this pregnant guy in the
paper? And he's like,
it's me.
And they're like,
what? And they kind of tease him.
But then they're like,
all right, and on board with it.
Yeah, like, so there's like, but even as a
storyteller, right?
Or just as a story, like, it's like,
(34:14):
there's no conflict.
There's no
no.
Not at all.
And then we immediately get to marketing,
right?
Because once he hits the papers,
a company decides they want to make
paternity
and be, you know, at the forefront of this
because
he again, he's the first pregnant man
(34:34):
and
we are in for a scene that is a wonderful
photo shoot.
Oh, so good.
You know, also can we add to that
the scene?
Just before that, where they have the
meeting where they're trying to sell him
and they're like
and and Irene is there too.
And they're like, listen, Marco, Irene,
we want to be exclusive.
(34:55):
We want to design a line of paternity wear
around you.
We want it to be exclusive.
And
the marketing guys
like and the fashion, the actual like
designers talking through it,
just magical.
The whole thing is magical. And
then like you said, then
ultimately results in us getting a photo shoot
of, and I love it,
(35:16):
the
they're essentially grow with you overalls
because they're
working
with big buttons,
huge buttons, huge buttons.
And because they're working off the premise
that a lot of men who end up pregnant
probably work in industrial jobs and so
they need something kind of heavy duty, but
that's going to grow with them as.
As they as
(35:37):
they grow, as their pregnancy progresses
and it's just
it's magic.
But another wonderful thing about it is,
I
mean,
it's right there, right? Like he looked like.
Both Mario brothers.
Like he just
like,
look, I know, look, I know it's racist.
Sorta
(35:57):
like,
ish.
I didn't say Wario.
I said the brothers, right.
So he's either Mario or Luigi, right?
Right.
Like Wario would have been racist.
Well, that's true.
That's true. But
yeah, so
it is not the young, handsome.
Marcello Masturani, right? It's not, it's
not the La Dolce Vita version of him.
It is the middle-aged,
(36:19):
like almost 50-year-old,
you know.
With a food baby.
With a food baby, with a food baby.
And he's got,
you know, adorable, like shaggy, kind of
curly-ish wavy hair, big bushy mustache.
And he's in those darned overalls
with his big pregnant belly.
with his hand on a baby buggy, a classic
(36:40):
baby buggy, not like a modern stroller.
And
when the photographer's like, smile, and then--
And it's a profile.
It's a profile,
right? Yes.
You
get the full
shape of him.
Ohh
Yeah.
Incidentally, him and Catherine Deneuve
were together for just a little bit, but
(37:00):
they had a daughter together.
This is the first film the daughter had seen
of her parents.
Because they were four films together.
This was the first one she watched.
In fairness,
I'm just going to go on a limb and say it's
probably all uphill from there,
right?
Yep. But
this was the first one she watched.
(37:20):
She said that in an interview at some point.
That's
super
funny.
There's a bunch of men
all over the world suddenly having
pregnancy
symptoms,
right? Yes.
And by that I mean.
They'll be like one's at a construction
site, grabs his stomach. Oh,
like he's got diarrhea and he's like, I'm
(37:42):
pregnant
and
then like
lays in the barrel while his friend's like,
oh, poor you.
Like, oh, you OK? And then this happens,
like little incidents like this all over
the world.
And it's just like them walking.
And then it just looks like
they're filming like some sort of Pepto
Bismol commercial.
They're just like,
oh, indigestion.
(38:02):
I'm pregnant. It's
what it looks like, right? Like it's the
weirdest thing.
It does.
It's so bizarre.
It's so bizarre.
And then there's a couple little like,
oh, geez. Well,
my I had, this is where I had a complaint.
Because there's only one of those pregnant men
who looks
age appropriate.
(38:23):
Because I of course my brain immediately
went to,
well, just because you're a man getting
pregnant, it must follow suit that.
The pregnancy,
you know, like fertility issues for ladies,
like, you know, come a certain age.
Oh yeah, yeah,
right.
It would be a geriatric pregnancy, right? Like
several geriatric pregnancies, right.
(38:44):
Right.
That's exactly what it looks like.
And so of course in my brain was like,
wait, that guy looks,
he looks too old to be pregnant.
And then my second thought was,
oh, are we back in the hole?
It's the 70s and everybody's aging kind of
poorly.
And so he's actually younger than he looks.
Is that what this
is? Right.
He's actually 20.
He's like 32 and totally reasonably could
(39:05):
be pregnant.
But he looks 47.
He's 7030,
right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
There's only one guy.
And of course, the one guy who actually
looks legitimately young,
the ladies in his office or wherever it is
he works
immediately get gossipy and they're like,
Oh yeah, didn't you hear? He's knocked up.
(39:26):
Oh, right, right, right,
right.
They got to him a little young.
Yeah.
That's actually like a charming scene,
though, when they're just like gossiping
about the young one.
That's actually a pretty charming scene
and an otherwise very confusing movie.
It's one of those
tiny moments where you feel that sort of
cultural flip to like,
(39:47):
you know,
it is not uncommon to be
gossipy and rude about a young.
Unmarried lady, maybe less so today, but
you know what I mean? Definitely a young
unmarried lady who's pregnant,
at least especially in 1973.
And so the fact that they're kind of doing
it to this clearly young unmarried guy
is kind of like,
(40:07):
Oh yeah, that's about
that tracks.
I'm just thinking like 73 America,
that would be so that conversation would be raw.
Like that would be
raw.
Like, I'm assuming that the French are more
polite.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm just saying
the reality that they're creating in this
film is very polite.
(40:28):
It's almost Canadian.
But also
it's just generally speaking,
more accepting of such things,
which I and
when I say like,
you know, cause
our main couple, Marco and Irene,
they aren't married.
And like I said, the kid, the first kid,
the older kid's like 8 or 9.
So again, 73.
They're not married, but they're together.
(40:49):
They have a kid.
There's no comment on that whatsoever.
Whereas I feel like, but you know what you
remind me of the the scene where he has to
go to his ex-wife.
And this was so confusing to me too.
Like, it was so weird. Yeah,
so weird.
He goes to his ex-wife and he's like,
listen, I want you to know I'm getting
married because I'm pregnant.
And she's like,
(41:09):
what?
And she's the only one who has the
appropriate reaction.
She's like, what now?
And he's like, yeah, I'm pregnant
and.
What's funny is when she had
the kid,
they
already have a son.
They didn't get married then,
but now he's got to settle down because
he's having the baby.
And I'm just going to point out in in Full
(41:31):
disclosure,
Devon and I had a conversation about this.
I had no idea why that was funny until she
explained it to me.
I had no idea.
I was like,
I was so confused by that scene.
I was like, why did he decide then?
And he's like, Oh yeah, the hormones are
kicking.
So he wants to settle down.
Yeah, that's.
And he's like,
I feel it's important.
Yeah, the gag is, I feel like it's
(41:51):
important
that we're married when this baby comes.
And I'm like,
you clearly have a child.
You didn't give a crap about that.
You weren't married before.
I mean, there is slight confusion because
they talk about cause he does tell the
doctor at one point,
right.
I was married when Irene and I met
that.
He never actually says that he got Irene
(42:11):
pregnant when he was still married,
but that he was still married and not yet
divorced when they started dating.
So
I'm like, but Even so, you clearly have
been divorced for a while.
So you had plenty of opportunity to get
married
to Irene before this.
What did he say?
It slipped his mind.
He was like, well, I was already married
and you know, you know how time goes.
(42:33):
Yeah, I got busy.
Right.
And you're like, you know, like I forgot.
Not for nine years, bro.
I mean, and he runs a driving school.
It's not like he does like community radio,
right?
I was very confused by that whole scene.
That was also super weird. Like,
why did he feel the need to go? They're
clearly divorced.
(42:53):
It's the ex-wife.
Why did he feel the need to tell her,
by the way, I just want you to know I'm
getting married.
Like,
why does she care?
Yeah.
And then when he leaves, do you remember
she talks to someone else? She's like, Oh
yeah, he thinks he's Mother Mary over here.
I was like, OK, I'm like, OK, good.
That one landed with me.
I was like, OK, good.
Someone said it.
(43:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she even at one point is like,
you know what? Just
I'm over you.
Go get married.
Don't give me some crazy story as to why
you have to get married.
I don't care. Just.
We don't even.
We don't even share kids together.
Like, why
are you here? And
she own that restaurant.
Like, what are you doing here? Go back to
(43:35):
your driving school.
Yeah,
take a hike, buddy.
Go back to, like, making just above minimum wage.
I got to run a restaurant.
Yeah.
And you're having kids.
How about, you know, how about rethink your
career while you're at it?
She didn't go hard on them.
I would have went hard.
I would have went in. Oh
yeah,
she
should have. But.
What happens is is they do sign this big,
(43:56):
you know they signed a really huge contract
yeah
when he
got the Marky Mark underwear ad for all
intents and purposes, because
it's everywhere.
So he
they get this big advance, they're going to
pay for a vacation because I renegotiated it.
And it was just
really, that was a really fun moment. But
what ends up happening is they decide
they're going to merge their businesses
together
(44:17):
under one umbrella and they're going to get
an apartment that goes with the building.
They're
looking at an apartment and of course the
landlord is smoking,
right? Yep, of course.
And he's just like, so, you know what, why
are you looking for a place like this? And
she's like, well, our family's growing.
He's, and he starts sort of objectifying
and going like,
honey, I can't tell,
you know,
you know, he's blowing smoke all over the place.
(44:40):
And then
she was like, no, it's
my fiance's having a kid.
He's the one who's pregnant.
And he looks to to Marco and he's like, oh,
I thought that might have been you.
oh my God, is the smoke bothering you? And
he's like, right away.
You're like, oh no, I'm so sorry.
Yeah,
Yeah
but now we gotta talk about the actual
ending of the film.
(45:00):
Oh yeah,
ugh, the
ending.
As I mentioned, Devin and I had not seen
this film going in.
We wanted to, you know,
we wanted to take a couple of episodes and just
experience new things while we
write out loud what the show even is.
And
it sounds like we were delighted with the film.
And you know, to some extent we were.
(45:22):
But any complaint that we have about it
lands right here at the end.
Is that fair?
Absolutely, that's fair.
That is accurate. It
is probably the most cop-out ending I've
ever seen.
Honestly, my brain just went wah, wah
at
at the end when we got there.
And I was like, you're joking.
So what happens is, is that he he goes to
(45:44):
finally take a sonogram.
Because he's seven months or seven months
later, right?
No.
Remember, this is 73, so there's no like
ultrasound or sonogram apparently.
I don't know when those things were
invented, but apparently there
earlier there they were like, we're going
to take an X-ray,
but then early like, no, it's too risky for
(46:04):
the baby at the four month mark when he
finds out.
So now they're at the 7th month mark and
apparently it's safer for the baby so they
can take an X-ray.
Which of course now we know you do not do.
You do not expose
babies to X-rays
at all.
Or
I shouldn't say babies, fetuses, right?
In utero fetuses to X-rays at all.
(46:27):
So they do an X-ray.
His fancy-ass gynecologist does an X-ray.
And the result?
No
baby.
And the doctor says,
ah,
it's a hysterical pregnancy.
And I was like,
no,
(46:48):
all of that fuss.
By the way, the first ultrasounds
were performed in Glasgow between 63 and 68.
But in America, they didn't.
They didn't happen here until
about 7879,
right?
OK,
Yeah, OK.
So it exists, but it's not.
The miracle life even was
(47:10):
in the 70s even happened,
right? It's
crazy.
Yeah.
So, OK, so the the technology exists, but
it's not standard yet.
So
an X-ray at seven months to see about this baby
and the baby doesn't exist.
Yeah, it's a hysterical pregnancy
and we're just supposed to believe.
(47:31):
all that fuss.
And he's so pregnant at that point.
He's so pregnant at that point.
And the wild thing about this is once again,
now we have
a panic and it's out loud.
Our friends are going to think
we're frauds.
They're going to call this a hoax.
They're scared of backlash.
(47:52):
Like what's what's going to happen now?
They're not going to believe us.
They're going to think we made this up,
you know, and oh man. And
That worrying
lasts about 3 seconds and they go get
married.
And that's the end.
Like, right.
Like,
well, hold up.
Yep.
Although, hold on though.
Don't forget,
right before they're they see each other
(48:12):
and they're going to leave to go get
married.
She's like, oh, BT dogs, I'm pregnant.
Oh, right,
right.
And that makes it all.
Everything's OK.
Yeah, he's
pregnant.
He still looks extremely pregnant.
He's still, he's in his wedding tux
and tails and he's still enormous.
He looks super pregnant.
And she's like, Oh yeah, I'm pregnant too.
Woo woo.
(48:32):
But there was a moment where he looks
disappointed, right? Like he's like, you
know, like, oh, he does. He
really wanted that baby.
And you do kind of feel a little bad.
Yeah,
because he's a good actor.
True.
He did that with a facial expression.
right he didn't it
didn't it didn't require dialogue like you
saw on his face he was sad
(48:53):
that this was happening
and to balance that out
is you know she
suddenly announces she's pregnant
but
there's an there's a
an italian cut
of the film
yeah
and they changed the ending entirely
the italians did
yeah
yeah
(49:13):
like well I want to know like
What was the ending Jacques Demi wanted?
Did he want the ending that we got
in the the version that we saw, or did he
want
the Italian ending?
Because he clearly filmed the Italian
ending.
Well,
the Italian ending is in the film.
(49:34):
It's just a different placement.
Oh, I guess I kind of.
I guess that's
is.
Yeah, I guess kind of.
Yeah,
we're
missing
one shot.
We're missing one shot, right? So
the Italian ending is
as they're going
to to exchange their vows,
he collapses and starts giving birth,
(49:54):
but you don't see the
the child.
That part's not in the film.
But what's in the film is from that moment
forward, you know you gathered that, oh, he
was told the wrong thing.
He was actually pregnant and he was,
you know, the baby is coming.
And then immediately, then we cut to the
shot of all the men around the world
suddenly getting the
(50:16):
indigestion slash
pregnancies.
And that's where that shot
ended up in the Italian cut.
OK, yeah, I got.
I didn't even think about that.
I guess you're right
that,
yeah, they could have just
used that shot at the end.
Yeah. So
they. So
basically they
(50:36):
they still shot.
At least the scene of him going into labor at
the wedding.
So that still existed somewhere.
Yeah,
yeah, that was.
I don't think there was a reshoot.
No,
no.
So yeah, so maybe that, yeah, maybe that
wasn't supposed to be the original ending.
And he second guessed himself
because he was stressed out from all the
micromanaging.
(50:57):
Maybe.
Or we don't know.
I mean, this is,
I don't know enough about French cinema.
Particularly in the 70s.
So we're going to learn it out loud doing
this show.
We are learning.
Yeah, you bet we are.
You're welcome,
Ryan Cliff.
Like, how was production? How was film
(51:18):
production? Was it, was it the production
studio that was like, oh no,
it needs to be hysterical pregnancy.
We can't have him actually be.
Oh yeah, that's possible too.
You know what I mean? Like, yeah, you
know, so
someone is bureaucracy.
Yeah.
Right.
Cause that, I mean, those are two very
different endings, even though the
(51:39):
hysterical pregnancy is in both versions
because they're like, oh no, we didn't see a baby.
Clearly it's a hysterical pregnancy.
But then he's like, oh no, no, no,
your tech sucks and I am pregnant and now
I'm going into labor.
Yeah.
I like that ending way better.
That's a good ending,
right? Yeah.
It's
a lot more fun.
And then, yeah, then at that point, jumping
(52:00):
through, shoving around to
men all over the world.
But I want the kid to come out like, like
absurd.
Like I want the baby to have like a fork,
like fork tongue or like in V
or just come out and kiss makeup, whatever it is.
Like I want it to be
like absurd. Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
But This
(52:21):
is why I don't make films. But
I we have to to to say the thing.
I didn't love this film.
So,
yeah, I mean, and it's because of the
ending.
Like I would have wrote, I would not have
been on board
at like maybe a solid six.
We don't really
rank things here, but like it, I would
been, yeah, I was like,
(52:42):
it was like,
yeah, I was enjoying it, right? I was like,
oh, this is fun. Right.
Yeah.
Yeah
But then the ending just made me mad.
Yeah. Yes.
I felt gypped.
Because it's.
It because it's a real cop out.
You've gone down this aggressive premise
of
everybody's buying into male pregnancy and
(53:03):
we are buying into this,
you know,
you know, sciency
food, food, you know, the things we've done
to our food have messed us up
as humans.
And now,
you know, and of course the other aspect of
that is
the ridiculous premise.
I mean,
because essentially they're not just saying
that gender.
(53:24):
That it's flipped
that men are now going to give birth and
women aren't.
It's it can go either direction, which
has
zero logic to it whatsoever.
So we're we're being sold this premise and then
eh, it's
interesting because we get
a glimpse.
If I'm if I'm being fair, we get a glimpse
of like a really idealized.
(53:47):
Society through the prism of 1973, right?
Like 1973,
it could have been raw,
but then instead they were just like, oh,
you know what? It's kind of about time. Good.
All right,
let's
let's go smoke.
Can we go smoke?
Oh, but don't worry.
Smoke around the pregnant guy.
Yeah, I got.
(54:07):
I got to tell you though, like, cause I
quit smoking 2 Aprils ago.
And I watching this film about 20 minutes
in, I'm like,
oh man, God damn it, just give me one.
Like, and I know at this point, like, it's
left my taste buds, like, so it'd probably really
like
gross, like, but like, I was just like, oh
man,
I miss smoking.
I never really smoked out of one of those.
(54:28):
Long stem things for any reason.
I never had a reason to. And
I have to say that image of the doctor,
cause there's so many photos of it out
there, but she's got the long
stem cigarette.
Yeah, yeah, she's
clenching it between her teeth and she's like
got her hands on Marco's belly, like doing
his abdominal.
I have that.
(54:49):
I have that shot too. I I
yeah, and
she's all like,
she looks really intense.
It's wonderful.
I mean, the picture that I have, and I'm
going to put this up on our Instagram, right?
The picture I have of Alice,
of Ramona.
Oh, Ramona. Yeah.
Yeah.
But
the actress,
(55:09):
this is an older photo of her with that same
filter action.
And I'm like, You maybe bore them.
Those things were kind of cool
to specific people.
Like specific people can
pull that thing off, whereas the average
person cannot.
you know I could not. No, no.
I would try.
I didn't
try, but
I would try,
(55:32):
have given the option.
If they sold them like in the corner
bodega, I'd be like, yeah, give me a whirl.
Who's got a camera?
Let's go for it.
Yeah, like
let's take a look at, let's let's
give this a whirl.
Yeah,
but
no,
it wasn't in the cards.
But I'm going to ask you a really important
question right about here.
(55:54):
How
or slash
if
you would sell this to Susan.
You know what?
I
I can sell it to Susan,
but it's not for the reason you think.
Do you want to sell it? I do want to.
I do want to sell it to Susan.
Well, first of all, you know, I enjoy
getting Susan to watch movies
(56:15):
that she's obviously going to dislike
immensely.
Brings me joy that she sits through it,
but.
Our friendlies.
Because I'm mean.
Yes, because I'm very mean.
But no, this is how we're I'm.
I am going to sell this to Susan.
So
before Marco finds out he's pregnant,
(56:37):
he and Lucien go to get a drink at the bar
and they go to that bar and it's got like.
kind of a curved-- there's like a curved
bar, and there's big
glass windows, and the door is like glass
doors, and they're kind of at an angle.
And then there's like pinball machines kind
of on one side. And
they're in the bar, and they're hanging out
with the guys.
I've been in that bar.
(56:58):
And that's how I'm going to sell it to Susan.
In real life? In real life. Oh,
wow.
In real life.
So
my husband took me to Paris for our 10th
wedding anniversary.
Your husband
Brian.
My husband Brian.
Yes, I guess I've never.
Yeah, I should might as well just start
calling him
Brian. Yeah.
So my hubby Brian
(57:18):
took me to Paris for our 10th wedding
anniversary, which is
was quite a while ago.
And
he knows I love the movie.
You're listening to Radio Free Rhinecliffe.
I just remembered how to start the show.
Are you ready?
Yes.
Welcome to Studio Property,
the cinema podcast for people like you.
My name is Doug Wartell.
And I'm Devin Irby.
And this week, we are discussing the
(00:22):
French film,
A Slightly Pregnant Man,
circa 1973.
It's a
French comedy that explores gender roles
and the possibilities of a biologically
equal species,
or, as your dumb Uncle Earl would call it,
antique welkness.
Yes. So
A Slightly Pregnant Man
(00:42):
stars Catherine Deneuve and Marcello
Mastroianni, who are a couple in real life.
Yeah,
and it is directed and written by
Jacques Demi,
who micromanages the
out of this movie.
But we'll get to that in a moment.
Devin, hit the theme song.
Roll it.
Scorsese's at it again.
(01:03):
Oh, Cinema's dead.
Franchise movies killed it. It
wins.
We random dated.
We think you might be right.
Put that prop turn down.
Put back the canisters you stole.
The devil laughed out loud when you signed
away your rotten soul.
That's studio property, your studio
property.
(01:24):
Shut your mouth,
or you'll never
work in Hollywood
again.
Ha-cha.
So you were saying that he wrote the film
And directed the film.
Yes.
And, you know,
you have to admit, this is not at the top of his
(01:45):
success list.
This is not
his best film.
We're here already. Yes. I mean,
you picked this, I'm guessing because you
saw the title.
Oh, absolutely.
This.
What could go wrong?
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, I couldn't help myself.
I was like a slightly pregnant man.
Yes, thank you.
Right.
(02:06):
Cause we didn't learn our lesson with
Junior.
Nope.
As far as the Jacques Demi
catalog goes.
Yeah, no, it's not one of his more popular
films, but
we were about to explore.
He was not kidding.
And he is,
he was quite obsessed
with making this film. Yeah.
I mean, right down to the color palette
(02:26):
of every
shot.
He's like telling a visual story
even while he's
playing out this sort of.
Hyper reality.
On the other hand, it's not like your
slapstick,
dumb, dumb
jokes about having to go to the bathroom a
lot or cravings or.
No, it's not that movie.
No, not at all. It is
(02:46):
treated as though we have a legitimate male
pregnancy, you know, and how that plays out.
It starts with
a stomach problem. Yes,
it starts with, yeah, I mean, it starts
with like
he has some symptoms in his belly.
And he decides he's going to go to the
doctor.
Oh, and you know what? He had dizziness.
That's what it was.
Yes.
(03:07):
Yes.
Because he's a driver's ed teacher.
Yes.
He owns a little driving school. Yeah.
Yeah And there's a lot of conversations at
the beginning about
he eats a lot of chicken and maybe the
chicken was bad.
He's not feeling well because it's bad
chicken. And
then the woman who either works for him or
is his mother, we have not determined this
(03:28):
because it's not
it's not telegraphed at all.
No, no, could be a nanny.
You know,
she makes a lot of chicken.
She makes a lot of chicken to a point where
Catherine Deneuve's character even comments
that she lacks imagination.
So let's let's
get the character names so we can move
forward as we pick a few selected scenes
(03:50):
we'll tell you about and then kind of go
over what we thought
of the film.
Marcello
Mastriani
is Marco and Catherine Deneuve is his
girlfriend, Irene.
And they have a little boy named Lucas.
So they aren't married, but they have a son
and he must be
8-9 ish
in the film.
(04:10):
He has these friends that
work at the driver's school with him and
she works at a hair salon.
Yes,
a very colorful hair salon.
To put it lightly, yes.
I mean,
she works on a piece of pop art is what it
looks like,
basically, and has all her employees
dress in said pop art as well.
(04:31):
This is the beginning when you start to
notice how much he micromanages everything.
One of the hairdressers is wearing this
great purple sweater.
It's the exact same shade as the curtain
off to this right of the screen.
And it just,
yeah.
And like every shot looks like sort of like
a framed, especially in that environment,
looks like a framed painting
almost.
(04:52):
It does.
It's it's
truly beautiful.
And it's got that real aggressive 70s, like
like that blue wallpaper is kind of, you
can tell it's flocked.
It's got texture,
which of course probably causes some like
mesothelioma or something.
But at the time, it's just gorgeous,
right? Yeah.
But
it's
not muted.
(05:12):
Yeah, it's not muted 70s.
It's not like it's got
high contrast, like kick the saturation up,
almost Robbie Muller.
Yeah, it's
but it's fun.
And and you're kind of on board with this
because it's fun.
Yeah.
So
he goes to see a
a General practitioner.
(05:32):
Now
she's smoking a cigarette from one of those long
stem filters like Hunter S Thompson.
Right.
And she's talking to him like he's absolute filth.
She's using medical terminology with him.
He doesn't understand these words.
And she's like, oh, of course you don't
understand this word, darling.
You're a stupid man.
And just continues
(05:53):
this conversation
as she's like
prodding at his stomach and stuff.
And
she's not wearing a mask.
She's not even wearing a lab coat or scrubs
or anything.
She is in a.
Perfectly tailored
power suit
with
a lot of jewelry.
(06:16):
A lot of rattling jewelry.
Rattling jewelry.
Very jangly.
Lots of rattling.
Like the kind of jewelry you would wear if
you were doing a sound effect for a cartoon
featuring a skeleton
using his rib cage as a xylophone.
Yes,
yes, exactly.
So she sounded like the ghost of Christmas
future just wandering around.
(06:37):
But she does.
She did have this bracelet though that I I
couldn't take my eyes off and it was a
charm bracelet.
It had these very big charms on it and one
of them was a snail shell
and that becomes a line
later in the film.
It's not a direct reference to
the
the bracelet itself.
I just, I just probably made a connection
where there was none.
But
(06:58):
yeah, but later said we're not snails when
referring to the.
The pregnancy, but we'll get there. So
she tells him that he has the symptoms of a
four month old pregnant woman.
Yes.
That's what she said to him.
Yes.
Well, you know, you
kind of feel like maybe you're a pregnant woman.
Yeah,
you just.
I mean, everything's adding up to you being
(07:18):
pregnant.
I'd say about four months
to which of course he says quoi.
She's like,
well, you know, you seem like
the way your stomach is sort of inflated.
And I don't know that she made any
reference to anything else that might have
been scientifically specific.
No. Uh uh.
She was taking a stab in the dark, wrote him
(07:40):
a recommendation to
go to a specialist.
And we're off to the races.
We're off to the races.
Gets him an appointment the very next day
and she's like, this is a big deal because
this
gynecologist is top notch and hard to get into
again.
And then what happens is he's he's
going home
(08:01):
and he decides to stop into a bookstore
and pick up a medical book
as if like science might have moved forward
since the last he checked it,
right?
It's not any medical book.
It's a pop-up medical book with like you
know like
like a four year old might read.
Like it has
models of like
(08:22):
like a cardboard windows.
Like you can open up the
the skin and you'd see the anatomy inside.
Yeah, all your biological business is just like
a scratch and sniff away.
Apparently you just.
It looked kind of fun.
I'm not going to front, but like it.
I don't.
I'm trying to understand the motivation
behind this research.
Like, he's like, you know,
(08:43):
well, maybe I am pregnant.
Let me consult this book.
And of course, our doctor, Dr.
Delevingne, has just told him that he's dumb.
So of course he went for a real,
you know, like, I need something I can
understand, you know? So that's
probably
why
he
got that weird pop-up medical book,
right?
So
(09:04):
he gets home.
Where his wife and well, his
girlfriend and his son
are,
well, she's not home yet.
He gets in and he starts flipping through
this book and then he hears her come to the door.
He hides the book
and he mentions to her that he has to see a
specialist, but at this point doesn't say why,
right?
(09:24):
But we get again a couple of intentional
shots of wallpaper matching the pots on the stove.
Yep.
Really. Like,
you know,
two or three times.
All right, maybe it's an accident.
No, no, this is every shot of the movie.
Just like some
sort of like, yeah, there's some sort of
riddle being presented
in the in it's in its color palette.
But
he go, he eventually goes to see the
(09:45):
specialist and where it is confirmed
that he is.
Pregnant.
Very pregnant.
And of course the
best part is he finally breaks down on his
way to the specialist and tells
Irene
the
the girlfriend.
Uh yeah, so I might be pregnant and she
faints.
Of course
she
(10:05):
she faints, so he's got to go to.
He's supposedly pregnant, but has to get the
girlfriend who's just fainted
to the gynecologist with
him where it's confirmed
he is pregnant.
The film does
doesn't exist in a reality that you and I
live in.
It exists in almost like this weird Peter
Sellers reality
or like those like.
Very dreamy 70s sitcoms where you're like,
(10:27):
oh, yeah, of course there's a fantasy
island.
And of course your dreams are going to come
true on it.
Like you just kind of roll with the premise
of whatever's happening, you know?
Exactly. Yeah.
He goes to work and tells his friend
about this.
And this is where we knew we weren't, where
we live now
is because the friend's like, really?
Huh.
(10:47):
Well, who shafted you?
Yeah, he's like,
remember, he's like, who shacked you?
And the response is like, well, homosexuals
can't have children.
You're like, what?
Yeah.
And he's like, clearly it's my girlfriend. Like,
who do you think?
Who do you think knocked me up?
In case we we rush that a bit, that's
(11:09):
a premise that's established more than once
in the film,
that a woman can get a man pregnant, but
homosexuals cannot have children.
Yes.
It does come up more than once.
Now you want to explain the science that we
were presented with, Devin?
Yes.
As to how this
happened.
As to how that. Yeah.
And it's interesting because they do come
(11:30):
at you with some science,
essentially the fancy gynecologist who
confirms this pregnancy.
says we've suspected this was going to
happen and this was on its way,
and it's because of the food we eat.
It's because so much of the
the ingredients in our food are
(11:50):
laced with hormones.
Like chicken is full of hormones
and artificial, you know,
you know ingredients are artificial and
whatnot.
So ultimately it was going to lead
to a hormone imbalance in both men and women,
and we knew this was a possible outcome.
So it's almost like
I immediately kind of what I thought was, oh, so
(12:12):
you know, the EU has always been fairly
ahead of the United States as far as
FDA type things, right? Like how they how they
go through drug trials, how they,
you know, what's allowed food wise, you
know, GMOs, those kinds of things.
They've always been sort of, you know,
definitely
ahead
of the United States in that
regard.
And so I was like, oh, as far back as 73,
(12:34):
they were having conversations about what
happens when there's
see hormones in your chicken.
Again, because we go back to the whole, he
eats too much chicken.
Right.
Which is
the event horizon, apparently.
Yes,
the event horizon.
But what happens is, is
he he goes and tells his friend
that he's pregnant.
What's interesting about that is,
it's not a leap for them.
(12:56):
They're like,
That's outrageous.
And that outrage lasted
about as long as that last sentence did.
And they just sort of be on the board like,
huh, well
I guess you're going to be the first
pregnant man.
Okay.
And they're just kind of like,
just
rolling.
And there's a
little bit of a, oh, I guess, does this
mean I can get pregnant? Well, I mean, we
assume so.
(13:16):
Most famously, like I think
the closest we came to this, like in terms of
of a comedy, right, I guess was the
Schwarzenegger movie, right?
Junior.
But in '78, there was a film
which
featured
Billy Crystal.
It was his first
on-screen appearance ever.
And it was, uh
(13:37):
Michael Keaton's in this movie too.
He has a nice
non-speaking role.
But the movie was written and directed by
Joan Rivers, the only time she ever
directed anything.
And it was a film called Rabbit Test.
And
it it didn't do well with the critics at all.
Like
it, yeah, it was apparently just like a
bunch of like one liners strung together.
It was like barely cohesive movie, but it
(13:58):
made its money back.
And I just needed to insert that there
because
we didn't wait that long to try to make
this movie. It
was five, only five years later. Yeah.
And of course, you know,
Neither of us have sat through rabbit test.
Not sure that either of us will at this point.
However, we are aware
it's they are essentially, it's the same
premise, but two very, you know, they're
(14:21):
two very different films represented in
very, very different ways.
Yeah.
The latter would probably, I'm just
guessing,
probably has all the ingredients I might
have mentioned earlier.
Like it's probably the,
yeah, a
lot of like, I got to go to the bathroom again,
you know, like, yeah,
exactly.
It's probably a lot of that.
(14:41):
Yeah,
I love Joan Rivers to death, but,
you know, sometimes when you put pen to paper.
Right? And what a weird choice.
She wrote and directed it.
Her only directing gig was to write a movie
about a pregnant man.
Well,
I mean,
not really out of character for Joan
Rivers, now that I think about it.
She's a trailblazer when it comes to
being a woman in comedy and
(15:03):
probably the the woman who gave
Johnny Carson the biggest run for his money.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
For sure.
Yeah.
So yeah, I could see where she would write
that and direct that film and just, but it
just not,
you know, not land. Right.
Right. Yeah. They
can't all be winners.
No,
I never saw Junior either.
(15:23):
I'm just aware of it.
No, I didn't.
And I do believe the premise of Junior is more,
it's a little bit more sciencey because
it's, I think there's more of a premise
that they're fertility research specialists
and somehow.
There's a reason why they decide to go
ahead and
essentially he doesn't get pregnant.
He's just
(15:45):
carrying the pregnancy.
Yeah.
So it's a little bit more.
There is no you've eaten too much chicken
laced with hormones. No,
it's
not that at all.
It's it's
just,
yeah, it's just
we've got a test tube baby and we're going
to have a man carry it is kind of more of
the premise.
Explain what a rabbit test is.
(16:06):
Oh, yeah, so rabbit test.
And honestly, I only know this because I
read the Julie Andrews memoir
a number of years ago.
We
had this conversation that I totally
forgot.
Yeah,
she
yeah, she
talks about getting pregnant with her first child.
So apparently before
(16:28):
ladies could pee on a stick.
To see if the correct hormones were present
to show that you are pregnant, cause that's
essentially the function of a pregnancy
test, right? Whether you're having blood
drawn, you pee on a stick,
it's do you have
pregnancy hormones? That's essentially what
it's doing.
But
there was a way where they like
injected
rabbits and I think also like
(16:50):
mice or hamsters
with
I don't know if it was like.
Your blood.
I don't know. I
don't.
They took something from the lady.
I don't know if it was urine or or blood or
whatever.
And they like somehow injected it into
very small critters
and it had something to do with they
turned colors or something.
(17:11):
I swear.
I swear it had to do with
like turning
blue.
It's
insane.
Also,
I don't, I don't necessarily love
mice
or hamsters or any of that.
But I don't need to kill them
just to find out if I'm pregnant.
It's really weird.
Who came up with that science?
(17:32):
I'm going to, I'm going to get a little bit
more sciency about this cause I don't want
somebody listening later to be like she
didn't get the details right.
OK,
the rabbit test, I can't stop thinking
about it,
also known as
the Friedman test. It
injected a woman's urine
into
a rabbit and then examining the rabbit's
ovaries to determine if the woman was
(17:53):
pregnant.
So inject. OK,
no joke.
Apparently he's here's the steps according to
Google.
One, inject a woman's urine into a live
female rabbit.
Two, wait a few days.
Three, kill the rabbit.
Four, dissect the rabbit.
Five, eight.
Five.
Kill the rabbit.
Exit. Right.
Don't blame me because the rabbit done
(18:14):
died. Right. OK. And
then
five,
exam.
Tyler knew what a rabbit test was, but I
didn't.
Stewart Tyler knew a thing.
That I didn't.
Don't ever let that happen to you. Don't
listen at home.
Don't ever let Steven Tyler know a thing
more than you. This
has been a public service message from
Studio Property
and Radio Free Rhinecliffe.
(18:36):
OK, I'm going to finish this because it's it's.
And I'll just play the watership down. OK,
Step 5.
Examine the rabbit's ovaries for Corpora Ludia.
OK, for what now?
Cor.
OK, Corpora Ludia.
Now I'm going to have to figure out what
the hell Corpora Ludia is.
OK, the rabbit test was used from the 30s
through the 60s
(18:57):
and I love this comment.
It was effective, but also expensive,
time-consuming and cruel.
Thank you for acknowledging that for me,
Google,
because it is mean.
Yeah,
it's so horrible.
I can't stop laughing,
right? It's terrible.
OK, So what the hell is?
(19:18):
Corpora luteum.
That's got to be a hormone.
It's my new band is what it is.
Corpora luteum.
By the way, we playing in the rec center
this weekend.
All right.
Corpus luteum
is a temporary endocrine gland that forms
in the ovary after ovulation and plays a
(19:40):
key role
in fertility.
So apparently somehow taking your
your pregnant.
Urine and injecting it into the rabbit
makes the rabbit think it's pregnant.
So it.
So basically what it's telling me is
gynecologists and obstetricians were fine
doing this to rabbits and hamsters because
the only other way to do it would have been to
(20:03):
dissect the lady, right? Because
right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, basically, yeah,
that seems really time consuming.
It seems super time consuming.
Yeah, maybe expensive.
Yeah,
I just, I
just feel like there had to be other ways
to figure out you were pregnant.
I mean, we got there, right? We discovered,
(20:23):
we discovered how like, right, you know,
again, somehow
peeing on a stick
that gives you the little like plus minus or
:) or whatever seems
so much
classier now
in a world where we were only maybe 13
years away from peeing on a stick.
(20:43):
Right.
We're making movies about
men getting pregnant from chicken.
Oh, my God. Yeah. See,
exactly.
That's the other thing that blew my mind
about this film
is
that concept.
No, it's true.
Is that concept of
where were we? Well, and also first test
tube baby.
That was only like
(21:04):
79 or something, right?
Was it? Was it 79? I I want to say it was like
79.
Don't quote me on that, but I'm feeling
fairly confident.
That one's worth looking up.
OK, let's see.
I was off 1978.
78. OK,
(21:25):
yeah.
So literally, like you said,
our first test tube baby being able to pee
on a stick to tell you you're pregnant.
A French conceptual film about what would
happen if men got pregnant
because of hormone
laced chicken.
And we're not-- and shortly,
too soon before that,
(21:45):
we're injecting rabbits
with
ladies' urine to see if we're pregnant.
Those were
the days.
I was going
to say,
we just lost half of our listeners who were like,
No, I was here for movies,
not for your crazy science.
And you knew who you were
then.
(22:09):
But
yeah, so,
oh
boy.
Now back to the micromanagement
of one Jacques Demy.
Right. So he
gets home after being diagnosed
pregnant,
after
a day at work telling his friends,
because it's coming out in the paper.
But before we get there,
because remember, they wanted
(22:30):
to keep it
quiet,
but the science community very much were
like, Hey, listen, this is this is really
important.
We're going to have to tell.
Everybody, right? You know Because science!
But
the thing is, is that
when he gets home,
the color palette completely changes.
He's wearing baby blues
and pink shirts,
(22:51):
and she's wearing very stark, dark blues.
And it's,
yeah.
And
again, the pink in his shirt, which by the
way, he wears the next day,
again,
because he's not wearing a sweater over it,
I'm on the costume department in 1973.
It
perfectly matches the wallpaper
(23:11):
of the pink flowers
that are
the opposite of phallic.
In their little Parisian
kitchen. Yeah,
the little party kitchen.
So he's like practically camouflaged
into his wallpaper with this pink shirt.
But
yeah, so again, like
(23:31):
this guy is obsessed with this film.
Like he's obsessed with every shot of it.
And
it becomes really
apparent
when a character named Ramona
enters the picture.
She's a peripheral character.
She's not important at all.
She just comes in and out of
their lives, in and out of their
(23:51):
bar,
where the where the
driving
teachers hang out.
Ramona's a,
oh, she's played by, what is it, Alice
Safrich.
Alice Safrich, yeah.
So Americans would know her if you have
that kind of a memory
watching
National Lampoon's European Vacation.
(24:14):
She's in the
the
Eiffel Tower scene
briefly.
She's made like 60 something movies though.
But when I read up on her, she was like this,
just this wild character.
I have a wonderful picture of her from
Getty Images.
Where
she just, again, she's just smoking a
cigarette out of those like long ass
filters.
But she's a very unusual looking woman,
(24:35):
right?
And
these are her words.
She's like, I knew I was really
unattractive
and I made it work for me.
I cooked with what I had.
That made me think like you were the
coolest person on the planet,
right? And it's such a solid quote too.
I cooked with what I had.
I love that,
she says in the bar at one point, because
(24:57):
she plays an actress.
Who's constantly auditioning for things,
whatever.
She's starring in a play and she said, and
something comes up where he's like, well,
is it going to be A, B or C? And she goes,
I'm starring in a
in a play, not a farce.
And that's the director letting you know
that this ain't
a big bag of yuck yucks.
(25:17):
Right.
This is a play, wherever it goes, for all
intents, for better or worse,
this is a piece of art, darling.
Precisely.
So
that's why it's so
micromatic, and he
reminds you of this,
a bunch of different times.
Yeah.
When he gets home from their big day,
because now it's hit the paper,
(25:39):
and again,
everyone's kind of giving it, like there's
sort of an air of, oh, it's about time.
Yeah.
Rather than outrage or
fear or,
yeah, or
or even confusion,
right? Maybe some mild skepticism.
But you know like you know a little bit of
like, really? Are we sure? Oh, OK, yeah.
(26:00):
There's--
acceptance is much faster than you think it
would be.
So they get home from this rough day of
delayed
acceptance.
And
Marco decides he's going to take his
filming to a concert.
And this is really interesting.
The concert they go to see.
(26:20):
is a woman named, and I I just, I'm tempted
to call her Muriel, but it's like, . Yeah
I'm definitely
not pronounced.
I'm definitely
like, I'm
doing something
awful with the accent,
not intentionally, but it's like,
but it's something that quick.
It's a Muriel Macho,
you know.
It It looks like
(26:41):
Muriel Matthew is essentially what it looks like.
So however you say Muriel Matthew in
French.
Right.
And if you're,
Aggressive or angry or if you're
hit the pronunciation key on Wikipedia in
which I did
and it said and
it
was
just really
it just sounded
like I was being spit on.
So I
(27:03):
mean
I'm I'm
just telling you how it went down.
But
so
it turns out
that this woman
has sold 122 million records in 11
languages.
She was,
one
of her biggest hits was
a cover of the Barbra Streisand tune, Woman
(27:25):
in Love,
right?
Ooh, yeah.
She's had hits after hits.
And some of them were original, some of
them were standard.
She did have that sort of Grace Jonesy
career where everything was a cover,
right? Yep, mm-hmm.
But
Demi hires her for his movie
and then writes the songs she's going to be
(27:48):
performing,
not just in the scene where she shows up.
And by the way, in the '70s back then, like
if you were in
a
in a musical group and you were in a group,
or if you were in a film, they were going
to stop this film
and feature your performance
as if they were like,
you know what, all the characters and the
story's going to pause for a moment because we're
(28:08):
we're watching this woman perform
in a film.
And
it's a it's
a song, again, written by
Jacques Demy,
But the music
is done by a man named Michelle Legrand,
who was a composer,
a very famous composer.
He's won a ton of Oscars.
(28:29):
But here in America, we know him.
He scored the
Thomas Crown Affair
and most famously Yentl.
Wow. Yeah,
yeah.
So he composed Yentl.
So that's wild.
And then turned around and
composed the music.
for a really weird
song that Jacques Demi wrote the lyrics for
(28:50):
and had. And the
title is so long and like I don't want to
butcher it, but I mean, I'm going to tell
you, it's like
like a Fiona Apple album title.
Like it just goes,
it's like a chapter long.
But let me, yeah, let me find this clip for
you so you can hear this
this song because it's
really kind of funky.
(29:15):
Like, that's the title.
Yeah.
The title
stopped there.
How great is the bass on these two?
(29:37):
Yeah,
it's the--
It's
like French Paul McCartney.
Honestly, I love French pop music like that.
It's great,
right? It's great.
I don't know what it is.
It's something. I
don't know.
I think it's the language
because you
started this, by the way, we started this
episode with a with a the song she does in
(29:57):
the credits.
But like, yeah, this is the the song that
the she's
performing
and the greatest she it looks like a school
auditorium,
doesn't
it? And she just like, there's like an
introduction and then she kind of walks out
from the curtain very stiff.
There's no band.
And she's just standing with her arms at
her side, just singing this song.
Just like,
what is? She's not even emoting it. And
(30:20):
just kind of like, what is happening right now?
Her and her fancy flowy red 70s gown and
her mushroom cut.
And she just hits it.
Yep, just
belts out that.
Yep, belts out that tune.
Good tune, though.
But it is a good tune.
It is a good tune.
But this guy, could you imagine this guy?
(30:41):
Like how insufferable was Demi on the set,
right? Like
every shot is micromanaged to the nines.
And then like
the cameo, he's like, no, no, I got the
lyrics too.
You're right.
And
we have to talk about
the
the,
the, the opening song
that she sings.
(31:02):
I I just, I cannot express enough how
instantaneously I was sucked into the film
because of course,
you know,
it's subtitled, right? So I'm I'm reading
the lyrics of the song.
So the the long
title of the film is
a slightly pregnant man.
Parentheses,
the most important thing to happen to
(31:24):
mankind since man walked on the moon.
And that's literally like one of the first
lines of the song.
I think that's this song.
That's this song.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's literally.
And
I just, I
immediately, I was like, that's the title
of this.
That's that's the.
But it's in French, but it's the title of
(31:45):
this song.
Yeah.
The most important thing. Yeah. And I
I was, I was sucked in instantaneously.
I was like, I just saw that just now, by
the way, I didn't know that.
I'm not gonna pretend I did.
I just as
you said it.
I was like, Oh yeah, there's the word
important.
Luna.
Yeah, that's it.
That's this is exactly it.
You're right.
And then something about it
being bizarre.
That was the other.
(32:06):
I have
10 words in French, but bizarre.
I was like, oh, Yep, because it is weird.
Agreed.
Don't you want to know what that
conversation was? Jacques Demi being like,
listen, girl,
I really want you to cameo in my film,
but this is the song I'm going to have to
have you sing.
And this is the premise of the film.
Like, do you think she was just like,
(32:27):
yeah,
I need to do this.
Not cause she needed the work or the money
or more popularity cause we know she was
super popular and sold tons of records,
but just was like,
I need to be a part of this.
This is weird cause I had a conversation
with my mom about this, right? Cause we
lived in Stuttgart when I was a baby
and
apparently when we were over there
like she was in town.
(32:48):
So like the posters were like everywhere.
Yeah.
And my mom described the haircut and
everything. So she.
wasn't remembering it.
She wasn't like, was it really Nina Hagen?
No, it was,
umm yeah her description matched the
culprit.
And you
were like,
yes,
this is the lady.
Yeah.
Yeah
So now here I
am.
(33:10):
Many, many years later,
having experienced her
her aura.
Right.
Her aura
in a completely unexpected way.
I would say in a magical way.
Agreed.
I would say a lot of things, yeah.
But
so after this
random scene where, you know,
we're returned to our
our film already in progress.
(33:32):
Yes.
And what happens is
everyone around Marco
is almost excited for him.
And the white, there's no
friction.
There's no conflict here.
No, there's not really a lot of.
I mean, there's a little.
There's a tiny bit of teasing from like a
couple of his buddies.
He goes to the bar with his coworker,
(33:53):
Lucien. So mean
Lucien.
And
you know, the guys are kind of like,
did you see about this pregnant guy in the
paper? And he's like,
it's me.
And they're like,
what? And they kind of tease him.
But then they're like,
all right, and on board with it.
Yeah, like, so there's like, but even as a
storyteller, right?
Or just as a story, like, it's like,
(34:14):
there's no conflict.
There's no
no.
Not at all.
And then we immediately get to marketing,
right?
Because once he hits the papers,
a company decides they want to make
paternity
and be, you know, at the forefront of this
because
he again, he's the first pregnant man
(34:34):
and
we are in for a scene that is a wonderful
photo shoot.
Oh, so good.
You know, also can we add to that
the scene?
Just before that, where they have the
meeting where they're trying to sell him
and they're like
and and Irene is there too.
And they're like, listen, Marco, Irene,
we want to be exclusive.
(34:55):
We want to design a line of paternity wear
around you.
We want it to be exclusive.
And
the marketing guys
like and the fashion, the actual like
designers talking through it,
just magical.
The whole thing is magical. And
then like you said, then
ultimately results in us getting a photo shoot
of, and I love it,
(35:16):
the
they're essentially grow with you overalls
because they're
working
with big buttons,
huge buttons, huge buttons.
And because they're working off the premise
that a lot of men who end up pregnant
probably work in industrial jobs and so
they need something kind of heavy duty, but
that's going to grow with them as.
As they as
(35:37):
they grow, as their pregnancy progresses
and it's just
it's magic.
But another wonderful thing about it is,
I
mean,
it's right there, right? Like he looked like.
Both Mario brothers.
Like he just
like,
look, I know, look, I know it's racist.
Sorta
(35:57):
like,
ish.
I didn't say Wario.
I said the brothers, right.
So he's either Mario or Luigi, right?
Right.
Like Wario would have been racist.
Well, that's true.
That's true. But
yeah, so
it is not the young, handsome.
Marcello Masturani, right? It's not, it's
not the La Dolce Vita version of him.
It is the middle-aged,
(36:19):
like almost 50-year-old,
you know.
With a food baby.
With a food baby, with a food baby.
And he's got,
you know, adorable, like shaggy, kind of
curly-ish wavy hair, big bushy mustache.
And he's in those darned overalls
with his big pregnant belly.
with his hand on a baby buggy, a classic
(36:40):
baby buggy, not like a modern stroller.
And
when the photographer's like, smile, and then--
And it's a profile.
It's a profile,
right? Yes.
You
get the full
shape of him.
Ohh
Yeah.
Incidentally, him and Catherine Deneuve
were together for just a little bit, but
(37:00):
they had a daughter together.
This is the first film the daughter had seen
of her parents.
Because they were four films together.
This was the first one she watched.
In fairness,
I'm just going to go on a limb and say it's
probably all uphill from there,
right?
Yep. But
this was the first one she watched.
(37:20):
She said that in an interview at some point.
That's
super
funny.
There's a bunch of men
all over the world suddenly having
pregnancy
symptoms,
right? Yes.
And by that I mean.
They'll be like one's at a construction
site, grabs his stomach. Oh,
like he's got diarrhea and he's like, I'm
(37:42):
pregnant
and
then like
lays in the barrel while his friend's like,
oh, poor you.
Like, oh, you OK? And then this happens,
like little incidents like this all over
the world.
And it's just like them walking.
And then it just looks like
they're filming like some sort of Pepto
Bismol commercial.
They're just like,
oh, indigestion.
(38:02):
I'm pregnant. It's
what it looks like, right? Like it's the
weirdest thing.
It does.
It's so bizarre.
It's so bizarre.
And then there's a couple little like,
oh, geez. Well,
my I had, this is where I had a complaint.
Because there's only one of those pregnant men
who looks
age appropriate.
(38:23):
Because I of course my brain immediately
went to,
well, just because you're a man getting
pregnant, it must follow suit that.
The pregnancy,
you know, like fertility issues for ladies,
like, you know, come a certain age.
Oh yeah, yeah,
right.
It would be a geriatric pregnancy, right? Like
several geriatric pregnancies, right.
(38:44):
Right.
That's exactly what it looks like.
And so of course in my brain was like,
wait, that guy looks,
he looks too old to be pregnant.
And then my second thought was,
oh, are we back in the hole?
It's the 70s and everybody's aging kind of
poorly.
And so he's actually younger than he looks.
Is that what this
is? Right.
He's actually 20.
He's like 32 and totally reasonably could
(39:05):
be pregnant.
But he looks 47.
He's 7030,
right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
There's only one guy.
And of course, the one guy who actually
looks legitimately young,
the ladies in his office or wherever it is
he works
immediately get gossipy and they're like,
Oh yeah, didn't you hear? He's knocked up.
(39:26):
Oh, right, right, right,
right.
They got to him a little young.
Yeah.
That's actually like a charming scene,
though, when they're just like gossiping
about the young one.
That's actually a pretty charming scene
and an otherwise very confusing movie.
It's one of those
tiny moments where you feel that sort of
cultural flip to like,
(39:47):
you know,
it is not uncommon to be
gossipy and rude about a young.
Unmarried lady, maybe less so today, but
you know what I mean? Definitely a young
unmarried lady who's pregnant,
at least especially in 1973.
And so the fact that they're kind of doing
it to this clearly young unmarried guy
is kind of like,
(40:07):
Oh yeah, that's about
that tracks.
I'm just thinking like 73 America,
that would be so that conversation would be raw.
Like that would be
raw.
Like, I'm assuming that the French are more
polite.
That's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm just saying
the reality that they're creating in this
film is very polite.
(40:28):
It's almost Canadian.
But also
it's just generally speaking,
more accepting of such things,
which I and
when I say like,
you know, cause
our main couple, Marco and Irene,
they aren't married.
And like I said, the kid, the first kid,
the older kid's like 8 or 9.
So again, 73.
They're not married, but they're together.
(40:49):
They have a kid.
There's no comment on that whatsoever.
Whereas I feel like, but you know what you
remind me of the the scene where he has to
go to his ex-wife.
And this was so confusing to me too.
Like, it was so weird. Yeah,
so weird.
He goes to his ex-wife and he's like,
listen, I want you to know I'm getting
married because I'm pregnant.
And she's like,
(41:09):
what?
And she's the only one who has the
appropriate reaction.
She's like, what now?
And he's like, yeah, I'm pregnant
and.
What's funny is when she had
the kid,
they
already have a son.
They didn't get married then,
but now he's got to settle down because
he's having the baby.
And I'm just going to point out in in Full
(41:31):
disclosure,
Devon and I had a conversation about this.
I had no idea why that was funny until she
explained it to me.
I had no idea.
I was like,
I was so confused by that scene.
I was like, why did he decide then?
And he's like, Oh yeah, the hormones are
kicking.
So he wants to settle down.
Yeah, that's.
And he's like,
I feel it's important.
Yeah, the gag is, I feel like it's
(41:51):
important
that we're married when this baby comes.
And I'm like,
you clearly have a child.
You didn't give a crap about that.
You weren't married before.
I mean, there is slight confusion because
they talk about cause he does tell the
doctor at one point,
right.
I was married when Irene and I met
that.
He never actually says that he got Irene
(42:11):
pregnant when he was still married,
but that he was still married and not yet
divorced when they started dating.
So
I'm like, but Even so, you clearly have
been divorced for a while.
So you had plenty of opportunity to get
married
to Irene before this.
What did he say?
It slipped his mind.
He was like, well, I was already married
and you know, you know how time goes.
(42:33):
Yeah, I got busy.
Right.
And you're like, you know, like I forgot.
Not for nine years, bro.
I mean, and he runs a driving school.
It's not like he does like community radio,
right?
I was very confused by that whole scene.
That was also super weird. Like,
why did he feel the need to go? They're
clearly divorced.
(42:53):
It's the ex-wife.
Why did he feel the need to tell her,
by the way, I just want you to know I'm
getting married.
Like,
why does she care?
Yeah.
And then when he leaves, do you remember
she talks to someone else? She's like, Oh
yeah, he thinks he's Mother Mary over here.
I was like, OK, I'm like, OK, good.
That one landed with me.
I was like, OK, good.
Someone said it.
(43:14):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she even at one point is like,
you know what? Just
I'm over you.
Go get married.
Don't give me some crazy story as to why
you have to get married.
I don't care. Just.
We don't even.
We don't even share kids together.
Like, why
are you here? And
she own that restaurant.
Like, what are you doing here? Go back to
(43:35):
your driving school.
Yeah,
take a hike, buddy.
Go back to, like, making just above minimum wage.
I got to run a restaurant.
Yeah.
And you're having kids.
How about, you know, how about rethink your
career while you're at it?
She didn't go hard on them.
I would have went hard.
I would have went in. Oh
yeah,
she
should have. But.
What happens is is they do sign this big,
(43:56):
you know they signed a really huge contract
yeah
when he
got the Marky Mark underwear ad for all
intents and purposes, because
it's everywhere.
So he
they get this big advance, they're going to
pay for a vacation because I renegotiated it.
And it was just
really, that was a really fun moment. But
what ends up happening is they decide
they're going to merge their businesses
together
(44:17):
under one umbrella and they're going to get
an apartment that goes with the building.
They're
looking at an apartment and of course the
landlord is smoking,
right? Yep, of course.
And he's just like, so, you know what, why
are you looking for a place like this? And
she's like, well, our family's growing.
He's, and he starts sort of objectifying
and going like,
honey, I can't tell,
you know,
you know, he's blowing smoke all over the place.
(44:40):
And then
she was like, no, it's
my fiance's having a kid.
He's the one who's pregnant.
And he looks to to Marco and he's like, oh,
I thought that might have been you.
oh my God, is the smoke bothering you? And
he's like, right away.
You're like, oh no, I'm so sorry.
Yeah,
Yeah
but now we gotta talk about the actual
ending of the film.
(45:00):
Oh yeah,
ugh, the
ending.
As I mentioned, Devin and I had not seen
this film going in.
We wanted to, you know,
we wanted to take a couple of episodes and just
experience new things while we
write out loud what the show even is.
And
it sounds like we were delighted with the film.
And you know, to some extent we were.
(45:22):
But any complaint that we have about it
lands right here at the end.
Is that fair?
Absolutely, that's fair.
That is accurate. It
is probably the most cop-out ending I've
ever seen.
Honestly, my brain just went wah, wah
at
at the end when we got there.
And I was like, you're joking.
So what happens is, is that he he goes to
(45:44):
finally take a sonogram.
Because he's seven months or seven months
later, right?
No.
Remember, this is 73, so there's no like
ultrasound or sonogram apparently.
I don't know when those things were
invented, but apparently there
earlier there they were like, we're going
to take an X-ray,
but then early like, no, it's too risky for
(46:04):
the baby at the four month mark when he
finds out.
So now they're at the 7th month mark and
apparently it's safer for the baby so they
can take an X-ray.
Which of course now we know you do not do.
You do not expose
babies to X-rays
at all.
Or
I shouldn't say babies, fetuses, right?
In utero fetuses to X-rays at all.
(46:27):
So they do an X-ray.
His fancy-ass gynecologist does an X-ray.
And the result?
No
baby.
And the doctor says,
ah,
it's a hysterical pregnancy.
And I was like,
no,
(46:48):
all of that fuss.
By the way, the first ultrasounds
were performed in Glasgow between 63 and 68.
But in America, they didn't.
They didn't happen here until
about 7879,
right?
OK,
Yeah, OK.
So it exists, but it's not.
The miracle life even was
(47:10):
in the 70s even happened,
right? It's
crazy.
Yeah.
So, OK, so the the technology exists, but
it's not standard yet.
So
an X-ray at seven months to see about this baby
and the baby doesn't exist.
Yeah, it's a hysterical pregnancy
and we're just supposed to believe.
(47:31):
all that fuss.
And he's so pregnant at that point.
He's so pregnant at that point.
And the wild thing about this is once again,
now we have
a panic and it's out loud.
Our friends are going to think
we're frauds.
They're going to call this a hoax.
They're scared of backlash.
(47:52):
Like what's what's going to happen now?
They're not going to believe us.
They're going to think we made this up,
you know, and oh man. And
That worrying
lasts about 3 seconds and they go get
married.
And that's the end.
Like, right.
Like,
well, hold up.
Yep.
Although, hold on though.
Don't forget,
right before they're they see each other
(48:12):
and they're going to leave to go get
married.
She's like, oh, BT dogs, I'm pregnant.
Oh, right,
right.
And that makes it all.
Everything's OK.
Yeah, he's
pregnant.
He still looks extremely pregnant.
He's still, he's in his wedding tux
and tails and he's still enormous.
He looks super pregnant.
And she's like, Oh yeah, I'm pregnant too.
Woo woo.
(48:32):
But there was a moment where he looks
disappointed, right? Like he's like, you
know, like, oh, he does. He
really wanted that baby.
And you do kind of feel a little bad.
Yeah,
because he's a good actor.
True.
He did that with a facial expression.
right he didn't it
didn't it didn't require dialogue like you
saw on his face he was sad
(48:53):
that this was happening
and to balance that out
is you know she
suddenly announces she's pregnant
but
there's an there's a
an italian cut
of the film
yeah
and they changed the ending entirely
the italians did
yeah
yeah
(49:13):
like well I want to know like
What was the ending Jacques Demi wanted?
Did he want the ending that we got
in the the version that we saw, or did he
want
the Italian ending?
Because he clearly filmed the Italian
ending.
Well,
the Italian ending is in the film.
(49:34):
It's just a different placement.
Oh, I guess I kind of.
I guess that's
is.
Yeah, I guess kind of.
Yeah,
we're
missing
one shot.
We're missing one shot, right? So
the Italian ending is
as they're going
to to exchange their vows,
he collapses and starts giving birth,
(49:54):
but you don't see the
the child.
That part's not in the film.
But what's in the film is from that moment
forward, you know you gathered that, oh, he
was told the wrong thing.
He was actually pregnant and he was,
you know, the baby is coming.
And then immediately, then we cut to the
shot of all the men around the world
suddenly getting the
(50:16):
indigestion slash
pregnancies.
And that's where that shot
ended up in the Italian cut.
OK, yeah, I got.
I didn't even think about that.
I guess you're right
that,
yeah, they could have just
used that shot at the end.
Yeah. So
they. So
basically they
(50:36):
they still shot.
At least the scene of him going into labor at
the wedding.
So that still existed somewhere.
Yeah,
yeah, that was.
I don't think there was a reshoot.
No,
no.
So yeah, so maybe that, yeah, maybe that
wasn't supposed to be the original ending.
And he second guessed himself
because he was stressed out from all the
micromanaging.
(50:57):
Maybe.
Or we don't know.
I mean, this is,
I don't know enough about French cinema.
Particularly in the 70s.
So we're going to learn it out loud doing
this show.
We are learning.
Yeah, you bet we are.
You're welcome,
Ryan Cliff.
Like, how was production? How was film
(51:18):
production? Was it, was it the production
studio that was like, oh no,
it needs to be hysterical pregnancy.
We can't have him actually be.
Oh yeah, that's possible too.
You know what I mean? Like, yeah, you
know, so
someone is bureaucracy.
Yeah.
Right.
Cause that, I mean, those are two very
different endings, even though the
(51:39):
hysterical pregnancy is in both versions
because they're like, oh no, we didn't see a baby.
Clearly it's a hysterical pregnancy.
But then he's like, oh no, no, no,
your tech sucks and I am pregnant and now
I'm going into labor.
Yeah.
I like that ending way better.
That's a good ending,
right? Yeah.
It's
a lot more fun.
And then, yeah, then at that point, jumping
(52:00):
through, shoving around to
men all over the world.
But I want the kid to come out like, like
absurd.
Like I want the baby to have like a fork,
like fork tongue or like in V
or just come out and kiss makeup, whatever it is.
Like I want it to be
like absurd. Yeah,
yeah, yeah.
But This
(52:21):
is why I don't make films. But
I we have to to to say the thing.
I didn't love this film.
So,
yeah, I mean, and it's because of the
ending.
Like I would have wrote, I would not have
been on board
at like maybe a solid six.
We don't really
rank things here, but like it, I would
been, yeah, I was like,
(52:42):
it was like,
yeah, I was enjoying it, right? I was like,
oh, this is fun. Right.
Yeah.
Yeah
But then the ending just made me mad.
Yeah. Yes.
I felt gypped.
Because it's.
It because it's a real cop out.
You've gone down this aggressive premise
of
everybody's buying into male pregnancy and
(53:03):
we are buying into this,
you know,
you know, sciency
food, food, you know, the things we've done
to our food have messed us up
as humans.
And now,
you know, and of course the other aspect of
that is
the ridiculous premise.
I mean,
because essentially they're not just saying
that gender.
(53:24):
That it's flipped
that men are now going to give birth and
women aren't.
It's it can go either direction, which
has
zero logic to it whatsoever.
So we're we're being sold this premise and then
eh, it's
interesting because we get
a glimpse.
If I'm if I'm being fair, we get a glimpse
of like a really idealized.
(53:47):
Society through the prism of 1973, right?
Like 1973,
it could have been raw,
but then instead they were just like, oh,
you know what? It's kind of about time. Good.
All right,
let's
let's go smoke.
Can we go smoke?
Oh, but don't worry.
Smoke around the pregnant guy.
Yeah, I got.
(54:07):
I got to tell you though, like, cause I
quit smoking 2 Aprils ago.
And I watching this film about 20 minutes
in, I'm like,
oh man, God damn it, just give me one.
Like, and I know at this point, like, it's
left my taste buds, like, so it'd probably really
like
gross, like, but like, I was just like, oh
man,
I miss smoking.
I never really smoked out of one of those.
(54:28):
Long stem things for any reason.
I never had a reason to. And
I have to say that image of the doctor,
cause there's so many photos of it out
there, but she's got the long
stem cigarette.
Yeah, yeah, she's
clenching it between her teeth and she's like
got her hands on Marco's belly, like doing
his abdominal.
I have that.
(54:49):
I have that shot too. I I
yeah, and
she's all like,
she looks really intense.
It's wonderful.
I mean, the picture that I have, and I'm
going to put this up on our Instagram, right?
The picture I have of Alice,
of Ramona.
Oh, Ramona. Yeah.
Yeah.
But
the actress,
(55:09):
this is an older photo of her with that same
filter action.
And I'm like, You maybe bore them.
Those things were kind of cool
to specific people.
Like specific people can
pull that thing off, whereas the average
person cannot.
you know I could not. No, no.
I would try.
I didn't
try, but
I would try,
(55:32):
have given the option.
If they sold them like in the corner
bodega, I'd be like, yeah, give me a whirl.
Who's got a camera?
Let's go for it.
Yeah, like
let's take a look at, let's let's
give this a whirl.
Yeah,
but
no,
it wasn't in the cards.
But I'm going to ask you a really important
question right about here.
(55:54):
How
or slash
if
you would sell this to Susan.
You know what?
I
I can sell it to Susan,
but it's not for the reason you think.
Do you want to sell it? I do want to.
I do want to sell it to Susan.
Well, first of all, you know, I enjoy
getting Susan to watch movies
(56:15):
that she's obviously going to dislike
immensely.
Brings me joy that she sits through it,
but.
Our friendlies.
Because I'm mean.
Yes, because I'm very mean.
But no, this is how we're I'm.
I am going to sell this to Susan.
So
before Marco finds out he's pregnant,
(56:37):
he and Lucien go to get a drink at the bar
and they go to that bar and it's got like.
kind of a curved-- there's like a curved
bar, and there's big
glass windows, and the door is like glass
doors, and they're kind of at an angle.
And then there's like pinball machines kind
of on one side. And
they're in the bar, and they're hanging out
with the guys.
I've been in that bar.
(56:58):
And that's how I'm going to sell it to Susan.
In real life? In real life. Oh,
wow.
In real life.
So
my husband took me to Paris for our 10th
wedding anniversary.
Your husband
Brian.
My husband Brian.
Yes, I guess I've never.
Yeah, I should might as well just start
calling him
Brian. Yeah.
So my hubby Brian
(57:18):
took me to Paris for our 10th wedding
anniversary, which is
was quite a while ago.
And
he knows I love the movie.
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