Run Home Slow (1965) w/ Dr. Julia Smith

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Prepare yourself for the terror the prison of madness. We
have a few inter and Nonritter.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to Unsung Horrors with Lungs.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
And Denica.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Leave all your sanity behind.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
It can't help you. Now.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome to another episode of Unsung Horrors, the podcast where
we discuss underseen horror films, specifically those with less than
one thousand views or logs on Letterboxed. I'm Lance and
I'm Erica. And for this episode, like we've done a
few times in the past, we are kind of straying
away from the hard coded horror genre label and I've

(00:57):
picked a film that, while it does have horror elements,
which we'll be talking about, is a Western, but more specifically,
it can be considered an acid Western. So this is
a subgenre that I just recently learned about when we
covered The Devil's Mistress last year, which is written and
directed by Orville Wanzer. The film we're going to be
talking about for this episode is Run Home Slow, released

(01:20):
in nineteen sixty five. But when I was researching for
The Devil's Mistress last year and Wanser's ties to Las
Crusis New Mexico, I became aware of this acid Western subgenre,
and this led me to finding someone living in Las
Crusis who just so happened to be working on a
documentary about Wanzer and the acid Western subgenre. This was

(01:44):
doctor Julia Smith, and I reached out to her while
we weren't able to get her onto that podcast for
The Devil's Mistress, and she provided a bunch of ton
of interesting information about the subgenre. Gave me a lot
of details about The Devil's Mistress, which made me sound
a lot smarter than I am for that episode. So
that's true, and I knew I wanted her to be

(02:07):
a guest at some point, and we're lucky to have
her joining us today for this episode.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
Welcome Julia, Hello, thank you so much for having me
Lance and Erica. I also just want to say that
Devil's Mistress episode was incredible and I was just taking notes,
you know, throughout the whole thing, at the associations and
connections you guys are making so sweet. That's why I
was so excited. Can we do run home slow? Because

(02:32):
I don't know who could be better to nerd out
on this film that so I was like, I need
to deep dive with these two.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, I do want to point out that I am
wearing the Devil's Mistress T shirt today. Hey, Erica, nice,
everybody should go pick up tease. Julia has them on
her site. Yeah, and we're going to share all We're
going to have show notes links to all her good stuff,
and of course I'm going to ask you to pimp
all that stuff here at the end of the episode.

(03:02):
Oh yes, but yeah, thanks so much for joining us. Definitely,
And like Julie, I just want to point out Julia
is the one who recommended and suggested Run Home Slow
to me, and I watched it. I really enjoyed it.
I felt there were enough horror elements for it to
be an episode pick. But really I just wanted her
on the episode. Even if it was a comedy, I
would have picked.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
So.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, I just mentioned that you've been working on a
documentary called Birth of the Acid Western, and the acid
Western subgenre isn't very well known, Like I just learned
about it when I picked randomly The Devil's Mistress and
started and actually, you know, located your your work and
dove a little deeper into the subgenre. I guess it

(03:45):
could be a little broad, but can for our listeners
who aren't aware of this subgenre. Can you can you
explain what an acid Western is, Julia.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
Yes, I'll try and explain it as substinctly as I can,
despite the fact that it is a sort of broad
and elusive genre that is mostly alive on the internet.
You know. It's like there's these acid list of acid
westerns online, you know, like AFI has one that I
kind of used as my framework when I also was
sort of thinking about this genre that I associate mostly

(04:14):
with al Topo by Alejandro Jodorowski, who made this acid
Western in nineteen seventy, I believe is when it premiered
and it was brought in by Yoko and John and
it was the first midnight movie. So I really attach
it to that sort of time period as well. You know,
maybe this sort of transition from the sixties to seventies,

(04:36):
as we know, like there's a very dark turn and
then American censorship laws change and then you know, the
brutality and the sexuality are just maximized. You know. So
when I found The Devil's Mistress and was sort of
thinking about it as an acid Western, it was like, well,
it's early, you know, there's not it's kind of ahead
of its time in that way, and so it also

(04:58):
doesn't totally connect with al Topo, even though there's overlaps.
But as I'm finding and these lists of acid Westerns,
they all have these kind of distinct things about them
that make them acidic in some way or shape. Where
I was kind of thinking about it yesterday is like
it sort of starts turning against itself or eating away

(05:19):
at itself in this sort of negative turn or this
death drive where the characters are sort of unknowable and
filled with sort of impulsivity and violence and the irrational.
So I do think, you know, this is something I
was thinking about with Run Home Slow, not to deviate
too much, but really thinking about the influence of American

(05:41):
Gothic on this kind of like Western Gothic tradition that
becomes more internal and existential and psychological kind of horror,
if that makes sense. So then like you know that
the good and evil is more dubious, and there's a
kind of feeling of going into an underworld.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Yeah. Absolutely, the characters, I mean, and the Devil's Mistress,
it's the cowboy group, the Gang of Bandits. And then
if you look at these characters and run home slow.
They are kind of one of the major horror elements
of the film because they are completely unhinged. They're kind
of battling their own demons, and they're just kind of
out crazying each other, which is kind of scary to

(06:22):
watch unfold.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
That's that domestic horror, the stuff that happens behind you know,
the veil.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
Yeah, exactly. Again, I love the work you've been doing.
You've been sharing a lot of stuff on social media
with all the work, and you've been having a lot
of screenings. I know you had a screening last night
for The Devil's Mistress, which is very exciting. Do you
do you have any more screenings planned for that? I
just want to.

Speaker 4 (06:44):
That's a good question, you know, as I'm kind of
saying right now, I've been working on this thing for
so long that I'm ready to stop cooking it and
just deliver it. So I'm hoping if there are more screenings,
it'll be in conjunction with like a rough cut of
the document or you know, some new thing that's longer
to show, even if it's a bit more of a

(07:06):
preview that's more polished. So it's possible, but hopefully, you know,
I can focus full force now on finishing the documentary,
and I feel like I've resurrected it enough that, like
when it comes out, hopefully there'll be even more people
chomping at the bit to see this on a big
screen throughout the date. So yeah, kind of strategizing the

(07:29):
type of promotion or focus that should happen right now.
So I'm hoping this summer, like it's, the editing will
be pretty close to done, or I'll have a really
clear sense of like the last things that need to
be done. If I get more money, I could raise
the production value, for example, but I'm not counting on that.
I'm just trying to make enough to get the edit
together as best do I have it now.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
Yeah, and every like I said, we'll be providing links
and stuff in show notes, but everybody should check out
acid Western dot com, said western doc dot com.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
Yeah, and you know, I sorry to interrupt. I was
going to say one more thing about the acid Western genre,
which is what is published is a really incredible essay
on al topo by Pauline Kale in The New Yorker
nineteen seventy I think was probably the year and in
that she really articulates. She doesn't call, she doesn't name

(08:27):
the acid Western, but she does almost everything but do
that in this where she's critiquing the film, but also
like the audience and the cultural context that this is
emergent from, and sort of sees it as like a
commercialized surrealism, you know, it's this attempt to be profound,
but because of its exploitative value, it loses that potency

(08:50):
and it kind of seems like, Oh, it's these dead heads,
these burnt out hippies, who are you know, enjoying this
dark turn in the count culture. Not that it wasn't
there before, but now it's just explicit it's creating this
sort of upheaval or you know, against the status quo.
And then the second is Jonathan Rosenbaum, who wrote about

(09:14):
the acid Western genre in nineteen ninety five with his
short novella on dead Man by Jim Jarmish, and in
that he kind of articulates the genre as this sort
of night miarish view of the West, disrupting manifest destiny
and showing this kind of againstness towards like the centrality

(09:37):
of imperialist or militaristic you know whatever. These countercultural revolutions
were about, and he sees that film as kind of
fulfilling this dream that wasn't quite achieved in the nineteen sixties.
It's kind of interesting to read that way that the
acid Western combines sort of European art cinema with American

(09:58):
exploitations cinema is like the sort of larger cultural conditions
or environment that sort of allows this genre to emerge.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
I suppose can you pinpoint like when acid Western was
first coined, Like is there an article or do we
know where that came from?

Speaker 4 (10:17):
As far as I know, there's this question of like
did Jim Jarmish do it? Or did Pauline Kale do it?
And I think it's more attached with Jarmish, just because
he's kind of calling it a subgenre, and I don't
know that it existed as a kind of defined genre
before then, even though it's not like it didn't exist,

(10:39):
you know, there just wasn't that term for it. So
I think probably like mid nineties and it's very niche,
you know. So I really had heard of them only
because of El Topo, and then from then had seen
Westerns that I sort of recognized, as you know, moving
into that territory, but didn't really think much about it
until I saw The Devil's Mistress and found this kind

(11:01):
of compelling way to think about the film in terms
of this larger cultural context through this idea of the
acid Western that is like very loose and ephemeral, even
though there's distinct things that have to be there, but
they look very different the acid westerns I've seen.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
It kind of reminds me of the full course of
genre in ways where it is it's very broad and
you can pull in a lot of movies. But I think, yeah,
like you had mentioned with the article, was it from
the nineteen seventy of the New York Times article that yeah, right,
that seems to really like really kind of make these
films a little more specific into the genre. Because when

(11:41):
I read the campaign book for Run Home Slow online,
oh wow, in nineteen sixty five, they called it a
psychological Western, which kind of is it's an acid Western
kind of when you think about it, because it is
it's a focus on these characters and them going against everything.
Because Run Home Slow it's kind of a classic Western

(12:01):
revenge story. You know, there's so many Westerns where usually
it's a son and his father's killed, and the movie
is him getting revenge on these bandits who did it.
But this is flipped where it's like the bandit's father's
killed and they're killing the good guys, which I really
I like it. I think it's an original, original idea,
especially in the sixties early sixties when it was filmed.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Well, I think it's flipped even further because those things
for which they're getting revenge and then their actions after
that aren't even shown. They're just told, like we're never
shown what the patriarch, like.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
What all the father Hagen, Yes, rain.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
Of Hair, it starts with it hanging. I know we're
getting ahead to like the plot and everything, but I
think it's interesting that it is like such a I
hate using the word like subverting expectations, but like it
really does subvert a lot of what you expect from
a Western, and that to be shown the shootout and
the bank robbery and like all the things that he

(12:59):
did to deserve being hanged, like all those sorts of things.
So I also just I wanted to take a step
back to the AFI list that Julia mentioned. There's a
lot of interesting films on that list that I wouldn't
have normally have thought of as an acid Western, And like,
I think High Plane Strifter is one where like I've

(13:21):
seen it, but then like putting it in that perspective,
I'm like, oh, yeah, it does fit in that. So
it's like you said, like the full core thing where
it's not something like El Topo where it would point
to it and automatically be like, oh yeah, acid Western.
But reading about it so much, you know, I'm like, oh, okay, yeah,
that does actually fit. I'll put a link to the

(13:43):
list in show notes so other folks can reference it,
because I think it would be a great like I'm
going to dive deep into this genre and get some
reference points that are a little bit more off the
map other than the stuff that we're going to talk
about in this.

Speaker 2 (13:56):
And correct me if I'm wrong, Julia. But high Plane
Strifter they they filmed some scenes in Las Crusis, New Mexico,
right or was that a different place?

Speaker 4 (14:05):
You know that The one I'm thinking of is Hang
Them High. I'm not sure about High Planes Drifter, but yeah,
that is also considered an acid Western. Hang Them High? Nice. Yeah,
there's there's kind of rumors that and I suspect that
the Devil's Mistress might have been the reason that a
film was made out there so soon after, because it's
highlighting this location and showing that, yeah, good looking films

(14:29):
can be made in this area on a low budget,
and they can be kind of off, you know, or
a little bit pushing on overt symbolism or even kind
of political countercultural themes that are questioning society or questioning
the law and order you know that's been established over

(14:50):
you know, the supposedly uncivilized territory.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
Quick synopsis on Run Home, Slow, real quick for our
listeners who don't watch the movie for some reason and
just want to listen to our discussion.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
On your dulcet voice.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Yeah, he go, here's a summary of it. Grab a
pill and listen to me. Okay. So the residents of
Pebble Springs have revolted hanging jud Hagen, their self denointed
ruler who thought himself as God, and they hang him
in the middle of the night. His children valve vengeance.
They rob the Pebble Springs bank, killing the tellers, and

(15:25):
then visit the home of old Man Gately, who helped
prod the lynch mob into hanging their father. When they
get their sloppy revenge, the gang of four fleet to Mexico.
The family includes Nell Hagen played by Mercedes McCambridge, who
idolized her power hungry father, brother Rit Hagen played by
Gary Kent, who's been badly wounded in the shootout, and

(15:47):
there's Kirby. They're hunchbacked and simple minded brother and the
beautiful but equally simple minded Julie Ann played by Linda
gay Scott, who was a cousin recruited to marry Ritt
so that they could keep the Hagen blood line alive.
And then through a series of mishaps, they're going to
have to make the track to Mexico without horses, guns, food,
and water. But they do have a donkey, a lot

(16:08):
of money, and plenty of demons inside each of them,
which will be their ultimate downfall. Like I mentioned last episode,
Run Home Slow only has currently forty seven logs on letterboxed,
which is one of our lowest picks, and it's streaming
on YouTube. Very dark visually, which we'll talk about, I'm sure,
but I want to jump into the cast, which is

(16:29):
my favorite part of this movie. It's a great cast.
I probably have too many notes on them, so I'm
going to try and skip over some stuff. But there's
one standout actor who made me immediately fall in love
with this movie, and that's Mercedes McCambridge. She plays the
lead role as the family leader Nell, and she's a
pro at this point. She's already won a Best Supporting

(16:49):
Actress OSCAR for her first feature role as Sadie Burke
in the nineteen forty nine Best Picture winner All the
King's Men, and she was later nominated for another Supporting
Actor Academy Award in nineteen fifty six. Is a giant,
so she plays the revenge cowwoman very well. She's already
established at this point, but before acting in TV and film,

(17:11):
she began her career as a radio voice actor during
the thirties and forties while also performing on Broadway. Orson
Wells called her quote the world's greatest living radio actress,
and he ended up casting her in a few of
his films, The Touch of Evil and the later released
The Other Side of the Wind. I watched a bunch
of her movies for this episode and for june'splitation, which

(17:33):
I'm going to dive into the movies more specifically when
we record that episode next month. But she's very distinctive,
and I don't know if you guys are. Obviously she's
very distinctive with her voice, being a voice actor before
a performer. But I feel like she really acts with
her eyes and her neck when she really jerks her
heads around with her reaction, like she's going to give
herself whiplash. I particularly in All the Kings Men, and well,

(17:57):
I saw it here in Run Home. Slow watched a
movie called Angel Baby too, where she's just like whipping
her head around, Like what do you mean, Like, it's
just it's beautiful. All the Kings Men does have child kills,
by the way, which I had seen.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
Yeah, that's why you text me that one. Okay, thank you.
Does Julia know because I feel like she might need
context for that.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Oh yeah, do you you know that Erica had has
written a book called The Sweetest Taboo about child kills
and films?

Speaker 4 (18:23):
Yes, yes, yeah, I was like remembering that the Une
child kills in that lite.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
But yeah, Mcambridge's voice. Some horror nerds might recognize her
as Pazuzu from the Exorcist. She said, And this is
me just reading like on Wikipedia pages and reviews that
to make her voice sound as disturbing as possible, she
swallowed raw eggs, chain smoked, and drank whiskey to make
her voice sound much more aggressive.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
I mean, that's my breakfasts right well.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
And she she it's not. She drinks whiskey and vodka
throughout her whole career. When I'm going to go over
some of the stories from Gary Kent's book during the
filming and run home slow. But apparently William Freakin arranged
for her to be bound to a chair during these recordings,
so she felt like she was struggling against the restraints,
which is interesting. He also claimed that she initially requested

(19:20):
no credit for the film because she thought it would
take away from the attention of Linda Blair's performance as
the possessed Reagan, but later she complained The Exorcist was very,
very successful, and she ended up getting properly credited for
her voice work. Another Great Western role that she was
in as Nicholas raised Johnny Guitar from nineteen fifty four,

(19:42):
where she plays What's he name? Emma Small, a landowner
who hates Joan Crawford's character Vienna. She wants her dead.
She wants to run her out of town. She calls
her like a tramp every chance she can get in
this movie, very two strong personalities these two actresses had
in real life. Both were heavily drinking at the time.
They reportedly disliked each other intensely. Mcambridge believe Crawford received

(20:09):
preferential treatment from the director Nicholas Ray, who was having
an affair with Crawford at that time. Allegedly, but I
think it can be confirmed based on everything I read.
She claimed that Crawford attempted to blacklist her, which led
to a two year period of inactivity in her career,
and the rivalry escalated to the point where crew members
had to secretly film Mcambridge's scenes opposite Crawford, and that

(20:33):
Crawford reportedly destroyed Mcambridge's costumes used in the film, tearing
them to shreds and then throwing them in the middle
of the highway.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
I got mad respect for people who hold grudges.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Like that, Oh, for both of them. Yeah, I'm not
on anyone's side, but I'm on both their sides. Like
at the same time.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
It escalates so quickly, you know, one wrongdoing leads to
something tragic.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Right, I can see Crawford being like, Oh, here's this
girl who came in her first feature role. She wins
an oscar, Where's mine?

Speaker 4 (21:03):
Like?

Speaker 2 (21:05):
Yeah. Mcambridge later referred to Crawford as quote a mean, tipsy, powerful,
rotten egg lady. And I read to Sterling Hayden, who
plays Johnny Guitar, he also did not like Crawford. He
was on Mercedes mccambridge's side. But regardless of that few
that movie rules. Every character is super confident, especially mcambridge.

(21:25):
Like I said, I watched about like ten of her
films for this thing, and I just love her dramatic
line delivery. She's made to play the tough cow woman
she did have. I watched the two films she did
with Jess Franco, both in nineteen sixty eight. She was
in the Marquis de Sade's Justine and ninety nine Women,
which is kind of a woman in prison type movie. Yeah,

(21:49):
there's a lot of animal death in that one there,
but yeah, there is some animal death in there. Sorry, no,
it's it's fine. I watched the scar of Angel Baby,
which I brought up her dramatic reactions. Do you guys
remember The Family Dog TV series from Amazing Stories from

(22:10):
nineteen eighty seven.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
It's called The Family Dog.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
It's called Family Dog. Directed by Brad Bird, produced by
Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, Danny Elfman did the theme. I
watched this religiously as a kid, and I don't know
if I recorded Amazing Stories on VHS and then just
watched this pilot. It was a pilot that ended up
becoming a TV series. But in the pilot, Mercedes mcambridge

(22:34):
voices as a character and she sounds like Pazoozu like.
It's just It's one of her last credits in film
and television in nineteen eighty seven. I recommend it's on YouTube.
It's like twenty three minutes long. It's fucking hilarious, it's funny,
it's it's worth watching. Or maybe I watched it on Vimeo,
But anyway, I could easily spend an hour on Mercedes McCambridge.

(22:56):
So much interesting stuff. She did write a memoir that
I didn't get to dive into, called The Quality of Mercy,
an autobiography which was published in nineteen eighty one, which
I read. She completed while she was a director of
a rehabilitation Center for Alcoholics in Pennsylvania. She passed away
in two thousand and four, and I gotta throw this in.

(23:17):
I'm a sucker for tragic stories. Whenever we're talking about
cast and crew, I like to throw this in. But
this was a very tragic story about her son who
committed suicide after murdering his whole family, his wife, his
two daughters. I'm going to bring the show down here, guys.
He left a long bitter note taking responsibility for these
crimes he committed concerning financial fraud that involved her money

(23:39):
and stuff. But the letter said, initially you said, well
we can work it out, but no, you refused. You
called me a liar, a cheated, a criminal. Above you said,
I've ruined your life. You were never around much when
I needed you. So now my whole family are dead,
so you can have your money. Night mother.

Speaker 4 (23:57):
Damn so American Gothic, that is.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yeah. When I was diving into Mercedes McCambridge, like Gary Kent,
who I'm going to jump to here in a second,
there's so many interesting tragic stories where I'm just like, oh,
my goodness, like I want to read her memoir. This
was after the release of her book when all that
tragic stuff occurred, but very fascinating actor, very fascinating career,

(24:25):
deservedly an Oscar winner Gary Kent. Okay, I'm just going
to run through the family members real quick, So.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
Real quick, though. Have you been to some Alamo screenings
when he's been there, as.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
I haven't with Lars, he talks about him in his book,
which is really good.

Speaker 3 (24:39):
Okay, Yeah, I've been to a couple. I think the
last one I saw was Freebie and the Bean when
he was there, and that was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
I think that's great story.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
So, like I would love to read that book too.
I imagine it's just an amazing read. It's probably a
lot like Hal Needham's book.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Oh exactly. Yeah, I mean he talks, and I know
we had mentioned I don't think we talked about Gary
Kent and our death in the Freeway episode. I don't
think so either, But I had said that Tarantino his
inspiration for Cliff Booth from What's Upon a Time in
Hollywood was Hal Needham, but everybody's saying it was Gary Kent,
and I think it was just a kid accommodation. Yeah,

(25:15):
big personalities and huge and just great Hollywood stuntman. So yeah,
Gary Kent stuntman. He was also an actor while he
was doing a stunt work. Later became a writer. He
was a director. He plays brother Hagen Ritt The Injured One. Yeah.
He worked closely with al Adamson, a lot, Gary Graver, Ray,

(25:37):
Dennis Steckler, Don Jones, that whole group of kind of
misfits and cast outs. He did a ton of biker movies,
usually playing the thug leader, a tough guy, asshole. He
starred in Don Jones's Schoolgirls and Chains from nineteen seventy three,
which I recently watched. He's a creepy guy who takes
young girls into his house and locks them in a cellar,

(25:57):
very psycho esque. He's also in my personal favorite Steckler
film to thrill Killers. But his book it's called Shadows
and Light Journey with Outlaws and Revolutionary Hollywood, which he
shares just amazing stories about. You know, the name's already listed.
A lot of the actors he worked with, Warren Oates,
Jack Nicholson, Bruce Den. He writes about his experience working

(26:20):
at Spawn Ranch while the Manson family were living there.
Has our muddy Lars Nilsen in it because Kent lived
in Austin and he passed away just two years ago,
twenty twenty three, at eighty nine. He does have a
few pages, like a full chapter devoted to Run Home Slow,
which was the reason I bought the book, crossing my
fingers hoping he had blurbs about it, because there's just

(26:42):
not a lot about this. The production of his film,
and he said that Ted Brinner, who is directed, he's
credit as their director. But I don't know if that's
the fake name or if his name is actually Tim Sullivan,
because on screen it says directed by Tim Sullivan, and
in Kent's book he just calls him Tim Sullivan the
whole time, so he goes by Tim Sullivan. But he

(27:06):
apparently Tim Sullivan planned to raise the film's budget free
of the movie establishment. He wanted to shoot, edit, promote,
distribute this thing all by himself, so it obviously took
him years and years to raise the money. It took
him over two years to raise the money. He got
friends and family, local firemen, housewives to invest into this movie.
The idea came to him in nineteen sixty one for

(27:28):
Run Home Slow. They didn't They began shooting in the
LA area in nineteen sixty three, specifically in California's Elmerage
Desert Flats. Apparently the location was close to Edward's Air
Force Base, where shot after shot was ruined due to
the screaming jets overheard. Did you yeah it sucks.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Heard sonic booms all the time. Fuck that place.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Sounds like a great place to film an independent movie.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Kent said that aside from Mercedes Mcambridge, there was an
experienced cameraman on set and the sound apartment were great
and knew what they were doing, but no one else
knew what they were doing on set. A lot of
first time filmmakers actors. This was like his third or
fourth film credit kins. But he claimed that Mercedes Mcambridge,

(28:21):
who liked to be called Mercy by the way, she
liked to have people call her Mercy, brought some advice
to the new actors, telling them to follow four simple
rules of conduct. Relax, concentrate, have patience, and have fun.
And he said she would hide tiny bottles of vodka
in or purse that she would empty into her cups

(28:43):
of fruit juice to pretty much follow those rules. But yeah,
he has a lot of great stories. People should buy
this book. He talks about meat or the first meeting,
which is really humorous, and just how great she was
on set. I was excited because when I initially picked
up the book, I checked out the index of names
real quick and there were a ton of pages for

(29:04):
Mercedes McCambridge spread out of this book, and I was like,
oh great, And I quickly thumped through the pages and
they are mistakenly flagged as a John Bud Cardos, who's
another famous stuntman and production manager. They were referring to
his gal winged Mercedes bins that Kent would ride in

(29:25):
all the time. So not a whole lot of Mercedes.
There's a lot of Mercedes cacambridge, but not as much
as the book as the index kind of claims. But
this is the first time he met Gary. Kent met
Bud Cardos, who they became lifelong friends and coworkers in film.
So again, like Mercedes, Gary Ken is someone who I

(29:45):
could easily spend like an hour on. Everybody should check
out his book. There is a documentary that was released
in twenty eighteen about him, specifically his Hollywood stunt work
called Danger, God Love and Other Stunts.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Wow, I want to.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
I came out check that documentary out.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
So you mentioned Bud Cardos. So the opening credits they
list his name, but there are no end credits to
match who he played in the film. Do you have
because I looked it up and he's not credit like
his name is listed as production manager and production manager.
But as far as the cast goes, I.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Would, yeah, I didn't. He didn't list that in the book.
I couldn't figure that out. I'm sure he's one of
like the lynchmen in the beginning. Yeah, because the director
Tim Sullivan aka Ted Brinner plays jud Hagen, the guy
that's getting hanged. So I think a lot of crew
members filled in with with some spot. Another cast member,
obviously is Kirby the slow Brother. He's played by Alan Richards.

(30:47):
He's not an actor. This is his only credit. He
was an investor in the film that got pulled in
to play this role. Who every time there's a close
up of him on screen, I think of Trey Parker
from like Cannibal the Musical's goofy looking.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
And then the last cast member I just want to
talk about is Linda Gay Scott, who plays Rit's wife
Julie Anne Hagen. Her biggest film role is probably that
of Arlette and Michael Crichton's Westworld. She was also in
the original nineteen sixty six Batman series, playing a recurring
role as the villain moth a henchwoman of the Riddler.

(31:22):
But she mostly just did television series, playing small parts
in single episodes of some well known chose the Man
from Uncle, Bewitched, Lost in Space, Green Hornet. She was
even in a Colombo episode. Oh, I did watch one
of her movies that she was and I watched it
because Gary Kent was also credited in it called psych

(31:43):
Out from nineteen sixty eight, starring Jack Nicholson, Dean Stockwell
and Bruce Dern. She was fine. She didn't have a
big role. She plays like the jazz flute in it.
But she was born very rich. She's the heiress to
the Scott Paper company. Damn fun fact. I used Scott
toilet paper.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
Sharman girl over here, you're a Sharman girl.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
I found out that she is still alive. She has
a website selling autographs. She even did her own podcast
a couple of years ago. She's in her eighties, I believe,
but her pot I listened to just one of her podcasts.
There are like thirty minute recordings of just her talking
about a specific role. So she did about a dozen
or so of those. She sells stuff on eBay. This

(32:26):
is something I'm very interested in, and Julia, I think
it will interest you too. But there's a collection of
her scripts and movie notes and Run Home Slow with
all her written notes on the script is for sale.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
No way.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
Yeah, I reached out to the buyer.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
Would you great? Yeah, keep me updated on that's that's
a project in the making right there.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
Yeah. I think because there's some there's some dialogue in
here that I'm that I'm gonna ask you guys questions about,
because you know, obviously the quality that we all watch.

Speaker 3 (32:58):
Is I'm going to be able to help. I'm going
to tell you that one.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Well, I want the script. I want the script to
answer some questions. But I did the contact. The seller
did reply back. I don't. I think she's selling it
through you know, a family member or some sort of manager.
But he's asking about eight hundred dollars for this. It's
not just the Run Home, it's tons of like all
her handwritten notes. It's a huge lot. It's like, would
you sell just the run home slow script, and he's like,

(33:23):
possibly how much you ask? So we're kind of in that.
We're kind of in that agline. I'll keep you updated, Julia,
and I can send it to you if you want
to use it for any any reason or take a
look at it. Cool cool, Okay. And that's that's that's
the cast. That's those four members the crew. This will
be quick. I've been talking too long. Tim Sullivan directed

(33:44):
this or Ted Brinner. I'm not sure which one's the
real name. Like I said, he plays the father who
gets hanged in the beginning. This is his only feature film.
He directed a few TV episodes in the fifties. Gary
Kin's book has a lot of stories about Tim. Tim
Sullivan though the close friends. They did a lot of
drinking and kind of partying together. I want to talk
about the original composer for this film, what some consider

(34:07):
the most interesting part of this entire movie. A super
young unknown garage band drummer at the time was hired
to do this, Frank Zappa. The theme that he did
I'm going to add to close out this episode, which
I love. I think it's a great theme. Everything in between,
he's really playing wild stuff, which I really respect pulling

(34:29):
out the kazoo and stuff. For some of it's just maddening,
and it fits some of it. I think makes the
movie a little more comedic than I was then what's
kind of presented on screen, but it works.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
Oh, I was gonna says he had like the vampire
like this.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Is gonna.

Speaker 4 (34:49):
Bob Dylan stole that from.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Exactly he watched this movie and he's like, I'm gonna
take that idea. I'm gonna. But this was Zappa's score.
It was kind of his first paid gig. Really blended
this job in a very interesting manner. His high school
English teacher, Don Serverus wrote the story in script.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
I'm sorry, what's his last name?

Speaker 2 (35:12):
Serveris?

Speaker 4 (35:13):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Serverus? Okay, I thought it was Servers, like the three
Oh might want that English teacher? Okay, sorry, sorry.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yeah, that would be cool. I would have drawn that,
like on the chalkboard and stuff, because that's but Serveris
wrote the script for a Run Home Slow, and he
reached out to his uh former student, Frank Zappa about
doing the music, which he recorded in about nineteen eighty six,
conducting a small ensemble with him. He played guitar on

(35:43):
the score. He was compensated for the for the work,
saying that he used the money to buy a new
guitar and he was able to take over the lease
at a local recording studio, renaming it Studio Z, which
kind of started making his solo career at that point.
And he did reuse a lot of the music cues
in this in the run home slow music it can

(36:05):
be found. There's a lot of recurring music melodies in
his nineteen sixty eight album Lumpy Gravy and We're only
in it for the money. So people who become familiar
with the theme and they listen, if you're happened to
be a z App of Fanny, listen, there actually are
recycled musical cues that he used later in his career. Okay, yeah,
I've been I've been talking kind of forever. Let's so

(36:27):
at A lot of people do say that Frank's app
is the most interesting part of this movie, the reason
to watch it. But let's I want to now dive
into the reasons or the reasons not to watch this movie, right,
So I want to start with Julia, like, so horror,
horror and acid western is. I feel like a lot
of aster and Westerns that are probably on that AFI list,

(36:48):
it'd be hard to label them as horror. The Devil's
Mistress is I think the perfect prime example of a
horror acid Western, and I do feel like there are
a lot of horror elements and Run Home Slow when
you suggested it, I watched it. I thought it fit.
Did you when you first suggested it to me? Did
you have ideas of, like, yeah, I think this could

(37:08):
work for a horror podcast, And do you have like
specific or any reasons why you thought of this movie
when you suggested it.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
You know, I did think that it worked because of
the psychopathic nature of it and the more psychological fears,
you know, for example, like is my son going to
become an ax murderer? Sort of anxieties that I think
are interesting with these types of acid Westerns. It seemed
to be you know, in the earlier sixties where they

(37:37):
are kind of questioning like patriarchy and masculinity in these
different ways that it becomes like a horror to be
fixated on the law of the father, like the rules
of the law, and so the fact that it kind
of starts with a murder and then it's like more
murder lays on top of it. Sort of this domino

(37:59):
effect really reminded me too of The Devil's Mistress, where
even though we don't see the crime with the outlaws
at the beginning of the film, it's just happened. And
so they're also sort of escaping society going to Mexico.
So we're kind of following the story of the evil
characters and finding ourselves sort of wrapped up in their

(38:21):
drama in these sort of inversions and kind of juxtapositions
of opposing things that creates that sort of uncanny or
disgust in us as the viewers as well. So it's
kind of like reaching into that like psychological horror genre,
especially around the family, which to me is what makes

(38:42):
it so American Gothic, you know, those kind of threats
of incest or sexual abuse that kind of makes me
think of like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or like these movies
that are kind of like The Poor Whites and like
how power is easily manipulated in these kind of like

(39:03):
lawless environments that you can kind of revel in the perversity,
you know.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
Yeah, yeah, these people are unhinged and as soon as
they're introduced at the Gatelies, you can tell they all
have a little bit of crazy in them. And you
know the Gatelies kind of the son and the father
are talking and how they they're introducing us to these
characters before they're shown, we know that they're they're a
little out of their minds. They thought their father was

(39:29):
God in some regards. The black and white filming really
sets the mood. Obviously, the transfer that's out there is
like super dark. But you're right, I think the psychology
of like the family, it's very Spider Baby from Jack
Hill's Masterpiece. I even read somebody referred to them as
the Fretellies from Goonies with no kind of being the

(39:53):
mother and Kirby is definitely the sloth character, right. It
also gave me Vibes, which is a horror subgenre movie
of Sonny Boy with David Carrodine and Brad Doriff, which
takes place kind of in the desert, and it's just
this this family that is you know, they're committing murders
and stuff, but they're you're not really watching the murders,

(40:14):
You're just watching them live there kind of unsettling life,
and it's unsettling, like I find great entertainment in it.
And I love the Haigen family even though they're kind
of despicable people, but you know they're evil. I mean,
that's kind of even if you know they quote simple
minded characters. He's hacking up burrows and and and his

(40:37):
sister's wife and stuff where he chokes her. But yeah,
I think I think this movie's creepy, especially the way
it's filmed. I mean, I think it's beautiful, and I
wish it was a cleaned up copy of it. And
I hate to point this out, but I did it
last episode when I introduced it. But there could be
an inspiration to Rob Zombies characters the Firefly family, who,

(40:59):
like you mentioned with Texas Chainsaw massacres, kind of like
the stereotypical backwoods kooky family that are just crazy for
the sake of being crazy. I like the Hagen's better
than the Firefly Family, thank you.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
I mean, I don't feel like that's much of a contest,
but I have serious hatred for Rob Zombie movies, So
I mean, I just I'm like, bro, just stay in
your lane, like I don't mind your Like I don't
personally listen to his music, but I am not defended
by it, right. I think he puts on a great
theatrical stage show, kind of like Alice Cooper, not anywhere

(41:36):
near as good, but it's Alice Cooper because I would
actually listen to Alice Cooper's music. I digress. I fucking
hate Rob Zombie movies. I hate his dialogue so goddamn
much because every fucking other word is fuck, fuck this,
fuck that.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
It's like, yeah, that's more Joe but Bagos or Hugh
yeah even. I mean, I don't mind Rob Zombie movies.
I like how of a Thousand Corpses when that first
came out. The other like Devil's Rejects, is very grotesque
for just the sake of it.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
Yeah, Yeah, I'm just I'm not a fan, and like you,
you put.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
It in my head, and that's why you don't like
this as much.

Speaker 3 (42:15):
I think there's a few things I think that if
I didn't have that in my head, or if I
never had I think I would have got that had
you not even put it in my head, right, But
I think I probably would have liked it more had
I never seen a Rob Zombie movie, I would have
immediately jumped to Spider Baby or something or my double

(42:36):
feature pick.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
I because the Julianne character is very cherry movie.

Speaker 3 (42:42):
Yes, yeah, very very much so, like I would I
would be floored if Rob Zombie had not seen this film.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah, same. Do you have a favorite character, Julie? Do
you have a favorite character of the Hagen family?

Speaker 4 (42:56):
I mean, it's gotta be now. She's just so incredible.
Like it's not just her dialogue, it's the way she
moves her body around and like you're saying something about
the way she jerks herself in this sort of stiff legged,
grotesque kind of moments as well, Like I love that
moment where she lifts her shirt and like pats her belly.
It was like, man, I wish I had like a

(43:17):
better quality of this because that's also very unusual for
you know, a film, for a woman to show her
body in that way that's so non sexual. I don't know,
I really loved that. But she just doesn't give a fuck,
and just like.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, I got that from most of the roles I
watched m Cambridge and like she's ahead of her time,
and I mean she's not ahead of her time in
an actor point of view, but she's just I've almost
feel like I can't name anybody who's more confident in
her role in their roles, Like she just sells every
single role. And again in Run Home Slow, she's already

(43:51):
established the Johnny guitar. She's a giant. She's playing the cowwoman.
But I don't know. Yeah, you can't eat her character
in this, and I think the dialogue helps too. I
don't know how much was ad libbed. I don't know
how much was actually Servius's script, but it sounds to
me like she's just making up this character. She goes

(44:11):
along and she has it down pat. And also in
Gary Kin's book, I had read that McCambridge urged each
actor to find some sort of piece of what she
called bric a brac, like a talisman that they believe
that the character that they're portraying may have carried around
with them. And so Gary Kent said that he found

(44:34):
an old leather coin purse that belonged to his grandfather
for his writ character. Again, Gary Kent is completely underutilized,
which that's his character. He's just lying there dying. Alan Richards,
who plays Kirby, he had an old bible, but that's
written in the script and I don't know if that
was written, like maybe it's his own bible. I don't know.
And then of course Julianne's character had the pink parasol,

(44:58):
the umbrella. M Cambridge wore silver spurs that Gary Cooper
had gifted her. But yeah, I'd love Mcambridge. I feel like,
have you guys. I'm gonna go back to another TV
because I was watching her. There was a TV series
I used to watch called The Young Riders. I'm aging myself.
I know you're about the Pony Express. There's a character

(45:21):
named Tea Spoon, and she reminded me so much of
this character Teaspoon played by Anthony Serb. How do you
say Serby? And his name was Aloisious Teaspoon. Oh yeah,
that's my granddad's middle name.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
That's amazing. Her name was Kermit.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
But yeah, some of the lines she delivered, you damn fool,
you jackass, damn fool was talking to Kirby.

Speaker 4 (45:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
And then there was another uh, no more posses for
gately unless they got horses in hell, and everybody starts laughing.
She lets off a like like a fake kind of
like I'm a genius laugh.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
She's got like a real like method actress, you know
energy to her, which is also very masculine. You know,
she's absolutely and there's this kind of Southern Gothic to
me as well, where like the script kind of has
that affectation, especially at the beginning with the father and
the son, like it's kind of conversation that almost seems

(46:24):
like stagy, you know, not in a bad way to me,
but there's these you know, monologues or these kind of
one liners, you know, or these kind of strange moments
where she says something completely insane like maybe Paul willed
it that they're here, you know, and kind of gets
more metaphysical, like she's becoming her father, which is interesting.

(46:46):
I didn't realize she was in the Exorcist, But there
is that kind of possession fyel to her as well
that you know, she just plays so well through her
affectation and her voice, these kind of subtleties.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
I definitely got the stage play vibe from it, going
back to what I said sort of at the beginning,
where it's like all of the real action happens off screen,
like we don't see the patriarch and his you know,
iron fists and everything that he did to deserve getting hanged,
and we don't see the bank robbery or the teller

(47:19):
is getting killed and anything like that, which is and
you have, like, like Julia said, these long sort of monologues,
it's more about the characters themselves. It's very limited in location.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Yeah, it's essentially a single location, like Hateful Aid or something.

Speaker 3 (47:36):
So it does feel I definitely got that sense, and
it feels like a stage play, and so I think
once I sort of put myself in that frame of
mind when watching it, I enjoyed it more. I still
think it's and this is not at all the film's fault,
but it's such a poor quality right that I watched that,

(47:57):
it was a frustrating watch for me. So if anything,
that would definitely be a reason for me to watch
it again. If there were to be a restoration, you know,
put out down the road, that I would I would
love to see this where I'm not like squinting at
the screen or like the audio is cleaned up and
I'm able to better understand what some characters are saying.

(48:19):
So anything like that, I anything critical I have to
say about it is not the movie's fault. It's like
the quality that was available to watch.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
I do think a lot of ratings is and you know,
I get it. It's people rate subjectively. It's based on
not only viewing or not only what they if they
enjoyed the movie, but their viewing experience. And I think
a lot of the low ratings could be due to
the reason of the quality out there. I would like
to think that because I obviously I always overrate and

(48:48):
rate highly. But I love these set. The sound is
a little busted on the on this version. Gary Kent
made a point, like I said earlier, that there are
only a few people that kind of knew what they
were doing, and the soundman Ken Carlson and his boom
man were some of the most experienced people. And I
loved the sound of nonstock crickets, like I don't know

(49:10):
if you guys picked up on that or like just
the wind kind of blowing in the background. And I
loved those little elements that were added by that team.
But yeah, the dialogue, it's at the end where I
couldn't make out what Nell was saying exactly.

Speaker 4 (49:25):
There's two versions online. One is better than the other,
So I'll just throw that out that there are two versions,
they're both bad. But one is better and it says
restored audio in parentheses at the end on YouTube, right.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Yeah, that one. I think the audio is a bit
better on that, and I think it's because.

Speaker 4 (49:42):
Something that it's a little clear. Yeah, but it's bad.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
When I was looking at this campaign book, all the
black and white stills that are out there, it looks
so clean and crisp and beautiful. I'm like, I just
want to see I want to see that so bad.

Speaker 4 (49:58):
That's how Devil's Mistress is as well, you know, and
it suffers from similar critiques. Yeah, they're just so old
and uncared for. You know, they're so long.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Because there's great scenes like of the cracked desert, you know,
the lizard. Yeah, there's there's that snake scene, which I
kind of wish they did a little more with.

Speaker 4 (50:16):
Uh. Yeah, they did a lot of visual play kind
of stuff that I really liked.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
Yeah, and I think it's foreshadowing or just kind of
these these little clues that these people are destined to die,
like that scene where they're digging for water and they're
arguing and they walk away and then the water starts
coming out, and then the rattle snake, which is obviously
a sign of a warning, you know, death incoming. Yeah.
I really like I think those little kind of clues

(50:43):
like these characters are they're going to meet their end.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
Yeah. I really liked that moment with the water, you know,
that that desperation and it's kind of mixed with this
kooky soundtrack that's kind of tickling a little bit or
like almost like hearted in this disney esque way. And
then there's that moment where the water you know, comes
up behind them, and I just I really liked the

(51:09):
feel of that because it almost feels like, oh man,
it's like such a waste, Like if they had only
been twenty feet back, they would have, you know, gotten
this water. So it almost in that moment feels like
this excess and like a waste. But then it like
is a foreshadowing later. But I like how it kind
of gives us that mixed feeling about the water coming up.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (51:32):
The music that's a very acid Western to me.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Yeah, Yeah, it's a great scene. The music really adds
to it feels misplaced a lot of times, but it
does make you. Yeah, it makes scenes like that really
pop and memorable.

Speaker 4 (51:47):
Yeah, and you know, not just as a side note,
like that kind of mixing is I think part of
the perversity of these films, you know, that like that
it would add some kind of ticklish and nature to
the desperation and the psychopathy of this mother patriarch that's
leading them in a no there's no turning back, and

(52:09):
like they're walking dead, you know. But then there's this
kind of music that's like, oh, and it's kind of
you know, connected with Julianne and Kirby, you know, because
they're sort of silly and childish, and so they're not
taking it fully. Well, Kirby is, but Julianne's isn't, isn't,
you know. So it gives it that way that you

(52:31):
can be sort of taking pleasure in it because it
lightens it, but then you feel, you know, fucked up
about it too.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
Yeah, And she's always like humming or singing some sort
of melody that Zappa's score actually plays off of a lot,
and she wants to change her name to Melody at
the end of the movie, too, right, right, yeah, So
let's I guess, let's jump to the end, like how
does everybody Obviously I already said they're destined to die.
These characters are going to meet their demise, and they

(53:00):
all do except Fornell, who I felt like when she
was collapsing at the end and she's you know, she
walks outside, so Rit hangs himself yep, in record time,
by the way, is as she's shot and she's out there,
and like she's out there for like forty five seconds
because Kirby accidentally falls on an axe after strangling and

(53:20):
killing Julianna and carrying her back to the to the house,
to their hideout. And I thought when she'd fall to
the rock, I thought, maybe the rattlesnakle pop out and
boom get her. I thought that'd be that'd be fittingly.
But she kind of just slithers off into the desert
as a snake herself, which I enjoyed. There is one
scene though, though, as as she's walking out of that

(53:43):
that that shack, she says, my name is Hagen, and
then she says another word a couple of times, and
it sounds to me like she says diego or get go,
but I think it's diego. So Hagen is a name
that apparently means either protect or or protected one that's
like the meaning of the name that I looked up

(54:04):
and diego means supplanter or successor or heir. So I'm
wondering if she said, like, that's why I want to
read this script because it sounds like she says, my
name is Hagen Diego diego and she said, and I'm like,
what is she saying? Everywound it A couple of times
I didn't get it either. I could be thinking too
deeply into this, I mean you could, but it also fits.

(54:25):
So you did you like the ending?

Speaker 4 (54:27):
I do.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
I love a good downbeat ending, especially when it's like
self destructive. It's like, I mean, you know it's head
in that way.

Speaker 4 (54:35):
I do.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
I just you know, I do love a good downbeat ending.
I know that technically, you know, Nell lives like she's leaving,
but I think it's just kind of, you know, getting
back to what Julia said about them, just sort of
like you know, being the walking dead, like she's just
she's walking to her own death essentially, like so we
don't see her physically die on screen.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
But yeah, I sort of liked to snake bite in
her like foment at the mouth for the black dirt.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
And yeah, it would be like coming full circle kind
of thing. Like I think that would have made.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
Yeah, I wanted it a little darker the whole movie,
not not visually I don't do that, but like just yeah,
a darker tone. But overall, I really I love this movie.
I think it's great. I think there's a I think
the the not shown everything that's not shown, and you
kind of know these people are bad, so it's probably

(55:30):
kind of terrible what they did, like to the bank tellers,
because when they killed the gatelies, it's very sloppy. It's
like accidental shooting and stuff. But they're Yeah, I just
I love the characters.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
Yeah. I liked that full circle idea with the film too,
And that also reminded me of The Devil's Mistress, where
not only are they like dead men, but they're condemned.
You know, there's there their sins are going to be
met with the thing they fear most, which is very
similar to The Devil's Mistress, with these questions of like

(56:03):
playing God or like the sins of the Father are
repeated through the sins of the suns. And I like
that that way that these films, you know, they are
metaphysical and psychological in that way in which they like
are asking you to think about good and evil in
these like very specific ways that connect to the traditional Western.

(56:26):
There is some you know, something nice about like Julianne's
kind of disassociative psychopathy, how she's dealing with it, you know,
Like I love that line of like we can watch
the moonlight bounce off of Ret's dead body or something
like that is kind of like, yeah, this sort of

(56:48):
way that she also articulates that there is no good
and bad anymore. Like there's this the little girl at
the beginning, like why are you all doing this? What
are you going to get out of it? And Julianne's like, like,
you know, there's no good any like, we don't need good,
Like I forget what she said. Nail says, this is
something else, you know, and it's like it's revenge and

(57:09):
it's a death drive, you know, and then it's kind
of like, well, that is where it's gonna lead, even
though they're perversely trying to avoid it or postponent. It's
very similar to the Devil's Mistress in that kind of
way of putting us in that position, you know, of
like the guilt that is also in us, which I like,

(57:33):
you know, I can imagine, you know, I just I
was thinking about. We talked about the rob zombie films
as well, but that again like this question of like
incest and sadism as being this having this connection with
what you know, these grabs for power that are happening
in the Western that you can't kind of like divorce
them from a sort of sadism, like an enjoyment and

(57:56):
taking power through violence.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
Yeah, that's another reason why I think Nell stand up
because in most Westerns, I mean almost all Westerns, they're
male characters. So when you have McCambridge stepping up and
becoming the family lead, I'm just like, this is fun
to watch.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (58:17):
Yeah, it's like the representation of women in these Westerns
kind of it's nice to think about that. Like the
woman becomes, you know, the anti hero, but it's almost
because she's trying to become her father, this kind of
masculinization that is like a way. But then there's also
like the Julianne character, you know, the one who her

(58:40):
body is the site where male sadism is sort of demonstrated.
She's weak and small and the Hagen boys are big
and strong. You know, it's this kind of interesting move,
you know, for her to be like rejecting her status
as a woman, even though she's wanting to you produce
her son.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
You know, it's you know, right, it's like nails, Nail's infatuation.
The only reason she wants to keep Julianne around is
just for the Hagen family name. Because there's, yeah, there's
that one scene and you'd pointed out, Julia where there's
in the very beginning between the Gatelys where it's just
it's very stagy, but it's there's a lot of you know,

(59:23):
set up, and a lot of introduction to characters, and
it's it's just interesting to watch. There's a scene where
Nell is talking to her brother Ritt, who's laid out
and he's and she's talking about big men, full of strength,
full of peat, full of power, Paul, and I'm like Jesus.
The only reason she makes a comment to Julianne too

(59:43):
like about her hair looks like a whole whole mess
of long yellow worms crawling right out of her skull.
And she seems so grossed out by by the FEMININDI
one hundred. But she knows, she she doesn't know, she
just she does. She seems to know and realize that
it's necessary to make more Paul Hagens and it's yeah,

(01:00:07):
it's just a fascinating character. And I do want to
read the original script to see if any was ad
lived or if because like I obviously I'm in love
with Mercedes Mcambridge. I want to see if she created
and if in in lind and Linda gay Scott's script,
if there's a bunch of crossed out dialogue that she

(01:00:29):
wrote in that Mercedes may have delivered or changed. I
kind of want to see if that's in there or
herself Lynda gay Scott's because I feel like these characters
are locked in with the dialogue they're given, except for
probably Kirby and sadly Gary Ken's character, who he overacts
like crazy in this there's hate in your soul. It's

(01:00:49):
just like that's a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:00:52):
That that kind of you know that the actor going
into these states of like extreme evil is really compelling
to me as well, Like it really makes me think
of David Lynch too, and like something like Dennis Hopper
moving into the character of Frank. You know, like that
there has to be maybe some loss of consciousness around
seeing and thinking that way where you're like seeing you're

(01:01:15):
you're turn you're degrading the humanity of another person, and
you kind of have to become perverse in the action.
So you're right, like, there is something like, how could
the scriptwriter have known to say that her hair looks
that way? It almost seems like she came up with
it based on how this character looks in this moment,
you know there.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Yeah, And I forgot to mention this too, but that
just triggered they did actually want to cast. Mary asked her,
do you all know the actress? Mary asked, she was
on the Maltese Falcon and oh, okay, okay from the
early thirties forties, huge Hollywood star and they interviewed her
before they checked in. Tim Sullivan and Gary Kent said
he went with her too to meet her, and he's

(01:01:58):
Gary Kent left and he's like, oh my god, we're
gonna at Mary asked her for this movie. This is
huge and right away Tim Sullivan's like, I can't, I can't,
I can't cast her. He's like, what are you talking about.
He's like, well, I don't think she's going to get
her hands dirty at all. I need somebody who's just
gonna let go and then they found Mercedes McCambridge, who, again,
I think it was born to play characters like this,

(01:02:18):
Like you said, Julie that, yeah, Frank from Blue Velvet,
like that's she. I feel like she lost herself, not
to that extreme, but she was so confident and you know,
just she presented the character like that was her, Like
nobody else could have played this role.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
Yeah. I believe that she like wanted to kill Julianne
and like really despised her and really was praying to
her father like hold me back, Eddie.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
Okay, so let's jump to double features. What what do
we think will pair weear at well with Run Home Slow, Julia.
You're our guest. You will kick it off.

Speaker 4 (01:02:55):
I feel like you guys will have much more interesting
deep cuts than me. But I was, you know, thinking
about reproductive horror as a kind of subgenre going on
here that I you know, it's kind of present in
other you know, psychopathic film type, you know, inceste narratives.
But for that reason, I thought of Polanski's Rosemary's Baby

(01:03:19):
because there was also this way that I saw Nell's
character and the demonic characters in Rosemary's Baby, even though
there's many of them, it's both men and women, And
there's this kind of way that it's like the mother
and the father are converged in this sort of evil
union in order to take control of the reproduction of

(01:03:41):
their evil father or whatever demonic forces they're trying to
will into the material realm. But that way that like
it's hard to see it, but this movie's putting it
on full display. You know. That's like a paranoia that
I think a lot of women, you know, is like, like,

(01:04:02):
is my stepma or my mother in law just you know,
only interested in me because I can make a family
for her son. Like, that's still a huge anxiety that
a lot of women face. You know. It's not the
either evil stepmother, it's the evil mother in law, you know.
But that's also this sort of patriarchal impulse, you know.
So it's this that horror of like the mother as

(01:04:26):
the father kind of turning against you as well, which
I think is distinctive of sadism. Is that kind of
elimination of the mother and an incest between the father
and the daughter, which kind of seems like what happened
to Nell. You know, there's at least a hint of
that that like this is an unhealthy emotional bond that
she's sharing with her father. So yeah, so I was

(01:04:48):
thinking of that and the other like quick little moment.
This doesn't count, but I thought of Robin Hood, Prince
of Thieves with Kevin Coostner. Do you guys remember that film?
Oh yeah, The Wich the Witch and her relationship with
the Sheriff of Nottingham. And there's this like fucked up
moment at the end of the film where the maid
Marian it finally like is in her layer and the

(01:05:10):
first thing she does is like grabs her belly, and
you know, it's like we are going to put a
baby in you. You know, this kind of like that's
her attack. You know, it's not a threat on killing her.
It's actually like we're implanting something in you and you
have no control over that. So I really like that
putting on display that kind of reproductive horror element.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
So that's my pick.

Speaker 2 (01:05:33):
That's a great pick.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
That's a lot more thoughtful than my p I was
so dumb and low brown.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Give.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
I mean, there's there's a lot we've already talked about
like that I think would pair great with this. I
think obviously Devil's Mistress would go great with it. Spider
Baby if you like rob zombie movies, fine, one of those.
I would never But I wanted to do a family,
am I right? Double feature and just have like a

(01:06:05):
really just sort of polar opposite but equally fucked up
family double feature. So I'm going with The Baby from
nineteen seventy three. I think a lot of folks have
seen this one, but if not, it's basically it's another
short film. It's under ninety minutes, so that's always always

(01:06:27):
a bonus there. But it's about a social worker who's
investigating the Wadsworth family, and it's a mother to grown
daughters and their brother who is a bottle sucking baby,
but he's twenty one years old and he lives. He
is treated like a baby and acts like a baby,
and it's a pretty fucked up family dynamic and has

(01:06:52):
I wouldn't say is equally downbeat ending, but it's definitely
we're sort of leading to our own destruction type of
type of ending.

Speaker 4 (01:07:01):
So the Baby, Oh, it's Ted Post who also directed
Hang Them High.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Yes, Oh yeah, I look at that. There's a good
connection to weird.

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
Yeah, what about you? Lance Gary's stomach is really going.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
Sorry, Yeah, of course if listeners, if you haven't yet
watched The Devil's Mistress, I think it would be a
perfect double feature. Sunny Boy, I think would work too
if you want to do like a Mercedes McCambridge double feature,
any of her stuff is just you could probably do
the same with Gary Kent.

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
Oh, I forgot. One of my other things I was
thinking about was the Bud Cardos double feature, so downbeat ending.
Also Kingdom of the Spiders quick plug. When we were
on Driving Asylum with Sam and Bill, that was the
movie that we covered with them, so should watch it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
I did watch a movie called The Pyramid which Gary
Kent directed. It gave me John Hooker the passing vibes,
very strange, very dark. That one also has childkills. That's
the one with the school bus. Yeah, I texted you that.
But yeah, you can't go wrong with the Mercedes mcambridge
double feature or Gary Kent. But ultimately I'm going with
an old black and white silent film from nineteen twenty

(01:08:15):
six filmed in the Soviet Union by the Law, written
and directed by Lev Koleyshoff and I had chatted about
this film and with the best of first time watches
for last year, I think twenty twenty four. But as
I was watching Run Home Slow, I kept thinking about
By the Law, which was one of my favorite movies
I watched last year. So that's that's a big reason

(01:08:37):
why I enjoyed Run Home Slow so much, other than
a Cambridge. But it's based on Jack London's short stories
The Unexpected and Just Meet from the early nineteen hundreds.
It's about a group of gold prospectors in the Yukon
region of Canada during the Klondike Gold Rush. And there's
this married couple leading the expedition with a group of men,
and the members and the team. They all are spending

(01:08:59):
their their time when they're not finding any type of goal,
just conspiring against each other and kind of descending into
this madness, and each of the characters are kind of
fighting their own demons, want to go home but want
to be successful, which ultimately leads to some grizzly murders
at the end. Like Run Home Slow, the weather plays
are a character worsening the conditions. There's some frontier justice.

(01:09:24):
Characters are just getting into their own in each other's heads.
And also this one's about eighty minutes long, so it'd
be a cool, cool night of black and white features.
It's also tagged as a Western on Letterboxton IMDb, so yeah,
if you haven't checked that out, Julie, check it out.
Maybe acid Western. It's a Western because it takes place

(01:09:45):
I think in the country, but it's just it's a
Soviet Union film, like how Western? Can you?

Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
Yeah? I mean that sounds really interesting, especially thinking about
the Soviet Montage and the influence of more art cinema
styles in the Acid Western.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
Yeah, it's a fun one. It was one of my
it was my favorite watch of last year. So had
you heard that one?

Speaker 4 (01:10:12):
Cool? Yeah, I'm excited to check that out.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
Sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
So, Julia, thank you so much for spending time with us.

Speaker 4 (01:10:19):
Thank you, Thank you guys so much for having me.
I really appreciate this conversation. And I did want to
just give a shout out to Brian Albright who recommended
Run Home Slow to me because he wrote the book
Regional Horror. I forget the subtitle, but the lovers of
regional horror films should definitely check out his book. He

(01:10:39):
actually has an entry for the Devil's Mistress in that book,
which is how I found him, and that's the only
other book that has any awareness of the film besides
New Mexico filmmaking by somebody who actually lived in Las Crusis.
So I was really impressed by his level of research,
and he sent me a ton of cool stuff you know,

(01:11:00):
around The Devil's Mistress. So yeah, he would have been
a fascinating person to dig into this film with as well,
because I was like, are there other movies like this?
And he's like, check out Run Home Slow and mentioned Zappa,
you know, so I was like, what the fuck.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Well, thank you, Brian, because I would have known it
if Julia hadn't recommended it to me, and she would
have known it about it if you were in there.
So that's awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:11:23):
Yeah, it makes me happy, you know, even though these
films are hard to watch because of the quality, it
makes me happy that, you know, there's this lost there's
this like piece of the puzzle in some way with
these movies that I find really fascinating. You know. Some
people ask me, like they think I love acid Westerns,
and it's like, you know, it's I'm not always interested

(01:11:44):
in films because I like them, you know, as movies
in the in some scale that we would, you know,
think about. It's more like they're doing something and revealing
something that I think is really valuable to talk about, right,
So I really appreciate you guys digging into it with me.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
Of course.

Speaker 4 (01:12:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:02):
And where can people follow you? Where can people check
out your work on the documentary and just see you?

Speaker 4 (01:12:08):
Yeah, So I kind of have most of my online
media under the paradigm of Acid Western Doc. So you
can email me at Acid Western Doc at gmail dot com.
My website is Acid westerndoc dot com. And I'm also
on Facebook and Instagram, which Instagram is where I'm most

(01:12:29):
active as an elder millennial, it's the easiest place for
me to disseminate information. So I'm also at Acid Western
Doc on those two as well. Yeah. Thanks, thanks for
anyone who follows and takes an interest. I would like
to bring this to Austin at some point. I feel
like it's the next appropriate, you know, place besides all Passo.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
I agree. Yeah, and we know some programmers like maybe
we can put in a good word and see if
we can get that to happen, even if it's just
like you have been doing. You could watch The Devil's
Mistress in Austin for like the thousandth time you've been
watching this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:13:03):
I think exactly probably be a great.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
Austin Film Society would be good.

Speaker 3 (01:13:08):
It'd be great. The Real Film Club might even Oh cool.
They're a lot smaller but much more grassroots, so that
might that vibe would totally work too. I don't know.
Alamos can be a tough nut to crack sometimes, but
you never know how.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
Yeah, they go through they go through a lot of
changes quick. Yeah, but yeah, I think it would play
really well in Austin.

Speaker 4 (01:13:28):
Yeah. Yeah, it's coming down hopefully in conjunction with the documentary.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
I can't wait for the documentary. I can, but I'm
really excited about it.

Speaker 4 (01:13:41):
It feels like it's happening fast now. You know, there's
this way in which it's like there's all this work
behind the scenes, and now it's kind of like I
feel like it'll happen fast, even though it feels like
there's a lot to do. It seems like it's big
enough now that it's sort of happening beyond me. It's
like inevitable feelings. Oh it's yeah, yeah, I think it'll

(01:14:02):
be done soon finally, and I can stop saying I'm
working on this documentary.

Speaker 2 (01:14:09):
Well, whatever it's done, we're very excited to see it.

Speaker 4 (01:14:12):
Thank you guys so much. You are both so awesome.
I look up to anyone who's into two films the
way you guys are, so I really value the conversation
and the connection.

Speaker 2 (01:14:23):
Thanks a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:14:24):
Thanks guys, have a great rest of the weekend to
you too.

Speaker 2 (01:14:28):
Hi, Okay, what's our next pick?

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
I'm I'm in rough, I don't know, six eight months
or so. I need familiarity. I need a comfort blanket.
I need someone we know and love and is not
going to require too much work on the back end.
I like where this is going, so obviously that means
eighties Italian horror, one of our favorite decades, countries, genres. Obviously,

(01:14:56):
so my next pick is Umberto Lens The House of
Lost Souls nineteen eighty nine. As of this recording, it
has seven hundred and three views on Letterboxed. I don't
know some haunted house. Shit happens in a house. Whatever
it's in the I've seen it. I love it because
it is just that comfort blanket of eighties Italian horror.

(01:15:19):
It's in Cauldron Films, Houses of Doom box set, but
it is also on YouTube. However, the version on YouTube
is about five minutes shorter than the Blu ray, So
just you'll be fine if you watch the YouTube version,
but just know that there's some stuff cut out of it.
But yeah, umberto Lendsai if you have the box set.

(01:15:40):
Sam Degan's got a commentary on this movie in particular,
I'm gonna be listening to that and stealing all of
her idea. Not stealing. I will absolutely give her credit
for all of her things that she points out about
this film. But we have not done a Lendsay film.

Speaker 2 (01:15:56):
We haven't.

Speaker 3 (01:15:57):
No, we haven't. Really Well, it's sometimes difficult to do
some of the bigger name Italian directories, like we did
Dial Help, which was Dia Donna. But sometimes, you know,
usually the Italian ones are sort of the lesser I
would say, more like, you know, second third tier, sometimes
like fifth or sixty. But I feel like Lendsay is

(01:16:20):
first year, so.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
Yeah, I feel like the closest we can get to
Lindsay was Primal Age.

Speaker 3 (01:16:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:26):
Well we both picked Nightmare Beach for.

Speaker 3 (01:16:29):
I mean, it is the perfect double feature pick it
is there is no other answer for that. So I
know we're running along in this episode, so Lenzi's House
of Last Soul nin House of Lost Souls nineteen eighty
nine is the next pick. We do also have our
June'sploitation episode coming up. I don't know what order any
of these are coming out or what days, so just

(01:16:50):
three episodes coming next month. I don't know which days,
which is coming when, but we'll let you know. Be
in our you know, join our discord. You'll get more
information there.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):
Thanks, So if you're not already, join our discord or
you can also follow us on Instagram or Facebook. I'm
on letterbox and Instagram at Hex Massacre.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
I'm there as well at El Schiby.

Speaker 3 (01:17:12):
All right, thanks everyone for listening. Thanks once again to
Julia for joining us. Yes, and we'll see you back
next episode for I don't know either Lensie or June'splitation
one of the two.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
Bye bye.

Speaker 4 (01:18:55):
Thank you for listening. To hear more shows from the
Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.

Speaker 3 (01:19:00):
Please select the link in the description. I am Adam Lundy,
co host of They Live by Film, a podcast dedicated
to bringing you film discussion and interviews from around the
world every week. My co hosts Chris Haskell, Zack Bryant,
and I discuss a wide range of films, from monumental
classics like Vertigo and the Rules of the Game to

(01:19:21):
the craziest schlockiest movies ever made like Deathbed and everything
in between. We are also lucky enough to have sat
down with some of the biggest players in the boutique
blu ray and film restoration game. If this is your thing,
then come hang out with us every Thursday at seven
pm Eastern wherever you normally stream your podcasts, and now
as part of the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network,

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