Jaws Ep. 07 - White Dog / Cujo

Man’s best friend bites the hand that feeds him this week as we discuss two films where dogs are the threat.

WHITE DOG (1982) about a disturbing attack dog, stars Kristy McNichol and Paul Winfield. Directed by Samuel Fuller with a Screenplay By Fuller and Curtis Hanson.

CUJO (1983) finds a woman put to a deadly test when a rabid dog attacks her family. Dee Wallace stars in this film based on the Stephen King novel.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
you oh
Hello and welcome to get me other already messed it up.
Hello and welcome to get me another.
My name is Chris.
I Anna cone and with me at, I forgot to change that part.

(00:23):
Um, hello and welcome to get more enough.
Hi, this is our podcast.
Get me another.
I'm Rob Lamorgas with me as my co-host Justin beam.
m
Rob, this is great.
Without Chris here, we are going to be an absolute disaster because he is totally the gluethat holds us together.

(00:43):
And we learned that very quickly today.
Got a well-oiled machine here.
I'm moving my coaster.
The setups are different.
We're in person.
This is the first time we've ever recorded anything in person as well.
Yeah.
yeah, this is it.
This has been years in the making, I guess you could say.
The last time we recorded together, would have been in 1994.

(01:06):
In the Loft practice space where our band rehearsed and we did some recording up in therefor, yeah, that was fun.
it was very fun.
But today we're here for a much different reason.
As advertised, this is our Get Me Another Jaws series.
We're getting pretty deep in here, folks.
And I don't just mean in the water.

(01:29):
We are.
We are way out.
So this is episode seven.
We're covering a couple of movies today that share something very obvious in common.
Actors from Star Trek movies.
There we go.
the obvious answer.
this is what they have in common.
They are also, I guess, technically about dogs.
I was going to say evil dogs, but not really.

(01:51):
They do bad things, but they're not bad dogs.
It's still about man being the worst monster of all.
This is man's doing, at least in one of these cases here.
And the other one is mother nature.
So we can't really poke the finger too many other places and certainly not at the animalsthemselves this time around.

(02:14):
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
Let's kick it off.
First off.
today is 1982's White Dog.
He was a beautiful white dog that was hurt and wounded.
She nursed him back to health.
oh And he became her best friend.

(02:34):
oh Playful, loyal, protective.
He was the perfect companion until she discovered someone trained him to attack and killat will.

(02:55):
An attack dog, a dog trained by professionals to attack people.
That dog has got to be stopped before he kills somebody.
So let's say somebody trained him to be an attack dog.
uh

(03:16):
bomb.
Parker and Earl Ives star.

(03:45):
Dog was directed by Samuel Fuller, uh known for many movies, but Shock Quarter, the bigred one amongst them, it was written by Samuel Fuller and Curtis Hansen, who obviously
famed writer-director, L.A.
Confidential, viewers or listeners of this podcast will know him as the director of TheHand That Rocks the Cradle, as well as the writer of

(04:10):
I think a movie that has had a big resurgence in the past few years, a great Christmasmovie, The Silent Partner, Elliot Gould and Christopher Plummer as the evil bank robber
who, yes, wears a fishnet shirt and eyeliner.
I think that alone.
I've not heard of or seen this.
This is the news to me.
Yeah, and it's a Canadian crime thriller.

(04:31):
John Candy's in it.
Amazing.
No, it's you should be in.
Everyone should be in.
uh It's based on a novel story by Romaine Gary, a Frenchman who was married to JeanSeberg, who when we get into a little bit, that is uh a true life story with him and her.
Now it stars Chrissy McNichol, who got her start in TV, but also Little Darling's fame,and Paul Winfield.

(04:59):
Star Trek to the Wrath of Khan.
Not his first credit, normally listed.
But he was also, I mean, he's a legend, you know, uh left far too soon.
you know, Terminator, Serpent in the Rainbow, listeners of this podcast will also noticehim from Presumed Innocence.
That's right.
Yeah, yeah.
But man, this movie also has uh Jameson Parker, Prince of Darkness, and Simon and Simonfame.

(05:24):
We've got Burl fucking Ives, that's right.
Paul Barthel and Dick Miller need no introduction to anyone listening to this show andSamuel Fuller himself makes an appearance as Charlie Feltman in the movie music by any
Mm-hmm, again, Marconi, yeah.
yeah.
The film follows Julie Sawyer, a young actress played by Christy McNichol, whoaccidentally hits a stray white German shepherd with her car.

(05:51):
She brings the injured dog home and quickly forms a bond with it unaware that it harbors adark and dangerous secret.
This movie is a B movie Jaws clone.
It started in 75.
Robert Evans bought the rights for Paramount.
And then as you know, paramedics said they wanted jaws with pause was the quote and theywanted to downplay and you're going to love this.

(06:19):
The racism elements in this.
Okay.
And then when I, I had never heard of this movie before watching it for this episode,confession, I didn't even know it existed.
And when I hit play and at the same time just pulled up the synopsis so I could have mynotes there to make my notes, I was like, wait, what the, what is this again?

(06:41):
So this is about a racist dog is what it boils down to.
Well, a racist man who has done something evil.
with a dog to as an extension of his theories and beliefs and whatever.
And I can't believe that this was a Paramount movie, that it stars the people that itstars, that everybody on board here was on board for it.

(07:06):
And it isn't just because of the subject matter, Rob.
It's because it's such a boring movie and because it's such a it's just I the thing withboth of these films today.
And I'm so intrigued.
You and I have discussed nothing prior to our hitting recording.

(07:26):
I am so curious why anyone would ever return to either one of these films after seeingthem once.
Because they're two movies that, for me, fall into a category that is not well populatedin my mind, for me, of movies like, well, jeez, I don't think I would ever want to revisit
this.
I saw Kujo when I was a kid.
My brother and I rented that one night in the summer, one day.

(07:50):
I'll never forget watching it.
I wore it like the same feelings as I had after watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre for thefirst time.
I walked away from Cujo feeling so dirty and just worn out mentally and emotionally.
And there was such a visceral experience for me that when I went to rewatch that for thisepisode, I remembered

(08:15):
almost every single thing that happened in that movie, and I've literally seen it once,and when I was like 10 is when I saw it.
That's how strong an impact that movie, like the impression it made on me.
And I had never ever thought to see it again.
I've never owned it.
I've never rented it.
I never thought about it again.
And after seeing White Dog, it's the same thing.

(08:36):
I'm thinking, why would anyone want to see this twice?
Well, it's interesting that you bring that up because the reason that we were watching themovie is because I do own a copy of it.
White dog.
Yes.
Okay.
From when it was a criterion.
I mean, it's been on the criterion channel.
think recently, I don't think it's been out on Blu yet.
I have the old DVD.

(08:57):
Why would Criterion pick this up?
Well, you know, this is very interesting and it leads into some of the history of thismovie and to fully read people in white dog refers to a type of dog that is trained by
racist white people, neo-Nazis, however you want to term it, uh where they train the dogto attack black people.

(09:23):
And so,
As one can imagine when I said earlier that Paramount execs wanted Jaws with paws but takeout the racist elements in the book and downplay it, that might be a little hard because
that
That's why I dove in with that back
Yes.
Yeah.
And so this movie languished for years and years.
Robert Evans had left the studio.
I think what um there were several different directors attached to different points.

(09:44):
Curtis Hansen was there from the beginning on the script.
But uh Roman Polanski, Arthur Penn, Tony Scott, they were all attached to this movie.
And of course, it goes nowhere because if this whole movie and story's point is aboutdealing with racism in America, it would be a little hard to say, well, just take that
part out and make it.
about the dog.

(10:05):
ah And so what happens is, I think it's 81 or so, there is the threat of a dual strikewith both the directors and writers guild of America.
And Paramount is apparently just going, what do we have on the shelf that we might be,it's like a point where we could just green light and go.
And one of those things was White Dog.

(10:27):
The execs were, ah you know, and I think, I want to say it was Michael Eisner inparticular was there at that time and thought that,
He wanted to do this movie because of the message of the movie, which makes sense withwhat they made.
And at that time, Hanson was back on it and he suggested getting Samuel Fuller because hesaid uh Fuller could do the three things that this movie needed, which was do it on time,

(10:51):
cheap, but also that Fuller had worked with a lot of these kind of message movies before,right?
And apparently as a journalist, when he was a young man, Fuller was already aware of theconcept of white dogs.
Like he had encountered that in his journalism career.
As part of all of that, the short answer for why would I revisit this is I am a huge PaulWinfield fan and he's amazing in this movie.

(11:16):
Yeah, agreed.
This brings up, which I want to talk with you, and we have a different conversation aboutthis when we talk about Cujo, because that's a more personal story.
It doesn't have...
sociopolitical implications, but it's got it's trying to do more than be a dog movie forsure.
So both of these movies today are ostensibly using your jaws to deal with somethinggreater, right?

(11:40):
Something with the human condition.
This one is trying to tackle racism in America in a movie about a killer dog.
Now I'm saying it like that on purpose because it sounds ridiculous, but look, you know,uh all sorts of issues get tackled in all sorts of movies to varying degrees of success
and
You know, that's one of the things I wanted to talk about is what is it about genre whereit often can feel safer to try and tackle these things than it would be in a quote unquote

(12:08):
straight up drama.
I've always felt like it's easier in genre stuff because the boundaries are so different.
Because the boundaries that are at least the accepted or established boundaries forcomedy, for drama, comedy is a little more flexible, horror and thrillers, but horror

(12:30):
really, there's a flexibility there.
There's a it's malleable where you can really shape your story into whatever you want.
And it can work because when people walk into a film that is genre, that's been at leastthe expectation set for that.
I think that there's a certain openness to whatever you're going to encounter.

(12:51):
Whereas if you're heading into an action film, you need it to achieve certain benchmarksfor you to walk out and go, yeah, that was they nailed it.
They delivered something exciting, pulse pounding, whatever.
Same thing for drama, it typically needs to be rooted in something a little more real.
But when you approach this kind of subject matter in a straight drama film, history isriddled with amazing dramas that deal with these kinds of aspects, of course, of culture.

(13:24):
But there's a heaviness that comes with that that I think a wider audience might not findas appealing.
Whereas if it's something like a horror film,
If you do have the shark in the water type element associated with it, then there'smoments of levity that can help you get through what would be a dirge in like the drama

(13:45):
genre or something like that.
And this is not a very eloquent explanation of my feelings on this, but what is yourtheory on?
mean, that all makes sense to me.
I think sometimes it's just too uncomfortable and tough to look directly at somethingnakedly.
And there's a grand tradition.
mean, how long have humans been telling each other allegories?
It seems to be baked into our sharing of stories, right?

(14:10):
I think.
Although one thing you mentioned.
Action movies and I would say that there are quite a few of those have taken on elementsof either sci-fi or horror as far as dealing with issues yeah, like the beekeeper it's
solved cybercrime.
Yeah, I don't know if you saw that Yes, but at the end he solved cybercrime makes yeah,but what I and by the way This is I am being a bit of a jerk, but I absolutely love the

(14:35):
beekeeper ah But what one thing I do find interesting why I think it
this works better in horror and sometimes sci-fi, is that for a movie like an actionmovie, most audiences want the hero to unequivocally win.
Whereas with horror, oftentimes the win is just you literally survived.

(14:57):
That's the win.
You don't have to solve the issue at hand, which in a weird way, I think, makes it morepalatable to be doing these stories tied to, you know, if you're doing an issue and you
want to explore racism in America.
It's easier to tie it to a story about a murderous dog because you don't have to have afully happy ending.
Right.
Spoiler alert, we'll get there.
Yeah.
You know, whereas in an action or other movies, there might be more of an impulse to knowthey got to win.

(15:22):
When you're tying it to a real issue like that, does that mean that now they're, you know,it's a sitcom and everything's been solved at the end?
And that feels, I think pretty false most of the time.
Well, that's what I was talking about when I said when I talked about the boundaries or atleast the established and accepted boundaries that are associated with the other genres
versus this one is that you're exactly right.
You need you very rarely do you have a film like an action movie or something, evencomedies, whatever, and with a cliffhanger and with a curveball that is completely left

(15:54):
field.
And and here that's OK.
So I really like you very simply and succinctly nailed it when you're like, think it'shard to look at things directly a lot of the time.
And this is movie that this is the kind of genre and movie that allows you to do thatwithout having to stare it right down the barrel.
Yeah, and by giving details, it is more concrete and there are things characters can havegoals about and do as opposed to solving racism in the country.

(16:25):
You make it very small, which is, it's about this dog and this dog becomes a metaphor forcan learned racism be unlearned?
Is there a way back?
And that's another thing that I find very interesting about the movie, but
Is its answer to that question, which is different from in the book.
The book was a little different, but I will not go into that now because let's jump in thebeginning of this movie.

(16:51):
It opens with the black and white titles over a gray background, so it is letting you knowright off the bat the theme of this movie.
So the words are either in black or in white, but the background is gray and it, you know.
Movies are not subtle, Justin.
Not always.
The opening you've got then Julie Sawyer, who's the young actress played by ChristaMcNichol.

(17:12):
She's driving at night through the LA Hills and accidentally hits a white German shepherd.
You know, she brings this wounded dog to the vet who's kind of a jerk about her paying andassumes she can't because she's an aspiring actress.
And the vet says the dog's too old to get adopted, right?
So.
And let me say, I love that she's doing the right thing here.
In a lot of movies, this would be handled very differently.

(17:35):
they didn't, I mean, I just think it's great that the setup was that she was trying to doright by this dog and that she was willing, she's like, do you take credit card?
And I also want to point out, first of all, that she has a really interesting sweater onin this scene that I love and hate at the same time.
I'm very conflicted and the sweater itself seems to be conflicted because it's half.

(17:56):
sweater and then half like Sasquatch or like a Yeti costume on one side with this bigwhite fluff.
It's something else.
I really like that sweater.
The dog is adorable.
But we established something here.
And this is something that we've touched on in some other movies that are trying to have amessage, Rob, where, yes, there's an overall message about unlearning racism, about

(18:22):
ingrained racism and things like that.
But the movie has no problem with its completely sexist undertones about how she shouldn'tbe on her own because she's a single woman.
About how she, as a young female actress, they're saying, that she couldn't be making endsmeet.
That's not safe.

(18:42):
She's told by a number of men throughout this film that she shouldn't be doing whatever itis she's doing because she's a woman.
And I was quite shocked by how overt that was throughout a movie that's trying to be sostrong-handed with its ultimate messaging.
What did you think of that?
Yeah, well, it's funny because it is also, while it might be progressive in some terms,you know, in the issue that it is consciously exploring, it is also a product of its time

(19:11):
for the issues that it is not.
And so, you know, along with what you're talking in the, you know, the gender stuff in themovie is, you know, the dog winds up coming up here.
She does, after getting warned, get attacked in her home by a man.
there's an attempted sexual assault and the dog saves her.

(19:33):
And that by the way is where you will get the greatest dog crashing through a window offthe second story outside the house to go take this fool down.
It is amazing.
But it is using the sexual violence against women trope very casually just.

(19:54):
throwing that around like it's a save the cat moment for the dog to endear itself to her.
And story wise, you know, on one level does that work?
Sure.
But it is a little gross.
It is as most things are imperfect.
And I think you find this a lot when people of any stripe are examining one social issuethat they can often have blinders on about everything else.

(20:18):
Yeah.
This is going to be a thing in both movies today.
The sexual assault angle actually is going to come into play twice and with equal casualapproach in a way.
yeah, I just found that very interesting.
But yeah, we're going to get to that guy attacking in a few minutes here.
That's a whole other thing.
uh right now, Christy and her sweater uh get this dog fixed up.

(20:45):
And the next thing you know, she's chilling at home with her dog trying to give it itspill.
And you get really cute bonding sequence here.
Yeah, she's trying to give the dog the pill.
And this is like on the deck in the hills.
It's like a beautiful view, right?
um And Fuller's really using a lot of handheld close up here, but you do get that one shoton sticks from high above of all of the, you know, the two of them where you're getting

(21:10):
the whole view.
And it's just, you know, it's really cute.
I think at one point she takes the pill herself.
the dog and it's like we're
then the dog is like, okay, now I'll eat it.
So it is very cute.
You know, it's a nice sequence.
um
And I remember when I was a kid, to give our dog pills, we had to put it into some cheese.
Mom would get some cheese and stick the pill in it.

(21:31):
That's the only way the dog would take it.
I'm like, Christy, come on, just uh put it in some cheese here.
Cheese or peanut butter.
Peanut butter.
For your other dog owners out there.
uh
There are ways other than just like forcing it into its mouth.
See, she really did need someone, Justin.
She can't even feed a pill to a dog.
But this is one area where Christy McNichols just like charm.

(21:55):
You know, we just described trying to feed a pill to a dog as kind of being like part ofthe meat-e-cute of them together.
And that could be awful.
But she really, she's so sweet.
Her on-screen presence at least is so sweet that it just sells it.
She's great.
Yeah.
Top to bottom here she is.
And then we get Roland her boyfriend is going to wind up, uh, you know, this is, uh, youknow, played by Jameson Parker.

(22:17):
He is, he's one of the jerks that you were discussing earlier, even though I don't thinkthe movie thinks he's a jerk.
No, no, He's saying, you know, well, at least if I can't move in, you should keep the dogbecause you clearly can't be here alone.
Well, and he also said, you know, for an intelligent girl, you weren't very bright.
Yes.
As they're walking, like holding hands or something, walking in this but along thisbeautiful scenic like what?

(22:43):
What?
What a jerk.
This guy.
Yeah, but he's also kind of foreshadowing on with teeth.
not kind of saying exactly what's going to happen.
is.
Because he's like, you know, you shouldn't live by yourself as a girl in the woods orwhatever, like up in the hills.
And I couldn't believe it.
When this next scene, Rob, started to unfold, at first I thought this must be a dreamsequence of hers due to him being such a dick about her living on her own and surely sure

(23:11):
to become prey for something.
And the way this next scene unfolds with so little fanfare, so quickly and jarringly justthrowing you into what's happening, you're like catching your breath mentally going like,
Wait, oh, this is, now it's gonna happen right after he predicts this happening?
We often talk about just-in-time exposition on this show.

(23:32):
This was just-in-time foreshadowing.
it's late at night, she's home alone, uh she's doing her bit of business, but the TV isjust blasting.
Which why?
You have a new- you have a dog that's new to the house.
And which is gonna be a sensitive situation anyway.
There's a lot of training involved with that.
She's a new dog owner as well, at the very least.

(23:53):
And there's never a point in the rest of this movie where you see her like with musiccranked or with any other TV show just completely ratcheted up to ten.
But she's got like, Link Ray running sound on her television in her living room on thisevening.
And so it's so loud.
that she'll never hear if something were to happen,

(24:13):
No, and she doesn't.
I won't go blow by blow, but the guy breaks in, he starts attacking her, the dog, you keepcutting back to the dog asleep, and the TV blaring.
She's in bed, right?
Yeah.
And so she has a TV on somewhere and she's in bed and this guy just appears in the roomand he jumps on top of her.
And the dog is just blissfully unaware throughout due to the volume of the TV, none ofwhich none of this makes sense.

(24:39):
This feels to me like a scene that was added, like reshot later or something, because it'sso nonsensical the way this whole thing is set up.
That's why I thought at first it must be a dream sequence, but it wasn't.
you bring up the not seeing this guy break in and oh having him just appear.
I mean, it is effective and frightening, but it is so fast that it also, you know, thereare other issues with it, I guess.

(25:03):
But the one thing that I can say is that this is very tense and effective.
Samuel Fuller, I think in the fight bits, which might be too few and far between dependingupon one's view, but the fights in this, it utilizes a lot of the same techniques that we
will see in our next film.
you know, where you are, you know, you'll be doing some closer shots.

(25:24):
You'll be cutting a little bit faster to try to simulate a lot of action that maybe youdidn't have time for the choreography on, you know, or the animal trainer to do things
with the dog on and all of that.
But eventually the dog does hear, the dog comes, wakes up, comes and attacks this guy, ahviciously attacks him.
But in this moment, we're thinking it's heroic and then chases this guy who runs away andthen the dog jumps out.

(25:50):
through a second story window down onto the guy outside the house below and takes him outand
That shot is wild, man.
You were right on that.
It is, think, my favorite dog crashing through a window.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it's probably longer than I would think if I actually sat down.
The dog ends up basically taking this dude down, holding him in place by holding onto hisarm, teeth locked on this intruder's arm in the backyard until the police get there.

(26:21):
The police come up and they say, you're lucky to have a dog like that young lady, becausewho knows what could have happened if that dog was
Yeah, I also think it's important to note that this guy who had tried to attack his newhuman Julie uh Does he try and rip this guy's throat out?
No, the dog latches onto the arm incapacitates the guy but he does not attack to kill thisguy which I do find the movie never really comments on this but it's uh, it could be plot

(26:50):
convenience because they needed him to not kill anyone this early because then it wouldalert Julie right to what's going on, you know too fast I would think but
It's also not incompatible with how this dog was raised.
So foreshadowing the next day, they've got the new window Roland, the dumb boyfriend can'tcome over the day after that happened.
He's like, sorry, can't, can't make it.

(27:10):
So Julie's going to play tug of war with the dog and the dog's going to run away to chasea bunny, which it does into the Hills.
It is not today's episode.
No, it is not.
As Chris always says, serendipity, there's so many connections in the movies, Star Trekrabbits.
ah Mean Dogs, Sexual Assault, um and both based on books.

(27:35):
Which by the way is again, I think more than any other trend with Jaws, being based on abook, they've many, many, much higher percentage of movies in this trend seem to really be
focused on a book.
I do find it odd that Jaws itself had no greater sociopolitical theme, but so many moviesthat followed it seemed to do so.

(27:58):
I think ah maybe it's just when you're working with animals and you're looking to dosomething different.
I think that there's also something very personal about animals, especially when you'retalking about dogs and cats and the political stuff throughout this it also tends to have
something to do with the demographics of the region where the movie takes place, which Ithink is interesting here because when you have prophecy and What was the other one with

(28:27):
that?
Okay nightly.
Yeah, so Native American
Everything was sort of bound to that.
then we have here, it's uh in at least in this movie, especially it's a race based thing.
When we got into
Well, day of the animals had the ozone.
was an environmental message, which you also had a little love and prophecy as well.

(28:50):
And you know, when we discussed prophecy at that time, I had said that I think maybe I'llgo back and listen, but that I thought that, you know, Dave, the animals handled having an
issue a little bit better because it was using it as kind of like a skeletal framework tostart the ball rolling, but then really just kind of stuck with being a B movie and the
prophecy.
seemed like it was a little all over the place for me.

(29:11):
Now white dog.
I do like this movie and I am mystified, you know, sometimes as to why, but this moviedoes not shy away.
This is not a B movie that uses an issue just to kick it off and then kind of forgets theissue to be a B movie.
This is an issues movie the entire way through, which, you know, I think is reflected.
We're talking about this a lot more because with this one it's warranted.

(29:36):
What I think might be interesting is that this one is so singular focused that it's lessall over the map.
It's not trying to be five different issues, which it felt like sometimes prophecy was tome.
It was too many things.
I understand that in my counter at the time with prophecy was at least in prophecy, you'regetting full fledged like bear action.

(29:57):
Same thing with Grizzly.
Grizzly, we're not dealing with the political stuff really in that one.
oh the you're you're never left wanting for long for something to happen, especially inGrizzly, because that movie offers so many set pieces and things like that.
And that's one thing where White Dog, I think, falls way short.
And including it in this cycle of this discussion about what we've put together here isthis roster of films within this cycle.

(30:25):
I think it's bit of an outlier in that regard that it doesn't have a lot that happensthroughout the film.
There aren't a lot of attacks.
There aren't a lot of it doesn't delve into so many of the B movie tropes.
It doesn't.
It's not overtly sexual.
It doesn't have nudity that I can remember in the movie.
I mean, it's a very small.
I mean, this could be a

(30:46):
in a lot of ways because the settings are basically like three settings in the whole thingso you have to be in it for the characters in that kind of a movie and I'm curious as
we're talking our way through this if you feel like this movie achieved that I meanclearly Criterion did and whoever else has been championing this thing for a long time but
as someone who loves animals gone amok movies how have I never heard of White Dog in allmy years of not only watching but collecting this stuff how has this never come across my

(31:15):
View?
I don't know.
I mean, there there are some historical reasons for that.
But I would say you're spot on.
This does not have the same level of attacks and excitement, in part because the attacksthat do happen are horrifying racist attacks where this dog is murdering black folks.
And so that is not enjoyable.
And look, I know that in real life, none of it would be enjoyable, but like, know, Cujoattacking, uh, you know, an abusive old drunk, you know, there's a little more to it than,

(31:47):
you know, a little more movie acceptable perhaps.
Or like a bear that punches the head off a horse.
That's more fun to me.
Give me that!
But the reason you probably haven't heard about this is the movie got buried.
okay.
So it played very, very small amount in its day when it uh was finished.
And what wound up happening is it got buried.

(32:10):
uh Paramount really didn't release it.
There were some reps from the NAACP that had visited the set and they had some issues withthe movie, which is, I think one of the concerns if I'm not.
Incorrect is they were worried that publicizing the existence of white dogs would be bad.
They didn't all agree.
I think one of them was like, this is a group, you know, I actually think this is a goodexploration or whatever.

(32:34):
There were also a Fuller later said that he thought the KKK had threatened paramount withreleasing it, ah you know, and then on top of it, I'm sure that when they saw it, you
know, Fuller clearly had
interested in not delivering a popcorn killer dog movie.
And he delivered something that maybe they felt was not gonna be as commercial, even ifthat's what they were supposedly greenlit, and then you have possible controversies.

(32:58):
So it didn't get released until later.
So this was a rescued film.
And I wanna say that um Fuller was so disgusted by what happened to this movie that hejust, he left.
Wow.
He was just kind of done with it.
He had had...
uh That's incredible.
Earlier Samuel Fuller was investigated by the FBI late, like 1950s or so when the SteelHelmet, it was known afterwards as the first Korean war film.

(33:25):
It was attacked as unpatriotic by the Hearst Press.
And his file grew a bit fatter three years later after J.
Edgar Hoover, FBI director, uh voiced his pleasure with Fuller's representation of theBureau in the atomic espionage thriller.
pick up on South Street.
So I think, you know, the totality of things, he was just kind of done.

(33:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he made other movies, but he, this was not his last directing job, but he was just kindof done.
I don't think he was living in LA anymore, which this movie was shot in LA to get to someof those exciting moments.
um
After you get uh Julie and the dog, ah the dog has run away.

(34:08):
She's like going to the shelter.
She's trying to locate the dog.
get, this is where the beginning of our bars, you got a lot of bars and cage visualmetaphors in this movie.
This is the start.
You also get gas chamber.
Animal Incinerator.
And we get an old timey operator, which I thought was, what is this?
Because it's not like this movie is set in the 40s.

(34:31):
This is a contemporary film and she calls up the operator is like, Klondike 332.
I mean, what was that about?
It's this operator situation.
Did you get?
I just always take everything in the hills.
feels like technology wise is always 40 years past.
You know how it doesn't rain here, but when it'll rain, it'll, you know, like a quarterinch of rain.

(34:53):
Yeah.
Like they all lose their pants.
Yeah.
If you're in the hills, you just lose your power and you have no telephone.
And then I think they finally put some cell towers up there finally in some of the areas,but no, it really is just like 40 years behind.
That's funny.
Well, you've lived here for a long time and that makes absolute sense to me.
So eventually we see the dog attack a black man who's driving a street sweeper and he justjumps in the window and he fatally attacks this guy.

(35:24):
The sweeper winds up crashing into a department store like 80s action style.
Yeah, and I put, this seems unnecessary.
Oh, because the whole, okay, him dying, get it.
I get it.
Even the vehicle running into something cool, but the expense associated with thissequence and then having this truck drive through a department store, I'm like, why?

(35:44):
Is this Michael Bay?
Did he step in to shoot a scene here?
Some reason why this had to occur.
I mean, this feels like someone wanted some red meat on this movie.
We needed to bring up this.
Yeah.
trailer that shows more than just racist dog attacks.
But it is interesting from the Samuel Fuller aspect of this is 80s action Sam Fuller forjust like 30 seconds, 30 seconds.

(36:07):
This is not your shock corridor.
uh What naked kiss?
ah No.
But then after several nights away, the dog and after murdering this guy, the dog returnsto Julie covered in blood and she just assumes it's another animal.
And she's this is where we really are hammering home.
You know, we talked about how nice Julie is and how she tries the

(36:28):
tries to do the right thing by saving the dog after she hits it.
But Julie really is just a great, you know, character walking metaphor for whiteliberalism, where she's, she means so well, she's got a good heart, but she is fucking
clueless.
Like this dog comes back covered in all this blood, she's like, probably another animal.
Blood and gristle.
She hops in the tub with it and starts scrubbing him up.

(36:50):
Yeah.
So she is so blind to the danger for so long in this movie.
And then even once she becomes aware of it, you know, very shortly, she's ratherineffectual and really does not know what to do.
Cannot help at all.
And her helping makes things worse.
What she perceives as the solution creates uh just a whole plethora of problems foreverybody else too.

(37:13):
So yes, you nailed it with that analogy there.
ah
But then she's gonna do what everyone does after their dog comes home soaked in blood,take it to work.
uh She's gonna take this to a film set where you get a really amazing Dolly shot followingthe uh director playing the director walking onto the set.

(37:35):
It's a really great shot, just fun.
I like this shoot.
This shoot looks like it's something from like Cosmo, 1960.
this is where Paul Bartell is, he's the camera man.
you're going to get your Paul Bartell fix.
And we love him.
He was in Piranha as well.
He's a fixture in the world of Corman and a lot of other folks that we love.
So it's always a pleasure to see.

(37:56):
And the scene has, you know, Julie and her co-star Molly, who is a black woman, they're ina boat with rear projection doing the scene and the dog slowly like wakes up and realizes
that there is a black woman there and he viciously attacks her.
survives.
She does survive.
Yes.
ah But now Julie knows there's a problem, but at this point she thinks the problem is thatthis dog was trained as an attack dog.

(38:21):
So she still doesn't...
Actually fully yet it yet.
Yeah, but she does seek professional help at Noah's Ark animal training camp She doesn'twant to you know, kill this dog straight away because of all that we've seen before and
her nature, right?
uh Rowan has the great line.
Come on, Julie.
You've got a four-legged time bomb

(38:43):
So we know where Rowan stands on this and Noah's Ark when we get there, it's also it lookslike it's I would guess it's like Topanga Canyon or something.
Maybe it's up in the Valley Valley, but it has the most amazing Thunderdome style cage towork with these animals.
Yeah, I'm curious, in your research on this, and I didn't have time, because we'reconfession, we've been traveling and my son and I are out here and we've been shuttling

(39:06):
around, so I didn't have a chance to dig as deep as I normally would.
Did you find out which animal trainers this place belonged to?
Because it clearly was.
It looks like a real life, and I've always been fascinated by that realm.
When I worked on Willard, the Crispin Glover Willard, I brought in the animal trainers todo audio commentary with me and it became.

(39:27):
It is one of my favorite audio tracks of all time.
It is so endlessly fascinating, especially when they're like these guys who had theirheart in the right place from the start, have a sterling reputation with the treatment of
animals throughout hundreds of films.
They've had their hands in everything and they never get any attention or any love forwhat they do.
But I really appreciate the fact that they approach what they do with such compassion andeverything.

(39:50):
So I was curious looking at the setup at this place where she ends up with the dog.
I'm like, this has to be a real facility.
And I would guess that the animals that are used in the film, this may be the people whobrought them into it.
I don't know.
I want to dive in on that a little bit in my free time, I guess.
Burl Ives, this is where he comes in.
He is Caruthers and he is one of the two owners of Noah's Ark Caruthers and Keys, who'splayed by Paul Winfield.

(40:15):
You know Caruthers, he hates R2D2 because he's taken animal jobs.
He really hates R2D2.
ah She asks, he surmises that eventually that, you know, her dog is an attack dog who bythe way, this dog is still unnamed.
pretty much there's a joke name later on in the movie, but this dog does not get a name.

(40:36):
which I find a little bizarre.
But anyway, Burl Ives declares that can't nobody unlearn a dog.
But the thing is, is beyond being infinitely charming, it is also the central question ofthis movie because Carruthers believes can't nobody unlearn a dog, but we're about to find
out that Keys believes quite differently.

(40:56):
And as a matter of fact, really like stakes a lot on it being different because ah BurlIves
Carothers urges euthanasia and says, see ya.
And on the way out, the dog attacks another black man who works there.
And that's when Carothers sees this and declares that this isn't just an attack dog, it'sa white dog.

(41:18):
And played by Paul Winfield, is here in the moment.
He steps up and he commits to retraining the dog.
And you get that two shot here with Keys' head and the dog's head.
And ah Keys says that he will retrain him in five weeks.
or he'll shoot the dog.
Which initiates the clock ticking on the rest of the film all the way through to itsclimax.

(41:41):
I wanna interject here on the answer to our mystery that I was curious about here if Icould just have taken a side.
The place where they shot that stuff was called the Wildlife Way Station, which was inSylmar, California, and it was dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating wild and exotic
animals.
It was founded by Martine Collette, who came to Hollywood in 1965 as a costume designer.

(42:06):
In 1976, she saw a need for a refuge for wild and exotic animals because so many richassholes were buying animals they shouldn't have had.
You know how they would buy a snake and think, oh, this is cool.
But then when it gets too big and wants to eat their children, they don't want it anymore,et cetera, et cetera.
It's like Joe Exotic Syndrome.
so this place had, in 1995 in Idaho, some cats had escaped from a similar place and theywere rescued and taken to the way station.

(42:35):
where they were, and the owners were charged with cruelty to animals.
This thing has a long history, the wildlife waste station here, but it ended up housingabout 400 wild and exotic animals, leopards, tigers, jaguars, bobcats, bears, deer,
coyotes and things, a lot of abandoned animals.

(42:55):
And Martine Collette appeared as herself in this movie, White Dog, it says.
Her portions of the film were shot right there on the premises with actual residentanimals.
So there's the answer to our question about what this facility was.
So it doesn't seem like it was much of a training facility.
It was more just like a care facility.
So maybe that cage was just built for cinematic effect here so they could have their ownthunder dome for the dog.

(43:20):
you totally need in this movie because we're about to enter the thunderdome section ofthis movie.
The stakes have been set.
Essentially, this is, uh, you know, if you're looking at it from the B movie angle, wehave now reached the point where the goal of the movie is to teach jaws to not be a man
eater, which is interesting.
I don't think we've had that before.
Um, obviously it's a lot more than that.

(43:42):
And the, this is the philosophical question is, can this old dog be taught new tricks?
And how vital that my question throughout the whole thing was and I am someone who lovesanimals.
I do not eat them.
I do not I'm very compassionate to animals.
The fact that this dog has already done what it's done.
Why is it so vital that we keep this thing alive?

(44:03):
Why is it so vital?
And that's where Kristi Nichols character comes into play.
You talked about it earlier.
The compassionate.
How did you say it?
I don't want to use that.
Oh, but yeah, ineffectual white liberal.
In effectual white liberalism is that you mentioned earlier comes into play here maybewith okay, why would we keep this dog alive?
And that in itself is a racist thing.

(44:24):
If this dog had belonged to anyone other than a white girl, would anyone have evenentertained the idea of allowing this thing to continue?
And this is where Paul Winfield really comes into play for me and the character of Keysbecause he carries the movie, but also prior to this point, you would say it's Julie's
movie.

(44:44):
After this point, as soon as she gets to Noah's Ark, Julie takes a backseat.
This is Keys' movie.
Because the reason, and this gets brought up later in the movie where Carruthers istalking about the fact that they've let this dog live knowing that it was dangerous.
their Indianapolis speech scene.
Yeah, they're sitting in the living room.

(45:06):
And he even calls it out like we have charges pressed against us.
We can go to jail for this.
And I think that's where Keys is the character comes in because he so desperately needs tofigure out a way to make this work.
And he talks about it a lot at various points in this movie that essentially if he canundo this training, then

(45:33):
You know, white racists will stop spending time and money training dogs to do this if theycan be untrained.
When Julie asks him how the dog can be gentle one minute and a monster the next.
And Keyes gives her a history lesson in the racist use of dogs in America.
How do turn dog into a racist?
Well, over a hundred years ago, they raised dogs to catch runaway slaves.

(45:56):
Then they progressed to track down runaway black convicts.
What about runaway white convicts?
you
Well, almost overnight.
They graduated to a vicious breed of watchdogs trained to tear apart any blacks withinsight.

(46:16):
Does he attack any other color?
No, dogs live in a black and white world.
Unlike ours, they live it visually and not racially.
That moment for him is so great because a lot of his interaction throughout the whole filmis like his stuff with the dog is wonderful.
But when he really lays that story out right there, is, that's Quint telling theIndianapolis story in this film.

(46:40):
It really is kind of that moment.
And I think that it grounds it in a way that that resonates long after you forget aboutthe fact that it's about this killer dog.
That kind of messaging I think is vital to it.
And that's great that they left the whole thing in there.
You know, as he starts training the dog, you get these action sequences where it's like agladiator combat with him and the dog in the Thunderdome cage.

(47:04):
And he's wearing his big dog-proof suit and the mask.
Over time, as he's breaking down the dog's training, he can take the mask off.
He can reach out with his hand and the dog will let him pet.
You know, the dog won't let him feed him for a while.
So you're going through all of these things.
You get like some great...
just from like a visual standpoint, the like at one point there's the slow mo runningstraight at the camera.

(47:30):
The dog has, whereas it like it's going to attack, you know, but then it's just attackingthe ground.
Um, during these segments, you often will get shots of Julie kind of watching in horror athow vicious the dog is.
Right.
But she's behind the dog bars.
And this is really like, again, she can do nothing but watch.
She is not helpful.
She's, she cannot save the situation and she's leaving it to keys to

(47:54):
fix the racist dog.
And I thought it was interesting too that they put her in.
She's not just like behind the cage.
She's not standing outside of it.
They put her inside a compartment within the cage, which is the same exact samecompartment type as the dog being kept in.
So she's crouched down in this thing, leaning up against the bars.

(48:16):
Like she is a prisoner as well.
Yeah, which, you if you really want to get super meta and I think with this movie, you canread these things into this movie.
It was made to be read into that.
It's like racism doesn't just cage keys and the dog.
It's even caging her.
She's within a cage within the cage and she might technically be physically safe, but shedoesn't have the freedom of movement and she has to watch in horror, you know?

(48:42):
ah So it's, it's all very interesting on some of these levels.
um
I will say too for me that I think these uh sequences are very tense.
I think that Fuller does a great job with, I mean, and this dog is so nasty.
Like the trainers for this dog did a great job and he did a great job framing.
Cause you're like, you really believe this dog is going to rip a head off at like everymoment.

(49:05):
Yeah.
But the dog is that it has this Jekyll and Hyde with it, though, because in the non attackmoments, it is the sweetest, cutest dog.
And you're looking at them.
It really makes it so much stronger and gives it so much more gravity when it does spotsomeone that it wants to go after, because you see that shift within the dog.

(49:29):
It's not even like necessarily editing trickery that's at play there.
You see the dog shift.
and its eyes get cockeyed, it turns its head a little bit like Michael Myers in looks, andthen you know like, okay, it's engaged now with something.
It's amazing.
The dog in this movie is incredible, or however many dogs they used to shoot the film.
And you know, uh we get to a point with even with all of keys is progress where we get adark and stormy night.

(49:56):
Alcatraz escape sequence.
Yes, but we get the dark and stormy night and this dog escape at night.
try it like, and we've seen it at various points, just getting rid of, you know, gnawingat the cage to get uh things loose.
It jumps out of the cage.
It tries to scale the big outer fence chain link fence a couple of times and doesn't makeit.

(50:21):
It knows when people are looking for it and hides under a truck.
This dog is pretty stealthy.
then eventually, while it's under that truck, I think it looks and sees the other bigtruck, which has been conveniently for the dog, inconveniently for Noah's Ark parked right
in front of that fence.

(50:42):
And so it can just jump up the front of the truck and then go right across.
sparks fly.
fly.
That's like your Independence Day moment where they've to have some kind of explosionbehind the dog as it leaves.
Which also makes no sense.
you know, Carothers mentioned the, oh, if it tries to go over the fence, the electrifiedfence will get it.

(51:04):
You know, I guess the barbed wire at the top or whatever.
But the thing is the dog doesn't touch that.
But going over it just makes the sparks fly.
Cause movie.
Cause movie.
And now it's just prowling the streets looking for black people.
Yeah, there's that really tense shot where we see the little boy and the dogs around thecorner and doesn't see the little boy Thank God we don't do that

(51:26):
But what a nice little moment though for them to set up this tension where like anythingis possible now.
Yeah, you know, you get another nice little visual metaphor here where the dog havingescaped and now it's in the street, but the legs to the paws have black mud on them.
So it's playing with the idea of the surface color of things not being so meaningfulbecause this is a white dog, but the legs is now look dark colored, but it's still going

(51:52):
to be having its own racist inclinations and it tracks.
ah
you know, a black man on the street into a church viciously kills him.
You get the, uh, the church is not going to save you from this, you know, and you have thewonderful stained glass shots both here.
And then when keys is tracking down the dog and winds up coming here as well, visualsymbolism abounds.

(52:16):
Yeah.
Um, keys is devastated.
Uh, after this,
Well, Keys comes in and shoots the dog with a tranquilizer.
Yep.
And then so he has the dog in hand, still not killing it right.
So he's still not killing it.
He goes into the church, finds the body and is horrified at the continuing, like thedeepening reality of what this dog is capable of.

(52:39):
And but yeah, I mean, that symbolism with the church is incredible.
And then we get this whole discussion at dinner about how the officials aren't going tounderstand.
They're not going to get what's happening here.
Yes, because the dog does eat from Keys's hand.
ah Once he brings them back home, you get that celebration.

(52:59):
Come on, this Romanian caviar is too good to waste.
That was a lot of Romanian caviar.
And I thought it was interesting that they're talking about how what they're doing ishumane.
What they're doing is ultimately approaching this from a humane standpoint.
And they're really laying out their mission statement for dealing with this dog here.
And then it ends with with the guy going, well, we got to eat these lamb chops here.

(53:22):
They're not going to eat themselves or something.
And I'm thinking you're talking about compassion toward animals and then you're eatinglamb.
Like talk about mixed.
signals in this movie from top to bottom.
just continues to happen.
And we haven't, we've hardly even talked here about burl-eyes, Rob.
yes, who by the way is also fantastic in this movie, but for different reasons.

(53:46):
He is a different flavor than Keys.
Carruthers does not really believe in any of this, you know, for the most part.
He wanted to put the dog down at the beginning of this movie or at least his introductionto the dog, which I think is key.
After the escape and the killing of the man in the church, Julie now wanted to kill thisdog as well.

(54:08):
This becomes Key's mission.
This is Quint in the ocean smashing the radio and saying, know what?
Damn, no matter what happens here, this is proceeding.
And it's Richard Harrison Orca.
Because I really think there's a bit of there's been so much negative that's come fromthis.
People have died.
The only way for keys that it will have been worth it is to make this matter is if he canactually cure this dog and start the program to help others.

(54:36):
I try keys.
die trying.
There's your orca.
Yeah, that makes sense.
So, Keys has more success with the dog.
gets to pet him.
He actually tests the dog with another uh black man who works there, Charlie.
And, you know, the dog snarls and barks, straining its chain.
uh Keys has a gun pointed at the dog just in case if it snaps off the chain, but the doglets Charlie pet him after a tense standoff.

(55:02):
So that scene that you were mentioning where Keys finally gets the dog to accept him,where he's lifting up his shirt to show his skin, is...
super tense and powerful.
And then he wants to make sure that it's not just him.
So he tests with someone else.
And the way that that whole thing is shot with bringing Charlie in, mean, talk about theintensity is just ratcheted up to 10 in that whole thing while you're seeing it unfold.

(55:27):
Because the way that it's shot and cut together, you really have no idea what the dog'sgoing to do when it gets to him.
And it's not to the very end where there's even a moment, there's like a beat a little bitlonger than what you're comfortable with, and then there's the friendliness.
And you're thinking, more success.
And that's what my notes keep noting here, even more success, even more success.
So Key's process is working.

(55:50):
This is not a failed mission.
Ultimately, yes, there have been casualties throughout, but he's doing what he thinks heshould be doing, and he's proving everybody that he can do it.
Yeah, and there is some compassion for the dog as well because as Keys has explained, theway these dogs are trained to attack black people is um white racists will pay black

(56:13):
people who need money to beat a puppy.
And they do this over and over again until the dog is just trained to attack.
And so this is an abused animal as well, like is how this training happened.
And important to bring that up because Julie knows this, you know, they're going to call.
Carrether's wants Keys to call Julie to tell the dog is cured, but Keys still isn't sosure because, you know, that history of abuse, he's not sure the dog could still explode.

(56:38):
That's where, and she's going to come to Noah's Ark for like a final test.
But on the way you get that scene out of her house where the dog's original owner, thisold guy and his two granddaughters, they'd seen her flyers that she'd put up as she's
going to leave to go to Noah's Ark.
And this is, they bring her a box of chocolates and there's this whole like kind of

(56:58):
sweet Americana-ness to it until she asks and he casually admits that yes, he raised thedog to attack black people and Julie kind of lashes out.
him hell.
It's great.
This is Christie's shining moment in this whole film.
That whole sequence where she's sitting in the car just letting him have it as she'strying to get out of there.

(57:19):
I loved every second of it.
Yeah, no, I mean, it's pretty powerful.
And in a movie that doesn't have a lot of totally 100 % positive emotional catharsis atleast gives us something before we get to this ending.
If you thought the ending of Orca was a bummer.
Let me tell you.
We're coming up on another.

(57:40):
So we go back to Noah's Ark.
And the final test, as Keyes describes it.
Keys is in the cage, dog's in the cage, cage in the water.
No, I'm messing it up anyway.
That's close.
I know.
Oh, damn.
Yeah.
OK.
All right.
But Keys and Julie are both in this cage with the dog, and they're going to call the dog,right?

(58:02):
And this dog is still, you know, for as much work as this dog has gone through, it doesjust instantly snarl at the beginning of everything.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's his default setting.
Keys is calling the dog and the snarling is happening almost the whole way.
And then at the end, the dog left, you know, was like, okay, Keys and let some pet.
Then Julie has to call the dog, right?

(58:22):
Keys is aiming the handgun again at the dog, just in case the dog goes crazy and attacks.
Suddenly the dog catches sight of Caruthers.
Well, OK, but the dog was nice to her as well.
Nice to Julie.
Yeah.
So past step two.
But they never thought of step three, which is our R2D2 hatin' Caruthers.

(58:43):
Who's dog?
Cage.
Yes, maybe White Dog is a Star Wars fan.
But the dog attacks Caruthers.
And this is interesting.
And I think this is one of the changes, I believe, from the novel, the original story, isthat it lashes out unexpectedly here, because Caruthers is a white man.
Burlives is a white man.
But this dog has just been so wrecked and ruined.

(59:05):
that no amount of deprogramming has worked and it just goes haywire and is going to attackthis guy.
It's also a really yet again another metaphor for racism doesn't racism against blackpeople doesn't just hurt black people.
There is a cost as well for white people whether or not they see it or want to admit it.
And he's the...
he is the only foreign body in the cage at this point.

(59:27):
So his being in there didn't make a lot of sense for this final test period.
But also it does make sense that if the dog was going to attack someone in there it wouldbe him because the dog knows the other two so well by this point.
There's an intimate relationship with both Keys and Christie.
And so it's sensible that it would have given into compassion there, but...

(59:50):
Yeah, when you introduce him into the mix, that's a contaminated environment.
And I think also important that he was not, Carruthers was not supposed to be part of thistest.
So even when keys did the test with Charlie keys had been setting it up and the dog sawthat keys was bringing Charlie in for this purpose.

(01:00:11):
I mean, you know, the dog understands what it understands, but it would have known atleast that keys was bringing in Charlie.
Whereas here, Carruthers is coming cause he owns half this place and he wants to declarevictory.
and but collateral damage.
you know, Keys is forced to fatally shoot the dog to save her others and the dog dies.

(01:00:32):
We zoom, we get that zoom in on its, on its head as it's dying and dead.
And you get the crane shot over the outside of the entire dome cage where you get the dogjust dead in the dirt and they're walking away.
You get that another closeup of dead dog zooming back out to see it alone.
And you get that wide shot of the cage.

(01:00:53):
and it's, you know, final resting place there and you roll credits on this thing and holyshit, Justin.
My notes say, they say, well, this is anticlimactic.
like, yeah, we want to have it tied with a bow, but racism isn't and it never will be.
And so there is no way to have this story and neatly.

(01:01:14):
Did it need to end with the white guy getting killed to make us shocked?
It's certainly going to provoke conversation among people.
I mean, in talking about it, sounds so much more interesting than I felt while I waswatching it.
And I'm trying to examine why that's the case.
that the movie just didn't seem to have the wheels that I was hoping that it would or thatit...

(01:01:38):
In our discussion here, it seems so much more interesting than maybe it is.
Maybe I need to revisit it again at some point.
You've watched it a few times.
Do you think that this film, do you think it's...
Well, because I think in to to go all the way back to the beginning of talking about this,I think I just saw it on Criterion Channel and it was listed as about a racist white dog,

(01:02:01):
you know, and I Paul Winfield trying to break the training.
I was like, what is this?
Yeah.
So I was not seeing it in the context of a Jaws creature feature.
Right.
And so I didn't have that expectation of, you know, pacing and the types of scenes that Ishould be in, you know, the types of action sequences or kill sequences.

(01:02:21):
Like I didn't have any of that set up as my expectation.
That's a really good point.
I wonder if that is probably a big difference.
Do think it belongs in this series that we're doing?
Because I don't remember who picked this.
Was it you who?
I suggested it.
Yeah.
And the reason I think it belongs in the series is because as we've done many, manyseries, we examine the trend, but we don't necessarily only pick movies that successfully

(01:02:48):
followed the trend.
like, you know, to go get me another Indiana Jones, we had high road to China, whichreally has almost zero actual Indiana Jones DNA.
but they had it sitting on a shelf and Indiana Jones was big and they could get it madefast, but it contains almost nothing aside from a leather jacket that made Indiana Jones,

(01:03:10):
Indiana Jones.
So sometimes it's interesting to see people in that, at least to me from the outside, itfelt like something where they were, they were trying to follow a trend, but just
couldn't, you know, it didn't click.
And there was the edict from the studio on this one, we want Jaws with Paws, so that makessense.
Yeah.
And so, but what I find interesting with this one, particularly in the context of theseries is I think it's very clear that Samuel Fuller, Curtis Hansen, it sounds like even

(01:03:39):
Michael Eisner, I don't think they wanted to make a Jaws clone.
Yeah.
But it was undercover of Jaws clone that this thing got originally developed.
And then it was, can we finish before a strike?
Right.
So this seems like an epitome of a one for me pretending to be a one for them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
eh
this thing.

(01:03:59):
No, it's crazy.
There's another, uh to shift gears, there's another book about a murderous dog.
It turns out that was written in this time period that if you're looking to make adangerous animal movie, I think a relatively cult author, Stephen King.
Okay, I'll stop being a jerk.

(01:04:21):
Next up we have Stephen King's Cujo.
Nothing that lives in the imagination is more frightening.
oh

(01:04:42):
Terror that lives in Castle Rock, Maine.
Can he get in here?

(01:05:18):
He is waiting in here.
Kenny?
I'm losing my baby.

(01:05:41):
of character.
a startling vision of fear.
Please, God, get me out of here.
Now, there's a new name for terror.

(01:06:02):
you
Alright, this is what I think we have less subtext to talk
Less subtext, but you know, in a way though, you know what's funny about comparing thesetwo Rob, as we're talking about the the cultural complexities of White Dog and what
message it's trying to send.

(01:06:23):
In other words, let's make a movie that stirs something within people.
Stephen King, it's no mystery to anyone that I am, I absolutely adore King and I've readmore, almost as much about him as I have like about Poe.
as absolute top two favorite authors in the world.

(01:06:43):
And he has time and again created characters that become shorthand for things culturallyin circles where people have never seen the source material, never read the book, or in
this case, seen the movie.
And I will point to Christine for cars.
Everyone knows, geez, this one's, this Christine, she's got a mind of her own.

(01:07:07):
She's like Christine, you say that about your car when it's a pain in the ass or when it'sdoing something it shouldn't.
And Kujo has really culturally become shorthand for bad dogs.
yeah, my grandfather, one of my grandfathers had a rescue dog who loved him.
The dog's real name was Henry, but Henry was a bit of a snapper with almost everyone elseand would like strain the chain in the back.

(01:07:32):
God knows what had happened to that poor dog.
But uh the nickname that we had for the dog was Cujo because that's, yes, that's what yousay.
But as you say, this movie is about more than a killer dog and we'll get to that in amoment, but just uh Cujo, it's...
directed by Lewis Teague of Alligator fame.
He did another uh Stephen King adaptation, Cat's Eye later.

(01:07:55):
Listeners of this podcast will also know him as the director of Jewel of the Nile.
Yeah, I've interviewed Lewis two or three times now, because I worked on Cat's Eye, Iworked on uh Lady in Red, and I also worked on Alligator.
So there's three times when I've interviewed him on different things.
I love the man.

(01:08:15):
I love him so much.
He's one of the sweetest people that I've met in this business.
He's always so down for anything.
He even came to a signing at Dark Delicacies that Del and I put together on
I that might have been cat.
It was either cat's eye or it was, I don't know, but, maybe, no, it was alligator.
He came for alligator.

(01:08:36):
And yeah, that was an amazing night.
The way that he approaches the films that he makes is with a different kind ofconsideration than a lot of directors that I've run into.
He has a lot of trust in the people that work with him.
And he also loves to indulge in the beauty of shooting stuff that's gnarly.

(01:08:57):
And I think that's the case with
You see the delight on screen with the camera in the attack sequence as an alligator.
The way that swimming pool sequence is set up with those kids in that film, he gives thesethings time.
And a lot of directors in the genre are hot to get to the action, or it's mandated thatthey get to the action.

(01:09:17):
Teague seems to have this magic pill that he gives the executives before he's makingsomething that allows him the kind of time and gravitas to be able to pull off things.
like what we're gonna encounter here in Kujo because while this film is one that I've saidearlier, is something I can't imagine anyone wanting to watch more than once.

(01:09:38):
That being said, this is one of the most beautifully shot films that we've covered,period.
The cinematography and the way that they used this space to tell this tale, I think, isabsolutely outstanding.
So I guess if there's a reason to return to it, one of them would be.
that the cinematography and the storytelling is handled in a very dynamic

(01:10:02):
yeah, yeah.
And it's, you know, it was written by Don Carlos Dunaway and Barbara Turner under the penname Lauren Currier at the time, based of course on the uh novel by Stephen King.
It stars Dee Wallace, E.T., The Howling, Critters.
She was America's mom there for a little while in film.
Danny Bantaro, you get Daniel Hugh Kelly, who uh again, podcast listeners will know fromThe Good Son.

(01:10:28):
And also,
a little movie called Star Trek Insurrection.
get our other Star Trek connection here.
And my personal favorite, a billion episodes of Hardcastle and McCormick.
This is funny because this was released in August of 1983, four months before JohnCarpenter's Christine.
And Kujo, it was a modest success for Warner Brothers that year.
It was the fourth highest grossing horror film of 1983 behind Jaws 3D, I love, Psycho 2,Twilight Zone the movie.

(01:10:57):
I kind of love.
And this film follows a mother and son who are stalked by a rabid St.
Bernard and they spend much of the film trapped in a car, which we'll get to.
But the thing is, this is more than that because it's a psychological and physicalsurvival horror story.
But if White Dog was using those similar tropes to tackle racism in America, this one ismuch more personal theme of kind of marital strife and personal relationships going.

(01:11:26):
wrong and not knowing why that is right.
The breakup of a family, which was in the early eighties, very much a theme, the familybreakup thing.
Absolutely, yeah.
And it's also about how the breakdown of those relationships can cause confusion inmessaging and how that confused messaging can prolong uh rescue.

(01:11:47):
you know, we're going to get to the point here where we talk about it, but it'sfascinating to me how it takes something that's a setup that also in the King verse, if
you look at Salem's Lot, there's infidelity associated with that, that just has a set
sequence associated with it, but it doesn't really go anywhere after that, that I recall.

(01:12:08):
But here, the resonance from the decision for infidelity, it really starts to permeateeverything, and ultimately it influences the entire second half of the movie, and the slow
response to the situation that unfolds.
Yeah, one thing that's similar to white dog, which is named after the white dog and thedog itself is a very main character in that it's not just it's not just the shark coming

(01:12:33):
to get you.
Right.
I would say that Kujo is called Kujo for a reason as well.
And as a matter of fact, the movie version at least starts with Kujo, not with our human.
And who's chasing said bunny, which is Kujo.
And but it feels very like a dog chasing a bunny.
You know, it feels like a romp.
Yeah, exactly.

(01:12:55):
feels like this massive saint, gentle St.
Bernard who's like joyfully chasing this rabbit.
I don't even know that you feel like would he actually like he might grab the rabbit, buthe's going to kill this rabbit.
I don't think so.
No, they're going through this idyllic field and then the peaceful tone shifts a littlebit when the rabbit goes kind of in a hole.
I mean, it goes through the, you know, whatever the log first and gets by, but eventuallygoes inside a little rabbit hole.

(01:13:22):
Except it's not just a rabbit hole as it just.
And if Cujo knew what ammonia smelled like, he might smell massive amounts of ammonia whenhe sticks his head in this hole because it's got a ton of bats and.
And Cujo doesn't realize this and is just barking at that bunny who's like me me me me.

(01:13:43):
And eventually one of these bats wakes up and bites Cujo.
Right in the muzzle he bites him.
Right in the nose.
And I do in this sequence, one of the things that Teague does with the camera that I love,I love the Cujo POV chasing the rabbit is it's just like traveling and it, you know, when
you're down low like that and whatever lens they're using, it just feels like everything'smoving much faster than it probably is.

(01:14:09):
But it's so like fun.
And it establishes something that does come back throughout the film, which is the POV ofKujo, even if they're just aping the POV of Kujo, which is something that comes into play
on the farm later, where we're not necessarily actually seeing through the eyes of thedog, but we're seeing from what the dog would have as a perspective, which I think is an

(01:14:30):
interesting thing to establish from the get-go here, that there's going to be some changesin perspective throughout the whole thing.
and a change in the perspective.
So not only are we going to be in the dog and Kujo's POV at various times, but this KujoPOV at the beginning of the movie is very different from Kujo's POV later.
It's almost like, if we started Halloween a year before and it's just Michael at abirthday party having fun walking around and that's your Michael Myers POV, right?

(01:14:58):
That's what this is.
It's like Kujo's having fun and being a dog.
Yeah.
And that will change now because both movies have that inciting incident just right offthe bat hitting the white dog and hear Kujo getting bit.
uh After that, we're at home with the Trenton family, right?
So Donna Trenton played by D Wallace, Tad, their son is played by Danny and then VicTrenton, the father is played by Daniel who, Hugh Kelly.

(01:15:26):
And so what you've got is, um, Vic.
who is the dad who's allergic to wearing shirts at home, I believe you get Donna and theiryoung son, Ted, who is afraid of a monster in the closet.
ah This is very, I mean, you want to talk about some echoes of a lot of King stories.
uh The monster in the closet, totally there.

(01:15:48):
And this, this is very nice and evocative, even though in this one, it's not literal.
And Tad is so sweet.
I mean, he's just adorable throughout the whole thing.
when he they're trying to comfort him when he sees this monster, he certainly sees thismonster in his room.
And Donnas is too much junk food, too much of the tube guys like this whole anti TV, likethe kids been watching too much boob tube.

(01:16:13):
And they push back then when they're like, what's it made a noise.
What noise did it make?
Like why they force Tad's hand?
to recreate the sound that just sent him into sheer panic is beyond me as parents.
Why do you care what sounded made?
That is so unimportant in the scope of what's happening here.
And then Vic, there's no such thing as real monsters.

(01:16:36):
They're only in stories.
He keeps hammering this point home and Tad pretends that he understands, but he's notbuying it because when he is left alone in the room after their grand discussion, he's
like, except the ones in my closet.
Yeah, when Tad runs into the bed, you get that great camera flip ah where the image goesupside down, which is wonderful.

(01:17:02):
But uh one could argue whether the POV of the movie, I'm not talking about the book, butthe POV of the movie, are there real monsters?
Because again, Kujo didn't seek getting rabies.
Right.
ah And I think even with a lot of the human characters, maybe outside of Joe.
Steve's an asshole.
the family issues that are happening.

(01:17:24):
really does feel like there are no monsters, but that doesn't mean that bad things aren'tgoing to happen.
Right.
That people won't do bad things that dogs won't do even worse things.
Yeah.
But the next morning we get the aforementioned Steve Kemp, who is a friend of theTrenton's and maybe a little bit more, but he brings some horse woodworking.

(01:17:46):
An enormous toy horse he walks in with.
He's a jerk who uh tells the Donna, Oh, no, thanks.
I don't need any coffee.
And she's like, did you want some?
This will not be the last time that Steve is a jerk.
And then we get the Sharp cereals, professor commercial on the tube.

(01:18:08):
I know a lot about cereal because I'm the sharp cereal professor, sharp cereals.
Twinkles, Coco Bears, brand 16, and Red Raspberries are the best tasting cereals inAmerica.
And they're good for you.

(01:18:34):
Nothing wrong here.
As a writer Rob, how do you feel about this commercial?
Well, it does feel very 80s.
Yeah, I will give.
yeah, it has the Where's the Beef vibe.
Yes.
think they may have not had the money to actually make it an animated serial character.
You could still could have been the professor, but it should have been like a, you know, apurple tiger who was a professor, you know, but you know, this is check off sharp serial

(01:19:03):
campaign.
It is.
And boy do I have questions about how this unfolds as the movie goes on.
There are real questions.
Yes, in any event, it turns out that Vic, this is where it comes out that Vic is an adexec.
He made up this campaign.
It's a big new campaign that his firm has with this serial company that feels like aGeneral Mills or a, you know, Cal.

(01:19:26):
And Tad is so cute when he's like, my daddy made that, my daddy made that.
There's this moment of pride from the kid that I think is so charming.
And I'd like to point out that toy giant wood horse, know, Ted does not care one wordabout says nothing.
So does he like what the Steve makes?
No, he likes what his dad.
made.

(01:19:47):
And then there's some threats made about tennis.
Well, you can't beat me in tennis.
Well, we'll see.
I'll see you on the court.
So then we, play a little tennis, Steve and Vic.
get this great match cut at the end, uh, where Vic says, uh, with, know, from Vic sayingwhatever turns you on to Steve in a normal context.
And then we cut to Steve in bed.

(01:20:09):
He's playing literally naked trombone in his bed.
Okay.
This, I think, is such a vital moment, and I wanted this to come back again later, and I'mso heartbroken to report that it doesn't.
Sad trombone
We cut to Steve in bed and you can't see that Donna's in there with him.

(01:20:31):
You just see him waking up.
He wakes up and the first thing he does is reach over and grab a trombone and while stilllaying down, playing it in the air loudly, which terrifies Donna out of sleep.
She rockets up in the bed like Michael Myers in the hallway.
Another Michael Myers reference.
And she looks positively morose.

(01:20:54):
And that's what I can say of Dee Wallace in this film.
In the first half of it is, okay, we're establishing that she's having an affair withSteve.
And I call it the Morose Trombone love affair because there's a lot of weird shit going onhere.
Why the trombone?
Why?
It never comes into play again.
It's not like this is how Steve wakes up every day.

(01:21:15):
It's not like this is how anyone wakes up, Rob.
He just wakes up and starts blasting Trombone to be an obnoxious ass.
And she gets up and instantly starts putting on her clothes in the most depressed, dourpresentation of someone who's in the throes of some affair.
It's absolutely strange, but this is her note through the entire first half of this filmis this downtrodden, depressed, mentally run-down person who happens to be somehow

(01:21:47):
attracted to an asshole that wakes up with a trombone.
Well, I think that is the, and I think I'd read somewhere and I don't know if this is inthe novel.
It certainly isn't really explaining the movie that they, this is an old boyfriend maybein some version, but I think you're right that Donna is just unhappy.
Like this affair does not make her happy.
She says she's unhappy and she doesn't know why she does it.

(01:22:08):
But I think that extends to the whole family.
It's not just about Vic.
She seems very like depressed all the time.
Not that she's mean to Tad or anything like that, but it does feel like.
She is a place where the family, I don't know that they're necessarily taken for grantedversus just it's not giving her what she wants out of life.
Yeah.

(01:22:28):
You know what it reminds me of a little bit is the beginning of Psycho, where it begins,the film version of that, it begins with the affair in the hotel room and she's ready to
walk away from it.
And she's being very reasonable in the situation and he's not.
He still has his head in the clouds about the whole thing and wanting to push to have itcontinue.

(01:22:49):
It's very similar here and as is going to play out in a little bit further down in ourstorytelling.
But
This affair isn't making the women happy.
No.
And we get the great scene after uh that night dinner at their home.
It's very evocative.
It does leave me a little questioning as well, where it's like every light in this placeis off except for the light directly above the table.

(01:23:13):
But the thing is, it looks really cool and it's tense where you get Vic and Donna and theyreally are not talking over this dinner.
It feels like an interrogation, which the lighting really helps with.
Vic feels that something's up and he's got the way to fix the marriage to have another
baby.
Donna clearly does not feel that this would save the marriage.

(01:23:34):
There's this cute moment though, like this heart, the center of this and that ties it intoour series in a very literal way is when Tad trying to, recognizes the tension in the
room.
And so he tries to break that tension, which is common with kids who were in situationswhere parents are always doing this.
They try to bring some levity.
He's pretending to be the shark from Jaws.

(01:23:57):
He has his little hand, he disappears under the table.
You see his little hand coming up as he goes, duh duh, duh duh.
And there's all this giggling and I think it's just the sweetest, most charming littlemoment.
Absolutely adorable.
And the perfect way for him to try to intervene and in a child's mind's way, fix what isclearly a problem in the family.

(01:24:21):
And it does stop the conversation, but it does not fix the problem in the family.
um Now, eventually here we get Vic uh has to take his car, the very impractical uh forCastle Rock main convertible little coupe.
I Chris very much gave me a note about how impractical this car is for the Northeast.

(01:24:44):
And I forget the make and model.
Okay.
because later, and I even have the quote in here, Vic says he's talking to Tad when hepicks Tad, think this is when he picks him up from the summer camp thing and he's like,
try to beat me to the Jaguar and yeah, let's go and they run and I put Jaguar.

(01:25:05):
Like who says Jaguar?
It's not like Tad said it first and then Vic repeated it.
The man, the adult man just says Jaguar.
But it's a Jaguar and yes, it's a convertible where they could have the top down for aboutthree weeks of the year in this area of the country.
And it's a real rattle trap.
As we're introduced to the car, it sounds like they have a bunch of tin cans tied to theback of it after someone just got married.

(01:25:30):
It's something else.
not an advertisement for the reliability of any car that is in this movie.
Like but one of the cars should be good.
Ostensibly this Jaguar.
The other car is a Ford Pinto.
So uh yes, but what I do I will Chris send in this one note which is that it's this entirestory is Vic's fault for having

(01:25:54):
an impractical Jaguar that he is more concerned about fixing than his wife's Pinto, whichhe should have known better and should have been keeping up.
So, you know, I have my own feelings that the real villain lies elsewhere.
Also a two legged villain though.
Yeah.
And we're about to meet him.
Joe camber.

(01:26:15):
Cause Vic's taken that, that Jaguar to Joe camber to look at because uh he's impatient anddoesn't want to wait for the real mechanic.
So he's going to go to the.
the mailman though, the mailman gave him the Iggy.
He's like, Hey, as he walks away, you know, there's a better guy outside town, go see JoeCamber.
He'll take care of you better and do a better job.
And so Vic kind of feels like he's a savior in the mailman.

(01:26:37):
in a way we could blame all this on the mailman too.
This could be a setup, the mailman trying to feed bodies to this dog.
Maybe that's the whole under anyway.
So we head out to Joe Camber and his farm.
And we meet the whole family, including Kujo.
Kujo likes kids, even though Donna's instantly fearful of Kujo, but she's told Kujo likeskids.

(01:27:00):
unreasonably fearful of kujo and vic is too the way that they respond to the dog is asthough they've never seen a dog before
or like they've already seen this movie.
But this is really just setting up the Camber family.
Joe is kind of the overbearing dad and we're gonna, you he has a wife, believe Chastity.
He's got a boy as well.

(01:27:21):
They do wind up penning Cujo here, but Donna does notice, but does nothing about thetelltale vampire rabie bite mark on his muzzle.
Like nose is there, you can see it.
It's not too gory or anything.
does look pretty shitty.
It's probably the worst effect in the movie.
It's this little splotch of gum on the dogs.
But Tad is so sweet with the dog here.
Yeah.
That is so cute when they're together.

(01:27:43):
But this is not the broken down car that's going to get people trapped in front of Kujo.
We still have a little ways.
Because the Sharp cereal, it turns out, has had an internal hemorrhaging scare.
But it was a false alarm.
It turns out that some red dye in the cereal made everyone poop in a way that they thoughtthat they were hemorrhaging internally.

(01:28:04):
yeah, Vic says the new cereal has been recalled.
So Vic seems to think this false scare with red dye means that the ad company is at faultbecause they created Professor Cereal.
As opposed to the actual food dye maker?
Like what's up with this?
They accept full responsibility for this and then it seems they're blamed for it.

(01:28:24):
They being these guys, their advertising company, which makes no sense to me at all.
Like so much hinges on what Vic does from this point forward in this movie.
I mean, it really dictates everything about where he is and isn't.
And it makes it could not possibly be pinned on these guys that this has happened.
uh
thing for me and I don't often go this way, but like you didn't even need it to do that.

(01:28:49):
All you needed was, oh they messed up the cereal.
Now my ad company has been called to do all this PR crisis management.
It doesn't have to be their fault to call him away, which is all that.
And that is what will, what wind up happening is Vic will wind up leaving, but there are afew key things before that point.

(01:29:11):
But, um, yeah, sharp cereal.
This stuff is a little.
A little crazy.
And we get the scene also, I think we kind of leaped over it, but we return to Tad'sbedroom and there's the monster talk again before bed.
uh Vic's solution is to do these monster words that are very much for me, a couple yearslater, we would have seen something similar in the monster squad where the dad has to come

(01:29:36):
in the room.
I had to do that with Julian when he was little.
I had to shoo the monsters away that were in the room and made sure that he felt like hewas safe.
So it is something that I think is very cute, very charming in a way to empower this kid,a way to have him feel like this is under control here because kids in broken homes like

(01:29:56):
that where there's battling parents, it's a very destabilizing environment that can bevery hard on a kid.
And some kind of sense of normalcy and control is very helpful.
You could see his monster dreams and visions as being an extension of the chaos in thehouse.
And I like that Vic is the one who's bringing that sort of sense of stability and safetyto the child with these monster words.

(01:30:24):
I love that scene.
You know, we get some back and forth, you know, back at the auto shop barn, see that Cujostarting to hate loud noises, driving him a little bonkers.
So we're getting some progression of the rabies there.
Donna drives into town to see Steve, who apparently also hates wearing shirts at home.
And doesn't always wake up with the trombone.

(01:30:45):
My note here, she walks into his house and he wakes up, he's startled by the door closing.
And my notes in all caps, where is the trombone?
Where, Rob, is the trombone?
Well, he doesn't get to use the trombone because Donna's come there to say her family'sactually terrific, Vic's not bad, and that this whole affair was a mistake.

(01:31:09):
Yes, yeah, the townhunk.
hooking up with the town hunk and she says no no offense and he says none taken.
Yeah.
And Steve does what men often do.
He instantly just lies and says, yeah, whatever you want, like nonchalantly.
And then she leaves.
He has instant regrets and he follows her out to the street.

(01:31:29):
and he's at her car trying to argue with her when Vic just happens to drive by and seesthem, uh, does a little bit of a double take.
He then you turns it and comes back, but they're gone already, but he saw them.
Like that is, this is not a false alarm, he knows.

(01:31:49):
Donna's gonna wind up then picking up Tad from school, but that Pinto, you wanna talkabout that Jaguar having bad noises, this Pinto, boy.
would not be driving this.
Certainly not with the child in there.
Are you kidding?
Yeah, she comes home then and Vic winds up asking her what she did today and she totallylies But we see that Vic does not buy it now.

(01:32:15):
We go back to the cambers.
We got the coup
Wait, wait.
So Vic also has Donna.
like, you said, what did you do today?
She lies.
And then she says, hey, did Roger come into work today?
And then Vic says, no, Roger, and this is the quote, is still in mourning for the account.
So he didn't go to work that day.

(01:32:36):
So something bad happens at work.
Let's say that something goes wrong, maybe a situation you need to fix.
Do you just not show up the next day?
No, you start working on a fix.
And in fact, Roger's going to push Vic for the rest of this film that Rod, Vic needs toplug into this concept of fixing this.

(01:32:57):
But you're telling me he didn't even show up to work the next day to start working on asolution for the.
Especially galling when Vic tells him that he needs to leave later on in the story.
um Yeah, for him not to even go to work the next day is just kind of ridiculous.
But and this is really where they start saying, suggesting that it's their fault that thiswhole thing has happened.
It's the ad campaign people.

(01:33:18):
Oh, behind this colossal.
And it's ultimately a misunderstanding.
No one's dying.
No one's sick.
They just have weird colored poop.
Yeah.
Professor Serial told him it would be very healthy.
So now it's a problem.
So Vic is going to wind up leaving town to try and fix all of this.
But before then, we're going to get a couple things.
So the Cambers, we're going to find out that Joe Camber, we got a little bit more.

(01:33:43):
He's very gruff, drunk.
It feels like he is at least verbally abusive with that family.
We never see any physical abuse, but it is strongly hinted that that probably happened.
Well, and even when they first encounter the family, when when Donna and Vic and Tad goout there to first have the car looked at the when Donna approaches the wife, she's very

(01:34:07):
much like the beaten kind of like, don't know.
can't talk to people.
And even when Canber pulls in to initiate this sequence that we're talking about now atthis point in the film, he's weaving around with his truck.
He's driving while he's drunk and they cut to this great shot of Cujo.
who could not be more unimpressed with Cameron is driving as he plows into the farm.

(01:34:29):
And then we figure out that this guy's just an asshole to these poor people.
His wife and his child are living with uh a true creature.
and she's made something special for him and then he's complaining they don't have themoney for it and that's when she reveals that she won the lottery.
She got him an engine lift for his shop and you would think, what the heck?

(01:34:49):
And the kid even says, this is something you've been saying you wanted.
And he's just straight up angry.
Yeah, but it turns out she really did win the lottery.
even has the the letter.
We can put that in air quotes there and it's a $5,000 purse.
Rob.
So she's gonna take their son on a short vacation for a week or so to go visit her sister.

(01:35:10):
And that's gonna get them out of town and gonna get Joe alone drinking with his buddy andCujo.
So, you know, Joe's all about the broads, baseball and booze.
That quote in here too.
He's trying to talk his buddy into going out and doing, engaging in some gambling with himand pissing away some of the money that his wife won in this alleged lottery.

(01:35:30):
Yeah.
but meanwhile, before, uh, Joe and his buddy are gonna wind up, facing some consequenceswith Cujo, Steve is going to drop off the table that he's been working on, uh, at their
home.
And he's going to essentially sexually assault Donna in her home.
Uh, she has milk, which is going to spill all over the place.

(01:35:51):
And that's exactly when Vic and Ted come in, stopping Steve before things go too far.
Donna tells Steve to go and
He does.
And Tad leaves, gets in a way and Vic asks her just.
Yes or no?
she goes, yes.
and Vic just leaves.

(01:36:11):
It's a really powerful little moment there.
it's a bad time for him to find out and confirm all of this because he does have to leavetown to save sharp cereal.
So he puts the monster words up on the wall for Tad so that Mom can say them while he'sgone.
We also and this is an odd sequence here because it goes from the admitting to the affairthing.

(01:36:33):
The next thing we're seeing Vic out in front of the house working on the Pinto.
He has the hood up.
He's in there.
He's flipping switches and like, come on, baby, start, start.
And it does for a second.
And then it dies.
And I'm thinking if he can get in there with his hands and make this car run, why is he sodependent on camber in the first place?
He seems like a capable mechanic.

(01:36:54):
But when she comes.
When the eventual discussion happens about this, he admits he can't fix it because hedoesn't have all the tools.
So get him?
I don't know.
It's weird to me that he seems very dependent on mechanics, and yet he's very willing toget his hands directly in the engine and be sparking whatever he's sparking at the start
of the sequence.
here.

(01:37:15):
can I can I go metaphor in a way that I'm sure was not necessarily meant take us he cannotstart his wife.
And as he's going to leave, he's driving away.
He kisses Tad goodbye.
And Donna's in the background.
Donna does run Vic down and says, she just want him to know it's over.
And his response then is that he doesn't know what he's going to do.

(01:37:38):
Yeah, but he's not he's not being awful to her.
He's distant, which makes sense.
And that's again, that's a maturity in how this is approached from the acting standpoint.
And I think Lewis is the director, too, is that they're not turning this guy into a ragingmaniac right away.
Like, get me away from this woman who wronged me.
It's going to be a complicated untangling of a lot of a mess here.

(01:38:00):
And this is the beginning of that.
But he's it's going to be.
It's truncated.
It's cut off at the knees because his problem solving is going to be on pause until he canget back from this stupid trip about this stupid red dye thing.
And you can see that in him.
You see Vic lamenting the fact that he has to leave in the midst of all this because whatcould be less important as my family's falling apart than some ad camp?

(01:38:25):
And you and Daniel's really his performance is great in this area too.
You do feel like a lot of the unsaid things that he is holding back because there arethings that he probably impulsively might want to say that he knows he shouldn't because
he doesn't know what he wants.
And you do feel probably the mix feels like more hurt than anger.

(01:38:52):
Not that there's zero anger, the betrayal, but I
You don't, you know, he's not like seething.
It's just more like, you know, damn.
Yeah, Brett, the son tells the mom that, uh, and this is me paraphrasing, essentiallysays, I saw Cujo and he looked rabid as hell, but she doesn't want to upset Joe before

(01:39:12):
they leave because he is an abusive jerk.
But I like how, no, we cut to the sequence though, Rob, where it's Canberra's kid wakingup and you think this is another situation.
the f***ing scene.
Yeah.
You almost think that it's a dream because it's really the farm is absolutely not justlike hazy.
It's engulfed in thick fog, like John Carpenter fog, and it's night and all you hear isthe sound of this sump creature.

(01:39:39):
You have no, I mean, if you didn't know what Kujo had been bitten, you'd be like, what isthis thing?
And then Kujo emerges from this fog and he's snarling.
He doesn't attack the kid.
And you can see this reluctance in the dog to be around him.
Like in this moment, Kujo is still has his faculties, right?
He is understanding that there's some infection spreading in him.

(01:40:02):
And I love this, this scene is so short, but it's something that's not often allowed infilms where the animal gets a moment, like a beat where they're not completely out of
control.
And this is one of the final moments of Kujo having his bearings and choosing to turnaround and wander back into that fog and leave the sun alone because he didn't want to

(01:40:22):
hurt.
Yeah, because presumably I would imagine of any human that Brett, the son, probably theone that Cujo has the best relationship with and certainly in the family.
and that's clearly established when they first meet him.
So it's a neat way to set this up, but it also it lets us know that something is shifting.
This is where I want to bring in my real villain of Joe because if he wasn't such anabusive jerk, the mom wouldn't have said, we shouldn't mention weird slobbery Cujo stuff.

(01:40:51):
Well, the mom is doing that because this whole thing is a ploy to get her and the kid outof the house.
Yeah.
She's trying.
This is hers.
It's brilliant, I think.
A very smart idea to have her set this whole lottery thing up to get give them a reason toleave.
Did Joe presumably out of town with his asshole friend and then they're they're scot freeto never return again.

(01:41:13):
Yeah, Kujo's condition worsens.
He's getting more aggressive.
Noises are bothering him more.
And now Joe's buddy, Gary is over the neighbor and uh what's going to happen?
No, Gary is at his house.
So actually prior to this, we get gorgeous shots and we see a number of these, but this isreally where they begin.

(01:41:34):
Shots of the countryside at sunrise and sunset.
The cinematography for these inserts, man, it's just absolutely breathtaking.
You see Kujo out for a stroll in that same kind of sun setting shot.
Now they fade into each other, but then drunk Gary is pouring garbage on his pile ofgarbage.

(01:41:55):
which is apparently a thing you do when you have garbage in surplus.
You just pour more garbage on the garbage and then Cujo shows up.
And Cujo's, how does he look here Rob?
How would you describe the look of Cujo when we see him at this?
Yeah, I mean, it's like someone had a bloody nose and allergies at the same time andsneezed all over this dog.

(01:42:18):
It gets worse and worse.
So disgusting.
It's so gross.
And this is another one where you talk about the beautiful cinematography, but being ableto use the light to glisten this nasty, nasty stuff all over this dog for the rest of this
movie.
I mean, it is its own special effect.

(01:42:41):
But the attack on Gary, it's a lot of closeups here.
Again, we talked about that as the dog fights.
It takes him out pretty fast.
Well, he makes a break for it into the house.
Yes.
He goes to grab his rifle and there's this great sequence where Kujo is at the screendoor, like up on all fours and you see the size of the dog in comparison to this door

(01:43:01):
frame.
Well, that like really establishes the size of the beast and bashes through there.
And I put in my notes here that this this fight sequence is so well handled, I say it'sclumsy and intense.
which is exactly what this should be.
It shouldn't be a quick series of action movements where the dog just gets the best of himright away.

(01:43:23):
There's falling around and knocking stuff over and it goes on for long enough that you'rereally feeling it almost crosses the line.
And with how long are we going to witness this guy getting mauled here?
Very well shot, Ned.
Yeah, and you mentioned that it does feel in a way that lends realism to it, the lack ofchoreography.

(01:43:44):
I know there is, because they had to do that.
But it's similar, I guess, in the horror realm.
Other things like when Nancy's going after Freddy in the beginning or the end of theoriginal Nightmare, where some of those traps and things, feels a little more clumsy and
real.
And there's, they also made some choice cuts throughout it where you see the glisteningteeth of Kujo.

(01:44:07):
There's a couple of real brief flashes of shots that are almost solely focused on theteeth.
so it's so, it seems like it could be a throwaway sequence of just some people wrestlingand dying, but this dog and the way that they shot this, think it sets everything up to
come.
Cause now we know Kujo's turned completely and has gone.

(01:44:30):
Yeah, so now we're gonna get Joe is going to find uh Gary dead in the house and he's gonnarealize maybe something's amiss here.
He's gonna give give some looks
And for all the time that we had with Gary's death, his encountering Kujo, the ensuingbattle and wrestling, the gun and all this other tension, I'm still I'm shocked that I

(01:44:55):
think that one of the great missteps is that this whole thing with Joe Camber, not only isit so quick, but we don't even see what happened to him.
He's attacked like you see Kujo approach him and then it's a it's a cutaway.
Yeah.
And then what?
It's like, this is the guy we want to see die.
We hate this guy.

(01:45:16):
And we don't get that.
I know, I know.
You get that great bit where Joe, you know, when he's checking the house, he like goes forthe phone to call for help, but then it's like, boom, Cujo's right there.
You're not calling for help, buddy.
But then, yeah, it's so, it's very fast then and mostly an off-camera attack there fromthe dog.
And then just to get us to the end of the first half of this movie, Donna is gonna, thisbattered Ford Pinto.

(01:45:41):
is gonna be choking and sounding like it's speed buggy.
What?
No, at first though, we first see them, because Donna and Tad are driving the Pinto to thefarm, to the Canberra farm, which is setting up the entire second half of this movie.
When we first see it and they're just chit chatting in the car, the car isn't making anysounds.

(01:46:04):
It's not having any problems.
It's not sputtering.
It's not till we cut to the shot of it turning into the Canberra driveway that we'reseeing it go gung, go gung.
and you hear the sounds that it's making.
So it's almost like they forgot for a second that this car is a problem because it's finefor the beginning of the sequence.
Yeah, but once you get to the cambers farm slash auto shop, yes.

(01:46:25):
Check engine flashing.
We got all kinds of
Fortunately for them, they arrived just after Kujo's rampage.
He's gone full rabid mechanics dead.
There's no one around.
Not that they know that yet.
ah Kujo attacks the car pretty fast as Donna pulls into the yard.
Her engine stalls and that's going to be stranding them inside a sweltering Ford Pintowith no way to escape nor no obvious way to escape.

(01:46:50):
And this then is kind of this is like the second half of this film is them in the car.
Occasional cutaways to Vic and the mailman.
yeah, and this is where that POV shot comes in.
While she's pulling into the farm, there's a general parking area that sits in the middleof where the farmhouse is to one side, the barn where does his work, camera does his work

(01:47:13):
on cars in another direction.
And there's the central sort of round area, which is where the car pulls in.
But this is where we see that.
what is sort of a pseudo POV, Kujo shot through the slats in the barn as they pull in andshe's kind of looking around to see who's there.
And you're thinking, my God, he's here and he's watching.

(01:47:33):
And before we even see the dog, we have that moment of realization followed by that nice360 shot as Donna exits the car and stands up.
And then the camera pans all the way around her to show there's not a living soul on this.
on this farm, we also get the establishment of the seatbelt being stuck with Tad and thena very filthy Cujo, even more gross than he was a minute ago, tries to get into the car

(01:48:01):
and all hell breaks loose.
And this is when your heart starts to break for Tad and it will not stop shattering forthe next like 45
minutes.
Yeah, this is this is what I termed the muddy slobber attack jump scare through thepartially open pinto window.
Yeah, Donna says uh she's trying to comfort Ted saying it's not a monster.

(01:48:25):
It's just a doggy but could just a monster at this point.
And it's those monster words are not going to bring much comfort and they're certainly notgoing to solve anything.
And now there's a crane shot that's establishing the car by itself in the middle of thatparking area at the driveway where Cujo is just, it moves up and then over and then down
next to Cujo.

(01:48:46):
It's an amazing shot how they, yeah, manage this crane down there.
And here again to Louis T and his eye and how he handles this stuff.
And Jesus is Cujo filthy and gross, but you know, he's like this centurion just sittingthere watching and waiting for any chance.
of opportunity to get at the people in there.
And you bring up a good point on with the crane shot and there are a lot of things similarthat are smaller scale than that.

(01:49:13):
But any director and I've uh noticed this with other, you know, because at this point itbecomes almost a single location film and that location is very often the car, which is
very small.
So as a director, just even from a practical standpoint to keep an audience involved, youhave to visually mix this up because if you have a single location,

(01:49:35):
You have to treat every like two to three minute like scene, even though it's now like agiant sequence, but you have to vary that action.
Sometimes that'll be with her getting just outside of the car and crouching down.
So you're, you're using the same location, but you're showing us different parts or doingdifferent camera angles, doing, you know, a crane shot.

(01:49:57):
360 you get the, know, when she's crouching down at one point and you don't see Kujo'sbehind her, but you don't see it yet.
So you're getting things like that reveals that'll make it a little more visuallyinteresting as well, because I mean, just from the practical standpoint, you have to do
that or it's going to be boring to watch.
Yeah, and they intercut with those beautiful sunrise and sunset scenes, but they're notshowing other people.

(01:50:20):
They're not cutting to the society at large or the farm nearby.
It is absolute isolation.
From the moment they get out there, it is just them and nature and this dog.
Yeah.
And the only way that we get away from that, kind of respite, is when it cuts to littlebits with Vic, which we'll get to in a moment here, and maybe a couple others, but not a

(01:50:42):
lot.
at the very, very end.
It's mostly just these two and this crescendoing intensity.
At one point, Donna does start the car and she makes the mistake to stop it, to look atCujo and curse him out.
She says, fuck you.
Yeah.
And then the car instantly dies on her.
You should have just kept going.
You could have had some momentum to maybe at least roll in neutral.

(01:51:03):
And then you get, you know, you get the sun down and Tad has to pee.
You know, she's going to crack that door open, but Cujo's there.
This is where we find out that the phone ringing inside can distract him.
So the idea of distraction with noise is there.
And then we get my favorite cutaway, which is not Vic.
Most of them when they happen are Vic, we get the mailman who got the, like a giant bumperfor Joe, right?

(01:51:28):
He, the mailman is going to take it and he's told by kind of like the, whatever, another,another supervisor there that like, don't deliver it.
There's a hold on that mail.
Yeah, he was going with his friend for the booze and the baseball.
It's kind of this moment of like, Jesus, this could have maybe solved some.
Yeah, and then we get more phone ringing back at the farm driving Kujo mad now This iswhere Kujo maybe gets a little superhuman or super canine.

(01:51:54):
Yeah, he like head butts the car door He's like ripping off window handle like the doorhandles trying to claws way and he's a real slobbery nightmare in this little
And what they had for this movie was a guy in a dog costume as well as a real dog.
And then they had some animatronic prosthetic limbs, like dog head and things like that,that they were employing.

(01:52:18):
So there's a lot of different things employed here, but you never feel like it's pullingyou out of the film.
You're never seeing a shot that, whoa, like, Jesus, this is completely ridiculous.
It just continues to get more and more intense.
And the way that.
When that phone rings and Cujo goes nuts, it's not the first time the phone rings and Cujois bothered by it.

(01:52:39):
runs to the house and he breaks the window at the house almost.
Well, he's trying to get access to stop that sound and he doesn't get to the phone.
But you see him break the window this time when you hear the phone ring.
You're thinking says we're Pavlovian condition now.
We're thinking, Cujo is going to run to the house.
Maybe that's a chance for her to get out of the car and do something.

(01:53:01):
But instead of running to the house.
He just barrels straight to that car door on the driver's side and smashes his head intoit over and over again, crushing the door in.
You see the door handle fall off inside.
Blood smeared all over the outside with all this filth.
God, it's intense.
It's all.

(01:53:21):
And there's a bunch of a bunch of Kujo attacks that happen.
Donna gets out of the car.
Kujo sneaks up behind her and they fight.
Somehow she survives that close contact.
He comes into the car as she goes back in.
horror and she she does wind up getting Kujo out of the car at that point then then youget that 360 pan shot.

(01:53:45):
Oh, this is this time they use it without any control.
first time it's very sensibly employed.
She first gets the farm.
This thing is nauseating because it keeps getting faster and faster.
I'm like,
And then we got a cutaway Vicks in serial land getting worried because he can't reachDonna and that's all
Not worried enough to do anything.

(01:54:05):
Nope.
He just can't like no one's answering the phone.
He's like, well, she
Yeah, one point Kujo falls asleep on the car hood to watch them through the through thewindow Right and tads getting in worse and worse shape with the heat and the no water
Yeah, yeah, he's definitely seems like he is dying of thirst slowly and in any way Vic'sgonna return back from serial land because he's worried about Donna

(01:54:33):
He's finally worried enough to do something.
He gets back to their house and the three stooges have been there,
Yeah, it turns out that Steve Kemp has been by and he was angry about Donna and he decidedto just vandalize their home.
Right.
And that meant ripping open a lot of pillows and things.

(01:54:54):
a comical amount of feathers.
It's feathers everywhere.
It's like stir crazy or something.
I don't know.
This is a moment where in this movie that is grounded in gritty reality, you're like, whatcartoon broke out in this
And so Vic sees this and he goes, clearly it's Steve.
And you get this whole thing where the cops are looking for Steve thinking that hekidnapped uh Donna and Tad, but you do then eventually find out about the piece of it that

(01:55:22):
the car is not there.
The cops mentioned.
So how, you know, did he kidnap them and the car?
And that's when Vic remembers the car was going to get fixed.
Joe cambers.
So they send a cop to go check Kujo attacks.
uh
This also is another one keeping the worst of the violence off screen with the attack onthis guy.

(01:55:42):
What's way to handle it's very effective?
Well, first of all, the cop doesn't even phone it in.
He gets there, you see him acknowledge the bloodied beaten car with broken windows, bloodall over it, dirt and everything.
He grabs his radio to push the button to talk and call it in, but then hangs it up anddecides to walk over to the barn, which is where he encounters Cujo and this whole thing

(01:56:05):
unfurls.
But you see, you talked about this being mostly off screen.
The way that they shot it though was
from Donna's perspective inside the car at one point, through her limited view throughthis hole, like through the entrance of the garage, you just see Cujo mauling this cop,
sort of knocking him around through, you're seeing it through this little slat hole thatyou, that she can see through.

(01:56:30):
And it almost makes it more effective than if they would have just straight out.
showing it.
Cops gone and has not reported anything.
Then we cut back with Vic and the other cops and they found Kemp but there's no Donna ortad and this is where uh Vic finds out that the cop they sent to go Joe cameras hasn't
reported.
The other cops really don't care concerned about this.

(01:56:53):
It's Vic who goes, he hasn't called anything in and then bolts to his car and like Vic tothe rescue again.
Yeah, to his credit, he's on his way.
uh But now we're coming back for the climax.
Ted is getting real bad.
Donna realizes she can't wait any longer for a rescue.
uh So she sees that broken baseball bat in the yard and, you know, she is going to grabthat thing and confront Cujo.

(01:57:22):
She goes McGuire on that thing.
She starts hitting him in the head, just knocking him around.
It is brutal.
It is.
And eventually that bat does break to your point.
And it's almost like the scene on the stairs in The Shining, when Wendy's swinging at Jackand Jack's sort of slowly coming at her and not, you know, he's not stopping.
Cujo isn't stopping, but he's definitely knocked for a loop a couple of times.

(01:57:46):
Then yeah, that bats broken.
She's on the ground and Kujo leaps.
And I don't even know that Donna, I think she is just held in fear.
Yeah.
And Kujo impales himself with the leap on that broken back because she's just in shockkind of at this point in the fight.

(01:58:07):
But Kujo is is is dead.
Probably she rushes back to the car to find Ted unconscious, you know.
I guess in the book this might end more tragically, but in the film, yeah, in the film shetakes him inside and she does manage to revive him.
you surprised at this?
The one thing that I was perplexed by the whole sequence with her and Kujo in the bat andthe eventual impalement, it's done with, it's well edited everything.

(01:58:37):
I'm not.
It's done with so little fanfare and maybe it's just a lack of score during this part.
Like you don't feel this is the moment.
And then all of a sudden it's over for Kujo and you're like, Whoa, it almost knocks youback a minute.
Like, okay, well then you start assuming maybe this is the point.
Kujo can't be dead.
Turn here, I would imagine that's the card that's being played.

(01:59:00):
And it is that that that Joker is definitely in this deck because uh as Ted's maybecoughing alive a little bit, we get one last Kujo scare.
He arrives.
But luckily, Joe Kambers is crazy guy with a lot of guns and one of them's lying on acounter right by Donna.
So she grabs it and shoots Kujo.
She's a pretty good shot.

(01:59:21):
I have to say Castle Rock main, though.
So guess you got to be.
That's right.
Yeah.
The people there know by now.
And uh Vic arrives uh moments later uh too late to help but he's there to comfort findsDonna and Tad alive though they're both pretty devastating.
And I like that he didn't have to come save the day.
I like that it wasn't this man who swooped in to rescue anybody.

(01:59:45):
In fact, he bungled the response because he and this is to my point earlier about thebreakdown of that relationship with those two is what caused him to be able to not be as
concerned when she wasn't answering the phone.
Whereas if it would have been pre realization of affair.
He surely would have been down there in a heartbeat.

(02:00:05):
He seems like a good dad that would have done what he needed to do.
It took a while for him to sort of convince himself to even get out there.
And yeah, he wasn't the one who saved the day, but he maybe could have if thisrelationship wouldn't have been so destroyed by the time that he leaves town and his
perception of her shifted so

(02:00:25):
Yeah, and on top of it, I think it makes a lot of sense for him to arrive after she has,in the film version, saved the day because she was the one, and in the film at least, it's
very just, um there's no detail on it as to why she was unhappy, but she is throwing herfamily away at the beginning of this thing.

(02:00:48):
And by the end, she has to risk her life to save her family.
makes, like, thematically from,
that standpoint, this this is her movie.
She's the one with the real character arc.
And so it makes sense from that as well.
You know, she is our Brody, you know, in that in that respect.
And her moments in the car with Tad are not just loving mother moments.

(02:01:11):
She loses her temper a lot.
She gets fed up and overwhelmed just like he is in there as a kid.
And I love that there's a humanity in that.
So she's not, she's not presented as the perfect parent at any point.
So her journey isn't the most obvious one as it, as it unfolds for before us.
D Wallace in this movie is supernatural.

(02:01:34):
Like her performance in this is
So you talk about the arc, talk about dynamic, talk about engaging and emotional.
And when she's on screen, you're just drawn to her the entire time.
And it's no wonder this made her a star.
This is like the performance that sold a lot of people on everything that came after.
Even though there were movies prior to this, of course, what a powerhouse turn, right?

(02:01:58):
She was amazing.
Yeah, and that's another thing, I think, that connects the two movies today, is they bothhinge, I think, on a singular actor's performance.
Not that the others aren't doing a nice job.
Paul Winfield in White Dog and Dee Wallace in Cujo are the hearts of both of these movies.
It's interesting...

(02:02:19):
Killer Dog Week also turned out to be a thematic week as well in many different ways.
uh One wanting to tackle a much broader issue of racism in America and another wanting todo the more personal, very hot button issue of that time with the divorce rates coming up
in the country of the dissolution of the nuclear family.

(02:02:44):
And the dangers of red dye in relation to your dung.
Yes.
Neither of them, I'm not convinced that I ever need to see either of these again, or Iwould not be buying either one of these on any home media release.
uh It didn't change my feelings about that, but I was able to find a lot, especially inKujo and revisiting it in terms of the skill that it was made with.

(02:03:07):
I mean, I'm not saying it's a bad movie.
I'm just saying it's the kind of movie that for me isn't something I'm ever going to be inthe mood.
to go spend a day in a hot car with a long suffering gal and her son who's seizureing as adisgusting dog has this unyielding tension.
mean, like this focus on them.
I mean, it's just, it's not for me something that's pleasurable to.

(02:03:31):
It's a tough movie in its own way.
wouldn't say it's fully a tough picture.
Chris Iannico and trademark, but it's, you know, white dog might be.
but it is.
Yeah, no, both movies today.
There are odd animals.
Pun intended.
Well, good stuff.
Good stuff.
And Chris, we missed you.
We're sure you're going to be listening to this episode.
But Rob, what a treat for you.

(02:03:53):
Thank you for inviting me to the house.
Oh, yes.
been absolutely lovely getting to record in the room with you today.
And it's been lovely with you, but I think that's going to do it for today.
We'd like to thank you for listening.
ah If you like the podcast, please leave a like and a rating if you can review whateveryou can do.

(02:04:16):
You can find us on the socials, threads, Instagram, bluesky at get me another pod.
Next week we do hope to have Chris back from his baseball trip, but we are going to bringyou to
Italian shark movies.
That's right, we're doing The Last Shark and Cruel Jaws and we will be joined by specialguest Ryan from the New World Pictures podcast.

(02:04:39):
You're definitely going to want to tune in for that one.
It's going to be wild.
But until next time, tell your friends about us.
Tell your enemies about us.
Tell that auto mechanic who thinks that his wife actually won the lottery about us andjoin us next time as we continue to explore what happens.
when Hollywood says, get me another.

(02:05:02):
m