Book Vs Movie: “Harper Valley PTA"
The 1968 Song Vs the 1978 Movie (really!)
(It's one of our favorite episodes from the past!) The song was written by Tom T. Hall and performed by country singer Jeannie C. Riley in 1968. The story about a “widowed bride” who is slut-shamed by her daughter’s junior high school PTA (Parents Teachers Advisory) and gives a takedown at a meeting that is spectacular in its shade and incisiveness was one of the first feminist anthems and managed to become a number one hit in the U.S. on both the pop and country charts. (Past episode, Dolly Parton did the same in 1980 for 9 to 5!)
The 1978 movie is an R-rated cuckoo bananas production starring Barbara Eden (a stone-cold fox!) as Stella Johnson, who exacts a Porky’s style revenge on the local yokels who dare to take her on. She is also wooed by an equally sexy Ronny Cox and is teamed up with Nanette Fabray in this film that played in drive-in theaters in 1978 and made millions. It features nudity, wrap dresses, elephants, revenge porn, makeovers, and a helicopter proposal. So, between the song and the movie--which did we prefer? Have a listen and find out!
Follow us on the socials!
Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine
The 1968 Song Vs the 1978 Movie (really!)
(It's one of our favorite episodes from the past!) The song was written by Tom T. Hall and performed by country singer Jeannie C. Riley in 1968. The story about a “widowed bride” who is slut-shamed by her daughter’s junior high school PTA (Parents Teachers Advisory) and gives a takedown at a meeting that is spectacular in its shade and incisiveness was one of the first feminist anthems and managed to become a number one hit in the U.S. on both the pop and country charts. (Past episode, Dolly Parton did the same in 1980 for 9 to 5!)
The 1978 movie is an R-rated cuckoo bananas production starring Barbara Eden (a stone-cold fox!) as Stella Johnson, who exacts a Porky’s style revenge on the local yokels who dare to take her on. She is also wooed by an equally sexy Ronny Cox and is teamed up with Nanette Fabray in this film that played in drive-in theaters in 1978 and made millions. It features nudity, wrap dresses, elephants, revenge porn, makeovers, and a helicopter proposal. So, between the song and the movie--which did we prefer? Have a listen and find out!
Follow us on the socials!
- Join our Patreon page “Book Vs. Movie podcast”
- You can find us on Facebook at Book Vs. Movie Podcast Group
- Instagram: Book Versus Movie @bookversusmovie
- bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com
- Margo D’s Blog: Brooklynfitchick.com
- Margo D’s Instagram “Brooklyn Fit Chick”
- Margo D’s TikTok
- Margo D’s YouTube: @MargoDonohue
- Margo P’s Instagram: @shesnachomama
- Margo P’s Blog: coloniabook.com
- Margo P's YouTube Channel: @shesnachomama
Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today's podcast is brought to you by Audible. Get a
free audiobook download and thirty day free trial at audible
trial dot com. Forward slash book versus movie. They're over
one hundred and eight thousand titles to choose from for
your iPhone, Android, Kendall or MP three player.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
I wanta tell you all the story about a Hopper.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Valley where Dow.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Who had a teenage daughter who attended Hopper Valley Junior High. Well,
her daughter came home one.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
Afternoon and didn't even stop day and she said, Mama
got to know here from the Hopper Velly Pda.
Speaker 6 (00:59):
Well, this meeting will come to order.
Speaker 7 (01:10):
The first order of business is I'd like to address
this meeting of the Harper Valley PTA.
Speaker 6 (01:17):
Point of order.
Speaker 7 (01:19):
There are no motions from the floor called for it
this time.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
All in favor, say I I.
Speaker 7 (01:27):
I'm unanimous.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
The chair denies. Let her speak.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Chair still, but you got in your mind.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I'd like to hear too.
Speaker 6 (01:39):
This is still an open forum for Harper Valley citizens
and everyone has the right.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
To be heard.
Speaker 8 (01:46):
You wrote me a letter that I'd like to reply
to in public.
Speaker 6 (01:50):
You say I'm not fit.
Speaker 7 (01:51):
To live in this fine American town that I don't
come up to your standards of whatever you consider decent. Well,
I am here to call a few kettles black.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Hello, and welcome to Book versus Movie.
Speaker 9 (02:14):
This is a podcast where we read books that have
been adapted into movies and then we try to decide
which we like better, the book or the movie.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
I am Margot P.
Speaker 9 (02:21):
Ofcoloniabook dot Com and this is my good friend and
co host Margo D of Brooklyn Fitchick Hire.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Everyone.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
We're still.
Speaker 9 (02:31):
We're still doing a brand new episode every single week.
We're so fortunate that we have such a great and
engaged listener community that has been right there with the
suggestions week after week after week, and they've had some
really good ones that I don't think we would have
come up with ourselves. Indeed, because we're doing during this
(02:54):
pandemic time, we're doing a new episode every week. We're
kind of expanding our definition of books and we're doing
the movie adaptations from other shorter literary sources, short stories,
Novella's magazine articles, and, as in the case of this
week's episode.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
A song.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah yeah, a really catchy song. By the way, it's
kind of hard to get it out of your head
once it's their head.
Speaker 9 (03:22):
But before we get to today's episode, we want you
to know, if you're brand new, that there's a few
places where you can interact with Margo D.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
And Margot P. And other listeners of this podcast on
the internet.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yes, so we do have a basic Facebook page. Be
sure to like it. All the episodes are posted there,
but we're really interactive in our Facebook group, and in
our Facebook group, we really do just talk about books
and movies and people are constantly throwing around different suggestions
for us, which we really appreciate. So you just go
to Facebook and type Book vs. Movie Podcast group, asked
to join, and we will let you in. We also
(03:57):
have a Twitter account and we have a Twitter account.
Excuse me, we're on Twitter. I'm not one hundred years old.
It's at Book versus a Movie just spelled it out.
Also with Instagram, please follow us on Instagram if you're
on Instagram, we would really love that. And we also
just have a basic email Book Versus Movie Podcast spelled
it all Out at gmail dot com. And Margo set
(04:20):
up that we have these gorgeous new bookmarks that I'm
so excited about. If you would like to get one.
Please let us know, Yes, please do.
Speaker 9 (04:30):
And yeah, we have some fun new stuff because we
have a new a new logo which I really enjoying
playing around with.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Did we talk about Patreon?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
No, If you want to support the show financially, totally cool.
You can find us at Patreon p A t R
e O. And we've been doing the show for over
six years now. All of the episodes from twenty nineteen
and then previous to that are starting to go up there.
We have over seventy five episodes on our Patreon page.
Some of the them are free, so just go and
(05:01):
check it out if you want to. But we have
a couple of affordable options, and so just go to
p A t R e O N and look up
Book vs. Movie Podcast.
Speaker 9 (05:11):
All right, so today we are talking about the movie
based on the hit song of our Youth Harper Valley PTA.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Has this song been in your head all week like
it's been in mine?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I can't get it out of my head? Like that?
Speaker 4 (05:29):
A little story.
Speaker 9 (05:32):
Yeah, So the story of this song is actually very
interesting and I always, you know, I remember when I
was a little girl hearing this song on the radio
that it always reminded me of another song of the era,
which is a beautiful song. Oh my goodness, is that
a great song? Also get stuck in your head? You know, Yes,
(05:52):
that's the one about the Tallahatchie Bridge. And that was
a massive hit for Oh To Billy Joe was a
massive hit for singer songwriter Bobby Gentry. That was a
story that she wrote. It's a various kind of story
song sung by a woman from a woman's point of view.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I was born in Chickasaw County.
Speaker 10 (06:15):
When I was six, we moved to another region in
Mississippi called the Delta, and.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
We lived between two rivers. One was the Asso.
Speaker 10 (06:25):
And the other was.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
The Tallahatchie.
Speaker 10 (06:37):
It was a thirty June, another sleepy, dusty del dis.
I was out chopping cotten and my brother was bad
and hay.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
And at dinner.
Speaker 11 (06:55):
Time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat,
and Mama hollered at the back. No, y'all remembered, why
you feed.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You lynch?
Speaker 10 (07:11):
You said, I got some news this morning from Chack Dolly.
Speaker 12 (07:19):
Today Bailly Joe mcallis studio the Telbridge, Papa said to Mama.
Speaker 9 (07:32):
The Harper Valley Pta was written almost immediately when that song,
when Otabilly Joe had hit the airwaves, and a really.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Interesting story about how it came about.
Speaker 9 (07:43):
Not just that the producers were like, oh, people want,
you know, women singers singing these story songs, but the
whole story of how Harper Valley PTA, which was an
international smash hit, came about I thought was rather interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Did you see the clip? I was checking around on
YouTube and there's so our writer is Tom T. Hall
and our yes, and he was known as the storyteller.
He and Genie c Riley, who is our singer of
this particular song that we're talking about today. There's been
many people who've redone the song, including Dolly Parton and
(08:22):
then Loretta Lynn, who we talked about on our show.
There's a segment I saw and there was TNN, if
you know the network that used to be called the
Nashville Network, and they had a show called Opry Live
in nineteen eighty four. They did an interview with Tom T.
Hall and Genie. They did a return to Harper Valley,
but they also talked about the origin of it, and
(08:45):
he said that when he was a kid growing up
in the forties, that there was a girl that was
being picked on by the PTA, which stands for a
Parent Teacher Advisory Association Association Association. So my parents never
belonged to so they it's a thing here in the States.
I don't know they have in other parts of the world.
(09:06):
So Tom wrote about He said, there was a woman
that very similarly. She was a bit of an outcast
and was beating, you know, dancing to her own drummer
boy whatever. And he thought about her for years, and
then he said, about twenty years later, he came up
with the song, and he approached a few different people
(09:26):
to record it, and they all said no, except for
Jeanie and who took it right away.
Speaker 9 (09:32):
Yeah, okay, Now I heard a slightly different version of
the story, okay from the producer and owner of the
record label. Fascinating character by the name of Shelby Singleton. Yes,
so Shelby Singleton was this kind of empresario figure in
country music.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
He eventually bought Sun Records. A really interesting background.
Speaker 9 (09:54):
He was actually I believe he was a chemical engineer.
He worked for a rayon manufacturer, and oddly, his wife
at the time, who was named Margie.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Margie Singleton, had had a couple of kids.
Speaker 9 (10:12):
You know, people married kind of youngs right after World
War Two, had had a couple of kids and wanted
to be a country singer, and she made these kind
of little recordings and her husband, Shelby, would kind of
like we talked about in.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Coal Miner's Daughter. He would go on the road and stop.
Speaker 9 (10:33):
Any place he saw a radio antenna and go in
and talk these DJs into playing his wife's records.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
And he was like super good at this. It's just like.
Speaker 9 (10:44):
A really brilliant marketing guy just could talk these people
into buying these records so much so that he kind
of got a reputation among the radio folk.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Eventually he ends up being the marketing guy.
Speaker 9 (10:55):
For Mercury Records really and he's yeah, and he's so
good at that that one day a producer of theirs
kind of drops out unexpectedly and they hire Shelby to
produce a record. I forget which record it was, but
it became a hit. So now he's also a hit
record producer. So he's a marketing guy with a great
ear who can also produce.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
So what's the guy that wrote that wrote the song?
Tom T Hall? Tom T Hall had this song again.
Speaker 9 (11:24):
It was sort of he kind of wrote it once
o to Billy Joe was on the air.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
He was like, well, I got a song like that, right.
Speaker 9 (11:31):
So Shelby Singleton is like, this is a great song,
and he first has Margie, his wife, record the demo.
So she's the one who I think who first records it.
So the producer's wife is the one who records the song.
But Shelby said that he really wanted there were yeah,
there were people who turned it down, but he was
(11:52):
looking for a singer that had like a real sass
in her voice. He was kind of he says, he
was looking for this kind of sassy sound. Genie c
Riley who I think Tom Hall, You're right. Tom Hall
was the one who had found her, brought him a
demo of her and he was like.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
That's the voice. And they record the song.
Speaker 9 (12:12):
It's a hit within days, like days, yeah, of it
coming out, and he said Shelby, the producer, said it
was such a smash hit internationally.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
That they were literally shipping.
Speaker 9 (12:29):
The records hot off the presses, Like he could barely
keep up with the demand for this record. He had
like at least four manufacturers who were pressing this record.
Around the United States to keep up with the demand.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I think also, Margot, we should talk about the content
and the give it context because this is nineteen sixty eight.
It's a very violent time. I mean, there's also there's protests,
there's the Vietnam War, the RFK was killed, Martin Luther
King were killed, and I believe nineteen sixty eight that
(13:04):
was when those happened, and it was just a time
of upheaval. And on top of all that this notion
of second wave feminism and how you know, women seeking rights.
And so here's this song from a very distinctive female
point of view. And she's a woman who her name
(13:26):
is Missus Johnson. She's a Harper Valley widowed wife. She
has a teenager. She's going to junior high school and
there's a mother there that's like one of the She
comes home with a note from her mom and the
pta is saying, you wear your shorts. Sorry, your shorts,
your skirt's too short. You're drinking, we know you're with
(13:48):
other men. You are not bringing up your daughter the
right way, and we have a problem with you. And
she is pissed, and she goes right back to she
goes right to the meeting and individually calls people out
for their hypocrisy, their total hypocrisy. She walks away, and
it's a very that's the day she sucked it to
(14:08):
the PTA. And yes she has a very sassy voice.
I mean it's really it's a great voice. Oh it's
perfect for this song. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
You can see why people just loved it.
Speaker 9 (14:21):
Well, you know, the women's lib movement quote unquote, yeah,
was just kind of fomenting. And you know, I mean, yeah,
the song's written by a man, and okay, you know,
it's sort of capitalizing on the O to Billy Joe phenomenon.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
But it's not a bad message.
Speaker 9 (14:43):
It's it's not I don't feel like it's trivializing no
women's you know. I think it's it's and it's fun
and it's funny and it's a great song.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I agree. And it's so funny. And I'll play a
little clip of this on the TNN show because the
guy who's interviewing them, I'm sorry, I don't know his name,
but he's saying, well, she was a real radical, wasn't she?
The character of missus Johnson and it's like, is.
Speaker 13 (15:11):
She I think she's she's just a person.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
He's just a human being, you know, living her truth
and you know, trying to be a good parent and
good citizen and having fun and having a beer occasionally
and whatever. So it's but you know, for some people
it was Some of them was like, yeah, it was
like a slap in the face, and there were peat
Mostly they got positive feedback. A few people wrote and said,
(15:36):
you're going to ruin ptas forever? How dare you? But
the person that was in charge of the president of
the PTA across the US made her a lifetime member.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Isn't that hilarious? Hilarious.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It's a great public relationship.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. I think it's pretty cool too.
And parent teacher associations, I mean I don't know the
exact origin, but they are meant to be places where
parents and teachers can kind of air out graevances or
talk about ideas and stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker 9 (16:12):
One of the things that I thought was really a
testament to Genie c Riley.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
I mean, yes, she didn't write.
Speaker 9 (16:17):
The song, but to her performance and her really extraordinary
vocals of this song. You know that in spite of
the fact that, yeah, it was. It was recorded and
released by Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, countless others. One of
the things I thought was really interesting that the producer
(16:37):
mentioned about this single and its success. He was talking
about how because he when he worked for Mercury Records especially,
he did a lot of international producing, he brought Quincy
Jones back to the United States. Quincy Jones had been
working in Europe. Shelby Singleton persuaded Quincy to come back
(17:00):
to the United States, and you know, without Shelby Singleton,
there may not have been a thriller or what's the
other one that Quincy Jones.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Oh, he's done them all because he did Charles's last album.
Speaker 9 (17:11):
Yes, so, because because that's because Shelby Singleton convinced him
to come back to the US.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
At least that's what he says.
Speaker 9 (17:18):
But the other thing that he mentioned that I thought
was really cool because he also produced records in Europe
with European artists, and he said that it was very
common if there was a hit song in the US,
that an artist, you know, a known artist in like
France or Italy, would record it in that language for
that market, right, But with this song, it was only
(17:42):
ever Genie c Riley's version. People just loved those vocals,
and they didn't even care that they couldn't understand the
language very.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well or knew what a PTA was.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 14 (17:57):
It's I hate that's pretty cool that that her performance
of this is that, you know, people just connected with
it so deeply that even internationally across language barriers, it
was a hit.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
It was a smash hit. It was the number one
song in the US. It was the number one Billboard
Hot one hundred song for pop and for country, which
did not happen again until Dolly Parton with ninety five exactly.
So this was a very popular song. Genie c Riley,
(18:35):
she became a born again Christian in the seventies. She
always sang this song at her concerts and still they're
both still with us. She still does. But she had
a problem bit with the message, and so in eighty
four she wanted Tom T Hall to write a sequel
called Return to Harper Valley, and it didn't become a
(18:58):
hit because it's basically it's the same song. I mean,
they just do it the same cadence and everything, but
it's sort of like, well, this one died of sorosis
of the liver, and this she doesn't wear mini skirts anymore.
And this one now is faithful to his wife. And
it's like, yeah, that's all the nice things, but who cares, like,
let's or not nice things. I'm sorry, dying of Cirruss
(19:20):
liver isn't nice. But everybody knows drinking excessively is bad.
I mean, it's just raw.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
It's like everybody faces the wrath of God.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Exactly. It's like and it's just like it's just not
as fun. It's just it's.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
Yes, running.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Lina Jones's DITCHI and a young kid just a come on,
mister Kelly's gone. He tried until he said and toil
his liver and his grain. Well, the news and started up.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Then it was l star and.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I stood there and a laugh to see the way
the kids get their cuse today. Then I saw the
man who gave us cigarette.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Do not smoke, can't do young to smoke. He was
a full wrong man and he was setting in in
the bock and he lost a seven dog.
Speaker 14 (20:28):
A long.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
No no, I mean that what's fun is this song?
And it's like we said, it just sticks in your head.
We can play just snippets of it. We can't afford
to play the whole song for you. We just don't
have that kind of a budget though. No, but should
we start talking about this movie.
Speaker 9 (20:51):
So so, but one thing we should say is that again,
like it was such a smash hit this song. I mean,
this song came up before I was born, but I
just remember it being on the radio.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
All the time, everywhere you went.
Speaker 9 (21:07):
It would be in the supermarket, it would be yeah,
it would be in the car radio, it would be
on TV.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
You know, just for years. Because the movie is like
ten years later.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Right, it's nineteen seventy eight, and so I could not
find and someone's going to find it in two seconds.
But I'm trying to find the trailer for it. There's
no trailer. I don't know about you, Margot, because I
remember there was a TV series for like a year
or two. I didn't really watch it very much. I
used to love Fanny Flag, and Fanny Flag is in there,
(21:40):
and I love, of course Barbara Eaten is our is
our widow Johnson who's good?
Speaker 8 (21:44):
God?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Is she beautiful?
Speaker 4 (21:46):
She really is.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
She's rocking it. But anyway, I thought this film was
a TV movie and then became a TV series, And
then I proceed to watch this movie and I'm like,
I can't imagine this hang on on TV. Even then,
Even then, I was like, yeah, yeah, this is before HBO, guys, it's.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Like before HBO. And we see a couple of booties.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
We do see some some older booties. I mean they're
they're sort of I said, I was thinking to myself,
this is sort of like the person who whoever directed
Porky's watched this first.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Oh my gosh, You're so right.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's as esque.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
So I mean, okay, yeah, this movie is batpoopy.
Speaker 9 (22:35):
It's we found it on YouTube. Yes, So here's the thing.
When you when you find it on YouTube, go ahead
and watch it. You just it's just insane. When you
find it on YouTube. The whole opening is silent because
they obviously didn't have the licensing YouTube. You play the
(22:56):
Gene c Riley song, which I assume is what's playing
over the opening and closing, and at first, you know,
watching that and it's silent, you're like, oh man, I
mean I wanted to hear the song.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
I'm watching this movie and I'm not gonna get to
hear the song. Don't worry. Don't you worry about it.
You're not gonna hear.
Speaker 9 (23:14):
It again and again and again, again and again. You
can hear it in the disco version. You're gonna hear
it with like a classical bent.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Oh, so many versions of this song.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
It's our rage. It would be I think it would
be like a PG thirteen today, Yeah, because there's not
a lot of cursing from what I remember.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
No, there's not, there's not.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
But there's some nudity. It's it's nineteen seventy eight. This
is this movie was produced by a production company called
April Fools. It was released into drive in movie theaters
what in nineteen seventy eight, And I miss drive ins
(24:00):
were so much fun.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Yes, they were. We have one left.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, they were starting to get a bit a little
bit more popular here because of the because of COVID
it's a place to go. But but I think that's it.
It just was a car culture in America. Cars used
to be gigantic, yeah, and it was a cheap thing
like for my parents are like we could see a
movie and you guys could fall asleep in the back
and it was funt like.
Speaker 9 (24:26):
Y'all don't even know y'all born. Like, once seatbelts became
people used to drive around. We basically would would ride
around in an entire living room set.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
It was like two sofas.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
It was gigantic, and we had a we had a
station wagon, so it was like a huge back seat
and we all hung out in the back and there's like,
there's four kids, and then you know, my parents. You've
become friends with other people who have a lot of kids.
When you have a lot of kids, somebody that just
so we're always going to the movies or going to
the beach or whatever. But like that back of the
(25:05):
station wagon was always full. So this was released into
two drive in theaters in the summer of nineteen seventy eight,
and it makes a boatload of money. It's just they
probably spent five hundred grand on it. I mean, there's none,
none of it, the special effects.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Every it's the tightest one hour and forty one minutes.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Ever, there's no extra footage available. I'm sure they just
shot real quickly.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
And oh my gosh, this.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Movie it's bananas, you guys, so nuch. It's so it's
great though, like it is, it's really fun.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
It is super fun. So so again it's boiler alers.
So it opens with Barbara Eden and what's.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Her name February, Nanette Febree, Nnette.
Speaker 9 (25:57):
February, who was a bona fide movie starbuck A lot
of us for our again our age know her as
Anne Romano's mom from one day at a time. Indeed,
she is great, you know, she's somebody with you know,
stage and screen experience. So it opens with Barbara Eden
and Annette fa Beret singing some kind of old timey
song and drinking beer with a couple of guys in
(26:18):
the middle of the afternoon. And it couldn't be it, honestly,
could not be more innocent, especially as we're all coming
(26:57):
off of excuse me, but like fourteen years, fourteen months,
as years, thirteen months of drinking in the after.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
It seems quite tame for those of us who have
lived through the last year and a half it is.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
She's a single mother. She Barbara Eden, is forty seven
at the time and looksous. Oh my god, a wrap
dress was made for this woman. Oh she looks so good.
She's beautiful. She's a free spirit. Her daughter is played
by Susan Swift. She's d Johnson Now, Susan was in
(27:35):
a movie that I saw as a kid called Audrey Rose,
which used to freak me out.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Horror movie.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
It's a horror movie. It's about someone whose daughter is
a man whose daughter died and he's convinced this other
girl is possessed by her spirit and there's a fire
and all this crazy crap. So anyway, I like seeing
her in a comedy here. I'm like, oh good, She's
wasn't always in scary stuff. But Deza being picked on
(28:03):
d wear's braces very seventies and she's kind of, you know,
at that awkward age and people are giving her mom
a hard time at her high school. There's this movie
has i would say, rhodem doll like they have wrap dresses.
They have a makeover scene. She gets her braces off
and her mom takes her to get her hair done.
Speaker 9 (28:25):
Okay, so okay, So anybody watching this movie back in
the day would have been you would have known this
song backwards and forwards. We all knew the song, we
all knew how the song goes and what happens and
the telling off of the pta. So in the movie,
the daughter comes home, she's got the note from the PTA,
(28:47):
and the note in the movie says that the daughter
is going to be expelled if the mom doesn't clean
up her act.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Basically, and so Barbara Den the.
Speaker 9 (28:55):
Mom goes to the PTA meeting that night. I guess
there's one that night, which is very convenient.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
And.
Speaker 9 (29:03):
She immediately tells everybody in the PTA off exactly as
it is in the song.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
If I haven't turned you down seven times blewd proposals,
I haven't turned you down once. If I were you, Holly,
I'd have taken this man in and had him newted
oh in Holly, Honey, you better lay off the booze o.
Max Licker Store is going to come and take your
home for the booze bill.
Speaker 8 (29:30):
As mister Kirby Baker Off Fine real estate executive Baker Reality, honesty, honesty,
since nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 7 (29:45):
Your secretary, poor little Gladys Wilman, she had to leave
town awful sudden coolis had to see.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
A special kind of doctor in Cincinnati. If you all
know what I mean. No, No, the nights are just
so warm.
Speaker 7 (30:03):
The poor willow May just has to leave her shades,
opening the inch and so.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
Just to catch the cool summer breezes. Cool, and don't
a few of our.
Speaker 8 (30:14):
More prominent citizens simply love to stroll by Willow May's
house the summer evenings and peek through the shades just
for the entertainment.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Oh did you stay too long at Kelly's bargain otis?
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (30:33):
As a viewer again, you're like, well, that's but that's
the whole song, Like where do we go from here?
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Like you just like that? That's the entire plot, isn't it?
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no, oh no.
Speaker 9 (30:49):
So she's not content, not content to merely, you know,
dress down every person on the pta in public, on
the record.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
She now then on this bizarre, extremely criminal revenge.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Spree, Scott, she every single person that gave her a
hard time, and they try to like, of course, like
one of them tries to victor from her home there.
There's there's definitely some steaks going on here. But yeah,
but she's like she and Nannette February and there should
have been like a dozen movies with them because they
(31:28):
are hilarious together.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
By they have good chemistry together.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
I agree they do, and so they eat you know, individually.
We also didn't mention that she's got a boyfriend in
this one. He's Ronnie Cox, who looks great. He said,
he's her boyfriend Willis. But there's a lot of people
that are given her our time, and so she she goes.
She seduces one of the members that's John Fiedler Bobby Taylor,
(31:54):
and then she had.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Wasn't he on New Heart all the time?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
He was on New Heart? And he I think, isn't
he the one that's in twelve Angry Men? Yes, yes,
he's bald. He's a character actor. He was like, yeah,
the really good actor. He was in a bunch of stuff.
She seduces him and this poor man, they have him
stripped down, and she like, for real these she gets
(32:20):
his clothes, she is they're at a motel, and she
kicks him out, kicks his butt, literally his bare butt
onto the floor, and then he tries and said she
steals his clothes and throws him away, and then he's
arrested for indecent was what's that charge? Indecent exposure? Exposure?
Thank you?
Speaker 4 (32:41):
And then and then so he gets caught by the police.
Then freeze frame.
Speaker 9 (32:48):
And there's this disco and you're like, what why are
we freeze framing? Is there like a commercial break, I'm
about to come up this movie.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
What's going on?
Speaker 9 (33:03):
Then it kind of becomes clear that this is our
that's the code for, like, oh, she got revenge on
this person.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Right, And there's all there's a scene where it's very
revenge of the nerds ish is that they're filming a
couple having sex against you know, this is all. These
are crimes, by the way.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
It's all, Oh my gosh, she's criming all over the place.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
She really.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
She's getting revenge.
Speaker 9 (33:29):
So one by one by one she's going after the
members of the PTA, and let.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Me just say, there are a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yes, she's busy.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
She and the net Febru they get revenge on every
single one.
Speaker 9 (33:44):
So the president of the PTA is some kind of
fancy schmancy lady who the net February is. Her character
owns the hair beauty salon in the town. She puts
some kind of messed up permanent in the woman's hair
so it falls out in a big function.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
She sees herself in the ror and screams and then
freeze fream there.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
It's bizarre.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
It's so nuts, which again illegal illegal.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
That's illegal. You can't do that. They film a couple
having sex, and then that's not bad enough, they splice
it into a girls so the girl the girls at
the high school. They used to do this thing. I
don't know if they do this anymore. You might know
because you have teenagers. But then when they teach kids
sex ed, which.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
They're doing much earlier now. But yes, and.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Actually very well. I was kind of shocked, being like
it's good information, like they're really that was better than
I got. I was like, oh, that's that's how it
should be better. Yeah, well, yeah, I say c CD
and all that crap. So they but she they interspliced
with that film and they separate the boys and the girls,
as being my point. And so the girls are watching
(34:56):
this film about you're going to be a woman and
blah blah blah, and all the boys don't have their
own film to watch. They're outside, but they go up
to the window to watch in the window what the
girls are watching. And then they play this movie and
it turns it's out it's pornography that they're showing a teacher.
Speaker 9 (35:16):
It's that teacher having sex with the postman, which is uh,
so she and the teacher has fallen asleep at the
beginning of the movie. So she wakes up and sees
herself on the screen and all the children are going
crazy in the classroom, and she screams, freeze frame.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
No, no, no, a hair shaved hollow.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I think it is, And that's what this movie is.
(36:42):
It's just a series of And then she's also but
she's dating Ronnie. They have a very cute kind of relationship.
The daughter has a boyfriend. She she gets a fella.
There's it's it's in. It's like it's very sweet sometimes
and very charming, and then it just kind of veers
(37:05):
in it.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
It's so weird and yeah, so yeah, I was gonna
say so.
Speaker 9 (37:10):
Barbara Eden's character and Nanette Fabre's so they're the ones
that are doing these revenge stunts, one crimes, one after
another after another after another. And at a certain point,
kind of near the end, the daughter, Barbara Eadens's daughter,
whose name is de or something like that, she kind
(37:31):
of catches on that her mom didn't just tell off
the pta.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
She is now committing major crimes. It gets these individuals
and rather than.
Speaker 9 (37:42):
Like begging her to stop, you know, lest she I
don't know, go to jail, she'ss like, can.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
I get in on this? And the mom is like sure,
and this is like, this is where it gets nuts.
Speaker 9 (37:56):
So, first of all, I mean the way it gets
this word like a really classes a line because she's
already been she's already committed so many crimes by this point,
and they're laughing at these people like yeah, anyway. So
I think the last person, or one of the last
people that they get revenge on, is one of the
guy his name is Harper, so he's it's one of
(38:19):
the family founding family members.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
And they've got the daughter in on this.
Speaker 9 (38:24):
So the daughter and Barbara Eden and Nanette Faberat rent
a truck like a U haul truck.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
And as you would, you know, and drive out.
Speaker 9 (38:39):
Of town to where there's a circus, whereupon they and
they're giggling the whole time.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
They chloroform a carney. I'm going to say that again.
They chloroform a carney.
Speaker 9 (39:02):
And then they load the elephants into the truck or
do they paint them pink?
Speaker 4 (39:09):
First?
Speaker 13 (39:10):
Yes, And I love elephants, I mean too, it's upsetting
they load these pink elephants now into the truck because
of course they can handle elephants and then they drive
the elephants to this guy's home, mister Harper.
Speaker 9 (39:30):
Mister Harper is if you know the song, Mister Harper
drinks a lot at Kelly's Bar, and so he is
home from Kelly's Bar. He has passed out, and these
women unload the elephants.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Pink elephant.
Speaker 9 (39:48):
Nobody stops the big truck with the pink elephants coming
out of it somehow, but they're all dressed in black,
so it's like they're invisible.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Right, So they release.
Speaker 9 (40:00):
Live elephants into this home, creating I think we can
say hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage and
endangering the lives of mister and missus Harper, who are
passed out and then running for their lives.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Like they are smashing the crap out of this house.
These elephants. We don't quite know.
Speaker 9 (40:27):
How the elephants, how do they get the elephants, how
do they when do they wash the pink off the like.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
We just see the elephants smashing this mansion up and
then freeze frame.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Danding, ming ming ming ning. It's but it's it's I mean,
obviously there's like a green screen or something going on,
like they're the actors are not that close to the elephants,
like they're kind of splicing it together. Yeah, so it's
the thing. But the director of the movie was very
(41:00):
arry upset about this, the first director, Ralph Seneski, because
he's thought, He's like, you're gonna upset these elephants, and
you don't know what what's gonna happen because it's a
wild animal. So one of the elephants got upset and
attacked Nanette Febre. She wound up in the hospital with
a concussion and back issues and all kinds of stuff.
(41:23):
So it shut down production for a few days, and
then somebody else said I'll finish directing this movie, and
they had like a week left or something, and that
was Richard Bennett who finished it. But yeah, there's a
things you could not do now you would not get
away with now it's just played for laughs. Back then, yeah,
I just I mean.
Speaker 9 (41:45):
Seriously endangering lives and damaging property right and left. Yeah,
like it's some kind of Three's Company goof.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yes, it's very Three's Company esque. Yes, we expect mister
Travis's roper to show up, you know, in one if
her removes or something. And I think that's kind of it.
I mean, you know, she exacts her revenge. She you know,
exposes all the hypocrisy, and at the very end, her
boyfriend proposes to her and then they wind up in
(42:16):
a helicopter and they fly away from.
Speaker 4 (42:18):
Her as you do.
Speaker 9 (42:21):
Yeah, at some point along the way, the boyfriend convinces
her to run for president of the PTA, and the
PTA is trying to put a stop to this, which
only causes Barbara to to wrap up her tour of
revenge even more.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
It just angers her more.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Because that's who you want running the PTA.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yes, someone who wants to drink beer the afternoon. Why
would she want to do this? But that's that's the
whole point of the song in the movie, and it's
it's I don't know, it's really fun. It's this is
it's considered like a cult classic, this movie.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
Yeah, it is very porky. Many the.
Speaker 9 (43:09):
Many of the top character actors of the day in
this movie. I forget the guy who is Kelly and
Kelly's bar, but he was in everything. And then Pat Paulson,
Pat Paulson.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
As Bob Hastings as Skeeter, he was in a bunch
of stuff oh when they we forgot. There's a scene
where they have an Asian American woman. Oh yes, boy,
this is yeah that does this does not age well
where they have her seduce to begin to seduce a man.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Yeah, I forget. Is he like a realtor or something. Yeah,
he's a realtor who has a waterbed in his office.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yes, the water bed, Oh my god. And so she
goes into the room and then she knocks him out
or something.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
I sho want to say. If you're still listening, yes,
it's not us. I swear.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I thought it was a fever dream. So I had
to put it on again because I'm like, did I
really see this?
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (44:16):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
They used her to attempt to seduce a guy but
knock him out, and then she rips her dress.
Speaker 9 (44:24):
And says he we should say. Yeah that Barbara Eden.
She's trying to come up with revenge for this realtor guy.
And she says, she says, let he go make a call.
I'm going to order Chinese. And I don't mean egg
Fu Young or something like that.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Oh my gosh, that's right. Yeah, no, oh yeah, yoh yeah,
it's it's this is look, it's very much a product
of its time. This was over forty years ago. I
could see though, for Genie c Riley if she is
a born again Christian at this point, or she wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
Be thrilled with this, she'd have been mortified.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yes, what's become of her song? So the movie it
does really well, and it becomes a TV series, And
I was watching, like just the opening credits and they
just play the song there, and it seems like it
was perfectly enjoyable thirty minutes of television. It's it's not
(45:26):
nearly as racy as this. I think that's what just
shocked me. I was like, when I see that guy's
bare ass, I was like, yeah, WHOA did you get Amazon?
Speaker 8 (45:36):
What?
Speaker 2 (45:36):
I heard the clink? I think I a lot of
Amazon packages. I heard that in the background on my echo. Anyway,
it's all a fever dream still. I think we're just
it's just it becomes a TV series and then that
just lasts for like a year or two, and then
she releases in eighty four, she releases the Return of
Harper Velly, which doesn't become a hit. But anyway, that's
(45:59):
the song, that's the movie. They're both go ahead.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
What's his name? Ron Howard's brother Clinton Clint.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Howard is there. We have a Clint Howard thing. He's
a delivery guy. He delivers the flowers he's been he.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Has a he's a recurrent. He kind of shows up
again and again and again. I should say. The music,
this is what cracked me up. So this the whole
movie is this song in different.
Speaker 9 (46:30):
You know, different styles. The music is by Nelson freaking Riddle.
What Nelson Riddle For those of you who don't know,
Nelson Riddle is probably the foremost you know, musical arranger
in American music history.
Speaker 6 (46:49):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
He is the guy who did all of Frank Sinatra's arrangements.
Speaker 9 (46:56):
Like he is a huge deal. And here he is
in the movie, like all different versions of except for
one scene. There's one scene in the rich lady's house.
She's got these weird, creepy twins.
Speaker 4 (47:13):
Right, And there's this where they're they're playing a double
piano concert and they're playing this piece by Mozart, which
I happen to know not written for two pianos. It's
the soundtrack is of a single person playing, but in
the movie it's these two girls playing it. It's so weird.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
There's a lot. It's weird stuff here.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
There's a lot, there's so.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Much to I know, you remember things and they're like,
oh that's right. Oh my god, there's a whatever happened
to Charlie Brown? There's ice cream Disco. That's the instrumental
by Nelson Riddle. I'm looking at the soundtrack here. Oh
my god, this is the label was called Plantation recordsis
(47:58):
I Yes, there's just so much seventies going on here.
I just I have to say that it was fun.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
I mean, it's rod, it's wrong, it's super wrong. It's wrong,
but you can't look away.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
It's very watchable. It's a great suggestion.
Speaker 9 (48:27):
It's just like I think, no matter how many times
you watch this movie, you're just gonna be like wait what.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Oh, We've also got to mention it's something you noticed
right away. Woody Harrelson, this is the first film he's
an extra anything.
Speaker 4 (48:45):
He's just in the background.
Speaker 9 (48:46):
He's one of the teenagers at the high school where
the daughter goes to school. Yeah, a lot of a
lot of people in this movie that you would not
think would be in a movie like this. It's it's wackadoo.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
Yeah, it's really it's just I still can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
I know, like I said, I thought it was a
fever dream, like you know, did they give me the
vaccination shot again? And I'm imagining this.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
I mean, it isn't like that. It is like that.
It's uh, what am I watching?
Speaker 6 (49:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (49:22):
And then, like you said, there's a makeover section in
the middle. For some reason, the dialogue is terrible, and yet.
Speaker 4 (49:34):
And yet you will watch it.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
I bet if it was like summer of nineteen seventy
eight when you're in a drive in with some popcorn
and a beer with your friends or whatever, I bet
it was hilarious.
Speaker 6 (49:50):
I had to be.
Speaker 4 (49:51):
Yeah, just bananas. It's real weird.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
It's weird.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
There's no scene, Oh, there's this scene.
Speaker 9 (49:59):
There's so many the scenes in this movie, but this
one that I found very strange, and it's I can
only attribute it to.
Speaker 4 (50:07):
First of all, I want to know who edited this thing.
It's so weird. Okay, I don't know what he was on.
But there's this scene.
Speaker 9 (50:20):
It's after the makeover scene, and the daughter is like
a hot Sia Tatsie now and she and her mom
and the mom's boyfriend are at like a track meet
at the high school. Oh yeah, where her boyfriend is
running in the track meet and she's the girl is
(50:42):
complaining because now that she's had this makeover, like now
everybody wants to talk to her where they didn't want
to give her the time of day before. And Barbara
Eden says something again the dialogue is terrible. Barbara Eden
says something like, you know, when God gives you a gift,
just relax and enjoy it something like that. And the
boyfriend says, I want a hot dog like.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
That, like, and she's eating a hot dog by the way.
As he's saying that she's.
Speaker 4 (51:11):
Already eating a hot dog, he offers her a hot dog.
He offers her a.
Speaker 9 (51:15):
Hot dog, I believe three times in this scene in
which she's already eating a hot dog.
Speaker 4 (51:22):
What I know, so weird, Like what is it with
you and the hot dog?
Speaker 2 (51:31):
But I guess I enjoyed it?
Speaker 4 (51:34):
I don't.
Speaker 6 (51:35):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4 (51:37):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
What can we say? It's just like, yeah, it's morally wrong,
it's wrong in every way, but it's so wrong.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
But you will watch it. You will guaranteed you're going
to watch this. Yeah, you won't care. I don't care
you that the opening is silent. Oh my goodness, very fun.
Speaker 9 (52:00):
That was fasting and learning about the way the song
came back because I always, as a little girl, I
always thought that it reminded me of O to Billy Joe.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Well, do you remember that movie?
Speaker 9 (52:10):
Yes, that Robbie Robbie. Now that's a beautiful I mean,
that's a beautiful song. It's very serious. Yeah, and uh
so well written, and it's so well produced, and I
mean so is so is Copper Valley Pta. But it's
you know, it's a different kind of song anyway, it's
a great song. But but I always thought there was
that it seemed, you know, kind of like a.
Speaker 4 (52:30):
Monster's Adam's family kind of thing. Yes, that's nuts. So
what are we doing? Okay, a rival like we do
a rival? Is this beautiful work of art?
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Well, I was thinking talk about left turns here? How
about a street car named Desire?
Speaker 4 (52:55):
Yes, I saw one of our listeners suggested, right.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
It's a great movie. It's a really interesting director story.
Speaker 4 (53:05):
And we're i mean a master work of American theater.
Speaker 8 (53:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Cool, Yeah, so we'll do that next time. Thank you
so much for listening to our this episode. If it
sounds a little different, we were just recording a little
different today, but this whole thing is different today. This movie,
the song and everything is just a little asuw. It's
a little askew, but we super enjoyed it. Feel free
(53:32):
to follow us on all of the things out there
on social media, and we also have an Audible promotion.
It's go to audibletrial dot com forward slash Book versus
Movie if you want to check out their service. There
are different versions of a streetcard named Desire there. They
don't have Harpervellypta there. You can just stream that anywhere
and it's the film is on YouTube. The song you
(53:54):
can hear anywhere. And Margo, where can they find you?
Speaker 4 (53:58):
You can find me on line at coloniabook dot com
and all my social media call outs are at Cheese
not your Mama and where can they find you?
Speaker 2 (54:06):
You can find me at Brooklyn Chick, Brooklyn Chick, brooklynfit
Chick for Twitter and Instagram. My blog is brooklynfitchick dot com.
And we'll be back next time with a very serious
episode a steak card Desire. Thank you so much for
listening to the Book Versus Movie podcast. We are a
(54:27):
part of the Frolic podcast network. You can find more
outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic dot Comedia Forward
Slash Podcasts. If you want to find us on Facebook,
we have a basic Facebook page Bookvsmovie. We also have
a private Facebook group. Just type in book Vsmovie Podcast Group.
We are on Twitter and Instagram at Book versus Movie.
(54:50):
Just spell that out. Our email address is Book versus
Movie Podcast at gmail dot com. If you would like
to support the show, we do have a patreonage. Go
to Patreon dot com Forward Slash Book versus Movie. We
also have a promotion with Audible. Go to audibletrial dot com,
Forward Slash Book versus Movie to check out their service
(55:11):
for yourself. We record our shows using.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
The handy h six N donate it to us by
generous fans from.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
The show who joined our Patreon page. Thank you all
so much, We so appreciate it. Will be back soon
with a new episode running round.
Speaker 11 (55:27):
With Men and Go and walm.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
And we don't believe you ought to be.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
Of bringing up your little girl display
Speaker 5 (55:40):
And it was signed by the Secretary Harper Vanity
Today's podcast is brought to you by Audible. Get a
free audiobook download and thirty day free trial at audible
trial dot com. Forward slash book versus movie. They're over
one hundred and eight thousand titles to choose from for
your iPhone, Android, Kendall or MP three player.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
I wanta tell you all the story about a Hopper.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
Valley where Dow.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Who had a teenage daughter who attended Hopper Valley Junior High. Well,
her daughter came home one.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
Afternoon and didn't even stop day and she said, Mama
got to know here from the Hopper Velly Pda.
Speaker 6 (00:59):
Well, this meeting will come to order.
Speaker 7 (01:10):
The first order of business is I'd like to address
this meeting of the Harper Valley PTA.
Speaker 6 (01:17):
Point of order.
Speaker 7 (01:19):
There are no motions from the floor called for it
this time.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
All in favor, say I I.
Speaker 7 (01:27):
I'm unanimous.
Speaker 6 (01:31):
The chair denies. Let her speak.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Chair still, but you got in your mind.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
I'd like to hear too.
Speaker 6 (01:39):
This is still an open forum for Harper Valley citizens
and everyone has the right.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
To be heard.
Speaker 8 (01:46):
You wrote me a letter that I'd like to reply
to in public.
Speaker 6 (01:50):
You say I'm not fit.
Speaker 7 (01:51):
To live in this fine American town that I don't
come up to your standards of whatever you consider decent. Well,
I am here to call a few kettles black.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Hello, and welcome to Book versus Movie.
Speaker 9 (02:14):
This is a podcast where we read books that have
been adapted into movies and then we try to decide
which we like better, the book or the movie.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
I am Margot P.
Speaker 9 (02:21):
Ofcoloniabook dot Com and this is my good friend and
co host Margo D of Brooklyn Fitchick Hire.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Everyone.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
We're still.
Speaker 9 (02:31):
We're still doing a brand new episode every single week.
We're so fortunate that we have such a great and
engaged listener community that has been right there with the
suggestions week after week after week, and they've had some
really good ones that I don't think we would have
come up with ourselves. Indeed, because we're doing during this
(02:54):
pandemic time, we're doing a new episode every week. We're
kind of expanding our definition of books and we're doing
the movie adaptations from other shorter literary sources, short stories,
Novella's magazine articles, and, as in the case of this
week's episode.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
A song.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah yeah, a really catchy song. By the way, it's
kind of hard to get it out of your head
once it's their head.
Speaker 9 (03:22):
But before we get to today's episode, we want you
to know, if you're brand new, that there's a few
places where you can interact with Margo D.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
And Margot P. And other listeners of this podcast on
the internet.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yes, so we do have a basic Facebook page. Be
sure to like it. All the episodes are posted there,
but we're really interactive in our Facebook group, and in
our Facebook group, we really do just talk about books
and movies and people are constantly throwing around different suggestions
for us, which we really appreciate. So you just go
to Facebook and type Book vs. Movie Podcast group, asked
to join, and we will let you in. We also
(03:57):
have a Twitter account and we have a Twitter account.
Excuse me, we're on Twitter. I'm not one hundred years old.
It's at Book versus a Movie just spelled it out.
Also with Instagram, please follow us on Instagram if you're
on Instagram, we would really love that. And we also
just have a basic email Book Versus Movie Podcast spelled
it all Out at gmail dot com. And Margo set
(04:20):
up that we have these gorgeous new bookmarks that I'm
so excited about. If you would like to get one.
Please let us know, Yes, please do.
Speaker 9 (04:30):
And yeah, we have some fun new stuff because we
have a new a new logo which I really enjoying
playing around with.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Did we talk about Patreon?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
No, If you want to support the show financially, totally cool.
You can find us at Patreon p A t R
e O. And we've been doing the show for over
six years now. All of the episodes from twenty nineteen
and then previous to that are starting to go up there.
We have over seventy five episodes on our Patreon page.
Some of the them are free, so just go and
(05:01):
check it out if you want to. But we have
a couple of affordable options, and so just go to
p A t R e O N and look up
Book vs. Movie Podcast.
Speaker 9 (05:11):
All right, so today we are talking about the movie
based on the hit song of our Youth Harper Valley PTA.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Has this song been in your head all week like
it's been in mine?
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I can't get it out of my head? Like that?
Speaker 4 (05:29):
A little story.
Speaker 9 (05:32):
Yeah, So the story of this song is actually very
interesting and I always, you know, I remember when I
was a little girl hearing this song on the radio
that it always reminded me of another song of the era,
which is a beautiful song. Oh my goodness, is that
a great song? Also get stuck in your head? You know, Yes,
(05:52):
that's the one about the Tallahatchie Bridge. And that was
a massive hit for Oh To Billy Joe was a
massive hit for singer songwriter Bobby Gentry. That was a
story that she wrote. It's a various kind of story
song sung by a woman from a woman's point of view.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I was born in Chickasaw County.
Speaker 10 (06:15):
When I was six, we moved to another region in
Mississippi called the Delta, and.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
We lived between two rivers. One was the Asso.
Speaker 10 (06:25):
And the other was.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
The Tallahatchie.
Speaker 10 (06:37):
It was a thirty June, another sleepy, dusty del dis.
I was out chopping cotten and my brother was bad
and hay.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
And at dinner.
Speaker 11 (06:55):
Time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat,
and Mama hollered at the back. No, y'all remembered, why
you feed.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
You lynch?
Speaker 10 (07:11):
You said, I got some news this morning from Chack Dolly.
Speaker 12 (07:19):
Today Bailly Joe mcallis studio the Telbridge, Papa said to Mama.
Speaker 9 (07:32):
The Harper Valley Pta was written almost immediately when that song,
when Otabilly Joe had hit the airwaves, and a really.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
Interesting story about how it came about.
Speaker 9 (07:43):
Not just that the producers were like, oh, people want,
you know, women singers singing these story songs, but the
whole story of how Harper Valley PTA, which was an
international smash hit, came about I thought was rather interesting.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Did you see the clip? I was checking around on
YouTube and there's so our writer is Tom T. Hall
and our yes, and he was known as the storyteller.
He and Genie c Riley, who is our singer of
this particular song that we're talking about today. There's been
many people who've redone the song, including Dolly Parton and
(08:22):
then Loretta Lynn, who we talked about on our show.
There's a segment I saw and there was TNN, if
you know the network that used to be called the
Nashville Network, and they had a show called Opry Live
in nineteen eighty four. They did an interview with Tom T.
Hall and Genie. They did a return to Harper Valley,
but they also talked about the origin of it, and
(08:45):
he said that when he was a kid growing up
in the forties, that there was a girl that was
being picked on by the PTA, which stands for a
Parent Teacher Advisory Association Association Association. So my parents never
belonged to so they it's a thing here in the States.
I don't know they have in other parts of the world.
(09:06):
So Tom wrote about He said, there was a woman
that very similarly. She was a bit of an outcast
and was beating, you know, dancing to her own drummer
boy whatever. And he thought about her for years, and
then he said, about twenty years later, he came up
with the song, and he approached a few different people
(09:26):
to record it, and they all said no, except for
Jeanie and who took it right away.
Speaker 9 (09:32):
Yeah, okay, Now I heard a slightly different version of
the story, okay from the producer and owner of the
record label. Fascinating character by the name of Shelby Singleton. Yes,
so Shelby Singleton was this kind of empresario figure in
country music.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
He eventually bought Sun Records. A really interesting background.
Speaker 9 (09:54):
He was actually I believe he was a chemical engineer.
He worked for a rayon manufacturer, and oddly, his wife
at the time, who was named Margie.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Margie Singleton, had had a couple of kids.
Speaker 9 (10:12):
You know, people married kind of youngs right after World
War Two, had had a couple of kids and wanted
to be a country singer, and she made these kind
of little recordings and her husband, Shelby, would kind of
like we talked about in.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
Coal Miner's Daughter. He would go on the road and stop.
Speaker 9 (10:33):
Any place he saw a radio antenna and go in
and talk these DJs into playing his wife's records.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
And he was like super good at this. It's just like.
Speaker 9 (10:44):
A really brilliant marketing guy just could talk these people
into buying these records so much so that he kind
of got a reputation among the radio folk.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
Eventually he ends up being the marketing guy.
Speaker 9 (10:55):
For Mercury Records really and he's yeah, and he's so
good at that that one day a producer of theirs
kind of drops out unexpectedly and they hire Shelby to
produce a record. I forget which record it was, but
it became a hit. So now he's also a hit
record producer. So he's a marketing guy with a great
ear who can also produce.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
So what's the guy that wrote that wrote the song?
Tom T Hall? Tom T Hall had this song again.
Speaker 9 (11:24):
It was sort of he kind of wrote it once
o to Billy Joe was on the air.
Speaker 4 (11:29):
He was like, well, I got a song like that, right.
Speaker 9 (11:31):
So Shelby Singleton is like, this is a great song,
and he first has Margie, his wife, record the demo.
So she's the one who I think who first records it.
So the producer's wife is the one who records the song.
But Shelby said that he really wanted there were yeah,
there were people who turned it down, but he was
(11:52):
looking for a singer that had like a real sass
in her voice. He was kind of he says, he
was looking for this kind of sassy sound. Genie c
Riley who I think Tom Hall, You're right. Tom Hall
was the one who had found her, brought him a
demo of her and he was like.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
That's the voice. And they record the song.
Speaker 9 (12:12):
It's a hit within days, like days, yeah, of it
coming out, and he said Shelby, the producer, said it
was such a smash hit internationally.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
That they were literally shipping.
Speaker 9 (12:29):
The records hot off the presses, Like he could barely
keep up with the demand for this record. He had
like at least four manufacturers who were pressing this record.
Around the United States to keep up with the demand.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
I think also, Margot, we should talk about the content
and the give it context because this is nineteen sixty eight.
It's a very violent time. I mean, there's also there's protests,
there's the Vietnam War, the RFK was killed, Martin Luther
King were killed, and I believe nineteen sixty eight that
(13:04):
was when those happened, and it was just a time
of upheaval. And on top of all that this notion
of second wave feminism and how you know, women seeking rights.
And so here's this song from a very distinctive female
point of view. And she's a woman who her name
(13:26):
is Missus Johnson. She's a Harper Valley widowed wife. She
has a teenager. She's going to junior high school and
there's a mother there that's like one of the She
comes home with a note from her mom and the
pta is saying, you wear your shorts. Sorry, your shorts,
your skirt's too short. You're drinking, we know you're with
(13:48):
other men. You are not bringing up your daughter the
right way, and we have a problem with you. And
she is pissed, and she goes right back to she
goes right to the meeting and individually calls people out
for their hypocrisy, their total hypocrisy. She walks away, and
it's a very that's the day she sucked it to
(14:08):
the PTA. And yes she has a very sassy voice.
I mean it's really it's a great voice. Oh it's
perfect for this song. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
You can see why people just loved it.
Speaker 9 (14:21):
Well, you know, the women's lib movement quote unquote, yeah,
was just kind of fomenting. And you know, I mean, yeah,
the song's written by a man, and okay, you know,
it's sort of capitalizing on the O to Billy Joe phenomenon.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
But it's not a bad message.
Speaker 9 (14:43):
It's it's not I don't feel like it's trivializing no
women's you know. I think it's it's and it's fun
and it's funny and it's a great song.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
I agree. And it's so funny. And I'll play a
little clip of this on the TNN show because the
guy who's interviewing them, I'm sorry, I don't know his name,
but he's saying, well, she was a real radical, wasn't she?
The character of missus Johnson and it's like, is.
Speaker 13 (15:11):
She I think she's she's just a person.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
He's just a human being, you know, living her truth
and you know, trying to be a good parent and
good citizen and having fun and having a beer occasionally
and whatever. So it's but you know, for some people
it was Some of them was like, yeah, it was
like a slap in the face, and there were peat
Mostly they got positive feedback. A few people wrote and said,
(15:36):
you're going to ruin ptas forever? How dare you? But
the person that was in charge of the president of
the PTA across the US made her a lifetime member.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Isn't that hilarious? Hilarious.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
It's a great public relationship.
Speaker 4 (15:54):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah, I mean, yeah, exactly. I think it's pretty cool too.
And parent teacher associations, I mean I don't know the
exact origin, but they are meant to be places where
parents and teachers can kind of air out graevances or
talk about ideas and stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker 9 (16:12):
One of the things that I thought was really a
testament to Genie c Riley.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
I mean, yes, she didn't write.
Speaker 9 (16:17):
The song, but to her performance and her really extraordinary
vocals of this song. You know that in spite of
the fact that, yeah, it was. It was recorded and
released by Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, countless others. One of
the things I thought was really interesting that the producer
(16:37):
mentioned about this single and its success. He was talking
about how because he when he worked for Mercury Records especially,
he did a lot of international producing, he brought Quincy
Jones back to the United States. Quincy Jones had been
working in Europe. Shelby Singleton persuaded Quincy to come back
(17:00):
to the United States, and you know, without Shelby Singleton,
there may not have been a thriller or what's the
other one that Quincy Jones.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Oh, he's done them all because he did Charles's last album.
Speaker 9 (17:11):
Yes, so, because because that's because Shelby Singleton convinced him
to come back to the US.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
At least that's what he says.
Speaker 9 (17:18):
But the other thing that he mentioned that I thought
was really cool because he also produced records in Europe
with European artists, and he said that it was very
common if there was a hit song in the US,
that an artist, you know, a known artist in like
France or Italy, would record it in that language for
that market, right, But with this song, it was only
(17:42):
ever Genie c Riley's version. People just loved those vocals,
and they didn't even care that they couldn't understand the
language very.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Well or knew what a PTA was.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 14 (17:57):
It's I hate that's pretty cool that that her performance
of this is that, you know, people just connected with
it so deeply that even internationally across language barriers, it
was a hit.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
It was a smash hit. It was the number one
song in the US. It was the number one Billboard
Hot one hundred song for pop and for country, which
did not happen again until Dolly Parton with ninety five exactly.
So this was a very popular song. Genie c Riley,
(18:35):
she became a born again Christian in the seventies. She
always sang this song at her concerts and still they're
both still with us. She still does. But she had
a problem bit with the message, and so in eighty
four she wanted Tom T Hall to write a sequel
called Return to Harper Valley, and it didn't become a
(18:58):
hit because it's basically it's the same song. I mean,
they just do it the same cadence and everything, but
it's sort of like, well, this one died of sorosis
of the liver, and this she doesn't wear mini skirts anymore.
And this one now is faithful to his wife. And
it's like, yeah, that's all the nice things, but who cares, like,
let's or not nice things. I'm sorry, dying of Cirruss
(19:20):
liver isn't nice. But everybody knows drinking excessively is bad.
I mean, it's just raw.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
It's like everybody faces the wrath of God.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Exactly. It's like and it's just like it's just not
as fun. It's just it's.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
Yes, running.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Lina Jones's DITCHI and a young kid just a come on,
mister Kelly's gone. He tried until he said and toil
his liver and his grain. Well, the news and started up.
Speaker 6 (19:58):
Then it was l star and.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
I stood there and a laugh to see the way
the kids get their cuse today. Then I saw the
man who gave us cigarette.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Do not smoke, can't do young to smoke. He was
a full wrong man and he was setting in in
the bock and he lost a seven dog.
Speaker 14 (20:28):
A long.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
No no, I mean that what's fun is this song?
And it's like we said, it just sticks in your head.
We can play just snippets of it. We can't afford
to play the whole song for you. We just don't
have that kind of a budget though. No, but should
we start talking about this movie.
Speaker 9 (20:51):
So so, but one thing we should say is that again,
like it was such a smash hit this song. I mean,
this song came up before I was born, but I
just remember it being on the radio.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
All the time, everywhere you went.
Speaker 9 (21:07):
It would be in the supermarket, it would be yeah,
it would be in the car radio, it would be
on TV.
Speaker 4 (21:13):
You know, just for years. Because the movie is like
ten years later.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Right, it's nineteen seventy eight, and so I could not
find and someone's going to find it in two seconds.
But I'm trying to find the trailer for it. There's
no trailer. I don't know about you, Margot, because I
remember there was a TV series for like a year
or two. I didn't really watch it very much. I
used to love Fanny Flag, and Fanny Flag is in there,
(21:40):
and I love, of course Barbara Eaten is our is
our widow Johnson who's good?
Speaker 8 (21:44):
God?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Is she beautiful?
Speaker 4 (21:46):
She really is.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
She's rocking it. But anyway, I thought this film was
a TV movie and then became a TV series, And
then I proceed to watch this movie and I'm like,
I can't imagine this hang on on TV. Even then,
Even then, I was like, yeah, yeah, this is before HBO, guys, it's.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Like before HBO. And we see a couple of booties.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
We do see some some older booties. I mean they're
they're sort of I said, I was thinking to myself,
this is sort of like the person who whoever directed
Porky's watched this first.
Speaker 6 (22:26):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (22:27):
Oh my gosh, You're so right.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
It's as esque.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
So I mean, okay, yeah, this movie is batpoopy.
Speaker 9 (22:35):
It's we found it on YouTube. Yes, So here's the thing.
When you when you find it on YouTube, go ahead
and watch it. You just it's just insane. When you
find it on YouTube. The whole opening is silent because
they obviously didn't have the licensing YouTube. You play the
(22:56):
Gene c Riley song, which I assume is what's playing
over the opening and closing, and at first, you know,
watching that and it's silent, you're like, oh man, I
mean I wanted to hear the song.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
I'm watching this movie and I'm not gonna get to
hear the song. Don't worry. Don't you worry about it.
You're not gonna hear.
Speaker 9 (23:14):
It again and again and again, again and again. You
can hear it in the disco version. You're gonna hear
it with like a classical bent.
Speaker 4 (23:23):
Oh, so many versions of this song.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
It's our rage. It would be I think it would
be like a PG thirteen today, Yeah, because there's not
a lot of cursing from what I remember.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
No, there's not, there's not.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
But there's some nudity. It's it's nineteen seventy eight. This
is this movie was produced by a production company called
April Fools. It was released into drive in movie theaters
what in nineteen seventy eight, And I miss drive ins
(24:00):
were so much fun.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
Yes, they were. We have one left.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Yeah, they were starting to get a bit a little
bit more popular here because of the because of COVID
it's a place to go. But but I think that's it.
It just was a car culture in America. Cars used
to be gigantic, yeah, and it was a cheap thing
like for my parents are like we could see a
movie and you guys could fall asleep in the back
and it was funt like.
Speaker 9 (24:26):
Y'all don't even know y'all born. Like, once seatbelts became
people used to drive around. We basically would would ride
around in an entire living room set.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
It was like two sofas.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
It was gigantic, and we had a we had a
station wagon, so it was like a huge back seat
and we all hung out in the back and there's like,
there's four kids, and then you know, my parents. You've
become friends with other people who have a lot of kids.
When you have a lot of kids, somebody that just
so we're always going to the movies or going to
the beach or whatever. But like that back of the
(25:05):
station wagon was always full. So this was released into
two drive in theaters in the summer of nineteen seventy eight,
and it makes a boatload of money. It's just they
probably spent five hundred grand on it. I mean, there's none,
none of it, the special effects.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
Every it's the tightest one hour and forty one minutes.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Ever, there's no extra footage available. I'm sure they just
shot real quickly.
Speaker 4 (25:35):
And oh my gosh, this.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Movie it's bananas, you guys, so nuch. It's so it's
great though, like it is, it's really fun.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
It is super fun. So so again it's boiler alers.
So it opens with Barbara Eden and what's.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Her name February, Nanette Febree, Nnette.
Speaker 9 (25:57):
February, who was a bona fide movie starbuck A lot
of us for our again our age know her as
Anne Romano's mom from one day at a time. Indeed,
she is great, you know, she's somebody with you know,
stage and screen experience. So it opens with Barbara Eden
and Annette fa Beret singing some kind of old timey
song and drinking beer with a couple of guys in
(26:18):
the middle of the afternoon. And it couldn't be it, honestly,
could not be more innocent, especially as we're all coming
(26:57):
off of excuse me, but like fourteen years, fourteen months,
as years, thirteen months of drinking in the after.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
It seems quite tame for those of us who have
lived through the last year and a half it is.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
She's a single mother. She Barbara Eden, is forty seven
at the time and looksous. Oh my god, a wrap
dress was made for this woman. Oh she looks so good.
She's beautiful. She's a free spirit. Her daughter is played
by Susan Swift. She's d Johnson Now, Susan was in
(27:35):
a movie that I saw as a kid called Audrey Rose,
which used to freak me out.
Speaker 4 (27:42):
Horror movie.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
It's a horror movie. It's about someone whose daughter is
a man whose daughter died and he's convinced this other
girl is possessed by her spirit and there's a fire
and all this crazy crap. So anyway, I like seeing
her in a comedy here. I'm like, oh good, She's
wasn't always in scary stuff. But Deza being picked on
(28:03):
d wear's braces very seventies and she's kind of, you know,
at that awkward age and people are giving her mom
a hard time at her high school. There's this movie
has i would say, rhodem doll like they have wrap dresses.
They have a makeover scene. She gets her braces off
and her mom takes her to get her hair done.
Speaker 9 (28:25):
Okay, so okay, So anybody watching this movie back in
the day would have been you would have known this
song backwards and forwards. We all knew the song, we
all knew how the song goes and what happens and
the telling off of the pta. So in the movie,
the daughter comes home, she's got the note from the PTA,
(28:47):
and the note in the movie says that the daughter
is going to be expelled if the mom doesn't clean
up her act.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Basically, and so Barbara Den the.
Speaker 9 (28:55):
Mom goes to the PTA meeting that night. I guess
there's one that night, which is very convenient.
Speaker 5 (29:01):
And.
Speaker 9 (29:03):
She immediately tells everybody in the PTA off exactly as
it is in the song.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
If I haven't turned you down seven times blewd proposals,
I haven't turned you down once. If I were you, Holly,
I'd have taken this man in and had him newted
oh in Holly, Honey, you better lay off the booze o.
Max Licker Store is going to come and take your
home for the booze bill.
Speaker 8 (29:30):
As mister Kirby Baker Off Fine real estate executive Baker Reality, honesty, honesty,
since nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 7 (29:45):
Your secretary, poor little Gladys Wilman, she had to leave
town awful sudden coolis had to see.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
A special kind of doctor in Cincinnati. If you all
know what I mean. No, No, the nights are just
so warm.
Speaker 7 (30:03):
The poor willow May just has to leave her shades,
opening the inch and so.
Speaker 6 (30:09):
Just to catch the cool summer breezes. Cool, and don't
a few of our.
Speaker 8 (30:14):
More prominent citizens simply love to stroll by Willow May's
house the summer evenings and peek through the shades just
for the entertainment.
Speaker 6 (30:25):
Oh did you stay too long at Kelly's bargain otis?
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (30:33):
As a viewer again, you're like, well, that's but that's
the whole song, Like where do we go from here?
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Like you just like that? That's the entire plot, isn't it?
Oh no, oh no, oh no, no, no, oh no.
Speaker 9 (30:49):
So she's not content, not content to merely, you know,
dress down every person on the pta in public, on
the record.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
She now then on this bizarre, extremely criminal revenge.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Spree, Scott, she every single person that gave her a
hard time, and they try to like, of course, like
one of them tries to victor from her home there.
There's there's definitely some steaks going on here. But yeah,
but she's like she and Nannette February and there should
have been like a dozen movies with them because they
(31:28):
are hilarious together.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
By they have good chemistry together.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
I agree they do, and so they eat you know, individually.
We also didn't mention that she's got a boyfriend in
this one. He's Ronnie Cox, who looks great. He said,
he's her boyfriend Willis. But there's a lot of people
that are given her our time, and so she she goes.
She seduces one of the members that's John Fiedler Bobby Taylor,
(31:54):
and then she had.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
Wasn't he on New Heart all the time?
Speaker 2 (31:59):
He was on New Heart? And he I think, isn't
he the one that's in twelve Angry Men? Yes, yes,
he's bald. He's a character actor. He was like, yeah,
the really good actor. He was in a bunch of stuff.
She seduces him and this poor man, they have him
stripped down, and she like, for real these she gets
(32:20):
his clothes, she is they're at a motel, and she
kicks him out, kicks his butt, literally his bare butt
onto the floor, and then he tries and said she
steals his clothes and throws him away, and then he's
arrested for indecent was what's that charge? Indecent exposure? Exposure?
Thank you?
Speaker 4 (32:41):
And then and then so he gets caught by the police.
Then freeze frame.
Speaker 9 (32:48):
And there's this disco and you're like, what why are
we freeze framing? Is there like a commercial break, I'm
about to come up this movie.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
What's going on?
Speaker 9 (33:03):
Then it kind of becomes clear that this is our
that's the code for, like, oh, she got revenge on
this person.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Right, And there's all there's a scene where it's very
revenge of the nerds ish is that they're filming a
couple having sex against you know, this is all. These
are crimes, by the way.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
It's all, Oh my gosh, she's criming all over the place.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
She really.
Speaker 4 (33:27):
She's getting revenge.
Speaker 9 (33:29):
So one by one by one she's going after the
members of the PTA, and let.
Speaker 4 (33:32):
Me just say, there are a lot of them.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yes, she's busy.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
She and the net Febru they get revenge on every
single one.
Speaker 9 (33:44):
So the president of the PTA is some kind of
fancy schmancy lady who the net February is. Her character
owns the hair beauty salon in the town. She puts
some kind of messed up permanent in the woman's hair
so it falls out in a big function.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
She sees herself in the ror and screams and then
freeze fream there.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
It's bizarre.
Speaker 4 (34:07):
It's so nuts, which again illegal illegal.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
That's illegal. You can't do that. They film a couple
having sex, and then that's not bad enough, they splice
it into a girls so the girl the girls at
the high school. They used to do this thing. I
don't know if they do this anymore. You might know
because you have teenagers. But then when they teach kids
sex ed, which.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
They're doing much earlier now. But yes, and.
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Actually very well. I was kind of shocked, being like
it's good information, like they're really that was better than
I got. I was like, oh, that's that's how it
should be better. Yeah, well, yeah, I say c CD
and all that crap. So they but she they interspliced
with that film and they separate the boys and the girls,
as being my point. And so the girls are watching
(34:56):
this film about you're going to be a woman and
blah blah blah, and all the boys don't have their
own film to watch. They're outside, but they go up
to the window to watch in the window what the
girls are watching. And then they play this movie and
it turns it's out it's pornography that they're showing a teacher.
Speaker 9 (35:16):
It's that teacher having sex with the postman, which is uh,
so she and the teacher has fallen asleep at the
beginning of the movie. So she wakes up and sees
herself on the screen and all the children are going
crazy in the classroom, and she screams, freeze frame.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
No, no, no, a hair shaved hollow.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
I think it is, And that's what this movie is.
(36:42):
It's just a series of And then she's also but
she's dating Ronnie. They have a very cute kind of relationship.
The daughter has a boyfriend. She she gets a fella.
There's it's it's in. It's like it's very sweet sometimes
and very charming, and then it just kind of veers
(37:05):
in it.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
It's so weird and yeah, so yeah, I was gonna
say so.
Speaker 9 (37:10):
Barbara Eden's character and Nanette Fabre's so they're the ones
that are doing these revenge stunts, one crimes, one after
another after another after another. And at a certain point,
kind of near the end, the daughter, Barbara Eadens's daughter,
whose name is de or something like that, she kind
(37:31):
of catches on that her mom didn't just tell off
the pta.
Speaker 4 (37:35):
She is now committing major crimes. It gets these individuals
and rather than.
Speaker 9 (37:42):
Like begging her to stop, you know, lest she I
don't know, go to jail, she'ss like, can.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
I get in on this? And the mom is like sure,
and this is like, this is where it gets nuts.
Speaker 9 (37:56):
So, first of all, I mean the way it gets
this word like a really classes a line because she's
already been she's already committed so many crimes by this point,
and they're laughing at these people like yeah, anyway. So
I think the last person, or one of the last
people that they get revenge on, is one of the
guy his name is Harper, so he's it's one of
(38:19):
the family founding family members.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
And they've got the daughter in on this.
Speaker 9 (38:24):
So the daughter and Barbara Eden and Nanette Faberat rent
a truck like a U haul truck.
Speaker 4 (38:35):
And as you would, you know, and drive out.
Speaker 9 (38:39):
Of town to where there's a circus, whereupon they and
they're giggling the whole time.
Speaker 4 (38:50):
They chloroform a carney. I'm going to say that again.
They chloroform a carney.
Speaker 9 (39:02):
And then they load the elephants into the truck or
do they paint them pink?
Speaker 4 (39:09):
First?
Speaker 13 (39:10):
Yes, And I love elephants, I mean too, it's upsetting
they load these pink elephants now into the truck because
of course they can handle elephants and then they drive
the elephants to this guy's home, mister Harper.
Speaker 9 (39:30):
Mister Harper is if you know the song, Mister Harper
drinks a lot at Kelly's Bar, and so he is
home from Kelly's Bar. He has passed out, and these
women unload the elephants.
Speaker 4 (39:48):
Pink elephant.
Speaker 9 (39:48):
Nobody stops the big truck with the pink elephants coming
out of it somehow, but they're all dressed in black,
so it's like they're invisible.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Right, So they release.
Speaker 9 (40:00):
Live elephants into this home, creating I think we can
say hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage and
endangering the lives of mister and missus Harper, who are
passed out and then running for their lives.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Like they are smashing the crap out of this house.
These elephants. We don't quite know.
Speaker 9 (40:27):
How the elephants, how do they get the elephants, how
do they when do they wash the pink off the like.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
We just see the elephants smashing this mansion up and
then freeze frame.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Danding, ming ming ming ning. It's but it's it's I mean,
obviously there's like a green screen or something going on,
like they're the actors are not that close to the elephants,
like they're kind of splicing it together. Yeah, so it's
the thing. But the director of the movie was very
(41:00):
arry upset about this, the first director, Ralph Seneski, because
he's thought, He's like, you're gonna upset these elephants, and
you don't know what what's gonna happen because it's a
wild animal. So one of the elephants got upset and
attacked Nanette Febre. She wound up in the hospital with
a concussion and back issues and all kinds of stuff.
(41:23):
So it shut down production for a few days, and
then somebody else said I'll finish directing this movie, and
they had like a week left or something, and that
was Richard Bennett who finished it. But yeah, there's a
things you could not do now you would not get
away with now it's just played for laughs. Back then, yeah,
I just I mean.
Speaker 9 (41:45):
Seriously endangering lives and damaging property right and left. Yeah,
like it's some kind of Three's Company goof.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yes, it's very Three's Company esque. Yes, we expect mister
Travis's roper to show up, you know, in one if
her removes or something. And I think that's kind of it.
I mean, you know, she exacts her revenge. She you know,
exposes all the hypocrisy, and at the very end, her
boyfriend proposes to her and then they wind up in
(42:16):
a helicopter and they fly away from.
Speaker 4 (42:18):
Her as you do.
Speaker 9 (42:21):
Yeah, at some point along the way, the boyfriend convinces
her to run for president of the PTA, and the
PTA is trying to put a stop to this, which
only causes Barbara to to wrap up her tour of
revenge even more.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
It just angers her more.
Speaker 4 (42:44):
Because that's who you want running the PTA.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yes, someone who wants to drink beer the afternoon. Why
would she want to do this? But that's that's the
whole point of the song in the movie, and it's
it's I don't know, it's really fun. It's this is
it's considered like a cult classic, this movie.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
Yeah, it is very porky. Many the.
Speaker 9 (43:09):
Many of the top character actors of the day in
this movie. I forget the guy who is Kelly and
Kelly's bar, but he was in everything. And then Pat Paulson,
Pat Paulson.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
As Bob Hastings as Skeeter, he was in a bunch
of stuff oh when they we forgot. There's a scene
where they have an Asian American woman. Oh yes, boy,
this is yeah that does this does not age well
where they have her seduce to begin to seduce a man.
Speaker 4 (43:47):
Yeah, I forget. Is he like a realtor or something. Yeah,
he's a realtor who has a waterbed in his office.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Yes, the water bed, Oh my god. And so she
goes into the room and then she knocks him out
or something.
Speaker 4 (44:02):
I sho want to say. If you're still listening, yes,
it's not us. I swear.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
I thought it was a fever dream. So I had
to put it on again because I'm like, did I
really see this?
Speaker 4 (44:14):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (44:16):
Me too.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
They used her to attempt to seduce a guy but
knock him out, and then she rips her dress.
Speaker 9 (44:24):
And says he we should say. Yeah that Barbara Eden.
She's trying to come up with revenge for this realtor guy.
And she says, she says, let he go make a call.
I'm going to order Chinese. And I don't mean egg
Fu Young or something like that.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Oh my gosh, that's right. Yeah, no, oh yeah, yoh yeah,
it's it's this is look, it's very much a product
of its time. This was over forty years ago. I
could see though, for Genie c Riley if she is
a born again Christian at this point, or she wouldn't.
Speaker 4 (45:01):
Be thrilled with this, she'd have been mortified.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yes, what's become of her song? So the movie it
does really well, and it becomes a TV series, And
I was watching, like just the opening credits and they
just play the song there, and it seems like it
was perfectly enjoyable thirty minutes of television. It's it's not
(45:26):
nearly as racy as this. I think that's what just
shocked me. I was like, when I see that guy's
bare ass, I was like, yeah, WHOA did you get Amazon?
Speaker 8 (45:36):
What?
Speaker 2 (45:36):
I heard the clink? I think I a lot of
Amazon packages. I heard that in the background on my echo. Anyway,
it's all a fever dream still. I think we're just
it's just it becomes a TV series and then that
just lasts for like a year or two, and then
she releases in eighty four, she releases the Return of
Harper Velly, which doesn't become a hit. But anyway, that's
(45:59):
the song, that's the movie. They're both go ahead.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
What's his name? Ron Howard's brother Clinton Clint.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Howard is there. We have a Clint Howard thing. He's
a delivery guy. He delivers the flowers he's been he.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
Has a he's a recurrent. He kind of shows up
again and again and again. I should say. The music,
this is what cracked me up. So this the whole
movie is this song in different.
Speaker 9 (46:30):
You know, different styles. The music is by Nelson freaking Riddle.
What Nelson Riddle For those of you who don't know,
Nelson Riddle is probably the foremost you know, musical arranger
in American music history.
Speaker 6 (46:49):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (46:50):
He is the guy who did all of Frank Sinatra's arrangements.
Speaker 9 (46:56):
Like he is a huge deal. And here he is
in the movie, like all different versions of except for
one scene. There's one scene in the rich lady's house.
She's got these weird, creepy twins.
Speaker 4 (47:13):
Right, And there's this where they're they're playing a double
piano concert and they're playing this piece by Mozart, which
I happen to know not written for two pianos. It's
the soundtrack is of a single person playing, but in
the movie it's these two girls playing it. It's so weird.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
There's a lot. It's weird stuff here.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
There's a lot, there's so.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Much to I know, you remember things and they're like,
oh that's right. Oh my god, there's a whatever happened
to Charlie Brown? There's ice cream Disco. That's the instrumental
by Nelson Riddle. I'm looking at the soundtrack here. Oh
my god, this is the label was called Plantation recordsis
(47:58):
I Yes, there's just so much seventies going on here.
I just I have to say that it was fun.
Speaker 4 (48:08):
I mean, it's rod, it's wrong, it's super wrong. It's wrong,
but you can't look away.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
It's very watchable. It's a great suggestion.
Speaker 9 (48:27):
It's just like I think, no matter how many times
you watch this movie, you're just gonna be like wait what.
Speaker 2 (48:34):
Oh, We've also got to mention it's something you noticed
right away. Woody Harrelson, this is the first film he's
an extra anything.
Speaker 4 (48:45):
He's just in the background.
Speaker 9 (48:46):
He's one of the teenagers at the high school where
the daughter goes to school. Yeah, a lot of a
lot of people in this movie that you would not
think would be in a movie like this. It's it's wackadoo.
Speaker 4 (49:01):
Yeah, it's really it's just I still can't believe it.
Speaker 2 (49:07):
I know, like I said, I thought it was a
fever dream, like you know, did they give me the
vaccination shot again? And I'm imagining this.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
I mean, it isn't like that. It is like that.
It's uh, what am I watching?
Speaker 6 (49:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 9 (49:22):
And then, like you said, there's a makeover section in
the middle. For some reason, the dialogue is terrible, and yet.
Speaker 4 (49:34):
And yet you will watch it.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
I bet if it was like summer of nineteen seventy
eight when you're in a drive in with some popcorn
and a beer with your friends or whatever, I bet
it was hilarious.
Speaker 6 (49:50):
I had to be.
Speaker 4 (49:51):
Yeah, just bananas. It's real weird.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
It's weird.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
There's no scene, Oh, there's this scene.
Speaker 9 (49:59):
There's so many the scenes in this movie, but this
one that I found very strange, and it's I can
only attribute it to.
Speaker 4 (50:07):
First of all, I want to know who edited this thing.
It's so weird. Okay, I don't know what he was on.
But there's this scene.
Speaker 9 (50:20):
It's after the makeover scene, and the daughter is like
a hot Sia Tatsie now and she and her mom
and the mom's boyfriend are at like a track meet
at the high school. Oh yeah, where her boyfriend is
running in the track meet and she's the girl is
(50:42):
complaining because now that she's had this makeover, like now
everybody wants to talk to her where they didn't want
to give her the time of day before. And Barbara
Eden says something again the dialogue is terrible. Barbara Eden
says something like, you know, when God gives you a gift,
just relax and enjoy it something like that. And the
boyfriend says, I want a hot dog like.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
That, like, and she's eating a hot dog by the way.
As he's saying that she's.
Speaker 4 (51:11):
Already eating a hot dog, he offers her a hot dog.
He offers her a.
Speaker 9 (51:15):
Hot dog, I believe three times in this scene in
which she's already eating a hot dog.
Speaker 4 (51:22):
What I know, so weird, Like what is it with
you and the hot dog?
Speaker 2 (51:31):
But I guess I enjoyed it?
Speaker 4 (51:34):
I don't.
Speaker 6 (51:35):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4 (51:37):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
What can we say? It's just like, yeah, it's morally wrong,
it's wrong in every way, but it's so wrong.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
But you will watch it. You will guaranteed you're going
to watch this. Yeah, you won't care. I don't care
you that the opening is silent. Oh my goodness, very fun.
Speaker 9 (52:00):
That was fasting and learning about the way the song
came back because I always, as a little girl, I
always thought that it reminded me of O to Billy Joe.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Well, do you remember that movie?
Speaker 9 (52:10):
Yes, that Robbie Robbie. Now that's a beautiful I mean,
that's a beautiful song. It's very serious. Yeah, and uh
so well written, and it's so well produced, and I
mean so is so is Copper Valley Pta. But it's
you know, it's a different kind of song anyway, it's
a great song. But but I always thought there was
that it seemed, you know, kind of like a.
Speaker 4 (52:30):
Monster's Adam's family kind of thing. Yes, that's nuts. So
what are we doing? Okay, a rival like we do
a rival? Is this beautiful work of art?
Speaker 2 (52:47):
Well, I was thinking talk about left turns here? How
about a street car named Desire?
Speaker 4 (52:55):
Yes, I saw one of our listeners suggested, right.
Speaker 2 (53:00):
It's a great movie. It's a really interesting director story.
Speaker 4 (53:05):
And we're i mean a master work of American theater.
Speaker 8 (53:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Cool, Yeah, so we'll do that next time. Thank you
so much for listening to our this episode. If it
sounds a little different, we were just recording a little
different today, but this whole thing is different today. This movie,
the song and everything is just a little asuw. It's
a little askew, but we super enjoyed it. Feel free
(53:32):
to follow us on all of the things out there
on social media, and we also have an Audible promotion.
It's go to audibletrial dot com forward slash Book versus
Movie if you want to check out their service. There
are different versions of a streetcard named Desire there. They
don't have Harpervellypta there. You can just stream that anywhere
and it's the film is on YouTube. The song you
(53:54):
can hear anywhere. And Margo, where can they find you?
Speaker 4 (53:58):
You can find me on line at coloniabook dot com
and all my social media call outs are at Cheese
not your Mama and where can they find you?
Speaker 2 (54:06):
You can find me at Brooklyn Chick, Brooklyn Chick, brooklynfit
Chick for Twitter and Instagram. My blog is brooklynfitchick dot com.
And we'll be back next time with a very serious
episode a steak card Desire. Thank you so much for
listening to the Book Versus Movie podcast. We are a
(54:27):
part of the Frolic podcast network. You can find more
outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic dot Comedia Forward
Slash Podcasts. If you want to find us on Facebook,
we have a basic Facebook page Bookvsmovie. We also have
a private Facebook group. Just type in book Vsmovie Podcast Group.
We are on Twitter and Instagram at Book versus Movie.
(54:50):
Just spell that out. Our email address is Book versus
Movie Podcast at gmail dot com. If you would like
to support the show, we do have a patreonage. Go
to Patreon dot com Forward Slash Book versus Movie. We
also have a promotion with Audible. Go to audibletrial dot com,
Forward Slash Book versus Movie to check out their service
(55:11):
for yourself. We record our shows using.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
The handy h six N donate it to us by
generous fans from.
Speaker 2 (55:19):
The show who joined our Patreon page. Thank you all
so much, We so appreciate it. Will be back soon
with a new episode running round.
Speaker 11 (55:27):
With Men and Go and walm.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
And we don't believe you ought to be.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
Of bringing up your little girl display
Speaker 5 (55:40):
And it was signed by the Secretary Harper Vanity
Popular Podcasts
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com