Episode 17 - The P & M Interviews - Our Rick Pepin Celebration Part 2 - The PM Entertainment Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You'll have entered the PM Entertainment podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, hello, and welcome to part two of our Rick
Peppin Celebration. And this is a very special episode because
we're not reviewing any films on this episode. I mean,
this is technically like episode sixteen, Part two, but just
to keep it simple on the podcast platforms, it's going
to be episode seventeen, and we are just doing interviews.

(00:51):
We have interviews with the p and the M of PM.
We have the only interview we ever got with Rick Peppin, sadly,
and it it was way back in January. It was
one of the first interviews we did. It really kicked
this whole thing off. Rick was the one who gave
me Joseph's number, and then Joseph was able to get
me Spirituous Artist's number and Ken Blakey's number, and it

(01:14):
kind of all steamrolled from there. So Rick really kicked
this whole thing off. But I conducted an interview with
him back in January when really I had seen about
twenty or thirty PM films, but I didn't know all
the stuff that I know now about behind the scenes
at PM and all the players involved and all that
kind of stuff. So it's not going to be necessarily

(01:35):
the most informative interview that I would give. Now, Like
if I had the opportunity to speak to Rick a
second time, obviously there's a lot more things I would
ask him about, but we only got this one opportunity,
and I'm thankful that we even got that. It's just
absolutely fantastic. And I thought that as a celebration of
him and a memorial of him, I would present the

(01:56):
interview in full. So some of these clips been heard
on some of the other episodes, but this is the
full interview, including some of our casual chats that aren't
just questions and things. So I thought that would be
a great tribute. And then I was able to speak
to Joseph right before Rick's memorial and we had a

(02:17):
lovely long conversation and I'm presenting most of that here today.
So it's about an hour long. So the two interviews
together make basically a full episode. So this is part
two of our Rick Peppin celebration. We've got Rick, We've
got Joseph, and Joseph especially just tell some incredible stories,
tell some great jokes, talks about the PM Entertainment cast

(02:40):
and crew, and everything, and it's just a really heartfelt conversation.
And obviously he was getting ready to go to the memorial,
so it was all fresh in his head. So hopefully
you enjoy these two interviews, and then on episode eighteen,
we'll be back to reviewing the films. Thanks so much
for listening and all the best.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
How you doing.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
I'm very good, sir. How are you pretty good?

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Pretty good. We just got in from shoveling some snow,
so that's exciting.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Okay, yeah, no, we've we've had we had a we
had a lot of snow out.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
I'm out in Connecticut.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
We had a lot of snow here a few days back,
and we're meant to get more on Wednesday. So uh,
we're only getting up to about thirty five degrees the
next two days, so I'm hoping some of the former
snow will melt so that when the new stuff comes
it's not a nightmare.

Speaker 3 (03:26):
But okay, that's that's similar to us. We're up in
like era erawheads, So yeah, it doesn't get very cold,
but it does occasionally. It's been dry though this year,
very dry. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Well it's been ridiculous what with the absolute tragic fires
in California and then the snow in the in the Gulf.
It's been a weird, a weird season for everybody. How's
your daughter doing.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
By the way, he's good. She's not in her house yet.
They're getting it lean this weekend. It was just a
lot of soup and a lot of yeah, air quot
the issues and there. I think it's going to take
them seven days to clean it outful to the air,
and then she'll be able to go back therehouse, which

(04:10):
is great. She's staying with a friend now in Pasadena,
so they they were up here for a while and
then they uh went back there, but they're ready to
go home. Yeah, so ready.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
No, I'm sure, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
And no, the rest of us are just watching that
situation in California with you know, sending what we can
send and do what we can do.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
But yeah, what an absolute.

Speaker 2 (04:30):
Tragedy, and especially for the the city that obviously was
the business you were in for for years and years
and years. You must know so many people in that area.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, there's been a few that have and my daughter
has three friends a lot her home, so yeah, it's
and I had mentioned her their school burned down, the
girls' school and and their club burned down. So that's
all in Altadena.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Oh my goodness. Yeah, well I hope that.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
They're adjusting their lives.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I The only
thing that comes close is we have my sister in
law was in Asheville during that horrendous storm. Yeah, and
the flooding, and you know, roads washed away and homes
washed away, and you know, I know, it's the other extreme,
but the closest that we've come as a family to
having to to deal with anything remotely like that. So yeah,

(05:26):
it's yeah, tragedy all around it.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
I guess no matter where we live. I guess no
matter where we live, because we're talking about that too.
We could really love anywhere. But you know, when it
doesn't burn, California is pretty nice.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yes, no, it is. It's it's lovely.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
I know.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
I used to when I first lived in the States,
and I've been out here seventeen years. But when I
first moved to the country, I was actually in Vegas,
believe it or not. That's that that'll do well again,
that'll do a number on you, moving from London to Vegas. Yeah,
two more different cities. But I visited California extensively while
I'm there. While I was there, and I have also

(06:06):
done trade shows and things in San Francisco and Los Angeles,
so I visited the area quite a lot. And we
have good friends out there as well, my wife and I.
So no, it's it's it's a it's a beautiful state
and and and Los Angeles, especially especially if you're a
film fan or a film.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
Writer or whatever.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
It's just every corner you is a is yet another
film set and or iconic locations.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
So yeah, it's wonderful.

Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yeah. I actually originally moved here from from Canada, so
it was a bit of a culture shock for me too.
You know.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Oh yeah, where where? Whereabouts in Canada?

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Are you from Windsor Ontario?

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Oh? Wonderful? Yeah I have.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
I have my whole mum's cousin's side of the family
is all in Ontario. We've got some in Niagara and
the Lake and some in Toronto at the moment. So
oh okay, Yeah, another another wonderful part of the world.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
I love visiting. I love visiting Ontario. So thank you
ever so much for agreeing to do this interview.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
As I said, we've been a longtime fan of PM
Entertainment films here at the Aftermovie Diner website and podcast,
and it has long been kind of a fascination and
or dream as I saw those documentaries coming out a
few years back about Canon as well as a couple
of other documentaries that have sort of been made about
the action boom in the eighties and nineties that kind

(07:30):
of came out on streaming, and I was like, why
is no one mentioning what I think is the best
production company that put out certainly some of my favorite
action films of all time. I have a extensive VHS
and DVD collection of your films, so and it was
always my dream. I was like, well, maybe it's me
that does it. Then maybe it's me who rounds people

(07:51):
up and tries to talk about PM Entertainment and so
that's this is my first steps to doing that. And
we've spoken to as I say, we've spoken in Cynthia
Rock and Done The Dragon, Wilson and some other actors
who have appeared in your films in the past, not
specifically about your movies but about their careers. But it
would be nice to sort of revisit with them about

(08:11):
their contribution to your your production company specifically. So that's
that's our hope is after we've spoken to yourself and
Joseph is to move on and try and get some
of the cast and some of the stunt people and
things like that. That would I think that would be
what the audience is looking forward to and looking for.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
I think so very excited.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah, you can't go wrong with Don. He was like
one of the best guys I've worked with. He was
just so great to work with and made it he
made his films a lot easier because he was so
so He's just a nice guy, great guy.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
So yeah, I've had a pleasure of meeting him a
couple of times, and he just seems that way.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
He just seems down to earth. Yeah, he seems very nice.

Speaker 2 (08:55):
You know, there's a lot of ego, which I'm sure
you've come across in the actual world. Sometimes behind the
scenes the stories. Don doesn't seem to Don and Cynthia
don't seem to have that in the same way.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Yeah, I think they had both had the same work
ethic and Don the twelve fifteen hours, what else can
we do? What else can we get done? You know?
He was really good. Yeah, it was a joy to
work with.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Him, and of course he came from the Roger Corman school, which,
of course I think probably sets anyone up for success
because you can't complain if you're working for Roger. You
just have to kind of head down and get it
done right. Yeah, So Richard or Rick, how do you
prefer to be addressing.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Brick is fine?

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, excellent.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
So Rick obviously came from Canada, came from Ontario. What
initially sparked your interest in filmmaking and how did you
first get involved in any aspect of the entertainment industry?

Speaker 3 (09:51):
Well, it was never really a target of mine. I
was working as I was very interested in photography, so
I was working doing weddings and kids photos and stuff
like that, inaa, And I always was interested in the States.
I always wanted to move. I just felt, I guess
I felt more American than I fell Canadian, but you know,

(10:13):
being on the war boarder there and my cousin opened
up a film lab in Los Angeles, and one summer
when I went to visit and me offered me a job.
So I went back in a couple of months and
I was working in his lab and processing film. And
again there wasn't any target. It just sort of fell

(10:35):
into it. And I was doing a little bit of
photography on the side, which was what I really wanted
to do, so and that sort of morphed into I
left him after a year, and I met a couple
of guys who started our own lab. And when we
started that lab, I volunteered to do a lot of
the assembly of the films and just editing, minor editing,

(10:57):
and I got used to handling film and sort of
the start of it, so you know, I was just
just do it, do it, doing the lab work, but
I volunteered to do all the any editorial that had
to be done, anything of cutting films together. That's what
I like to do.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Yeah, And what were some of sort of the biggest
challenges you faced, I guess then transitioning from the lab
and from sort of being behind the scenes to kind
of setting up you know, both city lights and then
ultimately PM.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
What was the transition, like, what were the challenges you faced?

Speaker 3 (11:34):
Then? Well, I went out on my own and I
opened up a little editing company and I started investing
in some equipment. I got sixteen mili mare equipment. I
got a flatbed editor, and then I was actually shooting
high school and college football games when they used filmed
before video they I did that to help pay for

(11:57):
the equipment. And the guy who was working with had
a connection to the US Olympic swim team, and he
asked me if I'd be interested in helping him put
together some training films. I said, yes, of course, And
so what we did. We used to go, we'd go

(12:18):
before the Olympics and we'd film the whole team, and
then whoever won gold we put together in a small
training film, and I wasn't getting paid for it, but
I kept the rights to sell it, you know, to
sell them. And and at that time, everybody was happy
to be on film. I'll be swimmers, they're very happy.

(12:40):
And then I put together whoever want to go medals,
and the Olympic coach would come in. He would do
in narration and you know why, this guy's a great swimmer.
And and then I put together I'd make super eat
copies and I sold them to high school and Paul College.
That that kept me in the film business because it

(13:02):
was a steady source of income. And we did that
for three Olympics. I think are four, I'm not quite sure.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, and that was that sort of shipping out training
films and things to sort of schools and colleges all
over the country or predominantly sort of ones you had
connections with in California.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
No, all over the country. You put ads in swim
man magazines. And one of the guys I was one
of the guys who started with us in City Lights
was a manufacturer of swim equipment, and so he had
an end right with these guys. And you know, at
the time there was some videotapes, so everything was on
sixteen millimeters stuper eight. But what it did teach me

(13:43):
was how to put everything together. And you know, because
I'd mix as on myself, I do everything myself.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
And how did you and Joseph Mary first meet And
what do you think made that partnership so successful?

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Well, Joe's trying the best partner I've ever had. He
was very reliable, very you know, we never had a
written agreement, you know, so it just worked. But he
was trying to get into the film business. He had
a pizza restaurant in Las Vegas, and he was he

(14:19):
was getting ready to shoot a film that he wrote
and through a mutual friend, I met him and he
wanted somebody to shoot second camera, and I found out
later that it was a bad backup really because the
cinematography he had, he wasn't sure he could get along
with him. And that's kind of how it started. And

(14:39):
I went to Las Vegas and I helped him shoot
and he ended up firing the director of photography and
then I took over. So that was really only the
second film that I would have shot.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
So and what was that film ever released?

Speaker 1 (14:54):
What? What kind of film was that?

Speaker 3 (14:56):
It was a comedy. It's called Dumb Luck in Vegas
and and it was part of the city Lights, right,
ended up we stole into City Lives, Okay, during the process,
I helped them with post a lot and yeah, because
I had a nating a flatbed ta table when we
shot it at sixteen.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Yeah, the only city Lights film I think I have
is Mayhem.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
I was able to track down Mayhem on VHS. I
think that's.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
The the only city Lights one I have currently.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
But that that's our that's our first film that we
did together.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Right, Yeah, that was that was sort of the calling
card that led to everything else.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
Right right exactly? That was shot really cheap. I think
we shot in eight nine days for like fifty grand.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, well it's it's it's fantastic and you were trying,
you know, you did. I believe you did some comedy,
you did some I think that you know, Mayhem is
sort of a horror film to some extent, there's some horror. Yeah,
but what sort of do you what sort of moved
you towards action and were you aware are you aware

(16:00):
of sort of the cannon model that I think by
this point sort of the late eighties was already I think,
showing some cracks in the way they were doing things.
But were you aware of that and did you take
any kind of lessons from that, I guess to do
it differently or were you just strictly on your own pods?

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Well, not specifically canon, but I mean in those days,
you used to shoot a film and you have to
almost have to open it theatrically, and that's kind of
what the standard was for everybody. I'll do this film,
I'll get it into one or two theaters and then
it'll grow from there. And the direct to video was
more well, the the X rated guys were going direct

(16:40):
to video. And I knew a guy who was doing that,
who's doing the X rated stuff? And I go into
his ware warehouse and I just saw these videotapes that
he was selling for like seventy bucks, and he wasn't
saying anything to happen to produce. So I just thought
it was a good business model model that go direct

(17:02):
to video, not bothered trying to get it, because anytime
we we had no control if we gave it to
somebody to exhibit in US theater. If we went direct
to video, we we could sell them directly to the stores. Right,
So that was a big advantage for us.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, which was a little more like third hand.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
No, I was gonna say it's a little more like
the Child's Band model in that regard. I know some
of the Child's Band stuff went theatrical, but in general,
once he moved over to Full Moon, I think it
was strictly straight to video. And as you say, you
had companies that owned I think I'm right saying that
most of the studios and or companies adjacent to the

(17:46):
studios owned the theatrical experience. So, like you said, you
kind of lost control if you went the Yeah, so
was so from the get go. Then city lights and
obviously then PM Entertainment, but any Lights from the get
go was a straight to video model.

Speaker 3 (18:02):
It was always that way. Yeah, we just didn't bother again,
I think as Joe and I just both didn't want
it to go through other hands. You know, every time
it goes through somebody's hands, you know, we lose money. Yeah,
and these were pretty tight budgets, and you know, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Mean it's what you see still now in the indie world,
in the indie film world, unless you're doing Vimeo or YouTube,
you know, pay to play kind of deals, most of
the time people are releasing them small batches on DVDs
and finding little indie distributors to sell them through. That's
that's really what's still happening today because you know, the
cinemas and the theaters have become so monolithically out of reach.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
First indie filmworkers these days.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
So what do you think some of the key differences
in your creative styles between you and Joseph and were
there any but also how did you kind of compliment
each other?

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Well, kind of the way it started, he would write
and direct and I would shoot and edit. So while
I'm meting film number one, he was writing Film number two,
and then when I finished that, we just jump in
and shoot it. So for the first few years that
was kind of the way it was handled. He would
write it and directed, of course, and then I would

(19:17):
shoot it and I'd put it together, and we just
went from one film to another, And in the meantime
we were getting involved with the trade shows and stuff,
selling tapes. I think a lot of the independent video
spores at the time were not getting a lot of
studio pictures, so they were looking for things to put

(19:37):
on the shelf. And that was lucky for us because
it was pretty easy to sell. We'd go to shows
and we would actually physically sell the tapes. We weren't
supposed to do, but we didn't know any better. We
would sell them those storms directly, so it was pretty good.

(19:58):
Sometimes it helps not to know things, you know. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Oh, and did you feel that between you and Joseph,
that's kind of what was happening in your partnership that
you were sort of both learning together, so you were
sort of finding where you both fit and where your
strengths were.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah. Yeah, And we both learned special effects and action stuff,
you know, from ground zero because we didn't know we
didn't know how squibs work. We didn't know how anything works,
so everything was a learning process and we got pretty
good at it.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah, oh, very good. Became phenomenal at it.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
I mean that the stuntmen alone and the pyrotechnics companies
that have worked with you have gone on to, you know,
be huge Hollywood players.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
No, you paved the way for so much, which I
think is another reason why shining a light on PM
entertainment is so important.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah. So do you have a sort.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Of memory then with Joseph in any of the fifteen
years that you worked together, do you have a specific
memory that would kind of encapsulate your dynamic as partners,
like the way you worked on set or the way
you worked behind the scenes making deals or writing scripts
or hiring cost or anything like that is a sort
of either a story, an anecdotal or a character trait

(21:13):
you could discuss that that kind of would hone in
on that.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
Well.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Again, I think we trusted each other explicitly, so you know,
if we decided on a film, and that's one of
the things I liked the most that we had complete
control over everything. So if we decided on a film,
we can go forward with it, and you know, I
that was things I missed when I you know, when
we sold the company. Just having that complete control. Yeah,

(21:41):
like we're going to we're going to cut the shoot
a little bit, or I'm not going to shoot this,
or you know. It was nice having complete control. But yeah,
I just Joe would bring in ideas. I mean we'd
sit and talk, talk about ideas and then decide how
to handle it. At the beginning, we were both involved
in the same productions. Yeah, then we started to separate

(22:02):
a little bit. I think, you know, when when we
were at our peak, we were sort of leap frogging
each other at my own crew and he had his
basic crew, and you know, I'm prep prepping film number one.
He's you know, he's writing film number two. And then
you know, I'd shoot and then he'd start. It was

(22:22):
almost a monthly thing. At one point we were doing
a film a month almost, you know, with beat frogging.
And I would say I probably had the best job
job in the world for about ten years. Yeah, just
doing this, just figuring out what's to shoot. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Well, because that's the other difference I guess is that
you guys sort of went out and got your hands study.
Not that not that other production companies you could mention
didn't occasionally direct the film, right But but but PM
Entertainment is kind of solidified by the fact that, you know,
you and and Joseph to some extent, did the the.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Bulk of your output.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
And yes, you had other like which Munchkin who I've
spoken to before and things who who came on to direct.
And I also want to talk in a bit about
some of the actors you got who also ended up
directing films. But in general, you and Joseph took the
lion sheriff and considering the rate of your output, it's
very impressive.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Yeah, And I think even when we had other people filming,
it's very I make sure I showed up, I see
what's going on, you know, and Joel also, and you know,
we weren't directing in our shoes shooting it. We want
to see get a field of the set, how it's going,
you know. And of course I look at dailies every day.

(23:36):
So yeah, but you know, we kept pretty good control
of things, you know.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
And did you ever think over sort of standing back,
did you ever think that or how much did you
I guess craft or hone kind of what would become
known as sort of the like the PM entertainment look
or the or the just the way the films run,
the length of the films are. They're all decent, like,
you know, ninety minutes most of them. Obviously you have

(24:03):
that kind of every six to seven minutes, let's have
something happen kind of philosophy that I think Coleman and
others have had as well. But is there something that
outside of just your you being so involved and Joseph
being so involved, was there something else that you felt
defined like the PM entertainment look or the PM entertainment

(24:24):
multi was.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Something, you know, I'm not sure it was a specific look.
We were always open to anything, you know, when when
other director's photography would come in, I was open to anything,
you know. And it was like it with actors too.
I mean we like with the wings Houser, I would
I wanted him to make his movie, but I shot

(24:45):
his movies because you know, we were a little worried
about his drinking and stuff. But I was on upset
all the time and I shot him. But I kind
of let him do what he wanted to do unless
it was really crazy, a really crazy, but I had
very few issues with him.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah, I mean so, I'm asidence from being a PEM
entertainment fan, I'm a huge fan of wings Houses strange
video output. No, I'm sort of aware of who he
was a little bit behind the scenes, but mainly because
some directors have spoken very highly of him, and other
directors have I think the guy who made The Wind
trying to remember his name now, Nick Nico master Rakas,

(25:27):
who made a series of a bunch of films in
the eighties and nineties but worked with Houser on The
Wind and Nightmare at Noon, had not great things to
say about him, but other people have said some fantastic
things about him, and I'm a huge fan of what
seems to be his somewhat unpredictable but kind of wild
improv style. I mean, yes, obviously there are lines written

(25:48):
for him, and there is a script, but he also
seems to be very good at taking that character and
then sort of talking and or acting or even dropping
little things in within that character. Is that something you
found working with.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
Him, Yeah, yeah, and again I would let him do that.
I used to tell people when they came in, and
like Pam's could give you this box and at amount
of money. The money would always change. Some of them
were half a million, some of them were one. But
I said, in his box, you can move the money around,

(26:21):
you can do things. But I said, you can't get
out of this box. And the box is like Porman.
I mean, we had an action, an opening action scene,
a closing action scene, and it was every ten minutes,
something has to happen, something has to happen. So as
long as you stayed in that box, you could kind
of do what you want, you know, because yeah, it

(26:43):
seemed to work for us.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
It seemed to work definitely.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
And I mean I've watched I think all of the
Wings House ones and everything, but the big fool that
C Thomas how did for you. And what's interesting is
they seem to be leaning into a lot of that
film vibe. I mean, obviously with the sort of neon
drenched eighties and nineties sort of Los Angeles cinematography and

(27:08):
sometimes Las Vegas cinematography, but it's the beats of the
film outside of the action tend to be fairly kind
of filmed noires. Is that something they both spoke to
you about or is that something you guys brought to
the table and said, hey, what can you actors do
with this?

Speaker 3 (27:23):
I think it was more wings and I went along
with it. I was fine, is that. I love Stimilis,
you know, I said, let's let's do it. And we
one of the things at the very beginning, Joe and
I when we went to the foreign markets, they just
liked seeing shots of Los Angeles. They so we made
sure we were on the streets all the time, and

(27:45):
that was kind of I'm not sure it's it's stain now,
but I think in the eighties and nineties they were
really looking for seeing the city and we shot everywhere
and left hell. So we gave them that. That was
another staple that we really had to be down in.
We had to be downtown, you know, we need to

(28:06):
show them the city. Oh and that was no.

Speaker 1 (28:09):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
And I think you know, as someone who raised was
raised in the UK, but was sort of steeped very
early in Americana. Whether it was the TV shows we
were seeing, whether it was you know, Hemingway books and
Bokowski books and other things we were reading. Whatever it was,
we loved it. I always equate it with a songwriter
who mentions an obscure street name or a you know,

(28:32):
a section of downtown city, or something in a song
there's an it's evocative. You suddenly go, wait, where's that?
How do I get there? Whereas nowadays were there be
something homogenized and sort of shot in either Canada or Georgia,
it seems, and everything is kind of just shot as
the action is happening, and follow the action and don't

(28:54):
care where the action is taking place, and don't really
care like where all this fits in. I think the
peel and the thrill certainly for myself, but I think
for other film fans going back to sort of the seventies,
eighties and nights, because once you get the indies of
the seventies, you have them filming more on location. Like
you think of all the whether it's the Scorsese films,

(29:14):
the Couple of films, or the Hopper films or whatever,
they're all shooting on location, and it's the location that's
sort of informing a lot of the action that's happening.
But even as you move into the eighties and nineties,
there was no creating something on a green screen. You
had to if you wanted to shoot something in the jungle.
You had to go to the jungle. If you wanted
to shoot something in downtown LA, you had to block

(29:35):
off streets and things. So talk about that, then talk
about the location shooting the obviously the issues.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
You might come across.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
How in those days was Los Angeles sort of much
more open to stuff like that and also getting away
with you know, ramping cars or shooting cars through fireballs
and things like that in the middle of like a
downtown metropolitan area.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
I would love some stories about that if there were.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
Well, to be honest, we when we first started, the
easiest thing for us to shoot was live on the street,
the Hollywood Boulevard, and you know, they're all pretty well lit.
And at the beginning we had we didn't do permits.
We just it was real gorilla filmmaking. And like you know,
in one of the shows, the actor is going to
be on a bus, So I had a sixteen momme camera.

(30:23):
It was pretty small, and I would just hide in
another JAD jacket. We'd get on the bus and we
shoot him riding around with the background Los Angeles until
we got thrown off, right, And that was kind of
what we did a lot of that. I remember we
shot a scene in front of a police station, you know,
and I said, we're going to get We're going to

(30:45):
get in trouble here. We had a generator across the street,
we had one or two lights, we were hurting seeming
like crazy in this RV. And then we just went
and shot it within fifteen minutes, and the cops were
going going by and they didn't stop us, which I
don't think we could do today. I don't think today.

Speaker 2 (31:04):
Yeah, I think there was probably something, And you know,
I hate to keep bring up negative things, but like
something like nine to eleven probably put the kibosh on
so many things just because of the land security. I mean,
I know, having lived in New York for thirteen years
that you know, you're not shooting anything in Times Square
anymore unless you're you know, Tom Cruise or someone.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
You know, it's just not possible.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
But I think of something that like James Glickenhouse did
in Shakedown, where he's closing down forty second Street and
having Sam Elliot and Peter Weller on a bike and
sidecar firing machine guns like you're not doing No one's
doing that in the Disney owned New.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
York these days.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
So actually the first the first thirty five millimeter film
was shot, which was Ever of the Bronx. We did
advice you shooting in New York, and again I didn't
get any permits. It was kind of guerrilla fell filmmaking
for like four days, but we had the actors there,
We had them walking in Times Square.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
You know.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
It was really it was really pretty good. But we
never got in trouble. No one ever asked us because
you know, we just set up and shot, and I
don't know if we've ever got kicked out of any place.
I don't think we ever did. We always had excuses
student film. You know, we're doing this and be gone
in five minutes.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
You know.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
But it it changed, you know, once you started doing
the bigger stunts, everything has to be more controlled, so
of course, yeah, so it did change for us.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, so you moved from obviously so of the lower budget,
more gorilla style into slightly sort of bigger productions and
then really big productions and things.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
So let's talk about some of that.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Let's talk about the obviously, the car chase and explosions
in PM films a sort of legendary. It's what everyone's
kind of with each new one. That we put in
or watch or find. We're looking to see is it
is it an explosion one or is it a story one?
Because there's some of the story ones which are fantast
I think I just watched the Tracy Lord's Time to

(33:04):
Die Whatever, which is more of a kind of emotional
character driven kind of film noir kind of thing. There's
not there's not quite the action in that, but then
you know, I then watched Pure Danger to see Thomas
how kind of film noir action movie, and that that
is insane with with action that goes from kind of
gunfights to foot chases to then car chases. So yeah,

(33:27):
talk talk talk a little bit about that, and also
about assembling together these great martial arts and stunt talents
like Art Camacho and Col McKay and Spurrowsatas and Broadway
Joe Murphy and people like that that you ended up
working with, who you know, as I say, have gone
on to enormous success.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
Yeah, them dirty, These guys would start as day players
for us, and we get to meet them, and you know,
and and and you've got to steel for how these
people work just being outset with them, and and that's
kind of what we used it was just, well, this
guy's good, let's try something with him. And we were
willing to give people chances like Cole McKay, you know,

(34:08):
you could be the core, core coordinator, you know. And
then we let him direct a couple too. I think so.
But it really was started whoever we had on set,
Joe and I would talk about them and say, this
guy is pretty good, we should hire him again, or
if he came to us for the project, you know,

(34:28):
because we got a lot of that. I had this project,
think of the script, I've got this actor attached and
and that's kind of what happened with these guys. And
then the martial arts Art Aunt and we used Art
originally as a player, a day player, and then he
was coordinating all the fights and yeah, and then he

(34:51):
directed for us and he's still going too.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Yeah, And was that do you think that's why as
you were talking earlier about sort of that box, you
kind of say, well, the budget is this, and within
this budget you have to do this, but you can
kind of move the money around, like you were explaining earlier.
Did you find then that that openness to some extent,
certainly with your cast and crew and allowing them those moments.

(35:17):
I imagine there's got to be a time where Spirozatus
came up or someone came up and said, you know,
I'd really love.

Speaker 1 (35:23):
To do this kind of stunt.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
I think Bill Lustig talks about him working on Maniac
Cop two with him and says, I really want to.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Do a high fall while on fire.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
So the whole last sequence in Maniac Cop two entirely
comes out because Spirorosata says, I really want to try
and do this. Can we do this on this movie?
Did you find that that kind of stuff was happening
with you and actually that openness just led to better
and better and bigger and bigger stunts and more excitement.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah, yeah, I think that's the wit of all the
guys would say we can do this or because again,
after a while, it was right running joke that we
have to flip a car sometimes, right show.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah, yeah you did, and you did, and it's it's
we got so fantastic.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
We actually got so good at it that it could
be set up and within a couple of hours that
car was being slipped. You know, yeah, we were, we
were pretty good.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
You know, oh you were, you were fantastic at it.
And and you know, I was again, I was a
kid raised on the A Team and Night Rider and
shows like that. And did you find that shows like
that that were sort of doing it every week as well?
Like every week the eighteam would flip a car, you
know what I mean. It was sort of something that
they did and every every show that the TV was

(36:41):
already a little bit like it is now, I guess,
but the TV was already sort of saying doing what
in the seventies early eighties would have been filming stunts
and now suddenly they're on TV. Was there an idea
that you had to go even further or did that
never even kind of come up?

Speaker 3 (36:59):
You know, we didn't compare it. It was mostly a
lot of probably over half of our income was was
for it. And so we we listened to the buyers
a lot. If they wanted more action, if they wanted
more of this, we we we kind of listened look
for the buyers and like one terminator came out. They said,
give us a terminator like film and that's where a

(37:19):
fire CyberTracker came from. So it was it was that
and uh and and we put our own stance stamp
on it. With our action, but and I think anything
big but action Joe and I would handle. I think
when we started to give projects to other people, you know,
we didn't worry about the action as much because we

(37:41):
weren't quite sure about anybody else doing the action without
us supervising. I you know, it's just we were we
were much more careful with the action stuff.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah, well, if you're going to be setting off an
enormous explosion and sending a city bus hurtling through it,
if I was producing that movie, I would want to
be on set as well.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
That would be the thing I'd want to be there for.
I'm like, oh, you're gonna I think it was.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Oh, I've watched so many lately because I've been doing
a few for the podcast. But it's either a t
force or it's hologram Man. Hologram Man. That starts off
with I think there's an enormous explosion to the whole
sequence with John Amos at the beginning, and there's a
huge explosion, and I think through the explosion goes a
city bus and either two or three flipped cars all

(38:30):
at once. It's almost like you had got to the
point where you were like, all right, let's see just
exactly what we can do, you know, and it's a
thing of joy because you know that it's all practical,
you know that you.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Think I think it was not an executive target, but
we hadn't flipped. We decided we're going to flip four cars. Yeah,
and when you slow them down, if the cars don't
hit the ramps exactly at the same time, it looks
like they're half a minute away, you know. There there,
So we we we did flip them, and it wasn't perfect,

(39:04):
but you know, with editing and stuff, we made it
look pretty good. But that was that took a long
time to set up because I think it was four,
four or five. I'm not sure how many cars are them,
but I think that was cold calm okay ran that
and uh and again I was there for that. I
was shooting too.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
You'd have to be Why would you know.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Executive Target. Executive Target was our most expensive film and
I wasn't shooting it. But every weekend we'd closed down
streets in LA and that's when I would just supervise
the second unit. I would just go down and make
sure everything's going correctly. But it was it was we
closed down a lot of streets. I'm not sure you

(39:46):
can do that like we did before, and I don't
know if they let you do that unless it's the
Tom Cruise.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
And you had I think the other very long freeway
chase action sequence that I think gov is Land of
the Free that Jeff Speakman William Shantna film you have.
I think there's like a ten to twelve minute bus
chase car chase going on in that movie. And I
feel was that probably on like a strip of freeway

(40:13):
that hadn't yet been finished that you sort of got
for a day.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
Or two or I think I think that was. I
also you I had a big freeway chase in the film.
I think it was sas Silencers that they did was
silently yeah, yeah, yeah, I had a big freeway where
he was hanging on the truck. And we've closed down
a section of the Long Beach Freeway which was I
think being renovated or under construction, I'm not sure, but

(40:40):
we closed down and then we just kept going back
and forth on the same strip, whether it was a mile,
and I'm not sure how much we can cut back,
but they probably used the same street because again they
let us do it. So we did it, you know,
but we had some big explosions on that one too.
We had some better Howard after explosion. Yeah, actually we

(41:03):
had a pipe ramp through the helicopter. That's what we did.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
Yes, Silences in the Silences, Yes, that's that's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
And no, we're big fans. I watched The Silence as
recently as well.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
I collect them on VHS, so as I get them,
I sort of I sort of watch them as quickly
as I can. But we I'm also friends with the
guys who do the exploding helicopter. There's a whole blog
that catalogs every film with an exploding helicopter in it.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
Really.

Speaker 2 (41:32):
Yeah, and they've been going for years and I think
they're up to like nine hundred and forty something, I
don't know what. And yeah, no, The Silences is definitely
one of those.

Speaker 1 (41:40):
But you know, you bring up sort of Jack Scalier there.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Obviously, anyone who's delved into PEM entertainment knows that you
have sort of key cast members throughout each sort of
I would say, sort of three or four year section.
So you know, we spoke about wings Houser. Obviously, he
comes in and does some stuff at the end of
the eighties early nineties. He's really just up until I
think his last film is in like ninety one. Maybe

(42:03):
I think that's The Killer's Edge is his last film
with you guys, but sort of and then you have
obviously Donal Dragon Wilson comes back a lot, Tracy Lord's
Gary Daniels will need to talk about but talk about
bringing these guys in and then kind of keeping them
within the family, because certainly someone like Gary Daniels comes back,
you know every year every other year, does multiple films

(42:24):
with you. Jack Scillier as well, does it seems to
do a lot of the sci fi action. Was that
again something that he came in with. Was that something
you kind of thought he'd be perfect for. How does
how did that work? And how did you nurture those relationships?

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Well, he was recommended. I think it could have been
our foreign seller that we had sales people and they said,
you know, look at getting Jess and they would say,
let's do a sci fi film, and so that that
would be the genesis for that. And then I think
the first film with Jack was Silencers. I'm not sure

(43:04):
what it was, but I really didn't know Jack that well,
and you know, so he was he was a good
name for us, and I wasn't sure how it was
going to work, but it actually worked out really well.
He's a very professional guy and uh and I enjoyed
working with I enjoyed it. I think we did three.

(43:25):
I think Silencers, Dark, Dark Breed and what else did
I do with T Force was the first one there.
T T Force was the first one.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Yeah, Well he was in a mora.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
I don't know whether that was was that strictly you guy,
but a more which is released as PM Entertainment, But
that might have just been one you were distributing.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
I don't know whether that was one you made yourself.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
That's one we picked up.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Okay, so he was in that one, and then the
ones that you guys made. Yeah, T Force was the first,
and then he would go on and do the other two. Yeah,
Silence is a Doug Breed.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
Yeah. I think after we did the first one, he
was at a screen of screening and he was I
think pleasantly surprised that we got as much out of
you know, that our budget that we did, and then
it opened the door to do a couple more.

Speaker 4 (44:13):
So.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, he seems to be having a lot of fun
and T Force he's and it's certainly I think he does.
He is having a fan I mean, his performance in
T Force is fantastic. It's sort of one of the
as action packed as T Forces, and I think actually
some of the robotic special effects are actually really good
and well done. And I love the plot, the sort

(44:33):
of you know, the good robot versus the bad robots
kind of thing, and then the guy having to figure
out being a partner to a robot and all that
sort of stuff. All that stuff I absolutely love. But
it's Scalia's performance that's really captaining the ship in terms of,
you know, the big plot points and things. And he
is really genuinely fantastic in that because he goes from

(44:53):
sort of the blow hard naysayer to the like the softer,
more traditional kind of partner buddy buddy cop stuff really well,
I think, I mean, it's a great performance.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
I think of them, Yeah, no, and again I enjoyed
really working to be very professional. But how it's important.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
How did.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
How did someone like a wings House or a see
Thomas how or Jeff Fahey, these guys who I would
always say they're sort of actors first, and maybe action
stars second. They're not they're certainly not martial artists, and
they're certainly not h you know, the likes of even
a Jeff Wincott or Gary Daniels a sort of a

(45:37):
marsh sorry, sort of an action name, but they do
sort of incredible action.

Speaker 1 (45:44):
Work with you guys.

Speaker 2 (45:46):
Was that, but they'd obviously all done stuff prior to
PEM Entertainment? Was that again sort of foreign money sort
of saying, hey, can we get some name stars that
we may have seen and other stuff? Or were they
or did those actors come to you and say, hey,
we've always wanted to blow stuff up?

Speaker 1 (46:03):
Like, how did that? How did that work?

Speaker 3 (46:06):
I don't know. I don't think that ever happened. I
think there was more of get this guy into your show,
and uh like when we did see so we had
the big freeway chase and Jack wanted to hang on
the side of the tanker. So I mean we wired
him up, and I mean he was It was a

(46:28):
little scary for me. I han't him hanging off the
bottom of his tanker, but he wanted to do it,
and uh, you know, we of course he's all harnessed
in and uh, but yeah, these guys. Jack especially liked
to do the action. He'd like to run, you know,
he like to shoot the guns. See. Yeah, the Wings.

(46:49):
I'm not sure he was excited about the action. I
think he was more interested in his film, you know.
But Jack, I remember, really liked the action.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
So yeah, and you let Wings have a couple of
sort of surprising endings. There's like one ending where he's
just he just flat out dies and you're like, wait,
what that's the you know, there's living to die, living
to die. Obviously he gets in too deep with the
mob and it just ends up the way it ends up,
and it's it's fantastic that you let something like that happen,

(47:20):
because I think other studios would have gone, no, no, no,
we have to have you know, happy ending or whatever.
And then there's I think the Art of Dying ends
with him and Kathy Kimmon. They're sort of having a
moment in a doorway, and then you know, you've got
the usual kind of you know, die hard type thing
of having ambulances and police and whatever on the street
because obviously they're clearing up the action scene, and out

(47:44):
of nowhere, a guy roller blades through the scene and
wearing a purple thong and nothing else. And I wonder,
is that just La at the time and you just
let that happen or did Wings go? I think it
would be funny if, like, how does something might that
come about?

Speaker 1 (48:00):
Do you know or do you remember?

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Or I think it's unlikely it happened on its own.
I think that may have been Wings, Yeah, because you're
always careful, especially when we were doing that level of films.
We always had security, and we always had you know,
we always had cops on sets. So it's unlikely that
would have happened. But it sounds like what Wings would

(48:23):
want to do.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
Good, good, good.

Speaker 3 (48:24):
I have no problem with it. Yeah, I had no
problem with it.

Speaker 1 (48:29):
Yeah, yeah, oh great, great.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
So, as I say, we already talked about sort of
letting your cast write or direct. And obviously earlier on
you worked with Lawrence Hilton Jacobs. Was was he the
first two directed for you?

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Yeah, outside of Lunch. I think he was the first
actor we had directing for us. And I think he
brought Jim Brown into that first show too. Yes, yeah,
he was friends with Jim Brown. That may have been
part of the process that you know, I can get
Jim Brown's okay, let's see what can we do?

Speaker 2 (49:06):
You know, Yeah, and you kept bringing back the character
of John Chance sort of comes back in several of
those earlier movies. Again, was that something that Lawrence was
driving or was that something where you thought, huh, well,
let's see if we can kind of make a franchise
and see if that works. Like, were you trying your
hand at franchises, because actually very few PM entertainment films

(49:28):
have sequels.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
A couple do, obviously, but like in general, you're not
making you.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Know, fifteen of John chancefer or fifteen you know, rage
films or whatever you're you're making sort of that one
and done kind of feel.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
But was there some thinking of like a franchise or
something like that in those earlier films.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
It wasn't direct. I mean, if the films did well, yes,
we brought them back and you could bring the bank
either as the same character or as we doing a
different film. But they were mostly sales driven. If they
were happy, that's what we did. We wanted to keep
those four foreign buyers happy. That was kind of domestically

(50:11):
we did, okay, but you know, most of our money
was form Yeah, at least for the first few years.

Speaker 2 (50:19):
And let's talk about Gary Daniels quickly, because of course
we can't do PM and without talking about Gary Daniels.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
I think that especially the three os that people talk about.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
I don't know if you know this, but like fans
of your films talk about the three os that he's in, Riot,
Rage and recal Coil and sort of being quintessential titles.

Speaker 1 (50:39):
He's obviously Spiro, right, those are Spiro, I think, I believe.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think, but obviously Gary Daniels,
I you know, I have a soft spot for him
because he's a British martial artist and I think we
only have about three of those guys, four of them
I think in total in film.

Speaker 1 (50:58):
But talk to me about Gary Daniels and how having
him in your film.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Well, again, he was a little bit like Don He's
very easy to work with and very professional, and he'd
work hard. He'd worked very hard, very very hard. And
it was our when we were doing our martial arts films,
you know, when we started that process. But he was
he was just good. He was just good, and you know,

(51:23):
he was on a bunch of our films, so you know,
I don't know if there's anything in particular. The films
were successful. He was very easy to work with and
had a pretty good name.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Yeah yeah, well yeah, you got him from Britain. Obviously,
Jeff Wincott as a fellow Canadian like himself, who is fantastic.
We we love his films that you guys did with him,
especially Last Man Standing. And obviously you did one film
with Cynthia Rothrock, who I'm just an enormous fan of.
I'm just I'm so in awe of her body of work.

(51:58):
Was there any ever? Was there ever any talk about
doing further films with Cynthia? I know that there was
some deal with to Learn that fell through that I
think made her not do a few movies for a while.
But was there any talk about doing a second film
with her?

Speaker 3 (52:13):
There may have been some talk, but it wasn't. It
never really gone anywhere. Yeah, I know less about that
that one. I wasn't very involved in that that one. Okay,
you know, we just okayed them and.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
It has a great boat explosion at the end.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
Boy, I forget, you know, we did so much action.
Somebody brings up somebody else.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
I forgot we did that, you know, well, it's one
of those great movie explosions, whether I think the boat
barely grazes a rock, but the entire thing explodes, which
is always whenever something like that happened.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
Huge, Okay, that was that a helicopter shot. It's all
the boat boat in yes, I believe.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
So it's right at the end of Guardian Angel.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
It's it's down at the rock because the guy she's
pretty acting has sort of one of those big Malibu
homes or whatever. And I think it's down on the
rocks in the in the ocean at the end, if
I'm remembering.

Speaker 3 (53:06):
It right now, while there's an ocean chase there right
there is an ocean chase, yes, okay, So yeah, I
shout all that stuff from the helicopter, okay, And yeah
I remember because I was asking the pilot because I
wanted to follow it in, and I said, follow it
in and I'll under crank it. But he followed right

(53:27):
into the cliff and he got pretty close to the clif.
Actually it was a little bit scary.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
Yeah, you see that.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
You know, you can see the cliff in the shot
when the when the boat explodes, like it almost like
the helicopter is almost right above the explosion, or at
least slightly to the left of it.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
You're not very far away.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
And in those days you you'd have a mount with
the camera and you're actually hanging hanging off the side
of the helicopter. I mean today they have the Jabbra
mounts on the front of the back and the cameraman
not hang out of the helicopter like we did in
the old days. So that was that was actually my

(54:06):
brother brother law flow through that plane.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
And was there something about you yourself, or you and
Joseph or just that had that thrill nature, that that
sort of thrill seeking nature, or was it just like
we've gone so far now with these action films. If
we don't get to this point where I'm hanging off
a helicopter above an explosion, we're not gonna take our

(54:31):
films to the next level. So let's just suck it
up and get it done. Like what kind of mindset
brought stuff like that about in either you and Joseph
or it in your crew and cast.

Speaker 3 (54:42):
I think in general you sort of have to ugde yourself,
you know, as you go forward. And I did enjoy
being involved in the action stuff. That was probably I
enjoyed it. I just like I said, you had the
best job in the world because you get a bunch
of toy cars and talk about the chase and how
it's going to go and this car is going to

(55:03):
flip over, and then in a week I get to
go out and do it, you know, So it's it
was fun I I and I think that separated Joe
a little bit from me. I was more of the
technical guy. Joe was a little more good writing and directing,
and I kind of made sure the films got put together,
that anything that we shot could end up being a film,

(55:26):
you know, which is a lot of reasons why I
shot for guest directors, just so I could be on
set all the time. Of course, of course, make sure
I'm covered, make sure I'm.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
Covered, and so to the sort of legacy now of
PM Entertainment.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
Just while we kind of wrap it up, obviously, you
did do films outside of action films. You did some
family friendly films, and you interestingly sort of tried to
do sort of a martial arts family kind of crossover
and some things you've obviously done some thrillers, comedies and
things like that.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Were you did you sort of.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
Wish that you could have branched out more or were
you just I love that people keep wanting the action
from us.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
Well, the action was our bread and butter. I think
one of the only mistakes I think we made is
we didn't get more involved in television towards the end.
I think we should have. You know that we kind
of missed the Golden Age and the Tea and you know,
we we tried with La Heat, we tried with we

(56:33):
tried another action show that we couldn't get off the ground,
But I'm not sure how we would have done it.
But I think we missed the boat and getting into
a lot of TV with Netflix, and yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
You were sort of right between what I think that
kind of the golden age of American television just growing
up in the UK, which sort of started with things
like Hulk and Wonder Woman and ended with like Baywatch
was sort of the last big kind of Saturday afternoon
you know, forty five minute long kind of action comedy

(57:07):
show that I think of that run that includes like
the eighteen and dukes of Hazard and night Rider and
those kind of shows, and then you know there's a
bit of a gap then of about ten years and
then you start to get kind of the streaming stuff,
the Netflix stuff. Was there any talk kind of when

(57:28):
this new paradigm emerged and this new sort of opportunity emerged.
Was there any talk of you and Joe kind of
resurrecting a little bit or going back into it, or
once you were done, you were kind of happy, you
were done?

Speaker 3 (57:41):
Well, once we were done, I I came of it's
a little burned out, and I think Joe was too.
But you know, by the time we sold the company,
it was it was pretty intense ten twelve years, you know,
so I think we were kind of done. I did
some other stuff before but after that, but it wasn't

(58:02):
quite the same. I've never really had a real job
in my whole life, so it's hard to work for
anybody or even think about working for anybody. So I
just sort of, yeah, I don't think we could have
resurrected it. And Joe gun basically he stayed in the
film business more than May and he turned into a
developer too. He's done really well. Yeah, he's done really well.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
And are there any sort of moments or particular films
from PM Entertainment catalog that as people have spoken to
you over the years about PM attainment that you're kind
of like, I wish someone would bring this up. Is
there something that you feel was sort of underrated or
didn't necessarily get the recognition it deserved that you produced
that you would like to tell people now, with the
opportunity of them to be able to go on streaming

(58:47):
or pick up a DVD or whatever, that you would
love to see that people don't mention.

Speaker 4 (58:51):
Well.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
I think I always hear about some of the Pills
becoming kind of cult. You know a lot of the
wings Houser films maybe have become, you know, cult films.
I think Dark Breed somebody told me once that it
has a big flowing somewhere. I don't know if it's
in Germany or whatever, but yeah, I like those films.

(59:15):
I like Dark Dark Breed. I mean to watch Okay, yeah, okay, yeah.
That that is an interesting because we we hired a
very tall guy to be the monster right and and uh,
it kept getting delayed where I couldn't see the monster suit.

(59:35):
It kept getting delayed. The guys had problems, and then
we had to go. We had to shoot because I
think Jack had a scheduled conflict we had to shoot.
So the first day I saw that suit was on
set and I decided, this is not going to work.
You know, it looked like a guy in a suit.
But what I did is I stole from Alien and

(01:00:00):
I just didn't show them Monster till the very end.
And it worked out well for me. But I was
sort of forced into that because it just didn't look
good and I couldn't stop shooting right I had it.
It was kind of the pan format. Once you started,
you're going to get it done, and whatever happened, you
have to get it done. So yeah, I did a
lot of slow dolly shots to the inside of this

(01:00:23):
factory that transitioned between scenes. It worked out really well.
I really liked how it turned out, especially with the problems.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
And there's some makeup effects and things in that mood,
just judging by the back of the VHS, because I
think Jonathan Banks has some make up effects on him
and stuff like that. Obviously, outside of the explosions and things,
we talked about the other facets of kind of creative
and technical filmmaking is things like blood effects and makeup
effects and alien effects and things like that. Were you

(01:00:52):
equally enamored and excited about that kind of stuff, as
you wear about the car rams and blowing stuff up
and all that kind of stuff or what was the
action moyule thing.

Speaker 3 (01:01:04):
Yeah, the action was always the most fun for me.
I was interested in the effects. I mean the first
in Dark Bad, it's the first time we had really
computer effects where the faces would change, and I was
shocked that they could do that well, and because I

(01:01:24):
thought we were going to have to do it with
makeup transitioning into the monster, but we did it with
computer effects, which really worked out well. But it was
a different deal too. I had to lock the camera down,
it couldn't move, and the actor you didn't want to
move a lot. But because that was the very beginning

(01:01:46):
of the computer effects.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
You mentioned Germany, theren and I happen to know just
because of some Facebook groups I'm in that, you know,
and your movies have had you know, Echo Bridge and
Milk Creek could put some of them out on DV
especially on kind of compilations. Obviously, you can still find
the vhs floating around on eBay or in different sort
of indie video stores that still kind of crop up

(01:02:09):
around the country. But you know, Germany especially have been
sort of releasing quite a few action hits, not just
PM Entertainment, but quite a few of those eighties and
nineties action things. And there seems to genuinely be an
audience out there. Are you involved at all? Because there's
a company out there focused media I think who are
putting out some media books. I think they've done Ring
of Fire one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
Two and three.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
I think they're doing Guardian Angel and Dark Breed at
the moment they claim to have sort of remastered them
and are working with the original film negatives and things
like that. Is that something you're aware of? Is that
something you're involved in with a film sold off? And
therefore you're not You don't have to be asked about
that stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
What do you know anything?

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
We saw? Yeah, we saw the rights to the film
in two thousand, We saw the whole company. So I
haven't been involved in that. Joe may have, you know,
but I had not been involved in that. Okay, calls
people who wanted to talk, but they all seem to
be I don't know, they just didn't seem that serious.

(01:03:08):
Like where is this going to go? Is this going
to be part of a podcast or do you have
plans for anything I do.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
I do have plans.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
So my initial plan was first of all, to see
if there was any interest from the people behind the scenes, right,
so having finding out to see if you and Joe
and others were interested in talking. So it was getting
as many of you guys on tape. First of all,
my idea is to sort of put together an audio documentary.
I know that a friend of mine, weirdly enough, joe Yannick,

(01:03:39):
some years ago, did a very short for his blog,
an Oral History of PM Entertainment. I think he interviewed
Joe and Richard Munchkin and Don Wilson and a couple
of others. But that blog has since been taken down
and there really isn't anything online that I feel is
a kind of quintessential documentation of PMS. So my idea

(01:04:01):
was to initially do it as an audio documentary, because
I'm already set up for that as a podcaster, as
a film website owner, I was already set up for that.
If there is some if there's more interest in that,
and I hope there is. If there's more interest in that,
my idea will then be Okay, well, let's see if
we can't get some funding together to maybe film a

(01:04:21):
documentary that would be my ultimate goal would be to
actually film something. So I want to use this as
a a for my own gratification, but secondly to put
it out to an audience and say, look, I've got
all these people on tape. This is a fantastic audio documentary.
But wouldn't you rather be filmed. Wouldn't you rather be
able to kind of license some clips of the movies

(01:04:42):
and really sort of get into it and do kind
of what Mark Hartley did with Roger Corman and the
Machete Maidens Unleashed documentary, and then what he did with
his Canon documentary, although I'm not a huge fan of
that because seemingly everyone he interviews in that is very
negative about it, And I'm like, if I'm a fan Canon,
I want to hear people talking positively about it, even if, Yeah,

(01:05:05):
even if there's some bad stories, I don't mind hearing
bad stories. There's always negative things that happen, but in general,
I don't want just people crapping on Canon. I want
to hear good things. But I'd like to do something
like that. Ultimately, there was a documentary recently done called
I Think The last ever Action Heroes or something like that,
But that seemed to use archival footage more than it

(01:05:29):
used new interviews, So I don't know. I'm hoping that
once we got you on the record, we get Joe
on the record, and then you know, obviously my immediate
connections with Don and Cynthia and others get them talking.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
But that's my hope, man.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
My hope would be to put something together that at
least audibly you could sit and listen to for like
a couple of hours and cover PM entertainment and then
use it maybe as a fundraising device to be able
to actually film stuff. Rick, thank you for giving of
your time today. This has been fantastic. I really love
the work you did. I want to be genuine genuinely

(01:06:04):
these movies are, I think, not just a time capsule,
but also in this world of you know, ramped up
CGI and bloated budgets, I think they really stand as
an inspiration to a time when stuff like that could
get done for real, practically and involve incredible skill craftsmen

(01:06:26):
and also everything we've talked about, that kind of gorilla
gung ho leave me out of a helicopter, let's get
it done kind of spirit. So I want to thank
you for that. As an independent film fan, it really
was terrific. And if you have any last words you
want to say about PM Entertainment, what you think it's
legacy is what you hope people discover it, We keep

(01:06:47):
rediscovering it, etceter.

Speaker 1 (01:06:49):
Please say it now and then we can wrap up.

Speaker 3 (01:06:51):
Okay, Well, I'm not sure there's you know, it used
to be when we were on our PEG that I
could turn ONTV and our films were showing on some
cable station something that is, whether it's TNT, and over
the years should see less and less. I'm not sure
I see them anymore. They could come back, but yeah,

(01:07:13):
it seems like there was a while there that every
time I turned to turn on HBO or something, more
of our shows was running, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:07:23):
Run.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
We did have a deal with HBO and that, and
that's one of the things that changed in the big
business too. We used to supply HBO for their action
Thursdays and uh, and then they started doing doing their
own stuff and that that that was a big deal
because I think we were getting in the neighborhood of
eight nine hundred thousand for a premiere at one time,
so and that closed. Again. It's probably we should have

(01:07:47):
gotten more into television and cable, but we didn't. But
that's another story.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
Well, what what you did was fantastic. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
Okay, great, all right, thanks touch Basic.

Speaker 4 (01:08:00):
We'll buy us.

Speaker 2 (01:08:02):
Still an absolutely lovely conversation and I'm so glad we
were able to share that with you. Okay, So coming
up after a few commercials, it will be a very
recent interview that I did with Joseph Mahe where we
talk about all sorts of wonderful things. I think you're
really really going to enjoy it. And as always, if
you've been enjoying these podcasts, please please please rate and
review us. You can support us by sharing all our

(01:08:25):
stuff on socials and obviously if you want to reach out,
you can via our email PM and POD that's PM
E N T PO D at gmail dot com or
leave us a voicemail at three four seven six x
nine zero zero five to three.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Please do rate and.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
Review us and share our stuff on social It's free
and it's the best way to support the show. We
just won't get any bigger without it, so thanks so much,
all right, Jo, thank you for doing this.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
Again.

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Now I take it you're heading out to the memorial tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (01:09:00):
Yes, I am. Actually they were expecting maybe one hundred people,
but now it's like maybe one fifty or more. Wow
that people are coming.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Heah, well, that's wonderful that so many people are showing
up and remembering Rick. And yeah, it's just such a shock,
such a surprise because I think no one saw it coming.
He seemed to be in such good health and you know,
happy and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
So I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
Yeah, he's been I mean he's been retired literally for
twenty five years, and all he did. You know, he
was very active, playing tennis, golf, you know, drives across country.
He will take his bus to Alaska and stay there
for two months, he will. He's extremely active. He's always
been in a good health and very strong. You know,

(01:09:52):
being in the movie business and being a cameraman you
kind of have to slip and you know pick up
your cameras and gear and so on. And he was
he had a stamina. I mean, he was working. You know,
he was very physical. His work was physical. And when
I will be directing, I'm the one who will get

(01:10:13):
tired Before he gets tired. You'll go twelve hours, fourteen hours,
sixteen hours, and he's still you know, you know, happy
and chipper and you know, and let's do it. Let's
keep doing it. You know, he was amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Yeah, And what what do you think you first, like,
when you were all sort of putting together City Lights
and you'd met in Vegas and you were sort of
thinking about doing this properly? What was it about Rick
or what was the discussion about you two in particular,
because I know you had other people you were working with,
like Richard Munskin you were working with and Paul Volkan stuff.

(01:10:50):
What was it about you and Rick that made you say,
let us be the team, lets us be the producers.

Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
What's funny, you asked, because before City Light, I made
a movie called Hollywood in Trouble, which is a stupid
little comedy that I you know, I put fifty thousand
dollars together, and I decided to do this movie just
you know. I'm a pizza guy in Las Vegas. I've
won a couple of Pieterias, and you know, worked my
way up and I wanted to be in the movie business.

(01:11:20):
Of course, I don't think anybody will ever hire me,
so I decided to make a movie. So when I
decided to make the movie, I wrote the script, which
is and I wanted to produce it directed and I'm
looking for a cameraman now. So I put the words
out and Rex showed up, along with two other people,

(01:11:41):
not at the same time. I interviewed three different cameramen,
and Reck was, you know, extremely presentable. He had his truck,
he had his you know, gear with him. He told
me he owns a sixteen millimeter camera that he would
let me use for free if I if, I you know,
if I was to choose him and work with him.

(01:12:03):
He was anxious to you know, to to shoot this
this movie with me. And of course he was the
most experienced one, or much more experience than I am.
I had no clue what to do practically, and but
so so I hired them. I hired them because he

(01:12:23):
had an incredible attitude and you know, read the script,
we talked about it, we talked about different locations, and
and and he was never you know, he never like
took for granted or showed the crew or everybody else,

(01:12:44):
well I know, more than a director, which is he did,
except you know, I you know, you know, he's been
on many sets before. And and then then the very
first day we worked, I had no clue that, you know,
the crew works, it's a twelve hour shift, you know
when you work in the movies. I thought it was
like any other job, eight hours. So after eight hours,

(01:13:06):
I said, okay, Rick, you know, we're done. Thank you
so much. He goes, WHOA, what do you mean we're done?
I said, well, it's been eight hours. He goes, no, no, no, no,
we work twelve hours. Now. The other people they already
said oh, thank you, goodbye. He said, wait a minute,
don't go anywhere. Guys come back, come back. So Rick
protected me. You know, otherwise I would it would have

(01:13:29):
taken me much longer to shoot the movie, probably get
done over budget ors so on. So now, and he
was very sympathetic towards you know, if I say something
that doesn't match, or I want to place the camera
in the place, and he said, you know, if you
want it this way, it's fine, but I think it
needs to be that way. So and so, you know,

(01:13:51):
I love that about him. And then to go further
than that, we finished the movie. I went into editing,
and he had other jobs and he will every two days,
three days. How is it going? How's you know? Anything
I can do? Let me help you. And then he
helped me with coost production. Either he comes over or
just call me on the phone. So it was obvious

(01:14:15):
that when I decided, Okay, this is what I'm gonna do,
because what happened with me, I, you know, finished the
movie and I took it to the major studios. Of course,
you know, back then, if you have a movie finished,
because it's all on film, it's difficult to finish a movie.
So the studio, no matter who you are, if you

(01:14:36):
say I have a movie, you say, well, coming over,
let's let's screen it. And you know they screened it
for me. And you know in twentieth century Fox, I
went to Paramount Picture. Everybody looked at it. Of course
they turned it off after ten minutes. You know, this
is not good, it's not commercial, it's not something that
would want. But just in case, you made a good

(01:14:57):
movie like a Crocodile done. He made a movie in
that movie, I don't know, Goro sixty seventy eighty million dollars, right, So,
but with mine, I realized very quickly I shouldn't do
comedies when I went, I took it to me fed
and in me fed. I you know, I was encouraged
by my distributors. I started meeting with different distributors and

(01:15:22):
they say, you know what, you have an eye. I
think you can make a movie, but make an action
movie or a horror movie. We cannot sell this. So
when I went back and we start raising money, I
said to Rick, I'm going to raise two hundred, two
hundred fifty thousand dollars and made more, four more movies,
and and he said, well, you want a partner. I

(01:15:44):
said yes, let's go over fifty to fifty partners. So
that's how it started. Because of his kindness and his
you know, his approach to you know, work, and loved
making movies, love photography, and he he was he was
like the nicest man. He was unbelievably great, and and

(01:16:08):
we worked together side by side for twenty years and
never never, never had a shouting match or an argument.
You know, Paul Book stayed with us the whole time.
And Paul the first one who called me immediately when
he passed, and then Shelley, his wife, called me, and
Paul the very first thing said he said to me,
he said, you know, I work with you guys every

(01:16:30):
single day, and you guys never had an argument. This
is unbelievable, never disagree. You know, we respected each other.
I listened to what he has to say. I told
him what I have in mind, and they said, okay, fine,
let's do this. That's it was. It was amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:16:49):
Yeah, And what did it day like when you guys
weren't shooting a movie, when you weren't directing, and when
he wasn't necessarily shooting something, but you was still in
the office, what was your and and maybe thinking about
ideas or thinking about trends you might want to follow
us something like that kind of what was your What

(01:17:11):
was the day to day looking like for sort of
pm ED payment and just sort of the running of
the business with the two of you.

Speaker 4 (01:17:19):
Well, it so happened that we never sat down and
divided who's going to do what. But since I went
to Europe, you know, to me FED and Camp Film
Festival and so on, it was like understood it was
for me to go ahead and you know, try to
find out distribution sales because he was really good at

(01:17:42):
you know, production, post production, running the office. So we've
had lunch at least two three times a week when
we were not shooting. We're at the office, and there's
another I just said to my wife, I said, my god,
you know he would order a salad to start. I
hate it. I didn't want to eat salad. He never

(01:18:02):
ate his meal without a salad before. And he will
drink iced tea with no sugar, he you know, with lemon.
So he was much healthier either than I was. And
and he was very very aware of you know, he
loved his tea. Didn't drink much coffee. He loved you know,

(01:18:24):
he made his tea you know, with honey and and
and lemon sometimes. And so what we talked about we
talked about. For example, we made a little movie called
Night of the Wilding Night, Night of the Wilding. It

(01:18:45):
was I read an article that this group of people
attacked this woman or something. I said, ray, what about
if we do this, Let's go to New York and
do it. We've never shot in the movie in New York. Well,
how much do you think we will spend on it?
I said, no, maybe we'll spend seventy five hundred thousand dollars. Okay,
let's do that. So that's how it all started Joe Hart.

(01:19:09):
You know, when Jacob Hart I think, he told he
wrote a movie called Hitman. I think, and and Joe
approached me and he said I have an idea for
a movie. And I said, go ahead and tell it
to me. He goes now, I said yeah. As we're
climbing up the stairs, he told me about you know this,

(01:19:29):
the said man he has his last job where he
has to kill this woman because you had an affair
with a congressman or something, and that was his last
job before he retired. And the guy goes to kill her,
he find out she has a seven year old daughter
and decided not to kill her. And then they were
underrun where everybody else wanted to kill her, so, you know,

(01:19:51):
and I said, okay, we'll do it. So I'll you know,
I tell Direck this is what we're doing. He said, great.
You know, who's going to write the script when we're
going to do it, how we're going to shoot it
was it was a very very very casual situation, you know,
between us and you know, and the action became also

(01:20:12):
like our our mark or our you know, to to
make you know, great action. Because when I went the
first time to Europe and tried to sell a comedy.
I couldn't. So we decided we want to go into
the action genre and we want to have great action.
And Rick loved, loved the action sequences and setting up

(01:20:35):
in different places. I tell you he I never seen
Rick tired or saying I gotta go home now, I'm
so tired or something.

Speaker 3 (01:20:44):
He was.

Speaker 4 (01:20:45):
He was just full of energy.

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
Yeah, And I think when we were talking with the
Steel Frontier directors, they were saying, you know, because I
think both Rick and Ken Blakey or other regular cinematographer
worked on that movie, and they would just swap between
who was doing the stunt work the second unit crew
and who was doing the first unit crew, like they

(01:21:08):
just would whenever they wanted to do whatever they wanted
to do. Rick would oh, I want to shoot this bit,
or you know, Ken would be like, oh, I'd like
to shoot this.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
But they would just.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
Swap off, and everything seemed very collaborative. It seems like
Rick shed your love of collaboration and your love of oh,
if the caterer has a good idea, the caterer can
write a script. Like he seemed very amenable and open
to that is that correct one hundred percent.

Speaker 4 (01:21:37):
Actually they were biggest fight and you really you should
talk to is Ken Blakey Ken shot I don't know
Sidney eighty eighty one hundred, I don't know how many movies. Yeah,
and Ken, Ken was the most amazing him and Rick
for cinematographers, and Ken came from San Francisco and he

(01:21:57):
looked up Rick and Eric said, I don't have anything
for you. I shoot everything and uh. And Ken is
very polite and very nice, and he goes, well, maybe
I can light for you. And Rerek at the time
said what do you think should we bring this guy
to light? And I said, yeah, you know, let him,
let them let's try try. You know, he'll take something

(01:22:19):
off of your plate because Rerek was doing both. And
the guy came in and Ken has the most amazing personality,
just like Wreck and and uh and just at ease
everything like easy with with with Ken. Actually, if you
talk to him, I was directing a movie. I don't
know which one now. He tells the story and he goes, uh,

(01:22:44):
we're like shooting all night. It's three o'clock in the
morning and uh, And I said, I said, Ken, I
need I need a scene I need like a flashback
to Vietnam because the guy was in Vietnam. And I
got just a flashback for like five six seconds, and
you was Vietnam. Where the hell we're going to shoot Vietnam?
And it was like one one little tree, one little tree,

(01:23:07):
just sitting like in the middle of a park. And
I said, there, Ken, that's your Vietnam. Make it work.
I can't tell this story all the time. That's your Vietnam.

Speaker 1 (01:23:19):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:23:23):
So we had, you know, we can't you know, we
had a few actors. They couldn't even stand up because
there's a bathroom behind them or something. So we have
to shoot it if I have to shoot it where
it's down, like, you know, very very aware of the
bombs going next to them and the nightmarish of Vatam.
And we did it. He goes, so he allay. Joe said,

(01:23:47):
that's your Vietnam. Make it happen. You get half an
hour to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
It's remarkable the people you assembled around you, Joe, that
was so able to run with your ideas because your
ideas seem to come from what you know, Jenkison heart.
Whenever I talked to him and Joe and I have
talked quite quite a few times now since starting the show,
and we're friends on Facebook and things.

Speaker 4 (01:24:10):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
He always says that it was sort of you that
came to him with ideas and then he would kind
of flesh them out and write them and then come
back to you, and you would you know, it seems
to me like ideas come very thick and fast to you.
So it's incredible that you had these people around you
that were so quick footed they could always move wherever
you wanted to go and figure it out.

Speaker 4 (01:24:31):
It seems well, he's absolutely right, because we were all
a bunch of literally we're not kids, but like kids
in a candy store. You know, we're all anxious to
make a movie. They want to make a movie, We
want to be on the set. Everybody loves to be it.
So we're constantly thinking about what is the next movie,
because the next movie has to be next month. I

(01:24:53):
took my wife to see a movie one day, and
you know, back twenty five years ago, thirty years ago. Yeah,
and I'm sitting with her in the movie and they're
showing the trailers and one of the detective goes, oh,
we have a zero tolerance policy. Yeah, I said, this

(01:25:14):
is zero tolerance. What a great title. Zero. I said,
I'll be back. I went to the lobby. I borrowed
a pen and papers, and I you know, she came
out like an hour later. She said, what the hell
where'd you go? And I wrote, I wrote, you know,
eighteen pages on zero tolerance, which is Robert Patrick's he started,

(01:25:37):
never be you know, you know, two months later we
were shooting with Robert Patrick from It was like that
all the time, like somebody will say, you know, let's
do a movie on what this or that or you know, okay,
let's do it. Let's do it. How we get out,
then we build a movie around it. Another person should
talk to is Charlie king Gannis. Charlie king Gannis and

(01:25:58):
I and now I forget that we made over one
hundred movies, so and and but I remember and Charlie
tell the story. It was an idea and I said,
we need to write the script. He said, okay, I said,
what are you doing this weekend? He said why? I said,
we need to write the script this weekend. You know.

(01:26:18):
So so so we said to Charlie and I and
it was a typewriters back then in okay, I can't type.
And we flushed out a you know, a movie, yeah,
a script. Many times, it's fantastic many times. I made
the movie I think called The Rage Rage with Gary

(01:26:40):
Daniel and and I handed to my line producer or
producer at the time, and she said, this is sixty pages.
We need eight eighty five. I said, yeah, yeah, the
rest will come. Don't worry about it. It just.

Speaker 2 (01:26:57):
Sparah will fill the rest up with with tru trases
and and you know, exactly skyscraper action scenes.

Speaker 4 (01:27:06):
And things exactly. And with Rage, we had another big
action at the end, and we were in the in
the in them all, yeah, in them all, and and
I said, oh, ship, let's just finish it now. We're
not going to do another action. Let's just finish. So,
you know, we told the rest of two days later

(01:27:26):
we had to you know, more more action sequences, and
I said, enough, we got enough. Let's just finished the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:27:33):
And so and it's now one of your most especially
amongst the action fandom and action fan base, it's probably
your most well loved and successful movie.

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
Rageous.

Speaker 4 (01:27:47):
Yeah, And we made it up. It was just made up, literally,
and and and in that was in Long Beat. There's
there's an indoors shopping center in Long I got to
talk to the manager and he was a movie buff.
He wanted to you know, Heim himself wanted to be
an actor or something. So I told him about it.

(01:28:09):
He goes, yeah, I got to run at my corporate.
I said, no, they're gonna you know, I just shoot it.
Corporate is gonna He said, oh, man, I get fired.
I said, if you get fired, I'll hire you. You're
not gonna get fired. So so he he let us shoot.
He said from what time? I said, you know, before
the people come, like from eight o'clock in the morning.

(01:28:30):
We'll shoot like three four hours. So then we went
over and Gary was jumping from balcony to down. We're
doing all these huge crazy stunts. Then I said, uh,
the guy's name is Jim. I said, Jim, we have
to shoot some some guns. And now now the mall

(01:28:50):
is open, is open, it's open. He goes, I said,
you know, it's it's it's it's you know, it's fake.
He just make a little sound. Now we had machine guns,
and we had guns, and he goes, okay, man, go
ahead and do it. You know, I said, okay, thanks. Okay.
Then all of a sudden, no warning, nothing, because we

(01:29:12):
want the extras in the back, we start firing guns.
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (01:29:20):
So one of the things that I've noticed Joseph to
talk about Rick was that a lot of the ones
he directed, because obviously he shot a ton and obviously
produced all of them, but he directed I think about
fifteen out of the regular PM run and they all
seemed to be or a lot of them seemed to

(01:29:41):
be more on the sci fi side of things. So,
whether it's CyberTracker or The Sender or whatever. So I'm
presuming Rick loved science fiction and that was one of the.

Speaker 4 (01:29:51):
Things he loved sci fi, Yes, which is I hated
I couldn't do one. I you know, I like practical
stories or you know, real stories.

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:30:02):
So yeah, Well, one day he told me, why don't
we do this? I said, I said, I don't want
to do this. He said, okay, I'll do it. I
see you one directed. He was, yeah, it's a great
and it started that. That's how it started. Yeah, because
I think he did.

Speaker 2 (01:30:17):
Yeah, cyber Tracker wanted two Dark Breed with Jack Scaleer
and The Sender with Michael Madson and a few of them,
and then of course Y two K, and they all
sort of have a sci fi side to them. And
you know, what's always interesting, I think is when PM
does something a little different to just the action films,

(01:30:38):
even if it's a sci fi action film or a
bigfoot action film or a you know whatever. It is
when you kind of go off and do something that's
a little different to a regular PM film like Rage,
I think it always adds that extra interest for the
audience because you get kind of a different genre, but
you still get all the action.

Speaker 4 (01:30:55):
Yes, yes, yeah. He did a great job with the genre,
which is I don't you know, I really don't get
I don't like the sci fi.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
But that was that was Rick's thing, and and it
seemed that the WAYPM was, if Rick was like, well
I'm going to direct this one, or you know, well
this is the one I want to do, he could
just go away and do it and it was fine
for you.

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
It was just the more movies, the better kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (01:31:20):
Well, I mean he was he was fifty to fifty
partners with me. He has a say you know as well,
and I respected him so much that if he said
I want to do this I said, good, have fun
with it, let's do it. And I supported it in
every way. Sometimes I will work like a second unit
on some of this. You know. He will say to me,
I needed to shoot this, this shot I missed or something,

(01:31:42):
or can you come and do that one, or you know,
and of course you know I was, I was there.

Speaker 3 (01:31:46):
I go and do it for him.

Speaker 4 (01:31:50):
It's our movie, it's our company. So that's that's how
it worked. And you know, I don't know. People know well,
the crew knows that Reck has an incredible dry sense
of humor, incredible dry sense of humor, you know, and he,
you know, will it makes fun.

Speaker 3 (01:32:10):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:32:10):
For example, when we've had very very when we started
where we're going to make our first or second movie,
and Reck was a reader. He read the newspapers and
he reads a Variety or Hollywood Reporter. And withn't this
little rundown office. We have a little warehouse so we

(01:32:33):
can house the equipment or something. We're making our first
or second sixteen millimeter And he has his foot on
the desk and he's reading Variety, and he said, to me,
can you believe this? I said, what is it? Because
Michael Eisner Disney just gave him fifteen million dollars bonus.

(01:32:54):
Fifteen million dollars when we're going to make that kind
of money, I mean, we run the Mickey Mouse Company.

Speaker 1 (01:33:06):
That's fantastic. That's a great line.

Speaker 4 (01:33:10):
And he had a hundred of those, a hundred of those.
He was one time we're setting up and so on,
and one of the grip is uh is in between shots,
is sitting on the floor and he's cutting his fingernails

(01:33:32):
and he's you know, he's working on his finger nails.
You know, we're waiting and the guy's name is Jared.
I said, Jared, I saw a girl out. Is that
your girlfriend? And Rick said, no, no, that's not his girlfriend.
He's giving a manicure to his girlfriend right now. He

(01:33:56):
had hundreds of these, you know things that he will
say very dry humor. Yeah, it was very very funny.

Speaker 2 (01:34:06):
Well, the Canadians are known for having a great sense
of humor.

Speaker 4 (01:34:10):
Yeah, yeah, the Canadians have a great sense of humor.

Speaker 1 (01:34:13):
So that's always good to know.

Speaker 2 (01:34:15):
And you know, the other the other thing, I guess
Joseph that that really stands out with us who watched
the films. As you know, a lot of them are
being released now on Blu Ray out of Switzerland, and
I've been watching a ton of them that that.

Speaker 1 (01:34:33):
That gets sent to me.

Speaker 2 (01:34:34):
And what the Blu Rays have really allowed me to
do in a way that I didn't think I'd ever
be able to do is just see Rick and Ken's
cinematography in such a lush, rich way, and the fact
that watching some of these it's, you know, on Blu Ray,
you really go, oh, my goodness.

Speaker 1 (01:34:55):
And I think what sets PM.

Speaker 2 (01:34:56):
Apart is sort of what we call that sort of
PM look. Do you remember a lot of discussion about
sort of the look of things or whatever, or was
it just something that Ken and Rick, having worked together
so closely, kind of just had a shorthand and came
up with instinctively, or was there genuinely a feel of
we have to make this look a bit more cinematic.

(01:35:19):
We have to do the long lenses, the deep blur
and the background, all the stuff that I see now
when I'm watching The Blue Round and I go, my goodness,
see Rick could shoot the hell out of the film.

Speaker 4 (01:35:30):
Well, you know what it's like, you know, growing in
your own home and your mother is an incredible cook,
and you eat and you take it for granted, and
you think that's the norm. Anywhere you go, it's going
to be incredible food. Well I didn't know anything but
Rick and Ken and these guys so underrated, underrated that yeah,

(01:35:56):
I mean they do miracle in fifteen minutes. Yeah, in
fifteen minutes, half an hour, you know, see miracles, I mean,
and they make it look so incredible. I took it
for granted till I start working, you know, for other people.
You know, I work as a consultant after we sold PM,

(01:36:16):
and then I see, you know, I worked on fifty
million dollar movie, you know, the whole ten yards, you know,
I you know I did. I did other movies. You know,
I worked on Jason Statham, you know, movies. And I
see these people who are getting tons of money director
of photographies or producers, and they don't know shit. I mean,

(01:36:38):
they don't know anything. I'm sorry to say this word.
You know very very little about They have budget of
thirty million, twenty million, forty million, and what they do
is like takes forever. I was going nuts. I was
going crazy, even like a little hit in Vancouver. They
had just one car hitting another car, like six meetings

(01:37:02):
and safety meeting, which is I am all for. You
need the safety meetings, you need to make sure nobody
get hurt. And then you see the car. It's like
my grandmother had the car. It dented it, and it's like,
are you kidding me? This is this is what happened
after three hours of meetings and safety and it's like
we used to do.

Speaker 2 (01:37:22):
Let's get Sparrow, will call s mackay on the phone
and have them come up and do it in ten minutes.

Speaker 4 (01:37:27):
Oh my god, oh my god. We did the movie.
I forget which one, but we lost the location one time.
We have a chase. We have a chase and cars
and so on and Spiro and you know, we lost it.
We couldn't do it. The permit wasn't righted and we're
parked in the parking lot. I think it's the longest

(01:37:52):
action sequence. I think parking lot or a warehouse. I said,
let's do I said, Spero, you're doing the chase scene
indoor in in I think it was a wheelhouse. I
forget the name of the movie.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
There's a few that have there's a few that have
parking lot chases, but I don't know what one.

Speaker 4 (01:38:12):
Spiro did and and and and and we did one
where at the end, I think this particular one was
like six story parking lot and at the end, Gary
Daniels goes out the four story a car goes down below.
Oh that's right, is it Riot?

Speaker 1 (01:38:31):
That's Riot.

Speaker 2 (01:38:32):
Yeah, they just released that on Blu Ray. That looks
incredible on Blu Ray. Ken's night shooting on Riot on
I presume that was the Paramount stages or something where
you filmed some of that. Yes, Ken's cinematography on that film,
especially at night. Ken seemed really good at nighttime photography.

(01:38:56):
But that movie looks incredible now on Blue. And that
sequence where Gary Daniels lights a motorbike guy on fire,
and while still on fire, he gets back on the
motorbike and Chase's Gary Daniels down the street only to
obviously hit a car, explode and go flying over the car,

(01:39:20):
all while still on fire. I think my jaw didn't
leave the floor for ten minutes. I was like, that's amazing.

Speaker 4 (01:39:28):
And you know, we've never had one green screen shot.
We don't know anything about computers, we never had computer rise.
Everything you see is real, one hundred percent real. Yeah,
it's amazing. So I took all this guy's effort and
talent for granted. I thought, oh, everybody does that. It's
like your mom, you know, cooking is great, then you

(01:39:50):
go and say, wait, wait a minute. You know I
took her for granted because food is not always great. Well,
Wreck and Ken's photography and the time that they do it,
like I will say, we need, you know, record Ken,
I said, we need to shoot this, and you know,
he said, okay, well we need like half an hour,

(01:40:11):
half an hour, Come on, guys. You know, we were
shooting Zero Tolerance in in in an insurance company where
they had like five hundred desks and I wanted that
look as the the FBI headquarters or something, and so

(01:40:31):
we rented it and we're shooting and somebody came to me.
He said, there's you know, there's a there's a crew
from Paramount looking at the same location. Can they go through?
You know at lunch? I said, of course. You know,
now this is a huge warehouse with five hundred desk
or something. And now I hear the director and I

(01:40:52):
heard he said, he said, we can't shoot it in
two days. They're saying they're talking them like I'm eat dropping.
He said, we need to we light we need we
need the light this place. You need a couple of days.
I said, excuse me, because yes, I said, I said,
I mean this is an office, right, Why do you

(01:41:12):
need two days too? I'm just curious. Why do you
need two days to light it? He said, you know,
we turned all the forensic lights off and and we
have you know, big lights, and you know, I said,
but they already let and looks like an office. I said,
you want to see some of the stuff we shot
on this And they looked at each other like, you know,

(01:41:34):
the studio don't think like this. They think, you know,
the director of photography thinks I'm going to give it
a special look. Turn everything off. They need two days,
just delighted. Well, they're not going to get two days delighted.
Then they can't shoot. They're not going to shut down
this place. And they said, so what do you suggest?
I said, keep the fucking lights on and shoot. That's it.

(01:41:55):
Oh man, you know they get forty million dollars budget. Yeah,
and they figured out how they can waste it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:42:03):
No, it is remarkable, Joseph.

Speaker 2 (01:42:05):
And again, just you know, because we've been talking a
lot about amongst us fans, but also amongst the sort
of the PM entertainment people who I've been speaking to
now for the last few months and who have become
just very close and supportive of the show and everything
like that. You know, first, first of all, the team
you had around you, the people you had working for you,
that they are this lovely and supportive and communicative to

(01:42:28):
someone like myself trying to just put together a show.
That is a testament to the people you had working
for you, just fantastic people. I've not had one bad
experience really trying. Once I got hold of people. I mean, yeah,
it's been difficult sometimes getting hold of people. Once you
get hold of people, I've not had one bad experience.
And then the other thing We've been talking a lot

(01:42:49):
about Rix Legacium. It is truly remarkable what you guys
were able to achieve. I'm not just saying this because
I'm some guy who likes action movies. I love all movies.
I love Kubrick movies, and you know Francis for Cobbler
movies and Jim Jarmusch movies.

Speaker 1 (01:43:06):
You know, I watch all sorts of things.

Speaker 2 (01:43:08):
And you know, what you were able to achieve on
the budgets you had with the time that you had
was was truly incredible and deserves this deserves reimagining and
rediscovering and celebrating. I guess the only question I have
left on about sort of you and Rick is more
to say, you know, when you sold PM and sort

(01:43:31):
of walked away from it a little bit, what were
those few months after that? Did you guys talk about
I don't know, pivoting and doing movies in a different way.
Did you guys talk about the legacy of PM? Did
you guys have you guys talked in the last twenty
years about sort of the legacy that you guys have
created or whether there was any interest in it. Sort

(01:43:54):
of some of those conversations if that, if they even happened.

Speaker 4 (01:43:58):
It did happen. But let me answer you you about
the crew. You know, it's the same thing the people
who work with us. It was exactly the same thing
that Rick and Ken photography is taken for granted you
think this is the norm. This was the norm, and
so I was pretty much you know, hiring you know

(01:44:20):
a lot of people myself, they come to me and
when you give people when they say what's your dream? Well,
I want to write what's your dream? I want to
be a director of ptography. What's your dream? John Kelly,
who is, you know, a very very big producer now
makes all Sean Penn movies and different movies. He came
to me and he said, I want to learn how

(01:44:41):
to make movies. I want. I said, what do you
do now? He said, I'm an accountant. I said, are
you a good accountant? He goes, I'm a very good accountant,
but that's not what I want to do. I want
to make movies. I said, okay, John, I give you
I sit. I'll make a deal with you. He said,
what is it? I said, you work as an accountant
for one year, so you know how much the camera

(01:45:04):
rental cost, how much this guy makes, how much location.
You learn about this first from the money point of view,
and I guarantee you one year from now you will
be a producer in a movie. And totally forgot about it.
One year to the day. I see John Kelly. You
should look him up. Look at his credit. He has
a huge credit. You know, make big movies. And John

(01:45:25):
Kelly is is in a suit and I said, what
the hell? And his big smile on himself on his face.
I said, what's going on? Why are you in a suit?
Because so I'm ready to produce. Now it's been one
year and I said, okay, John, you're a producer. The

(01:45:48):
deal is a deal. So so what what I did?
You know, I really talked to these guys, say what
is it you want to do when I want to
do this, I want to do that. You know, we
are we were open to any suggestions. So they felt heard.
They felt that they can grow the company. They felt

(01:46:09):
they can produce, they can do whatever they want. They
can direct. You know, Art Camache was, you know, a
fight coordinator. He said, I want to direct. Okay, we'll
give you a shot at directing. You know, that's what
it was so nice about. We were family. You know,
I had two rules. I had two rules at PM Entertainment,

(01:46:30):
with my crew, with my crew when I hired them.
You know, we did all these movies. We hired hundreds
and hundreds hundreds of people. I think I fired two
people too. We never fire anybody. You know, if John,
if I see you, you're not doing your job. I said, John,
it seems unhappy here. This is not good for them.

(01:46:50):
A hole we're going to give you two weeks, you know,
pay go find another job, right, and then John Will saying,
you know, well, you know I broke up with my growth.
I said, well, just thought to me, were just talking
talked to us, you know, just so it was one
thing just personally when I used to hire people and
I said, don't like to me, don't lie to me,

(01:47:12):
and don't steal from me, and we'll get a long fun.
Just don't lie if I tell you. If you dropped
the lens and you broke five thousand dollars lenth, just
say I broke it, don't put it back in the
in the bag. Then we discovered as broke you know
the rental house call said, you know, Joseph, I fucked up.

(01:47:33):
I just dropped the fucking dance. I'll deal with it.
You're never getting get fired for that because you didn't
do it on purpose. So really what I was very
very lucky to get all these incredible people that just
I mean, we couldn't we couldn't do anything without these people.
I mean we owe everything to these people worked for

(01:47:54):
us and worked with us and became what they became.
And there was like a school. It was like a
school now, you know, for everybody. We hired everybody not
based on their experience, based on that's what I want
to do. And okay, welcome to the you know, let's
do it. And and and if you were on our
set and you say, I don't know, we're waiting for

(01:48:18):
something and we need an astray for the scene, five
people were running getting astray. It's not like we have
to say that the PA go get an astray and
we wait for him. You know. They were they were,
we were a team, we were a family.

Speaker 3 (01:48:32):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (01:48:33):
Now, in terms of after we sold PM Entertainment, okay,
before we sold PM about a year earlier, I was
totally fried. I was, I was, I was. I wasn't
doing my job. I wasn't really contributing anymore. I was
completely out of it, you know. And and because here's

(01:48:58):
something I didn't know again, and I didn't take into
accounting that you need your vacation, you need to I
used to go to Europe, Land, do the show, finish,
get on the plane, come back, and while I'm there,
I'm thinking of the next movie or meeting with somebody else.
So I was completely completely out of it. Completely. I

(01:49:20):
couldn't we could have sold it for a lot more money.
At one time, I just wanted out. So when I
was out, I did not want to do any more movies.
I did not want to do anything right now. And
I start, you know, just wanted to raise my family.
My son was just born, and thank god we had

(01:49:41):
I mean we you don't have tons of money, but
we have enough money to live nicely. And so reckon
I we will talk. Rick bought like two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars bus, you know, beautiful bus. He started
going to Alaska and different places. He bought a shopping center,

(01:50:02):
he bought a couple of other things, and he said,
that's it for me. I don't want to you know,
I want to retire. I want to take it easy.
Also worked extremely hard. So we will talk once in
a while. And then out of the blue, I was
approached to produce Rodney Dangerfields movies. We did two movies

(01:50:26):
for Rodney Danger Small Movies, and then when I was
doing the whole ten yards, I was in charge with
the production and they brought me in because the budget
was like fifty two million, fifty four million, and they
brought me in to say, you know what, we need
to cut the budget. Ten million dollars, we cannot cut
to Bruce Wallace, he was getting seventeen million, five hundred thousand. Wow, okay,

(01:50:49):
we can't cut what's her name? I think three million
or two million, one million. So so I said okay,
And they were going supposed to go to Canada, and
I said, we can shoot it here, you know, I
just shoot it here, And I started cutting the budget
that I was in charge of the budget. I was

(01:51:11):
I have a little bit of say yeah, although although
people look at me like, what the hell you're doing
here with a fifty million dollar movie? You make a
movie for five hundred thousand dollars. But the guy who was,
you know, the boss of the film who called the shot,
he knew how well we did with budgets and we

(01:51:31):
can bring into the table. That's why they hire me.
And they were paying me thirty five thousand dollars a week,
which is a look like a lot of money, but
it's not. If you cut the budget, two million or
three million dollars ten weeks is only three fifty. Again,
it's a lot of money, right, but when you save,
you save the production five million dollars, seven million dollars whatever.

(01:51:54):
So I called the rec and I said, Rek, why
don't you come and DP the movie? You know, the
physician pays fifteen thousand dollars a week. You know it's
going to be ten twelve weeks. We'll have fun again.
He said, oh okay, thank you man. And he gets
really excited about it, and literally a couple of hours

(01:52:15):
later he called me Sis, Joseph, I don't want to
do this. I'm done.

Speaker 3 (01:52:20):
Oh wow, okay.

Speaker 4 (01:52:23):
So he really he had a good head on his shoulder.
He decided, you know, this is it. They tried a
little bit here and there and decided, you know what,
thet me enjoy my family, They me enjoy my And
he loved, loved, loved his wife, Shelly. He loved her.
He was he was incredibly loyal, faithful. I don't think

(01:52:47):
he's ever said no to her on anything. She's just
yeah whatever, Yeah, he's said. That's the kind of person
he was. He was really what you see is what
you get. He was very very beautiful, faithful, great partner,
and he would be very messed. Actually, yeah, the the news.

(01:53:10):
I mean, we weren't talking every day or you know,
sometimes two months will go by without talking. But whenever
we talked with Joke and we stayed on the phone
for an hour, and he was so lucky, so lucky
that I had met him.

Speaker 2 (01:53:26):
Yeah, and it's great that you stayed in touch all
these years. And it wasn't you know, even though you
didn't work together again that it was it was still
a friendship and and a partnership that endured.

Speaker 4 (01:53:40):
Yeah. One time he called me maybe I don't know,
I think it was during COVID or just before COVID.
He said, he said, you know, we did La Heat,
the television series, and he said, well, why don't we
have like a gathering, get dinner, you know, call everybody
anywhere you want to do it. I said, do it
in my house. So they all came here and we

(01:54:00):
had a nice dinner and kind of reflect a little bit.
And you know, once in a while when we were talking,
we always reflect about different movies, different ways, different things
that happen, and we laugh, you know, and giggle about
you know that time. But he enjoyed his life, you know,
he really did. He enjoyed every single day with his family. Yeah.

(01:54:25):
I was hoping he will be here for another fifteen
twenty years.

Speaker 3 (01:54:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:54:29):
Lastly, then Joe and thank you so much for your
time today. It's been really really wonderful and lots of
great stories we can use. But lastly, then, do you feel,
especially with potentially the Blu Rays, meaning that there'll be
more appreciation of the movies and the podcast and other
stuff and more interest in this and I know that

(01:54:50):
my friend Corey is writing a book and things like that.
Do you finally feel and do you think that Rick
and you were feeling kind of creatively complete as well?

Speaker 1 (01:55:00):
I know obviously you worked super hard on.

Speaker 2 (01:55:03):
PM and you were both kind of burnt out and
you didn't want to kind of go back to that.

Speaker 1 (01:55:06):
But now when you look back on.

Speaker 2 (01:55:08):
It, do you feel creatively satisfied that you got to
make all the things you wanted to make and tell
all the stories you wanted to make, and just how
you and Rick personally felt about creatively about what you achieved.

Speaker 4 (01:55:22):
You know, John, you have to ask this question to
my wife because she used to get so frustrated with
so frustrated with me. She'll come to the set and
she will be, Oh, I can't believe you guys do this?
I said, what she goes?

Speaker 3 (01:55:34):
This said?

Speaker 4 (01:55:34):
I said, Dahlia, I said, Dalia, anybody can do this shit.
What are we doing so special? It's nothing anybody, So
he goes, no, anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:55:43):
Can do this shit.

Speaker 4 (01:55:44):
And that's how we felt, to be honest with you,
we never felt to a special at all. We never
felt that we were created. You know. We used to
look at you know, pulp fiction, say oh my god,
can you imagine us making a movie like this or
something like that. This is the real art. So no,
the answer to your question, I'm shocked now when people

(01:56:05):
see the shows or the movies and they call me
and say, oh my god, I can't believe you guys
did this. So but us doing it? We felt like
we're a couple of peasants who never went to school,
never went to film school, never did anything, and we
just you know, we're just workers. We never felt superior

(01:56:27):
or you know, or creative or no.

Speaker 3 (01:56:31):
Never.

Speaker 2 (01:56:33):
Well, I think that what comes across then is the
authenticity of that. I think there is something about that
mindset where you're not thinking to yourself. You know, listen,
I love Tarantino movies as much as the next film geek.
But I think Tarantino sits down to himself and says,
I'm amazing. I'm an artist. I'm going to do something

(01:56:54):
that's going to revolutionize movies. And then we all watch
them and we go, yeah, they're cool and everything quentum,
but like, could you be less full of yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:57:02):
Please?

Speaker 2 (01:57:03):
There's no authenticity to them, there's not. The voice that
he has in his movies is very samey. You know,
once you've heard it once, the magic trick is revealed,
and then it's just the same thing over and over again.
I think with you guys just thinking like being what
I call like just workmen like or just jobbing filmmakers

(01:57:23):
or whatever you want to call it, there's an authenticity
to that. And I think that you guys solved problems
in an interesting way, because being a director or being
a producer is ninety percent just solving problems or answering questions.
And I think you guys solved problems and answered questions
in an interesting way. But not only that, but you
were backed up by this incredible wealth of talent that

(01:57:47):
you had nurtured and supported. Whether you thought of yourselves
that way or not, you and Rick nurtured and supported
an incredible school of talent that has gone on to
become incredibly success, and you gave opportunities to people that
wouldn't have had opportunities otherwise, both in front of and
behind the camera.

Speaker 4 (01:58:06):
And I think I know that in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:58:09):
At large, Tarantino is the one that's going to get
all the praise and the plaudits and the and the
you know, people writing about them and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (01:58:19):
But I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:58:20):
For me and my fellow film fans and things like that,
we'd much rather you and Rick any day of.

Speaker 4 (01:58:26):
The week and twice on Sundays.

Speaker 2 (01:58:28):
Honestly, I'm not just saying that because you've been kind
of generous to me, but I'm saying that because I
genuinely mean it. There's an authenticity and a respect we
have for your filmmaking that's that's different to the ones
who go out on the red carpet and tell everyone
how great they are.

Speaker 4 (01:58:45):
You know what I mean? Thank you well. One time,
one time I forgot the last name Michael the director
who did Bad Boys. Who did Michael Bay? Michael Bay. Okay, Mike,
So Spiro is doing Bad Boys with him or something.
I don't know which movie he's doing.

Speaker 1 (01:59:05):
I think he does Bad too.

Speaker 4 (01:59:06):
I think I think so you have Bad Boys too.
So Spiro, you know, I see him often, you know,
every time we have a chance. He likes to play
tennis and peopleball and I do too. So see him
and he goes because you know, we're studying that scene
we did with them, we're going to do it and
Bad Boys and Michael, you know, watch it like ten times.

(01:59:27):
And I show him, you know, with the toy camera.
I say, you're so full of ship. Because no, he
wants to meet you. I say, you're so full of
ship so so so he said, I'm telling you, and
I said okay, And he invited me to the to
the premiere and and Michael, you know, walked by me

(01:59:47):
and he goes. He goes. Spiro goes, Michael, this is
Joseph Mary. Oh my god. He goes, Oh, it was
very nice to meet you, sir. I said, oh, thank you.
And you know, and Spiro said, tell him how we
duplicate the scene. He goes, yeah, we watched it like
ten fifteen times and we looked at it and you know,

(02:00:09):
I loved what you guys did and and said, oh, okay,
thank you. That's one time. What do you feel like, Oh,
maybe we did something special. But me me, Me and Rick.
We always thought, honestly, we're just grab a sandwich. He

(02:00:31):
loved his beer once in a while when he finished,
have a beer, have a tea, and we made fun of,
you know, us doing what we're doing. The guys were
always we were always laughing and giggling, and it's you know, like,
you know, kids have the opportunity to go and play
in the mud, and that's what we were.

Speaker 2 (02:00:52):
Well, you were fantastic at doing it and talking about
big Hollywood movies imitating you guys. I don't know for
a fact that anyone did this, but you did two movies,
Last Man Standing and Dark Breed that both featured stunts
where someone was being dragged behind like a truck or

(02:01:13):
an armored vehicle on I think in Last Man Standing
it's on bags of money and the stunt man is
like flying all around and stuff on bags of money
on a long chain hanging off the back of the
armored vehicle. And in Dark Breed he's on a satellite dish.
Jack Skillier's characters on a satellite dish being dragged behind
a car. Both those movies were made about two years

(02:01:35):
two and a half years before Lethal Weapon four comes
out and in Lethal Weapon four, Mel Gibson's character is
literally being dragged behind a truck, holding on a upturned table,
a four legged table, holding on to plastic, being dragged
behind a truck. And it's a PM gag through and through.

(02:01:56):
It looks like PM. It's shot like PM. It has
the same kind of stunt his PM. So I've got
to believe that if one of your stunt guys didn't
work on leath a weapon for, one of your stunt
guys told someone who worked on leath the weapon for
how to do the stunt, because it's it's picture picture,
the picture exactly the same as last.

Speaker 4 (02:02:17):
Man standing, the stuntman, stuntman who's doing who did this?
His name? His name is Denny Pierce. Yeah, Denny and
I and my wife and his girlfriend had dinner last night.
Denny was telling my wife. Denny was telling my wife
how you know I fired Spirou two three times, and

(02:02:39):
how he was arguing Joe's arguing with Spiro about when
he told him he's going to go fifty five miles
an hour, okay on the Long Beach Freeway and he's
gonna he's gonna head the armored truck and he's going
to jump inside. Yeah. And I said to Spiro, you're
out of your mind. And he said, there's no we're

(02:03:00):
going to do this. You know you're going to kill
this guy. No way, and and and then he's next
to me, and Spiro said, he wants to do it.
He knows what he's doing. He wants to do it.
And I said, no, he doesn't want to do it.
You told him to do it. So he's going to say, yeah, yeah,
I can do it. Then you don't have to do this.
He goes, no, no, no, I want to do it.
I said, Denny, you don't have to do this. I
don't want to do this. Spireau. He goes, we already

(02:03:22):
said it, that man. And Spiro if he has something
in mind. By the way, he's a genius. Yeah, I
mean he made you know, he's a genius. He knows
if he can tell a story, he will be the
greatest director every but and and Spiro he said, no, no,
we're doing it. We're doing to do it. And I said, say,
I couldn't even dare to look at it. I couldn't

(02:03:44):
believe this guy's going to go he has to go
fifty five miles an hour. The truck has to go
fifty three miles an hour at one point when he
hits it directly and he's going to head it and
go into the back of the truck and fight with
these two guys, then that's from out again. It's it's
I said, Denny, you're out of your goddamn mind. I mean,

(02:04:07):
how did we were talking about this last night? Yeah,
we were talking about this last night.

Speaker 1 (02:04:12):
That's incredible, like.

Speaker 4 (02:04:15):
You know, yes, Okay, Well, well, my friend, it.

Speaker 2 (02:04:20):
Inspired a lot. Well, Joe, thank you so much. You've
been a real pleasure again to speak to you. Leaving
the Entertainment Podcasts.

Speaker 4 (02:05:06):
J C. SNA

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Episode 17 - The P & M Interviews - Our Rick Pepin Celebration Part 2

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 17 - The P & M Interviews - Our Rick Pepin Celebration Part 2