Episode 9 - Land of the Free - The PM Entertainment Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You have had the Entertainment podcast. Hello, and welcome to

(01:03):
an all new episode of the PM Entertainment Podcast. The
show that realizes that a somewhat compromise soundtrack can't dwindle
the sheer ecstatic to light of throwing an aging stuntman
under a car at high speed, that every dead dog,
no matter how obviously taxidermit, needs to be fully avenged
with furious anger and a ton of C four And
the show that does such exhaustive deep dives on previously

(01:23):
thought of as either obscure or throwaway shelf stuffers in
the bloated action section of your nineteen nineties video store,
that we sincerely hope to elevate them to legendary and
vital film status for decades to come to the point
where even Ivy League institutions might teach courses in the
speed of Jeff Speakman's arms and why a school bus
makes an excellent getaway vehicle. I refer, of course, to

(01:47):
the company that literally gives this podcast its name, from
the minds of those Explosion and Car Chase Barnum and
Bailey's Rick Peppin and Joseph May the p and the
m of PM entertainment host John Cross and don't forget.
If you like the show, please remember to rate and
review us on any of the podcasting platforms you use,

(02:07):
share our Facebook and Instagram posts, like comment, and you
can contact us via email. Pmentpod at gmail dot com.
That's PM e ntpod at gmail dot com. This week
we introduce a new PM Entertainment all Star. Onto the show,
we delve into the world of dirty politics and even
dirtier hairpieces. We ask why a campaign manager would be faster, stronger,

(02:30):
and more able to slap a badon into next week
than your own head of security. Our jaws are slack.
As Captain Kirk himself is drowned in a pond, we
wonder if this movie was somehow a precursor to John
Wick and we move into the later era of PM,
where they still have a lot of gas in the tank,
but the school bus they're trying to escape in might
not get as far as you'd like. We're talking, of course,

(02:51):
all about Land of the Free. It's from nineteen ninety
eight and marks the PM debut of mister Kempo himself,
Jeff Speakman. It's the only directorial credit for PM a
veteran of seventies TV series, eighties TV movies, and nineties
TV series and TV movies. Jerry jameson and was written
by the minds and typewriters behind the Corey Feldman and

(03:11):
Corey Haynes video classic Busted. Maria James, one of the writers,
also occasionally acted and apparently appeared in two episodes of
Wurzel Gummage Down Under as Eloise in nineteen eighty nine.
But somewhere in my head is telling me that that's
just IMDb messing up, but who knows could be. It's
also a movie that is littered with familiar names and
faces in small but pivotal parts. There's Charles Robinson, who

(03:35):
you might all know as Mac from Night Court, Gary
Carlos Savantes, who had previously shown up in Commando, Extreme Prejudice,
Beverly Hills, Cop two, Police Academy six, City Under Siege,
One Man, Forced Death Warrant and Mark for Death. Renowned
director Arthur Hiller makes a cameo. We talk about him
and his luxurious hair more in the show. Clint and
Ron Howard's dad Rance Howard, who as well as a

(03:58):
career dating back to the late fifties and early sixties,
and a performance as Ninja Negotiator in nineteen ninety one's
Nine and a Half. Ninjas also appeared in the following
PM Entertainment films Forced to Kill Bigfoot, The Unforgettable Encounter,
Tiger Hart Busted, and The Sender, as well as the
Olivia Gruner Vehicle Servate, which was not produced by PM

(04:19):
Entertainment but was produced by FM Entertainment, so it felt
close enough to get a mention here. And lastly, Bernie Copple,
who is most known as Doctor Bricker from The Love Boat.
Our guest this week is the same guest as we
had last week, so really requires very little introduction at
this point except to say that as the writer and
host of the Director Video Connoisseur blog and podcast, the

(04:41):
Man most definitely knowses onions, and by onions we mean
straight to video action films and the occasional smattering of
nineties erotic thrillers. It truly is an enviable resume. Ladies
and jerks, It's Matt Poier, Matt Peier, you pick. How
are you doing, man, I'm good, I'm good. Thank you
having me again. I'm excited for this movie.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
So yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah. So, as I said, you've been on twice now,
and the first time anyone guests, I have my Bernard
pivot level of three questions or four questions that get
to the very core of you. They get to the
very heart of the action fan that burns passionately within

(05:23):
all of us. And so that's what I do. The
first thing. The second time, we talked more about you, right,
didn't We talk about like your books and your podcast
and other stuff like that, and we talked to them
more about you the man. Well, let's pivot back a

(05:44):
little bit to action films. Let's talk action films, but
we're going to connect them to you the man, because
you the man, You the man, and you the movie lover.
We're going to talk about what movies you've viewed in
some capacity, either blog format or podcast on your various

(06:06):
directive video or connoisse properties.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think in terms
of ones that I mean pretty much I want to
say everything except of course Steel Frontier that I you know,
the first one that I did on here. I haven't
reviewed that one yet on the site. And then Intent
to Kill that you did in a recent episode I think,
right was that the one Tracy the Words. I haven't
even seen that one yet. Everything else that we've covered
so far I've reviewed on the site, so like Sweeper

(06:31):
covered on the site, but then also did a podcast
episode with Chris Kovinski from Bulletproof, which is a lot
of fun. You know, we cover a lot of different
fun parts of that one there. I'm trying to think
of if any of the other ones that we've done,
you know, that you've done on the podcast, that I've
done on a podcast episode, and it might just be
Sweeper of the ones you've done so far. Recoil, Recoil,

(06:53):
we did Recoil or was it Rage?

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Was it Rage that you did Rage?

Speaker 2 (06:57):
Yeah? Yeah, So I had Rich Hag from DTV Digest
on and we did this like marathon four hour episode
which just happened to be one hundred and fiftieth episodes,
so it kind of worked out. But we did Rage
and Recoil in the same episode, and just a ton
of stuff on those movies. I mean Recoils. When I've
reviewed on the site, it comes up a lot because
it was like this like cooking ground for like or

(07:19):
this like like training ground for like the best stunt
workers of the twenty tens, Like you know, spiel Rozatto's
was was stunt coordinator on Chastahelski from the John Wick movies.
He in the Matrix movies. He was did Recoil. He
did stunt work on Recoil. Darren Prescott who was the
action or the stunt coordinator for the John Wick movies,

(07:40):
working with Stahlski. But also like Deadpool. You know, actually
Madam webson one that he did, He's in that movie. Yeah,
it's it's insane. I think there's a few other names
too that I'm not even thinking of right now that
are you know. Also, you know it's like every time
you look at a name, you're like, oh, if I
you know, go down the rabbit hole. So, I mean
Recoil is one of those ones that and I've reviewed
on the set a long time ago. And then of

(08:00):
course the like did a podcast episode on it. Yeah,
just just such a fantastic one.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Nice And what have you reviewed in the last couple
of weeks? Like if someone wants to be like, well,
what is Matt writing about now? What is your last
two podcasts and what are your last two blogs? So
people can go find it on direct to video commissur
blogspot dot com.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yes, yeh, bloxy dot com exactly. Yeah. So so episode
two O nine of the podcast that we just released
this past week, we did a Cannon classic. We did
Invasion USA with Freddie Young from Full Moon Reviews. So
that was the last one there. And then not action movies,
but when you were on, we did you know, two
erotic thrillers. Try I think the action movie that we
would have done before that where you know, what what

(08:44):
what what?

Speaker 3 (08:45):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (08:45):
Actually we had we did t pos T Force. That's right,
you were on. We did Tea Force. That was a
great episode. So yeah, that's when people can look back
in the archives. And then Todd leeban out from Forgotten
Films on we did the first American ninja movie. I
think that was episode who was six? So yeah, so
those are the first.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
American ninja movie, the first ninja movie to show us
that ninjas could be rainbow colored, like there were red ninjas,
green ninja's, yellow ninja's, white ninjas, black ninja. All the
colors of the Banatan rainbow were represented in that ninja
because normally people just think black. Maybe they think like

(09:23):
there's desert ninjas in like sand colored or beige clothing.
But most people, you go, ninja, what's the first what's
the first image? Right, the black hood? Black, Yeah, with
maybe like a redhead band. Maybe they're accessorizing just a
little bit, just a poper color mat just in case,
just in case, they spot a female ninja in the

(09:44):
wild and they have to do a sort of a strut.
It's like a ninja strut. They puffed their chests up
and there's they have these large mucus sacks in their
necks that growed a great size. So they don't know
that about Yeah, people don't know that about ninjas. But

(10:05):
they also perform like we're Amazonian birds when it comes
to a mating ritual and a jungle. So most people
think of that, right. No, American ninja has red, yellow, green, blue, black,
white's got everything. You can paint the rainbow, so can
American ninja.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Yes, Well, because the thing I learned I found this
not on Wikipedia, but you know, it's kind of looking
into the history of ninjas is to kind of understand
how weak this cultural phenomenon that comes in the eighties
it was to be. And actually ninja's the historical ninja
from you know, feudal Japan. They dressed like their enemies,

(10:43):
and they are like masters of subterfuge. And so then
when they were depicting ninjas in theater, when in Japanese theater,
they'd have them dressed in black to mimic them being invisible, right,
and and so so that's where the black outfit came in.
So actually the closest thing to actual ninjas that Cannon

(11:05):
did was Invasion USA, because the baddies dressed like the enemy, right,
they just like police officers, they just like military people.
And then you know, started causing all kinds of issues,
but you're right, like Canon was just like, well, why
don't we have different colored ninjas? You know, I mean
if they're only black, because that's what they look like
in theater, we could make them any color. And then
God free Ho saw that and said, oh God, to

(11:27):
the next level. It's not only do we have different
colored ninjas, but we'll get this script from like you know,
ski resorts in America that I've been to, and splash
the word ninja across the bandanas and stuff, and so
not only the different it's like, yeah, just and then
of course Moral Kombat, right, Mortal Kombat was like, oh, well,
we could have one person playing in Ninja and then

(11:50):
just color swap and make five or ten characters in
the video game. That's perfect. So yeah, the trend that
American Ninja started with the different colored ninjas was just
absolutely amazing.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
Yeah, never ends, it goes on today. It goes on
today and uh uh yeah, so that's that's fantastic. American
Ninja and Invasion USA, uh and uh t fors and
anything else before we jump into today's film.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
No no, I mean on the site, you know, we
did Acts of Vengeance, Isaac Florentine movie, so I think
one of the few directors out there who's really kind
of keeping to the old tradition of PM. It was
an Isaac Florentine and Acts of Vengeance, you know, Antonio
Benderra's movie. It I think I would say it lives
up to it. I think I think it it. You know,
it's for modern action. It works, but I think I

(12:39):
need to a modern DTV action. I mean really probably
wouldn't be able to take the PEPSI challenge with like
a lot of these PM flicks, you know what I mean,
Like it's it's kind of amazing how action. His DDV
action has gotten watered down with a lot of c
g I effects. You know, budgets are a lot you know,
we what PM was working on, it's even less now.

(12:59):
And so yeah, when you get something like Isaac Florentine
or Jesse V. Johnson, you know. Uh and in of course,
the actually or the fight choreographer on ax A Vengeance
is Tim Mann, who I would say, you know, you had.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
The man, right, the Tim Man exactly.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
You had Art Camacho on Tim is kind of like
kind of a next generation of your great fight choreographers.
He's really good there too, so he's man. Yeah, but
those are those are the sights, yeah, what we have
on the site. Yeah, like you know again, Avenge is
an interesting when to check out. I think Isaac Florantin
just is a director I think for people you're looking

(13:37):
for more modern d TV. So though he has stuff
from this time period too that this really gets so.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Nice, nice, nice nice. Okay, So before we start a
deep delve, you know what time it is. By the
beating of the drums, it's time for all right, So

(14:12):
we have attempted assassination and shoot out in slow motion
foot chase, shoving, well placed stunt persons over onto the sidewalk,
or they could just be confused passers by who knows,
various campo fuel beatings. A campaign security guard assassinating a
man at point blank range and never facing any consequences
for it. A perplexingly bad wig strangulation assassination in the

(14:33):
shower foot chase throughout an office skyscraper ending in die
hard fire hose jumped from the roof. Speakman hanging upside
down in full view of everyone, yet remaining undetected by
a security guard. Speakman with a shotgun cursed the obvious
and inevitable betrayal of friend entrusted to help him. Car crashes,
car chases, car flips, car flips on fire, car flips
with luggage on the roof, car flips with canoe on

(14:54):
the roof. Speakman running over a car's hood. In practical
school bus chase, old dudes don't guy climbs out of
a car, walks across the hood and initiates huge fight
in the back of a school bus with speakman. Aforementioned
old dude stunt person being thrown out of school bus
and going under the tires of the car behind it.
Speakman hanging off the back of the school bus for
entirely too long school bus explosion, almost death of family

(15:17):
running away from second school bus explosion while carrying wife.
Single handed attack on evil villain compound, complete with takeout
of random hench persons escape from villain lair explosion in
Classic car Judges. Gratuitous luxurious hair, gratuitous promotion of kempo gear,
gratuitous synth flut accompanied sex scene featuring a minor character.

(15:37):
You're not sure you know who exactly they are until
you hear a well timed answerphone message. Gratuitus horned up
wife while on the run, gratuitus Don Stroud cameo gratuitor's
henchman explosion in Cedy Hotel, Graturitor Shantner and Silk Blue
bathroom scene, Groturitors taxidermid dead Dog, also Chekhov's dead Dog,
Chekhov's helicopter and Chekhov's quacking kid helicopter fight, inexplicably long

(16:02):
countdown to see fort detonation on set, helicopter helicopter explosion,
Shatton a versus Speakman, Kirk is down, Cook is drowned.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, I was trying to see if I mean the
director of this movie did like a lot of stuff
like in the in the sixtiesons, but he did continue
to work into the I mean, did some Walker Texas
Texas Ranger episodes. But I think this is the only
PM flick he does, and it's it's interesting. He was
a TV guy and they must have needed somebody. I
mean it is. Ken Blakey is the cinematographer, so you

(16:33):
get that, so it still has enough of the PM
feel with his cinematography. I think it's just interesting, but
it is, like you said, it's a different crew. It
also is another production company I think in addition to
PM that that worked on it as well. So it's
like if it wasn't for for for uh for you know,
for Ken Blakey and uh Coles McKay doing stunts, it

(16:55):
might be a little bit unique from a PM film,
but they they seem to make it PM enough that
you you know what you're looking at.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Oh yeah, no, it's it's it's definitely PM enough. And
another so Maria James, who wrote Land of the Free
also wrote another PM entertainment classic. Although I think maybe
they just distributed or did something that they're here with
like three other production companies. But that is the Corey

(17:22):
Haim Corey Feldman comedy classic Busted, which is basically the
two Corey's do Vice Academy.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Right, yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, I
tag it as PM on my site and so, but
I think you're bright that. I think it's like one
that they kind of more distributed. But I mean that
one definitely you wouldn't know that one was PM. I
don't think that. I don't know if there's any car
flips in it. Maybe maybe there are, maybe there's.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
Like a there's I don't know that there's like car
flips in Bikini Summer either.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
I don't remember. Yeah, no, I don't think that's a
good point.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
Yeah, Listen, when they went for the sex comedy Dollar,
they didn't feel like they needed to flip a car.
They felt like they needed to get, you know, a
bang for your buck, if you know what I mean exactly.

Speaker 2 (18:15):
And I think when they went to kids movies they
decided they still needed a flip cars.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
That's what's interesting, You're like, that's what's interesting. Do you
know what's interesting is that when they went to kids movies,
they still needed to flip cars. I think you're right.
I think you're right. All right. Okay, So this one
stars Jeff Speakman and his Kempo karate, which he wears
proudly on a shirt during the opening sequences. This one does.

(18:45):
It's what's interesting about this one is that the they
leave a lot of the action to the end. The
third act is jam packed wall to wall action, the
the middle act not so much, and the first act
a smattering, right, a smattering. It's not normally in a

(19:08):
PM film you would have an opening action sequence that
was all three action sequences. It would have like a shootout,
a foot chase, and a car chase. In this one,
you get all three because you get a ridiculous car chase,
you get a ridiculous foot chase, and you get a
high fall off a building. But they're all sort of
distributed out. They're all sort of two minute bursts rather

(19:31):
than one big, complete, glorious, you know, ten minute thing.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah yeah, And you know, I always feel bad for
the poor family that was going on vacation in the
wood panel station wagon with their bags on the top
that would speaking gets to the to the potential assassin
and suddenly that car flips. It's like I hope that
they got their deposit back on their you know, lodge
out and Big Bear. But yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (19:57):
Ye.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
So Jeff's speakman plays William Shantner's campaign manager, and William
Shanner he's not running for president, right, He's running for the.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Senate, Yes, exactly, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Okay, So, which makes it even more hilarious because if
he was like running for president, you'd go all of
this big scheme and scam that he's gone going on
in the background would make sense him running for the Senate.
I mean essentially, not that they're not important, but essentially
like the middle managers of the government, you know, you know,

(20:36):
I mean the directors and middle managements and government to
have him sort of be the mastermind of you know,
some American new world order. And you know, I'm going
to remind everyone as we talk about this that this
movie's from nineteen ninety eight, right, not now, because we
are talking about a political figure who is trying to,

(20:59):
through the farrest means and terrorist funding, put together a
sort of American new World order, which is what Shatner
is trying to do with the help of seemingly everybody.
Because apparently Jeff when he has to go on the run,
cannot trust anybody. Every single person turns against Jeff. So, Matt,

(21:25):
do you want to fill in the blanks. We've kind
of given people the the opening and who Shatner is,
but do you want to fill in the blanks? So
give us a plot over overhaul.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yeah, so sick, you said, speak to his campaign manager
for this, This charismatic politician, William Shatner. He has a friend,
an old Navy budy who says, hey, this Shatner guy
might be connected with this militia. So, you know, a
trip into a computer, you know, to the computer office,
easily found password in a three and a half floppy disc. Later,

(21:55):
he's got some evidence that he brings to the FBI
and they're saying, okay, we got the evidence, now we
need you to testify. It's like, well, if I testify,
you know, he's gonna kill me, right, He's gonna have
his people kill me or whatever. So they do testify,
but then he's got to go on the run. And
while he's on the run, like you said, you know, uh,
William Shatner's militia, they have people everywhere. So now speakman

(22:16):
and his wife and son, they've.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Every everywhere they have people. Those people suspiciously looked like
Cole smckay. He's in like eight of the the like
attempts on his life kind of thing. And yeah, it's
funny anyway.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
Exactly, it's great. Yeah, but yeah, so so then he's
he's got to stay alive long enough. But unfortunately, you know,
when it gets to the end of the movie, the
tentacles that Shatner has go all the way into the judiciary,
and the judge acquits him. So now you know, speakman's
gonna take it along into his own hands.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
The hair on that judge, the hair on that judge,
it's it's it's truly truly a gift to mankind, an
absolute gift to mankind. The hair on this judge. Matt
talked to us about the hair.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Oh it is. I mean, it's a beautiful thing. I mean,
I don't even know. I mean, it's I'm trying to
think where I mean, Sandra Dale O'Connor, maybe it's the
best that comes to mind for that hair.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
It's it's like kind of like this long almost like
he's playing like a friar in an English like period piece, right,
you know, from like a medieval you know, like maybe
like a a ten part BBC you know, mini series,
and he's, you know, doing the I don't know, Canterbury
Tales or something like that. But then he's dressed as
a judge and he's like handing down justice or not justice. Yeah,

(23:47):
it's it's a beautiful When they looked at him and
they were just like, you're the judge.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
I mean, by the way, do you know who that is?
Do you know who the judge is?

Speaker 2 (23:55):
No?

Speaker 1 (23:56):
No, the judge is director, producer and actor Arthur Hiller,
who people will know, our generation will know for Sino
Evil Here No Evil right. Possibly if you're slightly older
than us, you might know for Love Story and The
in Laws from the seventies. And he also directed Sir

(24:20):
Jimmis Belushi in Taking Care of Business. So can you
imagine this hair hanging out with Belushi, the two Belushi right?
Prime eighties mullet but sorry late eighties, early nineties Mullet
Belushi hanging out with Arthur Hiller's lion mane of a

(24:41):
godly man head do.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
And I realized I reviewed a an Arthur Hiller movie.
He directed a movie called Pucked National Impoun's Pucked with
John bon Jovi. I reviewed that for the site, so
gotta you gotta review those hockey movies. So yes, wow,
I didn't think to look him up all the people,

(25:04):
because we've also got Bernie Copple, the doctor from Love
Boat is in this movie, which I had somehow missed
that on previous viewings. I don't know how I missed
that before.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
But what about Ron's Howard as the motel manager. Yes,
Ron Howard, like Ron Howard's dad, is in this movie
for thirteen seconds, Yes, not even a full half an hour.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Right, He's there long enough for the corrupt FBI guy
who's in on the with the militia to steal gum
from him and say charge it to the militia account.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Oh here's a question. Do you think all these wonderful
gentlemen who have cameos are friends of Shatner? So I
wonder if some of these guys, Arthur Heller, Ron's Howard,
Bernie Copple, these feel like people Shattner might pala around with.
You can imagine them drinking Tom Collins discussing the horse phrace.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
I didn't think it's because Bernie Copple's exact almost the
same age. He was born in thirty three and Shattner
was thirty one or something like that or thirty thirty one.
So yeah, so they're like the same age. Ron's Howard,
that's a good point. He's also right around the same age,
couple of years older. They all probably were like paling
around in the sixties and in Hollywood together, and it's.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Like, hey, Tom Collins is by the pool.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Yeah, and then you know, Pepin and Murhy come to
Shatner and say, hey, do you want to make a movie.
It's like, yeah, only if my my buddies, who I'm
sitting at the pool with drinking Tom Collins with being
the movie with me.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
You gotta give him all one hundred bucks and use
of your lemonusade on Wakends. Okay, So yeah, Shanna, I
wonder if that was Shatner's real bath robe, but then
he was in that's saying could be he would never
come on this podcast, William Shattna, But boy, I wish

(26:48):
he would, because I have questions about that bath room.
He probably said to Pepin and may he probably said,
probably said, listen, the ladies mond a bathrobe scene for me.
So even though it makes very little sense. Have me
please momentarily in a bath robe. Just listen. It'll bring

(27:10):
you at least another twenty female renters of this cassette.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Exactly well, and I mean that that end scene where
you know, Jess Speaker is putting bombs around his house,
it's like he's like doing an Easter egg hunt thing
where he's just like opening up cabinets and putting them
in there and stuff like that. It's like, you know,
and then he's got you know, Shantner's got Mac from
a Nightcourt as his head of security, which is just
an absolute trip.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, Mac from Nightcore, he's got to be another Shantner. Guys,
they're probably hanging out in the NBC canteen, you know,
drinking Tom Collins. And what is Tom Collins anyway.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
That's a good question. It sounds like exactly the drink
that you would be saying they'd be having there.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
Yeah. So Tom Collins is a straightforward and refreshing cocktail
that combines gin with lemon juice, sugar and club soda.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Okay, okay, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
So it's sort of like a gin simple syrup or
something kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yeah, almost like a TNT but with lemon juice, I
guess instead.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Of But when you see this drink, that is exactly
what Shatner and Arthur Hiller and who else we got
with and Roan's Howard and Bernie are all sitting around
a pool in bathrobes. And by the way, as it

(28:41):
goes round the circle, the bathrooms get just ever so
slightly shorter, so that by the time it gets to Shatner,
he's got like a Roman bathroom on that's barely even
covering his upper thigh, you know what I mean. And
they've all got tough collins.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
True.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
I know this is fact. I know this is what's happening.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
It's the best explanation right for what happens to this
how these people are in this movie, because it's one
of the things about these pms, like, you know, the
last time I was on, were talking about a dangerous
place and we've got like you know, Dick Van Patten
or you know, Mickey Rooney in Maximum Force. It's just
like out of know where these people. I think Frank
Gorshan was in one. It's like, these guys just show

(29:24):
up in these movies. And and again why not, man,
there is Pepin and mahe saying, these guys are not
too old to work.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
We're putting them in movies, We're giving them great characters,
we're giving them random cameos, the full steam ahead. Because
you know, in some territories being able to put you know,
Ron's Howard and Arthur Hiller on the front of your
video tape that has cachet. They may be very small
areas that where that is cache. But listen, every demographic

(29:59):
and every market counts to the PM entertainment boys. So
even though it's a small demographic, man, it's a loyal one.
It's a loyal one.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Well, I wonder too, like a Bernie Copple for example,
I mean the size of that guy's rolodex with all
of the people that came in and out of Love Boat,
Like you've got to think if you're Peppin Murphy, it's like, hey, Bernie,
you know someone still was on an episode? Could you
still have Oh yeah, yeah, I talked to him from
time to time. Sure all give a call, you.

Speaker 1 (30:25):
Know, watch off a hillo on a Love Boat episode.
Let's go digging.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
That's a good question. The part of it is too,
I think, you know, like you said, like giving them work.
It probably keeps their CV. You know, they can keep saying, oh,
they keep adding things to their CV, like you said,
when they're older and they're having trouble maybe finding things.
These are short roles that, you know, other than Shatner's, like,
none of these roles really take a lot out of them.
I mean they're each in it for one scene. I think,

(30:50):
I think I think Arthur Hillary gets two scenes as
the judge, but otherwise everybody else is in the movie
for one scene. They get a paycheck. You know, Shatner
gets to pal around with them for a little bit
and hang out. And you know, plus they're in La.
You know all the shootings being done in La. So
it's like they don't even just you know, pop in
their their Cadillac and just go down the street for
a little bit and shoot and over the day.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
I happen to know that Ron's Howard only drives Pontiacs.
So I happen to know that for a fat excitement, Yeah,
he only he only rides Chevrolets, just writes chevyes Lincoln.
Now Ron's Hoad's a Lincoln man.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
He's a Lincoln guy.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah, he's a Lincoln guy. I'd get there in the end,
I think Bernie Couple then is probably a pontiac guy.
He strikes me as a bit of a polyester suit,
a wide collar, you know what I mean. He's getting
out of that Pontiac feeling like a king.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
I feel like that because he would have been like
in his late sixties and this. I think he still
was doing a two seater at that time.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
And every time he gets out of the car, out
of nowhere, a funk band starts playing and some guy
walks by goes.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Oh yeahs as the doctor, I mean, I was on
recently recorded an episode of the podcast on Space Uni,
which has Brett Brown's wife, Sissy Cameron. She did a
love about episode. I think she was like her character
was hooking up with Bernie Copple, I mean the doctor

(32:21):
on the love vote. He definitely did okay for himself.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Well, and he had he had permission because he was
a doctor.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
If a doctor gets Hansy's just he's just doing his job,
you know what I mean, Oh my doctor, what are
you doing my job?

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Lady?

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Now call me another Tom Collins and cough.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
Ted the Ted laying is Isaac your bartender? Comes up
with the Tom Collins is right, you know, kind of
just presents the tray. You know, here you are doctor,
you know.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, No, it's absolutely fantastic. It's absolutely fantastic. So, yeah,
if we go back towards beginning, then so what do
we think? So in the opening politician senatorial candidate, there
was an assassination attempt on Shatner's life by an incredibly
obvious assassin right in the crowd with no not not

(33:16):
even hiding it, not even wearing a red ninja outfit
mat to blend seamlessly in with the background of American flags.
And you know what was his what's his slogan? It's not.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
For everyone or something free, freedom, freedom.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
For everyone, something like that. Yeah, he's got one of
those slogans, and so a lot of red signs. So
if you were in the red ninja outfit, you know
what I mean, you you could have got away with
it in the blink of an eye, you know what
I mean that you were quick and maybe had a
blow dart rather than a big cumbersome gun.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Yeah, the guy made Travis Bickle look inconspicuous.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yes, yes, that's true. He did make Travis Pickle looking
in conspicuous and uh, speakman as his campaign manager, not
even his head of security as his campaign manager gives chase.
And that is because his head of security very old man,

(34:16):
and running is a little tough for him. He's the
he's the sort of Danny Glover role, you know what
I mean, Whereas Speakman is the mel Gibson. Speakman's all
doing this business with the with the running down the
street Tom Cruise style.

Speaker 5 (34:32):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Tom Cruise borrowed it from mel Gibson. By the way,
he was the first one to run with a particular
round and a bit of the old terminator to Robert Patrick.
Rob Patrick, Melgibson put him together, Tom Cruise, but within running,
only in running, just in the running lineage, not in
any other thing. But Speakman just takes off in his

(34:55):
nineties off the peg J C. Penny suit. He just
goes shining. You can always tell an off the peg
JC Penny suit because it's shiny. And I don't say
that in the judgmental terms. I in my life have
owned many off the peg.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
They work on a judgment Yeah, they work in a pinch.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
They're beautiful, yeah, especially with the olive green, shiny and
Jeff Spateman is running around in them U so he
he pops off and uh, we have a footchase and
then we have the car. Does the car wreck happen
at that point as well?

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yes, exactly because it's like because what happens is he
runs up a car or something like. It's somebody gets
up going up a car and it causes a car
to stop short, and then it causes a wood paneled
station wagon to flip over with all the bags on
top of it.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yes, the Family Roads to or whatever it was. No,
I don't know that it was. It wasn't It wasn't
a Grizzworld car, but it was more like was it
more like the Bronco shaped wood paneling like a wood paneling.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
It was like a kind of a boxier older station wagons.
Like they must have found that thing on a lot
and it didn't drive at all, and they just were
able to kind of get it moving enough to flip it.
And maybe I don't even know how that works if
you have to tote it or something or like it,
you know, but because I think that's what happens with
their cars, right, They just get cars from like a
junk lot and just you know.

Speaker 1 (36:17):
It was a golden age man, a golden age junkyards
around Los Angeles would just raking in the cash. Yeah,
from episodes of The A Team to PM Entertainment, they
had a good twenty years golden era of junk rentals stunts.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Well, it's like if you hear Andy Sindaris would talk
about that that like he would want to use like
a sports car. And then I think it was his
mother in law that did like a lot of the requisition,
Like she did like the budgets and stuff, and it
was like, can we find a boxy like old junker
that we could just dress up to look enough like
that fancy sports car when we blow it up? And

(36:54):
that was like always kind of his goal. So I
think PM worked on the same the same, the same system.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah, So what what you noticed in this movie is
that the car that Jeff Peakman is initially driving, the
hood and the trunk are all scratched up, you know,
burnt out whatever, Like they're all it's obvious like a
car that they maybe already did a stunt in and
then like beat the bodywork back out. And then a

(37:23):
couple of the cars that the cops drive have like
big dents enough, So I think they just got every
car in this movie from a junkyard.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
I think, yeah, well it was nineteen ninety eight, so
you know, Pim had been at this for a little
while at this point. So yeah, they put a lot
of these cars through the water.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, and a lot of these busses of course, as
we get as we get later in the movie. But yes,
so it was didn't we get though? Wasn't there a
couple of muscle cars in this as well?

Speaker 2 (37:54):
Yeah, yes, exactly. Yeah, especially in the last scene when
he's busting out of Shatner's house, I think there's that
one there. And I think, well, because I think when
they're getting chased, I think they're all like Cadillacs and
Pontiacs as well.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
They go on the run from a lot of people
and everyone is against them, everyone, nobody, nobody not. You know,
I'm surprised he didn't like call up his sister and
then go to meet his sister at a cafe. And
then when he goes to meet his sister and zooms
in on her face and she looks all evil and
she's like and then two guys are behind him and

(38:27):
he gives Chase, because I feel like that was that
was probably what was going to happen.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Jillian mcwerder playing his sister. Yes, I love macwerter.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Macwurt is great. Also, what about Shatner's hair in this movie?
It does not attach to his head. I'm just saying
itful it is, And it's funny because I watched these
movies back to back and they will be back to
back episodes of the Peer Entertainment podcast. Last Man's Stand

(39:01):
and Land of the Free have one very important thing
in common. They are both PM films in which the
title of the PM film is a fictional book within
the movie. So at the end of Last Man Standing,
Jonathan Banks's character's book that he's been writing about the
police force is called Last Man Standing. The irony being

(39:25):
Jonathan Banks is killed in the movie before anyone else,
so he's literally the first man down, not the last
Man's Stand. So calling his book Last Man Standing makes
no sense except that it's the name of the movie.
In this movie, Shatner's book is called Land of the Free,
which you know is just it's like his mind camp

(39:47):
or whatever.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Because what's great is is that, you know, after Speakman
gets the intel from his old Navy buddy. He decides
he's going.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
To buy the old navy buddy. We mean a man
man who was in the Navy, not someone who works
front of house and an old Navy Yes exactly. He's
not like an old Navy greeter. He is from the Navy,
and you him a long time ago. That's why we
hit his old naval friend.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yes, that's right. He's like getting him a great deal
and a pair of pants are going to fall apart
in the next month up right exactly.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
Or last twenty years, because that like old Navy stuff,
either falls apart right away, like before you get home.
You're taking that out of the bag at home and
it's already disintegrated, or you wear it for years and
years and years and years and never gets so much
as a scratch.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
Right, It's like it's like their T shirts last forever,
but their pants they just they're made of paper.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Yeah, old Navy paper pants just don't go out in
the rain. Come again, thirty days paper pants are topped
rainy days.

Speaker 6 (40:59):
Whoops the day and they have to do those like
dance like those like musical theater numbers for their commercial.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
That would be like a really great singing in the
rain thing. So I thought they're singing the ring is
going to know that the next the next shot they
have no pants on.

Speaker 7 (41:18):
Right.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Yeah, it's like a thirty rock sketch. Like Liz Lemon
would just be like shut it down. She would see
all the pants disintegrating and just be like, shut it down.
Shut it down. What's the million dollar briefcase or whatever?
Where a golden briefcase or whatever? The game is where
Jack Donneghy thinks it would be a great idea to

(41:40):
put like have one no Tracy Jordan thinks it would
be a great idea to have one suitcase full of
like gold bars and then everyone else just has like
empty suitcases or whatever, and Alk Boorwan is like, that's
a great idea. Makes it And on the very first
episode you can tell that the woman holding the briefcase
it's like staking because the secase is so heavy, and

(42:03):
the guy goes number eight and Alec Boldwin as Jack
donneghey just goes shut it down, shut it down.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
Now, it's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
Well that's what this is like.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
Yeah, it's I mean, the best I think is the
sneaking into the office scene, because I think I don't
know if it's this. I think the initial chase actually
is where we get the first taste of the interesting
music choices in.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
This movieh my goodness, the soundtrack of this the soundtrack
of this movie. If there was a hell, and I'm
not if I know, if they were gonna, like, I
don't know, torture me and try and get answers out
of me that don't exist, they would and put me
in like a sound deprivation room or whatever. Or have
you seen the Hipcris File with Michael.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
K Oh Yeah, a long time ago, a long time.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
There's at one point in the end where they're trying
to disorientate him and they like starve him and then
burying him any water, and then they put him in
a room and they like flash bright colors in his
face and try and keep him awake, and then they're
playing like psychedelic music when he's in the room, right,
and like there's all this light in the sound or whatever.
My if they were going to torture me or disorientate

(43:14):
me or whatever, it would be to the sounds of
this soundtrack, because one minute, you said it right earlier
on and when we were chatting one minute, it sounds
like a passable flute and a passable bassoon, and then
the next minute there's like the cheapest Yamaha keyboard orchestra sound,
and you're like, what is going on? Talk to us

(43:36):
smart about the music?

Speaker 2 (43:39):
I mean, so so the scene where so Speakman kind
of gets a sense that maybe his buddy's right that
you know that that Aiden Carvel Shatner. He's connected with
this militia, but he needs proof and ice ice cream.
He comes from big ice cream money, right, cookie Puss.
But he goes into his office and the music playing

(44:02):
is like something out of like I don't like a
murder she wrote episode or something, but it doesn't fit
what's happening, right, Like this is a tense scene, like
he's messing around his keyboard and Mac from Night Court
is looming around the office and might catch him. I mean,
of course, there's also this thing that happens in the
nineties where people's passwords are like these really easy to

(44:23):
figure out things, and so.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Do you want to know a freaky thing?

Speaker 4 (44:28):
Right?

Speaker 1 (44:29):
So you know what his password ends up being his triumph, right, yeah,
so his password is triumph right after by the way,
Jeff Speakman has gone down the list. I don't know
if you ever frozen the movie. Paused the movie and
looked at that list of passwords. There's all sorts of
mad stuff on that list of passwords that doesn't make

(44:50):
any sense at all, but it's clearly they handed it
to a pa. They were like, we did the first twenty,
can he write out the rest of the passwords? And
the pair was like, I don't know, I'm not creative.
Desk hats like it was just.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
There.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
There was one I think was just it just says
deceit And I'm like, why wouldn't that be his past?
I'm gonna I'm gonna make my butt. And then he
looks over at a trophy on the wall and remembers
some quote, neither of which has anything to do with Triumph,
and he goes, ah, Triumph types in Triumph and it works.

(45:28):
And what's hilarious is what spooky mat is. I watched
The Boogeyman over the last couple of days with my
friend Jim Wallace from the aftermovie Diner and in the
movie Boogeyman, which is a sort of Halloween Amateurville Exorcist
clone from the very very early eighties nineteen eighty I

(45:49):
think and Uli Lamel film, it's fantastic. And in that movie,
one of the characters that ends up getting killed walks
around in a black T shirt that just says Triumph
along the front of it. And it's not even the
triumph like the motorbike logo. It's just triumph in just
very block like aerial block capital letters. It just says triumph.

(46:13):
And this is a movie that was made eighteen years
before this movie, And yet I watched them this movie
first and then both Ugiman second, and I was blown away.
I was like, what are the chances triumph triumph exactly?

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Yeah? And I mean, as this the soundtrack that makes
no sense is happening, you know.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
By the way, Joe Rogan is now claiming that there's
a dark web conspiracy about the word triumph. He's like
seeing Joe Cross points out on his podcast that he
watched two completely unrelated movies that just happened to have
the word triumph feature briefly in them. Something that's been
going on in the dark web. Joe Rogan has opinions.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
Exactly, and that's worth nine figures.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
And that's worth nine figures, That's what that's that's brilliant, Matt.
That was classic. That was absolutely fantastic. All right, sorry,
that's the soundtrack, go back to the music. I apologizes.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
So he almost gets caught. He sneaks out before Mac
from Night Court can get in because Mac is fumbling
with his keys, right, I mean, that's how great of
a head of security this guy is that he knows
somebody can't chase and he can't even get the right keys. Yeah,
he's like fumbling around with the keys. It's like, what

(47:38):
are you doing? Like this is like it's like some
drunk person getting home being like oh.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
At one point, the key is not even in the
law hat tool and he tries to turn it. I'm like,
what is this? What is He can't run, he can't
key there. He's a complete mess. You can't even jump
out of a helicopter.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Right, And I believe this whole scene is all happening
to like the music of like a I think I
was saying, like an eight bit Nintendo like RPG or
while playing game like like Fanal Fantasy or something, it's
like this.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
It sounds like it sounds like a very cheap eight
eight bit computer game Final Fantasy knockoff called like Knights
of Ghostly Valley or something, you know what I mean.
And I'm like, what is this? And by the way,
it doesn't stop through the whole movie. The movie is

(48:37):
a carpet of this music. It's it's one of the things. Look,
I love PM entertainment films. I love Land of the Free.
Who doesn't love Jeff Speakman going up against William Shatner
who doesn't love that? So it's Look, it's absolutely phenomenal.

(48:58):
We love Land of the Free. But I am just
here to say that this soundtrack is no halfpenny brilliance
from a dangerous place. This is some absolute.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
It's like the most and like you said, it doesn't stop.
Like I mean, there's a chase sequence that's like playing.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
The Now you keep talking, dude, and I'm just going
to keep going.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Like there's a chase scene where there's explosives happening and
it's still that music.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
It sounds like it sounds like you know, when you
go to a mall in the Midwest or whatever, and
in the middle of the mall there's still like an
old diner. It's not like a change's like a crackerbowl
or whatever. It's like a diner that's been run by
a family and they kind of built them all around it, right,
And every third Sunday of every month, you know, Beatrice

(50:00):
and Uncle Freddie or whatever come and play a Yamaha
keyboard and a flute, you know what I mean. In
the mall in the Midwest, they're wearing matching vests that
have that have got like floral patterns on them, you
know what I mean. He looks like Freddie looks like
the soul was sucked out of him forty years ago

(50:23):
and he's in some kind of existential Yamaha keyboard fueled hell.
That's what this soundtrack sounds like. That if that's the band,
that's what that's like. Freddie's dying, like his soul has
left him and Freddie is collapsing on the Yamaha.

Speaker 2 (50:47):
To be fair, this is like perfect music to listen
to while you're having a grilled cheese and a diner
on a Sunday afternoon, right, Like it's perfect for that,
for car flips and speakment, beating the crap out of
peace and like three and a half inch floppy disks
and stuff. And you know, right, it doesn't quite fit.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
No, it doesn't fit at all, although a speakman does
get to John McClain in this movie with the longest
fire hose in the existence of fire hoses, because we've
all seen die Hard, so our movie reference for fire
hose jumping off of skyscraper is that fire hoses that

(51:28):
are on the roof of said sized scrapers maybe last
about what four floors five floors saying like that, right,
Like when he jumps off the top of the building,
when it wrapped around his waist and the roof explodes,
he goes down what four or five floors? Not a lot, right,
He's still in the like twenties or whatever. Right, Speakman's

(51:49):
fire host takes him, you know what, three floors above
a big dumpster full of garbage bags, So it takes
him like twenty two floor this fire hose, longest fire
hose in the history of movies.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
And again it's all set up right because you know,
when he goes to the FBI, somebody in the FBI
is on the inside. They rat him out, so's he's
at the office and Shatner and Mac from that court
confront him, and he of course he runs off right,
and he runs to the roof and people are chasing whatever,
and he's like, how am I gonna get out of this?
And he okay, I'll do the fire host thing. All

(52:25):
of this is all happening to that same soundtrack. I mean,
like as he's like lowering himself and and the other
thing too, is this is one of the few PM
films that uses green screen. They use some green screen
of him falling while he's in the host, which I
think that might be an Arthur Hiller thing because you
never see that at PM stuff. But it's like this

(52:46):
whimsical like music that's it's like, but it's not like whimsical.
It's like it's like the opening scene. I think I
was saying, it's like the opening scene in an erotic
thriller where they're like establishing the nice suburban setting and
then meanwhile behind closed door, Shannon Worry is like putting
some stocking tops on and you know lifsticks, you know
what I mean. Like, and it's like, you know, there's

(53:07):
you can just see this st Harry Shatter.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Is plumping up her lip gloss exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Well, the paper boys throwing the paper outside, and like,
you know, guy, that's the music that the speakman is
lowering himself and like jumping into this track and all
in escaping, that's the music that's playing.

Speaker 1 (53:30):
So the composer for this movie, Stephen Cohne, who only
ever composed for this one PM film, would, however, or
had rather in the past before this PM Entertainment film,
done the music for none other than the film from
nineteen ninety two, Nicol and Dime, a comedic buddy coup

(53:53):
duo of cee Thomas Howell and Wallace Shawn. Why have
we not watched Nichol and Dive, Matt, Why are we
not watching Nicholin Dive right now? I see Thomas Howell
and Wallace Sean in a nineteen ninety two detective comedy.
Come on now, who doesn't want that? The only reason

(54:15):
I wouldn't want to watch that is Because've got the
Stephen Cohen doing the fucking soundtrack.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
If it's like this, If it's like this soundtrack, because
I would feel like, like Nicolin Den will be the
perfect double feature with my dinner with Andre. You know
you're Wallace Sean double feature? Yes?

Speaker 1 (54:34):
And what and what are we watching tonight? Well, it's
a wonderful double bill of two classic Wallace Sean performance.
Nice nice. Nice, What are we doing Princess Bride? Princess
Bride and that? Nope, nope, nope, no Prince Bride. Well,
maybe more of a recent one, the Tina Fey film
that I've forgotten the name of that has Paul run
in it, but you know Walla Shawan's in that. Nope, nope,

(54:56):
it's not that one. Not one. Oh, okay, which is it? Well,
you were in for a treat tonight. It is nineteen
ninety two's see Thomas hal Co starring film Nichol and Die.
And then there's just like there's just like a whistle
goes throughout the auditorium.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
Right, and to speak about the film, we have composer
Stephen Cohen and they just put a little spotlight.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
It's not even a spotlight. If someone in the front
road just has an angle poised lap and they just
move it up and we illuminate Stephen Coen on a
little Yamaha keyboard and he just goes on, Yeah, So
what we're gonna do is is we watch Nicholin time.
Stephen Coen's going to live perform the sat Come on,

(55:53):
you go to that screening?

Speaker 2 (55:54):
You would go, of course, of course I would yes, yeah.
I mean now I'm like, I gotta do that was
Sho on Double Feature because I think by Dinner with
Andre's on Max, I've got to like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
I'm gonna find Nickel and dime on Toby's on too,
by Nicholas, Let's watch it and do it for the
pop to movie.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
Diner and that would be perfect.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Yeah, who does all your show? Because it's straight to video,
so I mean we could do it on your Yeah,
either one would work. Yeah, yeah, it looks fantastic. It's
another wonderful uh c Thomas Hawl hack cup as well.
It's a real high top high top c. Thomas hal
nineties yuppy hackut.

Speaker 4 (56:34):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (56:36):
This has gotta be a gem. This has got to
be a gem. I refuse to believe this is anything
other than a lost classic.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
Of course it's got it. Yeah, I think you're right, Like,
there's no way that movie doesn't have any kind of
redeemable I mean you're like you said that the soundtrack
is the only thing that could hurt it.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
The soundtrack could decimate it.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
So one of the things this is that they say
we found out to speak and I guess like went
into like him and his kids went into like protection.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
Yeah, and in the protection is what's on is there
are two FBI guys who we know have the ginger
and taller ginger double ginger. They're both like like strawberry
blonde ginge right with.

Speaker 2 (57:21):
One of them did commercials around that.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
Time, okay, and one of them looked like one of
them like a corpse that might fall out of Lurch's
closet and the Adams family. I think that's a commercial guy. Yeah.
Wouldn't the FBI have set up the witness protection for them?
I understand it's not the same agency, but wouldn't those
two FBI guys go, oh, we've got a witness protection

(57:43):
guy we always use, you know what I mean. It's like, oh,
we recommended to our friends and family. He's great, this
guy witness protection. He's got it locked right, Yeah, But no,
they just hand him over to a bunch of people
who were also on Shatner's payroll, right right.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
And And the only way we know that this is
not LA because they're shooting this whole thing in LA.
They're going to a beach in LA. It's supposed to
be the only reason why we we find out that
it's actually further north is when Speakman is escaping these people,
when he finds out because he and his wife and
son are playing football, which is really great. They're playing
keep away with the football from the momb which is

(58:18):
just sounds like a really fun thing. But then Speakman notices,
you know, Coles McKay and a couple other ones spying
on him. So he's like, Okay, we got to get
out of here. So when they're escaping, one of the
guys says, Oh, they're going on the one twenty eight
or they're going on one twenty eight or something like that,
And I was like, what's one twenty eight in California?
I was curious, so I looked it up. You know,
I was like thinking it must be in the LA area,

(58:40):
but I looked at Wikipedia. Fortunately had it. It's up
in like Sonoma County, in Napa County. So that's their way.
That's that's the PM way of telling us that they're
in northern California. You were at California Route right.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
But when you get to the Witness Protection Program, howe
you meant to become like a Walmut Grege or in
Idaho or something like you got exactly don't meant to
just move slightly upper highway.

Speaker 2 (59:03):
That tells you what people in LA think of that
part of California, right, that's I mean, that could have
been an inside joke. Actually didn't even think of that.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
They do do a good job of making the like
motel area that they hang out in look different. Well then,
so that at one point they have a house that
the way, they have an actual house and it looks
over that northern California coastline, right, and so that felt accurate,
that felt you know, similar, having having been there. And

(59:35):
then that gets attacked by Cols McKay. So they go
to a hotel which then gets attacked by and I
would have also speakman makes one faithal error, one fate error.
Is for three days in a row, he wears exactly
the same shirt. If you see when he's running away

(59:59):
and then you see him what you see this And
it's not like a bland shirt. It's not just like
a plane and shirt. It's like a green thing with
diamonds on it or whatever. He's got like a sweat
mark at one point and across his lower abdomen and
he's walking around the shirt by the third day and

(01:00:20):
you see him putting it back on in the in
the closet before he has to run out of the
hotel room. You're like, really that this again? Like I
understand that PM Entertainment wanted to film sequences out of
order and be able to just slow him into whatever,
But that shirt, Huh, couldn't have just made it like
a series of white shirts or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Right, exactly, That's what happened. You think of Blood Fist movies, Right,
That's kind of what happens with the Blood Fist movies.
Is that, like when Don the Dragon Wilson's character is
on the run, it's usually some kind of gray T shirt.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Did he just wear all denim? There's a lot of
denims as well, Denim on denim. Yeah, and the Blood
First franchise. This gentleman who did the soundtrack, Stephen Cohen,
has also worked, i believe, with Roger Corman on quite
a few things and Charles Band. He does the music

(01:01:13):
for Zone Troopers and I quite like Zone Troopers too.
He also does the composer for Angel Fist, the all
female Roger Corman Martial Arts film.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Yeah. I mean, wouldn't you notice, like because you know,
like we're talking about this point here where it's speaking
to them, you know, like there's a point where speakman
is in his Cadillac or whatever is Poniek and he's
got to like escape these guys. And he does this
like really great like e break one eighty turn so
that he kind of spins his car around and then
he they go past and he ends up chasing them.

(01:01:46):
And this whole thing is set to the same soundtrack,
the same like whimsical, right, and it's like you can't
do anything different, And so it's like it I feel
like if I was watching Zone Troopers, I would have
picked up on that music. I don't know what happened here,
like did he did he not make this music for
this movie? And they were just like, hey, you know,

(01:02:07):
do you have any music for us? Yeah, here's some
tapes here, just take whatever you want. And Arthur Hiller
was like, that's the tape I want, Like that's really
that's the tape. We're going Yes, that's the one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:18):
Wait did Aartha Hilla ghost direct this film? We're just
saying because he's in it. He was directed Jerry Jameson
directed exactly Terry you forgetting that who made Airport seventy
seven and Raise the Titanic and directed what it was

(01:02:39):
in the editorial department of the TV series Mod Squad
between nineteen sixty eight nineteen seventy Right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Yeah, I mean it's it's such a yeah, I don't know,
it's it's it's just it's so fascinating.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
One of the editor is different as well, so the
cinematograph but kind Blakey that's correct, Bye bye, that's correct.
I mean, yes, it should be him and uh yes,
stunt stunt Cola S. Mackay and uh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Yeah, it's interesting. On IMDb he's only listed as a
as a stunt worker, but in the credits he's a
stunt coordinator.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
Right, yeah, so someone they just sort that out.

Speaker 5 (01:03:21):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
And but the editor, I've got a feeling it's not
uh Paul Vulk's crew for editing.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
We did do the post production because he's in the
credits and that as well. And he called you like,
I don't think he's on the IMDb credits, but he
was on the the the crawl. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
But this this was directed by Steven sorry, this was
edited by Steven Adrianson.

Speaker 2 (01:03:46):
Yeah, so he was just so so who knows what
what Paul Vulk. His part was, you know, but it's
just said post production. But he might have. He might have,
he might have listened to it, and it's been like,
we got to get it out there.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
Yeah. And what's weird is that this editor does edit
the PM films. They are the editor on the Underground
eight episode of the l A TV series The Sender, Undercover, Angel, Avalanche,
fire Trap. He also then continued to work with Joseph Murray,

(01:04:16):
at least as part of his Rodney Dangerfield series of movies.
That May worked on and edits Back by Midnight, hilarious
prison comedy directed and written by Harry Basil, and I
believe Joseph Murray produced that, and this editor went on

(01:04:38):
to do that. The interesting thing about that is the
composer of that said movie with Rodney Dangerfield Back by
min Night is Christopher Lennet's and I have interviewed Christopher Lennarts.
It all connects, my friend at All connects, and talking

(01:05:13):
about interviews, it is now sincerely one of the pleasures
of my life that I get to say. The following
words coming up in a minute here on the PM
Entertainment podcast is an exclusive Jeff Speakman interview. Wow, I've
been a fan of the guy for so long now,
and like many an action fan, have always cherished the
films we got, but always secretly hope for a lot

(01:05:33):
more movies as his chosen martial art KEMPO is cinematic
fireworks and has always deserved a lot better than it
may have got. Anyway, we talk about his starting movies,
his tempo, and Land of the Free in a clip
coming up soon. It was such a pleasure to speak
to Jeff Speakman and present this interview for you. So
I really hope everybody likes this, enjoys this, shares this,

(01:05:57):
tells their friends all about it, tell anyone who even
has a passing interest in action films about this show,
and of course likes comments, rates, reviews, all of that
good stuff. Please please please keep up the interaction with
our Facebook and Instagram pages, and obviously the rating and
reviewing on all podcast platforms. It really really does help

(01:06:20):
the show, so please keep it up. And as you
know from the beginning of the show, you can always
email us at pmtpod at gmail dot com. That's pm
Eantpod at gmail dot com. All right, coming up, As always,
there's a few adverts or commercials, call them what you will,
because we need to pay for the hosting of this
show and various other little things that cost for us

(01:06:42):
to do this. And then we will have our interview
with Jeff Speakman. So again, thanks ever so much for listening.
Hope you're enjoying the show. Don't forget to share it
amongst everyone you know and enjoy this interview with mister
Jeff's speakman.

Speaker 4 (01:06:59):
So so.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
Doing a little bit reading today and from your website,
it seems like you started your martial arts journey in
the late seventies early eighties, earning a black belt in
Japanese goju rayu karate in nineteen eighty. Your master at
the time, Lou Angels, suggested that after college you go
study with Ed Parker and Los Angeles. So is it
fair to say that martial arts brought you to Los

(01:07:22):
Angeles and you sort of decided to start your acting
training and auditions once you were there, or was the
intention always to go to LA to kind of break
into the film business. It was a happy accident that
mister Parker was also there.

Speaker 5 (01:07:34):
No, your first rendition is correct, and the way you
read that off the Lou angel suggestion is also completely correct.
In fact, he wrote a letter of introduction for me
to mister Parker. So when I went to LA in
the summer of nineteen eighty three, I went to the

(01:07:57):
ironically were two weeks later was the very famous Long
Beach Tournament and in the International Karate Championships to IKC,
which was at Parker's tournament was the biggest in the world,
so I thought, how great.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
Just two weeks.

Speaker 5 (01:08:14):
Later I drove down to Long Beach and looked around
and of course wowed by a couple of thousand competitors.

Speaker 4 (01:08:21):
It was huge.

Speaker 5 (01:08:24):
Found that Parker bowed to him, handed him this letter
of recommendation from Lou Angel, and he was so happy
to hear from his own old friend. He gave me
his home phone numbers. They'd give me a couple of
weeks to get done with this and call me.

Speaker 4 (01:08:39):
And I'll get you started. So that's how that went.

Speaker 5 (01:08:42):
And I moved to LA to study tempo and then
got into acting later, but did that because of Kempo and.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
So obviously in those mid to late eighties years, more
and more martial artists were obviously moving into the film industry,
and well obviously the seventies had been a highlight of
Asian and Hong Kong action films. America really came into
its own in the eighties. Was that kind of what
inspired you with your tempo training then with your guard training.

(01:09:14):
Was that where you wanted to then sort of bring
that to the big screen. Was that the idea or
did you just think while I'm in Los Angeles, let's
get some acting under my belt as well.

Speaker 5 (01:09:24):
No, it was more like the first The actual thing
that happened was there was a parent bringing her child
in for kempo instruction, which I was teaching the class,
and then she would watch every day every week and
finally came up to me. And she worked in the
movie business, but as a publicist, right, and she came

(01:09:46):
up and said, you know, you ought to take this
tempo stuff you do and go study acting and try
to take it in the movies, because I've never seen
anything like this. And I was resistant at first because
I'm from the Midwest, didn't have any experience and every
even went to a high school play or anything, and
so it was not on my radar. I just came
there to study tempo and you know, explore what La

(01:10:09):
had to offer. So she kept coming back and finally
one day she walked in and she said, look, here's
a reputable acting class. I've already called them their friends
of mine. They're inviting you in to come and just watch.
So do me a favor and just go watching it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:23):
It was a little bit.

Speaker 5 (01:10:24):
It was like a forty five minute drive in the burbank,
but I said, okay, you know, I'll go see now.
I took a degree in the behavioral sciences my undergraduate degree,
so when I went there and watched my first acting
class ever, that's what struck me as really interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:10:43):
Is it seemed like.

Speaker 5 (01:10:44):
A way that you could learn more about yourself through
experiencing training as an actor. So I was intrigued by it.
I started that and ironically, right about that same time,
Van Dam's first movie came out out called blood Sport. Yeah,
so I thought, okay, since I'm thinking of doing this,

(01:11:05):
I'm going to go all by myself on a weekend
in the afternoon and sit and watch this new guys
movie and then I'll see what I think. And after
I watched that movie, the only thing I thought was,
man if that made it on the big screen. Way
till they see tempo.

Speaker 1 (01:11:22):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think people felt that as well
when they saw the Perfect Weapon for the first time,
you know, having already seen, as you say, sort of
Van Dam stuff and a couple of other martial arts films,
once they saw Kempo. I certainly like when I first
saw that movie, it blew me to the back of

(01:11:42):
my seat. I'm like, Okay, oh my goodness, because there's
because your technique. It has a lot of strength, a
lot of speed, a lot of power, and obviously sort
of such great technique to it, such great movement to it,
and grateful to it. So it's different from just you know,

(01:12:05):
and no disrespect to anyone else, but different from just
sort of roundhouse kicks or you know, punches or things
that you had seen maybe Norris or Vandam or other
people do who are highly skilled, highly trained, but you know,
Kempo seems to take that to a whole new level.

Speaker 5 (01:12:23):
Yes, and I agree, And I'm so happy to hear
that you perceived that, because that was the intentional along.
I don't never wanted to be just another one of
the guys. I wanted to stand out, so I selected
to study acting for five years before I went out
and let anyone know that I also knew martial art

(01:12:47):
called tempo, because if I was going to get my chance,
I wanted to be able to prove that also I
could act. And the way you do that is you
go out on auditions with everybody else, and you earn
that position, You get hired, You go to work, you
get your paycheck, and the check cashes.

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
At the bank.

Speaker 5 (01:13:07):
Once you've done that, now you're, in quotes, a working actor,
because you know the joke in la is you go
to somebody say oh, what do you do? And they
say I'm an actor and go, oh great, what restaurant
do you work at? You know, until you actually do
it and walk the walk, and it took me five years.

(01:13:29):
You really are just don't want to be until you
actually get hired based on your acting talent. Then, ironically,
one of the teachers in the acting workshop I went
to he wrote Man Damn's second movie, Kickboxer, and so
I thought, wow, how crazy is this? So we started

(01:13:50):
talking and he was interested. So he came down to
the dojo and I made a demonstration for him and
that's when he said, Okay, that's it. So we went
back and called Mark Passal, who produced and directed Vandam's movies,
who he just finished doing the third movie with Vandam
called Death Warrant, and now we's looking for another guy.

(01:14:12):
And so he then came to the West La Dojo
at night after we were closed, and I had a
couple of black belts with me and we put on
a demo, and right there he said, okay, I want
to sign you for four.

Speaker 1 (01:14:25):
Movies, which is fantastic, obviously a great success on your part,
and I think that when I watch your films in particular,
what does strike me is that you did the acting
work first. Again, no disrespect to anyone else. There are
a lot of great martial artists in movies. There aren't
a lot of great martial artists actors in movies. They learn.

(01:14:49):
You see martial artists who start in the eighties who
by the time they get ten movies deep, are much
better actors. And they've obviously learned on the job, but
initially that's not what's bringing you to the film with you.
On the other hand, I feel like you balanced both
really really well, honestly, and I'm not just blowing smoke
or being complimentary. I genuinely have said that to other

(01:15:11):
people before I ever got a chance to talk to you,
so it definitely shows up on screen.

Speaker 4 (01:15:15):
I believe wonderful.

Speaker 5 (01:15:18):
Thank you very much for that because as you can imagine,
I sacrificed a lot to achieve that and it turned
out to pay off because after I signed my idea
with the Cell, then he took it to Paramount and
it said I got the next guy. Well, the president
of Paramount Gary at that time.

Speaker 4 (01:15:36):
Was Garry Lukasi.

Speaker 5 (01:15:38):
He came down to the West La Dojo after we closed,
brought a couple of other executives where the man marked
Tasal of course, and we did another demo for him.
And after that that was that. They took all of
the da sell movie and options. They were then assigned
to Paramount and then we began writing the first of

(01:16:01):
four what should have been four movies turnout not to
be the case. But the first movie, which as you
have pointed out, was called The Perfect Weapon.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
Yeah, and so you were involved from the very beginning
in developing that script, developing the idea and obviously, yes,
probably pointing out where your Kempo work would fit best
within the structure of the film. Yes, obviously Ed Parker
was your mentor at the time. Was mister Parker also involved,

(01:16:31):
Was he interested in bringing obviously his tempo to the
screen as well, or is this something you kind of
did independently on your own and with obviously the support
of the studio.

Speaker 5 (01:16:44):
No, he was there with me every step of the way.
We became very very close, as you can imagine. Yes,
you know, finally doing a Kempbo movie the way he
always wanted it done. And here's something really interesting and
power and that was Paramount. Remember I had done nothing

(01:17:04):
before that. Paramount was so impressed with what they saw.

Speaker 4 (01:17:09):
They gave me the full.

Speaker 5 (01:17:12):
Choreography of all the fight scenes. So the way that
worked is they wrote the script and we knew they
were gonna there was gonna be a fight scene in
an apartment, in a taekwondo gym, in a back alley.
I went to those physical locations with mister Parker. We
looked at them so what the environment was like, and
then we created fight scenes that worked in that environment,

(01:17:36):
and then we filmed those. And then when the movie
was over, here's the next This is really even more bizarre.
The movie is over, and of course I go to
watch it at Paramount the first showing of it with
just a handful of us in one of their theaters,
and and I started saying, wait a second, that doesn't

(01:17:57):
go there. That should be here, and where's this? I
know we shot that from this angle and with better
and so Gary Lukasey ken me and said, so, if
you re edit those fighting do you think you could
do a better job than what we have done. I said, I'm,
with all due respects, I'm sure I can.

Speaker 4 (01:18:13):
Because I'm really the only one.

Speaker 5 (01:18:15):
That knows how it's supposed to look right. And then
they said, okay, we'll give you your time in the
editing room and let's see what you can do. Remember
I have never been in an editing room before I
walked into Paramount Studios, and I have carte blanche. So
we went step by step and the end result was

(01:18:37):
that each fight scene was elongated significantly because I kept
putting things back in it that they took out because
they didn't know where it would go, right, They just
you know, they just left it lying on the desk.
Now that's important to a company like Paramount, because the
most expensive thing you're going to shoot are going to

(01:18:57):
be action scenes. Fight scenes, carts all that. Yeah, So
in terms of dollars on the screen, that's the place
that's by far the most expensive. So what I was
able to do was take exactly what they had expanded
so it had more screen time, which made them happier

(01:19:17):
because they got more of a return on their investment
and I got the art the way I wanted it
to be guided by mister Parker, so it was a
win win.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
Oh, that's fantastic. That's fantastic. And obviously on set with
those fight scenes, but also the stunts, the general stunts
in the film. You were working with Rick Avery, who
you would go on to work with in many more films.
Were they familiar at that time at all with the
sort of tempo techniques and how did you combine sort
of your ideas with maybe their ideas or their expertise

(01:19:49):
in other areas of stunt work and fighting.

Speaker 5 (01:19:53):
Yes, great question, and it was really easy because, believe
it or not, Rick Avery was a fifty degree black
belt and ca karate and he had a personal relationship
with mister Parker, which is how I met him. So
then when Rick came in and became part of the team,
we had to shoot all of the fight scenes in reverse.

Speaker 4 (01:20:19):
Here's what I mean.

Speaker 5 (01:20:20):
Normally, there would be a strike or a punch or
a kick toward the stuntman. They would act fake like
they got hit and react to the hit and then
turn him back and look at you, and you would
do the next hit and turn back in the next hit.
That's how that all works. The problem is, I'm moving

(01:20:40):
way too fast for that. So what we did was
we way in advance. We had workouts at the dojo
with all teams of stunt men under Rick Avery. So
each stuntman was a signed to each scene, but each
fight sequence with me, we would rehearse and so they

(01:21:01):
would understand what their body reaction was, and then they
had to fit my hand speed instead of me waiting for.

Speaker 4 (01:21:10):
Them to react. And that's the thing that.

Speaker 5 (01:21:13):
You experience when you look at that and go, I've
never seen this before. Tempo's totally unique. When you know
all those feelings you had that was because I was
doing stuff real speed and the stumpman had to match
my hands as opposed to the reverse, which is where
I have to match the stunt man.

Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
Right, Okay, I see, So yeah, that's a that's a
unique way of filming and was it something that was
was was that something you then brought to further roles.
Were you able to say, look, we had the best
success and perfect weapon with this technique. And then you
were almost training stunt teams as you were coming into
new movies to kind of go, hey, look this is

(01:21:55):
the way it works better.

Speaker 4 (01:21:57):
Is is that that's right? Yeah, You've got it exactly right.

Speaker 5 (01:22:02):
A little caveat here was the truth was I never
had to go in and say, look, here's how I
did this, here's how it worked.

Speaker 4 (01:22:09):
Let me do the same thing here.

Speaker 5 (01:22:10):
They came to me and they said, whatever you did
to make that work.

Speaker 4 (01:22:15):
Can do it again.

Speaker 5 (01:22:16):
And I said, yes, as long as you give me
what I need, which is time in a gym working
with the stuntman that are going to be on the
set so we can rehearse. Because, as you know and
probably everybody can understand, when you're on the movie set,
the money is flying out the door. Yeah, so you

(01:22:36):
have got to be prepared. You can't be on the
movie set choreographing of fighting. You've got to have the
fighting choreographed already. And then we went one step further,
which was we trained the stuntman how to react in advance.
So when it came time for us to shoot whatever fighting,
we were rehearsed, we were ready, We blocked it out

(01:22:57):
for the cameras and then we shot it and we
were done.

Speaker 4 (01:23:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:02):
Easy to move on then, and you're not wasting the
money on the set, you're not wasting the ques time.
They can just yeah, they know.

Speaker 4 (01:23:09):
Where it needs to be exactly exactly.

Speaker 5 (01:23:12):
And of course you just said the magic phrase, you're
saving time, which means you're saving money, which makes.

Speaker 1 (01:23:18):
You a hero exactly. And the more you know, it's
it's like anything, and it's it's an old phrase. People
have used it before, but you know, fight choreography and movies,
even with real martial artists, it's still like, you know,
filming a dance sequence or you know, some some form
of choreography in some way, and you know, no one

(01:23:40):
comes on set and says, oh, let's do a tango,
you know, because you're like, well, what do you mean
are you leading? Am I leading? You know? Who's what's
the music's playing under the scene, et cetera, et cetera. Right,
So it's the same hopefully with martial arts, but obviously
is as there became such a rush because two things
were happening at the time. Culturally, there was all these

(01:24:01):
movies coming out, and then there was obviously video stores
popping up everywhere, and the demand for these things became
greater and greater. But that obviously meant that the time
allotted for making these things became less and less, which
I'm sure is something you experienced once we got onto
the PM films to some extent, because I know how
kind of fast and loose they shot those. But you

(01:24:23):
it indicated earlier that obviously the contract that you initially
had with Paramount didn't pan out. Did you not do
Street Night with them? With Street Night with a different company?

Speaker 4 (01:24:34):
Then?

Speaker 5 (01:24:36):
Yes, Street Night was with Warner Brothers. Okay. They although
Paramount had me on contract locked up for the Perfect
Weapon and three options after that, Okay, the thing that
kept us from doing another Paramount movie was they had
such a terrible experience with Mark Bacell that they didn't

(01:24:57):
want to work with him again, and I was tied
to him on those remaining three options. So yeah, so
they had me on what's called a holding deal, which
means they're going to pay you x amount of dollars
for you not to go anywhere else, And so all
they did was pay me the money for the holding deal,

(01:25:18):
never pull the trigger on doing the next movie, which
then kicked me out of the Paramount loop.

Speaker 4 (01:25:25):
But I was still tied to the Sell.

Speaker 5 (01:25:27):
So that's why we went to Warner Brothers next, and
on after and then the Cannon after that, because I
had no right whatsoever determine the budget, the content of
the movie, nothing, because of course I signed the deal
with the Sell before Paramount. So it was whatever Da
Sal wanted to do, whatever movie he wanted to do,

(01:25:49):
wherever he wanted to do it, and I was obligated
to do that. And if I didn't, for good reasons
are bad, he would have sued me for sure, and
I would have been in a whole lot of trouble.

Speaker 1 (01:26:01):
Okay, Okay, I understand, I understand. So was there anything
in Street Night then? And I don't know how far
you had got on working just on ideas and things
from those Paramount films, And I know that Perfect Weapon
two had been mooted at some point. Was there anything
from those ideas that wound up in Street Night? Or
was Street Night a movie that kind of came to

(01:26:22):
you already prepped.

Speaker 5 (01:26:26):
It was Street Night was a movie that came to
the mindset of Mark the Soll. So he had this
vision and he pictured to me and said, this is
where our next movie will be. And he got the
funding for it, and then they hired a writer and
then went about writing it.

Speaker 4 (01:26:46):
I was involved all the.

Speaker 5 (01:26:47):
Way, and I thought it was really a good idea,
really a good script. They hired an amazing director by
the name of Albert Magnoli, and you might recognize the
name because he directed Prince in Rain is his biggest
movie by far, And this guy was an incredibly talented director, and.

Speaker 4 (01:27:09):
We became good friends.

Speaker 5 (01:27:10):
And the problem still with Street Night was but there
was a time sensitive issue where if Dasal didn't do
his next Speakman movie very very soon, then he was
going to lose Speakman from his contract because everything's got
a time limitation to it. So the budget for the

(01:27:36):
movie turned out we only received half of the original
budget for the movie, and we didn't know the other
half wasn't coming until we were halfway shooting the movie.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
Oh my goodness.

Speaker 5 (01:27:51):
Okay, so you can imagine the chaos and the shot
of the entire crew when the word came out out
and said, Okay, we're not getting any more money, we
have to plan to finish the movie with half the budget,
and so things started being taken out change. We don't

(01:28:11):
have that much time to shoot. So there was a definite,
definite loss in the content and the quality of the movie.
But it still turned out to be a very, in
my opinion, a very good film. And the reason why
it turned out to be that good is because Albert
Magnoli was a brilliant director.

Speaker 1 (01:28:31):
Yeah, and interestingly, because it looks like he also had
had some you know, we are fortune to Lee talking
about earlier, you know, dance sequences and musical sequences. That
clearly was where Albert came from to some extent looking
at his credentials on IMDb. So that's that's that's fast fascinating.

(01:28:53):
Moving forward to your PM Entertainment film. Yeah, the first
movie you do with them is nineteen ninety eight Land
of the Free, so PM have been going about ten
years at that point. Were you aware of PM before
you worked with them, and how did you kind of
get over the company?

Speaker 5 (01:29:09):
Yes, of course, like Cannon, like New Image, Ivy Learners
Company and PM entertainment.

Speaker 4 (01:29:18):
They were very well known in.

Speaker 5 (01:29:20):
The industry for doing, in quotes, these kinds of movies,
and they had already established themselves, as you pointed out
in Business ten years. But here's what's interesting about all
three of those companies, including PM, is that they really
went at this with the idea of they were the
creators of what we would now call a mini studio.

(01:29:43):
So they began, for example, when you do a movie,
you buy all the clothing, all the wardrobe for everybody
in the movie. Well, they kept accumulating that wardrobe over time,
so they already had a huge wardrobe section hand all
of their key people wardrobe, hair, makeup, lighting, transportation. They're

(01:30:07):
working movie after movie after movie after movie. And if
you can, as a company guarantee the head of let's
say wardrobe, you say, look, we're.

Speaker 4 (01:30:18):
Doing five movies this year.

Speaker 5 (01:30:20):
I'll if you make us a deal, I'll hire you
for all five. Well, to somebody in the movie business,
that's the best case scenario, because you work for two
or three or four or five months and then you're
out of work until you get hired again. That's so
you can imagine, look, I'll we got five movies we've

(01:30:40):
got ten, we got fifteen. You stay with us, and
yes you're gonna work at a reduced straight, but you're
gonna work all throughout these years coming forward. Well, who
isn't gonna take that deal?

Speaker 4 (01:30:52):
Right?

Speaker 5 (01:30:53):
And then the the production cars that they bought, the
trucks for transportation. Then they bought a huge building when
it could star everything, And that's where I came into
their lives.

Speaker 1 (01:31:06):
Yeah, so they had already accumulated their the know how,
the teams, and you know, we've spoken to a lot
of people behind the scenes of PM Joseph and Rick
obviously the two name producing partners, but also Ken Blakey,
the cinematographer, Spiro Results that's one of their stunt coordinators.

Speaker 5 (01:31:27):
And so on.

Speaker 1 (01:31:28):
We've spoken to a lot of Paul Volk who did
a lot of editing and post production with them. So
we've spoken to a lot of people behind the scenes,
and we're sort of familiar with the way they put
their company together and then kind of the speed with
which they were filming. And obviously as a as an
action fan and even as a low budget action fan,
because I look, I love all the so called like

(01:31:50):
a listers, but some of the stuff that was done,
as you say, with these smaller studios or the straight
to video set. Really, some of the stunts they got
on screen match, if not beat, a lot of what
Hollywood was doing, because when Hollywood does it, they have
to spend millions and millions and millions of dollars. Joseph

(01:32:11):
and Rick was when you know, Corles McKay or Spiro
Rozados or Rick Avery or whoever they're working with, they
were just like, come on, do your stuff, you know
what I mean, and kind of gave them the room
to do their stuff and as long as it was
within the parameters that they had sat down. So often
their films are more exciting, more successful, they move faster,

(01:32:32):
and when you look back at them now with hindsight,
I mean, it's incredible what they achieved on a budget.
So someone like me, who is really yeah, someone like me,
I love that let's get together and put on a
show attitude like it's a big thing for me, and
I love the way they were doing it. So you must,

(01:32:53):
as you said, you were attracted to the idea of
them saying, you know, Jeff, we've loved your work, let's
get you in. You know. Three four or five movies
like Let's Start being in the Jeff Speakman business and
the way that they had with John Wilson and Jeff
Wincart and some of your contemporaries within their stable of actors.

Speaker 4 (01:33:12):
Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:33:13):
But obviously one of the things that stands out with
Land of the Free is that you get to work
with William Shatner. With you're a fan of pop culture
at all, Shatner has to be in there somewhere. It
just he's been around long enough that that's the case.
What was it like working with him on the film.
And also, obviously he's not a fighter in the traditional sense,
and you also get to drown him. So talk a

(01:33:35):
little bit about not only working with him as an actor,
but also then working with him in because he does
some rough and tumble stuff at the end, and for
a sixty seven year old man or whatever he was
at the time, it's pretty impressive. So talk us through
that relationship on set.

Speaker 5 (01:33:51):
And I'm really glad you brought that up because I
grew up watching Star Trek, so you know, he and
Leondard Naymore were two of my heroes. So to find
out I'd get to do a movie with William Shatner.
I just about fell out of my chair. And ironically
he had taken some martial art lessons from Ed Parker

(01:34:12):
back in the day, so he knew what kem yeah,
he knew what tempo was, he knew who Ed Parker was.

Speaker 4 (01:34:19):
And so finally, from the.

Speaker 5 (01:34:20):
Day I met him, all the way through working he
was the nicest person and so gracious and so willing
to I mean, normally somebody of his stature when he's
not in the scene, he'll be in his trailer, but
he wasn't. He was out on the set sitting in
his chair, watching everything, talking to everybody. He sat and

(01:34:44):
had lunch with all of us instead of having it
catered in his trailer. He was just a really good,
down to earth, regular guy who was also very interested
in KEMPO because he knew Ed Parker. So we would
have these wonderful conversations all the time. I'm thinking, oh
my gosh, this is Captain Kirk, you know. And then
there was that team where I had to take him

(01:35:05):
down and sit on top of him and beat his
face in and all that, and I'm just thinking to myself, man,
I'm beating up Captain Kirk. This is just too crazy,
you know, you know, you can imagine growing up and
then here you are not only starring in a movie,
but you're starring in a movie with him and you
got to kill him. It was it was such a
bizarre but very interesting. But I want to just say

(01:35:28):
that he was an absolute gem of a guy. And
several times I've seen him in Hollywood at restaurants or anything.
Stands up, hugs me, Jeff. It's so good to see you.
It was great working with you. You know, he's just
that much of a genuine guy.

Speaker 1 (01:35:45):
Oh. I love hearing that. I really do love hearing that.
I've always been a fan of his, you know, all
of his whether it's Star Trek, TJ. Hook, Boston Legal,
any of his stuff. I'm a big fan of his.
And you know, he can occasionally get a bum wrap
in the you know, in the press from certain people
who want to drag his name. So it's always nice

(01:36:06):
that to hear that, actually, you had a great experience
with him, because I think he's just from seeing interviews
and documentaries and stuff. I feel like he's a funny,
interesting guy. But you know, I'm glad to have that
confirmed and Obviously you were shooting on a ranch at
the end of that that film, and Shatner is a
big horse guy. Are you also interested in in a

(01:36:30):
question or was was was that just his back?

Speaker 5 (01:36:34):
No, I was, you know, before I moved to LA
to study Tempo in which we spoke about already. Yeah,
I was attending college in Joplin, Missouri. Spent my first
semester living on a ranch feeding cattle every morning to
pay for my room and board as I worked our
way through school. So I had, you know, some appreciation

(01:36:58):
for that world of my movie where we had some
horses in the movie and I was able to ride,
and so I spent all my days over there with
the horses, and I loved it. And yes, he's a
very bigger questioning guy, and.

Speaker 4 (01:37:18):
Yeah, it was a wonderful experience with him.

Speaker 1 (01:37:21):
And PM had by that point become very known for
their vehicular madness and connage and crazy cost stunts and
things like that.

Speaker 4 (01:37:29):
Crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
Obviously, the opening sequence of that movie has a big thing,
but then the end sequence in the school bus, I mean,
forget about it. Some of the stunts they're doing there
is crazy. What was it like? I mean, I know
that you had been on films where they had sort
of been stunts and things like that previously, But what
was it like sort of witnessing the sort of the

(01:37:51):
PM way of doing it and kind of being amongst
their cons stunts and pyrotechnics.

Speaker 4 (01:37:56):
They were beyond belief. You know, you just watch my movies.

Speaker 5 (01:38:01):
Course it's true with all of their movies, but if
we just watched mine, you would, if you didn't know better,
you would watch one of the many, many car stunts
and you would go, there is no way there's a
human being sitting in that car. They had to put
a dummy in it and have it be radio controlled
and blah blah blah, and I'm telling you.

Speaker 4 (01:38:20):
That's not true.

Speaker 5 (01:38:21):
They would flip over twenty feet in the air land
on the roof, roll over three times. There was somebody
sitting in that car. Yeah, with a helmet on, of
course and strapped in and safety in, but just traveling
an incredible race of speed, and you can imagine what
it was like to be sitting there and watching it live.
You're you're just thinking, there's no way, no way, that

(01:38:43):
guy's walking out of there, and you know, the side
window kicks open and some guy crawls out, there's the
two thumbs up, and everybody applauds and we go to
the next shot. It was absolutely amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
Yeah, it was a wild time. And that's and again
it's it's it's because it's just pre CGI. You really
know when you're watching a PM Entertainment film, whether it's
the expertise of the martial artist or whether it's the
expertise of the stunt work, you know that it's all
being done for real, and you know that what you're

(01:39:18):
watching is skill at work. Not that there isn't skill
in CGI, but it's not a skill that viscerally translates
in the way that martial arts and stunts do. So
that's why again I'm just such a big fan of
PM's films and and and act to martial artists such
as yourself. So I couldn't find a fight choreographer or

(01:39:41):
even sort of a fight stunt choreographer listed for the film.
So I'm assuming that that was all you and your
team and the people that you you brought to your films.
Is that correct?

Speaker 5 (01:39:53):
Yes, that is correct. In fact, the argument that my
agents and managers would present to whomever was interested in
having me in their movie is this comes with the deal.
If you want Jeff to be in the movie, you
let him choreograph it. He can even help direct and
shoot it. His team with Rick Avery is the best

(01:40:16):
at what they do, so it's sort of like, if
you're smart, let him do what he does. It'll be
cheaper for you and you'll wind up with amazing fight
scenes and not.

Speaker 4 (01:40:26):
One place boxed at that.

Speaker 5 (01:40:30):
They all went yes, of course, I mean, the only
thing that did happen to me. If you don't mind
me sharing this with you, please. Not long after Street
Night came out, Warner Brothers approached me with a TV series,
so we talked about it, we went into negotiations, we
accepted the deal. They gave me a one year holding

(01:40:53):
agreement with pay to once again hold you, so you
don't do television anywhere else.

Speaker 4 (01:40:59):
I could go on and do whatever movies.

Speaker 5 (01:41:02):
And then we got a little bit deeper into the
negotiation after deals are signed after some time once and
of course in my contract was as long as it
doesn't interfere with the delivery of the piece of the
film or the TV series, then speak and choreographs the
fight scenes and edits the fight scenes which by the way,

(01:41:23):
he did in his first movie for Paramount, which had
the success of these dramatic and dynamic fightings. And everybody
agreed totally except Warner Brothers.

Speaker 4 (01:41:34):
They said, we just.

Speaker 5 (01:41:35):
Don't give actors that kind of authority. And then I intervened.
I said, I got an idea. How about if you
give me another title, don't pay me anymore, just give
me another title so you don't have to say an
actor had control of the fightings because for some reason,
that's I don't know, taboo to you. And they just

(01:42:00):
wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it. And I said,
I am not doing a martial art movie where I
can't control this because it's my responsibility to maintain the
integrity of this martial art we called tempo karate that's
on my back. And I know you don't care because
you're an editor.

Speaker 4 (01:42:17):
Wi the hell do you care? But I care.

Speaker 5 (01:42:19):
It's my life and they would not hear of it.
I said, Okay, then you can just pay them out
holding fee and will do nothing, which is exactly what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:42:30):
Yeah. So it's so bizarre, isn't it, because you would
think again, Look like I said before, if you're doing,
you know, jiu jitsu or karate or something that sort
of many people have training in and many people use
on film sets, and I'm sure many fight choreographers and

(01:42:50):
stunt workers already are aware of. I can understand it
because you're sort of like, well, look that these are
disciplines that are widely practiced and widely known, and you know,
have many variations to them and so on. But when
you're doing something like kempo, and really the only other
equivalent I can think of is someone like Cigal with

(01:43:11):
his akido, Right, there's not many other akdo people in
movies in the same way they own many other kempo
people in movies, and so it would behoove them. You
would think to be like, well, let's get you know,
Ed Parker, Rigavie and Jeff' speaking literally three of the
most well known and creative and inventive I mean Ed

(01:43:31):
Parker invented like a whole section of kempo. Why wouldn't Yeah,
why wouldn't you want the best working on the movie
or the TV show? It doesn't It doesn't make any
sense other than they've never wanted. Much like the music industry,
the film industry, has never wanted to give the actors
too many, or the musicians or whatever too much room
to breathe, I guess, or they always want to maintain

(01:43:53):
some sort of level of bizarre control or something.

Speaker 4 (01:43:55):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:43:56):
Yes, And really, when you peel back the layers of
that onion and you look at it a little deeper,
the truth is it's all ego based, because if you
just pointed out, it makes no sense. Now if I
was just doing a boxing rocky kind of a kickbox
or movie, of course those are one move stop, one

(01:44:16):
move stop. But when you've got six or seven or
eight moves within a same sequence that will last one
and a half to two seconds, that's not easy to do,
and it's not easy to capture it on camera. Then
it's not easy to edit it because it's going so
fast you don't know what the sequence is. So there

(01:44:38):
is no way that anybody with any common sense will go, no,
don't let them do it.

Speaker 4 (01:44:43):
We can do it better. You can't. You just can't.

Speaker 5 (01:44:46):
So and as crazy as that is, that's how I
ended my relationship with Warner Brothers.

Speaker 1 (01:44:52):
Yeah, and did you find that working with PM then,
who obviously had had a history working with, as I said, Wilson,
Cynthia Rothrock, Jeff Winker, other people who were either you know,
martial artists first and became actors, or actors who, like
Jeff Wincott, was a strong martial artist. Did you find

(01:45:15):
that they were obviously much more open to that, appreciate
it and actually wanted to kind of get that on
screen the way you wanted to.

Speaker 5 (01:45:22):
Yes, they totally got it. There's just no question that.
And it fits right in with their business model. Yeah,
which is you know, it's led by common sense and logic,
not by ego, and that's why they succeeded.

Speaker 4 (01:45:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:45:37):
And did you get to know Joseph Mary or Rick
Pepper or anything like that or were you more just
with the because I know that by the time you
were with PM the Creuse, you were working with a
sort of a mishmash of people who they had worked
with before. And someone like Ken Blakey is there. He's
sort of a mainstay who shot so many of their films,

(01:45:58):
and obviously there are stunt cruise and things that they
had in place, but the directors for your films are
ones that had worked previously with PM, but not in
the same way that Joseph had shot his own stuff
and records, shot his own stuff and so on and
so forth. So did you find you got in involved
with those guys and kept in touch with those guys
or were they more hands off in the case of

(01:46:20):
this because you were working with different directors.

Speaker 5 (01:46:23):
No, I actually got to know Joseph Merry quite well
and much better than Rick Pepin. I've been to Joseph's
house several times for dinner. We worked and collaborated closely.

Speaker 1 (01:46:38):
You've accomplished so much, fantastic business, fantastic schools, and so honestly,
with all my heart and all my respect, thank you
so much for this conversation. It has been absolutely wonderful
and the podcast listeners will really truly appreciate it great.

Speaker 5 (01:46:53):
Thank you so much for this opportunity and for everybody
out there listening. That in my heart is the heart
of a martial artist. That's all I wanted all my life,
and I'm living a wonderful life. I'm extremely happy, and
I have a great life with all my schools around
the world. I love and care for my black belt students,

(01:47:16):
and I know they feel the same about me. And
it's a wonderful life that I have, and I'm extremely
grateful that I had the opportunity to do the movies
that I did. And I want to take a moment
and thank you because your questions are just spot on.
You you know exactly what you're talking about. So I
want to just tell you how grateful I am for

(01:47:39):
this opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:47:40):
Well that's very kind, so very kind, Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:47:58):
Again, we're getting like the p action. Like you said,
this is the point in the movie when like when
when he's at the park and he catches these guys
bothering him, I mean, he takes them, he kind of
takes them into an alley and beats the crap out
of him. Ken Post style you with a quick punches
and all those things. So he's beating the crap out

(01:48:18):
of people. He's there's car chases, there's shootouts. I mean,
you know, Colas McKay shows up to the safe house
and speakman's gunning them down with a shotgun. So it's
like the action is starting to ramp up, but the
music is acting like we're still in the earlier sequences
the film.

Speaker 1 (01:48:34):
Yeah, the music, the music never ever raises above. Do
you know what the music is I've never seen that show, Jack,
I've never seen that show Jag, right, right, Jack? Yes, yeah,
right that show. Isn't that about naval things or whatever?

Speaker 4 (01:48:51):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:48:52):
Yeah, navy attorneys. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:48:54):
I imagine the JAG soundtrack sounds like this movie. If
someone said to me, oh, they've stolen the JAG soundtrack,
that's what I mean. I've never seen Jag, but by
having seen the front cover of JAG, I assume the
soundtrack because this whole thing plays like this very bland,

(01:49:17):
cod heroic navel music like throughout the whole thing. And
what's interesting is Eric Idol tells this story about Holy Grail.
When Monty Python and the Holy Girl were making that,
they went to Neil Andis from the Bonzo Dog Duda
band and Rutland Weekend Television and the Ruttles and performing

(01:49:38):
his own right Neil Nis, And they went to him
and they said, do us an authentic medieval soundtrack. So
we got together all these like loop players and sack
butt players and all this sort of old medieval thing
and did a very authentic medieval soundtrack. And when they
put it against the movie, the movie died. And what
they realized was there's one extra to the movie that

(01:50:01):
they hadn't thought of, and that is and a sort
of Excalibur parody, like those cod Arthurian film parodies. And
so what they did was they went off to the
Dwolf Library got a whole bunch of library music and
then they're that big, grandiose done that thing that plays

(01:50:21):
throughout the whole of Holy Grail. The sort of Arthurian
theme adds this weight to the movie. It really it
takes the movie from being, you know, a bunch of
comedians wearing woolen chain mail in a soggy thicket in
Scotland to being a big Arthurian legend, right. They they
they went, look, we love the authentic sack butt stuff, Neil,

(01:50:43):
You've done a great job, but it's killing our movie.
And they went to the Dwarf Library and they got
all this music that made their movie go. Yes, now
it lives, Now it flies even though people are banging
coconuts together. Once that music starts, the audience is off
on the ride, you know what I mean. Like it
adds to that, you know that pomp and circumstance PM
didn't do. PM should have done. That is what I'm

(01:51:05):
saying PM should have heard it and gone, look, this
might be what it sounds like at the naval barracks
on a Friday night when you know, drunk Mickey McGill
is playing his cassio keyboard in the corner while you
all fall over, right, That that might be. It might
be very authentic naval barracks or naval training school music.

(01:51:27):
It might be. I'm not doubting you, but enough we
need to throw it out and we need to go
to you know, see if there's any like John bon
Jovi cutoffs that we can buy, or maybe John Parr
will do us do us a theme or something like that,
you know what I mean. Listen, they could have gone

(01:51:47):
to half Penny. You would have done a better job
than this.

Speaker 2 (01:51:50):
Of course. Yeah, I mean was it because I don't
think it was too late for half Penny at this point.
I think you still making music for PM. Yeah, it's
it's it is we eat into some of the Some
of these chase sequences that come up in this movie
are some of the best in PM. You know, I mean,
now I say some of the best. I mean, you know,

(01:52:10):
there's some that like just you know, like sweeper or
recoil whatever that this doesn't come close to touching, but
they are some amazing uh car chase sequences that I mean,
the music it just completely betrays them. It's it's really
fascinating when you when you watch it a second time,
especially where you're just like, this is the music that

(01:52:30):
they're using. Well, Speakman is like flying down the highway
in a bus and then like I mean like like
there's a there's a point where the bus, so to
get people an idea what happens. They're in the motel
and they get attacked and so they need to escape
and the only vehicle is a bus. So Speakman gets
in the bus, the wife and son pile into the
bus and they're they're riding off down the highway and

(01:52:52):
eventually some guy, this like guy who's like probably like
like in his late fifties, who's on the hood of
a car, who like jumps onto the black.

Speaker 1 (01:53:00):
They send the oldest dude in history. First of all,
it's incredibly impressive that there's an old dude doing this
stunt career. I mean, he's really doing this. He calls
out of the sunroof. It's not even a moonroof. Matt
it's a sunroof, piney little sunroof calls out of that, right,
I would have been thrown clear with the car just
doing that. But him in like dress shoes and a blazer,

(01:53:23):
like he's dressed like Roger Moore would be dressed in
like a mid seventies Bond movie, you know what I mean,
dress shoes, beij pants and a blazer. And I always thought,
why is Roger Wall running over crocodiles in fucking dress shoes?
But that was Roger Moull. Same with this guy. But
it's the JC Penny version. It's the JC Penny version
of the stable row Roger more right, it's the it's

(01:53:47):
the throw a blazer around him and a tie and
dress shoes. Okay, he looks like an agent. Now just
throw him out the car. Right. He climbs out of
the sunroof, goes down the windscreen, across the hood, and
the car pulls right up to the back of the
school bus and he just steps on it. It's beautifully, beautifully.

Speaker 2 (01:54:06):
It's beautiful. And so at that point, Speakman's like, well, Okay,
my wife can't beat this guy up, so I've got
to I've got to go beat him up, so she's
got to drive the car right now, classic PM style.
She looks really uncomfortable behind the wheel of the bus, right,
She's like kind of this big, gaudy steering wheel. She
doesn't know what she's doing, but she has the presence

(01:54:27):
of mind to say, oh, this guy's got a gun
and he's coming from my husband, I should jerk the
wheel so he falls. It seems like everybody in PM
has combat training, right, They all know what to do
in these circumstances.

Speaker 1 (01:54:39):
Throwing this old man, this old man who's just like fuck,
I just had to get out onto a moving car together.
They're now throwing him around a school bus. He hits
the roof, he hits the cherries all over the bus.

Speaker 2 (01:54:52):
Yeah, And then like Speakman, who's been able to take
out people like five at a time for most of
this movie. Somehow this old guy has got him by
the throat and is like, but really, all speakmans, really,
it looks like Speakman's like struggling to try to beat
this guy up, to stop this guy. Eventually, though, he
just throws the guy out, and it's like the guy
gets run over by his by his teamate, which is

(01:55:13):
just like, oh.

Speaker 1 (01:55:14):
Yeah, that is. That is like a hardcore man going
under bronco sequence in this movie. I mean that you
do not see that coming. That's a whoa, that's a
what the what the Jimminy Christmas?

Speaker 4 (01:55:29):
That was?

Speaker 1 (01:55:29):
Yeah, that's that moment, by the way, just for anybody
keeping score. Jim Halfpenny, aforementioned composer of such classic scores
as A Dangerous Place, Riot and Little Bigfoot Too The
Journey Home, did in fact continue to work with PM
after Land of the Free, because when Speakman came back

(01:55:51):
to the PM fold for the very following years running,
Red Joseph and Rick had had decided, enough's enough with
this Cohen guy. Bring back in Halfpenny and Halfpenny give
me a fucking soundtrack Speakman can be proud of. It's
like Speaking was not happy with Cohen's. Speaker's not happy.

(01:56:15):
He wants Halfpenny and he wants him now.

Speaker 2 (01:56:18):
But he must have seen the final cut of this
and he's like he's doing all his Ken Post stuff
do this like playing in the background.

Speaker 1 (01:56:27):
I have to say I'm not usually one for the
criticism of PM, but I will say this because I
think it's honest. I think they did Speakman a little
dirty with his first film because they didn't give him
the full might of PM. They half PM him. Right,

(01:56:50):
So you've got Collins McKay and that's why we've got
some great stunts in this movie, right uh. And you've
got obviously Speakman and Chatnan and the wonderful cast. You've
got Ken Blakey. So it means that at least the
movie is not going to look like complete crap, although
I have to say there's not the usual visual flourishes

(01:57:12):
that there are in other PM films. But it's absolutely fine, No,
no one's looking can But then you give him a
director you've never worked with, and a composer you've never
worked with, and an editor that that you have worked with,
but I don't think has edited your best stuff. And
so I have to say you've you've done a disservice,

(01:57:35):
which is why I think Running Red, I think you
were like, Okay, we've got to we've got to figure
this out. And and I think they did a bit more.
I mean, yeah, because you've got Jerry P. Jacobs. Now
he directed A Dangerous Place, So you've got Jim Halfpenny,
You've got Ken Blakey, You've got Jerry P. Jacobs Rick
Avery as a second unit director on this. Spiririsatos is

(01:57:58):
a stunt performer on Running Red. Gee LaBelle does stunts
on this thing like he gives him a much more
robust crew for the unofficial sequel Running Red. It's not
a sequel. It just has speakmen in it. And so yeah,
I think that that's my only thing about Land of

(01:58:18):
the Free. Now Shatner speakman and the final car chase
save the movie. They elevate it. I would also say
I don't like the editing in this film. I feel
like it does the kempo at a service. Especially I
feel like his kempo is better elsewhere. So Shatner is charismatic,

(01:58:41):
he's menacing, he knows the character he's playing, he knows
who this is modeled on. And it's of course it's
interesting because in the second ever Colombo episode, because Shatner
did Columbo back in the seventies and then did Colombo
again in the nineties, he also plays a he's a
shock job in this in Colombo, but it is again

(01:59:03):
a sort of shatnerrific send up of mid to late
nineties celebrity and not just politics. Celebrity but like that
kind of cheeseball every interview. They've got a book to hawk,
fake hair, fake face, fake bravado. And I think Shatner
is intelligent enough and funny enough to realize what this

(01:59:28):
parody is and also why they've got him, because I
think that I think that the world looks at Shatner
like the character in Land of the Free, and I
look at Shantner like the man who knows how to
play the character in Land of the Free. I think
Shantner's got a much slyier, more interesting sense of human
than people give him credit for him. Yeah, but he's

(01:59:50):
fantastic in the film.

Speaker 2 (01:59:51):
Yeah, I agree completely because he plays this part two ways,
you know. Again, going back to the Dangerous Place episode
we talked about Marshall Tek where he he took a
care there's kind of a more of a scenery chewing
batty and made him much more sinister. Shatner knew when
to do the scenery chewing batty because this movie required
scenery chewing batty as opposed to Marshall tigues where you'd

(02:00:11):
want it, but he didn't do it. This one needed
the scenery chewing batty. But he knew when to pull
it back and be sinister, right, Like there's there were
moments where he's talking to speakman and he says things like,
you know, it's like, oh, isn't it great? You know,
best best defense money can buy, and all those kind
of stuff, things like things are gonna get a lot
worse for you, you know, or like you know, when he's
at his house and he's like, just you know, catch
this guy, I'm gonna rip his head off or whatever.

(02:00:32):
You know, it's like he knew when to do it.

Speaker 1 (02:00:34):
It says, I'm going to out.

Speaker 2 (02:00:36):
Yeah, it's so that's the thing that Shatner was so
great within this movie is that he plays it both
ways at exactly the right moments that you need to
play it both ways. So it's like a it's like
fun when it needs to be fun and it's diabolical
or you know, despicable and it needs to be that too.
It's it's one of those things where a movie like
this can get a Shatner and it brings a whole

(02:00:58):
nother thing to the move to the movie that Yeah,
you're right, people don't give him enough credit for this
kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (02:01:06):
Yeah, no, one hundred percent and he's he's fantastic, and
Speakman is Greace. Like what I love about Speakman is that,
and you know, it's it's funny. We were talking about
the two Jeffs having never done a film together. I
would love to have seen a double Jeff film. And
the reason that I would have loved to have seen
that is that Jeff Speakman and Jeff Wincott both great

(02:01:30):
actors for their you know, because they're also martial arts
and something else, great actors well.

Speaker 2 (02:01:36):
And Speakman. You know, it's interesting Speakman because he's from
Chicago originally, and I guess like he must in real
life have like a thicker Chicago accent that he covers
up with his The way he speaks in these movies,
it's like this clean announcer voice that he has when
he's talking to people that just it's it just again,

(02:01:56):
it just adds this whole other level, you know, in
a way you can believe him more when he's behind
a computer when he talks like that. You know that like,
oh yeah, yeah, Speakman would not use a computer, you know,
in nineteen ninety eight. It's kind of a it's a
fascinating thing, but it's one of those things. I mean,
I guess because he you know, the perfect weapon didn't

(02:02:17):
go as well as it needed to. Street Night came
at the end of Cannon's run and kind of got
lost in the shuffle that he and then the market
was kind of saturated with these guys that he never
quite took off like he should have. But you watch
something like this and you're like, yeah, I want to
root for him. I want to follow him.

Speaker 1 (02:02:32):
Right, I just wish you would change that shirt. That's
how I feel, right, I wish he would change the shirt.
He does eventually, ladies and gems change the shirt when
he goes on and all of suff well, first of all,
hang on a second. There's the car bus school bus chase,
which ends with his wife and kid trapped in a

(02:02:55):
school bus, hit pull on by another truck, and flat
out expl Lloyd's and I have to say that my
friend Jim Wallace, who was watching it with me, went,
oh good, did they kill the family? That's what he
said when we were watching it. He goes, oh good,
did they kill the family? And I'm like, I don't
think they killed a family like them might kill a

(02:03:15):
family at the beginning of a movie. I don't see
them killing a family at the end of them.

Speaker 2 (02:03:19):
No recoil. They hit in the middle, but even then
it was kind of beginning middle ish, so that was
probably the latest that you kill a family is recoil.

Speaker 1 (02:03:30):
I'd say, yeah, right, yeah, I think this was too
late to kill a family, but it did get them
out of the way so that a speakman could done
his trademark All Black Street Night, get up and take
on to Shatner's compound in the California Hills. But first

(02:03:53):
Matt he has to go buy some equipment at a
hardware store and he has to go by bomb from
a crazy old man with a mangled face. Two of
my favorite scenes if you want Ken Blakey making something
look no, I mean genuinely the two scenes with the
guy with the damage, Don Stroud right the scene with Donstown.

(02:04:18):
There's two scenes in the movie where he keeps asking like,
please let me come on the raid with you, which
is so funny because later in Jack Reacher, when Jack
Reacher goes to the gun range and befriends Robert Duval
very quickly, Robert Duval goes on the last compound attack.
When Jack Reacher, Tom Cruise goes after Erna Hertzeg. So

(02:04:41):
in this situation, Shantner is hurtzg and Speakman is Cruise,
and unfortunately they don't take Don Stroud along with them.
But those two scenes when they're shooting in the junkyard
with Don Stroud, I thought those two scenes looked really good.

Speaker 2 (02:04:58):
Yeah, you know, it seems the blaky films that there's
always these like moments where he just he puts in
you know, shots and edits and you know, just kind
of the way he frames things. And I think you're
right that this movie he didn't get as many of
those opportunities for whatever reason, to kind of have those
more inspired moments. But yeah, you're you're right, because overall

(02:05:20):
that sequence feels out of place. Right, It's like we
just introduced Don Stroud character actor who's you know, usually
does bigger roles. He's just hears this machine gun Joe character.
Like he said, his face is partially burned. We find
out that he's kind of a biromaniac. He's like kind
of addicted to you know. So that's farther reason White
why Speakman doesn't want to take him along. It's just
kind of an interesting wrinkle in the script. To be like,

(02:05:42):
let's have this crazy bomb guy be there that really
wants to blow stuff up and speakman has to be like, no,
you can't come with me. Yeah, it's it's a very
PM wrinkle in a movie. And then to have Blakey
shoot it so well, it's just another another element to it.

Speaker 1 (02:05:56):
Yeah, no, completely. So Don Stroud is fantastic again in
his little cameo, and again it's one of those things.
There's a couple of moments in this what we're going
to be calling like PM moments throughout the thing PM moments,
the ice cream and or bird poo on the shoe
when he's talking to the naval officer. Why, it's almost

(02:06:19):
like they were like, well, we need a reason for
him to leave, and I'm like, isn't the reason for
him to leave the fact that he's done departing the
information and jam, Oh no, we need him to leave
in a weird way because it's a PM entertainment moment.
So we're gonna have him step into what was that, Matt,
Was it ice cream? Bird poo?

Speaker 5 (02:06:36):
What?

Speaker 2 (02:06:36):
It seemed like ice cream because it was so voluminous.
I mean, what bird goes to the bathroom like that?

Speaker 1 (02:06:43):
Could have been a runny bird poo. Yeah, but how
do you step in ice cream and get it all
over your shoe? Like I get, I get like stepping
in ice cream and maybe there's like a bit of
the blob of the ice cream coming up over the
sole of the shoe and maybe just like on the front.

(02:07:05):
But this was running ice cream all over the shoe
unless it fallen in front of you on your.

Speaker 2 (02:07:13):
If you're not paying attention, that's what you think happens.
I think that's what happened. I was like IMD being
it and I was like, wait.

Speaker 1 (02:07:18):
What happ Was he eating an ice cream while he
walked along? And I just don't remember.

Speaker 2 (02:07:22):
No, I think he stepped inside, don't it was? Or
some kid dropped the ice cream? It was, Yeah, it was.
It was like you said, it was a very PM moment.
It's like, of all the ways to end that sequence.
Because anytime you're in a movie when they're doing the
conspiracy conversation, right, it's like they're sitting on a bench.
Come up with this guy's called the conspiracy bench. Right,
people sit on a bench, they just go they do
their conversation and they part right, like that's all you need it.

Speaker 1 (02:07:46):
Yeah, that's what it is.

Speaker 2 (02:07:47):
But it's like no, no, I mean like yeah, I
feel like if like in there's some kind of movie
like that, like in the you know a TNT new
classic from the early two thousands, Morgan Freeman and you know,
Tommy Lee Jones are sitting there talking about the conspiracy
and a pigeon just comes and takes a dump on
Morgan Freeman and like.

Speaker 1 (02:08:03):
Wow, I've got to get up and go. Donald Sutherland
and Kevin Costner in JFK and then halfway through his
sylictory by the way, best scene in the whole film,
hands down, best scene in the whole film. Donald Sutherland
doing nothing other than narrating a story holds the audience

(02:08:25):
wrapped and it is absolutely, I mean absolutely fantastic, my
favorite segment of the whole movie. So imagine if that's happening.
And then a guy walking along eating like a hole
in the wall bolonnaise out of like a polystyrene packet,

(02:08:48):
and as he's walking along eating this, he just goes,
don't want it anymore and threw it out, and he
said it like that as well, I don't want it
any more. Like Ray Winston, I don't want anymore, and
he just throws the polystyrene container with polonaise at Donald

(02:09:08):
Sutherl and Donald Sutherlan without breaking a sweat, looks at
Kevin Coston just goes, I have to go now, and
he just gets up and leave. Imagine if that's how
they ended the movie.

Speaker 2 (02:09:20):
Or the end of that style, that would.

Speaker 1 (02:09:25):
I just like that a PM screenwriters like, wait, we
need some reason for him to leave. Why because friends
when they get together just spend every week like they
never leave unless someone gets something on their shoe. Yeah,
it's wonderful. It's one of my favorite things. So we
have that. We also have the cluck thing, yes, not

(02:09:48):
cluck quacks. Yeah. He holds the nose and he only
releases the nose if the kid says quack. Yeah. And
by the way, Matt I came up with a bleak
ending to this movie. So post post the bus explosion
right then the wife and son, who are both run
from the bus explosion by speakman put in hospital because

(02:10:10):
they're both really badly beat up. The wife's got a
gammy leg and a bad neck and the son has
slipped into a coma right and we all know because
they've done the quack at the beginning to establish the quack.
Then they do the quack in the middle when the
kids all scared. Even though right before the kid crying,

(02:10:30):
he says, that was cool dad. After the carchcase. So
one minute the kids fine, the next minute he's in
tears in a motel room. Right he goes in and
does the quack in the motel room and it cheers
up the sun, so we know the quack works. The
quack's a thing.

Speaker 4 (02:10:44):
Right.

Speaker 1 (02:10:45):
Then, by the way, Speakman's wife gets so horned up
by the sad the speakman solved the problem with his son,
but she's like, you're such a good father, I'm going
to take you right here, right now. And that's what happens,
because when you're on the run in a pier entertainment film,
you just have outrageous you have an outrageously horned up
wife who's like, I'm so attracted right now. It happens

(02:11:08):
in rage. We talked about it. They got to his
sense says yeah, and he's like he's like, I'm so
incredibly horned up right now. And guys like I'm on
the run panic. The last few days have been terrible.
I know, but I think we should have lots of sex,
all right, Yeah, why the same thing happens here When
you're on the run with a PM Entertainment leading man,

(02:11:31):
nookie will ensue. So anyway, we know the quack works, right,
We're all about the quack at the end of the movie.
We know that what's going to bring him out of
the coma is the quack. We know that the quack
is going to be the first thing he says, right,
sure enough, when he comes out of the coma, he says,
quack speakman and the wife look over and it's a

(02:11:52):
moment of joy. And then in comes Stephen Cohen with
more to end the movie, which is meant to be
this big like, oh, it's wonderful, he's alive and whatever.
So all that plays out the same. This is how
I would change it, right, So it's a big happy moment.
The soundtrack, it's indicating happiness in the way that Onny

(02:12:17):
Steven Cohen had can with deep depressive cassio trumpets. Stephen
Cohen can only express true joy through the despair of
discordant and boring cassio trumpets. That's true. So right at

(02:12:37):
that moment, suddenly suddenly the little boy goes quack again, right,
and they both laugh, but then the soundtrack goes from
and then as it goes like that starts to bend.
The little boy just goes quack quack quack, and then

(02:13:02):
everyone realizes that the only thing the boy can say
anymore is quack. And the movie ends on this bombshell.

Speaker 2 (02:13:13):
Like super music playing is the credit.

Speaker 7 (02:13:15):
Scoll No, no, the music just like b like it's
just this like he reduces his cassio trumpets to like
a slow growing and the kid with really panicked eyes,
almost like the kid is like inside himself knowing how
to speak, but the only thing that's coming out is
quack and he's just like quack quack, and it just

(02:13:37):
like counts to Jeff Smickman's like terrified face, and then
it comes back to the kid just going quack and
it ends the movie just fucking end.

Speaker 1 (02:13:46):
That's how you do it. That wouldn't that be great?

Speaker 2 (02:13:52):
That would have been the PM ending in right, Like
that would have been our PM moment as the PM ending.

Speaker 1 (02:13:58):
Yeah, that would be like the dangerous that'd be like,
you know, how do we top the fact that we
hung a guy's brother in front of him. Oh, well,
we're going to have the little boy that we all
just hope pulled through, because it's basically the pm maquivalent
of little Timmy gets his medicine and you know, the

(02:14:18):
the criminals are all rounded up and put in the
local jail, and then Lassie runs out of the town
and goes on to the next town to help that
little Timmy get his medicine. Right, it's basically that ending.
It's like, we've got to know the boy's got to
pull through the coma kid has got to wake up. Well,
if it was just flipped on its head and all
he could say was quiet, that.

Speaker 2 (02:14:39):
Would have been perfect, perfect.

Speaker 1 (02:14:42):
Yes, So so yeah, so let's just do then a
final roundup. Do you have any favorite scenes that we
have not yet discussed in the in the middle, So I.

Speaker 2 (02:14:54):
Think in that last scene where you know there's he's
at that.

Speaker 1 (02:14:59):
Oh he text the comm we didn't yeah, we didn't finish.

Speaker 2 (02:15:01):
He's putting the bombs everywhere, like just hiding just like
opening up cabinets and putting bombs in just refriger and
and what.

Speaker 1 (02:15:08):
The point that when when a when a henchman is
looking around for like a cronola bars he just opens
the kitchen cabin and goes, it's a fucking bombit And
not only that, but Speakman hasn't set for five minutes,
which is the longest period of time outright.

Speaker 2 (02:15:23):
And and like the best part is that part of
Speakman's plan with this was I'm gonna go into this
guy's garage and steal one of his cars and drive
away as that place explodes, and he realizes that the
first card he goes to the alarm goes off, so
he goes in this old card he can't get at
the start.

Speaker 1 (02:15:40):
It's like he hasn't planned a car. He's just right
beyond shadow of hope that Shantna has left the keys
to his classic car collection in the garage and he hasn't.
Shanna hasn't left the keys. No, but yeah, what a
badly thought out plan.

Speaker 2 (02:15:58):
Yeah, so he does find that he gets out, he's
like spinning the carr or whatever. So as as Shatner's
going to escape with with Mac from a night court
in a helicopter, Speakman's able to stick one of his
last C four bomb on the bottom of the helicopter
and he's hanging off of it and shatters like trying
to kick him, and some of the both of them

(02:16:19):
fall out.

Speaker 1 (02:16:19):
Who thought you would see a scene where Shatner and
Speakman would be hanging right ridiculously from a hell yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:16:25):
And then like I mean, you know, Mac tries to
shoot him from the ground, and eventually the helicopter blows up,
and then Shatner he just starts beating the crap out
of Shatner, and he's like doing the ground and pat stuff,
and then he like he like lays up on him
and and Shatner's like, you don't have the guts to
kill me, which I feel like from a psychology standpoint,
that's the dumbest thing you can do. Like, if somebody's

(02:16:47):
pointing a gun at me or somebody's beating the crap
out of me, the last thing I want to do
is egg them on. You know, you don't have the
guts to beat me up. You know, It's like I'd
be like, thank you for stopping beating me up. I
appreciate that you're stopping. But then yes, speak It takes
him and starts kind of dunking him. He's kind of
baptizing him in the in the pond at the ranch.

Speaker 1 (02:17:05):
The fair play to Shantner for doing this stunt right
sixty whatever what he was when this movie was made,
and uh, sixty seven, yes, six sixty seven, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So here he is at sixty seven doing his own stunt.
Now fair play to him. He does a full blown
you know, drowning sequence.

Speaker 2 (02:17:25):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it, and it is like, you know,
the Shatner. It's one of the things is like you
would think because obviously, you know, Speaker could beat the
crap out of Shatner, that there isn't much that you
can do with that. But they do it well enough
that it's it's kind of I mean, you want to
see him get his comeuppance and you want to see
this sort of the ending here. Yeah, I mean, like
you said.

Speaker 1 (02:17:46):
But Speakman just flat out kills me, right, Yeah, Eventually
he's no, like like normally in an action movie, there's
like do you want any more? Do you want any more?
And they're like no, and then he's like, fine, I'll
go and a rescue and as he's the rest of you,
they pull out.

Speaker 2 (02:18:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:18:02):
Right, in this Speakman just flat out murders a guy.
But but why Matt, Why we find out in this
final sequence that Land of the Free is all about
his dead dog. Speakman is avenging the death of his dog.

(02:18:26):
This is Jeff Speakman as John Wick as Jeff Speakman.

Speaker 2 (02:18:32):
That is what because you know, it's it's funny because
you talked about how like you know, Recoil and other
PM movies they kill off the kids, right, they'll kill
the wife and kids and whatever. And I'm usually like, okay,
I'd rather you don't kill kids, but okay, you did it.
It gives them the motive when Shanner killed.

Speaker 1 (02:18:49):
Matt, Matt Berea taking a hardstance against killing kid. Good feedback.

Speaker 2 (02:18:53):
But like when a dog, right, when they killed the
dog and like some something, they've got the dog like
hanging in the yard dead and as a lion says
something like you know, blood will be letter.

Speaker 1 (02:19:01):
You know, it's like, oh, it says let sleeping dogs
and sleeping dogs. Let sleeping dogs lie. Because when he
breaks into Shatner's compound, Shatner knows he's in the house
because he comes down and on the mirror he has
written in lipstick. This is another fantastic thing is that
Jeff Speakman found lipstick and used it to write on
the mirror. Let Sleeping Dogs lie, to which Shantner knows,

(02:19:26):
which means that Shatner was in very implicitly on the
murder of the dog, right, because otherwise how would he
connect the two Let Sleeping Dog Lies.

Speaker 2 (02:19:37):
Yeah, And so from a PM standpoint, you know, if
they've got their rules and it's like, hey, it's one
thing for you to kill kids, and sure that's revenge,
but you kill an animal, you.

Speaker 1 (02:19:49):
Yeah, fuck you, you're being ground in a horse pown
my friend.

Speaker 2 (02:19:52):
Yeah. And it's funny because I talked to the screenwriter
who wrote not the Recoil from PM, but the one
that with Steve Austin Johnny Sullivan, and he knew John
Wick was in development. He was telling me about it,
and he was saying, how like, from a screenwriting standpoint,
that they teach you that kind of thing that like, yeah,
you know, if you're going to kill a dog off,
just know like what that's gonna do for the audience,

(02:20:14):
because a dog is a you know, it's a helpless creature.
Everybody loves their dogs, you know. It's it's the kind
of thing that like if you if you're going to
write something like that in a movie, don't do it.
Flippantly like, don't do it just you know.

Speaker 1 (02:20:26):
So it's funny. Colin Farrell was talking about this with
his TV show Sugar on the Apple TV network. Have
you seen No? No, it's a private detective show. It's
really really great. I'm not gonna spoil it for you,
but it's a really really great show. In it, Colin
Farrell has to do some morally ambiguous stuff. And Colin

(02:20:47):
Farrell talked about on the show, He's like, you know,
my character does a lot of unlikable stuff, but the
writers were very clever. They gave me a dog, and
in the scenes that I'm in with the dog, the
dog seems to trust me and order his read. If
a dog trusts him, he must be okay. So whatever heinous,
you know, beatings and maskings that he's a part of,

(02:21:10):
it's fine because a dog loves him. That's that. That
was That was like right up until that. That's a
recent tvature in the last three years, and they literally
did that audience uh uh check you know, if we
give him a dog, will it will it? Do you too?

Speaker 2 (02:21:24):
It works well because you know the actor that kills
John Wicks dog in the first John Wick movie. He
said It was like very traumatic for him, and he
would have to like spend time with the dog after
the scenes, like at the dog and stuff. It was
really hard for him to even do that in the movie.
And granted, in this movie, nobody does it right. Nobody.
We don't say to we just find the dog after
the fact, but.

Speaker 1 (02:21:44):
Well we we What we find is a taxidermist dog
hanging from a better strength red paint. No one's gonna
miss No one's gonna mistake this for anything that was
recently alive.

Speaker 2 (02:21:56):
Uh, they've got a Golden Retriever stuffed animal at the local,
you know, Fao Schwartz or something.

Speaker 1 (02:22:03):
Yeah, yeah, no, but look it's fine. You know, it
has a bloody note attached to it that says let
sleeping dogs lie, which is enough for you to go
all right. I have to say, though, by the time
you get to the Chekhov's Dead Dog reveal on Shatner's mirror,
I had all but forgotten that they had even murdered.

(02:22:24):
So when I suddenly realized, oh shit, speakman's out for
fucking revenge about his dog. I mean, he loves his
wife and his kid, but you fuck with his dog
and he's coming there's a brilliant bit. Shantner comes down
the stairs. He looks around and goes my antiques by things,

(02:22:45):
and you're like, you see it, dawn On Shatner, And
this is why he's such a good actor. You see it,
dawn On Shantner. Everything he's about to lose and cannot say.
And then right off the back of that, he sees
that thing on the mirror and he's like, I am fucked.
I killed a dog that was me speakman is destroying

(02:23:08):
everything I love, killing everyone around me, and then will
ultimately drown me in a horse bud. He knows it
all there, and then he sees it come.

Speaker 2 (02:23:17):
Right because because before before that part where he says
my antiques, that's when the guard, when of the guards
just happens to open up a pantry looking for speaking
and sees the bomb and he tells him there's a bomb,
and Shatner knows, oh, he's.

Speaker 1 (02:23:30):
Well, that's when Shannon is in the robe. That's when
Shannon is in the blue robe and they burst in
on him in the blue robe and he's like, I'm
wearing a blue robe and they're like, we know, but
there are bombs in the cupboard. I think Speakeman wants
to take out our cereal.

Speaker 2 (02:23:42):
Yeah. Well, and that's when he's like, oh, he's gonna
blow up my house, my antiques, everything's gonna go. Yeah,
you're right. And then he sees that sign and he's like, oh, okay, yeah,
and he tells Mac from uh Night Court, when you
get him, I'm gonna rip his fucking head off, you know, which,
of course he knows that's that's you know. I mean,
I guess maybe there's a part of him that thinks
I can still prevail in this, But I think you're right,

(02:24:04):
Like he's kind of resigned himself to the fact that, like,
because when he's in the pond, he kind of resigns
himself to the fact that he's going to get drowned.

Speaker 1 (02:24:10):
You just kind of you know, Yeah, in the scene
leading up to the compound attack, right when we see
him with Don Stroud buying the bombs and all the
rest of it, Speakman is living in a CD motel
and has set up a shoppingble security camera and a

(02:24:30):
little like portable cort carrying television so that he can
see if he gets any henchman are coming down the
corridor towards him in the hotel, right, and we know
that he just went and bought these from the hardware
store because he takes them out of a bag. There's
no box, no price, no tag, no nothing. They are
crudely wrapped in bubble That's it. Because when you buy

(02:24:53):
an expensive security store camera and an expensive CRT and
an expensive like regular camera like around your neck like
a Kodak with like a huge thing, all they do, Matt.
You don't get bags and boxes or anything to protect them.
They just wrap them in a bit of bubble wrap
and get on with it. So he sets all this up.
The largest henchman's ever to hedge. This man looks like

(02:25:17):
Andre the Giant and a dinner suit. Right, it's coming
up the thing and again PM Entertainment blow the hell
out of this guy. The only thing that we should
have seen that my friend Jim said, He's like, oh,
that's a lot of sausage. We should have seen some
of that sausage fly And I can't disagree, Matt.

Speaker 2 (02:25:36):
Your your rebind ye no good A good intestine ill. Yeah, yeah,
it's it's kind of one of those things where, yeah,
you know, it's interesting like with that because you look
at like some of like a saloon stallone likes guts,
he likes you know, loves that kind of thing, whereas
like PM. It's interesting with PM when it came to
their violence, was that like they were like big on

(02:25:58):
bullets and explosions and all that stuff, but they weren't
big on body parts, right, Like they didn't really do.

Speaker 1 (02:26:05):
No, although there is there is a knee squib in
this movie. He blows out a guy's kneecap and an
actor has a knee squib. It's pretty that's pretty cool,
like a bloody.

Speaker 2 (02:26:15):
That's right, that's right. Yeah, so yeah, but yeah, like yeah,
they were not quite as like on like like kind
of the gratuitous body part thing. But you're right, I
think that it could have used it there.

Speaker 1 (02:26:25):
Oh yeah, definitely, like because speakman kind of runs to
another part of the room and like hides behind the door.
And what I wanted was just like an errant intestine,
just like splat against the wall and maybe just bits
of sausage meating fly by spakeman's head, you know what
I mean, maybe gets a little in his hair and

(02:26:46):
it's in their hair for the rest of the movie.
No one really comments on it. But I don't really
understand what that scene is all about, other than we
show everyone that what he bought was a bomb, like
as if people didn't realize that that was plastic explosives.
I guess that was a way to be like, by
the way, these are bombs, if you didn't get it already,

(02:27:06):
well it.

Speaker 2 (02:27:07):
Was that, and they were also getting they're getting nancy
because remember you've got the bus has crashed, speakman has
saved his kids, the bus explodes and blows up the
guy with it. But then it's this long period of
there's the trial, there's you know, Shatner get hospital, right,
Shatner gets acquitted. He goes to the hospital, tells his wife, Hey,

(02:27:27):
I'm gonna cash out our money. We're gonna run away.
She knows he doesn't. He's not cashing up the money
so they could run away. He's cashing out the money
to build an arsenal. He goes to see Don Stroud.
So all this stuff is happening. From a PM standpoint,
this is way too long without action. And they knew
he's gonna have to go back to the compound and
like high bombs everywhere, and that was gonna take time
too so they're like, we need something in here, so

(02:27:49):
we don't go.

Speaker 1 (02:27:49):
Blow up a CD motel exactly, blow up the blow
up an enormously.

Speaker 2 (02:27:54):
Fat exactly exactly. That'll be enough to kind of just
reset the timer for how long they can go without
an action sequence. I think that's really the only reason
why they did it, because I was even feeling it myself.
I was like, this movie should be over at this point,
like what are we doing here? And then they blow
up the hotel. I'm like, okay, all right, I'm back
you got me back in.

Speaker 1 (02:28:11):
Yeah, I'm back in. I'm back into it. Yeah, you
blow up the large man and the suit and the
way we go. So yeah, So then he attacks the compound.
It's old for the dog, and we get talk us
through the helicopter sequence, and obviously your friend from the
Exploding Helicopter's blog favorite part of.

Speaker 2 (02:28:31):
This, yes, yeah, will I love this where Yeah, I
mean the best is that he just sticks this thing
on the bottom of the helicopter and then like he's
like hanging from it and Shatner's kicking him off, and
then they kind of both fall down. The helicopter gets
low enough that it's okay for them to fall down.
And then there's you know, Mac from Night Court trend
to shoot speaking with an uzi, and he just there's

(02:28:52):
no way he can aim properly and shoot him with
this uzi because the problem is the speakmen's at the
time are for too long.

Speaker 1 (02:28:59):
So yeah, yeah, he sends the timing for like five minutes.
So you have this whole end sequence where the helicopter
is just flying back and forth, back and forth, and
it sort of neuters a little bit of the countdown
like it should have been I don't know, two minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:29:15):
Or even like just a switch, you know, click, use
the remote, you know, just just blow it up when
you when you flip the switch, you know, yeah, yeah,
and and and the funny thing is, like I think
there's a sense that Shatner's character has it he can
still escape on the helicopter because he can't see from
underneath this big bomb that's underneath the helicopter, like you know.

Speaker 1 (02:29:36):
Oh, no, Shanna, that's why sh yeah, Shannon sees the
bomb and that's why he jumps off.

Speaker 2 (02:29:42):
Oh right.

Speaker 1 (02:29:43):
But what Shanner doesn't do is he doesn't alert Mark
Mark from White Court that there's a bomb on the helicopters.
But this was the other thing. When Speakman was hiding
out in the Sleezy Motel, he had drawn an excellent
map of Shatner's compound. And what I really liked about
it was that he had even drawn in all the

(02:30:03):
trees he had Instead of just writing, oh, tree line
or whatever, he drew in trees. And we were scuffing,
Jim and I watching this. We were scovered out. Look
at him. He's drawn in the trees. Why is he
drawn in the trees? And everything just right? Just write
the word trees. But what happens Matt he needs those trees.
He uses them in the first half of the scene.

(02:30:24):
It so that he can jump out at a security
guard and knock him out in time up with Zipiz
later on in the scene. It's to escape map from
night courts gunfight. So that's why he mapped out the trees.

Speaker 2 (02:30:38):
It was important little lake Shakespearean right, like Midsummer Night's
Dream with the with the people hiding his street.

Speaker 1 (02:30:44):
Yeah, yeah, Chekhov's trees is what check it had Chekhov's
dead dog. Now it was Chekhov's tree exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:30:52):
If you draw trees on the map, you've got to
use them in that.

Speaker 1 (02:30:55):
Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah, no, you're right, You're right about it. Sorry.
So that's that's that's all I had on the movie,
and I'm glad we brought all that up because I
think that filled in a lot of gaps from earlier on.

Speaker 2 (02:31:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, in terms of
this thing, I think the music is for makes it
for a fascinating watch. I think it's it's from an
action standpoint, you know, pm IS done is better. But
they also, you know, this is better than a lot
of action movies that you're gonna se especially in the
two thousands that come after this, like this, you know,

(02:31:28):
ninety eight. It's this is really you know, this is
much better than a lot of things that come after
it from an action standpoint, and so.

Speaker 1 (02:31:35):
It Yeah, and Running reds pretty good as well.

Speaker 4 (02:31:37):
Yeh.

Speaker 1 (02:31:37):
I've got to see that one following. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's that's pretty good as well. So pm IS still
still have a game to play in this era of
that company. They still they still have some tricks up
this leave and dead dogs hanging from their trees. Yeah,
I think it's compromised with the editing compromise with the soundtrack.

(02:31:57):
I think it's got a compelling story. I think that
things are either getting more expensive and not selling as much,
so therefore PM are cutting corners or they're just not
getting the same amount of money to make the films
as they were. All the money's not going as far
as it was in the early nineties or the late eighties,

(02:32:19):
and I feel that you start to see some corners
being cut compared to the nine ninety six run, seven
ninety seven classic run of PM.

Speaker 2 (02:32:31):
Yeah, and you know, you can look at it from
a timeline standpoint, right Sigal has made The Patriot. He
still gets exit wounds in, but you know, he and
Van Dam they're kind of starting to fall out of
the major action world. But also the big studios are
starting to look at this as a as a money
maker for them. So I guess it would have still
been Columbia, maybe not Sony at that point, but they,

(02:32:52):
you know, Warner Universal, They're all looking at what PM
is doing, what Corman with New Conquered Horizon, with it
with their as well, and thinking there's money to be
had in this world. We can make these movies and
they can put a little bit more behind them than
the PM films. I think also to filming in LA
was starting to get harder. I think he was starting
to get you know, they took advantage of a lot

(02:33:15):
of gorilla tactics they were able to do. But also
you know, I mean, you're starting to see TV shows
and movies getting filmed in Canada more at this point,
and so for PM to work exclusively in LA, it
was going to be more expensive too, I think. So
that's probably also where corners were being cut, is to
be able to film some of these shots in LA
that they were doing.

Speaker 1 (02:33:32):
And like I like to do on this show, we
are going to wrap up right before the rating that
we're going to give this movie, I want to point
out low budget filmmaking techniques. I like to as we
come across them in PM Entertainment Films. Low budget film
making techniques. How do we know that the guy who

(02:33:52):
he meets, who is his friend is a naval officer
because he's weiring the whites, right, he's wearing the naval uniform, right,
but we are You see them walk across a bridge, right,
they talk a bit, he gets ice cream on a shoe,
he buggers off, right. They didn't need to go to
a naval academy or the flight deck of a you know,
an aircraft carrier. They didn't need to like spend a

(02:34:15):
lot of money. They just went and got a generic
naval uniform costume. Right, Well, what's that going to shoot
you in? Ninety eight? One hundred bucks?

Speaker 2 (02:34:24):
Maybe not even that much, because they might have deals
with where they you know, they might have deals with
customers and or.

Speaker 1 (02:34:30):
Maybe just brought it from the set of Jag, where
Stephen Cohen was doing the music exactly. I'm going to
assume that, even though IMDb doesn't tell me that Stephen
Coen did the music, I'm assuming the music from Jag.

Speaker 2 (02:34:41):
Was used on this. That was part of how he
got this gig was that he could also bring naval
costumes with him.

Speaker 1 (02:34:47):
Yeah, but no. So this is what I'm saying. You
can convince of a bigger world, a more expensive world,
by just having a dude in a costume talking on
a bridge, because you look at that bridge, you look
at the build behind the bridge, and you go, well,
that kind of looks like a formal naval thing. I
don't know why you fill it in, but you do
in your head. Bridges in a water, which makes you think, oh,

(02:35:09):
that's probably an academy close to the harbor or whatever.
You know. I mean, like you start to put shit
together in your head. All it is it's a guy
in NAVL Whitees walking over a bridge, and yet it
sells you what you need. And that's a great low
budget technique. But but don't have to put ice cream
on the shoe. We nobody knows why PM did that

(02:35:31):
exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:35:33):
Yeah, I mean I think there's there's you know also,
I think with the you know, some of the sequences
in the office and stuff like that, where it's you know,
they will kind of use these locations over and over
again that they've used in however many movies. I mean
that building, that building that that's speaking you know his
you know that the stunt person repels off of. That's

(02:35:53):
the same one I think in Rage, and so it's
like they know that area, they know how to shoot
in that area, they know how to stay things, and
the I'm sure Colus McKay knows the whole layout of
that thing and it would know how to.

Speaker 1 (02:36:05):
Okay, he's got that area hook line and sink, Yeah,
bought and paid for several times exactly all right, So
where do we rate this on PM and where do
we rate this within Jeff Speakman's films. Let's start off, Matt,
your rating for within PM entertainment. Give us out of
five and then tell us where it kind of sits,

(02:36:28):
just you know, does it sit near the top of
the middle, of the bottom, that's what we want.

Speaker 2 (02:36:31):
Yeah, it's like a three or four for me, So
I think it's probably in the four range for me
just because of the Shatner, the Speakman that there are
really great action sequences. So I mean, I ranked this
as like my nineteenth PM flick, so and again I've
seen about forty five forty seven of them, so this
one's my nineteenth highest one. So it's it's top twenty

(02:36:54):
for me, and so I guess that that's that's probably
should get it at least a four star if it's
top twenty. But you know, we were we're ragging on
the music, and the music is something to be ragged on.
But overall it did and the editing edity, yeah exactly.
But you know, I think when you see Speakman and
Shatner on the tin, other than the music and the editing,

(02:37:14):
it delivers on that.

Speaker 1 (02:37:15):
Oh yeah, completely. If you're looking at for Shatner speakman
and highway hijacks, the Land of the Free delivers quite
spectacularly in those in that regard. If you're looking for
competent soundtrack or editing work, walk away, walk Away Now,

(02:37:39):
but no a wonderful fleet of cameos, fantastic acting, great stunts.
I think a decent plot, a strong plot, a plot
that you can hang a hat on, and the potential
for a very bleak and dark ending, which they don't
go with, but in my head, I'm gonna imagine that
they go with. I think it's worth a three or

(02:38:01):
three and a half out of five. That's where I
kind of raked it, and I have it probably in
the low twenty so in the twenty twenty one, twenty
two something like that at a PM so it's a
little lower than you on both counts, but I have
highest standards that I hold pm M payment two and
I had just watched Last Man Standing and Last Man

(02:38:23):
Standing is like top ten, top five materials.

Speaker 2 (02:38:27):
So yeah, that's a good point. I think I've got.
I think I've got Last Man Standing. It's definitely a
top ten for me, but I think it's even closer
to that, like it's it's probably more like like top five. Yeah,
so yeah, if you watch that's a good point because
I haven't seen that one, and I don't know how
long I can't remember the last time I saw Last
Man Standing. Yeah, I've got Last Man Standing as my
number four, So yeah, I can see kind of mean

(02:38:50):
this is this is a number four PM flake and
so yeah, I can totally see how you.

Speaker 1 (02:38:56):
But but I again, I still thing. If someone comes
to me and goes, should I watch the Jeff Speakman
p M Entertainment Films, the answer is yes, Hell's Yes,
Hell's Bells, Yes, good.

Speaker 2 (02:39:08):
Yeah, at least these two. I don't know, Hot Boys,
I think is it Hot Boys or no tomorrow? One
of those two that he's in where he plays the
sense for Silk the Shaker, that's Hot Boys. Yeah, that's
really not much of a scene for him. He's not
really in it that much. So these are the two.

Speaker 1 (02:39:23):
Yeah, but his presence looms over.

Speaker 2 (02:39:28):
That's a fascinating one to watch anyway, you should. I'm
not saying you shouldn't watch it. I'm just saying if
you're watching it strictly for Speakman, you might be disappointed.

Speaker 1 (02:39:36):
And where does this fall in all of Speakman's work
with Perfect Weapons, Street Night, The Expert, the Atlantis movie
he made, what was the Outbreak, Yeah, that one.

Speaker 8 (02:39:50):
That he made.

Speaker 2 (02:39:50):
I think this is kind of in between, sort of.

Speaker 1 (02:39:53):
Like Scorpion one, which was another one he made.

Speaker 2 (02:39:55):
Right, Like, I would put this above those. I would so, like,
I think Perfect Weapon. I haven't seen Perfect Weapon, I
realized as for this, I was like, I should probably
should watch it. I'm watching it like over thirty years
so probably like right after it came out, so I
need to see it again. But you know, Perfect Weapon, Expert,
Street Night, those are kind of like their own thing.
But I don't know. Street Night is one that like
he kind of can go either way, and I feel

(02:40:17):
like this one could kind of creep into that Street
Night category for me. So but yeah, this is in
that middle, the middle tier of his stuff for me
for sure. But I think it's it's better than a
lot of some of the stuff that he's doing.

Speaker 1 (02:40:27):
Yeah, I've got to rewatch Running Red again pretty soon.
I would put this either in the third or the
fourth spot behind Perfect Weapon and The Expert. I would
put this in the third or fourth spot if Running
Red is better than this, I'll put that in the
third spot, this and the fourth spot, and then I
would put Street Night after that at probably number five,

(02:40:49):
and then I don't know what after that's at other stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:40:52):
Yeah, so oh yeah, but no, I think you make
a good I think Street Night is one that's like it.
It feels like it should be a lot better than
it is. It's like when you watch it, you're just
like it has its moments, but like this one delivers
a lot more than on the promise.

Speaker 1 (02:41:08):
Oh yes, no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, definitely
definitely all right, Matt, Well, look, thank you ever so
much for this man. Another great episode of very riff
heavy episode. Hopefully that'll keep the PM Entertainment riff fans
happy and we will speak to you soon again, no doubt.
Down the road, down the PM Entertainment road, the Holiday

(02:41:30):
Road of PM Entertainments Holiday Road. And then Stephen Cone goes,
I don't go on that this, you know, I'm now.

Speaker 8 (02:41:46):
Leaving them Entertainment Podcast to

Speaker 1 (02:42:26):
Se

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Episode 9 - Land of the Free

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