Episode 759: Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
I was wondering, how can I get a message out
to folks that follow the podcast. Should I put it
out on Facebook, Instagram, Blue sky Oh god forbid threads?

Speaker 3 (00:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
No, thanks, what a cesspool. That's about as awful as
X these days. But then I realized, oh gosh, I'm
a man with a microphone. I can actually put this
message out at the beginning of the next episode of
the podcast. So here I am. I am getting ready
to do another ego fest. This is Ego Fest fifteen.

(00:33):
That is where we pull back the curtain and talk
a little bit more about how the Projection Booth works.
I answer questions from listeners. They either can send them
in via email Mike at Projection Dashbooth dot com, or
you can send me an MP three also to the
same address. We used to have a voicemail line, but

(00:54):
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I guess I do have a Google Voice number, and
you can leave messages on that. Give me a ring
and leave me a message at seven three four six
six six two eight six six. That's a lot of sixes.
It's very intentional. I went through a drive through recently

(01:17):
and ordered a few things that added up to sixty
sixty six, and the woman who was taking my money
refused to say how much it was. I guess she
was afraid of the number of the beast. So yeah,
no holds bired. Any questions you want answered, comments you
want to leave about the show, questions, criticisms. Tell me
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(01:41):
not literal. No, not literal. So that's a good thing,
all right, if you could get that done by August
thirty first, twenty twenty five, and I will put out
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and all the things that you want to know answers
to all right once again, August thirty first, Shoot me

(02:02):
an email Mike at Projection dashboot dot com or drop
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Speaker 3 (02:19):
Oh geez, books, it's showtime.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
People say good money to see this movie. When they
go out to a theater. They want clod sodas, hot popcorn, in.
No monsters in the projection booths. Everyone for ten. Podcasting
isn't boring?

Speaker 5 (02:34):
Put it off?

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Sure, The winners of five prior Academy Awards and twenty
one Academy nominations now bring you suspense, unequaled in the
history of the screen, shock that will leave you speechless.

Speaker 6 (03:12):
Ad What hell you done?

Speaker 7 (03:20):
Hush hush, sweet Charlotte, Charlotte, don't you cry? Hush hush,
sweet Charlotte. I love you till I die.

Speaker 8 (03:43):
Yes, I told you, and I told your father too.

Speaker 9 (03:46):
Why wouldn't I tell him that his pure darling little
girl was having a dirty little affair with a married man.

Speaker 10 (03:55):
You're a vow Sarah, little trap.

Speaker 11 (03:57):
How was I to know it would end in murder?

Speaker 3 (04:00):
But it didn't end with murder, It just began.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
What was the warped and twisted thing that turned this
house into a nightmare?

Speaker 7 (04:08):
Where do you think you're going on?

Speaker 8 (04:09):
I'm going upstairs and I'm gonna tell her what you
being up to?

Speaker 7 (04:13):
What's going on there that you don't want me to see?

Speaker 6 (04:17):
A co starring Agnes moorehead Cecil Kellaway.

Speaker 9 (04:22):
Don't you think I know what you're looking for in
my house?

Speaker 4 (04:25):
If you haven't anything to conceal you.

Speaker 6 (04:27):
Oh but I have.

Speaker 7 (04:29):
I have things concealed.

Speaker 4 (04:31):
Wow, things we suppose I keep.

Speaker 7 (04:34):
Them, haven't you?

Speaker 3 (04:35):
Guessed? Guest star Victor Bono, you know what it's costing me,
not you, Also starring Mary Esther.

Speaker 6 (04:44):
Let me tell you, Miriam Dearing, that murder starts in
the heart.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Don't turn on the light.

Speaker 7 (04:52):
It's only real when it's dark. I don't want to
turn on my light.

Speaker 10 (04:58):
Come along, Hello, well you're shut your mouse.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Welcome to the projection booth. I'm your host, Mike White.
Joining me once again is mister Otto Bruno.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Big Mike, I do declare.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Also joining us is mister Tim Madigan.

Speaker 4 (05:57):
I'm trying not to lose my head.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Buono Palooza continues with a very brief appearance from our
boy in Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte. It's another entry in
the so called hag'sploitation genre. I kind of prefer that
whole Grand Dame Guignol title that they say. It's a
little nicer than ha ex'sploitation. It reunites many of the
players from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, with the addition

(06:21):
of a host of terrific actors including Olivia de Havlin,
Mary Astor, Joseph Cotton, Agnes Moorehead, and a very brief
appearance from Bruce Dern. The film stars Betty Davis as
the titular Charlotte and out of touch recluse in a
big house with a dark secret in her past. Does
that sound familiar? It should. Charlotte is hiding after the

(06:42):
murder of her man John Mayhew. Unfortunately John was married
at the time to Jewel Mayhew. It's kind of a
who did it? Or more really of a why did it?
As we peel back the genteel Southern Gothic trappings to
look at the deceitful machinations of Charlotte's family, we will
definitely be spoiling this movie as we talk about it,
So if you don't want anything ruined, please turn off

(07:04):
the podcast and come back after you've seen it. We
will still be here. So, Otto, when was the first
time you saw Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte? And what did
you think you like?

Speaker 3 (07:13):
Baby Jane? This was another one that I didn't see
until probably about seven or eight years ago. In fact,
if I'm remember incorrectly, I watched it even then. In
close proximity to whatever happened to Baby Jane, because the
connections seem so obvious, and I liked it. I don't remember,

(07:35):
looking back now how I felt about the two films
in comparison to one another, But after these recent viewings
of both of these films, I will say, probably what's
in the minority. I guess from things I've read, and
that is that I prefer this film to Baby Jane.

(07:55):
I'm with you. I'm not crazy about that term ha exploitation.
I mean this and for me as definitely as you mentioned,
also Southern Gothic, you know, with all the same that
very moody black and white cinematography by Joe Birock and

(08:15):
and just the music by the Ball and everything. This
is a much creepier thriller for me than Baby Jane.
Baby Jane was just too camp for me. I couldn't,
you know, take it as seriously as this one. And
obviously this film has some campy aspects to it as well.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
But I like this film, and tim about yourself.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
I know, I saw it many times on television when
I was a kid, but the last time and the
only time I saw it on a big screen was
about five years ago at the annual Monster Bash gathering
in Mars, Pa where it was shown along with other
horror movies. And I guess that raises the question whether

(09:03):
this is a horror movie or not. I guess Zotta
was saying gothic films, it does seem to be an overlap.
But I actually found this one much less creepy than
Baby Jane, and I am in the majority. I should
say I actually prefer Baby Jane to this film.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
I don't know which one I like better. These are
both pretty new films for me. I've seen them both
as we've been watching them for this series of episodes.
I really was not familiar with Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte.
I listen to the story because it's on the audiobook
of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, as well as at
least one or two more short stories on there, and

(09:47):
I can't really say it's a short story. It's about
two hours long as far as the person that's reading it,
and it feels like it is. It's basically a treatment
for a movie. I was under the impression initially that's
was an older story, but once Whatever Happened to Baby
Jane was a hit. The writer Henry Farrell went back
and wrote this story. It was called Whatever Happened to

(10:11):
Cousin Charlotte, And basically it was Okay, Robert Aldrich, here's
your sequel. And like I said, there's a lot of
elements that carry over this whole idea of the Secret
in the past. I mean, you even have these caged
birds at the beginning, but for me, the birds sound
more like rats. Especially during the murder scene. That sounds

(10:31):
like little rats that are squeaking. Is very disconcerting. And yeah,
that Frank Devill score is just very heavy handed in
this film. They really go for broke with this. I
mean the noises, the flashbacks that they have, Yeah, just
layering on that Southern Gothic charm. And I mean our

(10:54):
guy Victor Bono right here in the beginning of the film,
just really doing it up as big Sam Hollis, one
of these big daddy types kind of like bur Lives
and Cat on a hot ten roof. And I appreciate
that Bono went for it and shaved up his hairline
to make him look a lot older. I mean, we
talked last week in the week before as far as
how he was playing false staff when he was a teenager,

(11:18):
and here he's what two years older than he was
in Baby Jane, and he looks like a man in
his fifties sixties more than that. Super impressive and unfortunately,
the only complaint I have about this movie is not
enough Victor Buono.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
This obviously, I think we talked about. This is obviously
the shortest amount of screen time that Victor Bono gets
in the four Buono films that were covering. But I
just thought he was so good in that limited appearance.
He real he carries that swagger of the southern gentleman

(11:56):
who you know pretty much controls and manipulates it's everybody
around him in his sphere. I thought it was great.
And again, the thing that I keep thinking after I
watch any of these films is why didn't he get
better opportunities after these various parts. I mean, he went

(12:19):
from doing a few really good parts in good films
and then they just gave him all this crap to do.
And I just don't understand it, because he was clearly
a very, very talented actor. So thus far that's my head.
I'm scratching my hat even more than I was before

(12:41):
we start. I mean, I always felt he was underrated,
but you know, even more so now.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
And it's not like they were not treating these movies seriously.
I mean, he got an Oscar nomination for Baby Jane.
In this one, Agnes Moorehead gets an Oscar nomination and
then she wins the Golden Globe for her role in
this and this movie also just so wonderful to see
how unhinged she is. There are times where Agnes Moorehead

(13:08):
is stealing this movie. Her character is so good and
so just bat shit crazy, and sometimes you can't even
understand a fucking word that she says. I was so
glad I had the subtitles on for this because there
were times where her accent or whatever the hell she's
doing gets so crazy that you're like, what what is

(13:30):
she saying? Especially when she imitates Olivia de Haviland and
just kind of is trying to make fun of her.
I mean, we had the maid character in the previous film,
but here the maid is given the time to shine
and she's kind of a kind of more of a
protector than well. I guess Adina or Elvira was very
much a protector in Baby Jane, but I think even

(13:52):
more here. But also, I mean, this movie is just
it stinks of fish because there's so many red herrings
in this film, to the point where you think for
a little while that maybe actis Morhead is even the killer,
that she's the one who's having these bad things, and
you don't really. I mean, gosh, this movie is labyrinthine
when it comes to the plot and what's happened in

(14:14):
the past versus what's happening now and how does the
past affect the present.

Speaker 3 (14:20):
Basically, every time she's on screen, she's just stealing the picture.
I mean, she brings such energy and every time she's
on screen and she's chewing scenery. But it fits with
the character and the sequencing. And you know, the one

(14:41):
thing when I was watching again, we always tell people
we're obviously going to spoil these movies for them, but
I remember at one point saying to the screen and Dora,
you should have watched more TV because you would have
known that you never turn your back on your enemy,
especially when you're at the top of the stairs. I mean,

(15:02):
that was you know, that was crazy, but she was
so and you're right, she was a protector, just as
Alvar in the movie with Joan Crawford. She was a
much more no nonsense, serious character, whereas Velma Agnes Moorehead's
character in this is still the protector of you know,

(15:23):
in this case of Charlotte, but also she's she is
able to tease and mock Charlotte, but in a loving way,
and you know that she you know, protects her and
loves her more than anybody else does, cares about her
more than anybody else does. But she definitely brings the

(15:46):
only humor that you get in a rather bizarro film.
But she brings the humorous aspects. I'm sure doctor Madigan
will agree with me on this one. I mean, obviously
he thinks there's more flaws. But for me, the fatal
flaw of this movie is the same as with Baby Jane,
and that is it's just too long. They could have
cut probably a good fifteen minutes out of it and

(16:08):
it wouldn't have hurt the story, I don't think. But
the plot is so complicated, it's like at the end
it starts to get to a point where it's almost
getting ridiculous. It's over. You know, it's too much on
top of one another. But I thought it was fun.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
You know, also you mentioned and Dora, because growing up
I watched Bewitched all the time, and I never liked
and Dora. And that's always the problem when you dislike
a character, but you then dislike, you know, the actor
who's portraying it. So when I saw this film, it

(16:47):
did help me to realize Agnes Moorehead could play a
lot of different roles. And then of course the magnificent Amberson,
she breaks your heart, and the fact that, like Victor
Blono in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, she was nominated
for an Academy Award, And those nominations come from your
fellow actors, so that's I know. They always say it's

(17:11):
enough to be nominated, that's a non or enough, and
mostly to say yeah, but you really want to win,
but it actually is. It's a tremendous honor when you
consider how many other movies were out at the time.
So for both of them, I mean, I remember somebody
said I read somewhere, if you're an actor and in

(17:33):
your obituary, the first line is going to be either
won or nominated for an Academy Award, and I assume
that was the case with both Bono and Morehead.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Yeah, with more Head. I was only aware of her
as Endor for the longest time growing up I'm Bewitched,
and it wasn't until I think I saw a Citizen
King before I saw Dark Passage. Pretty sure I did.
And of course, you know, when you're in film school,
at least in the nineties, they were showing Citizen Kane
pretty much as many times as they possibly could, no

(18:08):
matter which class you were in. So when I finally
connected Agnes Moorehead and Dora to Agnes Moorehead as Charles
Foster Kane's mother, I was completely blown away. I was
in that bubble still back in the late eighties early nineties,
where it's this actor is this role, and yes they
can play other things, but I don't really think about

(18:30):
them and other things. And especially to see her so
young and to realize that she was part of the
whole Mercury Playhouse, and it's nice to have both her
and Joseph Cotton in here, and Cotton just doing a
great job, especially with this whole southern drawl thing that
he does so well. Apparently he had forgotten how to
speak with a Southern accent because he had a drilled

(18:52):
out of himself, so much in some of his early
voice training, but man, when he goes for that accent,
he really just lays it all.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Well, Mike, I'm so glad that you mentioned Agnes Moorehead
in Dark Passage because I saw Dark Passage before I
ever saw a Citizen Kane or the Magnificent Amberson's, So
that was indeed the first thing I ever saw her
in other than Bewitched, and she was if I may

(19:23):
say it, I know I'm not supposed to use this word,
but she was a fabulous bitch in Dark Passage. I
mean she's she's really really mean, and you just I
mean Tim said he didn't like Indorra. I mean, none
of us liked the Door, but I could still see
the humor in Indoorra. The characters he plays in Dark Passage,

(19:46):
she is just awful. And by that I mean fabulously awful.
I mean she was so good in that, and I
saw that long before I ever saw a Citizen Kane.
But I'm glad you reminded me of that. I gotten
all about that that particular role.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Oh yeah, she just relishes the villain roles so well.
And that's why also watching this, I was like, is
she bad is she going to turn out to be
the bad person because she's into everything and she's there
with that look on her face when the Olivia to
Havelin shows up and just kind of like looking down

(20:24):
her nose. She's at the top of the porch. You know,
we've got a lot of staircases in this movie. She's
at the top of the porch looking down at Olivia
to Havelin and just kind of sneering at her. And
You're like, Okay, does she just have a dislike of
people coming to this house. Does she want Charlotte to
herself or does she hate this Miriam character that's coming in.

(20:45):
I'm not really sure at first, and I just don't
think she likes anybody but Charlotte. And yeah, she gives
Charlotte a lot of shit through the whole movie too.
There's a lot of other films in this We've talked
about Psycho before, We've talked a little about Sunset Boulevard,
and then with this one. There's a lot of diabolique
in this movie, a lot of it. Especially the shot

(21:07):
of Joseph Cotton underwater just so reminded me of the
dead body in the water in the tub in diabolique
and just this whole idea of and here's another one,
gaslight gaslighting Charlotte into thinking that she's crazy, giving her
drugs to make her even more crazy, and just really
doing everything that they could to drive this woman mad.

(21:30):
Though there isn't a weak heart in this one, it's
basically a weak mind. And her mind hasn't been the
same since that murder of John Mayhew Bruce Dern in
this movie, and that is so unclear as to who
murdered him that that really becomes the central mystery of
this whole film, which is wild that it goes back
to the first few minutes of the movie time and

(21:53):
time again, just who murdered this person? And it seems
so obvious that it's Charlotte when you see her come
in and she's got that blood on her dress and
that blood and I'm sorry to go here, but I
have to because this is my whole Freudian thing. That
blood just looks so much like menstrual blood. It's so
reminded me of Marlena Dietrich in Stage Fright, where she's

(22:16):
got that big stain on her dress, and this one
is very much the same. And it's so telling to
me that Charlotte, her face is kept in darkness because
this is supposed to be Betty Davis, and sometimes she's
playing young Charlotte, sometimes she's not. Sometimes it's her voice.
Well I think it's her voice through the whole thing,
which is interesting. But having her in shadows, seeing that

(22:37):
big menstrual stain, and then this being a whole thing
about this woman who's locked away and is so and
I mean this word when I say it hysterical, and
just the relationships between women. I mean, you could cut
men out of this film almost altogether. But when it
comes to the man's death, I've talked about this so

(22:57):
many times before. Not only is he decap but his
hand is cut off. And for me, in so many
Freudian interpretations, the cutting off of a hand is basically
just a big old castration.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
Well, since you talked about Freud, you also made a
Freudian slipped there when you said scarlets and Betty Davis
wanted to play scarlets.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Well, they wanted Blanche du Bois herself to come on
here for a little while. They wanted Vivian Lee rather
than Olivia to havelin too.

Speaker 4 (23:24):
Yes, and that's one of the stories that Betty didn't
want her to play the role. The other question, getting
back to our earlier discussion of Baby Jane, is what
would have been the case of Joan Crawford had played
the role. It was, as you said, it was kind

(23:44):
of set up for a reunion. There are various reasons
given as to why that didn't happen, and it's one
of the great what ifs if instead of Olivia to Havelin,
it was Joan Crawford in the role. I mean, obviously
we'll will never know, but we can certainly imagine how
she would have portrayed the lovable cousin who turns out

(24:07):
to be not so lovable.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I should probably
admit that one of the reasons I probably like this
film more than Baby Jane is I am not now,
nor have I ever been a Joan Crawford fan. She
always kind of turned me off. I don't think she

(24:31):
would have been right for this role, quite honestly, because
of what Tim just said, and that is, you know,
when Olivia de Heaveln, when cousin Miriam first comes on
the scene, for a little while, they make you wonder
whether she is good and sweet, whether she is spiteful

(24:52):
like you don't know exactly. She doesn't tip her hand
right away, and I don't think Joan Crawford could ever
convince anybody that she was sweet or innocent in any way.
For lack of a better technical term, Olivia de Haln
is a softer persona than Joan Crawford is, and I

(25:15):
think that adds to this story. I think it helps
in this case, in this story because you don't learn,
obviously until more than halfway through the movie that she's
not a nice lady, and I think her persona helps that.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
Of course, it's interesting you do learn about halfway in
that she's not what you think she is. But then
there's yet another twist. So we learn that she's trying
to get her cousin in a mental institution so that
she could take over the estate, but we don't learn
until much later that she's been blackmailing the actual murderer

(25:58):
all those years. So that there's Mike mentioned, there's a
lot of twist in the story that you know. Again,
I don't remember the first time I saw it and
what my reaction was to all of those twists, but
I do agree that Olivia de Havilin is to be

(26:19):
commended for going against her usual persona, as you know,
the lovable, friendly, wonderful person and turning out to be
a pretty horrible person.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
The wonderful what was her name, Melody or Melanie.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
Melanie, Yeah, Melanie suddenly turned bad.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Scarlett Miriam in this picture is far far scarier than
Scarlet ever was.

Speaker 7 (26:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
I mean at the end, when you realize that this woman, Miriam,
the part that they have on place, has essentially tortured
these two women for almost forty years in such a
cold hearted way, it is chilling. I mean, that is

(27:11):
really chilling. By the way, Mike mentioned earlier about the
short story, Tim was kind enough to loan me the
book with Baby Jane and the Charlotte short story, and
I noticed one thing I noticed is that in the
short story, it's only twenty years that has gone by,

(27:34):
but in this story it's thirty seven years that have
gone by. So that makes quite a difference too. I Mean,
the one thing I didn't understand is almost like, why
did she wait so long? But I guess you sort
of get the idea that Jewel Mayhew's money had just
basically run out as she's about to die, and it

(27:58):
all kind of coincides with Miriam coming to the Hollis estate.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
Yeah, it coincides with the Hollows estate about to be
torn down from eminent domain.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Yeah, George Kennedy out there wanting to tear the house down.

Speaker 4 (28:12):
Any movie with George Kennedy is good. I just that's
just a given.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
And so young in here.

Speaker 4 (28:18):
There wasn't enough George Kennedy too.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
There you go, Oh no, no, not enough Ruce Dern,
not enough George Kennedy, not enough Wono. I mean I
was glad that there's the nightmare sequence later on with
Dern and boon overturning, and Wono was there throughout the
entire film as a painting, you know, you get that
kind of Laura looming over. But so is Betty Davis

(28:42):
as well. Her younger self is a painting through So
much of this movie just kind of reminding you of
these earlier days, the torturing of these two women, especially
with Charlotte, all of the letters that she gets, And
then I kept saying to myself, are these letters actually
from other people or are they all from Miriam? Because

(29:03):
they talk at one point about how she's been in Paris,
and I'm like, well, she's a traveler. And Charlotte says,
all these letters come from all over the world. Is
she just posting them from all the different ports of
call that she goes to, like all of the trips
that she's on. And she goes, oh, hold on, I
got to go to the post office and post something here.
And it's just another hate letter to Charlotte.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
I have to send this postcard that says murderous.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
Which is great that she hands that message back to
Olivia de Haviln's character. It's like, this belongs to you, ma'am.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
I said, I hope Sharlie saved the stamp. So it's
kind of interesting. I'm all over the world. By the way.
Our friend Steve Hoff he has a sub stack called
the Movable Marquis I wanted to get so good, and
he recently given a review of this film and he

(29:59):
makes an interesting point that the children are singing a Hush, Hush,
Sweet Charlotte, which was apparently or a vulgar variation of
it was supposedly a love song that her lover had
sung to her, and Steve was winning. How would the
children know this song which I must admit I didn't

(30:20):
think about. But you know, getting back to the torture
that of cousin Miriam, presumably she also tortured Big Sam
because he thought his daughter was the murderous. So when
she does reveal herself, he you know, he has just
balled out her lover and let him know that by

(30:44):
no means is he going to marry Big Sam's daughter,
and Big Sam will kill him. So there's a kind
of a threat there. But then we know presumably Big
Sam didn't do it, but he went to his grave
thinking his daughter was the murderous and it's mentioned af
later that she was never prosecuted because he was such

(31:04):
a powerful political figure. Probably called up, you know, the
Governor long or whoever else was governor Louisiana at the
time and asked for a favor. But that's a pretty
horrible thing too.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Tim, as you mentioned, and I think it was I
don't know if it was last week when we started
talking about this film coming up. Big Sam dies the
year after this murder occurs. They show his headstone because
I think Tim had made the point that Big Sam
and Victor Bono both died in their mid forties. Basically

(31:42):
you're right. He didn't know anything. He just you know,
because they say in the film that he pretty much
sent her away to Europe right away. So I guess
while he could manipulate the political forces and make sure
that she wouldn't be she wouldn't be prosecuted in any way.
I was reading one article or a few things that

(32:04):
make you scratch your head, you know, like in any movies,
doesn't seem to fit together right. One article I read
said it was certainly magical how Joseph Cotton was able
to get out of the swamp and on foot get
back to the.

Speaker 4 (32:22):
To the house before Charlotte could Steve mentions that too
in his sub stack. He was a pretty fast guy.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Maybe that slapping scene took a long time.

Speaker 4 (32:33):
It was an old car.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
The only thing they could do is when she was
slapping her. Maybe he got into the trunk or something.
That slapping scene, Yes, that was very That was the
maybe you're right, Mike, because the slow, deliberate nature of it.
Maybe it was to throw her off and get him
into the into the trunk. You no, will you shut

(33:08):
your mouth?

Speaker 10 (33:12):
Do as I tell you?

Speaker 3 (33:13):
And if I tell you to lie, you will.

Speaker 6 (33:16):
Do that too.

Speaker 12 (33:18):
I've never got to suffer for.

Speaker 3 (33:21):
You again, not ever?

Speaker 11 (33:25):
Do real understand.

Speaker 4 (33:31):
Whoa she is?

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Very serious right now, but kind of to your point,
you know, even when it comes to the nursery rhyme,
and the nursery rhyme reminds me very much of you know,
that kind of twisted version of Husha Sweet Charlotte reminded
me a lot of like Lizzie Borden and that whole
song that kids would sing. I mean kids, why were
we singing about Lizzie Borden in nineteen eighty I don't know,

(33:56):
but you know, I mean, sure, sure, why not? And
you know, still singing Ring around the Rosie right, you know?
But the film is dishonest. The film is very, very dishonest.
There are so many times where people are hearing things
or seeing things, or reacting to things that they shouldn't
be reacting to, or they are completely private, but yet

(34:17):
they're still putting on this act for Charlotte. They're putting
on an act for us. I mean, this whole thing
is for us, the audience, but it's also for Charlotte.
But it really plays fast and loose with what is
for Charlotte? What is for us? The audience, and they
keep us guessing the whole time. And that's why we
just have, you know, red Herring after red Herring after

(34:38):
red Herring. You know, is it Mary Astor? Noah can't
be Mary Astor because she was over here at this time.
Is it this person? Noah can't be that person, you know,
and just keeps pulling the rug out from under us.
I mean, I don't mind. I'm not saying like, oh, well, gosh,
you know, he didn't get out of the cockaduty car
kind of thing. I'm not Andy Wilkes here. I'm just like, yeah, no,
it's it's all for dramatic tension. But yet I love

(35:00):
that they're just really Aldrich knows what he's doing and
really doing a good job of keeping us off our toes.

Speaker 4 (35:07):
Because we love these actors so much and they all
get their moment in the sun. It was just great
to see Mary Astro and what I guess was her
last role, and she do itting enough.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
Mary Astor Well, supposedly she did one more film after this,
but this movie was released after that film was so
apparently she did have one more film that she did,
but it was released before this film was released. I'm
not a doctor like doctor Madigan, but I went to college.

(35:41):
I have a degree, but I always feel like I
learned as much, if not more, from television than I
did from school. And learning all that I have from
television and watching all the mysteries that I've watched, I
should have figured out that it was Jewel because I
believe like in real life, most of the time you're

(36:04):
murdered by some I'm very close, and in the case
of a cheating spouse, it makes total sense. But they
don't show us her. I don't even think do they
show us her at that party at all?

Speaker 4 (36:16):
I don't think so. I was wondering that myself.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
I don't think they did.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Yeah, they don't do a very good job of saying
who some of these younger people are. I thought there
would be a much more direct correlation of oh, well,
that's the Agnes Warhead character. If she's you know, maybe
a maid at the party or something. I don't think
she was a socialite. But you know, here's the Olivia
de Havilin character. I would have liked that a little

(36:41):
bit more had we had you know, here's even doctor Drew,
which is hilarious to say because of the Doctor Drew.
Kids these days probably don't remember who Doctor drews, thank god,
because he was such a shyster. But just yeah, Doctor
Drew Bayliss with Joseph Cotton. Maybe maybe had they done
the weird thing kind of like they're doing with Betty
Davis and had them dub all of their voices for

(37:04):
the characters, that would have been weird but might have
helped you recognize them later on if they're actually at
that party.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
Yeah, I agree that was not made clear at all.
And the thing about Betty Davis walking in with the
blood stained dressed, I don't think like you say, they
try to keep her face in shadow in that shot,
but I think you see her hands and there's no

(37:31):
blood on her hands, And if you're hacking away at
a body, I'm guessing the blood is going to splatter
on your hacking hand if nothing else. So that's another
tip that she doesn't really she's not the real person
who did it. I always thought it made most sense

(37:52):
that the father did it, But as you say, he
comes in almost immediately and he's you know, he doesn't
have any blood on him anywhere. He would have had
to have had a big Butcher's apron on, but he
hadn't done he hadn't done that Butcher movie yet.

Speaker 4 (38:06):
I gotta say that you're confusing that with another Victor Buono.
I guess it all connects, uh, you know, I I
was interested to see that. Another actor in the movie
is Ellen Corby, so there's quite a Corby connection. We're
talking about her last time with the Strangler playing his

(38:27):
his mother. Here she's the town gossipy. They don't have
any scenes together, but it's still nice, you know that.
I guess Aldrich was kind of noted for trying to
cast people, including his family members, you know, in all
of his movies, so he was comfortable with.

Speaker 3 (38:46):
Well, the cast is, as we've already said, I mean,
the cast overall is really magnificent. Uh it will it
will be rivaled only by next week's movie that we're
going to a very different type of film, obviously, but
this cast is just it's really that's again for me

(39:08):
watching old films, watching classic films, it's always a kick
to see the great character actors and actresses that are
in these things, and this one is just so magnificent.
Speaking of actors who I always liked, Yes, Joseph Cotton
is way up there for me. I love Joseph Cotton,

(39:30):
absolutely loved them.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
One of the guys that I like so much just
plays a small role as the funeral director Percy Helthy Helton, Yes,
whose real life voice sounds a lot like Sterling Holloway
or John Fiedler. Like, as I'm listening to him, I'm like,
is he Piglet or is he Pooh? He sounds a
little bit like both of these guys. And he's just

(39:52):
got this dark sense of humor in this character where
he's you know, kind of like, oh, you want to
see the body kind of stuff. It's like, this guy's
a real creep. I love it. And now I'm like, well,
I want to see more Percy Hilton movies. I want
to see, like, you know, Wild Wives are some of
these movies that he was in.

Speaker 9 (40:09):
I'll bet this is the first time you've ever seen
the County Colin operate out of a funeral pollody.

Speaker 6 (40:15):
Yes, it's a bit different where I come from.

Speaker 9 (40:18):
It's a bit different most places. Still, for a town
of this size, it's it's kind of a hand I've just.

Speaker 4 (40:24):
Heard the news about Belle mccrellor's death.

Speaker 6 (40:27):
The newspaper office.

Speaker 4 (40:29):
It was miss Colors.

Speaker 6 (40:30):
He came to see it wasn't there.

Speaker 9 (40:33):
She certainly had a nasty accident. All right, would you
would you like to see the body? Well, step inside it.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Oh God, he's been in a lot. He was in
no watch stuff. He actually looks a little like Feedler.
He doesn't doesn't look like what's his name, but he
looked Holloway, but he looks a little like Fiedler.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
And I was so shocked that he didn't become part
of that voice cast that Disney was using, because when
I looked up both Feedler and Holloway, it was remarkable
seeing just how many times they were being used. You know,
I think Holloway is the voice of the snake in
the Jungle Book. And I can't remember what else Fiedler
did besides Piglet, but they were showing up in a

(41:19):
ton of movies just as voices. Towards the well, I
can't say towards the end of the career, because it
was even pre Colchack. For Feedler was pre Bob Newhart Show,
you know. It was Yeah, he was just going strong
and yeah, to be able to use that little voice
that he had in such a big way. Was really nice.

Speaker 4 (41:39):
It was a perfect role for him.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
And Percy Helton was in for for Texas, so he
had worked with the Aldridge not too long before this.
Really right, It almost must have been back to back
almost those two films. Oh yeah, he was in a
lot of He was in The Music Man. He was
the train conductor and the music Man. Oh my god,

(42:04):
he's got so much. He goes back to what year. Oh,
it looks like he did some silent film.

Speaker 2 (42:11):
And I hear that voice. I don't know if this
is true or not, but I hear that voice is
from him in a play where he had to scream
and yell so much that he ended up becoming permanently
hoarse for the rest of his life.

Speaker 12 (42:23):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
Believe that, if you will or not, that was IMDb tricks.

Speaker 4 (42:27):
You should have stuck to silent movies.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
Here's another great one I forgot about. He was the
drunken Santa Claus in the original Miracle on thirty fourth Street.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
Another bit player who I liked very much like is
William Campbell. Is that his name? Oh yeah, in a
lot of Star Trek episodes, and he's the photographer who's
also pretty sleazy character in the movie.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Yeah, that whole thing with the photographer and the other reporter,
so there's the two competing magazine. So you get it
a lot more, I think in the story than you
do in the actual movie. But between when is it
Cecil Kellaway as this genteel British guy who writes for

(43:14):
a really nice magazine or newspaper, and then yeah, William Campbell,
who's just this kind of you expected to meet chewing
gum through the whole thing is just this kind of
like hey, pops, get on my way, you know, like
works for basically like a National Inquirer type rag type
of thing, and their competition trying to get the story
and everything. I'm like, oh, that could have ended up

(43:36):
on the cutting room floor without very much problem whatsoever.
I mean, it is nice to see the way that Kellaway,
as Harry Willis talks with Charlotte. He seems to be
other than potentially velma. He seems to be the only
one that treats her with kindness at all, and she
is the most normal during that sequence until one of

(43:58):
the people that's packing up the house touches a music
box that makes her go crazy again, and yeah, she goes.
I mean, Betty Davis is fantastic. She goes from zero
to sixty like nobody's business in this movie, and most
of the time she's just playing at eleven through so
much of this film.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
It's a good point about the Cecil Kellaway character, because yeah,
I thought that character was very different from what was
in the short story. I did kind of scratch my
head how they came to pick him and to kind
of direct the character in that direction. And maybe it's,

(44:38):
like you say, maybe it's to have one ally for
Charlotte besides Velma, because of course Velma doesn't make it
through the entire story. Kellaway says to the William Campbell
character at the end, he says, basically what we already
would all of us kind of know that wouldn't it

(44:59):
be something if she didn't kill him, and that it
had been Jewell who killed her husband because of jealousy
or whatever like that. But he doesn't give us any
idea that he has opened that envelope yet before he
gives it to Charlotte. And then it's like when Charlotte,
like I always thought it was interesting, like Charlotte reads

(45:23):
it and then as she's being driven off she I
guess she would be thankful to him, But at the
same time she seems too happily satisfied instead of enraged
that she was just screwed with for forty years.

Speaker 4 (45:39):
Well, of course she got revenge by killing the two
of them.

Speaker 3 (45:44):
Well that's true.

Speaker 4 (45:45):
Maybe she was still enjoying that moment. But that's what
I was wondering, jumping to the end. Was it clear
to people that she had pushed whatever you called a
big vase onto the two of them and killed them
or was it not known? In other words, was she
being taken to prison or was she just vacating the

(46:07):
house because of eminent domain.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
The impression that I got from the reviews that I
read was that she was being driven off to the
loney Bend, and I really wish that it wasn't the case.
I really wish that she got away with the murder
that was justified, because she was tormented for all those
years for the murder that she didn't do but thought
she had for me. She's paid her debt and basically

(46:33):
Miriam and doctor Drew, they deserve to die. And I
find her completely without fault, and I love that she
has that moment of clarity when she's listening to them
and almost shaking off the drugs and realizing what's going on.
And yeah, I love that we have that foreshadowed at
the beginning when she pushed them one off when George

(46:56):
Kennedy's walking away, and then she uses to the other
one as the murder weapon later on, and I'm like, well,
why not. The house is falling apart, right, maybe it
just fell over who knows exactly.

Speaker 4 (47:08):
Yeah, no one saw her push it. Well, the two
victims saw it, but not just a time to realize, Oh.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
Didn't help him any But yeah, how would anyone know?

Speaker 4 (47:20):
Of course, the question must she must have been pretty
strong to push that down, and she did push one
earlier too, so you didn't want to mess with Charlotte.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
But if Callaway had given that note to the sheriff,
would that have changed anything? Would she have been brought
away to the looney bin or not? You know, that's
another question about it too. So yeah, like you said, Mike,
there's a lot of dishonest aspects to this film. By

(47:49):
the way, no one mentioned the wonderful Frank Ferguson, who
was the editor of the paper because I always loved
Frank Ferguson too, and he was in there. I mean that,
I just keep shaking my head. Wesley Addy as a sheriff.
This is really this is really a stacked cast.

Speaker 4 (48:10):
Since Monster Basher's all time favorite movies abn A Costello,
meet Frankenstein, who was in that, Frank Ferguson. It's always
good to see him.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
When I see Frank Ferguson, I think of the grosser
on Andy Griffith's show.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Well, and it wasn't just people in front of the
camera that Aldrich had to use. It was so many
of the technicians. Like Aldrich used the same art directors,
the same cinematographers, the same composers, the same editors. He
just had this kind of stock company of people, and
he would work with them, not just one or two films,
for like sixteen films, you know, just really keep trying

(48:49):
to use these same people. The one story I heard
while I was doing my research on this was that
Aldrich's company was called Associates and Aldrich, not Aldrich and Associates,
which I thought was really nice that he's putting the
associates before his own name, even just to say that
it's them, it's not me. It's almost like decrying this
whole tour theory where it's like, no, no, it's not

(49:12):
just me, it's all of these people that I work with.
They're the ones that bring this magic together.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
Right. I read that too, that he did that on
purpose because he wanted them to get the credit.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
You know. Well it includes his family members because in
the credits there's not one, not two, but three of
his children. Now we got the NEPO babies. He was
into that before it was cool.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
I noticed in the end credits that I don't know
who it was, but there was another Aldrich who was
like the script supervisor or something. Adele Aldridge was the
script apprentice. She was, but she was listed on the
credits as Adele Aldrich Bravos. So maybe that was a

(49:57):
daughter too, but she was married at the time.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
Yeah, I think it fewed his daughter or actress playing
his daughter is the script supervisor. You know, he kept
it in the family. Also, getting back to the credits,
one of the things I noticed at the when the
credits roll, getting back to our friend Victor Blono, he
gets a guest star credit. I've always wondered, how do

(50:22):
you guess star and that seems like a television kind
of credit, And I wonder at what point because you
see it a lot, but it seems to be in
movies around that time and in the seventies, when did
that start to be a credit?

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Yeah, these days, I don't know if he would get
the what they call what the hammer where it's the
end Victor Blono, you know, because he just shows up briefly,
does has been the business and then leaves for almost
the entire film.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
If I'm not mistaken, the main thrust of his appearance
at the beginning is all before the credits run, right.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
It is, Yeah, yeah, it's like a seventeen minute prog prologue.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
The other person who I think again should be mentioned
is Joseph Berrock, who was the cinematographer and apparently Aldridge
loved him and they worked together a lot. But I mean,
Birock goes all the way back. The first film that
he's credited on, I guess as director of photography is
It's a Wonderful Life, So that goes back to forty six.

(51:34):
But he did My Dear Secretary with Kurt Russell, who
was crying danger. Don't forget the ever Lovable Wuana Devil
from nineteen fifty.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Two first three D film. Correct.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
Yeah, I mean he did a lot of stuff, and.

Speaker 2 (51:52):
I think his last movie was Airplane.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
You might be right, because I know I saw Airplane
on here somewhere film was Airplane two.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
Oh I thought that Finkleman tried to get him back
but he couldn't.

Speaker 3 (52:05):
But okay, all right, I mean that's what IMDb says,
so IMDb obviously can be wrong.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
Yeah, No, you're right, because he did Hammett after that
as well, after Airplane. And speaking of Aldrich, All the Marbles.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
Right, I was just going to say the last movie
he did with Aldridge was All the Marbles a couple
years before Airplane.

Speaker 2 (52:23):
Also, he did Sst. Deathflight, which was another one of
those airport exploitation films from that time. No George Kennedy
in that one, but that was Bert Convey and Peter
Graves and Lauren Green. You're talking about a great cast,
and it was another TV movie. It took me while
to find that one. It was really I think it

(52:44):
was a few years before the Concord, but it really
felt like it was.

Speaker 4 (52:47):
That if there's no George Kennedy, it doesn't count as
an airplane film.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
There's no Joe PETRONI forget it.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
And he's going to be back next week when we
talk about who's minding the mint.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
There you go. He did, I go, Like I say,
he did a lot. Bye Bye Birdie. He worked with
Dino and Toys in the Attic.

Speaker 2 (53:06):
He also worked with William Castle for I Saw What
You Did, which was another Joan Crawford William Castle joint.
But I have to say there's a lot of straight
jacket for me in this movie. It feels like we've
gone very lurid in this especially when it comes to
the disembodied hand and the head that falls out of
the box. I mean that head falling. I just was

(53:30):
getting visions of William Castle from that so much. It
just was so exploitative. But I say that in a
good way.

Speaker 4 (53:38):
Well, when the angets chapped off, I was thinking of
Herschel Gordon Lewis. I mean that was really, you know,
especially for a mainstream film that had to be incredibly
shocking for the time.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
Oh yeah, and within the first few minutes.

Speaker 3 (53:52):
Of the movie, Yeah, people must have gone crazy. And
what did this come out? Sixty five?

Speaker 2 (53:58):
I think or sixty Yeah, well it was released in
LA in sixty four for Oscar consideration. Then it came
out Jan twenty sixty five for the rest of the country.
But this is is this before wide releases? Still? Are
we just touring it around first or are we releasing
to a few hundred theaters throughout the country.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
Yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 4 (54:19):
I know.

Speaker 3 (54:20):
This movie again, more so in retrospect, I think is
considered a failure compared to Baby Jane because it didn't
make as much, but it did make a profit at
the time. I think the bigger problem with how people
saw it was the fact that it went way over

(54:40):
budget because of the whole Joan Crawford fiasco where she
started it and then she eventually was replaced and they
had to reshoot a lot of stuff all over again.
So I know that that added to, you know, considerably
to the budget of this movie. But it did still
make a profit when it came out, just not to
the same extent that Baby Jane had.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
That is always fascinating to me when you go back
and reshoot a movie with a different actor or actress,
or just have that kind of major change up, you know,
like Kevin Spacey being replaced by Christopher Plumber, you know,
and trying to match like where were these scenes? And
they do it so flawlessly in this film, because you

(55:26):
have to realize that they shot all the stuff in
Louisiana with Joan Crawford. It wasn't until they got to
la that they had to have land and they couldn't
go back to Louisiana. So so many of these you know,
like the porch set or the front yard, like those things.
They're faking those things to bring in to Haveland inside

(55:47):
of those moments. It's wild that they were able to
pull it off. It kind of reminds me while we
were watching Feud, how they were talking about the last
shot or one of the last shots, i should say,
in whatever happened to Baby Jane, where they were complaining.
Aldrich was complaining. And again I'm taking Feud with a
huge grain of salt, but Aldrich is just like every
time Joan leaves the set and she comes back, she

(56:09):
looks five years younger, and she really needs to look
like she's about to die on this beach scene. So
Jack Warner insists we're gonna reshoot this, and they have
to bring in a bunch of sand. Thank goodness, it's
not radioactive sand. But they bring in a whole bunch
of sand and put it on the set and then
shoot it from above, so it looks I mean, the
cinematography and that one blends it perfectly. It literally looks

(56:32):
like they're on the beach, but they were on a
sound stage and this so much of this is completely seamless.
There are a couple shots I think, where Joan Crawford
is still in the movie, but it's from a distance,
so you don't know that it's Crawford, Like she's in
that cab, right, but you don't see her, And they
just blend in to Haviland so perfectly that you would

(56:55):
never know that she wasn't the original star of the film.

Speaker 4 (56:58):
It's kind of like the fake chef. But I guess
fake Joan or fake Olivia the case may be.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
Did I read that they built I assume it was
mainly well, obviously they built the sets for inside as well,
but like the front of that house on the sound
stage for a couple hundred thousand dollars, which today I'm
sure would be like two million or more. Yeah, so
you say it really does? I mean, again, You're right,
you can't tell you know what was shot when, and

(57:31):
they knew what they were doing. I mean it comes
off very well. Whenever I think of someone being placed
in the middle of a shoot and this it wasn't
in the middle for this one, but it was. It
was a rather controversial film of the time and that
has Kissed Me stupid, directed by Billy Wilder, and the

(57:53):
star of it is Ray Watson. But it wasn't supposed
to be. It started with Peter Sellers. Peter Sellers had
a heart attack while Megan and they had to replace him.
And as much as I love Ray Willston, he just
wasn't right for this part. And whenever I see that

(58:14):
movie now, it always bothers me because I think Peter
Sellers would have made this a brilliant movie. It would
have gone over much better. But that's I mean, yeah,
that's hot. I mean just mentally, if depending on how
much you've shot, to think that you have to start
all over again, I mean, what that's got to do

(58:34):
you to you as a director and as actors who
have already done all these scenes and now you got
to redo it again. I mean that's I would think
that that would take a lot of air out of
the sales.

Speaker 4 (58:47):
Well. Fortunately for Victor presumably it didn't impact him since
he's in scenes with either Joan or Olivia.

Speaker 2 (58:56):
No just fake Benny Davis.

Speaker 4 (58:58):
You know, you mentioned that this didn't make as much money,
but it was successful because there were quite a few
other whatever you want to call him, exploitation or you know,
what was the term you.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
Liked, Mike Grand d'am guignon.

Speaker 4 (59:15):
Yes, I prefer that much more, but like who slew
Anti Rue, and there were you know, at least three
or four others that followed been a short period of time,
so presumably they were making money until they were no
longer making money. That's the Hollywood way. By the way,
I did watch for the first time Lady in a Cage,

(59:38):
which I don't know if it's Grand Dame Jugnon or
whatever you want to call it, but it's a very
distasteful film with Olivia de Haviland, and which she made
immediately before this film, so she had already been involved

(59:59):
in something that it was rather different from her previous
persona in film.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
Yeah, I would like to see that because I like
Olivia de Halin a lot. I kind of have a
crush on her after I saw Strawberry Blonde. She is
amazing in that movie.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
How about That's when I love that movie.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
It's so good. They showed that at the Nitrate last year,
and I was just thrilled to see that on the
big screen. And it was like the year of Alan
Hale Senior, and he was just you know or no
not Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:33):
A.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Senior going through so many of those films all the
way from the you know, hilarious stuff that he was
doing with that and The Good Fairy, even to something
that's a lot more serious like Stella Dallas. I mean,
he was just all over that festival last year and
I was there for it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:52):
Olivia the Hamlin I always thought was really beautiful.

Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
Yeah about Aled you or Senior Junior was good too.

Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
But Senior just had something magical about him that I
liked so much. And he could just play a real
shithead or play somebody hilarious and you could buy either way.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
He was great. Well, I want to give a spoiler
alert about Lady in a Cage. Well, you haven't seen it, Mike.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
I have not, but I think it's not going to
be ruined for me.

Speaker 4 (01:01:26):
I would only say there is a continuity with that
movie and the two previous ones, The Strangler and whatever
Happened to Baby Jane, because you have a mother who
is very overbearing, and the implication is this is what
makes the Sun a homosexual and that must have been

(01:01:48):
a theme of some sorts and so those movies all
made around the same time, and it doesn't play well
these days.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
To put it mildly, was that a Freudian theory or
someone else?

Speaker 4 (01:02:03):
Well, that sounds Freudian.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
I would be interested to see Lady in the Cage
just to compare it against The Collector, the one with
terren Cee. Yeah, because I didn't realize that The Collector
was sixty five, and I think Lady in the Cage
was what sixty three.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
Or yeah, or sixty four?

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
There were sixty four, I think, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02:24):
Well the Collector is, in my view, a much better
film and a much eerier film. I was joking with
Otto Lady in a Cage, getting back to our previous discussion,
I said, if Rod Steiger was on the set, he
would have told the cat keep, you know, play it
a little less grandiose. Other than Olivia. I mean, she's

(01:02:48):
she's fine. I think in it but most of the
other actors are just so over the top that it's
hard to suspend one's disbelief even though they do some
very reprehensible things. Maybe that was deliberate to take some
of the sting out of it, but it's like, wow,
calm down, people.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
The acting in this movie is I don't know why
to say it's helped by, but it's definitely emphasized by
that score I mentioned that before, and just it is
as garish or grandiose as Betty Davis is, and also
turns on a dime just like her. And then you
get some of the weird instrument instrumentation. I don't think

(01:03:29):
there's a theremin in here, but there might as well be,
because it is just really playing it up and you know,
showing it's just how weird this whole thing is. And
you get into that that dream sequence, the whole dancing
with Daddy sequence, Man oh man, it's really just layered
so thick on top of it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
That's why I said at the very beginning, For me,
I found this movie much creepier because that dance sequence
is like a nightmare, you know, with the with the
peopeople dancing around without faces, you know, and then she turns,
you know, when she I forgot what the circumstances that
she looks up and it's the father without the hand

(01:04:12):
in the head and all that stuff. And that was
really creepy. But again it's like you say, I mean,
for me, at least, it's heavy handed, but it works.
It worked for me.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
Well, we give a shout out talking about associates and
Aldrich to the great Frank of all previously, I just
remember him as happy kind on Frienwood tonight, and I
didn't know at the time, you know, all the great
music he had done, and he worked quite a few
times with Aldrich.

Speaker 2 (01:04:43):
Yeah, he was very loyal to his folks, which I
highly applaud. I'm so glad when people worked together after
so many years and just have that rhythm together, they're
able to, you know, just know what they're thinking before
they even have to say it. It's going to make
productions so much simpler.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
And Aldrich had been born like fifty years earlier, he
probably would have been a total pariah to his family
because his family was I mean, they were like I mean,
he had ambassadors, he had senators, congresspeople, bankers, Nelson Rockefeller

(01:05:20):
his cousin I think. So he came from quite an
established clan and to go into I guess he went
to school and he was going to become a banker,
and right before like he'd never graduated. He went four years,
but he didn't graduate because before he could get his diploma,

(01:05:44):
he worked I think on a play or something on
campus and decided, oh, I want to go into show business,
and through one of his family's contacts I guess was
somebody was working ATO and that's how he got his
first job at RKO is essentially a production assistant, a

(01:06:07):
gopher more or less, and that's how his career started.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
From what I understand, he was for f for the army,
which was a real blessing in disguise because he became
one of the most used assistant directors during that whole
war period. And what was it. I read He worked
with Max Ofols, he worked with Genre Noir, He worked
with all of these heavy hitters. I mean, imagine you're
assistant director working with these incredible talents that are coming over,

(01:06:34):
but both Hollywood talents but also outsider talents, European talents
that are coming over during this time and working with
these people as well.

Speaker 3 (01:06:42):
Yeah, he worked with Chaplain, although I think he said
that Chaplain while a great artist. I think he said
at one point that he was like the least talented
director in a way because he didn't know how to
tell people how to help people do things. He only
knew how to show them how to do something, So

(01:07:05):
I guess he wasn't able to put into words how
someone should do something on a set. I thought that
was interesting that he said as great as an artist
as he was, he was definitely not the greatest director
that he worked for. I think he gave a lot
of credit. I know he worked with Milestone too, Lewis Milestone,

(01:07:26):
he gave him a lot of credit. He said he
learned a lot from him. Yeah, he worked with a
lot of important directors.

Speaker 4 (01:07:34):
What was his film right after A Shah Sweet Charlotte.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Was that Flight of the Phoenix feud.

Speaker 4 (01:07:42):
As Mike was saying, I got to take it with
the grain of salt. But one of the themes is
that he wasn't sure if he was really going to
be able to make it as a director, partly because
the studio system was collapsing, and also because Jack Warner
was kind of deriding him as you know, you're more
like a TV director not a film director. But these

(01:08:05):
two Betty Davis films were hits, and then, you know,
although he had some duds subsequently, for the most part,
he was just working steadily and did some you know,
some classic movies.

Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
Well, he did some classic movies in the fit. Like
again in the fifties, three in a row he did
Vera Cruz, Kiss Me Deadly, and The Big Knife, which
are all today seen as critically very good films. And
then he does Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Flight of the Phoenix,
and The Dirty Dozen, all all in a row. Those

(01:08:40):
are three in a row.

Speaker 4 (01:08:41):
That really set him on the pedestal.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
After the Dirty Doesn't the one that was probably I
think that was supposed to be another great film and
it was a huge, huge disappointment with the legend of
Why LaClair with Kim Novak.

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
Right right, which I want to see because it sounds
so lurid.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
Yes, I've never seen I've seen that, and it's a
it's a bizarre it's a weird movie. It's a weird movie,
and and yeah it is. I guess it was certainly
lured for his time. But it's also one. It's been
a it's been a while since I've seen it, but
I think I when I remember watching it, I remember

(01:09:19):
thinking it's a film that never quite gets off the ground.
I read some interview with Aldridge where he said, well,
I was I was just about the guy. I forgot
what they were talking about. He goes, well, I was
just about to blame Kim Novak for the failure that
he says. But it was really my failure, he says.
I wasn't able to get out of her what I

(01:09:41):
needed to get out of her, and so he took her.
You know, he took the blame for it. But and
of course that that movie is important because it's got
Ernie borgnine in it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Well, from what I understand the story of Legend of
Lyla Clair having Kim Novak in there, it sounds a
little bit like Vertigo as far as this actress and
remaking another actress that looks like her.

Speaker 4 (01:10:06):
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
Is that the.

Speaker 2 (01:10:08):
Story of that one?

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
I think it is.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
Yeah, it seems like I should have watched that for
the Vertigo episode.

Speaker 3 (01:10:14):
Yeah, again, it's been so long, I just remember it's
kind of like you said, lurid, but it's also just
kind of depressing, and it just didn't It's too bad
because again there's a lot of good people in that
movie as well. I mean, Peter Finch is in that
Borg nine, Milton Seltzer, who I always loved, Dick Dennis

(01:10:38):
by the way, another guy who worked repeatedly with Aldridge,
Dave Willock, shows up in Lila Clair. Another Aldridge guy,
Alan Corby, is in Lila Clare.

Speaker 4 (01:10:50):
You go it's gotta be good.

Speaker 2 (01:10:52):
Did he also do the Grisome Gang because that one's
also supposed to be pretty out there as well.

Speaker 4 (01:10:57):
Yes he did, he did that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
I've never seen the Grissome Gang.

Speaker 4 (01:11:02):
That's another lurrid film that was like based on was
it no Orchids for Miss Blandish or it's a it's
a very disturbing story too.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
And then Aldrich produced, but he didn't direct another one
of the Grand dam Ganyol films. Whatever happened to Alice?
I mean, these titles are so fun, right, who's slew
anti rou all these?

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
I love these titles and then even the ones that
aren't questions but like I Die my darling, some of
those things. I love that and there's a great book
from a Farland Books all about this, and I'll i'll
definitely link that in the show notes because it's very
very well written, very well researched, and has so many
of these aka Psycho biddy type movies. It's really great

(01:11:50):
to read and has helped out tremendously when it came
to getting the backstory of this. But the one thing,
and it was just funny. I was listening to one
of the two commentary tracks that's a failable for this,
and one of them I can't remember. Roych was saying like, well,
how did this movie get Fox?

Speaker 4 (01:12:07):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
The first one was Warner Brothers. Jack Warner was all
over whatever happened to Baby Jane? This one's at Fox
now again taking this with a grain of salt, but
I love that scene in Feud where Aldridge pulls out
of Warner and just goes, fuck you, this is my movie.
I'm taking it wherever I want to, takes it over
to Fox and he talks about his big brass balls

(01:12:30):
and he and Alfred Molina just leans over that desk
and goes.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
I didn't come with you, cigars, Now, what'd you come
here for?

Speaker 4 (01:12:37):
I came in to get my balls back. Yeah, I'm planking.
I agree. That's one of the best scenes Whatever Happened
or Whatever Happened movies. I mean, we don't you don't
see these anymore. Maybe it's time to there's everything else
is being revived.

Speaker 2 (01:12:57):
Yeah, and he announced that he was going to make
another other Whatever Happened to movie called Whatever Happened To
Dear Elva, based on the novel Goodbye to Elva by
Elizabeth Fenwick, but that one never came about. So yeah,
he was still thinking about those, uh, those movies all
the way into the late sixties, which is pretty wild.

Speaker 4 (01:13:17):
He made The Killing of Sister George, which is somewhat comparable.
It's also pretty lurid film, which, Benny, how you look
at it as sympathetic or not sympathetic to you know,
the lesbian scene in London in the.

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
Sixties, and it has Vincent Price's wife Coral Brown in it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
Wait, Vincent Price is Brown?

Speaker 3 (01:13:41):
Yeah, yeah, to Carl Brown for okay, for many years? Yes, checking,
All right, what are you implying, my.

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
I'm not insinuating anything other than he might have been
very close with his mother.

Speaker 3 (01:13:54):
Here we go, Well, maybe Carl Brown is reminded.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Well in speaking of I felt really bad because I
didn't know until just a few minutes before we started
recording this that there was another parody film version. It
was called Hush Up, Sweet Charlotte from twenty fifteen, which
started mink stole in there and a cast of tens
of people that were sending this up. And that same director,

(01:14:22):
William Clift also did one that I should have watched
for our whatever Happened to Baby Jane episode just called
Baby Jane from twenty ten, and then this Hush Up
movie was from twenty fifteen. So I did not get
a chance to watch either one of those, but I
really should have. So I have let the audience down.

(01:14:42):
I'm very sorry, folks.

Speaker 12 (01:14:44):
You have come to help me.

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
You shot it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:47):
I've come to help with everything, just everything.

Speaker 11 (01:14:50):
Really I will.

Speaker 12 (01:14:54):
Mister Willis, Why would you be coming all the way
from London, England?

Speaker 3 (01:14:58):
And that's again old.

Speaker 4 (01:15:01):
Do you think she couldn't done it?

Speaker 9 (01:15:03):
Look you here, miss shot This house is coming down,
no matter what.

Speaker 8 (01:15:07):
Telegram for Miss Charlotte.

Speaker 12 (01:15:08):
Dear Charlotte, stop on my way to help, immediately. Stop.
We'll take this to the highest court in the land.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
Stop.

Speaker 11 (01:15:16):
I don't know what you're up to. Miss.

Speaker 12 (01:15:19):
It is still my house.

Speaker 2 (01:15:21):
Everything's going to be just fine.

Speaker 11 (01:15:25):
She seems to lose her grip on reality more.

Speaker 12 (01:15:29):
And things have gotten so crazy in my head. It's
made me question everything and everybody. I really don't know anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:15:44):
The town is Field.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
It's a dark, dirty little secrets.

Speaker 12 (01:15:48):
Got married a big, handsome, strapping man like you.

Speaker 9 (01:15:57):
How could we have known her?

Speaker 3 (01:16:00):
Think the bloody disgusting.

Speaker 12 (01:16:02):
You in this? Do you think I'm a certifile, demented,
lunatic unbalanced here?

Speaker 4 (01:16:16):
Well, well, you did share with us the Mad magazine
parody of all of these various films, with drawn by
the great More Drucker, And uh, it's kind of a mishmash.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Yes, what was that called hack Hack Sweet has been?

Speaker 3 (01:16:36):
And in that same addition, there was a takeoff on Sinatra,
a Sinatra movie. I can't remember which one it was now,
but that was in that same Mad issue. Great stuff. Man,
You know, they just don't make them like they used to.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
They sure don't. Yeah, I missed those movie parodies that
they used to do, and they were just so vicious
sometimes and just the yeah, the whole idea of them
blending fact with fiction and just you know, having some
of the behind the scenes stuff as part of their
story and making references to those things. Yeah, because this

(01:17:12):
one's got a lot. You know, we talked a little
bit about the whole Joan Crawford thing. Well maybe more
than a little bit, but yeah, you could just focus
an entire episode just talking about her and how she
kind of fucked over the production. But maybe she did,
but maybe she didn't. Was she really sick? Who knows?
You know, was it you know, they say that Olivia

(01:17:32):
de Havilin had a little bit of some breathing issue,
some lung issues when she got into the set. Was
it because of you know, because of that that Joan
had to leave?

Speaker 4 (01:17:45):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
I don't know. So, yeah, it's pretty wild that they
had the whole thing and then having to bring in
the insurance company. I mean we talked about, you know,
what are those things the completion bonds all the time now,
but I don't know how much they were exercised back
in the day, back in nineteen sixty four when they
were making this, And from what I understand too, they

(01:18:06):
didn't even bring to Heblin onto the set until September
of sixty four in the movie was released in December
of sixty four. So when it comes to this feeling
a little long in the tooth, I think I could
have gone through at least one more edit.

Speaker 4 (01:18:21):
I shared with Mike a clip from the Gilbert Godfried
An Amazing Colossal podcast interview with Bruce Dern in which
he tells the story since he's I think the last
living member of the cast.

Speaker 5 (01:18:37):
The next day, we came back to the set and
Betty was in her chair. I was in my little
chair next to hers, and there was a lady in
Miss Crawford's chair, And suddenly Miss Crawford comes on to
the stage and she says, goes right up to Bob
Walters's about I'm so sorry the way I behaved yesterday.

(01:18:58):
I'll be more professional. I'll just have to put up
with what I have to put up with with that.
Didn't even collar her with that, So I'll just run
acome through my hair. You don't have to wait for
me at all. I put my bank up on the car.
And as she's saying that, she turns over and starts
to walk toward where Miss Davis and I and this

(01:19:19):
other lady are and she sees the lady in her
chair and she says, why Livy Olivia de Haven, Why Livy,
what are you doing here? And Betty Davis looks straight
ahead and never looked at her cigarette, Like I said,
right down to the nub, Why Livy, what are you
doing here? She's playing your role hunt.

Speaker 4 (01:19:42):
Which is a great story. It's not true, but I
print the legend in feud. Aldrich goes to France, I believe,
or wherever de Haavln was living, and has to, almost
on his knees, beg her to come back to how
and she says, look at I'm mostly retired. I'm enjoying

(01:20:04):
the good life here. And I already did one of
these lurid movies. I really would prefer not to do
another one. And again I don't know if that's the
case or not, but she certainly was the ace in
the hole because getting back to the earlier point, I
think she's excellent in it because she, again, like Jacqueline Hyde,

(01:20:25):
when she's good, she's very good, and when she's bad,
she's horrid. I mean, she's really evil.

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):
Well that's the thing too, is I hear so many
different versions of that story because I've also heard, Oh,
Betty Davis called her in Sweden, which is the story
I heard, and begged her to come. And then yeah,
in feud it's Aldridge. So it's like, well, which is it,
you know? And then according to Duran, it's handled in
a completely different way, which we all three of us

(01:20:52):
know is bullshit.

Speaker 3 (01:20:53):
Aldridge had to go to Switzerland and it took him
days to get to her because she was up on
his mountains where she lived, and then it took him
another two days. It took him like two days to
get there, and then another two days of pleading with
her before he got to her to agree.

Speaker 4 (01:21:10):
So yeah, they had to climb the mountain themselves, right,
it was like peace Gloria from on her Majesty's Secret
service was on the top to greet it out there.

Speaker 3 (01:21:21):
He had a little burrow with all his u I have.

Speaker 4 (01:21:25):
To say, I was shock cock to hear a story
on the Gilbert Godfred amazing colossal podcast that was not true. Actually,
everything you heard on the Gospel Truth take it to
the bank.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
It's yeah, everything that was said, as long as it
wasn't said by Gilbert.

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
Oh. One thing I did watch for this just to
see if there was any reference. I did watch nineteen
sixty five's Run Run Sweet road Runner, which unfortunately has
nothing to do with Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte, just a
little nod. It was a non Chuck Jones Roadrunner short,
and I'm not a big Roadrunner guy, but yeah it was.

(01:22:09):
It was okay. But yeah, there were no axes. There
were no missing heads or hands. I'm sure that the
coyote would have been very happy about that, but unfortunately
it didn't happen.

Speaker 3 (01:22:20):
Well. Roadrunner makes me think of Acme Company, which makes
me think in this movie. This is another thing I
learned from television and film both. I think when you
become a film buff, you know enough that anytime you
see a name on something in a film, it's probably
not a coincidental name. It probably has a meaning. So

(01:22:43):
when they're packing up the house and it's I think
it's Sam Stargist Moving Company, I looked it up and
Sam star just was the assistant director on this film.
That's great, that's great, and work numerous times again with
al of course. And then the thing that I didn't
really notice but I was reading it today was in

(01:23:06):
the scene where Olivia Dehlin first comes upon Jewel Mayhew
outside of the courthouse or wherever it was. Right before
they come into the closer shot of them, a Coca
Cola truck drives by, and I think Betty Davis had
that done on purpose, because, as we know, Joan Crawford

(01:23:30):
was a big Pepsi as she was on the board
of directors of Pepsi. So that was a little one
last little jam. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
I was watching a one of those true Hollywood stories
about the making of the film, and there are pictures
from the set where it's Aldrich and Davis and all
these people toasting with Coca Cola bottles. I was like, Okay, yeah,
it's almost product placement in the movie that it's in
there a few other times too.

Speaker 3 (01:23:58):
I believe, well, I believe that Crawford would place Pepsi
in films as often as she could in any projects
that she was in because of her position.

Speaker 4 (01:24:10):
You think me Doctor Pepper or something like that set
in the Deep South.

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:24:16):
I just wanted to make one other point about our
friend Victor Blono, going back to the earlier discussion about
when you see him as Big Sam and it, you know,
early in his career and yet knowing that he's not
really going to have really other roles like that. Ever. Again,

(01:24:37):
he did some dramatic roles, but they're mostly made for
TV movies that are almost forgotten. We'll talk about one
of his comedy movies next time. But mostly seemed to
do TV appearances. But I wondered about his stage career
because he did begin as a stage actor, and he

(01:24:59):
would have been maybe he was a great big daddy
and cat on a hot tin roof, because when he
appears as Big Sam, I kept thinking he was gonna say,
I smell mendacity. It's one of those sad what ifs
that didn't happen. Because the fact that he did get
a guest star billing and had been up for an

(01:25:22):
Academy Award, there's a sense, you know, up until around
this movie, that he could be going places. As we
talked about before, Burl Lives had a pretty good film career.
He did win an Academy Award. There were others who
would be not so conventional as actors who nonetheless you know,

(01:25:46):
did star in movies or at least you know, had
had co star roles. But I don't know that he
really had anything else of a dramatic nature on this film.

Speaker 2 (01:26:01):
Well, I know in the next movie is the greatest
story ever told the I think that's The Jesus One
with Max Vancito. Correct, And yeah, he plays a character
named Sorak, who I believe was Spock's father.

Speaker 4 (01:26:17):
Yes, I was gonna say, is that that explains a lot.
William Campbell might be in there too.

Speaker 3 (01:26:26):
I think undoubtedly the greatest roles of his last few
years were Hugo Lovelace and Doctor Clove on The Odd Couple.
That was definitely the best stuff he did. Sadly, does
anybody know what his last feature film was?

Speaker 4 (01:26:46):
Not?

Speaker 2 (01:26:46):
Off the top of my head? Now, was it The
Man with Bogart's Face?

Speaker 3 (01:26:50):
The Man with Bogart's face.

Speaker 4 (01:26:52):
Presently played the Sydney Street character.

Speaker 3 (01:26:58):
Yeah, I would think so.

Speaker 4 (01:26:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:27:00):
No, I had to watch that when we did Casablanca
a few months ago, and it's not a good movie.

Speaker 3 (01:27:06):
It's it's no good I saw that years and years ago,
and I was frightfully disappointed.

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
His character's name was Commodore Anatas, so I don't remember
what he was in that movie. But yeah, it just
felt so bad because he was doing so many of
those smaller roles. I imagine his last really good role
was probably playing the devil in the Evil, but I
need to check that one out well.

Speaker 4 (01:27:30):
And on TV the Reverend Jim's dad in Taxi, that
had one of his last roles, which was great.

Speaker 3 (01:27:38):
I mean I think he would yeah, he was really
good in that. And that's what I would say too,
is because he had that character. It was very funny,
but it also had some pathos and it showed again
it's the kind of stuff he should have done. He
should have been given more of in bigger projects too,

(01:27:59):
that type of careara because it worked so well well.

Speaker 4 (01:28:03):
I presume if he was with us now, or his
spirit was with us, he would say, not that I
didn't want such role, but you got to take the
roles that you're offered. And unfortunately, typecasting then and now
was always an issue. And once you start being known
as somebody playing silly roles or what have you, it's

(01:28:25):
hard to get out of that. And presumably at a
mortgage and the other bills to pay. And he seemed,
you know, f when we see him on the Tonight
Show with Johnny Carson and he talks about his travels
to Italy and other places, so seemed to have led
a good life but probably had to do a lot
of roles, they said, Ligot, I know, these are not

(01:28:46):
kind of things anyone who necessarily want in their resume,
but it pays well.

Speaker 3 (01:28:52):
The other thing I think that those of us who
are just fans don't really think about, but from some
of the people I've spoken to in the last you know,
ten to fifteen years, and I'm sure, Mike, I'm sure
you can attest to this. The thing that we don't
think about or talk about is the other thing that
matters is representation. I mean, if you have a really

(01:29:16):
good agent or manager, it makes a difference because there's
a lot of guys who, you know, sure took whatever
they could get, but the reality is they got a
lot of good things mixed in with the shlock they did,
and sadly for Buono, it seems he got more shlock

(01:29:40):
and he had good stuff mixed in there almost by accident.
And you have to wonder who's representing him in these
deals as well. So that's something I don't think anyone
ever thinks about, but I think it makes a difference.

Speaker 2 (01:29:55):
Oh yeah, Well, after we talked about the Strangler last week.
I mean that was his follow up movie to Whatever
Happened to Baby Jane, The guy Sitting on an oscar nomination.
You have to parlay that into something better than and
I like The Strangler, but you have to parlay that
into something better than The Strangler. I mean, that was

(01:30:15):
a pure exploitation movie. We talked so much about how
it was capitalizing on the Boston case. And yeah, give
him something better than that. Give him freaking false staff,
you know, give him something that's he is living up
to rather than living down to.

Speaker 3 (01:30:32):
Well again, yeah, even though he's a character actor, as
you say, he got an Academy Award nomination, So why
are you putting him in a B movie? You know,
it doesn't it doesn't make a lot of sense. So
you don't know, you don't know what was going on
behind the scenes.

Speaker 4 (01:30:53):
Well, thank goodness we have the roles that we do have.
We've been kind to Victor because there's some films on
his resume that we choose not to mention that are
even those of us who are completeds like, please spare
me this one.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
Oh trust me. I did the audio commentary for Arnold.
I've seen some of the dregs.

Speaker 4 (01:31:17):
Yeah, you've earned to your place and heavened for that.

Speaker 3 (01:31:21):
I mean, I watched Arnold because of you. But I
think that movie probably looks good compared to some of
these that that Victor did. What was that when we
were talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:31:35):
And by the way, I like the Mad Butcher it is.
It's stupid as hell, but I loved it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:41):
Oh up your teddy Bear, that's the which.

Speaker 4 (01:31:44):
It's not the Killed Teddy Bear.

Speaker 2 (01:31:47):
He was in a few spaghetti westerns that I would
like to see, like The Wrath of God. He was
in one. He was in a Terrence Hill and Bud
Spencer movie. I love those guys. So yeah, he spent
spent some years over in Italy too, making some things.
And then yeah, I'm still now I'm on the hunt
for this big Daddy movie that he did in sixty nine,

(01:32:08):
because that seems to be one of the few other
movies where he had more of a starring role, at
least according to that trailer.

Speaker 4 (01:32:14):
That's right, it's all we seemed to have.

Speaker 3 (01:32:17):
That's the one we couldn't find.

Speaker 4 (01:32:20):
Victor Bono Month part two somewhere out on the line.

Speaker 3 (01:32:23):
I wonder if that movie was like Lost not lost physically,
But well, I mean I do mean physically. I mean
if it was damaged or just deteriorated and no one
bothered to preserve it. It seems hard to believe.

Speaker 4 (01:32:38):
But it could be like the old Johnny Carson joke.
Maybe it was on the few films that was transferred
to nitrate stock.

Speaker 3 (01:32:45):
It was only sixty eight minutes long.

Speaker 2 (01:32:48):
It almost sounds like more of a TV pilot than
a movie itself.

Speaker 3 (01:32:53):
I know, yeah, I know. Joan Blondell was doing a
lot of TV at that stage.

Speaker 4 (01:32:58):
Well so is he.

Speaker 3 (01:32:59):
Yeah, this is nineteen sixty nine.

Speaker 2 (01:33:03):
We'll have to keep searching, all right, guys, Let's go
ahead and take a break and play a preview for
next week's show right after these brief messages. Certified Fresh
and what critics are calling the best movie of the
year period twenty eight years Later, with refines Aaron Taylor
Johnson and Jody Comer and directed by Academy Award winner
Danny Boyle, is now available to watch on digital.

Speaker 6 (01:33:26):
But in Strongholds, millions are made here and not a
single dollar has ever been lost until one day. This
bright young man makes an innocent mistake that erupts into
unbelievable consequences.

Speaker 4 (01:33:47):
Fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 6 (01:33:50):
Fifty thousand dollars. Turn yourself in, boy before someone asks
who's minding them in. We're going through the sore at night.

Speaker 4 (01:33:59):
Start up.

Speaker 6 (01:34:00):
The press is run off.

Speaker 3 (01:34:01):
The fifty thousand impossible.

Speaker 6 (01:34:03):
The plates are locked in the vault.

Speaker 1 (01:34:05):
So we get one more partner, somebody who can open safes.

Speaker 4 (01:34:11):
A safe cracker ridiculous.

Speaker 6 (01:34:14):
Where do you find a safe cracker to open a safe?

Speaker 4 (01:34:18):
I got to hear it clicks.

Speaker 5 (01:34:21):
I need a hearing aide.

Speaker 6 (01:34:22):
A safe cracker who can't hear This one is a
solid value blocked to a school teacher.

Speaker 3 (01:34:28):
She used it only on weekends. You didn't mention who's
going to get you into.

Speaker 4 (01:34:32):
The sewer system?

Speaker 12 (01:34:33):
Dem drains in that part.

Speaker 2 (01:34:35):
Of town are awful deep.

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):
We need what.

Speaker 6 (01:34:40):
A boat? A boat to sail a seward. Wait a minute,
no problem, I get just the guy to build U
a boat. Oh no, not a captain of a kiddie park.
Next you'll get a blonde who also cuts money. In
an operation like this, there are a few complications, like

(01:35:05):
a close call with an electric eye, a nosy little
dog who insists on getting into the act, a vanishing captain, genuine, beautiful, wonderful,

(01:35:27):
real money and all tax free. Four and a half
million dollars so far fore and a half? Can you
make it go faster?

Speaker 4 (01:35:39):
Harry, make it go faster?

Speaker 6 (01:35:41):
The most impossible cast of lawbreakers ever put together, Jim Huffy,
Dorothy Provine. I didn't do this for money, Milton Berle,
Joey Bishop, Bob Denver, Victor, Jack Gilbert, and Walter Brenham

(01:36:07):
has pop.

Speaker 4 (01:36:10):
Oh were you said?

Speaker 6 (01:36:12):
Anybody?

Speaker 3 (01:36:24):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:36:24):
We'll be back next week with a look at who's
minding the mint as Buono Palooza concludes. Until then, I
want to thank my co host for this month, Auto
and Tim so Otto. What is keeping you busy lately?

Speaker 3 (01:36:37):
Just finished up working on the Italian American Baseball Players,
which should be out with McFarland hopefully sometime this fall.
And now I'm actually busy looking around for something else
to write about. And Tim Madigan will be getting suggestions

(01:36:57):
that I have to see what he thinks. He's my
go to guy.

Speaker 4 (01:37:00):
You know, I have the perfect suggestion. If not you,
who the Victor Blono biography.

Speaker 2 (01:37:07):
We've been asking for it, we have been asking now
when well, the nephew says that he wrote a book,
but I can't find any proof that he has, and
he won't get back to me on things. So it's like,
come on, you know where it?

Speaker 3 (01:37:23):
Well, there you go, that tells you everything you need.

Speaker 2 (01:37:26):
There's this Victor Buono book. Yeah, if not you, Otto who?
And doctor Tim? How about yourself? What are you up
to lately?

Speaker 3 (01:37:33):
Well?

Speaker 4 (01:37:33):
I just want to put another plug in for my
friend Steve Huff's Movable marquis. What do they call these
things a substack? As a substack?

Speaker 2 (01:37:43):
Yeah, newsletter, baby.

Speaker 4 (01:37:45):
Letter, but it's chock full of goodness. And uh, I'll
put in a plug for a book I did a
few years ago that I co wrote with my friend
Tim Delaney called Lessons Learned from Popular Culture. I'm a
professor of philosophy and he's a professor of sociology. So
we look at movies, TV, comic books and what have

(01:38:08):
you and give our two cents on what lessons you
could learn. Otto mentioned earlier that you know, even if
you haven't gone to graduate school or college at all,
you can still learn an awful lot through popular culture.
Everything I know I learned from watching too much TV
when I was a child.

Speaker 2 (01:38:30):
Well, thank you so much guys for being on the show.
Thanks to everybody for listening. If you want to hear
more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some
of the other shows that I work on. They are
all available at weirdingmaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our
Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit
patreon dot com. Slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get
help some Projection booth take over the world.

Speaker 13 (01:39:00):
Rad USh, sweet child, you love beauty.

Speaker 4 (01:39:10):
He died.

Speaker 8 (01:39:14):
Oh hold him, Chilan, Please hold him tied and brush
the tear from your art. You weed, because you had
a dream last night, you dream that he said goodbye.

(01:39:36):
He held two roseses within his hand, two roses he.

Speaker 4 (01:39:44):
Gave to me.

Speaker 3 (01:39:48):
The red rose tends.

Speaker 13 (01:39:50):
You of his fashion, the white rose his love so true.

Speaker 11 (01:40:00):
Hush, sweet shoe.

Speaker 13 (01:40:05):
Shoe, don't you cry? Hush, sneetchad.

Speaker 11 (01:40:16):
You love you, you die, And every night after he
shall die, Yes, every night, when he's.

Speaker 8 (01:40:30):
Gone, the wind will say to you this lull above.

Speaker 11 (01:40:39):
Sweet Charlotte was loved by job.

Speaker 3 (01:40:45):
Hush, sh shoe.

Speaker 11 (01:40:50):
Shot, don't you cry?

Speaker 13 (01:40:57):
Hush, sweet, shall let cula

Speaker 3 (01:41:03):
Be chi He

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Episode 759: Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)

NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal