Episode 762: Lemonade Joe (1964)

Episode Transcript
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Adom hog Fogo ranad Jesus is in apples in glad
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The steps on city.

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Barsat Yet no whiskey.

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Now be in money.

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And here.

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God kid.

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Joy next to him over shack kid.

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Assent to Prona cutures, chinot approach became champion and them
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A woman approach.

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Eny coffee.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Welcome to the projection booth. I'm your host. Mike White
joined me once again as mister Jonathan Owen.

Speaker 9 (03:12):
Hello, good to be here.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Also back in the booth is mister Alistair Pitts.

Speaker 8 (03:16):
Hello, Mike Cola Loka is the law.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Checktember continues with a look at Older Schlipsky's Lemonade Joe,
based on the novel and play by Yuri Brendecca. The
film stars Carol Fiala as the titular Lemonade Joe, a
seller of coola. Meanwhile, Milosh plays the dreaded Horack Batman
aka Ho Golfogo. It's a tongue twisting check musical presented

(03:43):
and stunningly tinted black and white, done only as Older
Chilipsky can do. Be warned that we are going to
be spoiling this film as we go along, So if
you don't want anything ruined, turn off the podcast and
come back after you've seen the film. Little Sheba, we
will still be here. So, Jonathan, when was the first
time you saw Lemonade Joe And what did you think?

Speaker 7 (04:01):
So?

Speaker 9 (04:03):
I think I first saw it in early two thousand
and eight, and it was at a time when i'd
just finished my postgraduate research on Czech cinema and I
was waiting for my Vivor. I was going to have
like a Vivor kind of exam, and so I was
like desperately cramming lots and lots of films that I'd
not seen during the Christmas break, and this was one

(04:24):
of them. It was a bit belated, really, because I
think I really should have seen it earlier, and I
was watching a lot of things in a bit of
a panic. Even despite the circumstances, this was one that
I just immediately loved on first viewing, and I think
I probably watched it through. I probably went back a
couple of days after and just watched it again just
for pleasure, because it just immediately clicked with me. And Yeah,

(04:48):
it's just so much fun. And it's a film that
I've watched many times since then, and one of those
things that I can always just watch a few minutes
of just get an instant pleasure hit from it. Yeah,
it's a film I love and I'm really excited to
talk about it.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, this movie is like a dopamine rush Yeah, and Ali,
how about yourself?

Speaker 10 (05:09):
Because letterboxed I know exactly when I saw it, and
that was the fifteenth of February this year, but it
had been on my radar for like years and years
before that, and in part because of that, I think
it slightly suffered from being like so anticipated, Oh, I'm
finally going to watch this thing that I've heard about

(05:30):
for six, seven, eight years at this point, and it
was just coming as part of a very intense weekend
of film watching. In fact, I borrowed it on DVD
from twentieth Century Flicks Video Rental in Bristol, one of
the last surviving video rental places in the UK, because

(05:54):
I just happened to be in Bristol really for the
first time for Slapstick Festival, and so I'd seen a
bunch of like Soviet silent film slap Slapstick on the Friday,
come back to Oxford with my small handful of DVDs
because twentieth Century Flix does a rental service, so I

(06:18):
was just like, oh, okay, I will take these with me.

Speaker 8 (06:22):
So I got three.

Speaker 10 (06:23):
So it was part of a trio of I Married
a Witch, the Veronica Lake film and Sword of doom,
So that was quite an eclectic mix. And then I
saw it the day before I saw Once Upon a
Time in No, it wasn't Once Upon a Time in
the West. Yeah, it was Once Upon a Time in

(06:44):
the West. For the first time as well. I enjoyed it,
but it got lost in the shuffle and also seeing
it on DVD rather than seeing it on a nicer print,
I think it didn't quite live up to my expectations
the first time, But just revisiting it on a nicer
copy and in a slightly less like frazzled state of mind,

(07:08):
it's just grown with every subsequent rewatch.

Speaker 8 (07:11):
So I am really excited to talk about this too.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah. This one was part of a whole series of
movies that Facets released here in the States, Facets out
of Chicago. Yeah, I had this all the way back
on VHS. I think they released I don't know how
many titles, but it was very unusual for this video
company to release all of these Czechoslovakian films, And of

(07:35):
course they had a lot of the classics that we
know closely watched trains over here, closely observed trains over there.
But Lemonade Joe was one of them, and I was
just like, what is this thing? This musical Czech cowboy film,
And it was very unusual for me because I really
wasn't that familiar with other countries and how they did

(07:57):
cowboy films other than spaghetti westerns. I wasn't aware of
Tears of the Black Tiger hadn't come out the Thaie.
I believe it was Thai musical also Western. Watching this
the first time, I was completely blown away just the
manipulation of the footage, just to see the tinting of everything,

(08:20):
and sometimes the tinting is so intense, and maybe because
of watching this on VHS the first time, it was
really tough to see sometimes what was going on, and
even the version I watched again for this recording little
tough sometimes, like when he goes to Fata Morgana valley
and you have things up in the sky and you

(08:41):
can barely make out what's going on, and then you
definitely see when he gets a vision of what's happening
with his love interest in Hogo Fogo. But yeah, there
are certain times, especially like the Street, where you just
have that long version and amazing that they have this
Western set at Barren. I guess they must have sh

(09:01):
had a lot of Cowboy films there because it was
a great set. And this movie plays with tropes like
Nobody's Business, like almost anything you can think of when
it comes to a cowboy film, it's in this like
all of the standards. It's almost the greatest hits of Westers.

Speaker 10 (09:20):
And right from the start, right like the fact that
you've got this great title song in both because we'll
probably end up talking about like the English duble, which
is shorter. It's really a labor of love, and they
go to the trouble of rewriting or just writing songs
to replace the originals that just so like authentic but

(09:41):
just so funny and just so much in the lyrics.
And you can tell in a way that it was
a stage musical before, in the sense that the script
is so tight. And the thing about if you're putting
something on and this is like true of Shakespeare's. Part
of the reason and it's so good is you get
like multiple bites at the apple because like you could

(10:05):
just keep tightening the script. And I feel like maybe
that's what happened. I have no evidence for that, but
just it does seem like something that has just been
like fine tuned and fine tuned and just like extra
little jokes just added in and just so good.

Speaker 9 (10:22):
I was really surprised to find out how long of
a prehistory it has really because I think it goes
back to basically to the end of the thirties. I
think Badechka was basically commissioned to write a series of
like Western themed stories for a magazine, and so I
think it was first published. I think he first wrote
them around like nineteen thirty nine, nineteen forty and then

(10:44):
it went through these various other versions. So there was
a play that was produced I think in nineteen forty
four during the occupation still which is amazing, I think,
and then there was a novel go Back.

Speaker 8 (10:54):
To Closely Observed Trains, Yeah, this is what he was doing.

Speaker 9 (10:58):
There was I think a radio version, of course, the
Jersey Trunker film Song of the Prairie, which is not
exactly the same story or characters, but it's like a
trial run in a way, I guess, for the idea
of doing the comedy western, and that's where the title
song first appears. And then there was the nineteen fifty

(11:20):
five stage production, which I think was a rewrite basically
and that I think it's at that point that they
added the music, So I think it's at that point
that it became a musical, and I think that was
the closest model to the film. But yeah, it had
been through all these various changes. And what Badechka did
in the shift from the like the previous versions to

(11:41):
the film was that he really nuanced the character of
Joe a lot more.

Speaker 10 (11:45):
So.

Speaker 9 (11:46):
Yeah, I think that's very true that. I think having
this kind of long prehistory, he was able to fine
tune it and also to deepen it as well, I think,
because I think in the earlier versions, Joe was more
of just this straight forward, like Western style good guy.
There was no real new ance to him. He was
just this very innocent, pure Western hero who liked to

(12:08):
drink lemonade. And then by the time he gets the film,
there's this other dimension to him. So in a way,
that's like a front, isn't it really?

Speaker 10 (12:16):
And it's really cool that he'd been essentially marinading in
the genre for decades before we get the film. That's
so cool and probably why it's so rich. I don't
know if you can marinade anything in lemonade, you could
probably try.

Speaker 1 (12:32):
You definitely can use lemon juice to help break it down.

Speaker 8 (12:36):
In a marinad.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
Lemon juice is really very good, isn't it.

Speaker 11 (12:38):
It is for especially for a dense meat like this,
which it's because the acid will tend to cook it.
If the lamb was quite really thin, then it wouldn't
be a great idea.

Speaker 10 (12:49):
Well, I want to say about the title, like the
fact and the themes of the film, the fact that
it's called lemonade, lemonade Joe, it's like lemonade, it's very sweet,
Lemons themselves famously bitter.

Speaker 8 (13:04):
What do you associate with lemons? Bitterness?

Speaker 10 (13:06):
And it's just there's something about that, and like the
mythmaking of the West, it's this lovely, happy, sugary sweet thing.

Speaker 8 (13:14):
But actually there's this kind of like bitter history like.

Speaker 10 (13:19):
Under the surface. So just don't don't look out in
that dark corner, don't open up those that box. Possibly
that's me overreading.

Speaker 9 (13:28):
But Badetchka. From what I've read about his feelings on
the film, I think he did intend there to be
that kind of undercurrent of satire or of critique. And
it was interesting because sometimes people have suggested that this
the kind of anti capitalist critique in the film was

(13:48):
something that was imposed by the context, and it was
the fact that he was making this in a communist
country that meant he had to add this element to
make it more acceptable. And yet I've read there was
an article at the time of the film's release in
I think it was in a Slovak journal that actually
criticized the film for being too harsh. He'd actually said
it's a little bit he said, some of the jokes

(14:09):
nice pond by the way, that it's a little bit
below the bell. And but Deetka took issue with this,
and he said that was his intention, really, and that
he was actually more interested in the reality of the
West than he was in the myth and so that
I think he was conscious that he was doing something
that was de mythologizing the West in a certain way.

(14:31):
And so I think that kind of bitter taste is intentional.
And it's really interesting too, isn't it if you put
it in the context of the sixties and of what
was happening in the American Western and in the European Western,
because there was this similar project. As much as it's
parodying or referring back to the Westerns of the thirties
and forties. I think it's also in a way it's

(14:53):
quite contemporary, isn't it, with somebody like Leoni for example.

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah, I was been fascinated by the whole idea of
other cultures parroting or mirroring back to the US, or
to any other cultures, one culture mirroring another culture. I've
talked before about spaghetti Westerns. How I find them very
interesting because they're looking at America through European lens, and
this whole idea of Karl may being this incredible Western writer,

(15:21):
but he's German. I don't know if he ever stepped
foot on US soil. But to have all of these
Eastern Westerns reflecting back to us, like I find it
fascinating to see how many Westerns were made in Eastern
Europe and Russia. It's just really that's wild. But it
is a genre.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Why not.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
You can't limit a genre to a country, So yeah,
let's do it up. And so you had to see
this Western, particularly where it's going through all of those
different layers, through all of those different years until it
gets to this and I can't even say it's a
final product because there have still been adaptations. There's a
play that I found out on YouTube where it's pretty

(16:04):
modern that I think it was just a few years
ago this was put on, so it still carries a
lot of weight and has legs to it. But yeah,
I love how it changed throughout the years until we
get to this one example, nineteen sixty four with this
Lipski version where we get to see what was the
world like at that time and how is it reflecting
back the Old West here and using those tropes to

(16:27):
tell this quote unquote new story.

Speaker 10 (16:30):
And the setting as well in terms of the year
that it's set eighteen eighty five, so it's twenty years
after the end of the Civil War, and it's five
years before the frontier closes. And you even have our
two badman brothers having a nostalgic moment about their escapades
from their youth when they were running around with Billy

(16:53):
the Kid and people like that. And then right at
the beginning, just after the credits, you've got the bitingly
sardonic dedication to like the heroes of the West who
avenged injustice and stood up for the law with a
capital Z in Czech capital zacn no matter what.

Speaker 8 (17:16):
And it's just that's not what happens in this reilm.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
So I love that.

Speaker 10 (17:22):
It's yeah, I didn't I didn't even really clock that
the first couple of times.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
And I love that when it comes to these tropes
that they are just played to eleven nearly every single time.
Like we start the movie after that great credit sequence,
after that wonderful song, we start at the Badman Bar.
I'll go far with the brother is away. It's just
Doug Badman who's running this bar. And we have a

(17:52):
bar fight, right. We don't even get to see it instigated,
I don't think, and boom we are fighting like crazy,
and you these amazing So of course Lipsky loves manipulating film,
loves manipulating the camera. So one guy will punch somebody
else and it's it looks like it was played backwards,
so the other person like leaps up onto the landing above,

(18:16):
or you do have this amazing stunt where this guy
is on top of the landing and jumps down like
eight stairs to punch somebody else. I'm like, wow, that
looked dangerous, and it's just mass hysteria and the piano
players just tinkling away on the ivories, and we get
to meet some of these characters, like Mike Doug who's
reading a newspaper about Hogo Fogo so nonchalantly. He's just

(18:40):
like and then his aide de camp and I'm trying
to remember his name is a Grimpo who's played by
Joseph Heilno Maas there we are who I've seen in
a ton of stuff. It's odd with this movie. There
are certain actors that I've seen a ton and then
there are a bunch that I've just I'm not familiar
with them very much at all, or they might have

(19:01):
played smaller roles. But I was a little bit offended
because Vladimir Menzick only plays a bartender in here. He's
that one of the main character.

Speaker 9 (19:10):
Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of lines that. Yeah,
I wish you could have heard more of him.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, of course, he's fucking fantastic every time he's on screen.
But it's like him mixing up those drinks for a
grempo and everything. That's probably one of my favorite scenes
with him in it.

Speaker 9 (19:25):
Interestingly, he's serving the beer instead of drinking it, because
usually he's drinking beer, isn't he? And yeah, it's slightly
uncharacteristic then quite neatly turned out as well. Really, yeah,
I mean, in terms of the cast, I think the
most interesting thing is that Carol Fiala, who plays Joe,
didn't really have any other lead roles I think as
far as I know, or he didn't really ever do

(19:46):
another film of the Sean stature. I think the only
other kind of really well known thing he did is
in Amadaeus, where he plays Don Giovanni on stage in
a small role. But he could have really believed there
was maybe some political factors behind that. But yeah, he
didn't really go on to other big starring roles really,

(20:07):
which is a shame because he's so wonderful. He just
looks so American somehow. I don't know how to put
it otherwise, but yeah, he just looks the part so much.
And a shame that his singing was not actually him though,
that was actually Carol Gott, I believe, doing the songs
that Joe has because I believe that Carol Fiala was
the wrong type of I don't think he could hit

(20:29):
the high notes in the way that Carol Gott could do. Yeah,
A bit of an ironic thing being that he was
like an operetta star that he didn't actually do the singing,
but it works. I think it works with Carol Gott
And I just love that opening song as well, because
I remember the first time I heard that, I was like,
is that English or is it just like Pidgeon? And

(20:52):
I believe Badetchka himself actually wrote the lyrics, which is
interesting because I think Badetchka did actually speak English. And
it's a brilliant and opening statement in a way, isn't it,
Because it's I think summarizes what the movie is about
because it sounds like English, but it's not. It's just
this kind of nonsense. I think the title is so

(21:12):
far to you I May, which is just like nonsense,
and then there's little bits of Spanish, but it sounds right.
It just sounds good. But yeah, that little.

Speaker 8 (21:22):
Hint of yodling is it's lovely.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Oh yeah, it sounds so great, and yeah, hitting us
with the song right away, and then to calm down
all the people at the bar, we introduce the tornado
Loo who comes in and just I love how the
tinting we were in one tint and then we moved
to red and really sets the stage as well as
that little guy who's got the bellows and he's like

(21:47):
blowing smoke. It's just coming down the stairs. I love
that so much, and I'm just like, Okay, here's here's Destrie,
here's the bad girl kind of thing. So we're going
to have some sort of love triangle going on here,
And yeah, it hits all of those notes, but it
just does it in such a great way. And we
should probably say a little bit about Burdechka as well.

(22:09):
We covered Mysterious Castle and Carpathians. I believe that was
just last year. He also wrote Adele Hasn't Had Her
Supper Yet, which also Ellipski directed, So it's this is
the first part of you could consider it a trilogy
of films that Ellipsky and he made together. But I
think he also did Incorrectly Drawn hen which is a

(22:32):
short that I didn't think is on a double disc
with Ellipski Films. And then we also talked about When
the Cat Comes a few years ago, which was also
based on a Burdecchka story. That was the Yancey film,
which I've been seeing a lot of people posting about lately,
and I'm just so glad to see that because it's

(22:53):
such a great movie.

Speaker 9 (22:55):
And that also has a lot of amazing experiments with
color as well, doesn't it about I think was made
the year before this one, So I guess this was
a really interesting time for these this development, in this
development of a kind of quasi musical form, wasn't it
really in Czechoslovakia? And I think around this I think
actually the same year as lemona Joe, you also had

(23:16):
The Hot Pickers, which is this great Czech musical which
is often compared with the West Side Story, and I
think I think Vlasta Milhalla, who wrote co wrote the
music for Lemonae Joe also co wrote the music for
that as well. So yeah, this was this really interesting
time where filmmakers were really experimenting with other musical with

(23:36):
other kind of genres and these incredible color experiments.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Oh I'm sorry real quick, just to correct myself incorrectly
drawn hen was not directed by Elevski. That was actually
Bredechka himself that directed that, and he worked with Milosh
Maasarek for the screenplay. So another favorite around here on
the projection booth, and.

Speaker 10 (23:57):
Then of course on the tinting side of things like
that's part of the nostalgia. It's it's it's like layers
of the nostalgia. So it's nostalgia for early cinema because
that's what you did, and so it's in that way,
it's like a it's a very original film in the
quite like both the like common parlance definition and the

(24:21):
pedantic like going back to the origin and this it's
kind of like Martin Scorsese always likes to say about
study the old masters, because you'll get inspiration there. So
I love the fact that it's drawing on like older cinema,
and because Westerns themselves are so much part of early

(24:41):
cinema because it was such a popular genre for getting
people into cinemas. So it's yeah, just multi layered nostalgia there.

Speaker 9 (24:51):
I love that there's a few other techniques, aren't there,
I think, which suggests early cinema. There's like irishing effects,
and there's oh yeah, the overcranking, and.

Speaker 10 (25:00):
Then some of the rapid montage feels like quite like
nineteen twenties Soviet, which you'd expect coming out of the
Eastern Bloc. Is that they've they've studied their Eisenstein's and
their Vertovs and Koler shots and all those guys and
like able to take the best from them.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
There's the gun fight that Joe has with Hogo Fogo
at one point where it's just basically cut in there
in this position, cut there in that position, cut there
in this position, And I just love how they're moving
around through the space doing this gunfight, just through edits
rather than through even them moving around. Yeah, or even

(25:43):
when there's a song later on where there's a dance
going on the left side of the screen and Joe's
playing piano on the right side of the screen and
Hogo Focos or whoever's in this Sorry, folks, there's blackface
in this movie. But whoever's in this blackface is just
moving around doing all these impossible.

Speaker 8 (26:03):
Oh, yes, it's Hogo Fogo, one of his many disguises.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yes, I meant as far as I don't know if
there was Kopetki himself, but it probably was. Kopetuck is
just fucking fantastic in this movie.

Speaker 10 (26:18):
So wildly charismatic and just having such a great time,
like chewing up the scenery. This must be like a
dream role for the kind of actor who enjoys like
really hamming it up because he's so good He.

Speaker 9 (26:33):
Has the same role, doesn't he. In each of the
Bodetchka and Lipski films he's always this villain who's also
like a master of disguise. But I think this is
to me the greatest one, just because of just the
variety and just the sort of gusto and relish that
he takes in just fooling people. And there's just there
seems to be just multiple times where he comes in
a new disguise, and it's often he's trying to fool

(26:55):
even the people that he's actually meant to be on
the same side as, and it's just for the pleasure
of messing with them, isn't it.

Speaker 12 (27:01):
Really.

Speaker 10 (27:03):
He's like a tricks to God almost and this is
partly the dub, but he just reminds me of the
classic kind of clipped British super villain that obviously this
is anachronistic that Jeremy Irons and Alan Rickman would play
in like later decades, but if you go earlier than this,

(27:23):
it's Basil Rathbone in Adventures of Robinhood. It's that wonderfully
crisp diction, but with a sort of a snarl and
a sneer, like on every line delivery.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, he's more rearity completely brother, brother, Brother.

Speaker 4 (27:43):
You say I can match a Cocos but size of
a Mexican Dalar?

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Is it possible that you are my own blood brother?

Speaker 13 (27:52):
Horrors dog, it's been a long term since we shared
the sad fate of orphans found on the prairie by
a real tough bunch of darn rough cowboys here.

Speaker 10 (28:07):
Then we knocked around the gatehounds of the Frontier, and
what marvelous.

Speaker 13 (28:13):
Times we had together, ambush and stage coaches, Robin killing sheriffs,
holding up trains with Jesse James and Billy the Kid.

Speaker 9 (28:26):
It's pretty much literally mustache twirling, isn't it? Because I
think he may even do that. Actually, at one point
I think he does it in a Dayla hasn't had
suffer yet. There's definitely a there's a lot of play
with like mustaches and beards, aren't there. I think it's
in mysterious Castle in the Carpathians where he has this
amazing sort of curl beard and he seems to judge

(28:47):
people by the quality of their beards.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
And yeah, there's Yeah, he's like Rudolph Hearnsky. Oh if
only you had some better facial hair. Going back to
the tinting, I'm so curious. I found this version that
I sent you guys where if this film was recolorized,
So somebody took away that tinting and tried to make
it a color film. Holy shit, it is so strange

(29:13):
because so much of the film is washed out. So
then you add color to this washed out miss and
you're like, what is going on? These poor people on
the sides of the frame just barely can see them.
They look like ghosts. It's what are you doing? Why
would you do that to this film? That's so much
a part of the film is it's tinting.

Speaker 10 (29:36):
In the English dub is they've added an extra little
joke into the credits to play on the fact that
in the fifties in particular, when you're competing with television,
it's like anything to get people in the seats. So
you'll be like, it's in this kind of vision, it's
invistavision and it's in whatever, and this has it has
just after Lipski's name, it has like in Lemon Tone

(30:00):
by Allied Artists, and it's just like extra little joke
we've just crammed in.

Speaker 9 (30:06):
It makes sense too, because I have the impression that
that yellow is the dominant tint, isn't it. So I
guess that was Yeah, I guess make it makes sense
to me too, because this may just be a sort
of a personal idiosyncrasy, but I think of Westerns as yellow.
Somehow it is the right tint somehow, And but yeah,
I just love the way that they're constantly shifting. So

(30:28):
I think whenever there's like a romantic scene or a
romantic moment, it goes red, doesn't it.

Speaker 10 (30:32):
And then when you get or more like erotic, because
when you've got the dancers it's sort of love slash sex.

Speaker 8 (30:39):
Yeah, it is red.

Speaker 9 (30:40):
And then the coat is it the Cola Locust Saloon
where it's this very saintly bluish white tint, And to me,
that just typifies the approach really because in a way,
it's one of those films that it just throws everything
at you, but it's done in this incredibly It's like
a very precise and controlled way. I think at each
point they knew what they were doing. It's not random.

Speaker 10 (31:01):
You even have a sort of a dark green, kind
of like gothy vibe in a couple of the Hogo
Fogo scenes, and also when Tornado Loo turns to the
dark side, you have a goth sequence where she comes
down the stairs with this candelarbry and it's just spooky

(31:22):
and like eastern Central European they do like Gothic horror.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
So well over there, I love you mentioning the Green,
especially over that montage of Hogo Fogo and all of
his dastardly deeds that he's done, and just also the
use of like old timey looking drawings. The whole credit
sequence is done over these like it has that same
like wanted poster type font and they use those old

(31:51):
looking drawings, so especially when they are there's a song.
So at one point and Hogo Fogo is dressed up
like a blind man, and of course lemon A Joe
is helping him out because he's one of the best
heroes in the entire world. So he's playing piano and
the old man starts to tell this story and they

(32:13):
move up to this picture, this drawing of New Orleans,
and then you see figures start to enter into the drawing, yeah,
into the artwork, and then it suddenly becomes this whole
sequence of this kind of New Orleans funeral that's going on,
and yeah, that I think is all. I think that
might be tinted. I'm not sure which cutting tinto that is.
But there's also that montage of like I was saying,

(32:35):
his dastardly acts, which are all in green, and then
you get all of the disguises that he's wearing and
he's got one eye clothes and yeah, oh my god,
it's so good. I love seeing what they're doing with
Kopetchuk's face and just all of the horrible things that
he's done over the years and just so happy about them.
He just loves being evil.

Speaker 10 (32:57):
I love the fact that the word you had in
the notes for Hogo Fogo was fiend. That's exactly the word.
It's like the Joker in one of his more like malicious. Oh,
I am stacking up the body count and having delightful
amounts of fun every second of it.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Of course, our good side is being represented by Winfred
and her father, and they're both temperance people, which plays
right into Joe's thing, because he's just like, oh yeah,
alcohol is so bad. Everybody should be drinking Cola loka,
and he is. Basically they find out later on in
the film that he is a salesman for Cola Loca.

(33:38):
That he's the heir to the Cola Loka fortune. He's
basically the son of Coca Cola.

Speaker 8 (33:44):
Oh, he's an oligarch, is what he is.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
It kind of reminds me of the Coca Cola Kid,
the Eric Roberts film The Duchamcaveev I think directed that one.

Speaker 10 (33:54):
I guess Nesle are probably big in the States as well,
but in the UK the Milky Bar Kid for Nesley's
White Chocolate.

Speaker 9 (34:03):
I remember that.

Speaker 10 (34:04):
I don't know whether that's a campaign that continues, but yeah,
that's something I definitely remember from my childhood.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Now, the man didn't call the sheriff was a low
down JUNI wrett me as a rattlesnake.

Speaker 4 (34:19):
Why he once stole the hat if he passed by
your way?

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Better want fact than you see. So the town called
by hilp me making that.

Speaker 14 (34:34):
Far.

Speaker 8 (34:41):
That's in me Bard and me.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
But yeah, he is a trust fund baby. I think
you said that, Jonathan. I totally agree that we find out,
Oh yeah, he's not as pure as maybe he seems.

Speaker 9 (35:00):
When it's finally revealed, and I think his pocket book
drops out of his pocket Winnifred find it, and I
think at first he thinks she's going to be upset,
but then she's actually delighted because that means she is
going to she is going to get a piece of that.
And yeah, that kind of mercenary, kind of money minded attitude,
she has that as well. So yeah, they're perfect for
each other because they're like negotiating the percentage, aren't they

(35:22):
between each other?

Speaker 1 (35:22):
And she is all lined up to become Missus Lemonade
when it comes to this, or Missus Kola Loca. We've
screwed around this a little bit as far as like
where we're at in the world in nineteen sixty four
and what this has become after the book, the short stories,
some of the short films that have taken from this

(35:44):
and everything until we get to this film, which is
really an attack on capitalism, I would say, which I'm
all for.

Speaker 9 (35:53):
I think it's really sharp in the way it's at
a pinpoints. It's that connection between like big business and
then law and religion as well. Isn't it that somehow
they all ultimately serve profit and they serve the making
of money, and you can bend it however you like. Ultimately,
as long as you are serving profit, you can accept anything.

(36:13):
And it's funny, isn't it. When they've set up the
Cola Local Saloon and the fighting is still continuing, isn't it.
They're still beating each other up, but now they're drinking
the lemonade. So it's good, isn't it.

Speaker 10 (36:24):
Now it's just such a brutal juxtaposition. And Winnifer's just
singing about how lovely life is in Arizona and how
polite everyone is, and then they're just people just lamping
each other and throwing them through windows and yeah, and.

Speaker 9 (36:42):
It's in slow motion. Now it's this beautiful sort of
classic rather than over cranked. It's like it's now, yeah,
slow most so it looks more elegant. But yeah, still
people are shooting each other blastic.

Speaker 10 (36:54):
And then, in terms of going back a little a
little bit, and like the satires, the first gunfight we
have is just it's just like water wall like gunshots, explosions,
like people jump like jumping acrobatically, but they cannot hit
the site of a barn door. And then when everyone
switches off the sauce to the lemonade, you have this

(37:19):
sequence where these two guys just like gun each other down,
like in Cold Blood and and Lemonade Joe is like,
this is great, isn't it. Like everyone's so much more
accurate now, and it's just it's quite a body count.
His thirst for for Lemonade is pretty much matched by

(37:41):
his thirst for blood. There's a sequence where he just
like these like robbers are escaping and he just blasts
them all away. Like he doesn't aim to shoot the
horse so that he can like so that it can
be arrested and taken alive. No, he is just yeah,
he's John Wick. He's head shots. He's no one gets

(38:03):
out of this alive. To be fair to him, like
he shoots plenty of people, like non lethally, like he
shoots people's guns out of the hand. But that's that's
not a bit him being humane. It's about him like
showing his prowess, like like shooting the belt off Grimpo.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
And then when Grimpo's at the top of the stairs
coming down with the shotgun, he just idly throws his
gun over the side and shoots Grimpo again.

Speaker 10 (38:33):
It's part of the whole satire of the film is
that Lemonade Joe's gun fighting and physical fighting later skills
are just preternatural, like he can he's got he's basically
got extra sensory perception and could just like like pinpoint
accurate shoot somebody over the over over the shoulder from
the other side of the room or the other side

(38:53):
of the street. And it's probably too early to be
satirizing like Clint Eastwood characters in spaghetti westerns, because he's
just so ridiculously unrealistically a good shot and just able
to like kill ridiculous amounts of people without being hit himself.

Speaker 8 (39:11):
And that's Joe.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Yeah, it's the same year the Fist Full of Dollars
comes out.

Speaker 9 (39:16):
Yeah, I always find that amazing, really because yeah, I
think especially that scene with the four bandits on horseback
where he just shoots three of them and then he
shoots the last one just while he's talking to Winnifredick.
That almost reads like a parody of the famous sort
of first big shootout in Fist Full of Dollars, doesn't it,
where he shoots the four people at one after the other.

(39:37):
That's to me one of the strange things I think
about a lot of these check parodies that they were
not only parodying something that didn't really exist properly in Czechoslovakia.
But it's almost like they were parodying something that didn't
yet exist yet in like international cinema in general, really,
because it's similar to Who Wants to Kill Jesse, which
was obviously spoofing like comic books, and it's like this

(40:00):
example of the comic book movie, but it comes really
before European stock cinema had started to do that, so
it comes before Barberella and things like that, and it's
just this weird kind of contradiction where you're actually parodying something.
So it does feel like a parody of a spaghetti western,
even though this was very early, wasn't it. I mean

(40:20):
there were possibly some I think they'd made some German
westerns by this point. I think you'd had that kind
of early calm my adaptations. But yeah, as you say,
fist full of Dollars was the same year, and yeah,
it's almost like riffing on something that was not yet there.

Speaker 10 (40:35):
And this has reminded me of another like very brief
moment Grimpo like he's cleaning his gun and he looks
through like he cracks the pistol open, then looks through
one of the one of the chambers for just a second.
But it's just a second, and it's like the James
Bond gun barrel. And this is two years after Doctor No.

Speaker 8 (40:55):
They were really.

Speaker 10 (40:56):
Cranking out the Bond films at that point, so I
think maybe you'd had From Russia with Love and Goldfinger
at this point as well. But the fact is that
feels like it's deliberate, but it's also so soon that
could it have been. I know, like filmmakers had more
ability to travel outside of the beyond the Iron Curtain

(41:17):
than the average like member of the public, and they
could also ask for things and just say we need
to see this to be able to keep up with
the West, with the West. And I think also like
Czechoslovakia was more liberal than further east anyway in the sixties.
And of course this is the time of the Khrushov

(41:39):
thor when the Soviets are less iron healed, although yes,
say that to the Hungarians in fifty six.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
I want to go back to that gun fight real quick,
as far as the absurdity of it and just the
wildness of it, and to see these guys who are
obviously ending on trampolines and then jumping over these horses
and things, or the one guy who jumps into a
barrel and then he comes up and five other guys

(42:09):
all come up at the same time, and we were
doing a lot of Suddenly the camera goes into a
Dutch angle. We're following a guy who like lands on
the floor and starts shooting, and the cutting speed is
so fast, and I'm like, is this something that Sam
Raimie might have seen? Because this feels so Raymi esque
in certain parts of this, with that quick cutting, the

(42:31):
camera moving all over the place, very to me what
John Wio was doing and things like the killer and stuff,
though obviously not nearly as comedically, but this feels like
it's got that energy that really drives somebody like a
Ramie and this movie will just suddenly be like, Okay, yeah,
now here's the craziest gunfight that you've seen. Here's the

(42:52):
barroom fight that you've seen. I'm surprised that there isn't
a stage coach. There is, but not like a stagecoach
robbery kind of thing in this one. It's so many
of these things that we've seen in other movies. But
Lipsky's just okay. You thought you've seen that before. Here,
let me give you something that you've not seen, or
something you've seen but in a completely new.

Speaker 10 (43:13):
Way, and go back to the silent cinema. Like both
in settings and the sheer physicality. It's like very keyt
nesk just to the fact that people are just acrobatic
and like, how are you not hurting yourself here? It's
like probably frequently you are.

Speaker 9 (43:30):
I did find when I was watching it that I
would sometimes just go back and look at certain moments
and I would try and work out is that reversed
or is that how it should be? It's something it's
difficult to tell whether something is more impossible as you're
seeing it or like in the reverse order. I think
there's like a moment where somebody jumps onto a horse,
and I was trying to think, does has that been

(43:52):
reversed or is that actually physically possible to do it
that way? Or would it be difficult? Would it be
more difficult if you're jumping off the horse. But there's
a lot of things that, yeah, they just seem physically
very difficult to do.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
Really.

Speaker 9 (44:05):
I read that they used like some of the stunt performers.
I think they were like judo masters, or they were
like they used like basketball players, and yeah, they just
got all these sports players, I think. And I don't
know how developed the stunt industry was in czechoslovacurate at
the time, but yeah, you had a lot of people
that were just very good at like jumping through things.
And I think another point of reference too is like animation,

(44:26):
isn't it because and something that I love is the
fact that the do you see that tool company, it's
called the Atmeat Tool Company, And there's that wonderful kind
of Looney Tunes reference there isn't there.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
I think just to have the on screen animation at
one point when Joe and Hogo Fogo are going at it,
shooting at each other, and you see the bullets being
animated across the screen like dotted lines, and they just
keep hitting each other.

Speaker 8 (44:50):
It's like they're so evenly matched.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
Yes, there's just so perfect and they just keep shooting
each other's bullets right out of the air. That's basically
like one of the jokes in the Suicide Squad with
oh yeah, my bullets are smaller, they make smaller holes
or whatever, and it's just Yep, they're shooting each other
just any one another's bullets right out of the air.
And it's that creativity that I just love. And the

(45:15):
films I think Jonathan was the first time we ever talked,
was that about Happy End? If not, that was twenty seventeen.
I think we talked about that movie. So talk about
just going absolutely nuts, just playing the entire movie backwards,
eat your heart out because for Nolan, and.

Speaker 9 (45:35):
It's so offhand as well, isn't it. Really It's not
done with any real pretension. And Happy End, I think
is an interesting one because it's so experimental, isn't it.
It pushes this idea really too. It's breaking point and
it worked. It realizes it perfectly. And I guess this

(45:57):
is also the time of the New Wave, of course,
And I think lips he said in relation to Happy End,
he said, this is an experiment, but it's not a
New Wave experiment. And it's interesting that he would make
that distinction because to me, a lot of the techniques
are very similar to what the New Wave was doing.
I guess it does it in the Guys of the Comedy,
in the Guys of the genre film a genre spoof,

(46:19):
but it is as experimental in its own way as
any of the new wave films.

Speaker 10 (46:24):
And then in terms of personnel, there's a lot of
shared in front and behind the camera filmmakers from Carol
Zemen films, So just that drawing on that level of
visual invention. I haven't seen Baron Munchausen slash Baron Platzil yet,

(46:45):
but I saw Invention for Destruction for the first time
earlier this year. You're just gobsmacked and it's and then
there's something about the humor in this film that's very
like proto Python visuals, like very like proto Terry Gilliam
and that reminds me of other like Czech films, because

(47:07):
there's something there's so much about the cremator that's very
gillium esque and I know, obviously because he talks about
it a lot Zemen, but it's just like how widely
seen was this Obviously we've talked a bit about the
the English language dub, but it just yeah, it just

(47:27):
seems like it was ahead of the curve, but also
drawing on earlier local filmmakers as well to just create
something so as we said, creative and original.

Speaker 9 (47:40):
Yeah, I did get that release in America. I think
in the sixties. I think it was quite widely seen
around Europe as well. I think the Eastern Bloc countries.
I think some West European countries. I think Latin America
it was shown in. Yeah, I think some Latin American countries.
It was shown widely at film festivals. There's a wonderful
story about that. Lipsky tells about Henry Fonder watching it

(48:03):
at Colovi Vari in the company of I think it's
Cliff Robertson and Jack Valenti, and he said that Henry
Fonder apparently loved it and he just like give Ford
all the way through it and apparently loved it so
much that he even told Peter Fonder. And then I think,
like in the eighties, I think it was screened again
at Klovi Vari on the request of Peter Fonder. So yeah,

(48:24):
I think it did. I think it did create some impact.
I think it was shown initially at the sam Sebastian
Film Festival, and he says that Nicholas Ray was there
and Nicholas Ray was laughing through it as well, and
I think it did create some, yeah, some international impact.
Going back to the Gilly Yeah, I think that's true
about the connection with Gilliam I think, and the python

(48:45):
s humor. I think the connection with Zemon I feel
that there is a very zeman s quality to that
sequence with like the funeral procession that Hoga Fogo is narrating,
because you have that layering of real actors against kind
of a painted backdrop. And yeah, to me, that's very
zayman esque. And it reminds me actually that I think

(49:06):
Badetchka wrote some of the script for Invention for Destruction.
So as you say, I think there is a lot
of interconnection between people on this film and people on
a lot of the animated films and the new wave films.
And oh, when speaking of the Cremator, of course your
I hurts does have a little role in this as
the gambler. I love the fact that he does, think.

(49:27):
I don't think he even says anything, but he's just
there with a monocle and a top.

Speaker 8 (49:31):
Hat and and he loses his wig. If that's the
same guy.

Speaker 9 (49:36):
Yeah, yeah, is that the dude? It might be a
I think they're at the same table, aren't they, I think, yeah,
when yeah, I can't remember if yeah.

Speaker 10 (49:46):
And then of course Vladimir Menshik is in the Cromata
as the recurring, like abusive husband who just keeps turning
up at these different events and being horrible.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
I want to know where the image of an undertaker
with the top hat and those little black glasses, because
we get one of those, like the undertaker is very
happy about all the chaos that's happening in town. Count Yeah,
it kind of reminds me of again going back to
Fist full of Dollars where Clint Easwood's.

Speaker 4 (50:20):
Get three coffins ready, I mistake for coffins.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
And there's a point it's either in Fist full of
Dollars or in your Jimbo where the undertakers. Listen, this
is going to come to a point where I can't
even keep up with this stuff anymore. I've just seen
that image, like when you see these little black glasses

(50:46):
with the chain going, that is the image of an undertaker.
And I'm like, was that one guy? Was that a drawing?
Like how do we all associate undertakers with this outfit?
Because you're talking about Monty Python and I was thinking
of the whore.

Speaker 13 (51:01):
Now there's three things we can do with your mum.
We can burier burner or damper dumper in the times
what oh, did you like her? Yes, Oh, well, we
won't dump with him.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
And I'm pretty sure that the guys that take the
coffin out are dressed very similar to this.

Speaker 9 (51:18):
It does mess with your head a bit, doesn't it.
I find the same really that there are lots of
things where I think, yeah, that's obviously a trope that
existed long before this, And yet when you I try
and think of a more perfect example, I can't, because yeah,
it just it just typifies those kind of iconic figures,
doesn't it really?

Speaker 10 (51:37):
And Grimpo just eating everything, It's both. It's both pythonesque,
and I love how like Hogo Fogo goes oh he's
a vegetarian. His energy Grimpost reminds me a little bit
of like Harpo Marks of just he will just destroy
things because that's what he does for me.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
He reminds me of Mango from Blazing Saddles, And I
think this would be a great double feature with Blazing
Saddles because they both descure Westerns so much in different ways.
But this could just as easily be rock Ridge, with
the way that everybody is fighting all the time and
just the chaos of it. This really seems to appreciate

(52:21):
the whole idea of comic Western. We've had comic westerns before,
of course, Kapaloo and all those things, but this has
that same chaos, that same manic energy that A Blazing
Saddles does for me. And as you're saying the whole
thing about the Acme Hardware Company, I'm just realizing right now.
And I don't know why it took so long that

(52:43):
every single sign in this movie is all in English.
It just did not dawn on me before.

Speaker 10 (52:48):
It does either assume like a bit high level of
English literacy amongst the audience, or it just goes, oh,
that's fine that those jokes some of some folks will
get and some folks won't, but it just, yeah, lends
to the authenticity, and some of them so sly, especially

(53:09):
in like the temperance slash like the Goodman's or are
they good men or good men? I don't know, Father
and Daughter's Saloon. They have things like better buy than borrow.
It's just yeah, very capitalist. And then and then other
sort of more temperancy things like Bacchus has drowned more

(53:33):
souls than Neptune. It's quite like a hypher lutin reference.

Speaker 9 (53:39):
I think there's one that I can't actually remember seeing
in the film that I've read about it, where I
think Tornado Loo has a sign I think the feeling
that says something like I can't remember the exact line,
but it's something like there is no success without hard work,
or something like that. I've read Lipsky write about it.
I've read a little little piece where he says about

(54:00):
because I think that was the thing that Henry Fonder
laughed at. I think so, yeah, he says this was
like the funniest moment, but I yeah, I'm trying to
jog my memory of where it actually appears. But yeah,
there are a lot of those little throwaway English jokes,
aren't they like that?

Speaker 8 (54:14):
Yeah, although that seems very close to our bite smacked fry.

Speaker 9 (54:19):
Yes, yes, that's true, the like.

Speaker 10 (54:22):
German big business associations with the with the Holocaust and
this being like less than twenty years after the end
of the war.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
I love when the saloon comes back after Hogo Fogo
comes to town and he does his best to say
drinking lemonade is not mainly alcoholic.

Speaker 4 (54:44):
Beverages are made for men, and you all look like.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Men, and that's a real man's drink, and he brings
all the business back, business booming so well that a
woman will be walking down the steps with a man,
a prostitute, I should say, We'll be walking down the
steps with the man, and the next guy is right
in line and will just pick her up and take
her right back upstairs. That's how well they're doing as

(55:07):
far as business comes.

Speaker 10 (55:10):
Just and go back to some of the editing things,
the fact that like after Hogo Foger goes into the
bar and says, I say foi takola loca, and then
you just have and you have him just making a
point of it, but then you have just the patrons
just disappearing, until we're left with Ezra Goodman and Winnifred

(55:30):
Goodman just standing by themselves because everyone's just given into
the appeals to their masculine insecurities.

Speaker 8 (55:38):
You want a real man's drink, don't you. I'm like, okay, yeah,
we'll go over there.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
I love when he comes in Hogo Foger, the first
time you see him and he comes into the saloon
and it hasn't had enough business that everyone is there
covered in cobwebs, including Grimple.

Speaker 10 (55:57):
And Doug is there's a customer. He's just angry that
Grimpo isn't just like stepping to Immediately.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
It drops a bottle on his head as Doug's just
lounging on top of the piano. And then the way
that Hogo Fogo comes over and like reaches inside of
Tornado Lose Bodice and just pulls out a whole bunch
of flowers. He goes over to Grimpo and it rubs
his cane across his head. Grimpo starts to eat it.

(56:26):
He pulls a cigarette from behind Grimpo's ear and then
starts to light the cigarette very Klauskinski and four a
few dollars more, but he lights it off of his face.
And then he leaves Grimpo there with two rabbits in
either hand.

Speaker 10 (56:43):
It's like and the flowers that he takes from Tornado
lose bosom. She throws them away and then they explode
because of course the magic flowers.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
The edit of when he goes into the Lemonade Bar,
Lemonade Joe Bar, the Temperance Bar, and he pulls off
his incredible beard like he has and I guess it's
the sheriff.

Speaker 10 (57:07):
Who it is the sheriff. Yeah, I checked and paused it. So,
oh yeah, there's a sheriff badge.

Speaker 1 (57:13):
We don't really see the law in this at all.
And he's quickly dispatched too, But he has the wanted
poster for hog Fogo, and we have this whole little montage.

Speaker 9 (57:23):
It takes quite a long time, doesn't it, to his
face the poster.

Speaker 10 (57:27):
His eyes, someone who suffers from a degree of face blindness.
I was like, this is funny, but also I feel
your pain, man. And then his dispatch of the sheriff
is just it's just brutal, guns him down with the
fake arms. It's just it's just so quick. It's like
Obi Wan in Star Wars, but just evil.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
It's so nice that we just have this big saloon
set and we're just going to redress it and retint
it for what we've got with the temperance bar versus
the evil a loon, and it's just the same, darn barn.
We even still have the same to bar men working.

Speaker 9 (58:04):
To go back and forth.

Speaker 1 (58:05):
Don't they be too, they're very good barman. The one
guy who's not Vladimir Menshik, the way that he is
just like whipping those bottles down the calendar.

Speaker 10 (58:14):
And then I love going back right to the beginning,
where you've got the kill Devil cocktail that's that they
keep I don't notice though it's pepper. They're dumping into
that something to make it like even stronger. And then
you've got like the skull cup that Winifred dumps on
the floor and of course it burns through the floor

(58:36):
like it's alien blood. And it's so great it gives
me an excuse to mention that menschik is in It's
like the lead in Esther Cronbachover's murdering It's it turns
to be it's translated as murdering the devil, but like
may being a pedant, and there's no articles in check anyway.
It's it should be murdering a devil because that character

(58:59):
is not like Lucifer himself. He's he's like a very
low ranking diabolical functionary. But that film is so good
and shares like the visual flare of of this. This
seems to be one of the few films from this
time period of like of note that crombeck Over was

(59:22):
not involved with, because she seems to be like MVP
of czechoslovaccent cinema of the sixties and seventies.

Speaker 9 (59:28):
But it is surprising, though, yeah, that she didn't work
on it, because yes, she did work on She worked
on The Man from Outer Space with Lipsky. In fact,
I think that was one of her earliest productions that
she worked on. Really, yeah, it is maybe there was
some kind of hidden sort of collaboration somewhere, but yeah,
as far as I know, yeah, she didn't, but yeah,
it would have seemed appropriate.

Speaker 7 (59:50):
I guess.

Speaker 1 (59:51):
Yeah, I'm very surprised, Yeah, that she wasn't involved in this.
I think this whole month because we're doing some newer films,
that she might have been tired by that point or dead,
that she's not involved in everything this month. But yes,
she will be mentioned next week when we talk about
Romance for Bugle, because she did all the outfits in
that one too.

Speaker 9 (01:00:11):
I believe actually the costume design on this film had
some input from Bodetka himself. And that's really interesting, isn't
it that as well as being a screenwriter, he also
had some involvement in the look of the film and
in the credits. And I think it's the same too
in Adela hasn't had Supper yet. You just get this credit,
which is something like artistic collaboration as something that's very

(01:00:34):
broad category. And I like the fact that, yeah, there
wasn't this kind of hard division between being a writer
and being involved in other aspects of the production. And
from what I've seen, when I've seen like stills from
the production, it seems Bodetka was there with Lipski and
that he was giving his input onto like the look

(01:00:55):
of the costumes or on the sort of compositions, and yeah,
it seems that he had a very intensive level of
contruct I think even maybe some of the illustrations of
his possibly too, because they look very much like the
illustrations that we see in Adela hasn't had supper yet
and like some of Bidetka's own sketches, and so I
think that a lot of the yeah, the look of
the film is down to him too.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
Really, I kind of love that. I kind of love
that he was so involved in this and it wasn't
one of these oh, thanks for the idea, We're just
gonna do this stuff without you. But yeah, when I
saw that he had screenwriting credit, I was like, oh,
that's great. I'm really glad and to hear the yeah,
I really hadn't thought about those sketches, because whenever I
think about it, Dala hasn't ed or sub yet. I

(01:01:38):
just immediately go to the whole funkfire thing when it
comes to the creature design and obviously very little shop
of horrors when it comes to how a Dala looks.

Speaker 9 (01:01:49):
It's a bit confusing, I think because of the fact
that Bidechka produced so many animated films and yet didn't
tend to do the visual design. So it can be
a bit confusing because he actually was a gifted artist himself.
He was a gifted illustrator, but yeah, he tended to
leave the visual design of the animations to somebody else

(01:02:11):
like he would work with Yeah, I think Camill low
Tech for example, or even like Evis schwank Mayer of
on one of the short films. But yeah, I think
he still had this sort of visual talent, and yeah,
I think it's there in yeah, maybe the costumes and
in the stylization of the figures really, because they are
like cartoon figures, aren't they Really, it's very precise. Each

(01:02:34):
character is very precisely designed. And looking at the hog,
looking at the hog Fogo character again, I recently watched
The Frontier Marshall, the Alan Duan film from the forties,
which I read was an inspiration on this film. And
I think the way Hogo Phogo looks it's very similar
to the way Doc Halliday looks in that film. And

(01:02:56):
I guess it's also just a generic kind of like
baddie costume, isn't it really? But it's very Yeah, it's
very visually precise, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:03:05):
I wanted to tip my chapeau to whoever. I guess
it would be the costume designers Yurie with Spadetska and
for nan Vacha for yeah. The hat game is I
know nothing about hats, but it is very strong, and
particularly hog Fogo's hat just looks so I am a

(01:03:27):
very evil guy. It's an excellent hat. And then in
a different way, because he's more the businessman, Doug has
his like top hat which just has like ruthless tycoon
about it as well, And of course you get the
hat joke when mean prank really in the bar early

(01:03:48):
on with Winifred and Ezra, where like they do their
temperance pitch and one of the cowboy tofts like pulls
the brim down and like Rex his hat. There's Yeah,
there's a lot of desecration of clothing in this in
this film as well.

Speaker 9 (01:04:04):
One of the questions I have actually is in the
scene where they desecrate and they kind of pour all
they kind of ketch up and the sort of ikey
looking things over Joe's costume. They put the hat on,
don't they, And then I think it's like tabasco sauce
or something, isn't it. This is very like viscous, horrible,
kind of messy sort of substance that pulls over his
head and they seem to pull the brim of the

(01:04:25):
hat off, and then I've never been quite sure what
he's meant to look like, but I always feel there's
meant to be some reference point that I'm not getting
there because they he has this it's almost like a
sort of a Turkish like a pasha or something. And
then the mustache, and I'm I always wonder whether it
was the I remember the name of the karl My character.

(01:04:46):
There's a karl My character that was I think like
it's like a traveler and I've written down somewhere I
think it's like Karma.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Yeah, I know it's that old shatter Hand, which was
like his big thing or when it how.

Speaker 9 (01:05:00):
Was this other big one?

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
But yeah, he had a whole karl My what a
wild career, and well, so many movies based on his stuff.

Speaker 9 (01:05:11):
One of the interesting things here is the fact that
I think of all the things that it refers to,
it doesn't really have any reference to Native Americans. And
I believe that was simply just because, according to Bodechka,
he just wasn't interested in that theme. But yeah, I
think that's the only sort of a mission, isn't it,
Which is surprising when you think of like how the

(01:05:33):
karl My influence was so strong, like in Central Europe,
and then there was that whole genre in East Germany
of the what they call the Indiana film where they
had they've just switched it around and the sort of
the Native Americans were the good guys and then the
American colonizes with the bad guys. And yeah, this is
an interesting absence here.

Speaker 10 (01:05:54):
I think the one thing I'd say on that is,
I think you do see like a stereotype like carving
of an indigenous person. And also in one of the songs,
because I had to look this up because I just
I was just like, what is that name? There's a
reference to to Manitou. I didn't know who or what

(01:06:17):
that was, so I had to look that up. And
the references is that is that even Manitou will get
a taste for trigger whiskey. It's it is what's a
taste for firewater? I think is how it's translated in
the in the caption. Yeah, but yeah, generally is that

(01:06:40):
it is absent.

Speaker 1 (01:06:42):
Jonathan I just posted in the chat. Is that Crara
ben name?

Speaker 9 (01:06:45):
That's think?

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Yeah, that's the one, okay, Yeah, because that hat and
mustache looks like what they turned Joe into.

Speaker 9 (01:06:53):
Yeah, that would be interesting if so, because yeah, it's
I don't think they're actually Western themed stories. I think
it's about yeah, carmage, Yeah, one of these other sort
of adventure stories about these travels through the Middle East,
I think, and the Yeah, it's one of those things
that's a little bit like out of the context. But yeah,
it is a strange moment, that isn't it? And I

(01:07:14):
guess like costume is so important, isn't it? All the
way through the movie, the fact that the city's called
Stetson City, and that announces right away that it's all
about ties into the theme of masquerade, doesn't it, and
performance really and the idea that I guess you have,
like the image, and then the image is concealing something.
So Joe, yeah, represents this appearance of something that's good

(01:07:38):
and that's moral, but behind that there is this very
shrewd like profiteering attitude.

Speaker 10 (01:07:43):
And yeah, because of course, the what causes Lou to
turn on him is that he rejects her advances and
she's saved his life a couple of times, and he
tries to pay her and and I think he calls
her like a poor wretch because she just fancies him

(01:08:07):
and there's no fiscal gain to be had, and he's
just no, this doesn't make sense to me, like non
transactional relationships just do not compute for Joe. And rather
than trying to give her this check for five bucks,
like he doesn't try and pass it to into it
give it to her in her hand, he tries to

(01:08:28):
stuff it in her cleavage. And this is it's like,
why don't you just give it to her like a
normal person, Like this isn't like in a strip club,
because even though she's like a performer, it's like they're backstage.

Speaker 8 (01:08:41):
Can you not just treat her like a normal human, please?

Speaker 14 (01:08:44):
Joe?

Speaker 8 (01:08:45):
And he's just like, I don't know anything about this,
and he's he's the worst.

Speaker 1 (01:08:51):
Yeah, it's interesting that he's the hero, but he is
just so clueless so often, and you're like, okay, Like
I kind of revel when bad things.

Speaker 9 (01:08:59):
Have him in the scene where he's tortured essentially, or
his costume is tortured, you don't really that could actually
play out quite unpleasantly. But I don't think you really
feel that sorry for him, do you really? I think
in a way you feel this is a little bit
of a come up into there. I think I would
root for Tonado Loo.

Speaker 1 (01:09:17):
I think in that scene, going back to the costume stuff,
that is such an important moment, as when he after
he gets shot, I think he comes back. It's almost
like his resurrection, and he's then wearing a different outfit
he's wearing in it. I could be wrong as far
as the timeline goes, but that they switch from that
all white fringe game that he's got going and then

(01:09:40):
now he's wearing like a black and white type of
outfits as ooh, you're embracing the darker side, because obviously,
when you have a movie where you've got characters named
badman and good men, of course the costumes are going
to reflect that. When it comes to the black hats
and the white hats and Joe embracing more of that
moral neutral stands, Oh, this is a big deal. Look

(01:10:03):
at that outfit. When he comes back and is going
to take care of some business, he's already literally spanked
Hogo Fogo in one scene, which.

Speaker 8 (01:10:12):
Is like a rag doll.

Speaker 9 (01:10:15):
That kind of makes sense thematically, doesn't it, Because I
think when he's wearing the black outfit, that's when he
meets at the gambling table with Hogo Fogo. And this
is something that I got more of from watching it
again that it seems like he's trying to make a
deal with him, isn't he, Or he's trying to get
to me. It seems like he's trying to get Hogo
Fogo to endorse the Cola logo. It's this fascinating idea

(01:10:40):
that I guess Hogo Fogo two is a celebrity, isn't it,
Because of course there's the magazine with his name on it,
and I guess he represents another kind of fame. So
even if you're infamy. Yeah, so even if you're famous
for being really evil, it's still celebrity and it still
works as a promotional tool.

Speaker 8 (01:10:58):
There's no such thing as bad publicity.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
See.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
I don't know if we want to give away the
big twist that comes later on in the movie when
it comes to chocolate birthmark that Hogo Fogo and his
brother both have, which kind of reminded me a little
bit of lust than the dust of all things with
the birthmark, the trope that goes on in there. But
real quick, before I forget, I did want to talk

(01:11:22):
about how much I love the use of I can't
really say smoke signals, but the use of smoke in
order to telegraph messages, like when Doug is standing behind
the guy at the poker table and he blows out
smoke rings that look like four eights, or when he's
on the porch of the saloon and he blows some

(01:11:42):
smoke rings and it says Joe, and the smoke goes
inside of the saloon to alert Hogo Fogo and Grimpo.

Speaker 10 (01:11:50):
I did wonder whether that's a reference to the fact
that this is the worst you do have Native American
indigenous folks and like smoke signals are a thing, and
maybe that was a reference to that.

Speaker 8 (01:12:00):
I don't know, but yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:12:02):
Another example of things being communicated visually with words on screen,
and a favorite like joke of mine is the poster
of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. And it's in English again,
but George Washington says, if I was still alive, I
would drink only Cola Loca lemonade, and Abraham Lincoln says

(01:12:27):
me too. And that's super dark because it's eighteen eighty five,
so he's only been assassinated twenty years ago, and had
he not been assassinated, he'd be seventy six, which is
a good innings in the nineteenth century. But he could
still feasibly be alive. So I joke about him not

(01:12:47):
being alive, but if he were, he'd be drinking, he'd
be He's endorsing this product is just again it's like
knitting the commerce and capitalism and patriotism together. It's it's
like the message that it's satirizing is you can't be
a good patriot unless you're buying stuff, and you're buying

(01:13:07):
the right the sort of like the state endorsed product.
And then in terms of like going back to the
name things, I've thought, maybe this is a massive overread,
but the fact that it's lemonade Joe, maybe it just
sounds good. Or maybe it's a reference to Joe McCarthy
and McCarthyism and just like that paranoia about communism and

(01:13:28):
just being and if you're paranoid about communism, you have
to be hyper capitalist. And then at the other end
of things, the fact he's Joe, maybe this is also
Uncle Joe, and this is an ostensibly benevolent figure who
is like out for the good and trying to help
everyone and a benevolent dictator, except like he just what

(01:13:51):
he really wants to do is just shoot people. So
maybe a massive overread, but something about the actuality not
living up to the propaganda, Yeah, I'd not thought of that,
but I think, yeah, very plausible, because I think there
was a tendency to use other things to critique communism,

(01:14:12):
and that could be there, I think. And I also
wondered whether the escalation of the war between the two
Saloons is maybe like a super sly commentary on the
superpower rivalry of however them it's just stuck in the middle,
while these two ideological opposites are just duking it out

(01:14:35):
and there's like this escalation going on. One of the
things I liked in that as the competition escalates is that,
in terms of linking back to religion and temperance, is
that Winifred like her kind of religious scruples and presentation
like that is flexible, but like making the money is

(01:14:57):
like the non negotiable, because she goes from like when
we first see her like very prim like you only
see her face and hand. She's all covered up and
just very it's too early for Edwardian but like late
Victorian costume. But then when business is bad and they're

(01:15:17):
trying to bring it back, you see her like dancing
on the bar and she's got like her stockings and
she's making the most of the fact that she's got
very like long, conventionally attractive legs, and it's it's fine,
it's selling some lemonade. So it's like a progression of

(01:15:38):
that character or yeah, that side of things.

Speaker 9 (01:15:42):
I think that's really true because that connects to what
Tornado Loo says towards the end, when she says I'm
going to open up. I think the subtitles translated as
like a parlor, but I think really it's referring to
a brothel. She's going to open up a brothel that
sells only Cola Loca lemon And then Ezra Goodman says,
I can't remember exactly what he says, but it's yes,

(01:16:04):
I approve of that. This is a noble intention. I
agree with this, and it's all okay because it's selling lemonade.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
We were talking about that whole master of Disguise thing
with Hogo Fogo. One of my favorite bits is after
he kidnaps Winifred and he's carrying her down the street
and Joe sees them and comes up and taps him
on the shoulder, like what are you doing? And then
he turns around and suddenly has a whole beard and
glasses and all these things because we just saw him,

(01:16:33):
but just that cut, he changes outfits and it's, oh,
I'm the family doctor.

Speaker 9 (01:16:38):
I'm never quite sure whether that's meant, because he's doing
that accent, which checks tended to do as like an
imitation of Germans, because he does the same in Adela
hasn't had supper yet, but can never work out. I
can never work out whether that's actually a little bit
of a anti Semitic caricature, because it sure looks like
I think it's meant to be a German speaking Jewish person,

(01:17:00):
and which is strange because I believe Kopetski himself was
half Jewish, so that would make it even more uncomfortable,
I think. And yeah, that's another it's another kind of
just slightly off element in it, along with the black face.
Of course.

Speaker 10 (01:17:18):
About the black face, I obviously three white guys talking
about this, which never ideal. But I can't tell. I
can't tell whether it's like indulging in it or whether
it's satire satirizing it or both. I think it's probably both,

(01:17:39):
because yeah, it's just it's so much I guess, like
carefully observed to how like it exists in like British
and American like blackface, it's really like doing the trope hard.
But yeah, so to the extent that it's just even

(01:17:59):
like some of the like the dance, like the shapes
that he does it just it's clearly like the result
of some very like careful study.

Speaker 8 (01:18:10):
But it's also just so gross.

Speaker 9 (01:18:12):
Yeah, I agree. I think it is ambiguous, isn't it,
Because I mean, ah, I think there is a little
bit of a satirical element there, because there's that reference
to segregation, isn't there. I think the bagman said when
he sees he says, no, yeah, this is like whites only,
so there is that satirical But as you say, yeah,
I think otherwise it is. It's pretty unpleasant.

Speaker 10 (01:18:30):
And I don't know whether this was in just in
the dubbed in the dubbed version, but when Lemonade Joke
is trying to get his endorsement, he says, here's a
contract to read if you can even read.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
At that point, he does know that he's Hogo Fogo,
though right it feels like he's there with Doug and
hog Fogo and maybe even Low and Grimple, but I'm
not sure. But yeah, No, you were talking earlier about
what the influence of this film, and I figure if
there's an English dove of this, it had to be.

(01:19:05):
You said already it was shown here in the States.
I was wondering too, if this was such a Jonathan,
I know you've written extensively around Tomorrow Wake Up and
scolled myself with Tea and the showing of that on
what was a BBC two or whatever. And just like
how much of an impact that had. I was very
curious of this thing ever showed on like television, either

(01:19:27):
in Europe or in the States, because it just feels
like it was such an odd choice in a good
way that Facets put this out, Like this movie feels
like with Facets putting this out in the though, oh god,
what was that early two thousands? That seems late for VHS.
But I was just reading an article and it was

(01:19:49):
two thousand and two and it said Facet's putting this
out on VHS.

Speaker 8 (01:19:53):
So it just feels like it was.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
Amongst the pantheon of the stuff that they were putting
out to be put out with closely watched trains. And
I didn't realize that this was actually an entry for
the Oscars. They didn't put it into the Oscars, but
it was like the check submission for the oscar category.
Looking through that list that I found on Wikipedia, I
was just like, this is wild to see just how

(01:20:17):
many times Lipski's films were submitted for that stuff, and
just because again, at least here in twenty twenty five,
it feels like even amongst a lot of Czech film fans,
when I talk about older Schilipski. It's oh whatever, like
poo pood and stuff. But it's so just to read
the films used in nomination. So Lemonade, Joe sixty four

(01:20:41):
Shop on Main Street. Now everyone hopefully knows that's a
freaking classic. Loves of a Vallon, Closely Watched Trains, Firemen's Ball,
The Cremator, Days of Betrayal, Lovers in the Year One,
Circus and the Circus. Another Lipski film, One Silver Piece,
Carter and Prague, or Adele hasn't Etor's supper Yette for

(01:21:03):
seventy eight, Another e Lipski, Those Wonderful Men with a
Crank in seventy nine, Love between the rain Drops. I'm
going to quit reading this list because I'm just going
to go on forever up to ninety one. But yeah,
to have three Lipski's in that group is pretty remarkable
to me. But I know he has a little museum

(01:21:24):
in Prague, and that's one of the reasons I want
to go to Prague. And I don't know if my
wife realizes how much I love his films, but yeah,
I want to see this. I want to see like
they have like little vignettes of his films and stuff.
I'm like, yeah, I love this guy's.

Speaker 9 (01:21:40):
Work, even if I guess they weren't always like critically well,
although I think they did tend to be critically well
received too, But yeah, they certainly were really popular. And
I believe Lemonade Joe itself, I think I've read it
was actually the biggest grossing film. It was the most yeah,
popular film I think in Czechoslovakia made in the sixties
think and obviously in itself is an amazing decade with

(01:22:03):
lots of other very popular and great films. So yeah,
it was in good companies and it.

Speaker 8 (01:22:08):
Has to field.

Speaker 9 (01:22:09):
Yeah, it was hugely successful, and yeah it had this
inter so I guess just in terms of the popularity
and just I think of how enduring it's been. I
think it's something that people still, I think in the
Czech Republic and Slovakia too, I think still tend to
know and I think still tend to quote from. I
think the sadly that I'll be backline has now been

(01:22:30):
stolen by the terminator, but I think that was, Yeah,
that's one of those lines that people do tend to know,
I think in Czech culture. Yeah, I guess in just
in terms of the popularity that it's had. There's a
really interesting essay by Pettishchapanik about this film and where
he puts it in the context of check comedy and
the Czech film industry at the time, and he says

(01:22:51):
that basically, this was a country there, I think in
the mid sixties, it was a country where people had
still not really seen many Westerns. I think since the
forties they'd only shown just like a handful of films.
I think they'd seem like high Noon, maybe like The
Magnificent Seven, but most people had very limited exposure to Westerns.
And he makes the point that although this is nominally

(01:23:14):
a parody, people were actually enjoying it because they just
got a chance to see a Western. So they were
just really indulging in just the sort of the settings
and in the kind of the stereotypes, and yeah, they
were actually enjoying it as a real Western. And I
think that's a really interesting point about a lot of
beef Chech parodies, because they were, in a way they

(01:23:35):
were parodying something that didn't really exist properly in Czechoslovakia
as a sort of a regular genre. So it's almost
like they were offering the real thing in the guise
of a parody.

Speaker 10 (01:23:46):
Yeah, it's so interesting it working on those different those
different levels. And one of the things I've it's been
really fun knowing for a while that this was coming
up is I have like huge amounts of gaps in
terms of the Westerns, but I've watched and just watching
westerns to prepare myself to watch this, and like things

(01:24:07):
like the moment where Winifred talks to her dead mother's grave.
It's like, oh, I just saw this in in She
Wore a Yellow Ribbon. But that's it's something that happens
enough in films that whether you've specifically seen it in
a film before or not, it still seems like it's

(01:24:30):
like a very filmy thing to happen. It's a way
of the character monologuing. But with you can't just do
a soliloquy in a film, or you can, but it
gives like a focus to it. So that's being cool.
Going back to the dub and the languages in again
in the American dub version, is that that doctor character, yeah,

(01:24:54):
does have a German accent, and they also give Tornado
Loo a very it's slightly marlane a Dee trick, but
it's more actually like central Eastern European, and there's shades
of I can't believe I'm Greta Garbo's I'm drawing a
blank on one of the most and she even says

(01:25:15):
I need to be alone. I want to be alone
at some at some point, so she just has that
very and Winnifred makes a crack about her like wearing
like foreign perfume. So there's this kind of this sort
of satire of xenophobia as well, because she's like the exotic,
like foreign woman, the sort of and I think even

(01:25:37):
Doug actually calls her like a femme fatale at one point,
so it's playing on that as well. It's just it's
not even just playing on Westerns. It's there's a sort
of noir and horror thing off to the side as well.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
There was something from nineteen ninety nine that I've been
trying to find more details about called Radio Lemonade Joe,
and it says that it was a documentary, and at
first I thought it was about there was apparently a
radio show called Radio Lemonade Joe, but it says that
either Carol Fiala was in it or maybe it's archive footage,

(01:26:14):
but I really wish I knew a little bit more
about that, And then I didn't know the whole thing
with who was it el Gorbachev in Lemonade.

Speaker 9 (01:26:24):
Joe, Oh yeah, yeah about the wasn't it the the
attempt to it was like a campaign again drinking, wasn't it?

Speaker 10 (01:26:32):
I think in RUSSI Yeah, alcoholism was just absolutely like
rampant in the Soviet Union. Because much as this film
satirizes capitalism, like communism in the format appears there is
pretty grim at times. So you had a lot of
people like, yeah, that being a coping mechanism. So yeah,
that was very early in his premiership, like he because

(01:26:55):
he took over in eighty five. And yeah, he was
called both lemon Joe in reference to this film, which
means it obviously traveled within the East Eastern Bloc. But
the other thing he was called was the Mineral Secretary
apparody on his actual job title of General Secretary. It
actually is as an a site like. One of one

(01:27:16):
of the reasons that Russia did, like Imperial Russia did
so badly in the First World War it's alcohol related,
was that the state thought that it's wartime. We can't
afford to have everyone just being drunk all the time,
so they like banned the sale of a vodka, except like,

(01:27:37):
taxes on vodka were just a massive revenue generator for
the state. So when they just turned the vodka taps off,
suddenly they just like, Oh, all this money we could
rely on in the budget is now gone.

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
What do we do?

Speaker 8 (01:27:52):
So it's kind of like best laid plans.

Speaker 10 (01:27:55):
And then I suppose that speaks to how badly prohibition works,
and that worked in the States. It's just like, yeah,
banning things you could try, but there's always the law
of unintended consequences.

Speaker 1 (01:28:10):
Which I never understood why people are so up in
arms and just the whole temperance movement. I'm just like,
are you just trying to impose your moral values and
other people?

Speaker 10 (01:28:19):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
Yeah, okay, I guess that's what Americans do.

Speaker 10 (01:28:22):
Genuinely, though, is just because when people say what time
in history would you really not want to I want
to live in, most people would answer like the medieval period.
My answer would probably be the nineteenth century because if
you like life as an agricultural like peasant really tough,

(01:28:42):
you're probably not going to live to a normal life expectancy.
But at least you're at least you're outside in the
fresh air, whereas like when those like agricultural jobs start
to go away, and because you've got mechanization and you
have to move to the city and live in a
slow and working like a factory for sixteen hours a day,

(01:29:05):
and like alcoholism again was absolutely rampant. And so because
people like men were having a terrible time at their
jobs and like self medicating with like gin and spirits
and then just like taking out their anger on their partners.
There was like there was a reason that like the

(01:29:25):
temperance movement was taken up. Even if the cure was misguided,
there was definitely like a lot of suffering that it
was coming out of, and that was why it was
like embraced with the fervor that it wasn't purely just
being like busybodies. It was like responding to like just
horrible circumstances out in the world. And yeah, thinking that

(01:29:49):
was the cure.

Speaker 9 (01:29:50):
I think there's a famous account by Angeles, isn't there
about Manchester in the nineteenth century and just the sort
of like the depth of alcohol. I'm from Manchester, so
can say this and that people would say it's maybe
not changed that much. But yeah, I think he talked
about that, about how drunk people were, and I guess
this is, yeah, the height of the sort of industrial
factory system. And yeah, as you say, it was responding

(01:30:13):
to this very squalid and pleasant reality.

Speaker 10 (01:30:17):
Yeah, of just going how can we make sure that
we keep our margins like as as huge as we can,
and how.

Speaker 2 (01:30:29):
Do we do that?

Speaker 10 (01:30:30):
We just make wages of microscopic and just pay people
just enough to stay alive.

Speaker 1 (01:30:35):
And that's it sounds like twenty twenty five and talking
about American middle class.

Speaker 10 (01:30:42):
Yes, in the UK, we're still recovering from fifteen years
of the Tories just being like, let's just asset strip
this country again, and we still haven't recovered from the
last time they did that. And yeah, the Labor Party
in order to stay stay in with the media, it's

(01:31:02):
not even stay in, it's like they hate you. They're
just you can't plicate them. They're just being like, way
way more right wing than they should be. Sorry, I
stop editorializing, and we'll go back to talking about the film.
This film does have a like a timeless quality in
terms of big business and putting profits ahead of people

(01:31:24):
not always good, not always good.

Speaker 9 (01:31:27):
Because I think that line is really telling, isn't he
Where he says the law comes with me? Or I
think in check it's some nopeed back on. So it's
literally the law comes with me. But it's like, I
am the law, isn't it?

Speaker 1 (01:31:39):
I think?

Speaker 8 (01:31:40):
And it's easy I basically judge tread.

Speaker 9 (01:31:43):
I seem to remember in The Wild Bunch there is
a character who is I think he's the railroad. It's
like the big railroad magnate in the Wild Bunch, and
I think says a very similar thing, doesn't he, This
is I am, I represent the law, I think. And
again there's this similar kind of conflation of yet big
business of economic interest with politics and with government and

(01:32:05):
just being handed.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
It's no small coincidence that you watch Once upon a
Time in the West right after this one ally so
like that whole thing with the railroad coming through and
just taking away the mythology of the West, the whole
thing of Harmonica and Cheyenne. Basically they were gods that
were had no place on earth anymore.

Speaker 10 (01:32:28):
Both of these films referenced the Great Train Robbery in
that in that shooting at the screen scene that you get,
and that like we the audience are literally being shot
by the by the gunman on screen. So there's yeah,
like a thing about gun violence as well in this film,
which again sadly perennial slash evergreen theme.

Speaker 9 (01:32:54):
It is interesting, isn't it that I suppose this binary
of the good and the battle. Yeah, it's like the
sort of black and white sort of hero and villain
that's very much kind of key to the sort of
Western iconography. And yet the thing that actually like undermines
that is capitalism itself, isn't it Because capitalism is a
moral and by the end of the film, that is
the thing. It's the force of the business interests that

(01:33:17):
have brought these two things together. And yeah, going back
to the phrase hand in globe, it just reminds me
of the fact that literally that's what you see, isn't
it when the two hands, Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:33:26):
Which is ironic. And then of course the Czechs and
Slovaks themselves, with their history, have strong perspectives on imperialism,
so they're very able to call out like in this
film when the Americans are doing it. But there's also

(01:33:47):
a by implication. Yeah, we've dealt with this both in
our history with the Austrians and the Germans and like
right now with the Soviets just being like, yeah, no,
you're a free, independent, socialist republic that better do what
they're told.

Speaker 9 (01:34:08):
Because I think there is a line in one of
the songs. I think it's in the Arizona song in
the Cola Local Saloon, where I think Winnifred sings something
about something being a bit in the name of progress,
and that to me that reference progress. That does sound
very much in line with the kind of Soviet discourse.
I think that, yeah, we'd do it. We're progressing. It's

(01:34:30):
all about this great socialist, progressive future, which of course
was the way that they would just defy colonization. And yeah,
it's just one of those I can't remember how they
translate it, but yeah, it's definitely, yeah, definitely there, which
is Yeah, I think there is a few little jabs
like that. I don't know how much we can spoil

(01:34:51):
the ending, but yeah, I just love the idea that
something can be like non alcoholic and alcoholic at the
same time, for.

Speaker 10 (01:34:57):
Both teetotalers and alcoholic and it reminds me of Patrick
Bateman because of it's like I'm in murders and execution,
murders and acquisitions.

Speaker 9 (01:35:09):
There's an earlier line where Hogo Fogo says, I think
he says, in small quantities, alcohol can be beneficial in
any quantity, and that's just that to me, beats the light.
And there's that famous line in Anchorman. Isn't there that
sixty percent of the time? It works all of the time,
And to me, I think, I think hog Fogo is
it's slightly better. I think so slightly better formulation of

(01:35:31):
the same idea. I think that, yeah, in small quantities,
it's good.

Speaker 1 (01:35:34):
In any quantity, cool a look can bring you back
from the deck.

Speaker 10 (01:35:38):
The killing of Lemonade Joe is just surprisingly brutal. Hogo
Fogo just keeps shooting him.

Speaker 8 (01:35:45):
It's just stop. He's already dead.

Speaker 1 (01:35:48):
And then his.

Speaker 10 (01:35:49):
Corpse is just smoke holding off it and I'm meant
to pause it and count how many bullet holes he
has in his torso, but it's just like a lot.
And and yeah, the end is just like an orgie
of violence. It's it's like the end of Hamlets, except
just played for laughs.

Speaker 9 (01:36:08):
It just goes berserk, doesn't it as well. Yeah, there's
all those things. They find gold, they find oil.

Speaker 4 (01:36:13):
It's late.

Speaker 10 (01:36:14):
It's like a hat on top of a hat, except
of course it's a cowboy hat.

Speaker 8 (01:36:20):
Oil.

Speaker 4 (01:36:25):
It's gold.

Speaker 13 (01:36:26):
Mister here, mister, your stocks have colored.

Speaker 2 (01:36:30):
Five million billion billion.

Speaker 4 (01:36:34):
Evil has been vanquished, Burgodners. It could be right. I'm
tempted to stop being an outlaw.

Speaker 2 (01:36:45):
My kene.

Speaker 1 (01:36:46):
I found gold and I found oil. Oh, look at this.

Speaker 10 (01:36:48):
Rock and Doug stabs his brother in the back with
a corkscrew to tie it back in with the alcohol,
and it just winds it up.

Speaker 9 (01:36:57):
And then he turns around.

Speaker 1 (01:36:58):
Yeah, looks like he shoots jew ten times. Speaking of
John Will, he's doing the double gun thing like multiple
times after he sprays him in the face with champagne,
which is what eventually helps to feed him. And all
the times that Joe gets or other people, but especially Joe,
get poisoned, or take a drink of a mickey. It's

(01:37:20):
just incredible. It's oh, here you go, Joe, here's some
coola loca. Okay, great, just right down the hatch.

Speaker 9 (01:37:27):
Brilliant pratfalls as well. I think there's some of the
pratfalls are amazing, aren't they? Just perfectly stiffly.

Speaker 1 (01:37:33):
Fall back like that, yeah, pulling the tablecloth with him
as he goes back from the poker table. So then
you get that nice shot of all those bullet holes
that Ali was talking about.

Speaker 10 (01:37:44):
And we didn't manage to mention like some of the
excellent like prop work that I keep forgetting the name
of the act of the Hoga Fogo actor does with
his fake arms, like after he's dispatched the sheriff brutally
and he's just just them to do all these gestures and.

Speaker 8 (01:38:01):
Just kind of and or like touches his mat a flower.
It's just excellent prop work.

Speaker 9 (01:38:10):
And the dummy as well, that when Joe is just
like throwing him around and it's just that it just
cuts between it's obviously, I mean, they want you to
know that it's a dummy, don't they, And then it
cuts to him and he's like it's actually the actor
and he's just like spinning around and you see it
like with his head back. And I love dummies. I
just that's another kind of slightly python esco even the
good he's actually even something as silly as that.

Speaker 2 (01:38:32):
I think.

Speaker 9 (01:38:33):
I just love like dummies in films.

Speaker 1 (01:38:36):
I love when he's playing cards with Joe towards the end,
and he's trying to find those aces that he has
in his pocket at all times, and just keeps pulling
things out of his pockets. And at one point he
pulls yet another rabbit out and puts it on the table,
and Joe's just like, oh, very nice, very nice, starts applauding.

Speaker 9 (01:38:54):
That's also very harp poesque, isn't it. And I think, yeah,
there's the scene when Joe picks him up and then
all the things come out of his pockets and his
pockets are just like full of just like endless props
and magic tricks and.

Speaker 1 (01:39:06):
Non new krs and flowers. It's Galifrae and technology. I
love this movie so much, and I just wish more
people had the opportunity to see it. I know that
there is a really nice Blu ray, the one that
you've been talking about Ali with the English dubond there.
I still have an older Blu ray that I picked up.

(01:39:26):
I don't know, or it might be DVD these days.
Years ago. I picked that one up. So it's such
a great movie, and like I said, I was so
surprised that it came out on that Facets label. But
I really hope that they they're not really doing too
much anymore. I hope that another company picks it up
and does a re release. I'm surprised that Second Run
has to put this out again recently.

Speaker 10 (01:39:48):
Yeah, I was going to say them because they released
so much check stuff. But also it feels like a
very deaf Crocodile type of film.

Speaker 1 (01:39:58):
Oh yeah, I can see it.

Speaker 9 (01:40:00):
Crocodile already has the other two, doesn't it, So yeah,
we need the first one to make it complete.

Speaker 10 (01:40:06):
It was very briefly on on the BFI player last year.
It was like see there was about like a month
or less and then it disappeared, and I wondered whether
did it get pulled because of the blackface, which of
course is egregious, but it seems like the sort of
thing where just put up.

Speaker 8 (01:40:23):
Front, Yeah, no going in, this has this in it,
but you can still see it.

Speaker 1 (01:40:30):
But I know apparently it's available for rent on or
to purchase on Amazon Prime. Not that I want to
give those guys any money making a capitalists five bucks
oh my god? Yeah, yeah jeez. And yeah, there is
a DFD available on Amazon. The Facet Stevid for seventy

(01:40:52):
six ninety nine, or you can go to eBay and
find a much cheaper copy the import version, Yeah, check mom,
or I think it's dot Com has that as well,
the more better version.

Speaker 10 (01:41:06):
Yeah, mine was an eBay purchase, Like I was looking
at getting it imported. But because of Brexit, we have
to pay import duties because that was a great idea.

Speaker 1 (01:41:20):
Well, luckily over here we have all these tariffs in place,
so we're able to just get things.

Speaker 8 (01:41:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, just really reducing the price for the consumer,
because that's how terrorists work.

Speaker 9 (01:41:31):
But it's all right because the other country is going
to pay it to all, aren't they.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
Yeah, Mexico is going to pay for the wall. You
guys are going to pay for my breakfast this morning.
It's fantastic, all right, man? How do we keep coming
back to capitalism? This movie?

Speaker 10 (01:41:45):
Right?

Speaker 8 (01:41:45):
Who knows?

Speaker 10 (01:41:46):
It's almost as if they've made an evergreen film. Going
to briefly say, we have a Mexican character, because one
of the two henchmen is very much like Mexican costumed,
even down to the the sombrero with the skulls on it,
and yeah, he's yeah, dispatched brutally by Tornado Lou.

Speaker 9 (01:42:08):
I think that's the Carol Efa, isn't it playing the
is he called the Pancho Kid?

Speaker 1 (01:42:14):
I think, yeah, there's the Coyote kid in the Pancho Kid.

Speaker 9 (01:42:17):
Yeah, and then the Coyote Kid is the Valdemar Matushka,
who is a very popular singer and actually he did
a great check version of Brian's done Cowboy in the seventies.
So if you're looking for like a musical accompaniment to
this podcast, there is a Yeah, there is a nice version.
I think it's called to sem Ya ten CoV, but

(01:42:38):
but it's speltkov the check with covboy kov b o J.
So yeah, that's a nice version.

Speaker 1 (01:42:46):
I have a feeling we're going to go out and
the English version of the Lemonade Joe song from Oh.

Speaker 8 (01:42:51):
It's such an ear worm. It's just been rattling around
so much like the last week.

Speaker 1 (01:42:59):
I wish there was a soundtrack available for it. There
is a soundtrack available for the check version that you
can get over on Supra online. Dot cz highly recommended
that site, and I don't I think you can just
translate it through like your web browser. You don't necessarily

(01:43:19):
have to. They don't have a language changer on there.
But yeah, a lot of good things available on superf Funline.
I know I'm butchering the name of it. All right,
Let's go ahead and take a break and play a
preview for next week's show right after these brief messages.
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(01:43:41):
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Speaker 15 (01:44:05):
Las School, Nahlas Smith, breast A Mullis now Strata Ulus.

Speaker 1 (01:44:22):
What did the romance not service for more? That's right,
We'll be back next week where a look at Adakaravavra's
romance for Bugle. Until then, I want to thank my
co host Alistair and Jonathan Jonathan. What is the latest
with you, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:44:41):
I've got a.

Speaker 9 (01:44:42):
Couple of things that I've contributed to the coming out
soon sobs, the release from Second run of Who Wants
to Kill Jesse, which I'm really excited about, and our projections.
Both commentary is on there. I have an essay as
well in the booklet, and I think that's meant to
be out at the end of August, so possibly probably

(01:45:03):
will be out by the time this episode comes out.
And then I've also got an essay in the Radiance
release of the film malt Betweet, the great Harry Kamel film,
which again I'm just so excited that this is being
released now because it's such a great film. So I've
got an essay on that on Harry Kamel's short films,

(01:45:25):
and I think that's coming out in October this year.
I also wrote an essay for the Deaf Crocodile release
of Yujibata's short films plus The Pied Piper, so there's
a nice deluxe edition of his animated films which came
out recently. I have an essay in the deluxe edition

(01:45:45):
of that.

Speaker 1 (01:45:46):
Oh that's fantastic. Yeah, I am so glad that they're
putting out Malbertwee again because I think we covered that
probably there was the last October we discussed that, and
such a fascinating film. And I'm so glad that you
are taking part in that release because I'm sure you've
got some great things to say about it, and Allie,

(01:46:08):
how about yourself.

Speaker 10 (01:46:11):
So speaking of the vicissitudes of capitalism like a it's like,
what's he gonna He's gonna start plugging the Communist Party.

Speaker 8 (01:46:20):
No, I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 10 (01:46:22):
So where I grew up, Milton Keynes, had the first
multiplex cinema in the UK, The Point, and sadly it
is owned by a property developer and so it's going
to be demolished very soon. And so an article I
wrote for Film Stories magazine is very recently been published

(01:46:45):
in an online form, so I can put that in
the show notes about why like the places that we
go to watch films matter and should be preserved as
part of history just as much as some other things
that tend to get preserved. So that's a recent thing
for me. I've started to do more film screening intros.

(01:47:09):
Most recently I introduced Clueless as part of a Jane
Austen Adaptations season I co curated with The Ultimate Picture
Palace in Oxford, where I live. So that was an
absolute blast doing that. Love that film so much and
speaking of satire, it's so sharp, takes a slightly more

(01:47:32):
benign view of the rich, but that's like more rich
people should be like share, like a bit clueless, but
essentially like heart in the right place. So that was
a joy seeing that on the big screen for the
first time as well. And then otherwise, like I've been
on this show quite a few times, so yeah, dive
into the back catalog and listen to the zero Grad

(01:47:55):
episode if you haven't already, or the Amphibian Man episode,
or or the Kira Muratovore ones or Welcome or No
Trespassing speaking of satire. Yeah, and then I'm still doing
my show, a Russian and Soviet movie podcast. My most
recent episode was on Ballad of a Soldier, which is

(01:48:16):
a Criterion collection film, and that was speaking of films
that are evergreen in their themes, with it being so
much about yeah, war and the young being thrown into
the meat grinder, it's just I wish this wasn't relevant anymore.

(01:48:38):
And yet, so yeah, that's me, And probably like the
most compact way of finding me on the Internet is
just looking at my link tree, which is Ali Underscore pits.
That's a double l y underscore PI doubts. Yeah, that's
me well.

Speaker 1 (01:48:56):
I will be sure to link to that in the
show notes. And as we head out, I want to
say thanks so much guys for being on the show.
Thanks to everybody for listening. Do you want to support
physical media and get great movies in the mail, head
over to scarecrow dot com and try. Scarecrow Video is
incredible rent by mail service. It's the largest publicly accessible
collection in the world. You will find films there entirely

(01:49:16):
unavailable elsewhere. Get what you want when you want it
without the scrolling, and you better believe that Lemonade Joe
is available. 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
Weirdingwaymedia 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 helps the Projection

(01:49:38):
Booth take over the world.

Speaker 14 (01:49:47):
I see Tier one is you're so proud of me
when we rall totell and the two colum style gets plain.

Speaker 4 (01:49:59):
Most still see you're so.

Speaker 2 (01:50:02):
Proud to have me on your back.

Speaker 4 (01:50:05):
Because goodness is my.

Speaker 14 (01:50:09):
So that the bandman's drive at the bandman died because
they are no match for clean living guy, and Lamonade.

Speaker 2 (01:50:17):
Chose my name.

Speaker 4 (01:50:20):
Lamb Ade chose my name. I'm so bright and shiny
like the noon day sun. I made that grivery meal.

Speaker 14 (01:50:33):
The barroom floozies won my heart, but I after another deal.
I am them a bottle of my lemon dade for
the sick and skirty lane.

Speaker 2 (01:50:47):
Then the band died, died.

Speaker 4 (01:50:51):
Because there are no match for clean living God, and
Lamonade chose my name. Lama chose d.

Speaker 14 (01:51:03):
I guess I'm a born leader, So following me get
on the wagon of the lemonade ring.

Speaker 4 (01:51:10):
And because they know the match living and lemonade us man,
Jos my.

Speaker 1 (01:51:25):
Boxstare any more who you are?

Speaker 2 (01:51:29):
No huh.

Speaker 13 (01:51:32):
Jack bean bump.

Speaker 8 (01:51:52):
Do you I'm bad.

Speaker 14 (01:51:56):
Do not.

Speaker 2 (01:52:00):
To say to chat to me? God?

Speaker 10 (01:52:07):
Then on.

Speaker 2 (01:52:10):
My day.

Speaker 8 (01:52:13):
Say I.

Speaker 2 (01:52:17):
You on my soul? Far me to say.

Speaker 8 (01:52:26):
Holy sn.

Speaker 2 (01:52:29):
On my way. I say to my volume the lan
so you I'm so far need to say Holy not

(01:53:23):
on my bad do?

Speaker 15 (01:53:26):
I say to my volume.

Speaker 2 (01:53:31):
Lent so gay, the one, the one.

Speaker 13 (01:54:06):
Then at lake.

Speaker 16 (01:54:10):
A propole up also some I mean promist tallet says
lash your home, say oh you're okay, so.

Speaker 17 (01:54:30):
Yes to say you halfca ma'ma just not the pill
of jost big boot to brill. That's a last had
garyeah I was actually not struck, was lost, that said
ship nick Jos to urias a damnos not under only

(01:54:51):
not a better this week ambaday a bish sister victim
based and the good live a me here.

Speaker 2 (01:55:04):
Said do yea said no.

Speaker 8 (01:55:06):
Sam, I guess you said that this happen bellows name
meant you.

Speaker 17 (01:55:15):
Mixed up for smooth the asha you know zuru as
I said, the grass and should not mobjectly there bash
down and look back near schurni bila, I should say,
move till at some same spooman you call a long
a da brahmasi la some of those goshot that.

Speaker 8 (01:55:38):
They do dictl me said do ya sid no sands

(01:55:58):
give me.

Speaker 17 (01:56:45):
Missus shakeshare. Doos know he had the game well be
arrived the ship simpath listener's sheriff, doos you can yourself
me crack has to smiled. Then he smid that of
each neck, clipping a brodsing garm into that.

Speaker 4 (01:57:06):
Sele slip and.

Speaker 17 (01:57:07):
Gave hipping and the barm she do sna that did
today lip Amy said to ya a set no sackle.

Speaker 2 (01:58:23):
Mm hm.

Speaker 3 (01:58:27):
M hm.

Speaker 18 (01:58:31):
See them say cogin way down not bad no summon.

Speaker 2 (01:58:37):
What go you said?

Speaker 4 (01:58:39):
Expla down be expanding.

Speaker 18 (01:58:44):
What's some sweet like that's listen, it's a standing Mada
Siski sabody Joe that could see Baba standard.

Speaker 2 (01:58:58):
D s s name out. I did the dinner show
then I g s center no style like.

Speaker 3 (01:59:09):
Get go ya.

Speaker 2 (01:59:12):
I go a guy go yeah, I get.

Speaker 18 (01:59:38):
Spit them sick jem lead down never messlemer.

Speaker 2 (01:59:44):
Just that gm my bro without sermon.

Speaker 18 (01:59:51):
I'm saying that under beat down doing this speak and
that me down soon many Joe, the same bobo stemming.

Speaker 19 (02:00:04):
The Vietnam Stena day Dino would not desens a bantyn
tell me.

Speaker 13 (02:00:19):
That you're going.

Speaker 3 (02:00:23):
You can't coming, that you a't go. I can't coming
yet you come? Can you can't come again? Can't coming?
Don't come? We're going yeah coming comet.

Speaker 2 (02:00:48):
Go can't come.

Speaker 3 (02:00:53):
Here, got you can't come bottle.

Speaker 12 (02:01:33):
Gun sam atom.

Speaker 8 (02:01:36):
The mom any scheme ye.

Speaker 12 (02:01:38):
A cooms nam dabby man of shift up her spake
moniage he's very in fast sweet as a stemi praer
le shod mana.

Speaker 8 (02:02:00):
Sobo sing chevy hoops.

Speaker 12 (02:02:09):
Abia as a scare your dams.

Speaker 8 (02:02:16):
Don't say cow boy.

Speaker 12 (02:02:21):
Someone is he going a wrong share a small game chevra.

Speaker 8 (02:02:28):
Don't semi a cow boy.

Speaker 12 (02:02:33):
Someone who is the famair the regular blacky dy swims
Yo said she blut, she strode this farm.

Speaker 8 (02:02:57):
As bloody shutt expo boy yeahless.

Speaker 12 (02:03:06):
Yr speech teach meave im strash missa you chested brown.

Speaker 2 (02:03:12):
Nagging them not.

Speaker 8 (02:03:17):
So but ya be.

Speaker 12 (02:03:20):
He yes theream mom, Yes, Seve, don't see you. I'm
excessy hec ash gave dams. Don't say come boy, some
more easy going around shall game share rod, don't save.

Speaker 8 (02:03:45):
Ya come Some of it is the fall over there
the regular.

Speaker 2 (02:03:58):
Sweave boom.

Speaker 8 (02:04:04):
Don't say yes then cowboy.

Speaker 12 (02:04:09):
Some isically rob shall smoke and Shrad don't say yeah Shad,
come boy. Someone who is danscribe my money

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 762: Lemonade Joe (1964)

Episode Transcript

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Cardiac Cowboys

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Episode 762: Lemonade Joe (1964)

Stuff You Should Know