The Gun (1974)

In this episode of The Shabby Detective, we examine the riveting 1974 TV movie The Gun, a gripping exploration of fate and consequence. Crafted by the legendary writing duo Richard Levinson and William Link and directed by John Badham, the film follows the journey of a single handgun as it passes through various lives, leaving a trail of drama and intrigue. Join us as we unpack the film’s unique episodic structure and the creative forces behind this powerful cautionary tale.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another Columbo podcast. I'm
your host. Mike White joined me once again. Of course,
is mister Christashu.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
You may have heard of me as myth or legend,
but I can confirm, ladies and gentlemen, I am, in
fact one of those responsible gun owners.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Oh my, yes, we are talking about the gun now.
Not a particular object, well, I guess it is in
this movie. But we are talking about a movie called
The Gun, which was written by Richard Levinson and William
Link as well as Jay Benson. It was directed by
John Batham, one of his early direction gigs, John Badam,

(01:04):
who probably best known for Saturday Night Fever, War Games,
Point of No Return, a lot of great stuff he
did over the years. This originally aired on November thirteenth,
nineteen seventy four. It inspired a song by George Jones
and Tammy Wynette in nineteen seventy six called Golden Ring?

(01:25):
Can he get any better than that? I don't think so, Chris,
What did you think of the Gun?

Speaker 2 (01:31):
I mentioned what I mentioned at the top of this
episode intentionally because for a couple things in the last
couple of years, or I would say frankly more in
my lifetime. Obviously. I am a child of the nineties,
grew up in the nineties and early two thousands, became
an adult at the end of the two thousands, officially
per the legal standing of this government. And like you said, Mike,

(01:53):
I'm an American. Of course I know about guns. There
are going to be some things about this episode that
might make some people uncomfortable, and those are opinion's thoughts
and things that this movie is talking about, that this
movie is getting at, that this movie is pointing out.
I mentioned that I'm a gun owner because anything else,

(02:13):
it is a topic in this country specifically that makes
people very uncomfortable. Why well, as you see in this movie,
we have people who are mentally ill getting a hold
of firearms and doing things with them that responsible gun
owners don't do, leaving them out, or leaving them near

(02:35):
where your children can get them, or not locking them up,
all the things that non responsible gun owners do. I
mention all of this to say, the fact that this
has never been released in any format or any medium
is a shame, because this should be shown in every
single school ever from here until the end of time.

(02:59):
It is like one of those things that has not
lost the impact. It not only hasn't lost the impact
I feel like in watching it, because I've watched it
three times now, every time I watch it, I get
something different from it. But every time I watch it,
the only thing I can think of when I walk
away from it is I am while I am glad
that I am a gun owner, because I understand, just

(03:22):
like the gentleman at the beginning of the film does
that sometimes an alarm is not enough of a way
to protect yourself from things should people come into your
home looking to take your things. There are alternatives, baseball bats,
other ways to hit people with things or get them
out of your house. But there is a certain level
of fatalism and finality to a gun that is not

(03:46):
present with other things. So I understand where he's coming from.
But then by the end of the film, when you
get to the moment where a child shoots himself in
the head with a gun, and that is how this ends,
it is and you know that's where this is going
from the moment it starts. If you don't think that
this is where this thing called the gun is going

(04:08):
to end, is in the most sad, horrifying way. Possible.
I don't know what to tell you, but all of
that to say, I feel like this is going to
be an interesting episode to talk about because for me,
I am gay, but I'm a gun owner, which makes
me an anomaly. I'm very socially liberal, but I am

(04:29):
a gun owner, which makes me an anomaly. I like
to hunt, but I'm socially liberal, so that makes me
an anomaly. And watching this filled me with the same
level of cognitive dissonance, which is I enjoyed it. I
enjoyed it for what it is, the message that it's
trying to get across, and the importance of gun safety
as a gun owner, responsible gun ownership. But as this

(04:50):
movie kind of makes clear, guns are fucking dangerous any
way you cut it. But at the same time, the
movie makes a very astute point that just like a car,
a gun is a machine. The problem with a machine,
just like anything else, is the intent behind the person
using it can't be known until the person who's using
it is using it. And cars can kill people. Guns

(05:13):
kill people all the time. People kill people all the time.
It's a problem. This just happens to be about guns
and gun safety and gun violence and the ambivalence with
which our country seems to treat guns. So all of
that to say, I'm excited to talk about this with you, Mike,
but at the same time, I'm worried about talking about

(05:33):
this with you, not because of you, but because of
this being a topic that I think broadly this was
something called the abortion, I think we'd be having just
as much of a time of Okay, so this is
what we have to talk about for the next half
an hour, huh.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
I am so glad that we do live in America
where we've had a history of problems with guns, and
that this came out in nineteen seventy four. It is
fifty years later, and we haven't had any sort of
gun violence for the last fifty years. So it's just
been It's great. It's very much like that incident that
happened in New Zealand where there was an automatic machine

(06:12):
gun of some sort being used and they said that's it,
no more guns. They took care of it. Same thing
happened here. We've had how many people, how many presidents
get shot? At least four that I can think of
without even trying five, I guess in yeah, after sixty
three with Kennedy being such a public display of gun violence,

(06:35):
that was it. No more, I'm living in an alternate
reality where people actually give a shit about each other
and the NRA isn't this huge lobby keeping guns in
the hands of people that shouldn't have guns. This is
an amazing movie. To correct you from earlier, This was
released at least on VHS in Sweden, as you can

(06:58):
tell by the picture that's on IMDb. If you do
want to see this movie, it's very easily available. It's
out on YouTube, or you can go out to modcinema
dot com. That's modcinema dot com where they have just
a one of TV movies and some other great stuff too,
So yeah, check that out over there. But yeah, nineteen

(07:18):
seventy four, big year for Richard Levinson and William Link
where we've got that execution of Privat Slovak that we
talked about last month and now just a few months
later the gun also courtesy of Jay Benson, who was
a pretty prolific TV writer, no slouch himself. Yeah, did

(07:38):
a bunch of stuff, including a movie called Mind Over Murder,
which I just recently watched as part of my research
because it has Debora Raffin in it, and she was
in Noble House, and Noble House was one that our
mutual friend Amanda res asked me to be on the
commentary for. I think Chapter three is the one which

(08:00):
you can now pre order on Keino, so knock yourself
out anyway. The structure of this movie is it's something
we've seen before, especially if you're a big Brandan Fraser fan.
I think he was in a movie called twenty Bucks
where you get to see a twenty dollars bill moving
from person to person. It's very much a whole series

(08:21):
of vignettes. This one so much more powerful, so much
more effective. Where it is the making of a gun
at the very beginning, like seeing the holes being carved out.
It's so very Christine to me. The John Carpenter film
based on the Stephen King novel, where you see the
car being made and then you see the mayhem afterwards.

(08:41):
Here we see the gun being made and then we
see how it passes from person to person. And to
your point, Chris, the threat of violence looms over this
entire movie from probably what ten minutes in if even that.
Basically as soon as the first person buys this gun,

(09:02):
at a gun store. And that first person is Steven
Elliott we talked about two months ago because he was
the victim of the psychiatrist. In the final episode of
the fourth season of Colombo, Steven Elliott was murdered. And
now here he's back buying a gun because of the
break in at his house.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
And I love that. Again, Obviously, one of the big
points of the movie is intention. Sometimes intentions don't necessarily
pan out. Again, when he purchases the gun, it is
for again, by my opinion, a genuinely perfectly acceptable reason. Again,
this is New York City.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
I'm assuming I was picturing southern California, probably just because
of where, But yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Know what I'm getting at, right, And that's what they're
attempting to make the point of, we don't feel comfortable
where we live because of whatever. And I understand that
when I have friends that I've talked to openly about
handgun ownership up and being a gun owner, and I think, again,
like anything else, like I'm not afraid to talk about it.
But I also understand the way his wife reacts to it,

(10:08):
because guns are dangerous and they are not to be
taken lightly, and they are not to be trifled with.
There's a moment that I really love in this movie,
and again it's a thing that I don't know if
you noticed it, but early on when Steven Elliott goes
to buy the gun at the store and the guy
is explaining to him everything is you have to wait,

(10:28):
you have to wait a week and then we'll have
an instructor and will teach you all the stuff they show.
It's like a shot of their hands with the gun
and he's moving the gun around like this, and Steven
Elliott's character practices correct gun pointing because the guy who
runs the gun shop or the gun salesman doesn't. At
one point, the gun salesman is essentially pointing the gun

(10:49):
at him and Steven Elliott moves it down to stop
pointing at him, and it's like such a subtle thing.
But again, as someone who tries to be responsible gun
owner and knows that is a thing that does exist, Like,
I love that the movie is cognizant of these things
of people trying to be like, don't point it at me,
even if it's not loaded, even if there aren't bullets

(11:11):
in it. That's how you treat these things. Because again,
just because a car is not moving doesn't mean it's
not dangerous. A car is an immensely dangerous thing as well,
just like anything else. But I like that the movie
takes that moment to show that, because again, where this
is coming from is a place of Levinson and Link
really treading a weird line here, because they're not painting

(11:32):
this as guns are bad the end. If they wanted
to do that, I don't think either one of us
would have enjoyed it that much, not because we don't
agree with the sentiment or anything. It's more just the
case of that's not a very nuanced story to tell.
We get the first vignette of the man and his
wife and he buys the gun because he's worried about

(11:54):
their home being broken into, and then his wife the
next day goes, I don't want this gun in my hand,
and he takes it to work and just gives it
to an old man at his job, which I mean,
again I understand, but it also again the movie doesn't
make a point of it, but the movie shows it happening.
This is the gun show loophole, right, I'm buying a

(12:16):
gun from you, and there's no paperwork, to be fair,
Steven Elliott's character does again the right thing, and he
can even have something written up showing that ownership pass
to you, which is the way you're supposed to do it.
That is the federally legal way. Say, when my parents
pass away, if they were to own guns and I
were to inherit said guns, you are supposed to reregister

(12:37):
them with the federal government to let the federal government
know who is gun is now. In fact, because at
the end of the day, unless someone reregistered the gun
in their name, Steven Elliott's character's gun was used to
kill child. That's the issue, and he's trying to do
the right thing, but he gives it to someone who
he believes intentions a collector collects guns, and instead the

(13:01):
guy just goes and pawns it immediately. We never see
what he does with the money. It doesn't matter what
he does with the money. His part of the story
is over. We see him for two scenes, but the
gun stays in the picture. The gun is the reason
that the story continues, and you almost again it's like
watching a car crash in slow motion. You're watching all
the failings, the little small failings in the system, or

(13:26):
the little took a step to the left as opposed
to a step to the right, and that was all
it took for the gun to end up here as
opposed to hear. I love, like you said, the aspect
of the story. I love that storytelling device because it
makes the ending feel that much more inevitable.

Speaker 1 (13:42):
Basically, the gun becomes the main character because it's the
only thing that ties all of these stories together. Yeah,
in talking about the threat of violence, I guess it's
the second vignette where it's the guy with the mustache
and the glasses that works on an office building. Well, yeah,
when he comes in and he buys this gun and

(14:05):
he tries to do and Arnold Schwarzenegger with it just
likezy nine meter. Hey just wait now, like those kind
of thing. Actually they had the oozy nine melimeter was
the laser plasma rifle. I think they don't have in
nineteen eighty four, ten years after this movie. But yeah,
when he comes in and basically steals the gun but
then leaves, the money doesn't have change, YadA YadA. But yeah,

(14:27):
it goes to the office and it's just over and over.
You're just like, this guy is gonna go off. He
is too strung. He's strung way too tight, and he
just he's gonna get fired at his fucking job. He's
gonna go out on a kill crazy rampage, just the
way that they play this whole thing off, and I

(14:50):
just I loved it. I thought it was directed so well,
so taut, and your heart's in your throat the entire
time you're watching, especially when he's out there pointing a
gun at different people. I'm just thinking of Bogdanovich's targets
and the kid that goes up the oil thing and
starts shooting people on the freeway. I'm like, that's what
this guy's going to do, and he's a hair's brought

(15:10):
the way from doing that. Thank god, somebody finally calls
the cops, but even then you get to see the
way that he escapes and direct it again so beautifully.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
So thank you for transitioning into the next vignette, because
I think's probably the easiest way to talk about this
is just vignette by vignette, because it, again to Mike's point,
we don't even know the names of any of these
characters for the most part, like business guy who looks
like he's ready to kill somebody, give me somebody who
looks like they're harried and ready to make a decision
to end lives, Like you got the perfect actor for it.

(15:43):
He looks the part in seventy four too. I don't know.
I think it's something about the mustache and the glasses
that do it for me. But also the moment, and
it's the way that the movie is shot that's so
well done. There's a moment where the gun store owner
hands him the gun. On shop owner hands in the
gun and he just takes the gun out of his

(16:03):
hand and necessarily that and pointing it down and he
just wraps his finger around the trigger. You don't put
your finger on the trigger of a gun unless you're
ready to pull the trigger, unless you are committed to
pulling the trigger. Keep your finger off the trigger. And
that for me, that's again like just those small moments
that are the ones that are really horrifying, because, like

(16:26):
you said, the threat of violence is there. The moment
the gun has bullets in it, the threat of violence
is there. The moment the gun is out, the threat
of violence is there. People become violent around guns even
if there's nothing in them, because the assumption is there
is something in them. But in that moment where you
see it and they just they cut to the full
shot of the hand and the gun coming down and

(16:46):
he just starts to squeeze the trigger, and like you said,
it's just nothing has happened, but it's that threat of violence.
It's the threat of, oh my god, what could happen,
what might happen? Where is this going? And when we
transition then to he puts the gun into his waist
and then he's in the office building, it's, oh no,

(17:09):
there's not. Levinson and Link don't give you any time
here to sit with envy of this. It's just it's
in Ininvincible the cartoon, there's a moment where one of
the characters grabs someone and holds them in a train
car as it's going down the track, and he kills
a bunch of people by holding on to someone and
kills them too by hitting people going sixty miles an hour.

(17:31):
That's what this movie feels like to me. Levinson and
Link are just holding you like this and forcing you
forward because you know, from the moment the gun is
out into the world, there is going to be something
bad that happens with it. And they never let it.
They never let the cat out of the bag until
the end. But I think for me, like you've said already,

(17:51):
the thing that's so good is that the suspense is
just being built throughout. When he goes into the office
and he's sitting there, you don't know what's going to
trigger him, if something's going to trigger him. He goes
into the bathroom and here's people talking about things. He
goes into the office of his boss, and you think
he's going to do something. It's just the amount of
tension that this movie gets out of very little is impressive,

(18:13):
to say the least.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Just the whole thing where he's pointing the gun at
the window washer across the way, and the window washer
is the one that sees him with the gun. I
know some other people see him with the gun as well,
especially because what we see him go out into this
public square at eleven fifty nine, and as soon as
it turns to twelve, you see all of these people
coming out for their lunch. By twelve fifteen, they have

(18:38):
noticed him and they've all run back inside of their
buildings and he's just standing up there, pointing the gun
down and just pulling off shots like he's going to
be picking off all of these innocent bystanders. And then
he's just left in this empty area, and I love
how there are people inside of the offices and inside

(18:58):
of the businesses looking at him, but they are all
just too afraid to go out. And eventually he moves
into another area where they don't know that there's a
gunman on the loose, and everybody's back to normal. But
here he is just walking around with this thing. But
that window washer when he's there, like tapping on the window, hey,
like trying to call this woman to him, it's just

(19:19):
driving me up a walk because she's just ignoring him completely,
and he's no like the guy who had the gun
pointed at him unknowingly. Is the guy who's, Hey, there's
somebody out here that you need to look at, you
need to call the cops. No, nothing, She's just It's
so again tension, but in other ways, not just the
tension the fear of this white collar guy ticking off

(19:43):
these shots, but also the tension of is anybody going
to call the police? And then there's the are the
police going to get this guy?

Speaker 2 (19:50):
And that's what I love about this movie is that
none of those things happen because it's not even about him.
It ends up just being once again about the gun
itself and the voyage that the gun goes on, and
I guess he gets away with doing nothing.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Oh yeah, Well then you get that tension again because
he ends up throwing the gun into this car, and
then you see the woman in the car and you're
just like, oh, fuck, is this gun gonna go off
in this car? I don't see how it could happen,
but I don't know. Maybe her heel gets caught in
the trigger or something, because you're just like, well, no,
now that it's being taken around by this woman. And

(20:27):
I love that transition because you think that's the beginning
of the next vignette, but it really isn't. It's not
until she gets to the car wash, right is when
the guys they are cleaning inside the car and just like, hey,
look what I found, tucks that away and off we
go into our next one.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
And so I think, for me, the next vignette is
the weakest one of the movie. I don't know how
you felt about it's the weakest one for me because
it's the most stereotypical, right, like, guy, you know, it's
a bunch of kind of these I don't know, dip shits,
just I don't know, like the kind of person who
would take a gun out of someone's car.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
And it's also that it's the first time we're seeing minorities.
This is the Latino section of the film.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Did they have to be Latino?

Speaker 1 (21:14):
I guess I get, and they have to like almost
fuck while they're the dad's out in the living room
like two feet away and they're messing around with a
gun and fooling around in the kitchen. I'm just like, guys,
the dad's right there.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, it's the whole thing with them and the gun
Like that for me was the least compelling part of
the film. I wasn't particularly interested in that vignette. I
don't know. The vignette with the guy at the office
is just so compelling that there's, oh it's again, I
don't know, like nothing, it's not that nothing else ever
lives up to that, but nothing else really gets to

(21:56):
the point for me where I'm like, oh, yeah, this
is totally just as good as that second vignette, or
even again, even the first one. Because the Stephen elliott
One I enjoyed that one immensely, because again it cuts
back to this idea of the necessity of the gun
not necessarily being a negative, the necessity of the gun
just feeling like it needs to be a necessity. Once

(22:17):
we get past those two first scenes, we're just in
stereotypical treatment of minorities in television in the seventies land.
That's what it feels like, a little bit like, Oh,
they're taking things from people that they shouldn't be doing
and doing things that they may not need to be
And I'm like, I just I don't know. That part
just falls flat. Maybe that's just me, but it falls

(22:40):
flat for me.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Yeah, I like the mystery of the old man, the
father character taking the gun and we don't know where
it's at and everybody looking around for it, and you know,
the reunification with the suns. But yeah, it feels very
I hate to say it because the rest of this
doesn't feel this way, but it feels very movie of
the Week. It feels very Yeah, you're typical melodrama that

(23:02):
you have on TV.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
I do like that the story ends up being like, Okay,
his dad is sad and he stops his dad from
killing himself. But I don't know the next part where
we have a gun dealer getting the gun and then
selling the gun and we have people essentially like criminals.
I like the idea of the one before, where it's

(23:25):
all we have people with a gun and this might
be leading to something that wouldn't have happened otherwise without
the gun being there. But with a movie like this,
I think they should have just gone there to show
it to actually, because Rob, I think my biggest issue
probably is the fact that with the Ignacio vignette with
him and his wife and his dad and his brother, like,

(23:49):
I really would have thought that the movie would have
made a bigger point of talking about the issue of
mental health and suicide in terms of the gun and
access to a gun not being a positive when you
have someone in the household whose mental health is not
necessarily clear, and the movie doesn't hammer that home the
way it hammers home some of the other stuff. That

(24:11):
feels like a pretty big missed opportunity for me.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Yeah, because really, the white collar guy is mentally deranged,
and then Pops is just going and he's old and
he goes to funeral so people that he doesn't know,
and that's what ends up triggering the sun to run
to the cemetery and find his father in front of
his mother's grave and tell his brother, Hey, Pops is

(24:35):
over here. So they all come to the cemetery together.
It's not until the I guess it's the fourth vignette
now where we actually get to see real criminals with
the need for guns.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
And that's the thing, right, the thing of criminals with guns. Again.
I was like, all right, so we have the criminals
with guns vignette finally, Right, they don't I don't know,
maybe to readdress what I said before, maybe this is
the worst part of the movie, because this is the
most obvious direction to take it, right, Like two criminals

(25:10):
who just are using the guns to rob a business.
Like maybe that's I don't know, I mean, which of
the vignettes other like, which of the vignettes didn't work
the best for you, because I think it might actually
be this one for me, Like there's very little to
chew on in this vignette.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, this is pretty typical stuff as far as Oh,
they're casing the joint, they're looking around, they're trying to
make these arrangements, and there's the whole like buying of
the guns, which we've seen in so many things before,
and that they're casing a movie theater.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
I'm like, orno theater.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Orn't like, how much money are you making out of
this job? I?

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (25:49):
And then it did make me laugh because with you
being a friend of Allen Sachs's, here's mister Woodhouse as
the guy who runs the porn theater, who's got a
gun of his own and has this whole Mexican standoff
with these two idiots.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
You know what they say, a good guy with a gun, Mike, Yeah,
a good guy with a gun is all it takes
to stop a bad guy with a gun.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
I have never seen that actor where he's not angry, right.
Every time I think of him on Welcome Back Hotter,
he's just always the most cantankerous asshole ever. But yeah,
I guess it's the whole thing. The reason why they're
choosing to do the porn theater is because one of
them works there, because he recognizes his voice, and it's again,

(26:31):
this could be something, But I feel you're right that
this is a squandered opportunity, and.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
It's a squandered opportunity because again, I feel like, even
though I maybe don't agree with the Ignacio one. I
do feel like at least the story that it's telling
is somewhat interesting, even if it is a little rote.
This one is just wrote and uninteresting. There's nothing about
it it. Ultimately, I feel like goes nowhere other than

(26:57):
to get the gun to its final place, which I don't.
I think the other issue is I feel like they
could have gotten us there a better way. I don't
know how you feel about it, but doesn't it feel
a little contrived how they get the gun to the

(27:17):
family at the end.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
As far as it being the gun reclamation project and
the guy works there and ends up just lifting the
gun or he there's one that falls off the truck
kind of thing, because they're melting down all of these
guns and he gets one that just happens to not
get burned up.

Speaker 2 (27:36):
Yeah, but again, I feel like nobody who's doing that
job would actually do that. Would I would fucking hope. Really,
that's the thing. That's what I'm like. Again, I feel like,
if you're going to get to the point where we
have a character who is a younger character who may
die because the gun is involved in this, somehow, you're
telling me that the best way to do it was

(27:59):
to have the guy who hauls it pick up the
gun and take it home with him. I just I
don't know. Yeah, I would hope that person would be
smarter than that, but I guess obviously that is the point.
Obviously right here again back to the idea of what
is the point of this goddamn thing to begin with?
The point of this thing is to show that at
every level of all of these scenarios vignettes, there has

(28:20):
been some kind of failing on someone's part. But has
there been is the question? Because Steven Elliott did ostensibly
the right thing. It's not like the guy he gave
the gun to did the wrong thing by going and
planning it. The chain really started once the guy stole
the gun. But did he really steal the gun? I

(28:41):
guess he technically stole it because you have to wait
for a week to get the gun, but he paid
him right. I feel like the movie has a moment
where it goes from these are things that are happening,
and these are ostensibly best I can tell good people
that are making mistakes or choices that will affect someone
else down the road, and then it goes to now

(29:02):
we just have people like a gun dealer selling it,
and from that moment on to the end of the
movie essentially is when it loses me. It brings me
back in with oh, now the gun is at this
man and wife's home, there is a child there, the
wife has issues with the gun being there. What are
the issues and why we all know what they are?

(29:23):
And then obviously the worst fears become reality, and I
like the inevitability of it. I just feel like they
could have gotten there in a more believable, interesting and impactful,
more importantly way.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah, it's funny because talking about those other episodes with
a similar storyline between Quincy and Wi Fi, I have, oh,
this particular part where it's like the couple with the gun,
which really mirrors the beginning of the film. But this guy,
it's almost seems to be turned on having this gun around.

(29:58):
It just seems to be very You're like, oh, look
at how cool I am to have this gun. And
it's one thing that we haven't talked about is that
there's a little bit of a documentary aspect of this
film the beginning with the making of the gun. Even
the gun seller that you're talking about at the beginning
it feels almost like an educational film, but there are

(30:19):
dates that are being put on each of these vignettes
or different parts of the vignette, So this whole movie
takes place over a three year period of time. I
want to say the first date is like September seventy one.
The last date that we see on screen is November thirteenth,
nineteen seventy four, And if people are paying attention to

(30:40):
the beginning of this episode, that's the day that this aired.
So you're watching this movie and the final scene is
taking place on the day that you're watching it, which
I just think is fantastic. I love that kind of
stuff because you always get those assholes that say present
day on their films, and you're just like, yeah, present

(31:02):
day five years ago, I'm watching this in the future, right,
this is in present day, guys.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
I like that. The way the movie ends is that
today is the day, and this is where you would
hope the story of the gun ends. This is where
I'm assuming the story of the gun ends. This is
where I think anyone who watches this hopes that the
story of this gun ends. But ultimately, as we know,
as you mentioned early on, as people who live in

(31:29):
this country. That this is not where the story of
the gun ends. The gun probably goes somewhere else and
has probably maybe tried to be gotten rid of but
reclaimed again or who knows even again. That's the thing,
like so many minor mistakes were made for the gun
to get into the hand of this kid, and then
the kid dies. The gun is never even fired on screen. No,

(31:54):
in the gun What a great choice, by the way, God.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yes, and it's the exact same end that they use it.
I think it's in the Quincy episode. I can't like
they're running together in my head, but I'm pretty sure
it's Quincy. And I think they even like pan Over
as well, so they just straight up stole this kind
of thing. But yeah, just the gun, the guns period.

(32:19):
Just guns are They're just used for one thing. You're
not hammering nails with them. Despite what Stephen Prince might
say in Taxi Driver, you are there to fire the gun.
The gun is there to be fired.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
That's the only thing it can do.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
In the whole movie, it's never fired until the last
few minutes of the film, which is crazy, Like you
don't see this gun getting shot, but here it is
finally and you've been waiting for it an hour and
thirteen minutes for this gun to fire, and just that
potential energy, that stored energy runs through this whole frickin thing.

(33:01):
Not what a concept, what a way to pull this.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Off, to execute it at the end, because for me,
like you've already said, the end is the most important part.
The end is the part that nails it and hammers
it home, which is, no matter what we do, guns
will be here and everybody can do a better job
in being part of this system. And like you said,

(33:25):
of course you know about guns. You live in America.
This is the part of this podcast that becomes uncomfortable
for some people to have to hear. This country was
started with guns. We literally have a country because of guns,
because of a militia of people who said, I don't
want to be taxed anymore by people that are across
the plan from us. They don't have our best interests
in mind. And the ability to own firearms, and by own,

(33:48):
I mean have at that time was what allowed them
to take this country and turn it into a country
that we all share. Unfortunately, for us in twenty twenty
four or nineteen seventy five, or we are still putting
up with and dealing with the ramifications and repercussions of
our country being started by people with guns, because guns existed,

(34:10):
and they're intrinsically linked to the culture of this country
in a way that we often Again, is it a
surprise that we look at violence in this country and
it doesn't bother us, but yet sex does for so
many people. It shouldn't if you know anything about history.
People that left England to come here were boring because
they didn't like to have sex, at least not indiscriminately

(34:32):
quote unquote the way so many people believe everyone who
aren't like them at the time were like they were
having orgies in England all the time, though they seem
to be a little bit more freewheeling and dealing with
their sexuality. My point being, it shouldn't be a surprise
that people in this country have an aversion to sexuality
and talking about it, And it shouldn't be a surprise
that people in this country embrace guns like it's nobody's business,

(34:55):
because again, it's hardwired into the DNA of this country.
The land that this country exists upon was soaked with
the blood of other people who lived here before us,
and people came and took it away from them now
with guns because they had guns and the other people didn't. Again,

(35:15):
it's awful, it's horrible. I'm not defending it. I own guns,
so that doesn't make me a defender of it. That
just makes me an owner of guns. I've said this
before and I'll say it again. If someone came to
my friend door tomorrow and said, Chris, I'll buy all
of your guns from you for X price, I would say,
as in the US government, I would be like, okay, sure,
and I could sell them myself. And I've thought about it, frankly,

(35:36):
because I don't need as many as I have. They
were the ones that I have at all, But I
would sell them in a way that would make sure
that if they go to whomever they're going to, it
is now legally yours. There is a paper trail. It
is your problem. Now. I hope that you are an
in fact, a responsible gun owner, because there are ways
to do that in this country that don't involve selling

(35:58):
someone a gun in a parking lot or taking it
to a guy at your job and just having your
secretary right a little missive to say this gun is
his now, because no, that's not how that works. There
are legal steps in a process to get through all
of this, and this movie like it kints at that.
I wish it had leaned into that a little bit more,
because that's the thing that this movie feels like it

(36:19):
is truly lacking, is an addressing of the part of
this that the government is trying to do something about
but is woefully underqualified to do anything about. The movie
doesn't really talk about that, and it feels like kind
of money left on the table, given that they check
every other box, it feels but that one. But yeah,

(36:40):
it's like you said, as Americans, we know about guns
because unfortunately for so many of us, and by so
many of us, all of us who live in this
country exists because of guns.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
There's nothing that you said that I disagree with, because
that's very much the case. This is a country that
it's fine with violence, but sex forget about it. And
whenever we get closer to being a country that appreciates
sex more than violence, we got to switch back and

(37:13):
head the other way. So yeah, and done. Violence is
just right now. It's It's that famous Onion headline that
runs every time there's a mass shooting. No way to
prevent this, says, only nation where this happens regularly, as
I find that it's of course, Uval Day was the
next the last time that they ran the headline, but

(37:34):
they probably have run it since then.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
What they say about leopards and eating your own face?
Yell own a chimpanzee long enough, it's bound to bite
your face off and rip your hands off a couple
of dead kids along the way. Mike, they're making more right,
Oh they're not. Oh no, maybe we should care about
these things.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
That headline has run thirty seven times since they first
ran it in twenty fourteen. Twenty fourteen was ten years ago.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
That's glorious. I love living in this country. God bless America.
Just overall, this movie is a uniquely American experience to watch,
And I think if someone from another country were to
watch this, I think it would make them deeply worried
about us as a country. The ability to purchase guns,
the ease with which guns can be purchased even now,

(38:27):
is frightening and shocking to many people. And you know
what again, as a gun owner, the amount of paperwork
that I had to do to own a gun is
a lot less paperwork than I had to do to
apply for state insurance. But I mean, that's a problem.
And I am sitting here saying it's a problem. And

(38:48):
this movie in seventy four was saying it's a problem,
and we're saying now in twenty twenty four it's still
a problem. And until somebody fixes it, it will always
be a problem. And I think things like the Gun
go a long way to fixing things, or at least
shining light on the fact that these things are happening.
But you know what, the thing we really haven't talked about,

(39:10):
Man Levinson and Link just killing it again with the
storytelling like mechanisms that they use. Yeah, I know what's
up with that. These guys are just geniuses. Good for them, right.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
And I won't say that this is the first time
that this type of conceit has been used where you're
following an object rather than following the people, But it
is so effective that they ended up using it two
more times on network television, oddly enough, both the seventh
seasons of Quincy and Hawaii five. Oh, I don't know

(39:42):
if that was just a thing that you did in
the seventh season is let's talk about gun violence, and
here we are followed one gun through an entire storyline,
and it's was very interesting the way that they did this,
especially when it came to I want to say, it's
the quinc where there's this whole shipment of guns, and yeah,

(40:05):
it is that one, I believe, because they're talking about
a Saturday Night special, which is the same model that
it was in Hawaii. FI I've owe as well. And
they have these photos at the beginning where they're like,
this gun was used in this crime, and then they'll
show another crime and they'll have a photo this gun
was used in this crime. And then eventually they get
to one where they don't immediately cut to that gun.

(40:31):
They just keep following the gun all around. I believe
it's San Francisco and just like everybody who ends up
with it and Hawaii, I've oh, it's the same thing.
Guns are being shipped in. There was a great line
that Steve Garrett has where it doesn't make any sense
since the Hour on an Island. I think he says
they're being driven in every week or something, and it's dude,

(40:54):
you're on an island. They're not being driven in.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
It driven in from where exact like Loda and made,
but definitely not driven.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
That famous land bridge that they have. But yeah, it's like,
it was amazing that they were so close with those
great episodes. And I definitely want to check out more.
I fucking love Quincy, but I haven't watched it in forever,
and I never really was a Hawaii fi O guy,
so I'm curious to try it a little bit more.
But great, great TV. And yeah, fucking Lincoln Levinson and

(41:23):
like I said, six months from when they released their
last banger with Private Slovak.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah, the two of them together really just I can't
think of a better duo for writing television stuff like this.
I really can't. Lincoln Levinson made two of the most
important TV shows of all time with Colombo and Murder.
She wrote, these are shows that have stood the test
of time, that are still being shown now. We're still

(41:50):
talking about them now. But it does feel like a
shame that something like this has been lost in the
shuffle of all those things, because this is as good
as any of those really good Colombo episodes. The Murder
of Private Slovak similarly another great thing. When I was
done watching it, I was like, how do more people
not know about this, because feels like a thing more

(42:11):
people should not only know about, but also enjoy. Maybe
not enjoy is the right word. There's a level of
inevitability in Private Slovak that the gun also has. Look
at the end of Columbo, they're getting caught. It's that
level of inevitability that Lincoln Levinson operate under. So well,
you can see the wall coming from fifty feet away,

(42:32):
but they're gonna slam into it. But you're gonna enjoy
slamming into it. You see it coming, and that's part
of this. They know, But it's the journey to get
to that point that's important. Because again, at the end
of this, you know, the gun's gonna have to go off,
And at the end of the Private Slovak, you know
he's gonna die, And at the end of Colombo, you
know he's gonna catch him. It's just a matter of how.

(42:55):
And the how is so interesting. Levinson puts so much time, effort,
thought and care into answering the how of so many
of these things that, yeah, again I'm so impressed by
their ability to just write whatever. At this point, you
know what I mean, it's just Colombo. This Colombo that.
I'm more impressed by them just writing other things. Really,

(43:17):
Not only.

Speaker 1 (43:18):
Do they have these two TV movies coming out in
nineteen seventy four, but they've got episodes of Colombo's show
that they helped create. Plus they've got episodes of Manix
are still coming out at this time that wasn't canceled
till seventy five. So it's just holy shit, guys. Yes,
they've got so much stuff going on.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Why it's right. I also forgot about Manx.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Holy cow, Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is odd that I've
never seen an episode of Mannix. And I know, like
Mystery Science Theater, anytime somebody would drop down and pose
with a gun, they'd be like Manix. And even in
the Beastie Boys song where they're talking about your favorite
seventies TV detectives and they'd say, is it man X,

(43:58):
And I'm like, yeah, no, I know, I ever saw
that one. I think I've even seen an episode of
Barnaby Jones, but not Mannix. Mike the Manux cast.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
I think that's what happens after Colombo. I think that
would probably that's one hundred and ninety four episodes it is.
That's eight seasons of hour long episodes or half hour long.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Oh, that's a good question. I imagine they were hour long.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Episodes fifty minutes y oh my god, it's twenty four
episodes a season.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
And it's remarkable too when we look at the gun
and it's one hundred and thirteen minutes with commercials. It
wasn't a two hour thing. They're not stuff in forty
five minutes of commercials in the air.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
No, they are sure not.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
No, this is an hour and a half slot with
all the commercials. That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (44:49):
I know. I completely agree with that as well. And
that's the other thing that cracks me up about this
is it's so economical on top of everything else. It's
honestly the most echo noomical thing I've seen in a
while because it manages to get so much across without
having to do it for two hours. That's what an
hour and thirteen right? Like, God, come on, I'm not

(45:12):
sure I have the writing ability at the moment to
write something this well, and it'd be an hour and
thirteen minutes and by the end of it it be
as impactful as this, which is heartrending and awful. But yeah,
at a breezy one hundred and thirteen minutes. You wouldn't
expect it to have that much of an impact, but
it does.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to last between the last seasons,
I believe is one we did Woman under the Influence.
With this break between these seasons, we did some Lincoln Levenson.
I'm looking forward to doing more Levinson, especially. I think
it's after either the next season or the one after that,
because Roller Coaster is a fucking amazing movie. It is

(45:54):
one of those movies where you go, this is better
that has any right to be and wait to see
that one again and to have that conversation with you.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
I've heard of it, but I've never.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Seen it, so you are in for a treat, my friend.

Speaker 2 (46:09):
I have enjoyed everything we've watched on this show so much.
Even the episodes of Colombo that we've watched that haven't
been the most knockout, stand out best ones have been
quite good. Yeah, but this is this again, similarly to
Private Slovak, this is one of those things where I'm
just like, how have more people not see this? In
twenty twenty four? This should be what's that thing called

(46:30):
that they would always show kids back in the day
when they were like at school learning how to drive,
like Rick, what pavement? Yeah, pavement. This is similar to that.
In my mind, this is a condemnation of this system
that we are part of in a very explicit way.
And good on Lincoln Levinson for having the balls in
seventy four to write the story, because there aren't people

(46:53):
writing stories like this now. On a very special episode
of The Big Bang Theory, they Weldon, I found a gun.
There's none of that. Again, it's not that people aren't
concerned with talking about issues anymore, but talking about issues
and being entertaining aren't things that people are necessarily interested

(47:14):
in checking both boxes, and I don't blame them. It's
not easy. But the gun is a piece of both
entertainment and I think education a very needed end, as
holl And Oates would say, adult education, because again, gun
violence and guns and access to guns and guns being
in the system unknown to where they are lost is

(47:37):
a real problem, and these things do happen, and it's
not okay.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
I could see Sheldon out there in that park, that
office park, with the gun, bazinga.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
I'm good anything with Jim Parsons in it, and I'm good.
That's as someone who's gay and I'm good because you
know what, Jim Parsons, I love you to death, buddy,
But the Basinga and shit is just too much. But
at Bazinga the serial Killer. Okay, Bazin, We're reporting tonight
from Topeka, Kansas, where we now have a name for
the man who's been skinning women alive. He wants to

(48:11):
be called Bazinga the serial Killer. Was Zinga.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
On the next episode of The Shabby Detective. We will
be back in Colombo territory. We're going to be kicking
off the fifth season of Colombo with the episode Forgotten Lady. Well,
we're gonna have Janet Lee, Sam Jaffy, a lot of
good actors in there. I'm really excited to get back
into some Colombo's with you, Chris. Though this little diversion

(48:37):
has been a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Yeah, no, this diversion has been great. I have enjoyed
these two movies immensely, and I look forward to the
next Columbo stuff, but also looking forward to the next
time we have a break, not because I don't want
to do anything, but because we get to watch stuff
like this, which is I've heard of Colombo. I had
never heard of this.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
Yeah, until we come back next month. Chris, what are
you up to these days?

Speaker 2 (49:01):
I am just making audio content over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com,
where you can find this show and so many other
great shows, all about the things that you may or
may not care about. You like Barney Miller, you like
seventies cop shows, like Columbo, You might want to check
out our Barney Miller show. You like weird spooky paranormal stuff.
We did a cold check show. I did a show

(49:22):
called Scary Stories We Tell where we talked about real
spooky stuff, not just a man chasing after invisible monsters
with a pork pie hat, though there was nothing wrong
with that, but sometimes even they didn't know what they
were doing. Yeah. All that and more can be found
at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, other than Rankin on Bond, which
we do once a month with our friend Richard HadAM,
where we talk about James Bond movies once a month

(49:45):
on our patreons at the ten dollars or higher level.
So that's where you can go to find me, and
that's where you can go to find the things that
I work on. What about you, Mike Wright.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Same thing, Weirdingwaymedia dot com for all your audio diversions.
As Heather would say, definitely come on over and listen
to the projection booth the Life and Times of Captain
Bernie Miller. Yes, we have all of those Cold Chac
tapes available for people to download. I don't think that
any of the TV movies we talked about were written

(50:14):
by Lincoln Levionson, but think so. Can you imagine them
doing a spooky show that would be pretty neat? I would,
yeah so much.

Speaker 2 (50:22):
Give me that now, please.

Speaker 1 (50:23):
Yeah, sounds good to me. I think just Black's Magic,
the show that they did in nineteen eighty six, I
think that was as close to magic that they went to.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
It's a shame.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
Yeah. I want to thank John Walker for our opening
theme and Colin Gallagher for our closing theme, and I
want to thank you everybody for listening to us as
we talk about these interesting things, at least interesting to us.
Hopefully you found a little bit of enjoyment with.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
This, and maybe you learned a little bit along the way.

Speaker 4 (51:00):
In a pawn shop in Chicago on a sunny summer day,
a couple gazes at the wedding rings their own display.

Speaker 5 (51:12):
She smiles and nods her head as he says, honey,
that's for you. It's not much, but it's the best
that I can do.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
Golden rain, gold want time. They're a storm lading.

Speaker 6 (51:32):
For some want calm.

Speaker 4 (51:34):
Myself myself, it's just a cold time thing.

Speaker 6 (51:40):
Only talking make.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
A cold wedding ring.

Speaker 6 (51:49):
In a little wedding chapel. Later on that afternoon, and
all a bride Piana plays that old.

Speaker 5 (51:59):
Mill tears rolling down her cheeks and happy thoughts around
through her head as he whispers, low, with this ring.

Speaker 4 (52:09):
I can win golden ring cold one time SnO shining
shining lasts.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
Found a hole my soul. It's just a cold time thing.

Speaker 4 (52:29):
Call the cock and make the cold and we ring in.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
A small tube apartment.

Speaker 7 (52:41):
As they put the funnel around, he says, you won't
admit it, but.

Speaker 5 (52:47):
I know you'll leave in town. She says one things
for certain, I don't love you anymore and throws down
the ring unless she walks out the door.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
Golden rains.

Speaker 4 (53:04):
With one time storm cast s so like the log,
stand myself.

Speaker 6 (53:15):
It's just a cold thing.

Speaker 4 (53:19):
Only God can make the gold Waiting in a pun
shopping in Chicago all the sunny summer.

Speaker 5 (53:34):
Day, a couple gazes and the.

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Wedding rains, thet.

Speaker 7 (53:44):
Gold.

Speaker 6 (53:53):
Oh I want to sell sells.

Speaker 7 (54:40):
I got a nam of something weak, can go as
a book, sing.

Speaker 6 (54:53):
Out if I tell him about tell.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Me it's what that soun?

Speaker 4 (55:00):
Oh, seal seal silly, tell them my time, a.

Speaker 7 (55:10):
Silly set sell the houssas.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Billing get so small so.

Speaker 6 (55:20):
Rose still up my next? Yeah, I got him? No,

(55:43):
damn and what are you doing? Nothing doing? Long man here?
Wait n I'm slipping No wo n. Can't can't tell
the no, can't can't.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Tell the boot, can't cann't tell them?

Speaker 6 (56:12):
Then again, tell it something a dam sofer sta