Podcasts about susannah york

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They Front Row Classics welcomes Izaiah Shupe of Mr. Re-Watchability podcast.  Brandon and Izaiah are discussing 1969’s They Shoot Horses Don’t They. Sydney Pollock’s psychological drama still packs a punch 55 years later. The hosts discuss the harrowing performances of Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Red Buttons, Susannah York and an Oscar-winning … Continue reading Ep. 239-They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? →

Interviews by Peter Jonathan Robertson at Richmond Theatre in 1988 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week the hosts Joshua Conkel and Drusilla Adeline discuss doppelgängers with Robert Altman's Images.  From wiki: “Images is a 1972 psychological horror film directed and co-written by Robert Altman and starring Susannah York, René Auberjonois and Marcel Bozzuffi. The picture follows an unstable children's author who finds herself engulfed in apparitions and hallucinations while staying at her remote vacation home.”But also discussed: a real-life horror story, Gawker in the 00s, a mysterious butt stabber, Death of a Cyclist, Woman in the Dunes, Pitfall, Infested, Attack the Block, Arachnophobia, Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein, 3 Women, Persona, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Nashville, Gosford Park, Pauline Kael, Faye Dunaway's reality show, One Tree Hill,  The Eyes of Laura Mars, and more!NEXT WEEK: Darren Aronofsky's Mother! (2017)Follow them across the internet: Bloodhaus: https://www.bloodhauspod.com/https://twitter.com/BloodhausPodhttps://www.instagram.com/bloodhauspod/Drusilla Adeline: https://www.sisterhydedesign.com/https://letterboxd.com/sisterhyde/ Joshua Conkelhttps://www.joshuaconkel.com/https://www.instagram.com/joshua_conkel/https://letterboxd.com/JoshuaConkel/ 

This week, we discuss two films from the 1970s starring Elliott Gould.   The first is The Silent Partner (1978), a 1978 Canadian thriller film directed by Daryl Duke and starring Elliott Gould, Christopher Plummer, and Susannah York.   The second is Capricorn One (1977), a 1977 British-produced American thriller film in which a reporter discovers that a supposed Mars landing by a crewed mission to the planet has been faked via a conspiracy involving the government and—under duress—the crew themselves.   Timestamps   What we've been watching (00:01:05) – American Fiction, The Jinx, Drive-Away Dolls, JFK   The Silent Partner (00:28:10)   Capricorn One (01:05:20)   Coin toss (01:45:50)     Links   Instagram -   @callitfriendopodcast   @munnywales   @andyjayritchie       Letterboxd –   @andycifpod   @fat-tits mcmahon     Justwatch.com – streaming and rental links - https://www.justwatch.com  

Jacob Marley was dead to begin with (he always is!) and It Happened One Year is there to pick up the slack, in what was originally conceived as the show's holiday episode, before the hosts got carried away and kept recording Christmassy things (tune in next week!). Herein, Sarah & Joe get into all things Cratchit in order to discuss the acclaimed 1984 movie version of A Christmas Carol starring George C. Scott, Frank Finlay, David Warner, and Susannah York. This opens up the larger conversation of best film Scrooges, best family versions, best musical versions, best TV versions, and much, much more. It's a Dickens-ophile's dream! Rising up in the debate are the likes of Alastair Sim, the Muppets, Reginald Owen, Albert Finney, Mr. Magoo, Basil Rathbone, Bill Murray, Patrick Stewart, Jim Carrey, Henry Winkler, and many more! Then - after all the "God Bless Us, Everyones" have been tossed around like Christmas crackers - the hosts perform that most IHOY of rituals - playing a trivia game for the listeners. Enjoy!

On this week's episode, a British horror film about a very shouty man.  Starring Alan Bates, John Hurt, Susannah York and a minor role for Tim Curry, as, strangely, the most normal person in the film.  Do we give this film a shout?  Tune in and find out!Recommendations:Glenn: Arsenic and Old Lace (1944 film)Sarah: The Fall Of the House Of Usher (2023 Netflix miniseries)Cameron: The Field (1990 film)

June 1940, and the podcast stands alone, facing a Nazi horde just across the Channel. A Pod Too Far returns with a new series, and this week, Rob Hutton and Duncan Weldon are joined by historian James Holland in his trusty Spitfire as they watch 1969's Battle of Britain. Is it simply a series of brilliant aerial sequences mashed together with some composite characters? What's the real claim to fame of the beach that plays Dunkirk? And would it be worse to be married to Christopher Plummer or Susannah York? Never in the field of human podcasting have so many movie memes been discussed by so few. A Pod Too Far was written and presented by Robert Hutton and Duncan Weldon. Audio production and sound design by Simon Williams. Artwork by James Parret. Lead Producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. A Pod Too Far is a Podmasters production. https://twitter.com/PodTooFar Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We continue our miniseries on the 1980s movies distributed by Miramax Films, with a look at the films released in 1988. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we finally continue with the next part of our look back at the 1980s movies distributed by Miramax Films, specifically looking at 1988.   But before we get there, I must issue another mea culpa. In our episode on the 1987 movies from Miramax, I mentioned that a Kiefer Sutherland movie called Crazy Moon never played in another theatre after its disastrous one week Oscar qualifying run in Los Angeles in December 1987.   I was wrong.   While doing research on this episode, I found one New York City playdate for the film, in early February 1988. It grossed a very dismal $3200 at the 545 seat Festival Theatre during its first weekend, and would be gone after seven days.   Sorry for the misinformation.   1988 would be a watershed year for the company, as one of the movies they acquired for distribution would change the course of documentary filmmaking as we knew it, and another would give a much beloved actor his first Academy Award nomination while giving the company its first Oscar win.   But before we get to those two movies, there's a whole bunch of others to talk about first.   Of the twelve movies Miramax would release in 1988, only four were from America. The rest would be a from a mixture of mostly Anglo-Saxon countries like the UK, Canada, France and Sweden, although there would be one Spanish film in there.   Their first release of the new year, Le Grand Chemin, told the story of a timid nine-year-old boy from Paris who spends one summer vacation in a small town in Brittany. His mother has lodged the boy with her friend and her friend's husband while Mom has another baby. The boy makes friends with a slightly older girl next door, and learns about life from her.   Richard Bohringer, who plays the friend's husband, and Anémone, who plays the pregnant mother, both won Cesars, the French equivalent to the Oscars, in their respective lead categories, and the film would be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1987 by the National Board of Review. Miramax, who had picked up the film at Cannes several months earlier, waited until January 22nd, 1988, to release it in America, first at the Paris Theatre in midtown Manhattan, where it would gross a very impressive $41k in its first three days. In its second week, it would drop less than 25% of its opening weekend audience, bringing in another $31k. But shortly after that, the expected Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film did not come, and business on the film slowed to a trickle. But it kept chugging on, and by the time the film finished its run in early June, it had grossed $541k.   A week later, on January 29th, Miramax would open another French film, Light Years. An animated science fiction film written and directed by René Laloux, best known for directing the 1973 animated head trip film Fantastic Planet, Light Years was the story of an evil force from a thousand years in the future who begins to destroy an idyllic paradise where the citizens are in perfect harmony with nature.   In its first three days at two screens in Los Angeles and five screens in the San Francisco Bay Area, Light Years would gross a decent $48,665. Miramax would print a self-congratulating ad in that week's Variety touting the film's success, and thanking Isaac Asimov, who helped to write the English translation, and many of the actors who lent their vocal talents to the new dub, including Glenn Close, Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Grey, Christopher Plummer, and Penn and Teller. Yes, Teller speaks. The ad was a message to both the theatre operators and the major players in the industry. Miramax was here. Get used to it.   But that ad may have been a bit premature.   While the film would do well in major markets during its initial week in theatres, audience interest would drop outside of its opening week in big cities, and be practically non-existent in college towns and other smaller cities. Its final box office total would be just over $370k.   March 18th saw the release of a truly unique film.    Imagine a film directed by Robert Altman and Bruce Beresford and Jean-Luc Godard and Derek Jarman and Franc Roddam and Nicolas Roeg and Ken Russell and Charles Sturridge and Julien Temple. Imagine a film that starred Beverly D'Angelo, Bridget Fonda in her first movie, Julie Hagerty, Buck Henry, Elizabeth Hurley and John Hurt and Theresa Russell and Tilda Swinton. Imagine a film that brought together ten of the most eclectic filmmakers in the world doing four to fourteen minute short films featuring the arias of some of the most famous and beloved operas ever written, often taken out of their original context and placed into strange new places. Like, for example, the aria for Verdi's Rigoletto set at the kitschy Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, where a movie producer is cheating on his wife while she is in a nearby room with a hunky man who is not her husband. Imagine that there's almost no dialogue in the film. Just the arias to set the moments.   That is Aria.   If you are unfamiliar with opera in general, and these arias specifically, that's not a problem. When I saw the film at the Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz in June 1988, I knew some Wagner, some Puccini, and some Verdi, through other movies that used the music as punctuation for a scene. I think the first time I had heard Nessun Dorma was in The Killing Fields. Vesti La Giubba in The Untouchables. But this would be the first time I would hear these arias as they were meant to be performed, even if they were out of context within their original stories. Certainly, Wagner didn't intend the aria from Tristan und Isolde to be used to highlight a suicide pact between a young couple killing themselves in a Las Vegas hotel bathroom.   Aria definitely split critics when it premiered at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, when it competed for the festival's main prize, the Palme D'Or. Roger Ebert would call it the first MTV opera and felt the filmmakers were poking fun at their own styles, while Leonard Maltin felt most of the endeavor was a waste of time. In the review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin would also make a reference to MTV but not in a positive way, and would note the two best parts of the film were the photo montage that is seen over the end credits, and the clever licensing of Chuck Jones's classic Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc, to play with the film, at least during its New York run. In the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper chose one of its music critics to review the film. They too would compare the film to MTV, but also to Fantasia, neither reference meant to be positive.   It's easy to see what might have attracted Harvey Weinstein to acquire the film.   Nudity.   And lots of it.   Including from a 21 year old Hurley, and a 22 year old Fonda.   Open at the 420 seat Ridgemont Theatre in Seattle on March 18th, 1988, Aria would gross a respectable $10,600. It would be the second highest grossing theatre in the city, only behind The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which grossed $16,600 in its fifth week at the 850 seat Cinerama Theatre, which was and still is the single best theatre in Seattle. It would continue to do well in Seattle, but it would not open until April 15th in Los Angeles and May 20th in New York City.   But despite some decent notices and the presence of some big name directors, Aria would stiff at the box office, grossing just $1.03m after seven months in theatres.   As we discussed on our previous episode, there was a Dennis Hopper movie called Riders on the Storm that supposedly opened in November 1987, but didn't. It did open in theatres in May of 1988, and now we're here to talk about it.   Riders on the Storm would open in eleven theatres in the New York City area on May 7th, including three theatres in Manhattan. Since Miramax did not screen the film for critics before release, never a good sign, the first reviews wouldn't show up until the following day, since the critics would actually have to go see the film with a regular audience. Vincent Canby's review for the New York Times would arrive first, and surprisingly, he didn't completely hate the film. But audiences didn't care. In its first weekend in New York City, Riders on the Storm would gross an anemic $25k. The following Friday, Miramax would open the film at two theatres in Baltimore, four theatres in Fort Worth TX (but surprisingly none in Dallas), one theatre in Los Angeles and one theatre in Springfield OH, while continuing on only one screen in New York. No reported grosses from Fort Worth, LA or Springfield, but the New York theatre reported ticket sales of $3k for the weekend, a 57% drop from its previous week, while the two in Baltimore combined for $5k.   There would be more single playdates for a few months. Tampa the same week as New York. Atlanta, Charlotte, Des Moines and Memphis in late May. Cincinnati in late June. Boston, Calgary, Ottawa and Philadelphia in early July. Greenville SC in late August. Evansville IL, Ithaca NY and San Francisco in early September. Chicago in late September. It just kept popping up in random places for months, always a one week playdate before heading off to the next location. And in all that time, Miramax never reported grosses. What little numbers we do have is from the theatres that Variety was tracking, and those numbers totaled up to less than $30k.   Another mostly lost and forgotten Miramax release from 1988 is Caribe, a Canadian production that shot in Belize about an amateur illegal arms trader to Central American terrorists who must go on the run after a deal goes down bad, because who wants to see a Canadian movie about an amateur illegal arms trader to Canadian terrorists who must go on the run in the Canadian tundra after a deal goes down bad?   Kara Glover would play Helen, the arms dealer, and John Savage as Jeff, a British intelligence agent who helps Helen.   Caribe would first open in Detroit on May 20th, 1988. Can you guess what I'm going to say next?   Yep.   No reported grosses, no theatres playing the film tracked by Variety.   The following week, Caribe opens in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the 300 seat United Artists Theatre in San Francisco, and three theatres in the South Bay. While Miramax once again did not report grosses, the combined gross for the four theatres, according to Variety, was a weak $3,700. Compare that to Aria, which was playing at the Opera Plaza Cinemas in its third week in San Francisco, in an auditorium 40% smaller than the United Artist, grossing $5,300 on its own.   On June 3rd, Caribe would open at the AMC Fountain Square 14 in Nashville. One show only on Friday and Saturday at 11:45pm. Miramax did not report grosses. Probably because people we going to see Willie Tyler and Lester at Zanie's down the street.   And again, it kept cycling around the country, one or two new playdates in each city it played in. Philadelphia in mid-June. Indianapolis in mid-July. Jersey City in late August. Always for one week, grosses never reported.   Miramax's first Swedish release of the year was called Mio, but this was truly an international production. The $4m film was co-produced by Swedish, Norwegian and Russian production companies, directed by a Russian, adapted from a Swedish book by an American screenwriter, scored by one of the members of ABBA, and starring actors from England, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States.   Mio tells the story of a boy from Stockholm who travels to an otherworldly fantasy realm and frees the land from an evil knight's oppression. What makes this movie memorable today is that Mio's best friend is played by none other than Christian Bale, in his very first film.   The movie was shot in Moscow, Stockholm, the Crimea, Scotland, and outside Pripyat in the Northern part of what is now Ukraine, between March and July 1986. In fact, the cast and crew were shooting outside Pripyat on April 26th, when they got the call they needed to evacuate the area. It would be hours later when they would discover there had been a reactor core meltdown at the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. They would have to scramble to shoot in other locations away from Ukraine for a month, and when they were finally allowed to return, the area they were shooting in deemed to have not been adversely affected by the worst nuclear power plant accident in human history,, Geiger counters would be placed all over the sets, and every meal served by craft services would need to be read to make sure it wasn't contaminated.   After premiering at the Moscow Film Festival in July 1987 and the Norwegian Film Festival in August, Mio would open in Sweden on October 16th, 1987. The local critics would tear the film apart. They hated that the filmmakers had Anglicized the movie with British actors like Christopher Lee, Susannah York, Christian Bale and Nicholas Pickard, an eleven year old boy also making his film debut. They also hated how the filmmakers adapted the novel by the legendary Astrid Lindgren, whose Pippi Longstocking novels made her and her works world famous. Overall, they hated pretty much everything about it outside of Christopher Lee's performance and the production's design in the fantasy world.   Miramax most likely picked it up trying to emulate the success of The Neverending Story, which had opened to great success in most of the world in 1984. So it might seem kinda odd that when they would open the now titled The Land of Faraway in theatres, they wouldn't go wide but instead open it on one screen in Atlanta GA on June 10th, 1988. And, once again, Miramax did not report grosses, and Variety did not track Atlanta theatres that week. Two weeks later, they would open the film in Miami. How many theatres? Can't tell you. Miramax did not report grosses, and Variety was not tracking any of the theatres in Miami playing the film. But hey, Bull Durham did pretty good in Miami that week.   The film would next open in theatres in Los Angeles. This time, Miramax bought a quarter page ad in the Los Angeles Times on opening day to let people know the film existed. So we know it was playing on 18 screens that weekend. And, once again, Miramax did not report grosses for the film. But on the two screens it played on that Variety was tracking, the combined gross was just $2,500.   There'd be other playdates. Kansas City and Minneapolis in mid-September. Vancouver, BC in early October. Palm Beach FL in mid October. Calgary AB and Fort Lauderdale in late October. Phoenix in mid November. And never once did Miramax report any grosses for it.   One week after Mio, Miramax would release a comedy called Going Undercover.   Now, if you listened to our March 2021 episode on Some Kind of Wonderful, you may remember be mentioning Lea Thompson taking the role of Amanda Jones in that film, a role she had turned down twice before, the week after Howard the Duck opened, because she was afraid she'd never get cast in a movie again. And while Some Kind of Wonderful wasn't as big a film as you'd expect from a John Hughes production, Thompson did indeed continue to work, and is still working to this day.   So if you were looking at a newspaper ad in several cities in June 1988 and saw her latest movie and wonder why she went back to making weird little movies.   She hadn't.   This was a movie she had made just before Back to the Future, in August and September 1984.   Originally titled Yellow Pages, the film starred film legend Jean Simmons as Maxine, a rich woman who has hired Chris Lemmon's private investigator Henry Brilliant to protect her stepdaughter Marigold during her trip to Copenhagen.   The director, James Clarke, had written the script specifically for Lemmon, tailoring his role to mimic various roles played by his famous father, Jack Lemmon, over the decades, and for Simmons. But Thompson was just one of a number of young actresses they looked at before making their casting choice.   Half of the $6m budget would come from a first-time British film producer, while the other half from a group of Danish investors wanting to lure more Hollywood productions to their area.   The shoot would be plagued by a number of problems. The shoot in Los Angeles coincided with the final days of the 1984 Summer Olympics, which would cut out using some of the best and most regularly used locations in the city, and a long-lasting heat wave that would make outdoor shoots unbearable for cast and crew. When they arrived in Copenhagen at the end of August, Denmark was going through an unusually heavy storm front that hung around for weeks.   Clarke would spend several months editing the film, longer than usual for a smaller production like this, but he in part was waiting to see how Back to the Future would do at the box office. If the film was a hit, and his leading actress was a major part of that, it could make it easier to sell his film to a distributor.   Or that was line of thinking.   Of course, Back to the Future was a hit, and Thompson received much praise for her comedic work on the film.   But that didn't make it any easier to sell his film.   The producer would set the first screenings for the film at the February 1986 American Film Market in Santa Monica, which caters not only to foreign distributors looking to acquire American movies for their markets, but helps independent filmmakers get their movies seen by American distributors.   As these screenings were for buyers by invitation only, there would be no reviews from the screenings, but one could guess that no one would hear about the film again until Miramax bought the American distribution rights to it in March 1988 tells us that maybe those screenings didn't go so well.   The film would get retitled Going Undercover, and would open in single screen playdates in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, St. Louis and Tampa on June 17th. And as I've said too many times already, no reported grosses from Miramax, and only one theatre playing the film was being tracked by Variety, with Going Undercover earning $3,000 during its one week at the Century City 14 in Los Angeles.   In the June 22nd, 1988 issue of Variety, there was an article about Miramax securing a $25m line of credit in order to start producing their own films. Going Undercover is mentioned in the article about being one of Miramax's releases, without noting it had just been released that week or how well it did or did not do.   The Thin Blue Line would be Miramax's first non-music based documentary, and one that would truly change how documentaries were made.   Errol Morris had already made two bizarre but entertaining documentaries in the late 70s and early 80s. Gates of Heaven was shot in 1977, about a man who operated a failing pet cemetery in Northern California's Napa Valley. When Morris told his famous German filmmaking supporter Werner Herzog about the film, Herzog vowed to eat one of the shoes he was wearing that day if Morris could actually complete the film and have it shown in a public theatre. In April 1979, just before the documentary had its world premiere at UC Theatre in Berkeley, where Morris had studied philosophy, Herzog would spend the morning at Chez Pannise, the creators of the California Cuisine cooking style, boiling his shoes for five hours in garlic, herbs and stock. This event itself would be commemorated in a documentary short called, naturally, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, by Les Blank, which is a must watch on its own.   Because of the success of Gates of Heaven, Morris was able to quickly find financing for his next film, Nub City, which was originally supposed to be about the number of Vernon, Florida's citizens who have “accidentally” cut off their limbs, in order to collect the insurance money. But after several of those citizens threatened to kill Morris, and one of them tried to run down his cinematographer with their truck, Morris would rework the documentary, dropping the limb angle, no pun intended, and focus on the numerous eccentric people in the town. It would premiere at the 1981 New York Film Festival, and become a hit, for a documentary, when it was released in theatres in 1982.   But it would take Morris another six years after completing Vernon, Florida, to make another film. Part of it was having trouble lining up full funding to work on his next proposed movie, about James Grigson, a Texas forensic psychiatrist whose was nicknamed Doctor Death for being an expert witness for the prosecution in death penalty cases in Texas. Morris had gotten seed money for the documentary from PBS and the Endowment for Public Arts, but there was little else coming in while he worked on the film. In fact, Morris would get a PI license in New York and work cases for two years, using every penny he earned that wasn't going towards living expenses to keep the film afloat.   One of Morris's major problems for the film was that Grigson would not sit on camera for an interview, but would meet with Morris face to face to talk about the cases. During that meeting, the good doctor suggested to the filmmaker that he should research the killers he helped put away. And during that research, Morris would come across the case of one Randall Dale Adams, who was convicted of killing Dallas police officer Robert Wood in 1976, even though another man, David Harris, was the police's initial suspect. For two years, Morris would fly back and forth between New York City and Texas, talking to and filming interviews with Adams and more than two hundred other people connected to the shooting and the trial. Morris had become convinced Adams was indeed innocent, and dropped the idea about Dr. Grigson to solely focus on the Robert Wood murder.   After showing the producers of PBS's American Playhouse some of the footage he had put together of the new direction of the film, they kicked in more funds so that Morris could shoot some re-enactment sequences outside New York City, as well as commission composer Phillip Glass to create a score for the film once it was completed. Documentaries at that time did not regularly use re-enactments, but Morris felt it was important to show how different personal accounts of the same moment can be misinterpreted or misremembered or outright manipulated to suppress the truth.   After the film completed its post-production in March 1988, The Thin Blue Line would have its world premiere at the San Francisco Film Festival on March 18th, and word quickly spread Morris had something truly unique and special on his hands. The critic for Variety would note in the very first paragraph of his write up that the film employed “strikingly original formal devices to pull together diverse interviews, film clips, photo collages, and” and this is where it broke ground, “recreations of the crime from many points of view.”   Miramax would put together a full court press in order to get the rights to the film, which was announced during the opening days of the 1988 Cannes Film Festival in early May. An early hint on how the company was going to sell the film was by calling it a “non-fiction feature” instead of a documentary.   Miramax would send Morris out on a cross-country press tour in the weeks leading up to the film's August 26th opening date, but Morris, like many documentary filmmakers, was not used to being in the spotlight themselves, and was not as articulate about talking up his movies as the more seasoned directors and actors who've been on the promotion circuit for a while. After one interview, Harvey Weinstein would send Errol Morris a note.   “Heard your NPR interview and you were boring.”   Harvey would offer up several suggestions to help the filmmaker, including hyping the movie up as a real life mystery thriller rather than a documentary, and using shorter and clearer sentences when answering a question.   It was a clear gamble to release The Thin Blue Line in the final week of summer, and the film would need a lot of good will to stand out.   And it would get it.   The New York Times was so enthralled with the film, it would not only run a review from Janet Maslin, who would heap great praise on the film, but would also run a lengthy interview with Errol Morris right next to the review. The quarter page ad in the New York Times, several pages back, would tout positive quotes from Roger Ebert, J. Hoberman, who had left The Village Voice for the then-new Premiere Magazine, Peter Travers, writing for People Magazine instead of Rolling Stone, and critics from the San Francisco Chronicle and, interestingly enough, the Dallas Morning News. The top of the ad was tagged with an intriguing tease: solving this mystery is going to be murder, with a second tag line underneath the key art and title, which called the film “a new kind of movie mystery.” Of the 15 New York area-based film critics for local newspapers, television and national magazines, 14 of them gave favorable reviews, while 1, Stephen Schiff of Vanity Fair, was ambivalent about it. Not one critic gave it a bad review.   New York audiences were hooked.   Opening in the 240 seat main house at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, the movie grossed $30,945 its first three days. In its second weekend, the gross at the Lincoln Plaza would jump to $31k, and adding another $27,500 from its two theatre opening in Los Angeles and $15,800 from a single DC theatre that week. Third week in New York was a still good $21k, but the second week in Los Angeles fell to $10,500 and DC to $10k. And that's how it rolled out for several months, mostly single screen bookings in major cities not called Los Angeles or New York City, racking up some of the best reviews Miramax would receive to date, but never breaking out much outside the major cities. When it looked like Santa Cruz wasn't going to play the film, I drove to San Francisco to see it, just as my friends and I had for the opening day of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ in mid-August. That's 75 miles each way, plus parking in San Francisco, just to see a movie. That's when you know you no longer just like movies but have developed a serious case of cinephilea. So when The Nickelodeon did open the film in late November, I did something I had never done with any documentary before.   I went and saw it again.   Second time around, I was still pissed off at the outrageous injustice heaped upon Randall Dale Adams for nothing more than being with and trusting the wrong person at the wrong time. But, thankfully, things would turn around for Adams in the coming weeks. On December 1st, it was reported that David Harris had recanted his testimony at Adams' trial, admitting he was alone when Officer Wood stopped his car. And on March 1st, 1989, after more than 15,000 people had signed the film's petition to revisit the decision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Adams's conviction “based largely” on facts presented in the film.   The film would also find itself in several more controversies.   Despite being named The Best Documentary of the Year by a number of critics groups, the Documentary Branch of the  Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences would not nominate the film, due in large part to the numerous reenactments presented throughout the film. Filmmaker Michael Apted, a member of the Directors Branch of the Academy, noted that the failure to acknowledge The Thin Blue Line was “one of the most outrageous things in the modern history of the Academy,” while Roger Ebert added the slight was “the worst non-nomination of the year.” Despite the lack of a nomination, Errol Morris would attend the Oscars ceremony in March 1989, as a protest for his film being snubbed.   Morris would also, several months after Adams' release, find himself being sued by Adams, but not because of how he was portrayed in the film. During the making of the film, Morris had Adams sign a contract giving Morris the exclusive right to tell Adams's story, and Adams wanted, essentially, the right to tell his own story now that he was a free man. Morris and Adams would settle out of court, and Adams would regain his life rights.   Once the movie was played out in theatres, it had grossed $1.2m, which on the surface sounds like not a whole lot of money. Adjusted for inflation, that would only be $3.08m. But even unadjusted for inflation, it's still one of the 100 highest grossing documentaries of the past forty years. And it is one of just a handful of documentaries to become a part of the National Film Registry, for being a culturally, historically or aesthetically significant film.”   Adams would live a quiet life after his release, working as an anti-death penalty advocate and marrying the sister of one of the death row inmates he was helping to exonerate. He would pass away from a brain tumor in October 2010 at a courthouse in Ohio not half an hour from where he was born and still lived, but he would so disappear from the spotlight after the movie was released that his passing wasn't even reported until June 2011.   Errol Morris would become one of the most celebrated documentarians of his generation, finally getting nominated for, and winning, an Oscar in 2003, for The Fog of War, about the life and times of Robert McNamara, Richard Nixon's Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War era. The Fog of War would also be added to the National Film Registry in 2019. Morris would become only the third documentarian, after D.A. Pennebaker and Les Blank, to have two films on the Registry.   In 1973, the senseless killings of five members of the Alday family in Donalsonville GA made international headlines. Four years later, Canadian documentarian Tex Fuller made an award-winning documentary about the case, called Murder One. For years, Fuller shopped around a screenplay telling the same story, but it would take nearly a decade for it to finally be sold, in part because Fuller was insistent that he also be the director. A small Canadian production company would fund the $1m CAD production, which would star Henry Thomas of E.T. fame as the fifteen year old narrator of the story, Billy Isaacs.   The shoot began in early October 1987 outside Toronto, but after a week of shooting, Fuller was fired, and was replaced by Graeme Campbell, a young and energetic filmmaker for whom Murder One would be his fourth movie directing gig of the year. Details are sketchy as to why Fuller was fired, but Thomas and his mother Carolyn would voice concerns with the producers about the new direction the film was taking under its new director.   The film would premiere in Canada in May 1988. When the film did well up North, Miramax took notice and purchased the American distribution rights.   Murder One would first open in America on two screens in Los Angeles on September 9th, 1988. Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times noted that while the film itself wasn't very good, that it still sprung from the disturbing insight about the crazy reasons people cross of what should be impassable moral lines.   “No movie studio could have invented it!,” screamed the tagline on the poster and newspaper key art. “No writer could have imagined it! Because what happened that night became the most controversial in American history.”   That would draw limited interest from filmgoers in Tinseltown. The two theatres would gross a combined $7k in its first three days. Not great but far better than several other recent Miramax releases in the area.   Two weeks later, on September 23rd, Miramax would book Murder One into 20 theatres in the New York City metro region, as well as in Akron, Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianpolis, Nashville, and Tampa-St. Petersburg. In New York, the film would actually get some good reviews from the Times and the Post as well as Peter Travers of People Magazine, but once again, Miramax would not report grosses for the film. Variety would note the combined gross for the film in New York City was only $25k.   In early October, the film would fall out of Variety's internal list of the 50 Top Grossing Films within the twenty markets they regularly tracked, with a final gross of just $87k. One market that Miramax deliberately did not book the film was anywhere near southwest Georgia, where the murders took place. The closest theatre that did play the film was more than 200 miles away.   Miramax would finish 1988 with two releases.   The first was Dakota, which would mark star Lou Diamond Phillips first time as a producer. He would star as a troubled teenager who takes a job on a Texas horse ranch to help pay of his debts, who becomes a sorta big brother to the ranch owner's young son, who has recently lost a leg to cancer, as he also falls for the rancher's daughter.   When the $1.1m budgeted film began production in Texas in June 1987, Phillips had already made La Bamba and Stand and Deliver, but neither had yet to be released into theatres. By the time filming ended five weeks later, La Bamba had just opened, and Phillips was on his way to becoming a star.   The main producers wanted director Fred Holmes to get the film through post-production as quickly as possible, to get it into theatres in the early part of 1988 to capitalize on the newfound success of their young star.    But that wouldn't happen.   Holmes wouldn't have the film ready until the end of February 1988, which was deemed acceptable because of the impending release of Stand and Deliver. In fact, the producers would schedule their first distributor screening of the film on March 14th, the Monday after Stand and Delivered opened, in the hopes that good box office for the film and good notices for Phillips would translate to higher distributor interest in their film, which sorta worked. None of the major studios would show for the screening, but a number of Indies would, including Miramax. Phillips would not attend the screening, as he was on location in New Mexico shooting Young Guns.   I can't find any reason why Miramax waited nearly nine months after they acquired Dakota to get it into theatres. It certainly wasn't Oscar bait, and screen availability would be scarce during the busy holiday movie season, which would see a number of popular, high profile releases like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Ernest Saves Christmas, The Naked Gun, Rain Man, Scrooged, Tequila Sunrise, Twins and Working Girl. Which might explain why, when Miramax released the film into 18 theatres in the New York City area on December 2nd, they could only get three screens in all of Manhattan, the best being the nice but hardly first-rate Embassy 4 at Broadway and 47th. Or of the 22 screens in Los Angeles opening the film the same day, the best would be the tiny Westwood 4 next to UCLA or the Paramount in Hollywood, whose best days were back in the Eisenhower administration.   And, yet again, Miramax did not report grosses, and none of the theatres playing the film was tracked by Variety that week. The film would be gone after just one week. The Paramount, which would open Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on the 14th, opted to instead play a double feature of Clara's Heart, with Whoopi Goldberg and Neil Patrick Harris, and the River Phoenix drama Running on Empty, even though neither film had been much of a hit.   Miramax's last film of the year would be the one that changed everything for them.   Pelle the Conquerer.   Adapted from a 1910 Danish book and directed by Billie August, whose previous film Twist and Shout had been released by Miramax in 1986, Pelle the Conquerer would be the first Danish or Swedish movie to star Max von Sydow in almost 15 years, having spent most of the 70s and 80s in Hollywood and London starring in a number of major movies including The Exorcist, Three Days of the Condor, Flash Gordon,Conan the Barbarian, Never Say Never Again, and David Lynch's Dune. But because von Sydow would be making his return to his native cinema, August was able to secure $4.5m to make the film, one of the highest budgeted Scandinavian films to be made to date.   In the late 1850s, an elderly emigrant Lasse and his son Pelle leave their home in Sweden after the death of the boy's mother, wanting to build a new life on the Danish island of Bornholm. Lasse finds it difficult to find work, given his age and his son's youth. The pair are forced to work at a large farm, where they are generally mistreated by the managers for being foreigners. The father falls into depression and alcoholism, the young boy befriends one of the bastard children of the farm owner as well as another Swedish farm worker, who dreams of conquering the world.   For the title character of Pelle, Billie August saw more than 3,000 Swedish boys before deciding to cast 11 year old Pelle Hvenegaard, who, like many boys in Sweden, had been named for the character he was now going to play on screen.   After six months of filming in the summer and fall of 1986, Billie August would finish editing Pelle the Conquerer in time for it to make its intended Christmas Day 1987 release date in Denmark and Sweden, where the film would be one of the biggest releases in either country for the entire decade. It would make its debut outside Scandinavia at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1988, where it had been invited to compete for the Palme D'Or. It would compete against a number of talented filmmakers who had come with some of the best films they would ever make, including Clint Eastwood with Bird, Claire Denis' Chocolat, István Szabó's Hanussen, Vincent Ward's The Navigator, and A Short Film About Killing, an expanded movie version of the fifth episode in Krzysztof Kieślowski's masterful miniseries Dekalog. Pelle would conquer them all, taking home the top prize from one of cinema's most revered film festivals.   Reviews for the film out of Cannes were almost universally excellent. Vincent Canby, the lead film critic for the New York Times for nearly twenty years by this point, wouldn't file his review until the end of the festival, in which he pointed out that a number of people at the festival were scandalized von Sydow had not also won the award for Best Actor.   Having previously worked with the company on his previous film's American release, August felt that Miramax would have what it took to make the film a success in the States.   Their first moves would be to schedule the film for a late December release, while securing a slot at that September's New York Film Festival. And once again, the critical consensus was highly positive, with only a small sampling of distractors.   The film would open first on two screens at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, December 21st, following by exclusive engagements in nine other cities including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC, on the 23rd. But the opening week numbers weren't very good, just $46k from ten screens. And you can't really blame the film's two hour and forty-five minute running time. Little Dorrit, the two-part, four hour adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, had been out nine weeks at this point and was still making nearly 50% more per screen.   But after the new year, when more and more awards were hurled the film's way, including the National Board of Review naming it one of the best foreign films of the year and the Golden Globes awarding it their Best Foreign Language trophy, ticket sales would pick up.   Well, for a foreign film.   The week after the Motion Picture Academy awarded Pelle their award for Best Foreign Language Film, business for the film would pick up 35%, and a third of its $2m American gross would come after that win.   One of the things that surprised me while doing the research for this episode was learning that Max von Sydow had never been nominated for an Oscar until he was nominated for Best Actor for Pelle the Conquerer. You look at his credits over the years, and it's just mind blowing. The Seventh Seal. Wild Strawberries. The Virgin Spring. The Greatest Story Ever Told. The Emigrants. The Exorcist. The Three Days of the Condor. Surely there was one performance amongst those that deserved recognition.   I hate to keep going back to A24, but there's something about a company's first Oscar win that sends that company into the next level. A24 didn't really become A24 until 2016, when three of their movies won Oscars, including Brie Larson for Best Actress in Room. And Miramax didn't really become the Miramax we knew and once loved until its win for Pelle.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 117, the fifth and final part of our miniseries on Miramax Films, is released.     Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

We continue our miniseries on the 1980s movies distributed by Miramax Films, with a look at the films released in 1988. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we finally continue with the next part of our look back at the 1980s movies distributed by Miramax Films, specifically looking at 1988.   But before we get there, I must issue another mea culpa. In our episode on the 1987 movies from Miramax, I mentioned that a Kiefer Sutherland movie called Crazy Moon never played in another theatre after its disastrous one week Oscar qualifying run in Los Angeles in December 1987.   I was wrong.   While doing research on this episode, I found one New York City playdate for the film, in early February 1988. It grossed a very dismal $3200 at the 545 seat Festival Theatre during its first weekend, and would be gone after seven days.   Sorry for the misinformation.   1988 would be a watershed year for the company, as one of the movies they acquired for distribution would change the course of documentary filmmaking as we knew it, and another would give a much beloved actor his first Academy Award nomination while giving the company its first Oscar win.   But before we get to those two movies, there's a whole bunch of others to talk about first.   Of the twelve movies Miramax would release in 1988, only four were from America. The rest would be a from a mixture of mostly Anglo-Saxon countries like the UK, Canada, France and Sweden, although there would be one Spanish film in there.   Their first release of the new year, Le Grand Chemin, told the story of a timid nine-year-old boy from Paris who spends one summer vacation in a small town in Brittany. His mother has lodged the boy with her friend and her friend's husband while Mom has another baby. The boy makes friends with a slightly older girl next door, and learns about life from her.   Richard Bohringer, who plays the friend's husband, and Anémone, who plays the pregnant mother, both won Cesars, the French equivalent to the Oscars, in their respective lead categories, and the film would be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1987 by the National Board of Review. Miramax, who had picked up the film at Cannes several months earlier, waited until January 22nd, 1988, to release it in America, first at the Paris Theatre in midtown Manhattan, where it would gross a very impressive $41k in its first three days. In its second week, it would drop less than 25% of its opening weekend audience, bringing in another $31k. But shortly after that, the expected Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film did not come, and business on the film slowed to a trickle. But it kept chugging on, and by the time the film finished its run in early June, it had grossed $541k.   A week later, on January 29th, Miramax would open another French film, Light Years. An animated science fiction film written and directed by René Laloux, best known for directing the 1973 animated head trip film Fantastic Planet, Light Years was the story of an evil force from a thousand years in the future who begins to destroy an idyllic paradise where the citizens are in perfect harmony with nature.   In its first three days at two screens in Los Angeles and five screens in the San Francisco Bay Area, Light Years would gross a decent $48,665. Miramax would print a self-congratulating ad in that week's Variety touting the film's success, and thanking Isaac Asimov, who helped to write the English translation, and many of the actors who lent their vocal talents to the new dub, including Glenn Close, Bridget Fonda, Jennifer Grey, Christopher Plummer, and Penn and Teller. Yes, Teller speaks. The ad was a message to both the theatre operators and the major players in the industry. Miramax was here. Get used to it.   But that ad may have been a bit premature.   While the film would do well in major markets during its initial week in theatres, audience interest would drop outside of its opening week in big cities, and be practically non-existent in college towns and other smaller cities. Its final box office total would be just over $370k.   March 18th saw the release of a truly unique film.    Imagine a film directed by Robert Altman and Bruce Beresford and Jean-Luc Godard and Derek Jarman and Franc Roddam and Nicolas Roeg and Ken Russell and Charles Sturridge and Julien Temple. Imagine a film that starred Beverly D'Angelo, Bridget Fonda in her first movie, Julie Hagerty, Buck Henry, Elizabeth Hurley and John Hurt and Theresa Russell and Tilda Swinton. Imagine a film that brought together ten of the most eclectic filmmakers in the world doing four to fourteen minute short films featuring the arias of some of the most famous and beloved operas ever written, often taken out of their original context and placed into strange new places. Like, for example, the aria for Verdi's Rigoletto set at the kitschy Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, where a movie producer is cheating on his wife while she is in a nearby room with a hunky man who is not her husband. Imagine that there's almost no dialogue in the film. Just the arias to set the moments.   That is Aria.   If you are unfamiliar with opera in general, and these arias specifically, that's not a problem. When I saw the film at the Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz in June 1988, I knew some Wagner, some Puccini, and some Verdi, through other movies that used the music as punctuation for a scene. I think the first time I had heard Nessun Dorma was in The Killing Fields. Vesti La Giubba in The Untouchables. But this would be the first time I would hear these arias as they were meant to be performed, even if they were out of context within their original stories. Certainly, Wagner didn't intend the aria from Tristan und Isolde to be used to highlight a suicide pact between a young couple killing themselves in a Las Vegas hotel bathroom.   Aria definitely split critics when it premiered at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, when it competed for the festival's main prize, the Palme D'Or. Roger Ebert would call it the first MTV opera and felt the filmmakers were poking fun at their own styles, while Leonard Maltin felt most of the endeavor was a waste of time. In the review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin would also make a reference to MTV but not in a positive way, and would note the two best parts of the film were the photo montage that is seen over the end credits, and the clever licensing of Chuck Jones's classic Bugs Bunny cartoon What's Opera, Doc, to play with the film, at least during its New York run. In the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper chose one of its music critics to review the film. They too would compare the film to MTV, but also to Fantasia, neither reference meant to be positive.   It's easy to see what might have attracted Harvey Weinstein to acquire the film.   Nudity.   And lots of it.   Including from a 21 year old Hurley, and a 22 year old Fonda.   Open at the 420 seat Ridgemont Theatre in Seattle on March 18th, 1988, Aria would gross a respectable $10,600. It would be the second highest grossing theatre in the city, only behind The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which grossed $16,600 in its fifth week at the 850 seat Cinerama Theatre, which was and still is the single best theatre in Seattle. It would continue to do well in Seattle, but it would not open until April 15th in Los Angeles and May 20th in New York City.   But despite some decent notices and the presence of some big name directors, Aria would stiff at the box office, grossing just $1.03m after seven months in theatres.   As we discussed on our previous episode, there was a Dennis Hopper movie called Riders on the Storm that supposedly opened in November 1987, but didn't. It did open in theatres in May of 1988, and now we're here to talk about it.   Riders on the Storm would open in eleven theatres in the New York City area on May 7th, including three theatres in Manhattan. Since Miramax did not screen the film for critics before release, never a good sign, the first reviews wouldn't show up until the following day, since the critics would actually have to go see the film with a regular audience. Vincent Canby's review for the New York Times would arrive first, and surprisingly, he didn't completely hate the film. But audiences didn't care. In its first weekend in New York City, Riders on the Storm would gross an anemic $25k. The following Friday, Miramax would open the film at two theatres in Baltimore, four theatres in Fort Worth TX (but surprisingly none in Dallas), one theatre in Los Angeles and one theatre in Springfield OH, while continuing on only one screen in New York. No reported grosses from Fort Worth, LA or Springfield, but the New York theatre reported ticket sales of $3k for the weekend, a 57% drop from its previous week, while the two in Baltimore combined for $5k.   There would be more single playdates for a few months. Tampa the same week as New York. Atlanta, Charlotte, Des Moines and Memphis in late May. Cincinnati in late June. Boston, Calgary, Ottawa and Philadelphia in early July. Greenville SC in late August. Evansville IL, Ithaca NY and San Francisco in early September. Chicago in late September. It just kept popping up in random places for months, always a one week playdate before heading off to the next location. And in all that time, Miramax never reported grosses. What little numbers we do have is from the theatres that Variety was tracking, and those numbers totaled up to less than $30k.   Another mostly lost and forgotten Miramax release from 1988 is Caribe, a Canadian production that shot in Belize about an amateur illegal arms trader to Central American terrorists who must go on the run after a deal goes down bad, because who wants to see a Canadian movie about an amateur illegal arms trader to Canadian terrorists who must go on the run in the Canadian tundra after a deal goes down bad?   Kara Glover would play Helen, the arms dealer, and John Savage as Jeff, a British intelligence agent who helps Helen.   Caribe would first open in Detroit on May 20th, 1988. Can you guess what I'm going to say next?   Yep.   No reported grosses, no theatres playing the film tracked by Variety.   The following week, Caribe opens in the San Francisco Bay Area, at the 300 seat United Artists Theatre in San Francisco, and three theatres in the South Bay. While Miramax once again did not report grosses, the combined gross for the four theatres, according to Variety, was a weak $3,700. Compare that to Aria, which was playing at the Opera Plaza Cinemas in its third week in San Francisco, in an auditorium 40% smaller than the United Artist, grossing $5,300 on its own.   On June 3rd, Caribe would open at the AMC Fountain Square 14 in Nashville. One show only on Friday and Saturday at 11:45pm. Miramax did not report grosses. Probably because people we going to see Willie Tyler and Lester at Zanie's down the street.   And again, it kept cycling around the country, one or two new playdates in each city it played in. Philadelphia in mid-June. Indianapolis in mid-July. Jersey City in late August. Always for one week, grosses never reported.   Miramax's first Swedish release of the year was called Mio, but this was truly an international production. The $4m film was co-produced by Swedish, Norwegian and Russian production companies, directed by a Russian, adapted from a Swedish book by an American screenwriter, scored by one of the members of ABBA, and starring actors from England, Finland, Norway, Russia, Sweden and the United States.   Mio tells the story of a boy from Stockholm who travels to an otherworldly fantasy realm and frees the land from an evil knight's oppression. What makes this movie memorable today is that Mio's best friend is played by none other than Christian Bale, in his very first film.   The movie was shot in Moscow, Stockholm, the Crimea, Scotland, and outside Pripyat in the Northern part of what is now Ukraine, between March and July 1986. In fact, the cast and crew were shooting outside Pripyat on April 26th, when they got the call they needed to evacuate the area. It would be hours later when they would discover there had been a reactor core meltdown at the nearby Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. They would have to scramble to shoot in other locations away from Ukraine for a month, and when they were finally allowed to return, the area they were shooting in deemed to have not been adversely affected by the worst nuclear power plant accident in human history,, Geiger counters would be placed all over the sets, and every meal served by craft services would need to be read to make sure it wasn't contaminated.   After premiering at the Moscow Film Festival in July 1987 and the Norwegian Film Festival in August, Mio would open in Sweden on October 16th, 1987. The local critics would tear the film apart. They hated that the filmmakers had Anglicized the movie with British actors like Christopher Lee, Susannah York, Christian Bale and Nicholas Pickard, an eleven year old boy also making his film debut. They also hated how the filmmakers adapted the novel by the legendary Astrid Lindgren, whose Pippi Longstocking novels made her and her works world famous. Overall, they hated pretty much everything about it outside of Christopher Lee's performance and the production's design in the fantasy world.   Miramax most likely picked it up trying to emulate the success of The Neverending Story, which had opened to great success in most of the world in 1984. So it might seem kinda odd that when they would open the now titled The Land of Faraway in theatres, they wouldn't go wide but instead open it on one screen in Atlanta GA on June 10th, 1988. And, once again, Miramax did not report grosses, and Variety did not track Atlanta theatres that week. Two weeks later, they would open the film in Miami. How many theatres? Can't tell you. Miramax did not report grosses, and Variety was not tracking any of the theatres in Miami playing the film. But hey, Bull Durham did pretty good in Miami that week.   The film would next open in theatres in Los Angeles. This time, Miramax bought a quarter page ad in the Los Angeles Times on opening day to let people know the film existed. So we know it was playing on 18 screens that weekend. And, once again, Miramax did not report grosses for the film. But on the two screens it played on that Variety was tracking, the combined gross was just $2,500.   There'd be other playdates. Kansas City and Minneapolis in mid-September. Vancouver, BC in early October. Palm Beach FL in mid October. Calgary AB and Fort Lauderdale in late October. Phoenix in mid November. And never once did Miramax report any grosses for it.   One week after Mio, Miramax would release a comedy called Going Undercover.   Now, if you listened to our March 2021 episode on Some Kind of Wonderful, you may remember be mentioning Lea Thompson taking the role of Amanda Jones in that film, a role she had turned down twice before, the week after Howard the Duck opened, because she was afraid she'd never get cast in a movie again. And while Some Kind of Wonderful wasn't as big a film as you'd expect from a John Hughes production, Thompson did indeed continue to work, and is still working to this day.   So if you were looking at a newspaper ad in several cities in June 1988 and saw her latest movie and wonder why she went back to making weird little movies.   She hadn't.   This was a movie she had made just before Back to the Future, in August and September 1984.   Originally titled Yellow Pages, the film starred film legend Jean Simmons as Maxine, a rich woman who has hired Chris Lemmon's private investigator Henry Brilliant to protect her stepdaughter Marigold during her trip to Copenhagen.   The director, James Clarke, had written the script specifically for Lemmon, tailoring his role to mimic various roles played by his famous father, Jack Lemmon, over the decades, and for Simmons. But Thompson was just one of a number of young actresses they looked at before making their casting choice.   Half of the $6m budget would come from a first-time British film producer, while the other half from a group of Danish investors wanting to lure more Hollywood productions to their area.   The shoot would be plagued by a number of problems. The shoot in Los Angeles coincided with the final days of the 1984 Summer Olympics, which would cut out using some of the best and most regularly used locations in the city, and a long-lasting heat wave that would make outdoor shoots unbearable for cast and crew. When they arrived in Copenhagen at the end of August, Denmark was going through an unusually heavy storm front that hung around for weeks.   Clarke would spend several months editing the film, longer than usual for a smaller production like this, but he in part was waiting to see how Back to the Future would do at the box office. If the film was a hit, and his leading actress was a major part of that, it could make it easier to sell his film to a distributor.   Or that was line of thinking.   Of course, Back to the Future was a hit, and Thompson received much praise for her comedic work on the film.   But that didn't make it any easier to sell his film.   The producer would set the first screenings for the film at the February 1986 American Film Market in Santa Monica, which caters not only to foreign distributors looking to acquire American movies for their markets, but helps independent filmmakers get their movies seen by American distributors.   As these screenings were for buyers by invitation only, there would be no reviews from the screenings, but one could guess that no one would hear about the film again until Miramax bought the American distribution rights to it in March 1988 tells us that maybe those screenings didn't go so well.   The film would get retitled Going Undercover, and would open in single screen playdates in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Dallas, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, St. Louis and Tampa on June 17th. And as I've said too many times already, no reported grosses from Miramax, and only one theatre playing the film was being tracked by Variety, with Going Undercover earning $3,000 during its one week at the Century City 14 in Los Angeles.   In the June 22nd, 1988 issue of Variety, there was an article about Miramax securing a $25m line of credit in order to start producing their own films. Going Undercover is mentioned in the article about being one of Miramax's releases, without noting it had just been released that week or how well it did or did not do.   The Thin Blue Line would be Miramax's first non-music based documentary, and one that would truly change how documentaries were made.   Errol Morris had already made two bizarre but entertaining documentaries in the late 70s and early 80s. Gates of Heaven was shot in 1977, about a man who operated a failing pet cemetery in Northern California's Napa Valley. When Morris told his famous German filmmaking supporter Werner Herzog about the film, Herzog vowed to eat one of the shoes he was wearing that day if Morris could actually complete the film and have it shown in a public theatre. In April 1979, just before the documentary had its world premiere at UC Theatre in Berkeley, where Morris had studied philosophy, Herzog would spend the morning at Chez Pannise, the creators of the California Cuisine cooking style, boiling his shoes for five hours in garlic, herbs and stock. This event itself would be commemorated in a documentary short called, naturally, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe, by Les Blank, which is a must watch on its own.   Because of the success of Gates of Heaven, Morris was able to quickly find financing for his next film, Nub City, which was originally supposed to be about the number of Vernon, Florida's citizens who have “accidentally” cut off their limbs, in order to collect the insurance money. But after several of those citizens threatened to kill Morris, and one of them tried to run down his cinematographer with their truck, Morris would rework the documentary, dropping the limb angle, no pun intended, and focus on the numerous eccentric people in the town. It would premiere at the 1981 New York Film Festival, and become a hit, for a documentary, when it was released in theatres in 1982.   But it would take Morris another six years after completing Vernon, Florida, to make another film. Part of it was having trouble lining up full funding to work on his next proposed movie, about James Grigson, a Texas forensic psychiatrist whose was nicknamed Doctor Death for being an expert witness for the prosecution in death penalty cases in Texas. Morris had gotten seed money for the documentary from PBS and the Endowment for Public Arts, but there was little else coming in while he worked on the film. In fact, Morris would get a PI license in New York and work cases for two years, using every penny he earned that wasn't going towards living expenses to keep the film afloat.   One of Morris's major problems for the film was that Grigson would not sit on camera for an interview, but would meet with Morris face to face to talk about the cases. During that meeting, the good doctor suggested to the filmmaker that he should research the killers he helped put away. And during that research, Morris would come across the case of one Randall Dale Adams, who was convicted of killing Dallas police officer Robert Wood in 1976, even though another man, David Harris, was the police's initial suspect. For two years, Morris would fly back and forth between New York City and Texas, talking to and filming interviews with Adams and more than two hundred other people connected to the shooting and the trial. Morris had become convinced Adams was indeed innocent, and dropped the idea about Dr. Grigson to solely focus on the Robert Wood murder.   After showing the producers of PBS's American Playhouse some of the footage he had put together of the new direction of the film, they kicked in more funds so that Morris could shoot some re-enactment sequences outside New York City, as well as commission composer Phillip Glass to create a score for the film once it was completed. Documentaries at that time did not regularly use re-enactments, but Morris felt it was important to show how different personal accounts of the same moment can be misinterpreted or misremembered or outright manipulated to suppress the truth.   After the film completed its post-production in March 1988, The Thin Blue Line would have its world premiere at the San Francisco Film Festival on March 18th, and word quickly spread Morris had something truly unique and special on his hands. The critic for Variety would note in the very first paragraph of his write up that the film employed “strikingly original formal devices to pull together diverse interviews, film clips, photo collages, and” and this is where it broke ground, “recreations of the crime from many points of view.”   Miramax would put together a full court press in order to get the rights to the film, which was announced during the opening days of the 1988 Cannes Film Festival in early May. An early hint on how the company was going to sell the film was by calling it a “non-fiction feature” instead of a documentary.   Miramax would send Morris out on a cross-country press tour in the weeks leading up to the film's August 26th opening date, but Morris, like many documentary filmmakers, was not used to being in the spotlight themselves, and was not as articulate about talking up his movies as the more seasoned directors and actors who've been on the promotion circuit for a while. After one interview, Harvey Weinstein would send Errol Morris a note.   “Heard your NPR interview and you were boring.”   Harvey would offer up several suggestions to help the filmmaker, including hyping the movie up as a real life mystery thriller rather than a documentary, and using shorter and clearer sentences when answering a question.   It was a clear gamble to release The Thin Blue Line in the final week of summer, and the film would need a lot of good will to stand out.   And it would get it.   The New York Times was so enthralled with the film, it would not only run a review from Janet Maslin, who would heap great praise on the film, but would also run a lengthy interview with Errol Morris right next to the review. The quarter page ad in the New York Times, several pages back, would tout positive quotes from Roger Ebert, J. Hoberman, who had left The Village Voice for the then-new Premiere Magazine, Peter Travers, writing for People Magazine instead of Rolling Stone, and critics from the San Francisco Chronicle and, interestingly enough, the Dallas Morning News. The top of the ad was tagged with an intriguing tease: solving this mystery is going to be murder, with a second tag line underneath the key art and title, which called the film “a new kind of movie mystery.” Of the 15 New York area-based film critics for local newspapers, television and national magazines, 14 of them gave favorable reviews, while 1, Stephen Schiff of Vanity Fair, was ambivalent about it. Not one critic gave it a bad review.   New York audiences were hooked.   Opening in the 240 seat main house at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, the movie grossed $30,945 its first three days. In its second weekend, the gross at the Lincoln Plaza would jump to $31k, and adding another $27,500 from its two theatre opening in Los Angeles and $15,800 from a single DC theatre that week. Third week in New York was a still good $21k, but the second week in Los Angeles fell to $10,500 and DC to $10k. And that's how it rolled out for several months, mostly single screen bookings in major cities not called Los Angeles or New York City, racking up some of the best reviews Miramax would receive to date, but never breaking out much outside the major cities. When it looked like Santa Cruz wasn't going to play the film, I drove to San Francisco to see it, just as my friends and I had for the opening day of Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ in mid-August. That's 75 miles each way, plus parking in San Francisco, just to see a movie. That's when you know you no longer just like movies but have developed a serious case of cinephilea. So when The Nickelodeon did open the film in late November, I did something I had never done with any documentary before.   I went and saw it again.   Second time around, I was still pissed off at the outrageous injustice heaped upon Randall Dale Adams for nothing more than being with and trusting the wrong person at the wrong time. But, thankfully, things would turn around for Adams in the coming weeks. On December 1st, it was reported that David Harris had recanted his testimony at Adams' trial, admitting he was alone when Officer Wood stopped his car. And on March 1st, 1989, after more than 15,000 people had signed the film's petition to revisit the decision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Adams's conviction “based largely” on facts presented in the film.   The film would also find itself in several more controversies.   Despite being named The Best Documentary of the Year by a number of critics groups, the Documentary Branch of the  Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences would not nominate the film, due in large part to the numerous reenactments presented throughout the film. Filmmaker Michael Apted, a member of the Directors Branch of the Academy, noted that the failure to acknowledge The Thin Blue Line was “one of the most outrageous things in the modern history of the Academy,” while Roger Ebert added the slight was “the worst non-nomination of the year.” Despite the lack of a nomination, Errol Morris would attend the Oscars ceremony in March 1989, as a protest for his film being snubbed.   Morris would also, several months after Adams' release, find himself being sued by Adams, but not because of how he was portrayed in the film. During the making of the film, Morris had Adams sign a contract giving Morris the exclusive right to tell Adams's story, and Adams wanted, essentially, the right to tell his own story now that he was a free man. Morris and Adams would settle out of court, and Adams would regain his life rights.   Once the movie was played out in theatres, it had grossed $1.2m, which on the surface sounds like not a whole lot of money. Adjusted for inflation, that would only be $3.08m. But even unadjusted for inflation, it's still one of the 100 highest grossing documentaries of the past forty years. And it is one of just a handful of documentaries to become a part of the National Film Registry, for being a culturally, historically or aesthetically significant film.”   Adams would live a quiet life after his release, working as an anti-death penalty advocate and marrying the sister of one of the death row inmates he was helping to exonerate. He would pass away from a brain tumor in October 2010 at a courthouse in Ohio not half an hour from where he was born and still lived, but he would so disappear from the spotlight after the movie was released that his passing wasn't even reported until June 2011.   Errol Morris would become one of the most celebrated documentarians of his generation, finally getting nominated for, and winning, an Oscar in 2003, for The Fog of War, about the life and times of Robert McNamara, Richard Nixon's Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War era. The Fog of War would also be added to the National Film Registry in 2019. Morris would become only the third documentarian, after D.A. Pennebaker and Les Blank, to have two films on the Registry.   In 1973, the senseless killings of five members of the Alday family in Donalsonville GA made international headlines. Four years later, Canadian documentarian Tex Fuller made an award-winning documentary about the case, called Murder One. For years, Fuller shopped around a screenplay telling the same story, but it would take nearly a decade for it to finally be sold, in part because Fuller was insistent that he also be the director. A small Canadian production company would fund the $1m CAD production, which would star Henry Thomas of E.T. fame as the fifteen year old narrator of the story, Billy Isaacs.   The shoot began in early October 1987 outside Toronto, but after a week of shooting, Fuller was fired, and was replaced by Graeme Campbell, a young and energetic filmmaker for whom Murder One would be his fourth movie directing gig of the year. Details are sketchy as to why Fuller was fired, but Thomas and his mother Carolyn would voice concerns with the producers about the new direction the film was taking under its new director.   The film would premiere in Canada in May 1988. When the film did well up North, Miramax took notice and purchased the American distribution rights.   Murder One would first open in America on two screens in Los Angeles on September 9th, 1988. Michael Wilmington of the Los Angeles Times noted that while the film itself wasn't very good, that it still sprung from the disturbing insight about the crazy reasons people cross of what should be impassable moral lines.   “No movie studio could have invented it!,” screamed the tagline on the poster and newspaper key art. “No writer could have imagined it! Because what happened that night became the most controversial in American history.”   That would draw limited interest from filmgoers in Tinseltown. The two theatres would gross a combined $7k in its first three days. Not great but far better than several other recent Miramax releases in the area.   Two weeks later, on September 23rd, Miramax would book Murder One into 20 theatres in the New York City metro region, as well as in Akron, Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianpolis, Nashville, and Tampa-St. Petersburg. In New York, the film would actually get some good reviews from the Times and the Post as well as Peter Travers of People Magazine, but once again, Miramax would not report grosses for the film. Variety would note the combined gross for the film in New York City was only $25k.   In early October, the film would fall out of Variety's internal list of the 50 Top Grossing Films within the twenty markets they regularly tracked, with a final gross of just $87k. One market that Miramax deliberately did not book the film was anywhere near southwest Georgia, where the murders took place. The closest theatre that did play the film was more than 200 miles away.   Miramax would finish 1988 with two releases.   The first was Dakota, which would mark star Lou Diamond Phillips first time as a producer. He would star as a troubled teenager who takes a job on a Texas horse ranch to help pay of his debts, who becomes a sorta big brother to the ranch owner's young son, who has recently lost a leg to cancer, as he also falls for the rancher's daughter.   When the $1.1m budgeted film began production in Texas in June 1987, Phillips had already made La Bamba and Stand and Deliver, but neither had yet to be released into theatres. By the time filming ended five weeks later, La Bamba had just opened, and Phillips was on his way to becoming a star.   The main producers wanted director Fred Holmes to get the film through post-production as quickly as possible, to get it into theatres in the early part of 1988 to capitalize on the newfound success of their young star.    But that wouldn't happen.   Holmes wouldn't have the film ready until the end of February 1988, which was deemed acceptable because of the impending release of Stand and Deliver. In fact, the producers would schedule their first distributor screening of the film on March 14th, the Monday after Stand and Delivered opened, in the hopes that good box office for the film and good notices for Phillips would translate to higher distributor interest in their film, which sorta worked. None of the major studios would show for the screening, but a number of Indies would, including Miramax. Phillips would not attend the screening, as he was on location in New Mexico shooting Young Guns.   I can't find any reason why Miramax waited nearly nine months after they acquired Dakota to get it into theatres. It certainly wasn't Oscar bait, and screen availability would be scarce during the busy holiday movie season, which would see a number of popular, high profile releases like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Ernest Saves Christmas, The Naked Gun, Rain Man, Scrooged, Tequila Sunrise, Twins and Working Girl. Which might explain why, when Miramax released the film into 18 theatres in the New York City area on December 2nd, they could only get three screens in all of Manhattan, the best being the nice but hardly first-rate Embassy 4 at Broadway and 47th. Or of the 22 screens in Los Angeles opening the film the same day, the best would be the tiny Westwood 4 next to UCLA or the Paramount in Hollywood, whose best days were back in the Eisenhower administration.   And, yet again, Miramax did not report grosses, and none of the theatres playing the film was tracked by Variety that week. The film would be gone after just one week. The Paramount, which would open Dirty Rotten Scoundrels on the 14th, opted to instead play a double feature of Clara's Heart, with Whoopi Goldberg and Neil Patrick Harris, and the River Phoenix drama Running on Empty, even though neither film had been much of a hit.   Miramax's last film of the year would be the one that changed everything for them.   Pelle the Conquerer.   Adapted from a 1910 Danish book and directed by Billie August, whose previous film Twist and Shout had been released by Miramax in 1986, Pelle the Conquerer would be the first Danish or Swedish movie to star Max von Sydow in almost 15 years, having spent most of the 70s and 80s in Hollywood and London starring in a number of major movies including The Exorcist, Three Days of the Condor, Flash Gordon,Conan the Barbarian, Never Say Never Again, and David Lynch's Dune. But because von Sydow would be making his return to his native cinema, August was able to secure $4.5m to make the film, one of the highest budgeted Scandinavian films to be made to date.   In the late 1850s, an elderly emigrant Lasse and his son Pelle leave their home in Sweden after the death of the boy's mother, wanting to build a new life on the Danish island of Bornholm. Lasse finds it difficult to find work, given his age and his son's youth. The pair are forced to work at a large farm, where they are generally mistreated by the managers for being foreigners. The father falls into depression and alcoholism, the young boy befriends one of the bastard children of the farm owner as well as another Swedish farm worker, who dreams of conquering the world.   For the title character of Pelle, Billie August saw more than 3,000 Swedish boys before deciding to cast 11 year old Pelle Hvenegaard, who, like many boys in Sweden, had been named for the character he was now going to play on screen.   After six months of filming in the summer and fall of 1986, Billie August would finish editing Pelle the Conquerer in time for it to make its intended Christmas Day 1987 release date in Denmark and Sweden, where the film would be one of the biggest releases in either country for the entire decade. It would make its debut outside Scandinavia at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1988, where it had been invited to compete for the Palme D'Or. It would compete against a number of talented filmmakers who had come with some of the best films they would ever make, including Clint Eastwood with Bird, Claire Denis' Chocolat, István Szabó's Hanussen, Vincent Ward's The Navigator, and A Short Film About Killing, an expanded movie version of the fifth episode in Krzysztof Kieślowski's masterful miniseries Dekalog. Pelle would conquer them all, taking home the top prize from one of cinema's most revered film festivals.   Reviews for the film out of Cannes were almost universally excellent. Vincent Canby, the lead film critic for the New York Times for nearly twenty years by this point, wouldn't file his review until the end of the festival, in which he pointed out that a number of people at the festival were scandalized von Sydow had not also won the award for Best Actor.   Having previously worked with the company on his previous film's American release, August felt that Miramax would have what it took to make the film a success in the States.   Their first moves would be to schedule the film for a late December release, while securing a slot at that September's New York Film Festival. And once again, the critical consensus was highly positive, with only a small sampling of distractors.   The film would open first on two screens at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, December 21st, following by exclusive engagements in nine other cities including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington DC, on the 23rd. But the opening week numbers weren't very good, just $46k from ten screens. And you can't really blame the film's two hour and forty-five minute running time. Little Dorrit, the two-part, four hour adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, had been out nine weeks at this point and was still making nearly 50% more per screen.   But after the new year, when more and more awards were hurled the film's way, including the National Board of Review naming it one of the best foreign films of the year and the Golden Globes awarding it their Best Foreign Language trophy, ticket sales would pick up.   Well, for a foreign film.   The week after the Motion Picture Academy awarded Pelle their award for Best Foreign Language Film, business for the film would pick up 35%, and a third of its $2m American gross would come after that win.   One of the things that surprised me while doing the research for this episode was learning that Max von Sydow had never been nominated for an Oscar until he was nominated for Best Actor for Pelle the Conquerer. You look at his credits over the years, and it's just mind blowing. The Seventh Seal. Wild Strawberries. The Virgin Spring. The Greatest Story Ever Told. The Emigrants. The Exorcist. The Three Days of the Condor. Surely there was one performance amongst those that deserved recognition.   I hate to keep going back to A24, but there's something about a company's first Oscar win that sends that company into the next level. A24 didn't really become A24 until 2016, when three of their movies won Oscars, including Brie Larson for Best Actress in Room. And Miramax didn't really become the Miramax we knew and once loved until its win for Pelle.   Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again soon, when Episode 117, the fifth and final part of our miniseries on Miramax Films, is released.     Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

Back to the list for one more movie as the guys discuss the wartime musical Oh! What a Lovely War starring a bevy of British stars covered many times on this show. They talk about the use of real wartime songs, the way in which the film covers some truly dark material with a fake veneer of joy, Attenborough's criticisms directed at the ruling class and much more.   Next week: OUR FINAL BRITISH LIST BECOMES SELF-AWARE. Questions? Comments? Suggestions? You can always shoot us an e-mail at forscreenandcountry@gmail.com   Full List: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/best-british-films/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forscreenandcountry Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/fsacpod Our logo was designed by the wonderful Mariah Lirette (https://instagram.com/its.mariah.xo) Oh! What a Lovely War stars Dirk Bogarde, John Gielgud, Jack Hawkins, Ian Holm, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, Michael Redgrave, Vanessa Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Maggie Smith, Susannah York and John Mills; directed by Richard Attenborough. Is It Streaming? USA: Hoopla and available to rent Canada: available to rent UK: available to rent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode, we talk about the great American filmmaker Robert Altman, and what is arguably the worst movie of his six decade, thirty-five film career: his 1987 atrocity O.C. and Stiggs. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we're going to talk about one of the strangest movies to come out of the decade, not only for its material, but for who directed it.   Robert Altman's O.C. and Stiggs.   As always, before we get to the O.C. and Stiggs, we will be going a little further back in time.   Although he is not every cineaste's cup of tea, it is generally acknowledged that Robert Altman was one of the best filmmakers to ever work in cinema. But he wasn't an immediate success when he broke into the industry.   Born in Kansas City in February 1925, Robert Altman would join the US Army Air Force after graduating high school, as many a young man would do in the days of World War II. He would train to be a pilot, and he would fly more than 50 missions during the war as part of the 307th Bomb Group, operating in the Pacific Theatre. They would help liberate prisoners of war held in Japanese POW Camps from Okinawa to Manila after the victory over Japan lead to the end of World War II in that part of the world.   After the war, Altman would move to Los Angeles to break into the movies, and he would even succeed in selling a screenplay to RKO Pictures called Bodyguard, a film noir story shot in 1948 starring Lawrence Tierney and Priscilla Lane, but on the final film, he would only share a “Story by” credit with his then-writing partner, George W. George. But by 1950, he'd be back in Kansas City, where he would direct more than 65 industrial films over the course of three years, before heading back to Los Angeles with the experience he would need to take another shot.   Altman would spend a few years directing episodes of a drama series called Pulse of the City on the DuMont television network and a syndicated police drama called The Sheriff of Cochise, but he wouldn't get his first feature directing gig until 1957, when a businessman in Kansas City would hire the thirty-two year old to write and direct a movie locally. That film, The Delinquents, cost only $60k to make, and would be purchased for release by United Artists for $150k. The first film to star future Billy Jack writer/director/star Tom Laughlin, The Delinquents would gross more than a million dollars in theatres, a very good sum back in those days, but despite the success of the film, the only work Altman could get outside of television was co-directing The James Dean Story, a documentary set up at Warner Brothers to capitalize on the interest in the actor after dying in a car accident two years earlier.   Throughout the 1960s, Altman would continue to work in television, until he was finally given another chance to direct a feature film. 1967's Countdown was a lower budgeted feature at Warner Brothers featuring James Caan in an early leading role, about the space race between the Americans and Soviets, a good two years before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. The shoot itself was easy, but Altman would be fired from the film shortly after filming was completed, as Jack Warner, the 75 year old head of the studio, was not very happy about the overlapping dialogue, a motif that would become a part of Altman's way of making movies. Although his name appears in the credits as the director of the film, he had no input in its assembly. His ambiguous ending was changed, and the film would be edited to be more family friendly than the director intended.   Altman would follow Countdown with 1969's That Cold Day in the Park, a psychological drama that would be both a critical and financial disappointment.   But his next film would change everything.   Before Altman was hired by Twentieth-Century Fox to direct MASH, more than a dozen major filmmakers would pass on the project. An adaptation of a little known novel by a Korean War veteran who worked as a surgeon at one of the Mobile Auxiliary Surgical Hospitals that give the story its acronymic title, MASH would literally fly under the radar from the executives at the studio, as most of the $3m film would be shot at the studio's ranch lot in Malibu, while the executives were more concerned about their bigger movies of the year in production, like their $12.5m biographical film on World War II general George S. Patton and their $25m World War II drama Tora! Tora! Tora!, one of the first movies to be a Japanese and American co-production since the end of the war.    Altman was going to make MASH his way, no matter what. When the studio refused to allow him to hire a fair amount of extras to populate the MASH camp, Altman would steal individual lines from other characters to give to background actors, in order to get the bustling atmosphere he wanted. In order to give the camp a properly dirty look, he would shoot most of the outdoor scenes with a zoom lens and a fog filter with the camera a reasonably far distance from the actors, so they could act to one another instead of the camera, giving the film a sort of documentary feel. And he would find flexibility when the moment called for it. Sally Kellerman, who was hired to play Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, would work with Altman to expand and improve her character to be more than just eye candy, in large part because Altman liked what she was doing in her scenes.   This kind of flexibility infuriated the two major stars of the film, Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland, who at one point during the shoot tried to get Altman fired for treating everyone in the cast and crew with the same level of respect and decorum regardless of their position. But unlike at Warners a couple years earlier, the success of movies like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider bamboozled Hollywood studio executives, who did not understand exactly what the new generation of filmgoers wanted, and would often give filmmakers more leeway than before, in the hopes that lightning could be captured once again.   And Altman would give them exactly that.   MASH, which would also be the first major studio film to be released with The F Word spoken on screen, would not only become a critical hit, but become the third highest grossing movie released in 1970, grossing more than $80m. The movie would win the Palme D'Or at that year's Cannes Film Festival, and it would be nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actress for Ms. Kellerman, winning only for Best Adapted Screenplay. An ironic win, since most of the dialogue was improvised on set, but the victory for screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. would effectively destroy the once powerful Hollywood Blacklist that had been in place since the Red Scare of the 1950s.   After MASH, Altman went on one of the greatest runs any filmmaker would ever enjoy.   MASH would be released in January 1970, and Altman's follow up, Brewster McCloud, would be released in December 1970. Bud Cort, the future star of Harold and Maude, plays a recluse who lives in the fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome, who is building a pair of wings in order to achieve his dream of flying. The film would feature a number of actors who already were featured in MASH and would continue to be featured in a number of future Altman movies, including Sally Kellerman, Michael Murphy, John Schuck and Bert Remson, but another reason to watch Brewster McCloud if you've never seen it is because it is the film debut of Shelley Duvall, one of our greatest and least appreciated actresses, who would go on to appear in six other Altman movies over the ensuing decade.   1971's McCabe and Mrs. Miller, for me, is his second best film. A Western starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, was a minor hit when it was first released but has seen a reevaluation over the years that found it to be named the 8th Best Western of all time by the American Film Institute, which frankly is too low for me. The film would also bring a little-known Canadian poet and musician to the world, Leonard Cohen, who wrote and performed three songs for the soundtrack. Yeah, you have Robert Altman to thank for Leonard Cohen.   1972's Images was another psychological horror film, this time co-written with English actress Susannah York, who also stars in the film as an author of children's books who starts to have wild hallucinations at her remote vacation home, after learning her husband might be cheating on her. The $800k film was one of the first to be produced by Hemdale Films, a British production company co-founded by Blow Up actor David Hemmings, but the film would be a critical and financial disappointment when it was released Christmas week. But it would get nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score. It would be one of two nominations in the category for John Williams, the other being The Poseidon Adventure.   Whatever resentment Elliott Gould may have had with Altman during the shooting of MASH was gone by late 1972, when the actor agreed to star in the director's new movie, a modern adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel The Long Goodbye. Gould would be the eighth actor to play the lead character, Phillip Marlowe, in a movie. The screenplay would be written by Leigh Brackett, who Star Wars nerds know as the first writer on The Empire Strikes Back but had also adapted Chandler's novel The Big Sleep, another Phillip Marlowe story, to the big screen back in 1946.   Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich had both been approached to make the film, and it would be Bogdanovich who would recommend Altman to the President of United Artists. The final film would anger Chandler fans, who did not like Altman's approach to the material, and the $1.7m film would gross less than $1m when it was released in March 1973. But like many of Altman's movies, it was a big hit with critics, and would find favor with film fans in the years to come.   1974 would be another year where Altman would make and release two movies in the same calendar year. The first, Thieves Like Us, was a crime drama most noted as one of the few movies to not have any kind of traditional musical score. What music there is in the film is usually heard off radios seen in individual scenes. Once again, we have a number of Altman regulars in the film, including Shelley Duvall, Bert Remsen, John Schuck and Tom Skerritt, and would feature Keith Carradine, who had a small co-starring role in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, in his first major leading role. And, once again, the film would be a hit with critics but a dud with audiences. Unlike most of Altman's movies of the 1970s, Thieves Like Us has not enjoyed the same kind of reappraisal.   The second film, California Split, was released in August, just six months after Thieves Like Us. Elliott Gould once again stars in a Robert Altman movie, this time alongside George Segal. They play a pair of gamblers who ride what they think is a lucky streak from Los Angeles to Reno, Nevada, would be the only time Gould and Segal would work closely together in a movie, and watching California Split, one wishes there could have been more. The movie would be an innovator seemingly purpose-build for a Robert Altman movie, for it would be the first non-Cinerama movie to be recorded using an eight track stereo sound system. More than any movie before, Altman could control how his overlapping dialogue was placed in a theatre. But while most theatres that played the movie would only play it in mono sound, the film would still be a minor success, bringing in more than $5m in ticket sales.   1975 would bring what many consider to be the quintessential Robert Altman movie to screens.   The two hour and forty minute Nashville would feature no less than 24 different major characters, as a group of people come to Music City to be involved in a gala concert for a political outsider who is running for President on the Replacement Party ticket. The cast is one of the best ever assembled for a movie ever, including Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Ronee Blakely, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Robert DoQui, Shelley Duvall, Allen Garfield, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Barbara Harris, Cristina Raines, Lily Tomlin and Keenan Wynn.   Altman would be nominated for two Academy Awards for the film, Best Picture, as its producer, and Best Director, while both Ronee Blakely and Lily Tomlin would be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Keith Carradine would also be nominated for an Oscar, but not as an actor. He would, at the urging of Altman during the production of the film, write and perform a song called I'm Easy, which would win for Best Original Song. The $2.2m film would earn $10m in ticket sales, and would eventually become part of the fourth class of movies to be selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1991, the first of four Robert Altman films to be given that honor. MASH, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and The Long Goodbye would also be selected for preservation over the years.   And we're going to stop here for a second and take a look at that list of films again.   MASH Brewster McCloud McCabe and Mrs. Miller Images The Long Goodbye Thieves Like Us California Split Nashville   Eight movies, made over a five year period, that between them earned twelve Academy Award nominations, four of which would be deemed so culturally important that they should be preserved for future generations.   And we're still only in the middle of the 1970s.   But the problem with a director like Robert Altman, like many of our greatest directors, their next film after one of their greatest successes feels like a major disappointment. And his 1976 film Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, and that is the complete title of the film by the way, did not meet the lofty expectations of film fans not only its director, but of its main stars. Altman would cast two legendary actors he had not yet worked with, Paul Newman and Burt Lancaster, and the combination of those two actors with this director should have been fantastic, but the results were merely okay. In fact,  Altman would, for the first time in his career, re-edit a film after its theatrical release, removing some of the Wild West show acts that he felt were maybe redundant.   His 1977 film 3 Women would bring Altman back to the limelight. The film was based on a dream he had one night while his wife was in the hospital. In the dream, he was directing his regular co-star Shelley Duvall alongside Sissy Spacek, who he had never worked with before, in a story about identity theft that took place in the deserts outside Los Angeles. He woke up in the middle of the dream, jotted down what he could remember, and went back to sleep. In the morning, he didn't have a full movie planned out, but enough of one to get Alan Ladd, Jr., the President of Twentieth-Century Fox, to put up $1.7m for a not fully formed idea. That's how much Robert Altman was trusted at the time. That, and Altman was known for never going over budget. As long as he stayed within his budget, Ladd would let Altman make whatever movie he wanted to make. That, plus Ladd was more concerned about a $10m movie he approved that was going over budget over in England, a science fiction movie directed by the guy who did American Graffiti that had no stars outside of Sir Alec Guinness.   That movie, of course, was Star Wars, which would be released four weeks after 3 Women had its premiere in New York City. While the film didn't make 1/100th the money Star Wars made, it was one of the best reviewed movies of the year. But, strangely, the film would not be seen again outside of sporadic screenings on cable until it was released on DVD by the Criterion Collection 27 years later.   I'm not going to try and explain the movie to you. Just trust me that 3 Women is from a master craftsman at the top of his game.   While on the press tour to publicize 3 Women, a reporter asked Altman what was going to be next for him. He jokingly said he was going to shoot a wedding. But then he went home, thought about it some more, and in a few weeks, had a basic idea sketched out for a movie titled A Wedding that would take place over the course of one day, as the daughter of a Southern nouveau riche family marries the son of a wealthy Chicago businessman who may or may not a major figure in The Outfit.   And while the film is quite entertaining, what's most interesting about watching this 1978 movie in 2023 is not only how many great established actors Altman got for the film, including Carol Burnett, Paul Dooley, Howard Duff, Mia Farrow, Vittorio Gassman, Lauren Hutton, and, in her 100th movie, Lillian Gish, but the number of notable actors he was able to get because he shot the film just outside Chicago. Not only will you see Dennis Christopher just before his breakthrough in Breaking Away, and not only will you see Pam Dawber just before she was cast alongside Robin Williams in Mark and Mindy, but you'll also see Dennis Franz, Laurie Metcalfe, Gary Sinese, Tim Thomerson, and George Wendt.   And because Altman was able to keep the budget at a reasonable level, less than $1.75m, the film would be slightly profitable for Twentieth Century-Fox after grossing $3.6m at the box office.   Altman's next film for Fox, 1979's Quintet, would not be as fortunate.   Altman had come up with the story for this post-apocalyptic drama as a vehicle for Walter Hill to write and direct. But Hill would instead make The Warriors, and Altman decided to make the film himself. While developing the screenplay with his co-writers Frank Barhydt and Patricia Resnick, Altman would create a board game, complete with token pieces and a full set of rules, to flesh out the storyline.   Altman would once again work with Paul Newman, who stars as a seal hunter in the early days of a new ice age who finds himself in elaborate game with a group of gamblers where losing in the game means losing your life in the process. Altman would deliberately hire an international cast to star alongside Newman, not only to help improve the film's ability to do well in foreign territories but to not have the storyline tied to any specific country. So we would have Italian actor Vittorio Gassman, Spaniard Fernando Rey, Swedish actress Bibi Andersson, French actress Brigitte Fossey, and Danish actress Nina van Pallandt.    In order to maintain the mystery of the movie, Altman would ask Fox to withhold all pre-release publicity for the film, in order to avoid any conditioning of the audience. Imagine trying to put together a compelling trailer for a movie featuring one of the most beloved actors of all time, but you're not allowed to show potential audiences what they're getting themselves into? Altman would let the studio use five shots from the film, totaling about seven seconds, for the trailer, which mostly comprised of slo-mo shots of a pair of dice bouncing around, while the names of the stars pop up from moment to moment and a narrator tries to create some sense of mystery on the soundtrack.   But audiences would not be intrigued by the mystery, and critics would tear the $6.4m budget film apart. To be fair, the shoot for the film, in the winter of 1977 outside Montreal was a tough time for all, and Altman would lose final cut on the film for going severely over-budget during production, although there seems to be very little documentation about how much the final film might have differed from what Altman would have been working on had he been able to complete the film his way.   But despite all the problems with Quintet, Fox would still back Altman's next movie, A Perfect Couple, which would be shot after Fox pulled Altman off Quintet. Can you imagine that happening today? A director working with the studio that just pulled them off their project. But that's how little ego Altman had. He just wanted to make movies. Tell stories. This simple romantic comedy starred his regular collaborator Paul Dooley as  Alex, a man who follows a band of traveling bohemian musicians because he's falling for one of the singers in the band.   Altman kept the film on its $1.9m budget, but the response from critics was mostly concern that Altman had lost his touch. Maybe it was because this was his 13th film of the decade, but there was a serious concern about the director's ability to tell a story had evaporated.   That worry would continue with his next film, Health.   A satire of the political scene in the United States at the end of the 1970s, Health would follow a health food organization holding a convention at a luxury hotel in St. Petersburg FL. As one would expect from a Robert Altman movie, there's one hell of a cast. Along with Henry Gibson, and Paul Dooley, who co-write the script with Altman and Frank Barhydt, the cast would include Lauren Bacall, Carol Burnett, James Garner and, in one of her earliest screen appearances, Alfre Woodard, as well as Dick Cavett and Dinah Shore as themselves.   But between the shooting of the film in the late winter and early spring of 1979 and the planned Christmas 1979 release, there was a change of management at Fox. Alan Ladd Jr. was out, and after Altman turned in his final cut, new studio head Norman Levy decided to pull the film off the 1979 release calendar. Altman fought to get the film released sometime during the 1980 Presidential Campaign, and was able to get Levy to give the film a platform release starting in Los Angeles and New York City in March 1980, but that date would get cancelled as well. Levy then suggested an April 1980 test run in St. Louis, which Altman was not happy with. Altman countered with test runs in Boston, Houston, Sacramento and San Francisco. The best Altman, who was in Malta shooting his next movie, could get were sneak previews of the film in those four markets, and the response cards from the audience were so bad, the studio decided to effectively put the film on the proverbial shelf.   Back from the Mediterranean Sea, Altman would get permission to take the film to the Montreal World Film Festival in August, and the Telluride and Venice Film Festivals in September. After good responses from film goers at those festivals, Fox would relent, and give the film a “preview” screening at the United Artists Theatre in Westwood, starting on September 12th, 1980. But the studio would give the film the most boring ad campaign possible, a very crude line drawing of an older woman's pearl bracelet-covered arm thrusted upward while holding a carrot. With no trailers in circulation at any theatre, and no television commercials on air, it would be little surprise the film didn't do a whole lot of business. You really had to know the film had been released. But its $14k opening weekend gross wasn't really all that bad. And it's second week gross of $10,500 with even less ad support was decent if unspectacular. But it would be good enough to get the film a four week playdate at the UA Westwood.   And then, nothing, until early March 1981, when a film society at Northwestern University in Evanston IL was able to screen a 16mm print for one show, while a theatre in Baltimore was able to show the film one time at the end of March. But then, nothing again for more than another year, when the film would finally get a belated official release at the Film Forum in New York City on April 7th, 1982. It would only play for a week, and as a non-profit, the Film Forum does not report film grosses, so we have no idea how well the film actually did. Since then, the movie showed once on CBS in August 1983, and has occasionally played on the Fox Movie Channel, but has never been released on VHS or DVD or Blu-Ray.   I mentioned a few moments ago that while he was dealing with all this drama concerning Health, Altman was in the Mediterranean filming a movie. I'm not going to go too much into that movie here, since I already have an episode for the future planned for it, suffice to say that a Robert Altman-directed live-action musical version of the Popeye the Sailor Man cartoon featuring songs by the incomparable Harry Nilsson should have been a smash hit, but it wasn't. It was profitable, to be certain, but not the hit everyone was expecting. We'll talk about the film in much more detail soon.   After the disappointing results for Popeye, Altman decided to stop working in Hollywood for a while and hit the Broadway stages, to direct a show called Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. While the show's run was not very long and the reviews not very good, Altman would fund a movie version himself, thanks in part to the sale of his production company, Lion's Gate, not to be confused with the current studio called Lionsgate, and would cast Karen Black, Cher and Sandy Dennis alongside newcomers Sudie Bond and Kathy Bates, as five female members of The Disciples of James Dean come together on the 20th anniversary of the actor's death to honor his life and times. As the first film released by a new independent distributor called Cinecom, I'll spend more time talking about this movie on our show about that distributor, also coming soon, suffice it to say that Altman was back. Critics were behind the film, and arthouse audiences loved it. This would be the first time Altman adapted a stage play to the screen, and it would set the tone for a number of his works throughout the rest of the decade.   Streamers was Altman's 17th film in thirteen years, and another adaptation of a stage play. One of several works by noted Broadway playwright David Rabe's time in the Army during the Vietnam War, the film followed four young soldiers waiting to be shipped to Vietnam who deal with racial tensions and their own intolerances when one soldier reveals he is gay. The film featured Matthew Modine as the Rabe stand-in, and features a rare dramatic role for comedy legend David Alan Grier. Many critics would note how much more intense the film version was compared to the stage version, as Altman's camera was able to effortlessly breeze around the set, and get up close and personal with the performers in ways that simply cannot happen on the stage. But in 1983, audiences were still not quite ready to deal with the trauma of Vietnam on film, and the film would be fairly ignored by audiences, grossing just $378k.   Which, finally, after half an hour, brings us to our featured movie.   O.C. and Stiggs.   Now, you might be asking yourself why I went into such detail about Robert Altman's career, most of it during the 1970s. Well, I wanted to establish what types of material Altman would chose for his projects, and just how different O.C. and Stiggs  was from any other project he had made to date.   O.C. and Stiggs began their lives in the July 1981 issue of National Lampoon, as written by two of the editors of the magazine, Ted Mann and Tod Carroll. The characters were fun-loving and occasionally destructive teenage pranksters, and their first appearance in the magazine would prove to be so popular with readers, the pair would appear a few more times until Matty Simmons, the publisher and owner of National Lampoon, gave over the entire October 1982 issue to Mann and Carroll for a story called “The Utterly Monstrous Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs.” It's easy to find PDFs of the issues online if you look for it.   So the issue becomes one of the biggest selling issues in the history of National Lampoon, and Matty Simmons has been building the National Lampoon brand name by sponsoring a series of movies, including Animal House, co-written by Lampoon writers Doug Kenney and Chris Miller, and the soon to be released movies Class Reunion, written by Lampoon writer John Hughes… yes, that John Hughes… and Movie Madness, written by five Lampoon writers including Tod Carroll. But for some reason, Simmons was not behind the idea of turning the utterly monstrous mind-roasting adventures of O.C. and Stiggs into a movie. He would, however, allow Mann and Carroll to shop the idea around Hollywood, and wished them the best of luck.   As luck would have it, Mann and Carroll would meet Peter Newman, who had worked as Altman's production executive on Jimmy Dean, and was looking to set up his first film as a producer. And while Newman might not have had the credits, he had the connections. The first person he would take the script to his Oscar-winning director Mike Nichols, whose credits by this time included Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?, The Graduate, Catch-22, and Carnal Knowledge. Surprisingly, Nichols was not just interested in making the movie, but really wanted to have Eddie Murphy, who was a breakout star on Saturday Night Live but was still a month away from becoming a movie star when 48 Hours was released, play one of the leading characters. But Murphy couldn't get out of his SNL commitments, and Nichols had too many other projects, both on Broadway and in movies, to be able to commit to the film.    A few weeks later, Newman and Altman both attended a party where they would catch up after several months. Newman started to tell Altman about this new project he was setting up, and to Newman's surprise, Altman, drawn to the characters' anti-establishment outlook, expressed interest in making it. And because Altman's name still commanded respect in Hollywood, several studios would start to show their interest in making the movie with them. MGM, who was enjoying a number of successes in 1982 thanks to movies like Shoot the Moon, Diner, Victor/Victoria, Rocky III, Poltergeist, Pink Floyd - The Wall, and My Favorite Year, made a preemptive bid on the film, hoping to beat Paramount Pictures to the deal. Unknown to Altman, what interested MGM was that Sylvester Stallone of all people went nuts for the script when he read it, and mentioned to his buddies at the studio that he might be interested in making it himself.   Despite hating studio executives for doing stuff like buying a script he's attached to  then kicking him off so some Italian Stallion not known for comedy could make it himself, Altman agree to make the movie with MGM once Stallone lost interest, as the studio promised there would be no further notes about the script, that Altman could have final cut on the film, that he could shoot the film in Phoenix without studio interference, and that he could have a budget of $7m.   Since this was a Robert Altman film, the cast would be big and eclectic, filled with a number of his regular cast members, known actors who he had never worked with before, and newcomers who would go on to have success a few years down the road. Because, seriously, outside of a Robert Altman movie, where are you going to find a cast that included Jon Cryer, Jane Curtin, Paul Dooley, Dennis Hopper, Tina Louise, Martin Mull, Cynthia Nixon, Bob Uecker, Melvin van Peebles, and King Sunny Adé and His African Beats? And then imagine that movie also featuring Matthew Broderick, Jim Carrey, Robert Downey, Jr. and Laura Dern?   The story for the film would both follow the stories that appeared in the pages of National Lampoon fairly closely while also making some major changes. In the film, Oliver Cromwell “O.C.” Oglivie and Mark Stiggs are two ne'er-do-well, middle-class Phoenix, Arizona high school students who are disgusted with what they see as an omnipresent culture of vulgar and vapid suburban consumerism. They spend their days slacking off and committing pranks or outright crimes against their sworn enemies, the Schwab family, especially family head Randall Schwab, a wealthy insurance salesman who was responsible for the involuntary commitment of O.C.'s grandfather into a group home. During the film, O.C. and Stiggs will ruin the wedding of Randall Schwab's daughter Lenore, raft their way down to a Mexican fiesta, ruin a horrible dinner theatre performance directed by their high school's drama teacher being attended by the Schwabs, and turn the Schwab mansion into a homeless shelter while the family is on vacation. The film ends with O.C. and Stiggs getting into a gun fight with Randall Schwab before being rescued by Dennis Hopper and a helicopter, before discovering one of their adventures that summer has made them very wealthy themselves.   The film would begin production in Phoenix on August 22nd, 1983, with two newcomers, Daniel H. Jenkins and Neill Barry, as the titular stars of the film. And almost immediately, Altman's chaotic ways of making a movie would become a problem. Altman would make sure the entire cast and crew were all staying at the same hotel in town, across the street from a greyhound racetrack, so Altman could take off to bet on a few of the races during production downtime, and made sure the bar at the hotel was an open bar for his team while they were shooting. When shooting was done every day, the director and his cast would head to a makeshift screening room at the hotel, where they'd watch the previous day's footage, a process called “dailies” in production parlance. On most films, dailies are only attended by the director and his immediate production crew, but in Phoenix, everyone was encouraged to attend. And according to producer Peter Newman and Dan Jenkins, everyone loved the footage, although both would note that it might have been a combination of the alcohol, the pot, the cocaine and the dehydration caused by shooting all day in the excessive Arizona heat during the middle of summer that helped people enjoy the footage.    But here's the funny thing about dailies.   Unless a film is being shot in sequence, you're only seeing small fragments of scenes, often the same actors doing the same things over and over again, before the camera switches places to catch reactions or have other characters continue the scene. Sometimes, they're long takes of scenes that might be interrupted by an actor flubbing a line or an unexpected camera jitter or some other interruption that requires a restart. But everyone seemed to be having fun, especially when dailies ended and Altman would show one of his other movies like MASH or The Long Goodbye or 3 Women.   After two months of shooting, the film would wrap production, and Altman would get to work on his edit of the film. He would have it done before the end of 1983, and he would turn it in to the studio. Shortly after the new year, there would be a private screening of the film in New York City at the offices of the talent agency William Morris, one of the larger private screening rooms in the city. Altman was there, the New York-based executives at MGM were there, Peter Newman was there, several of the actors were there. And within five minutes of the start of the film, Altman realized what he was watching was not his cut of the film. As he was about to lose his stuff and start yelling at the studio executives, the projector broke. The lights would go up, and Altman would dig into the the executives. “This is your effing cut of the film and not mine!” Altman stormed out of the screening and into the cold New York winter night.   A few weeks later, that same print from New York would be screened for the big executives at the MGM lot in Los Angeles. Newman was there, and, surprisingly, Altman was there too. The film would screen for the entire running length, and Altman would sit there, watching someone else's version of the footage he had shot, scenes put in different places than they were supposed to be, music cues not of his design or consent.   At the end of the screening, the room was silent. Not one person in the room had laughed once during the entire screening. Newman and Altman left after the screening, and hit one of Altman's favorite local watering holes. As they said their goodbyes the next morning, Altman apologized to Newman. “I hope I didn't eff up your movie.”   Maybe the movie wasn't completely effed up, but MGM certainly neither knew what to do with the film or how to sell it, so it would just sit there, just like Health a few years earlier, on that proverbial shelf.   More than a year later, in an issue of Spin Magazine, a review of the latest album by King Sunny Adé would mention the film he performed in, O.C. and Stiggs, would, quote unquote, “finally” be released into theatres later that year.   That didn't happen, in large part because after WarGames in the early summer of 1983, almost every MGM release had been  either an outright bomb or an unexpected financial disappointment. The cash flow problem was so bad that the studio effectively had to sell itself to Atlanta cable mogul Ted Turner in order to save itself. Turner didn't actually want all of MGM. He only wanted the valuable MGM film library, but the owner of MGM at the time was either going to sell it all or nothing at all.   Barely two months after Ted Turner bought MGM, he had sold the famed studio lot in Culver City to Lorimar, a television production company that was looking to become a producer and distributor of motion pictures, and sold rest of the company he never wanted in the first place to the guy he bought it all from, who had a kind of seller's remorse. But that repurchase would saddle the company with massive bills, and movies like O.C. and Stiggs would have to sit and collect dust while everything was sorted out.   How long would O.C. and Stiggs be left in a void?   It would be so long that Robert Altman would have time to make not one, not two, but three other movies that would all be released before O.C. and Stiggs ever saw the light of day.   The first, Secret Honor, released in 1984, featured the great Philip Baker Hall as former President Richard Nixon. It's probably Hall's single best work as an actor, and the film would be amongst the best reviewed films of Altman's career.   In 1985, Altman would film Fool For Love, an adaptation of a play by Sam Shepard. This would be the only time in Shepard's film career where he would star as one of the characters himself had written. The film would also prove once and for all that Kim Basinger was more than just a pretty face but a real actor.   And in February 1987, Altman's film version of Beyond Therapy, a play by absurdist playwright Christopher Durant, would open in theatres. The all-star cast would include Tom Conti, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Guest, Julie Hagerty and Glenda Jackson.   On March 5th, 1987, an article in Daily Variety would note that the “long shelved” film would have a limited theatrical release in May, despite the fact that Frank Yablans, the vice chairman of MGM, being quoted in the article that the film was unreleasable. It would further be noted that despite the film being available to international distributors for three years, not one company was willing to acquire the film for any market. The plan was to release the movie for one or two weeks in three major US markets, depending on its popularity, and then decide a future course of action from there.   But May would come and go, without a hint of the film.   Finally, on Friday, July 10th, the film would open on 18 screens, but none in any major market like Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City. I can't find a single theatre the film played in that weekend, but that week's box office figures would show an abysmal $6,273 worth of tickets were sold during that first weekend.   There would not be a second weekend of reported grosses.   But to MGM's credit, they didn't totally give up on the film.   On Thursday, August 27th, O.C. and Stiggs would open in at least one theatre. And, lucky for me, that theatre happened to be the Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz. But despite the fact that the new Robert Altman was opening in town, I could not get a single friend to see it with me. So on a Tuesday night at 8:40pm, I was the only person in all of the region to watch what I would soon discover was the worst Robert Altman movie of all time. Now, I should note that even a bad Robert Altman movie is better than many filmmakers' best movies, but O.C. and Stiggs would have ignobility of feeling very much like a Robert Altman movie, with its wandering camera and overlapping dialogue that weaves in and out of conversations while in progress and not quite over yet, yet not feeling anything like a Robert Altman movie at the same time. It didn't have that magical whimsy-ness that was the hallmark of his movies. The satire didn't have its normal bite. It had a number of Altman's regular troop of actors, but in smaller roles than they'd usually occupy, and not giving the performances one would expect of them in an Altman movie.   I don't know how well the film did at the Nick, suffice it to say the film was gone after a week.   But to MGM's credit, they still didn't give up on the film.   On October 9th, the film would open at the AMC Century City 14, one of a handful of movies that would open the newest multiplex in Los Angeles.   MGM did not report grosses, and the film was gone from the new multiplex after a week.   But to MGM's credit, they still didn't give up on the film.   The studio would give the film one more chance, opening it at the Film Forum in New York City on March 18th, 1988.   MGM did not report grosses, and the film was gone after a week. But whether that was because MGM didn't support the film with any kind of newspaper advertising in the largest market in America, or because the movie had been released on home video back in November, remains to be seen.   O.C. and Stiggs would never become anything resembling a cult film. It's been released on DVD, and if one was programming a Robert Altman retrospect at a local arthouse movie theatre, one could actually book a 35mm print of the film from the repertory cinema company Park Circus.   But don't feel bad for Altman, as he would return to cinemas with a vengeance in the 1990s, first with the 1990 biographical drama Vincent and Theo, featuring Tim Roth as the tortured genius 19th century painter that would put the actor on the map for good. Then, in 1992, he became a sensation again with his Hollywood satire The Player, featuring Tim Robbins as a murderous studio executive trying to keep the police off his trail while he navigates the pitfalls of the industry. Altman would receive his first Oscar nomination for Best Director since 1975 with The Player, his third overall, a feat he would repeat the following year with Short Cuts, based on a series of short stories by Raymond Carver. In fact, Altman would be nominated for an Academy Award seven times during his career, five times as a director and twice as a producer, although he would never win a competitive Oscar.   In March 2006, while editing his 35th film, a screen adaptation of the then-popular NPR series A Prairie Home Companion, the Academy would bestow an Honorary Oscar upon Altman. During his acceptance speech, Altman would wonder if perhaps the Academy acted prematurely in honoring him in this fashion. He revealed he had received a heart transplant in the mid-1990s, and felt that, even though he had turned 81 the month before, he could continue for another forty years.   Robert Altman would pass away from leukemia on November 20th, 2006, only eight months after receiving the biggest prize of his career.   Robert Altman had a style so unique onto himself, there's an adjective that exists to describe it. Altmanesque. Displaying traits typical of a film made by Robert Altman, typically highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective and often a subversive twist.   He truly was a one of a kind filmmaker, and there will likely never be anyone like him, no matter how hard Paul Thomas Anderson tries.     Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again in two weeks, when Episode 106, Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy, is released.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.  

On this episode, we talk about the great American filmmaker Robert Altman, and what is arguably the worst movie of his six decade, thirty-five film career: his 1987 atrocity O.C. and Stiggs. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   On this episode, we're going to talk about one of the strangest movies to come out of the decade, not only for its material, but for who directed it.   Robert Altman's O.C. and Stiggs.   As always, before we get to the O.C. and Stiggs, we will be going a little further back in time.   Although he is not every cineaste's cup of tea, it is generally acknowledged that Robert Altman was one of the best filmmakers to ever work in cinema. But he wasn't an immediate success when he broke into the industry.   Born in Kansas City in February 1925, Robert Altman would join the US Army Air Force after graduating high school, as many a young man would do in the days of World War II. He would train to be a pilot, and he would fly more than 50 missions during the war as part of the 307th Bomb Group, operating in the Pacific Theatre. They would help liberate prisoners of war held in Japanese POW Camps from Okinawa to Manila after the victory over Japan lead to the end of World War II in that part of the world.   After the war, Altman would move to Los Angeles to break into the movies, and he would even succeed in selling a screenplay to RKO Pictures called Bodyguard, a film noir story shot in 1948 starring Lawrence Tierney and Priscilla Lane, but on the final film, he would only share a “Story by” credit with his then-writing partner, George W. George. But by 1950, he'd be back in Kansas City, where he would direct more than 65 industrial films over the course of three years, before heading back to Los Angeles with the experience he would need to take another shot.   Altman would spend a few years directing episodes of a drama series called Pulse of the City on the DuMont television network and a syndicated police drama called The Sheriff of Cochise, but he wouldn't get his first feature directing gig until 1957, when a businessman in Kansas City would hire the thirty-two year old to write and direct a movie locally. That film, The Delinquents, cost only $60k to make, and would be purchased for release by United Artists for $150k. The first film to star future Billy Jack writer/director/star Tom Laughlin, The Delinquents would gross more than a million dollars in theatres, a very good sum back in those days, but despite the success of the film, the only work Altman could get outside of television was co-directing The James Dean Story, a documentary set up at Warner Brothers to capitalize on the interest in the actor after dying in a car accident two years earlier.   Throughout the 1960s, Altman would continue to work in television, until he was finally given another chance to direct a feature film. 1967's Countdown was a lower budgeted feature at Warner Brothers featuring James Caan in an early leading role, about the space race between the Americans and Soviets, a good two years before Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. The shoot itself was easy, but Altman would be fired from the film shortly after filming was completed, as Jack Warner, the 75 year old head of the studio, was not very happy about the overlapping dialogue, a motif that would become a part of Altman's way of making movies. Although his name appears in the credits as the director of the film, he had no input in its assembly. His ambiguous ending was changed, and the film would be edited to be more family friendly than the director intended.   Altman would follow Countdown with 1969's That Cold Day in the Park, a psychological drama that would be both a critical and financial disappointment.   But his next film would change everything.   Before Altman was hired by Twentieth-Century Fox to direct MASH, more than a dozen major filmmakers would pass on the project. An adaptation of a little known novel by a Korean War veteran who worked as a surgeon at one of the Mobile Auxiliary Surgical Hospitals that give the story its acronymic title, MASH would literally fly under the radar from the executives at the studio, as most of the $3m film would be shot at the studio's ranch lot in Malibu, while the executives were more concerned about their bigger movies of the year in production, like their $12.5m biographical film on World War II general George S. Patton and their $25m World War II drama Tora! Tora! Tora!, one of the first movies to be a Japanese and American co-production since the end of the war.    Altman was going to make MASH his way, no matter what. When the studio refused to allow him to hire a fair amount of extras to populate the MASH camp, Altman would steal individual lines from other characters to give to background actors, in order to get the bustling atmosphere he wanted. In order to give the camp a properly dirty look, he would shoot most of the outdoor scenes with a zoom lens and a fog filter with the camera a reasonably far distance from the actors, so they could act to one another instead of the camera, giving the film a sort of documentary feel. And he would find flexibility when the moment called for it. Sally Kellerman, who was hired to play Margaret “Hot Lips” Houlihan, would work with Altman to expand and improve her character to be more than just eye candy, in large part because Altman liked what she was doing in her scenes.   This kind of flexibility infuriated the two major stars of the film, Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland, who at one point during the shoot tried to get Altman fired for treating everyone in the cast and crew with the same level of respect and decorum regardless of their position. But unlike at Warners a couple years earlier, the success of movies like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider bamboozled Hollywood studio executives, who did not understand exactly what the new generation of filmgoers wanted, and would often give filmmakers more leeway than before, in the hopes that lightning could be captured once again.   And Altman would give them exactly that.   MASH, which would also be the first major studio film to be released with The F Word spoken on screen, would not only become a critical hit, but become the third highest grossing movie released in 1970, grossing more than $80m. The movie would win the Palme D'Or at that year's Cannes Film Festival, and it would be nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actress for Ms. Kellerman, winning only for Best Adapted Screenplay. An ironic win, since most of the dialogue was improvised on set, but the victory for screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. would effectively destroy the once powerful Hollywood Blacklist that had been in place since the Red Scare of the 1950s.   After MASH, Altman went on one of the greatest runs any filmmaker would ever enjoy.   MASH would be released in January 1970, and Altman's follow up, Brewster McCloud, would be released in December 1970. Bud Cort, the future star of Harold and Maude, plays a recluse who lives in the fallout shelter of the Houston Astrodome, who is building a pair of wings in order to achieve his dream of flying. The film would feature a number of actors who already were featured in MASH and would continue to be featured in a number of future Altman movies, including Sally Kellerman, Michael Murphy, John Schuck and Bert Remson, but another reason to watch Brewster McCloud if you've never seen it is because it is the film debut of Shelley Duvall, one of our greatest and least appreciated actresses, who would go on to appear in six other Altman movies over the ensuing decade.   1971's McCabe and Mrs. Miller, for me, is his second best film. A Western starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, was a minor hit when it was first released but has seen a reevaluation over the years that found it to be named the 8th Best Western of all time by the American Film Institute, which frankly is too low for me. The film would also bring a little-known Canadian poet and musician to the world, Leonard Cohen, who wrote and performed three songs for the soundtrack. Yeah, you have Robert Altman to thank for Leonard Cohen.   1972's Images was another psychological horror film, this time co-written with English actress Susannah York, who also stars in the film as an author of children's books who starts to have wild hallucinations at her remote vacation home, after learning her husband might be cheating on her. The $800k film was one of the first to be produced by Hemdale Films, a British production company co-founded by Blow Up actor David Hemmings, but the film would be a critical and financial disappointment when it was released Christmas week. But it would get nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score. It would be one of two nominations in the category for John Williams, the other being The Poseidon Adventure.   Whatever resentment Elliott Gould may have had with Altman during the shooting of MASH was gone by late 1972, when the actor agreed to star in the director's new movie, a modern adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel The Long Goodbye. Gould would be the eighth actor to play the lead character, Phillip Marlowe, in a movie. The screenplay would be written by Leigh Brackett, who Star Wars nerds know as the first writer on The Empire Strikes Back but had also adapted Chandler's novel The Big Sleep, another Phillip Marlowe story, to the big screen back in 1946.   Howard Hawks and Peter Bogdanovich had both been approached to make the film, and it would be Bogdanovich who would recommend Altman to the President of United Artists. The final film would anger Chandler fans, who did not like Altman's approach to the material, and the $1.7m film would gross less than $1m when it was released in March 1973. But like many of Altman's movies, it was a big hit with critics, and would find favor with film fans in the years to come.   1974 would be another year where Altman would make and release two movies in the same calendar year. The first, Thieves Like Us, was a crime drama most noted as one of the few movies to not have any kind of traditional musical score. What music there is in the film is usually heard off radios seen in individual scenes. Once again, we have a number of Altman regulars in the film, including Shelley Duvall, Bert Remsen, John Schuck and Tom Skerritt, and would feature Keith Carradine, who had a small co-starring role in McCabe and Mrs. Miller, in his first major leading role. And, once again, the film would be a hit with critics but a dud with audiences. Unlike most of Altman's movies of the 1970s, Thieves Like Us has not enjoyed the same kind of reappraisal.   The second film, California Split, was released in August, just six months after Thieves Like Us. Elliott Gould once again stars in a Robert Altman movie, this time alongside George Segal. They play a pair of gamblers who ride what they think is a lucky streak from Los Angeles to Reno, Nevada, would be the only time Gould and Segal would work closely together in a movie, and watching California Split, one wishes there could have been more. The movie would be an innovator seemingly purpose-build for a Robert Altman movie, for it would be the first non-Cinerama movie to be recorded using an eight track stereo sound system. More than any movie before, Altman could control how his overlapping dialogue was placed in a theatre. But while most theatres that played the movie would only play it in mono sound, the film would still be a minor success, bringing in more than $5m in ticket sales.   1975 would bring what many consider to be the quintessential Robert Altman movie to screens.   The two hour and forty minute Nashville would feature no less than 24 different major characters, as a group of people come to Music City to be involved in a gala concert for a political outsider who is running for President on the Replacement Party ticket. The cast is one of the best ever assembled for a movie ever, including Ned Beatty, Karen Black, Ronee Blakely, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Robert DoQui, Shelley Duvall, Allen Garfield, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Barbara Harris, Cristina Raines, Lily Tomlin and Keenan Wynn.   Altman would be nominated for two Academy Awards for the film, Best Picture, as its producer, and Best Director, while both Ronee Blakely and Lily Tomlin would be nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Keith Carradine would also be nominated for an Oscar, but not as an actor. He would, at the urging of Altman during the production of the film, write and perform a song called I'm Easy, which would win for Best Original Song. The $2.2m film would earn $10m in ticket sales, and would eventually become part of the fourth class of movies to be selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1991, the first of four Robert Altman films to be given that honor. MASH, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and The Long Goodbye would also be selected for preservation over the years.   And we're going to stop here for a second and take a look at that list of films again.   MASH Brewster McCloud McCabe and Mrs. Miller Images The Long Goodbye Thieves Like Us California Split Nashville   Eight movies, made over a five year period, that between them earned twelve Academy Award nominations, four of which would be deemed so culturally important that they should be preserved for future generations.   And we're still only in the middle of the 1970s.   But the problem with a director like Robert Altman, like many of our greatest directors, their next film after one of their greatest successes feels like a major disappointment. And his 1976 film Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, and that is the complete title of the film by the way, did not meet the lofty expectations of film fans not only its director, but of its main stars. Altman would cast two legendary actors he had not yet worked with, Paul Newman and Burt Lancaster, and the combination of those two actors with this director should have been fantastic, but the results were merely okay. In fact,  Altman would, for the first time in his career, re-edit a film after its theatrical release, removing some of the Wild West show acts that he felt were maybe redundant.   His 1977 film 3 Women would bring Altman back to the limelight. The film was based on a dream he had one night while his wife was in the hospital. In the dream, he was directing his regular co-star Shelley Duvall alongside Sissy Spacek, who he had never worked with before, in a story about identity theft that took place in the deserts outside Los Angeles. He woke up in the middle of the dream, jotted down what he could remember, and went back to sleep. In the morning, he didn't have a full movie planned out, but enough of one to get Alan Ladd, Jr., the President of Twentieth-Century Fox, to put up $1.7m for a not fully formed idea. That's how much Robert Altman was trusted at the time. That, and Altman was known for never going over budget. As long as he stayed within his budget, Ladd would let Altman make whatever movie he wanted to make. That, plus Ladd was more concerned about a $10m movie he approved that was going over budget over in England, a science fiction movie directed by the guy who did American Graffiti that had no stars outside of Sir Alec Guinness.   That movie, of course, was Star Wars, which would be released four weeks after 3 Women had its premiere in New York City. While the film didn't make 1/100th the money Star Wars made, it was one of the best reviewed movies of the year. But, strangely, the film would not be seen again outside of sporadic screenings on cable until it was released on DVD by the Criterion Collection 27 years later.   I'm not going to try and explain the movie to you. Just trust me that 3 Women is from a master craftsman at the top of his game.   While on the press tour to publicize 3 Women, a reporter asked Altman what was going to be next for him. He jokingly said he was going to shoot a wedding. But then he went home, thought about it some more, and in a few weeks, had a basic idea sketched out for a movie titled A Wedding that would take place over the course of one day, as the daughter of a Southern nouveau riche family marries the son of a wealthy Chicago businessman who may or may not a major figure in The Outfit.   And while the film is quite entertaining, what's most interesting about watching this 1978 movie in 2023 is not only how many great established actors Altman got for the film, including Carol Burnett, Paul Dooley, Howard Duff, Mia Farrow, Vittorio Gassman, Lauren Hutton, and, in her 100th movie, Lillian Gish, but the number of notable actors he was able to get because he shot the film just outside Chicago. Not only will you see Dennis Christopher just before his breakthrough in Breaking Away, and not only will you see Pam Dawber just before she was cast alongside Robin Williams in Mark and Mindy, but you'll also see Dennis Franz, Laurie Metcalfe, Gary Sinese, Tim Thomerson, and George Wendt.   And because Altman was able to keep the budget at a reasonable level, less than $1.75m, the film would be slightly profitable for Twentieth Century-Fox after grossing $3.6m at the box office.   Altman's next film for Fox, 1979's Quintet, would not be as fortunate.   Altman had come up with the story for this post-apocalyptic drama as a vehicle for Walter Hill to write and direct. But Hill would instead make The Warriors, and Altman decided to make the film himself. While developing the screenplay with his co-writers Frank Barhydt and Patricia Resnick, Altman would create a board game, complete with token pieces and a full set of rules, to flesh out the storyline.   Altman would once again work with Paul Newman, who stars as a seal hunter in the early days of a new ice age who finds himself in elaborate game with a group of gamblers where losing in the game means losing your life in the process. Altman would deliberately hire an international cast to star alongside Newman, not only to help improve the film's ability to do well in foreign territories but to not have the storyline tied to any specific country. So we would have Italian actor Vittorio Gassman, Spaniard Fernando Rey, Swedish actress Bibi Andersson, French actress Brigitte Fossey, and Danish actress Nina van Pallandt.    In order to maintain the mystery of the movie, Altman would ask Fox to withhold all pre-release publicity for the film, in order to avoid any conditioning of the audience. Imagine trying to put together a compelling trailer for a movie featuring one of the most beloved actors of all time, but you're not allowed to show potential audiences what they're getting themselves into? Altman would let the studio use five shots from the film, totaling about seven seconds, for the trailer, which mostly comprised of slo-mo shots of a pair of dice bouncing around, while the names of the stars pop up from moment to moment and a narrator tries to create some sense of mystery on the soundtrack.   But audiences would not be intrigued by the mystery, and critics would tear the $6.4m budget film apart. To be fair, the shoot for the film, in the winter of 1977 outside Montreal was a tough time for all, and Altman would lose final cut on the film for going severely over-budget during production, although there seems to be very little documentation about how much the final film might have differed from what Altman would have been working on had he been able to complete the film his way.   But despite all the problems with Quintet, Fox would still back Altman's next movie, A Perfect Couple, which would be shot after Fox pulled Altman off Quintet. Can you imagine that happening today? A director working with the studio that just pulled them off their project. But that's how little ego Altman had. He just wanted to make movies. Tell stories. This simple romantic comedy starred his regular collaborator Paul Dooley as  Alex, a man who follows a band of traveling bohemian musicians because he's falling for one of the singers in the band.   Altman kept the film on its $1.9m budget, but the response from critics was mostly concern that Altman had lost his touch. Maybe it was because this was his 13th film of the decade, but there was a serious concern about the director's ability to tell a story had evaporated.   That worry would continue with his next film, Health.   A satire of the political scene in the United States at the end of the 1970s, Health would follow a health food organization holding a convention at a luxury hotel in St. Petersburg FL. As one would expect from a Robert Altman movie, there's one hell of a cast. Along with Henry Gibson, and Paul Dooley, who co-write the script with Altman and Frank Barhydt, the cast would include Lauren Bacall, Carol Burnett, James Garner and, in one of her earliest screen appearances, Alfre Woodard, as well as Dick Cavett and Dinah Shore as themselves.   But between the shooting of the film in the late winter and early spring of 1979 and the planned Christmas 1979 release, there was a change of management at Fox. Alan Ladd Jr. was out, and after Altman turned in his final cut, new studio head Norman Levy decided to pull the film off the 1979 release calendar. Altman fought to get the film released sometime during the 1980 Presidential Campaign, and was able to get Levy to give the film a platform release starting in Los Angeles and New York City in March 1980, but that date would get cancelled as well. Levy then suggested an April 1980 test run in St. Louis, which Altman was not happy with. Altman countered with test runs in Boston, Houston, Sacramento and San Francisco. The best Altman, who was in Malta shooting his next movie, could get were sneak previews of the film in those four markets, and the response cards from the audience were so bad, the studio decided to effectively put the film on the proverbial shelf.   Back from the Mediterranean Sea, Altman would get permission to take the film to the Montreal World Film Festival in August, and the Telluride and Venice Film Festivals in September. After good responses from film goers at those festivals, Fox would relent, and give the film a “preview” screening at the United Artists Theatre in Westwood, starting on September 12th, 1980. But the studio would give the film the most boring ad campaign possible, a very crude line drawing of an older woman's pearl bracelet-covered arm thrusted upward while holding a carrot. With no trailers in circulation at any theatre, and no television commercials on air, it would be little surprise the film didn't do a whole lot of business. You really had to know the film had been released. But its $14k opening weekend gross wasn't really all that bad. And it's second week gross of $10,500 with even less ad support was decent if unspectacular. But it would be good enough to get the film a four week playdate at the UA Westwood.   And then, nothing, until early March 1981, when a film society at Northwestern University in Evanston IL was able to screen a 16mm print for one show, while a theatre in Baltimore was able to show the film one time at the end of March. But then, nothing again for more than another year, when the film would finally get a belated official release at the Film Forum in New York City on April 7th, 1982. It would only play for a week, and as a non-profit, the Film Forum does not report film grosses, so we have no idea how well the film actually did. Since then, the movie showed once on CBS in August 1983, and has occasionally played on the Fox Movie Channel, but has never been released on VHS or DVD or Blu-Ray.   I mentioned a few moments ago that while he was dealing with all this drama concerning Health, Altman was in the Mediterranean filming a movie. I'm not going to go too much into that movie here, since I already have an episode for the future planned for it, suffice to say that a Robert Altman-directed live-action musical version of the Popeye the Sailor Man cartoon featuring songs by the incomparable Harry Nilsson should have been a smash hit, but it wasn't. It was profitable, to be certain, but not the hit everyone was expecting. We'll talk about the film in much more detail soon.   After the disappointing results for Popeye, Altman decided to stop working in Hollywood for a while and hit the Broadway stages, to direct a show called Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. While the show's run was not very long and the reviews not very good, Altman would fund a movie version himself, thanks in part to the sale of his production company, Lion's Gate, not to be confused with the current studio called Lionsgate, and would cast Karen Black, Cher and Sandy Dennis alongside newcomers Sudie Bond and Kathy Bates, as five female members of The Disciples of James Dean come together on the 20th anniversary of the actor's death to honor his life and times. As the first film released by a new independent distributor called Cinecom, I'll spend more time talking about this movie on our show about that distributor, also coming soon, suffice it to say that Altman was back. Critics were behind the film, and arthouse audiences loved it. This would be the first time Altman adapted a stage play to the screen, and it would set the tone for a number of his works throughout the rest of the decade.   Streamers was Altman's 17th film in thirteen years, and another adaptation of a stage play. One of several works by noted Broadway playwright David Rabe's time in the Army during the Vietnam War, the film followed four young soldiers waiting to be shipped to Vietnam who deal with racial tensions and their own intolerances when one soldier reveals he is gay. The film featured Matthew Modine as the Rabe stand-in, and features a rare dramatic role for comedy legend David Alan Grier. Many critics would note how much more intense the film version was compared to the stage version, as Altman's camera was able to effortlessly breeze around the set, and get up close and personal with the performers in ways that simply cannot happen on the stage. But in 1983, audiences were still not quite ready to deal with the trauma of Vietnam on film, and the film would be fairly ignored by audiences, grossing just $378k.   Which, finally, after half an hour, brings us to our featured movie.   O.C. and Stiggs.   Now, you might be asking yourself why I went into such detail about Robert Altman's career, most of it during the 1970s. Well, I wanted to establish what types of material Altman would chose for his projects, and just how different O.C. and Stiggs  was from any other project he had made to date.   O.C. and Stiggs began their lives in the July 1981 issue of National Lampoon, as written by two of the editors of the magazine, Ted Mann and Tod Carroll. The characters were fun-loving and occasionally destructive teenage pranksters, and their first appearance in the magazine would prove to be so popular with readers, the pair would appear a few more times until Matty Simmons, the publisher and owner of National Lampoon, gave over the entire October 1982 issue to Mann and Carroll for a story called “The Utterly Monstrous Mind-Roasting Summer of O.C. and Stiggs.” It's easy to find PDFs of the issues online if you look for it.   So the issue becomes one of the biggest selling issues in the history of National Lampoon, and Matty Simmons has been building the National Lampoon brand name by sponsoring a series of movies, including Animal House, co-written by Lampoon writers Doug Kenney and Chris Miller, and the soon to be released movies Class Reunion, written by Lampoon writer John Hughes… yes, that John Hughes… and Movie Madness, written by five Lampoon writers including Tod Carroll. But for some reason, Simmons was not behind the idea of turning the utterly monstrous mind-roasting adventures of O.C. and Stiggs into a movie. He would, however, allow Mann and Carroll to shop the idea around Hollywood, and wished them the best of luck.   As luck would have it, Mann and Carroll would meet Peter Newman, who had worked as Altman's production executive on Jimmy Dean, and was looking to set up his first film as a producer. And while Newman might not have had the credits, he had the connections. The first person he would take the script to his Oscar-winning director Mike Nichols, whose credits by this time included Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff?, The Graduate, Catch-22, and Carnal Knowledge. Surprisingly, Nichols was not just interested in making the movie, but really wanted to have Eddie Murphy, who was a breakout star on Saturday Night Live but was still a month away from becoming a movie star when 48 Hours was released, play one of the leading characters. But Murphy couldn't get out of his SNL commitments, and Nichols had too many other projects, both on Broadway and in movies, to be able to commit to the film.    A few weeks later, Newman and Altman both attended a party where they would catch up after several months. Newman started to tell Altman about this new project he was setting up, and to Newman's surprise, Altman, drawn to the characters' anti-establishment outlook, expressed interest in making it. And because Altman's name still commanded respect in Hollywood, several studios would start to show their interest in making the movie with them. MGM, who was enjoying a number of successes in 1982 thanks to movies like Shoot the Moon, Diner, Victor/Victoria, Rocky III, Poltergeist, Pink Floyd - The Wall, and My Favorite Year, made a preemptive bid on the film, hoping to beat Paramount Pictures to the deal. Unknown to Altman, what interested MGM was that Sylvester Stallone of all people went nuts for the script when he read it, and mentioned to his buddies at the studio that he might be interested in making it himself.   Despite hating studio executives for doing stuff like buying a script he's attached to  then kicking him off so some Italian Stallion not known for comedy could make it himself, Altman agree to make the movie with MGM once Stallone lost interest, as the studio promised there would be no further notes about the script, that Altman could have final cut on the film, that he could shoot the film in Phoenix without studio interference, and that he could have a budget of $7m.   Since this was a Robert Altman film, the cast would be big and eclectic, filled with a number of his regular cast members, known actors who he had never worked with before, and newcomers who would go on to have success a few years down the road. Because, seriously, outside of a Robert Altman movie, where are you going to find a cast that included Jon Cryer, Jane Curtin, Paul Dooley, Dennis Hopper, Tina Louise, Martin Mull, Cynthia Nixon, Bob Uecker, Melvin van Peebles, and King Sunny Adé and His African Beats? And then imagine that movie also featuring Matthew Broderick, Jim Carrey, Robert Downey, Jr. and Laura Dern?   The story for the film would both follow the stories that appeared in the pages of National Lampoon fairly closely while also making some major changes. In the film, Oliver Cromwell “O.C.” Oglivie and Mark Stiggs are two ne'er-do-well, middle-class Phoenix, Arizona high school students who are disgusted with what they see as an omnipresent culture of vulgar and vapid suburban consumerism. They spend their days slacking off and committing pranks or outright crimes against their sworn enemies, the Schwab family, especially family head Randall Schwab, a wealthy insurance salesman who was responsible for the involuntary commitment of O.C.'s grandfather into a group home. During the film, O.C. and Stiggs will ruin the wedding of Randall Schwab's daughter Lenore, raft their way down to a Mexican fiesta, ruin a horrible dinner theatre performance directed by their high school's drama teacher being attended by the Schwabs, and turn the Schwab mansion into a homeless shelter while the family is on vacation. The film ends with O.C. and Stiggs getting into a gun fight with Randall Schwab before being rescued by Dennis Hopper and a helicopter, before discovering one of their adventures that summer has made them very wealthy themselves.   The film would begin production in Phoenix on August 22nd, 1983, with two newcomers, Daniel H. Jenkins and Neill Barry, as the titular stars of the film. And almost immediately, Altman's chaotic ways of making a movie would become a problem. Altman would make sure the entire cast and crew were all staying at the same hotel in town, across the street from a greyhound racetrack, so Altman could take off to bet on a few of the races during production downtime, and made sure the bar at the hotel was an open bar for his team while they were shooting. When shooting was done every day, the director and his cast would head to a makeshift screening room at the hotel, where they'd watch the previous day's footage, a process called “dailies” in production parlance. On most films, dailies are only attended by the director and his immediate production crew, but in Phoenix, everyone was encouraged to attend. And according to producer Peter Newman and Dan Jenkins, everyone loved the footage, although both would note that it might have been a combination of the alcohol, the pot, the cocaine and the dehydration caused by shooting all day in the excessive Arizona heat during the middle of summer that helped people enjoy the footage.    But here's the funny thing about dailies.   Unless a film is being shot in sequence, you're only seeing small fragments of scenes, often the same actors doing the same things over and over again, before the camera switches places to catch reactions or have other characters continue the scene. Sometimes, they're long takes of scenes that might be interrupted by an actor flubbing a line or an unexpected camera jitter or some other interruption that requires a restart. But everyone seemed to be having fun, especially when dailies ended and Altman would show one of his other movies like MASH or The Long Goodbye or 3 Women.   After two months of shooting, the film would wrap production, and Altman would get to work on his edit of the film. He would have it done before the end of 1983, and he would turn it in to the studio. Shortly after the new year, there would be a private screening of the film in New York City at the offices of the talent agency William Morris, one of the larger private screening rooms in the city. Altman was there, the New York-based executives at MGM were there, Peter Newman was there, several of the actors were there. And within five minutes of the start of the film, Altman realized what he was watching was not his cut of the film. As he was about to lose his stuff and start yelling at the studio executives, the projector broke. The lights would go up, and Altman would dig into the the executives. “This is your effing cut of the film and not mine!” Altman stormed out of the screening and into the cold New York winter night.   A few weeks later, that same print from New York would be screened for the big executives at the MGM lot in Los Angeles. Newman was there, and, surprisingly, Altman was there too. The film would screen for the entire running length, and Altman would sit there, watching someone else's version of the footage he had shot, scenes put in different places than they were supposed to be, music cues not of his design or consent.   At the end of the screening, the room was silent. Not one person in the room had laughed once during the entire screening. Newman and Altman left after the screening, and hit one of Altman's favorite local watering holes. As they said their goodbyes the next morning, Altman apologized to Newman. “I hope I didn't eff up your movie.”   Maybe the movie wasn't completely effed up, but MGM certainly neither knew what to do with the film or how to sell it, so it would just sit there, just like Health a few years earlier, on that proverbial shelf.   More than a year later, in an issue of Spin Magazine, a review of the latest album by King Sunny Adé would mention the film he performed in, O.C. and Stiggs, would, quote unquote, “finally” be released into theatres later that year.   That didn't happen, in large part because after WarGames in the early summer of 1983, almost every MGM release had been  either an outright bomb or an unexpected financial disappointment. The cash flow problem was so bad that the studio effectively had to sell itself to Atlanta cable mogul Ted Turner in order to save itself. Turner didn't actually want all of MGM. He only wanted the valuable MGM film library, but the owner of MGM at the time was either going to sell it all or nothing at all.   Barely two months after Ted Turner bought MGM, he had sold the famed studio lot in Culver City to Lorimar, a television production company that was looking to become a producer and distributor of motion pictures, and sold rest of the company he never wanted in the first place to the guy he bought it all from, who had a kind of seller's remorse. But that repurchase would saddle the company with massive bills, and movies like O.C. and Stiggs would have to sit and collect dust while everything was sorted out.   How long would O.C. and Stiggs be left in a void?   It would be so long that Robert Altman would have time to make not one, not two, but three other movies that would all be released before O.C. and Stiggs ever saw the light of day.   The first, Secret Honor, released in 1984, featured the great Philip Baker Hall as former President Richard Nixon. It's probably Hall's single best work as an actor, and the film would be amongst the best reviewed films of Altman's career.   In 1985, Altman would film Fool For Love, an adaptation of a play by Sam Shepard. This would be the only time in Shepard's film career where he would star as one of the characters himself had written. The film would also prove once and for all that Kim Basinger was more than just a pretty face but a real actor.   And in February 1987, Altman's film version of Beyond Therapy, a play by absurdist playwright Christopher Durant, would open in theatres. The all-star cast would include Tom Conti, Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Guest, Julie Hagerty and Glenda Jackson.   On March 5th, 1987, an article in Daily Variety would note that the “long shelved” film would have a limited theatrical release in May, despite the fact that Frank Yablans, the vice chairman of MGM, being quoted in the article that the film was unreleasable. It would further be noted that despite the film being available to international distributors for three years, not one company was willing to acquire the film for any market. The plan was to release the movie for one or two weeks in three major US markets, depending on its popularity, and then decide a future course of action from there.   But May would come and go, without a hint of the film.   Finally, on Friday, July 10th, the film would open on 18 screens, but none in any major market like Chicago, Los Angeles or New York City. I can't find a single theatre the film played in that weekend, but that week's box office figures would show an abysmal $6,273 worth of tickets were sold during that first weekend.   There would not be a second weekend of reported grosses.   But to MGM's credit, they didn't totally give up on the film.   On Thursday, August 27th, O.C. and Stiggs would open in at least one theatre. And, lucky for me, that theatre happened to be the Nickelodeon Theatre in Santa Cruz. But despite the fact that the new Robert Altman was opening in town, I could not get a single friend to see it with me. So on a Tuesday night at 8:40pm, I was the only person in all of the region to watch what I would soon discover was the worst Robert Altman movie of all time. Now, I should note that even a bad Robert Altman movie is better than many filmmakers' best movies, but O.C. and Stiggs would have ignobility of feeling very much like a Robert Altman movie, with its wandering camera and overlapping dialogue that weaves in and out of conversations while in progress and not quite over yet, yet not feeling anything like a Robert Altman movie at the same time. It didn't have that magical whimsy-ness that was the hallmark of his movies. The satire didn't have its normal bite. It had a number of Altman's regular troop of actors, but in smaller roles than they'd usually occupy, and not giving the performances one would expect of them in an Altman movie.   I don't know how well the film did at the Nick, suffice it to say the film was gone after a week.   But to MGM's credit, they still didn't give up on the film.   On October 9th, the film would open at the AMC Century City 14, one of a handful of movies that would open the newest multiplex in Los Angeles.   MGM did not report grosses, and the film was gone from the new multiplex after a week.   But to MGM's credit, they still didn't give up on the film.   The studio would give the film one more chance, opening it at the Film Forum in New York City on March 18th, 1988.   MGM did not report grosses, and the film was gone after a week. But whether that was because MGM didn't support the film with any kind of newspaper advertising in the largest market in America, or because the movie had been released on home video back in November, remains to be seen.   O.C. and Stiggs would never become anything resembling a cult film. It's been released on DVD, and if one was programming a Robert Altman retrospect at a local arthouse movie theatre, one could actually book a 35mm print of the film from the repertory cinema company Park Circus.   But don't feel bad for Altman, as he would return to cinemas with a vengeance in the 1990s, first with the 1990 biographical drama Vincent and Theo, featuring Tim Roth as the tortured genius 19th century painter that would put the actor on the map for good. Then, in 1992, he became a sensation again with his Hollywood satire The Player, featuring Tim Robbins as a murderous studio executive trying to keep the police off his trail while he navigates the pitfalls of the industry. Altman would receive his first Oscar nomination for Best Director since 1975 with The Player, his third overall, a feat he would repeat the following year with Short Cuts, based on a series of short stories by Raymond Carver. In fact, Altman would be nominated for an Academy Award seven times during his career, five times as a director and twice as a producer, although he would never win a competitive Oscar.   In March 2006, while editing his 35th film, a screen adaptation of the then-popular NPR series A Prairie Home Companion, the Academy would bestow an Honorary Oscar upon Altman. During his acceptance speech, Altman would wonder if perhaps the Academy acted prematurely in honoring him in this fashion. He revealed he had received a heart transplant in the mid-1990s, and felt that, even though he had turned 81 the month before, he could continue for another forty years.   Robert Altman would pass away from leukemia on November 20th, 2006, only eight months after receiving the biggest prize of his career.   Robert Altman had a style so unique onto himself, there's an adjective that exists to describe it. Altmanesque. Displaying traits typical of a film made by Robert Altman, typically highly naturalistic, but with a stylized perspective and often a subversive twist.   He truly was a one of a kind filmmaker, and there will likely never be anyone like him, no matter how hard Paul Thomas Anderson tries.     Thank you for joining us. We'll talk again in two weeks, when Episode 106, Mad Magazine Presents Up the Academy, is released.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.  

The Women's Auxillary Air Force has a specific spot in the public's memory. Either as the headphoned women sat around the RAF's plotting tables or of Susannah York's Section Officer Maggie Harvey in the Battle of Britain film. But what was the reality? War historian Dr Sarah-Louise Miller joins us to discuss the WAAFs who are the subject of her new book, The Women Behind the Few: The Women's Auxiliary Air Force and British Intelligence During the Second World War. Sarah helps us to look beyond the one image that has been popularised and to see the incredible work these remark markable women accomplished and, quite literally, helped win the war.Full details of Sarah's book launch at Bletchley Park can be found on the Bletchley Park website here: https://bletchleypark.org.uk/event/the-women-behind-the-few/Buy Sarah's The Women Behind the Few: The Women's Auxiliary Air Force and British Intelligence During the Second World War at the Boney Abroad Pods Bookshop here: https://uk.bookshop.org/a/11015/9781785907852Check out Sarah's website here: https://www.sarah-louisemiller.com/ Follow Sarah on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/SarahLouMiller  Follow Sarah on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/dr_sarahloumiller/Visit our sponsor's website, the Pima Air and Space Museum, here: https://pimaair.org/Find out who is in the Arizona Aviation Hall of Fame here: https://pimaair.org/about-us/arizona-aviation-hall-of-fame/Want to know how the Tucson Military Vehicle Museum is progressing? Find out more here: https://www.tucsonmilitaryvehicle.org/Check out all our social media channels at: https://www.damcasterspod.comJoin the fun on Patreon! Join from just £3+VAT a month to get ad-free episodes, chat with Matt and grab some merch. Check out the link below for more info.Image: A WAAF flight officer photographic interpreter with two Canadian pilots of a photographic reconnaissance squadron, examining newly-developed 8" x 7" film at Benson, Oxfordshire. © IWM CH 10864The Damcasters © 2022 by Matt Bone is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode 4 of our 2022 Christmas Movies

Brandon Stanwyck joins Brian for a discussion of Images, the one and only horror film directed by Robert Altman! They also talk about the terrific career of Susannah York, the star of the film. IMAGES is available on Tubi: https://tubitv.com/movies/488977/imagesFollow us at filmatfifty.com and @filmatfifty on social media, and please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

The Cinemania Society has discovered a cache of VHS cassettes that contain dossiers on individuals suspected of being causative agents of CINEMANIA. We play a tape for our listeners that covers British theater, film, and television actress Susannah York.    Written, Performed, Mixed & Mastered by Ethan Ireland Music track: "Phantoms," courtesy of Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio

What do one 72 two 75's two 76's and one 79 have in common? They are the release years of the six movies we are reviewing today. Starting off today professor McGonagall and Chappy from iron eagle star in (Travels with my Aunt 1972.) This is directed by the mighty George Cukor, and I don't really know what to say about this except that it belongs on any classic 70's movie shelf. Let's just say that a dull branch manager finds out that his Aunt is super rad, and that of course Maggie Smith rules. Next up Glenda Jackson and Susannah York role play as a defense mechanism to deal with their oppressive employer in (Maids 1975) Whoa Sussannah was the lead in Images 1972 with Odo from DS9, probably should of mentioned that in the pod, oh well, we try. Moving on we have (The naked civil servant.) Here we have the wand maker Ollivander playing rad writer Quentin quisp. Quisp was OUT in the extremely dark times, film is great, see it now, and see us if you can't get a copy. Also the guy who objects about the size of the exhaust port in Star Wars is in this as well as Gimli the Dwarf. Next is (The mighty Bluebird 1976.) Here we have Cukor directing again, but it's rather weird, we try to figure it out but I don't know if we do. We ain't classic movie historians (bless them) but we do our best. This adaptation of a French fairy tale has Jane Fonda, Cicely Tyson, Elizabeth Taylor, and Bobby Brady's brother. It should be way better than it is. It is very trippy. Onto The (7 percent solution 1976) guess this one's a bit forgettable since I forgot I'd seen it. Some weird stuff here where Sherlock and frued team up to fight crime and do drugs. Robert Duvall, Alan Arkin and an under used Vanessa Redgrave are here in this. Tell us what you think? Finally today we review Sydney Pollack's (The electric horseman 1979) I remember being intrigued as kid by the electric part, in a hungry for sci fi, just post Star Wars world, but the electric part is more than a bit of a letdown. Adult me has a different take on this Redford and Fonda looking great in tight jeans gem. Want to know more, just press play. Thanks for listening. Tell your friends.

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 379, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: Purple Haze 1: In 1893 Katharine Lee Bates wrote of "purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain" in this song. "America The Beautiful". 2: The current Purple Heart medal has a portrait of this man on it. George Washington. 3: This alliterative phrase refers to overly florid writing that tries to enlist a reader's sympathies. purple prose. 4: In the '60s and '70s, this football team's defensive line members were known as the Purple People Eaters. the Vikings. 5: A deficiency of this vitamin cuts down on your production of visual purple and may lead to night blindness. vitamin A. Round 2. Category: Take Me Home, Alex 1: This PM had a swimming pool built at his home Chartwell, in Kent, where he spent the last 40 years of his life. Churchill. 2: This 1920s matinee idol is said to haunt Falcon Lair, his Hollywood home. Valentino. 3: Prefabricated and shipped by steamboat to Hannibal, Mo., Pilaster House is a childhood home of this author. Mark Twain. 4: After the deaths of his Uncle George and Aunt Martha, Bushrod Washington moved into this home. Mount Vernon. 5: Once home to a prosperous NYC merchant who went bankrupt, it's now the mayor's official residence. Gracie Mansion. Round 3. Category: Books On Audiotape 1: Michael Black not only wrote this novel, he recorded it on tape for 7 Wolves Publishing. "Dances with Wolves". 2: This "All in the Family" co-star directed the film "The Princess Bride" and read the book on cassette. Rob Reiner. 3: David Ogden Stiers tells this author's tale "The Cardinal of the Kremlin". Tom Clancy. 4: Susannah York taped an audio version of his scary novella "The Turn of the Screw". Henry James. 5: You might take Roscoe Lee Browne's rendition of this author's "Caribbean" to the Caribbean. James Michener. Round 4. Category: Telephone History 1: In 1991 this telephone company launched its Friends and Family promotion. MCI. 2: As of July 1, 1968 you could dial this 3-digit number in New York City and get the police. 911. 3: On Oct. 30, 1938 phone traffic peaked in cities all over America as people discussed this broadcast. the "War of the Worlds". 4: In 1980 Dial-It National Sports became the first service on this new area code. 1-900. 5: In 1880 he invented the photophone, a device that sent messages through the air on beams of light. Alexander Graham Bell. Round 5. Category: I Need A Snack 1: I crave a Krispy Kreme chicken sandwich: a fried chicken breast served between these. donuts. 2: I think I'll dunk my Double Stuf version of this Nabisco cookie in milk. Oreo. 3: I'll refresh myself with tzatziki, a Greek dish made from yogurt and this green gourd. cucumbers. 4: I'm going to make Rice Krispies Treats; I've got butter, Rice Krispies and 4 cups of miniature these. marshmallows. 5: I'll have 2 of Chicken of the Sea's new Peel and Eat Cups: cajun tuna and skinless boneless pink this. salmon. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!

Sam joins Henry minutes after watching Episode 2 for an immediate reaction! The Pals spend time talking about how the Kryptonian AI in the Fortress of Solitude should be, have some signature tangents on the Donner films, Snyder films and Apple TV's Foundation. They also wonder if football is the only thing to do at Smallville High. S02E02 - “The Ties That Bind”Directed by David Ramsey (Diggle)Writing Credits:Kristi Korzec and Michael Narducci“Clark opens up to Lois about his ongoing struggle with visions and admits that there is only one person who might be able to help; tensions begin to rise with Lois and Chrissy; Sarah breaks plans with Jordan to spend time with Natalie.”Lana: I can't believe that already in the SECOND episode you called what they were going to do with Lana. Like I'm both happy about it but also kinda disappointed you called it so easily. This is the first canonical mention of Steel, John Irons' superhero alias.Loving the friendship of Natalie and Sara. Kinda shipping them if that's appropriate?Jonathan kind of has an interesting sub-plot. Maybe he's got his mom's investigative powers.Lois being discredited from a podcast/blog seems totally real, however SHE'S THE MOST FAMOUS REPORTER ON THE PLANET. I mean I guess this sort of thing does happen. Brian Williams lied about stolen valor and was discredited. I am excited for Lucy's return though. I don't really remember what she did on Supergirl. Christy is too hard on her, she would be nowhere without Lois Lane. New Lara Lor Van - Mariana Klaveno. Joins the ranks of great actresses like Susannah York, Ayelet Zurer, etc. This was really playing fast and loose with the Super Kryptonian AI. I mean, Lara is crying? How would Jor-El know to program that? Also, she's way out of Holo-gramps' league. TAL-RO returns - OBVIOUSLY HE WAS FAKING NOT HAVING POWERS! But, Superman's trust is what makes him great. Superman of America - first appeared Supermen of America #1 (March 1999) - Luthor's team, then Superman reforms them with the Super-family. Dr. Faulkner! As in, Kitty Faulkner aka Rampage?Doomsday - Invasive Cosmological event inter-dimensional kinesthesis - some other being is causing it. This tracks with Doomsday connection to Superman. They were both Kryptonian. Random - Loving how Superman's costume looks. It looked great in the Red prison. 

David is joined by Brad McDermott to talk about Robert Altman's overlooked excursion into psychological horror, featuring an award-winning lead performance by Susannah York.

David is joined by Brad McDermott to talk about Robert Altman's overlooked excursion into psychological horror, featuring an award-winning lead performance by Susannah York.

Believe it or not, I've been doing these reviews for over a year at this point and it's been lovely watching how much it's all grown. This originally started with me desperately wanting to review the Criterion Collection's The Complete Films of Agnès Varda boxset and it has grown into something I couldn't imagine. Over the past 12 months, this has gone from just the lovely folks over at Kino Lorber and the Criterion Collection to also working with other lovely folks over at Arrow Video, Fun City Editions, GKIDS, Code Red, MVD Entertainment, Synapse Films, and Cohen Film Collection to help bring awareness to the wide world of well-curated and pristinely-packed cinema you could experience from the comfort and safety of your home with no more than a TV and a Blu-ray player (no internet required). This started as a way to keep people engaged with repertory and arthouse titles while theaters were closed and tech companies continued to gobble up the scope of cinema, but it's now evolved into blog discovery and being intentional and passionate about cinema I consume. It's been great hearing all the feedback over the past 12 months and getting to hear from people who found this column by chance. I love doing it and I hope you guys still like listening to and reading it. So what better way to celebrate a one-year anniversary than with the addition of two new distributors! From the UK but bearing “All Region” gifts comes Imprint Films with its releases of Basil Dearden's penultimate film, The Assassination Bureau starring late greats Oliver Reed, Telly Savalas, and of course Diana Rigg, a romp about assassins who clearly don't understand there are more efficient ways to kill a person than bombs (more on that later). They also have released a handsome boxset containing both the 1951 Anthony Asquith/Michael Redgrave and 1994 Mike Figgis/Albert Finney adaptations of Terrence Rattigan's The Browning Version. Also making their debut is the long-awaited and oft-asked-for Vinegar Syndrome! We're starting off with their exclusive release of the very exciting reconstruction of the nearly lost and soon-to-be-cult-favorite New York Ninja. We also have our usual suspects with Kino Lorber giving us releases of director John G. Avildsen and composer Bill Conti's unlikely but welcome follow-up to Rocky, Slow Dancing in the Big City starring unlikely romantic lead Paul Sorvino. John Huston's Freud biopic starring Montgomery Clift and Susannah York makes a welcome appearance, which prompts me to once again think about what makes a biopic work artistically in the first place. There is also the season 1 release of Rod Serling's horror-tinged Twilight Zone follow-up Night Gallery. Arrow Video brings us two welcome releases for cinephiles who have their sights set on lesser-known Japanese genre cinema: Gamera director Noriaki Yuasa's adaptation of Kazuo Umezu's manga “Hebi shōjo (Snake Girl)” into a horror film aimed to traumatize children everywhere, The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch, and there's also the genre-bending mash-up that is Shinji Somai's Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, which somehow threads the needle between quiet coming-of-age drama, yakuza movie, and Japanese “idol movie.” Finally, we have my pick of the month from Fun City Editions with their recent release of Christopher Petit's New German cinema-inspired and new wave-scored British road movie Radio On, a gem I hope won't remain hidden for long. After a year of doing this, I hope some of you have found something you've enjoyed that you would have otherwise missed or overlooked, and if you haven't yet, I hope this month can change that. You can read the rest of the written reviews on the IU Cinema Blog, here: https://blogs.iu.edu/aplaceforfilm/

In this edition of the Director's Highlight series, Aric and Marisa celebrate the career of the maverick filmmaker Robert Altman. They discuss six of his most underappreciated films, looking for the common themes Altman revisited during his extensive career.These six films include THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK (1969), BREWSTER MCCLOUD (1970), IMAGES (1972), HEALTH (1980), COME BACK TO THE 5 & DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN (1982), COOKIE'S FORTUNE (1999).Please consider supporting this show through our Patreon.Keep up with us on Instagram and Twitter: @filmchatterpod.Check out the films mentioned in this episode on our Letterboxd.Thanks for tuning in!Powered and distributed by Simplecast

While the end of the decade ushered in an explosion of gay rights movements, it's no secret that the 1960s were not exactly the friendliest decade for LGBTQ people. When it comes to showing lesbians on film, there seemed to be a bit more wiggle room – in the same way laws were more punishing towards male homosexuality, the female variety seemed to be allowed to get away with being more openly about gay issues. Or you know, about peering into the lives of some “very close friends”… with benefits. The films that managed to get wide release in the ‘60s remain notable, both in their attempts to understand the plight of the gay community and serve as sometimes embarrassing reminders of how little progress we've made in cinematic representation. In this episode, Bart and Jenna take a worldwide tour of lesbian cinema – specifically avoiding pornography and exploitation cinema, even though some of these blur the lines a bit. But nevertheless, they open their minds and hearts and experiment with a variety of films that explore the highs and lows of sapphic love. The following films are discussed:• The Children's Hour (1961) Directed by William Wyler Starring Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner• Manji (1964) 卍(まんじ) Directed by Yasuzô Masumura Starring Ayako Wakao, Kyōko Kishida, Eiji Funakoshi• The Cats (1965) Kattorna Directed by Henning Carlsen Starring Eva Dahlbeck, Gio Petré, Monica Nielsen• The Fox (1967) Directed by Mark Rydell Starring Sandy Dennis, Anne Heywood, Keir Dullea• Les Biches (1968) Directed by Claude Chabrol Starring Jacqueline Sassard, Stéphane Audran, Jean-Louis Trintignant• The Killing of Sister George (1968) Directed by Robert Aldrich Starring Beryl Reid, Susannah York, Coral Browne• Le Altre (1969) Directed by Alessandro Fallay Starring Erna Schurer, Monica Strebel, Raul LovecchioAlso mentioned:• Walk on the Wild Side (1962) Directed by Edward Dmytryk Starring Jane Fonda, Barbara Stanwyck, Capucine• The Balcony (1963) Directed by Joseph Strick Starring Shelley Winters, Peter Falk, Lee Grant• The Haunting (1963) Directed by Robert Wise Starring Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson• Persona (1966) Directed by Ingmar Bergman Starring Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Margaretha Krook• The Nun (1966) La religieuse Directed by Jacques Rivette Starring Anna Karina, Liselotte Pulver, Micheline Presle

Stand by your beliefs, hold strong and carry on! This week, the guys break down the Oscar-winning A Man for All Seasons detailing Thomas More's refusal to approve of Henry VIII's divorce and the repercussions that follow that. They break down the brief but powerful performances from Robert Shaw and Orson Welles, talk about why evangelical Christians (and the Vatican!) love this movie so much, they debate the merits of the cinematography, they discuss why the film works so well but could very easily fail with one false move... and more!   The guys also draw next week's movie out of a hat! What will it be? Join us, won't you? Questions? Comments? Suggestions? You can always shoot us an e-mail at forscreenandcountry@gmail.com   Full List: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFI_Top_100_British_films Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forscreenandcountry Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/bfi_pod Our logo was designed by the wonderful Mariah Lirette (https://www.instagram.com/mariahhx)   A Man for All Seasons stars Paul Scofield, Wendy Hiller, Leo McKern, Orson Welles, Susannah York, Nigel Davenport, John Hurt, Vanessa Redgrave and Robert Shaw; directed by Fred Zinnemann. Is It Streaming? USA: available to rent Canada: available to rent UK: available to rent Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two movies this week, both objectively two of the worst films released in 1987. We're talking about Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, released July 24th back in '87, and because we're gluttons for punishment, we're also reviewing Jaws: The Revenge, which was an alternate option on last week's episode. Joining us is horror streamer Skorn! 0:05:32 - Superman IV review 0:30:42 - Jaws: The Revenge review 0:46:46 - Bonus Battle segment 1:02:31 - Raving Reviews segment Join the Bad Porridge Club on Patreon for TWO bonus episodes each month! https://www.patreon.com/oldiebutagoodiepod Follow Skorn! Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/skorngaming/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYfesFDSMmrIy0OWB4_U3MQ/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skorngaming/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/skorngaming/  Follow the show! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oldiebutagoodiepod/  Facebook: https://fb.me/oldiebutagoodiepod Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjfdXHxK_rIUsOEoFSx-hGA  Podcast Platforms: https://linktr.ee/oldiebutagoodiepod  Got feedback? Send us an email at oldiebutagoodiepod@gmail.com Follow the hosts! Sandro Falce - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sandrofalce/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/sandrofalce - Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/SandroFalce/ - Nerd-Out Podcast: https://anchor.fm/nerd-out-podcast  Zach Adams - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zach4dams/ Donations: https://paypal.me/oldiebutagoodiepod Please do not feel like you have to contribute anything but any donations are greatly appreciated! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Imprint Companion is the only podcast on the Australian Internet about "DVD Culture."Hang onto your slipcases because Alexei Toliopoulos (Finding Drago, Total Reboot) and Blake Howard (One Heat Minute) team up to unbox, unpack and unveil upcoming releases from Australia's brand new boutique Blu-Ray label Imprint Films. This is the first episode on the July 2021 Imprint Films drop, and we're talking Imprints 57-60:The Brotherhood of Satan (1971)Haunted (1995)The Awakening (1980)The Dead Zone (1983)The Brotherhood of Satan (1971)While driving through the Southwest with his daughter and girlfriend, a man stumbles upon a small town plagued by the disappearance of several children and the murders of their parents. He stays on to assist the local sheriff, his deputy, the local priest, and a physician as they try to solve the mystery.Special Features and Technical Specs:1080p presentation from a 2K scan from the original negativeNEW Audio Commentary by author Troy Howarth and Mondo Digital's Nathaniel Thompson (2021)NEW “THE DEVIL YOU KNOW” Inside LQ/Jaf Productions with author/film historian Justin Humphreys (2021)LPCM 2.0 MonoOptional English subtitlesTheatrical TrailerHaunted (1995)Haunted is a classic romantic ghost story starring Aiden Quinn & Kate Beckinsale. Directed by Lewis Gilbert (The Spy Who Loved Me, Alfie & Moonraker). Based on the best-selling book by James Herbert.David Ash, Professor of Para-Psychology, is called to investigate the hauntings at Edbrook House.As David starts his investigation, he becomes aware of a presence in the house that goes against everything he believes. Slowly he is worn down by strange and terrifying things that happen to him, until ultimately, he is driven to question his own sanity.Special Features and Technical Specs:1080p High-Definition presentationNEW Audio commentary with film critics Kim Newman & Stephen Jones (2021)NEW “SEEING THINGS: FILMING HAUNTED” – Interview with cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts. (2021)NEW “FEELING THINGS: ACTING HAUNTED” – Interview with actor Alex Lowe. (2021)NEW “HEARING THINGS: SCORING HAUNTED” – Interview with composer Debbie Wiseman. (2021)Vintage Making of HauntedPhoto galleryTheatrical TrailerLPCM 2.0 StereoOptional English subtitlesTheatrical TrailerThe Awakening (1980)An archaeologist is in Egypt with his pregnant wife searching for the tomb of Queen Kara. As he opens its cursed seal, his wife gives birth. Later it transpires that Kara's evil spirit left the tomb and possessed the baby. Now a teenager, she's caused several deaths and her father must destroy her before it's too late.Based on Bram Stoker's novel The Jewel of Seven Stars and starring Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend, and Stephanie Zimbalist.Special Features and Technical Specs:NEW 2K scan from the original negativeNEW Audio commentary with film critics Kim Newman & Stephen Jones (2021)NEW “REINCARNATE: ADAPTING THE JEWEL OF THE SEVEN STARS” – Interview with author/historian Richard Heft. (2021)NEW “THE NAMELESS ONE: SCORING THE AWAKENING” – Interview with orchestrator Nancy Beach. (2021)Theatrical TrailerLPCM 2.0 StereoOptional English subtitlesTheatrical TrailerThe Dead Zone (1983)Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) wakes from a coma due to a car accident, only to find he has lost five years of his life, and yet gained psychic powers. Foreseeing the future appears to be a ‘gift' at first, but ends up causing problems.The Dead Zone is based on a novel by Stephen King, directed by David Cronenberg (“Scanners”, “The Fly”) and produced by Debra Hill (“Halloween”, “The Fog”).Special Features and Technical Specs:1080p presentation from a 2K scan from the original negativeNEW “Look Past The Future: Filming The Dead Zone” – An all new interview with cinematographer Mark Irwin (2021)NEW “From Coma To Coda: Scoring The Dead Zone” – An all new interview with composer Edward Shearmur (Reign of Fire) discussing Michael Kamen's score. (2021)NEW “DINO IN THE DARK: ADAPTING THE KING OF HORROR” – An all-new documentary featuring interviews with Mark L. Lester (Firestarter), Mark Irwin (The Dead Zone), Lewis Teague (Cat's Eye), Dan Attias (Silver Bullet), Mick Garris (The Stand), Tom McLoughlin (Sometimes They Come Back), Tony Magistrale (Hollywood's Stephen King), and more! (2021)NEW Visual Essay on The Dead Zone by film Critic Lee Gambin (2021)Audio commentary by film critics Stephen Jones and Kim Newman (2002)Memories from the Dead Zone 2006 featuretteThe Look of the Dead Zone 2006 featuretteVisions and Horror from the Dead Zone featuretteThe Politics of the Dead Zone 2006 featurette1983 Vintage interviews with David Cronenberg, Debra Hill & Martin Sheen2018 interview with Stephen KingTrailerDTS HD 5.1 surround + LPCM 2.0 StereoOptional English subtitlesTheatrical TrailerBlake Howard - Twitter & One Heat Minute Website Alexei Toliopoulos - Twitter & Total RebootVisit imprintfilms.com.au Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/imprint-companion/donations

A Serious Disc Agreement is the only "serious" podcast on the Australian Internet about "Movie Disc Culture."Hang onto your slipcases because Alexei Toliopoulos (Finding Drago, Total Reboot) and Blake Howard (One Heat Minute) team up to unbox, unpack and unveil upcoming releases from Australia's brand new boutique Blu-Ray label Imprint Films. This is the first episode on the July 2021 Imprint Films drop, and we're talking Imprints 57-60:The Brotherhood of Satan (1971)Haunted (1995)The Awakening (1980)The Dead Zone (1983)The Brotherhood of Satan (1971)While driving through the Southwest with his daughter and girlfriend, a man stumbles upon a small town plagued by the disappearance of several children and the murders of their parents. He stays on to assist the local sheriff, his deputy, the local priest, and a physician as they try to solve the mystery.Special Features and Technical Specs:1080p presentation from a 2K scan from the original negativeNEW Audio Commentary by author Troy Howarth and Mondo Digital's Nathaniel Thompson (2021)NEW “THE DEVIL YOU KNOW” Inside LQ/Jaf Productions with author/film historian Justin Humphreys (2021)LPCM 2.0 MonoOptional English subtitlesTheatrical TrailerHaunted (1995)Haunted is a classic romantic ghost story starring Aiden Quinn & Kate Beckinsale. Directed by Lewis Gilbert (The Spy Who Loved Me, Alfie & Moonraker). Based on the best-selling book by James Herbert.David Ash, Professor of Para-Psychology, is called to investigate the hauntings at Edbrook House.As David starts his investigation, he becomes aware of a presence in the house that goes against everything he believes. Slowly he is worn down by strange and terrifying things that happen to him, until ultimately, he is driven to question his own sanity.Special Features and Technical Specs:1080p High-Definition presentationNEW Audio commentary with film critics Kim Newman & Stephen Jones (2021)NEW “SEEING THINGS: FILMING HAUNTED” – Interview with cinematographer Tony Pierce-Roberts. (2021)NEW “FEELING THINGS: ACTING HAUNTED” – Interview with actor Alex Lowe. (2021)NEW “HEARING THINGS: SCORING HAUNTED” – Interview with composer Debbie Wiseman. (2021)Vintage Making of HauntedPhoto galleryTheatrical TrailerLPCM 2.0 StereoOptional English subtitlesTheatrical TrailerThe Awakening (1980)An archaeologist is in Egypt with his pregnant wife searching for the tomb of Queen Kara. As he opens its cursed seal, his wife gives birth. Later it transpires that Kara's evil spirit left the tomb and possessed the baby. Now a teenager, she's caused several deaths and her father must destroy her before it's too late.Based on Bram Stoker's novel The Jewel of Seven Stars and starring Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend, and Stephanie Zimbalist.Special Features and Technical Specs:NEW 2K scan from the original negativeNEW Audio commentary with film critics Kim Newman & Stephen Jones (2021)NEW “REINCARNATE: ADAPTING THE JEWEL OF THE SEVEN STARS” – Interview with author/historian Richard Heft. (2021)NEW “THE NAMELESS ONE: SCORING THE AWAKENING” – Interview with orchestrator Nancy Beach. (2021)Theatrical TrailerLPCM 2.0 StereoOptional English subtitlesTheatrical TrailerThe Dead Zone (1983)Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) wakes from a coma due to a car accident, only to find he has lost five years of his life, and yet gained psychic powers. Foreseeing the future appears to be a ‘gift' at first, but ends up causing problems.The Dead Zone is based on a novel by Stephen King, directed by David Cronenberg (“Scanners”, “The Fly”) and produced by Debra Hill (“Halloween”, “The Fog”).Special Features and Technical Specs:1080p presentation from a 2K scan from the original negativeNEW “Look Past The Future: Filming The Dead Zone” – An all new interview with cinematographer Mark Irwin (2021)NEW “From Coma To Coda: Scoring The Dead Zone” – An all new interview with composer Edward Shearmur (Reign of Fire) discussing Michael Kamen's score. (2021)NEW “DINO IN THE DARK: ADAPTING THE KING OF HORROR” – An all-new documentary featuring interviews with Mark L. Lester (Firestarter), Mark Irwin (The Dead Zone), Lewis Teague (Cat's Eye), Dan Attias (Silver Bullet), Mick Garris (The Stand), Tom McLoughlin (Sometimes They Come Back), Tony Magistrale (Hollywood's Stephen King), and more! (2021)NEW Visual Essay on The Dead Zone by film Critic Lee Gambin (2021)Audio commentary by film critics Stephen Jones and Kim Newman (2002)Memories from the Dead Zone 2006 featuretteThe Look of the Dead Zone 2006 featuretteVisions and Horror from the Dead Zone featuretteThe Politics of the Dead Zone 2006 featurette1983 Vintage interviews with David Cronenberg, Debra Hill & Martin Sheen2018 interview with Stephen KingTrailerDTS HD 5.1 surround + LPCM 2.0 StereoOptional English subtitlesTheatrical TrailerBlake Howard - Twitter & One Heat Minute Website Alexei Toliopoulos - Twitter & Total RebootVisit imprintfilms.com.au Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/one-heat-minute-productions/exclusive-contentAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

This week, the guys talk about what maybe one of the strangest choices to win Best Picture at the Oscars. That's right, Brendan and Jason discuss the 1963 Tony Richardson romp Tom Jones starring the late, great Albert Finney. They talk about the unique film editing techniques drawing from both past and present, the dark subjects the film approaches with a very light tone, the use of a goofy narrator, all of the animal actors, the film's controversial standing amongst film critics and much more.   The guys also draw next week's movie out of a hat! What will it be? Join us, won't you? Questions? Comments? Suggestions? You can always shoot us an e-mail at forscreenandcountry@gmail.com   Full List: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BFI_Top_100_British_films Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/forscreenandcountry Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/bfi_pod Our logo was designed by the wonderful Mariah Lirette (https://www.instagram.com/mariahhx)   Tom Jones stars Albert Finney; Susannah York, Diane Cilento, Hugh Griffith, Joyce Redman, Joan Greenwood, Edith Evans, Peter Bull, Lynn Redgrave, Freda Jackson, Julian Glover and David Warner; directed by Tony Richardson. Is It Streaming? USA: Criterion Channel and HBO Max Canada: Criterion Channel UK: available to rent on Amazon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Looking for something to watch at home while you escape from the madness and weirdness of the world? Check in with the Holmes Movies Podcast team to see what they are recommending for those struggling to find something to see. Here is Adam's Recommendation: The Silent Partner. Directed by Daryl Duke and starring Elliott Gould, Susannah York & Christopher Plummer Follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/holmesmoviespod Check out Anders's Website: http://www.andersfholmes.com Check us out here: https://linktr.ee/holmesmoviespod Follow us on Letterboxd! Anders's profile: https://letterboxd.com/AndersFHolmes/ Adam's Profile: https://letterboxd.com/adamhfholmes/

Jenny discusses a strange, largely forgotten British psychological horror film from 1978, about a man who seemingly uses terrifying black magic powers to insinuate his way into the lives of a random couple in the English countryside. The movie was helmed by Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski and stars Alan Bates, John Hurt, Susannah York, and … Continue reading Flickers Of Fear – Jenny’s Horror Movie Reviews: The Shout (1978)

John goes back to 2006 for a Hannam Archive interview with legendary movie, TV and stage star SUSANNAH YORK.

It's All in the Title - Sydney Pollack's adaptation of Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? A solo episode to close out March. Take a listen as I sit down to give my feelings on director Sydney Pollack's exceptional interpretation of Horace McCoy's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969). Featuring Jane Fonda, Michael Sarazin, Bonnie Bedelia, Bruce Dern, Susannah York, Gig Young, and Red Buttons. I've got a whole lot to say about the ugliness of humanity and the never-ending struggle of hope. Take a listen. Questions, Comments, Complaints, & Suggestions can be directed to gondoramos@yahoo.com.

For the 7th of our TMR Movie Roundtable podcasts we welcome back our good friends Frank Johnson (Ancient Aliens Debunked blog) and Mark Campbell (Bowler or Fez Film Reviews) for a three-way discussion on the 1978 "horror film" (or is it?) The Shout, starring Alan Bates, Susannah York and John Hurt. Based upon a short story of the same name by the Twentieth-Century British poet and novelist Robert Graves, the The Shout tells an intriguing and many-layered tale about a strange and sinister traveller, Charles Crossley (Alan Bates), who claims to have used his magical powers to invade the lives of a married couple, Anthony and Rachel Fielding (John Hurt and Susannah York), in their isolated house in the Devon countryside. Elaborating on his story, Crossley describes how he seduced Rachel using sympathetic magic and almost killed Anthony by exposing him to The Shout, a terrifying skill that Crossley claims to have mastered while living with Aboriginal Australian shamans for eighteen years. Listening patiently to Crossley's extravagant story is Robert Graves himself (played by Tim Curry), who wonders at this strange man's tale. Could it possibly be true? Or is it more likely just the fanciful product of an—admittedly intelligent and educated, but—unbalanced creative imagination? How is he to decide? And how, asks the film, are we? Join us as we consider the film's production, discuss its storyline, and reflect theologically upon the possible meanings of this most unusual film. For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com

For the 7th of our TMR Movie Roundtable podcasts we welcome back our good friends Frank Johnson (Ancient Aliens Debunked blog) and Mark Campbell (Bowler or Fez Film Reviews) for a three-way discussion on the 1978 "horror film" (or is it?) The Shout, starring Alan Bates, Susannah York and John Hurt. Based upon a short story of the same name by the Twentieth-Century British poet and novelist Robert Graves, the The Shout tells an intriguing and many-layered tale about a strange and sinister traveller, Charles Crossley (Alan Bates), who claims to have used his magical powers to invade the lives of a married couple, Anthony and Rachel Fielding (John Hurt and Susannah York), in their isolated house in the Devon countryside. Elaborating on his story, Crossley describes how he seduced Rachel using sympathetic magic and almost killed Anthony by exposing him to The Shout, a terrifying skill that Crossley claims to have mastered while living with Aboriginal Australian shamans for eighteen years. Listening patiently to Crossley's extravagant story is Robert Graves himself (played by Tim Curry), who wonders at this strange man's tale. Could it possibly be true? Or is it more likely just the fanciful product of an—admittedly intelligent and educated, but—unbalanced creative imagination? How is he to decide? And how, asks the film, are we? Join us as we consider the film's production, discuss its storyline, and reflect theologically upon the possible meanings of this most unusual film. For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com

For the 7th of our TMR Movie Roundtable podcasts we welcome back our good friends Frank Johnson (Ancient Aliens Debunked blog) and Mark Campbell (Bowler or Fez Film Reviews) for a three-way discussion on the 1978 "horror film" (or is it?) The Shout, starring Alan Bates, Susannah York and John Hurt. Based upon a short story of the same name by the Twentieth-Century British poet and novelist Robert Graves, the The Shout tells an intriguing and many-layered tale about a strange and sinister traveller, Charles Crossley (Alan Bates), who claims to have used his magical powers to invade the lives of a married couple, Anthony and Rachel Fielding (John Hurt and Susannah York), in their isolated house in the Devon countryside. Elaborating on his story, Crossley describes how he seduced Rachel using sympathetic magic and almost killed Anthony by exposing him to The Shout, a terrifying skill that Crossley claims to have mastered while living with Aboriginal Australian shamans for eighteen years. Listening patiently to Crossley's extravagant story is Robert Graves himself (played by Tim Curry), who wonders at this strange man's tale. Could it possibly be true? Or is it more likely just the fanciful product of an—admittedly intelligent and educated, but—unbalanced creative imagination? How is he to decide? And how, asks the film, are we? Join us as we consider the film's production, discuss its storyline, and reflect theologically upon the possible meanings of this most unusual film. For show notes please visit https://themindrenewed.com

Chris Arnsby joins Jeremy to examine the 1969 satirical musical Oh! What a Lovely War directed by Richard Attenborough from the Joan Greenwood stage production, with an ensemble cast featuring Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, John Mills, Dirk Bogarde, Susannah York, John Gielgud and Vanessa Redgrave. Their discussion covers such bouncy topics as the roots of alternative comedy, satire without jokes, the nature of history, mankind's natural aversion to conflict and the establishment eating itself. Roll up, roll up!

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte   Stay tuned for the discussion on how much we hate St. John Rivers, the significance of Rochester's mad wife Bertha, Jane Eyre erotica, and more!   Books:Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), 1847.The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, 2001. (Alternate universe in which the criminal enters great novels andchanges the plot. The protagonist, Thursday Next, is a detective in the literary police.) The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys Adaptations:Jane Eyre (1934) - starring Virginia Bruce and Colin Clive.I Walked with a Zombie (1943, very loose adaptation) starring Frances Dee and Tom Conway.Jane Eyre (1944) - starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Wells.Jane Eyre (1970) - starring Susannah York and George C Scott.Jane Eyre (1983 - 5 1/2-hour BBC series) - starring Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton.Jane Eyre (1996) - starring Charlotte Gainsbourgh and William Hurt.Jane Eyre (1997) - starring Samantha Morton and Ciaran Hinds.Jane Eyre (2006 - 4-hour BBC series) - starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens.Jane Eyre (2011) - starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbinder.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte   Stay tuned for the discussion on how much we hate St. John Rivers, the significance of Rochester's mad wife Bertha, Jane Eyre erotica, and more!   Books:Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), 1847.The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, 2001. (Alternate universe in which the criminal enters great novels andchanges the plot. The protagonist, Thursday Next, is a detective in the literary police.) Adaptations:Jane Eyre (1934) - starring Virginia Bruce and Colin Clive.I Walked with a Zombie (1943, very loose adaptation) starring Frances Dee and Tom Conway.Jane Eyre (1944) - starring Joan Fontaine and Orson Wells.Jane Eyre (1970) - starring Susannah York and George C Scott.Jane Eyre (1983 - 5 1/2-hour BBC series) - starring Zelah Clarke and Timothy Dalton.Jane Eyre (1996) - starring Charlotte Gainsbourgh and William Hurt.Jane Eyre (1997) - starring Samantha Morton and Ciaran Hinds.Jane Eyre (2006 - 4-hour BBC series) - starring Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens.Jane Eyre (2011) - starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbinder.

In episode 177 of the Man of Screen podcast, Mike Zummo continues his run through the second season of the Salkind-produced “Superboy” television series, which aired in syndication from 1988-1992. First, were going to take a walk on the mystical side, as if we havent done that enough so far this season. Were going to meet a mysterious man on a motorcycle, bearing a striking resemblance to a detective from Miami. He claims to be a doctor and says hes after something called a Prodo as he looks to finish off a family feud. But who is “Brimstone”? And then, were going to “Meet the Parents”. Superboys parents, that is as Jor-El and Lara, bearing a striking resemblance to Marlon Brando and Susannah York from Superman: The Movie, have arrived to take their boy home? Because he was “taken” from Earth? Confused yet? Superboy is, too. But not confused enough not to “Abandon Earth”. Next time: Were going to finish what we started with “Escape to Earth” and then Superboy will find love in “Superstar”.Feedback for this show can be sent to: manofscreen@gmail.comCheck out the homepage for the show. Or you can find the show on Facebook and on Twitter The Man of Screen podcast is a member of the Two True Freaks Internet Radio Network.

At school in the UK Tony won two national prizes from writing competitions and with some pals ran a successful underground school magazine. By the age of 18 Tony was making his own small professional films that received wide public distribution. Klinger worked on the iconic TV series “The Avengers” and in the following years wrote and/ or produced films all over the world such as “The Kids are Alright”, “Deep Purple Rises Over Japan”, “The Butterfly Ball” and many more. Over a distinguished, award-winning career Tony served as company President or Chief Executive for media companies in the UK and USA.-Tony later worked in partnership with his father, the legendary film producer, Michael Klinger, who made such films as “Get Carter” “Repulsion” “Cul-de-Sac” and worked together with him on “Gold” “Shout at the Devil” and “Rachel's Man” and several others Tony made with others such as “Full Circle”. He knows what it's like to work with stars having done so with people like Jack Nicholson, Peter Ustinov, Lee Marvin, Sir John Gielgud, Roger Moore, Deep Purple, Barbara Parkins, The Who, Peter Finch, Susannah York, Michael Caine and many others.

Best Pick with John Dorney, Jessica Regan and Tom Salinsky Episode 64: Tom Jones (1963) Released 15 July 2020 For this episode, we watched Tom Jones, written John Osbourne, based on the novel by Henry Fielding. It was directed by Tony Richardson and it stars Albert Finney, Susannah York, Hugh Griffith, Edith Evans and Joan Greenwood. It was nominated in ten categories and it won four awards: Best Director, Best Score, Best Adapted Screenplay and, of course, Best Picture. Sammy Davis Jr has the wrong envelope. https://youtu.be/mmmi9ksOtt4 The List of Adrian Messenger. https://youtu.be/AhfLxzzH0yc Next time we will be discussing Going My Way. If you want to watch it before listening to the next episode you can buy the DVD or Blu-Ray on Amazon.co.uk, or Amazon.com, or you can download it via iTunes (UK) or iTunes (USA). To send in your questions, comments, thoughts and ideas, you can join our Facebook group, Tweet us on @bestpickpod or email us on bestpickpod@gmail.com. You can also Tweet us individually, @MrJohnDorney, @ItsJessRegan or @TomSalinsky. You should also visit our website at https://bestpickpod.com and sign up to our mailing list to get notified as soon as a new episode is released. Just follow this link: http://eepurl.com/dbHO3n. If you enjoy this podcast and you’d like to help us to continue to make it, you can now support us on Patreon for as little as £2.50 per month. Thanks go to all of the following lovely people who have already done that. James Murray, Jonquil Coy, Nick Hetherington, Anna Elizabeth Rawles, Michael Walker, Ms Rebecca K O’Dwyer, Ann Blake, Veryan Croggon, Anna Joerschke, Ben Squires, Claire Creighton, Dave Kloc, Helle Rasmussen, Joy Wilkinson, Kate Butler, Katy Espie, Kirsten Marie Oeveraas, Olivia, Peter , Robert Orzalli, Sally Grant, Sam Elliott, Alex Frith, Alex Wilson, Anne Dellamaria, Annmarie Gray, Eloise Lowe, Judi Cox, Kelli Prime, Lisa Gillespie, Michael Wilson, Richard Ewart, Simon James, Tim Gowen, Anna Jackson, Anna Smith, Catherine Murphy, Darren Williams, David Hanneford, Eamonn Clarke, Emma Colvill, Emmet Jackson, Lucinda Baron von Parker, Martin Korshøj Petersen, Sian Thomas, Stuart Shepherd, Julie Dirksen, Cindy, Claire Carr, Daina Aspin, Drew Milloy, Elis Bebb, Flora, Helen Cousins, Jess McGinn, Jo B, Johanna Commins, Juan Ageitos, Kath , Laura Lundy, Rohan Newton, Simon Ash, Sladjana Ivanis, Catherine Jewkes, Charlotte, Henry Bushell, Ruth, Della, Matheus Mocelin Carvalho, Zarah Daniel.

Rangez vos sourires émerveillés par la magie, et surtout, planquez vos gosses ! Cette semaine, ça va pas être l'éruption de pop-corn et de joie, on s'enfonce dans les méandres du cinéma de genre en se tournant vers Shadowz, la première plateforme de Screaming ! Site spécialisé dans le cinéma bis. Il a été difficile de vous faire une sélection représentative, mais on a pioché dans le rare, l'oublié, le culte de niche. Images, de l'immense Robert Altman, ouvre le bal avec son thriller psychologique classieux et épuré. En suite Les Voitures Qui Ont Mangé Paris du non moins immense Peter Weir vienne exploser le tout par sa décadence et sa représentation d'une violence singulière. Pour terminer, on a choisi de partir vers le trip sous adrénaline avec 68 Kill, un road trip déjanté dont les auteurs ne se lavent pas la bouche avec du savon. Pour nous accompagner, on a récupéré David de Plopcast, remis de ses émotions depuis notre épisode sur Mubi, et notre amie Jess, grande spécialiste du cinéma bis ! Bonne écoute !  Invités : David de Plopcast, réseau de podcasts traitant de la pop-culture. Jess Lordi Temporalité de l’épisode : 13:05 Images (1972), de Robert Altman, avec Susannah York, René Auberjonois, Marcel Bozzuffi... 27:50 Les Voitures Qui Ont Mangé Paris (The Cars That Ate Paris) (1974), de Peter Weir, avec John Meillon, Terry Camilleri, Kevin Miles... 41:10 68 Kill (2017), de Trent Haaga, avec Matthew Gray Gubler, AnnaLynne McCord, Alisha Boe.... 1:01:10 les recos   Blue Ruin (2013) de Jeremy Saulnier The Doom Generation (1995) de Gregg Araki Trollhunter (2010) de André Øvredal L’Économie Mondiale, Un Monstre géant (This Giant Beast That Is Global Economy), série documentaire présentée par Kal Penn et produite par Adam McKay. La Planète Sauvage (1973) de René Laloux Je Vous Salue Sarajevo (1993) de Jean-Luc Godard Black Christmas (1974) de Bob Clark Les Bonnes Manières (2017) de Marco Dutra et Juliana Rojas Jack Brooks : Tueur de Monstres (Jack Brooks : Monster Slayer) (2008) de Jon Knautz Gagner La Guerre (2009), livre de Jean-Philippe Jaworski Deathgasm (2015) de Jason Lei Howden Raging Bull (1980) de Martin Scorsese Crédits :  Émission animée par Thomas Bondon, Thierry de Pinsun, Hera Laskri, et Elie Bartin. Générique original : Kostia R. Yordanoff (tous droits réservés)  Retrouvez aussi Certains l’aiment à chaud sur :  Facebook : @claacpodcast Instagram : @claacpodcast Twitter: @CLAACpodcast Ausha  Itunes / Apple Podcast  Spotify  Deezer  Stitcher  Podmust  Podcloud  Podinstall

In this episode, Krzysztof and Chris watch and dissect the Elizabeth Taylor "classic" X, Y and Zee (1972). They discuss Rex Reed's scathing review of the film, Liz's deranged hairstyle, and the weird plot twist that Susannah York once seduced a nun.Please Subscribe and Review to support Loose Narrative!  Find us on Instagram: Loose Narrative @loosenarrativepodcastKrzysztof @kpakulaChris @topherlane Special thanks to Ben Bruker for our theme music! www.benbruker.com 

On this episode, we discuss the thirty-ninth Best Picture Winner: “A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS.”"A Man for All Seasons" is a British biographical drama based on Robert Bolt's play of the same name and adapted for the big screen by Bolt himself. When the highly respected British statesman Sir Thomas More refuses to pressure the Pope into annulling the marriage of King Henry VIII and his Spanish-born wife, More's clashes with the monarch increase in intensity. A devout Catholic, More stands by his religious principles and moves to leave the royal court. Unfortunately, the King and his loyalists aren't appeased by this, and press forward with grave charges of treason, further testing More's resolve.  Directed by Fred Zinnemann, the film stars Paul Scofield as Thomas More, Wendy Hiller as Alice, Leo McKern as Cromwell, Robert Shaw as Henry VIII, Orson Welles as Cardinal Wolsey, Susannah York as Margaret, John Hurt as Rich, Corin Redgrave as Roper, Nigel Davenport as Duke of Norfolk, and Vanessa Redgrave as Anne Boleyn.Here on The Envelope, we discuss & review every Best Picture Winner in the Academy Awards History. We are a Cinema Squad Production, presented on the Cinema Squad Podcast Channel. You can reach anyone here at TheCinemaSquad.com – Just go there to email us, check our bios, and keep up with the latest episode.