Blank Check with Griffin & David - Fear & Desire / Killer's Kiss

Episode Date: August 7, 2022

He dominated the field in this year’s 20th Century March Madness competition, and now we’re celebrating with a parade and a big brass band…it’s time for our series on the films of Stanley Kubrick - Pods Wide Cast! Join us as we fill in the background strokes of Kubrick’s early career - his childhood in the Bronx, his photography apprenticeship with Look Magazine - and as we discuss his first two features - 1953’s FEAR AND DESIRE and 1955’s KILLER’S KISS. Some burning questions we end up asking: how much of later Kubrick is already present in these pretty amateurish works? How do these rank in the patheon of debut films by great directors? Is there a code of ethics for cab drivers when you jump into the backseat and request that they “follow that car?” Why has Ben been buying mannequins off eBay? And more! Additional Music by Alex Barron John Wayne Throws Kid in River Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com or at teepublic.com/stores/blank-check

There is a podcast in this forest. Not a podcast that has been recorded, nor one that will be, but any podcast. And the podcasters who struggle here do not exist unless we call them into being. This podcast, then, and all that happens now is outside history. Only the unchanging shapes of fear and doubt and death are from our world. These podcasters that you see keep our language and our time but have no other podcast but the mind so that's the opening narration to fear and desire yeah turned even more incomprehensible by you putting podcasts and for a bunch of things look i'm not saying that totally makes sense

just sounds what i did or what they say in the movie. This did start. It's black and white. It's an hour long. Fear and Desire, yes. Yeah, and I mean... It's black and white? Did you watch the colorized version on YouTube? It's cuckoo. I mean, I was like, what is going on, Stanley?

This is cuckoo. Wait, there's a colorized version on YouTube, really? Is that what you watched, Ben? It was on Tubi. Oh, you're right, yes. And Amazon, too. Amazon has a fucking colorized version of this movie. Wow. Multiple

streaming services have this film colorized. And let me say, poorly. Not even poorly? Like where I'm like am I on acid? It looks like it was done by some very rudimentary $5 AI. But it's this thing where the color like can't stick to their

faces. Like it's smudgy. This looks so awful. It looks really bad. You know what I was looking at? Richard Elfman. Colorized Forbidden Zone. His transgressive musical he did with his brother Danny. That looks really good.

But it's never a good idea, really, is it? No, but it was done artisanally by the person originally. Yeah, but this is so weird. It was done by hand very carefully. This is like it doesn't track with the movement. No, this is awful. And you'll be on someone's face, and then gray spots will appear.

The color will fade in places. Yes, this was a black and white film. It's an hour long. It started with that narration, and I was pumping my face going, holy shit, am I about to watch like a fucking Kubrick Twilight Zone? Because that intro narration, despite it not making perfect sense, feels very Twilight Zone-y

where you're like, we're dealing with a symbolic idea of war. This is no specific war that's ever existed. The enemy is the mind. And I was like, yeah, great, here we go. And then the movie doesn't really have that. The movie happens and you're sort of like, oh, okay.

There's like, there's some visual ideas here. It's, you know, sort of maybe a little bit of a sandbox. You're watching a guy like just start to figure things. I don't know what to say

about that movie. But then the poster, you look at the poster, right? The poster for Fear and Desire, it's got a lady on it. Yes. This is Virginia Leith, Virginia Life. It's got two lady on it yes this is a virginia leaf virginia life it's got two big quotes life magazine calls her a big find the wolves are breathless about

virginia life walter winchell and then what's essentially a cheesecake shot of her and then there's a photo of an illustration of her legs an illustration of uh paul mazurski kissing her neck that makes it look consensual. Right. And it says, fear and desire trapped four desperate men and a strange half-animal girl. Right. Well, they're trying. Look, we'll get into that. Also makes it seem supernatural.

But David, that's not the only movie we're talking about today. Yeah, it's not the only movie we're talking about today. You sound so excited. Thank God. You sound so excited. Yes. But you were, right before we started recording recording reading the tagline of the second movie we're talking today which is a good one the second movie is great i love this movie right you like

this yeah this rules watched it this morning it was a blast yeah her soft mouth was the road to sin smeared violence that's the tagline to killer's kiss her soft podcast was the road to sin smeared violence uh the mobs moles and mayhem of New York's Clip Joint Jungle. That was the other tagline. That one's pretty good, too. Do you hear that off in the distance? This parade, David, can mean only one thing. We've never done a parade before.

Marching towards us, it's the new miniseries parade. Yes, a March Madness winner wearing his crown. The parade is marching towards us because this director we're talking about now won March Madness. Right. We don't have to sound so depressed about it. It's very exciting. Stanley Kubrick. The director is Stanley Kubrick.

He's quite well known. Blank Check with Griffin and David. And this podcast is Blank Check with Griffin and David. We're not as well known as Stanley Kubrick. No. My name is Griffin. My name is David. It's a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products

they want sometimes those checks clear sometimes they bounce baby it's a main series the films of stanley kubrick it's called pods wide cast yeah that's what it's called right that's what's called and today we're talking about his first two films. Yes. One of which he essentially disowned. Yes. And the second one, which he counted as his first film, but didn't count as his first good film.

I feel like The Killing is the first one he stood behind and was like, this is reflective of who I want to be as a filmmaker. Yes. I think he viewed these as two rough drafts, and one of them he kind of disqualified and killer's kiss was also messed with so maybe he resented that which didn't like the ending right yes these are his early works and i feel like in the case of fear and desire that was a movie you couldn't even see for a long time and so so it was truly forgotten. It was really the sort of like,

Killer's Kiss was like the first one. Because the fear and desire went away until it was restored in like the 2010s, basically. He tried to strike it from existence. And even I think in the 90s, 80s or 90s, Film Forum got a print and they started screening it. And he was like, please don't do this.

He wrote a letter. He kind of protested. He was like, I don't do this. Yes. He wrote a letter. He kind of protested. He was like, I don't want this scene. He called it a bumbling amateur film exercise. After he died, it was restored by the Library of Congress. Because the other thing was it was in public domain, which is why you can so easily see crappy color versions of it. Because anyone can do anything they want with it. So it wasn't really preserved, and the National Library of Congress Put the money in to restore it

Put it back into circulation We'll get into all that But this is our table setting introduction episode For Stanley the Manly Kubrick Who is an American film director Of some renown Who lived for 70 years And made around 13-ish movies

And he's got a couple hits to his name And I don't know, how would you describe him? Looming figure Yeah, lo movies, right? Sure. And, you know, he's got a couple hits to his name, and I don't know, how would you describe him? Looming figure? Yeah, looming, right. I don't know if you've experienced this, but when he won, we put him on the bracket, right? It was our 20th century bracket. Only directors from the 20th century allowed.

And when we were sort of spitballing, eliminating people, trying to figure, settle on the final 32. Yeah. Marie Barty, the great Marie Barty. Our social media manager, yes. Are you sure you want to put Stanley Kubrick on there? He probably wins. If you put him on there, he probably wins.

And we went, fine. The worst case scenario, we do Stanley Kubrick. Right. It did feel like a little bit of a foregone conclusion, perhaps. A little bit. We were hoping to be an upset. I was sort of surprised. Yeah.

But it was one of those things where you're like, so we talk about one of the most interesting filmographies ever, and I don't know if you've had this experience, what I was trying to see,

but when people were asking me, friends, listeners of the show, how I felt about Cooper Quentin, they were like, I mean, the downside is it's such a long series, right? I'm like, no, only 13 movies. Yeah, it's not that long.

They span 40 years he slowed down quite quickly quite quickly he got so selective about what he did that it's like we're covering the earliest films we've ever talked about on this podcast right we're going all the way to the very end of the 20th century yes but it's only 13 movies and two of them we're knocking out today yeah fear and desire and Desire and Killer's Kiss, baby. And we're going to give you some little whatever, some Stanley intro. Let me tell you a little about Stanley Kubrick. Let's stop beating around the bush. Can I ask you something before we get into this?

What is your sort of relationship to Kubrick on whole? That's a good call, actually. My relationship to Kubrick, on whole that's a good call actually uh my relationship to kubrick because like many a film fan we put him on there we understood high likelihood we'd end up with him but we didn't choose this one so i want i want to talk through it because certainly if you're cinephile he becomes a point of debate in a lot of ways well but he's also just an early one that you've got to check in right yeah i don't know what everyone's first Kubrick movie is, but I do think my first Kubrick movie is the same for a lot of people,

which is that when I was like seven or eight, my dad showed me 2001. Yeah. I think he, we watched, it was like, I was a kid. I think we watched all the way to the end of the Hal part. And then he was kind of like, I mean, I think I may have been like, you end of the how part. And then he was kind of like, I mean, I think I may have been like,

I, you know, what's going on. And he was like, well, and then there's more, we'll watch it again later. We'll watch the rest.

Like, you know, like I think that was my first Kubrick. I, my, I saw it in a theater. My mom took me to see it in a theater when I was maybe nine. And it was a similar thing,

but I probably would have drifted away from the TV if I was watching it at home. But in the theater, I was held captive. Right. And I, and I think my dad knew like at least the how part would you know what this is common for a lot of young cineasts i think and then like i saw dr strange love at a young age uh-huh and i probably saw spartacus at a fairly young age but i don't think i had the i gotta you know dig into stanley kubrick moment until i was a

later teenager or something i you know when i guess when then when you're a later teenager again i'm generalizing but i do think this is general you're sort of like well i should see a clockwork orange like right and like you know and i should see the shining like it becomes an activation point for a lot of people where i think they see one of his movies and they go, holy shit, who the fuck is this? I see everything else this guy did. And then I think for other people like you and I, it's almost just like out of,

I hate to call it obligation, but a sense of like, if I'm getting serious about movies. It's one of the first ones you do. You gotta do them. And it's also the thing that like, he has this template that I think a lot of blank check directors follow

where it's like we're transitioning out of the studio system where directors are just thrown onto pictures and you make three a year or whatever it is where it's like very deliberate and the guy is like i'm ready to make my war film here is my horror film here is my sci-fi film like wanting to like take a swing at each genre you know yes i made a satirical comedy here is my historical epic certainly i also just feel like everyone's got i mean when i saw eyes wide shut i must i must have already seen most of the kubricks and i think like that was just that's that's my favorite kubrick and it's the one one that kind of made me go back and take him a movie at a time when I was in college. And be like, okay, okay, I need to understand everything about how this guy made movies.

That's my favorite too. I've always admired him a lot more than I love his movies. I love Lyndon shining an eyes wide shut so much and I've seen them all so many times. I've never seen Lyndon. I'm really excited to watch it for this.

You've never seen Barry Lyndon? Low on your fucking mind. Yeah. Did I know that? Maybe. Maybe you've seen it. I've watched like parts of it on TV but I've never

I've never actually watched Lyndon. That's the best one I think. Okay. And I've never seen Spartacus either. Sure. And I feel like I've never seen Spartacus either. Sure. And I feel like I've seen all the other major ones.

Well, what do you mean by major one? Well, Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Clockwork Orange, 2001. Right. I've seen Paths of Glory. You've seen Lolita? I've seen Lolita. So you're naming all his movies. Right.

So these first three I hadn't seen before. Oh, sure, sure, sure. Right. I haven't seen Spartacus. I had never seen Fear and Desire. I bought the Blu-ray and I watched it for this episode. Killer's Kiss I saw at the Film Forum several years ago and had a great time.

But yeah, no, Kubrick, I know what you mean about your passion for him, but I do know every inch of some of his movies, and are so worth they're so worthy of obsessive uh re-watching well that's the other thing with him he was the first but not the first but he was one of the first directors who got mythologized in this way and i think it was partially by uh critics in the community and partially by himself, you know, being this sort of elusive figure and kind of unknowable. I was reading Roger Ebert's review of Killing, or maybe it was when he did his, like,

sort of updated capsule for great movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was sort of talking about the temptation to find the links in the killing to the rest of his body of work. But he was like, isn't the whole appeal of Kubrick that unlike other filmmakers, he wasn't just making the same movie over and over again was like, isn't the whole appeal of Kubrick that unlike other filmmakers, he wasn't just making the same movie

over and over again? Like, part of what's fascinating about Kubrick is that how could this one guy make all these different films? And there's a technical style that follows through all of it, but he's a little inscrutable

in his worldview. Right. As opposed to, like, Rakan Afafasi, where it's like, you know everything about how Bob Fosse's mind works. Such an incredibly

personal filmmaker. Whereas Kubrick is more like I'm not going to tell you what this movie is about. I'm not going to talk about it in that way. And people who think Kubrick is overrated

tend to go to that argument of like he was cold, he was dispassionate, he was technical, but there's nothing personal in there. I don't think that's ever been my stumbling block with him. Okay. I just always like his movies and respect there. I don't think that's ever been my stumbling block with him.

I just always like his movies and respect them, but I don't feel fanatical about them or him. But there's also, it's just the thing, he created, he pushed things technologically, he advanced the language. Ben, what do you think of Stan, the man? You a Stan boy?

People are always so intense about him. That's the other thing. And I just was kind of contrarian in the sense, similar to Griffin, I liked A Clockwork Orange quite a bit. Still do. Not surprised. I mean, it's a little, though, complicated these days. Complicated in those days, too.

By the way, a film that is forever complicated. Indeed. David wouldn't know this but it was banned in the uk for decades talk about it later like fully banned wow illegal to watch and the shining i mean this is a gosh darn classic but people were so fanatical and intense and it just felt like if you did any kind of deep dive and then wanted to talk to somebody like that about those things, they would always know so much more and get really like, you know,

just like, I was avoiding that kind of interaction, basically. I also think this isn't his fault, but a lot of the worst people in film think that they're Stanley Kubrick. Both the most insufferable and the cold assholes. It's either him or Hitchcock is like the most sort of like legendary director of all time, I guess.

Or, you know, I mean, that's, that's a very broad brush, but you know, or whatever, you know,

the most spoken of director, the most well known director, whatever, you know, so it's like, it's, you know, there's too much baggage that comes with that.

And they both had that thing of like exacting control. It was perfect in their head and they manipulated the universe to their whims to get it done exactly how they wanted. And they were right. Um, yeah. Stan the Man. But Hitchcock, more films and, you know, at least his sense of humor. God bless Hitchcock.

Who made a ton more movies. But he made the same kind of movies. Over and over. He had his personal obsessions that are right there. Very easy to access. Kubrick, it's much more remote. And he was reclusive.

He wouldn't do interviews. He would... Kubrick, I'm saying. Hitchcock could do a fucking interview for like Horse and Hound or whatever.

Right, right. Me, Alfred Hitchcock. It's the thing. People don't... People want to make Hitchcockian movies, but I don't think they want to be Hitchcock

in the same way that they want to be Kubrick. What do I think of Stanley Kubrick? The, like, tortured genius. And the control of the public perception. The so self-serious. Yes. I mean, that's another thing I'll say. You just, like, saying, like, the lack of humor.

Uh-huh. Like, the seriousness of it all, too, and, like, almost to a point of not of not like not even being self-aware. Does that make sense? Yeah. And then he makes a movie that's like one of the most well-regarded comedies ever. And at the beginning of his career. And he was by all accounts a very big fan of comedy.

Like he fucking always wanted to do a movie with Steve Martin. He loved Albert Brooks. It's all mythologized with this too, where people are, right. They like every passing comment he ever made becomes like totemic. Like, Oh, he loved all that jazz and modern romance.

These are things we just cite. Like, you know, Kubrick loved it, you know, like, and like, but it's because he's unknown.

He was unknowable. Right. So it's like the few things we know are the things he said to other artists, right? Like we find out these things in interviews because those people say, he actually called me up once and told me this. He was never making these statements publicly. He wasn't doing director's commentaries. He wasn't going on The Tonight Show.

He wasn't doing much press, you know? Stanley Kubrick. Stanley Kubrick. Was born on July 26th. Birthday's coming up, Stan. Hey. 1928. Brooklyn. No, where was he born? He was born in Manhattan, just like you and me.

To parents Jack and Gertrude Kubrick, who resided in the Bronx. Okay. He's from the Bronx. Why did I think he was from Brooklyn? I'm wrong. I'm very wrong. Well, I don't know, but he's from the Bronx, and he was an intelligent boy, but he wasn't good at school He didn't fit into the American education system

Poor attendance Poor grades And so he was sent To Pasadena for a year as a child They were hoping maybe that had sorted him out Didn't work By 1941 he was back in the Bronx Wasn't doing well

Eventually ends up at Taft High School in the Bronx. Graduates with a 67 average, which I guess is bad. That sounds bad. Out of 100, I'm assuming. I think that's a D. I used to have the attitude when I got a poor grade, I was like,

anything that's passing, I'm happy with. You're like, oh, God. I mean, again, I did not... 60 out of 100 is a bad result,, I'm happy with. You're like, oh, God. Right, but it's like, I mean, again, I did not. 60 out of 100 is a bad result. And I'm like, I got above 65. I don't know what to tell you. Straight Cs, baby. I'm killing it.

Well, Stanley would agree with you. I'm like, good, made it. But no college. Indiana Jones slipped out of the boulder just in time. Grab my hat. You know, no college in the United States would consider his application. So I guess that's the problem he runs into with his 67 average.

But he does meet. His father was a doctor? Yes. His father was a doctor. So he's sort of, he is sort of wealthy within his immediate social circle. I, you know. He's not poop blooded. He's like a middle class kid in the bronx a jewish guy

but i you know i think they they they were they were doing fine for for the bronx yes or for the west bronx sure you know yeah totally and yeah he yeah it's a d plus grade average there you go confirmed not great not enough though i think part of the problem he had College wise also is it's 1945 People are coming back from the war There's a lot of Demand oh you know what I mean Like they're so so like that makes it Even harder he did meet Alexander Singer in college who's one of his

Early collaborate I mean sorry in high school One of his early collaborators And he did get into Photography on the school's newspaper Which of course is Stanley Kubrick's early Profession Taking pics But not moving pics

No still And so he had a darkroom at home He was very sophisticated About that There weren't a lot of you know People doing that kind of stuff at that age Okay listen Singer says richest kid i knew so thank you i read the dossier right right right

you know they had their own house but i mean the way singer is putting it is like look we all live fairly rough that's what i said his stable life right in that social circle i i think he had a slightly more stable sort of home setup and look yeah his dad was supportive of the he got in the dark room his dad's like if you want to take pictures at least you know he's not like sending stanley to military school i guess right right uh gets him a graflex it's a kind of camera i think yeah and alexander singer wants to be a film director right singer's the one who kind of turns him onto the idea of film right, right? And I think more than anything, what's appealing to him is how confident Singer is

in knowing what he wants to do and how to do it. Yes. Like he's a kid looking for a fucking purpose, you know? Singer's idea is to make a movie of the Iliad, Homer's epic poem. Easy. Yeah, exactly. Seems easy in the Bronx in 1945 or whatever. So he draws sketches

of how to do this. Kubrick is supportive. Kubrick starts going to night classes. But before he even really gets into that, he gets an apprentice photographer job at Look Magazine. Now, can we say a great name? Reading through this dossier, I've seen the name Look Magazine over and over again. Every single time I saw it, I went, cool. And he works there from the age of 17 to 21, big break, and learns all about photography. It's, you know, he learns on the job, right? You know, he's, yeah, he's learning at the hands of skilled people. I talked about, I think, in one of the Demi episodes that I feel like most filmmakers,

and getting back to what we were talking about are either like architects or anthropologists, right? There's either a thing they want to construct or there's a thing that exists that they want to capture. And it is a thing that's interesting about Kubrick. And it's interesting when you start with these early films as we are, that it's like,

he goes from being a photojournalist to a documentary short subject filmmaker to making his first couple films feel a lot more documentary. Yes. And as time goes on, it becomes more and more precise. Like he does go from being a person who's trying to capture things out in the wild to a person who's trying to create his own reality. Right. Photography seems fun.

Yeah, photography rules. He shot Montgomery Cliff with a camera. Photography seems fun. Yeah, photography rules. He shot Montgomery Cliff with a camera. Not with a gun. Don't accuse me. That's a cool thing he did. Yeah. Have you guys ever

worked in a dark room? Yeah. Worked with film cameras? Yeah. I was a big photography kid. Same. Yeah. I got really into it.

It's such a fun thing, but in these days, it just feels like it's almost expensive. You got to put it in the magic juice, and then you move it around with tongs, and then the picture appears, and then you put it on a little clothesline. It rolls.

It's so fucking cool. It is really cool. Drip, drip, drip, dry. And if you open the door and the light comes in, you're going to ruin them. It was one of those things where I was like, that was like one of the better hobbies I had that I really enjoyed. And I enjoyed the whole process of it.

And I enjoyed the dark room and everything. And it was just like in the years of my adolescence, my teen years, I saw it become harder and harder to buy film, to find places that gave you access to a dark room. You know, it was like taking classes and then they were like disappearing in real time. And just getting really expensive. Like the paper, everything was just becoming

less and less available. Yeah. And I had like a, like a, uh, an old Russian Krasnogorsky eight millimeter film camera. And I made short films on it. And then it was just like, oh, there's one place you can get this developed. There's one place that will transfer this for you. And it's like a window

and it costs a billion dollars. All these things just became so fucking difficult to do. But there is... It's a great process. It's a great excuse to break into abandoned buildings and take pictures of decay.

That was a big subject of mine. Decay. Decay. I like the idea of you dressing like Jimmy Olsen with an old-school camera and a flashbulb as a cover for people who would yell at you for loitering or trespassing and be like, gee, Williker, sir, I'm just a photojournalist.

I'm not doing anything on board. I was never that smart. While working at Look, Kubrick marries his first wife, Toba Metz, Taft graduate, who I think he was married to for just a couple years. They get divorced in 51.

I think Singer had a quote where he was like, they weren't really married, it was just like a relationship. They were just dating. They were in their teens. They got married, essentially, right to a relationship. They were just dating. They were in their teens. They got married, essentially, right to avoid whatever.

Like, impropriety. Right. So they could hold hands in public without getting arrested. His second wife is Ruth Sabatka, a dancer. Who's in Killer's Kiss.

Who is in Killer's Kiss. And eventually, yeah, when she meets him, he's still married, but they get divorced in 51. And Ruth marries Stanley Kubrick in 52. Isn't that crazy to think about that era

in time where if you wanted to ask someone out on a date, you essentially had to ask them to marry you and go like, I'll give this a shot. Yes. It is really crazy. It is weird. Right? It's also crazy from then the other side of it, right, where it's just like, thinking as a woman in those times

truly had like no rights. No, absolutely. And very often it wouldn't be like Kubrick in his first way. They just stay married forever even if six months later they realize they didn't like each other. Well, what's Dan like to do?

Divorce women? No. Well, he did that twice, but no. Go to the movies. He would see every? No. What? He did that twice, but no. Go to the movies. Ah! He would see every single movie. Every single movie. We used to go to Terrible.

Double Features. This is David Vaughn, who shoots, who's the director of photography on Killer's Kiss, I think, or maybe not. He's an early guy. But, you know, they go see Double Features just on 42nd Street. He was only interested in the way films were made visually. If actors started to

talk too much, he would read his paper by whatever light he could find until they stopped talking. Very annoying audience members. Incredibly annoying. Rustling the paper. He was very critical of films. He was obsessed with them. He wanted to see everything.

You go to the important movies, too. You go to Museum of Modern Art to see Diary of a priest an early favorite of steven spielberg i mean steven stanley kubrick's maybe steven spielberg this is another kubrick mythology thing though is that he like sort of willed himself into being a film genius right he didn't work up the ranks on shoots he obviously didn't go to film school because that was not really a thing. But it's like he just saw a billion movies then made his first film, Fear and Desire, which was essentially making a film as film school. Like, teach myself to do this by doing it.

Right. And then he was a filmmaker. You know? Like, I mean, Nolan sort of has a similar trajectory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah i mean part of what it's they keep saying is that he would keep seeing these movies and be like i know why this is bad and this is what i would have done differently like he's very obsessed with sort of like i can see how this could have been made better with these run-of-the-mill hollywood movies

um so this whole thing was he was like i don't know if I can make a great movie, but I know I can make a movie better than 40% of what I'm seeing. The first two movies, he essentially gets financed by parents, friends, and relatives who run pharmacies. It's funny on both of these films, you read that all the money came from like fucking pharmacies and drugstores. All the money came from like fucking pharmacies and drugstores. It's like those were the sort of most cash liquid people he knew. And he just sort of gave them the pitch on the investment.

He was able to teach himself a lot of photography, right? So it's like he understood that language, that workflow. But by all accounts, these first two movies, especially Fear and Desire, were like, I'm going to learn how to do everything right by doing everything wrong first. Before we do talk about that. Just answering his question. He's obsessed with Sergei Eisenstein and Vesvolod Pudovkin. The second Pudovkin, especially, who wrote a book called The Film Technique.

He read that obsessively. He also played a lot of chess. And he won with enough frequency that he actually made money. And he saw chess as a great analogy for filmmaking because you have to balance resources against the problem, right? You know, you have to, you know, think ahead calmly. You have to be like, is this the best idea? Are there better ideas?

This is his whole thing with chess. In a lot of ways, I think that's the thing that gives him a weird advantage that he's able to shift it into that mindset because i do think a lot of the sort of self-taught self-proclaimed film geniuses who just watch a billion movies and then go like i could make a thing better than this know how to theoretically make a great film in their mind but the thing they struggle with is when they get to the stage where it's like now you are interfacing with other real people in real time working against a clock with a set amount of money and then a lot of those people crumble you know they don't know how to win over people they don't know how to communicate their vision to other people i do think the sort of strategic

thinking of the chess thing helps him. His first film is a 1951 documentary short entitled Day of the Fight. Alex Perry asked me if we're doing that one on the podcast. I said, no! You can watch all these on YouTube, and one of them is on the Fear and Desire. Yeah, I think Day of the Fight is? I can't remember.

What is it? The Wayfarers. Is that what it's called? Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Seafarers? The Seafarers. Yes. And there's also? Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Seafarers? The Seafarers. Yes. And there's also Flying Padre. Right. I think the British release of Fear and Desire has Flying Padre and what's it called? The Big Fight?

The first thing he did was called The Day of the Fight. The Day of the Fight. And it was based on a photo feature he'd shot for Look. And it's about a middleweight boxer at the height of his career named Walter Cartier. It seems like a bit of you know an inspiration for killer's kiss right i watched this it's really good yeah um and uh he you know basically is kind of like well i can you know give it a shot right i can give like you know moving cameras a shot look he came from a relative amount of money right right and at

beyond that even he had resources he had direct ties to people who had money sure and like you read about even a day the fight and it was like a business proposition where he was just like there's a market for short films or for documentary shorts and newsreel shorts sort of adjacent things that will play before theaters i can raise three thousand nine hundred dollars to just self-produce this and then he sold it for four thousand dollars right because what he was inspired by was alexander singer had worked on another the march of time which apparently it's like they'd spent forty thousand dollars making and kubrick was like i can make something for a tenth of that or whatever, you know. I think part of that was just that he knew

that he understood the technical aspects of the camera, lighting, all of this so well that he was like, I'll save money by doing it all

on my fucking self. So he does and he does, as you say, make a tidy $100 profit. He was told that was the most archaeopath they had ever

paid for a short so they must have liked it and he had lots of experience making this. He was a cameraman. He was the editor. He was the sound effects guy. He did it all himself. He gets a grasp of the technical aspect of filmmaking.

And so RKO, happy with what he made, gives him $1,500 advance to make Flying Padre, which is about a priest who is, I guess, flying from settlement to settlement in New Mexico. Giving supplies, right? Yes. It's only nine minutes long. Big fight's like 12, 13, something like that. They're all short, right?

Seafarer's like half an hour long. And that was sort of more for a higher job. He barely breaks even on Flying Padre, but I guess he's inspired enough to quit look. And he wants to make his feature film debut. And he's sort of trying to figure that out. He raises 10 grand from friends and his father and his uncle who he lived with in Pasadena that one time. I guess he has these movies that people have seen,

so he can at least point to that when he's raising money. Right. And he signs a one-picture deal with this guy, Martin Perlever. That's his uncle, with his uncle. Who owns a drugstore, right? Right. Yes. He's the one with the most money.

But he said, like, I think you're going to be a big director. I'm not giving you money for one movie. You're signing a deal with me where I get a percentage of the rest of your career. It was essentially the deal we talked about in the Fosse. J.J. drew this connection. Yes, that's right. But the guy who sort of discovered him as a dancer. Was like, I get 15% of everything.

It's the Rick Mackey, King Richard deal. And Kubrick, stubborn fuck that he was, was like, I'm not fucking signing a deal with my career. You get one movie or nothing. He's the Rick Mackey King Richard deal. And Kubrick stubborn fuck that he was was like I'm not fucking signing with my career you get one movie or nothing. He's fucking savvy.

I know. I'm getting I'm like impressed. And his uncle was like then no money. Sorry. I'm not interested in one film.

And like he fucking caves like a month later and is like god damn it I'll fucking give you the money for the one movie. Right. Like this guy just

it's the chess thing. He knew how to, like, get in people's heads and outplay them. Very quietly, you know? Howard Sackler. Uh-huh. Who eventually is going to be a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright who writes The Great White Hope in the 60s. Right.

Is a high school friend of his, or whatever. And he had written this little screenplay called The Trap. And this is Fear and Desire desire this is what they make they are they were going to shoot it in new york but it was too cold so they go to california the san gabriel mountains outside los angeles kubrick's the camera operator and the director they had three mexican laborers who carried the equipment that's the only crew essentially it was less than 15 people including the full cast. Right. Worked on the movie in totality. At least in terms of shooting.

Because you've also got Kubrick's wife, actors, a couple other friends, apparently, doing some sort of like, yes. He shot it on a 35mm Mitchell camera, rented it for $25 a day. Shot it without sound, though. Yes. Which was the prevalent technique especially for documentary

filmmaking where you would just dub it in later do it later because it's too hard to mic up it's a fucking sound technology boom you seen these guys he hated the way the boom in fact interfered with his lighting setups like he was just like i'll do this later and uh and so he wanted he wanted the thing to be silent. He wasn't even going to dub it over. He wanted it to be silent. And then they watched it and he was like, God damn it, I fucking got to go in and add all the sound and re-record all the dialogue.

And then it like tripled his budget. It was a huge mistake on his part, he said, because Fu shooting the movie cost $9,000 and all the post stuff cost $30,000. So that's not great. But he didn't know what he was doing, but he's learning. He'd never used a movie camera like this before.

The Mitchell that he's using, he's learning that too. He's learning how to like load film, 35 millimeter film and all that. David and I were texting about this while I was watching the film. But yeah, I've heard a lot of first films on this podcast.

And sometimes you see them where you're like, holy fucking shit, how is this person's first film? Right? And usually the answer is there was some gradual process working up to that. Right? Nora Ephron established herself as a writer and then as a screenwriter. And by the time she's directing her own film, she's been on sets a lot. She's dealt with studio politicking, what have you. You know?

The Wachowskis were doing, like, for hire, screenwriting work, spec scripts, whatever. Like, all these people have these things. The hardest thing to do is, I think, to not even step foot onto a production for the first time as a director when you've never done it before, but to, like, make your own production.

So he's not even stepping into like an established studio system thing. He's bringing a bunch of friends out to the fucking woods of California with equipment he rented and assuming he knows what he's doing. And like Christopher Nolan's first movie following is like this,

where it was like shot over four years, renting out the footage whenever there was a free, the equipment whenever there was a free weekend, doing it with his friends, whatever. And when you watch a movie like that, it's like, oh, it's really impressive when you consider you're watching this guy figuring it out in real time.

This movie is interesting because he doesn't, really. He doesn't figure it out, no. I mean, this is not a good movie. The Killer's Case, you throw this on, you're like, beginning, middle, and end. Right. Thr and end right thrilling sequences yeah some really interesting photography this is a movie some interesting theme i went to see it in the theater and i was like even though it's short and i was like i was like i had a good time in the theater if i saw fear and desire i'd be like what the fuck is this shit like not knowing that it's stanley cuba yeah i'd be like oh there's a couple

ideas here but like i would basically like, is this a student film? Right. We'll talk about that. The cast, Frank Silvera, who's also in Killer's Kiss, is the only like real actor here. And he's good. He's got more pizzazz. He's good. I think Mazurski's kind of good.

You think Mazurski's kind of good because he's Paul Mazurski. I don't think he's like amazing, but it is interesting to see him. He was working for me before I put together. It was Paul Mazurski. So the guy who's the creep in Fear and Desire, that's a guy who becomes a very good filmmaker. Did Harry Tonto, which we were disparaging in a recent episode, but Bob and Carol Ted and Alice. Unmarried woman. It's a great film.

Comedy drama legend of the 60s and 70s. He's an early dramedy, 70s. Yeah. Actors, director. Virginia Leif. I'm not sure how you say her last name. But, you know, she's in some movies. What's it called?

The Man with the Screaming Brain. What's that movie called? The Brain That Wouldn't Die. The Man with the Screaming Brain is a Bruce Campbell film. Very good name. I know. I mean, I like that. Bruce Campbell, it's like 2000s.

He did his sort of homage to Corman movies. I think it's called The Man with the Screaming Brain. The way Mazursky puts Kubrick is, here he is, right? He's doing it all. He's doing the lighting. He's doing the camera work. He's doing the editing. He doesn't know how to talk to actors.

Like, there's not a lot of guidance from him on that front. Which he's not worked with actors at all at this point. He's just had to step back and observe people doing their thing. Frank Silvera, at one point, has a story. They had run out of money, I guess. point he's just had to step back and observe people doing their thing uh frank silveira at one point uh has a story they had run out of money i guess and frank silveira was like well i'm getting my money no matter what i'll tell you that right now and he uh got his money uh i guess i guess he was worried that i guess they would have no movie and he would not get paid but they do figure it out but it does just feel like a

lot of the stories are like the thing he had not yet figured out at all is how to direct actors or anything like that and then there's the other thing you said about the dubbing and all that like it's a lot of a lot of mistakes are being made it's partly why he disowns this movie problem i know but you know for me like that that's not even my issue with this film it's i don't think they had a clear enough story yeah there's not really a story right that that's not even my issue with this film it's i don't think they had a clear enough story yeah there's not really a story right that that's the thing because i'm like i love watching fucking rough primordial first films from directors such as like here what's a good version of this right like well i i i agree i think following is a good version of this

yes in that it's it's reasonably entertaining you see the pieces following is a good version of this. Yes. In that it's reasonably entertaining. You see the pieces. Following is a better movie. It's not... It's not a great film. Great, right. But at least it's something. And I kind of like these early films where the filmmaker's process is so apparent, you know?

Yeah. I mean, a movie that I think is great is, which I saw for the first time recently, Story of a Three-Day Pass, the Melvin Van Peebles's movie which was similarly a first film that he kind of scraped together outside of the system that movie's got like such incredible feeling in it um i mean the fucking original version of shadows is unwatchable it's tough to watch i've watched that no no i mean literally it's the one he won't let anyone see oh you mean oh i've never seen no but but i think the version of shadows that exists is like that is similarly like there's

interesting stuff in here it's very much a first movie right and then faces is like a first proper film i remember i watched shadows because it was was it restored and there was like a new yorker article maybe about the restoration yeah like oh this lost like you know and like i remember i watched it as a teenager and walked away just being like i don you know and like i remember i watched it as a teenager and walked away just being like i don't know what like i might as well have just read the magazine article i don't know what i'm supposed to take away the guy's name is i think it's maybe mt carney who's like the leading cassavetes historian uncovered the first version of shadows which cassavetes hates so much he like put it in a box and said like, no one will ever see this

and reshot the movie entirely with different actors. And then he got a copy and Ray Carney perhaps? Yes, thank you. Yes. Was going to restore it

and release it and Jenna Rollins and I'm forgetting the guy's name, he was Cassavetes' producer, blocked it from happening. But like, I wonder if that movie

looks like this. They get the music done by gerald freed uh-huh who is like some oboe major at juilliard that alex singer knows he's like the only musician he knows it's a lot of shit like that right you know just sort of bringing in people he says the music was supposed to mourn the world's innocence okay did you get that from the music sure okay cool the movie is then retitled shape of fear and kubrick is looking for a distributor i mean especially in the 50s this is an insane way to make a movie this isn't how you do it no not at all you don't make a full

ish you know like a 60 minute movie no with no real plot about like soldiers in a war who are like who meet a woman and then try and find a distributor? I mean, like, that's just... No. No, this movie also feels like it's, like, adapted from a poem. Like, it doesn't even feel like it's a short story adapted to an hour. It feels like they had an idea of a feeling and a theme and it's not really dramatized. And there'll be moments that are kind of gripping.

But it's like he's basically got the thing of, like, in war, men men go crazy they become so overtaken by their primal fear and desire right like that's his whole fucking thing and then you're just sort of like at minute 10 you're like i get it yeah because i at times i'm like is this kind of referencing the spanish-american war um the spanish-american war the spanish civil war the spanish american war i don't know took place on an island right um well i mean obviously it's it's coming out during this the korean war no i know and maybe there's some referencing a past i mean spanish american conflict the open narration i found so interesting because it felt like cuban puerto rico it's abstracting the war and being like the enemy doesn't matter where they are.

It doesn't matter. They're in the primal state of war. And then the movie doesn't feel like it's really doing that. And I wonder if the narration is just him being like, I don't want to have to fucking pick. Like it almost feels like a Top Gun Maverick thing of just like, just let me tell a story about war without like. Right. Without it being a specific war. Being anything.

I don't know. Yeah. being a specific being anything i don't know yeah he eventually gets an indie film distributor called joseph burston who released foreign films like rome open city or bicycle thieves sure he sees good movies by the way those are good movies yeah he sees fear and desire and says he's a genius this is an american art picture without any artiness i don't know what that means i don't either i guess it's also hard to identify at this point because it's stuff that we just take as a given. But there must be shit that if you're watching this movie in the early 1950s, you're like, fuck, I haven't seen that technique before.

This is poetic. There's no scene enemy. Like, what does it mean? So it gets our head distribution. The newness of it is gripping enough to overwhelm the fact that there's not a lot going on, you know? It makes no money, but when Kubrick later gets money, he pays back his investment. Nice.

Yes. Kind. But, and he... Well, kind. He better. Thoughtful. Fucking Earl's... Yeah, I guess a little bar, but you hear so often about people not doing that. Kubrick is embarrassed by this movie. Yeah, doesn't like it. It's not a film I remember with any pride, he says the ideas we put across were good but we had no experience to embody them dramatically it was really just a 35 millimeter version of what a class of film

students would do in 16 millimeters yeah and you feel like if he was in film school he would have made a 15 minute version of this and got out of his system rather than having to put on it this needs to be a commercial enterprise I'm raising money i have to make it back by distributing it it's the challenging thing of this medium that we we all love and we've been talking about on this podcast for how many freaking years you need a lot of people and a lot of equipment and a lot of planning it's not like something that you can just oh i want to try this out. No, and it's why film school is popular, because it's like, you know, art school for other concentrations is teaching you technique, form, all of that.

Film school is also giving you the structure of, like, the school is operating like a studio. The crew is going to be your classmates. You know, there's common equipment you're all renting and sharing. Like, it's hard to do it outside of that. And the people who get there without going to film school, as I said, tend to take circuitous paths

and work their way up to the position of director, having first done other things surrounding a film production. In 1999, Mazursky remembered that at one point, John Borman was going to introduce this print of Fear and Desire that had been rediscovered at like Telluride or something. And Stanley called him up and was like,

please don't. I hate that movie. Don't do that. So Ed Borman was like, well, okay. It's like me when people try to share pictures of the two years

where I had long hair. Oh, wow. Sure. Or when they try and screen butt whistle at Telluride or whatever. Well, no, that's probably the best movie ever.

Fair enough. I want to see this long hair pic. I think I've seen a couple long hair at Griff's. It's not your best look. It was not. This one was like 13. Yeah. I want it to look like Tom Cruise.

It's a little stringy from what I remember of like a Facebook photo I saw or whatever. It's a little more curatapi unfortunately that sounds great i kept on being like when is it gonna flip back like tom cruise and no one explained to me you have curly hair maybe someone could have sat you down like my parents made several mistakes go on that's it with fear and desire do we want to talk about the plot of fear and desire act one yeah soldiers are walking around yeah they Yeah. They're stranded. Their plane went down. Their plane went down. They're trying to get back across enemy lines.

Starting to feel a little bit tense. And then they find a raft. Uh-huh. So there's some raft business. Sure. And then they see a girl, a peasant girl who does not speak their language, I guess. The poster refers to as half animal. Yeah.

Which made me also wonder. She seems pretty calm. Right. But between the opening narration and that tagline in the poster, I as half animal yeah she was pretty calm right but between the opening narration and that tagline in the poster i was like is stanley going supernatural is there some fucking twist here and it's like no they're saying she's half animal because she doesn't speak english tie her up to a tree i don't really know why i guess for her to not reveal them their position yeah yeah and then and then mazerski kind of goes mazerski is left alone

with her and goes nuts and unbelts her, and she tries to escape, and he shoots her. And then eventually Frank Silvera, who's the one with a little more pizzazz, goes off on his own. And so he's sort of on a raft for a while kind of talking to himself. Right.

Because once he gets tied to the tree, I was like, so is this whole movie... Is this the drama, right? In the woods... Is this it? Right, the presence of a woman... What do of what do we do finally unraveling them or is it is it the unravel of the accidental death and the cover-up or whatever and it's like no that's sort of just

a thing that happens well also the the youngest soldier loses it right and his like his like the way he's playing shell shocked or whatever it's it's so it's so crazy and like right day one like acting stuff it's the other thing i mean i just find it fun but it's the other thing that kubrick becomes famous for this very clamp down toned down acting style right okay it's not naturalistic because it's very stylized but he likes sort of bottled emotions he likes quiet he likes stillness he likes all these things it's weird to watch these first couple of movies where you do have people who are still going like you see here you know i've gone badly like he's just gonna iron all of that out of his cinematic language once he realizes how to control actors what else uh well then where there's the weird

thing where we suddenly are cutting to these two generals just talking in a room which i think the like well it's in it's cool interesting it's a yes but you are kind of like who's this right you know like just if you're again just trying to follow a plot here right you're like i don't really understand but yes they are the but it almost feels like a grand illusion thing where you like you then cut to the office and you stay in their perspective for a while you know yes it's interesting idea it's a very interesting idea yeah it just kind of comes out of nowhere but it it partly just sort of seems motivated by like look we only have so many locations and actors so yeah we'll just cut to them once again this thing shouldn't be an hour.

I don't know who I'm saying this to. Stanley! Right. Cut it down! And then they kill the enemy general and escape, and then they get on the raft. Yeah, war is bad for the human psyche. That's pretty much what this movie is saying, which I agree with. I'm no more convinced by the end of it right uh i was talking the other day about how anytime i watch

a war film i'm just like uh you should stop doing this oh that's right you you're not a big war film guy no because i just i go like everyone should just meet in the middle and go like just leave uh just leave yeah they tend to Yeah. They tend to not want you to do that. I mean if human history has shown us anything is that I think we're working

towards eventually coming to that conclusion. Gotta leave. Very soon. Gotta leave and just you know shake hands. Yeah.

Sure. What are we doing here? What is it good for one might ask. Yeah. Hey. Good God. Good God y'all. All Alright, so this movie makes no money

Box office game? Oh yeah, I guess we might as well just do it now Do we want to do the box office game For Fear and Desire? Absolutely Wow, you guys just got so much more excited I know, right? That's why I'm throwing it in here now

Thank God we didn't do this We need to do a bump Thank God we didn't do this as just a solo episode. Yep. All right. The box office game for Fear and Desire, which came out the 1st of April, 1953 or something. Fear opened to zero. Yeah.

I mean, like, look, I'm doing my best here. Yeah. Number one at the box office is a musical film. Remind me the year again. Sorry. 1953. Okay. Musical film directed by Walter Lang based me the year again? Sorry. 1953. Okay. Musical film directed by Walter Lang,

based on a stage musical. Okay. Not one I really know. Okay. Starring, you know, a famous musical actress. Color picture? I think it is in color. I don't know, is it?

Is it Ethel Merman? It is Ethel Merman. Okay. You nailed it. Okay. To 1953. It's also Ethel Merman. Okay. You nailed it. Okay. To 1953. It's also got Donald O'Connor. Is it Anything Goes?

It's not Anything Goes. Okay, but Donald O'Connor and Ethel Merman did do an Anything Goes movie. But that's not what this is. I know. This is set in Washington, D.C., and it's about a socialite who is appointed ambassador to a tiny fake country. Did you know this title? Have you heard of this movie before?

No, I don't think I do. The songs are by Irving Berlin. Okay. George Sanders is also in this movie. I don't know it. Is it called Those Fat Cats Up on Capitol Hill? I mean, essentially. I mean, this is wild,

but is it Doctor Doom? Doctor Doom? Ben? Big country? Yeah. It's not the musical Doctor Doom. As good as that would be. Yeah, that was 51

when Ethel Merman played Victor Von Doom in a musical. That was 51, Ben. That's the only thing that's foolish about your guess is wrong year. The movie is called Call Me Madam. Okay, yeah. No was 51, Ben. That's the only thing that's foolish about your guess is wrong year. The movie is called Call Me Madam. Okay, yeah. No idea.

All right. At least I guessed Ethel. I get half credit for that or something. No, I mean, Ethel was kind of a good one there. Yeah. All right. So the next one is... Remember when Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine were married for like two hours?

Sure. And then they were like, we got married and had sex and we were like, what am I doing here? This is terrible. This is going to gross everyone out for decades. That's later in life too, I think. This is awful. We all make mistakes.

That's what she said about her many marriages. In her autobiography, Merman. Merman. It's called Merman. Merman? Merman. It's called Merman? It's called Merman. Okay. I just read that as cold red. That is Merman.

Yeah. In her autobiography, Merman, the chapter titled My Marriage to Ernest Borgnine consists of one blank page. Pretty good burn. That's a good bit. All right. Number two at the box office.

It's a biblical drama. It's a biblical drama. It's a biblical drama. Based on a famous biblical figure who has been dramatized many times. King of Kings? No. It's directed by William Deterl. Deterl. Is it a Jesus movie?

Who's the guy who made, like, it's not a Jesus movie. He made Life of Emile Zola and Story of Louis Pasteur. A lot of those famous old biopics. He's like the David O. Russell of his time. He's a guaranteed Oscar for any of his actors. Yeah, and he was always screaming at Lily Tomlin. This is a Rita Hayworth film. It's a Rita Hayworth film?

Biblical figures. Did she marry Magdalene? No. I'm not going to get it. I'm not going to get it? I don't think so. What is it? It's always some of the other actors.

Charles Lawton. Okay. Okay. Stuart Granger. You know know him he's in the hitchcock movies yeah i'm just i'm gonna get is it moses is it a moses no this is why you're not gonna get it's salome salome oh okay salome yeah i don't know salome is that it i think so maybe they're always doing him her they're always doing yeah sure isn't it pacino who's always doing Salome? Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. He did Salome with Jessica Chastain and he made a documentary about himself making Salome.

This is the thing. All right. So we're moving on. Who's Salome? She's like a biblical princess. Like from, you know, the daughter of Herod II. Like she's, you know, it's a whole thing. Anyway, we're not going to talk about it.

No, I don't need to know. We're moving on to a movie we've all heard of. Do you think there are people yelling at us right now? The way people yell at us when we're disrespectful to certain genres? Who the fuck's Salome?

Probably. Sorry, Queen Salome, if I said your name wrong. Yeah. Salome, Salome. Maybe I'm wrong. Number three at the box office is an animated film.

Number three at the box office is an animated film. Number three at the box office. From the Walt Disney Corporation. Animated film. In 52. Three. Fuck. In 53. Would it be.

It's only been out for about a month. Sleeping Beauty? No. Is that earlier or later? Later. It's later. Sleeping Beauty is 59. Okay, 59.

So then the fifth. Again's later. Sleeping Beauty is 59. Okay, 59. So then the 50. Gain the 50. Is it Cinderella? It's not Cinderella. That is 50. Is it a princess? No. It's not?

No. 52. Three. Oh, my God. 53. Not a princess. No, it's a hero. It's a hero.

Yes. And 53. It's not Pinoc hero. It's a hero. Yes. In 53. It's not Pinocchio. It's not Bambi. No. It's not Jungle Book. It's not 101 Dalmatians. No.

Those are later. Those are all later. Bambi and Pinocchio are earlier. Those are earlier. It's not Fantasia. No. That's very early. I'm aware.

So why'd you bring it up? Because I'm rolling things out. I'm not embarrassing. I'm special. I why'd you bring it up? Because I'm rolling things out. I'm not embarrassing. I'm special. I think this came later. Goofy movie? It's a goofy movie, yes. It's extremely goofy.

Only 50s kids understand. No, it is being remade for Disney Plus, I think, very soon. Oh, is it Sword in the Stone? No! Fuck! That's 63, baby. It's Peter Pan.

It's Peter Pan. Disney's peter pan uh disney's peter pan sorry a good movie yeah i like peter pan captain hook yeah best ride of all time maybe okay i don't know from your ride you will someday i'll make you have to go to neverland or something you'll be charmed and it will cost eight thousand dollars000. Oh, God. Anyway, so Peter Pan, that's number three at the box office. Number four at the box office is an Oscar-winning film that is about a place. One. A location.

Hawaii? No, like a build, like a club. I'm going to be honest with you. It's a club. Club Cabana? No, but you know, like, yes, a'm going to be honest with you. It's a club. Club Gabon? No, but you know, like, yes, a club of that kind of renown. It won Best Actor, I want to say. Right?

Yes. No, I'm sorry. You know what? It was only nominated, but it did win some design Oscars. Huh. Moulin Rouge? It's Moulin, John Huston's Moulin Rouge With Jose Ferrer and Zsa Zsa Gabor Yeah

Is Jose Ferrer Toulouse-Lautrec in that? He sure is Wow Was he dwarfing it? I don't know I mean, I assume so, right? Shoes on his knees? He was a very short man, yes

I mean, didn't Leguizamo do something like that too? Well, but that's Baz Luhrmann I'm sure he did a version of it that cost $1 million per minute Well, Leguizamo was very short. He wasn't just dwarfing. He's not quite as short as Toulouse-Trek. He wasn't straight dwarfing.

But yeah, I've never seen it. I've always wondered about it. It was a big hit at the time, Moulin Rouge. Yeah, yeah. But obviously, it's mostly about Toulouse-Trek and all that.

Right. That's number four. And number five at the box office, look. I mean... Just tell me. It's about... The name of the movie

it's like a Hollywood big musical. The name of the movie is just the name of a famous author. William Shakespeare. No. It's an author who did fairy tales. Hans Christian Andersen. Correct. And what does this movie star?

This movie stars... Have you ever heard of the movie Hans Christian Andersen? Yes. No, I've seen this one. It's Danny Kaye. Danny Kaye. That's right. I've seen this movie.

Farley Granger. I've never seen it. My mother liked it. My dad really liked Danny Kaye, and I've seen like Walter Mitty and stuff. I've never seen that one. Yeah. Court Jester. I mean, that's the best one.

Court Jester is good. I just remember when we first got a DVD player, like year 2000 or whatever. Yeah. And we had like five DVDs. And my mom was like, I decided to buy a DVD player like year 2000 or whatever. Yeah. And we had like five DVDs. And my mom was like I decided to buy a DVD and she put Hans Christian Anderson on the shelf

and I was like that's number six. Like we never had that many VHS's and like suddenly we have DVDs and it's like oh we have

Nightmare Before Christmas and The Matrix and Blazing Saddles and like a couple things then she's like I'm adding to the shelf. Well she's allowed. She was but everyone

was like are you going to watch that a lot? And she was like i'm adding to the show well she's allowed she was but everyone was like are you gonna watch that a lot she was like maybe i will i don't she ever doubt i remember watching it with romilly once though it's fine i i just i think walter minnie and court jester were the ones we had on video or whatever court jester's the one that's like still funny yeah is walter minnie funny walter minnie's got is the fantasies it's got some good sections in it right it's got or whatever. Court Rester's the one that's like still funny. Yeah. Is Walter Mitty funny? Walter Mitty's got He has the fantasies. It's fun.

It's got some good sections in it. Right. It's got a good number. Boris Karloff's in it. He's kind of fun. It's got some fun stuff and I mean I haven't seen

them since I was a kid. Anyway that's the box office. This is the problem with Walter Mitty is people get so obsessed with how to fucking dramatize Walter Mitty and it's like he goes

on a bunch of dreams without stakes. Right. And he has his fantasies. He has some fun little He has flights of fancy. Yeah. All right, some of the other movies

in the top 10 this week. There's a movie called Off Limits. Okay. Which stars Bob Hope. We love Bob Hope, right? Yeah, it's a comedy. I'm trying to find out more about it. There's another movie called Off Limits,

but that's not what I'm looking for. Looking for 1953 Bob Hope and Mickey Rooney. It's about... Oh, Mickey Rooney plays a boxer who's been drafted. And Hope has to, he's his manager, and he has to enlist in the army to keep an eye on him. That sounds fun. Yeah, I would get more excited about the premise.

The heightening of it is just his manager also has to go into the army. Okay, you know what? Why don't you go fucking make a boxer movie then, you dick? Maybe I will. Maybe Then you dick Maybe I will Maybe I will You've got Trouble Along The Way Which is a movie with

I just feel like we have to talk about it briefly Because it's like we never talk about this show A movie with Directed by Michael Curtis Who made a little movie called Casablanca Ever heard of it Was he Hungarian I think Starring that Directed by Michael Curtis, who made a little movie called Casablanca. I've never heard of it. It wasn't Curtiz. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Was he Hungarian, I think? Uh-huh. Starring that iconic rom-com duo. Give it to me. John Wayne and Donna Reed. Oh, boy. Does that sound fun? Yeah. Those two?

Yeah. It's called Trouble Along the Way. Okay. Is it a Western? No. It's like there's a Catholic school that's that's gonna It's a catholic school that's in trouble Dire financial straits And so the rector

Who's played by Charles Coburn Has to hire a former big time Football coach John Wayne The Duke himself In the hope of getting a sports program So they can like get some money in I guess And it turns out that uh i guess donna reed

is a social worker who's maybe maybe trying to fight him and they're gonna figure it out i don't know again it sounds kind of convoluted yeah it also sounds like this was like the 50s equivalent of kindergarten cop that's what i'm saying where it's like we put john wayne somewhere he doesn't belong a school it's one of those things... Yeah, right. You'll never believe... I don't know. It's one of those things where they're fighting over this, and then they eventually fall in love or something.

There's a John Wayne clip from some movie, I don't know the name, where it's him by a lake, and there's this kid, and I guess they're fishing or something, and the kid's like, I can't swim! Do you know what I'm talking about? John Wayne's like and the kid's like I can't swim. Do you know what I'm talking about? No. John Wayne's like

what do you mean can't swim? And then he just takes the kid and throws him in the lake. You sure you're not thinking of Frankenstein? No, I know that this is a John Wayne clip. Okay. Alright. It's highly recommended. I'll put the link in the description. Please. We have another movie in the

box office called i love melvin starring donald o'connor once again and debbie reynolds reunited from singing in the rain donald o'connor the uh ryan reynolds of his day and in this movie donald o'connor plays a look magazine photographer hey i think kubrick saw this and was like excuse me i don't know maybe he didn't maybe he didn't care. Then there's also I Confess, which I feel like that was a big movie. Yeah, that's it. That's of the time.

That's a Hitchcock, obviously, with Monty Clift himself. Never seen. It's a Hitchcock I've never seen. Yeah. And then Bawana Devil is the 10th movie. Oh, yeah. That was the first 3D movie, I believe. I believe that gets credit for being the first.

It is the first feature-length 3D film. It's got a lion in it uh-huh sounds cool yeah robert stack unsolved mysteries uh yeah but in this one the mystery has been solved and it's lions sure you gotta watch out for them while you're building a railroad that's i gotta i gotta watch that someday moving on yeah because you're the 3d boy i love 3d fear and desire love 3D. Fear and Desire makes no money. Stanley Kubrick has no money. Oh, no. No one wants him to make any, you know, movies, right? End of career.

Thank you for listening to our mini-series on Stanley Kubrick. It would be funny if he was like, forget it! I'll toothpaste. So he writes another script. He's like, fuck it, I'll do it myself again. Yeah. And in the contrast of the first one, this one was nothing but action sequences

strung together on a mechanically constructed gangster plot. And that's this movie? Well, yes. Or is this a film that doesn't get made? I don't know. Well, let me keep going. The crucial thing, of course, is in between, he does make The Seafarers.

Right. He makes on contract for The Seafarers International Union. Right. And obviously... It's a for hire gig. It's a for hire gig. It's a for hire gig. It's just to make some money. It's also the first time he shoots in color.

Mm-hmm. For the first time, and he won't do it again until Spartacus. Mm-hmm. But he is starting... Yes, I think Killer's Kiss is the script that he's shopping around. He eventually raises $40,000. Mm-hmm. Mostly coming from a Bronx pharmacist.

That's the pharmacist. Thank you. Maris Boussel. Okay, the other one was a drugstore. You know, all right. All right. thousand dollars uh mostly coming from a bronx pharmacist that's the pharmacist mars bucell okay the other one was a drug store you know all right a candy shop guy i don't know you know druggist a druggist uh and they got fifteen thousand dollars from a soda jerk and they shoot this movie in new york city gorilla style okay no permits any scene you see in this movie that's like on the streets? And there are a few. They just fucking, you know, did it sub-rosa.

You know, they were just like, okay, start rolling. Another just funny thing to contrast with his career ending with Eyes Wide Shut, where he's like, I'm going to fucking make my own New York City. I have no interest in being in the streets of New York City. I don't want to deal with those elements at all. So he hires a sound team, this guy. Nat Boxer is the lead of his sound team But then he fires him Nat Boxer is the lead of his sound team

But also a boxer The lead of his picture Very true But he fires Nat Boxer Because he doesn't like all his equipment He thinks the equipment stinks I guess He doesn't like all their business

Okay You know He's like I set up this shot And they're like Well we need to put a microphone there And Kubrick says Cut You don't make a movie that way you guys are all fired oh right he does the same fucking thing again where they shoot it without sound and dub over every line dialogue yeah it's crazy and once again he's kind of just doing it all himself you know so many of the cameras uh he's just loading the film himself i will say the dubbing in both of these films is

pretty strong. I think when you watch a lot of other movies from this era, it feels a lot more disconnected. Can I say though something to what you're talking about with the sound? Mm-hmm. I feel like I watch still now contemporary movies and it sounds like shit in a way where I'm like, is this just kind of continued with film production where sound just kind of gets the short shrift comparatively to the visual aspect? I think everything is generally too rushed these days. And I think the visuals also are being rushed. And it's just easier to fix visuals in post than it is to fix sound.

Because the way to fix sound is to re-record it. And often it just sounds inorganic. It doesn't. I will say another thing, though. And I think this is a plague, modern plague, is that everything is mixed badly for home. Where the music is always too loud and the dialogue is always too quiet. And it's something to do with you know i don't know how like sports and other tv stuff is mixed or something but like it's it's a nightmare yeah it really is

now the tvs will sometimes have sort of like cinema mode on sound as well but even it's not that good no and so you can't hear the fucking dialogue yeah and then you turn it up and then someone like you know closes the door and it's like boom what the hell like excuse me it is it is another pox of like i mean and this has affected visuals in a different way but the sort of like how do we make things that will play properly on a phone like it's not like they all are designed for the phone but they need to not not thinking about the. It's definitely a nice thinking about the phone. It's the reason why, like, every Netflix thing has, like, the look that's, like, a little too sharp, a little too clean,

a little too vibrant. Even if it's going for dark and murky, it's, like, the most vibrant noir you've ever seen. Because it just, everything has to be, like, so vivid. Kubrick does not like Killer's Kiss much either, right? He calls it a frivolous movie,

amateurish, badly developed, but as you say, he does at least accept it as a film he made. Here's what I find surprising and why I called out when you said this was a script he designed to just have all the action beats. This movie is so much more of a romance

than I thought it would be. I thought this was going to be just sort of like, a guy and a girl and a gun and a right but this movie is really about like her yeah and also the thing is love of her rather than her being like a an element that's the thing you keep thinking like when will these plots intertwine in some plotty way of like, it turns out she's, I don't know. The double cross. Yeah, exactly.

She's been in on it a lot all along or something. And then they fall in love anyway. You're waiting for some double indemnity thing. It's like, no, they just live next to each other. Right. And they just have this sort of tender romance of they're both kind of like

people who've been disregarded by society. They understand each other. They're, they want to stick out and they're just in the, you know, in the middle of nothing. Yeah. I just feel feel like even when when like the love of a good woman the idea of getting out and starting a new life is sort of the motivation for these movies they're a lot more concerned with the crime and this movie is so much more concerned with the time

the two of them spend together and it's it's kind of lovely it's just odd for him to be like and now i'm just going to design a fucking pot boiler like here's his balls to the wall give you all the meat and potatoes well i guess it's just very and he's not thought of as an emotional filmmaker it's very light on detail right yes is the way to put it but it does have these kind of tender recollections it has the very long sequence where she talks about her mother and flashback and the woman's dancing and all that. It's kind of incredible. Super interesting.

You're just like, this is not some like usual, like you say, potboiler thing. And also more interesting when you consider that's his wife at the time. Right. That's Ruth Sabatka. Her whole thing was she was sort of aging out of her dance career.

That's sort of like a swan song for her as a performer. Right, because at this point she's in her 30s, I think, when she's making this movie. Yeah, and she's getting, you know, that's older for, you know, a ballet dancer. I love the motif kind of with really the other two main characters. You keep seeing everyone's family photos. Yeah.

It's like just a nice little touch that humanizes all of them, including the guy who runs what do they call it the pleasure land well it's the second time this year i know we've covered a movie about fucking taxi dancers yeah it's true uh weary taxi dancers. Looking for love. Looking for something better. Pestered by crappy guys, including Frank Silvera, who plays the evil Vin. Can I call out one technique thing I liked

in Fear and Desire I forgot to mention? Yeah. When Mazurska accidentally kills the woman, she's lying there, and I think it's Silvera who's like checking her body yeah they cut to a pov shot i know of him waving his hand in front of her eyes it's one of the coolest like little things in the movie and it's kind of a quick pop like you see his hand

sort of above her head then you see from her dead pov the hand wave and then it cuts to him like running his hand on her neck, checking for a pulse. There's something very eerie about it because he's getting at something of like, well, you usually don't see POV shots of people who are dead, but also your role as an audience member is closer to that of a corpse.

You cannot affect the action of this film. You know? Sure. I don't know. No, it's cool i thought that was a cool shot i feel like there's that and there was one other shot in fear and desire that i thought was cool those are the two things that and i now i don't and i watched it like yesterday yeah killer's kiss you've got davey the boxer played by jamie smith kind of looks like kirk

douglas it's kind of got a douglasy. Sure. And then you've got Gloria is the taxi dancer played by Irene Kane. Who later becomes one of the early CNN on-screen personalities. Is that true? She becomes like a writer. Yes. She hosted a show called Media Matters,

I want to say. Media Watch. Media Watch, sorry. And she wrote a bunch of celebrity autobiographies. Yeah. She wrote one for Betty Ford, Rosalind Russell. Right, she changed her name. She went back to her birth name. Yeah. Yeah. Chase? Chris Chase. Yeah. That's funny.

Or, well, actually, her birth name was Irene Greenguard. Weird. But she married a Chase. She had three different names. What can I tell you? But she's pretty good, would you say? Yeah, I liked her in this, yeah. I liked her in this And he's got the right He cuts the right figure I guess

And then you got Frank Silvera That's kind of it And like you say for Sabaka As the dancer in that sort of one amazing sequence And they just live next to each other Right? He lives in a shitty apartment She lives in a shitty apartment They look. She lives in a shitty apartment.

They look at each other through the window, right? Like, that's the only setup for Killer's Kiss. There's that shot that's so good. What is it? Where he's shaving, and then you see his mirror, and you see in the mirror her window. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, it's like the night before the fight,

he's like, you get like a 360 of his room yeah and i think at one point you can kind of see through the mirror her right it's like through the mirror you see the reflection of her window that he's looking at over his shoulder it's just a really it's an interesting like oh they're so close and yet they haven't made that they haven't breached that line yet kind of run one shot yeah because with those air shafts a lot of times in new york city i mean some of them i've seen people's places where it's like the apartments like you could reach into the other basically apartment take shit off their windowsill yeah but they're truly in another building you guys don't have the same entrance no you're in a different building it's very unusual but you could

you could fucking throw a soup can with a string over to them and like right that was my apartment that i grew up in you could see into the next building over it's obviously not a thing that's only unique to new york but but new york is such a condensed city you know we're all so crammed here it is that bizarre thing where it's like uh especially when you're young and trying to fucking make your way you're often living in an apartment where your view is of someone else's apartment, and their apartment is a foot away from yours. And as you said, they're in a different building. Where do you think they live?

Hmm. Well, a lot of this movie's in Times Square. It is. But that's sort of their place as a business. I think, right, that's just like where they were sort of. But maybe that looks kind of like a tenement. I would like guess like downtown, east side. What happens is he's a boxer.

He loses a fight, right? And then he wakes up to her screaming and she's being pawed at by Vincent. Pawed at. I like when he pulls down the blind and it doesn't work. And it goes back up again. And rather than even try it, he just runs off.

Remember that? Yeah, yeah. He's also nearing the end of his career. I mean, he's sort yeah yeah he's also nearing the end of his career i mean he's sort of davy is nearing the end of his right yes he will never be a star boxer it's not gonna happen right yeah right um it's all downhill from here and then that's when they finally meet up and that's when she tells the long life story about her mother and all that right right that's that's that Right. You know, he sort of comes to her aid, and then there's this really sweet morning breakfast. So what were your parents' kind of story?

Swap in session. Another small detail is that she watched the fight. Yes. And is familiar with his loss, and I feel like has gotten some information from Vincent. They're both looking to get out of Skid Row. Ooh, Sony Pictures Animation developing an R-rated film from Genndy Tartakovsky.

Is this fixed or is this something else? This was announced like five years ago. I'm a little encouraged that they're re-announcing it. This was announced after Hotel Transylvania 3. He said he was going to do that and he was doing, there was a medieval

like action movie. The Something Night. The Black Knight maybe. And he just signed a crazy big Cartoon Network, HBO Max deal. Warner Brothers deal.

I just want to make another fucking movie. If he makes a movie we'll cover it on this podcast. I know. I'm excited if it's moving forward. And they're just like let's go away together, right?

I mean, it's like, that's all it really is. They share the life stories, basically, and then they're just like, let's go to this ranch. Yeah. Up in Seattle or whatever, right? Like, that's it. They're just going to go away. And so he's like, all right, I'll get my last share

of the last fight I did. She's like, I'll get my back pay. Because she was also assaulted. She's like, I'll get my back pay. And... She was also assaulted. By her boss, Vinny, who sucks. We should say also, this is all being recollected by him in Penn Station. Oh, yes.

You get to see gorgeous old Penn Station. Yeah, that's Penn Station, bitch. Before we tore it down. Like fucking idiots. I mean, of course we replaced it with something beautiful. A tunnel in hell. The worst. tore it down like fucking idiots i mean of course we replaced it with something beautiful oh yeah a tunnel in hell the worst truly it's like enter hell to get on a train that is what current but yeah it used to be this but hell's cleaner house right hell's actually better run yeah hell

they actually give you they deliver the torture quicker and more efficiently, at least. Doesn't Kethert have that whole bit about Penn Station saying, Giuliani forgot. There's one place he didn't get to. He didn't get there in time. Well, now you have the fucking Moynihan Hall, which looks more like this.

You do. It's trying, at least, to bring back, like, hey, remember light? Natural light? People like that to be upon them. But yeah, no, he's in Penn Station essentially waiting for a train and waiting for her right so the story's being recounted it's

kind of like how did i end up like this let me tell you yeah well and here's the thing with that framing device you're like he's gonna get fucking stood up you just feel it you can feel it in your bones and when she shows up it's just like i don't think this was designed to be the ending of this film that is true and the ending was forced on this movie i think so that's fair because the whole movie's him sort of nervously pacing back and forth i also feel like at a train station i just think of like hasamonk or whatever like you're getting on that fucking train alone exactly that's what i'm saying yeah you're you're and you're gonna be like and it pulls away and the steam's going. If you start the movie with a guy pacing back and forth, worrying about whether or not this connection is real and if she's going to show up and if he's going to be able to get away and have a life of his own.

I'm like, you're setting me up for fucking poetic tragedy. Yes. Right? You're not setting me up for she's going to run to the station and kiss him and hug him. And the movie ends so abruptly. It does end abruptly. But what else happens? I mean, what else happens before they have the giant fight in the mannequins?

The mannequins. Which is the coolest part of the movie. I guess it's just like there's a thing in the alleyway. His manager is kind of mistaken for being. For being him. For being him. And these two thugs. These goons try and rough him up or whatever.

Right. I mean, they rough him up to death. Yes. They rough him to death. The roughest trying to rough him up or whatever right I mean they rough him up to death yes they rough him to death the roughest rough him up to death hard to get rougher

you're right um and so that puts the cops on Davey because they assume well he must have killed his manager and taken the money

right and so then he's got this whole chase where he's he's trying to rescue Gloria but he ends up in this warehouse filled with mannequins. And he faces off against... It's just one of those classic New York City, only in New York problems.

It does feel apt, doesn't it? It's like, you know what? Yeah, there's a basement full of mannequins within a mile of here, right? Absolutely. Yeah. My guess is that area is downtown Brooklyn. Could be. Do you think?

Down in like Dumbo or whatever. With the views of the bridge. Yeah. And just the sounds of also, because there's a lot of like active piers in those days along that part of Brooklyn's waterfront. Sure. I just feel like if I,

there's like, I want to meet that guy today where I'm like, hey, buddy, I got one for you. You're're not gonna be able to do it i need 400 mannequins in an hour and he's like oh i know what i can get you that in a second are you fucking kidding me yeah over on star street there's a warehouse filled with the things yeah just sweep them up two huh are they porcelain um they're smashing they are smashing i don't know

the problem is the guy today he'd be asking for 400 mannequins would be for a pop-up. I'm going to sell artisanal porchetta. I need 400 mannequins. I don't know what. It's a fucking Amazon for your consideration activation or some shit. Yeah, but right.

There's still mannequins out there. That's all I'm saying. I think there's mannequins in this city right now. Mannequins are fucking booming. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I bought mannequins recently there. That's all I'm saying. I think there's mannequins in this city right now. Mannequins are fucking booming. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I bought mannequins recently. Did you really?

Of course. For my jeans. To display them on. I might want to buy a mannequin off you. Did you get legs only? Legs only. I bought it from a really chill guy on eBay. Who only had mannequin parts.

And let me tell you the photography, Mr. Mannequin. Oh boy. The photography. Cause it, it, it only could have been shot on a digital camera from 15 years ago.

It was like the fidelity. Sure. It is terrifying. And, uh, I mean, I, I have to respect this person's privacy,

but I someday would love to show you that gallery of photos, guys. Ben, I'm checking your eBay history here. The Robert Durst estate? Is it like one of those Zillow real estate things where you're like looking at a normal house, and it's like kitchen, dining, you know, and there's just four pictures of a basement filled with mannequin legs?

Skeleton feet. I'm just imagining. Comes with the house. This looks normal. It's where it's in the suburbs of St. Louis. Sure, this makes sense. Mannequin legs, mannequin legs. Mannequin pieces organized by body parts

shipped in separate garbage bags. Anyway, the fight's just so cool. That's just the most, I don't know. Yeah. It's so cool. That's just the most, I don't know. Yeah. It's so cool. Like, this is not fair, but we recorded this out of order because of guest availability. Yeah, we did the killing already. And the killing fucking rules.

The killing kind of just, like, puts all of this in a cooler package. Yeah. With better actors, no offense to the actors. Yeah. With actors who have real, like, you know, noir credibility. So, like, watching Kill's Kiss after Fear and Desire is like, oh, now we're cooking. But if we've just, as we have recently watched

the killing before this, it feels like, give me the Foley Big for... Okay, but to kind of get us back on track, get us to the mannequins. He gets in a cab yeah to follow vincent yeah and he goes follow that guy right i guess they i don't know if they actually say that but you know how they always do that in old movies classic thing to do classic thing to do right and i'm just like we're cabbies just implicit in like crimes and murders constantly yeah because that was just accepted to be like

follow that guy i don't know what he wants. Well, also, did you just have to be the best driver? Do you know what I'm saying? It's like a Hippocratic code almost of like cabby driving where you're like,

hey, all right, I'm just going to take you where you want to go. Yeah. There was driver-passenger confidentiality. But like, is it like,

if I got in a cab today and I was like, hey, follow that, you know, follow that Honda, you know, Civic. Would he just immediately go like, what?'m sorry address intersection type the address into google maps

like or would like how many cabbies right now would just have that kind of old movie instinct where they're like on it like can i throw out a gripe okay one of the benefits of ride sharing especially in new york city where you would hail down a yellow cab and if you were giving them any Can I throw out a gripe? Okay. One of the benefits of ride sharing, especially in New York City, where you would hail down a yellow cab, and if you were giving them any address that was not numerical, they'd be like, do you know how to get there?

Sure. Right? If there wasn't a thing in the grid where you're like 13th and 7th, and they're like, I understand the number of moves I have to do in each direction for that, they'd be like,

do you know how to get there? And you'd be like, gotta fucking guide you through. I gotta be. Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure.

Yeah. Your Garmin over here. Yeah. A couple of times recently I've gotten like a Lyft or an Uber and then I get in there and they're like, do you know how to get there? I'm like, no,

I typed it in. Don't you have, you know, and they're looking at the Google maps and they're like, so where, where is it exactly? And I'm like, where it is on your screen.

I don't say it like this. This is a weird gripe, though. Like, who's doing this? I don't know. Look, in Britain, where I grew up, in London, England, where I grew up. What are you talking about? You just talked about your New York City apartment as a boy. I did.

But where I grew up in London, London, the cabbies have to do something called the knowledge. Yeah. You know about this? Oh, I do. Where they like ride around on a bike for like two years learning every fucking street. And look, I haven't lived in London in a while, but it used to be incredible.

Yeah. Because London has no grid system. It has no numbers. Yeah. And you would just get in there and you would say the name of perhaps my favorite named street in London, Cold Bath Square. Cold London, Cold Bath Square. Cold Bath?

Cold Bath Square. There's so many good street names in London. My mom and I would always be, if we ever saw a good one, we'd be like, and we would tell each other later. But we never topped Cold Bath Square. Was there like a chimney sweep place? Probably. But the best thing is you would say like Cold Bath Square and they'd be like, oh yeah, right, near to Beauvoir Square. And you'd be like, yeah, yes, yes.

And you'd be like, yeah, I know where to get there. You know, like, they just knew every fucking street. Well, just so many things about ride-sharing suck now, especially the way it's just crushed multiple other types of businesses. You're like, the one clear advantage is it's now hooked. You hail it by typing in the address address and then they get the sort of route delivered to them where anytime the driver asked me how to get there i'm like i don't i don't know well but i say it like this but as you were but wait this is all set up by ben saying the guy gets in the cab oh sure he follows him was there a further point ben or did you just want to talk

about it was just setting up the enterprise how in a modern sense that's ridiculous yeah to do that that's so like weird i mean we like that bit in uh with john braylock in how to be single oh that's so funny you remember that no where she gets it's near the end right yeah or whatever it's in her downswing yeah and she gets in and i guess he's braylock's the cabbie right yeah and he says where to and she's like just drive i believe i believe she gets in she's feeling heartbreak he goes where to and she goes just take me home and he goes i don't know where it is that's what it is no it's i don't know where the fuck you live i think i think he's right right because they got braylock to swear on camera just take me home that's what it is it's so funny it's like the funniest thing in

that it's a really good joke yeah yeah why in killer's kiss after he defeats vin in the the mannequin basement uh-huh does he because he then is exonerated i guess it's like he just didn't do it i guess they just figure it out yeah because he really seems like he's screwed you know when uh when they you know when they think he killed his manager and all that like but then he just gets off look david you have to understand in 1953 there were no cinema sins what year is this 55 did i fuck it up you fucked it up there were no cinema people were pointing out plot holes you just go i'm not even saying it's a plot hole i just don't even remember if there's like i'm saying it's a plot hole and i'm saying cinema sins better do fucking killer's kiss They should I think it's the

Witnesses of the two goons Like it wasn't him It was these two guys And that's when he's like Well I'm gonna buy a train to Seattle He doesn't think she's gonna come And at the end she does He's not buying an entire choo choo train

No you're right He's not buying the train choo-choo train. No, you're right. He's not buying the train. He buys one ticket to Seattle. Yes. And then she shows up right at the end of the kiss. The end. Happy ending. That was the titular.

It truly was a killer's kiss. I guess so, right? I mean, he does kill Vin. Yeah. So he is a killer. Yeah. What are we forgetting about killer's kiss? Nothing really. The things I really love are that flashback with the dancing mom

that's the best and the the fucking mannequins that those both are really good and I just went to see it at the film forum like when I was 25 and I had a great time I remember about these two movies combined a cool two hours and five minutes that's nice to knock two movies out.

What's his longest movie? I think it, 2001? 2001 ain't short, that's for sure. Oh, I have something I wanted to talk about really quickly. The elevator.

Lyndon's long. Normally, Well, he's my son-in-law. Normally, I like things when they're slow. Sure. That elevator,

boy, oh boy. If I had to live in those times, I'd be pissed. That shit looks like it takes forever. Yeah. Yeah. People moved, things moved slow back then.

It's like the Oregon Trail. Everyone just was cool with that. People would die. Everyone was cool with everything being slower. It was a slower time. Maybe that's the problem with these days. Everything's moving too fucking fast. Now, now, now, now, now.

Maybe we need to all take a break and take in the elevator. We're all on our phones. We're all looking at the cameras. Right, man. His longest film, by the way, is Spartacus, which is three hours and like 12 minutes long. I forgot that Spartacus is like a classic Hollywood epic. Can we push back the recording on that one?

No. It's next Friday. I know, I'm doing the bit of already acting like I started the movie too late. Should we just break the episode into two parts? Just now decide that? Yeah, three. Three parts.

Just stretch it out. Does it have an intermission? I don't know, but probably. I haven't seen it in a while I do have the steel Good for you Thank you Good for you as well

Let's see the box office game How long have we been running Ben? It says here long enough Great answer Number one at the box office In October The 5th of October or whatever 1955

Is a movie I've never heard of Okay It's a war film Account of World War II Okay Based on a soldier's autobiography And it stars the author of that book As himself

It stars a real soldier Wow Yes And he became a truly famous actor Huh Very interesting figure Made 21 Made lots of movies

Not 21 movies 21 year acting career Mostly did westerns apart from this Huh Had PTSD Slept with a handgun under his pillow Struggled with pills later in life, but was a famous sort of post-war figure.

His name is Audie Murphy. Oh, sure. Heard of him? Yeah, yeah. And he wrote a book called To Hell and Back. Oh, I know that title. And that's this movie. Okay, wow.

Directed by Jesse Hibbs. I did not know that's what that movie was. Or that was his background. That's wild. And this is after Best Years of Our Lives, right? Yeah, because Best Years of Our Lives is very,

it's like 46 or something. It's like very shortly after the war. Right. And that movie is, if no one's, you know, if people haven't seen it,

incredible and really worth watching. That's like one of the best American films ever. Yes. In my opinion. This is, I have not seen, but I think more of like

a straightforward like action picture just with think more of like a straightforward like action picture. Okay. Just with the grit of like, this is based on fucking real war. It's like that fucking Act of Valor movie or whatever where they were like,

the soldiers are real. Sure. Yeah. That's what it's like. It was inspired by that movie actually. Great. No. Anyway.

Number one at the box office is that. Okay. Number two is one of those, it was like one of the highest grossing movies of the year. Okay. It's one of those movies that's literally just footage of vacations that you could take in Europe. God.

Is it called This is Europe? It's called Cinerama Holiday. That was going to be my second fucking guess. Okay. I know that title. Yes, because, you know, the Cinerama was like the widescreen. Well, it's multiple screens. It's like a dome. Yes, because you know The Cinerama was like The wide screen Well it's multiple screens

It's like a dome It's like three screens and it's sort of curved And yeah, and they would make These Cinerama movies that were just Like our great national Parks And you just sit there and you couldn't believe how this thing Looked

This one is much like the ones you're describing. Emphasis on spectacle and scenery. A bobsled ride. Okay. A landing on an aircraft carrier. Cool. So it's truly just fucking cool photography. Right.

But it is called Cinerama Holiday, so it's supposed to be about holidays you can take. I mean, I don't know how many fucking holidays involve you landing on an aircraft carrier. Sounds like a proto-sauron. Number three at the box office has just a great title. Just a fucking bananas good title. Oh, Casper, A Spirit of the Beginning. It's a John Wayne picture. Okay.

Once again, Mr. Wayne is coming up in the box office. Lauren Bacall. Fuck. Pretty good pairing. Yeah. It's a Cold War movie, and it's set in china and i think it's about like chinese communists wow and uh it's sort of like him fighting the soviets maybe on the side of the chinese i'm not sure what's it called i'm not gonna guess this it's a william wellman film

it's called blood alley pretty cool title Ben's eyes went wide What a good name One of those movies where It clearly has Asian characters Right Chinese characters Scanning the cast list here And I'm not seeing a lot of Chinese names Eli Wallach

Barry Kroger as Old Feng I'm guessing not a Chinese guy But anyway I've never seen it Never really heard of it Barry Kroger as Old Feng. I'm guessing not a Chinese guy. But anyway, I've never seen it. Never really heard of it. No, that's a good title. But apparently it was an early movie for Anita Eckberg. Oh, sure. Who has a small role in that.

A lot of yellow face. Oh, including her. Great, cool. Great, cool. Fantastic. Hey, look, it's the 50s box office game, baby. I take what I get. Vacation movies, racist John Wayne shit.

Look. Number four. Racist John Wayne shit was kind of the Marvel Cinematic Universe of its time. Number four at the box office is a Humphrey Bogart film that I've never seen. I have heard of it. I've never seen it. It's about, like, he has to masquerade as a Catholic priest. I think it's also set in China. It's not, like, he has to masquerade as a Catholic priest. I think it's also set in China.

It's not, what's it called? We're No Angels? No. It's not that. That is a Boga movie where it's pretend to be a priest, though, right? But it's not that. I know, but I just want to confirm. Yes, and wasn't We're No Angels then remade as...

There you go. Yeah. And you are, yeah, it was a bogey movie. Sometimes I'm right about something. But you know what? This is set in a small American mission in China in 1947 at a time of civil war. Humphrey Bogart plays a hunted man masquerading as a Catholic priest.

And Gene Cherney plays a nurse. Lee J. Cobb and Agnes Moorhead and E.G. Marshall are all in it. Those are all good actors. It's called... It's called The left hand of god okay i never i've never seen it no i love bogey yeah uh and apparently got bad reviews number five of the box office it's a hitchcock it's a hitchcock in 55 not one of his best in my opinion okay but a movie star movie. Is it a Stewart?

No. Who's the other one? Grant. It's a Grant. Cary Grant himself. Archie Leach to his friends. Wow. What's his name?

Good thing he changed it. P.U. Whoa. Yeah, but what about a guy called Cary Grant? Interested? Very. Cary Grant? Interested? Very. Cary Grant. He's opposite a Hitchcock blonde.

One of the most iconic ones. Not Grace Kelly? It is Grace Kelly. It is Grace Kelly. What's the movie they made together? Why am I fucking blanking? In my opinion, it's one of his more boring movies. I've seen it.

I've never loved it. Is it... It's very pretty. Suspicion? It's not Suspicion. That's a great movie. Who's in Suspicion again? Isn't it Inger Bergman? Yeah, you're right it it's very pretty Suspicion? it's not Suspicion that's a great movie who's in Suspicion again? isn't it Ingrid Bergman? yeah you're right

I haven't seen Suspicion it's not Spellbound right? it's not Spellbound it's Joan Fontaine in Suspicion Ingrid Bergman is notorious what a fool I am and Spellbound is Bergman as well with Gregory Peck

right right right Spellbound I haven't seen i just haven't seen so long but what the fucking movie is this why am i not putting this together well it's kerry grant playing a cat burglar does that help what's another term for a cat oh it's a catch a thief a thief you gotta catch him i know i why did i not fucking get that because that's not one of hitchcock's better movies Yeah that movie's fun though It's fun-ish It's fun-ish

It's fun-esque It's very You know Everyone looks amazing It's a movie star movie Great gowns Yeah Good hair

Yeah Nice locations It's set in the French Riviera Yeah I just remember When I was in my true Like teen Hitchcock Sure

Watching them all That one I was kind of like You know those ones where Cary Grant's like Well I think you're great You're just like He's getting a little old for this shit It doesn't super feel like a Hitchcock movie It's a little less Hitchcock

It feels like Hitchcock directing a Cary Grant film Rather than Cary Grant being in a Hitchcock movie Some other movies in the top 10 Jane Russell and Jeanette Crane in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, which was sort of a sequel to Gentlemen Prefer Bronze. I don't think I knew that was a sequel.

Also, a little rude to just tell brunettes that they're the consolation prize. Well, there's also a film called Ulysses that is an adaptation of The Odyssey, an Italian film starring Kirk Douglas. That sounds cool. Really?

Yeah. Wow. Okay. Also Anthony Quinn. Uh-huh. So. Okay. You know, that's cool.

There's also I Am a Camera. Oh, yeah. Of course. The Julie Harris movie that will eventually become cabaret. Inspire the cabaretaret, inspire the cabaret into cabaret. Yes, sure. About the Berlin stories.

Fascinating. Which are interesting. And then you've got something called The Shrike. Jose Ferrer stars and directs. What?

I had to do something dramatic. David pulled his microphone off the table, leaned it. I'm getting sleepy. microphone off the table leaned it i'm getting sleepy uh which sounds kind of cool i'm getting sleepy too yeah uh and the cat you know and all that stuff um but yeah i don't know successful stage director driven to a mental breakdown okay sounds fun and then something called the mcconnell story not about mitch no it's about someone called joseph mcconnell who is a an Force pilot. That's a lot of World War II shit still in the air.

Starring Alan Ladd. Alan Ladd. Senior. Him of shame. So that's the top ten. We'd love to talk about the fucking 50s is the golden age of cinema, but then you realize there's a lot of programmers came out.

Well, that's what's interesting about the box office game back then yes you're like oh well we think of x movie you know these are they but of course they were not the biggest sellers right they're movies that both are completely forgotten and movies that are literally lost to time sure that just like aren't in circulation anymore and we never talk about them and they only exist as like oh this was one of six movies that movie star made that year. Right. Like it's just a title on a list.

No one ever wants to talk about how gentlemen marry brunettes, but they do. They do. Okay. We're done. How long has it been? It says here.

Stop. It says stop. It just says stop. It says stop. Wait, Ben, did you press stop? Oh no. Okay, it's still going. Hey, look. Next week says stop. It says stop. Wait, Ben, did you press stop? Oh, no. Okay, it's still going. Hey, look.

Next week. Yeah. The Killing. We recorded it already. The Killing. With Patton Oswalt. Hey. Fucking corker of a guest.

And good episode. I think good episode. Yeah. For a Zoom app? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we had some tech difficulties, but I think we'll come together in the edit, right?

Oh, it's great. It's great. It's a good episode. Fun conversation. And a banger of a movie. It's a movie that rules, and also the three of us just dorking out so fucking hard. About, like, you know, 50s noir guys.

Yeah, for sure. Talking greasy on Victor Mature. Oh, man. It gets deep. It gets deep. Yeah, it was a good time. So that's next week. That's next week.

And this was this week, and the episode's over. Thank God. I know. It's hot in here. You know what I don't like? Summer. I like things about it. I don't love the heat.

I always think I like it more than I do when it comes. Well, this is why we're going to have air conditioning in our office, God damn it, Ben. We will. We're not fighting on this. We're all on the same page. I know. It's a must. And Olaf, as far as I'm concerned, Ben. We will. We're not fighting on this. We're all on the same page. It's a must.

And Olaf, as far as I'm concerned, that guy's crazy. Is that it? So much for the birds. Oh, sure, yeah. Olaf is crazy. Olaf is crazy.

Look, thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Ben for putting the air conditioning on. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping put together the show. Alex Barron,

AJ McKeon for our editing. Pat Reynolds, Joe Bowen for our artwork. Thank you to JJ Birch for our research. Did a lot of goddamn work for this episode. Got two movies and all the table setting for Kubrick. Thank you, JJ. JJ continues to kill it. And we're never

ever going to mention on Mike how late he sends us the dossiers. Not late like they're overdue, like he just sends them at odd hours of the night. But we're not going to mention it.

We're never going to talk about it because he already has told us he gets self-conscious when we do it, so we're not mentioning it ever again. Thank you to Lane Monk

and the Great American for our theme song. You can go to patreon.com slash blank check for blank check special features. We do commentaries

on franchises like the Roger Moore, James Bond movies, but we're also going to do a bunch of Kubrick bonuses. So I think we're going to do 2010. We're thinking 2010. We're thinking Dr. Sleep. Hell yeah! Get your hats! And we got a

Kubrick-themed Talkin' the Walk coming later this year. That's all I'll say about that. Go to Blank Check Pod for links to some real nerdy shit. Killing next week with Patton Oswalt. And as in the walk coming later this year that's all i'll say about that go to blank check pod for links to some real nerdy shit killing next week of pat and oswald and as always ben bought mannequins from the robert durst estate do you want to dispute it yeah what's what's up man oh okay literally um anyway we're talking about uh i don't know killer's kiss literally nothing