Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 183. Rupert Holmes Returns

Episode Date: November 27, 2017

GGACP fan (and host) favorite, songwriter-composer-dramatist Rupert Holmes returns to discuss (among other essential topics) the brilliance of Bernard Herrmann, the lesser-known films of Boris Karloff and the fine art of "cracking" celebrity impressions. Also, Frank Gorshin channels George Burns, Gilbert channels Sydney Greenstreet, Bob Hope goes psychedelic and Rupert remembers childhood hero Jerry Lewis. PLUS: "House of Wax"! The Great Gildersleeve! Grandpa Munster rocks out! Rupert"collaborates" with Mickey Rooney! And the boys pay tribute to "Old Dark House" movies! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried. This is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal obsessions. Nope, wrong show. What the fuck is it then? Podcast. Amazing colossal podcast.

I'm sorry, I have the wrong room. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried. This this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Verderosa. Our guest this week is backed by popular demand, and also because he's a mensch and we like hanging out with him he's a singer musician record producer composer playwright novelist and screenwriter as well as our resident expert on the career of casey, a.k.a. Max Showalter. He's won Tony Awards, a Drama Desk Award,

and the Edgar Award for Mystery Writing. And in 2014, ASCAP presented him with its prestigious George M. Cohan Award, acknowledging both the diversity and depth of his career as a composer, lyricist, playwright, and novelist. He's worked with everyone from Barbra Streisand to Jerry Lewis. And his songs have been recorded by the likes of Barry Mandelow, Dionne Warwick, Dolly Parton, Judy Collins, and Britney Spears. Frank Sinatra was an admirer, and he met Groucho Marx and Orson Welles, too. Please welcome back one of our favorite guests and favorite people, and a man who can recall all the surnames of Lucille Ball used in her four sitcoms. A man of many

talents, our pal Rupert Holmes. Hello, Gil. Thank you for that. Welcome back, Rupert. I'm delighted to be here. Before we miss it, can you name? I found this in deep research. He picked the one

I can tell you all the road movies, okay? Road to Singapore, road to Morocco, road to... The one damn thing. Now, wait a minute. I can't do it. I found a 1986 People magazine interview with you. She did My Favorite Husband. She did.

That was My Favorite Husband, and she played... I can't remember. Now, I don't know all the surnames. Okay. You picked the one. Okay. People magazine lied. They said you used to use it as a device when you were commuting from New Jersey to New York City.

You know, maybe that's true. That would have been like 1980, so it's only 37 years. How that slipped out of my head, I have no idea. Lucy Carmichael. The really scary Lucy show. And Lucy Carter. The really scary Lucy show, that was lifeichael right here. And Lucy Carter. The really scary Lucy show. That was life with Lucy.

That was one of the worst. She was 90 or something. That probably should have been paired with Make Room for Granddad. Oh, my God, yes. Yes. And you know what he's known for? Yeah, yeah. It has to do with glass coffee tables.

Lucy Ricardo, Lucy Carmichael, Lucy Carter. Here's Lucy. And finally, Lucy Barker on Life with Lucy. And we won't go into the stone pillow where she played the homeless woman. I Love Lucy was spun sort of out of the momentum of a radio show she did called My Favorite Husband. Yes, correct. With Richard Denning. Very good.

And I can't remember if she was a Lucy on that or not. Didn't you work with Gail Gordon? Was Gail Gordon on that? I did. I did an episode of High Honey, I'm Home with Gail Gordon. He was the greatest. Gail Gordon was incredible. Now, that was one of those characters that, you know, it was Gail Gordon, Frank Nelson,

and the great Gilderslees. Oh, yeah. We're all that kind of – We're all ripping each other off. Yeah. There were two Great Gilderslees. There was Willard Waterman and Harold Peary. Peary, I think that's it.

Wow. Harold Peary. And they were – they sounded completely identical. Yeah. They would all do that. But Frank Overton – Frank Nelson. Frank Nelson. I'm sorry. Frank Overton. Frank Nelson. Frank Nelson.

I'm saying Frank Overton. Frank Nelson. Frank Overton has also come up on this show. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. But Frank Nelson, he was, for your listeners, he was, yes, right? On the Jack Benny show. He had some wonderful sketches at the train station where they'd be in the train station for like 20 minutes and every announcement and trying to return the tickets

and also Christmas shopping episodes with Frank Nelson. Oh, terrific. Right, right, right, right, right. And Mel Blanc. Yeah, that's where Mel Blanc winds up shooting himself. I'll wrap the package real nice. I'll make it real nice for you. You know, I'm thinking it will go with these shoelaces.

We've lost. We're now into incoherency here. Well, before we jump to and to go back to the intro, we lost Jerry a couple of months ago. Yeah, we did. And so you worked with him on the Nutty Professor musical? Yes, I worked with him for other than some film work he did. This was the last big thing that he did in his life. And he directed the musical.

I wrote it with Marvin Hamlisch. And this is Jerry Lewis who, prior to the JFK assassination, the worst news that anyone in my world had was that Dean and Jerry were breaking up. I remember I saw Partners at the Pearl River Movie Theater, and we were playing on the playground, and someone came over like they had news about a death in the family. They said, Dean and Jerry are breaking up. And it was shattering. I've been watching a lot of the Colgate comedy hours since he passed.

And what those two guys were doing, they had about six minutes of material. And then they just, I loved it. They would continually be stuck with eight minutes of dead airtime live on television, and they had to fill it. And they would, and he would. The pratfalls that he would take, just amazing stuff.

This guy, you know, the idea before there were the Beatles, Dean and Jerry were the coolest guys on the planet and who you'd want to be. And it was only a matter of no one. We didn't know it would be cool to be Dean. We thought it would be great to be Jerry. But it was really when I wrote Say Good Night, Gracie about George Burns and Gracie Allen, I realized Martin and Lewis were a boy and girl act. I mean, a heterosexual boy girl act. Jerry just wanted Dean to love him and be his brother and be everywhere that Dean went.

I never looked at it that way. Yeah, and it was really just like, oh, now you love me. And interestingly, a number of their movies were like Never Too Young. Is that what it's called? Never Too Young. That was the major and the minor, which was made with Ginger Rogers, Ginger Rogers and Ray Millad. That's right. And they made it as Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Wild, scared, stiff is really ghost buster ghost breakers, which is Bob Hope and Dean. They split those personalities up. So they were just amazing. And Jerry, you know, his movies, there was always at least 10 minutes of genius in it. And sometimes the whole movie was genius.

Aaron Boyd, to me, I think is an amazing film. You like that one, Gil? Oh, yeah. Aaron Boyd. Now, Aaron Boyd, I think, is the one where he does chairman of the board yes and and you and you and me and she i mean the time he must have spent with that he does that and the typewriter too oh yes it's amazing you know what's what's funny now if someone watches that movie they'll go what is he doing?

They won't know what a typewriter is. That's true. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. Now, Jerry Todd, like later on, like he used to avoid talking about Dean. And then later on when Dean was getting more and more weak, he started to talk about the intense love between them.

Do you think there was ever a love between Dean and Jerry? Okay. It's said that Dean once, I think that, I think there was love within what they were doing. In other words, I think they loved the act. This happened again, George Burns and Gracie Allen. George Burns was struggling to have a toehold in vaudeville. He was 30 when he met Gracie Allen. And he fell in love with Gracie Allen, and I always felt that just as much as falling in love with her,

he fell in love with the idea that he finally had a great act. And Dean was making it. Dean would have been a good crooner. And Jerry was doing, oddly enough, when we talk about chairman of the board and the lip syncing to Count Basie records and Leroy Anderson's The Typewriter, he was doing a lot of lip sync to records. That was his act in The Borscht Belt, playing records and miming to them, which was considered entertainment. Yeah, Dick Van Dyke had an act. Yeah, he did do that with us. Just did the same thing.

Yeah. But they found each other, and they started padding the show and just winging it and going out there and ad-libbing 20, 30 minutes, going out into the audience, and it was a mixture of Olsen and Johnson, basically slapstick. And I think that they did fall in love with being these two guys that everybody wanted to know, B, C. You couldn't get in to see them at the Copa. Outside the Paramount Theater, you'd think that there were crowds for the Beatles, there were crowds for Martin and

Lewis then. And I think they fell in love with that. I think that what did happen between them was that Jerry always had a different vision of what he was going to do. And the last film they made, I think Jerry oversaw the script. And I think Dean did not appear in the movie until about 17 minutes into the film. I see. So the writing was on the wall. And I think that undid the breach. I mean, you know, it was easier to... Everyone thought... I just can remember

everyone in the universe thinking, poor Dean Martin, what will he do now? They used to have the Martin and Lewis comic book every month. DC Comics put it out. And for about two months, they tried to put out the Jerry Lewis comic book and the Dean Martin comic book.

And no one bought the Dean Martin. I remember the Jerry one. Well, you remember the Jerry. That kept going. Sure. Along with that laugh riot, the Bob Hope comic book. The Bob Hope. I remember them both.

Bob dresses up like a hippie. So when you met him, did you spend enough time with him to tell him, to share how much affection you had? Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I actually got to really spend time talking with him and joking. And, I mean, I have things that – voicemail messages from him that – Oh, you saved them. Of course. Great. Wonderful.

Of course. voicemail messages from him that... Oh, you saved them. Of course. Great. Wonderful. Of course. Well, he read this script that I had written of Nutty Professor, but so that the guy could sing

and so that it would be humane. It's actually a very gentle script about bullying and all like that. And it went over great. We're still working on the negotiations for the rights now. But no, when I met him, the first sentence,

you know, you say things to people impulsively. And I met him backstage at Damn Yankees when he was running in that. And I looked at him. It was Jerry Lewis. I mean, that's Jerry Lewis, you see. And I said, thank you for making life worth living. And he went like, oh, oh, God. Like, that's why I do this.

That's why I do it all. We got to talk a lot. And I just never quite – I would sit there and we'd be chatting about stuff and I'm thinking, I'm talking – this is Jerry Lewis. Yeah. This is – and I don't know. Have you had – you must have had idols that you are sitting there and you're talking i mean jerry lewis i met a few times and and it was also it was one of those things where i get very you know sarcastic and cynical and particularly jerry lewis i'd make fun of with being overly sincere and the egotistical thing yeah The mawkish Jerry. Yeah. That's, you know, the great filmmaker Jerry. You know.

The complete filmmaker. But, boy, when you were in his presence, you go, I'm here with Jerry Lewis. I can't believe this. Letterman once turned to him on the show, I remember, he said, you look like a star, you smell like a star. That's great. He did.

He had this cologne that he discovered in Paris and he had like 900 bottles of it. Did you know this, Gil? It isn't made. It's kind of blue in color and it isn't made anywhere, but he stockpiled it and he was going to be

wearing that cologne and he would come in and, man, the room would be that and it sounds like it would be a little overwhelming, but it was Jerry Lewis' cologne. I would come in and man the room would be that and it sounds like it would be a little overwhelming but it was jerry lewis's cologne i love it that's what jerry smells like that's fantastic and uh and no it was it was wonderful he also said i'm not going to get into this right now but he said a couple very moving things to me about losses in both our lives and that's very nice and so i got to see um a jerry that that, I mean, some of the times that you saw Jerry, it was difficult. You know, I mean, and he got, he always sit there and wonder why.

He seemed bitter. And a lot of great stars towards the very, very end, they get bitter. And I always think it's because they feel that they've been driven all their lives and they're going to pass away like everybody else. I suppose. And so I don't know where that comes from. Well, we talk a lot on this show about the perils of meeting your heroes. But in this case, for you, it was rewarding. I had a chance to meet John Lennon and I wouldn't.

Yeah, you told us that last time. Oh, I did that last time. Yeah. And Cary Grant. Interesting. Yeah. But you met Groucho and Orson Welles and Frank Capra. Frank Capra and Groucho and Orson Welles and Frank Capra. Frank Capra and

Groucho and Orson Welles, who I think I mentioned. Yeah, you mentioned it. About his suits, right? Yeah. I'm just glad the Jerry experience because it's a hero worship story. I'm glad it turned out well for you. You've got to understand, when Marvin and I started to write this score, I didn't mention this, I don't think.'m not sure we talked we touched on it briefly okay um but i had to i'm not in i don't do impressions i'm not i i can perform on a stage and i can talk on a stage but i don't do in comedy roles or something and um i had to sing the songs that jerry's character that he created was going to sing and i suddenly realized i had to do Jerry Lewis for Jerry Lewis. And that was the most terrifying thing I could possibly imagine.

Did I mention this last time? No, I think you did. Okay, so I'm standing there, and Jerry Lewis is as far away from me as you or Gilbert. And I'm thinking, he's now going to hear what Professor Kelp, Julius Kelp, sings like, who's never sung in the movie, and I've got to do it. And I'm standing there going, ah, Miss Purdy, I believe you will find that one part oxygen, two part. And it was amazing. And at the end of the song, he applauded and he said, Holmes, you're a real ham.

And I thought, Jerry Lewis is calling me? Wowie. It was a great day in my life. That's nice. What I've always heard, people who I talk to about Jerry Lewis, they say, basically, it is the nutty professor because he was a Jekyll and Hyde. One minute, he could be a best friend in the world and in a second he could turn on. Really? I did not encounter that.

But he was in a very happy circumstance. Here are all these young people, all being that world he invented in 1960. There's a Stella who looks so much like Stella Stevens. Wow. Marissa McGowan, wonderful singer and actress and wonderful looking. And here's a guy who is basically channeling both Buddy Love and Professor Kelp. And he's directing and they're all – and everyone's – I'm looking at the chorus and all of them just had this giant oval mouth as he's talking because they're all going

oh i'm listening to jerry lewis so so he was in his just in glory on the second day environment on the second day he sat down with them and he said okay and then he named the first names of every person in the cast there were 20 people wow from memory he had gone home and memorized that. So that meant a lot to them. Wow. Wow. That was a cool thing. Yeah. I don't remember names of people I've worked with for 40 years.

Including mine. Yes. But we've only known each other since 93. You were struggling with the name of the show. He was. Yes, he was. And now we're going to leave that in. While Gilbert tries to remember who our guest is.

And what's your name? A few words from our sponsor. Oh, you doesn't have to call me Johnson. My name is Raymond J. Johnson, Jr. Now, you can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay, or you can call me Johnny, or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me Junny, or you can call me Johnny, or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me Junny, or you can call me Ray J, or you can call me RJ, or you can call me

RJJ, or you can call me RJJ Junior. But you doesn't have to call me Johnson. And ladies and gentlemen, you have been listening to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, wonderful, funny, hysterical podcast. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

I love Gilbert and Frank. I love them right or wrong. I love them so much that I'm gonna sing this pretty song. Fuck it, this is enough. And now, sadly, we return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. Now, as far as horror. Yeah. It's Halloween week, so we should talk horror. Yeah, we should as horror. Yeah. It's Halloween week, so we should talk horror.

Yeah, we should talk horror. Absolutely. And now we had Mick Garris on the show who directed the TV Shining. And Psycho 4 and some other interesting things. But according to Mick Garris, and we have no reason to question him, He said Lon Chaney Jr. had a really big dick. That was your takeaway from the Mick Garrison interview. Only after he played Frankenstein. It was a stitch-up job.

He said, as long as you're sewing me together, can you throw in a salami for my boy in the Army? Well, you know, you're into Bernard Herrmann. Oh, I am. And Mick did Psycho 4, and I guess the Psycho sequels were not using the Bernard Herrmann music, and he brought it back. Well, that's insane. For that one. To not use the Bernard Herrmann. For two and three, I don't believe did, and I think he made a point of bringing it back.

The one that was shot for shot but in color? That wasn't him. That was Gus Van Sant. No, no, I know that. I'm saying if they were stealing the shots, you'd think they'd steal the score, too. Cape Fear, you know, when they did the remake, they used his original score. Walt Scorsese, such a purist. You wouldn't expect that.

Bernard Herrmann's one of the great American composers ever. It would be like if you were to do Hard Day's Night, but dub in different songs. Yeah, that's, yeah, yeah. I mean, what was interesting about Psycho and that score, Herman did something very unusual. You've got to understand that when you hear any kind of good score that's non-synthesized,

anything from the golden days of Hollywood and straight through to the present with a true orchestra. You've got strings, so you've got violins, violas, cellos, double basses. And then you've got brass, trumpets, trombones, French horns, and odd instruments. You've got tons of woodwinds. You've got flutes, clarinets, oboes, English horns, bassoons, double bassoons, bass clarinet. You got a battery of percussion. And all that is color.

All that's color. And so when you have a spring day, you know that the flutes are going to get a workout along with the clarinets and the strings. So Hitchcock had made – this was the first – Psycho was the first black and white film that Hitchcock had made in quite some time. I think the prior – maybe I confess – Or Wrong Man or whatever. Wrong Man. Yeah. Wrong Man and I confess were both black and white.

But he had been doing gorgeous work, you know, Trouble with Harry and the Vermont Autumn and all. But this was his first black and white film. If I, I may have this wrong, but I believe it was his own production company doing the film. I don't know, he was doing it for a studio, but it was out of his pocket. And he also wanted to kind of keep the vibe of the TV show that he had been doing. So this was his first black and white film. And Bernard Herrmann, we all remember how gripping that score is and the murder scenes. But he decided to write a black and white score. So go back next time you hear, watch Psycho, you will hear nothing but the string section. There are no woodwinds, there are no brass, there's no other color in the show. Every color in that score is from violins, violas, cellos, double bass. Oh, and that's how we approach it. That's fascinating. To try and create a monochromatic score for this monochromatic movie. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 I heard a story that Brian De Palma was using Bernard Herrmann for one of his movies.

Sisters. Brian De Palma was constantly trying to be Hitchcock. Yeah, he took the word homage to a new level. Oh, my God, yeah. I remember when I homaged my bank for about $5 million. And I heard at one point, Bernard Herman, they were watching the film, the dailies and bernard herman said you know nothing happens in this film in the first uh half practically and and brian de palma explained to me said well you know if you watch hitchcock's films it looks like nothing is happening at the beginning. And then later on, everything happens.

And Bernard Herrmann said to him, they'll wait for Hitchcock. They won't wait for you. I remember going to see the film. It was Sisters. With Margot Kidder. And it was such an unreal experience because so devoted to Hitchcock and so devoted to Bernard Herrmann. And so I'm watching this movie and I'm hearing the Herrmann music and I'm waiting for the things that happen on screen to be Hitchcockian. And they sort of are a little bit, but it was like,

it was, I once, I wrote a Broadway musical called Curtains and I went to see it at the Paper Mill Playhouse after it had ended its Broadway run. They did a completely different production at the Paper Mill Playhouse and they had gotten all the costumes from the Broadway show. And so the entire cast is wearing all the same costumes I knew from Broadway. And I'm watching the show. The costumes are fine. All the heads are wrong. It's all the wrong faces on the costumes. I'm looking. So it's like the lower two thirds of the stage looks like my show. The upper third, it looks like I've walked into the wrong thing. And watching Sisters with the Herman score was just overwhelmed. The images on screen. It was also a grainy film. It was one of those ones I think they shot in 16mm possibly. The Cape Fear score is very memorable as well. It really is. It stays with you. But the nice thing there is that Scorsese came up with a good film

to go with the reuse of the score. Yes, yes. And he brought back all the actors from the first one. Oh, he brought back, yeah. Gregory Peck. Yeah, Martin Bolson was back. back yeah, Gregory Peck. Yeah, Martin Bolson was back and Mitch.

Do you remember who Gregory Peck's wife is in the original? Polly Bergen. Yeah, yeah. And the girl was Lori Martin.

Wow, you're good. Who was on a TV series called National Velvet based on the Elizabeth Taylor. I didn't even know that was a TV series. Yeah,

it was. You stumped me with That's My Boy when you walked in the door. Well, that's because that's before your time. We were talking

about Gorshin too and since you brought up. Yeah you walked in the door. Well, that's because that's before your time. We were talking about Gorshin, too. And since you brought up. Yeah, he was the mimic. He invented. Everybody who does Burt Lancaster or Kurt Douglas is doing an imitation of Frank. And he had a great Richard Widmark, too. Oh, yes, he did. Yeah.

He looked like Richard Widmark. Yeah, he did. And you were talking off mic about him before before we actually turned them on. But you worked with Gorshin and another show you created, Say Good Night, Gracie. Say Good Night, Gracie. He played and and it was amazing because he would be he would he would channel George Burns. It's about George Burns's life from his youth in the Lower East Side till he was 100. And swear to God, first of all, one time I'm outside the theater and a woman walks out after the show and she says,

you know, for 100 years old, he looks really good. That's fantastic. Now that's art over reality. But it was fascinating to watch Frank Gorshin take the bows at the end of the show because the show would end. He'd walk off. He'd come back on, and he'd be George Burns, and they'd applaud him as George Burns. And then he'd step back out, and he'd come back on.

He had changed nothing, but now he was Frank Gorshin. He just let himself – he shed the character of George Burns. Yeah, he didn't, like, you know, pull off a wig and rub the makeup off or anything like that. He just came out and took the bow as he would take it, not as George Burns would take it. And the audience would gasp. They'd go like, oh, that's right. We weren't seeing that guy. And every night he would talk about he would get to where George won the Academy Award.

And he'd say, I was 80 years old. And the audience would applaud. But that wasn't that's not the actor. What a credit to the actor that the audience is, on some level, buying into the fact that they're watching George Burns. Within seven minutes, he was George Burns. And you were saying Frank Ocean was a major smoker. Not only that, but he did bits about loving smoking

in his nightclub act. He actually would come out. I mean, talk about you want to alienate an audience these days? Before he did Say Goodnight Gracie, I went to see him in a nightclub in Atlantic City. He came out and did 10 minutes on I Love Smoking. It's great smoking. Smoking in front

of him and all like that. What happens when you smoke like that? Caught up yeah so i really caught up with him with a vengeance you did a lot of george burns research i would imagine i did i i had the um i had the total access it was say good night gracie was written with the uh approval of the george burns and gracie allen estate ronnie burns yeah he was actually a funny guy on that show ronnie burns remember ronnie burns on the burns and Allen show? Oh, wow. Yes.

Yeah. Yes. You know, he would be funny. He did good takes. And I used to think to myself, well, it's in the blood. You know, it's genetic. Look who his parents are. He was adopted.

He just was good. They tried to make him into Ricky Nelson. They actually got him a guitar. Right. And they put out a couple of singles and nothing. What do you know about Swain's Rats and Cats? I don't know anything about it. That was a vaudeville act, an infamous vaudeville act that George Burns used to talk about.

Oh, well, he used to be—he changed his act every three months himself because he was no good. And the owner of the theater would say, didn't I see you here three months ago? He'd say, no, that wasn't me, and I got a new act. And one time he saw that there was an opening, that someone said, can you get me, I'm trying to remember, I'm going to say, you know, Frank Lang and his dog. And he said, oh, I'm Frank Lang and his dog.

And so what he did is he went on the alley, he picked up his dog. And he said, oh, I'm Frank Lang and his dog. Oh, great. And so what he did is he went on the alley. He picked up a dog. He carried the dog on stage and sang three tunes with the dog in his arm. Great. Yeah. Now, and to get back to Frank Gorshin. We're really delving into horror in a way that no one has. Yeah.

We got plenty of hard years. You said Frank Gorshin, like in his last days, he had cancer and he was in an oxygen tent. And then what? He would get out of the oxygen tent to get the pack of cigarettes that was still in his pocket, in his jacket pocket that he was hiding there. So he could have a cigarette. Amazing. You know, I got to tell you, I've quit things in my life, but cigarettes, it's murder. I didn't know you were a smoker. Oh yeah. Barbara Streisand, that'll do it. Yeah. John Peters too, right? I was in, when I was 28, I hadn't smoked and my whole life, I was like 26 years old. And in that, in those days in fashionable mansions

in Beverly Hills, it was considered very, very elegant and thoughtful to have a little porcelain vase, a small little vase, which would have an assortment of handsome cigarettes in it loose. And you'd have a Sobrani filter, the black with the gold tip. You'd have a Eve, I think was the thing. It was a lady's cigarette, you know, and you'd Marlboro and all like that. And then you have little dainty matches with gold tips. And one day Barbara turns to me and says, Rupert, I want to know, should we do this with horns or should we do this just like with piano? You've got to have an idea. Tell me.

And I said, Barbara, and I reached for a cigarette. I took it. I lit it. I went, and I thought, where has this been all my life i've just bought myself 15 seconds to think and i said wow and i said i said uh yeah no we definitely need big brass and stuff like that she said oh that's good and i thought i'm not going anywhere without you mr cigarette and within two weeks of the straight pressure of of doing an album with barbara streisand not because just because it was i was doing a barbbra Streisand album and I had never done something on that scale before.

Up to two packs a day. Incredible. Yeah. I quit eventually. Good for you. who have had, like, tracheotomies put the cigarettes in the hole in their neck and smoke it out of their neck. No. Yeah, that's how addicted they are.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, back to horror. That is a horror, by the way. That is a horror, by the way. Yeah. That's a horror. Okay, Lon Chaney Jr. had a big dick.

You know, we were fine up to then. And then somehow... It seems like at every key juncture, you have a dick joke in there. Yeah, that's how you know he's... He makes his presence felt. Gorshin, by the way... You should write my autobiography.

You understand me. What about Gorshin? That he was nominated for an Emmy for Batman. Oh, yeah. Because we were talking about it in the hallway. Was he not also nominated for an amazing episode of Star Trek where he played a half black? Oh, yes. That's also very memorable.

But you had something about House of Wax that you emailed me. You said you had a bit of trivia. If you know this already, I'm sorry. We may not. Okay. It's just wonderful. To me, it summarizes all of Hollywood. And I know we've all had experiences working with Hollywood.

So TV was a big threat to the movie industry in the 50s. And the solution seemed, the powers that be of the major studios decided the solution was to do things TV couldn't do. And that's why you got Cinerama. That's why you got CinemaScope, Wide Street, Cast of Thousands, Opulent Color, VistaVision, Todd AO, 70mm, all that stuff. And 3D was going to save the world, having 3D movies. And there had been a couple of 3D movies uh that did well based on the novel bwana devil oh yes the first one robert stack and nigel bruce and i heard that with bwana devil

the director was I've been over with the person and the thing and you go. You've got the wrong film. You've got the wrong film. Hopefully you don't know what this is. I don't know what this is. He was about to make my entire long story completely pointless. He has a tendency to do that.

No, I think it was pointless already. Well played, sir. Anyway, so Warner Brothers decides to do the big epic 3D movie, and it's going to be first rate at every level, big budget. So they do House of Wax with Vincent Price, with everybody's favorite Frank Lovejoy. Yes. A young Charles Bronson.

Yeah. Charles Pachinski. Charles Pachinski. Yes. Phyllis Kirk, later to do The Thin Man with Peter Lawford on TV. And Carolyn Jones. Yes. She was in it.

As the Joan of Arc. Carolyn Jones. And my personal, one of my favorite actors of all time, Dabs Greer. Oh, yeah. I love Dabs Greer. Dabs Greer. If you saw him in a show, you'd know him in an instant. Known for Westerns.

Yeah. And also Perry Mason. He was about 11 murders on Perry Mason. I did it. So they do this, and it's going to be big technicolor and a big budget and all like that and fabulous sets. And they decide to hire a really good action director named Andre de Toth, who was known for, you know, war movies and westerns, a really good,

he'll turn out a good movie. There was only one unusual thing about Andre de Toth, which is he only had one eye. You knew this, Gilbert. Yes. Oh, but you had the wrong movie. You thought it was Buona Devil. In 3D, you have to have

two eyes because it's tricking your eyes. Andre, we've cut the glasses for you. Do you want the red or the green?

Which, how's it looking from over there, Andre? Now, how do you do that? How do you hire, why do you put in

this new process that requires two eyes? You know, they could have hired, you know. Right. Didn't Fritz Lang have one eye? Yeah, but they didn't tell him to do a 3D movie. That's that sketch that Dudley Moore and Peter Cook used to do about the one-legged Tarzan.

No, the one-legged Tarzan. Oh, yeah, the Cook and Moore sketch. Right, right. Of all the one-legged Tarzans, you're at the very top of our list, sir. You've got it all over a Tarzan with no legs. In 3D, it's basically tricking both your eyes. Absolutely. And so with one eye.

At the rushes, he got no rush. You're also, and this came up briefly last time, you're a fan of the Hammer pictures. I am very much. But I think Gilbert is not. Gilbert doesn't care about them at all. Yeah, You're a fan of the Hammer pictures. I am very much. But I think Gilbert is not. Gilbert doesn't care about them. Yeah, I've never gone into the Hammer ones. Yeah. I think I, first of all, I'm kind of a, I love horror films, but I also love Period.

I love the things that are said in Period because you go to another world. I love Atmosphere. I love things British, obviously Mystery of Edwin Drood. Of course. Other things that I've written are set in England. And I loved the basic team that was created and which continued for years

of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Yeah. And in Horror of Frankenstein, Peter Cushing is Victor Frankenstein. Christopher Lee's the monster. In Dracula, Peter Cushing is Van Helsing and Christopher Lee is Dracula. And it continued like that.

There was always a role for there was even in Hound of the Baskervilles. Peter Cushing was Sherlock Holmes and Christopher Lee was Henry Baskerville. He wasn't Watson. So I love that. And I also loved the fact that they went and they bought themselves a little manor in, I think it was called Bray Studios. I don't know where it was. It was outside of London. And that manor is in every, the first 15 movies.

That's the castle, Baskerville Hall. And they just find different ways to dress it. And it looks real and authentic. And they just filmed everything in that one little kind of building and use the forest outside of the, the manor, uh, was, you know, you were either in Germany or Bavaria or stuff. So I really liked the films. All the acting was terrific because it was all great British. Of course, of course. And, um, uh, you look at the, some of the films that were made, Judi Dench crops up in them, uh, you know, like age 23. So I really loved them. They were classy

when horror movies were... This is concurrent with movies like I Married a Monster from Outer Space, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, low-budget Roger Corman type productions,

which I later came to really appreciate. But I knew that horror movies were always kind of schlocky and cheap, and here was these opulent. Yeah, they're sumptuous. Yeah, they really are in color. I heard with Christopher Lee, he was so egotistical about the toupee he wore,

he would never take it off. Even when they were making him up as the mummy of Frankenstein, where they'd have to slot makeup all over his head, he'd keep the toupee on. I did a show with Stacey Keech called Solitary Confinement, and the makeup man on that show, who also did hair, told me that Charlton Heston, that he did the wigs for a movie, what was it called? It was a Chinese, The Warlords

or something. I think it may have been called The Warlords. And Charlton Heston was playing a Chinese warlord and he had to be bald. And he said that he said, you know, you're he said you're going to have to he said Charlton Heston was known throughout Hollywood for owning the cheapest toupees

that you could get. And he said you know mr heston uh you're going to be bald in this and he's kind of just trying to nuance it gently into the conversation and he said yes i know you you have to make a bald wig and the guy made a bald wig and he came in to put it on heston and he said so we'll just you'll you remove, you'll remove the, what? You'll remove what you're, he wouldn't take off his toupee to put the ball. He not only made them make a bald wig when he could have been bald, but just like your story, the bald wig went over the toupee and he acted with the toupee underneath the bald wig. Swear to God. over the toupee.

And he acted with the toupee underneath the bald wig. Swear to God. I love that one. So Christopher Lee wouldn't take the toupee off. No. And Charlton Heston wouldn't take the toupee off. No, exactly. Yeah.

Fascinating. Why don't you like the Hammer Pictures, Gil? I don't know. I just never quite. Because you're a universal classic purist? Yeah. I fell in love with the universal ones. Even got a love for the monogram ones, which I realized they were low-budget schlock, but they were fun. I never saw a scene in a monogram movie that didn't take place in an office with a file cabinet.

That's funny. Charlie Chan's in there. You know, later they took over the franchise from 20th Century Fox, Roland Winters. And it's all offices with filing cabinets. It's just, I don't know. You guys were talking Chan in the hallway before we started. He's never been played by an Asian, by a Chinese actor. Ridiculous.

He was played by Warner Olin first. And Olin was brilliant. And he was found eventually wandering the streets of LA. He was a severe alcoholic, but he, he had, he was intoxicated apparently most of the time he played the role and it worked perfectly because he always seemed to be speaking a second language. It was, he got a noble horse horse find answer to true killer. And you'd say it sounds good to me. Sidney Toler was the second one?

Sidney Toler was the second. And the third was, and that was sad. Sidney Toler played him for 20th Century Fox. And the films were pretty good. Sidney Toler was not, to me, Warner Olin. But then it ran out. So Sidney Toler bought the rights and then made his own, continued playing Charlie Chan at Monogram.

And then Roland Winters came in for the last six. You know. Someone told me that. And if it's true. And J. Carol Nash, by the way, played him on TV. Oh, wow. The New Adventures of Charlie Chan, Irishman J. Carol Nash. And someone told me, and it would make perfect sense if it was true,

that the Charlie Chan movies got a very big Chinese following. For real. Because, you know, now you look at it, look how offensive, but then you go, he's this brilliant Chinese guy solving crime. You know, why wouldn't they? They tried to do a spinoff for TV and they used Ross Martin as Charlie Chet. It was like a 90-minute, you know, it looked like sort of Charlie Chet wanted into the Brady Bunch. You know, he had number one son was cute and touring with the Partridge family or something.

I remember Sellers sending him up in Murder by Death. Murder by Death was great. Sidney Wang. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I guess so. Something weird about saying, well, he's a brilliant hero and he's being presented as an Asian, except he's being played by a Swedish guy. So I'm seeing my people now.

You know, those are my. Well, Karloff. They had Karloff playing an asian detective in it oh yeah dr wong mr wong mr wong yeah yeah yeah um anything but hire an asian actor i even saw bela lugosi in asian makeup really yeah that sounds familiar cereal was that a cereal it might have been a cereal it was some cereal where he was like a- I think Captain Crunch. That sounds familiar. You're also a fan of what you call the old dark house films.

Yeah. Yeah, which is like the Bob Hope pictures, the skeleton pictures. Yeah, my favorite sentence in any movie, there's certain things that I know automatically I'm going to have a good time. Like if I'm going to see a stage comedy, if when the curtain goes up, I see nine doors, I'm in for a great evening. And if there's a dumb waiter. The noise is off. So they're going to go in there. They're going to come around here.

Oh, there's a Murphy bed that's going to come down. Oh, yes, yes. And there's the dumb waiter, and he's going to escape through there. Okay, so this is prime entertainment for me. So my favorite sentence to hear in a movie is, I'm afraid the bridge is washed out. We'll have to stay the night. The second I see that bridge collapse,

I'm saying, yeah. There's one with Kay Kaiser, who was like the Lawrence Welk of the big band era called You'll Find Out Oh You'll Find Out sure oh my god

yeah with Lugosi Laurie and Carla yeah they're all in it yeah and they had that device where you could hold

a mic to your neck and it would make the voices sing hello Rusty like that you're looking at me completely blank you'll take my word for it

yeah yeah yeah I remember the picture. I remember hearing those voices. So when the bridge washes out in that movie, I'm saying, oh, Kay Kaiser and Lugosi and Peter Lorre. What could go wrong? Kaiser comes out at the end and he goes, uh, Bela Gossi, Boris Koloff, and Peter Lorre aren't villains. They're just three nice guys. They broke the fourth wall. Completely undercut.

For no reason. Completely undercut. The college of musical knowledge, right? That's right. You were wrong. Yeah. right? Kay Kyser. That's right. You were wrong. Yeah. That was his catchphrase. That's right.

What were the Hope ones? There was Ghost Breakers. Oh, two of the greatest films ever made. Ghost Breakers with Willie Best playing as Butler. Willie Best. And the wonderful Paulette Goddard being the love interest. Mrs. Chaplin. And Anthony Quinn in that in like 1939.

Yikes. And they're going to Cuba. Cuba, the island of Cuba where there's the castle. I forget the name of it just for the moment. Terrific, terrific film. And followed hard upon by The Cat and the Canary, which was again Paulette Goddard. Right. And if it's not, I'm sorry the bridge is washed out, you'll have to stay the night.

It's Will assembled to read the will. Oh, yes. During the storm. Right. He's left it to the last one who served. You know, this great stuff. I remember, I think it's Ghost Breakers, where he's walked, Bob Hope is walking with Willie Best through the garden. Bob Hope is walking with Willie Best through the garden, and they see this woman in a long gown, like a zombie-looking woman, walk past.

And Bob Hope says to Willie Best, he goes, she's just trying to scare us. And Willie Best goes, well, she's wasting her time because we scared already. Well, she's wasting her time because we scared already. I hate to tell you what Willie Best's stage name was before Willie Best. Okay, go ahead. Because there was an actor you'll know who had, this is all historic. This is not me getting a laugh. There was an actor who for his whole career, his name was Step and Fetch It. Sure.

Yes. Step and Fetch It. Willie Best's name before he used his name was Steppen Fetchit. Sure. Yes. Willie Best's name, before he used his name, was Eat and Sleep. Eat and Sleep. Wow. Eat and Sleep. Incredible. That's the Hollywood we had. Incredible.

And Willie Best, by the way, was brilliant. He made any film. Did you know that Milton Berle did an old Dark House movie called Whispering Ghosts? Do you know that one, Gil? No. With Willie Best as his sidekick. And Red Skelton did three. Whistling in the Dark, Whistling

in Dixie, and Whistling in Brooklyn. The three whistling movies. Evan Costello did a great radio one. Not Hold That Ghost, the other one. The radio one. Hold That Ghost, the other one. The radio one right now. Hold That Ghost. Hold That Ghost.

I'll think of it in a moment. Did they make it into a feature? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Hit the Ice. No, not Hit the Ice. What's the one with Joan Date? A Haunted House picture?

Yeah. Yeah. There's Hold That Ghost and what's the one with the money in the moose's head? That's it. That's the one. Yeah. Moose Mattson. Oh, Chuck is in that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'll think of it in a second. But what about a movie like Murder, he says, with Fred McMurray, which I love. Marjorie Maine. Marjorie Maine and Porter Hall. Yeah.

Would you call that an old dark house movie? Oh, absolutely. It just happens to be hillbillies who are glowing in the dark. But it's spooky. And by the way, it had the clue, the big clue in murder. I love that movie. I love it too. And it's been very hard to find it.

It is hard to find. I talked to Robert Osborne about it. They run it sometimes. The big clue in it is there's a girl who's t in the head, just a little touched in the head. Yes. And she goes around singing on horse flys in combi. That's it. And that's the clue.

And they actually met a reference. They're at an organ in this hillbilly home. And they say, I saw in Ghost Breakers where playing the notes caused a door to open. Correct. So they try to replicate it. So they're referencing their own Paramount picture from about four years earlier. The thing I love is when Bob Hope is in Ghost Breakers, he's on the deck of the ship with Paulette Goddard,

and they're looking out over San Juan Harbor in Cuba, and a tugboat goes by, and it's all very nice, and you see the castle and all like that. And now Scared Stiff is made some 25, 15 years later and Dean Martin's out on deck with Elizabeth Scott. I was just going to ask you about Scared Stiff.

It's funny. It's a remake. And they split up the character. We were talking earlier about it. They gave some of the Willie Best material to Jerry. They took some of the Bob Hope material to Jerry. They let, where Bob's, you know, Bob was the only guy, Bob Hope could play a leading man and a coward

in the same movie. He could be sort of suave and debonair, and when it came down to it, he'd do what's right, but also be completely cowardly. So they were able to take that split personality and deal it partly to Dean Martin, partly to Jerry Lewis, adding the Willie Best stuff. But they're standing on the deck, and I'm looking, and they're looking at,

and the same piece of film that was in Ghost Breakers of San Juan Harbor with the tugboat going by and the castle, they just went to the library and hauled it up. It was a black and white movie and used it to recycle. Who's going to know? Yeah, exactly. I've spoken about this before with Bob Hope. I've spoken about this before with Bob Hope in his later movies. In the movies, he became that awful Bob Hope reading the cue cards guy like that.

Yeah. And, you know, he would stand. There was even one with Bing Crosby where Bob Hope would stand there like that. And he's doing that kind of delivery, looking at the words. They shouldn't have. I mean, they shouldn't have been. Forget they shouldn't have been in show business. At that point, I mean, they really should have hung up that.

But Bob Hope, it was when they would. And his writers were all as old as he was. Yes, of course. So they're saying, we're going to get Bob in a hippie outfit. Oh, yes. And Anne Margaret's going to come in and he'll say something about, if I had strings like that on my guitar, you know, and it would be like men completely out of touch with any 30 years out of sync. I would watch that where they'd have, you know, Bob Hope and Lucille Ball either as hippies or rock stars. With beetle wigs.

Yes, yes. That's right. And you go, oh, my God, they have no idea what they're writing about. Yeah, they're going to be called the Grasshoppers. Yeah. Well, that was that. Michael McKeon said that the ultimate oxymoron is Bob Hope's special. That's funny.

That's a great line. That's a great line. That's a great line. Well, sitcoms were doing it then. During Beatlemania, every sitcom had a band. Dick Van Dyke Show, which otherwise was one of the best written shows that will ever be on television. And brilliant. But they had Chad and

Jeremy on once. Chad and Jeremy showed up on Batman. Did they? Yes. It would always be like, well, the so-and-sos are in town. The so-and-sos? The mosquitoes showed up on Gilligan's Island. Yes. And they can't stay at a

regular hotel. They'll have to stay with you. And the Standells stayed in the Munsters' house. They stayed with the Munsters. You'll notice that whenever in those shows they have the Standells or whoever playing their solid body guitars, there are no guitar chords. They're never plugged into anything. They're just strumming them like it's acoustic.

What I remember was Al Lewis with the steam coming out of his ears. Oh, yes. While the Standells are covering I Want to Hold Your hand on the Munsters, which is very strange. And one thing that has nothing to do with it, but it also shows a weird thing, was in the Partridge family when Danny Partridge makes friends with the Black Panthers. Yeah, that was strange, too. Was Richard Pryor in that episode? Yeah, Pryor in that episode? Yeah. Pryor was in that.

Yeah. And you wrote a Partridge family hit. I wrote a Partridge family hit. And I loved it because it was Kay Medford who had played on Broadway. Oh, sure. Of course. She was really well known. And she was playing like a Jewish mother to the Partridge family.

She was going to watch out for them, be sort of the nanny. And she keeps ruining a recording session. So they'd say, Echo Valley 2, 6801, take one. And they'd start and play the intro, we grew up together. And she'd be doing something, that's not right. He doesn't have that. Fix his hat. And they'd say, okay, Echo Valley 2, 6801, take two.

And they just plugged the name of the tune continually through the show. I was very grateful to her. We remember her from the Dean Martin Show. Absolutely. Kay Medford and Lou Jacoby. Now, who booked that? I mean, what I'm saying is that was an odd booking for the Dean Martin Show. Let's get Lou Jacoby and Kay Medford to be a nice old Jewish couple while the Gold Diggers and John Beiner.

And wasn't Nipsey cutting his hair? Didn't they have Nipsey Russell as a recurring barber on the Dean Martin Show? Bless your heart for writing that Partridge Family song, by the way. One of my favorites. Oh, thanks. Thank you. And you also work with Will Jordan, which we were going to bring up last time. Because we had Will in here.

And he's on one of your first records. On my first album, I thought that in 1974, what a really good idea for a singer-songwriter trying to make a name for himself and trying to express the the depth of his soul and and sensitivity of his of his of all his feelings and his life experience it would be good to end the record with a 10-minute radio show and um it's very ambitious well i just i just i i didn't know if they'd ever i had this contract to make this first album and it was called Widescreen. And every, I knew that this might be the only album I ever made. This is like five albums before Escape the Pina Colada song. And so I tried to make every cut something intent. And so the instrumentation on every cut is different. on every cut is different. And I did a song about a saxophone player in 1940 who never gets to take a solo,

and I reassembled the Glenn Miller Orchestra and wrote a chart for using all the old big band themes and then did a... I was using sound effects. On one song, I had Alison Platon come in and do dialogue with me as we're... Oh, sure. It was a song about a guy who tries to pick up a girl

while taking her to a Mets baseball game. And when they play the Star Spangled Banner, he starts singing, won't you come home with me? I have a room you should see with a warm water bed and a pillow for your head. And then I thought when we get to the instrumental section, no, no sax solo. Let's just have these two people talk. And Alice, Alice Clayton came in and what kind of wine is this? Oh, that's, that's red wine. Alice Platon came in and what kind of wine is this?

Oh, that's a, that's red wine. And, um, so I ended the, I ended the entire album with a, basically a, a, a, it wasn't a spoof. It wasn't a comedy thing. I just tried to emulate, uh, the Sam Spade detective show that Howard Duff did in the fifties. Now, what commercial was Alice Platon in? She was the, uh, Alka-Seltzer stuffed dumplings. Yes.

That's it. That's her. The honeymoon couple. And she's cooked the first meal. And he doesn't want her to hear that he's having to put. She was a Lampoon person. She was indeed. She did a great Mick Jagger.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was on Lemmings or one of those things. She was in Lemmings with Chevy Chase and John Belushi. She was really great. And she did a musical on Broadway called Henry Sweet Henry. And she's really talented and really funny. Not with us anymore. And missed.

And so I decided that at the end of this thing, I would do this kind of show that I don't always have to sing a song. Maybe I'll do something with music. I had a huge orchestra underscoring the dialogue. Something with music. I had a huge orchestra underscoring the dialogue. And we did a kind of a Sam Spade detective, you know, Humphrey Bogart kind of thing. And I assembled Will Jordan to play Peter Lorre. He played a character named Carl Suez.

He's very good. And Thayer David. Thayer David. Oh, my God. Remember him? Yeah, Dark Shadows. Dark Shadows. I had him being Sidney Greenstreet. Oh, yeah.. Remember him? Yeah, Dark Shadows. Dark Shadows. I had him being Sidney Greenstreet. Oh, yeah.

Oh, God, sir, you are a character. And Alison Steele was Lauren Bacall, the nightbird on WNES. Oh, wow. Oh, that's great. You've got to listen to it, Gil. You'll love it. She stormed off, leaving the heavy perfume of lavender permeating the fog around me. I was alone.

On the contrary, sir. You are far from being alone. My name is Grosvenor, sir. And I wish to talk to you about a certain wax figurine of the Kaiser. Now that we are alone... Oh, on the contrary, gentlemen. You are far from being alone. What's all this?

Ah, my old companion from Istanbul. We meet again, Mr. G. And I believe for the same purpose. I hate to interrupt a reunion, but... Oh, forgive me, Mr. Holmes. My name is Carl Suez. And I've been representing a competitive bidder for the legendary Kaiser statuette. Well, then, let's talk about the statue.

Dad, sir, you are a character. Well, then, by all means, let's talk about the statue. And, oh, by the way, the announcer for the radio show was Ed Hurley. Fantastic. Ed Hurley. Little old me. Someone told me that Thayer David when he was doing Dark Shadows

and they brought it up to him they said sometimes in scenes we would see you turn your head away from the camera and he said he thought the show was so fucking stupid sometimes he'd start cracking up and he would have to turn

his face away from the camera in the middle of this. Will Jordan was here. Sitting in that chair. He's also in the opening of Broadway Danny Rose. He was here. We couldn't get him to do impressions. The point that you were making, Gil, is really interesting,

which is that it takes one impressionist to crack a character. And then once that person gets it, then everybody does an impression of them. In other words, I don't think anyone was doing, no one could do Carson. People wanted to do Carson and they couldn't do it. And I can't remember if Rich Little finally cracked it or whether it was, I think it may have been John Biner who cracked it and then Rich Little took it from him.

They both did it. But, yeah, so Will Jordan, there was no, what Will Jordan told me, I don't know if he's ever said that to you, is that Ed Sullivan started acting like his impression. Oh, yeah. Yes. He did tell us. Yeah. There I am in the studio and he's saying saying he's a cool guy, by the way.

Yeah. Sunglasses. We love him. We love him. He was here. He lives a couple of blocks from here. Really? Yeah.

And there was no such thing as an Ed Sullivan impression, and then this man came out and did this thing. Right. Right. And Sullivan went with it, you know? Do a little of your Sydney Green Street for Rupert. He'll love it. Mm-hmm.

I enjoy talking to a man who enjoys to talk. I distrust close-mouthed men. They usually are hiding something. You are a character, sir. That's fucking great. And in Casablanca, he says, great. And in Casablanca, he says,

well, right now it would take a miracle to get out of Casablanca, and the Germans have outlawed miracles. That's great. That's so great. I love him in Across the Pacific, too. I love that film. Oh, yeah. If you've just seen Maltese Falcon,

and you... I'm saying this to your listeners as a public service. If you've just seen Maltese Falcon and you I'm saying this to your listeners as a public service if you've just seen Maltese Falcon and you wish to God there was more the film they made right after it is called Across the Pacific and it's got almost the same cast. Yeah. It's got Mary Astor who's being

described as the girl you wrote Home to Mother about or something like that which is she's a little too old for that but she's wonderful in it and there's a guy being the stand in for Peter Lorre playing like Yokohama Joe. And there's a guy named Sam. His name is Rick. Oh, wow. Interesting.

Humphrey Bogart's name is Rick. And they need ice water. Bring ice water. And the guy who can do can do. There's a guy and he's Asian and his name is Sam. So you had Rick and Sam talking back and forth to each other before Casablanca was ever made. And I heard when Casablanca came out, Dooley Wilson, everyone wanted to hire him. And they would hire him for clubs and appearances. And Dooley Wilson would say, oh, well, can I talk to the piano player?

And they'd say, well, we thought you played the piano. And he couldn't. He sang, but he couldn't play the piano. It's amazing. People just make that assumption. We could go so many places with you, Rupert. You're such a fun guest to talk to. Hmm.

Also in Maltese Falcon. Where could we go? No, it was you. You who ruined it. Kevin to found out how valuable it was. He's got those voices down, doesn't he? He really does. I love when he says something like, I wish the, when Laurie says something about, I wish the story you had invented had been a little bit easier it was hard to these they've obviously been beaten in the police at

police headquarters after that scene yeah great great move and this by one line that kills me and that laurie does and i don't know why it's not like really a joke line but, you know, in the middle of Bogart and Astor and everybody changing their stories around in front of the cops, and then Peter Lorre has on his overcoat

and he picks up his cane and he's walking away. And one of the cops goes, where do you think you're going? And he goes, I'm not going anywhere. It's getting quite late.

Does he scoop up some change at some point? It's wonderful. And, you know, that's an amazing movie because so little happens outside of a bunch of rooms. Yes. And there are, like, Laurie, first Bogart gets a business card from Laurie that he sniffs like it's perfume. Yes, that's right. And then. Shoo him in, shoo him in.

Yeah. And then Laurie is like rubbing the cane against his mouth, you know. And it was like they're going as far as they can go to say he was gay. Yeah. They're going as far as they can go to say he was gay. Yeah. And I believe in the novel, Wilmer is definitely like a trick of a personal possession of Gutman. Interesting.

Alessio Cooke Jr. Oh, interesting. Things they couldn't do at that point. in Maltese Falcon that I thought, if I made the commercial for Maltese Falcon, it would have just been this line. And that's like Sidney Greenstreet. He's going to, oh, he says, you know, oh, oh, oh, he's going to turn in Wilma, you know, Elijah Cook. Yeah.

He's going to turn in Wilma. And he goes, yes, I love Wilma like he's my own son. But if you lose a son, it's possible to get another one. But there's only one Maltese falcon. Yeah, yeah. And I thought that could have been the commercial. That's the campaign. Powerful. Right there.

Let me throw before we- It wasn't bad enough that he was Elisha Cook. He had to be Elisha Cook Jr. Junior. Yes. And he has the tagline in House on Haunted Hill, doesn't he? I believe he does. He turns to the camera and says, and then they'll be coming for you.

Oh, yes. At the end, right? Yes. I love him in Kubrick's The Killing. Oh, yes. Yeah. He was a good actor. Yeah, very good.

He did the Jerry Lewis show once. When Jerry Lewis had a Saturday night show that was going to be the big, big show. It was like a two-hour... We've talked about it here. Oh, that one... Where they put the tiles, his face on the tiles. With no script involved.

They came, and he said to him, what are you playing? And Elisha Cook Jr. was a guest on the show. I remember this now. I haven't thought... He said, what are you playing? And Elisha Cook Jr. was a guest on the show. I remember this now. He said, what are you playing? He said, oh, I like Always a Pimp. And no one had ever said the word pimp on TV before. It was really cool.

I'm going to give you guys a wild card here. As I said, we could ask Rupert almost anything. He's that kind of guest. Do you want to talk about Ray Harryhausen movies or obscure Karloff pictures from the 30s and 40s? Oh, both are fascinating. Yeah. in movies or obscure Karloff pictures from the 30s and 40s? Oh, both are fascinating. Yeah. I wrote down a couple of Karloff pictures.

Well, we already channeled one, which was when he played Mr. Wong, Detective. Mr. Wong, but what about... Go ahead, please. No, The Man They Could Not Hang from 1939. Does this mean anything to you? Yeah. At least I've never seen it. When I was a kid,

that was one of those movies that would be showing pretty much constantly. I think it's like they tried to kill him, but he lived through it. And then he held the entire jury hostage and he was going to kill all of them. Strangely, there's three. There's the man they could not hang in 39. And in 1940, there's Before I Hang's the man they could not hang in 39, and in 1940, there's Before I Hang with Edward Van Sloan. Right. Wow. And the man with nine lives. And it sounds like they were

all of a theme. Yeah, there's you know, shock theater. You probably don't even, well, you must know what it is. We had Zachary. You've had exactly and they had a package that they released universal sold like 55 films to tv and they

were always all billed as um horror movies but a lot of them were really borderline uh films about you know executions gone wrong and so the gangsters get the body, and they bring him back and all like that. I don't think I've ever seen those three. Interesting. There's a bunch. And in the universal world, there's also like some inner sanctum mysteries with Lon Chaney.

Yeah. Who had a big dick. We established that. For those of you tuning in. Just updating you, updating you on this important news for you. Those Inner Sanctum movies were horror. They were really bad. Yeah. They were really bad.

But Karloff did, what was it? There was one, oh, damn, it's escaped me now. In one of the- I happen to love The Black Cat. I love The Black Cat. Yeah, we talked about The Black Cat. The Black Cat is just, it's kinky. It's very kinky.

It is. It's a wild movie. There's all kinds of things going on. To our listeners who don't know it, please watch The Black Cat. It's like the whole movie was done in a dream state. It's bizarro. It is. The story makes no sense.

No sense whatsoever. The sets themselves, there's like one scene where the door slides open, the other scene where the door comes out. And it doesn't matter. It's so fascinating to watch. You can't take your eyes off it. There are some Karloff films that I never hear anyone talking about that were terrific at the very end of the 40s. There was one called The Strange Door. I don't have that on my list.

And another called The Black Castle. I think he was in that. Black Castle. But Strange Door is really interesting. Did The Black Castle have Janie also? You know, I can't tell you. I know it had Richard Green in it. The movie starts, it's almost like Sunset Boulevard.

The movie starts with Richard Green in a state of paralysis. And he says, why are you all thinking I'm dead? I'm not. It's a period piece, by the way. But it's really good stuff. Did you ever see him in yours truly, Jack the Ripper on Thriller? No. He did.

Thriller was, do you know Thriller? I know some Thriller episodes. There's a fabulous William Shatner. They're available. There's a William Shatner episode where the beginning of the overacting and stopping at random moments is laying the groundwork for the people. Got to find it. Yeah, and Karloff would always do the speech at the beginning and go, and this one's bound to be a thriller. He was great with that.

He had a TV series called Inspector March of Scotland Yard filmed in England. What about Tower of London with him and Rathbone? That's very early. And Vincent Price. Vincent Price is in that movie, too.

Yes, he is. He plays the Duke of Clarence. Yeah. The Devil Commands. You know this one? No. Edward Demetric directed it, one of the Hollywood ten.

Invisible Ray with Lugosi. Oh, yes. That's a good one. That was... I remember they were destroying Dimitri directed it, one of the Hollywood 10. Invisible Ray with Lugosi. Oh, yes. That's a good one. That was, I remember they were destroying these statues on a building. When they kill a person, they'd, and I think the Invisible Ray later got remade into that Chaney one that was like where he's Dynamite Dan, the electric man, where he's, they light him up. What happened to me was as a boy, I was not, these were, all these films were in this package

on, on Shock Theater and they're all universal, but a lot of them are like, they're not, they're not see films in terms of the effort that went into them, but they're, they're really just, you know, like heist movies and stuff. And what happened, I was not allowed to watch shock theater because it was both bad and it was too late. And, you know, I was 24 at the time. Is this in Jersey? This is when I was growing up in Nanuet, New York.

Okay. And I was not allowed to watch the show. But I would read the blurb in TV Guide. You know, a man, the frozen ghost. Oh, yes. Yeah. And I'd read the blurb. A man creates suspended animation with his friends and then performs scientific experiments.

The movie that I would make up in my mind while I was not watching Shock Theater was so terrifying to me. I was terrified of the movies that I spun out of the TV guide synopsis. That's great. If I had seen the movie, it wouldn't have scared me at all. What about Black Room, where he

played twin brothers? Oh yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. I haven't seen any of these. I really have to go on a car loss kick. That's one where he's got ruff Oh, yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't seen any of these. I really have to go on a Karloff kick. That's one where he's got ruffles at his wrists and all. Yeah. Getting back to Black Cat for a minute, I remember this one line where a suitcase, they're all on a train together and a suitcase falls

and the girl screams because it almost hits her and Lugosi catches it. And she goes, oh, I was so frightened. And Lugosi goes, it is better to be frightened than crushed. Isn't that the one where the guy says it's just a bunch of supernatural baloney and Lugosi? Oh, yes. Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, Lugosi? Oh, yes. Supernatural, perhaps. Bologna, perhaps not.

That's the one. That's gold. Now, help me with this one. So, you've got Ghost of Frankenstein, which is Igor. Gilbert loves that one. Bela Lugosi is Igor. We had on, I was demanding she do the show janet and gal had the little girl who was the little girl show i'll send it to you that's wonderful yeah okay so there are two things

about about about lugosi and frank and those frankenstein world i haven't seen it in centuries but help me in ghost of frankenstein was was there not the implication that Igor's brain was put into the body of the Frankenstein monster? It does happen in Ghost. I think that they tried maybe, I think they tried having the Frankenstein monster

speak with a Hungarian accent. Okay, okay. The next movie, because at the end of Ghost of Frankenstein, Cheney's the monster, and Igor's brain is put into Cheney's head. And then he goes blind because it's not the same blood type. And then so for Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, it was supposed to be that the monster is still blind, but he's able to speak like they were continuing that. Isn't he frozen at the beginning? Oh, yes. They're in this wonderful ice cave at the beginning, right?

And so what happens was that's where Lugosi came up with that stretched arms because he's supposed to be blind. So what people don't realize is that stereotype image of Frankenstein with the straight arms is Lugosi in and it's because he doesn't he can't see where he's going. That's cool. And that's so amazing. And there are scenes where Lugosi's mouth is moving. But somewhere in the middle of the movie, they decide, no, this isn't working. And they make no mention of the blindness or that he could speak. I was under the impression that the not speaking part of it was because he just couldn't get rid of his accent. But that might make sense if it's Igor's brain. Yeah.

And it's like Lugosi gets blamed for giving a horrible performance. That's so not fair. Yeah. Yeah. He gave horrible performances and other things. He's great as Igor. It's one of his finest hours. Igor proves what a great stage actor Lugosi probably was. Yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. There's one scene in Ghost of Frankenstein. He meets up with Sir Cedric Hardwick, and he wants him to operate on him. And Cedric Hardwick's, you know, one of the sons of Frankenstein. And he says, no, I have a good life here. I have a family, the respect of the community, and a respectable practice. And Lugosi goes, and you wouldn't want to ruin that, would you?

Gilbert, we've got to go on stage somewhere, and you've got to do the entire movie. You've got to do all the parts. Don't you think we should do this, Rupert? Do some kind of reenactment? I'm sitting here, and it's uncanny. I didn't know you had quite this arsenal of these guys. Gilbert, I'm told your car is a few minutes away, so we're going to wrap up with Rupert, but I'm going to ask him a couple of questions quickly from the fans.

This is Grill the Guest, Rupert, and you're getting grilled. Laura Pinto, I loved Rupert's show. Thanks for having him back. Thanks for mentioning Ron Dante. I'm a friend of his, and I was also friends with Sal DeTroia. Sal DeTroia, who played the famous riff of Everybody's Talking at Me. Everybody's talking at me. Yes. Who played on all my sessions and was masterful. Yes. She says, thank you for remembering and acknowledging. Great guy. Acknowledging him. And my question is, what are you working on? What's coming? I'm working on my third novel for Simon & Schuster called The McMaster's Guide to Homicide, Murder Your Employer. It's volume one.

It's a self-help. I'm not. This is not a joke. It's a self-help series for murders. I love it. It's about a college you go to in 1950 or so to learn how to commit really elegant and perfect murders. I love it. I have a play called Kennedy Reagan about a meeting between John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office in 1981 in a universe where John F. Kennedy survived Dallas. Wow. And they're going to run against each other because Kennedy never served a second term because of his injuries in Dallas.

And Reagan's been shot at now and he's brought in Kennedy and then what? That's a fun what if. Yeah. Well, it is a fun what if. and he's brought in Kennedy and then, well. That's a fun what if. Yeah, well, it is a fun what if. And musical, we're going to musical about Andy Warhol and a musical adaptation with produced in part by Ron Dante of Name That Tune,

a musical, a book musical with a story based on the Name That Tune. Oh, I'm glad you and Ron are doing something. And my ice cream truck route is doing really well. I was going to say, you need to find some things to do. Yeah, cherry vanilla is the flavor this week. Here's one more quick from John Suntry. He wants to know, remember when I loved Rupert's AMC TV show about the golden age of radio, which we still haven't managed to talk about in two episodes with you.

We'll get to it in a future one. Will it ever come to DVD or will it stream anywhere? Where can we find it? AMC is trying to do a George Orwell thing. They're trying to make this series never having existed. They went out and said that Mad Men was their first TV series, and it wasn't. AMC's first TV series was Remember When. We did 56 episodes. The critics loved it as much as they loved Mad Men. But then they changed their image, and they don't want to have anyone knowing that there was ever this not-in-your-face, period, 1939 setting, TV series, no laugh track, no commercials, and the kind of humor that you'd find in screwball comedies of that period. I loved writing it.

I wrote almost every episode. I also did the musical underscore. We had amazing guests. We had Phil Bosco. Oh, Eddie Bracken. Eddie Bracken, Mickey Rooney, just incredible people. And New York Times did an article last year about this injustice. And I can only hope there's a new administration someday that doesn't think that this show that I feel like who's the guy of Iwerks? Yeah, yeah. Iwerks.

Yeah. Who did all the he did a lot of early Disney stuff. And then they pretended he never existed. Oswald the Rabbit didn't exist. Alice in Cartoon Land. And I feel like that. It's like they want their history to start with mad men so when we who worked in the field very hard and for very little money to do this really wonderful series uh we're just non-people at the moment that's a shame sorry oh do i have an edge about it oh gee can you can you tell us the mickey rooney story real quick

well just no i wrote a wonderful thing uh for mickey a little piece where he shows up as uh as they keep talking about this Mr. Hardy who's going to show up. And it turns out to be, of course, Andy Hardy, grown up. And he came in and he said, I'll give you one minute. And then he said anything he wanted to say. And he just said ad-libbed lines. He didn't know what the plot was. Nothing. He was a little happy that day.

And he said, I'm Mickey Rooney. I'm just going to say things. I'm just going to say things. He's getting day. And he said, I'm Mickey Rooney. I'm just going to say things, okay? I'm just going to say things. He's getting paid. And he did it. And I had to then write lines that would be – I had to write set-up lines that would make the lines he said funny punch lines, but they were just stream of consciousness stuff. Wow. Hilarious.

Backward jokes. Yeah, backwards jokes. Yes. It's always funny. Wow. Hilarious. Backward jokes. Yeah, backwards jokes. Yes, it's always fun.

Now, I heard Mickey Rooney, he'd be doing these shows out of town, and it was like expected, and it was a thing he did. He would go to the hallway phone and call his wife to tell her how much he loves her. And while he was doing that, he'd be like fucking one of the chorus girls against the wall or having her blow him. And this was one of these things like the whole crew go, hey, come on, Mickey's doing it again. He'd be on the phone with his lovely wife. Yes.

And said, hey, I'm Mickey Rooney. Well, you know, there was a lot of debate in said, hey, I'm Mickey Rooney. You know, there was a lot of debate in Hollywood about Lon Chaney versus Mickey Rooney. What a bigger game. A pro does a callback. As a professional. It was actually between Chaney or George Zilko.

Hey, your wife's pissed. We've got to put you in a cab. Oh, okay. I have to start leaving because I've got to put you in a cab oh okay uh i i have to start leaving because i i gotta promote my documentary gilbert which is a documentary of my life but anyway this has been gilbert gottfried's uh amazing colossal podcast and with my co-host frank sopadre, and Rupert Holmes, we have to have you back. My God. Because this didn't feel like an interview at all. This is like three scary nerds who know way too much about movies they shouldn't.

The good news, though, Gil, is that absolutely no one is listening. That's true too. I want to say to the one person out there, we know who you are and we love you and you're dear to us. We got listeners, buddy. I know you do. I know you do. We could get you back every week. We'll talk about Ray Harryhausen next time.

This was a lot of fun. This felt like just sitting around. Yeah. Will you be our Tony Randall? Would you come in every week? I would love it. I'm not holding you to it, but I just, I was hoping we could do something like this where it wasn't about me and then I did this. I just thought we could talk about it.

And I have a feeling you could a feeling it didn't have to be about anything at all. We all have all these connections. Absolutely. Sorry I failed you on the early call. Three of us. It starts flying off in all different directions. We could bring back Quad. Yes.

I promise to get to the Gerard Damiano story next time. Oh yeah, we should. Next time. Yeah, that's good. We should do that. You got it, brother. Head for Valley 268 09 I can see it clearly in my mind I'm scared to

call cause it's been such a long, long time I've never been much of a ride What do you say to a dream that's died? Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast is produced by Dara Gottfried and Frank Santapadre with audio production by Frank Verderosa

Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley-Seals. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fodiatis, and Nutmeg Creative. Especially Sam Giovonco and Daniel Farrell for their assistance. Hello, operator. Get me Echo Valley 26809. You have reached a disconnected number. Echo Valley 26809 I should have called it over

Echo Valley 26809 I should have called it over