Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - 231. Tom Holland

Episode Date: October 29, 2018

Gilbert and Frank celebrate Halloween 2018 by welcoming Master of Horror Tom Holland ("Fright Night," "Child's Play," "Psycho II") for a lively conversation about everything from the influence of EC Comics to the sexlessness of vampires to the collapse of the Hollywood studio system. Also, Christopher Lee hams it up, Anthony Perkins plays "The Movie Game," Tom pays homage to Abbott and Costello and "Trilogy of Terror" inspires "Child's Play." PLUS: "The Beast Within"! The cinema of Tobe Hooper! Hitchcock vs. Paul Newman! In praise of Richard Donner! And Tom remembers his friend and collaborator Roddy McDowall! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bet mode activated. The Scorebet app here with trusted stats and real-time sports news. Yeah, hey, who should I take in the Boston game? Well, statistically speaking... Nah, no more statistically speaking. I want hot takes. I want knee-jerk reactions. That's not really what I do. Is that because you don't have any knees? Or... The Scorebet. Trusted sports content. Seamless sports betting. Download today.

19 plus. Ontario only. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or the gambling of someone close to you, please go to connexontario.ca. This episode is brought to you by FX's The Bear on Disney+. In Season 3, Carmi and his crew are aiming for the ultimate restaurant accolade, a Michelin star. With Golden Globe and Emmy wins, the show starring Jeremy Allen White,

Io Debrey, and Maddie Matheson is ready to heat up screens once again. All new episodes of FX's The Bear are streaming June 27, only on Disney+. Hi, I'm Alan Alda, and I'm a guest on Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast. You've got to listen to this.

They made me laugh. I laughed like this. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host, Frank Santopadre. Our guest this week for our special Halloween episode is an actor, producer, writer, and the director of some of the most popular and successful horror and suspense films of the last four decades. He was a member of the famed actor's studio and studied under the great Lee Strasberg

before going on to appear in feature films, soap operas, and TV shows such as 77 Sunset Strip, Combat, Medical Center, The Incredible Hulk, and the miniseries The Winds of War and The Stand. But it's his work behind the camera that's brought him the most acclaim. Writing or writing and directing feature films such as The Beast Within, Class of 1984, Psycho II, Cloak and Dagger, The Temp, Thinner, Fright Night, and the original Child's Play. In a career spanning over 50 years, he's McDowell, Harrison Ford, Jack Warden, Brad Pitt, Anthony Perkins, and Stephen King, as well as former podcast guests Stephen Weber, Whoopi Goldberg, Bruce Stern, Mick Garris. Goldberg, Bruce Stern, Mick Garris. Please welcome to the show the man responsible for unleashing Chucky onto the unsuspecting world. And a man who recently received thousands of congratulatory messages from people who thought he was playing the new Spider-Man.

A genuine master of horror, Tom Holland. Oh, thank you, Gilbert. Thank you. Thank you very much. Welcome, Tom. And I can tell you, before I left the house, this is true, I said something, well, I'm going to be interviewing Tom Holland today. And my nine-year-old son, Max, got very excited. And then I said, no, no, he's not Spider-Man.

And then he was basically like, ah, fuck him. I've never been able to use my real name. There's always been somebody else who had it first. Terrible. Did you really get messages from people? I mean, it was tongue-in-cheek, right? People knew you weren't playing Spider-Man. Somebody took

Spider-Man and photoshopped my head on top of Spider-Man, and it my head on top of Spider-Man. And it went viral. That's great. You know, and I think at that point I was 70 years old. You know, so it was like, oh, my God, they got an old man playing Spider-Man. I didn't even know there was a young actor named Tom Holland.

There you go. And we're both very thrilled to hear that you're a fan of the podcast. Oh, I am. I am. Well, I started. I caught you, Gilbert. I don't know. When I did Langoliers, the miniseries, the Stephen King miniseries.

Sure. And I was casting, and I looked at Balky. I looked at ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. Bronson Pinchot. Yes... Bronson Pinchot. Yes, Bronson Pinchot. And I was looking at him in Beverly Hills Cop. And I don't know how, but I came across your scene with Eddie Murphy. And you were...

Maybe I'm wrong. But you were improvising. And it was so alive. Eddie Murphy looked like he was trying to catch up. And you popped. I mean, you popped out as a character actor. And it stayed in my head. And so, you know, so when this came up, I thought, oh, my goodness, I know the name.

And I thought about it. And then I remembered. You were just terrific. You should be a character actor. I don't know why you're doing this. Yeah, why are you doing this? Well, he's done a lot of character work in films, a fair amount. I think of you, Gilbert, now mainly as a voice artist.

But, you know, yeah, you can act. I think of you, Gilbert, now mainly as a voice artist. But you can act. Oh, thank you. No, no, no, really. It's very, very hard to do improv on film and hold it together in a coherent manner that you can cut a scene in two minutes or whatever. Did you and Eddie improvise that entire scene? Yeah. Just there was nothing on the page. There was something like I've got these traffic tickets and I say, is there some way we can

avoid this unpleasantness? I see. And then we just started doing it different each time. If you've got somebody who can improvise, the groundlings, you know, whatever, if you give them the basic situation and then you let them go but you give them a time limit and if you can, you set up an objective, you know, something they have to do in the scene like Gilbert has to bribe the cop and get out of the traffic ticket. And then, you know, and the cop has to say no or whatever. But you give them opposing, conflicting, you know, goals. And then you step back and let them go. And you get, what you get is you get a kind of freshness that comes out of the moment that you don't get with scripted material.

And it pops on the screen, especially if it's surrounded by scripted material. And that's what I saw in that scene in Beverly Hills Cop 2, 3? Two. Okay. Two. Okay. But I was looking at Bronson Pinchot. And Bronson, you know, Bronson is, Bronson can do that too,

but he hasn't got your comedic turn particularly. How nice when a guest comes and flatters you, Gilbert. Yeah. I just want you to talk about me for the rest of the interview. How did you start? Because somewhere when I – because, of course, I looked you up, Wikipedia or whatever. You started just walking in blind at 15 and doing stand-up? Yes, yeah.

First time I got on a comedy stage, I was 15. And I just started going to comedy clubs every night. Were you the kid in the back of the class in the fourth grade that was cutting up all the time? No. You know what I find? That the kids who are the class clowns are the ones that come up to me after a show and say, I'm the funniest guy in my office. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Yeah. Well, as long as you're talking about school, tell Tom the OS story, because I think he's one of the few people who appreciate it. Oh, okay. This is what a scary old movie pathetic kid I was. Yeah, yeah. One time, I think it was like in kindergarten or the first grade, the teacher is playing a game with us saying,

I'll say some initials and you say famous people. And so, you know, M.M. and they'd say Mickey Mouse. I thought Norman Rowland. Yeah, yeah. J.L. Jerry Lewis. And then she goes, O.S. And me, a little kid, I jump up excitedly and go,

Onslow Stevens. Where does that come from? That's a good question. You don't know, Gilbert, right? No, I don't know. But I just... How old are you in the sixth grade? You're maybe... In the sixth grade, excuse me, in the first grade.

You're maybe six, seven? Yeah. And you knew Onslow Stevens. I knew Onslow Stevens, yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah, no, no. But anyway, 15 hit me because I got into the business in the summer of my 16th birthday, which means when I was 15, I got a job apprenticing at Bucks County Playhouse in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

And that's how I sort of got into this. Now, can I ask you, what was just at the beginning of CGI. Yeah. You know, and, you know, I know now, you know, in retrospect that it was hokey and all the rest of it. But I got to tell you, at the time it was breaking down barriers and trying to figure out how to do it with very, very limited computer power. And also, naturally, the producers didn't want to pay for it to render it. So it's set on top of the 16 mil image. I shot it in 16 mil.

The producers were so cheap. 16 mil, the producers were so cheap. But the show itself, the miniseries, I thought was just, I'm prejudiced, but I thought it was just terrific and it had a terrific cast. And it was because the cast was so damn good, it worked. And also, Stephen wrote a mousetrap of a novella. I mean, you could really, one scene did follow. The narrative was very, very strong. When Stephen's on, he's got the gift of narrative. And that was an example of it.

I mean, that was in a collection of short stories, I think. But that was the one that was the grabber. You started to read it and you couldn't stop it because the opening hook was so strong.

People woke up in an airplane and everybody was gone except for about 10 of them. And they were in mid-flight and what the hell happened? And they landed at an empty airport. And I was shooting that in Bangor because Stephen wanted to bring work in the main. And it was in the height of the summer season when it was just packed with crowds. And I had to figure out how to shoot, you know, and make it seem empty. I think at one point I had seven or eight scenes that weren't completed going at the same time. It was a production nightmare.

But the cast was just terrific. Oh, David Morris. Yeah, Dean Stockwell. Yeah, Dean Stockwell. Yeah, Dean Stockwell. Dean, you know, I mean, how can you get any more experience than that? He's great. Yeah, and Bronson, who's, you know, who's multi-talented and totally mad, you know, turned in a hell of a job. So it was just everybody was good.

And I'm not thinking of all the names now, but it was a terrific ensemble cast, I thought. Dean Stockwell was in Beverly Hills Cop 2. There you go. No kidding. Full circle. Well, I think he was in almost everything. Yes, he was. Oh, my God.

Yes, he was. Well, the boy with the green hair was what, like 1948? Oh, yeah. He was in the business early like you guys were. Well, he was even younger than us. Yeah, that's right. I mean, I talked to Roddy McDowell, and Roddy did How Green Was My Valley at seven or eight years old. Something like that.

Yeah, it's amazing. Now, you've worked with him at least twice, Roddy McDowell. I worked. He was in class of 84. Yeah. Which you wrote. Yeah, and that was a – how do you say this politely? It echoed Asphalt Jungle.

It was an updating of that. And Robbie's performance was just terrific. Roddy could move you. And he also – there was something adorable about Roddy. and he also there was something adorable about Roddy so when he came in he realized what the power was of Fright Night

and he was desperate to play Peter Vincent and then he came up with the image of the lion the cowardly lion from Wizard of Oz and well he was both moving and funny and adorable.

And if you look at Fright Night, the one that makes it go is Charlie Brewster, the teen who sees the vampire next door chomping down on a girl. But the hero's – but he's on purpose during the entire thing. But the hero's – but he's on purpose during the entire thing. But the hero's journey is Peter Vincent, Rodney McDowell, because he's a fake and a phony and he's a coward. I mean, you know, he's a ham actor who doesn't believe any of the movies that he made. I mean, I ended up having lunch one day with Christopher Lee. Wow. And Christopher Lee could have been Rodney McDowell, except he had absolutely no sense of humor.

Well, tell us who you wanted. None whatsoever, but he was the ham actor of all time. Of course. Well, tell us who you wanted for that part, for Peter Vincent's part. I wanted Vincent Price, but Vincent, I mean, because I grew up with Vincent Price, you know, and I wanted Vincent, but he was in failing health at that time. And then Roddy had me to dinner at his house with

Vincent Price and his wife, Coral Brown. And I, you know, I mean, I think to myself, if only I brought my autograph book. I mean, in so many places, all my life I think that. But I didn't because it seemed, you know, in bad taste. Sure. And so I sat down with Vincent Price and all I wanted to talk about

was the Roger Corman movies and all he wanted to talk about was his new cookbook. That's great. It's true. It's true. He was a gourmand. And the character is named Peter Vincent.

Why? Well, for Vincent Price and Peter Cushing. There you go. They were my two favorite actors growing up and watching horror movies in the 50s. I love them both. Sure. So Christopher Lee was full of himself. Oh, he was insufferable.

I mean, it was at a party that was full of expats, British expats in Hollywood. And I also wanted to talk to him about how great I thought he was in all those Hammer films. And I couldn't get a word in Edgewise because he just finished playing Sauron in Lord of the Rings. Yes, that sounds right. And all he wanted to do was talk about that. And I give him credit for that because he was forward looking. And I don't know what he was then.

He's probably in his 80s. But he wasn't going to stop, but he really was Peter Vincent without the humor. And I heard he was such an egotist that when he put on any monster makeup, he kept his toupee on. I believe it. Like in those mummy movies, they wrap the bandages over his toupee. I wouldn't be surprised. I'm going to put Gil on the spot.

You want to hear a pretty good Vincent Price impression, Tom? Yeah, sure. Go ahead, Gil. Yeah, I met him twice, and it was, of course, exciting. One time I was regular on Thick of the Night, that Alan Thicke talk show, and I went on and did a bit, and I was doing some imitations, and after I get off, I feel a large hand on my shoulder, and I turn around, and it's Vincent Price. And he goes, I loved your Peter Lorre imitation.

God, can you do Peter Lorre? Oh, yes. Do Peter Lorre. Okay. No, it was you who handled it. You and your stupid attempt to buy it. Kevin found out how valuable it was. No wonder he had such an easy time stealing it.

You bloated fathead. That's great. That's the Falcon. That's the Falcon, right? Yeah, I got it. Yes. Yeah, I was, I mean, the other one, the other great performance is M. Oh, yeah. Oh, incredible.

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. Incredible performance. That's terrifying, actually, but heartbreaking at the same time. Absolutely. He was a brilliant actor. You know, we're talking about wonderful talents. Oh, yeah.

These are the names that come up on this show all the time. Oh, and then years later, I run into Vincent Price, and I say, you probably don't remember me. We met on the Alan Thicke show, and he said, oh, yes, that was a terrible show. Oh, God. I wonder, yeah, but, you know,

I mean, you know, if you look at the earlier work back in the 50s before he got into genre, he was a hell of an actor. Oh, he was. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and I can't pull the names now, but he was doing noir. He's in Laura. Yes, that's it. Yeah.

That's it. In Laura, he has that line. that line, they say, oh, do you know a lot about music? And he goes, I don't know a lot about anything, but I know a little about practically everything. Perfect. But I think the other thing he really knew about besides cooking was art. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Major collector. I like those Fibes movies. I mean, they're real. They're real. Real tongue-in-cheek and real campy. Yeah, they don't do that anymore, do they?

They don't do them. Or Theater of Blood. You know, he... Theater of Blood was terrific. Now you're back in the what? Late 60s? The 70s, even. Yeah. Even 70s Theater of Blood? He's just having the time of his life, chewing the scenery, and you just can't take your eyes off him. That's where he goes around and kills the critics who give him bad reviews? You bet. Yes.

That's the one. I felt that way. Yeah, Robert Morley. He felt that way. Yeah, Robert Morley. Frank, how did you learn so much about how can you hold it all? I don't know, Tom. I'm a bit of a savant.

I grew up, I'm a writer, so I grew up reading credits and reading writers' names and reading directors' names and just getting to, just familiarizing myself with it. I'm the kind of guy that'll get in bed with Leonard Maltin's TV movie book. Oh, yes, yes. Which has like 100,000 movies in it and memorize the casts, which is just sick, I realize. But it comes in handy for a show like this. No, no, I used to be like that. I thought in my ego, I thought that in the very early 80s, I thought I'd seen every sound movie. And I could name every, I could name not every, but I could name the actors in the movies.

And we used to play the movie game. You know, you'd name a movie and then you have to name an actor that was the start in it. Right. And then the other person would have to name another movie that actor was in. And you keep it going. Oh, yeah. And I thought I was really the champ until I got the Psycho 2, and I was playing with Tony Perkins. And Tony said, okay, enough of this.

Let's go to cinematographers and composers. And he knew him. He knew him. Wow. Oh, tell us about Anthony Perkins. Oh, God. You know, I mean, you know, you want to – he's a brilliant actor. He's probably maybe the smartest actor I ever met.

I mean, he was – it's hard for me to tell, but he was borderline brilliant. But he also – he was also Norman. There was something tortured about him and since I know a bit about him you know I have ideas of I have a good idea of what it was but I mean

that whole family's been dogged by tragedy you know his wife was a Berenson and she was on oh she was killed in 9-11. That's right. Yeah, the first or second airplane. That's right. And she left two boys. Yeah.

And one of them's a filmmaker and very talented. So, you know, I try to be careful because you want to be kind, and yet at the same time, you want to dig the dirt. he... Tony, I think, well, I know, he decided he didn't want to be gay, you know, and he made definite moves to go straight.

And he had a very, very good relationship with his wife, and they were great with their kids. But somehow, in that tumult, there was this struggle, this pain, and it came over. And also, let me tell you

how smart he was. He was best friends with Stephen Sondheim. They wrote that wonderful movie for Herbert Ross. How awful about Sheila? The Last of Sheila. The Last of Sheila. Because I know they were into puzzles. But can you imagine playing a puzzle with Stephen Sondheim?

I mean, you know, or playing the trivia game with Stephen Sondheim? I mean, so that's what Tony was capable of. And he was, you know? I mean, so that's what Tony was capable of. And he was, you know, I mean, Psycho II resuscitated his career. But he was also very bitter that his career had been wrecked by Psycho II. Not by Psycho II, but by Psycho the original, by Norman.

By Norman Bates, yeah. And he told me he had no idea. He'd flown back to New York for three or four days where they did the shower scene. He had no idea that he was creating such an indelible character. Wow. I'll also say something else. I was, I don't know, Psycho 2 was what, 1961, 60? Oh, you mean the first one, yeah.

Yeah. 60. 60, okay. And I, that was a huge revelation to me. I had been a film fanatic, but I didn't – I don't think I really understood what editing was. And then I saw Psycho, and all of a sudden I knew that they put together pieces of film to give the effect. And that was really stunning to me. That made me want to be a filmmaker and then the other film

that affected me that way was godard's breathless i'd never seen jump cuts before and that got me interested in the you know in the in the craft of filmmaking so when you decided to tell you and richard franklin decided to tackle a psycho too and i've heard you say you knew the critics were going to kill you oh so you were between a rock and a hard place because you knew that, but you also knew you couldn't not do it. You couldn't not seize an opportunity like that. No, I had to go for it, even if it was suicide. Now, you've got to remember, the only film, well, I had a big movie of the week is what they called and then called Initiation of Sarah. Oh, yeah, Gilbert and I were talking about that one last night.

Okay. Well, that was like 1977, I think. And that was the first time. They threw the girl in a fountain and she came out wearing a T-shirt and you could see her hard nipples. And it was a scandal. Is that Morgan Fairchild? Yeah, Morgan Fairchild. It was on the front cover of the sunday la times in the calendar section which then was you know

that and the trades were all the all that you had for for the for the business and that had created quite a stir and then i got i got the beast within which which was an original there's a there's a there's a there was a book a novel but the, but the writer was in a divorce or had a nervous breakdown or something. And what Harvey Bernhardt had bought was the title. So all I had to work off of was the title. And this is where you get into being a writer. I thought it was a terrific script. being a writer, I thought it was a terrific script. And it was the last movie that United Artists produced or released after the cataclysm of Heaven's Gate.

Oh, yes. So The Beast Within was the last gasp of United Artists. And it had gone out and it had made money, but it got lost in the disaster of Heaven's Gate. So after that, I thought, well, my goodness, I finally have written the feature. And I couldn't get a job for a year. After Beast Within. After Beast Within. Beast Within has something in common with humanoids from the deep in that it's monster rape.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It starts with a rape and it it's monster rape. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It starts with a rape and it ends with a rape. Yes. I pulled the names for the cast from Lovecraft. Oh, that's interesting. Really, what that movie, the underlying theme of that movie was the sins of the parents being visited on the children. sins of the parents being visited on the children because the father had been turned into a monster by by you know by his by his by the people who you know locked him in the cellar and fed him

human bodies for years and the kid comes back because he somehow the the spirit reaches out to him and he turns into the father but i mean it it's also a it's also a I mean, it's also a riff on love and reaching sexuality and all of those things. Anyway, it had a lot of themes underneath it. And a lot of it got buried anyway. Very disturbing movie. But it's got one of the longest and most fun transformation scenes. Oh, when Michael's chained to the bed, the hospital bed? Yes, yes.

And Billy comes out? Well, that's Philippe Mora. And Philippe is a human being and a dear friend. I mean, a wonderful human being and a dear friend and very, very sophisticated. And I think that he thought that the whole movie was funnier than I thought it was. He played it for comedy. So, you know, that was at the moment when effects were really all they could do was inflate balloons underneath, you know, latex. Which I loved.

Yeah, but it's still pretty terrifying. But he hung on it too long. He should have cut it more. He should have cut it, you know, quicker. And there should have been more cuts in it because it really could have been terrifying. And instead it sort of slipped into silliness. But that's the writer talking. It goes on forever, but it's just, it's so much fun to watch.

And since we're talking about great character actors, we have to mention an LQ Jones, RG Armstrong, Ronnie Cox, Don Gordon. It was terrific. It was Sam Peckinpah's cast pulled out of the West and put into a horror movie in Mississippi. Yep. Now, that kid, was he the son of Eleanor Powell? Yes, he was. Yes.

Good call, Gil. Yes, he was. You impressed me. Yeah, see? Yes, he was and is. This is the pathetic shit that we know. When I hear cicadas in the summer, I still think of that movie. that we know. Listen, when I hear cicadas in the summer,

I still think of that movie. Oh, yes. Because it's used as a device, as a recurring device. It was to be a visual metaphor for the transformation

of the boy into the monster. Yep. And they didn't know how to do it because this was before CGI. And I said, go out and go

and go get some of that natural, you know, nature footage. You know, where you see the cicadas dropping off the tree. Go into a close-up where they shuck their shell and they turn into these beautiful creatures. You know the part that makes me crack up in the transformation scene when it's like about 10 minutes into it and he's changed his head's blown up his skin's fallen off and then uh his eyes are getting big and one of the actors goes oh my god and you go well isn't it a little too late for oh my god

i'll give you another one. I thought, well, the monster is so-so. And then I don't know, a couple of years ago I saw the sketches and I saw the sculpture that Rob Bottin had done. And the work was just beautiful. I mean, incredible. And what Philippe did was he slathered the monster with so much blood you couldn't see the tail work. You know, so. It's a movie that stays with you.

I'll tell you. Well, you know, I mean, thank you. I mean, because, you know, all this is sort of, I'm acting humble, but all of this is sort of amazing, you know, Frank, because I didn't have any sense that this was happening to me or that people were remembering my movies. Of course. Yeah, but the culture wasn't there 20 years ago, Frank. It's all been the last 12, 15 years that it started to grow in popular culture. That's interesting. The internet has something to do with that.

And I just remembered something, jumping back to Christopher Lee, that I've heard interviews where he talks about himself as being like the number one World War II hero. Oh, where he's a Nazi killer. Yes. He said he was a Nazi killer.

Was he using the third person? Yes. War II hero. He's a Nazi killer. He said he was a Nazi killer. Was he using the third person? Yes. And then they spoke to some guy who was in the army with him, a general or whatever, and said he was okay. He wasn't anything special. A great

on-screen villain, though. You can't beat the wicker man. No, you got a point there. He played those creeps better than anybody. Well, I mean, there was an interesting... Oliver Reed. Oliver Reed, another guy. I mean, yeah, there was an interesting group there

for a few years in the 50s around Hammer. Absolutely. Well, Jimmy Sangster. His work as a writer, director, but as a writer mainly. I mean, they turned him loose when Hammer's, when the success of Psycho came out,

Hammer said, well, we've got to get into some psychological horror. And they got Jimmy Sangster and he did five or six really interesting scripts. We will return to Gilbert Godfrey's amazing, colossal podcast right after these important messages. This episode is brought to you by the Kraken Gold Spiced Rum. The Kraken presents

The Legend of Gold Spiced Rum Plundered from the darkest depths of the Kraken's keep. Savored for its rich, smooth taste, with hints of Tahitian vanilla and dark spices Discover the Kraken's newest treasure The Kraken Gold Spiced Rum Please drink responsibly Imagine you're in Ottawa strolling through artistic landscapes

At the National Gallery of Canada Oh Then cycling past Parliament Hill Ah Before unwinding on an outdoor patio Oh Oh. Ah. Oh. Ah. Exploration awaits in Ottawa.

From O to Ah. Plan your Ottawa itinerary at ottawatourism.ca. Thank you. It's Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Podcast. I just want to go back before we jump on. And we go all over the place here, Tom, as you see, with no rhyme or reason. But I want to talk about Hitchcock again. I want to talk about Psycho 2 and the challenge of it. And you and Richard Franklin, you screened every Hitchcock picture before you guys got underway? Even the silence? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Every one of them. I think we started with Murder. That might be the

first one. I can't remember. There's the Lodger, there's Blackmail, there's so many. This is pre Lodger. Oh, okay. Lodger was the breakout. And the guy who ran the studio, Gaumont or whatever it was in London, thought it was terrible and kept it on the shelf for over a year. And Hitchcock was suicidal. I was lucky enough to work with Richard Franklin. Richard Franklin has passed now. But Richard was – Richard thought, with good good reason the two greatest directors were hitchcock and john ford and he was equally knowledgeable about both and when he you know he hired me to

to write psycho 2 he set me down and we went through every hitchcock film starting with the silence all the way up to i don't know what the cemetery plot or whatever plot you know last family plot yeah the the and and they weren't easy to get hold of in those days it wasn't like now no what we did is because we had the access we would go down to the screening room at universal at the studio and we would go down there and we would sit there, we would go down to the screening room at Universal, at the studio. I see. And we would go down there and we would sit there and we would watch them. Wow. And what he was doing was he was looking for visual set pieces.

And he wanted to pull as many good ones as he could and put them in Psycho 2. And by visual set pieces, he meant those moments where the story moved forward with a minimum amount of dialogue and it was all filmmaking. And what it did is by doing that, it was like getting a graduate seminar in Hitchcock and how to make Hitchcock films. I mean, that's like, that experience has influenced me my entire life because you remember Hitchcock's famous dictum about the difference between surprise or shock and suspense. And the difference is if somebody places the dynamite under the table and if you, the audience member, knows about it, it's suspense. If you don't know about it, the table explodes, that's surprise or shock. Well, that's what I did in Child's Play. That was what I – that's what I did in Child's Play. You know, I came up with – I kept looking for some way to make that work.

I wanted to do a killer doll movie. I wanted to do a killer doll movie because of Trilogy of Terror. Oh, based on the Richard Matheson story, yeah. Oh, boy. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I mean, that was a – that's Dan Curtis. That was a great piece of filmmaking. Love Dan. We talk about Dan Curtis on this show a lot.

Well, Dan Curtis was a very difficult guy. When I was doing Soaps in New York, I was working at ABC on 67th Street, and Dan Curtis was a floor above me or two floors above me, and he was starting Dark Shadows. And then the last job I professionally had as an actor was 1982's Winds of War, which Dan Curtis directed. And he didn't direct it. He didn't direct particularly.

He shouted at you. No, no, move over there! You know what I mean? That's what he was like. But he did Trilogy of Terror, which I think were four short stories by Richard Matheson. And one of them is the Zoomy doll. Prey, I think it was called. Prey was the name of the story.

Karen Black. Yeah, Karen Black. Yes. Right, right. And this is before Steadicams. And he took what they then called an Elmo or camera, a 16 mil camera, and he put it on roller skates. And it was about ankle high.

And it had very, very small reels, you know, maybe two minutes of film. And he used the roller skates and that little camera and he chased after her at ankle height. maybe two minutes of film. And he used the roller skates and that little camera, and he chased after her at ankle height. And then he would cut to a close-up of the doll, which was a wooden figure about a foot and a half high, and he'd put it in front of the camera and he'd shake it.

And then he'd cut back to the moving point of view. And it was absolutely terrifying. He put sound behind it too. But it was absolutely terrifying. It put sound behind it too. But it was absolutely terrifying. And nobody had done that. And that's why I wanted to do child's play. And then I had to figure out how to construct those visual set pieces that I could make work with a moving point of view. Because I knew if I ever got in trouble with the doll, and since that was, you know,

an instant before CGI, if the doll didn't work in real in front of the camera, the doll didn't work at all. I knew if I got in trouble, I got cut to a moving point of view. And that's what I did throughout that movie. But what I took from Hitchcock about that

was the opening hook, the opening scene is the lakeside strangler, Brad Dourif, putting his – as he's dying, he puts his soul into that doll. So you know as an audience member that something is terribly wrong with that doll. And then poor Karen buys it as a birthday present from a bum for her son. And you as the audience member are sitting there and saying that doll is evil, but Karen and little Andy don't know that.

That's suspense and that's a direct, that's because of, that's what I learned from Richard Franklin and writing Psycho 2 and looking at all the Hitchcock movies.

But that scene where the batteries fall out. Yes. When she's about to throw the box in the trash. It's a great moment in a horror film. It's a moment you never forget. Okay, but that is, thank you. But that's the beginning.

I timed it. That's the beginning of a solid eight-minute suspense sequence. And I keep ratcheting it up. She comes back from the police station. She's in despair because everybody thinks her son's a murderer. And Alex Vincent was seven years old at the time. But, you know, the boy's insane. He thinks his doll's alive.

How ridiculous is that? That can't be true. The boy's insane. He thinks his doll's alive. How ridiculous is that? That can't be true. So she goes to throw away the box, and oh, my God, the batteries fall out. Yes, you're right.

It's heart-stopping. It is. But then she goes in, and she picks up the doll, and she turns it over on its face down. And she takes, and she opens the battery compartment. And it's empty. And then the exorcist, the head does a 180. So it's staring up at her. And says, want to play or whatever. I can't remember now.

It runs under the couch. She drops it. That's right. She drops it and it scurries. It rolled under because I put the couch and a piece of plywood and a piece of the rug at a 45 degree angle. And then I dutched the camera. So when it hit the rug, it goes under like it's supernatural. But then she gets down on her hands and knees and slowly she lifts up the couch, the skirt of the couch and looks into the blackness underneath. And there's nothing more vulnerable than somebody with a naked eye looking at something that you know.

You know it's the lakeside strangler now. And it's looking at her like three inches away. She's as vulnerable as she could be. And instead, it doesn't attack her. She pulls it out and she lifts it in her hands. And she says, you know, now she's, you know, now she's starting to think, well, her son's right. This doll is supernatural. Something's going on here. You know, now she's starting to think, well, her son's right. This doll is supernatural.

Something's going on here. And she shakes the doll, but she can't get anything out of the doll. So then she takes and she lights the gas fireplace. And she threatens to throw the doll into it. And previous to that, I had used a good guy voice, a voice with a filter on it that made it sound doll like and for the first time I went full ahead with Brad Dourif's voice you dirty bitch let me go you know and it was absolutely

fucking terrifying I mean you know and she drops it and because the doll attacks her it attacks her throat it bites her and she drops it and then the doll scurries attacks her throat, it bites her, and she drops it, and then the doll scurries out. And I shot the doll behind all these pieces of furniture, the couch and everything, so

you couldn't see the puppeteers underneath. But the doll looks like it's moving at 100 miles an hour. Then she goes, she races down in the, you know, racing after the elevator, the birdcage elevator going down, comes out the front, looks up and down the street, and Chucky's gone. That's an eight-minute sequence. And it doesn't let you go, and the whole third act is like that. That's Hitchcock.

You know, so I mean, so, you know, that's, I learned, I learned so much of my suspense from being taken to school by Richard Franklin and, you know, about Hitchcock films. And I'm eternally grateful. And Richard was a very, very talented guy with a huge chunk of the academic about him. I think he ended up teaching at the university in Australia. Didn't he visit Hitchcock? Wasn't he on the set of Topaz? He was.

Did he visit Hitchcock? Wasn't he on the set of Topaz? He was. But this was before. It's hard to explain now because everybody thinks that – nobody thinks of things in their historical perspective or at the moment in time in which they happened. The – nobody – when Richard was at USC, he invited Hitchcock down to the film department to talk. Nobody had ever done that. Wow.

Hitchcock had never been asked before. That's crazy. I mean, yeah. And they became, you know, I mean, I don't know if friends is the right word, but, you know, certainly, you know, he worshipped Hitchcock. And Hitchcock did invite him on Topaz. But I can tell other stories. I knew Paul Newman, and Paul Newman said, Paul Newman said touring curtains were the worst experiences he had ever had as an actor because all Hitchcock said to him was,

here, look over there, right over there, look there for three seconds, then turn your head and look over here. And that was all the direction he got from Hitchcock, that kind of thing. Because Hitchcock was doing bits and pieces to cut to put it together because he had all the storyboards that he'd put up. You know, he had a sweet cabana, whatever it's called, on the Universal lot. And he would work and he would cut the film before he ever shot anything. And then once he did it, he stuck to it. So Newman resented just kind of being moved around like a prop.

Yes, you know, I mean, but that goes to Hitchcock saying actors are cattle. Right. You know, he didn't really mean it, I don't think. Well, I mean, you can't say that. I mean, Ingrid Bergman was luminescent. Oh, there's great performances. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, so somehow that didn't work that way.

Olivier and Rebecca. There you go. Yeah. There you go. Great performances. And before I forget, what was Brad Doroth like? I had used Brad in the Whoopi Goldberg movie Fatal Beauty. And if you go look at that, you'll see he's doing the leg short strangler there too. So it wasn't a very big reach.

And think about it this way. I saw Brad recently. He sort of lost his sense of humor. But Brad is in just the opening scene of Child's Play. And after that, it's only when the doll comes alive in her hand and attacks her that his voice comes in, and not the good guy voice. And he's been the voice of Chucky now through God knows how many sequels or whatever. And he's made a fortune. He only appeared as an actor in one scene in the original. Wow. That goes back to the Norman Bates thing with Anthony Perkins.

You never know that a job, you're just doing a job, that it's actually going to become this long-running iconic thing. Well, yes. But in Brad's case, Brad's an Academy Award quality actor. He really is a hell of an actor. But the voice work there is, you know, that everybody will always think of him as being the voice of Chucky, I think. Although he always

seems like he's slipping into a Jack Nicholson as Chucky. You ever see Wise Blood, the Houston picture? He's great in that. Yes. Yeah, terrific actor. And also Rag great in that. Yes, yes. Yeah. Yeah, terrific actor.

And also Ragtime, a small part in Ragtime. Good in everything. Everything, but it never – you can also see him in movies like Tobey Hooper's Shocker, which isn't so good. Well, no, I mean, that's the bitchy part of me, but Tobey's gone now. Tobey was a dear friend. But I went to Toby's Memorial, and they had it at the New Beverly, the theater down here on Beverly Drive. Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, Tarantino owns.

One of my old haunts. Okay, mine too. Yeah. actually, it wasn't that well attended. And it wasn't that well attended because it coincided with Memorial Day weekend, I think. But, you know, those of us who were in town and really loved them were there. Amanda Plummer was there. A lot of the group that Toby had from Austin.

And Toby used to call. I said, why the hell did you ever leave? And Toby said, well, when I was there, it was a dust spot. So he was getting out. But if you looked at Toby's filmography and all the films he'd done, I don't want to. There was Texas Chainsaw stands stands out heads above all the rest. I mean, Texas Chainsaw is flat-out brilliant. And it was breaking through to a new level of horror and graphic, even though it's not that graphic now.

But, I mean— By today's standards. Didn't you have lunch at his house gilbert toby hooper i yes an afternoon with him i i went to toby hooper's house uh basically because my favorite toby hooper film is uh life force where matilda may is a naked girl vampire. Mm-hmm. I see. That's why you went. And so Toby put it up on the big screen. Oh, and he told me little secret movie stuff that she started getting – she had to shave to be the naked female vampire.

And she started getting very painful ingrown pubic hair. Oh, my God. Too much shaving. That's too much information. So when you watch Life Force, that's something to think about. Well, you know, I mean, well, I'll tell you, because I know, I know the life force and invaders from Mars,

what he did for Golem Globus, were the high points of, you know, of really having a budget to work with. And so, you know, and then, you know, then it was more up and down. And, you know, I mean, it's just interesting, but I the 70s which i where i

was trying to break through because i was an actor from i've been a member of sag since 1961 and i acted all the way through i was the lead in the pilot called The Young Lawyers, and I went to series, and they dropped me, and they went with Zalman King, and that was a mistake, and then they didn't have any ratings, and they desperately tried to bring back a good-looking guy in the second season. That didn't work either, but anyway, when that happened, I'd already gone back to UCLA, and I was getting an education, and I'd always wanted to write, and I was getting an education. And I'd always wanted to write, and I've always wanted to write. I always wanted to write novels. I've been trying to write a novel since I was 13 or 14 years old.

And I couldn't do it. And so, you know, in frustration, I became a screenwriter. And for however it works, I could do that. And I was coming up as a screenwriter through the 70s, throughout the 70s. And, you know, it was a time of great self-destruction in Hollywood. There was just so much snow around. I mean, it was, you know, I'm not surprised anybody survived and got to 1980. And yet so many great films come out of that period, so many great American films.

Because the studios were lost. Yeah. Because the whole system had crashed. The inmates were running the asylum, so to speak. Well, that really took off in 68 with Easy Rider. Right. We had Peter here. Well, if you want to talk about an inmate,

talk about Dennis. Yeah. Yeah. All those guys. Well, Peter seemed more sane to me than Dennis, but I don't know. But just the, you know, Rafelson and Schneider and Friedkin and Coppola and Hal Ashby

and all of those guys. I mean, it's a renaissance period. Oh, it's both great, but I mean, being there has to be one of the greatest movies I've ever seen. Wonderful. But I don't know if anybody remembers it now, you know? I mean, Hal Ashby I thought was God. There's a new documentary, I think, about Hal Ashby.

Yes, I've read about it. I haven't seen it. And all the great Jack Nicholson movies that came out in the 70s. They were the directors I just named. Yeah. Well, Five Easy Pieces. Well, I forgot Polanski. Well, Last Detail.

Last Detail and Five Easy Pieces and so many. King of Marvin Gardens. They were groping for a formula. And then you still had some freedom when I came in through the 80s, but it started to shut down in the late 80s and in the early 90s. It certainly did. They killed the star system and they went with tent poles. They didn't want to pay Arnold $20 million a movie anymore.

One last question about Child's Play, Tom. And by the way, there's a New York magazine, a new issue. I don't know if you saw it they rank the hundred scares that changed horror and Child's Play is right here

on the list no kidding yeah I didn't know yeah I'll send this to you thanks to the scene in which Chucky springs to life

in the arms of Andy's mom this movie did for dolls what Poltergeist did for clowns the demon doll trope had existed before but Chucky voiced by the incomparable brad durif is its true peak so well i did yeah that that was it was a breakout film on what i was trying to do technically i mean they they you'd had the you'd had the the leprechaun movie uh and they'd had a couple of movies with small people,

but nobody had attempted to do what I did. Was Talking Tina one of the inspirations too for this, the Twilight Zone episode? I think that Talking Tina was more of an inspiration for the guy who wrote the original script, which was Mancini, and it was called Blood Buddies. But it has nothing to do with Child's Play. I didn't use any of it.

Telly Savalas. Telly Savalas. Yeah. But that's a – those are moral tales. If you look at what he was doing, they're – Serling, you mean. Yeah, what Rod Serling was doing. Serling, you mean?

Yeah, what Rod Serling was doing. They were shows that had a point to prove, that had a theme that was stated even if it was oblique in the end. I mean I think that's where the original idea for Langoliers came from. Oh, interesting. Well, we were all, we were all, my generation were all in, because you had AIP and Hammer, that was horror. And then you had EC Comics. And EC Comics were banned

in 54 or 55. Absolutely. But if you look at those, those are all, they're set up, you know, a couple of pages of mid-story and then a twist. And they're all, they're all moral tales too., you know, a couple of pages of mid-story and then a twist.

And they're all moral tales too. And you see the influence of Eastie Comics in so many of Stephen King's short stories. Yeah. Well, you got to do three episodes of Tales from the Crypt yourself. That must have been a kick for a kid who grew up reading those. Well, yes, but that was why. I did the third one ever done. Oh, yeah.

Jailer Come Hack to Me, I think it was called. Yeah, Lover Come Hack to Me. Lover Come Hack, and that was Amanda Plummer. She's brilliant. You want to talk about extraordinary actors. Amanda. But then the best one I thought was the one that I did, the four-sided triangle that I did with Patricia Arquette.

And then this is why I love Dick Donner. Look, I want to praise Dick Donner. Not only does he have a brilliant filmography, but he's probably the most decent major director that I've ever met in my life. I mean, now maybe that's because he was a fair amount older than I was, but he was giving, he was sweet, and he cast, he got me the job of splitting a pilot with him, which was Two-Fisted Tales. Uh-huh. Yeah, and he did, the half that he did was about Billy the Kid,

and the half that I did was called King of the Road. And I cast an unknown actor and I cast him because the producer of the first year of Tales of the Crypt was a sterling producer named Bill Teitler. And I don't know what happened to him, but he did quality shows in that first year. And he pushed me to look at this actor, and the actor was Brad Pitt. Oh, that's right. Yeah, so Brad – and I tried to get Brad an agent. And, you know, I asked the agent I had at the time. He said, ah, no, name's not big enough.

Oh, jeez. I mean, you know, oh, no, I'm filled with stories like that. I'd like to also say that Richard Donner is a wonderful podcast guest. Because obviously you saw him here. You heard him here. I listened to an hour and 36 minutes. He's the only guy. I walked from his office.

We went and had lunch at the commissary of Warner Brothers. And he couldn't – you couldn't get across through the sound stages without people saying, hey, Dick, how are you, Dick? I mean he was loved. Yes. I mean if you listen to that podcast, he did an hour and 36 minutes. He never said anything bad about anybody. No. Do you know how extraordinary

that is? To have spent 50 years working in this town? Even the Salkins. And he wants to say bad things about them. Well, no. The only one he dissed a little bit was... Oh, Spengler, yeah. No, it was Jackie Gleason. Oh, Gleason.

Oh, that's right. He didn't like the other guy on Superman either. Who was that? Pierre Spengler, the guy that was... Oh, here's something... The guy that I think he had removed. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast after this. Planning for a summer road trip? Check.

Luggage? Check. Music? Check. Snacks, drinks, and everything we can win in a new game at Circle K? Check! With Circle K's Summer Road Trip Game, you can win over a million delicious instant prizes and a grand prize of $25,000. Play at games.circlek.com or at participating Circle K stores. As a Twilight Zone fan,

how come the original Twilight Zone stand up so well and they've made like a bunch of, they've tried to bring back Twilightilight zone a few times and and they never seem to work well it's rod serling yeah a missing ingredient well it's the it's the writing i mean at somewhere at home i have i have uh the last and never filmed season of Twilight Zone written by Rod Serling. And every one of them is a moral tale wrapped up as a drama. But every one of them, you know, is a comment on humanity, how we're great to each other or how we're terrible to each other.

And you read, and I've read, I don't know if it was true, but I read he was riding him on an airplane. I mean, you know, when he's flying back and forth between the coasts. So, I mean, and I know that one of the first people who helped me, Dick Berg, producer, I acted for him in a Chrysler's Theater, which was a huge show.

Oh, Bob Hope's Chrysler's Theater. That's a huge show. Oh, Bob Hope's Chrysler's Theater. That's right. Probably around 65, 66, 67. I was in Bus Rally's Back in Town, which was also with Michael. My God. He passed away a couple of years ago. Anyway, Dick was in awe of Rod Serling, who lived just down the street from him. So I heard stories about Rod.

And they were all, he was a god among writers. You know, I mean, the rest of us are like pygmies. You know, and he was a giant. You know, and I have a Roddy story for you. We're shooting Fright Night. And at that time, I was smoking. And I mean, I would walk around with a cup of coffee and a cigarette in my hand. And I never had it out because I was such a nervous wreck.

You know, my first movie to direct. Sure. And Roddy sidles up to me and said, that's what Rod Serling did all the time, cigarettes and coffee. And he died of lung cancer. So, you know, I remember that, too. Roddy was looking out for you. Geez. Well, Roddy had stopped.

He was in that Night Gallery episode, of course, so with Serling. Yeah, well, Roddy had stopped. Well, I'll give you another story. I would go over and see Dick in his Dick in his, in his, in his palatial offices, you know, and he was like, you know, phenomenal director. And I was still, I still wasn't able to kick the Jones, you know, with cigarettes. In fact, that's the hardest addiction I've ever had to deal with. But Dick would say, he'd look at me longingly as I took a drag of a cigarette, and he said, come on, stand up.

And he would take me into his closet, and in his closet, because he didn't want his wife to know, we passed the cigarette back and forth. True story, true story. Let me ask you one thing about Fright Night, too, that Gilbert will appreciate. Do I have this right, Tom? Is there an Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein homage? Oh, there sure is.

There sure is. It's on the stairway. Yes, indeed. I mean, that's almost a straight lift. You know, they shoot Billy Cole. Right. They shoot him to the forehead. He goes down the stairway and lands up dead at the bottom.

You know, Roddy and Bill Ragsdale, you know, Charlie, think that they're finally rid of this vampire helper. And they turn and they start up the stairway. And then behind them, we see over their shoulder, we see Billy Cole dead, get up. And he starts up the stairway after them. And everybody's looking towards the camera as they go up the stairway. And all of a sudden, Roddy and Bill and Charlie stop because they hear the steps creaking behind them and they whirl and there's Billy Cole coming towards them with a hole in his forehead and his hands outstretched to strangle him. That's Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein.

That's Glenn Strange, right? Where he's sneaking up. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On Chicken Wilbur. Well, that's one of the funniest movies I ever saw. It's Gilbert's favorite. And Abbott and Costello were, I mean, people looked, Evan Costello were great.

Laurel and Hardy were great. I mean, you know, the comedian who never changed the look on his face, brilliant. Keaton, the stone face. Yeah. Yeah. And in Evan Costello meets Frankenstein, the horror works in it too. That's what's so good about it. It works on both levels.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We assume you're a fan of the Universal Classics too then, Tom, the James Whale stuff. Yes, all of it. Yeah. All of it. But I didn't – I really – a lot of the enthusiasm I had as a kid was for sci-fi. That was a step before fantasy i grew up on heinlein and asimov okay you know all those the the boys the boys

novels that heinlein wrote asimov wrote everything he did they wrote them in a week you know the you know they those were you know those were just great. You know, I'm pre-film school, you know. Right. I mean, I wanted so desperately to – I'm from Highland, New York, which is across the Hudson Bridge from Poughkeepsie. Nobody in Highland, New York ever got out. A good job in Highland, New York was working for the post office and driving the bus. I'm overstating it. Really, it became a bedroom community for IBM.

Those were the white-collar jobs. And then I spent a lot of time also in Austin. But my grandfather was in Highland, and my parents would send me up from Austin on the New York Central, and I'd spend the weekends there in Highland. Anyway, we didn't know anybody. I didn there was no – we didn't know anybody. I didn't know anybody. You didn't know anybody, did you, Gilbert? No.

No connection to Showcase. No connections either. So, I mean, I don't know how we ever – You guys were – you grew up on film and comic books and Tales from the Crypt and Asimov, and you just were driven. You were driven to do it. Yeah, but I didn't know how. I became an actor because I wanted to get into film,

not because I wanted to be an actor. Oh, interesting. Well, I mean, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, I got a question for you here, Tom. Since we're talking about Rodney McDowell playing the horror host, I got a question for you from one of our previous guests who was a real-life horror host.

Do you know Sven Gulli out of Chicago? Yes, of course, of course. A friend of the show. Our friend Rich Koss. Yeah. And he says, please ask Tom, I heard a rumor that the effects people made a mistake on Fright Night and almost glued Evil Ed's mouth shut by accident.

Stephen Jeffries. Well, I... Is this true? I'll have to ask Stephen. I'll have to ask Stephen Jeffries about that. The great one I remember is that I was blocking the scene with Charlie and Amanda in the basement where she comes down in the flowing white dress and, you know, in the falsies that are making her zoptic.

And, you know, and she says, you know, Charlie, you promised, meaning you promised to protect me and you failed. And that breaks Charlie down. And he steps forward and says, Amy, and she turned away. And all I was going to do was have her turn back and attack him. But it was a Friday. It was Friday. And I saw all of a sudden that that was a huge scare. And I had Steve Johnson, and maybe it was Randy Cook too, but it sure as hell was Steve. And I said, give me a shark's mouth.

Give me a mouth that'll scare the hell out of every man in the audience. And that was where they created that mouth like almost like overnight. It's great. And yeah, and I got to tell you that image. And Steve said, well, you know, it's not a great piece. You'll never use it anywhere, but this will. And I said,

of course not. Just give me the scare. And it turns out to be the image on the one sheet. Oh, great. Well, he has, he has like a Renfield quality that,

at that actor, almost like a Dwight Frye. Oh, yeah. Stephen Jeffries gets bitten in the alleyway. Well, by Chris Sarandon. Yeah.

The Ren, the Renfrew character was really Billy Cole. Right, that's right. The helper. Right. Stephen Jeffries, there was a – everything – you're trying to do subtext with so much of this. It's not what people are saying. It's not the literal meaning of the words.

It's the emotion underneath it that you're trying to carry through. You know, Gilbert, when you were in that scene in Beverly and Cop 2, you know, you're really trying to get out of a hard situation. And you're trying to offer an oblique bribe, you know. But so it's not about one hand and the other. But it's a clever way of trying to get out of a difficult situation. So much there because vampires are, they're really any sex at all. The subtext beneath Chris Sarandon, Jerry Dandridge, offering to protect Stephen Jeffries, and you knew Stephen. He's called the evil Ed, for God's sakes, in school. You know he was the guy that was not popular, that everybody laughed at and thought was weird.

And the undercurrent of that is homosexuality, is gay. and the undercurrent of that is homosexuality, is gay. And at the time, I never know how much to say. I didn't. Stephen is gay. I didn't know that. But I realized it when we were shooting. And so that was, I was trying to be, at that moment in time, I was trying to be supportive of live and let live, you know, and that read as subtext.

And by the way, we're talking about how great McDowell is, but also Chris Sarandon in that movie is just terrific. Chris Sarandon is another one. Chris Sarandon is an Academy Award quality actor. Wonderful. He won for what? The picture about the bank with Dog Day Afternoon. Dog Day Afternoon. Great performance.

Yeah, but good in Princess Bride, a lot of things. Well, I mean, yes, and he's never been as recognized as he should have been either. I mean, I know these people's careers. He should have been either. I mean, I know these people's careers. I mean, the film that wiped Chris out was Lipstick, directed by Michael Winner. Right, who directed your material. Yes, who directed Scream for Help, which was voted one of the worst movies of the 80s.

They ran it down at the New Beverly as a comedy. Yeah. And I just got ten copies from Shout Factory and all their beneficence because they just released it as a Blu-ray. So I've got ten copies, which I will autograph for anybody who wants to go to my website, THTerritory,com and buy one, but I've only got ten. Gilbert and I will want one. Here's another question from a friend of yours, Mick Garris.

Yeah, Mick. Who was on this show with us, another master of horror. Please ask Tom, when will he write his autobiography? Oh, boy. I'm writing, I'm just entering into copy editing now on my first novel that I'm getting published. It's really my fourth novel. But the first novel that I'm getting published called The Boy.

And I don't know if I could write my autobiography because I'll give you – I used to say that to Roddy. I'd listen to his stories. And I'd say, please, please, please. There's so much oral history. Please write your autobiography. And Roddy said – Roddy kept saying, I can't. I really do know where the bodies are buried. Oh, my God.

He meant literally, huh? Well, but think about that because he went to children's school with them. Yeah, he was in the studio system, right, as a child. But as a child, he was at as they were closing down MGM. And as a PR gimmick, they had the lion being let out the gates by the Thalberg building. And Roddy took me through the studio, and he would point to this stage or that stage and tell me what movies had been made there.

Wow. He remembered the 40s and from the 40s into the 50s. And then he would also point to the, because they had two rows of wardrobe actors, you know, for the actors to change clothes and get makeup and all that. And he would tell me who was having an affair with whom and what assignations and what areas they'd met in. Coming out of the Thalberg building onto the lot out the side door of the Thalberg building, he pointed out where Katharine Hepburn met Spencer Tracy. Wow. You know, and he took me down into the tunnels that ran underneath MGM,

and they still have the nitrate prints down there. And they had the tunnels where they ran the electric and the gas through. And it was just phenomenal. And then we went to the building where they had the MGM library. So when you do the historical pictures, you can go there and research the clothes and the architecture. And one of the worst things in my life, the librarian was there, and he was weeping because they were throwing everything into the bins because Krikorian could have cared less. Oh, that's terrible.

Well, he kept buying and buying and reselling it and everything else. And every time he did, he stripped more and more of it away. The greatest studio in Hollywood, the greatest studio probably we've ever known in terms of producing quality classical movies. Well, that's heartbreaking that they didn't have any respect for the legacy. Well, Roddy said to me, didn't have any respect for the legacy. Well, Roddy said to me, and he said it several times, he said, Hollywood has no history.

And that's true. Yeah, I was shocked when I first moved there and I found out there was no Hollywood Museum. I mean, there's the Walk of Fame, but there was no place where you could actually go and see the history collected. No, there isn't. There still isn't. And still isn't. Well, it's just like TV shows, classic TV, where they, like, burn the stuff to have room.

Oh, the old Carson shows where they just recorded over them. Ernie Kovacs. Ernie Kovacs, too. Yeah. All that stuff is lost. They were the kinescopes. Yeah, that's all lost. Yes. recorded over them the original yeah they were those co ernie kovacs yeah yeah all that they were the they were the kinney scopes yeah that's a lot yes and you're gilbert you're talking a genius ernie kovacs was a genius too in his time you know i mean and that was that was just just when i was becoming vaguely aware you know you're back around 1954 or 5-6

You know, you're back around 1954 or 5, 6. I heard one of the workers called Ernie Koufax's wife and said, I think you better come over here right away. They're destroying all of his shows if you could save any of them. Yeah. They called them kinescopes is what they called them. Two last ones and we'll let you get out of here, Tom. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I've talked nonstop, but I really wanted to know. I wanted to know about you guys and about Gilbert, too. We should work together sometime, Gilbert. You should. When are you in New York, Tom? You come here from time to time? I have from time to time, but I've – since I – well, since I've started writing, I finally – I finally, after 50 or 60 years, I'm finally writing novels. I'm finally ending up where I started – I'm finally doing what I wanted to do at 13 or 14. Good for you. And I – yeah, but Frank, I feel like I'm finally doing what I wanted to do at 13 or 14. Good for you.

Yeah, but Frank, I feel like I'm running out of time. This is the kind of stuff, you know, you want to keep it light. You want to keep it hopeful for all the young people who are listening. We have no young people listening. Except for that gentleman that I see there in the corner. Well, I've got a great one-liner for you. Go ahead. And that's Mark Miller.

And I want to give him a plug. Oh, Mark, thank you. Thank you for setting this up. Yeah, I want to. Mark Miller, I did an audio book. I narrate it, and he wrote it. And it's called Hellraiser, The Toll. And it'll be, it's a full cast, and it'll be available on Audible.

Wonderful. But anyway, Mark Miller had a great one-liner. Dorothy Parker, late 40s. Hollywood is the only place you can die of encouragement. Yes, I always love that one. Oh, you know it? Yeah, it's a great line. I'll give you another one from Stuart Stern, who was terribly, terribly important in my life.

Stuart wrote, among other things. Rebel important in my life. Stuart wrote, among other things, Rebel Without a Cause. Rebel Without a Cause, yeah. And Stuart said, you never lose your writing talent,

but it sure can hide for a while. I like that. Tell us about Anthony Quinn and Ingrid Bergman, if you have anything. Well, Ingrid... Gilbert met Anthony Quinn, too.

Well, Gilbert—Ingrid was the real—to me, the real star. She was luminescent. Her face was like a mirror. Whatever she felt was there on her face was reflected on her face. It was one of the most facile talents I have ever seen. And I would ride to and from location with her. And she would regale me with these stories about people that I didn't know because I was too young. I think I was like 24, 23, 25. Anyway, you know, about singing bawdy songs with Gary Cooper when they were making in Spain For Whom the Bell's Toll.

Mm-hmm. You know, about working with Hitchcock. And I didn't really know who Hitchcock was then. Well, I knew who he was, but I didn't understand what she was talking about. She was talking about suspicion with Gary Cooper. And I'm sitting there. Oh, Cary Grant. Cary Grant. Yeah, Cary Grant. And, you about suspicion with Gary Cooper. And I'm sitting there. Cary Grant. Cary Grant.

She was wonderful. She was kind. And she was just on the edge of being matronly. But she wasn't there yet. She was still hot. And she was a major talent. Didn't you get to smooch her in a scene? My French kissed her.

And then Tony comes up and he kills me. Right. And then after he called cut, Tony turns to him and said, you like that? Says furiously to Ingrid. He says, you really like that, didn't you? You like that kid, don't you? And he was jealous. And I didn't understand why.

And then somebody told me that they had had an affair when they did a movie of Darren Matt's The Visit. Wow. So, I mean, I didn't like Tony. You know, Tony was a huge star, but he was a small human being. So, you know, but he's another egomaniac. He wasn't as obvious as He wasn't as obvious as Christopher Lee. But, you know, there was a – he could also be difficult, which is another way of saying nasty. So you tongue-kissed Igor Bergman. Yeah, not bad. Yeah.

That should be somewhere in the epitaph. Well, I was so impressed. I mean, do you know who the stunt coordinator was on Walking in the Spring Rain? Try Bruce Lee. How about that? That's good. Oh, my God. That's cool.

Yeah, Bruce Lee choreographed my fight scenes. That's cool. Oh, you can't get better than that. No, I'll tell you about that the next time we get together. Next time, and tell us about seeing the Beatles at Shea Stadium next time. That scared the hell out of me. We almost got

mobbed. My wife and I, we weren't married at the time because I was a soap opera star, Gilbert. He was mobbed at the Beatles concert because he was recognized from a soap. 1966. Love it. And that's when I said, I don't know if I like this.

We'll do it again, Tom. There's so many other areas we didn't get to. Well, I thank you very much, and I think this is a terrific podcast you're doing. Thank you, man. Oh, thank you. We should tell our listeners that when we started, Tom was saying, I know so many of the people that you've had here.

We were running names past him, like Richard Donner, like Peter Bogdanovich, and Barry Levinson, and Alan Arkish, and Joe Dante, and Roger Corman, and Bruce Dern, and you said you knew you had stories about all of them. About all of them. About all of them. Well, I mean, you know. One day. All of them.

About all of them. About all of them. Well, I mean, you know, I mean, think of. Well, I'm like, I'm like Zelig or whoever the guy was in the Woody Allen movie. Yeah, Zelig. Yeah, I've always been around, you know, but I've never been important. But I was always there watching. So I.

You're the perfect guest for this show. You're the perfect Halloween guest. And we have to thank Mark. Yeah. For making this happen. So, Mark Miller, thank you again. Absolutely. This was a pleasure. So, I'm Gilbert Gottfried. This has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast

with my co-host Frank Santopadre. And unfortunately, I have to apologize. We couldn't get the Tom Holland from the Spider-Man pictures. So you got to do what you can get at the last minute. I'll throw one more in there.

I've got a hell of a, I've got a Fright Night comic book that we just came out with. You can find it on my website, THTerrorTime, first edition. THTerrorTime.com. Right, and I thank both of you, Frank and Gilbert. And Gilbert, I'm sorry that we didn't get a chance to talk more. Next time. We'll come to New York and we'll walk off to dinner.

Okay. We'll talk about Shelley Winters. Oh my God. Oh my God. That'll be a whole episode. That'll be a whole episode. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Tom.. Oh, my God. That'll be a whole episode. Yeah, that'll be a whole episode. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Tom.

Thank you, fellas. 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 John Fodiatis, John Murray, and Paul Rayburn. Open your doors and windows tight Soon you'll all believe the light We're all in for a most frightening night

Frightening! I look into the mirror, it's as black as night I see it fall to pieces as my heart ignites Just waiting for the moment For that connecting thread To make a move we've got to keep real still We're waiting here and we're just up to kill Bright night, who you gonna be tonight?

Like a golden window's light, soon the light will be bright We're all in for a most frightening night Who's it gonna be tonight? Hard to tell when it's time Soon we'll all be the same We're all in for a most frightening night