Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Rewind: Mini-Episode #7: "Night Moves" and "My Darling Clementine"

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

In a series of topic-focused mini-episodes, Gilbert and Frank share their love of unheralded films, underrated TV shows, underappreciated pop songs and often unknown performers, discussing, dissecting... and (occasionally) defending their handpicked guilty pleasures and buried treasures. This week: Gene Hackman forays into film noir! Henry Fonda brings order to the Old West! And Gilbert remembers classic movie posters! (but not the name of his own podcast). (Website link: https://www.gilbertpodcast.com/mini-ep-7-night-moves-and-my-darling-clementine/) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Don't forget to follow us on our Facebook page. Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast. On Twitter at Real Gilbert, A-C-P, and on Instagram, Gilbert Podfried, P-O-D-F-R-I-E-D. You see, it's kind of a pun on the last. name. Ah, never mind. Hi, this is Gilbert Godfrey. I'm here with my co-host, Frank Santopatra, and this is amazing colossal obsessions.
Starting point is 00:01:07 Not colossal. Colossal. Amazing colossal. Obsessions with the Jewish Carri Grant. Okay, you're first this week, buddy. Carrie Grant is a Jew. I just wanted to repeat that. I learned so much from you. That's the most important thing.
Starting point is 00:01:23 Yeah, who's Jewish? Okay. My pick, it's funny, because the last time I was on, I picked the conversation with Gene Hackman. That's right. Now I'm picking another Gene Hackman film that came out shortly after the conversation and is similar in mood and tone. And he's playing Harry again in the conversation. he was Harry Cole.
Starting point is 00:01:55 In this, he's Harry Mosby, and he's a private eye. And I think the poster, the blurb on the poster was, maybe he'll find the girl, maybe he'll find himself. You have an uncanny memory. You remember the posters. Yes. You did the same thing on the conversation. You knew the poster.
Starting point is 00:02:14 You knew the tagline. I always used to love the blurbs on posters. Oh, taglines, yeah. Yeah, the taglines. Right, right. Like in space, no one can hear your scream. Yes, yes. Or in Halloween, the night he came home.
Starting point is 00:02:30 That's right. Right. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water and jaws. Or some great ones. Another one, I think was Territrain with Jamie Lee Curtis. Terror Train. A classic. And David Copperfield.
Starting point is 00:02:47 That's right. That's right. And that was the girls and boys. of Sigma Phi, some will live and some will die. You are my idol. Yes. You remember, you walk around day after day in your life and somewhere in your mind you retain the tagline from the poster for the movie Terror Train. Uncanny. Maybe Jamie Lee Curtis will do the show now. Oh, and I think there was another one. There was, I forget the name. Blood Beach. No, like the Mangler. The Mangler. It was
Starting point is 00:03:23 And that when there was like, you know, 20 slasher films coming out. Oh, right. After Halloween and Friday the 13th, there was a spade of them. And I think the tagline for this was by knife, by axe, by pick, by by. That's right. I remember that one. I do remember that one. I don't remember the picture, but I remember that one. That's great.
Starting point is 00:03:47 So I pick another Gene Hackman film, and this was, yeah, night moves. which is also a play on words because there's a chess move, that's the night move. But there's also the night move like he sneaks around that night, and he's a private eye in the affairs going on. And it is a case of very much like his character in the conversation. He's someone, he can only really deal with people by also, by investigating. And so it's like he's got an awful marriage that fell apart. And he's sent to go after this girl.
Starting point is 00:04:34 It's also similar to Chinatown. I think they were made around the same time. It's Arthur Penn, right? Yes, who made it? Yes, it's an author pen who also worked with Gene Hackman in Bonnie and Clyde. Yeah, and later in a picture with Matt Dillon, I think, called Targets. Oh, yes. Or Targets.
Starting point is 00:04:52 I get it confused with the Karloff picture. And it has a teenage Melanie Griffith. Right. And a very young James Woods. Right. Right. It's also got Kenneth Morris. Sure.
Starting point is 00:05:08 Best known as the Nazi who writes springtime for Hitler. Right. Or the send-up of the Lionel Atwell character in Young Frankenstein. Oh, yes. Yeah. With the mechanical arm. Nice grouping. And this actor who used to do a lot of voiceovers, I think his name was Edward Binns.
Starting point is 00:05:29 Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is Edward Binns and 12 Angry Men? Do I have that right? I don't know. He may be. We'll have to look that up. I know George Voscav.
Starting point is 00:05:38 Of course. And Klugman. And Jack Klugman. And E.J. Marshall. Yeah. I like night moves. Hackman did so many wonderful films in the 70s. Have you ever seen Prime Cut?
Starting point is 00:05:48 Oh, yes. With Lee Marvin, where he's the heavy? And Prime Cut, I think that was later remade by Mel Gibson as payback, wasn't it? I think so. I think so. Yeah, he's the heavy in Prime Cut, Hackman. Now, was Carol O'Connor in Prime Cuts? I don't think so. A very young Sissy Space, naked Sissy Spac was in Prime Cut. And I'm trying to remember, gee, I saw it recently downtown at Film Forum. And it was terrific. I mean, Hackman, so many great Hackman pictures in the 70s.
Starting point is 00:06:20 Oh, yeah. I'm Scarecrow. Oh, yeah, with Al Pacino. Right. And we mentioned the conversation and night moves. I love the Poseid Adventure. It's not a perfect film. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:31 It's a camp movie. You hate the word camp. Yeah. But I like him in it. You know, he's better than the material. And yeah, it's, um, and I, they're, I remember there, there's a line in the movie. I think they're going to see a film. by Manuel or whoever
Starting point is 00:06:52 What's the... Oh, Boonwell? Boonwell. Yeah. I think it's Boonwell. Yeah. In this... They say, we're going to a Boonwell film, and he goes,
Starting point is 00:07:00 no, I saw one of his films. It's like watching Paint Dry. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So taking a swipe at a classic director. And interestingly, you mentioned Kenneth Mars, and Hackman and Mars are both in Young Frankenstein. It just hit me.
Starting point is 00:07:15 Oh, wow. Hackman's playing the old blind man. Yes. Yes. Yes. in an unbuilt. Unbilled. Unbilled.
Starting point is 00:07:22 In a great, an absolutely great moment. I love those Hackman pictures. And he's not making movies anymore. But what a run. I mean, arguably the best movie actor of the late 20th century. I mean, you could put him in with Duval and. Oh, yes.
Starting point is 00:07:36 I mean, and Pacino and De Niro and any of them. And he and Dustin Hoffman used to be roommates. That's right. And I think Gene Hackman either got married or was living with a girl and it was his apartment. So they had to get rid of Hoffman. And so Gene Hackman finally said, I know this other struggling actor and he needs help paying the rent. So he needs a roommate. And that actor was Robert Duval. I have heard that story. That's great. That's great. And when we talked about the goodbye girl, more weird trivia that Neil Simon's original version of
Starting point is 00:08:14 that story, Bogart slept here, was loosely based on Dustin Hoffman's actual life. Dustin Hoffman, a New York actor going out to L.A. to try to make it. But that's a story for another day. I am going to talk about a movie that I saw on TCM recently. I've seen it many times, but we had Joan Kramer and David Healy on the show a couple of weeks ago, the historians. And we were talking about Henry Fonda. And I got to thinking about Henry Fonda. My favorite Henry Fonda performance is a John Ford movie called My Darling Clementine, which you and I were talking about before we turned the mics on. It's just a terrific film. Yeah, we have the good stuff. Yeah. We've heard the mic.
Starting point is 00:08:53 Yes. We saved the shit for the audience. It's an... But they got to find out that Carrie Grant was Jewish. Yes, that's the important thing. It's actually an early buddy movie. It's based, because Victor Mature plays Doc Hollis. Buddy Epson.
Starting point is 00:09:13 Buddy Epson as Doc Hollett. I would have loved that. It's Henry Fonda plays Wyatt Earp, and it's a story of the famous shootout at the OK Corral, the story of the Earp Brothers versus the Clanton gang. Walter Brennan is the patriarch of the Clanton gang. There's a famous story, I don't know if it actually happened, if it's apocryphal. Supposedly Walter Brennan hated John Ford. And Ford asked him at one point, can you climb on a horse?
Starting point is 00:09:43 Do you know how to climb on a horse? And Brennan said, I don't know, but I've won three Oscars. Is that account for anything? I hope that story is true. John Ford, the great John Ford, early in his career, when he was working on silent films, he met the real Wyatt Earp. And according to legend, or according to the story,
Starting point is 00:10:02 that Earp told him that this is how the story went down. This is how the gunfight of the OK corral. He took some liberties, but basically that... I think a guy who shot people, so I maybe could exaggerate it also. Probably exaggerated. It's a beautiful looking film in black and white. There's so many great scenes shot by the cinematographer Joseph McDonald,
Starting point is 00:10:24 who actually was more famous for shooting film noir, like Panic in the Streets and Pick Up on South Street. So it's a very dark, expressionistic Western. A terrific picture. Gilbert loves this, that Vincent Price was actually considered for the role of Doc Holiday. Yes. for, oh, I'm Doc Holiday, and the chingler is loose at the okay corral. Scream, scream, scream for your lives.
Starting point is 00:10:54 The tingler has gotten loose at the okay girl. Why did I know you were going to do that? That's brilliant. There's a terrific YouTube video, actually, if you can find it, of Jimmy Stewart and Henry Fonda interviewing John Ford. Wow. And on this, you're worth seeing, which I found in my research. And Ford is talking about how he knew Wyatt Earp, and he based it on what what Earp told him about the legend.
Starting point is 00:11:21 Great movie. Linda Darnell is in it. Just got a great cast. And John Ford always, well, he was always doing westerns. Yeah. I heard he and John Wayne never got along, really. And interesting, because I think they were politically aligned. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:11:39 I heard John Wayne was like, he was turning. people and during the red scare. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Ford was very conservative politically. Yes. It's filmed in Monument Valley in Arizona, which was his favorite location.
Starting point is 00:11:55 Shot the movie in 45 days. It's just a beautiful Western. It's a great Fonda performance. Check it out. Henry Fonda, not a Jew, as far as I know. I can't be sure. And, you know, that on his 8 by 10, it was a picture of him with his hand resting on his chin and it was Henry Fonda, not a Jew.
Starting point is 00:12:20 And that's why they would hire him back. I didn't realize that. Yeah, because anti-Semitism was so prevalent, they would hire him. They didn't even know he was an actor. He wouldn't list anything that he acted in before. He didn't even know he had acted, but he said, not a Jew. And they said, let's get them. As a Jewish guy, you get away with that.
Starting point is 00:12:49 Yes. So this week, my darling Clementine. And another film noir with Gene Hackman, Night Moves. Yeah, love that picture. Love Gene. We'll do more Gene Hackman in the future. Yes. Well, I don't know how much more we get to do it, Gene Hackman.
Starting point is 00:13:06 Yeah, that's true. Oh, so this has been. You still remember the title? You know, you can remember the tagline on Terror Train and the mangler, but you can't remember the title of the podcast. Well, I did about. Selective memory. You know, 12 episodes of this show without knowing your last name.
Starting point is 00:13:35 That's fine. At least that's hard to know. It's hard, that's hard to remember. Let's see if I remember it. Santo Padre is harder than colossal. Yes. This has been an amazing colossal obsession. Beautifully done.
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