Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Mini-Ep #3: Biopics and Reserved Rod Steiger

Episode Date: April 1, 2015

Each week, comedian Gilbert Gottfried and comedy writer Frank Santopadre share their appreciation of lesser-known films, underrated TV shows and hopelessly obscure character actors, discussing, dissecting and (occasionally) defending their handpicked guilty pleasures and buried treasures. This week: Bad biopics! Neil Simon reboots "Bogart"! Lee Marvin bests Rod Steiger! And Mike Myers borrows from Quincy Jones! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Add your voice to the mix and let fresh answer back with perfect harmony in pure Michigan. Keep it fresh at michigan.org. On April 4th, see me at the Comedy Shop at the Regency House in Pompton Lakes, New Jersey. April 9th to the 12th, Laugh Out Loud Comedy Club in San Antonio, Texas. April 18th, the Brokerage Comedy Club in Belmore, New York. April 19th, the live Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal podcast with Louis Black at Caroline's on Broadway. So to get tickets or find out more information, go to www.gilbertgodfrey.com. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried,

and this is Gilbert and Frank's amazing colossal... Colossal. That's a Yiddish term, colossal. Put on... This is a collage-o obsession. And I want to, for all our Jewish friends out there, I hope you have a very happy collage-o holiday. Oh, God. Where we tie weights around our necks and make ourselves suffer.

Wow. In many ways. Doesn't sound like much of a holiday. Yes. Well, these are Jewish holidays. You make yourself suffer more. So. You want to reestablish for people what these are?

Well, what this is, amazing colossal obsession obsession now i messed up colossal that's okay uh no one's listening yeah that's fine um it's it's just movies that you may have heard of may not have heard of but uh uh me gilbert gottfried my partner, Frank Santopadre. And when I say partner, it doesn't mean... You don't mean that Cynthia Nixon as a partner. Yes. Yes.

It's not a Rosie O'Donnell partnership going on here. I wish. Believe me, I take it at this point. So what's your movie for this week, Gilbert? I'm sure they're all wondering. Okay.

My movie this week, it's funny. Last time we spoke, I mentioned a Sidney Lumet film. Oh, Bye Bye Braverman. Yeah. Yes. And so that got me thinking about sydney lamette not in the way i think about you of course sydney's gone so that's gonna be tough every night you need a bouquet of roses and a shovel

so and i thought yeah i mean not just that i thought he was one of the great New York directors. Oh, absolutely. And, I mean, you want to see like old New York. Sidney Lumet is one of those. Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon. Yes. Prince of the City. Yes.

All of them. Great films. And so another film was The Pawnbroker with Rod Steiger. Very good. And Rod Steiger plays a German Jew who's a survivor of the concentration camps. And now he works as a pawnbroker in Spanish Harlem. Harlem and that he's he's Saul Naziman and he plays this character who can only survive by blocking out life he has like no feelings no memories nothing he's like blocked out from the world and um it's it's uh I I think it, without question, Rod Steiger's greatest performance.

And Rod Steiger... Because he could overact in some films, Rod Steiger. Oh, yeah, yeah. He could choose some scenery. As a matter of fact, Sidney Lumet didn't want Rod Steiger in it at first. Really? Yeah. want Rod Steiger in it at first really yeah uh because he said I think what Sidney Lumet said Rod Steiger is talented to be sure but uh a tasteless actor interesting I wonder who he

wanted for the part yeah he wanted James Mason oh really yeah He wanted James Mason as Saul Naziman, which would have been an interesting choice. Very different movie. Yeah. But Steiger wanted to work with Sidney Lumet because Lumet had directed him in a TV production of some play. And he liked him and trusted him. And so he allowed Sidney Lumet to pull him back, to rein him in. Who else is in the picture? Okay, it's Geraldine Fitzgerald.

She was great. Brock Peters. I remember Brock Peters. The killer mockingbird. Oh, yes, yes. Brock Peters. I remember Brock Peters. McKellar Mockingbird.

Oh, yes, yes. And also, what was that? Oh, the incident. That's right, the incident. Martin Sheen. Right. Tony Musante in the incident. Yes, yes. Very good.

And I think Ed McMahon is in that. I think he is. Yeah. And also in it, Raymond St. Jacques. Sure. And someone who's best known as Poppy in the Seinfeld episode. Renny Santoni. Yes.

From Enter Laughing. Yes. Yes. Yes. And the music was done by Quincy Jones. And the music was done by Quincy Jones. And Quincy Jones wrote a song in it called Sol Bossa Nova, Nova or something. And I can't really hum it, but it went like something like, you know,

da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da. And that became the Austin Powers theme music. Are you serious? They took Quincy Jones theme music for the pawnbroker and made it the theme music for Austin Powers. Incredible. Yeah. 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.

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Really? Yeah. Oh, and it was written by Irving Wallant. And I actually read the book. I read The Pawnbroker. You read The Pawnbroker. You read The Pawnbroker. And he also wrote, I think, Boys at the Gate and Tenants of Moonbloom. Wow. Can our crack team, our research team who's here, look up, say his name again? Irving Wallens.

I must say that is a new one on me. And, you know, see, like last time I told, I was talking about The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster, and I said written by John Cheever. I never read that one. At least you knew who the author was. Yes, but I did. I was just showing off. I was just saying that to get laid. How did that work out for you? Well, any day now.

Okay. Just no sense rushing. Why? Another Seinfeld reference, John day now. No sense rushing. Why? Another Seinfeld reference, John Sheever. Oh, yes. The Sheever letters. Renny Santoni, what a reference. Now, in spite of knowing all of those people that you rattled off,

I have not seen The Pawnbroker. Oh, terrific movie. So now I'm 0 for 2 because last week I hadn't seen, the last time we brought up The Swimmer, I had not seen The Swimmer. So now I need to see The Swimmer and The Pawnbroker. And The Pawnbroker. And Steiger did the movie for $50,000, which was way beneath. It was like a low-budget film.

But he just felt strongly about it. And he did feel that was his greatest performance. Grotz Tiger's greatest performance was not in the heat of the night, which I believe he won the Academy Award for. You know, that's interesting because he was up for the pawnbroker and lost out to Lee Marvin in Cat Baloo. Cat Baloo. Wow.

And people feel, although he gave a great performance in Heat of the Night, they feel like the award that he won for Heat of the Night was really meant for the pawnbroker. That's fast. Well, sometimes the Oscars do that. They make up for, you know,

they give the award for a previous performance. So I might win this year. You could. Because I lost out on how to be a player. I'm a problem child too. How was Rod Steiger not nominated for WC Fields and Me?

Oh, gosh. With Carlotta. That was written by Carlotta something. What was her name? I remember Valerie Perrine. Steiger, in his later years, started to talk like W.C. Field. Really? It was weird.

Well, during the making of that movie, he forbid anyone to do a W.C. Fields imitation, which makes sense. Sure, sure. Screw him up. But when Steiger would give performances late in life, his voice became like that. That's interesting. I never connected those two things. That was around the time that you could see a lot of those bad biopics.

Oh, my God. Like Abel and Lombard. And there was W.C. Fields in Me. And there was one about Valentino. Yes. With the dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, I think. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And then TV started after they did The Late Shift. Was that the Late Shift? The Late Show? Which one? That was about leno and oh the late shift late shift yeah they tv started to do all those tv shows right like uh like robin williams life story well they did behind was it behind the laughter the freddie prince oh yes yes yeah i prefer the feature versions of bad biopics but what what i

love about biopics is that they gotta put the information in right and they gotta have like a terrible part all the bad exposition yeah yeah so in in the one the one with ke Kevin Spacey about, I think. Bobby Darin. Yes, about Bobby Darin. John Goodman plays his manager. And Kevin Spacey says, oh, my career's a waste. I haven't done anything. And John Goodman has to say, what are you talking about, Bobby? You've already won 17 Emmys, which broke the record. 500 Grammys. You were picked in 1968 as top performer in Vegas.

It's only because audiences, modern audiences, won't stand for spinning newspaper headlines. That's a way to do bad exposition. I want to talk about something that's just a little bit lighter than the pawnbroker. And this is not what you would consider necessarily an obscure film, because it was a popular film of its day. And the lead actor won the Academy Award. The movie is The Goodbye Girl. And we were talking recently with our guest, Craig Bierko, about Richard Dreyfuss. It's a very funny Richard Dreyfuss story, so listen for that episode.

But it's such a terrific picture. They make a lot of romantic comedies. This is a good romantic comedy. It's not dumb. It doesn't insult your intelligence. Maybe with the possible exception of The Sunshine Boys or The Odd Couple, I think it's the best Neil Simon movie. And it's a terrific, smart picture. Herbert Ross directed it, who directed The Sunshine Boys, and played again Sam and My Blue Heaven and The Turning Point. And you and I were talking

about the history of this movie, which people might not know about. Yeah, this is so strange. It started as a movie called Bogart Slept Here, which was a Simon screenplay. And it was his wife at the time, Marsha Mason, was co-starring with Robert De Niro, of all people. And Mike Nichols was the director. And I don't know if it was in rehearsals that it broke down or they actually shot footage. But at some point along the line, De Niro wasn't doing the comedy the way they expected it, or he was doing a different kind of comedy, but they just shut it down. And Neil Simon went off and in six weeks rewrote the thing. And Richard Dreyfuss was brought into the project

and it was retitled The Goodbye Girl. By that time, Mike Nichols was gone and they had a new director. And it turns out to be a terrific picture. And it's one of those movies that has this weird history where you think it's all falling apart. The director leaves. The star leaves.

The star is not clicking with the director. The star is not clicking with the director. The star is not clicking with the writer or the material. And this thing is pulled out of the scrap heap. Or like I said, he put it together in six weeks. And it's a terrific picture that works on so many great levels. So many levels. Dreyfus wins the Oscar.

He's terrific. And whatever happened to Quinn Cummings? Do you remember Quinn Cummings was the little girl? Oh, wow. She was the acid-tongued girl, and it was such a big deal back then that you could have a child actor use profanity on screen, and it was so shocking. She's probably living with Donna Butterworth. Who? Who's Donna Butterworth. Who? Who's Donna Butterworth?

Someone who we'll have to have on the podcast. She was the little girl in the Family Jewels with Jerry Lewis. Oh, what a reference. And I think she also worked like 75% of our guests with Elvis Presley. Did she work with Jack Benny? Someone tweeted me that every one of our guests has worked with Jack Benny. Did she work with Danny Thomas? Or Danny Thomas. Or Danny Kaye.

So again, The Good Bar Girl, it was remade not very well with Jeff Daniels. There was a TV movie version of it. Do not watch that one. Watch the original. Paul Benedict, who was a funny British character actor who you guys would know as Bentley from The Jeffersons, plays a crazy director. Okay. Here's a Paul Benedict story. Go.

Paul Benedict, I heard, was once doing a play, and someone said oh i'd like to talk to you after the play they sent him a note and he said uh you know he was figuring he'll just tell him oh i really enjoyed it can i have your autograph and and the guy said i'm a doctor and I was looking at you on stage and I think you might have acromegaly. I've heard this story. Yeah. Which is one of those diseases used in several of

the old horror movies. And he turned out to have acromegaly. Yeah, because he noticed these people, they're grown out of proportion. They're usually very big, as he was, and big hands, a big chin, like stuff out of proportion. I had, that is, that is why. Yeah. That's the second acromegaly reference, because we brought up Rondo Hatton.

Rondo Hatton, yes. The most famous acromegaly, or as they called it in the movie Tarantula, they refer to it as acromegalia. Wow. Yeah. That is way off. So Paul Benedict, just to wrap it up, Paul Benedict plays the crazy director who makes Richard Dreyfuss' character, Elliot Garfield, play Richard III, gay. He makes him play a mincing, which is timely because they just buried Richard III. They just found his

remains. So see the picture. It's a hilarious film. It's touching. It's a romantic comedy that works on every level. And as I said, not an obscure picture, but really one worth revisiting. So this week we have

Sidney Lumet's film, Rod Steiger in The Pawnbroker, and The Goodbye Girl. Which also has some nice footage of New York in the 70s, since you brought it up. Yes. I'll see anything said in New York in the 60s or 70s, just to see the cigarette machines on the subway platform.

So I guess that's it. And Quinn Cummings, if you're out there, phone me. Call us. Call us. For God's sakes, call us Quinn Cummings. If you like listening to comedy, try watching it on the internet. The folks behind the Sideshow Network have launched a new YouTube channel called Wait For It. It's got interviews with comedians like Reggie Watts, Todd Glass, Liza Schleichinger.

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