Kill James Bond! - S4E28: Bicycle Thieves

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

It's our final heist movie of the year, and it's time to flip the script a little. A union man in immediate postwar Italy is assigned a job putting up posters. The pay is enough to finally give his family some stability, but it requires a bicycle. When his bike is stolen on his first day, he and his remarkable young son search through the markets and back alleys of Rome to find it. ----- Check out friend of the show Mattie's new book Simplicity here, or wherever fine graphic novels are sold! ----- FREE PALESTINE Hey, Devon here. In our home, we talk a lot about how insane everything feels, and agonise constantly over what can be done to best help the Palestinians trapped in Gaza facing the full brunt of genocidal violence. My partner Rebecca has put together a list of four fundraisers you can contribute to- all of them are at work on the ground doing what they can. -Palestinian Communist Youth Union, which is doing a food and water effort, and is part of the official communist party of Palestine https://www.gofundme.com/f/to-preserve-whats-left-of-humanity-global-solidarity -Water is Life, a water distribution project in North Gaza affiliated with an Indigenous American organization and the Freedom Flotilla https://www.waterislifegaza.org/ -Vegetable Distribution Fund, which secured and delivers fresh veg, affiliated with Freedom Flotilla also https://www.instagram.com/linking/fundraiser?fundraiser_id=1102739514947848 -Thamra, which distributes herb and veg seedlings, repairs and maintains water infrastructure, and distributes food made with replanted veg patches https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-thamra-cultivating-resilience-in-gaza ----- WEB DESIGN ALERT Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Kill James Bond is hosted by November Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com , as well as on our Bluesky and X.com the every app account

Hello and welcome to another episode of Kill James Bond. I am November Kelly. I am joined, as always, by my friends Abigail Thorne and Devon. Bonjourno. Bonjourno. How we doing? We were trying to cook up an Italian. cold open for this, and then we realized that none of us speak Italian.

No, not even a little bit. That's never been a problem for these cold opens before. That's true, but I think the thing is, it's very important for us to convey a sense of like verisimilitude and social context, because what you're seeing isn't just regular kill James Bond. What you're seeing is Italian neo-realist kill James Bond. Oh, shit. Because I've sort of, I've hijacked the podcast a bit.

I'm sorry for all the downer films You're a podcast You can do that You're the showrunner It's true But I have the controls Me as a pilot Yeah I've hijacked this plane

And we'll be flying it safely To its destination No the destination on this one Is the 1948 film Bicycle Thieves Ladry di Biclete Which is a turn for robbery season But it's one I've had in mind

For a long time Mm-hmm New oldest film we've ever done Absolutely I wanted to do a film about how maybe robbery isn't always cool. What? You think about this?

Oh, sexy. I wanted us to do this film because it's a film about, partially about how robbery sucks and also about where it comes from, because neorealism as a sort of cinematic movement is meant to be something ethnographic, right? It's a portrait of a society. It's meant to be as kind of documentarian as possible. So it's like castration movie? Yeah.

absolutely yeah okay girl who just recently watched castration movie getting a lot of castration movie vibes from this it's a film about immediately post-war Italy through a very simple story the critic André Bazin who wrote a lot about Italian neorealist

cinema said that the plot of this film could just as easily have not happened right it's not news and I think you always have this temptation when you're making a film even if you have it in your heart that you're going to do a sort of like slice of life thing that's like realistic to

have a lot of coincidences and a lot of big dramatic rare events whereas what happens in this is all really depressingly plausible and and banal right yeah yeah very much so yeah there is some crime in this but listeners there's no like putting the crew together montage there's no like

fast forward like this is how we're going to steal the bicycle like bam but bam but then none of that fucking shit happens at all it's just like poverty it's a film about poverty it's a film about two crimes And also, by reputation, I should say, by way of hyping this up. This is to a lot of people, one of the greatest films of all time. So it would be really funny if we hated it. So if we can gin that bit up over the next hour, that would be ideal.

I'm afraid I also liked it, yeah. But it's really, it's a film about three crimes because, you know, society. That's true. Society. Fuck. We begin with a shot of society. Yeah. Damn.

That's where I live. It's true. It's where I keep all my stuff. We begin in Rome in 1948, which has been sort of bombed to pieces. We're in this sort of housing estate in northern Rome, which is sort of like large swats of it, a completely open space because it's just been sort of bombed apart. And we begin with the crowd of workers, or maybe we should say would-be workers. Yeah. Would-be workers.

Yeah, they don't want to work as woodbees They're trying to get jobs as work as woodbys These bees How much work? Would it wooded work? Would it be work? Yeah, these woodbees are Fine

No, they're not, they're very serious at Sandville That's solitary beat. It's fine, it's a comedy podcast The point of this is. These men, human men, Barry B. Benson, not in this movie. These human men who may be wearing black and yellow

we don't know because the film is in black and white they go to an employment office yes it's a union office of which is giving out jobs because Italy in 1948 is flat broke right and there's millions of people unemployed because the Marshall Plan hasn't happened yet American money hasn't sort of come into Europe

and so if you were on the losing side or the winning side for that matter of the Second World War in Europe your society both of which Italy was on Yeah I'm playing both sides Your society was in ruins And so none of these guys have work

Yeah And the employment office Has sort of like X number of jobs to give out Yeah And we hear this one guy With a sheet of paper And he's saying

I don't have jobs So you guys don't have jobs And they said can we be podcasters And they're like no We only have real jobs And he's like Like, we have one opening for a leftist YouTuber and these starving poor people are just like, no, come on, we're not that desperate.

Got some fucking pride, like, come on. There's real, like, bureaucracy here in that, like, there's jobs that anyone could do, arguably that are being dispensed, not really for any reason that we can see by this guy. Yeah. And one guy's number comes up. Yeah, he's specifically talking about, like, the job is putting up posters that he ends up given to a main character. And he goes, I need lay there.

operators, not bricklayers, and this is for a job putting posters up. Hard to imagine why he wouldn't be able to use a bricklayer for that. We meet our hero, Antonio Ricci, who is not a professional actor, first of all. One of the sort of things of Italian neorealism was to use as few of those as possible. And so this guy, Lamberto Majerani, they just picked him off like a factory line where he worked. And they went, yeah, this guy looks like a worker, which he does. He looks kind of like Italian Frank Capra. He's an every man, right?

Italian Jimmy Stewart. I know a lot of people in Italy probably did look like this in the 40s, but he looks malnourished. This man needs a meal. Very, very thin in the way that like our grandparents were, you know, that kind of like deep malnourishment. But anyway, he's not in the crowd. No.

He's actually across the road sitting under a tree. Yeah, he has to be found to be sort of given this job, at which the sort of like mob of sort of frustrated workers are like, you know, why does he get the job and I don't? And the job is as we say, putting up posters there's one requirement for it

which is you have to own a bicycle. When they ask him do you own a bicycle? He's like I don't have it now, but I can have it pretty quickly. I am a temporarily embarrassed bicycle owner. Yeah, and they're like all right, no bike, no job. And everyone else in the crowd was like, I have a bike, I have, I have a bike, and so is my wife, like, you know.

And Antonio was like, oh, a bicycle, oh, I've seen me what you're saying? Loads of two of them, actually, and I know how to ride it. No, so he says, I won't wait around for another two years for a job. So he has been waiting unemployed for two years. He's like Googling bicycle on his phone. Just like, how to. He goes to see his wife. He's using the secret.

obviously incredibly stressed and sort of like doing the kind of mental calculations about this and she's carrying like water from the well and she has these two really big heavy buckets and he's like pacing ahead of her because he's still thinking about it and then he catches himself and like helps her down this hill

she's walking down that she was struggling down which is a really nice little humanising detail in a film absolutely full of them yeah he curses his luck because he's like you know finally I get a job and it's the job that I can't can't take and because we because we pawned my bike for food yeah his wife is like you shouldn't have pawned the bike and he's like I don't what else would we have eaten you know like this is very

clearly they absolutely nothing yeah they're desperate and so they they get home and he sits on the bed and he's like you know chewing his lips and wringing his hands they're really desperate and the movie just like let's us sit in that for a good you know I'd say 10 15 seconds so just like shit these guys are really up against the wall it's again it's that neo-realism thing they take the time to just show where this guy is living in a way that you know that this was a realistic portrayal of how people were living. So he just gave you a second to look at this, like, miserable. Like, he's got nothing.

There's nothing on the walls. There's like two pictures, maybe. Yeah, and it's his wife who sort of is the one to take the initiative here. And she's like, all right, fine, you can sleep without bed sheets, right? And she strips the bed and takes all of the, like, bed clothes and they go together to the porn brokers. There's a detail that I noticed when they're at the pawnbrokers is that there's a queue. There's a really, really big queue of people. And as they're kind of pawning the bed sheets, Maria, his wife, has to, like, big them up.

She's like, oh, yeah, they're really nice sheets. And, you know, we've only used a couple of them. And the guy's like, these are fucking used bed sheets. I can give you 7,500 lira for these, but like, that's as much as I can do. I don't know how much 7,500 lira is, but I'm guessing. Right now, I can't be massive, no. Yeah, so the thing about this is, again, the kind of the neorealism of this film is you can make a really didactic propaganda film, right? You can make a propaganda film that's like, kill all porn brokers, right?

Neorealism is a sort of like, like the sort of writer of this film, Chesre Zavatini, is like an avowed Marxist, right? This is the film that is making the point of, you got to kill all the porn brokers in a sort of deft away because it's just, giving you the sort of fact as if they're accidental right so um i'm surprised to find that he's he's a committed mark says given what we what we later see but and if there's another detail i really like which is that when the pawnbroker takes the sheets into the back he's got like a whole fucking warehouse of bed sheets everyone has fucking pawned their bed sheets to this guy another like wonderful detail to me it like this this porn broker has a tiny hole in the wall that he's talking to them through

and you can see through that hole that there's this massive great crowd back there and it's just so clearly like it's not windows it's just a wall to kind of protect him

from seeing that huge crowd and to keep him separate from them yeah or from them getting to him yeah you can see past him the sort of like mountains of bed sheets

and the sort of like the indignity of this guy making you sort of like pathetically grateful for getting like seven and a half thousand instead of seven thousand lira yeah

the guy who comes in behind the two of them. It's like an old man who's trying to pawn binoculars and it's like, there's not like a sort of everyday function for a pair of binoculars anymore. It's like, it's an object that you keep because you sort of like, you like it, maybe you sort of bird watch or something and it's like, it is not essential to survival, so it just goes, you know? Yeah, good choice. But so anyway, they get a bike back and the next morning- Yeah, out of another room, filled with bikes. Full of bicycles, yeah. The next morning, he reports for work, he's, it's a nice detail here, which is that as he walks in to meet his new

boss and all the team, he's carrying the bicycle. And people are like, why are you carrying that in here? Got my bike. Yeah, because he doesn't want to lose it. And they're like, what are you got the fucking bike for? Yeah, because I need this to get the job. Yeah. Yeah, like, that is so fucking important. Like, yeah. But, you know, he meets his new boss and they give him the onboarding session. They give him the mandatory DEI training, which is very brief back in 1948. Yeah, it's just like, the Americans are the boss. End of training. Still very much the, still very much the case in some industries today.

But, you know, he gets his new uniform and then I'm right, be here tomorrow, 645. He goes out, you chat with a maroon, and he's like, hey, I get a fun uniform, I get a locker. He's so proud of all of this. He shows with the cap, which doesn't fit him and which he's going to need her to tailor overnight. He says, he says, you know, they used to give you shoes as well. but like it's by this guy's standards it's a good paying job right they have overtime even there's like a family allowance because he has like young children and he's like this is it

this is my ticket out of sort of poverty and desperation he lifts Maria up to like look through the window to show her his work and she gets the window slammed in her face and you just you just get a sense that this is not you know for them but so she has she has an errand to run she asks if she can pay a visit to a woman and so he he sort of rides her over there on the on the bicycle with her sort of sitting in front of the handlebars um and uh she's going to see a fortune teller yeah she doesn't tell him this immediately she just kind of says just wait here just wait here just go upstairs i'll you wait down it i'll go upstairs and he's like all right he sees some other people going up to talk to the holy one?

Yeah, that's really good. He's hanging out outside the building and some women come up and go, does the wise woman live here? And I've got to be honest, if I was outside my building and I was asked that, I would respond the same way, which is going, you know what?

I don't know. I'm going to go upstairs too. Yeah, apparently I've been missing out on some wise woman stuff. And also being someone who knows the title of the movie, you're watching these fucking kids play right next to this goddamn bike that he has just like lent against the wall

and walked when he paces away from And you're going, your bike, your bike, your bike, Randy, the bicycle, the bicycle, the bike, the bike, everyone who, all of our listeners who are at Cambridge University are right now like those fuckers, those fuckers, don't, don't let him, don't let him take it, man, the fucking go to take the fucking bike. A lot of things about this movie that are not relatable to students at Cambridge University, but bicycle theft. Bicycle theft, the number one thing that happens at Cambridge as far as I know. so he literally he like forgets and then when he's halfway up the stairs he asks one of the kids to like watch his bike for him and the whole time you're like this is pretty fucking dangerous dude those better not be the bicycle thieves from bicycle thieves you're fucked if they're the bicycle thieves mate you're so paranoid about it yeah yeah yeah he goes in and his wife is waiting in a sort of long queue of people again lots of queuing in this movie to um receive sort of like words of advice from the fortune teller. Mm-hmm.

And she's actually there to pay her, right? Yeah. Because she has been to the fortune teller before, and the fortune teller is sort of like, don't worry, everything's going to be fine. Yeah. And Maria credits this with him getting the job. Yeah, exactly. She's like, she's predicted you get a job and you did.

And Antonia is like, come on, this is nonsense. Like, we're not throwing money away on this. Come on. Come on. Come on. Women. He's quite, he's quite rude to her. He is me about that.

He is. He's just like, how can a woman, you know, an intelligent woman with two children and a head on her shoulders, uh, sort of, you know, pay money for this? And he makes her not, he makes it like stiff the fortune teller out of 50 lira, which is like, I saw it describe somewhere in my research for this as the only sum of money in the movie that might be called insignificant, right? And he's just like, no, no, no, it's fine, don't worry about it. Never stiff a fortune teller. Never do it. Never do it. Well, I don't think the film attributes her, attributes, you know, magical powers to her necessarily. But it is an example of Antonio being sort of a little dismissive of his wife, but also stressed for good reason about money. And we'll see the kind of, a little bit of hypocrisy about this later. Yeah. Just to drive for us the poverty of it.

The kids, what they're playing is like a patunk kind of like balls thing, but they're just underarm chucking rocks and seeing if they can get them as close to each other. as possible. Like, it's like, no one has a fucking thing. That classic throw rocks around. Yeah. Yeah. They get downstairs and the bike is still there.

And I'm like, oh, thank God. Oh, I was really worried about the bicycle from the title, the title character, really, the bicycle. Absolutely. But so they ride home. And overnight, well, first of all, we meet their son. Wonderful. Bruno. Bruno, who steals the movie, Bruno, who is adorable.

Yes. When I started watching the movie Bicycle Thieves, I did not realize that this was fast going to become emblematic of remarkable young man cinema to me because this little guy is so wonderful and he steals the show. He's so good. It might be one of the most heartwarming depictions of a child. Yeah, like he's like six or whatever.

And he's got a job because it's post-war and everyone needs a goddamn job. I don't care if you're a kid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a mechanic. Like, he's introduced, like, looking over this guy, looking over his dad's bike. He, like, fixes it. He, like, cleans the bike for his dad. And he's like, they dented it at the pawnbrokers.

And his dad has to be like, because there's nothing he can do, right? What are they going to do? Complain? His dad had to be like, no, they was there before. Yeah, yeah. And Bruno's just like, oh, they dented it. I wouldn't have stood for that. You know, I'd have said something.

And you're like, you are six years old. The funniest thing about this is. He's so Italian. Yeah. My notice is literally, it's so cute how Italian children are still Italian. Like, they learn to be Italian so early because his dad is like, you know, sort of affectionately just like shut up now. And he's like, oh, shut up. But he's doing the, like, hand motion.

He's only six, but he's Italian at like a 12-year-old level. I've never seen anything like that. He speaks it fluently, too. And like, Maria has fixed his uniform. Everyone's so proud of Antonio for having a job. She's made him lunch. Like, she puts the cap on his head and, like, says, you look like a cop. And, like, he also immediately, like, play attacks her for a laugh.

I love this bit. I love this bit. He, like, jokingly, like, pretend ruffs her up, which is, like, it's cute and it's imitative. And it's also, it's horny, right? Like, these are, they're clearly, like, attracted to each other. And she, she, like, pushes him off her, but not in a way that is, like, in any way, sort of, like, it throws. It's just, like, gets, you know, you got to get to work. Yeah, go on, get to work.

It's like, go on, get out of here. He's a bit of a pest. It's like, genuinely, it's really charming, you know. The charming doesn't stop because he goes into the room with Bruno, and they're both getting ready for work at the same time in the same kind of way. Like, Bruno's wearing a similar pair of overalls stood up on a chair, so they're out of height, both, like, tucking things into their pockets together. It's very, very sweet.

Yeah, they do their hair the same way, Evans. Yeah, it's cute. Bruno is really proud of his dad So they cycle off together He drops Bruno off at work Yeah Bruno who works at a petrol station This we see the freedom that the bike allows

With these fucking shots of him Like cycling into the town To do his job The music is so hopeful It's like he's made it He's got his bike He's got his job He drops Bruno off

He's like I'll come back and pick you up After work on the bike Yeah And then goes into work And a guy teaches him how to do the job, which is pretty simple. It's just like pasting up posters. And the poster in question is Rita Hayworth.

So he's literally, he's like sort of advertising this like impossible American glamour in Rome, which is a sort of like at this point bombed out shithole. I notice as well that the guy who's teaching him is like, you've got to be really precise about it because if you leave any like lumps in the poster, the inspector is going to see them and like dock your wages. And it's like, there are no jobs for bricklayers, but they're paying a poster inspector to make sure there's no, like, bubbles under Rita Hayworth. Got to inspect your posts. I'm sorry.

I would hate to have my posts inspected. Post inspector is going to fine you. Yeah. He's posting over a bunch of other posters as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But he's posting. That's his job. He's a poster. He's posted. And he also, there's a nice detail, which is that there are children begging in the streets as he's doing this. And we, like, we get the constant reminder of like the fucking wolf is at the door my friend like that's gonna be you and bruno

if you don't fucking put these goddamn posts up good you don't post good you're gonna lose your fucking house but then right he shows him how to do one and then he sends him off on his own and so he's up on the ladder and he's posting um and there's a couple of guys like yeah yeah yeah yeah sort of middle of town and a thing that's interesting about this if we're talking about a cinematic theft right this is as important to the film as the heist is in a heist film. Absolutely. Like, Desika, the director of this,

he used six cameras for this one scene. Really? In fucking 1848? Six fucking angles of this. Absolutely. That's like half the cameras that there were. He had all the cameras in Italy to take this shot. Wow.

It's one of the things that's interesting about this film is that it's a high budget film for the day. And it both sort of time has done this, but also the sort of style of it served to kind of obscure that. So because it's very kind of documentary style, as it were, it feels like it wasn't expensive to make, but it was. But so what happens is three guys happen to walk past while he's painting, and we see them kind of like look at the bike, which again, he's left sort of like unattended because there's no one to attend it. And it's really important that this theft

is a three-man job. They immediately split out straight away. like once you watch it back knowing what's going to happen you can kind of see the the technique and the intentionality behind it if you're watching it for the first time it's only when one of those guys gets on the bike and just goes for it

that it kind of hits you and I didn't know I didn't realize the third guy I didn't spot of a third guy it's part of the second guy yeah so there's three guys but two of them are just there to like delay him yeah and I think a lot about

the like kind of effrontery the like insult of theft against the person right like it's a very victimizing thing both because you have your own sort of sense of of like personal property the functional thing of like I need that to do my job but also the all of the kind of capitalist dimension of private property right someone has like trespassed against you in that way yeah it's like violating and intimate yes absolutely yeah I've been robbed before it's fucking pisses you off right um but so this kid jumps on the bike and rise away um one guy like delays him in the street by like pretending to just sort of like turn around and be there and the third guy um is like oh he went that way and they both both him and man number three jump on the outside of a

car and they're like there he is follow him into the tunnel and so they drive along they drive through the tunnel and then they pull this kid on the bike over it's a different kid different bike and then And the third guy's like, oh, sorry, I thought that was him. Sorry, bro. And Antonio's like, yeah, yeah, sure you did, you fucker. I know it was you fuck. Yeah, it's just like the least convincing thing ever, but it's worked. What are you going to fucking do about it?

He's long gone now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a busy sort of like intersection and it's just gone. And you see the hopelessness on, on Antonio's face. It is just like written all over it. And he sort of like walks back in a day's. back to where he started and he finishes the poster

because, you know, what else can you do? Well, the post inspector is going to want to see it but... Yeah. So it sits down on the ladder and just like, you know, stairs. Because he's kind of a ladder too, huh? Yeah. Yeah. He goes to the cops now. If you've ever gone to the cops before, you might be able to guess how effective this is. Yes. Yes.

This is a film that suggests that the police are ineffectual, but I think also is unusually sympathetic to them in some way. Because the cop he speaks to is like, yep, sure, got all the details, bicycle, or whatever, is then called outside where outside the window, like 500 cops and the Xenegata are getting sort of bundled into fast jeeps with nucleo chelere, like fast cell on them, getting ready to like do some real cops and robbers shit. and they're like you've got to come to this thing it's like all right fine whatever I'll be down in a minute comes back and it's like yeah okay we've we've written it down best of luck

it's like aren't you gonna investigate and you're gonna find it he's like no it's it's a bicycle like do you know how many fucking bikes they are in Rome and Antonio's just like well why the fuck did I bother reporting and he's like I'll tell you why because we know the serial number now so if you see it being sold in a shop come tell us and we can verify that it's yours right

which is like I'm pissed off makes sense. Like, when the cop says, like, it would take me, like, a whole squad to look for it, you get the sense he isn't actually lying. Yeah. But, like, this sort of insult here is another cop comes up to him as like, you know, hey, what's going on? He's like, oh, it's nothing, it's just a bicycle. Yeah. And you know that it means the world to Antonio. Yeah. By the way, we didn't mention, but he also has a baby. He has an infant baby who says goodbye to, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Very thick. looking baby, like, really just...

Yeah, no. Just that sort of thing of like, your minor crimes are potentially sort of life destroying. And you see the kind of defeat on his face. And again, when he has to get the bus back to pick up his son. And it's interesting, like instinctively, because he's kind of on also pilot, he tries to push in line. And everybody gets mad at him. Like you've got a whole line of Italians all doing different hand gestures at you. And trying to get that all like, so he gets pushed all the way to the back.

Like, great. It's like, oh, you think you're so fucking special, huh? Yeah, post boy, get the fuck out of here. No bike have an MF. Yeah. This'd be a lot easier if you had a bike, wouldn't it? But you're darn, idiot. No pedals, bitch.

Guy who is also in the line for the bus being like this MF riding the bus. in line for the bus being like bus wankers because like the city is broke it's this long like really sort of pushy line that's really close and the bus fills to like 110% capacity the doors closed everyone yells at the bus hey what the fuck you don't try it away like to come up

I suck it's you just get to say there are thousands and thousands of fucking people in this exact situation everyone in Rome is currently falling down or stealing bicycles. And he picks up Bruno, who sort of has figured out pretty quickly what has happened. But he asks, like, is the bike broken? He's like, yes, it's broken.

So he walks Bruno home, and he sort of drops Bruno off at home. And it's like, I'm going back out. And he goes to, this is a little difficult to read the other right away. Yeah, well, totally. He genuinely can't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not immediately clear what this is, but he is going to a union hall, right? and the kind of implication is the union

is also the one who has gotten him the job in the first place and so there is a meeting of the union in there which he interrupts looking for his friend and there's a kind of implicit criticism in here right because like the meeting is not helpful to him it's a guy up front talking about how you know the union's going to get them all jobs right yeah he specifically says

he's that everyone's unemployed you know welfare is humiliating both in the in the applying for it, and also in the very rare case that you actually get it, because, like, you're still on welfare and it, like, it hurts your pride. So this guy's saying, we need an enormous program of public works, and then Antonio's like, hey, is, is, what's this guy, Bia, Bia? I can't pronounce the name. Biaf or something. Biacho. All right. He's like, is he here? The guy's like, fuck off. We're having a fucking communist meeting here. We can't help you, poor unemployed man. We're communists. Can't be bringing up problems in here.

Exactly. The question is whether that's an implied criticism of the union. I think so, but Bazard has an interesting thing about this, where he says that the point of the union hall isn't to find lost bicycles. It's to change society such that a lost bicycle doesn't destroy your life. That's fair. Which is something that's different about it than some of the other kind of institutions we see not helping him like the police.

Well, so I thought there was an interesting point, though, because in the other room where his buddy is, there's some actors rehearsing a play. And I was like, oh, interesting to put the kind of the union communist meeting and the actors rehearsing a show in the same place. I was like, are they trying to tell us something about like play acting or like pretend or something maybe? They absolutely are because there's a bit where the subtitles let us down here. I'm going to get a good grade in podcast.

Ah, well done. Gold star. Gold star, yeah, no. So they are rehearsing a little sort of like, comic opera. And his guy Bayoko is on stage. He's doing the kind of comedy baritone bit and he can't get his line right because the line is, it's like, why do you let people treat me that way? But the last word is people, gente. And he can't get the tone on gente right. And so it's him and the other actor are arguing about how to pronounce people. And Antonio

calls Bayeco off the stage to talk to him and the actors are like, oh, for fuck's sake, we're going to be here all night. We need to rehearse. this guy doesn't understand how to sing the fucking song and in the midst of this you get another meeting like a communist meeting as sort of evidenced by the big hammer and sickle flag behind them that sort of tries to come in and use the hall and the other actor kicks them all out because he's like

you know you can meet or we can rehearse right so it's like either or you can either like fuck around on the stage or we can do communism and I'm here to fuck around on the stage I'm always saying this No I'm not I think you could do both I like fucking around on the stage I like communism what's the problem

This is a dramatic production right It's just it's an element of self-criticism here And especially like the communists being ushered out of the room They're like because we hear from the union But like this actual like sort of like communist group We don't they're the one group We don't like hear anything from In this movie

Is this like that one scene? in one bottle after another when the guy's like, this is noise triggers that is like, okay, you included this so people wouldn't say

the movie was all, but okay, I get it. I think it's, I think the implication there is like, these are the guys who have the juice,

but, you know, nothing's happening with them, you know? But so he talks to Bayoko, and Bayoko knows, like a thing or two about stolen bikes, right?

Yeah. He's like, we'll go tomorrow, you and me, to this one street market because whenever a bike gets stolen, and instantly gets disassembled

and you're like, this is 10 times harder now this is a hundred times harder now like you can recognize your bike how the fuck are you going to recognize your bike's tires like yeah exactly right a lot of this stuff is just gone they do this with phones too they'll just like rip the guts out and put it in a shipping container

yeah but yeah so the next day but hold on hold on because then Maria comes in oh yeah my note's like oh fuck it's my wife hey babe you might have heard some things Yeah, from our son Who I took home Yeah I dropped off and ran away

She says like Is it true And and he's again We see that he has some of the kind of machismo He's like You know Don't don't cry in public You know

Don't whine Yeah Yeah It's not as well She's like Who's crying You know I just we got to

We got to fix it And she is clearly crying Yeah But there's I like her kind of standing up for herself in that moment. It's not a movie

with strong female characters in that sense because it's not really about women. It's about like father and son. But, you know, in a way that I think is broadly permissible, I guess. But I like her in this moment.

It is a movie with female characters though. Yeah, she's like a character. I like Maria. She's cool. Yeah. This guy's even like quite comforting to her even. He's like, look, what happens is stolen goods will show up at the market.

We'll go there tomorrow. We'll just check the bike serial numbers. find it straight away. It'll be no problem at all. Like, really reassuring. It's really good. Yeah. He literally says, like, you'll have like a bad night's sleep and then in the morning it'll be fine. Exactly. So the next morning, um, he goes to meet Bayoko. Bioko is a, is a garbage man, right? And he's kind of like the king of garbage man. Because he has his, he's like hanging off the back of a truck. He has guys. And the whole walk

up to him, you're looking at this street activity because this is a real city film. And there's a lot of like background activity, which is very sort of tightly choreograph. So you're looking at people like sweeping the streets with brims and you're thinking, well, those guys have jobs. There's guys with push carts and it's like, well, they have jobs. You know, they're not, you know, worrying about being out on the street, but I am. Yeah, another thing that happens a lot is the film shows us a lot of people, like every fucker has a bicycle. Bicycles are everywhere. Every motherfucker has a bicycle except you.

Yeah, it's not that remarkable to have a bicycle. It's just, it's this sim. But everyone has one except you, and you need one, and they're everywhere, and you can't have one. Yes, yeah, absolutely. But so Bioko gets a couple of his guys together, and they go to this street market. These garbage trucks are incredible, so... Yeah, no, they're beautiful. But they drive to the thing, and they know that it's been sort of broken apart, so they sort of, like, agree to split up.

And again, because this is a street market for bicycles in particular, you are just surrounded by bicycle. and also this... It's just fucking thousands of the things, exactly, yeah. Any one of them could be yours, right? Like, it's just this kind of... It's an embarrassment of how many bicycles there are and how common a thing it is, as we say. Mm-hmm.

It's terrifying. It's desperate. You see them sort of go through stuff and like... It's like, how the fuck you're supposed to tell the, like, bell of your bicycle apart in, like, a storefront full of bells? Yeah, it's impossible. But they do find a frame that is the right year. in the right make that's currently in the process

of being repainted. So they asked by a suspicious man. Yes. But like, can you show us a serial number? And he's like, fuck off. He just decides no, basically. Speech 70. No. He's like, no, I'm not going to. Fuck you.

It's like, why do you have so many points in lie? It's like asking a guy who's painting a bicycle frame. Hey, can I see the serial number of that real quick? And he's like, it's not a stolen bicycle. It's interesting as well because this guy, he's like yelling at them immediately. His wife comes out to yell because Italy is a country. And you need a guy like Bioko to do the kind of tough guy bit with them because you get the sense that Antonio, he's like relatively shy. He's a small guy.

He's not going to, like, especially with his kid there, he's not going to like yell back at the guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so ultimately they get a cop. And he looks at the bike and he's like, right, read the serial number. And we see when he does, Antonio, like, leans in as well. And the cop is like, what, you don't trust me? Because he's just that suspicious. He's like, he's desperate.

Yeah, he's like, it's not about trust. It's just, you know, you want to say for myself. It's not even that the cops don't do anything because the cop does check. It's just that there's nothing he can do. It isn't the right bike. Whether it's stolen or not, I think we're definitely meant to assume that it is. It's not his. So there's nothing he can do.

Meanwhile, Bruno is looking for horns. He's looking for horns. There's a guy in like a really nice suit blowing bubbles in the back of the shot. You could almost miss this actually. It's like quite fast, where it's just like the kind of, again, the insult of this. But more importantly, there is, just as I guess an accepted type of guy a person could be in 1948, Italy. it's the local pedophile. Yeah, here's a sort of like

rich pito who has come to... Great casting on this guy though. He does look like a patophile, yeah. He does. I assume given it's Italian neorealism. They probably just hired a real pedophile.

They just hired a real paedophile. Just like, do you want... Do you want to come down to me in the movie? But this pedophile is trying to pick Bruno up by offering to buy him about... Yeah, and no one's noticing. There's pedophiles like petitioning for jobs the whole time.

No one cares. Like, he's like trying to groom him by being like, oh, you want a bicycle bell? I could buy you this bicycle bell. He asks the guy running the store, hey, how much does this bicycle bell sell for? And the guy tells him, without a word about the, like, why are you trying to buy that for a child? Why that you don't like, you would hope maybe that some of this would provoke comment at the very least. But it just doesn't. It's just a completely, and it's the same thing.

thing is the cue outside the porn brokers, right? Where it's like, there are like infinity different ways to prey on the poor. And they're completely normalized, all of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, including sexually. And Bruno, Bruno absolutely fucking destroys this guy. I didn't even look at him, just because, nah, I just like, weighs him away. It's just like, Bruno, I said at the chat, Bruno, I completely mocks Charlotte Rampling in the non-stodging Olympics.

Like, he just says no. When the fascist, when the fascist, pedophile approaches Bruno, he's like, No, thank you. No, no, no, no, no. Just politely refuse. You can just say no, it turns out. You can leave. Why didn't I think of that? Um, so Bruno successfully defeats paedophilia, uh, just in time for his dad to get back. And again, all Antonio does is just kind of like, see the guy and like glare at him. It's not even like a huge sort of fight. It's just like, it's that expected. It's like you're, you're kind of like, of my, my like, eight-year-old son is sort of like constantly beset with perver. It's just like a normal part of city life. I'd be like, yeah, of course he's, he's a hot kid, he's my kid, he's fucking... I'm so glad that you said that, because I was gonna make that joke, and they were like, no, I'm not gonna say that.

I can't, no, that's not appropriate. It's a brass eye bit. It's literally a brass eye bit, no. It just flies off, you're like, I say this as a compliment. It's like, what's wrong with him? It is a brass eye bit, but also it's 2025 and we're all transgender. We live in England. Like, I was just like, ah, I'm not going to say.

I just say that on Mike. That's pretty reasonable. It's also, it's also striking as well that, like, Antonio gets the police for what is maybe his stolen bike, but not for a guy trying to groom his son. He's like, oh, fucking whatever, you know? But so they drive to a second street market, because they think that maybe they'll have better luck there. This fucking drive.

Oh, my God. This guy. So good. World's least sensitive man, because it starts raining, and it starts raining, and it starts really pissing it down and to a guy that he knows is going to have to look for his stolen bike in the rain now is like I'd always fucking rains on my day off and it's like that's that's realistic you know he's just kind of moaning and it's like you think you've got problems man like he drops them off at another market and they they take shelter under an awning of a building

he nearly hits someone on the fucking dry yeah he's like complaining about that he's like oh it's always raining and then a guy like walks in front of his car and he barely misses and he goes people just appear out of nowhere in front of my car is fucking crazy anyway so they take shelter under the awning of a building and at this point a bunch of people come by i didn't they're wearing so close i don't know who these people are but they're like speaking german yeah so these are priests oh priests okay these are i think austrian priests um because rome used to have a bunch of different, like, seminaries. So you could go to, like, the German-speaking, like, theological college or whatever. Right, right, right. Okay, cool. But, like, they're standing there speaking

German. Again, like, I go back to Andre Bazin, who says that this is, like, hard to imagine a more anti-clerical scene, even though they're not, like, it's not propaganda. They're not doing anything wrong. They're completely innocent in that moment. It's just a bunch of, like, students getting, like, reigned on. But, like, they're surreal. They're unhelpful. They're incapable. of helping, even if they wanted to, which they don't, because, you know, they're not sort of like invested in anyone else's life, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're just sort of, like, chattering with each other, and they're just in the way.

Yeah, it's just another institution that isn't really helping him. But the rain eases off, and in that moment, Antonio sees the fucking bike. That's the bicycle fish. Yeah. On his, it's a bicycle thing from bicycle feet. There he is. It is time, once again, to run down the street, shouting a, Ladro, the thief.

He's talking to this old man. And obviously, Antonio doesn't get this, but we get a shop that's up close for these guys talking, and we know that they're, like, co-conspirators and something, because the old man is giving this guy money or receiving money. There's money changing hands. So we know that they are connected, but they chase after this guy, and he just, like, gets away because he's on the bike and they're running. They lose.

No one helps. Not a single person. A lot of people kind of look over and be like, damn, that's crazy, but no one helps. Damn, that's a crazy. He recognises the guy in part because he's wearing the same clothes. He has this, like, army jacket and this, like, like, Nazi hat. He has, like, a German army cap that he wears. So they go back to look for the old man.

Incidentally, like, it's not, the Nazis haven't come back to steal this guy's bike. No, it's just like this was the kind of clothing that was lying around in, like, 40s Italy. It's one of the things that's out there, yeah. Yeah, listeners, if you were waiting for this to, to, to, be the entrance to another kind of big conspiracy, like it's John Wick or something. It's not, it's not. It's just, yeah, a poor guy stole his bike.

The guy wears a kind of distinctive hat. Yeah. But so they go back and chase the old man and they get lured into this like maze of streets. Yeah. They like chase this guy down. Bruno's going off and eventually they catch him on this bridge and now they're going like,

I know, I know that you were talking to this guy, but they don't confront him about it. He's trying to play it cool. He's going like, I need to talk to that guy. that you were talking to. I've got business with him. This guy does not look good. This guy looks like a serious alcoholic for one thing

and dirt poor for another. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, so they actually, if they follow him to a church, and it doesn't tell us what's going on here. You just kind of have to put it together. This church is putting on, because it is Sunday, is putting on a service and also a meal.

Yeah, it's a soup kitchen. Yeah. It's also administered by, visibly wealthy women. Yes, it is. They're doing, like, they're offering like a shave as well. And you can see a very rich man in an apron sort of visibly uncomfortably shaving poor people as, and again, it's like very institutional, it's very impersonal, big crowds, hues.

And this guy goes in and Antonio and Bruno just follow him in a kind of like, we are going to stand here and shame you silently until you talk to us. this way. It's like, we'll be present. You can go wherever you want. We're going to be like nearby. The guy doing the shaving turns out to be a lawyer who is then called in to organize the church service.

And they do mass. Because you've got to sit through the church service first before you can get the mail. Like the Salvation Army, like a lot of like religious charity stuff where it's like you have to listen to X amount of our bullshit before we will feed you, right? It's like an unskippable ad before you can get the fucking content you came for. Exactly. So there's a little yellow bar underneath the priest. and I fucking get on with it.

I thought I had a VPN. The form of the Mass is, of course, like, reverent, right? That's what it's meant to be. Antonio is just trying to, like, shove in next to the guy, because reverence is for when you aren't distracted by a life or death struggle for your fucking bicycle. You know? And he's like, it's not even DiCaprio's best movie.

We see the lawyer lead the church in prayer before Mass, and he says, oh, my lord, we your poor souls, for sanctity, we embrace the trials of our lives and tread the path of sorrow, right? So like, the, like, anti-theism of this, and specifically the anti-Catholicism of this is manifest, right? Because you have a very rich guy describing himself as a poor soul equally to, you know, a bunch of poor people, but also the sort of Marxist view that, like, what the church serves to do, what it's there for, is to be like, you should embrace

the poverty, you should embrace the sort of trials and the suffering, right? And you are being told that by someone who does not appear to be suffering very much themselves. It's a sort of noble, savage view of the poor, you know? Well, yeah, quite. Pretty much, yeah. It's like, it doesn't it hit you over the head with it, this movie, but it's fucking really good. Anyway, Antonio sits next to this old man, he's like, look, you fucker, like, I need to, I need to talk to that kid. I need to talk to the bicycle for the movie, the bicycle thing.

from the movie the bicycle and the old man's just like I don't fucking know what you're talking about I've never seen a bicycle in my life how many wheels no clue why do you have so many points in life he's getting like angrier and angry and because he's like

and by the end of it he's like I'm like he's audibly disturbing people as well and like disturbing the mass glancing at him yeah and he's like I'm sick of begging you right like you fucking tell me where I can find this guy um

or like I'm threatening him he tries bribing him like he tries everything And so the guy's like, okay, fine, fine, fine. He's in number 15 next location street, all right? Leave me alone. He's like, no, you fucker. You're going to come with me. We're going right now.

Come on, get up. And they squabble and they cause a bit of a scene. And these, again, very wealthy people, these like very clean cut. I know they're Catholics, but they look like Mormons because they've got the kind of slick-backed hair in the suits. They come up to and they're like, shh, what are you doing? What are you doing? Very well-groomed ushers being like, this is a church, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this turns into a little chair. You can't be bringing the problems of your life into this place. This is a church, okay? Yeah, we're not here to help people. What the fuck? Yeah, come on. I mean, I guess if you wanted to mount Bazan's defense of the union hall and defense of the church here, which he doesn't, right?

This is the thing he's contrasting is the union exists to change society. The church exists to like keep it as it is, right? If you wanted to mount a theological defense, you could be like it's meant to sort of like save your soul in a way that has nothing to do with lost bicycles. Fine, whatever. Jerk off motion, not important. What happens is you get a kind of farcical. chase scene. And this is funny. It's a, it's like a comedic bit in the movie, because it's like him in like the fight of his life looking for this guy versus two clueless rich boys who

are just like, can you keep it down? This is a fucking church. Such well-cast rich boys while he's so visibly like doesn't have a care in the world. Like he's so clean shaver and like smooth skin, fucking like not a speck of dirt on him. You know that this guy is not struggled at all. there is there's so like Bruno um in in search of help like opens the confessional to find a priest in there who just slaps him asshole yeah straight away pops him on the head yeah as as they're running through there's a really funny bit where um Antonio just runs and the two ushers stop to genuflex in front of the altar before chasing after him and then Bruno does as well a second after them It's like, that is, that's, that's, that's Looney Tunes comedy timing. It's really, it's really quite cues. But, yeah, they, they try and find the old man who has fled the scene, he's fled the building. And ultimately they get sort of like kicked out of the church and they, they've lost him completely.

And Antonio is sort of like, at his wits end at this point. He does not know what he's going to do. Bruno makes some kind of, like, comment, I can't remember what it is. I don't know what it is that Bruno says I don't remember either But Antonio turns around and like belts him across the face Yeah he hits him

And there's a beautiful reverse shot here Of his own kind of like Immediately Instinctively horrified reaction That he's done this Yeah yeah yeah I've gone back Bruno's line is just like

Why did you let him go for the soup Oh yeah Because he said out of like charity Because the old guy's like Just let me get the soup first And then I'll come with it and that's the excuse he uses to, like, flee. But, yeah, so he hits Bruno.

And having been obviously sort of, like, horrified by this, he then tries to, like, unconvincingly play it out and play tough about it, because Bruno is, like, it's crying, right? Like, he sort of, like, runs off. Like, walks away. Yeah. It's so, it's start-breaking. Yeah, it's like.

Yeah, he's afraid. Because this is your boy. Like, don't help him. Also, there's a touch I really like, which is that in this sequence, the camera is, at Bruno's height. Mm-hmm. It's such a nice little detail.

Like, we're on his level, where with him, and we're looking up at Antonio, he's like, bigger than us. And it's like, oh, my God. Like, you feel so sorry for this kid. He's just like, why did you hit me? Like, I'm going to tell mom, like, you can't do that. And like, it's so, oh, it's heartbreaking. And you can see how, how he sort of, like, got to the place of doing it instinctively.

This is not someone who has, like, hit their child because they've convinced themselves. It's a good idea. It's like someone who is desperate and frustrated lashing out in a way that is like sort of unforgivable. Yeah. And as they, as they walk on, Bruno is like keeping his distance like a good 10 paces away from him. Like it's so sad. Again, it's the kind of the neorealism here is it's important that Antonio is not like,

he's not even a particularly good man sometimes. He's just ordinary, right? I mean, he's, he's poor and he's average and he's normal. And, you know, he has done something terrible here for completely explicable reasons. You know, you can kind of see the context behind it, which is what the film is about, right? Yeah. And they sort of, they separate briefly. Like, he, because Bruno's keeping his distance.

And then this is the scene that always fucking breaks me in this film. Yeah, God. It's one of the most human pieces of cinema I've ever seen. Because Antonio is walking. He's not really looking for Bruno because he's ashamed as well. Like, I think that's obvious. He tells him to like, wait by the bridge. I'm going to see if the old man went down.

Yeah, he's walking with this real tension. Like he keeps clenching and unclenching his fists. Like he's got this real tension in his motion. Yeah. And he hears all of a sudden, like off in the distance, like the sound of some people seeing a boy drowning and being like, oh my God. Like, let's all go help this guy. Like, there's someone in the river. There's a boy in the water.

And he starts walking and then sort of like running towards it. And the like the way his sort of face breaks in this is like, is incredible. And then as he gets closer and he sees them pulling a sort of an older boy out of the river, the relief when he realizes that the like suffering isn't aimed at him for once, is just incredibly human. I think it's like as a sort of like portrait of of a society, of like us as a species, just to be like in that sort of instinctual conflicted space where you're like, you're seeing sort of like unfathomable horror and you're relieved

instinctively because it isn't happening to you. It re-contextualizes everybody else we've seen in the movie who hasn't helped him. And it also, it's like, I think about the bit from the beach scene from under the skin. right, of like sort of wading into, into sort of like icy water to try and like save someone else and just sort of like, that is a spectacle of like human suffering. And this is one of the only times in the film. We see people helping each other as well is like rescuing this, this boy from the water. And he's, he survives as well, but it's really crucial to me that we get the relief before

that. Yes, absolutely. Yes, it's very true. We can get little like church bells peeling in the back. as he sees Bruno again and it's like it's really nice um Bruno's still a little sort of upset at KG as they walk on he tries to sort of like repair it because the this truck full of football fans go past because the football is on and he tries to reach out to him a bit by being like is Medina a good team and Bruno's like I don't know um behind them by the way there's this

romance scene playing out four nights six seven and Bruno's like don't don't don't do that Don't do that. Behind them, there's a man and a woman sort of like talking romantically with no heard dialogue and it's just like there are eight million stories in The Naked City, right? And all of this is very tightly choreographed. One of the most important things I ever learned about film was that nothing is in the film by accident, even when it is, it isn't, right? That's a decision of sort of Mison Sen and editing and all of that.

And so to make a film about a city where there is always some human sort of like drama, tragedy going on in the background. it really makes you feel that, like, you know, things get pulled out of the crowd and then disappear back into it. I'll tell you what else. This film really conveys the importance of background artists, of a supporting artist. Oh, yeah.

It's like, dozens and dozens of people in every shop. They're so fucking good and they really kind of sell the story. Nowadays, you probably like, you know, this scene by the Riverside, you probably shoot it on a green screen and just kind of, you know, blur stuff out or like maybe you have a couple background, people crossing in the background.

But like, to use background extras, not merely a son of bodies providing motion so that they're there so you don't notice them but to use them as a detail but if you look you will get more out of the story I just think it's beautiful it's like some of them are happy

like this couple are in love the football fans are happy because they're enjoying their thing which is something that's inaccessible to them and so we get this decision that Antonio makes that again sort of gently puts in front of you

where a sort of more propagandistic where a more didactic film would yell at you like you cannot ever judge the financial expenditures of poor people, right? He looks in his wallet and goes, I can get a little bit financially unwise with it to cope.

Yeah. Right. Fuck it. Let's go out for dinner. He says, let's go and get a pizza. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Bruno's like, yeah, okay.

Bruno's like, I can eat a pizza. He's like, why should I kill myself worrying when I'll end up just as dead, right? And so they go to a restaurant that is maybe a little too fancy for them. And they kind of hesitate in the door a little bit. But it's fine. They get seated.

And Antonio's kind of getting into the swing of the denial here. And he's like, it's fine. We'll get drunk. We'll get a bottle of wine. So you cannot ever judge the drug consumption of poor people. And so they're like, can we get a pizza? Snooty waiter goes, no, we don't do that. That's crazy.

Sir, this is an Italian restaurant in the middle of Rome. We do not do pizza. We do toasted mozzarella. sandwiches. This is what Italians actually believe right? So, like, I can do some gastronomy calling here, right? Because pizza is not a Roman institution

historically, it's more associated with Naples. Yes, that's south of Italy. Pizza, Quay, Romani. Sausage peppers I've been out of Naples. They do a good pizza. Fair play. Italy, Italy has, and especially in 1948,

had a really stark divide between the North, wealthier industrialized, trying to convince themselves they're all Austrians, right? And Rome is a weird kind of exclave of that, and the South, which was dirt poor. And I mean dirt poor, like bits of, like, Sicily and Campania and stuff were, you know, looked like the 19th century into the 70s. And so pizza, which is a street food and associated with the South of Italy, it's poor people food, right? To, to, to, to order this, it's a little bit like, I'm not sure what the British valence would be now, but like at the same time, it's like, I don't know, like pie and mash or something, right? Like it's, yeah, maybe, like, um, it's not fancy enough.

It's, it's a poor people food. Like, with the American, well, no, that's maybe, I was going to say with the American would kind of be like tacos, maybe that's introducing like racialized, or like, yeah. Immigrant, uh, diamond too that isn't there. But anyway, yeah, um, this guy's like, we don't do pizzas. We do toasted mozzarella sandwiches And I'm like Because this is a tritoria

Not a pizzeria It's like Abruino General is what What do you mean? What do you mean You don't have a fucking pizza And then But so

But so they order some Some toasted Moxerola sandwiches At the next table Is This is so good This fucking snobby ass Directors used to be

Communists There's this rich Family There is a There's a kid about Bruno's age, wearing his fucking sailor suit and eating a fig and lady finger McFlurry

very delicately. He's got sub-fusk on for some fucking reason. Like, it's just, yeah. It's, yeah, like this obviously push and he like side-eyes, Bruno. Like, he's like, leans around from his plane, like, looks at him. There's a moment off of this where, where Bruno

looks back, where you genuinely get the sense that this is the first time in his life he is realizing that he's poor. Yes. It's great acting from this kid. Fucking heartbreaking because to a kid, like, to a kid, like, the environment that you grow up in just seems normal, right? And, you know, you don't know that he's ever been confronted with this kind of wealth before. And it's like of an age as well where you learn to be like ashamed of yourself or ashamed of your parents or things like that, right?

And so, like, it's this heartbroken thing because this kid is like eating with like a knife and fork that Bruno doesn't really know how to use as well. he's like, he ends up eating this, this, this, um, this mozzarella with like his fingers, um, and getting like grease on his face. Um, and again, it's like the realization that you're not just poor, but you're like working class, you know, like you don't, you're not fancy. You don't know how to do this. Yeah. Bruno has achieved class consciousness and is, yeah, it's not happy about it. No. And so Antonio notices this. Um, and he says, oh, you know, if you, if you were to eat like that family, you'd need a, you need a million lira a year. Um, and he says, well, let, let, let, let me kind of write right down for you what my salary would have been and how much money we would

have made. He does the mass. And, like, shows him the mass. And he's like, yeah, like, we could have had Dolmio day every day. He literally says of this sort of relative pittance, like, who could want more? Because it fulfills, like, all of his sort of like survival needs, right? Yeah. And he says, we're not, we're not going to find the bike. So you see we need the bike. We're not We're not going to find it with prayer, right? Yeah. The saints will not help us. Yeah.

We've got to find the Bible. We'll never find it. We'd have to have, like, psychic powers or something. Wait a minute. Wait a second. The movie lays down in front of you its next card. You cannot ever judge the religious appeals of poor people, right? Because like, we've had three decisions here, right?

Which are go and, like, spend money you don't have on food, get drunk, and go and see a fortune to Teller, we know that none of these will work, but we also know that they're all comforting, right? Yeah. We also knew that even yesterday he said, you know, that it wasn't going to work, like... Yeah. Desperation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're not you when you're hungry, right? Like, uh, when it's, when it's not your Dolmio Day. Hmm. They're like, well, we'll go and see Italian Professor X, who's plugged into Bicycle Cerebro and she'll find it. This is really beautiful moment I just want to pull out really quickly in the, in the a tutorial where when our main character here says to eat like this rich family you'd need to get at least a million a month, Bruno like puts the sandwich down, like as if to like stop

eating it. Like this is clearly a kid who's used to the like, no, we can't afford that. We don't have enough money kind of argument. And like he has to go, no, no, no, you can eat it. It's okay. It's just such a wonderful little character moment for Bruno. Yeah. God.

So they go to the. They go to the fortune teller, and Antonio cuts in line again. It's a real habit of his when he's desperate. And she is telling a guy who is not ugly that he is ugly and sort of like charging him for the privilege. And then he makes a fatal mistake, which is to ask a psychic a question with a real answer. Direct question is like, where's my bike? She's like, oh, I don't know. Not 100% on that one.

Yeah. What she tells him is if you don't find it today, you're never going to find. find it. Which he knows. He knows that already. He knows it's urgent. Yeah. Very much the two options here, yeah. And this time he does pay her as well. Like, when he's sort of like, he's well enough off to know that it's bullshit, he doesn't pay her. But this time he's like, he's been given an answer that he knows is nothing, but it's like, he's sort of willing to have faith in it financially. So he goes to, he goes outside, he runs into the fucking guy. Yeah, it's

the guy. He doesn't have the bike, but it's the kid who stole the bike, and he's like, you're the fucking bicycle from the movie, the bicycle! They were looking for your fucking day! Really good, they walk faster in the street, just like, I want my bike back, by the way. And the guy's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. They chase him into a brothel where the sex workers throw both of them out.

And then he chases him down in the street, and you can see Antonio getting angry to the point of violence, right? Like, he's grabbing the guy by the lapels. He's like, I will kill you if I don't get my back. Again, you see that from Bruno. You see the, like, you are seeing your father threaten someone with violence as like a, like, you know, for the first time, maybe. Yeah. But so, you know how one thing Antonio doesn't have in any of this is really any kind of community? Mm-hmm.

Do you know who does have a community? Unfortunately. Like, he's got one friend who helps, but he's got one friend, he's got a union that doesn't help. The church doesn't help. Now, this guy, as he's sort of, like, being grabbed in the street, this guy's got a community. This guy's got a community. Oh, yeah. It's a real, like, the worst, are full of passionate intensity kind of moment.

As you see, the whole street kind of notice and stand up and start walking towards him. It's so good. Like, he's arguing with this guy. He doesn't see anything else. They've turned the corner. He's barely, like, noticed that they're in a different location, right? And he's, like, threatening him. And you just see people who are, like, sat around in the street being like, oh, that's my.

boy. That's my boy getting threatened by this weird guy I've never seen before. They start walking over like it's fucking pluribus and they're like, how dare you accuse sticky fingers Jimmy the bicycle thief of having stolen your fucking bicycle? They are in crime alley. We know from having seen the movie that the theft was organized between three people. And besides that, every single one of these people looks like the most, like there's one guy who is 100% a mafioso. Like he is wearing a pinstripe suit. Oh, it's so good. That's so fucking good. Because the whole community starts yelling at him.

This is Shake Down Street. The whole community starts yelling at him. And then like this guy comes wearing like a perfect suit and like sunglasses, like modern style sunglasses. And like we've never seen anyone dress anywhere near this good or movie. We've not seen the priests. We're not seen the communists. We've not seen like the police. But this guy, this guy has money. And you know immediately that he's a mafia guy. Yeah, yeah. He also tells him, go and get the cops. Go get the cops. See what happens. And Antonio is getting, like, abused to the point, and, like, shoved and pushed to the point that he's, like, picking up, like, a two-by-four from the street in case he has to, like, sort of hit someone, and Bruno runs for the cops. Yeah.

Meanwhile, sticky fingers Jimmy the bicycle thief faints or, like, has a seizure? He has a seizure, yeah, he's an epileptic fit. We don't know if he's faking that as well. Like, clearly, clearly Antonio believes he is, but we don't know. We don't know that. And it's kind of the exploit disability, Uno reverse card. Of, like, actually, I think you'll find I'm going to fall down and, like, try and bite through my own tongue now. And his mom, sticky fingers, Jimmy the bicycle thief's mom is there?

She's like, I'm Mrs. Jimmy, the bicycle thief. Leave my kid alone. She starts by leaning out of a window, classic mom's dog, be like, hey, Jimmy, what's the problem? And he's like, I don't know, mom, don't worry about it. This guy thinks I stole his bike or something. That's crazy. You can genuinely kind of believe. leave for a second until you see the

Mafia so that it's like, oh, these are just normal people, right? He's got the wrong guy, maybe. This is Crime Street. This is 100% crime street, and it's just that the professional thieves are organized, right? You're not because you're just a guy. Yeah. It's like, my brother, we call it organized

crime. For a reason. We have schedules. Organized really petty crime, but still. We have teams meetings. We minute this shit. Bruno gets Carabinieri who shows up in his like

insane uniform Hell yeah and again like this guy he's not even unsympathetic which is kind of the worst part and this is like my admittedly limited dealings with cops

have basically been on this tone of like yeah sure we accept that you're a victim of crime sucks to be you kind of nothing we can do about it So feels bad. They searched the kids' house. The cop is like, okay. The whole time, this is happening as street theater, right?

Everyone is getting a shot off at these guys. It's like, oh, go ahead. Like, four of us live in one room. As you can see, we have a ton of spaced for stolen bicycles. And they're not living well. Like, no, they're not living well. It is poverty. Yeah, also, we've seen inside of, like,

we've seen inside of Antonio's house. Like, we know that it's not anywhere near. Like, it's the same as this, right? Like, this is clearly just like poor on poor. But also, if you've stolen the bike, you're not going to store it at your house. That's crazy. Yeah. And so his, this, you know, the bicycle thief's mom is like, I should, you know, instead of insulting him like this,

you should give my boy a job because he's been looking for one for ages, which we know you can't get one. And so we get this kind of, we've had the church as fast. Now we get the law as fast because the cop is like, okay, look. We can't find it. You can press charges if you want. All of these people are going to be witnesses for him. Do you have any witnesses? No.

No. Okay. Well, what do you want to do? And Antonio gets angry again. He's like, I could attack him. He's like, well, if you do, I'd have to arrest you. This is ridiculous. It's a joke.

It's a kind of mechanical operation, the results of which are just farcical. Yeah, yeah. I really feel for him in this moment. So they get outside and a whole street. It's like, way, way, he finds your fucking bike, dickhead. Yeah, he's like walking away. Everyone is being like, way, dickens. It's so brutal.

The street is watching him and taunt him. Well, because the cop says, do you want to press charges? And then Antonio just like pushes past and walks away. And then everyone's like, whoa. Fucking brutal. As some example, so like, if there's one kind of negative quality you can attribute to Antonio more than anything, it's carelessness, right? He has seen, he imagines Bruno almost fucking.

drown, right? In doing so, he leaves Bruno behind and has to go back and get him. Yeah. And then in the course of sort of walking, because he doesn't like hold his hand or anything when they're crossing the street, Bruno almost gets to run down by two really expensive looking cars because his dad is just too in his own head. He's too distracted by all of this to like watch him. Yeah. They sit down outside the football stadium. Bruno's, Bruno's exhausted and we get some shots down at his height where he's just, he's tuck it out. It's really like, really feel for Antonia. He's like, fuck, my kid is like, knack, I don't have my bicycle, and we're going to have fucking starve. And this is the moment where like every motherfucker in

the world is on a bicycle. There's so many bicycles around. Yeah, he's just looking out at this fucking sea of bikes. Yeah, there's like racks and racks of like parked bikes outside the stadium. Yeah, the thing that really breaks him with it, right? Like, yeah. The thing that ultimately moves him off of this curbstone is a bicycle race goes past. And the insult of like riding bicycles for sport is the thing that finally breaks him. And it's like, it's not even that a bicycle race is in itself inherently insulting, but the capitalism makes it so because that's like a perfectly ordinary, relatively low value functional object that you need, otherwise you're finished and these people can just use

it for play, right? Like, because you don't guarantee the kind of the minimum, the maximum is sort of like, it has those kind of violence to it. And so he stands up and he gives Bruno the sort of last of his money, he's like, take the, take the tram home. Yeah. Because he doesn't want him to see this. Yeah, it's like, I'm going to become the bicycle thief from the 1948 Italian movie,

The Bicycle Thief. Yeah, well, that's why the title is Bicycle Thieves, plural. Like, it's a movie about two crimes. because he sees a bike just standing on its own outside an apartment building and rather than take one from the like racks of bikes

hurt people he walks up to it yeah I'd have done this like a top of day one I wouldn't have wasted all this time it's like I'm just gonna steal a bike composed shot of him like him

on one side of a telegraph pole and the bike on the other and whether or not he's gonna like cross that kind of boundary back and forth there's so many shots of his face as he's like looking back at this and you see him wrestling

with it and eventually he goes for it he goes Bruno here's some money go and get on the tram home I'll meet you in a minute and he goes for it he walks over takes the bike gets on the bike and starts going away but this time there's a community

this time people are willing to stop the bike thief yeah thieves have class solidarity bourgeois have class solidarity and the thing about like heist movies right is that they often for a fantasy of, like, stealing from the rich, right? Stealing from the rich is a fatal fucking mistake,

and that's why most people who steal never do it, right? Like, because as happens, if you steal from someone rich enough, 50 other rich guys spawn on top of you, and you are sent to prison for a billion years. Like, robbery, theft is a crime best perpetrated against other poor people. That's the official stance of the podcast. Yes. Yeah.

Most effectively. And the thing is, we see the cops are ineffective. So we know that it has to be a class star alderity thing that like gets anything done. So it's like all of these rich-hands just like- You don't live any better from it stealing from poor people. Like you just get to be equally poor, but it's just it's a living. And so he he steals the bike and one million guys in suits and nice loafers just pour out of the fucking building.

It's just like after him. It's like Agent Smith's in the fucking Matrix reloaded, just like Italian dudes just bursting out of everywhere. Yeah, he gets pulled off the bike. He's getting like slapped and kicked and insulted. They pull him off the bike.

Bruno sees him cycle past. Yes. Pursued by a thousand richos. Bruno missed the tram. Yeah. And he sees all this happen. He watches his father getting caught and pulled off the bike

and everyone is slapping him and yelling him and the kid, like he runs up and he's crying and this guy who's had his bike stolen sees the kid and he sees this guy and he just goes oh get out of here yeah because they're talking about which police station to take him to because and again like legally both he and the first bicycle thief are equally guilty yeah but he's been caught red-handed and so he's like actually on the hook for this until the guy like pities him because he sees bruno crying yeah and he goes fine example you're setting for your kid, man.

It's like, oh. Oh, my God. I think about the line in parasite, like, I'd be nice to if I had that much money, right? Like, I'd set a better example for my kid, too. If I had a fucking bicycle, which I don't. I was setting a great example earlier on. We all saw it, but then my fucking bike got nicked.

Yeah. Yeah. Guy who did everything right, by chance, and I think the chance is what makes it so plausible. There's a bit that Bazin says about this, where he's like, there are bits in this movie where you feel like he could have found the bicycle and in that moment the lights would have gone up and the director would have come out and said sorry our bad

we really didn't think he was going to find it but he has good for him shows over oh damn fair enough it's like it's it's plausible and it's banal and so instead like he's they let him go and the last guy to sort of like kick him away says and you can thank god as well as well as well, which is like, again, because this is a quality of mercy that is not really, right? He's still in the fucking situation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he still doesn't have a bike. Yeah.

They walk away. It's like, again, if you're going to put this in a Christian framing, and we could have done this equally for religion season, right? Very true. We've had an entire church full of people, like invoking God in the same way that we've had a union hall sort of like invoking, you know, like help for the poor, but not helping the poor. Right. If you look at something Jesus actually said of, yeah, if someone wants your shirt, just fucking give him your shirt. The merciful thing to do there is not to be like, okay, we don't

put this guy in jail. It's to give him the fucking bicycle. No one does that, right? That's why it's such a weird thing to do. So instead we get them just like Antonio and Bruno just walking back into the crowd in the same way that we've seen all of the kind of background actors do. They become background actors. They hold hands and Bruno says something which was like really the line of the movie for me. He looks at his father and he says, watch any movie in series with subtitles for free, open subtitles.com. And I was like, damn, that really says it all, doesn't it?

Yeah. Really, the thing about the handholding is... I fucking love it when the movie with Subtitles does that. I'm just like, oh, hell yeah. I loved it in the transporter too. I was like, that's the best light of the movie. The thing about the handholding is, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's,

I think it's the moment when you see Bruno shift from seeing his father as his father, this kind of, like, God-like figure to, like, a human being. Because you have that moment with your parents, of course you do, where you realize that they're people. I remember that moment with my father at my grandmother's funeral. I remember taking my father's hand at that moment and realizing that he was a human being. It's so fucking powerful to put that on screen. I remember it too, but I can't mention it because I know he listens to this.

And to have it happen in something, the facts of which are so ostensibly unimportant. We know why they're important to the characters, but it's like the plot of this movie from a sort of like, if you zoom out to a societal level, might never have happened, you know? It's not something you could write like a newspaper article about, you know? like man man has bicycle stolen and and you're just left with this like life continues you endure or you don't you're still poor and you just kind of disappear back into the crowd yeah we don't find out what happens to them no and what we get my my open subtitles moment is um what's the what's the italian for the end it comes up and it comes up and it comes up and it goes fine and i'm like yep it's pretty good We've got to watch more Swedish movies because the Swedish for end is slut.

Really good. Yeah. I'm often being told that when I finish. Fine slut. And that's the movie, the bicycle thieves. What the fuck will be learned about? Mastery. Antonio, which will return in bicycle thieves to second gear.

Ficycle Thieves Hell on Wheels There's a post-credits theme where he gets recruited by fucking Putting together an initiative What's the name of the fucking guy with the iPatch? Avengers Nick Fury There it is, God

Oh, I've forgotten That's so perfect You know what I'm happy with that I'm okay to forget Marvel stuff I think what we've learned from this movie that masculinity is socially constructed and massively constrained by the material conditions your dad is a person your dad is a person

your dad's a person he has to make decisions all the time your dad is the person that he is because he grew up in a certain context right and that presented to itself not as like a political theory so much as like the imminent bare facts of his life yeah he didn't fall off the dad tree he exists in the context of all that came before and the beautiful woman that you are today, you are the way that you are because of social reproduction of those things as well

as those conditions, right? So, like, it's not just your own conditions that you are a transsexual woman, you also contain within you, like, the social conditions of your parents, right? Because this stuff is sort of, like, heritable. And, yeah, yeah, like, masculinity can contain sort of really brutal violence that, as often as not, is born out of desperation. And it's just sort of like drawing that line to be like you know sometimes it's sort of the arrogance of power which you see with the thieves sometimes it's like the helplessness of the disempowered right we don't know but ultimately like we are all prisoners of it and you can try and sort of like think these things out and try and react to them but um as I say the like the really brutal stuff has a way of

presenting as just like imminent facts about your life yeah um like whether or not you can And class. Class is so, so fucking important. Listeners, if you're not a communist, consider it. Become one now. Trans your gender. Trans your gender, well, I'll tell you what,

trans and your gender will do some very interesting things to your class position lists. You will become aware of some, yeah. If you get involved in your community, you can steal bikes and they will defend you. That's pretty true. If you properly, you know, if you're like, like a real like go-getter for the people in your in your environment then you know they'll trust you

start start getting into a sort of like mutual mutual aid bike theft ring um absolutely i guess that's a lesson for you if you already are a communist which is um your your theoretical communism is very useful but you have to go out and steal bikes i mean do breaklight clinics i mean like you have to help people where they are first you have to help it like don't steal from the rich they've got the police on their side you have to you have to sort of like dig people out of the rubble enough that they're able to, like, you know, think about the communism. And that's when you hit him with the communism. That's the last movie.

But we don't have to... We don't just have to rate this movie communistically. Oh, you're so right. We can read it scientific. We don't have to sort of like do practical things. We can do theoretical things, such as the scum system, our objective marker for how good movies are. Stans for Saddle, Post... You think it's theoretical.

There's a physical scum in a bunker in France. Like one scum They try to redefine it as the length of time It takes one particle of light To like watch the movie The Bicycle Thieves But it didn't really work out It's a 12th of carbon 12 Get a grip

It stands for Smam Cultural Insensitivity Unprovoked Violence Misogony I feel like this is kind of Not a good schema For talking about this movie

How Smarmy is this movie Not phenomenally so Zero Zero points It's got a couple It's got a couple of bits with the genuflecting. I think it's a bit like, yeah, it's a funny gag. I don't know, I'm clutching its straws, though.

I think that's just a joke. Yeah, I think that's just a joke. Yeah, one. The soundtrack gets a bit melodramatic at the end. I think it's a bit, yeah, no, I give it one, but I think even that's kind of unfair. Very true, but it's also so sincere and we take points off for sincerity. Give it zero. Zero, but I think it's zero.

It's not, it's not smarmy at all. It's the antithesis of slum. Yeah. No, no. Unprovoked violence Cultural insensitivity Cultural insensitivity first Cultural insensitivity

It's not the sum system Oh yeah Suck them Sorry My name Cultural insensitivity I mean it does include a racist comedy song

Which we didn't mention It does Yeah In the Titoria They are singing about They're singing racistly They are They are yes, that's true

And there are no people of colour In the film as far as I know That's true Which there could well be Is the thing That's very true reason to say that there might not be and to present your your vision of Rome is yeah I don't know we do like two for a mission I really don't think there's any I don't think there's more than that

in it beyond the song which might bump it up to a three so yeah yeah it seems weird that like race doesn't play a part of this at all yeah think they could have worked that it's that there is there is definitely a critique of capital that you you need to be doing with race that it doesn't but then there's one of misogyny that it also doesn't do because it's the film that it is right um it's it is a it's a film about father and son and they're both white i i i don't know i would say three but i also don't think it maps on very well to my feelings about the film yeah yeah i agree i think two i think omission is is what it does okay i don't think three is justified we'll go to then okay okay unprovoked violence there are there is some but the film

explicitly tells us that it's bad. Yeah. Yeah. Like, he gets so frustrated, but he lashes out at his son. He starts lashing out at the people around him. And every time it, like, makes his situation worse. It, like, reduces his standing in the situation that he's in. I don't think there's anything.

Yeah, the movie immediately takes Bruno's side and shows us how horrible this is. Yeah. And, I mean, I think the movie also, arguably, says that there's no such thing as unprovoked violence in that it's all provoked by society, right? Like, there is a kind of, like, there is a greater violence you are a victim to that then sort of like causes you to do that. Like, even the bicycle thief, because I think it's important that the thieves are, that like, the actual bicycle thief, that's a piece of shit, right?

Like, I don't think that he's really like smug about it. And like, obviously he's not living in good conditions, right? But like, I don't think any of these people feel bad. I think that still matters because you can then go, okay, sure, but they still live in the same social conditions, right? like they're still created in the same way, even if it's not through outright desperation. So, again, I'm thinking like one or zero

in the sense that, like, it depicts it, but strongly negatively, you know? Zero? Zero again, yeah, sure. Yeah, no, genuinely. And then, misogyny. There's a moment that we didn't mention, but when they, when they, and I think it's a good thing, I like it,

when they go into the brothel pursuing the bicycle thief, a lesser movie would have done a bunch of gags about, like, you know, women in sexy lingerie, coming up, they're like, ah, and like running away. No, the movie doesn't do that. They go into the kitchen and the girls are on their lunch break, fully clothed, just eating lunch, like, what are you doing in here? Like, this is where we work.

And they are portrayed as like, workers on a break. And, like, the movie so easily could have done a bit of, like, titillation there and chooses not to. It completely normalizes them, which I really, really value. I like it, too. Maria is not sort of drawn as a sort of, like, huge character, but she has a kind of nobility about her. She's the one who, like, takes the impetus to make a couple of the

really big decisions in the film. I think if I have to like really work at it for this, then there are times when it really wants to attribute a kind of disgust for various kinds of people praying on the poor, it likes to make them women. Like there's a, there's a real kind of cinematic distaste for the rich women running the kind of church mission or the fortune teller. And the fortune teller is a bit more ambiguous, but there is a, there's a real, real kind of, there's a little bit of venom to the kind of last shots of her where she's like

refusing to handle money herself, right? Like, there are also rich dudes in the church. Yeah, that's, this is very true. I think it, I think that's me reaching, right? I think that it's, I don't think that you can make any criticism of a woman without it being in some level tinge with misogyny because misogyny is like, our whole society's based in it, right? I think that it's not doing that from a misogynistic place specifically.

I don't think it has that intention. So I'm down to like one, basically. Yeah, I think there's potentially, like, you could have said more about class and gender, although I suppose it does show us what was true at the time, which is that, you know, Maria is dependent on Antonio getting a job. Like, nobody's going to hire her, like, still in the 40s, for fuck's sake. Like, she can't even get a bank account on her own. So it depicts it, which is true

It doesn't really offer a critique of that Maybe very implicitly It depicts it as true And I guess we are to take from this The state of things are wrong Yes, very true Her struggling with the sort of buckets of water And him sort of like forgetting to help her

And then catching himself, I think is a good example Or like the fact that while he and the other men are waiting To be given jobs, the other women are like working That's very true. It does show us that. They're doing housework. Yeah, they're doing domestic labour. They're not just sitting around, yeah. Well, in that case, one or two? One.

One. It's like, what it's showing is what was occurring at the time, so it's not misogynistic to depict it. Which is the idea with neorealism. So I think we might have found the cinematic style that hacks the scum system, for one thing. Yeah, it turns out if you're just like a Marxist and you're depicting things because they exist as they are, then we can't really complain about it because we agree.

We, I'm pretty certain we've, we've given Marxist films bad reviews before, like we, and I'm sure we will do in future, but like, oh, certainly. The, specifically the neorealism, again, is, is like, yeah, I, this is really, this is the best film we've ever done, which is, it may be. This is the total score of three, which is the best film we've ever done. It has dethroned Top Carpe and the Quilla Memorandum down into silver medal status. it's now unopposed, single occupant of the gold medal podium, bicycle thieves. Best film we've ever seen.

That is incredible and well-deserved, genuinely. What a time to end on, end the year on. Yeah, what a bang-up. A multi-year research project, the results of which has to tell you that the bicycle thieves, one of the best films of all time, is a slightly better film than the born identity. Objectively, it is. I also say that movies exist on a spectrum

from the bicycle thieves to Rambo 4. So far, every movie we've seen Okiy, like it's somewhere between those two. Yeah. Fuck, what did Rambo 4 score ago? Rambo 4 was a 36, which is like...

It was 36, well. You can know, the maximum is 40, like, even if you're like full punitive. So it's hard to imagine either one of these being... Theoretically, there could be a worse movie than Rambo 4. And there could be a better movie, too.

So we will continue a hundred. maybe we can do a really interesting double feature of Rapper 4 and the bicycle things. It's just the gamut of all filmmaking in the human history. What they teach you in Harvard Business School, what they don't teach you in half of business school. What they teach you on the podcast, Kill James Bond. Also, this movie was made in 1948.

Like, every movie we've seen on the podcast has been made since then and has been worse. We should have stopped then. Could you just stop then? Well, yeah. Yeah, actually, a little bit. Like, I do think we kind of cracked cinema on the 40s. Modern filmmaking is a quest to make a worse film than the bicycle theme. All right, well, we've solved it.

That's the end for the mainline episode this season. The, uh, we, for the rest of a year, it's all party time, baby. Oh, fantastic. Next week on the bonus feed. No, shit. Next week on the free feed. It's all free for the rest of the month. It's December.

Yeah. Next week on the free feed, it's diehard four. for our Christmas festival and then the week afterwards we are doing Diamonds of Forever with no notes so Godspeed to everyone involved on that

Can I do a little plug? Yeah, hell yeah, why not? Listeners on the 20th of December I'm going to be doing a charity live stream I'm reading the entirety of Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol Live on stream on YouTube to raise money for World Central Kitchen

They're a charity that feeds people who've suffered natural disasters like the hurricanes in Puerto Rico earlier this year and the LA wildfires and also man-made disasters that have been active in Gaza and Ukraine so if you want to hear me read

some Charles Dickens to you in a Christmassy mood 20th of December we're raising money for good cause I'll post about it on all my socials and stuff but I do come along if you would like to listen fantastic well thank you so much for listening

do that subscribe to the Patreon and we will see you next time bye everyone bye bye Thank you for listening to yet another episode of Kill James Bond. Next week on the free feed, because it is the holiday season and we're giving these stuff away. It's the spirit.

It's the spirit of the season. It's giving, things of this nature. It is our Christmas special, which is obviously Die Hard 4, a Christmas movie. And in two weeks time, also on the free feed, is Diamonds are Forever with no notes. I don't really know what happens in Diamonds Are Forever. That's the one where the guy is like, Baja. I don't have any holdings in Baja. That's one of the main things I remember.

So I'm pretty sure I can take that germ and just sort of like expand that out and remember the entire movie. I fucking know Abby will be able to. I'm not too worried. Anyway, sorry, there's gonna be waffling on. Special thanks, as always, to our 15 pounds and above patrons, and those are, low, beyonds, Frere Aloysius, Candy Fox, no name, Gustavo Lira, Helspeth Haunt, Jordan Gammie, Nick Boris, Frankenstein, Hannah Oberhard, Trump,

Trump allegedly dicked down, George Rohack, Canada will remember Devon's promise, Yarek, please re-release the KJB Vault T-shirt. The thing is, we haven't put that T-shirt out yet. we've got it on it's it's in like a break glass in case of emergency we need to afford something for the podcast like people will buy this it's like you'll know we want something when we put that shirt up melody moro gonzalez live free or cry labor delender est all i want for christmas is a cow bikini bond again break glass in case of emergency it's there we have an

artist on board who is willing to draw the cow bikini bond worm like a devil kill jane's bond highlights, library hitman, Saiga. We'll probably do it. We'll probably do it. Max Germainhart, Giganta 0234. The Project Project, Joseph Sosha, Tripp, Jack Drummond, Arashi of Ordo, 3, Vinifera, Chelsea Rose, cosmic parking lot, the grungler. Desirex12, it's the damn grungler. Pupnapped puppy princess, Reese with a Louis Vuitton collar. Rhododendron, K-Mabey-O-K, Athena V, Danielle has finally figured out how to change her display name. Wonderful. Molly Power Slide. Ashley, full name time. Penal sparing vaginoplasty. Committing to the bit is too much work. Arizona Frog Strangler. Annie Ruby has some sort of silly Canadian creature. Anhedonia.

I still love. This is one of my favorite ones, by the way, Anne. I think about this one every time I go past it. I never comment on it, but it's really good. Staz has actual Anhedonia. Cool. That's pretty cool too. Silly Vixant, Lady Hounstew, Science Daddy, Robert De Niro in the Heat, and I'm not apologising. Claire, Tim Welsh, Cagerden, Kill James Bond is November, Abigail and Devon, Chris Roth, Mae Victoria Roth turned in her badge and laptop, gender swap podcast, my best friend, my personal best friend Devon's Parasocial Butterfly, Crush Hazard, Ray, Anya Top, Joyous Ooo, Vita Braver, Liz Rossie, Gay Rat, Claire Baker, Saturday's Claire, Shannon, you slightly impressed me, Finn Ross, Kayenne Belladonna, Devon, Devin needs to stop being so sexy, Krista Swisher, Meat Popsicle, Daniel,

Commander Freddy, April, disposable lesbian. Well, I think you, ah, April. Slut Kevin, Envious MVP, Mortran, Elite Erin, Anya Shinneganes, Claire Voyance, Rubrik, Clarification, Lady Ariane, Delta, Echo, Victor, Alex, Isobodgal, Casquatch, Obsidian Polymer, Seng Shen, Liz and Ash of the University of Florida, Walscott, Nobles Oblohyte, John 208,9, Witch Hazel, Josh Simmons, Megabe, Loz Pycock, Mistress Angelo A-Lis, The Duck Whisperer, Zoe Shepherd, Philippa is still catching up with KJB, Cassandra, Wolfie is Normal, Misidentified Lemon, talkative Tiger,

Carriette, Al Irwing, Emily Queen of Sloths, Robert Greensmith, Turfs eat shit and die alone, Abigail, Magpie, Charlotte with a D, small twink energy, Lauren Bastin, Merrill is not a vampire, but she may be in love? Nice, nice, that's pretty good. Being in love fucking rocks dog. Valerius, Sadnalia, festive lesbian bug witch.

armored contempt and tiny lily thank you all for being subscribers of the show kill james bond is of course november abigail and devon our producer is the wonderful mr name of say our art is by john de luka and our website is by tom allen and we will see you next time I'm going to be able to I'm going to be.