The Big Picture - 4. Top Guns | Gene and Roger

Episode Date: August 3, 2021

The '80s were the blockbuster era—and Siskel and Ebert were its blockbuster film critics. It was the decade in which Gene and Roger would realize the full extent of their powers, as well as their limitations. And it would find them making yet another high-profile business decision, one that would have big consequences for Gene. Host: Brian Raftery Producers: Amanda Dobbins, Sean Fennessey, Isaac Lee, Noah Malale, Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the 80s, going out to the movies was kind of a risky business. Sometimes all you knew about the latest release was who was in it and what the trailer looked like, without any idea if it was actually good. If you were lucky, like I was, you lived near a city with really good local film critics to help guide your decisions. Yet somehow, even with their help, I still wound up seeing dozens of crummy movies. I once blew an entire week's allowance on Crocodile Dundee 2. In those days, moviegoers often had to rely on word of mouth, whether it came from friends or from critics. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert counted as both, and millions of people cared about what they had to say. Even really powerful people, like ex-Beatle powerful.

In 1984, Paul McCartney starred in what was supposed to be his big Hollywood breakthrough, a fantasy musical titled Give My Regards to Broad Street. Gene, being Gene, hustled to get an interview with McCartney for the Chicago Tribune. And Gene, again being Gene, started their conversation by telling McCartney he didn't like his film.

The truth is it's just disappointing you don't like it. You happen to be a heavy critic. It would be handier for you to like it. Still, that's your power. You get to play with that. I don't play with it. And when Gene tells McCartney that Roger disliked the movie too,

well... So you mean on nationwide television you said, I actually didn't like it and I would have rather done... What am I fucking sitting here with you for? I know. Come on. I know. Did you dig this guy?

In the morning. In the morning. That weekend, Paul's movie flopped at the box office. And while it wasn't necessarily Gene and Roger's fault, their negative reviews certainly didn't help. At the same time, if Gene and Roger got really excited about a new movie, there were people who'd line up to see it as soon as possible. Even if it was a strange-sounding little film

about two people sitting in a restaurant and just talking. Okay, our next film is one of my favorites for the year. It's My Dinner with Andre, and it's a film as simple as a movie can be, consisting almost entirely of an hour-and-a-half-long dinner conversation between a writer and a stage director in a New York restaurant. Just conversation.

But what conversation? Well, I've never seen another film like this, and I don't know if there could be another film like this, but I'm glad this film is like it is. Directed by French filmmaker Louis Malle, My Dinner with Andre stars Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory as two chatty intellectuals, one dressed in a blazer, one wearing a sweater, who are locked in a never-ending conversation about life and art.

You can probably guess why Gene and Roger fell for it. The movie is like listening to a radio play play in that although you see two people on the screen in your mind you're also seeing these strange and weird and wonderful scenes and experiences. It's spellbinding. It's a wonderful movie. And this to me knocks all of the notions about what movies have to be into a cock-tag because here we are with Hollywood cinema spending tens of millions of dollars to faithfully recreate towns and villages and everything else,

and here, with people talking at a dinner table, it's just as fascinating, more so. You're absolutely right. It's really going to be one of my... When Gene and Roger's review aired in late 1981, it was more than a rave. It was like someone grabbing you by the shoulders, pointing you in the direction of the nearest theater and saying, you've got to see this. At the time, My Dinner with Andre was playing in just a handful of cities. But Gene & Roger's Review was beamed to viewers across the country.

One of them was film critic Alonzo Duralde. It was certainly not the kind of thing that would have been on my radar. Back then, Duralde was a 15-year-old movie lover who'd been following Siskel and Ebert from the time they'd started on PBS. Duralde watched their show from his home in suburban Atlanta. There were no art house theaters nearby, and Duralde was too young to drive. I dragooned a friend of mine who did have a driver's license, and we went and saw it. And I saw it multiple times in the theater. I bought

the published screenplay like I you know that was a real sort of like I felt like I had now graduated into the world of like fancy schmancy arthouse cinema because I had seen this movie about you know two gentlemen having a dinner conversation and and yeah I only saw that movie because Siskel and Ebert told me so forcefully that I needed to. In the days and weeks to movie because Siskel and Ebert told me so forcefully that I needed to. In the days and weeks to come, the Siskel and Ebert effect played out nationwide. Jessie Beaton saw it firsthand. She's a film producer now, but in the early 80s, Beaton was a theater programmer specializing in arthouse and indie films.

I had some partners here in San Francisco that had a small independent theater, and they had booked my dinner with Andre for their Christmas film. That's when it was being released, you know, a couple weeks before Christmas. We opened the film, and it was just flat. No business whatsoever. After Gene and Roger's review, that changed overnight. And in the next three days, that film grossed more money than it had in the three weeks. I mean, it just literally flipped the very next day. And the show ran for like almost six months.

Thanks to Gene and Roger's endorsement, one theater in New York City decided to keep My Dinner with Andrea around for a few more weeks. Then a few more months. It wound up playing there for an entire year. Even in the 80s, that was rare. Later, the filmmakers would give Siskel and Ebert credit for helping to keep the movie alive. It was one of the many low-budget films Gene and Roger would champion in the years ahead. Movies like Tampopo, El Norte, The Brother from Another Planet. But the 80s were the era of the blockbuster.

And while Gene and Roger were still trusted tastemakers, they were covering an industry that was hooked on box office receipts. In the next several years, the film business would get bigger, louder, and more aggressive. And so would the films themselves. Before the decade was over, the movies would become corporatized. And so would Siskel and Ebert. For The Ringer, I'm Brian Raftery. And this is Gene and Roger.

When Gene and Roger began working together in the mid-70s, he didn't need a massive budget to have a smash movie. One of the earliest films they reviewed together, Rocky, cost less than a million dollars to make. When Rocky IV was produced almost a decade later, its budget was 30 times higher. By then, the studios were used to spending tens of millions of dollars on a single film. Hollywood was changing in the 80s.

Big sequels, big salaries, big spectacles. And America was changing too. It was the era of deal-making and unchecked money lust. A time when the rich got even richer, thanks in part to a telegenic ex-movie star. Then tell me, future boy, who's president of the United States in 1985? Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan? The actor? Then who's vice president? Jerry Lewis?

In the Reagan years, greed, for lack of a better word, was good. And the movies released that decade reflected that. Studio executives had to make a lot of money, so they spent a lot of money, pouring it into ambitious action films and splashy franchise movies. Some of them flopped, like David Lynch's Dune, or Staying Alive, the disastrous sequel to Gene's beloved Saturday Night Fever. But when a film like Top Gun can make nearly $200 million in theaters, plus millions more on home video, the rewards seem to justify the risks.

As a result, films like My Dinner with Andre became all the more rare. And from the moment the decade began, Siskel and Ebert often found themselves frustrated by the new New Hollywood. 1980 has not been one of the greatest years in the history of American movies. Lousy. And by the end of 1989,

things hadn't gotten much better. This year, bad films came at us so thick and fast that it seemed more efficient to single out the worst tendencies of the year, tendencies responsible for lots and lots of bad films. And because 80s movies often required massive marketing campaigns to succeed, many of the movies Siskel and Ebert criticized would go on to become huge hits.

As Roger acknowledged years later, their thumbs could only go so far. Do you think you have the power to put people in the theater? I wish I did. People say, do film critics have too much power? We don't have nearly. Well, the power can be negative. You can keep people out, but can you put them in the theater? We can't keep them out, and we can help a movie. We can help a movie by sharing our enthusiasm. We can't necessarily hurt a movie that is destined help a movie by sharing our enthusiasm. We can't necessarily hurt a movie that is destined to be a big hit

anyway. Gene and Roger had been spoiled in the early days of their careers. Remember, they'd started their movie review jobs in the late 60s, right as a younger generation of filmmakers and actors was taking over the studios. Back then, the two critics could walk into a theater

or a screening room and rightfully expect to see something amazing. Mean Streets, Nashville, scenes from a marriage. That's why the 80s took Siskel and Ebert by surprise. Right now, you're probably putting together a list of your favorite 80s movies and wondering, wait, how could anyone dislike that decade? And it's true. Many of the movies on my all-time favorites list come from that era. Let's see, Repo Man, Do the Right Thing, Rares of the Lost Ark, Just by Seeking Susan, Aliens,

Broadcast News, oh shit I forgot about Purple Rain, and Risky Business, oh and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Gene and Roger loved a lot of those films, too. Some of them even wound up on their best-of-the-year lists, along with movies like Working Girl and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. They were never snooty about smart popcorn films, the kind of movies Gene once described as well-made fun. In fact, a few years ago, a clip of Siskel and Ebert

on the news show Nightline randomly went viral. It's from the summer of 1983, just around the time Return of the Jedi was released. And it features Gene and Roger debating John Simon, the notorious film critic for New York Magazine. Simon hated the Star Wars films. Obviously, let's face it, they are for children or for childish adults. They're not for adult mentalities, which unfortunately means that they're not for a lot of my fellow critics who also lack adult mentalities. But anyway.

I totally disagree with Mr. Simon. I don't know what he did as a child, but I spent a lot of my Saturday matinees watching science fiction movies and serials and having a great time and being stimulated. And I would say not that I'm childlike, but that he is old at heart. Even though Siskel and Ebert loved the Star Wars movies,

not to mention 70s hits like Jaws and Superman, those mega smashes did a lot of damage to the Hollywood they'd once known. The fact that movies could now make nine figures at the box office convinced executives to chase as many blockbusters as possible. At the same time, throughout the 80s, some of Hollywood's biggest studios were gobbled up by massive corporations. Rupert Murdoch

bought 20th Century Fox. Coca-Cola bought Columbia Pictures, then sold it to Sony. The new overlords didn't want to take too many chances. They wanted huge opening weekends and massive profits. And in the 80s, they went after younger moviegoers with a vengeance. The American movie industry is in danger of being And in the 80s, they went after younger moviegoers with a vengeance. The American movie industry is in danger of being overrun by films designed to appeal to youthful audiences, thus crowding out adult movies. Some film companies seem to be thinking, judging from the movies they're making,

that if you're going to make it big now, you had better make it juvenile. That often meant making sequels, which for years have been considered the safest way to earn a buck. If you want to bring kids into theaters, give them something they've already had before, but make it stupider. In one episode alone, Gene and Roger reviewed Fry the 13th Part 5, Police Academy 2, their first assignment,

Porky's 2, the next day, and Missing in Action 2, the beginning. They were so annoyed, they brought out one of their animal co-stars for a cameo. Looks like we have another visitor in the set. Yes, and he's packed out already. A roll of the educated skunk because it's four sequels today, four lousy movies. If all these complaints sound familiar, about the non-stop sequels, the endless movies for kids, and the giant corporations that make them all possible,

keep in mind, Hollywood might evolve in a lot of ways, but it's always been a business. Many of the problems Gene and Roger saw in the 80s were the same ones fans and critics worried about decades earlier, and that we're still dealing with now. We'll be right back. It wasn't just sequels that irritated Siskel and Ebert in those years. They also waged an ongoing battle against the slasher flicks that dominated the decade. Gene and Roger had loved the 70s classic Halloween. But a few years later, they'd dedicate an entire half hour attacking movies like Fry

the 13th and When a Stranger Calls. It's always the same. The girl is at home alone, the menacing attacker, the ringing telephone, the wide frightened eyes. I think there's something terribly wrong when an image like that becomes the building block of an entire movie genre. That episode had an appropriately provocative title, Extreme Violence Directed at Women. It comes up a lot when people look back at Siskel and Ebert's decades of reviews. Yeah, I mean, there are a lot of artless and, you know, soulless 1980s horror movies, but they lump a lot of things under that umbrella. And there are a lot of those films, I think, that hold up in a way or that were trying to comment upon the thing that Roger and Gene were sort of accusing them of just sort of promoting. And so, you know, that's a moment where I think you guys maybe could have chilled out a little,

especially after I saw Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which is like Roger wrote a scene in which, you know, a lesbian fillets a gun before her head is blown off. I'm like, all right, then I don't want to hear from you about I spit on your grave, you know? Doralde just touched on one of the most interesting aspects of Gene and Roger's time together. When you look at their body of work over the decades, those hours of videos and years of newspaper clips, their opinions weren't always consistent. I don't mean that in a bad way.

What I mean is, Gene and Roger weren't dogmatic about what kind of movies they did or didn't like. Sure, they had their biases. And their hang-ups. But one of the reasons viewers kept tuning in was because, every time you thought you'd figured out exactly what was a Gene movie or a Roger movie, they'd wind up surprising you. It was tough to predict which ways their thumbs would go. For example, there's a common perception that Roger gave a pass to a lot of sci-fi and fantasy films, while Gene was too hard on them. But Roger actually gave a negative review to The Thing, one of the most

beloved sci-fi movies of the 80s. The movie just basically is an excuse for this very gruesome and repellent creature to gross us out. It is the most nauseating thing I've ever seen on a movie screen, I think. That's quite a statement. Yes, I think I'll stand behind it. I think that the...

I wish you could see the look of shock on Gene's face there. It's one of the few times he was actually speechless on the show, even if it was only for a second. Gene liked the thing, which is also a bit surprising. You sometimes see people online complaining that Gene was tougher on popcorn movies than Roger, and maybe a little more uptight in general. But that's not really fair. You know what 80s movies got a thumbs up from Gene?

Critters. And Real Genius. And the breakdancing drama Beat Street, which he even compared to Saturday Night Fever. It's a common story, and I think it was beautifully told. So I do like the film. I wish more breakdancing had been shot better in this film. If there had been more breakdancing shot better,

I would have given it a thumbs up. Between 1980 and 1989, Siskel and Ebert reviewed more than a thousand movies on their show. And while they were frustrated by Hollywood's lust for blockbusters, it probably helped their ratings. In 1984, moviegoers spent more than $4 billion

on tickets, a record at the time. Films like Beverly Hills Cop and Ghostbusters ruled popular culture. And as a result, more and more viewers tuned in to Siskel and Ebert. That helped them reach a level of pop culture fame that surpassed many of the filmmakers they reviewed. Most movie fans had no idea what Robert Zemeckis looked like, but they could definitely spot Siskel and Ebert.

They were recognizable enough to be parodied in Mad Magazine, and to be spoofed in Robert Townsend's great 1987 satire, Hollywood Shuffle. Welcome to Sneakin' in the Movies. My name is Speed, and this is my homeboy, Tyrone, and we are like movie critics and shit. We're not really peaked this. Each week, me and my boy, you know, we go to different theaters and stuff and sneak in and check out the movie. Then we come back and tell y'all what's up, like if y'all should pay money and shit. Not long after Gene and Roger made the jump from PBS to syndication, At The Movies was averaging more than 10 million viewers a week

and earning Gene and Roger regular Emmy nominations, plus a reported half a million dollars a year for each of them. Having a show that was both prestigious and profitable made Siskel and Ebert a hot commodity within the TV industry. In the early years of their career, syndicated television was seen as cheap and forgettable, a world of reruns and celebrity fishing programs. But by the mid-'80s, syndicated TV was taking off and making a lot of people very rich.

Wheel of Fortune! It's time for the Family Feud! And now, here is the host of Jeopardy, Alex Trebek! Game shows were pulling in tens of millions of viewers, proving there was an untapped audience for syndicated shows, programs that could run five days a week, morning, noon, or night. As the 80s went on, TV schedules began filling up with gossip programs like Entertainment Tonight, as well as talk shows from Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey.

At the movies didn't quite fit in with those other syndicated hits. It aired weekly, not monthly. And episodes had shorter shelf lives. No one was going to watch Gene and Roger in reruns, talking about films that had come out months earlier. But it was critically acclaimed and cheap to make, the kind of show any executive would want to own. Which is why in 1986, Jamie Bennett was surprised to learn

that Gene and Roger were having problems with Tribune Broadcasting, the company that syndicated at the movies. Bennett was an executive at Buena Vista Television, the TV company owned by Walt Disney. He was also a Chicago TV veteran who'd known Gene and Roger since the 70s. That spring, Bennett traveled to New Orleans for an industry conference.

Siskel and Ebert were there, too. One day, Bennett bumped into Gene coming out of an elevator and asked how things were going at Tribute Entertainment. And he went like this and sort of pulled me aside. He said, these stupid people have brought me and Roger to the convention, and we're not even under contract at this point in time. He said, it's like taking your girlfriend to a dating bar for a night out.

I mean, he said, it's crazy. A few minutes later, another bold-faced name walked out of that same elevator, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood executive whose historic career includes jobs at Paramount, DreamWorks, and Quibi. But in the 80s, Katzenberg was in charge of Walt Disney Studios' movie division. The company had struggled for years and had lost some credibility in Hollywood. Getting a blue-chip duo like Gene and Roger would give the company some quick prestige.

You know, I said, we probably can't make much money at it, but, you know, it's something to put in our portfolio of shows. And he said, get it done. And he literally walked off. Somehow, the Tribune Entertainment executive who was in charge of renewing Gene and Roger's contract had let it lapse. According to Roger, it had been sitting on a desk, unsigned, for weeks. Gene and Roger used the New Orleans conference to let everyone know they were on the market. At one point, Gene pinned a piece of paper with the words, Working Without a Contract, inside his coat and jokingly showed it off.

The two critics had also come to New Orleans with their agent. You know, just in case. By the time the conference was over, Gene and Roger had outlined a deal with Disney. The company agreed to pay them each a million dollars a year, twice what they'd been making with Tribune Entertainment. Plus, they'd get a percentage of the show profits. When news of the deal broke, Gene's bosses at the Chicago Tribune were furious.

He'd been with the Tribune company for nearly 20 years. Now, he was leaving their TV division for Disney. The Chicago Tribune retaliated by stripping Gene of his film critic title and reducing him to a weekly columnist. Gene had plenty of other gigs to fill his time, but he was hurt by the Tribune's decision. He didn't talk to the press about his fallout with the Tribune. Instead, his most vocal defender was his one-time nemesis, Roger. As Chaz Ebert recalls, Roger was frustrated by how unfairly Gene was being treated. I don't think the Tribune knew back then that Roger had gone to open a path for Gene to leave the Tribune and come over to the Sun-Times because he felt so protective of him.

It didn't have to happen because the Tribune and Dean got back together. But Roger, I mean, he had gone out of his way. And someone said, but that means that you wouldn't be the only main critic. He said, I don't care. It's a matter of principle. And when the two went on Letterman not long afterward, it was Roger who did a lot of the talking. Oh, the Tribune was mad at you.

That's what... For what reason? Well, they said he was overworked. And my question is, if he had renewed with the Tribune company, would he have been overworked, or would he be still the Tribune's film critic? And my answer to that is yes. But I've already been informed by the editor of the Tribune that I don't know blank about the Chicago Tribune

and I'm sure that's true. Boy, this is ugly, isn't it? I'm sorry I got into it. Messy, ugly. You have a new show now? Just bring on the movies. Let us review the movies. That's all we want to do. Settle down. Settle down. The 80s had transformed the movie business, the TV business, even the

Siskel and Ebert business. They'd started the decade as scrappy public TV heroes and ended up as valuable corporate assets. But as they moved to their next home, Gene and Roger no longer had the balcony to themselves. Suddenly, the small screen

was full of wannabe Siskel and Eberts. Next time on Gene and Roger. Of course, you liked the debates and you were hoping they would get into an argument. That was the best part when you were younger. You're just like, I hope they fight today. I mean, you didn't want them to agree too much. I saw civilized men who really respected each other's opinions and who knew that they both thought they were like the smartest guys in the room. I know they liked matching wits.

I mean, Gene and Roger were like Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker in the same room together. People didn't understand that what made Gene and Roger work was not the format. It was Gene and Roger. Without Gene and Roger, it just didn't quite work so well. Gene and Roger is written and reported by me, Brian Rachtery, with

story editing by Amanda Dobbins. The show was executive produced by Sean Fennessy. Our producers are Amanda Dobbins, Noah Malalay, Bobby Wagner, and Isaac Lee. Music and sound design by Isaac Lee. Copy editing was done by Craig Gaines and fact checking by Kellen B. Coates. Our art director is David Shoemaker. Illustration by Eddie Feig.

Thank you for listening.