Christopher Media, let's make some noise.
Rolly Tyler is an FX-man.
The movie's master of Make Believe.
He can show you a thousand ways to die.
They got him!
Got him!
Great special effects!
But now somebody wants Rolly Tyler to do it for real.
We want to stage a fake assassination, Rolly,
and we want you to supervise it.
It is the way Justice Department.
I'm a special FX man, ideally Mike Believe.
I'd like to keep it like that.
We just thought that we might be able to utilize your particular genius to help us out.
And what if someone takes a shot at me?
You are 100% protected. I give you my word.
A job that guy wanted me to do?
I got to do it.
But someone else is writing the script.
And casting him is the killer.
He hasn't done anything.
What if he put in real bullets?
One person, one person suspects.
Sorry, Rolly. No loose ends.
[GROAN]
Let this out of something!
They tried to kill me!
You go directly to the newspapers.
What makes you think that belid me?
I believe you.
My name is Leo.
We need to talk.
Where the hell are you, Tyler?
He's going to need every trip from every movie he's ever made.
Remember my particular genius just to get even.
And get out of lie.
I'm in pursuit of a blue step, man.
Letters on the side.
X as in Frank. X as in X-ring.
Remember, Skidball Express?
I should have done it!
No!
I'm gonna go and get you a fake this time.
But Rolly Tyler's most special effects are yet to come.
Forget why you hired me.
What?
At the next corner, Centellin!
Oh my god!
Is he the weapon?
Or the victim?
Is it murder?
What is it?
FX.
Welcome to the projection booth.
I'm your host, Mike Boydjour, and once again is Mr. Jeddair Ayers.
Thanks for having me.
Also back in the booth this week is Mr. Adam Shartoff.
Good on you, mites.
This week we're discussing FX, also known sometimes as FX Murder by Illusion.
It's the story of Rolly Taylor, a movie special effects man, FX.
You get it?
Who is hired by two government agents to stage the public assassination of a mob boss who's turned state evidence.
What better way to keep the mob off his tail than by "killing him?"
But things don't necessarily turn out as easy as that.
Now we're going to be getting to Spoilers' Glow for this movie.
So if you haven't seen FX or its sequel or the TV show, maybe we'll touch on that as well.
You have been warned.
So Jeddair, when was the first time you saw FX and what did you think?
You know, it's one of those films that seems like it was always on TV for
a period of time when I lived in Denver.
It came out the year I moved to Denver, '86, and then the sequel came out in '91 and I moved away from Denver in '92.
So FX to me is all about my time in Denver.
It just seems like something I was very aware of, but I honestly cannot tell you when the first time I actually saw the movie all the way through.
Because I feel like I was very, very aware of it because of the trailers. It looked really cool to me.
I don't know when I actually saw it start to finish though, but I've seen it several times in the last couple of decades.
How about you, Eddam?
Of course, I was living down in a Melbourne who was playing at the local theatre, I believe.
And I went down with my mates and we had a few lagers and then we sat through.
I think we sat there with twice, we all had to so much.
All right, that's a complete lie. I'm not even Australian.
I thought you were going to bring it up that I'm a New Yorker.
That you're a New Yorker?
Yeah, that I'm not from Australia. I could have kept going.
I would have gone through the entire episode.
I was wondering where this bit was going.
I would have taken it right to the bloody end, might have.
Telling the truth when was the first time you saw it? And what did you think?
Yes, I want the truth.
Well, it doesn't really make sense with the age we're living in, but I will go for the truth.
I saw when it came out in the movie theaters, of course.
It was a huge hit. It was a hit movie. It was one of the biggest movies of the year.
We all went to see FX.
So I saw it probably in trying to think, probably somewhere in Queens where I was growing.
I was already an adult, but I'm just assuming I saw it there.
Or am I seeing it in Manhattan?
But I know I saw it in the movie theater when it came out.
I don't think I saw this one in theaters. I think this was a VHS rental for me.
It was kind of along the lines. I also associate this with Highlander.
It was one of those movies where I just kind of heard about and I rented it on VHS.
Or maybe my folks even rented it. And I was really impressed.
And I rewatched this one again last year.
And I was again completely impressed with it.
I know along the way I'd seen the sequel. I had never seen the TV show.
I kind of knew that that existed.
But the TV show was released 10 years after the original movie.
And the sequel was released five years after the original movie.
So yeah, I was there for the sequel, but not necessarily anything else.
I think the show was coming out maybe even after I graduated from college.
But yeah, I was finding this as refreshing as fresh these days as it was when it came out.
And it's kind of nice because we're talking all practical effects here folks.
This is not digital stuff going on and it looks fantastic.
Yeah, in a movie called FX, we talk about movie effects.
You got to hire somebody who's going to do a good job in that department.
Yeah, all the squibs, everything.
And they start off with a really nice fake out moment where we're going into this restaurant
and this faceless guy comes in and starts shooting up the place.
And there's this woman who's begging for her life.
And it seems like she's maybe a mob mall who has run out on this guy.
And then we find out that it's all just an act after this very involved sequence, let's say,
where there's no way we're watching just one camera.
This had to have been shot over a period of several days.
But we're just going to pretend that this is all being shot in one day.
That's okay. We can buy into that.
And there's a lot of moments in this movie where you just kind of have to go with it
and assume that this stuff can be done.
I'm sure that those wonderful, intelligent and highly professional people
at that YouTube channel, everything wrong with, would love to have the wherewithal
to go through this film and point out all of the quote unquote movie mistakes.
But we're just going to go with it when we watch this movie and kind of enjoy it for that reason.
Yeah, that I will say the lobsters were real in that, you know, well, you haven't said it was a,
it was a, they were shooting a movie scene, but, but the opening sequence of FX.
But, but in that sequence, which takes place in a, I'm assuming a seafood restaurant.
I don't remember. Do you remember the name of the restaurant?
Was it an Italian restaurant or something?
Anyway, they, they shot up all the, of course, there are these very big lobster aquarium tanks, right?
And I remember, and I remember seeing even as they call cut, you know, on that scene
and they had shot up the whole room and everybody's dead and they're all lying on the floor
in a big, huge puddle of water because, of course, these tanks have were also shot, right?
And the glass broke and there were lobsters crawling around.
Do you, if you're not careful, you'll miss it, but I've seen the movie now a few times.
It was impressed.
I hope no lobsters were hurt in the making of this film.
They pulled out all the stops for that.
It was like, they first they lit the guy on fire and then, and then they did all the squibs and the gunshots
and then, yeah, bursting all the aquariums everywhere.
Like all the stuff that we want to do in an FX movie, we're going to, we're just going to get this stuff out of the way
because it won't necessarily come up later in the film.
I have to say I was confused rewatching it again recently and the opening music that happens at the Bill County score.
I thought maybe I was going to be watching like a sequel to Robocop because the music and the way that the FX logo comes on screen
and it's all like, polished metal and stuff.
It totally reminded me of the beginning of Robocop.
[Music]
We are thrown into this situation, thrown into this world, we're introduced to Raleigh, we're introduced to his assistant Andy, who is a woman,
we're introduced to his girlfriend or the actress who's, she's a strange character because it can never really get a beat on her
and it sounds like she plays the field.
It sounds like she's actually going out with three people all at once and Raleigh is just one of them.
So it's a little tough, she ends up, of course, she's a dead mate, she ends up dying in this and it's supposed to have a real impact on Raleigh and it's really supposed to motivate him.
But I don't necessarily see it motivating him that much because even though we can assume that they've had sex and that they've spent a lot of time together,
I mean she's very predatory as far as when he gets introduced to this idea of doing this government hit, which we'll talk about in a moment,
the first thing out of our mouth is is there a pardon it for me, thinking that it's a movie gig but she's all about advancing her career.
So an actor in other words?
When Raleigh talks to her about, would you take a gig on a movie that they went with, you know, my rival on and she said, yeah, you never asked an actress that, of course I would.
The gig that he's been hired to do, he's been tricked already by Clifty Young who shows up on set and introduces himself as this character Lightner.
And then pretty much the second time we see him, he admits right off the bat, no, my name's not Lightner, it's Lipton, I work for the government and I want to have you on this gig.
And he really endeers himself to Raleigh by appealing to his ego and going around the entire room and naming off where all of these props are from.
He's definitely a movie fan and knows his stuff, which is great.
And I love all of these titles, some of them are real like I just remember Mama, which seems to be the most popular one.
And then some of them are fake. I always love fake movie titles in movies and especially when they maybe make nods to real movies and it kind of reminds me of when Tervolta is talking with his friend in Blowout and they're going through all of those things and they mentioned like Bordello of Blood, which then ends up being a real movie later on.
But just those all those fake horror movie titles and there's a lot of blowout in this to me as far as the behind the scenes of movie making and I think that's one of the reasons why this movie appeals to me so much.
It's definitely a movie made by movie fans for movie fans. I love all the titles of those movies. I had no idea I just remember Mama was a movie said that that's a real film.
That's a real movie.
Double explosion of bloody terror, blood spattered, right? And I just remember Mama.
I did not know that, but I love all the all the play with those titles, all the all the iteration, vermin from Venus, song of the succubus, blood and the basement, stuff like that.
And then the very awkwardly titled Planet of the Female Mommies. I love all those titles and there's posters all over Raleigh's Wall to Zombie, Fultzies Zombie and there's Lawn Cheney as Wolfman and a Renee Claire July 14th movie.
Yeah, just very cool stuff for nerds in there.
If listeners are going to watch it for the first time, well, they should certainly know that we're there's this is full of spoilers for sure, but also they should go into seeing it.
They should absolutely see effects because it has a lot of charm, but they should also know that they if you're going to see it, you have to buy in to this very much less sophisticated idea of what special effects are.
That you're going back to entirely different time and that once you accept that, you can have a really good time watching the movie and you won't get like put off or annoyed by just how
by today's standard, some of these things look rather crude or simplistic, you know, but they anyway, I think it's worth mentioning that you're not going to see a lot of digital effects in this and you're not going to see digital blood, which is also nice.
The idea of effects play out in Raleigh and Andy's relationship where they're constantly kind of playing practical jokes on each other.
You know, she's got a cigar box. You want some to open this because it's going to blow wipe out or all over him, you know, and it's it's it's not for a film is just something they really enjoy doing and it's it's it's you know, it's retaliation for him tying her feet together with the bathroom sash.
When he's picking stuff up and she's she's passed out so you get the idea that they just they do this stuff. They just love to play tricks on people and that's what that's why they do this job. They just like playing tricks on people.
When I love that they have that shorthand to like later on when they're saying like, well, remember that gig in, you know, this movie or that movie and they'll just be able to use that shorthand and keep the audience unaware of what's happening, which is really nice.
And they can speak to one another in code and just be able to know what the other one is talking about as far as these different explosions or make up effects or different things that they're doing just because they have this long history of working together.
And I like to that, you know, it's a man and a woman, but they're not coupled up by the end, which is really nice that so many movies it's like, OK, if you have a man and woman by the end of the movie, they better be together.
But you know, actually the real couple at the end in this movie is Brian Denney and Brian Brown.
The two Brian's are there that's a love story between the two Brian's.
So I've been going into a lot of detail about this opening gig for lack of a better term and this whole setup because the setup is what puts the rest of this movie in motion, but it's really nice that this setup, this murder that is happening,
quote unquote fake murder, it is the first act of the film. And then after that, the movie changes completely and it becomes a man on the run story becomes a man wrongfully accused of this crime that he was involved in, but was doing it fake wise and becomes this whole other thing.
And we're not even introduced, you know, I mentioned Brian Denney, we're not even introduced to his character until we're 40 some minutes into this movie.
And we get maybe five minutes of screen time between Denney and Brown as this movie goes on, but really it's it's very the thing that I like about this movie so much is the structure of it and the way that they are both investigating the same thing at the same time.
Almost one following in the other ones footsteps or both coming to the same conclusions at the same time, but through different means and solving this case and there's this not necessarily rivalry going on in the other thing that I like a lot too is that even though Brian Brown, the Raleigh character has committed this crime in air quotes, he murders.
Jerry or Bach who's this mob boss whose name is Nicholas DeFranco, even though he murders him and broad daylight or in public and it repeats that whole opening scene that we saw this murder and arrest.
You got to quit talking about the love stories, do okay. Sorry, where the fuck was I? He repeats this murder and there's a lot to me in this murder reminds me a lot of the Godfather as far as that murder of Salazo and the police.
I can't remember if he's captain but the murder there that happens in that Michael Corleone does in the first Godfather film.
Yeah, Raleigh even references that he said Michael color is curly only went to Sicily where am I gonna go so yeah it was a very conscious not.
What's somebody good I mean very good to plant that gun on my brother come on and I'm just thinking as I'm talking about the palm and blow out is is good I do think I had thought about that but I do think that that was probably a kind of.
Not there's like that is made by movie fans for movie fans comparing Brian and Brian I like that Brian Brown is so you know a movie professional and Brian Dene.
He doesn't seem to like movies is his you know when he comes into Raleigh's workshop his stuff is that people pay money to look at this crap you know and his idea is he likes Raleigh is a suspect for the murder right away because.
This guy's obviously obsessed with you know blood and violence and must be a sicko I think that that it's nice to for people who like horror movies and violence stuff to see Brian Brown portrayed as such a cool great guy who is obsessed with blood and violence and things like that making it appear like that because most of the horror fans I know are pretty cool people too.
He probably listens to heavy metal music to probably and it becomes clear that this is no this is a very specific genre that was very popular in the 80s the action comedy you know the unless I'm mistaken we don't really see that very much anymore and so we're not a really or at least younger audiences may not even understand the tone they may be expecting very different direction and very different types of things to happen in a movie like effects but in the
that time period there's a very specific genre where you know just because Diana Vanora who plays Alan right the girlfriend you talk about the actors she's knocked off and very violent she's just killed and then within a few scenes it's like he's moved on you know that can happen and I guess this particular genre but you
see it anywhere else you know and it's sort of have I know you probably talk about effects too later but it the same thing happens in that in that movie it's very very odd but you know you have to again you have to sort of embrace and move on you know that this
Diana Vanora who's this you know your homing she'll be in the home movie because she's so great to look at and she's she just sort of I think is great on camera and yet she's just
primarily written out very early on. Yeah this was the golden age of buddy cop films and that whole idea we're going to pair these two uneasy people together you know where it's going to be the hard way or it will be you know like one of the few
good jokes in the last action heroes that whole thing of the the two different cops coming in like you're going to be paired with a cartoon cat you know everybody has their weird partner and that's what we're going to do
with this and we do get that pairing we do get that kind of buddy cop thing in FX to and in this it's kind of there but not really like I said we keep our two buddies who are going to be friends by the end of the movie apart from each other and then they have their own partners with Leo the Brian denny
character he actually has two partners he's got both his computer friend so I guess he's more into digital effects and then he's got his cop partner and he's able to use both of those and then Raleigh has Andy but then at one point he
band and so we never really see her again at all in the movie. Yeah it almost seemed like they were playing towards once you knock off Diane Vanora the audience expectations were probably out we're going to get Raleigh and Andy
together by the end of the film and and she definitely plays a big part in helping him but no that never develops and I wonder if that had been part of the project at any time.
The other thing that I wanted to say about blowout is what reminded me of blowout as well is Jerry or Bach the defranco character his pacemaker and the whole idea of we can't cross these wires on his chest for the squibs because he's got a pacemaker which kind of amounts to nothing at the beginning of the film but then comes back later on it reminds me of the undercover cop in blowout who's getting electrocuted or like little shocks through the whole time because he's sweating.
And Trivolta hadn't taken into account for that and that's what is the tragedy of blowout is that he ended up getting someone killed with his effects and he then you know retreated into the world of schlocky movies so that was the other thing that really kind of brought that out for me.
Did you notice in the scene where Diane Vanora is killed you know Raleigh's got movie posters all over his wall she's got ballet posters and like a rolling stones concert tour poster the poster that's right over her bed is a picture of two ballet dancers one wearing the woman wearing white and the man you can hardly make out is just a dark figure in there kind of wrapped around each other.
And the one Raleigh picks her up and puts her in the bed after she's been shot she's wearing that white slip and it looks it almost kind of mirrors that that poster and I just I really enjoyed looking at the all the background detail on this one another is that in that fight that he has with the sniper in her apartment.
Her bookshelf is knocked over in the one book that's like really visible is called the factor by Evelyn Anthony who also wrote the tameron seed which was made you know into the the Blake Edwards movie with Julie Christie and Omar Sharif you know this espionage stuff and so there's all this kind of very playful stuff going on in the background throughout throughout the movie I really enjoyed those.
Yeah even some of the lines in the movie you talk about how he references Mike Corleone and there's another part where he says something like it's nice work if you can get it and I know that that's from another film as well and it's like it is so smart and I have to say not only is the writing smart but is so well directed and there are actual moments even though I've seen this movie I don't know how many times there are still moments where I forget what's going to happen and they pull the rug out from under me.
After however long it's been since this movie came out 30 some years that that can still happen I was very impressed by and then there's another thing which would be mentioned is the how the New York locations are used it's almost surprising that he chose New York is where to film something that you know something you think like this would be done in L.A.
or somewhere you know because they work in the movie business yet it's all set in in New York and there's not like their theater actors are all doing television and movies it seems you know but I do like some of the already I even up to this point there's a lot of a lot of on location scenes and also like the chase sequence that comes up later the you know those are all just very recognizeable neighborhoods and from what I can tell they generally stick to the logistics of New York City.
I'm just a few years ago I just stick to New York City I guess of the three of us I'm I'm the New Yorker but it's something I really noted that this movie one out of its way to do when I was kind of curious why they chose to shoot this in New York and maybe it's it's obvious but I didn't see it.
Yeah I'm not sure whether what happened then I was kind of almost surprised when it came to the TV series when that was set in New York and I was like were those other movies set in New York.
I just they work I don't know why I even recognize when they went to Central Park and they had the boats and everything but it just didn't strike me as New York for whatever reason.
Yeah just because it didn't use New York as an homage to the city it just used it like it was just and it could have been Toronto you know.
I guess because we didn't have the fly in onto the island and we saw the two towers and the statue of Liberty and all that and then we get the establishing shot that we just kind of start right.
Off with that restaurant after we get those opening credits it would have made sense that this would have been shot probably in real life in either Los Angeles or some city like like I said Toronto or Montreal.
But I'm glad it was there and you know New York looks pretty great I think you know and I did did appreciate that big the big fun chasing that comes up later.
It was all done right you know on your city that close down lots of blocks for this movie.
I think I have it I think because there's no homeless people in any of those other cities and they needed that scene where they're with the homeless people in the way they come up on to park Avenue.
Oh my God there's such cliches though in this movie.
Oh my God right at a central casting Jesus.
We talked about how people are actors and you know this is all being said here and I found the one thing very interesting is that.
The biggest actors in this movie are Clifty Young and when I'm forgetting the guy who's the voice of smuckers which we never see him the guy that plays Mason.
Yeah Mason Adams says Colonel Mason the way that those two are putting on a show especially when they're putting on a show for Troy Wilson the lieutenant Murdock character and the you know after Murdock leaves.
And you know we even hear like a final line from off off stage as it were from from Colonel Mason and then a do you think he bought it afterwards.
It's nice that they're putting on such an act and they are and then they're trying to act as well in front of Brian Denny's character and then Denny's the one in this really is the turning point of the movie for me.
Denny he doesn't buy the act and that's when the suspicion his suspicion of Raleigh seems to be turned off and then he really starts to suspect Mason and then starts to investigate that way rather than just being this mindless automaton going after Raleigh he realizes what the truth is and starts to go after Mason and uncover things that way.
Mike you were talking about how they were working two parallel they're working parallel tracks right the Brian Denny he character and the Brian Brown character in their sort of two teaming and it seems like Brian Brown was working from the inside out and and Brian Denny he's character Leo is that isn't he was working from the outside and he was working from the outside in you know it's just an observation.
No that kind of plays to the whole idea of Raleigh when he's inside the the the headquarters even though he's actually not and he's got those two phones taped together so he's able to tell him and it kind of reminded me of you know I can't remember which horror movie is but it's the whole the calls coming from inside the house you know I was waiting for that moment.
We've traced a call is coming from inside the house is in the building for Christ ex he's calling from a pay phone and a lobby of this goddamn building.
In the screenplay there's more to this whole idea of Leo he actually knows Mason and Lipton and I'm glad that he doesn't really know them that much in this case and that he interacts more with this Murdock character this this intermediary and
you know who I absolutely love the actor that played Murdock tree Wilson especially from raising Arizona and other films like that but having him as that buffer I thought was a good thing so that he's not actually interacting with
Lipton and Mason the way that Murdock is trying to take the credit for this or take the collar and that Leo knows to Franco and that's really his entry into this is that you know to Franco is now dead but he wants to find the guys killer.
So it's kind of a nice thing that Leo doesn't necessarily interact with those guys too much and really I was trying to think of when the last time we see Lipton is is and I think is it after they take him for a quote of quote test drive in his car and bash the shit out of him in that car.
I want to say that was the last time I don't know that he comes back after that I don't think he does I think they just leave him in the truck.
Chad did that scene remind you of point blank at all.
Yeah and also like Ryan O'Neill and the driver when he's a bash in the shit out of that that car in the parking garage he's stripping off the doors and crumpling the hell out of it.
Yeah I can see that.
Yeah it was a nice I mean I don't know if that was a direct homage but that was kind of a nice way to take care of Lipton and get the information about Mason out of them.
I was thinking about Brian Brown in that ridiculous homeless makeup screaming at the trunk you know and just I was wondering it Lipton is probably not you know Clifty Young probably isn't even on set you know and it's just getting fed his lines and I don't know it seems like a must have been kind of a silly scene to shoot.
But I have to admit that the audio quality on that is good because it actually sounds like he's inside of a trunk.
Maybe a little better than it might sound I've never actually spoke to anyone in a trunk before but oh you got to.
Yeah okay I'll try to do that.
You don't have kids? No way.
Well you're talking about taking them to the drive-in movie of course I'm sure.
Like is child rearing in all new meaning.
I know I'm going to hear a special effect on that joke on your show anyway.
Right. Hey did the Central Park scene where with the boat you know the little toy the remote control boats has that happened yet in the timeline.
I did see the movie I just can't remember you so.
Yeah we're kind of hopping around with this thing but I just wanted to mention that one of the one of the henchmen is is the great character actor Tom Nounen who's though he's he's in the Central Park that Central Park scene and you know where he's trying to capture Raleigh and Andy.
Or at least Raleigh.
They're set up for a meeting or something and he's supposed to take him in I guess right.
Well yeah he had followed Andy.
It seems like people are always following the women in this movie because I think that the woman that got killed already that she was followed and then Andy ends up getting followed.
Look you're followed.
Followed.
Who?
The tall one.
But then they defeat Tom Nounen in a very 18 way by pushing him into the water and of course there's no way that he can get out of that and pursue them with any sort of speed.
Well he's soggy.
I love watching him run too. He's so tall.
He's just kind of.
He looks like he's going in slow motion.
It didn't make much sense to knock him into the water.
I mean it was kind of cool to have Andy distract him you know saying if you want to you know Raleigh's got a he's got a gun pointed at your head and if you want to talk to him you signal him by putting this boat in the water.
And and Brian Brown is just like watching him do this rather than getting a head start on running away you know he's watching him go toward the water watching him put the boat in the water and then he sneaks up behind him and pushes him in even though he can get right back out.
And I was like yeah that's a good like 15 seconds almost of wasted head start you could have got you could have got there but.
And now and now Tom Nounen who by the way has done my podcast twice just thought I mentioned that as an aside is even angrier and more motivated to do harm.
So I don't know what you're right. Why would they do that?
Yeah if memory serves that wasn't in the I've read one of the dress of the screen plane it was from Jan of 85 and I found interesting this movie even though it came out in 86 it has an 85 copyright on it.
So I wonder if it was delayed for a little bit after it was completed because normally you know it's unless it's coming out in January you're going to see the same year on the film generally is the year that it was made.
But that seemed like they might have been still fudzing with that scene up until the very end and maybe the solution wasn't the best but you know still nice to see Tom Nounen and he comes back later on when it's the gangsters or the bad guys are all playing cards and I was like okay that's kind of nice that he's still around he managed to survive that terrific fall into the pond.
He's also the guy who shoots the dude in the phone booth that they think is Raleigh so he's in a round he's around from the very beginning but you know you probably right he probably just actually the actor fell in the water and they decided you know what we're going to cover this up by not going to dry him off we're just going to we'll come back and reshoot him actually falling in and it'll play that's probably what happened.
It's so nice to see him show up in this and then I was so thrilled to see rascal or man show up as the police chief.
No kidding holy cow that that always pulls me out.
Is it is sesame street okay I wonder if it's a sesame street connection is willy-deconnection.
That's sesame street all the way it was Gordon you get the same mustache I mean he's a great look but not going to change that up at all for you know your two iconic performances huh.
Well and then he gets to ask for the gun and badge which you know that's one of my favorite montages of all time is when people take all those I need your gun and your badge statements and just put those all together.
Please you know the rules give me your badge you got what's bad you got your badge in gun officer.
I'll take your badge and I'll take your gun and I'll take your word that he'll no longer interfere with the investigation and be available for the hearing.
I'm afraid I'll have you a shield in your weapon.
I'll take your shield in your piece.
Give me your badge and this time you won't get it back.
And I like the way that Leo just steals his badge back in the way that he's flipping around in the car later on we see him.
We talk about Brian that is a great nick nultyish on over wake up introduction because the on over wake up introduction is a really great movie that I love those and you know maybe the greatest ever is nick nulty in north Dallas 40.
Which had come out just a few years before and was directed by Ted Koch of who directed denny in first blood and I think maybe maybe Brian denny wanted to he wanted to do that because of the I don't know this that's just my feeling watching and like oh man this is his north Dallas 40 moment.
Well that was one of the nicest changes to the screenplay was Leo's introduced just a few minutes earlier there's that you barely see it in the film now it's a bunch of reporters in the hallway and they're talking about the death of defranco and that's where he was introduced originally and then he.
And so it's like what's going on with defranco and he talks to Murdoch and he starts talking about what an asshole lipped in is that's where I said that he knew who lipped in was.
And them changing it to this like hungover wake up with his partner calling him was a really smart thing to do because I agree that's a great moment.
Yeah, I'm always going to like a character who's introduced that way I will feel a can ship with them.
And man I love Brian denny and he plays this role so well.
I always think he's kind of short and heavy because he's so barrel tested but he's a giant isn't he yeah he's over six feet tall and still just as broad.
Yeah, he's like a mountain of a man and it was still that time where you know that was extreme like almost like in one of the female ideals for a guy who so you know that was considered a very masculine look you know look and he was.
He was you know getting the women he liked you know certainly it became even more so in the second movie where maybe he's a bit more of them you know up front but those two actors let's face it you know they each had their own hemisphere and they they were both probably among the most charming of the.
In the movies you know those two Brian's they both exuded charm so and they but they seemed also really have a chemistry between them.
Well then he was coming off of some big stuff at the moment this was right after cocoon and so verado and so he was just knocking him out of the park both of those movies were huge.
He bring up these very familiar tropes that you know like you say the waking up hung over and the sort of the exasperated please chief you know the you all these different right very recognizable moments that we are so accustomed to is this one of those this is like one of those movies are really.
Established this it's not just repeating what's been out there I think like this was one of these real set an example and a lot of movies followed suit am I am I wrong about that another one was when Leo Brian den he would we be sitting next to you know the les and looking over shoulder all the time and you know he's got his glasses on his half his reading glasses on and she's obviously a computer was and you know the first.
DOS computers right you know he has no idea what she's doing and she's typing away and we're watching multiple scenes of typing going on and you know she she's in the role that's usually given to like any pots or or like Melanie mayron one of those kind of nerdy but keep very cute women.
I just I don't know maybe this was the first time you saw that but we saw we certainly seen it a lot over the years I was cracking up watching it this week when.
Did they're checking the social security numbers yeah and they've got to and they want to check the third he's like he says Brian den he says to her can you bring it up on a split screen and she says no I can't.
And then a second later she gets up and she goes walks across the room to another computer and pulls it up over there so that she doesn't have to delete the information on the other screen and brand and he's like that's brilliant I never would have thought of that that's right no split screens come or invented by our sequel though so just wait oh yeah.
Maybe that's another department on oh yeah that's true get the split diopter going on with one computer screen in the foreground and one in the background and we do have to talk about the end of the film as far as we have seen probably doing special effects a few times through this and he seems to use that to get out of the situations and the end of this film is just a tour to force of one.
One gag after another after another after another and it's really nice thing that broadly even though we've seen him uses fists and other fights he uses his brains more than anything and so much of this is arm to main characters really being smarter than the criminals and outsmarting them every step of the way as they go through this.
Yeah he's like the most well prepared sought out guy ever the guy right I'm gonna I'm an electric you one guy and I'm gonna pop a explosive balloon in this guy's face and then surely I don't know the layout of this house but I'm gonna do a mirror trick I'm gonna set myself with squibs and alien skin across my neck and my wrist so they can't feel a pulse so I can fake my own death.
So we did see that skin at the very beginning when he was using that cigarette yeah which is a nice thing it's almost like the cue scene from James Bond film but we don't necessarily know that that's what's happening.
Getting back to the for movie fans and the insusiast I think it's almost like a procedural on how you create special effects watching him make the Jerry or about mask and things like that you know it was very involved if that weren't what the point of the movie was I don't think they I don't think they would have spent that much time on it but I think it was very much you know it's just show how you how you do this kind of stuff.
So behind the in magician secrets I think also we were coming off of a time from the late seventies let's say mid to late seventies where science fiction.
And fantasy films were back in a full force and so this kind of comes off of that time where there's a real interest in how are these special effects being done.
And like all of a sudden their popular magazines and being you know red and people are interested in getting behind more behind the scenes than ever so I think this is probably what's the result of that right by this time you know who Tom Savin is you know who Rob botinas you know who stand Winston is you you getting these guys who are becoming I can't say super popular but people actually know them.
And they're seeing the behind the scenes of the transformation in American were open London that becomes the special you know how did we change David into a were for you know I know the thing was a bomb when it came out but people are still interested in how were these effects done.
I just wanted to respond to what you guys are talking about that the ultimate you know the big final or see a piece where you know I think it was really entertaining and that was very well paced and again though the that idea of the last part of this adventure or action film takes place in a mansion somewhere and you know how many times have we seen that since.
Well I was going to say that he knows the layout of this house so well because I think he saw Beverly Hills Cop and he studied where Victor mate left.
But that's the thing now.
I don't think it was but yeah me as well exactly and they do it again in FX too but I don't mean to jump the gun it's exact same.
It's exact same movie and it's nice that they introduced this whole I can say it's a McGuffin at the end but this whole idea of the 15 million dollars that comes out of nowhere towards the end of this movie and suddenly that becomes this motivating factor and defranco like I'll give you a million dollars if you kill this guy and the whole idea of him and Mason having this rivalry because you know spoilers defranco is still alive and I think that when they reveal that defranco is still alive is the perfect place.
And then him being kind of a dick to Mason and their rivalry that they have towards the end is really nice as well and yes suddenly we have this is 15 million dollar bag up in the up for grabs and that becomes the motivating force for Mason to just kind of fuck over to Franco you know like rather than getting him help he's you know give me the key you know
to turn me the whip off the through the you throw you the idle kind of a thing and yes audio I'm going to take off now and you'll never see me again and it was pretty clever to the whole idea of really super gluing the machine gun and Mason's hands which also felt like that was from another movie as far as sending somebody out with a gun so that they don't know it I guess it kind of reminded me a little bit of the end of the way that they get rid of Eddie Mars but I know that I've seen that kind of gag before where they'll just
send somebody out with a gun and trying to explain and then the you know it's death by cop in that instance why didn't Brian Brown's career just skyrocket after this I mean I think he's an incredibly charming charismatic performer who's both believable as a tough guy but he's also really funny he's obviously good looking I mean God that's seen in with him in the tidy way.
Yeah how is that not his you know Tom Cruise moment I don't that said I think he ended up doing cocktail and that kind of put the car wash on it and you know we already had one Paul Hogan we can't have another Australian guy running around this is before Australians kind of took over the industry and you just like get surprised when you watch the matter more shows yeah and you're just like that guy's British that guy's Australian when the fuck what was this guy with Russell Crowe Australian but no and I think there's a
nice nod to cocktail in FX to which is a really nice thing is there what was that that was Leo at one point it has a always got the bar right yeah and he's he's got the thing he's trying to flip the the the drink thing I guess I really got it almost got it you're wasting your time I think I
worked in five years yeah the hippie hippie shake on the sound box yeah that was real nice that's good I hadn't thought about that it's it's probably right on yeah so yeah and then like I said we get one moment where Leo comes in and addresses Raleigh's quote
unquote dead body Leo again is smarter than the average bearer and figures out that Raleigh isn't dead and is right there waiting for Raleigh when he unzips himself from a body bag and is escaping from the morgue and then we have the last few minutes of these two together
I can't remember if they actually say the word this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship but they might as well right well looks like they're going to go have a romantic getaway in the Alps right
in those goofy goofy and credits with the like some of them are outtake some of them are right from the movie and it I mean we're right there back in commandoville you know I'm like expecting that like long tall Sally to come up over the soundtrack rather than that big
Bill Conti scores are driving through the the Alps and then doing those cutaways to the guys and like here's Brian Brown here's Clifty Young he screwed up coming in the doors and this funny
yeah I love to that the U.S. to made it five minutes of on screen time together I think that's way generous they're on screen together I think you know a minute maybe because the character is on screen at the end but it's Jerry or
you know and yeah Brian Brown takes off the mask and reveals it's him but you know obviously they had Jerry or back playing the role so yeah I mean they're barely on screen together at all
there was one weird change from the screen play to said it was a denneys character wearing the mask going into the bank and I was like that doesn't make a lot of sense why would that necessarily be I mean other than
Brian Brown would have to be the one to make him up I guess but I wouldn't trust him I like that Leo's out there waiting in the car form this is the bill also movie were the casting I assume it had to have changed like during the process of you know
setting up the movie right does anybody know anything about that about like the different people consider different actors considered for these two roles I do not and I can't remember it's been so long since I've
interviewed anybody related to this I mean it's going to be like a time warp when I go back and listen to these interviews with folks because it's like oh yeah I
taught this guy like midway last year maybe even earlier hopefully we'll hear some of that as we go forward all right we're going to take a break and play a
tree of interviews first up you'll hear from the director Robert Mandel then we'll hear from writer Alan Ormsby and finally from Martin Lipton himself Clifty Young and we'll be back with all of those right after these brief messages.
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Welcome to the interview portion of this episode first up here on a hear from director Robert Mandel
how did you decide to get into show business i was a chemistry major in college and uh... there's a lot of theater
where i went to school and i fell in love with the theater and when it came to medicine or theater i decided on the theater
and i went to a columbia
an MFA columbia worked under Joseph pape who was my mentor there and then took me to the public theater
and i worked in new york and regional theaters for about ten years and then i directed a dual
five or play called knock knock which was picked up by at that time public television in Boston and New York
with the entire cast that had performed an eternity square in Providence, Rhode Island
and refused to consider me to direct it
so i thought i didn't want to go through that again so i applied to the American Film Institute
and i knew that acting by that time was very comfortable for me but the mechanics of filmmaking were brand new
and remember this is before we even had videotape
AFI really was responsible for my transitioning from theater to film and then i made the short film called Night's At Over Years
which was my thesis film at AFI which got a lot of attention and set me off so to speak
well as it should have it's a great film and it was so nice to see Craig wason in that
yes i'm sure you'll learn a few people know that Craig wason was or is i have really lost track of them
they were great both both of those leads were great from there i got an agent
and they brought me screen plays one of which was the first movie Independence Day with Kathleen Quinlan
now independence they really put you on the map and just the cast for that movie is fantastic
how did you manage to get all those great actors or were they not necessarily considered the stars that they ended up being at that point
well Kathleen Quinlan was the only known star at that point she had never she had never promised you a rose garden
the producer of that film band Blast had done i believe a tv movie with her and wrote her to my attention
and of course i met her and i thought she was perfect for the role
the others i had seen they had they weren't famous at the time Diane we saw i think this was Diane's first film
i knew her because as i said i grew out of New York theater and she was a theater actor she'd come from Yale
and made a big splash with heavy gabbler and i just thought she was terrific
lift the young i also knew from New York he had been in six and bones which was a David Ray play that was at the public theater
and uh... david keith i have seen in uh... movie or two and i uh... i thought he would so i thought they would break and i i was uh... delighted to have them
marion dowry who who i don't know if you're familiar with but she was a brilliant casting director at Warner Brothers
and because it was the first film of mine it was great to have her support in choosing those people
and even the number ramsen in Richard farnsworth and i love frances sternhagan she is always fantastic
oh she was uh... she's terrific again she was a new york actress i knew she is wonderful wonderful
and all of them were terrific in the movie and i really needed i mean that was truly initiation on the fire for me
going from a student film which was nice to the rear of two a one of her those movie was an enormous step in the war
and uh... it was great to have the support of the cast
the producers were as i recall down my neck wanting to come in the very long number for a low budget movie
and the stars of that movie were were helpful helpful in persuading those producers to give me what i wanted
did independence they make a big splash?
you know it did not at the time not at all pulling kale really resurrected that movie
i opened in a few theaters in new york in chicago in los angeles
i know people thought that and i released a shortlisted for an academy award for that movie but did not get an nomination
so people saw it but not enough not enough and then after pulling kale thought a year or two later or years on video on what was that video tape called radio or whatever that tape was
and she gave a ray review and then i would discover rediscover the door discovered it because of her view so i really do a lot to pull the kale
is it true that touching go was supposed to come out next and then just got shelled
that's true it didn't quite get shelled i think a tristar or was being sold to another company so it was one of those studio business deals
and it got caught in the middle of that deal so it was kind of held back which you can imagine on the heels of independence day i was not happy about
but the producers and the people who saw the movie really enjoyed the film so i wasn't as worried about i mean i had a happier ending i think
then independence day so eventually it did pretty well when it did come out but it was caught in some studio politics at the time
so how do you get the call i mean looking at independence day and touch and go and night at her rears you don't necessarily seem like the natural choice for the guy who's going to do effects
correct well i was represented at the time by c a and you know they were extremely powerful
the way i got to read any script was that it had to trickle through the hands of many many directors before it got to me
when it got to me i was in love with the idea of it but it really was it was conceived as a b-harm movie
there was a lot of blood and brutality and heads being chopped off and rolled and pretty ugly brutality mixed into the art of a special effects artist
i don't recall as much humor although i i suspect i'm thinking about the original script i suppose there may have been
i was intrigued because i really did want to do an action movie and i didn't know how that was ever going to happen for a special effects movie
and here it was in my lap and i remember seeing metaboy or asking my agent and asking them why me why what could have been that attracted them
and i was told that they had seen independence day and they were interested in someone who could direct actors who was very good with actors
and also had a real feel for tension for creating suspense and tension
and that as far as the special effects the script did not have a car chase
and as far as the special effects were concerned they had somebody they actually had lined up John Steers who the producers knew from London who had done star wars
so they had the best effect man they thought in the world and he was
so they weren't concerned about the special effects so i came aboard i think i was i did ask them i did tell them
they were way way too brutal for my taste and i would like to introduce lot more humor they let me bring on a writer Alan Ormsby who had written my bodyguard at the time
he did what i think is a significant uncredited rewrite because he brought in quite a bit of the humor he named those
when when when lipton comes to see lolly for the first time he named many of those artifacts that he sees
like i dismember mama and those things and you know so right away the film was funny it kind of broke through that part
that's what what concerned me so i was lucky to get a guess but i was very also lucky that in this particular case i had great producers one of whom i'm sure you know it though he by the ad was that he fired
they were extremely supportive of my working on the script and and supervising the rewrite
obviously you had worked with cliff to young before this with independent stay and then you brought him back with this one how is he to work with?
well i think cliff was great and you know when you're i can't remember who i just read it recently about some director who uses people
it's good to have a if you can if you can cast somebody who you know and you work well with and you're very very comfortable in using a short hand with
it's great on a movie where you know almost nobody going in nobody else and in this case i thought cliff would work out and he did and the one part of cliff that is a great
part of his personality is a piece on set and he hears you give a direction to an actor and the actor doesn't feel comfortable doing it then cliff will say i can try that
and then when cliff says i can try that the other actor says well no no let me try i think maybe i can try and so that helps the director too you know yeah i and i continue to work with Brian
I made three more movies with Brian two or three bright denny in this case yes yes Brian denny yes he is always fantastic and always such a delight to watch
yes he really is and he he's just a got a heart a big heart and he's he's delightful again very very supportive he can be kind of full of bluster and whatever but when it comes to the work he's terrific
well miss an interesting directing fx because it's almost like two movies in one you've got the the rally story in one story and then shooting Brian denny in the other story and the two just meet at the end
did you shoot those concurrently or shoot all the one and then shoot the other one oh no i shot them both the same time which was great both actors because they gave him some phase off
and they also had a good i would say a good week or two of rehearsal with them before we started and with the other actors who were great i mean if it's one thing when you're making an effect movie or an action movie
you know you're going to be spending time on the action and effects so the more rehearsal you can get before the better and makes no movie actors feel more comfortable but the director feels more comfortable
so no we i shot the most i mean both parts it was one in my head one movie at the same time well must have been a very fine line to balance those two stories because we we never get too much of one or too much of the other
and it's a really nice way that the denny he story kind of starts you know i i remember that him so much in that film that i thought he was almost there from the beginning and then rewatching it again the other day
it's like no he doesn't come in for a little while but it really feels like a one part of a whole i agree and and as i rewatched it recently i also was struck by how late he came into the movie
i had forgotten in a way i had forgotten how strong thai indenora is in that movie and how that relationship which doesn't really have a lot of screen time
it feels like it has more screen time than it does as i watched it because the two of them particularly you know diana another new york actress at the time
you know i just filled her part i think her part wasn't written quite as well as she played it quite frankly
why the decision for brine brown i mean i know he's a great actor and he's fantastic in this but he wasn't necessarily a known quantity in hollywood at the time
he wasn't and i think the role was hard to cast remember it was originally conceived as a beam movie
and although they were happy with the rewrites and encouraging about most of the actors they still wanted the budget to be on a low scale
they were not thinking of this as a big movie and i was always a little nervous that they were thinking about this as a b version or water down version of a James Bond movie
so they you know i had a list at the time and that i think started with Jeff Bridges who by the way i think is the best actor
at the time he certainly wasn't the box office name and Dennis quaid and so they had their list and then my producers who were from London came up with the idea of brine brown
and i really remember remember his name is rolly which also was kind of British name at the characters name
and so i started to explore that idea and the more i thought about the more i liked it
it came off the thornbirds and he was quite the romantic hero i guess it was again remembering that they want to keep the budget down
it felt like a great compromise then just a little of the fandoms of the story as the footage came in
something that had never happened before and i was taught it was a terrible thing to do
the editor Terry Rowan who had won the Academy Award for Charity's Fire sent the day a sent cut footage back to the studio
without anybody knowing i guess maybe the producers knew again Terry was another Brit
when they saw that footage they gave us another million dollars to create a car chase which was not in strip at all
it wasn't in the script at all but they thought they needed a star and they weren't sure that they now had one
they didn't want to pay for one so instead they thought okay we'll have a car chase
and with no writing or anything just put one in and so that was quite a bit of work
to create one that could make sense and be exciting and i'm very happy with the result
but it was a very expensive car chase closing the west side highway and bringing these people traveling the stunt men at that time from L.A.
because New York at the time didn't wasn't considered to have great stunt drivers
that was part of the star episode
it must have been a nice injection of funds but also a little bit disconcerting to just suddenly have to whip up a car chase
well it was really very disconcerting to whip up a car chase
remember when they were so they were very very excited about the footage they just were very happy
and of course you didn't want to disappoint on the one hand you're very grateful on the other hand you're thinking
oh my god what what what are we going to do now and how we're going to use this money and how we can not go into this point
them so we worked feverishly when i say we it was primarily me and the DP at the time
New York undercheck who was the greatest absolutely the greatest and he and I really created that car chase
so obviously a movie called effects is going to live or die by its effects and you had necessarily done too many effects in the past
so how is it working non-fix teams now
well remember I had John steers I always pointed these people I was blessed to have on that film
and he was as all of them were they're a big collaborative order happy to collaborate
the one thing I was not prepared for and it was really a test of my patience I didn't realize how many hours we would have to wait for these effects to be set up
now I understand a lot a lot of a lot of them were pre-rigged and you get into the restaurant today before or whatever and you pre-rig it new production design team comes over
and everybody does their thing so the expectation is you get on the set and then you can start to move but no
that's not true the effects team seems to need triple the amount of time that the other teams need
in later years I realize how grateful I was because I will tell you that there were days I waited that the day I'm thinking of the restaurant day
where you wait for four hours you do really virtually nothing but you're on the clock and then you do this with four cameras in really one take
and then another take that's like half a little less than half of it to get a couple of extra cuts of that big of obstacle going over
and then you're out but you wait for hours and of course the other part of it is if it doesn't happen you have to rebuild and do it again
and I was I was just not prepared for the patients that I needed and I learned through that through effects and what you need
how patient you have to be which put me in good stead when I did things like ex files or you know other other
you know lots of TV movies that have effects in them but it doesn't sound like you're hoping to brush out and do another maybe like a pure sci-fi film right afterwards.
Well you know the thing about first of all I love sci-fi films who who doesn't as I watch these effects for example
like the phone booth exploding that was so now you have rain you have control Manhattan streets you have traffic and you have your actors in the scene
well again you're waiting a couple of hours and then when it goes off the crowd that has gathered to watch a plot like they have just seen the
movie in the greater show in the world so you can't divorce yourself from knowing what the effect of the special effects have on the audience
whether now today they're visual or mechanical special effects the effect on the audience is tremendous
not to mention the time the movie is called effects but yes I love sci-fi and I now know what I know would do more
and I just did I oh I did this sci-fi TV show called Dominion where they were loaded with big visual effects which because I had taken a hiatus
today if I hadn't done for many years and again the joy of that is the conceiving of what is happening.
I guess the effects artist would call it pre-visual that is the joy of effect it is not pleasurable sitting on a stage and waiting hours for it to happen
but the conceiving the ideas the writing of it is the joy of it.
What were some of your favorite memories of making effects?
Well oddly enough many of the effects were favorite memories and certainly a lot of the people I miss carry wrongs and
Miracandre check and I could go down the list including WDF who surprised me when he was the princess Diana I mean so I have a lot of those memories
there were wonderful people all of them the actors always I love working with. I am trying to think of individual scenes as I watched it I am always happy to see central park and how beautiful it looked and how well shot I thought that sequence was.
Yeah I guess the effects sequence is certainly the restaurant I remember the Xad I always gave it when I taught it at the American Film Institute I always gave my class that script of that opening scene and asked them how they would do it.
As an introduction into the use of two and three cameras in the action scene.
I mean those are the parts of the movie I remember most and the last line of the one of the last lines of the movie when he says crazy clue there were 101 ways to use it now there 102 or whatever that exact line was.
I saw it and I loved him Nathan Adams he was from Lou Grant he played Lou Grant's boss and G.I. just thought he was terrific.
And I thought he was because he was such an honest, truthful, beloved boss of Lou Grant I thought he would be just the perfect person to play.
This is a terrible killer of a justice department.
I mean in getting to work with Jerry Orback he is just amazing.
I had a feeling for how it would turn out but I didn't know for example what in little scenes when Brian Denise sits down with that computer expert, gluessman I think because their last name, the actress who gives him the information.
I didn't know how great those actors could be creating a chemistry just in those few scenes just between those two people.
And I think AFX kind of sings along on those relationships Brian Denny introduced me to Joe the Fasi who plays his sidekick.
And I think that the relationship is perfect so you know it's the connections and the relationships that I think elevate the movie.
Now obviously this what it was supposed to be little B movie did better than anybody expected because here we've got a sequel we've got a TV show all of this stuff happening.
How did that affect your career? How did the success of AFX help you?
It was strange because having done this big action for me was big action of AFX movie.
I was interested in going back to doing something more like Independence Day, something more where I had more total control.
I wanted to do that. Mike Metavoy called me and asked me to do the sequel to FX.
But I had to commit to the sequel before seeing a screenplay.
And I really didn't want to do that. I didn't want to commit to a sequel. I'm quite frankly I'm glad I didn't.
They had an outline and I read the outline and Brian Denny's part wasn't even in the outline.
And Mike said, "Oh don't worry, we'll write him in, don't worry you can do whatever you want with him." You know I was not a screenwriter.
I didn't push it. I also wasn't in love with sequels that had been made in Hollywood at the time.
I think that's changed enormously since those days. But sequels weren't something I was looking to be known for to do.
So I declined that offer. And I never saw the movie. I never saw the movie.
Now I tend not to see movies where I step away from them. Where I say no.
You're not missing much, but...
I heard, I heard, although I didn't heard, I forget the writer of that movie, didn't hear it in his career.
He's terrific.
Yeah, oh yeah. Was it Bill Condon?
Yes, yes, yes. But he was a writer.
I mean, I think that's great.
So why big shots? Why'd you go into big shots?
Well, I think that was a mistake. I take full responsibility for it. Of course my agents really wanted me to do it.
I did see a certain humor in big shots. I had young children at the time.
I saw what I thought it could be. And there was a lot of excitement about having me join Joester House and Ivan Reitman.
And just between us, I think it was the wrong combination.
So I have to classify it as a mistake. But who doesn't make them? That's all I could say.
At the time, of course, I was devastated. Now many years later, I'm a little more philosophical about it.
Was Joester House the notorious Joester House at this point in time?
Well, not as notorious as he became, for sure. I think he was on the cusp of his war with... or just right after, maybe before the movie came out.
War with Mike Overtz, where he left CIA. And a little big shot, or big shots, was a package, a CIA package, which is why they wanted me to do it.
And part of the reason I left them eventually, because I didn't understand... I didn't understand that. I didn't understand packages at the time.
I didn't understand, because I looked back, I can't get over how naive I was about many things at the time. That's hindsight.
And Jo was pretty good, though. I mean, I had no problem working with Jo. I guess whatever problems I had happened.
You know, Ivan brought in his people and two edits. I liked whoever that left me, because his name, the other, got along very well.
I mean, I stayed and we worked on it, but it moved into a direction, maybe a silliness, or something that wasn't quite my taste.
That being said, I did see it in front of audiences before it opened, and boy, they went for it in a big, big way.
So I think people were surprised when it didn't do as well as they thought it might. The previews did pretty well.
I'm curious, how was it working with Jersey's "School of Mousky"?
He was great. He was just... He was great. I sometimes think maybe other directors are the best actors to work with, because they know what you...
They know what you're going through, and they're just there to make you happy, and they're to serve you, and they're together, don't it?
He was great. Certainly, I haven't worked without the directors, but he put himself completely in the role of the actor.
And we didn't really talk about his movies very much. I mean, he had a very small role as I recall.
Well, you definitely bounced back with your next film with "School of Mousky"? I remember that being a pretty good hit when that came out.
It was. It was, and I loved it. Again, you know, I unfortunately... I had a great deal of luck on that movie. A little like FX.
And here I was, even working with... I thought the greatest producer in the world, Sherry Lansing, who continues to be a very close friend of mine.
And she was terrific. She had acted, and she understood acting, and I went off into research, and did some traveling to the prep schools, and talked to the alumni.
So I had quite a time to prepare for it. The screenplay, "I Got." I never worked with Dick Wolf, although he gets credits for the screenplay.
I worked with Darryl Tonix, and who wrote many drafts of that movie. Again, I had a terrific cast. They worked. Sherry was extremely supportive, and as was Stanley.
And so, a lot of luck goes into these movies. You know, as they say, the movie gods were looking down on it. The actors were terrific. We were very...
We had several of them, but the studio wouldn't let the movie go until we cast the lead, Brandon the lead.
It was hard to find that person who could be other than the other kids, and yet want to fit in, or the other kids wouldn't know that he was Jewish.
I loved it. I loved every minute of that movie.
You went on to work in television quite a bit, including one of the shows that's unbelievably still with us today.
The X-Files, having directed the pilot episode, did you think back then in 1993 that way you would still be talking about the X-Files in 2018?
No, not in a million years. And as things happen, I used to exhaust myself thinking about what movies to take, what movies not to take, should I do it, shouldn't I do it?
I would be exhausted by the time I said yes or no to a screenplay. But with the pilot, with the X-Files, I just remember, say, "If I cannot use the same energy I use for features to start to think about television in that exhaustive way, I can't do it, so I'm just going to do it."
And this is what happened. Again, Chris was a delight, and he was great. He had done four pilots, I think, to that point. None of them went.
He was held bent on having X-Files go, and I remember, here's what sealed the deal with Chris.
I, we talked, and I said, as I am with all producers and writers, particularly writers, I said, "We have this kind of packed of honesty, well, don't be very honest."
And I said, "I wanted him to see Helen Neurin, she had been in prime suspect, and not that many people saw it. I just knocked me out."
And the way it was done, the kind of what I would maybe call low-key, I shouted to Chris, and I said, "I think this is the way we should do the pilot."
And when you're talking about implants and people's noses and then being abducted, and you know, when you want people to really believe this, I think we should play it like they did in this movie, which, to me, was like, underplay it.
Just be very, very, very real about it. And he said, he loved it, loved it. He said, "One thing, honestly," he says, "We cannot tell anybody else about this movie. We can't talk to the studio about this movie, a prime suspect, because they will not understand it."
But it was a great common ground and a starting point for the pilot.
Do you mind if I ask you how you got involved with the rage carry-2?
Oh, no, I don't mind, because I didn't make it. I was smart, but this was in development. Carried to was in development for a very, very long time. And Carried is one of my very, very favorite movies. I love it.
So I met Paul Monash, and I thought, "Okay, good." And then the regime at MGM changed. And I met an executive of MGM who had knew, was new to MGM.
And MGM changed all of their top executives. This executive told me that he or she did not want to make the movie and didn't know why MGM had bought the material and didn't I agree that directors made these kinds of movies in their spare time and didn't really believe in them either.
And I was really shocked, because I had worked with the writer for a long time on it. Cutting along story short, MGM I think was forced to make the movie because of money that they owed Paul Monash, but rights situations I really don't know, was my salary to force them to do it, but they were forced to make the movie.
We started making it, and we had differences. We just had differences, created differences. I mean, that's what it's called. It was real. I had never been involved with them before. Pat Palmer was the producer, the greatest. He was the only juicist and producer. He was the greatest.
I had some other great people and they wanted a different kind of movie, which I suspect they eventually got again. It's a movie I did not see, but it wasn't the movie I said I have to make, but I had been with it for a good year, maybe more developing the screen play and hoping it would go when.
When MGM was very, very excited about it before it was the regime change, they were very, very excited about it. You know, movies really do get caught in these regime changes, as I'm sure you've heard, you know.
And this was one of this was one of them.
These twice, this is happening to you.
Now, one, the movie was made. That was the release of the movie. That's different. This, the movie was being made. I mean, in a funny way, touching go I made and I was satisfied and I had a great experience and it was all good.
I was disappointed that it was being held back. I knew it would eventually come out. I had no idea that it would be held back for that length of time.
But movies have been held back. That wasn't a big deal. Carrie was a bigger deal because I had tremendous, I guess directors weren't supposed to leave movies. I really believed in my heart.
I thought it was terribly unprofessional to leave terribly unprofessional to leave.
And yet, I was being ripped apart. And then, then that comes a time when you realize that they'll be fine, if I leave. I mean, you feel like you're letting all the actors that you cast down, all the, you know, all of the people who you put together that you might let down.
But I just couldn't live with it. And, and to this day, I'm still, I wouldn't say torn apart by it, but I guess I would have left again. It seems even now so deeply unprofessional to leave a movie. I've always thought that.
But people, when you recreate the differences, it's really true. I can't tell you. I always thought it was just a kind way of saying you're fired or, you know, no, this was real creative differences. That leads to it.
Well, tell me, what have you been up to lately?
I spent nine years at AFI went back. I stepped down, wanting to continue in some way into a career. Hollywood changed in the nine years, pretty drastically. I mean, we have a lot of emphasis in television on diversity, which I don't, I think is fine.
But I am not what television is looking for at this time, although I have done some episodes and I enjoy doing them. But what I realized at AFI, I had an artistic director, Frank Pearson, and he also was the president of the Academy.
And then after him, Jim Brooks came in as the artistic director who I actually brought into AFI. He was talking and he said, you know, the brass ring is really to create something that you then can direct.
So what I've been doing now is something I've always wanted to do is write my own content. I have two screenplays.
One was optioned and the option to expire at the other one, I'm just about to send out. And I'm also involved in I have written a pilot that I'm going out now with a partner to sell.
I have, I guess, become a screenwriter, which when I was raising a family, I couldn't ever take the luxury as it were to do it because as you know, my background was theater. I was a theater director and I was for a long time interested in being a director only.
But now I really do want to write the other part of going to AFI just to finish off the story is sometimes you feel trapped, you know, the kinds of movies that you were making like school ties, for example, movies to be as in no longer making.
And then you start to work in television pretty much, but the medium is completely different in terms of the demands of the director. First of all, the director is usually a guest comes in.
Doesn't always create. I mean, if you're lucky enough to be a pilot director, you create. But most of the times you're a guest and the actors know much more about the characters than you will.
They've been working there for a year or two. So you are in a sense making you're doing your best, but you also are very aware of the schedule and the time and you don't want to go beyond the number of days that is scheduled.
This can be a trap and I felt it at a certain time in my life. It was, which is why when I was offered the job of the dean of AFI, I thought it was great and I just thought I needed to hire you to some directing.
Now I'm back with a reinvigorated and writing and starting to create my own work. We'll see how it does never easy, but boy, you're away for nine years and everything changes.
Format, screen size, everything. But people watch TV on. You know, things change.
So I'm creating for either film or television. Well, that's nice though that you have those both in your background that you seem to be able to switch from one to another without too much trouble.
You know, when I went back after nine years, I was terrified of directing the minion, which was the first episode I got. And people said to me, oh, come on, it'll be like getting back on the bike.
And you never forget back on the bike and I was really terrified. First of all, it was, it was in Cape Town, South Africa, which is very far.
I was already very concerned about the time difference. I was going to manage to just do my best after one after that kind of flight the next day.
It was in my bones. It was like getting back on a bike. And I didn't take any of it for granted as I had done before I left for AFI.
So when it so that I just I just can do you a world of good.
Mr. Mandel, thank you so much for your time tonight. This has been great.
Well, you're very, very welcome. I'm so glad that you've rediscovered or yes, rediscovered FX. And I hope your audiences enjoyed, enjoy your podcast.
You'll have to let me know when it's on. We'll do definitely.
Next up, you're going to hear from screenwriter Alan Ormsby who I asked, how did he first meet Robert Mandel?
I think my agent put us together. We became friends. The first one we worked on was a Michael Keaton movie where he played it was a hockey player.
And I did a rewrite on that and we got along really well, collaborated really well. I don't know when FX came along exactly because we've done it.
We've worked on many projects, most of which never got anywhere, but I remember reading the FX script and because I had had this big background in make up and stuff, he asked me for my input.
And I wish I could tell you exactly what I did on this rewrite. I looked for the pages, but I had there long gone.
I didn't do a whole lot. I think I've rewrote a couple of scenes maybe and I added some of the movie stuff. I remember that I dismember Mama is in the movie and that came from an ad campaign that I did years earlier where they had some low budget movie they were trying to sell.
And I said, well, let's call it I dismember Mama because it was about a guy who hated his mother is kind of a psycho thing. And where that came from was when we when I was a kid, there was a TV show on called I remember Mama.
And my brother used to make this joke and called it I dismember Mama and so really came back from my brother, you know, back in the 50s sometime.
Anyway, so Bob put that in the movie. I just I know I talked to him a lot. I told him about I had worked with Tom Savini on one of these low budget movies and I don't know. I guess I guess you picked my brain on it and I gave him some books on make up and then I rewrote some of the stuff, but I can't tell you specifically what I actually other than the I dismember Mama joke, but all I can remember.
So that's kind of a short history that scene of all the titles and going through and pointing at the props and all that that is one of the better scenes, especially because you're getting to know.
Clifty young at that point and getting to know kind of what a movie nerdy is at that point and it humanizes this character quite a bad.
I just remember the cop going through and saying, oh, I just remember Mama, I saw that or something. I remember Cliff was Cliff a bad guy in that and they've got all that stuff with Jerry orbock getting the cast made of his face, which is.
Yeah, is well, I'm sure I told Bob about that. I mean, his makeup people would have known that anyway, but he didn't know much about it. So I remember telling him about how we did all that kind of stuff.
So I guess he so we had some knowledge of it when he shot the scene and everything.
It's always tough talking to writers because what you were saying before, there are all the projects that you work on and just never get made or the things that you rewrite that you never get your name on.
So you look at a writer's resume and it's like, this guy worked twice over 20 years. What's going on?
Yeah, I know. Yeah, well, you do a lot of uncredited work and you do a lot of projects that don't get made.
I mean, I've sold a couple of scripts where I made a lot of money, but the movies never got made. It's a nice living, but you don't often see the results on the screen.
It's hard because it was quite a while ago. I mean, it was like 1986 or something. It's very hard to say exactly what my contribution was. I think it was a good script and whatever I contributed, it wouldn't take away from anything. The original writers came up.
It was there. It was there, but maybe.
Well, you would go on to work with Bob Mandel a few more times, at least with the substitute for sure.
I write the substitute, but that was another rewrite that when he asked me to look at the script, it was such a violent script.
I mean, it really was really almost like an ex-rated violent movie.
And I kept thinking, gosh, Bob wants to make this. I was kind of shocked because he's not a violent person.
It didn't seem like his cup of tea, but so we, he brought me into rewrite it and we, and the studio was like they liked the idea, but they also felt it was way over the top.
So basically what I did was I kind of retooled it and kept as much of a good stuff as I could keep and eliminated a lot of the excessive.
Even that, what we did people thought was too violent. So I mean, you can imagine what the original was like. The two guys who were the three or whoever was who wrote it did a good job, but they had a very particular vision.
And it was a very kind of right wing, frankly, kind of racist approach to the stuff, which I thought was, you know, nobody wanted to do that.
It's funny because years ago I was going to make a writer script, Culver Substitute, only it wasn't an action film. There was about a guy who was a substitute teacher.
It's just odd that I ended up writing a movie, writing a movie, Culver Substitute, which was completely different, completely different realm.
So you seem to really rebel, at least looking at UCV, really rebel in the comedic and in the horror genres. And so yeah, when you see like straight out action, like the substitute was, it's like, yeah, this doesn't necessarily jive too well.
Well, we tried to put some humor in it too. It didn't really have a lot of humor as I recall the original.
I remember there was a scene where he took a blowtorch to some guy and yeah, and I thought, yeah, I think so. I'm not going to do that.
And there was another scene where he raked one of these parents over the coals and it was a black woman. It was on welfare.
And he was lecturing her on having too many children and all this. I mean, it was really kept thinking I can't believe they actually bought this, but they made several sequels, which I had nothing to do with, by the way, even though my name is on some of them.
I didn't have anything to do. I've never even seen them. So you also wrote one of my favorite films growing up, which was my bodyguard. I love that movie.
Oh, I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, that funny thing about that movie is I was living in Florida and I was still in the toy business.
And I decided I would write a Clint Eastwood movie spec script and see if I could sell it. And it was called the bodyguard and it was about Clint Eastwood playing a guy was hired to be a bodyguard.
Then I read in the Hollywood reporter that there was a script floating around called the bodyguard written by Lawrence Caston.
So I thought, well, shit, I can't call it the bodyguard anymore. And I kind of put it aside. And when I came out to when I moved to LA, I took it out again and I was working on it.
I liked the idea a lot, actually, but at some point I just thought, you know, there's a lot of these floating around. I should do something different. And my son came home and was telling me about, I guess he was being bullied or something.
And I just thought, oh, I'm making about kids. I'm making about a kid who hires a bodyguard. And it, you know, it just, it felt right and it sort of came out right.
It was the script that really got me a career and a nice movie that I like.
Do you mind if I ask you, how did you get involved with the cat people remake?
Well, after Tony Bill bought my bodyguard and decided it was going to be his first directorial effort.
I had an agent named Mary Ann Maloney. She had been in the publishing business in New York and she came out to LA. And then she became this executive universal.
She said, we want to do a remake of a cat people. Do you have any interest in that? It was one of movies, the original.
And I said, yes, I would really like to do that. So I hadn't seen it in a while. So she screamed it for me, I think.
And I went and pitched some ideas about what I'd like to do. And they liked them. And Roger Vadim at that point was going to direct the movie.
And they showed me the other scripts, which I didn't read all of them, because I didn't want to be influenced. But ironically one of them was written by Bob Clark.
So I took a different approach to the material. I originally wanted it to be kind of like this play, "Equus." And I was going to be a psychiatrist who is treating this girl who thinks she turns into a cat when she gets aroused.
And it was kind of an interesting idea, but it just felt a little talky or something. I don't know. And at some point Vadim and I went to New Orleans because he was his idea to set it in New Orleans.
And he wanted to use voodoo. So we went to New Orleans, kind of did a field trip. And at that point I thought, well, I don't want to make him a shrink. I'm going to make him a zookeeper.
Because that seemed like a guy who might have a sort of strange attraction to wild animals. Yeah, it seems kind of funny to me now.
Anyway, so I was working on the script. And Vadim had finished this finishing this movie. He was directing. And he screamed it. And when the executives, we all went to this screening.
And the movie was really not good. They basically decided on the basis of that to fire him. And they were looking around for another director. And I don't know somehow the script got to pull straighter.
And he liked it and he wanted to do it. So I met with him. And it was a great experience working with him. I guess because he was a very well known writer who had written some great movies.
He was not in any way threatened by working with another writer. And he was very clear on what he wanted and what he didn't want. Basically, he liked what I did.
And if I disagreed with something, I would say so. And if he agreed with me, he'd say, okay, fine.
I mean, he was open, but if he felt strongly about something, he'd say, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to, you know, but he was a great person to work for because he knew his own mind.
Nobody wanted, nobody liked and didn't like. And that's rare when you're writing. Usually people fudge in Ham and Han. They don't kind of know what they want.
And you end up writing yourself to death, trying to figure it out. But it was great with straighter. And, you know, I have some minor little things about the movie that I don't care for.
But I like it a lot better now than I did at the time. I kind of knew it wasn't going to be a hit when I saw it finally because first of all, the whole attitude had changed.
The public had changed instead of wanting to go or your weird horror movies, they wanted to eat you know, eat you'd come out right at that time.
And it kind of changed, kind of changed everything. And I know the thing, the carpenter movie, which I think is a great movie, also kind of didn't do well. And cat people didn't do well. And straighter, I think the left LA after that movie because of its reception.
But I like it now. I like it better than I did then.
I love the extra life that David Bowie song has gotten since then. I've ended up seeing that. And I know what in glorious bastards and atomic blonde. And it's like, yeah, okay.
That's right. And it's funny because at one point I remember suggesting to straighter that he cast David Bowie and the role played by Malcolm McDowell because he just seemed like he would be. He was so cat like, you know, to me.
And, but he didn't do that. But he used that song, which was great.
God, yeah, thinking about it. I mean, he made a great vampire in the hunger. Yeah. That's probably what gave me the idea. Although maybe we maybe ours was before that. I don't know.
I can't remember. Yeah, somewhere around there because that was early 80s as well of memory serves. Yeah, I thought he would have been great. But and Malcolm McDowell is a wonderful actor.
But he wasn't as to me as kept feeling like as David Bowie was. I've always been curious whenever I talk to somebody and their name is not on something that I know that they worked on. I'm almost curious.
Why no credit on popcorn? Oh, God. Oh, that's just miserable movie making stories. I left that project. And well, you remember there, they're out of horror movie fun.
I did all the movie within the movie. I had completed all of that. There were a lot of problems because the producer wanted to do it in Jamaica. And I don't know. They were all kinds of problems. And basically I left the project. And they brought in somebody else. And they wanted to put my name on it. And I didn't want it on there.
I kind of just a bad experience all the way around the movie within a movie for whatever reason has a real. And this is compliment has a real Joe Dante flavor to it.
Yeah, funny. You should say that because I think Joe Dante was heavily influenced by that movie when he did matinee. I mean, it could have come out of popcorn really when I met Joe for another project.
He said something like, oh, I use the same shot that you used in popcorn for whatever it was his movie was.
And I was going to do a remake of the money and Joe was going to direct it. That didn't come about either eventually made the mommy but they did it with.
Yes, Steven Summers did it. But they had a lot of writers doing different versions of the money.
So I think Steven Summers cherry pick the stuff that he liked because I know there's stuff from my script in that movie, not in the same context, but definitely came from my script.
I didn't care for what they did with it. And then they tried it again with Tom Cruise and I don't know what they were thinking with that.
But why didn't even call it the money? You know, I mean, it just was an odd combination of genres. I mean, it was like a horror movie and an action movie.
I don't know what Tom Cruise was doing in it, you know. They refused to take the money seriously.
I don't know why because it seems to me that there's a lot of creepiness that you could get out of an idea of a money coming back to life.
And they just, you know, universal. They just don't know what to do with those horror characters. They've tried several times and they've just screwed it up every time, I think.
Except for maybe, you know, they didn't do Wonder Woman. Did they know that was Warner Bros.
But they did the van Helsing and that was horrible and they did, I don't know, they were going to do this whole dark universe thing. And I'm just so glad they put that on the back burner because I don't know what they were thinking.
I pay what the problem is, these people, Joe Dante is not like this, but these people, they don't understand these old horror movies. They don't appreciate them, they don't like them.
They don't want to make them really and they're just thinking of it as a kind of a, like they can imitate Marvel or something.
And Marvel has a very specific, you know, I mean, what do you like? Marvel movies are not. They have a very clear definition for their movies, you know?
And I think they believe in them and they know how to make them and they know how to cast them and they know how to like connect them all together.
And they have a lot of humor and they have great special effects. I mean, to me, they kind of run all together in my mind, but they are well done, you know? I at least the ones I think.
The way that you would like a cat people completely updating what cat people was from, you know, the original from the torn our version of it.
Or even looking at children shouldn't play with dead things in the way that you even though you said like let's rip off the night of living dead or Bob Clark said that, it's so different.
It's four years later and it's already so different from that. And the mixing of the humor at the beginning and then I mean that movie is still genuinely creepy.
Yeah, it's funny it had a longer shelf life than I would have ever imagined when we made it. I mean, there was no video back then.
And, you know, I thought it would play the drive and disappear. I was even shocked when it popped up on television because it was such a low budget obscure kind of movie drive in movie.
So the moment when the zombies are coming out of their graves, they used bits of that for at least around here in Detroit. I think it was a channel 20 thriller double feature.
They would use that as part of their opening for that. And they would use the break down from a whole lot of love when the guitar is going nuts and Robert Palmer is doing the whole,
kind of thing that was their way of introducing these movies so that image of the zombies coming out of the ground just even seen that again the other night when I was rewatching the movie.
It's like oh my god, yeah, this is still really creepy.
Yeah, I think that's the best scene in the movie. I like the movie and I kind of don't like it at the same time because I if I hadn't been in it, I'd like it better.
I like the zombies. I feel good about the zombies came out very well and I just spoke at the end to I wish we had done a little more, a little less talking and a little more action earlier on, but you know, look, we had 50 grand and shot it in 35 millimeter with all these extras. I mean, it was it was a chore.
And I had to say, did of night or what's the other word for a death dream? Death dream? Oh my god. That movie is still as effective. I watch that on TCM a long time ago when they showed it.
Yeah, that's right. They showed it. Yeah. I recorded that. I think on VCR on VHS and watch that the next day and it was so good.
Well, that's really the first script, first original script I ever wrote. I worked wrote some of the stuff in children, but, but this was that, you know, this was totally my script and I wrote it very quickly. I remember because the idea sort of came to me kind of all at the same all at once, you know.
And that doesn't happen very often, by the way, I don't know if you write scripts, but, you know, to have the story actually all come to you. All three acts or whatever the beats are. That's great when that happens because to me, that's what the script is really all about. It's all about the story.
If once you get the story, the script can be written, you know, you could write it in a weekend, but the hard part is always getting the story. And when you see movies that have script problems, it's always they have story problems.
They never worked out the story or they have no story.
And it's hard. It's hard to come up with one that happened with my bodyguard and it happened with death dream and it happened with them. A movie I wrote called the pool, which never got made. They bought it, but they never made the movie.
It's funny. I mean, that happens. It's, you know, you feel very lucky because most of the time it's just a struggle and a, you know, you're just constantly. I mean, I think for writers, it's better now in a way because they have these long form TV shows where they can they don't really have to wrap it all up in an hour.
They can carry it over 10 weeks or something or five weeks or whatever it is. And that's that gives you a lot of leeway that you don't have in a two hour movie, you know.
You really have to shorthand a lot of stuff in a movie script.
Well, you talked about writing down some of these memories that you've had. What else have you been working on these days?
Well, I'm actually working on a project with Bob Mandel. So we'll see if that goes anywhere. I can't really talk about what it's about, but, but I mean, he has other things too.
And I have a screenplay I'm working on aside from that and a play I wrote, which is being sent out and see if that I started as a playwright.
Originally plays are funny. I don't know if you're interested in theater, but it's harder to get a play done than to get a movie done. I swear to God.
Well, you know, I guess they have to gather the cast and they don't make any money on it and they have to rehearse it and put it up.
A movie if they like the script and if it looks like a go, I mean, you know, once you've got it, it's done. You don't have to repeat it every night with a live cast.
Of course, you take less chances with a movie than you can with a play, but I like writing plays because I feel like it can really, it's really my voice.
You know, it's not a director interpreting what I wrote.
And I like the screenplay form, but you know, you are writing for somebody else to turn it into the final product.
And you know, you don't always agree with what they do, but I've been pretty lucky. I mean, I think Tony build it a good job and I like football and I like what Bob did.
I haven't had too many experiences where I really hated what they did. Maybe a couple.
Well, how about when you're directing your own stuff or directing somebody else's stuff?
I know you don't want to talk about popcorn very much, but like doing you were what a co-director on deranged or was.
Yeah, Jeff and I co-directed it. And we worked very well together. You know, Jeff was more technically proficient than I was at that point.
And when I did a very superficial rewrite on that script really turned into a shooting script. I probably made some cuts and things.
And Jeff was, he and I did it together, kind of planned out how we would shoot this or that.
And we really would share, you know, trade places on the set. I mean, he'd do a scene. I do a scene.
We got along very well and there was never any conflict about it. And I don't know that movie. You know, some people think it's terrible and some people like it.
I think it's funny. I mean, to me, it's a funny movie except the last 10 minutes.
But it's so, when they brought me this material to producer Tom Carr, he said, "I met him at a convention or something." And he had seen children, I think.
And he wanted to make this movie and he sent me a bunch of clippings, I think, about Ed Geen.
And I don't remember if I'd heard of Ed Geen or not, but I read these clippings. They were so horrific. You know, the butcher of Plainfield or whatever they called it.
And I read, I thought, "Oh my God, how are we supposed to do this?"
And the only way I could conceive of doing it was to make it kind of a black comedy.
And we deliberately made it gruesome because that's what the producer wanted and he thought that's what he could sell.
I don't know. I guess he made money on it. I think he sold it to A.I.P. at some point, American International.
But I think it was banned in Boston. But that's not a movie you see on television.
No, that was one that I remember not even knowing about it until I imagine it was not even a DVD release that it was a VHS release.
And it just seemed to pop up and people were talking about this movie that as if it had been lost or something.
Yeah, well it was kind of lost. I mean, it disappeared. Whereas children and death dream both showed on television.
But D'Aurange, yeah, it vanished for a long time. And some intrepid soul brought it back. I think it was maybe Tom Carr, the producer.
I don't know who brought it back. But some guy in England wanted to, I think, release it on, yes, yes. I know. It was David Gregory.
Because he did an interview with me came to my house and videotape a little interview that went on the end of the tale of the VHS.
And then just a couple of years ago, they did a Blu-ray and I did a commentary for that.
And we did a death dream thing just recently with David again on for Blu-ray. All of those movies now are done and out there in one form or another.
And we did a commentary on children shortly after Bob Clark died. Anya was part of it then Jane Daly who played the Aja-nu in the movie.
Yeah, when I saw the poster for D'Aurange and Saw Robert's Blossom on there, I was like, I'm sold because just to see him and anything, he was always such a pleasure to watch.
Yeah, he was great. He kind of disowned that movie though.
Of all the movies for him to disown. I know because he was one starring role, I think.
But I used him in another movie that also disappeared and it kind of resurfaced a couple of years ago.
Somebody was trying to put it up, but it was a comedy. And he was in that. He played a... I think he was the villain in it, maybe.
Which one was that?
Yeah, well, it was originally called the Great Masquerade.
Yeah, I think that's out on Amazon Prime right now. Oh, is it really he? Yeah. It's got a different name, no.
It's pretty bad. Not as bad as I remembered actually. It was better than I had remembered.
Well, I watched it and I thought, okay, it's not great, but it's not horrible as horrible as I remembered.
Yeah, it's under murder on the Emerald Seas. That's right, right, exactly.
Yeah, so yeah, if you're doing it and Robert's Blossom is there, I am there.
And Paul is in it who was in children in Onions and I think Jeff is in it. And Johnny Weissmuller?
Yeah, Johnny. Well, the guy who produced it was the DP on those other movies.
And somehow he got some money together, not much. And got these people to let us use this cruise ship.
And we started when we started, we were in the wake of a hurricane and everybody was vomiting and sick.
And it just kind of went from bad to worse, you know. But he somehow managed to line up all these celebrities who had had former celebrities who were hanging around.
And Johnny Weissmuller was one of them. So we have one scene with him in there. And I can't remember who the others are.
He's got any young man, right? Right. Yeah, I guess it was fun. And then they just added it and they put in some nude footage or something.
But I thought it's not really like my movie. I mean, it's, I don't know what they did to it.
Some of it's mine, but there's nothing that I have nothing to do with.
That vanished and resurfaced. Nothing stays hidden, Mike.
Remember that.
Mr. Ornithley, thank you so much for your time today. Well, thank you, Mike. Nice talking to you.
[Music]
And last but not least, the return of Clifty Young who played Agent Lipton in FX.
Bob Mandel emailed me yesterday and said you had a good conversation with him.
Yeah, he was such a nice guy. That was great. He is a good guy. We've been friends forever. Well, in fact, since Independence Day, I guess.
So yeah, where were you kind of in your career path at that point?
Independence Day. I don't know. A lot of TV in the 70s and a couple of movies, Blue Collar and this and that.
But no, I just went and that Bob had seen me on the stage. I've been doing a lot of theater and asked me to come in for Independence Day.
You were also kind of a, well, not the nicest of guys when you were Martin Lipton in FX.
Oh, no. I just saw it the other day. I hadn't seen it in a long time and I thought, man, that really works. That was good stuff.
You usually see these things and you have as an older actor, you have stabs of regret because I could have done that better.
I didn't work. I had a nice idea now that I could have done then, but of course I can't do that.
I didn't have that too much with FX because I thought everybody was really on their game and was playing it well and it all kind of worked for me.
And you're kind of the linchpin there because not too many characters get together then movie. There's only like that one scene of Brian Dennehey and Brian Brown, but you're there in the middle getting to work with all those guys.
Yeah, it was really fun and you know, New York and you're there for six weeks and you're going to the theater and having dinners and...
Then getting up and working in the morning. It was a great experience. I think we all had a really good time.
And Diana Fenora had just seen her in... she played Hamlet, a breacher's part, you know, woman playing the Hamlet and she was wonder...
This was a really wonderful actress. It still is, I'm sure.
Brian Brown comes from a totally different world almost literally than you do. What was it like working with him?
Well, I get along with Aussies very well. We got on great and he lived here in Los Angeles for a while till he moved back to Australia and we got together a lot.
I liked him immensely which was kind of a problem because in the movie we were antagonists and I had a tough time being antagonistic toward Brian because he's a good guy.
Well, other than Mason Adams, you're kind of antagonistic with everybody.
Yeah, I guess. But there was some good moments in that movie. And why are we even talking about this movie? Have you brought it up? Has it been on or something?
I mean, it seems like a long time ago or is that your thing, isn't it? Movies from a long time.
That is definitely my thing. Good for you. I'm glad. But I like the scene where she gets shot through the window. It was so shocking.
Diana Vanora standing by the window bang. I even still now I went, oh, I like to see where I walked in and he pulled a gun on me and I pulled a gun on him.
I can't. I was kind of cool. There's a lot of really nice bits in there.
Yeah, I love the way that you change from that kind of wide eyed, well, actually kind of more salty Hollywood type to wide eyed special agent.
It's kind of a weird transition. It was fun. It was really fun, wasn't it?
I used to study with a very great acting teacher in New York called Udahab and she's written book called Respect for Acting. And you know, it's kind of a lot of people's bibles.
And when we were in New York, you know, if you've studied with her before, you can drop in on a class and just hang out and watch people work and stuff.
So when I was there, I dropped in on one of her classes while we were doing FX and she said, oh, yeah, nice to see you when you're doing another problem.
And I said, well, I do have a problem to the acting teacher Udahab and I said, you know, I'm an antagonistic with this guy and Brian Brown, but he's such a nice guy.
I'm having a hard time, you know, getting it up to hate this guy and I really want to and she she paused for a moment and she said, well, he's a the lead, isn't he?
And I said, yeah, he is. And you're supporting. I said, yes, I am.
She said, well, why the hell aren't you the lead? And I said, God damn it. You're right. Why the hell are I the so she got my whole antagonistic thing going.
You know, you know, kind of actors kind of away. So it turned out that there was a way to find to dislike Brian and kind of, you know, methods of methods away, but it helped.
Have you worked with Jerry Orbach or Brian Denny before?
No, I worked with Brian Denny. He there used to be a show called the fairy tale theater, Shelley DuValls fairy tale theater.
And there was one about Annie Oakley. And he and I were in that. He was wild bill and I was Annie Oakley's husband and me hang hung out there. And it was great.
And again, he said, oh, this was a great cast. And when we were there, Jerry Orbach was doing a Broadway play. Damn Yankees. No, whatever. We went to cyber, remember we went to see him and a musical guy.
And I didn't know I was in the original company of fantastic, you know, 50 years ago or something that has been running ever since Jerry Orbach.
It is it is funny. Isn't it? As the as the tough guy gangster, dude or the cop on TV or the loving father in dirty dancing, I think was the first time I remember seeing him.
Yeah, yeah, it was, you know, it was a wonderful cast and a lot of them are as Bob reminded me, a lot of them are dead now.
The great cinematographer. He's a Polish guy. He did another film with Bob Mandel, I think.
Myruch on the check his name is wonderful, wonderful guy. And Jerry Orbach and Mason Adams, I think. And you know, yeah, Mason Adams. He was, he was so great.
And I love that he's such a lovable guy. But then when you find out what he is, it's just like, yeah, great.
And he's got that lovely voice from the Civil War voiceover thing. You know, I'm here. Great voice.
I know you've been in stuff like, you know, stars, track, deep space, nine where special effects are, you know, to rigor, especially these days.
Had you been in an effects heavy movie like that before, affects itself?
There was one called a master of the game with Diane Keaton, a TV, you know, a mini series. You used to do mini series where you do three or four episodes and, you know, until I age to be about 80 and so they had all that stuff on my face.
But but deep space, nine, you know, was great. I got to be transported. And that's, that was cool.
Were you fan of the old start track? Yeah, I saw, I saw it after it had been on for the first time and I liked it a lot. Yeah, they were great.
So it was nice to show up and do all that running around in the outfits and stuff. Yeah, it is interesting in the age before CGI and all the time.
And all that stuff where you sort of had to have a story and it had to make sense and the actors had to carry the load.
You know, even though there was special effects in this one that were pretty cool that, you know, it was the actors that kept you interested in.
And there was some Brian Denny and Joe Griffasi, his sidekick. They were great friends. I think Brian got him a job.
And they were pals and it really showed, you know, their affection for each other.
Bob Mandel told me that you were almost an inspiration to the other actors because he would suggest things to actors and you would jump in and say, oh, I can try that.
And kind of almost like a game of one upmanship with your fellow crew. Yeah, that's true. I think that is true.
I'm glad to hear that because Bob is not a complimentary type. He just wants to get on with it, which is what I like to do, too.
But he's so inventive Robert Mandel that somehow, and I think that's why we worked together so much.
We did like four movies and a couple of TV things is that all his ideas strike a chord in my head and I know how to play them.
You know, that's what a good director is supposed to do. You not just make up ideas and and sound off like he's a real smart guy.
But he's supposed to talk to you in the idea of something that you can play. And all of his ideas seem like I could play.
It's exciting to have a guy there actually telling you something. Usually in TV, they just turn you loose and hope you come up with something.
So having a director that actually is helpful, you say, damn, let's go, man. And Bob is always that way.
We did four. We did Independence Day, FX, the substitute, and we did some TV movie up in Vancouver with Mia Farrow.
And then a couple of practices, you know, the show, the practice and a few other things.
Oh, yeah. You were even in the original X files.
Oh, that's the other thing. Yeah. And I did a bit in the original X files. Yeah.
We've been around and we spend a lot of Thanksgiving's over at their house with the families.
You were in one that comes up all the time and it seems to still have legs today. Maybe even more than it did back in 1996 when it came out, which was the craft.
The craft? Boy, my daughter got a lot of, she got a lot of credit for that one because everybody in high school in her school, you know, watch that show.
Oh, man, you're dead. He was this thing. Yeah. And so, yeah, the craft and I think they're coming out with a new one now.
Somebody called me to ask me about that. I know nothing about it, but they were making a new one.
Now I'm going to tell you all that my daughter, all that she got from this is a black history month. They showed glory in high school every February.
So there would, you know, then all the kids would have to come up and say, man, you're dead shot. That guy, I was cool.
I mean, so every once in a while, you know, you get a little bump to the daughter and then she comes home and says, oh, yeah, that's what you do.
How was it playing Nadi Bumpo in the leather stocking tails?
It was great. Pittsburgh in the 80s and they had a, and it was the same company that did Mr. Rogers neighborhood.
And they had, you know, they were doing a novel's novelizations or what do you call it dramatizations of novels.
And it was great because I was in shape and ran around the forest with my breaches and and and Chingatch cook and stuff.
The thing I remember about that is that we were in the studio and the guy said, you know, Mr. Rogers is right next door. You want to go meet him? And I said, oh, no, man. He's like a kid's guy.
I don't, I have no interest. And now I wish I would have walked next door and met Mr Rogers.
Did you see that documentary on him?
I did it and it was great, you know, and I feel bad that I felt too superior of an actor to go and meet the great Mr. Rogers.
But you know, you're young and arrogant and you don't know who the hell you're talking to half the time.
I think last time we talked was right around the time when Roach nowhere was getting around. What have you been up to lately?
Yeah, lately wild. I don't call wild with Reese with his boom. That was fun. Up in in Oregon and just now getting older, celebrating the gentle loss of ambition.
Once you're an actor, you're always an actor and you're always trying to figure out how to make things good. But some things they offer you you look at and you can't figure out how to make them good.
So you have to decline, you know, but having much in a wild is a good thing. And there was, you know, there was a couple of nice few scenes with Reese with his boom up there in Oregon in the wild, which I was very happy about.
It turned out well and she got nominated. So God bless her. That was such a beautiful film.
It was. That was how I described it actually. That is a beautiful little film.
Mr. Dion, thank you so much for your time today.
Okay. Thanks, Mike. And I'm glad you talked to Bob yesterday because he's a he's a good guy.
And I'm glad you liked the movie because now that you called us both, then we both had to go watch it again. And we and I was really happy that we did.
Yeah, no, and it holds up. That's the thing. I just watch it again over the weekend. And I was like, is this is good. Yeah.
Remember? Yep. It is. Yeah. That same same same here. So all the best. Mike and I'll be listening to the projection booth.
All right. Thank you so much, sir. You have a good rest of the day.
He was the movie's number one special effects man. Now he's retired.
My kids says you can create any illusion you want to. But a special request.
You want a baited trap that make them think that the girl is alone except there won't be the girl. It'll be me.
Has gotten him rocking with the punches.
Rolling into danger. You'll be in and out of place before you even break a sweat.
And they'd a miracle working on the fixed man. With guys. There's someone else in the room.
We don't like him.
Hanging around.
I and Raleigh. Are you gonna hang around here all night?
Great bloody timing, Leo.
Rolling and Leo, together again.
Let's get one thing straight. Macaathi and I were never pals. For what could be the last time?
Why don't you just leave this to NYPD? Because somebody else in the department could be involved in this thing.
So what are we doing now?
First we have another drink.
They have a very strange effect on each other.
Five years I waited. I finally got it.
And a very special effect.
Just simply like everything.
On everyone else.
He's going the wrong way.
Brian Brown. Brian Demi. Nobody does them better.
FX2 is messy.
But he's fun at parties.
All right, we're back and we're talking about FX.
So sequel's coming all shapes and sizes and may appear a year after the initial release or decades later.
With FX, the sequel came five years later and a TV series five years after that.
So I thought it was very smart that they got Richard Franklin to direct the second FX movie.
Franklin who was very into the idea of Hitchcock.
His movie Road Games is probably one of my favorite suspense thrillers.
Also set in Australia.
So we've got kind of another Australian connection there.
And then I thought the addition of Rachel Tikatan and Kevin J. O'Connor who I always love to see and stuff.
I thought that was a nice addition to the cast.
But I can't say that I enjoyed FX2 nearly as much as I like FX1.
It seemed much more like a comedy to me with the extended clown fight sequence and things like that.
It would have seemed a lot more out of place, I think, in FX.
It seems like they've gotten more obviously a larger budget.
And so they put it into, I think it was misused, frankly, because it seems like they just drew more attention to the unlikely hood that this could actually be a special effect.
I mean, the clown especially, my God, I mean, it looked just...
A horror actor inside that clown outfit and that clown doll, whatever it's supposed to be, it was horrible.
It just made them look all... I don't know why they act... Oh, I'm Brian Brown, they put up with having to do that.
But, you know, it was unfortunate, an unfortunate choice.
The murder and then the plot and the cover up and all of that just seemed so super elaborate that I wasn't even necessarily buying it at the end when it ended up being about...
What? Queen's stolen from the Vatican and I was like, "Well, how does that...?"
Medallions.
Medallions, yeah. And it just feels like way too much to have going on.
I don't know, like I'm okay with like kind of labyrinthine plots, but this one just didn't necessarily all add up 100% for me.
It was way too elaborate to kill the cop at the beginning to the whole sting operation, things like that was...
But, you know, again, it was about distracting you, creating an illusion, things like that.
And they didn't hold up near as well, but they kept distracting you.
I mean, the only really good thing I can say about this is at least we have interaction between Brian Brown and Brian Dennyhee and that they are more of a team in this movie,
even though they kind of go off on their own at times.
And I was really bummed that Vales was knocked off. I thought that was the most horrible thing in this movie because I really liked her from the first film.
And I was so glad when she showed up in the second film. She's the only other than the two Brians. She's the only one that comes back.
And then her murder is so sudden. I mean, again, I guess you're right, Jad. They kept me on, you know, on my toes with this.
And I was really bummed to see her go. I was waiting for her to go back to Jamaica.
Yeah, yeah. She's got a history of doing that. She goes to Jamaica with a lot of cops, a lot of FBI guys.
That's a spin off. Jamaica Diaries or something. Salmon King maybe did that.
Or it's that what death and paradise that show from the BBC, I think it is.
Yeah. The one thing that I found really nice was that, you know, there's this whole idea of this, I mean, God, talk about it in a lab or it's set up again.
So Brian Brown is going out with Rachel Ticatin and she is formerly married to this cop and those two have a kid together.
And then the cop Tom Mason, the actor Tom Mason, another Mason in the movie.
Yes. Yeah. Got to keep our masons.
Yeah, we didn't really point out that the Mason Adams played a character named Colonel Mason.
I don't know if that was intentional or not, but we were just happy to be cast in that role or if they changed the name form.
But yeah, it was kind of strange.
Hopefully it wasn't one of those things where he couldn't remember his character's name so they just called him by his own name.
He was in advanced stages of Alzheimer's by then and that they just worked, worked, worked around it as best they could.
Just called by his name.
And can I point out I forgot to how odd as I was looking at the background scenery and the set dressing, how odd is Colonel Mason's office.
It's decorated with like flower vases and glass and taste horse sculptures, little figurines.
Like an antique radio and a like a jar of jelly beans sitting on his desk and open jar of jelly beans that you're supposed to feel welcome to just help yourself too, I guess.
But this is a very strange set dressing for Department of Justice Hardass.
It was the, I'm telling you was the dementia.
Yeah, well, I was going to say it looked like my grandmother's house like it really did.
Maybe they just went to his house and called him by his name so he'd answer and I don't know.
Do you think those jelly beans were not deronled Reagan and the dementia are you really have to get to the big show.
I think there is, you know, the fake show or see God that takes forever that just goes on forever and steam and this thing with the steam and it was just so silly.
But it was another nod to maybe Hitchcock or Brian Apama or both of them maybe.
I don't know, but they were, or they're trying to, this is the head to have with she and that actor that actress looked right right out of the diploma casting, you know, book, whatever you want to call it.
It'd be a weird place to have a window too.
My shower's got a window on the side, but that window, you know, the way they had it set up, you'd have been just looking straight into the, you face the faucet or you face the window.
I just didn't get that whole thing as far as the guy crossed the way like they knew that he was going to come over and murder this woman.
Like, I don't even understand how that all worked.
Logic was not in great supply and either of these movies to be honest.
Oh, I was going to say though that the one thing that I liked is that Tom Mason when he's at this safe house later on in the film.
I guess it's Rachel Takatin's sister's characters place that they're watching the original effects or the movie that was inside of FX on the TV in the background.
I thought that was kind of a nice nod.
That is a mess though.
Yeah, if you look over his shoulder when he's on the, on the phone and they're having that.
Can you get to a computer discussion?
The casting of the son, the Tom Mason and, you know, the little boy who is not also kind of a, I guess at the time they were using very precocious obnoxious child actors.
And probably this kid really was a refreshing change of pace because if you see any of these other movies, they're almost unwatchable because of the, for a while, this was like a virus or something that was going on in Hollywood where they would just cast the most obnoxious child actors possible.
At least here they didn't do that. It's one of the things I can at least compliment FX 2 for Tom Mason's the father character and dominant, Dominic's Zepro, the prognah is the child character.
So I apologize for that.
Well, forgiven.
You know, watching these as a teenager when they came out, I didn't notice and wouldn't have had any reason to but revisiting it this week.
I saw a name that really popped out to me was the producer, Dodify Ed, who, you know, was killed in the car accident with Princess Die.
But he was the producer of FX FX 2 and, you know, a couple other, couple other movies, including Cherry, it's a fire a few years before, but very, very strange little connection.
I remember it. I was like, why is that name so familiar and I forgot to look it up. Normally I would have looked it up. That's, that's amazing.
And cousin to Jamal Kishoggi, the journalist just killed him.
Oh, wow. I think the Rothschilds were behind it. I took the red pill, dude. I'll make a YouTube video all about it.
I will wait for it.
I know I talked about how I was surprised at times with the first one. I forgot that jury or Bach was still alive.
So when he shows up, I was like, oh, yeah, that's right. He's still around and he's here and Leo hears him on the phone with FX 2.
All of the beats really telegraph themselves so much before they happen.
And you can just see everything as it's going to occur, especially at the end when the one female, I guess she's the associate DA, that she ends up being a bad guy.
And when this burning corpse to go back to the first movie, this burning corpse comes flying into the room. I was like, oh, well, there's Raleigh right there.
I mean, it plays too similar to the first one and also just we have we see all these things coming or at least I felt that way.
It's lazy. But yeah, again, I'm going to give context. It's 1980s. And again, the whole sequel, you know, idea of of of this was the very beginning, like the 80s and Hollywood of just making sequels of any successful movie.
And this, they didn't even think, oh, we should put thought into this. This is just going to make money, you know, who cares how much and who cares how good it is.
I honestly just think this was like the latest thing to do is to make a sequel if you had a hit movie.
At least they were still making some original original movies to make sequels for.
But you know, but that's my feeling about it. I think the sequel was still so new.
It wasn't being even scrutinized yet as an assinical way that, you know, happened obviously at some point when there were just so many FX2s coming out every year that people just, you know, got sick of that.
Well, it was weird that it came out five years after the first film came out, you know, even with like Star Wars.
It was every three years that a new one came out for a while there.
And I don't remember the lag time between like a lethal weapon, lethal weapon two or die hard to die hard to, but it seemed like it was a lot closer than five years for those.
Yeah, it was two or three with those.
So by this time it felt like all the heat might have been off. It could have been that phenomenon of this got popular again on VHS.
And, but even then I think VHS was, you know, more like stuff was getting popular in 88 89 and then we'll make this sequel right away.
But yeah, it just felt like it was a little too late and not good enough to really follow in the first one's footsteps.
I still, but I'm sure it did very well in the box office, right? I haven't looked. I'm sure you did, Mike.
But I would say, well, first of all, it probably took that long for him to get his work permit, you know, maybe status. Who knows, but or Brian.
But no, no, I mean, I think I just think that it was only maybe it still took a few more years until producers were already thinking, well, we're going to make be ready with the sequel.
Even before the success of the first one, you know, they just had whenever there was a formula they just figured will make the sequels and it was all plotted out, but that took a little while, you know, I just feel like probably by the 90s that was a thing.
But I think in the 80s, they hadn't figured that that formula out quite yet. So it just took a little longer. I mean, I think there was more space in between most of the sequels.
Remember Star Wars, which was maybe an early, you know, big sequel thing, right? That that that was already a series of of nine stories plotted out by Lucas. But here's a case where that, you know, they didn't really have that.
Yeah, I still call bullshit on that. I don't think that he had any of that shit planned out personally.
Okay. All right. What do you, how many, how long was it between alien and aliens, for instance?
That was 79 to 86, I think. See, yeah, see, I don't think it was so unusual that sequels were a number of years apart because it wasn't planned from the beginning.
I don't think there was any idea of a cinematic universe when it came to that thing. And I'm curious because I want to say, like, predator came out right around the same time. I'm curious how many years between predator and predator to.
It was about five years, I think, about 87 and 92, I think, because that feels like it's really the analog when it comes to this because of the whole idea, not that this was such a departure, like predator to was, but the whole idea of we have this property that was unexpectedly successful.
We should revisit it, but it's going to take us a little while before we get back to it. And at least with predator to it was such a departure with this, it felt more like a retread of a lot of the same ideas.
Maybe, maybe we're really expecting Brian Denny to have or Brian Brown to have a, you know, a huge jump in status and didn't really pan out, you know,
a lemon on the billboy didn't catch fire. They thought we'll go ahead and do another sequel, but.
FX2 had to done well enough to justify a series. Yeah, though, that's a weird thing too, that whole idea of what is popular enough to make a series out of.
I mean, that they made in this is before the one that just happened recently, but that they made that weird series from Fargo with Kathy Bates.
It's like, what's going on here? Yeah, it's such a crap. She when it comes to we're going to make a TV series out of this, this movie.
I mean, you know, Alice, OK, mash, all right. I mean, Alice, the TV show, who saw that coming out of Alice doesn't live here anymore.
I mean, just a bizarre. Yeah, but sometimes it sticks. Sometimes it doesn't, right?
In other words, it seems a little arbitrary. Maybe Tom Cruise, who was famous for in his first breakout hit for doing a scene, very famous movie scene in tidy whiteies.
Maybe it was this big elaborate thing where plot where he's a Brian Brown, now does it in FX, whereas this, you know, he looks great and even better than Tom Cruise possibly.
So Tom Cruise thinks I'm going to put him in cocktail and destroy his career. So he never does that again. It's just the theory.
Yeah, and then I'm going to his best movie and spend, you know, a good part of the rest of my career ripping rubber masks off of my head.
Oh my god. What did you think of the series, Adam?
Honestly, I could not stomach it after I just turned it off very quickly. I just thought it was really silly. And I mean, again, I was so soon. So maybe I didn't give it enough of an opportunity.
What's the actor's name again from what's her name? I'm forget the Australian actor from who's in the least initially. Maybe she's just in the first episode, but she's shit.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Was she in subsequent episodes? I think she was, which was surprising because I thought that she would be a one and done watching her character.
So I was glad to see her in it. That's that was enough to make me want to see it. But the was very hard to the version I was watching on YouTube wasn't very, you know, wasn't high quality and more into even bad quality was worse.
I just see very cheesy very like again, very much 90s TV effects or whatever. I don't know. What do you think? Well, I found it interesting that in that first movie and you were just talking about mission impossible that it was already the first TV episode that they make a mask for carrying and moss and that they have this big tub of stuff that kind of almost reminded me of dark man, but this big tub of stuff and then they are like using this computer technology in order to do that.
And I was like, wow, this feels like it's right out of mission impossible, but only to find out the mission impossible one was 96 and this came out. Well, did this come out in 96?
So it was right there with mission impossible. So, you know, it's kind of weird. I don't understand why the Raleigh character had to be Australian and they even got another Australian actor to play him.
Cameron Detto guy, but okay, whatever, that's fine. The guy that played Leo, I was not a big fan of his performance. And yeah, it was silly is definitely the right way to describe this. It kind of reminds me of like the new MacGyver.
I guess just because he is kind of like MacGyver, but instead of like common household items, well, even then I guess common household items like the way that Raleigh in the movie was using hairspray cans to defeat the criminal in the second film.
And it's kind of very MacGyveresque. And then in the TV series is very similar like, oh, I have this stick of bubble gum. I'll make a fake nose or something.
So it just all felt like it was like mission impossible meets MacGyver. Yeah, big tip off the things are going off the rails with the sequel with FX2 is on the poster Brian Brown's got a gun.
Yeah, no, that guy, you know, he should have like you said, can a hairspray or something like that. He's not that kind of movie. It's not that kind of character.
It totally reminded me of the little weapon two poster, which they also made into a series, right? It's a series now, isn't it?
The weapon is a series now, yeah, but as far as the two characters and the big gun and stuff, I don't know. It also reminded me a little bit of the one of the dirty Harry posters where he's got the big gun.
Yeah, yeah, that's it looked like a dirty Harry kind of thing.
Anyhow, that's totally, I mean, unless that's Leo's hand, but I don't think so. I think the series could work now because I think, you know, obviously there's just such a need for, you know, a content that's also has already built in recognizable in a brand to it, you know, but it is it would be great to do a series now.
I would bring Brian Brown to do it, frankly.
Well, that's the thing I'm curious about is how many people who are younger than us remember FX, you know, if I talk to my 25 year old co workers, are they going to know what FX the movie is before after this before after this episode drops.
Oh, well, after I mean, that'll set the whole internet on fire. There'll be BuzzFeed articles, all kinds of stuff about FX and how important it was.
But beforehand before this are this issue drops, how aware of this movie are they? I don't know.
I don't think they're aware at all. Don't think they're aware at all, but you do bring up a good point about now being a good time for the series because movie effects are so different now than they were.
I think it would be really appealing to see a lot of practical effects created in TV and created in the plot lines to play in real life.
So I think I think that'd be a cool maybe maybe this is the time for another FX TV series reboot.
And you know, what was the name of the kid from the second movie his his that he was sort of the, you know, sort of the stepdad for I think it was Chris Chris Brandon.
Right. So he would be now an adult and he would be the main character and then Brian Brown is sort of the like a secondary character now who's maybe comes out of retirement.
And then the older mentor the wise Yoda for character. He did raise him. You at least hope he didn't just like abandon that family after FX two story ends. He's off with Brian. He's off with Leo again.
And then he's off for to the movie onto their next adventure in Jamaica, wherever they tiny mooned you know, but I I'm just setting up the premise for the new series.
I like it. The TV show kind of reminded me of well, but like I said, a reminder me of the new Maghive or that's out there reminded me of a lot of other shows and they all have that same kind of mix of the different characters.
Kind of I mean, you look at a show like bull or human target from a few years ago. They all kind of have that same mix in this show definitely had that and then they even switched it up by the time the second season came.
Leo was gone and they ended up giving his stuff to another character. So it was really strange that the Leo and Brawley relationship is over by the end of the second season.
I think the first episode of the second season, he's investigating Leo's death. So Kevin dobson was only on there for 22 episodes, whereas Cameron Daddo was on there for 39.
So I'm not sure how many episodes per season there was, but I think the second one was a little shorter than the first one.
Kevin dobson the he's he played Leo. No, yeah, oh, we did.
Wow. Kevin dobson from Kojak fame. Yes, exactly the same one.
I talk about even a more obscure reference to your audience.
Well, they all remember the Ving Rameshow with Kojak.
Sorry, that lasted what one episode maybe two. Wait, see what happened?
There was a Kojak reboot that happened. There was? Oh, no way.
It was right around the time that they rebooted Ironside, I think, with the guy from LA Law. So yeah, oh, yeah, good stuff.
That's what's going on now. It's this idea. It's already built in brands. TV series can kind of take an existing idea that has a loose sort of nostalgic connection to audiences.
It doesn't matter. I think that's why I think in effects now, even though nobody's seen it, nobody owned this current generation has seen it, but they'll they know the reference.
I mean, I maybe they don't even know that, but it's it seems like it's just something like that could do better now than it did back in the mid 90s.
Well, I'm curious like, well, you're talking about this and there's like, Hawaii 50 and Magnum PI. Yeah, it's weird how these things come in cycles.
Maybe it's also because of this like TV shows, especially have at least they have the nostalgic cable stations, you know, that there's an enormous audience is there watching TV land and those other, you know, knockoffs, right?
So there are those shows never went off the air really to make sure that I correct myself. Kojak with Ving Rames came out in 2005 lasted for nine episodes.
And Ironside with player Underward came out in 2013, but for some reason I had them both coming out right around the same time that also lasted for nine episodes, but not aware of either.
And my appearances on your podcast will probably last. Well, let's face it, it won't even last half that many times.
Keep talking about those lobsters and your guarantee. We're going to take another break and play a preview for next week's show.
If my past finds out I got in trouble in school today, I'm definitely going to be on punishment.
There's a party tonight at Peter's house. Can I go? You're not going nowhere. Every little step you take will be around this bedroom.
Can you hear anything about him party today?
Uh-uh. Ellie got me good room.
Hello to Waffa. Do I feel like being bothered with to waffle? Hello, LeDonna.
Woman's woman's woman's woman's.
Yo, baby. Looking real good. Step off.
Candlest. Kick your pop.
What you got to say now, punk? How much more trouble can I get in to?
Hey, Ellie, come ahead.
Look, I'm a prison. Just do me a favor. Don't pick up the store, wait there, I'm going to kill it.
Yo, you're all looking forward to the gig.
Eric, let's make some friends.
The two finest women in here. Now, how could a man choose?
Are you better choose, right?
I'm just a wayward, I'll wait to. The house party.
What? The house party?
Jay, go on to that damn party. That's all, too. I don't care. What'd you say?
I'm going to make a mess of social misfit.
That's where I will be back next week with the discussion of House Party. Until then, I want to thank this week's guest, Adam and Jedadiah.
Jedadiah, what is the latest with you, sir?
I got a piece on Daily Grine House about the photos of Andy Sardares. Good read that. That's fun.
Yeah, thanks. It was a good excuse to go back and watch 15 movies in three days.
Holy shit.
Yeah, there's a lot of tips, man. There's a lot.
Adam, what's the latest with you over at FilmMAX Radio?
I'm kind of doing the podcast I always wanted to do right now. So I'm very excited about it.
I hope people give it a listen, dip into some episodes, a lot of different guests on there that you might really dig.
That's the main thing, I guess.
I am writing a screenplay, though, that is nearing its completion, which I'm very excited about as well.
I'm glad that we'll get this sucker made. And please don't go by this, my lobster fascination as any kind of indication of what I can do.
Do you have an Australian accent is what I want to do?
Yeah, I do sometimes employ accents, but I was really was tempted to do an Australian accent the entire time.
I'm glad you bid your judgment one out.
I don't know. Jury's out on that.
Should Adam have used an Australian accent or not on this entire episode? #AdamAussie? Yes. Or #AdamAussieNo?
Be sure to tweet out your responses by the end of this week.
It's the only accent that I do where actual Australians will say, "You know, that's a bloody good accent."
Well, thank you guys for coming on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening. Please head on over to the website projectiondashbooth.com
where you can find out more about today's episode. You'll also find links over to iTunes where you can read and review the show.
And the Patreon where you can make a donation to the show. Donors get early access to every episode as long as I'm not running late.
Every donation and every rating we get helps the projection booth take over the world.
vision, illusion.
Such important destiny as mine.
There's another laser, another time.
It's a little bit harder than it is.
Open that I'll never have to say.
It's just an illusion.
Illusion.
All of your emotions went away.
Is it really magic?
In the air, never let your feelings get you down.
Open up your eyes and let them roam.
It's just an illusion.
Illusion.
It's just an illusion.
Illusion.
In all of your emotions.
Open up.
Is just an illusion.
Illusion.
Open up.
Is just an illusion.
Open up.
In all of your emotions.
Open up.
Is just an illusion.
Illusion.
Could be a picture of mine.
Never show itself, you'll find.
Only as much dreams are too long.
Yeah, just a moment that you're gone.
It's just an illusion.
Illusion.
It's just an illusion.
Illusion.
In all of your emotions.
Illusion.
It's just an illusion.
Illusion.
(upbeat music)
♪ It's just a illusion ♪
♪ I'm a bad man ♪
♪ It always keeps you in my hand ♪
♪ I'm a bad man ♪
♪ It's just a illusion ♪
(upbeat music)
♪ I'm a bad man ♪
♪ It's just a illusion ♪
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