#51 - Sorcerer

[00:00:00] Welcome to Properly Howard, a podcast that reviews classic films and other full fiction. Today we take a look at William Friedkin's Sorcerer, a gritty tale about fate and despair involving four fugitives that are in hiding but get a dangerous opportunity to transport

[00:00:36] highly volatile explosives in exchange for a significant payday. This is not a movie for people looking for a laugh or dry actors, even the dynamite in this film is sweaty. With me to discuss this film as always is Dr. Anthony Lanane.

[00:00:53] I love a movie with dynamite. I feel like Steve, I should mention that folks can connect with us on our new Severance Re-Watch podcast. Would you recommend that podcast? I would recommend that podcast for sure. All right, good. So that should be coming out this week

[00:01:12] and you can just do a search for Severance. We are doing that in conjunction with the Lorehounds. So if you did a search for Severance Lorehounds, you will find our Severance podcast. We're

[00:01:27] going to do episode by episode re-watch of season one and hopefully we won't have to wait too long for season two. Yeah, that's coming up. Very exciting. There's nothing I find more funny

[00:01:41] than angry old people and if they can be a little bit biting and a little bit like onry about it, a little bit frustrated with some kind of younger person that feels like a fool. I just find that so freaking hilarious. And so after I watched this movie,

[00:02:03] I decided I was going to watch an interview between the director of the movie Driver. Driver. Oh yeah, sorry, Driver. And he interviews William Freakin who at this point is, he's I don't know how old he is, but spiritually he's like 104. Right. He's just so angry and he's

[00:02:25] just he almost feels like put out just to be in the same room as someone that under 70 years old. Right. It's one of the funniest interviews I've ever heard. And so I'm going to go ahead and

[00:02:37] play a little bit of this interview. Well, this is what I told you that the film was a disaster. Right. How better can I put it? Well, I want to know what goes through your mind. Like

[00:02:50] what? Oh, you feel like dancing. You actually feel like going out and celebrating. Right. Buying the best bottle of champagne. You feel terrible. So what did you do? So what did you do? Like what goes through someone's reactions when they have reached what you have reached? Because

[00:03:08] that's what I'm interested in. I'll tell you what I did. I commit suicide. I killed myself and then I was miraculously returned to life for the purpose of this interview. Steve, you and I grew up in the 80s and 90s. I think that's fair to say, right?

[00:03:29] It probably be factual to say. But I have memories from the 70s. Oh, yeah. As do I. Yeah. All right. All right. What do you remember about the 70s? Give me a picture of Steve Osburn's life in the late 70s.

[00:03:53] Star Wars. That was it. That's probably like... That was the whole thing. Well, I mean, it's so you figure what. So I was in the 70s up until I was three or three years old. And I have some memories that sort of jive with being three. Yeah.

[00:04:20] And so it's like hard to say for sure if that was like 80 or 79. But I do remember going to see Star Wars when it came out and not being able to handle it because it was too loud from my little

[00:04:34] little body. You saw Star Wars in the theater. Didn't like it. Howard, mind his forward. Yeah. I walked in and I remember standing in the aisle as laser shots were ringing and C3PL and

[00:04:53] RTD2 were making their way down larger than life for this little brain to comprehend. And I just told my momma I'm not ready. So I went and I think we saw Alice in Wonderland. And the whole time I

[00:05:05] was watching that movie, I was like, just got it. Like come on Osburn. So you get yourself together. And so you knew that you should be in Star Wars. But your inner critical voice had already

[00:05:18] started. You're like, you asshole. You could be one of Star Wars right now. What are you doing with your life? I love this so much. I love this so much. And determined that we went back, I think like a few days later and I just

[00:05:35] planned it and that was it. So all right. So first watch of Star Wars, Howard minus what? I mean, gosh, it's like Howard probably minus a thousand because that's what I thought the

[00:05:48] decibel level was. Okay, second watch. What was it? It was like Howard plus infinity for that. For me at that point, it was just like when you're three years old, the emotional swings are

[00:06:04] enormous. Let me tell you a little something about my early relationship with Star Wars that I think will help our listeners and you maybe understand me a little bit better, especially

[00:06:15] when it comes to things along the lines of like theology and faith. I remember when I was young enough to realize that there would be a sequel to Star Wars. Anytime I would go to church,

[00:06:31] I would get really upset at the idea that Jesus could return at any time because my concern was he would show up before the sequel of Star Wars came out. So when people, when like when my

[00:06:50] mother or somebody would talk about like, oh, you know, we'll be delivered and blah, blah, blah. I remember praying that he would wait. When you began to hate Jesus. Or just the idea that like so my I just didn't trust him.

[00:07:13] Well, in retrospect, give Jesus a little bit of credit. I give him a little bit. Oh yeah, no, he's certainly he's even waited for like Howard the Duck. He's waited for well, I was going to say like the best timing would have been, you know, 1999 before the

[00:07:34] prequels came out. Yeah. While while you and I are camped out for our fan of men's tickets. That would have been ideal. Yeah. So now I now now I just I just trusted me even more. You know. Oh, geez. I do. I love that very much.

[00:07:52] I love that a lot. I do think it is almost impossible to overstate what Star Wars meant in the late 70s. Right. No, I agree. It I mean, it rewrote the way media worked. It rewrote, you know, what an economy could look like toys.

[00:08:21] I mean, it was just not even sort of like the impact on film. No, no, no. Yeah. Consumerism. I mean, it changed. It changed the concept of it changed television. Like there's a story about how the show was going to be.

[00:08:36] The showrunner of happy days, his son wouldn't watch his show anymore because all he was interested in space. And that's how you got Robin Williams as a character from out of space in happy days. It was like it was a new world order.

[00:08:53] It's like everything about the 70s was over and the 80s had begun in 1977. Yeah. People were doing cocaine through the 80s because there was no rules anymore. There was just. If you can't actually get to outer space. You might as well. And be friend of Wookie.

[00:09:11] He might as well try to climb there. I mean, just everything. I mean, do we even have Robin Williams without Star Wars? It's sort of like the ripple effects are just enormous. Well, again, yeah, the consumerism concept, right? The idea of you had to have the toy.

[00:09:31] Like, I mean, toys. I don't have the frame of reference obviously because I post Star Wars reality, but like toys were fun, right? I mean, they were fine. But the idea of like get all of them, you know what I mean?

[00:09:47] Is like tied so directly with this film and it's like the idea that as a child, you could bring that film home. And so every toy then changed right now. You had to have like the story of He-Man is fascinating, right?

[00:10:01] The toy of Star Wars was kind of like it was small because of the budget, right? So they weren't necessarily intended to be that small because like G.I. Joe's were bigger. Things were all like big. So everything kind of shrunk. So then G.I. Joe shrunk.

[00:10:18] Everything started to shrink. So then He-Man comes out and like, well, let's go big. Let's try to go a little bigger. But they're like, but there's no tie in. So they actually made the cartoon.

[00:10:29] They made those little comic books that go with it, like kind of tricking us into thinking that there was a story. Like the story was by my toy. And then they created a very, very quick low budget animated series to go along with the release of the toys.

[00:10:46] So people like so kids are because you know, okay, well, there's a thing now we can now we can live that universe and the universe only existed to sell toys. And it was because of the success of the Star Wars toy.

[00:10:58] And what that I mean, again, like you said, the change on economy and the change on collecting, you know, I had like every action figure for Star Wars. And that was important to me for some reason. I remember being really big in a match book cars.

[00:11:13] And then all of a sudden overnight, it was like, no, I want to play with dolls. As a little boy. I want to play with these tiny little dolls. And I never owned this.

[00:11:24] But the thing that all of the rich kids had was either the Darth Vader briefcase or the C-3 video briefcase. Yeah, I had the Darth Vader one. All right. So so you were not a rich kid, but you're no, we were poor because of my Star Wars fetish.

[00:11:41] Like no Thanksgiving this year. Steve has to own the head of Darth Vader and carry it around like a purse. Right. Show you show up to a friend's house with those and I'm like, like and they were overflowing, right? I could barely shut Darth Vader's head.

[00:11:56] Oh, I mean, there's someone who's who never, you know, I got like one figure per, you know, for Christmas or whatever to see a kid with that thing. It was like might as well have been like a duffel bag full of cash. Right. Yeah, no doubt.

[00:12:13] Anyway, we're reviewing Sorcerer as you can tell. Time permitting. And I think that this is an interesting film to look at in view of the impact of Star Wars. Right, because this came out like a week later, right?

[00:12:30] It was like Star Wars was out and the world changed overnight. And then Sorcerer comes out and they're like, dude, there's not even any freaking space magic in this. And it's called Sorcerer. It's all it's called Sorcerer. We were expecting at least one demon, right?

[00:12:49] Because it was the director of Exorcist. This movie is done. This movie was done a year ago when George Lucas, George Lucas. I'm gonna try that again. When George Lucas. Lucas. In George Lucas. Got funded.

[00:13:11] You know, this was sort of like, this was to me, it's an interesting art house film. I think it's fantastically made. There's nothing about this film. I mean, this film sort of is a quintessential 70s film that should have done, I think, very well, at least critically.

[00:13:32] And yet George Lucas pushed the start of the 80s. You know, he sort of pre-released the 80s. Yeah. And anyway, I think this film is, Sorcerer's an interesting casualty of the Star Wars universe.

[00:14:23] Just the idea too of like, because we're so used to blockbuster films now. You know what I mean? Like we're so, it's just an expectation and it's still very new because this is like,

[00:14:34] Jaws is only a few years prior and that's really start to usher in where summer was typically where like movies would go to die kind of like, are like what we consider like February, March, right? Yeah.

[00:14:46] But then, but then summer became that time, like you have to have a blockbuster. And so the idea of a big movie is pretty, we're pretty used to it and we kind of have adjusted our life even more so with streaming now to accommodate that.

[00:15:02] But back then, I mean, going to the movies was kind of a little more of an event, right? And if you're going to go to a movie after Star Wars and it's not Star Wars,

[00:15:09] your family is going to hate you because people would go see Star Wars like three times, four times because we're not in a spot where we don't know when we're going to see it again. Right?

[00:15:20] We don't know, like there's no concept of VHS or DVD or even if it's going to, like it may show up on TV in like five years or whatever it was and it's going to be on

[00:15:34] once and so you got to, and it's going to be commercials and you got to like, you know, change your whole schedule for it, right? That's that's how it was.

[00:15:41] On top of that, it was like if you missed, like some movies were out a week and if you missed that week, you might never see it. If you were a kid who hadn't seen Star Wars, like you had no idea what everyone was talking about. Right.

[00:15:56] And so the thing, and it's something like a sorcerer, if it's not doing well right away, they're going to pull it. Yeah. And so it's one of those things where it doesn't even stand a chance in that time, right?

[00:16:08] Like some movies become financial failures by virtue of the fact that no one's just going to go to them. And then there's not another way to recoup that money. You know what I mean?

[00:16:18] It's like you may get a global release, but you're not going to get like, well, because some movies do like some we've talked about like some of these John Carpenter cult classics that get to become cult classics because of video release, right?

[00:16:32] They do so well in that market that then you might get a rerelease in a theater or now you've got a chance to license some merchandise or something that that then people want a piece of that, right?

[00:16:45] But that's but that was a window that wasn't really open in this time frame. So this movie is so different than Star Wars in so many ways. There's a few parallels. Well, I mean, it's arguably more fun. This movie for the first hour is just a snooze fest.

[00:17:06] It's a treasure. If you're not into it like like it's interesting that he's looking in the mirror, but the mirror is a little bit split so you see two halves of him while his wife is saying no man is only one thing. Ooh, that's an interesting metaphor.

[00:17:24] Like if that's not you like if you're not like a film geek, you're walking out of this. I started watching this. This film is freaking in French. My film was pretty much as condemned, but I will now tell you very frankly, I never believed this reaction.

[00:17:45] I always felt that the film was great and I still do. I think it's a great film. Is it the best film ever made? I couldn't say that for the first time.

[00:17:57] I started watching this movie last night and and I was like, all right, I'm starting to get a little little dozy. So I'm going to I'm going to put a pin in this and revisit it in the morning when I'm a little more refreshed.

[00:18:10] And I had a moment this morning where I'm like, this might be the first podcast we do where I just don't watch the movie. I was actually thinking, I wonder if that would be a good podcast. Like, would that be a good podcast?

[00:18:23] Like maybe because it'd be a different way to end the season, right? Like Anthony talks all about the movie and I'm like, all right, if you say so, you know, like, I mean, would that be good? So, all right, so let me look.

[00:18:36] I did come back to it and I did finish it. That's what makes that very clear. Okay. All right. So I had that experience like the first hour of this film, it's a good 20 minutes before you even see Roy Shider. Right.

[00:18:51] Which is weird to be like, I need my shiter. There's a couple times where I'm like, wait, did I get the right movie here? Because Roy Shider was in this. This was actually a French film by the same name.

[00:19:03] I didn't understand what was happening until the very end of the movie. I was fairly convinced that there would be some kind of jungle sorcerer that was going to introduce some sort of magical element into this film.

[00:19:18] I mean, it's almost like walking into a museum of a style of art and an artist you've never heard of and you have no frame of reference for. That was sort of my experience.

[00:19:32] The first time around is like the 20 minutes until you introduce Shider felt like four hours. Well, and it's directed very differently. Right? Like the movie because it almost is like a little bit of vignettes and it feels. Oh yeah, they're absolutely vignettes.

[00:19:51] And it feels like it doesn't even feel like it's the same director for each vignette. It was like, oh cool. When it starts like, oh cool. There's an assassin in a suit. I love assassin. Yeah. And now he's in an elevator and that's over.

[00:20:04] It's like, wait, no, no. Looks like this is a French political drama. Okay. All right. I could get into that. Right? Oh, no, no, no. This is going to be about a church robbery. How many how many films do us church robbery? I will say. Okay.

[00:20:23] So here's the thing is we're getting like, okay, finally we get our Shider. Right? Which again is a weird thing to be excited about. But like I was and then I was I really, really hated that whole sequence.

[00:20:34] It was all it was like, I'm like this is goofy. Like it was so goofy. This is how much Star Wars affected you. Not only did you begin to get into the game, but you also got into the game. This is how much Star Wars affected you.

[00:20:51] Not only did you begin to hate Jesus. Now you can't even watch a scene where a church is being robbed. I know. Yeah. It just, I don't know. I thought every like every bit of their like the singing in the car and I would just

[00:21:06] Oh, I love that. I was going to say it. I freaking love criminals in suits singing tavern music. I was beside off to California instead of taking Prades. I love that scene man. I mean, it was just so like I'm like what who where in what world?

[00:21:37] You know, so, so it's funny because I'm like, cause everything was kind of gritty. Right. I mean this is obviously a gritty scene too. But I just like that's when I go, okay, this is where I get a little bit out of movies.

[00:21:52] I think in this timeframe is because it sometimes these characters are painted with such broad stereotypical brushes that it's like, ah, cause I'm like, are we going to see a bunch of this? So like I said, each vignette felt like I could live in that little vignette.

[00:22:11] I love it so much. I mean, we were like, I was just waiting for an yeah, see like one of those moments. But so I love this. I love the just a moment on that scene. The gangster who says, you're up my church. Shut my brother.

[00:22:28] I'm gonna care where he goes. I don't care where he is. What it costs. I want his ass. I want his ass. Yeah. I just freaking love movies like this so much.

[00:22:39] And I could have lived in that movie for a long time and then it's like, oh no. That's over too. Columbia now. You're in Columbia now. And so at that point, I'm thinking, well, at least I'm going to get to the magic.

[00:22:51] I'm going to get to the evil wizard because I really was waiting for Roy Shider facing off against an evil wizard. Wow. Nope. Yeah, cause you do get that sense, right? You would get the sense if you didn't know anything about it that, well, this is

[00:23:09] going to be a movie about, you know, sort of like a, you know, these guys are almost like a purgatory or a hell type situation. Right? Like I mean that's, you know, these are bad people and here they are.

[00:23:22] And now it's like, oh, they probably have to make a deal with the devil. Well, in addition to that, the way that it started, okay, first off, we all know that this is the guy who did the exercise, right? So, all right. And then he names it sorcerer.

[00:23:38] And then the title sequence has the title overlaid against sort of an Aztec face, you know, this is sort of like exotic magic that's going to enter into these people's stories. Right. And so there's nothing to dissuade me from the idea that this isn't going

[00:24:01] to be a film about a sorcerer. Yeah. So, just a very interesting choice. It's definitely a choice. And so you can, like in 1977 you're like, well I could either go watch the French film that has no space magic or I could watch a film that's unlike

[00:24:22] anything I've ever seen that actually has a real sorcerer in it. Yeah. So the timing of this film is just the worst, it's like the worst timing of any film in history. Did you know that the original title for this? Well, it's, you know, it's a remake.

[00:24:40] First of all, I never and still do not view it as a remake. Of The Wages of Fear, whether they're not going to use that title? No, he, so he went with sorcerer and he even talks about like, yeah, maybe that was odd choice. But it was Ballbreaker.

[00:25:01] That even would have been better. Right. But then I watched the movie with like as soon as I read that I looked back at the film and I'm like, I don't know, it doesn't really feel like a ball, I mean that's Ballbreaker. No, no, certainly not. Ball-burying breaker.

[00:25:16] Maybe just call it trucking. I don't know. I was, I was just thinking about like, you know how like, you know, Spielberg's first film was Duel. Right, right. You could have just named this truck. Yeah. And actually that would have been better.

[00:25:32] I was going to ask you about the fascination in the 1970s with truckers. Like to me, and I don't know if you felt this, but if you drove a big rig, you might as well be Jesus. I think a lot of that has to do with CB radios.

[00:25:48] CB radios were like, it was like voodoo. It's like that, that you're streaming with other people while you're driving. Yeah, that was our, Oh, that was early Reddit boards. Yeah. I mean this, that was our, that was social media, right?

[00:26:03] I mean, like that was your entertainment and so you'd have one. I remember we had a CB and occasionally it would like pick up something and but I was told, don't use it because you're going to interrupt the truckers. Right.

[00:26:14] Trucks are just veering off the road because some little sassy imp in Sebastopol is like, Hey, breaker breaker one, two. It was like, it was like dark magic. I remember being told because my grandpa had this CB thing with great power.

[00:26:31] Being told like, do not talk to truckers. Do not talk to them. You don't know who they are. You don't know where they've been. I'm thinking like what, how are these people so powerful? They're going to come find me. That's what's going to happen.

[00:26:47] Well, and then being on the road and like, you know, getting them to honk for some reason, getting them to honk was like, you might as well have just seen a miracle to do the motion with your fist and actually have them acknowledge your existence.

[00:27:04] Nothing quite says especially anyone they wouldn't honk. I'm like, Oh, what a jerk. Give me on that CB. They just went from being a wizard to a sorcerer. And then there were all kinds of movies about this.

[00:27:17] I mean, like Smoky and the Bandit and at least two Clint Eastwood movies. He was a trucker. Yeah. PJ and the Bear was a television show.

[00:27:58] Why do we got to have monkeys in our trucks? That was the ultimate. Right. The ultimate was if you could drive a rig with a CB and have a monkey next to you. That's the high to luxury.

[00:28:14] It is not it not only that, but I think that that influences Lucas because you have that you got truckers in space. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. Yeah. You know, Han Solo with his monkey dog sitting.

[00:28:28] Yeah, because you already have a monkey named Bear on a TV show and do whatever you want. I don't know rules. Truckers for a brief moment in the 70s were like gods. And I could see sort of like him thinking, I'm going to I'm

[00:28:46] going to feature a getaway driver driving a giant truck in Columbia. This is going to be out of sight. People are going to love this movie. People are going to forget all about that space magic. Well, I mean, you were talking about Jaws earlier and I was

[00:29:03] thinking like when he started this movie, Jaws had just come out and he wanted McQueen for this. Right. And that's the other thing about this movie. Like nothing says 70 movie as much as Steve McQueen was once attached to this. Right. Right. Exactly.

[00:29:23] But because of some kind of personality conflict. And I said, you just told me it was the best script you ever read. There is no major role for a woman. I'd have to rewrite the script to write a part for your wife.

[00:29:39] It's not that I don't like her. I like her very much, but there's nothing in the script for a woman. He said, okay. He said, make her an executive producer so she can come with me and she's got a job on the film, not just my wife.

[00:29:56] And I said, executive producer, that's a bullshit title. I don't believe in that title and I'm not going to give her any authority over anything. You know? So I'm not going to have somebody around who's got a phony title. And I said, oh fuck it.

[00:30:16] Who needs Steve McQueen? Okay. So Steve McQueen falls apart. Roy Shider was available. He had just recently done Jaws and Universal loved him. Okay. So it was a win-win. Oh yeah. They said, you don't have Steve McQueen too bad. Roy Shider fine.

[00:30:37] Well they had financed the movie with an unknown actor, do you think? No. Okay. So you needed a star. Roy wasn't a star but he was well known. Right. You couldn't just cast your neighbor. Well who would anyway? Well some people would. Why would I cast my neighbor?

[00:30:53] He was a schmuck. I wouldn't even give him a cup of sugar. That's amazing. So one of the things that Freakin says about this film, which I feel very interesting is that the reason he came up with Sorcerers, he was listening to a Miles Davis song.

[00:31:15] And he thought that sounds like a cool title. Not the best way to name a movie. Yeah, he also I read something that he had been I think in South America and looking at kind of trucking sites and whatnot.

[00:31:32] There was a lot of they would have mythical names that associated with them. Okay. What he ultimately said was. I had made a film in The Exorcist about the mystery of faith and I now wanted to make a film that had no

[00:31:49] supernatural element to it but was about the mystery of faith. The fact that somebody can walk across the street feeling in the peak of health and get hit by a car. That we have no control over our destinies and that was my feeling at the time.

[00:32:09] I wanted to do a film about people who seemed to have control of their destinies. They were each successful at what they did. There were four characters who were not very nice people and that was another thing I decided to do.

[00:32:27] Not do this story with heroic figures, with Superman, with guys in spandex suits but I wanted to do it with guys who are not considered good people. Yeah. I also think it's interesting though, maybe undercutting even his own reflection on this is he does choose for bad guys.

[00:32:53] You know what I mean? So it's sort of. Consciously. He's like who does he choose? He chooses a terrorist bomb maker, an assassin, getaway driver who just robbed a church. And I guess a French banker. Fraud, right? Yeah, yeah. So that's what I'm saying.

[00:33:20] His whole thing is like hey, a perfectly healthy guy can step outside and get hit by a car. That's the cruel fate. But he did choose four people that if you take a spiritual look at it, would maybe condemn.

[00:33:35] So their journey sort of can be read as like, you know, it's based on the wages of fear novel, like as the wages of sin, right? So I think it could have been maybe a little bit more interesting to make that kind of statement if one

[00:33:54] was maybe not a bad guy. Oh, so that's interesting. And so the Romans passage, the wages of sin is death. And so this is the wages of fear and then what is unsaid in the phrase is death. So it sort of foreshadows the ultimate fate

[00:34:12] of these four guys, right? Right. So I think it would have been, you know, and again, this is just, you know, I'm going after Friedkin's reading of his own film. But what I just think, I think that there might have

[00:34:25] been a more interesting way to do that if they weren't all bad guys, because it's so, I mean, it's so obviously complicated by like, am I rooting for these guys or not? But like if there was just like I said, just one person that maybe was like,

[00:34:38] oh, this is the dynamite expert that you're bringing along or something, you know what I mean? I don't know, maybe, maybe there would have been another way to tell that same story by adding that other element. Right. Yeah. No, I think that that's an interesting problem

[00:34:53] that the film has. I do think that there's something interesting about having every character in this film be a, not just flawed character, but a bad person. Yeah. You know, even Roy Scheider who kind of, you want to root for Roy Scheider because

[00:35:12] he just has a charismatic personality, he gets over that bridge and immediately he thinks there's no way the next truck is going to make it. Right. And he's like elated that they've just doubled their win. Yeah, yeah. Like we're going to get 20, we're not going to

[00:35:30] get 10,000, we're going to get 20,000 because there's no way that those guys are making it over that bridge. So he's sort of reveling in the, the idea that those guys are going to die in the river and he's going to be more wealthy. Right.

[00:35:44] And he's also reveling with the guy that he just interacted with that doesn't like at all. But it's like that. He knows he's assassin, in fact, he saw him murder a guy. Yeah. So they're in the street, but it's like, Hey, well, we're connected now. So,

[00:35:57] so the other thing that Freakin said that I thought was interesting is that, and this is a very trophy thing for a 70s film is that the prospect of nuclear war kind of hung over everything. And he was thinking here we are in the

[00:36:17] situation where these bombs are going to kill us all until unless these warring nations, which are evil at their core can decide to get together and accomplish something for the bet, you know, for the better. And so each of these characters is from a different nation.

[00:36:34] They're all bad people. They've all come together to accomplish this one mission related to a bomb. Right. And so in that way there's a little bit of an allegory thing happening in this film. And for me, I kind of felt like, you know,

[00:36:50] before I was talking about a museum, I feel like sometimes a good docent will actually enhance your experience at the museum. And I'm kind of a museum guy, but I kind of feel like I think I'm going to appreciate this 10 times more if I have a docent.

[00:37:09] So this was a film that, you know, kind of walked out thinking, Oh, I should have liked that film. There's so many elements of the film that I like. I like Schreider. Here's a filmmaker at the top of his game. I love slow patient movies.

[00:37:27] I love movies from the 70s. I like movies that are about something and not just special effects or whatever. Why didn't I like this movie? So I decided to do, start doing some research. And I mean, I just went down a rabbit hole with this movie.

[00:37:45] I learned a lot about this movie and I watched it a second time. I think I still have a big problem with everything that happens before Schreider gets on the screen. I feel like if you could just figure out how to fast forward through some of that other

[00:38:02] stuff, it feels like a totally different movie at the beginning and start with the Schreider plot. I love this movie. I love everything about this movie. I have an opportunity. I wonder like, would flashbacks work better than vignettes? Well, it's interesting because we're doing remakes this season.

[00:38:20] In the original movie, what they do is they begin with the village and they kind of talk about their, you know, you got the four guys and they've got to transport the bomb or whatever, but they basically just talk about that backstory.

[00:38:38] So you know what they're, you know what they're coming from, but you don't have to do a series of vignettes to begin. I think maybe freakin, I've watched a few interviews with him now. There may be no more arrogant person who has ever lived than William Freakin.

[00:38:54] Because that bridge scene is the editorial, especially when he falls underwater, the use of sound going away, it's magical. It's absolutely magnificent. It's absolutely untouchable. You know, it's so well made. I know it's a good scene. Some of that's earned. Some of it's earned.

[00:39:14] I mean, he did the French connection. He did the exercise. But if you look at it, there's a good chunk of his filmography that's kind of do-do. Well, and I wonder if it's Star Wars. I wonder if we could blame Star Wars for some of that.

[00:39:28] For deal of the century with... Whatever the case was, he was at the top of his game with this film. And I think that because he had all the accolades from exercise and French connection and because these film execs were basically

[00:39:43] going to give him 15 million to do whatever he wanted to do, he almost felt like I'm at the top of the world. No one can tell me anything. Right. And I kind of feel like if you would have handed this off to a different editor

[00:39:58] and cut this film differently, it could have been freaking amazing. Yeah. Like maybe cut out a half an hour of this film and maybe it's like one of the most amazing films I've ever seen. I think one, and we're also looking at it

[00:40:13] through the lens of here we are in 2023, looking at this and at the time. I don't know that a different editing changes because of how the Star Wars impact is going on. This is a bleak movie. This is, you know... Which you could be fond of.

[00:40:28] You know I like a little bit of bleakness and I don't always love a Hollywood ending. So I don't... There is definitely space for this movie in the world and it just wasn't at that... It wasn't then, you know what I mean? It's like...

[00:40:44] So these movies were being made and they are being made now but maybe not... I think there was hope and this is, I think shows the difference between the 70s and now is I think there was probably hope from Studio and from Friedkin.

[00:40:59] Oh, this is going to be a hit. Right? Like this is going to make money whereas movies like this now tend to be more what they would consider like Oscar bait or maybe it would be an independent film. I think if this was made now

[00:41:16] I think it would be prestige television. Yeah, that's fair. HBO show or something like that. Yeah, yeah, I could see that. A limited series. Yeah, for sure and I think... Because I think there are plenty of funny movies like this now for sure.

[00:41:29] Movies that are considered a little more artistic that are kind of in that Oscar bait realm do make a little bit of money now because there is an appetite for seeing that in the theater or at least watching it streaming whatever that might... Whatever your medium is.

[00:41:44] So we don't have... When you hear Scorsese now just constantly raging against Marvel films. It's not... So reading about this whole Star Wars thing sounds like that's just echoing of the same thing. That's how it was back then. People were condemning the Hollywoods

[00:42:03] just looking to make a buck and they're gonna do so with sort of these watered down stories that don't say anything. They just are spectacles. Again, it's the same thing that people are talking about with Marvel movies and the reality is it's like

[00:42:18] there is space for all of these things. And to sit there and say that that movies are ruined by these types of things I don't think is accurate. But in this particular case because of the way that film was consumed and the lack of access to rewatches

[00:42:35] and all of that, this was for sure a casualty of a changing of viewing tendencies I think. One of the things that Freakin says is that he thinks that Star Wars was the beginning of the superhero movie Push. So he said basically moviegoers realized with Star Wars

[00:43:00] what they could have in a movie and that kind of bleeds into the popularity of superhero movies. Which he kind of says my movie is anything but. It's like these guys are not superheroes they're not even good people and everything in my movie really happened.

[00:43:20] We did no special effects. You know very very little practical effects. I think that there's something interesting here because I felt about this movie almost the same way I felt about the Batman which we covered previously. I kind of felt like

[00:43:40] man I think that there was a good movie somewhere in here and there's no reason why I shouldn't like this movie. Like if you would describe to me the Batman I would be like oh that sounds perfect. That sounds exactly the kind of movie that I'd like

[00:43:55] and yet it had a lot of the same flaws that this movie had and I just got bored halfway through it I fell asleep in the Batman and interestingly enough I think that Batman tries to mimic William Freakin in a number of places.

[00:44:13] At one point they were consciously doing a homage to the French connection in the Batman. And I think that the Batman is trying to bring kind of that 1970s realism and darkness into a superhero movie so now it's sort of like the thing that William Freakin hated

[00:44:33] and sort of blamed for the poor success of this movie ends up the snake going back and eating in its own tail kind of thing. Interesting. And with both it's like... Well yeah I mean one thing if you're watching the Batman

[00:44:48] and you're waiting for Roy Shider to show up I mean that's way longer. I will say that I would have loved to see Roy Shider in the fat suit that Colin Farrell wore. That's what this film was missing Roy Shider and Tom Hanks fat suit.

[00:45:05] At one point in the interview Freakin calls Drive a pimple on the asshole of humanity when he's talking to the director of Drive. I don't like a lot of Kubrick's films at all but I think that he has made some of the greatest films ever made

[00:45:28] and I don't know how he viewed I'm sure he was disappointed when a movie didn't do as well as he had hoped it would. Like 2001 which didn't do well. But then it got rediscovered. Well it was always there.

[00:45:46] Yeah but same thing with your movie, just two questions left. I am a third where is there a medic for this man? When you were mentioning... Did you hear the ambulance pull up? Okay. When you were mentioning 2001 says in Kane you forgot to add Drive

[00:46:02] we'll let that slip. We won't know about Drive for another 30 years. 30 seconds. Whether it lives or dies. I'm talking about films. 2001 was made in 1968. I made this film about four years ago. So it's about time. Four years is a zip. It's not even a blip.

[00:46:21] It's not a pimple on the asshole of humanity. That was so great. This guy is just... Freakin is... He's heroic. He says no one's a hero. That we're all flawed characters. But in many ways Freakin is my hero. And I kind of feel like...

[00:46:48] I'm sad that I lost him. He just died this year. And I feel like I just discovered these interviews that he did. I feel like I just missed him. So the blood had to bother you? The blood was really bad. Let's talk about this.

[00:47:05] If there's one tweak that you could make. For me, it's the vignettes at the beginning and the texture of the blood. Because this film was really going for realism. That's the thing he loves about his film. Is that he didn't use special effects.

[00:47:23] But then when he does use the practical effects of blood it looks so bad. Yeah, it's high C. Was there something you would do to tweak this movie? Definitely the vignettes. I don't even know what to do about it. Because we're talking about experiencing things in the theater.

[00:47:44] Let's say I went and saw Star Wars the week before and I was blown away. And I'm like okay I'm going to give this source or movie a shot. There's no way I stay in the theater in that first hour. No. There's no way.

[00:47:56] You walk out for sure. For sure walk out. I almost walked out of something that I rented. It was just like I was so not into it. The thing is I was actually shocked by that I watched the whole thing. I was kind of into it.

[00:48:16] Because this movie is something. There's something going on here that I'm interested in. How did you feel about the last half an hour of this film? Just tell me that. Well, mixed. I think at this point I'm like okay he's for sure going to die.

[00:48:32] Like I got like that's the vibe yet right? You get this once you see the one truck blow up. This is not about him getting to make all this money. You know what I mean? Now it quadruples because he's the last man standing.

[00:48:48] And so I'm like there's no way that this, that that's how this is going to end. No, okay. Well cool. He's catnip. So I kind of waiting right? I'm waiting to see what's going to happen.

[00:49:03] And I think it's interesting that you know basically his past comes back to haunt him. And again and so this is going through the Freakens words talking about like well you know you can't control your fate.

[00:49:15] Yeah, in a way though like it makes sense to me that like his sins of the past are coming back to haunt him. You know what I mean? It's like he didn't die haphazardly or he didn't die.

[00:49:28] He didn't get hit by a car being perfectly healthy like he tries to portray this idea or like a hurricane spares no one right? He did a thing. And that thing came back to get him. You know what I mean? So it's like, so I, which is fine.

[00:49:48] Okay. Which I think is absolutely. I'm going to get that a little bit.

[00:49:51] So I think I just think it's a fine thing to do but then I think I was clouded by the interview after the fact because I'm like well now you're telling me one thing and I don't feel like you, I don't feel like that was what you delivered.

[00:50:01] Well okay let's talk about that. So he's on this job. He's made a poor life decision. He's the getaway driver. He's stealing money from a church, whatever.

[00:50:12] But the reason why there's a hit out on him is because another driver in the car decided to shoot one of the priests who happened to be the mobster's brother. Everyone else in the cars dead.

[00:50:25] And so they decide they're going to go after this guy and blame him. And what Schreider says is I don't even carry a gun. And so it's because it's not because he decided to rob the church.

[00:50:40] It's because there was a backseat driver argument in the car that caused him to glance over to the side and he crashes the car because of the stupid argument between these criminals in the car. And that's when his fate was sealed.

[00:50:57] Well that's what happened after he made the decision to work alongside. He didn't kill the priest. He was a getaway driver for armed men who were going into... I'm not saying he's a good guy. No, no, what I'm saying is that seems like a logical risk.

[00:51:16] Armed men going into rob a place, you have a loaded weapon there's a really good chance that somebody's gonna get shot. Now you may not connect all the dots and say oh it may be a mob boss or blah blah blah.

[00:51:28] Someone may die and I am aiding and abetting this thing happening.

[00:51:34] So I guess for me it's just like yeah, I mean I'll get all those circumstantial things and I think that Freakin did a good job of doing that which kind of reminds me a little bit of like you know sort of the no country for old men approach.

[00:51:45] Yeah, I think that that's a good analogy. But I also feel like it wasn't... there was something about his own take on what he was doing that I'm like I get it but you know it's different if he's somehow innocent right?

[00:52:05] I mean he's not innocent, you know but like it'd be different if he was... He's not innocent but the thing that should kill him doesn't. And the thing that should kill him is the nitroglycerin in the back of his car. In the back of the truck.

[00:52:19] And what you don't see coming until the very end is that the guy who's doing him a favor to get him out of the country, that's the assassin that shows up to kill him in the end. Yeah.

[00:52:36] And he wouldn't need that guy if the stupid card didn't crash because of the stupid argument between the two criminals in the car.

[00:52:44] It's all of this sort of like it's almost like these random series of events that lead you to your own fate which I think is what Freakin is trying to say with this.

[00:52:56] Yeah and I get it. Like I said I just feel like the idea that his past came back to haunt him if you go that way it's like that doesn't feel like random fate. That's my argument. Is that he didn't get in the chopper and it went down.

[00:53:18] You know what I mean. Like that to me seems more like the you have no control over your fate because like you link up with criminals. You know chances are there will be some sort of repercussions. You know what I mean.

[00:53:33] And and it and the idea that the repercussions might be you get blown up in Columbia.

[00:53:39] Like that. That's more that seems more like the sequence to where like where the you know the the Palestinian terrorist and then the and then the French you know embezzler or whatever he is.

[00:53:53] Like they blow up. He's an interesting figure right because his is more of a white collar crime. Which one the French guy. Yeah. Yeah. So like the only person that really died because of his workings as far as we know is his partner who took his own life.

[00:54:11] Yeah I think that's his wife's brother. And so yeah so there's and say he leaves his wife he does this whole thing he flees because he just can't handle like he's he's a coward right like it's so that so his character.

[00:54:24] Giddy just just blown up especially as he's kind of having this moment you know is talking about like France and and sort of like as he's sort of like thinking about basically like how do I get back like maybe maybe I can get back to that life somehow right.

[00:54:39] Well and it's the engraved watch and the watch might represent you know sort of the the March of time which you have no control over. He's feeling a little bit nostalgia and all it takes is sort of like a little bit of distraction.

[00:54:54] You made it across the bridge. You're gonna get a flat tire. So that so I thought that was actually a really lovely way to like that to me was really in line with what Freakin was trying to say and do in this movie.

[00:55:08] I thought because the other thing because he goes because it goes through so much.

[00:55:14] Yeah you know you to get over the bridge and you think that's going to be the end of them and then they blow up the you know the fallen tree and you think that's going to be the end of them and then at the end of it is just a flat tire.

[00:55:26] So I think that that was I thought that was really great like that to me is like this is this is the movie with the movies trying to say and then so at the end.

[00:55:33] The only reason why I don't really love that ending is because it almost only works if you're rooting for Roy Scheider which I'm still not you know what I mean like I'm rooting for resolution maybe more so than I am anything else.

[00:55:48] I was like at this point I'm not excited that he has $40,000.

[00:55:51] It's an interesting ending that I think would have made more sense if he was more innocent and I just didn't see him innocent enough if he was really more innocent and like like wrong place wrong time more so than being the getaway driver who's unarmed I mean it's like okay yeah but still you're not you've helped facilitate this entire thing so.

[00:56:12] I will tell you this Steve, I will never not root for a right shiter. He can do he can do no he could rob my church and shoot my brother.

[00:56:23] I would still love Roche because you would assume at that point that that your brother must have been a shark. The other thing about this movie that I feel like I should call out the bridge scene with the truck.

[00:56:45] I don't feel like I've ever seen anything like that on it in any movie.

[00:56:50] It's really with the tensions amazing the tensions freaking amazing they at no point in the film was I thinking this is CGI didn't cross my mind because it wasn't CGI and it's from a time of filmmaking where you know that if you want to accomplish this you actually have to do it.

[00:57:10] You have to it's got to be a model or it has to be something like that to make this happen in this case they built this bridge and they had these giant monstrous tracks the storm and I think what they one of the effects that they.

[00:57:27] It just a brilliant idea not to do the tangerine dream score over that. You're hearing that the bridge creaking you're hearing the river and the rain and then what they did was and this had never been done in movies before they took a lion's roar.

[00:57:47] And they distorted it and stretched it out. Oh wow. And I think like Scorsese copy this for Raging Bull and a couple other films have kind of copied this since then.

[00:58:01] And then when the second truck goes over the bridge which you think like oh we're going to see the scene again with the second truck right. What they do is they show you the same scene they use a different animals roar.

[00:58:16] Like at some other kind of big cat or something but it's not the same roar and it's not the same pitch. And they stretch it out and distort it. And it's almost a way to say you thought this scene was harrowing the first time.

[00:58:31] You're going to see it again and you're going to feel even more. This yeah yeah. The guy who falls through the bridge and you see just that moment of just blank screen. Yeah that's great.

[00:58:46] It was it was just it was just part it was like a perfect scene. I think in an era of movies. Like I don't think that that scene could happen a decade earlier or a decade later it has to happen at this moment in film history.

[00:59:04] And I just I thought it was remarkable. Yeah no I agree I was in this movie very much takes its time right. I mean it's it's a very patient movie. Very patient like you were going to hey we're going to rebuild these trucks.

[00:59:22] I'm like that was enough power I'm like I'm not interested.

[00:59:29] You know what I mean it's like I don't like I don't like this must go to sort of that like you talked about earlier like maybe this this fascination with big trucks and truckers because absolutely because there's not an element of that that's like interesting to me at all.

[00:59:45] Oh I love it. I love the whole thing. I mean it's it's fine for this movie but at the same time I'm like there were moments and was like all right let's I mean yeah you're gonna you're going to pick a truck out of other trucks.

[00:59:58] I guess in the I guess in the book there's this there's like all this talk about finding the right trucks having the right truck shipped in it to me it's like if you're going to go to all the trouble of finding the right trucks why not just go get better.

[01:00:14] Nitro. Right. But for some reason no we we need this nitroglycerin that's really volatile we need. We need what is playing what is playing B like the thought is they'll probably blow up on the way down. What's next what are you gonna do you know I think radio.

[01:00:34] Yeah right you don't really get the sense in this film but you do get the sense in the 54 film and in the book that this was all about money and you get that with the title the wages. Right.

[01:00:48] It's all about that these fat cats have decided this is the cheapest way to do it and so these lot these guys lives are cheap.

[01:00:56] So the whole reason that they have to get up the mountain is because these guys are too cheap to go and use a more expensive means to stop the the oil for 40 thousand dollars in in 70s feels like a lot of money.

[01:01:12] It does it's sort of like one of these things where it's like well yeah but even paying ten dollars more to not put these guys lives in danger is not a cost we're willing to.

[01:01:22] But I mean it might not work and then you have to pay I mean I guess you don't pay the 40 thousand but then you still got to go get the stuff. One of the most interesting things about this film for me is when Shredder gets back.

[01:01:37] And he says all right here's your you know here's your check here's where you're going to take it to cash it out and when you when you get to where you're going let me know how you like because maybe I'll join you.

[01:01:48] And he has this moment where he's like what are you talking about like this is you've acted this whole time like this was the most important job in the world to complete and now you're going to get off he's like yeah this place might not even last another three months if we can't get the money right.

[01:02:05] So what Shredder realizes that this is all fleeting he just risked his life and went through all this stuff to get the nitro up to the fire.

[01:02:16] He went through that whole thing and this whole place might be closed down in three months I just so at that point I was like I love this movie and then the way that it ends with him dancing with the prostitute and you just see from the outside like no today's the day you die anyway.

[01:02:35] Yeah because that guy who you thought was your buddy getting you to Columbia this is the same face who's going to end up killing you. I thought perfect ending every one of these guys is going to die and it was for nothing it was for nothing at all.

[01:02:53] I'm with it all I might only like a quibble with the the concept of fate is I'm just I'm taking exception to some of Freakens words had I not heard that interview I might not have that same type of reaction I might be like oh that sucks.

[01:03:09] And I also realized at the time that what a sorcerer in fact was was an evil wizard and in the case of the film I thought the evil wizard was fate.

[01:03:21] That control the lives of all these people no matter how heroic they were or terrified or adventuresome or desperate that their lives were out of their control which is what I feel about all of us every single person.

[01:03:38] And the studio question nothing to say about how we come into this world and nothing to say about how we're going to leave it and that's the underlying theme of sorcery. It's like a Chinese fortune cookie. Huh? Wait, he's talking about Chinese fortune cookies.

[01:03:58] So what the fuck is this guy talking about? But so that's life right.

[01:04:04] But so then when looking back trying to go through this idea of just like this kind of randomness of fate and like yeah that that part I just didn't that didn't jive especially if that's your big ending right but otherwise I think the ending you know take that take his own words out of it and just let the let the film stand on its own and I think the I

[01:04:20] do like the ending quite a bit. Is there a trope of cliche or device that you enjoyed in this. Trucks. Yeah I guess I fall to fall into that a little bit.

[01:04:35] There were there were a few there were a few, you know, I, I like and you know that I mean I like a little bit of watching a bunch of people do something that I don't like I shouldn't root for and I'm not really rooting for him.

[01:04:50] I just, I love the complication of bad bad characters in in tense situations and being sort of tricked a little bit into like forgetting that they're bad. So this isn't a cliche but it was one of my favorite parts of the film.

[01:05:07] It's the local in the loincloth teasing them. I miss Jeevius guy who's just on the street and he just he's just so happy so happy to make a way Shiter pistol. Shiter has zero time for it.

[01:05:25] He's dancing in front of and he's peeking around like you look in the mirror and he's peeking the dude's quick. He's dancing this nimble. Oh here's my source or this guy is awesome. This guy is dancing in the road. He looks like he's professional wrestler.

[01:05:43] I know it's like watching Jimmy Superfly snooker just he's got the biggest the biggest smile on his face jumping on the back of the truck. I could have watched that guy for hours. It was it was like it was a nice little moment.

[01:05:58] And I thought it was perfectly placed because it's such a serious and dark movie. And just to have that little moment of laughter. I thought that was well it's kind of like it and that feels like a freaking moment where it's like like this is how life is.

[01:06:14] You even get distracted by by like happy obstacles right like things that are like getting our way and it's like really really they're just they're just in the way of progress. There's no time for joy. Steve was this movie better or worse or on par with Ron Howard.

[01:06:31] I'll give it a Howard plus one.

[01:06:34] So it's so interesting like I was thinking this is why after the first watch I was thinking this is why the Howard scale exists because I realized this is a good movie and it has all the elements that I like in a movie and yet the way I feel right now is a Howard minus three.

[01:06:50] It just that's just the way I feel about it. Right. And then I did my whole dose and experience where I learned about the movie and listen to the interviews. And I'll be honest like I love that interview 10 times more than I love this film.

[01:07:04] And I went back and rewatched it and I just kind of realized that as soon as Shrider shows up on the screen. I'm in like I love this movie after that those first 20 minutes. Yeah.

[01:07:25] And so I kind of feel like I need to give the first 20 minutes like a Howard minus four. Right. But then the rest of the film is a Howard plus four for me. Yeah.

[01:07:38] I think that kind of in the same boat I gave it a positive just because I think there are so many really compelling things that Freakin does after that 20 minutes. The 20 minutes is just brutal. And that's the thing. So it's really hard.

[01:07:53] It's in the reason why I think I gave it a Howard plus one is because I wasn't going to watch this movie. Well, I will say this and I was fascinated.

[01:08:04] I was fascinated and I was captivated enough to where like I would recommend this movie and say just sit tight. Well, and I think this is all about expectations because I could get into any one of those first vignettes.

[01:08:21] Like if you told me this was about a hit man in a suit with sunglasses, I'd be in for that movie. Right. If you told me this was a French political drama, I would be in for that movie too.

[01:08:34] And yet I'm sitting there looking at my watch and I'm thinking like where's my Freakin magic? Right. Right. And so it's all of the expectations of this or where's Roy Shire? Damn it. All of my expectations sort of ruined what I might have enjoyed otherwise. Gotcha.

[01:08:56] And so if it was just named truck or whatever, I would have had a whole different experience of this. So I almost got to experience this movie in a way that people experienced it in 1977 because I didn't know all that information going on.

[01:09:11] No, I'm just saying that's fair. Is there a half the battle one to grow on moment in this film or message of this film? Just be better. Just be better people. Just be better people. And that really does sum up our season of properly Howard. We'd like to...

[01:09:37] Think of it as people. We want all of our listeners to just be better people. Yeah, I think so. I want to give you a chance to talk about your two shows that are coming up in NYC. Yeah, sure.

[01:10:00] Yeah, for sure we'll be at the Talon Bar on the 26th of October. That's a Thursday night. It is a nine o'clock show.

[01:10:10] And we're still waiting for the definitive word, but I was told to just go ahead and put it on the calendar for the West Side Comedy Club on the 25th. Not to be an eight o'clock show. Wonderful.

[01:10:26] I will be at both shows and looking forward to doing them.